Category: Uncategorized

Comey Revisited

House Hearings

It’s been a while since I spent a day watching Congressional hearings.  I remember the “bad old days”. FBI Director James Comey excoriated by both sides over the Hillary Clinton decision. Michael Cohen giving us the “inside scoop with receipts” on the workings of the Trump Administration.  But all of that seems somehow like ancient history now; almost “quaint” stories of a time when things seemed simpler, and definitely more hopeful.

Comey ended the investigation of then-candidate Clinton for using a private email server. He determined that her actions did not rise to the level of a crime.  But, instead of just declining to charge, Comey gave a national press conference where he emphasized Clinton’s careless behavior.  He then re-opened the investigation of Clinton, just ten days before the election.  His actions, while likely unintentional, were the proximate cause of the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency in 2016.

Hur’s Conclusions

Yesterday the newly resigned Special Counsel for the Department of Justice, Robert Hur, testified to the House Judiciary Committee.  Like Comey, Prosecutor Hur also tried to have it both ways.  He declined to prosecute President Biden for violating national security laws and mishandling classified documents.  That should have been the “headline”.  But, as outlined in the report Hur issued, one of his reasons for declination that he didn’t “feel” that a jury would convict Biden, because the President came across as a “…likeable but forgetful old man”.  Hur argued a jury would decide that Biden couldn’t form the intent to commit the crime.  In essence, Biden was too old to think it through.

Biden sat for five hours (over two days) of voluntary deposition with Hur and his staff, in the midst of the crisis after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th.  It was from those hours that Hur drew his conclusions.  But a reading of the transcript (released yesterday) showed that while Biden did get some dates and details wrong, he also showed clear recall of a lot of other facts and events.   The “charge” against Hur is that he “cherry picked” incidents of forgetfulness, while himself forgetting other instances where Biden demonstrated a clear memory and understanding.

Hur declined charges.  But like Comey, he denied Biden his  “day in court” where he might be found guilty, or might be exonerated.  Instead, Hur found the sitting President, without trial, “guilty” of senility.  Much like Comey’s ill-fated press conference, the Hur Report essentially condemned Biden, without giving him an opportunity to give his side of the story.

Ignorant or Intent

There are two ways to look at what Hur did.  The first is to say that, like Comey, Hur was simply “calling it as he sees it”.  Hur argues that he was required to give his reasons for declining charges, and his evaluation of Biden’s mental state was one of the important ones.  In essence, Hur provided Biden with a defense that the President certainly would never choose on his own.  It might keep him from conviction, but its stigma might prevent his re-election as President.  

Or, Hur, a life-long Republican, clerk for Republican Chief Justice Rehnquist, and protégé of Trump Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; might be acting as a partisan.  He definitely gave ammunition to the pro-Trump forces, perhaps in hopes of becoming the Attorney General in a second Trump Administration. 

Confirmation Bias

There is a big difference between the impact Comey had in 2016 and what effect the Hur report will have today.  In 2016 the Nation wasn’t sure about Donald Trump, but had very definite opinions about Hillary Clinton (even before “Hillary’s email”).  In 2024, the Biden versus Trump sides are virtually cemented in place.  There is little room for persuasion; the partisans of either side ignore information that doesn’t fit their pre-conceived model.  

In short, MAGA supporters, of course, agree that Biden is senile.  They’ve been saying it for years, and Hur’s determination simply confirms their decision.   On the other hand, Biden supporters have heard the same talk about Biden for years, and deny it each time.  This will be just one more moment when they can ignore information that fails to fit their preconceived notion.

Biden supporters just see if as another “shot” by a Republican operative, just like the Supreme Court decisions in favor of Trump look like another Republican scheme.   In the end, both sides look for confirmation of their pre-conceived ideas, and ignore the rest.

In other news, last night’s primary election results confirmed what we all knew:  it’s Biden versus Trump, part “deux”;  buckle-up. 

Cold Warrior

Bombs on the Way

I grew up in the “Cold War” Era.  In fact, the Cold War was a major emphasis of my college degree.  It  wasn’t just history, it was current events.  The dark humor of our foreign policy study group, steeped in the utter destructiveness of nuclear weapons, came through in a joke about a television announcement: “This just in, Moscow in flames, bombs on the way, film at eleven!!”  The “joke” was that if bombs were really on the way, there would be no station left to show the film at eleven, nor were we likely to be alive to see it.

I lived in the intersection of circles, a Venn diagram of the areas of destruction from twenty megaton nuclear weapons.  Living in Granville, Ohio at Denison University, we were on the edge of total destruction if Columbus (and particularly Rickenbacker Air Base) was hit, and well within the destruction if the missile development base in Newark, Ohio was destroyed.  Surviving a nuclear attack wasn’t an issue: we wouldn’t.

At that time, the “stability” of the world depended on a theory called Mutual Assured Destruction, “MAD”.  It was pretty simple.  No matter what kind of attack we made on the Soviet Union, or they made on the United States, there was no way that would completely disable the other side’s response.  Launch every missile, all the bombers, ballistic missile submarines:  in the end the “other” side had an invulnerable second strike capability.  That second strike would cause unacceptable losses.

Eyeball to Eyeball

It wasn’t that the United States and the Soviet Union didn’t come up against each-other’s military.  We stood “eyeball to eyeball” across the Berlin Wall, and the length of the East German border, and in dozens of other spots in the world.  But we avoided direct combat with each other because of the risk of escalation into a wider conflict, one that could go nuclear.  We got close enough to that in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I started learning about that in first grade.  It was 1962, and all of a sudden what used to be “tornado” drills, were now called “air raid” drills.  We first graders were lined up in the hallway, against the brick wall; head between our knees and hands over our neck.  We knew that if a “bomb” went off, we’d be OK.  But we felt bad for our teachers, standing behind us, nervously pacing the hallway.  They were going to get “hit”.  

It was the Cuban missile crisis, and we were living in a Detroit suburb.  A twenty megaton bomb on Detroit would absolutely have destroyed our community as well, sitting or standing. 

So instead of risking direct conflict, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a series of “proxy” wars.  One side would support a “third party proxy” to combat the other. It started in Korea, when the Soviets supported North Korea and later China in direct warfare with US and other allied Forces.  Then Vietnam, when the Soviets supported North Vietnam against the direct intervention of the US in South Vietnam.  Next was Afghanistan, when the US supported the Mujahideen against the Soviets.  And throughout the era, there were multiple parts of Africa and the Middle East, where both Soviets and Americans supported groups struggling to gain power.

Pay to Play

The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union went bankrupt trying to “keep up” with the United States militarily.  It wasn’t just the enormous amount of both blood and treasure the USSR was spending in Afghanistan, it was also the high tech weaponry that cost astronomical amounts to create and produce.  An example:  the US built 32 SR-71 Blackbirds as a supersonic, edge of space flying platform for reconnaissance.  They cost  $23 million each.  In response, the Soviets developed their own Mig 25 Foxbat and Mig 31 Foxhound to try to shoot the SR-71’s down.  All of the planes were extremely costly, but the US economy was strong enough to bear the cost.  The Soviet economy was not.

Out of the ashes of the Soviet collapse, the present day Russian oligarchy rose.  It’s a nation based on corruption, the wealth of a few individuals based on the “fire sale, pennies on the dollar” dissolution of the state owned Communist economy.   The leaders of Russia are the rich, and the people of Russia are left behind, just as they were by the Soviet system.  President Vladimir Putin has greater goals than just his billions of rubles hidden away.  He wants to rebuild the “Soviet Empire” as his own Russian Empire.  It’s nothing new, he’s been doing it for two decades.  

Russian Empire

The world did little about Russian incursions into Georgia and Chechnya.  And Putin has pulled Belarus and Armenia “close” as well.  Even when Russia sliced off two eastern provinces and Crimea in Ukraine in 2014, the only world response was economic sanctions.

So it should be no surprise that Putin wanted more, and launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine two years ago.  The difference is, for the first time, a former Soviet province had enough power to stand up to Russian might, and even drive it back.  That’s where we are today, two years later.  The Ukrainian democracy isn’t perfect, but it’s stopped what was supposed to be the third most powerful military force in the world.  

That’s in the United States best interests.  If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, there is no reason for him to stop there.  Transnistria, a renegade province of neighboring Moldova, is already under Russian influence.  And bordering Moldova is Bulgaria, a member of NATO.  NATO members also are west of Ukraine, and next “on the block” for Russian expansion.  Under Article 5 of the NATO charter, an attack on one member is an attack on us all.

Ukraine’s Stand

The equation is simple.  We can support Ukraine, willing to shed their blood to stop the Russian advance.  The US can spend money and resources without risking American lives, and not only defend Ukraine, but drain the Russian military and economy even more.  It’s a scenario that Ronald Reagan would love.

Or we can let Ukraine fail, and Russia takeover.  And we can expect that, soon, we will be fighting with American forces, somewhere in a NATO country in Eastern Europe.  And, by the way, the missiles are still in the silos, the “bombs” can still be on the way.  Do we want a direct confrontation with the “other” biggest nuclear power in the world?

The choice is clear – a “pay me now” or “surely pay me later” scenario.  If we can look past our own domestic politics, it’s in every American’s interest to help Ukraine.  We can call it military aid, which it is, or we can use the ruse of “lending” Ukraine materials, a loan that will never be repaid.  It doesn’t matter what the political fig leaf is; what matters is that the materials keep flowing to Ukraine.  Not only does their courage and sacrifice deserve it; it’s in America’s best interest. 

Ukraine Crisis

A Horse for the Race

Super Tuesday

It’s the week after “Super Tuesday”; supposed to be the “pivotal moment” of the 2024 Primary campaigns.  But there were no surprises on “Super Tuesday”, in fact, it really wasn’t quite so “super” at all.  The results, with maybe an exception in Vermont, were entirely predictable.  In fact, the Democrats made up their mind a long time before “Super-Day”, so it’s no surprise that Joe Biden is the Democratic candidate.  And so did the MAGA-Republican Party (not your father’s Republicans, or mine).  They are committed to following a whole dark ideology, represented best by the Republican retort to the State of the Union address last Thursday night.

Thirty-eight year old Alabama Senator Katie Britt delivered the speech, ostensibly from her kitchen table (though my kitchen didn’t look that good the day after they built it in 2013).  She projected “America” as a dark world, where families huddle around the table, holding hands in prayer, unable to pay their bills and waiting for undocumented migrants (not “illegals” for God’s sake) to break down the doors and do unspeakable things.  Well, not unspeakable, Senator Britt was certainly willing to describe in detail the human trafficking and raping of a migrant woman.  Too bad that was all in Mexico, not in the United States, and during the Bush Administration. 

And while Britt didn’t straight-out say it, she certainly made the point:  only Donald Trump can fix this problem. As Saturday Night Live put it: Britt’s America is Hell.

 So here we are, like a seventh “Rocky” movie:  Biden versus Trump, the sequel. It’s certainly not a “dream race” of American politics, not a Kennedy versus Nixon, or even an Obama versus McCain.  Call it what it is:  two old men, running again.  

No Labels

After Super Tuesday’s results, the leadership of the “No Labels Party” met to decide whether to place a third party Presidential ticket on the ballot in November.   After more than a year of claiming that they were open to stepping back, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the answer is, “we’re running”.  Millions of dollars, and a running fight, mostly with Democrats, already set that answer into stone.  

Here’s the “calculus” for November.  The MAGA-Republican Party, as Nikki Haley was quick to discover, is singularly the property of Donald Trump.  Sure, Haley won a decent percentage of vote in some states, but those were usually states with “open” primaries, where independents and Democrats could “cross-over” to vote against Trump.  But when it came down to just MAGA-Republicans, it was “all Trump, all of the time”.  

If they didn’t go for Haley (or any of the other candidates), those MAGA-loyalists aren’t going to vote for a “No Labels” candidate.  So don’t expect a third party to make in-roads into the Trump vote.

Compromiser

That’s why Democrats are concerned about “No Labels”.  Regardless of all the propaganda about Biden being in the thrall of left-wing Progressives, the President is actually a moderate committed to legislative compromise.  Need proof:  look at the bipartisan border bill that was poised to pass the Senate and even the House.  Biden committed to signing it.  It took the direct intervention of Trump to force Republican legislators to turn against the bill that their own conservative member, Senator Langford of Oklahoma, authored.

Democrats are factional: that’s always been the nature of the modern party.  True progressives aren’t comfortable with Biden, a “compromiser” (that’s a bad word, I guess, right after being a politician).  But here’s the point – those progressives aren’t going to vote for a corporate No Labels candidate.  

So where will No Labels get their votes?  About thirty percent of Americans are “independent”, not aligned with either party.  Typically that’s where Presidential elections are won, or lost.  If 30% of the vote is monolithically MAGA-Republican, and 40% is Democratic; No Labels sees “fertile ground” in the remaining voters.   

Never Trumpers

 A percentage of those voters are ex-Republican “Never Trumpers”, like Ohio’s former Governor John Kasich or Utah’s Senator Mitt Romney.  They won’t vote for Trump, but they can’t stomach Joe Biden either.  They are likely No Labels voters, and probably didn’t vote for Joe Biden in 2020 either. 

And a percentage are far-left progressives.  They might vote for a Bernie Sanders’ Democrat, but are likely to choose a Jill Stein-type Green Party selection.  They certainly aren’t going to vote for an even more moderate No Labels candidate, though some may choose Biden in order to stop Trump.

So that leaves a “target” group of about 15% – far from the number needed to win. So what is the No Labels party goal?  If they can’t win, and if they can’t even make a dent, why are they running?  

Who’s the Horse

Before we answer that question, there’s an even more important one.  Who is the No Labels candidate?  Here, eight months before the election, we know who isn’t a No Labels candidate:  Joe Manchin (retiring), Larry Hogan (running for Senate), Chris Sununu (endorsed Trump), Chris Christie (committed to stopping Trump); all turned it down.  In fact, this week No Labels publicized that former Republican Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan is seriously considering accepting the nomination.   Geoff Duncan for President:  that’s going to drive folks to the polls, right?  (As a former campaign operative, he’s already got one problem – folks are going to look at “Geoff” and think that’s a silly way to say “Jeff”). 

Is No Labels going to impact the 2024 campaign?  Are they going to pull votes away from Biden, the “dark conspiracy theory” reason that will get Trump elected?  Are millions of votes going to run out and vote for Geoff so that don’t have to vote for Donald or Joe?  

Thoroughbreds

To run for President, like running in the Kentucky Derby, you’ve got to have a race horse.  Manchin, Hogan, Christie, even Haley would at least by a thoroughbred coming out of the gate.  But all of them see No Labels as a losing effort, not just for the Presidency, but for the nation.  And, whether you like the spelling of Geoff or not, former Lieutenant Governor Duncan “ain’t no thoroughbred”.  In fact, he’s not ever been on a real track.  

No Labels can’t find a horse to run in the race, in spite of all the “dark” money flowing into their coffers.  And, just like the Derby, no horse means no odds, and no race.  

Sorry Geoff, and No Labels.  You won’t even be a sideshow in 2024:  the year America determines the future of Democracy.

Come to the Light

Scary Movies

 I don’t watch scary movies.  It’s always been a “thing”.  I can trace it all back to one of my early memories.  I was just six years-old, watching a television show in black and white called The Outer Limits.  It was a science fiction show, and this episode was about  our earth invaded by an alien force.  The aliens were ants, big ants, maybe six or eight inches long ants.  And they’d crawl up the pants legs of the earthlings, creating searing agony with their bites.  The chewed their way to power.

I had nightmares for weeks. To this day, I occasionally wake myself up in the middle of the night.  My subconscious knows that the giant ant nightmare is coming, and it’s time to get up, take a walk, and find another “train of thought” to fall asleep to.  Oh, and shake out my pants legs.  

I’ve avoided scary movies ever since.  I haven’t seen the “classics”, the Halloween series, or Sigourney Weaver in Alien.  In fact, one of the only “horror” movies I sat through was called Poltergeist.  Four of us were on a summer road trip, driving a van across the country, from Ohio to Washington State to the California/Mexico border and back.  One night in Rapid City, South Dakota, my compatriots decided we were going to a horror movie.  No amount of, “I’ll just hang out in the bar” was enough to avoid the experience.  Luckily, we were all staying in one hotel room that night.  I still didn’t get much sleep.

Poltergeist

The movie was about a young girl, named Carol Ann. Her spirit was threatened  by evil.  The evil spirits wanted retribution – her home was built on a desecrated cemetery.   A  spiritualist was brought in to keep Carol Ann with the living, and she struggled against the evil spirits trying to drag her away.  The battle for Carol Ann’s spirit came down to “the light”, crossing over to the spirit world.  The Spiritualist said: “Carol Anne – listen to me. Do *not* go into the light. Stop where you are. Turn away from it. Don’t even look at it.”

The light was a ruse.  It seemed like the spiritual light to heaven, when in fact, it was the light to evil.  And even though I was terrified by the “horror”, I still got the point.  Sometimes, “the light” isn’t what it seems to be.  Sometimes, you need to turn away from the light.

 A Union of Light

I watched the State of the Union address last night, and the Republican response.  Listen, Joe Biden is no Barack Obama, he is solid “Joe” from Scranton, Pennsylvania.  He’s a plain spoken man. But he certainly enjoyed his eighty minutes in the limelight, giving as good as he got when the hecklers yelled from the crowd. (Remember when a Congressman yelled “liar” at Barack Obama? That shocked all of us; the decorum the State of the Union was broken.  Now, we were all waiting for it.  Our times are “a-changing”).  

Biden painted a picture of America on the way “up”, with the economy breaking record highs, inflation under control, violent crime going down and unemployment at all-time lows.  And he recognized that not everyone was sharing in the “wealth”, and laid out programs to make their lives better too.  

And the President gave us a clear view of how the United States would help restore order in the world, from backing Ukraine, strengthening NATO, and even building a seaport in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid.  Like it or not, Biden offered America solutions for our problems.

Biden also explained America’s choice in 2024.  His message was stark:  we are choosing between a republic and oligarchy; democracy or authoritarianism.  There are, in fact, two lights drawing the American people in opposite directions.  

A Union of Dark

The difference between those two lights was dramatically (overly dramatic) emphasized by the Republican “retort” to the State of the Union. Alabama Senator Katie Britt delivered the speech from her literal “kitchen table”.  Her America is quite dark, overrun by illegal immigrants threatening mayhem at every turn.  In her America, it seems, that the average family huddles in prayer and fear around their kitchen table, looking for “the light” to lead them out of their torment.   And that light, to the Senator, is the twice-impeached, four-time indicted presumptive Republican Party nominee.  As Trump says, only he can fix it.  Now all he needs to do is say – come to the light.  

When we get past all the nonsense; worries about Joe’s clarity of thought, or physical ability to govern (despite the “Make America Great Again” Pac commercial), America is faced with a vision.  Is our Nation in an evil place, looking for the light and protection of Trump?  Or are we on the way up, to the better America that Joe Biden offers?

We need to choose – which light will we “come to”?

The Clubs Choose

The Rant

Here’s a short rant.  I’m tired of hearing “pundits” talk about how uneducated Americans are when it comes to government and politics.  I can tell you, for sure, that every kid who went to high school in the United States got a “government” or “civics” course, along with American History.  Every American public school kid was “exposed” to the structure of our government, the process of our elections, and even the function of political parties.  

Did they get it?  Do they remember it fifteen years later? That, I can’t tell you.  But the line I hear over and over again on the media is; “Well, we don’t teach civics anymore, so folks don’t know…”  To use the succinct but eloquent phrase of the  Marjorie Stoneman Douglas kids, “I call BS”.  Americans knew, and remember again when they need to.

Whew; got that off my chest. 

Parties

One of the harder concepts to teach in Government class is the four-part American Presidential election system.  It’s not just “an election”.  It’s a series of elections, caucuses, conventions, all leading to the major political parties choosing a candidate at their “big” convention.  Then it’s another election, but that election isn’t a simple “winner and loser” election.  It’s an election to choose “electors” to the Electoral College (that doesn’t even have a football team).  And, as January 6th, 2021 made it extremely clear, even winning the most electors isn’t really a guarantee.

But to get back to the primary process, it’s a difficult concept for students to get.  So it’s an election when everyone can vote, but they can only vote for the candidates in the party they choose to belong to.  And, if you’re not in a party, you can’t vote for those candidates.  But, in many states (like Ohio) you can switch parties by just asking for the other party’s ballot.  So it sounds complicated, really more complicated than it actually is.

Join the Club

So I would explain it like this:  the political parties are just clubs; clubs with a goal of running people for office.  The primaries are the “clubs” voting for which candidate will represent their club against the other club.  And only the “club” members can vote, that makes sense.  People who aren’t in the “club” shouldn’t have a say in who the “club” chooses.  So last night, “Super Tuesday”, was a whole bunch of state “clubs” choosing the candidate to represent their  state at the National club convention come July (Republican) or August (Democrat).  

Today, about 39% of voters are in the Democratic Club, and 29% are in the Republican Club (Ballotpedia).  That leaves 32% of American voters who are left out of the “club” selection process.  Since they aren’t members (however their state sets that up), they don’t get to choose.  And there’s one other point that’s important.  The “clubs” do the same things, and have similar elections – but they’re not the same size.  

Horse Race

Last night’s media coverage was naturally slanted towards the Republican “club” elections.  Of course it was.  The Republicans had a “contest”, Trump versus Haley.  And the Republicans had a question (answered now), who would their club choose.  That’s opposed to the other “club”, who had the incumbent President.  Biden was running essentially unopposed (sorry to point that out, obscure Congressman from Minnesota Mr. What’s-Your-Name??)  

The media, and the public, want a competition, a “horse race”.  There wasn’t really a horse race in the 2024 campaign on either side, but Nikki Haley tried to make one.  Last night we watched the Haley effort breakdown on the backstretch.  To push the horse race analogy to the limit:  their putting the tent up around the “Haley horse” on the backstretch right now.  They don’t shoot broken race horses anymore, they “euthanize” them quietly, on the track, under the tent, out of the view of the public.  

Haley’s candidacy ended last night, it will be put out of its misery today.

My Club’s Bigger than Theirs

But keep in mind, the Republican “Club” is significantly smaller than the Democratic “Club”.  What looks like an “even” horse race, isn’t, from the start.  If every Republican comes out and votes for Trump, it’s 29% of the vote.  If every Democrat votes for Biden, it’s 39%.  Trump needs to get the lion’s share of the “no-club” vote to get elected, almost two-thirds. Biden doesn’t need quite as many “no-clubs”,  about one-third.

The Presidential primary season ended last night – even though there will be more “club votes” on into June.  And there are important things happening in those primaries.  New Jersey, for example, will be choosing “club” candidates for the US Senate on the first Tuesday in June.  Six Democrats are lining up to try to follow Bob Menendez, the current Democratic Senator under multiple criminal indictments.  The two front runners, Congressman Andy Kim and the Governor’s wife, Tammy Murphy, are having a good “horse race”.  But as far as Trump and Biden are concerned, the “fight” for the convention is over.

Like it or not, as Julius Caesar would say, “Alea iacta Est”, “the die is cast”.  It’s the rematch of 2020, Biden v Trump, two old men vying for a job they’ve both done.   Trump has to overcome his smaller “club”.  Biden has to motivate his “club” to show up in November.  And both have to find ways to sway the “non-clubbers”.  Watch Biden start that motivation and persuasion tomorrow night.  It’s time for another one of those “Civics Class” moments – The State of the Union Address.  

Get your popcorn ready!!!!

Under Siege

Vicksburg

Warfare is often ugly; but seldom uglier than the form called “laying siege”.  A siege is not a battle, at least, not in the World War II, mobile armor sense.  I’m an old American History teacher and a Civil War “buff. So I look to Grant’s siege of the Confederate Army of Mississippi at Vicksburg for my example.  For forty-seven days, the Union Army surrounded Vicksburg, and controlled the Mississippi River above and below the town.  Confederate General Pemberton was unable to break his 43,000 troops out, and Grant’s 77,000 cut all supplies.

But it wasn’t just the Confederate soldiers who suffered in Vicksburg.  The 4,000 civilians, including some who were enslaved, were trapped along with the Confederate forces.  They not only endured the artillery barrages and the constant small arms fire, but they were starved as well.  When they ran out of regular meat, they ate horses, then dogs, then rats.  Pemberton had to consider the condition of his troops, but also those 4,000 civilians. He finally surrendered his forces and the city on July 4th, 1863.  With the fall of Vicksburg, the Confederacy lost the Mississippi River; and the breakaway South was split in two.

Rafah

What’s the difference between the siege of Vicksburg and the Israeli siege of Gaza today?  Like Grant’s Union forces, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) used overwhelming numbers to push Hamas forces into smaller and smaller sections of the region.  The problem for the IDF, is that they are unable to distinguish between the 2 million Palestinians who live in Gaza, and the 20,000 to 30,000 actual Hamas terrorists and their leaders “embedded” (hiding) among them.

Unlike Pemberton’s Confederates, Hamas is unconcerned about the condition of civilians.  In fact, Hamas welcomes the suffering.  It makes their position stronger in the world.  And, of course, Grant didn’t have the entire world watching the conditions in Vicksburg, the women and children hiding in caves as the artillery shells exploded, disease and death around every corner. But if he did, Grant would have placed the blame on the Confederates. He was willing to accept Pemberton’s surrender at any time.  

Israel is trying to place the blame on Hamas.  But the world sees something different.  We see the truly innocent children of Gaza starving to death.  And even though Hamas controls most of the information coming out of Rafah, the reality and scope of hundreds of thousands starving is evident.  

Responsibility

Perhaps the responsibility for the starving in Gaza should be on Hamas, but the world, rightly, says different.  And so the IDF, set to destroy every vestige of Hamas for the terror of October 7th, is forced to break the first “rule” of siege warfare:  don’t supply your enemy.    

Two hundred trucks a day were coming from Egypt to Israel, and then into Gaza.  The Gazan Police, a branch of Hamas, took  direct responsibility for distribution of aid.  But the IDF saw the police as “the enemy”, and so the trucks dwindled to less than fifty, to feed millions.  As John Wayne said:  “My fault, your fault, nobody’s fault”:  many are starving.  

The United States is pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to get more food into Gaza.  Netanyahu is trying to shift the blame to Hamas, just as Grant would shift the blame to Pemberton.  But in the eyes of President Biden, and much of the rest of the world, the fact that Hamas doesn’t care about its own citizens, doesn’t “absolve” Israel of responsibility.  And with the Gazan Police out of the equation, the few food convoys are targets, not just for thousands of starving families, but for Gazan street gangs who recognize that food is power.  And for Hamas, chaos is “good”.

Ramadan

It’s a setup for the kind of “food massacre” that happened the other day, when over one hundred Palestinians were killed, some by Israeli bullets, and some in the crush of a panicked crowd.  It puts the IDF right where Hamas wants them – in the spotlight of world opinion.

Meanwhile, the United States and other nations are air-dropping military rations (MRE’s – meals ready to eat) onto the beaches of Gaza.  There is no control over who gets the rations; and they are “a drop in the bucket”, maybe 100,000 meals to a starving population of at least 300,000.  But it’s something, and more air-drops are planned.  Some say those drops make the US look weak, unable to “force” their ally Israel to their will.  But the US is drawing a line:  starving the population is not acceptable, for either Hamas or Israel.  If you won’t do something about it, we will.  It places pressure on all sides to solve the problem.  

Israel publicly plans on ending the siege by destroying Hamas. The goal: destroy Hama’s leadership whatever the cost.

But there are ongoing  cease-fire talks: the United States, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and Hamas are negotiating in Cairo.  They are indirect.  The Hamas delegation talks to Qatari mediators, who bring proposals back and forth to the rest. The thought of Hamas and Israel sitting down together is too much to bear.

 And the high Islamic holiday of Ramadan begins next week.  Ramadan, “Honors the time when Allah, via the angel Gabriel, revealed the first verses of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, to a caravan trader named Muhammad (Almanac)”.  It is a holiday celebrating the founding of Islam, and to observe it, Muslims fast each day from dawn to dusk.  This year it lasts for a month.

For the people of Gaza, fasting is not a celebration, it’s a forced reality.  Hopefully Ramadan is the right time for all sides to stop bleeding, and start feeding.

Singing in the Tornado

This is another Sunday Story (and another dog story). No politics here, just a story of our life with five dogs!!

Dog Rehab

It’s been a long few weeks since our Lab had ACL knee surgery (Sad, Sad Boy).  It’s Atticus, the dog that’s allergic to everything (his special food is salmon and sweet potatoes), the Lab with anxiety issues, the sweet boy who can lose his mind in the wrong sequence of events.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that his recovery is taking longer than possible.  Of course, his knee is infected, swelling up and keeping him up at night.  Of course, each week of infection stretches the time it will take to get him back to “normal” (or at least normal for him) now deep into April.  And of course, his first antibiotic was so powerful, Jenn and I had to wear gloves to handle to pills.

So he didn’t eat for a few days (except for treats and carrots).  And, I’m sure, the swelling was painful.  Even the heavy-handed menu of painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs didn’t last the scheduled twelve hours.  It’s Atticus; we get eight hours for eight pills at best.

We moved him out of Jenn’s office and into the family room.  At least he isn’t so isolated, and we aren’t either.  Oh, and if he’s awake, he needs one of us around.  “I don’t feel right” is his most popular whine, followed quickly by “where are you?” So Jenn and I take turns sleeping on the couch, being there for the two in-the-morning walk,  or  when the drugs wear off too soon.

So we’re all tired.  Not just Atticus, Jenn and I; but the other four dogs.  Recovery is tough on them too.  

Full Belly and Sleep

But Wednesday night, after Atticus ate for the first time in a week,  everyone went peacefully to sleep.  Well, after the 2:30 am walk.  Atticus had to go for the first time in days – no waiting for that.  At 5:00 the other dogs went out per their own schedule, and then we all were snoozing deeply again.  Maybe we’d make it to 7:00?

The alert siren on my phone went off at 5:45.  I could hear Jenn’s phone going off in the bedroom too:  TORNADO WARNING for Licking County.   And then the local siren, just down the street, started its mournful wail.

Now all the dogs were fired up – waking from a sound sleep to the phones and then the siren.  But Lou, our rescue from Louisiana, has a special affinity for sirens.  It’s his “Call of the Wild”  moment, when his inner wolf gains expression.  Lou picked up the tune, howling at full volume.  It’s a hauntingly beautiful wail from the bottom of his soul.  You can feel the ages of wolf-to-dog fall away: this is the canine primeval.

Well of course, our little one, CeCe, had to join in.  She’s doesn’t have an inner wolf, but she can sure bark the loudest in the pack.  Keelie, the mother dog of us all, worriedly watched her friends, and Buddy, our oldest dog, went to get under the bed. It’s too much noise for him.  Atticus drowsily opened one eye.

Tornado Scofflaw

I turned on the TV, saw the local radar, and went to wake Jenn (yep, she can sleep though it all).  “Honey, the radar says a tornado could be here in about five minutes – time to get up.”

Now I’m a notorious scofflaw when it comes to tornado warnings.  In fact, I’m one of those track coaches/officials who stands out in the field and watches the weather come in while all the kids go into the school for protection.  It’s just a thing – I love weather, I’ve camped through a tornado and watched the derecho tear down a forest around us.  But I do have a thing about tornadoes in the dark, and it wasn’t dawn yet in this “freak” (or climate changed) February storm.

So Jenn was shocked and concerned when I said we needed to get to the bathrooms.  We live in a ranch-style house, no basement.  The two rooms in the center core of the house are the bathrooms, both backing up to an “exterior wall” that now is in the middle of our home.  And, the addition that put the wall in the middle, also put a “double roof” over both bathrooms, even more protection.

But they aren’t giant sized bathrooms, just regular-sized.  There’s not enough room for Jenn and me, and five dogs.  Besides, Lou isn’t sure what to do with an injured Atticus, and Atticus is intimidated, knowing he’s sub-par with Lou.  Jenn took Atticus and Buddy (not happy to get out from under the bed) in one bathroom, I took Lou, Keelie and CeCe in the other.  

Waiting for a Train

We hung out for about twenty minutes.  The dogs kept looking at me, wondering what this new game was all about.  I was watching TV on my phone, trying to detect what was going to happen by examining the local radar.  It was easier in the old days with just green, orange, red and occasionally purple cloud splotches. Now there’s digitally generated map of green and red slashes, showing wind shears in the atmosphere.   When the rectangles of color are side-by-side, it means that a tornado is likely.  

So we sat, waiting for the power to go out, waiting for the sirens to stop, waiting for the freight train sound of an impending tornado strike.

We got lucky.  Friends only a few miles away actually were hit be a tornado; trees down, roofs shredded, power lines webbing the streets.  But here, the urban camouflage passed us by, headed east towards Newark and the rest of the state.  It’s always odd to listen to the Columbus-based TV weather-people, so relieved when the storm passes urban Columbus by.  Downtown’s relief means someone east is now under the gun, with consequences just as serious.  “Oh, the storm is out to Zanesville”, isn’t a relief if you live in Zanesville.

And we did get a late-morning nap, the dogs spread about the floor, Atticus in his crate, and Jenn and I in our “chairs”.  The storm front dropped the temperatures from May back to February.  Now we’re warm besides the fire.  Maybe Lou’s dreaming about that first wolf, the one that came in from the cold to a human camp just to get warm.

The Sunday Story Series

No Good Options

No Brainer

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

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

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

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

Frivolous Argument

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

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

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

A Clock and a Calendar

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

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

Normal Process

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

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

First Impression

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

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

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

Dual Interpretations

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

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

Bad Intentions

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

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

Pass the Buck

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

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

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

My Little Town

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

Tenure

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

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

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

Build in America

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

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

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

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

China, China, China

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

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

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

Red Scare

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

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

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

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

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

US and Israel: A Contrast in Politics

Politics

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

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

Zionists

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

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

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

Christian Nationalism

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

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

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

Revolution

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

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

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

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

Truth or Consequences

Liar, Liar

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

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

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

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

Ukrainian Corruption

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

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

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

Russian Fable

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

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

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

Creating “Facts”

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

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

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

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

Impeach Biden

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

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

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

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

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

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

By a Thread

CNN

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

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

Burning

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

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

No Man’s Land

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

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

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

No Brainer

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

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

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

But here we are, fiddling away. 

Northern Christian White Alliance 

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

Political Courage

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Crisis

Down At the Crossroads

With a nod to Mr. Clapton

A Russian Moon

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

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

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

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

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

Get Trump Elected

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

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

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

Woodrow Wilson

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

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

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

Pax Americana

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

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

Russian Empire

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

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

A Choice

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

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

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

Long Island Speaks

Fools

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

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

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

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

Moderation

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

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

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

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

Get Over It

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

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

No Rest

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

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

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

Soundtracks

Nothing But Calamity

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

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

Old is Old

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

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

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

Cancelling Out

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

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

No other Democrat brings those credentials to the table. 

Fair and Balanced, Ain’t

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

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

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

Progressive Choices

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

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

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

A Sad, Sad, Boy

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

Dahlman Dogs

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

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

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

Baddicus

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

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

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

Game Time

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

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

ACL

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

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

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

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

Exile

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

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

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

The Sunday Story Series

A Counting Problem

Vengeance

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

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

Hunter

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

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

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

SOMEBODY

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

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

Inconvenient Impeachment

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

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

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

Missed Again

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

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

Put A Bow On It (Please)

Election Issue

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

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

Grand Old Party

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

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

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

Donald Trump couldn’t allow it.

“Republicans”

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

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

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

Whose Fault?

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

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

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

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

He even put a bow on it.

Our Pataskala Kroger’s

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

Checking Out

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

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

Pick a Time

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

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

Old Man

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

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

Touch Screen

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

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

2/1/2003

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

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

The Sunday Story Series

Carrier Groups

October 7th

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

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

Militias

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

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

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

US Bases

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

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

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

Simple Message

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

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

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

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

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