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Enemy Aliens

First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

Basic Right

It is a basic tenet of American citizenship:  the First Amendment.   We summarize it simply; we Americans have “freedom of speech”.  That’s a direct quote from the Amendment by the way; “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press…”.  And we all have a basic understanding what that means.  Americans can think and say our politics view, without “the government” coming against us.  We don’t fear arrest for “bad-speak”.  But there are limits. It often takes the entire stretch of adolescence to understand that “free speech” doesn’t apply when talking to your parents, or your employer. We all tried it.

Our current understanding of the First Amendment took some figuring out.  The second President of the United States, John Adams, lived in a time almost as politically ugly as our own.   I mean, his Vice President, Thomas Jefferson said of Adams:

“(He’s) A blind, bald, crippled toothless man who is a hideous hermaphroditic character with neither the force and fitness of a man, not the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”

Of course, Adam’s responded, calling Jefferson a:

 “…(M)ean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

 Adams and Jefferson had a conflicted relationship.   They were close at the writing of the Declaration in the 1770’s, and would become fast pen-pals after Jefferson left office in 1808.  But in the middle thirty years, they were arch-enemies.

Thin Skin

Not to continue insulting, but Adams was notoriously thin-skinned.  And when some of the insults came from new immigrants to the still-new United States, he did something about them.  Adams and his Federalist Congress authored the Alien and Sedition Acts.  They lengthened the time it took to earn US citizenship, and they restricted the “free speech” rights of those not yet citizens.  The Sedition Act went even farther, making it illegal for even citizens to criticize the President.  Some newspapers publishers were jailed.

This was all before Marbury v Madison (1803),  when the United States Supreme Court claimed the power of judicial review.  The Sedition Act, and most of the Alien Acts expired before they were ever tested in Court. Today, most scholars see that Presidential “muzzling” as unconstitutional, a violation of “free speech”.  That is, except for one exception, a part of the Alien Act which remains in our current laws.  It is codified as 50 U.S. Code § 21:  Restraint, Regulation and Removal.

50 US Code

It allows for any citizens above the age of fourteen of a foreign nation that has declared war on the United States, or incurred or invaded the US, “…shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.”

That ancient (1798) law was used to detain British citizens in the War of 1812, and German citizens during World War I. And most infamously, it was the legal structure beneath Executive Order 9066 that established Japanese/American internment camps of World War II. (A brief reminder:  during World War II Japanese citizens, naturalized Americans born in Japan, and American-born citizens of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and put in “internment camps”.   That action was confirmed by the 1944 US Supreme Court in Korematsu v United States. It was only “rebuked” by the Court in 2018 in Trump v Hawaii.  It has never been directly overturned.)

Green Card

Which brings us literally, to the present.   This week, Mahmoud Khalil was arrested.  Khalil is a graduate student at Columbia University and a Palestinian citizen.  He is in the United States with a permanent visa, what is termed a “green card”.  That gives him the right to stay, work, and live in the United States.  And he planned on doing so, finishing up his graduate degree in engineering.  He is married, and his wife is eight months pregnant (her name has not been released). 

In general, permanent residents of the United States have most of the same “First Amendment” rights as citizens.  The only limitations are in campaign contributions:  only US citizens can donate to Federal political campaigns.  But the current Trump Administration has decided to reach back to John Adam’s Alien Act to arrest Khalil for his activities in support of the Palestinians during the protests at Columbia University last year. 

Fait d’Accompli

 They are correlating support for the Palestinian cause as support for the terrorist group Hamas.   Khalil was a spokesman for those Columbia students protesting the Israeli attacks on Gaza.   Trump has declared those protests “anti-Semitic”, and ordered that non-citizen participants be rounded up and deported.  They are now, “enemy aliens”.

Khalil was arrested, then whisked from Manhattan to an ICE holding center (jail) in Louisiana, far away from his wife, lawyers, and the Federal Courts of the Southern District of New York that have jurisdiction over his case.   Like many of the ICE actions under Trump, it’s clear that they aren’t interested in dealing with the “legality” of Court decisions.  If ICE can move fast enough, hiding detainees in far-away jails, then using military transports to dump them in some foreign country, they don’t have to “worry” what the Federal Courts have to say.  As the French that Adam’s disliked so much say, it’s a “fait d’acompli”. 

Nightmare Progression

Many of my “progressive” friends are split over what happened in the Middle East in the past year and a half.   The Hamas terrorist attack on October 7th was outrageous and reprehensible.  But the Israel attack on the citizens of Gaza, regardless of whether they were Hamas or not, was equally, and in some eyes, even more, reprehensible.  It divided the Democratic Party, so much so that it may have cost America the Trump Presidency instead of Harris.  

But what’s happening to Khalil is a “Progressive” nightmare.  He did exactly what we thought was “protected” by the First Amendment,  that “…Americans can think and say our politics view, without ‘the government’ coming against us.”   Now, by a twist of a phrase, an arbitrary correlation by the White House, a permanent resident of the United States, a young man with a child on the way, is likely to be thrown out of our Nation.  What’s next?

Martin Niemoller, the German-Lutheran Pastor who stood against the Nazis, put it this way:

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me,
And there was no one left to speak out for me.

They came for Khalil.

Unsportsmanlike

Experience

This essay doesn’t have much to do with politics, but a lot to do with America today.   As any consistent reader of “Our America” probably knows, I spent 36 years as a public school teacher and administrator, and 40 years as a coach (Cross Country, Wrestling and Track).  So I know “a little” about high school kids, and even “some” about sports and coaching at the high school level.

And for the last few years since I “retired”, I’ve become a working track and cross country official.   So I still spend a lot of time with high school, middle school and even collegiate athletes.  And, up front, I need to say that the vast, vast majority of those kids, from the middle schoolers trying to figure out what they’re doing to the national qualifying collegiates, are polite to me, and to each other.  In fact, in the pole vault where I do much of my officiating, it’s common practice to cheer on the opposing vaulters.  Even though there’s always a winner and loser, the bar becomes the common “opponent”.

Unbelievable

This month I’ve seen on media four different examples of incredibly poor sportsmanship.   One case, involved a nearby school.  Reynoldsburg boys basketball is a terrific program, one of the top contenders for the state title.  In a tough District match with Hilliard Bradley, a Reynoldsburg athlete “took a charge” from a Bradley kid coming up the court.  It wasn’t much of a charge, but the kid tried to made it look good for the officials.  The call wasn’t made.

So, the Reynoldsburg kid got back on his feet.   As the Bradley kid passed the ball, the Reynoldsburg boy made a fist and punched Bradley, straight to the groin.  The Bradley kid went down, and the officials, not fully seeing the play, called an intentional (but not flagrant) foul on Reynoldsburg.  It was only later when the TV coverage was reviewed, that everyone saw exactly what happened.

Throwing Balls and Punches

A second case of out of control high school athletics took place in Michigan.   The Benton Harbor team lost in tournament play to the team from Buchanan.  An Assistant Coach from the losing team was frustrated with the “poor” officiating, and  threw a basketball hitting the Referee in the head.  That was followed by full water bottles and later a clipboard.  The Referee went down, and had to be escorted from the court by local police officers. 

A third example was the case of a New Jersey wrestler, a three-time state champion.   His father, a former MMA fighter, didn’t like the behavior of opposing fans. He determined to go into their crowd and let them know. Not surprisingly, a fight broke out.  The wrestler himself looked up and saw his father in the melee, and ran up into the stands to join in.  He started punching kids, around but not directly involved with the fight his father was in.

Rule 4, Article 6, Section 1

(Track and Field – Unsportsmanlike Conduct)

And a fourth, and to me most amazing example of bad sportsmanship, was in a track meet.   Indoor track is often described by the phrase, “rubbing is racing”.  The confined quarters of a 200 meter track, and the banked turns, make it easy for runners to bump into each other.   In the final race of a meet in Virginia, the 4 x 400 relay, the third place girl came off of the turn, down the bank, to sweep past the second place girl.  Second place turned her relay baton into a weapon, and struck the passing runner in the head, twice, as she went by.  That  caused the passer to drop her baton, fall into the infield and ultimately have a concussion.

All four of the incidents are being “handled”.  Reynoldsburg suspended the offending player for the remainder of the season.  The Benton Harbor Assistant Coach was fired.   The wrestler was suspended from competition by the New Jersey High School Athletic Association for the rest of the season and charged with criminal assault. (But a local judge reinstated him, and he won a fourth state championship).  And the baton wielding third runner was disqualified.  Other actions are pending.

YouTube

So what does this say about high school athletics today?  Well first, we are in the age of video.   Everything, from high school girls 4×400’s to brawls in the stands, are out there for everyone to see (and link in essays like this).  We can watch it all, from the referee getting beaned by a basketball, to the punch to the groin.  And it’s not like all this hasn’t happened in the past.  I used to manage wrestling tournaments, and I personally broke up fathers fighting in the stands.  

But there does seem to be an “outbreak” of increased entitlement in our modern world.   We can blame it on politics, or YouTube, on the NFL or NBA or professional soccer where every foul is “wrong”.    And we certainly can argue whether a local judge should have the power to overrule that State Athletic Association.  But that’s not new either.  It happened here in Ohio back in 1979. 

The Lesson

But what I really think is going on is that we don’t teach kids how to lose.  I know, I know:  some parent is saying, “I don’t want my kid to know how to lose, I want my kid to be a WINNER”.   And as anyone on my teams will tell you, I want to win as well.  But it was also our responsibility as coaches to teach our kids to win and lose with “grace”.  If you win, there is no need to “grind it” into the losers faces.  They know, and there’s a scoreboard to prove it.  

And if you lose, the dry facts of the scoreboard are still there.  I taught my athletes to take responsibility for their own actions, and demonstrate class.  One of the hardest lessons was, after losing a hard-fought meet or match or game;  to go shake the winners hands.   We as coaches had to lead the way, no matter how “salty” we (too) felt about the outcome.  Our highest “rule”:  don’t embarrass ourselves, our program, or our school.  Maybe that lesson is getting lost in our “go for broke” and “never admit failure” society.

Kids are kids.  They will always make mistakes. Maybe that’s the most important part of being a kid.  The question is:  what lesson will they learn?

Postscript:

Saw this from Saturday in Western Pennsylvania- Meadville v Uniontown – here’s the linkhttps://www.erienewsnow.com/story/52521840/meadville-vs-uniontown-basketball-game-ends-in-brawl

Thought MP’s

Macho-Macho Man

The new Defense Secretary believes that the US military has lost its “Warrior Ethos”.   What does that mean?  Pete Hegseth thinks that our military has gone “soft”, worrying more about our societal issues like gender identity, race and ethnic diversity than being “Warriors”.   Our modern forces, where the ability to pilot a drone over Afghanistan from Virginia is as important as a High Altitude, Low Opening parachute jump over Korea, now “depends” on being a “Warrior” according to the Secretary.  (I’m humming the tune “Macho, Macho, Man” by the Village People in the background).

 Hegseth is waging a war on the US military, a war against the dreaded “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”, better known by the initials “DEI”.   Hegseth seems convinced that racial and ethnic minorities, women, gay and transgendered soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Guardians (members of the Space Corps) are weakening our defenses.

So it’s no surprise that the two highest women in the US Defense establishment, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Franchetti and Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Fagan, were fired.   It also shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Air Force General Brown was fired as well.  He’s Black, and he spoke out during the George Floyd controversy.

Old Confederates

What kind of “Warriors” is Hegseth looking for?   Is his military to be dominated by “good ol’ boys,” white men, who “know” how to fight?  How far is Hegseth willing to go?

Fort Bragg in North Carolina was named after the failed Confederate General Braxton Bragg.   For over a century, the military celebrated the Confederate “lost cause”, naming bases and facilities after generals in “gray”.  Recently, Fort Bragg was renamed by Congressional order, Fort Liberty.  But that offended Hegseth’s sense of Warrior Ethos (I guess he remembers Chickamauga, but forgets all of Bragg’s failures).  So he renamed Liberty back  to Bragg, with a “fig leaf” of pretending the name honors a World War II Silver Star recipient, Ronald Bragg.  

Firing the women and the Black man, reviving good ol’ Fort Bragg, started to right Hegseth’s world.   But to really build his “Warrior Ethos” military, he wants a thorough cleansing of the military image.  Posters of women and minorities in combat roles were ripped down throughout the country.  The words “gay” and “transgendered” were scrubbed from the military manuals and online materials.  He wants our Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines (and Guardians too) totally focused on being “Warriors”.  I guess that means they are supposed to be mostly White men, who like women – to Hegseth that clearly matters (ask the woman he “enjoyed”, or assaulted, in 2017).

Erasing History

So I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that the “thought police” of the civilian defense establishment, (kind of like the DOGE kids) reached out to change history.   The “thought police” are busy erasing the history of the Tuskegee Airmen, the courageous black men who broke the color barrier for fighter pilots in the US Army of World War II.  And while they’re “changing history”, they are attacking another fundamental fact of World War II.

 You see, one of the most famous aircraft in history has a “DEI” name:  the Enola Gay.  On August 6th, 1945, a US B-29 bomber took off from Tinian Island, a speck in the Pacific Ocean.   It was piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, the commander of the 509th Bomb Group.   The four engine aircraft was bound for Japan, to drop the first atomic bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy” on Hiroshima. 

Tibbets was well aware of the gravity of this action.  He even replaced the normal pilot of the B-29, taking direct control himself.   And he renamed the particular aircraft that would go down in world history after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets.

We all know “the rest of the story”.  

Wrong Thoughts

But what is the Defense Secretary going to do?  Here, written in a flash of light and the instant death of thousands is his most hated word:  Gay.   Can there be anything more “macho” more “warrior”, than dropping an atom bomb?  But there it is, “Enola Gay” burned into American and World memory.   The “thought police” tried to scrub that too.  I hope there are good security guards at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall in Washington, DC.  There might be a “military operation”, maybe using Seal Team Six,  to break in and strike out the “Gay” painted on the nose of the still proud B-29.

There is no evidence that being a woman, or a gay man, or a transgendered person, impacts the modern military.  What it does effect, is the mind of a man who sees the military as only those “Warriors” on the battlefield as “manly men”.   It was wrong when Confederate admirers kept the US military segregated through World War II until President Truman forced the change in 1948.  

It was wrong when women were denied combat roles before the 1990’s, a wrong not righted fully until 2016.   And it was wrong when a soldier, sailor, or Marine had to hide their sexual preference, first completely, then under Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell”, until 2011.  

And Pete Hegseth’s “Warrior Ethos” cleansing is wrong now.

Potato – Po-tah-to

Words

Words are important, to communicate ideas, and to persuade others.   The same word can have multiple pronunciations.  Is milk pronounced “mill-ka” or “mel-ka”? Me, I’m a “mel-ka” guy.  Or do you say “Toe-mah-toe” or “toe-may-toe”.   And there’s words with multiple meanings.   “Cool” means temperature if you’re talking about weather, or soup.  Cool means it’s good, or fun, or you like it, if you’re talking about new shoes or a car or the latest movie.  

To trend back to the subject at hand; there are also words with similar meanings.   We talk a lot about Democracy, the idea that the “people” are the ultimate authority in a country.  And then there are the hair-splitters, who will quickly point out that the United States isn’t a true Democracy, but a Republic, where representatives are chosen by a democratic voting process.  And there’s the compromisers who say that the United States is a Democratic Republic.  That way everyone is “right”.  It’s the dreaded “participation trophy” of political science.

Studying Mice

And there are words that have specific meanings, like waste and fraud.   Waste, at least in government, means that money is being spent for frivolous purposes.  We’d all agree that it’s a waste if a school principal spends $50,000 in furniture for his office.  It’s waste, but it’s probably not fraud.  

We can also “agree to disagree” on some forms of waste.   The current White House complains that the Biden Administration spent : $455,000 on “A Mouse Model to Test the Effects of Gender-affirming Hormone Therapy on HIV Vaccine-induced Immune Responses”.  The Trump people claim they were trying to make “transgendered mice”.   That’s sounds pretty wasteful.

But click the link on the dollars.  Here’s what the actual study would do:

“There is a considerable gap in knowledge, however, surrounding the immunological responsiveness of transgender people, a population at considerably higher risk for HIV and other STIs. To address this gap, we propose to develop an animal model of feminizing hormone therapy to study the effects of estrogen/anti-testosterone therapy on HIV vaccine-induced immune responses.”

Policy Priority

Do transgendered people in transition respond to HIV vaccines the same way cisgendered people do?   How can that be studied without putting the transgendered folks at risk?   Immune responses of mice are similar to that of humans, so they are a safe “model” to test how those vaccines might work on real, live, humans.   To fit the “model” , those mice have to model transition.  

Now, you might make a “policy decision” that studies helping the transgendered are WRONG based on the belief we shouldn’t help the transgendered.   That’s similar to the decision that the Reagan Administration made to ignore AIDS for a long time, because they thought it was a “gay disease”.  But to argue that the study is a “waste” is disingenuous.  They weren’t studying how to make mice transgendered, that was neither the goal nor the outcome.  In more common terms, the Trump Administration lied to you.

FRAUD!!!

And the DOGE boys are telling America that they have discovered “FRAUD” in their exhaustive computer invasion of Federal agencies.  Fraud is a very specific term.   It means that money allocated for a specific purpose is being spent on something else, often to the benefit of undeserving individuals.  It’s FRAUD if the high school principal gets $50,000 for his office furniture, then  spends $15,000 on a desk and chair and pockets the rest.  

Certainly if someone is dead and still collecting Social Security there must be fraud somewhere.   And DOGE found exactly that, they thought.  Folks who looked like they were still eligible to collect Social Security, born in 1875.  They thought, that meant there are 150 year-old folks getting benefits, a very, very unlikely scenario (the oldest documented human was Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122).  So, whoever is getting that benefit is committing fraud.

Unless, of course, it’s not true.  

Place Holder

So when I go to Kroger’s and buy my favorite bottle of wine (Meomi, Pinot Noir presently), a high school kid running the check-out register asks for my identification.   The fact that my hair has gone white, and I’m clearly over the legal age of 21 doesn’t matter – the kid needs to see the ID.  So I give it to him.  He glances at it, then taps in a date on his register:  1/1/2004.  That’s the minimum birth date that is of “legal age” in the state of Ohio.  Is he committing fraud?  If I don’t correct him, am I?  On 1/1/2004 I was not only over twenty-one, I was rapidly approaching fifty.

1/1/2004 is just the “place-holder” for reaching the minimum age.  For every “legal alcohol” sold, a date is attached to show that ID was checked. It works.  

1/1/1875 is the Social Security place-holder for dead.  No one with my grandfather’s birthdate is getting Social Security. Though here’s an interesting trivia item: the last US Civil War pension was paid out by the Veterans Administration until 2020.   Irene Triplett was born in 1930.  Her father, Moses, was a Civil War veteran, and died eight years after her birth.  Irene was mentally disabled, and retained her father’s benefits until her death.

Ignorance

No fraud, no “fat cats” living on the pensions of long dead ancestors.  In fact, Social Security has a “fail-safe” mechanism, that stops payment to anyone at 115, just in case a death is missed. 1/1/1875 is just a placeholder like the 1/1/2004 typed into the Kroger cash register to signify legal age, this, a marker to note legal death.   That is, accept for Irene, who received a $73.13 a month Civil War pension until her death in 2020.  She was 90 years old.

The “fraud” here is the one committed out of intent or ignorance by the DOGE boys.  They aren’t necessarily stealing anything.   But they are telling Americans that waste and fraud exist when it’s a matter of policy priorities and, well, nineteen year-olds not understanding what a placeholder is in the “ancient” computer language of Cobol.

They’re the same age as the checkout kid at Kroger’s.   And here’s another word that should be applied to the DOGE boys and their boss:  hubris.

Decorum

Norms

President Trump gave his “impromptu” State of the Union Address Tuesday night.  “Impromptu”, because traditionally the President doesn’t give a State of the Union in his first year in office.   After all, it’s only been a month and a half since he gave his Inaugural Address.  But, like most things involving the Trump Administration, there’s no tradition, no “norm” worth keeping (I guess).  

In the forty-five days Mr. Trump stomped on the Constitution so many times, that the Courts can’t keep up.  That’s a Trump legal strategy, by the way:  sue, delay, appeal, delay, obfuscate, delay, overwhelm; delay, and delay some more.   It’s how he managed to avoid two years of personal Federal prosecution.  It’s also how he still hasn’t paid the hundreds of millions of dollars he owes the State of New York. And, for now, he stole the “power of the purse” from the US Congress. He’s made it his own.  As a friend of mine says: even if the Courts disagree with Trump, it will take two years for them to catch up.  By then, it will be far too late, the damage done.

Shock and Awe

Through much of the “shock and awe” of Trump’s (and Musk’s) actions in the last forty-five days, Democrats have “sat back”.   We haven’t heard the leadership of the Democratic Party say a whole lot, or give alternatives to the renegade DOGE boys, or authoritarian ICE actions.  Rank and file Democrats are asking:  where are our leaders?  Who will stand up for us?  What can we do?

Perhaps some of the Democratic leadership are following the words of veteran campaign strategist James Carville.   He’s noted for his famous advice to Bill Clinton in 1992 when the campaign was struggling with the rumors of illicit sex activities:  “It’s the economy, stupid”.  That advice helped Clinton win the Presidency.  Carville today is essentially making this point: let Trump be Trump.  He and the Republican Congress will trip over their own two feet.  Let Trump make a mess of the economy with his tariffs and his shredded governing style.  Let the Republicans do it to themselves, then Democrats can pick up the pieces in 2026.

Speaking from the rank and file there are two problems with that.  First of all, many Democrats feel that democracy itself is at stake.   They don’t think that the election of 2026 is a “sure thing”, not for Democrats, and not even the physical act of counting votes.  Those Democrats think that the Carville strategy is based on “regular order”, on tradition, on those damn “norms”. They don’t think there’s any guarantee that “norms” will be followed. 

Like my friend said; many Democrats think that waiting for an election in two years will be far too late, the damage done.

Vacuum

And second, there appears to be a total vacuum in the Democratic leadership.  Harris is gone, and the Governors (Newsom, Whitmer, Moore, Pritzker, Walz, et al) are all too busy trying to navigate their multiple state crises caused by Trump’s actions.   Hakeem Jefferies, the Speaker-apparent (should Democrats regain the House), is laser-focused on legislation, not leadership of the greater Party.  And the “old guard”; Biden, the Obama’s, Pelosi; all seem to have ceded authority to the “next generation”, even if the leaders of that generation aren’t apparent.  

Some Democratic members of Congress recognized the emptiness.  They heard the call to action from their constituents,  and they tried to step up during the State of the Union.   Some cried out, calling to task Trump’s immeasurable number of lies and misstatements.  Representative Green of Texas went so far as to stand, yell, and shake his cane at the President, interrupting despite orders from the Speaker to “be seated”.  Mr. Green was ultimately escorted from the Chamber by the Sergeant at Arms.  

Other Democrats walked out, our held up placards with the word “False” written on them, kind of an old-school gymnastics  scoring thing (“10,8,10,4 – that was the Russian judge”).   But since the cameras didn’t cut away from the President, their actions failed to get much attention.  

Good Trouble

Still, on the media summary, many commentators decried the Democrats “breaking the decorum of the House”.  Meanwhile the President literally used an insulting term directly at one US Senator, and had no problem baiting Democrats and applauding his own sycophants.  It’s as if the norms and rules apply only to one side.  The MAGA side is given a full “pass”; because; well, that’s just what they do.   

If Democracy is on the line, then the rules, traditions, and norms are out.  We can’t wait for our leadership to determine a course, and we can’t hope that the Courts will save America.   In the end, we too must break the norms, and do what’s necessary to save our Constitution, and our Democracy.  As John Lewis liked to say, it’s time to get in some “good trouble”.   And if that means we break “decorum” – so be it.

Treason Now

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason… US Code Title 18, Chapter 115, Section 2381

The Prize

It’s hard not to feel “treasonous” today.  Treason, “(A)dhering to our enemies or giving them aid and comfort,” is the reality of our morning news.   We (not my President); we of the United States are formally and with malice aforethought, turning our back on democracy, and joining forces with dictators.  We (not my President) are spitting on and showing disdain; we are committing  dishonor, to the 46,000 Ukrainian troops who have already lost their lives fighting the Russian invasion of their nation. What’s happened? The United States, in the cowardly dark of night, “paused” military aid to Ukraine.

Why would we turn our back on what is clearly a black and white situation?  The worst reason in the world; the vanity of the President of the United States.  Donald Trump wants to “match” Barack Obama, to show that he’s “as good” a President as Obama was. And the 44th President has something that Trump doesn’t have – a Nobel Peace Prize.  For Trump to get “the prize”, he has to have “a peace”.  And the only “peace” available is in the Russian-Ukraine War. 

It’s Personal

Trump has a “side” in that war, and it’s not the side of the United States of America. Instead, to Trump, it’s all personal.  For whatever reason (perhaps a later essay), Donald Trump is “beholden” to Vladimir Putin, the dictator of Russia.  It’s been true since he came down the “golden escalator” in 2015.  (And while we constantly hear other Republicans say that the first Trump Administration was tougher on Russia than anyone else, Trump’s own words betray his fealty to Putin).  

Donald Trump made it clear in his very direct diatribe against President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, that he holds a deep-seated grudge against him, personally.  Trump wants payback for Zelenskyy not making up dirt on Joe Biden in 2019.  And Trump blames Zelenskyy for his first impeachment trial in front of the United States Senate, another public humiliation in a long list.  

Today, Trump has little influence over Putin.  But he holds a cudgel over Ukraine, the power of the United States, and the ability of Ukraine to continue their battle.  So Trump’s using that cudgel to try to force Ukraine to “surrender” to Russia, giving up substantial portions of their nation.  And if Zelenskyy won’t do it, then Trump will do whatever he can to get the duly elected President of Ukraine removed from office.  Certainly there’s another Putin stooge in the wings, waiting to fulfill Russia’s goals.

A True Leader

Zelenskyy proved his mettle again and again.  He is, like Trump, a TV actor who became a politician.  But unlike Trump, Zelenskyy was forced to grow in the job.  He led his nation through the existential crisis of invasion.  He stood tall as the missiles fell in Kyiv, and orchestrated the defeat of the 17 mile thrust of Russian tanks to the capital.  

 And he has sustained his nation in the three year-long battle against Russian aggression.  Zelenskyy is a war leader, a symbol to his nation, eschewing suits and ties for the uniform of battle, as his nation has eschewed normal life to face a mortal enemy.   

And Trump can’t even tie his necktie correctly.

Democracy

I believe in democracy, both here in the United States and in the world.  I believe that Donald Trump is a threat to our American democracy.  His lack of concern for the Constitution, for the balance of power, for the personal privacy of American citizens, all mark a man willing to trade our “life, liberty and happiness” for personal power.  And Trump’s actions toward Ukraine betray his personal venality.  It’s ideological treason, truly adhering to the enemies of freedom, and giving them aid and comfort.  He’s doing it here, and he’s doing it in Ukraine.

The Trumpists will call me treasonous.  They will say I am denying the duly elected President of the United States his “well earned mandate”.  They will say it is I who is “fomenting insurrection” and “giving aid and comfort” to our enemies.  

I say he’s committing treason.  His supporters will say I am.  

So I will reference Patrick Henry, speaking out against the British Crown in the Virginia House of Burgesses, eleven years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.   His fellow legislators cried out “treason, treason!!” And Henry said:

“If this be treason, make the most of it”.

Stratego or Risk

Teenaged Games

When I was a teenager there weren’t video games.   Instead, some of my friends played board games.  A long night of Monopoly was the “standard”, stashing money under the board so no one knew exactly how you were doing.  Or when we got older and “cooler”, a penny-ante poker game (and even older came cigars).  But in my younger teens, my friends and I played  “political” board games.  Some friends were enamored with Risk, a “conquer the world” game of alliances, and double-crosses that could take weeks.  A few even played Chess, but you had to study to be good at that, and I didn’t want to spend the time.  

But there was Stratego (by Milton-Bradley), a conquest game resembling a cross between Checkers and Risk, where a roll of the dice could determine the fate of armies and battles.  It wasn’t an “all night” game, but it allowed for “tactical thinking” without committing to months of preparation. It was sort of like my commitment to Algebra II; I’d cram the night before the test, but I didn’t spend daily time worrying about it.  My grades were commensurate with the effort. 

America First

The board games of my youth are now in dusty boxes on high shelves in a closet.   Games of strategy today are on video, and much more “tactile”.  The player becomes the soldier on the line, living or dying in Call of Duty by their skill, wile, and luck.  And as an adult, I know we live in a world of “Risk”, where alliances are made and broken, and principle is often overcome by national or even personal interest.

I’ve already written about the changes in American policy brought on by Donald Trump (Zero-Sum).   The United States of America has made a dramatic about-face in our foreign view, from one of group protection and benefit, to a policy of bilateral negotiation.  Our new view is pretty simple:  what’s in it for us.  It’s a very short-term, Stratego view of world balance, one echoing the isolationism of the 1930’s (the original “America First”). We’ve gone from playing Chess or Risk, to playing Stratego.  A look at our twentieth century past demonstrates the potential consequences of the world’s greatest economy “going it alone”.  

But here we are.  And I’m watching a masterful “game player”.   He doesn’t have much money under the board, and he is, to quote the US President, playing from a weaker hand.  And the current strategic master is really a gifted amateur.  His name is Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

NATO and Russia

In the old world order of two months ago, Zelenskyy’s and Ukraine’s place was clear.   The old world order saw NATO, led by the United States, balancing the avowed intention of Russia to re-conquer the Russian “Empire”, the old Soviet Union.  It was well-established, the outgrowth of the alliances that stopped Fascism in World War II.  America wasn’t isolationist.  Instead the US led a world alliance to keep the Soviet Union, and later China, from expanding their empires, cloaked in the cover of the Communist ideals.  

When the Communists fell in the Soviet Union, there were briefly replaced by a democracy.   But the economic pressures of all of that “public wealth” (the definition of Communism) becoming private caused the rise of an oligarchs.  They were rich, and they were powerful, and they wanted control of the nation.  Vladimir Putin, a former KGB Colonel, rose to the top of the oligarchic pyramid.  He served those with money so well that he became one himself.  And now, anyone that stands against him takes that short step out of a 15th floor window.  Or their plane explodes:  ask Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Biden’s Plan

Over the past couple decades, the Soviet threat, countered by NATO, became the Russian threat.  And Ukraine, while not a NATO member, became the perfect place to stop Russian expansionism.   Ukraine wanted to fight.  They offered up the blood of their young men, and their fertile fields of grain, as the battlefield in the ultimate war to stop Russia.  Putin made it clear, that this “Domino Theory” (reminiscent of the arguments to stay in the Vietnam War) was real.  Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and the rest are on the block.

That was the “grand theory” of the Biden Administration.  They marshalled NATO to back Ukraine, supplying weapons from bullets to F-16’s; everything but the manpower itself to fight the war.   And Ukraine and Zelenskyy over three years, stood against the might of “Mother Russia”, giving better than they got, and hanging onto the vast majority of their Nation.  It was a “Risk” like plan:  use Ukraine to stop Russia, rather than the all-out war that an invasion of a NATO member would require.  Fight the smaller battle with Ukrainian lives sacrificed, rather than World War III.

And for Ukraine, it represented national survival.   They were getting what they wanted, a nation that was not under the yoke of Russian imperialism.  They made their trade:  lives for freedom.  Ukraine survived, and NATO and the United States benefitted.  That was Zelenskyy’s “deal”.

The Beat Down

That isn’t Trump’s view of the world at all.   He finds himself more “allied” with Putin’s Russia.  Trump, an oligarch himself, sees the ultimate power of the Russian leader as a “model”.  Trump doesn’t want to compromise with other (lesser, in his mind) NATO members.  He wants to do what Putin does; get the most for the United States, regardless of the impact.  It’s a Stratego like view, without the longer-term strategizing of Risk.  

What does Trump want?  He wants the mineral wealth of Ukraine, much of which is now under Russian control.   If he can’t get that from Zelenskyy, he’ll make a deal with Putin.  And, of course, Trump has a personal score to settle with Zelenskyy.  The Ukrainian dared to defy Trump’s demand for “dirt” on Joe Biden in 2019, the “perfect call” that got Trump impeached by Congress.  Trump can’t make Zelenskyy step out a fifteenth floor window (at least, not yet) but he can humiliate him, and cut Ukraine off.

No Bait in the Trap

So he lured Zelenskyy to Washington, dangling the hope of US support in exchange for Ukrainian mineral rights (or “rare earth” as Trump calls it).   Then, in the White House, Trump and Vice President Vance did what they always wanted to do.  They tried to humiliate the Ukrainian President, knowing he would probably “submit” because he needed the deal.  But there really wasn’t a deal on the table for the help Zelenskyy needed.  So he didn’t submit.

Instead, Zelenskyy stood up for himself and his Nation.   Isn’t that what you’d expect a national leader to do?  He called out the disrespect shown by Vance and Trump, and he demonstrated the consequence of their short-term, bilateral thinking.  He didn’t throw away a deal, because there wasn’t an acceptable deal on the table in the first place.  Trump wanted “rare earth” (old sixties band?) in exchange for vague assurances that didn’t put bullets in Ukrainian guns or protection in Ukrainian skies.  When Zelenskyy objected, Trump tossed the Ukrainian President out of the White House.

And then Zelenskyy flew to London, to meet with a majority of the NATO nations.   They not only gave him a hug (don’t we all need one) but they offered the assurances he needed to continue his nation’s life and death struggle with Russia.  The Europeans made the deal that made sense for them. They too are under the Russian threat and worrying about another global war fought on their home soil.  So they stuck with the “Biden plan”, even though the US was no longer part of it.

Risk not Stratego

Zelenskyy is playing Risk, not Stratego.   He’s trying to win long-term support to continue the battle for Ukrainian democracy.  For the right deal with the US, he would have given up his “rare earth”.  But there was no deal; so he went to someone else.  Now, Trump is left weaker.  NATO is not behind him.  And Russia has the minerals he wants.  So what is his next tactical move?   

Trump’s gaming is tactical, but not strategic. But he’s in a world with much longer-term consequences, and the Risk players are leaving him behind.   The outcome could be dire.  If Putin determines he can now move against Europe, they will have no choice but to respond, with or without US help, just as their grandfathers did in 1939.

 With Trump’s plan, so goes our Nation.  We seemed to be “doomed” to repeat the history of the 1930’s.  And we know what the outcome of that was. It was the defining moment of my parents’ generation:  World War II.

Catching Cars

Here’s the next in the “Sunday Story Series” on Our America. No politics today, just another “tail” about dogs.

Lost Pet Recovery

There is an old political adage, explaining the problems of success:  “It’s like the dog who caught the car”.  The premise is that dogs chase cars, but if they were actually successful and caught one, they wouldn’t know what to do.  Today’s story  answers that question:  what really happens when a dog catches a car?

A lot of the dog stories in “Our America” come from our work with Lost Pet Recovery (LPR), a group of intrepid volunteers who find lost dogs and return them to their owners.  LPR gets requests for help from all over Ohio, Kentucky and even beyond.  Sometimes, we are able to “talk” folks through getting their own dogs back. Often, we supply equipment to help them out.  And sometimes, we go out ourselves to recover the dog, and return it to the owners.

So last weekend we were on a trip to “scout out” a husky mix that was a “hard case”, out in Preble County. Where’s Preble County?  It’s the last county before the Indiana border, starting just west of Dayton, Ohio, and reaching through the flat farmlands towards Richmond, Indiana.  In fact, the quickest way to the Husky’s last known Ohio location was to enter Indiana, turn off the interstate onto a state highway, then onto a local county road that recrossed the border.  

Easy Stuff

The “dog” folks in Preble already tried the “easy” stuff.  A box trap was placed near where the Husky was sheltering, and they hoped she would be drawn in by the “good smelling” bait.  But instead of attracting the dog, she went on a long “walk-a-bout”, over fifteen miles before returning to her original location.  The trap scared her off, so that technique was scratched off the list.

She was hanging out in a dairy barn, eating cow feed and cow remains.  And she found a soul-mate, the local farm dog that lived there.  They clearly were in a friendly relationship, so much so that any attempt to retrieve the Husky had to take into account what to do with the local dog.  Here’s how we know.

We were driving down the narrow country lane, just after crossing back into Ohio, checking out the “lay of the land”.  We passed the farmhouse where the dairy farmer and his family lived, then turned around in the next driveway to come back and look for the Husky.  Meanwhile ‘Ol Farm Dog determined that our truck, with a six-foot trap in the back, was a threat, if not to him and his family, definitely to his “friend” the Husky.  

THIS IS MY ROAD

We pulled back by the farm, and Ol’ Farm Dog came out on the road to greet us.  We went past the farm house, then turned around again in the dairy barn driveway.  This time it was “Mr. This is My Road”, and he was having none of it.  

He stood in the middle of the road, barking boldly at our offending vehicle.  When I tried to back up, Farm Dog followed along, right by the front bumper.  When I tried to turn to the side, he circled around to keep us centered in the road.  Then, when we lowered the windows to try to cajole him, he approached the door.  ‘Ol Farm Dog didn’t seem very “friendly”.  

The two young kids who live in the house just stood in the front yard watching the show.  We certainly weren’t the first car their dog had “caught”, and I expect they were enjoying our inept maneuvering.   I lowered the window (just enough) to give them a yell:  “Hey kid, could you come get your dog?”.  One responded “Just drive forward”.  

We were in a pickup truck, and the dog was so close to the front bumper that he was beneath our view.  I wasn’t moving forward:  how would it look if the LPR “Team” ran over a farm dog while trying to catch a lost dog?  I’d definitely lose my Lost Pet Recovery “membership card”, and besides, I don’t run over dogs.  So I inched forward. He barked even more furiously. ‘Ol Farm Dog wasn’t going to move.

Caught

He had us.  He caught the truck.  And he knew exactly what he was going to do.  Ol’ Farm Dog was going to keep us, right there, in front of the farmhouse, for as long as he damned well wanted to.

It was ironic and kind of funny.  Instead of trapping dogs, our LPR team was trapped.  But Don, the “boss” in the back seat wasn’t amused. He was furious, not with me (the driver), and not even with the dog.  He was furious that the farm owners would let their dog wander on the country lane, trying to catch cars.  And it wasn’t because it was interfering with our scouting.  There is only one inevitable result for a dog fixated on catching cars, trucks, and other vehicles.  In the end, one of those will catch him; another “farm dog” lost.  And our “Boss” didn’t think that was so funny.

I yelled at the kid again, “Come on, Man, come get your dog!”.  The older brother gestured to his younger sibling, and the kid meandered over to the road, jumping in front of the truck to chase his dog into the field.  He then hollered at us “Get Going!”.  The vaunted “LPR Team” now taking orders from a ten year-old.  

I pulled ahead, slowly.  I was trying to avoid flattening old farm dogs and young children.  Then Don said, “You better get going”.  He, ‘Ol Farm Dog, was racing across the field, a desperate move to keep ahead of us.  He didn’t want to lose his “catch”. 

Back Way Home

I punched it, and once we passed forty, the farm dog was left behind.  We spent the rest of the day trying to “spy out” the Husky, without success.  

Hours later, the quickest way back home was to take the county road to the highway, to the interstate in Indiana back to Ohio.  But I refused to go that way.  No more Mr. This Is My Road!!  I charted a course along the county roads, meandering our way across Ohio farmlands and through small towns until finally we got to the interstate.  More miles, more time, but anything was better than getting caught by an old farm dog again. 

Postscript 1:  The Husky is still at the farm.  The farmer’s wife has one of our trail cams in the dairy barn, and we know she’s there.  A team is headed back out soon.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Postscript 2:  Finding and returning lost dogs isn’t cheap.  LPR is a volunteer organization (and a 501-C3 charity). We’ve found thousands of lost dogs.  Most went back to their owners, but some are strays that end up in our rescue. If you’d like to help financially – we welcome donations.  That’s how we keep going. Here’s how to support LPR:

The Sunday Story Series

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2024

2025

The Beat Down

High School Coach

My high school coaching career began and ended with a “beat down”.  What is a “beat down”?   I was a young coach; twenty-five, perhaps too young to be a high school coach in charge of seventy-five young men, some only five years younger than me.  But I didn’t know that.  I just tried to do my job, coach my kids to success, and keep a lid on the craziness that is definitional for adolescent boys. 

 And I think I did a pretty good job.   But then, it was time for my “job evaluation”.  And when I walked into the Athletic Director’s office, it wasn’t just a “man to man” discussion.  There was the AD, and there was the Assistant Principal, and then there was the Principal, all on one side of the AD’s desk, fifty plus years of educational experience. And  there was twenty-five year old me on the other.

For the next two hours, even my successes were cited as failures.   For two hours, whatever I happened to say was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of my three bosses, all talking at once, all disputing my efforts. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I thought I should just get up and leave.  But then it dawned on me – if they were going to fire me, they’d just done that at the beginning.  They just wanted to have their say, their “pound of flesh”, to draw new lines of authority.   They really didn’t want me to change much, they just wanted to be able to say to someone, I don’t know who, that they “Put Marty in his place”.  When it all ended, they handed me a paper evaluation they rated my performance as “good”.  It was crazy.

Woman to Man

Once  I got over the emotion, punched a wall or two, and stopped packing my bags, I realized that I was still the Head Boys Track Coach at Watkins Memorial High School.   My “bosses” could report to whoever they needed to that I was “suitably chastised”.  And life, teaching, my coaching career all could go on, pretty much like it was before.  

That was in 1982.   Thirty-five years later, I retired as the Boys Track Coach at Watkins Memorial.  And a few months after, I was already an “ex-coach”.  Then the Athletic Director and I had a disagreement about some T-Shirts we were selling at the home Cross Country meet.  In the middle of that issue, we had a meeting.  I knew as soon as I came in her office, that this meeting wasn’t to solve anything – it was to be another “beat down”.  The AD, who had no problem criticizing the track program “woman to man” for the past year, now had “backup”.  

This time it was the AD and the Assistant Principal.  And this time, the AD said almost nothing.   It was the Assistant who decided she was “the voice” of the Administration.  And just like that day in June of 1982, there wasn’t any discussion.  There was just a “beat down”.  No one wanted to hear what I had to say.  They just wanted “their view” on the record.  They wanted to tell someone, some boss above them, that “Marty was suitably chastised”.  It didn’t last nearly as long as back in ’82.  There was really nothing on the table.  I was already packed, already gone.  I finished my commitments to Watkins Cross Country, and I was done.

A World-Class Beatdown

I still love Watkins Track and Cross Country, and that AD is long gone.  So I go back, now the old, gray-haired guy, that used to coach here.  It’s changed a lot.  I officiate, and help out the coaches when I can, and realize that “my day” at Watkins is over.

I hadn’t thought about all that for years.   That was, until I heard President Trump and Vice President Vance perform a “beat down” on national TV.  Their target was the President of a sovereign nation, who, until literally weeks ago, was America’s ally.  Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the President of Ukraine, a nation that has done nothing but honor itself in a three year war against the massive Russian Army.  Ukrainians have endured unthinkable assaults, from Russian missiles and drones, from Russian tanks and troops, and on Ukrainian civilians and even children.  Russia captured parts of Ukraine, then “exported” the children to Russia, renaming and reprogramming them to be “good Russian citizens”.

The United States and NATO have been stalwart allies of Ukraine.   We have enforced draconian sanctions on the Russian economy, and spent billions of dollars on Ukrainian defenses.  It has been Ukrainian blood heroically spilled to stop the Russian invasions, but it has been US and NATO weaponry that helped Ukraine hold against the Russian juggernaut.

Who’s in Charge

I guess that’s not what Donald Trump wants.   And so he and Ohio’s “finest”, Vice President JD Vance performed a “beat down” on Zelenskyy today, live on US television.  Trump shouted down Zelenskyy’s objections, and Vance had the unmitigated gall of claiming that President Zelenskyy was disrespecting the US President by not saying “thank you” enough.  As if rivers of Ukrainian blood aren’t enough of a sacrifice.  

In the end, hopefully, a deal will be reached;  access to Ukrainian mineral wealth traded for support, and the US remains a Ukrainian ally.  But you have to wonder:  who did Trump need to show that “Zelenskyy was put in his place”.  Who did Vance need to show that Zelenskyy was “suitably chastised”.  To what “higher boss” must Vance and Trump report to?  It’s not the American people – so what was the point of a world class “beat down” on world TV?

Who’s really in charge — another Vladimir?

Show Me the Money

The Debt

Let’s get one thing straight up front.  The Government of the United States of America owes $36 Trillion.  That’s a lot of money, and the “blame” for that debt is shared all around.  Republicans and Democrats, Presidents and Congresses, Conservatives, Neo-Conservatives, Moderates and Progressives; all have contributed to the “debt”.  

How big is it?  If every person in the United States “donated” $100,000; it would shrink the debt to $3.5 Trillion.  That’s what it was back in 1990.  And since the vast majority of Americans don’t have a “spare” $100,000 to donate (or pay in tax), that’s not likely to happen.

No Limits

And what does the “debt” do?  Well first, just like that credit card debt we carry month-to-month, owing a debt requires paying interest on it.  The US Government pays about $1 Trillion to “service” the debt annually.  To put that in some perspective, the Government spent a little less than $7 Trillion in the 2024 total budget, so about 14% of that budget goes to the debt.  And while we’re talking about credit cards, there is one big difference between the US Debt and our personal credit debt.  All of our cards have some limit, some top number that “max’s out” the card.  So there is a real limit (a really big limit) to how far in debt we can personally go.   

But there is no hard limit to the Government debt.  As long as we/they can borrow the money, the can increase the debt.  Last year the United States had a $6.75 Trillion budget, and an income of $4.92 Trillion.  So last year, the National Debt “only” increased by $1.77 Trillion.

And one last factoid:  the only way for the government to “not” increase the debt is to spend less than it brings in.  When politicians today say “we need to cut Federal spending by $2 Trillion”, what they are trying to do is balance the budget.  The last time that happened was in the 2001 budget (though the reality of 2001 was that spending exceeded income – remember 9-11?).  

Priorities

And that’s the point.  Our government makes choices to spend more and create more debt.  Those choices are the priorities of those differing governments.  Donald Trump’s first term as President increased the national debt by around $8 Trillion (that’s the dubious “record”).  A little less than half of that was for Covid relief, to stabilize the American economy.  The majority of the other half was because of Trump’s sponsored tax cut, mostly for the highest tax payers (the rich).  That was his priority.

On the other hand, Joe Biden, increased the debt of $4.3 Trillion.  $2.2 Trillion of that was for Covid relief.  The rest help finance the Infrastructure Act, the Chips Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.  Those were his priorities.

The Budget

So what’s happening with the budget argument in Congress today?  Republicans want to slash the budget, cutting $2 Trillion (the magic number) to balance.  Except for one little issue.  They also want to continue Trump’s tax cut for the highest tax payers (the rich).  So the $2 Trillion cut, will be closely matched by a $2 Trillion loss in government income.  If that happens, then, while the budget will be smaller, it will still contribute to the debt.  They’re “giving away” the savings.  That’s their priority.

A side note:  while there is a huge argument about the relative percentage  the “rich” pay versus the “regular folks”, the reality is that 20% of my income is still a whole lot less than 05% of Warren Buffet’s .  What most Progressive tax reformers argue, is that Buffet ought to pay 20%  equal to me or more.  But he doesn’t, and in Trump World, he will pay even less.

Savings?

And what about Elon Musk and the DOGE boys?  Aren’t they finding millions, even billions of dollars of savings?  If we cut USAID, a lot of our foreign spending, that’s $60 Billion a year, less than 1%.  If we cut the Department of Education, that would “save” $238 Billion a year, 4%. (Of course, a lot of that spending would have to be replaced by state and local money.  So a Federal cut will likely be made up in increased local taxes). If we fired Musk’s SpaceX, that would save another $6 Billion a year.

Add all of that up, and even if the DOGE boys find some real cuts – they are focused more on “re-prioritizing” government rather than saving money.  They are going after the “woke” programs; like USAID (hopefully not because it has letters “AIDS” in it) and Education (because of Title IX and the transgendered).  It’s supposed to be about money, but it’s more about “getting the Libs”.   

Real Money

The real money is in “entitlements”, promises the US Government made to citizens over the years.  The big three are Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Medicare costs about $1 Trillion a year.  And yes, Medicare was supposed to be paid by individuals in payments throughout their work careers.  But inflation, and “alternative uses” by Congress, means that fund isn’t near enough to cover the cost.  The same is true about Social Security ($1.5 Trillion).   Medicaid is a little less, about $560 Billion to the US Government. 

And what about the Defense Department?  Well that’s around $1.3 Trillion a year.  So there’s that, ripe for cuts, though Defense is a major “priority” to the Trump Administration.

It’s not an easy conversation.  It’s about balancing priorities.  But one thing needs to be clear.  The President and the Congress right now, are not cutting the debt.  They are simply shifting priorities away from most American citizens, and to the rich.  

Surprised?

Zero – Sum

Building Alliances

The United States is threatening tariffs on allies like Canada and Mexico (higher than those threatened to our real economic rival, China).  The President demands that the Panama Canal be “returned”.   The Trump Administration seriously proposes that the Gaza Strip be evacuated of ALL Palestinians, bulldozed, rebuilt as the “Gaza Riviera”, and patrolled by the US military.   He’s proposes a “friendly”, or not so “friendly”, takeover of Greenland.

 And he’s made it clear that Ukraine better take whatever “deal” the US negotiates with Russia, or face a total loss of military support.  And, by the way, Ukraine needs to give half of its mineral resources to the US (of course America would pay, maybe?)

There are lots of ways to view world politics.  The United States, since World War II, has tried to build alliances with our friends to offset those of our enemies.  During the Cold War (1948-1992) the US built NATO, an alliance of European nations, CENTO, an alliance of middle Asian nations, SEATO, an alliance of South and East Asian nations, and ANZUS, Australia, New Zealand the US.  Those treaty organizations gave leverage against the Soviet Union and “their” alliance, the Warsaw Pact, and China and the other Communist Asian nations, Vietnam and North Korea.

Cooperation

Building alliances was a “cooperative” effort.  The US asked for assistance, military base locations, support of the other national armed forces, votes in the United Nations, and the literal “weight of the world” against their rivals.  In return, the US offered incentives.  Some were military, as simple as Article 5 of the NATO declaration:  “…an attack on one member Nation is an attack on us all”.  Article 5 has been invoked once, when non-governmental terrorists struck the United States on 9-11.  When the US went to war in Afghanistan, a wide variety of our allies joined us.  

Alliances also offered protection:  the US would use its mighty forces, particularly the Air Force and the Navy, to spread a range of defenses over our “friends”.  When the Soviets pushed the “envelope” over the Arctic, or the Sea of Japan, or in Europe; it was US forces that countered their moves.  And ultimately, it was the US nuclear deterrent that protected the world against the Soviet (and to a lesser extent, Chinese) nuclear threat:  Mutual Assured Destruction.

Our  friends also got favored economic status.  We used our manufacturing might, and also our agricultural abundance, to help our “friends” develop and flourish.  Sure, we might have made a few more “bucks” in other ways, but favors on the economic side led to responses on the military side.  It was a way of sharing prosperity, and building security.  It was a “win-win” proposition.

Biggest Kid on the Block

But the “ideology” underlying the current Administration’s policies has a wholly different basis.  Instead of a “win-win” concept, it is based on the “zero-sum game” theory.  They believe there is a limited amount of success, resources, and financial wealth in the world.  When one Nation “wins” another must lose.  And, since the United States is the biggest military and economic power in the world, one nation versus another, the US should ALWAYS “win”.  

“Zero-Sum” theory directly contradicts the “win-win” theory of coalition building, because coalitions make all the nations “winners”.  In the “zero-sum” theory: ” To the biggest, baddest, strongest; goes the spoils”.   So the United States shouldn’t be “good-old Uncle Sam”, trying to make the world a better place.  Instead, we should “biggest kid on the block”, who takes what it wants.

What About?

Why talk about taking over Greenland?  Regardless of what the Administration says about Greenland’s geographic importance as a “military base”, the reality is that as climate change causes the Greenland glacier to melt, it’s revealing mineral resources.  It’s not about a place to put a base, but a place to put a mine.

What about rebuilding Gaza?  It’s surely not about the Palestinians, who would be shoved off somewhere, anywhere else.  Certainly Jordan, Syria, and Egypt don’t want them.  All three nations have bad memories of times when Palestinians were there before.  It’s about securing Israel’s border, and making personal money at the expense of the US government.  Can’t you see  “TRUMP MED HOTEL” on the Gazan coast, towering over the sand beach and rolling waves?

And why is Trump insulting the leader of Canada, calling him “Governor Trudeau”?  What does Trump really want?  In many ways the Canadian economy is an extension of the US economy.  Ford, Chrysler, GM, Toyota, and Honda all build cars in Canada for sale in the United States.  Trump is looking for a new source of revenue to dramatically increase the US government account (why? – that’s a different essay I’m working on).  Tariffs on Canada (and Mexico) could create some of that revenue.  And who would pay for it?  Since tariffs are ultimately passed onto the consumer, it would be the American buyers who would pay the new “hidden” tax.  

Ukraine

And what’s really going on in Ukraine?  It’s personal.  Remember that Trump’s first impeachment was all about the corrupt bargain he was trying to make with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to stop Joe Biden’s candidacy for US President.  Zelenskyy didn’t go along with the deal offered in the “perfect phone call” – payback’s a bitch when it comes to Trump.

Second, Trump wants to trade with Russia, another “zero-sum” where Russia will supply the money now trapped in Russian oligarchs blocked accounts, for investment in the US (and maybe pay off Trump’s personal loans?).  The only way to do that is to clear the sanctions over Ukraine.  End the war, free the cash.  And, by the way, Ukraine has little to “play” in this deal, only their freedom as a democratic nation, something that Trump cares little about.  But there are minerals in Ukraine (just like Greenland) that the US could use – so forcing them into a deal has all sorts of “benefits” in Trump world thinking.

The zero-sum world is one on one, bi-lateral.  That’s because one on one the US should always “win”.  The win-win world shares the wealth, the zero-sum world allows one nation to accumulate wealth.  In the end Trump isn’t crazy, talking about Greenland and Panama.  He’s simply taking his own personal Manhattan real-estate view of economics, and applying it to the world.

The question should be:  is this the kind of world we want?  Is democracy and national sovereignty in Ukraine more important that America’s wallet?  And more importantly, is democracy and national sovereignty in the United States more important than America’s wallet?  

That may be the ultimate choice Americans will make.

Lost and Found

Sometimes the weight of life in our “interesting times” seems too much to bear.   So today, it’s time (really, past time) for another “Sunday Story” on Our America.  Today’s topic:  a look at a story of what gets lost, and what gets found.

Origin Story

Part of my “origin story” is my parents’ religious beliefs.   Mom was British, but of Irish ancestry.  So no surprise, she was Roman Catholic.  Dad’s ancestry was Jewish, and so was he.  His grandfather migrated to Cincinnati from Alsace (a province between Germany and France) after the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870’s.  Mom was an “operative” in the British Special Operations Executive during World War II, a “spy” if you will.  Dad was a Warrant Officer in the US Army based in England, assigned to the finance section.  They met on a blind date in London and quickly fell in love.

A Jewish man and a Catholic woman getting married was frowned upon by both religions.   But it was when Mom refused to promise that any children would be raised Catholic, that the local priest actually ex-communicated her from the church.  She was denied the religious sacraments that she grew up with.  But, while Mom could no longer practice Catholicism, the traditions of the Church were still strong within her.  (The story goes, that when the Priest arrived at my grandparents’ house to inform Mom of the ex-communication, my Grandfather hastened his exit by punching him in the nose). 

Episcopalian

We kids were brought up in the Episcopal Church.  The apocryphal story is that it was as close as Mom could get to Catholic without “crossing the line”. As a rule, Episcopalians aren’t worried about the hierarchy of the Saints.  But we Dahlman kids definitely knew two Saints, for sure. 

 The first was St. Anthony, the patron Saint of lost “things”.  Whenever something was lost, Mom was sure to pray to St. Anthony to help return it to the owner.  And the second was Saint Jude.  He was the patron of “impossible causes”.  So if Anthony didn’t come through, perhaps Jude would do “the impossible”. (That mission is why the hospital in Memphis for desperately ill children is named for St. Jude). 

Glasses

In third grade, we discovered that my vision was really, really, bad.   The school lined us kids up in the lunch serving line (really), and had us look down to the other end at an eye-chart on the exit door wall. I discovered that everyone else could read several lines down the page.  Me, it was the big “E”, and maybe a shot at the second line of “F,P”.  The third line “T,O,Z” was really just a guess, and after that, it was a total blur until they let me walk up by the cash registers.  No wonder everyone else knew what was on the “old school” blackboard in the front of the class.

So I soon had glasses with thick, almost “bulletproof” lenses.   Back then, glasses were actual glass, and weighed a lot.  So as a kid I often made the choice to see less, and not have the weight on my face.

Just a note – 20/20 is “perfect vision”.   I was 20/120 in the left eye, and 20/150 in the right eye, all not good.  My right eye was worse, perhaps because I got a stick in my eye, looking up at a waterfall in the Hocking Hills when I was three. It hurt, and we ended up in what I now know was a shaky hospital in Logan, Ohio.  But I did get to play “pirate” full time with a patch on my eye for six weeks!! 

Oh Canada!!

Our family went on a summer vacation every August.   In those years, we joined several other Cincinnati families in a “retreat” to Hilton Beach, a Canadian village on St. Joseph’s Island between the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the mainland Canadian coast. (And, as the joke went, the location of the only “Hilton Hotel” not in the Hilton chain).  Our mornings always started with a bath in the lake, water from Lake Superior about to reach Lake Huron.  It was always, always, dramatically cold.  But Dad made sure we were all in attendance, with our Cincinnati-made Ivory Soap in hand: it floats!  

Our quick immersion “bath” was soon followed by a warmup  in the “walk-in” fireplace, and a hearty breakfast of eggs, Canadian bacon, and thick white bread.   Then it was onto a day of boating, skiing, hiking; and even some quiet reading time.  I can still remember the musty-fireplace smell of the old couch, as I curled up with some “Landmark Book” about an historic figure.

We often piled in the car to tour around the area; with trips to Lornie’s Restaurant in the village, or to call home from the only pay-phone in town, or to venture across the island to old Fort St Joe.    And some years, we went on the ferry back to the Canadian mainland and to the “big town” of Bruce Mines, for their summer festival.  The “Black Watch” Scottish Highland bagpipers were there, and there were rides for us kids, and other stuff for the adults to look at.

Lost

Since I was eight years-old, I was very much “into” the rides.   My first action was to put my glasses “safely” in my pocket.  It wouldn’t do for them to fly off in the middle of some hairpin turn!!

Finally it was dark, and time to head back to Hilton Beach.  As we reached the car, I put my hand in my pocket to retrieve my glasses.  And, as you might have guessed, they were gone.  I was faced with the rest of the vacation being an actual blur, and I wasn’t happy.  But what was the possibility of finding a pair of glasses, somewhere in Bruce Mines, in the dark of night?  We headed back to the Ferry, across the St. Joseph’s Channel, to Hilton Beach.

Mom, on the other hand, was completely confident.  We’d go back in the morning, and search the high grass by the road for my glasses.  And she’d have a special discussion with St. Anthony, who surely would intercede to return my “bulletproof glasses” to my face.

Minor Miracles

The next morning, after our dip in the lake, we headed back to “the Bruce”.   We pulled up approximately to where we parked the day before, and got out to slowly comb the overgrown weeds for glasses.  As we started our quest, I heard Mom muttering:  

“ St. Anthony, who received from God the special power of restoring lost things, grant that I may find Martin’s glasses, which have been lost!”

I wasn’t the only one who thought there wasn’t much of a chance.   Dad and my sisters didn’t seem too impressed with the “power” of St. Anthony either.  But Mom was so sure; and so we searched, head’s down, trying to find a pair of glass lenses bound in the black plastic rims that were “in-style” at the time.

Fifteen minutes into the search, Mom reached down, through the weeds, and pulled my glasses out.  They were intact, ready to go right back on my face.  And she made it clear who to credit for the find:  “Thank you St. Anthony!!!”

Today, I am lapsed from pretty much all forms of religion.   Aside from weddings and funerals, it’s been decades since I’ve been inside of a Church, a Synagogue, or even a Mosque.  But there is one situation when I still mull over the idea of calling for heavenly intercession.  When I lose something, I mean, really lose something, a thing that I cannot replace and I cannot find:  I might still think (though not say aloud) about asking for some help.  I might say a silent prayer to St. Anthony.  He proved his worth!!!!  

The Sunday Story Series

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025
  • Lost and Found – 2/22/25

Ministry of Truth

Post-War Suffering

In 1949, Great Britain was still suffering from the terrible effects of World War II.  The damage done by seven years of constant bombings from the Germans was still evident.   The economic effort of waging a seven-year war of survival now required repayment.  And the loss of the “jewels of the British Commonwealth”; India, Pakistan and South Africa; were just beginning to be felt.

My Mom was British, and married an American during the War.   She came to the United States on a “Liberty Ship” in January of 1946, landing in a foot of snow in Portland, Maine.  She then met my father in New York City, and they travelled together to his home in Cincinnati, where they would truly begin their married life.  Mom’s parents came over for a long term visit in 1949, to meet their new grand-daughter.  Still, food was rationed in Great Britain.  

The family story goes that Mom, Dad and my sister drove to New York in a small car to pick them up from the ship. They then drove back across the Pennsylvania Turnpike with my grandmother straddling the “stick shift” in the front seat.  Dad bought a bushel of apples along the way, something that my grandparents hadn’t been able to eat for close to a decade.  They ate the whole bushel on the two-day journey home.

The New Abyss

Meanwhile the world was poised on the edge of a new abyss, the possibility of nuclear war so damaging that civilization might not survive.   After winning the “War to End All Wars”, World War I; then facing totalitarianism in a larger struggle two decades later in World War II; now an even greater threat arose, the Cold War.  It was in this environment in 1949 that George Orwell wrote his seminal fiction novel about totalitarianism, set in the near future.  It was titled 1984.

In the novel, three nations, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, all totalitarian dictatorships, battled each other for world domination.  Orwell’s story is set in Great Britain, part of Oceania.  To control the population, Oceania’s government had a “Ministry of Truth”.  The Ministry constantly fed the people propaganda, systematically designed to keep the population both supportive and passive.  No opposition is allowed, and those that oppose face exile, imprisonment, and becoming an “unperson”.  Their lives are literally stricken from the records. They never existed.

Oceania was constantly shifting alliances between Eurasia and Eastasia, with today’s ally becoming tomorrow’s mortal enemy.   When the alliances changed, the Ministry of Truth rewrote history so that Oceania was always aligned with the new partner, and always hated what, up until the week before, was a “life-long” friend.  

Our Friend

We young political science majors all read 1984 in the 1970’s, carefully comparing Orwell’s scenarios to the very real Soviet Union.   And as we approached the actual year, 1984, we gave a sigh of relief that his dystopian future hadn’t arrived. We sighed too soon.  

For the past three years, the United States has stood firmly beside the nation of Ukraine as it battled against Russian invasion.   We all held our breath as the seventeen mile line of Russian battle tanks, artillery and troop carriers came down the highway from the Russian border to attack Kyiv.  And we all marveled, first at the tremendous courage of the Ukrainians, and also at the gross incompetence of the Russian Generals. They were picked off and killed by homing in on their private cell phone signals.  The Russian fell back, the Ukrainians moved forward.  Millions of mines were sowed into the earth between the lines of the two forces, and a World War I style trench warfare battle dragged on over the next years.

Perhaps the most amazing thing of all was the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.   He went from a comedy star on Ukrainian television, playing the role of President, to election for the actual job.  And he “grew” into the new role as a Ukrainian, and ultimately, a world leader.  President Biden, NATO, and Europe all lined up behind the brave Ukrainian people against the Russian incursion.  

The battle grew old and ugly.  Here’s the Butcher’s Bill today:

  • Russia – 300,000 casualties (120,000 dead, 180,000 wounded)
  • Ukraine – 190,000 casualties (70,000 dead, 120,000 wounded)
  • Civilians – 41,000 casualties (13,000 dead, 38,000 wounded).

Our Foe

But here in the United States, our “Ministry of Truth” (the White House) is busy trying to rewrite history.   This week, President Trump told us that the clear Russian invasion of Ukraine, was started by Ukraine, not Russia.  And that the elected President of Ukraine, Zelenskyy, was an illegitimate leader, who stole the Presidency.  We are in negotiations with the Russians led by a kleptocratic Putin, without even including Ukraine in the conversation.  Mr. Trump has told Ukraine, you better accept what we offer, or we’ll cut you off.

Eurasia is our enemy.   Eastasia is our friend.  It has always been that way.  And if you dare to question this (and are a Republican), Elon Musk will spend millions to make you an “un-person”. 

The Pennsylvania Avenue “Ministry of Truth” is also busy telling us that the United States spent $50 million for condoms in Gaza (a lie) . That Social Security paid benefits for folks that are 150 years old (also not true).  We now believe that tens of thousands of Federal workers are simply un-necessary.  Millions of migrants are criminals. Round them up and deport them. Billionaires know what’s best for us. They can’t be corrupt because they’re so rich.  And the biggest lie of all:  “I alone can fix this”.

Un-Persons

Even a mere MAGA foot-soldier, Republican Congressman Troy Balderson of the Ohio’s 12th Congressional District, dared to grumble that Trump acted beyond his Constitutional authority.   He better be careful:  “un-personhood” is a sure penalty in MAGA-world.  Ask a list of politicians from Mark Sanford of South Carolina to Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to Rob Portman of Ohio (whoever they were).  Musk’s millions and a loyal MAGA replacement are at the ready.

It’s 2025, but we are on the cusp of Orwell’s 1984. The lies are already over-riding the truth.  Millions of Americans believe what was clearly ridiculous just six months ago.   And all of those who still know the truth are now concerned.  What will be the consequence of saying what we know is true;  exile, imprisonment, un-personhood?  It’s all possible in our new Trumpian World.

I Told You

Napoleon

Last week, Donald J Trump, 47th President of the United States, tweeted this on both his own “Truth Social” social media site, and his friend and advisor Elon Musk’s “X”: 

“He who saves his country does not violate any law”. 

To some it makes sense.  It was the premise of the old Fox TV show starring Kiefer Sutherland “24”.  He played Jack Bauer, a Federal Agent who had 24 hours to save the nation from some calamity.   Bauer’s motto was:  sometimes you have to break the law to protect America.  And he did.

But it has a whole different context when the President of the United States, the chief law enforcer of the Nation, the person entrusted with protecting American freedoms, says something like that.  And worse, it’s a direct quote from Napoleon Bonaparte.  

If you missed that part of world history, Napoleon was a general in the French Army. He stepped in to stop the chaos of the French Revolution, then proceeded to crown himself (literally) the Emperor of France and tried to conquer Europe.

Only I

Add to that yesterday’s Presidential Executive Order:

“…(this order) reestablishes the longstanding norm that only the President or the Attorney General can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is.”

Only the President can speak for the United States.  And, only the President can state an opinion as to what the law is.  Only the President:  does  Congress, or the Courts have a say?  Only the President: it echoes his campaign phrase from 2016, “Only I can fix this”.  

According to Mr. Trump; he can decide what the law is, and he can decide whether to “violate” it or not.  Only HE (and, of course, Elon) can decide.  And let’s not forget, the United States Supreme Court has already granted him criminal immunity for anything he might do as part of his “official duties”.  

Shouts

I told you.

It was shouted it from the “mountaintop” (or molehill) of my computer.  I told you in an essay called “History Lesson”, and one called “Who Do You Trust” and another called “Godwin’s Law”, and even one from way back in 2018 called “America First”.   We now face exactly what was predicted, by me and others with much bigger megaphones, including President Biden.   This President of the United States is committed to personal power. And, this President has let loose among the government his own personal “hit team”, “24” style, to go into the structure and destroy it.  

Saving money is not the real reason that Elon Musk’s “DOG-E kids” are ripping the government apart.  The real reason is to destroy any opposition to Trumpian domination.   In the avalanche of government firings (most illegal) are the carefully chosen few, culled out because they might show some dedication not to MAGA’ism, or Trump, but to the US Constitution.  Their removal is covered by the general chaos.

We are living the dream that Steve Bannon preached “long ago”.  I wrote about that in one of my first essays in 2017, “The Bully and Bannon”.  Not only is it the “deconstruction of the administrative state”, but Bannon’s getting his “alliance” of the Northern, White Nations.  Trump is back to kowtowing to Russia’s Putin, and Ukraine will be the sacrificial lamb to the “cause”.  

I told you.

Governing by Fiat

And before MAGA acolytes claim that Trump is showing “leadership” through his executive actions, let me make an historic contrast.  Franklin Roosevelt entered the White House in the middle of the Great Depression.  He knew that he had a mandate for change; that he had the public support to do almost anything to alter the economic path of the Nation.  

But he didn’t do it by himself.  He called Congress into session, and passed 15 major laws in the first 100 days, the opening salvo of New Deal legislation.  FDR led through his negotiating skill to get Congress on board with change.   And while the Supreme Court ultimately held some of those laws as unconstitutional, Roosevelt was that force for change.

But Trump, even though he has a compliant House and Senate, has failed to offer legislation.  Instead, he is “ruling by fiat”.  He pre-empted the legislative process by issuing sixty-six (as of today) Executive Orders, commands that often overrule existing Congressional legislation.  The majorities in Congress have said almost nothing about it.  The Courts have intervened on a few, but also seemed overwhelmed by the avalanche of action.  And, when the Supreme Court finally gets the chance to intervene, there’s no guarantee that they will uphold the Constitution. The majority has already demonstrated their fealty to Trump.

I told you.  

And now, WE have to decide how to stand up for the America WE believe in.  Will WE stand up for our tradition of freedom and yes, even Diversity, Equity and Inclusion?  Because WE are NOT for the America that Donald Trump wants.   And history will judge US for what we do, now. 

Jack Boots Made in the USA

Tokyo Bay

August 15, 1945:  the Empire of Japan signed the formal surrender treaty.  The Second World War ended on the deck of the battleship, USS Missouri.   It was a victorious affair for the Allies: the United States, Great Britain and the British Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Burma, India) and the Soviet Union.  Most of the US Pacific Fleet and more were in Tokyo Bay:  ten battleships, six aircraft carriers, five heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers, fifty-one destroyers, twelve submarines, and seventy-five smaller war ships.  More than a dozen other aircraft carriers remained outside the Bay, in case the Japanese had a change of heart.  

They were all there to make a point.  The choice for Japan was surrender, or overwhelming defeat and destruction.  Of course, the first two atomic bombs used in world history had already made that clear. The cities of  Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed.  And there was a second message sent on that day seventy years ago.  Most combatant nations of World War II ended the War devastated.  Germany and Japan were in ruins, with over 5 million German and 2 million Japanese soldiers killed.  But some of the winning nations were little better.  The Soviet Union suffered over 11 million soldiers killed.  The British Commonwealth almost 500,000.  And the United States lost 407,300.  

But it was clear that one nation ended the Second World War much stronger than it began.  The United States, the “arsenal of Democracy”, made that point in Tokyo Bay.  The US was the dominant military power in this world.  The atom bomb, at that time exclusive to America, just underlined the strategic reality.

Cold War

But the Soviet Union, despite their enormous losses, soon made it clear that they would contest the US for world power. They built their own “bomb”.  Within two years, the era we now call the “Cold War” began.  From 1948 until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was a time of the “balance of Mutual Assured Destruction” (MAD).   The US and the USSR knew that, no matter what provocation or premeditation, in the end an all-out war between the two meant equal world destruction and the end of civilization as we knew it.  

In spite of the madness of Stalin, the criminality of Nixon, the scale-tipping gambling of Khrushchev, and the relentless pressure of Reagan; the US and the USSR avoided the confrontation that would end the world.  And while there were wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East and Afghanistan (and dozens of smaller “proxy” battles in Africa and Asia), none ended in “super-powers” going head to head and world conflagration.   This era, after the two World Wars in the first half of the twentieth century, is called the “Pax Americana” (American Peace).  

The United States, both before and after the fall of the USSR, led the world to maintain that peace.  It wasn’t just a peace of military force. It was also a peace of benefit.  The United States spent billions of dollars in humanitarian aid as well as weaponry, to keep nations “on their side”.  In the process, America limited world diseases from smallpox to AIDS.   And millions were fed, educated, and given other health care.  Pax Americana was an American obligation to the world, as well as an American benefit.  

World Economy

In the process, the US became the greatest economic power in the world as well.  Americans built so many things, so well, that their standard of living became high enough that it was cheaper and easier to move some industries “off-shore”.  Today, less than one percent of “US shoes” are made in America.  Even the United States Shoe Corporation was bought out by Luxottica (1995), an Italian corporation.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States took a larger role in maintaining world peace.   Even when America “failed”, in Afghanistan for example, it was a failure that did little to impact their world standing.  And when Putin and the exploding Chinese military aggression raised concerns; the US made it clear that the “Pax Americana” still reigned supreme.

Make America Small Again

That was, until the past few weeks.  The new Trump Administration ran on a slogan of “Make America Great Again”.  But their foreign policy is closer to the isolationism of post-World War I America.   For reasons that are beyond understanding, the MAGA theory is that the military problems of Europe and Asia are no longer a United States concern.  They have told the NATO allies, who stood by us after the attack of 9-11 and the war in Afghanistan; that the US is no longer interested in protecting them from Russian aggression.

And Trump made it clear to our ally, Ukraine, that the Trump Administration will deal directly with Russia, behind Ukraine’s back, and make a “separate deal”.  American leaders are meeting today with Russia’s leaders, and without Ukrainian representation.    The implicit threat:  either Ukraine goes along with “whatever” the US decides, or lose all of the military and humanitarian support for their war.  Quite simply, after three years of valiant Ukrainian defense against an “overwhelming” (overwhelmed) Russian military and 80,000 Ukrainian military deaths; the US will leave them high and dry.

Sell Out

And if the European NATO allies decide to support Ukraine in spite of US decisions, then Trump made it clear that the US will not stand with them either.   Trump, single-handedly and in a few short weeks, is Hell-bent on ending Pax Americana.

That message will not be lost on China.  One of their core goals is to take control of the nation of Taiwan.   That island became the refuge for the Nationalist side of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, when the Communists took over the Nation.  Ever since, the Communist Chinese Government lusts for the island, especially as Taiwan is now an economic power, ranked 22nd in the world.   The US has made it clear that they stand with Taiwan against a Chinese incursion, until now.  After Trump sells out Ukraine, it won’t be so clear.

Jack Boots

The Trump world policy is no longer Pax Americana. It’s America “Vince” (Conquer).   Take all of the seemingly “crazy” statements Trump’s made in the past few weeks:   taking over Greenland, Canada, Panama, and the Gaza Strip.  If Americans can “make a buck”, then the US military can “make it so”. 

MAGA wants the resources of Greenland and Canada, and the “canal back” from Panama.   And Trump envisions the Gaza strip as the next “Riviera”, filled with luxury hotels and beaches.  He’s even demanded half of the mineral resources of Ukraine in return for continued aid.  It’s as if the United States, once the “protector” of the world, now has become the world’s exploiter. Trump is turning our defense into a military “bully”.  It is exactly what the US fought against in World War II, the jack booted aggression for resources of both Germany and Japan.  Now, those jack boots seem to be on American feet.

Do it Right

The Mayor

Eric Adams, Mayor of New York City, was in deep trouble.  The attorneys of the Federal Southern District of New York (SDNY) were after him for corruption.  The case seemed rock-solid:  Adams took money from foreign nations, including Turkey.  He took “gifts”, including free plane tickets.  He put his relatives in charge of contracting for the city, and they paid out to friends.  It was typical, Tammany Hall (also in New York) style city corruption.  

Adams refused to resign, declaiming his innocence.  And, even as the facts piled up against him, he held out hope to his supporters. After all,  we are in a new era of “innocence”.  The Nation just elected a convicted felon as President. (Can’t say the word “felon” at the White House anymore; that’s another Executive Order).  

It doesn’t matter that Adams is a Democrat.  The “Democratic” Biden Justice Department brought the charges in the first place.  And the SDNY was in full pursuit, ready to go to a grand jury with even more charges and issue a superseding indictment.  But there’s a “new sheriff” in town, the Trump Justice Department.  Adam’s negotiated with the highest level of the Department, all the way up to Emil Bove, Deputy Attorney General, second only to the Attorney General herself.   Bove was Trump’s defense attorney for multiple cases, including the January 6th Federal charges, the multi-million dollar New York civil suit, and the national security documents case.

Sword of Damocles

Bove and the Trump Administration, are understandably sympathetic to politicians under fire.  They could have granted Adams a pardon.  That legally would for forgive him for any criminal acts he might have committed.  And certainly Trump knows his way around the “pardon power” with 1500 pardons issued on his first day in office.  But they didn’t.

Instead, Bove reached an agreement with Adams.  He ordered the SDNY to drop the charges against Adams, with the legal proviso, “without prejudice”.  That simply means that while the charges are dropped now, they could be reinstated at any time.  Adams will have a legal sword of Damocles hanging over his head.  In return, the Mayor agreed to allow ICE to use New York jails to store the undocumented migrants, and ignore the City ordinances making New York a “sanctuary city”.  (New York City limits its cooperation with ICE, as does Chicago, Los Angeles, Columbus, Ohio, and many other US urban areas).  He used his political office to make one more private deal, this time, with the government of the United States: a quid-pro-quo arrangement.

So now, attorneys for the SDNY will have to go before a Federal District Judge and essentially tell him, “never mind”.  It doesn’t matter that the facts overwhelmingly show Adams to be a corrupt politician profiting from his office, with even more charges in the pipeline.  Emil Bove has made a “political” deal with the Mayor.  The facts of crime don’t matter.

Unbiased Justice

Multiple Assistant US Attorneys resigned; unwilling to follow the Deputy’s orders.  Bove himself will have to appear before the Judge, explaining the Government’s new position.  But ultimately, the charges will be dropped, and Adam’s will be a “made man” in MAGA world.  He not only owes the Trump Administration, but, as the Immigration Czar Tom Homan clearly pointed out, the charges can always be reinstated.  Homan said if Adams fails to deliver, he’ll be “right up his butt”.  

The United States used to have a “norm” of an independent Justice Department.  Joe Biden made it clear that his Attorney General, Merrick Garland, was independent of White House control or interference.  Garland allowed a politically motivated investigation of Biden’s son Hunter, to fester for four years.  In fact, many Democrats, including me, were incredibly frustrated by the pace of Garland’s investigation of Trump and the January 6thInsurrection. (Can I even use that term anymore, or will the DOGE kids crash my website?)  The Federal charges against Trump were too little, too late.  And, as the old adage goes:  “If you strike against a King, you must kill him”.  We all know the outcome of Garland’s belated attempts at getting justice against Trump.

Watergate

But those norms are only fifty years old, a result of the criminal actions of President Richard Nixon.  Before Nixon, the Attorney General’s job was, in large part, to protect the President’s back.  There’s a good reason that John Kennedy appointed his brother, Bobby, to the job.  And Nixon followed suit eight years later, appointing his campaign manager, John Mitchell, as his AG.  Mitchell was “hip-deep” in the Watergate scandal and coverup, and ultimately was convicted of Federal violations and served nineteen months in jail.  (But oddly, despite his criminal record, Mitchell was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.  He was a  World War II Navy veteran, and served as Attorney General.  That qualified him regardless of his conviction).

After Nixon, most Attorney Generals have kept a distance from the White House.  Bill Clinton’s AG, Janet Reno stayed “hands-off” the Whitewater investigations that led to Clinton’s impeachment.  And while there was a famous friendship between Barack Obama and his AG, Eric Holder, the Justice Department still maintained an arms-length separation from the White House.

Trump’s Demand

So when Trump’s first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from Department investigations of the Trump Administration, it was in-line with Department guidelines.  But Trump was furious.  He expected more from his AG, and ultimately pressured Sessions to resign.  He then appointed Bill Barr, who made sure to have Trump’s back. The Russiagate investigation was hamstrung, and ultimately discredited regardless of the facts.  

And in his second go-round of the Presidency, Trump placed loyalty first.  Newly minted Attorney General Pam Bondi has been a Trump backer for years, and his personal defense lawyers now play important roles in the Department.  

Now we are back to the “good old days”.  A lot of what the MAGA “philosophy” preaches is that America was at “it’s best” in the 1950’s, the heady post-World War II days.  That fake memory ignores the fact that it was a time of racial discrimination, political McCarthyism, and environmental ignorance.  But it doesn’t matter.  The Department of Justice was an arm of the White House then, the FBI fully dominated by J. Edgar Hoover.  It’s what Nixon tried to replicate in his own Administration that came crashing down in  Watergate.  And now, the direct descendants of the Watergate failure are back in power again.

This time they want to “do it right”.

Crossed the Line

Old Days

I was born in 1956, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  We lived in a residential section of the city called Clifton, just north of the University and near the Zoo.  Clifton had (and still has) a small business section, from the corner of Clifton and Ludlow.  Mom didn’t drive, so we walked a lot; to the movie theatre on Ludlow (with air conditioning) the Graeter’s Ice Cream next door, and the IGA grocery across the street.  And when I got old enough, I’d follow my sisters to Clifton School, a couple of blocks up Clifton Avenue.  It was “old” even then, with a beautiful fountain in front of the building, originally designed for the tram horses, dogs and people to get water back in 1887.  It’s still there today.

I went to kindergarten at the Clifton School “annex” in 1960.  To get to school we had to pass The Annunciation Roman Catholic Church.  Kids went to school there too. I remember wondering why they weren’t “good enough” to go to Clifton was us.  And while we moved to Michigan for my first grade year, by second grade we were back, in 1962.  

The Lord’s Prayer

All of that time, it wasn’t unusual for my teachers to tell Bible stories, or even start the day with the Lord’s Prayer.  It didn’t seem odd or different to me; they were the same prayers and stories I heard right down the street at Calvary Episcopal Church on Sundays, as I squirmed in the pew and Dad struggled, and usually failed, to stay awake. (Now that I’m older, I appreciate his struggle so much more!!).

What I didn’t know then, was that the Supreme Court was already in the process of ending teacher led “religious instruction” in schools. In 1962 and ’63, there were a series of cases where the Court found that prayer and Bible stories were in violation of the First Amendment religious freedom clause.  It was actually simple reasoning:  my second grade teacher, Mrs. Meyer, was employed by the Cincinnati Public Schools, the “government”.  And when she led us in the Lord’s Prayer, she was, in fact, the “government” teaching a specific religious belief, something that the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment prohibited.  

So by 1963 teachers no longer told Bible parables, and no longer began their classes in prayer. But, for the next couple of years, they did allow some students to leave, once a week, for an hour of religious instruction.  We’d walk past the fountain up Clifton Avenue, make the hazardous crossing over to Calvary Church, and spend an hour in the basement learning about religion.  I don’t know if kids went to other churches, or synagogues, then as well.  My friends mostly went to Calvary, or they stayed at school.  But that ended as well.  Courts ruled that the school was still “establishing” religion by allowing “school time” for specific religious instruction.

Pray in School

It stayed that way for my public education.  We moved to Kettering near Dayton, and then back to the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming.  Religious instruction by the school was banned.  But that didn’t mean we didn’t learn about religion.  

There was a lot of student-to-student instruction.  And, in a highly academic school like Wyoming there were lots of choices.  The early 1970’s was an era of Christian evangelism, and there were lunchroom discussions of who was going to Hell.  There were also Jewish kids, who seemed to know more about the Old Testament Bible than anyone else.  Then there were the “new age” kids, those that fell into the Hare Krishna’s or the Moonies or the other cult religions of the early 70’s. And there were a lot of kids (me included) who were skeptical about the whole concept of religion.  We were often the targets of all of the others evangelistic ideas.

So there was always religion in school, and prayer in school as well.  The old saying is; “As long as there are tests there will be prayer in school”.  And that’s true.  Kids could pray, kids could talk, kids could even instruct.  But the institution, the government, wasn’t allowed to have “a hand” in the game.  Schools were the government, and had to be neutral on religion.

Government Employee

When I became a public school teacher and coach, I was very aware of the boundaries of the “establishment clause”.  I taught about it to my senior government students.  My “daring” lesson plan opened with a recitation of a prayer: “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare, Hare, Krishna, Krishna”.  Students in those days at my school, Watkins Memorial in Pataskala, didn’t recognize what religion that represented. (Today there is a strong minority of West Asian students who know their own religions well).  And almost every time, some kid would finally say “You can’t do that!!”.  So the lesson would begin.

And as a coach, I often had athletes want to pray before a competition.  That was always their choice, but my coaches and I stayed out of that “huddle”.  We had a full-team huddle were I did my best to inspire and prepare them for the contest (followed by “1-2-3, KSA”), but any religious gathering was on their own.  They could pray if they wanted; we, the “government” (employed by the school) could not “establish” religion.

Taking a Side

Today, I’m saddened to see that the government is now “taking a hand”.  Our divisive politics are blended with religious extremism, so much so that, for many, their political view includes “not discriminating” against  their accepted religion.  So the majority in many areas determined that schools should be “free” to teach their religion, or at least, make at convenient for their particular religious ideas to be taught.

No, teachers aren’t starting the school day in prayer, yet.  But our community, state, and nation, are starting down the slippery slope of “establishment”.  The Supreme Court now allows a coach to kneel in the middle of the football field in prayer at the end of the game, full lights on and the band playing.  Sure, he’s practicing his own religion, but he’s teaching by example with the full regalia of “the government” on his side.  His players join him, some from sincere belief, some going along with the crowd, some in hopes of getting in the starting lineup next week.

Cool Kid Time

And here in Ohio (and other states), an Evangelical Christian group has persuaded the Governor and state legislature to require school districts to allow them to “voluntarily” take kids out of school for religious instruction, much as I did back in the mid-1960’s.  The school is giving up its time to a religion, a mere step away from endorsement, establishment, of religion.  And from a kid’s standpoint, if the school says it’s OK, doesn’t it mean that it’s OK? Is that same school district going to allow the Church of Satanism to do the same – pull up in a bright red bus, to take kids away for “instruction”?  And if they aren’t – well – what is “established” then?

Of course, the Christian group wants to make their “pullout” a “cool time” for kids. They are, after all, evangelistic, wanting to spread the “good word” of their belief to the world.  Why wouldn’t any third grader want to be one of the “cool kids” who get out of school.  And that’s all well and good, except, they are doing it on public school time, and with the actual “blessing” of the school district, the government.

Sacred Trust

What’s the problem?  What about all of those Jewish and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Agnostics and Atheists in the public schools here in Pataskala.  The district has “blessed” one group, giving them the sacred trust of custody of children during the school day.  What does that say to the other kids of other religions?   Not only has the local government “taken a side”, but the State legislature and even the new Lieutenant Governor have “put a thumb” on the scale of government and religion.  

It’s the job, more importantly, it’s the duty, of the schools to protect the First Amendment right of ALL of the children (and parents and taxpayers like me) in a community.  It is the sacred trust of the schools to teach religious freedom, not a religious belief.  Where does our fall down the slippery slope end?  It must be with a “special class” of kids who are “right”, and a second class set of kids who aren’t.  

That’s not what schools are about.  But it is what our schools are becoming.

MAGA

Make Americans Grotesque Again

Elections have consequences.  We are now living the result of the narrow triumph of Donald Trump and his MAGA philosophy in the 2024 election.  And that result is, what Trump describes as a war on “woke”.  Now what does “woke” mean?  It’s an attack on a laundry list of alphabet soup acronyms:  from LGBGTQ rights to DEI hiring to CRT teaching.  And it’s granular:  a Presidential executive order against the ten collegiate and (maybe as many as) a hundred high school athletes who are transgendered women.  Think of that; the President writing an order against 110 Americans out of 335 million ( that’s .00000328%).

And sometimes it’s just silly.  Defense Secretary Hegseth, with all of the issues of US Defense in the world, spent time to “re-name” Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg, and then blithely commented that it wasn’t after Confederate General Braxton Bragg, but World War II Silver Star Medal winner Roland Bragg.  Another “win” in the war on “woke”:  Pete Hegseth really “got the libs” that time.  And I won’t even get into mis-naming of Denali back to McKinley, or re-naming the Gulf of Mexico.  

Make Americans Greedy Again

We can rewrite the signs at the gate, or the labels on the map.  All that does is grate against the “libs”. And it does.  It’s the old taunt of kids in backyard football:  “winners talk, losers walk”.   But there are much sadder consequences, deadly consequences, of Trump’s war on “woke”.  Because MAGA believes that America isn’t strong enough, isn’t compassionate enough, to help other folks in need.  And one of the alphabetical targets of Make America Greedy Again, is the USAID program.

So let’s get something clear:  USAID had a budget of $63 Billion.  That’s a lot of money, but, out of a total US annual budget of $6.75 Trillion, it’s LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.  So for less than one percent of the US government spending each year, America had a tremendous impact on the world.  We saved millions of Africans from dying of AIDS, we fed starving people, starving kids, in countries all over the world suffering from droughts and wars.  We brought medical care to folks who never had it before, and shelter to those made homeless by nature and man.  

Make Americans Gross Again

USAID supported Ukraine with food assistance.  And it supported US farmers by buying grains here, and taking it there.  Right now, almost $500 million worth of food is rotting on the docks, because USAID is stopped.  And right now, folks are dead, because Trump wants to wage a war on “woke”.   He directly intervened to prevent them from getting lifesaving help.  He killed them.

MAGA has convinced many Americans that the money would be “better spent here”.  But, of course, that money isn’t coming back to “regular Americans”.  What will happen to the less than one percent saved by letting folks die?  It will go into Trump’s proposed tax cut for the top one percent of Americans, just like last time.  So when MAGA folks admire Elon Musk for the “sacrifices” he’s made to “Make America Gross Again”, realize this. He paid $277 million for Trump’s election to gain access to power, and he’ll make billions back in the resulting tax cut.  He’s all sorts of things, but he’s not stupid.

Make Americans Gutless Again

The saddest part of Trump’s war on woke, is that it is based on the premise of victimhood.  Trump wants Americans to feel that they are victims of the “woke” philosophy, victims of attempts to make America a place where “All men are created equal”.   Trump’s vastly white following feels that they have lost something, and they want it back.  He has convinced them that they “deserve” the advantage.  Why else would MAGA wage a war against the true story of America, white-washing it into some fairy tale where African-Americans and Native Americans were treated fairly?

He is calling on Americans to say that we don’t have the “guts” to live up to “created equal”.  Instead, we need to take the advantage, white over minority, American over the world, and be the “winner”, and make them the loser.  Because MAGA sees only a “zero sum” game; to win someone else must lose.  And if you’re winning, then don’t dare show strength and magnanimity to help others.  You simply rejoice in your winningness, and take advantage of their loss.

Make Americans Grovel Again

MAGA is based in fear.  And now, the “war on woke” is trying to generate fear in “the libs”.  They are rejoicing in their winningness, and literally rubbing dirt in the face of the “losers”: me, you; all of us who don’t want to be victims.  So we can decide.  We can be overwhelmed by MAGA, or we can fight back.  We can fall to the hurricane onslaught of Trump depredations, or we can stand firm for the America we believe in.  Americans who truly believe America is Reagan’s “shining city on the hill” know that if we slam the gates shut and ignore the world suffering around us, eventually that world will come for us.  Trump is slamming the gates shut in fear: fear of change, fear of difference, fear of the unknown.  

Be not afraid.  Instead, act, in one way or another, to demonstrate belief in America.  Dan Rather said it best when he used one word to close his nightly newscast.  He told Americans what they needed then, and now. 

It was this word — Courage.

Power to the People

Back to School

My Democratic friends have all said it: “Isn’t what Musk’s doing illegal?   Why don’t they just arrest him!” And they’re not altogether wrong.  So here’s the answer they’ve been waiting for:  DOGE and their actions might be illegal, or maybe not.  And there’s a second issue, that sounds like a Buddhist meditation question. If a crime is committed and nobody cares, is it really a crime?

Let’s go back to “Schoolhouse Rock” government.  The vast Madisonian Plan for American Democracy was based on balancing alternate ambitions and powers within the government.   There are the powers of the states versus the powers of the federal government.  There are the powers of the legislature, the Congress, balanced against the power of the Judiciary (Courts) and the power of the Executive (the President).  There’s the internal balance of the House and the Senate.  And, finally, there is the seldom mentioned Tenth Amendment to the Constitution:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  

It’s that old Sixty’s line:  power to the people!!!!

Madison saw the people as the ultimate check and balance on American governments.

Nuts and Bolts

More specifically, Article I of the Constitution grants all the legislative powers, the power to do things, to the US Congress.  Section 8 list a vast array where Congress is given authority to legislate. That includes number 18, the “elastic clause”.  It states that Congress shall have the power to pass laws “necessary and proper” to enforce the other powers.

If you ask a highly motivated eighth grader, they will tell you the Congress has the most power in the US Government.   The document grants most of the powers to Congress. And perhaps even more importantly, it gives Congress the ultimate power:  the “power of the purse”.  Congress not only  needs to pass a law to do something, but it has to pass a second law to fund the first law.

Dam Bill

I used to give a lecture called the “Dam Bill”. (It caught the kids attention right away, they got to say “Dam” over and over again!)    There’s a river that needs a dam; how does Congress address that concern?  Well, a member introduces a bill into Congress, the Dam Bill.  Congress investigates what needs to be done, how to do it, and how much it will cost; by holding Dam hearings in  Dam committees.  Then after all of that, the Dam Bill comes on the floor of the Congress (House/Senate) for a Dam debate.  And, if a majority agrees, the Dam Bill is sent to the President.  When he signs it, it becomes a Dam law.

But there needs to be a whole second dam debate and vote in Congress, because to build a dam, you need dam money.   So there’s a process to pass a Dam Money Bill, that also is investigated, debated, voted on and sent to the President.  In the end there’s a Dam Law, and a Dam Money Law.  That’s the whole Dam story!

Dam Builder

But once the laws are passed, who builds the dam?  It is the job, the Constitutional Article II  authority of the President to carry out the laws. So he/she has to arrange to get the dam job done.  Theoretically the President will follow the wishes of Congress; the Dam Law, and spend the Dam money they way that Congress intended.  But what if he doesn’t?  What if the President chooses not to build a dam, or wants to spend the dam money to build a Wall (somewhere) instead of the dam?

Congress addressed that issue in a law called the “Impoundment Act of 1974”. It requires the President to report “impoundments” (sounds like a dam thing, right?) of money authorized by Congress and abide by Congressional decisions.  Basically it calls on the President to spend the way Congress intended. But there’s a lot of loopholes (holes in the dam) that give the President greater authority than you’d think the Founding Fathers intended.

Ok, enough of the dam stuff.   But here’s the point:  the President can usually do only what Congress passed by law.  And if the President goes against Congressional wishes, then Congress has a couple of alternatives.

Balances

First, they can go to the third branch, the Courts, to order the President to obey the (dam) law.   The judiciary was always considered the impartial “arbiter” of the Constitution and the law.  And recently, the US Supreme Court has pushed back against Presidential actions that go beyond Congressional law.  Joe Biden was stymied on environmental regulations and student loan relief when the Court decided that Congress’s laws didn’t grant him the authority to do what he wanted to do.  

And the Courts have even gone farther, suggesting that Congress has granted the President too much authority to create “regulations”, specific rules like loan repayments and voting regulations.   The Court told Congress to pass the specific regulations themselves.

So the Madisonian “checks and balances” worked fine (I guess) against the Biden Presidency.   Not only was their “checks”, but there was a balance of political philosophy; the Congress (and Court) on one side, and the Presidency on the other.

Congress

And, of course, Congress has the ultimate authority, the ability to remove the President from office for “high crimes and misdemeanors”.   Certainly refusing to abide by the laws passed by Congress, or ignoring judgments of the US Courts would be considered a “crime” (breaking the law, literally) and fall under the “impeach and convict” power.  The problem with that:  a majority of the House has to agree to impeach (indict) the President to the Senate. Then,  a two-thirds majority of the Senate is required to convict and remove him from office. 

 As we saw in the first Trump Administration and the two impeachment trials, there’s not much that two-thirds of the US Senate agree on. Even while a majority of Senators wanted to convict Trump, it never got close to the overwhelming majority required to remove him from office.

And one last concern:  if the Courts ordered the President to do something, how could they make him do it?  There is no “judicial police” in America, no “Court Army”.  All of those enforcement mechanisms are in the executive branch, theoretically at the order and control of the President.  And with the “unitary President” theory of the MAGA-Republicans, there is no “independent Justice Department” (unlike Biden’s view of Merrick Garland).  No Trump-era FBI agent is going to the White House (or Mar-A-Lago) door and putting handcuffs on him.  

Unitary President

The Trump MAGA-theorists see the President as the direct “commander” of all members of the executive branch of government.   So if the President brings in a group to “takeover” an agency of government, say the USAID or the Consumer Protection Bureau or the Department of Education, they can “do what they want”.  This theory would say that the illegitimate DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency, not ever passed by Congress in a “damn” law), is simply an extension of the authority of the President to run his “branch”.   As Vice President JD Vance said this weekend:  “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”. 

So, ignoring the whole “Department of thing”, Trump could claim the Elon Musk and his band of whiz-kids are an extension of the “management duty” of the executive, a legitimate power.   DOGE is simply a part of the existing Office of Management and Budget, already created by law.  

Standing Up

Can Congress stand up to the President?  Sure they can, but it requires a majority of House and the Senate to do so. Clearly the Republican-MAGA party is just as subordinate to Donald Trump as the those red-hatted Trump rally attendees.  Since Republicans hold narrow majorities in both Houses, it isn’t going to happen there.

Can the Courts stand up to the President?   Sure they can, and some already are.  But there are two “provisos”.  First, if a case is brought before a District Federal Court, that decision can go all the way to the US Supreme Court.  That’s the same Court that granted the President blanket criminal immunity from any “official” act he takes as President.  So it’s an open question if the Supreme Court would stand up to Donald Trump’s firehose of questionable power grabs.  

And even if they did, would Trump follow their decision?   The current President is well-known for his admiration of President Andrew Jackson. He’s the one that executed the Indian Removal Act, and pushed the eastern tribes into Oklahoma and the West.  The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Marshall, ordered him to stop moving the Cherokee out of Georgia and Tennessee, in what we now call the “Trail of Tears”.  Jackson responded:  “Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it”, and continued the removal.

Bottom Line

If Congress won’t stand up for its own power, the Supreme Court may not either.  And even if the Supreme Court does, there’s no assurance that the Trump Administration would obey.  Which returns us to the 10th Amendment:  the ultimate power of American Democracy isn’t in the Madisonian Democracy.  It’s with the people.  

We, collectively, will make the decision what our Government looks like.   We, collectively, already allowed this MAGA-Republican philosophy to gain control.  So we, collectively, may be required to change our minds.  It’s up to us.

Power to the People.  And, as Madison might add, may they use it wisely.

Edicts, Orders, and Laws

Unbalanced Power

It’s week three of the Administration of the 47th President of the United States.  For both sides of the Great American Political Divide, the amount of “Executive” activity has been…dizzying, overwhelming, invigorating, terrifying, satisfying, and threatening.   The dust hasn’t settled.  But there does seems to be a slight delay in the juggernaut of executive action today.  The White House has agreed to limit access to the Treasury Department’s computerized spending programs.   The “boys” from DOGE, are now blocked from ravaging through that particular dataset.

It’s a moment where we can step back to look at what the authority of the “most powerful office in the world” really is.  

The Constitution of the United States carefully divided the powers of the Federal Government.   Many remember their Eighth Grade American History class, where the three branches were outlined:  legislative (Congress) wrote the laws; executive (President) enforced those laws, judicial (Federal Courts) interpreted both the laws and the Constitution itself.  My eighth grade teacher extolled the brilliance of “Madisonian Democracy”, the intricate intertwining of “checks and balances”.  No one branch could act without cooperation of the other, at least in principal.  And the Courts, thanks to John Marshall’s early assertions, became the impartial arbiter of power.

Mandate or Division

We are in a new era of American politics.   The people are divided, as Mr. Trump might say, “like never before” (well, there was that time around the Civil War).  But, by incredibly slim margins, the Government itself is of one mind.  Mr. Trump declares that his electoral comeback is an unfettered mandate for action, despite getting less than half of the Presidential votes.  The House of Representatives are Republican by three seats (out of 433).  The Senate is Republican by four seats (out of 100).  And the newly partisan Supreme Court also now has “a side”, six aligned with the Republican agenda, and three aligned with the Democratic side.

MAGA-Republican control of all three branches of Government has “greased the rails” for Mr. Trump, and he knows it.   He has the “carrot”; achieving the his MAGA goals.  And he has the “stick” of his MAGA base, willing to throw aside any Republican who might stand up against the onslaught.  Add to that, Trump also has the power; billions of dollars supplied by one of the richest men in the world, to back down any internal opposition.  

The stars are aligned to allow Trump to do almost anything.   What all of those Democrats warned about:  the authoritarian streak in the Trump ideology and the clear desire for vengeance against his enemies; is now apparent.  And the danger represented to world peace by a man who says; we’ll just take over the Gaza Strip ourselves, along with Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal, is obvious.

Who Rules

So is Trump the nightmare Presidency, the end of the Republic, the beginning of a Fascist regime that everyone, from Joe Biden on down, warned about?   He might be.  And if he is, it’s because Congress and the Supreme Court determines not to defend their own Constitutional powers.

If Congress “makes the laws”, than a President cannot create a Department of the government without a “law” passed by Congress.   So what is DOGE, the “Department of Government Efficiency”.  For sure, currently, it is NOT a Department of the US Government.  I’m not even sure it can operate as an “arm” of the Office of Management and Budget.  But the President, and his Henchman-in-Chief, Elon Musk, simply have asserted authority.  And Congress is not standing against it (at least the majority of Congress, the Democratic minorities are screaming from the rooftops!).

The Trump Administration issued hundreds of executive orders.   Some of those are “just” edicts:  what the President would like to do, but doesn’t have the authority to do so.  Dissolving the Department of Education is one of those.  Sure, that’s been a Republican bug-a-boo for decades; but what Congress “giveth”, only Congress can “taketh away”.  So Trump’s order is nothing more than an announcement of his intent.  It’s Congress’s intent that makes the difference.

Another is the “birthright citizenship” edict, changing American Constitutional law of almost a century and a half.   The President doesn’t have the power to “interpret” the Constitution, at least he didn’t have it until now.  By the current “rules”, that’s not his call.  Will see what the Courts say to that.

Immunity

By the way, there’s a method to the madness of the flurry of paper orders coming from the White House.   The Supreme Court has charted a path.  The President is “immune” from criminal liability for anything within his “official duties”.  So, whatever is on an “executive order” is official.  You can hear the Trump lawyers brains clicking away – they’ve got a prima-facie case of immunity should he (or they) are ever be held accountable, again.

Can the Executive fire hundreds, maybe thousands of Federal employees?  The answer to that is  a no as well.   There are a series of laws, (passed by Congress), establishing a civil service outside of the political realm of White House control.  Trump alone cannot violate civil service, even if he writes an order, or even if he devolves the authority to fire to a subordinate, like Elon Musk and the “DOGE” boys.  And, by the way, they can’t offer a retirement buyout unilaterally either:

Federal employees beware.

Tradition

There is an ultimate “exception” to all of this.   While Congress may decide not to defend their own powers, the “last, best resort” are the Federal Courts.  And while there are plenty of Federal Judges at the District and Appellate levels who will rule against Trump’s usurpations, when it finally reach the Supreme Court the outcome might not be so obvious.  After all, six of the Justices granted Trump unprecedented immunity from prosecution.  Who knows how far they might be willing to let him go with his “executive actions”. 

First we depended on tradition, but this President didn’t respect tradition.   Then we depended on “norms”, but this one didn’t care about rules.  Then we depended on process, but Congress failed to check extreme Presidential actions.  Finally we depended on “the people”, but the people were “fooled again”.  Can we depend on the Supreme Court to maintain Madisonian Democracy?

And if the Court does restrain the President, can we expect Donald Trump to abide by their ruling?   Or will he echo his hero, Andrew Jackson.  When Jackson determined, on his own, to move the Native American tribes across the Mississippi River and into Oklahoma, the Supreme Court said no.  Jackson famously said:  “John Marshall made his decision, let him enforce it”, and continued the “Indian Removal”, including the Trail of Tears.  He ignored the Supreme Court.  Nothing happened to Jackson.  Would Trump be held accountable?

I’m not so sure.