Category: Uncategorized

This is a Sunday Story – no politics here.  Just a story of Mom and growing up half-English.

War Bride

My mother was born on June 25^th, 1918 in London, England.  Today would be her 105^th birthday, and while she passed away in 2011 at ninety-three years, little things still remind me of her all the time.

Mom came to the United States after World War II.  She and Dad got married in England in the middle of the war, both serving their nations (Dad in the US Army, Mom in the British Special Operations Executive).  They were lucky.  They survived to celebrate victory, and faced a whole new future in Dad’s hometown; Cincinnati, Ohio.

Mom was a “war bride”. She even made the local newspaper (probably helped that my Grandfather was the Sports Editor).  There was a picture of her eating ice cream, something still unavailable in war-rationed England. But, Mom wasn’t the “typical” English bride.  She really didn’t know much about cooking, or setting up a home (but she could deliver secret messages, and probably kill someone in multiple silent ways).  She learned though.  People expected that Mom would make “English” dishes, so she got the recipes and taught herself how to do them, here in the US, in Cincinnati.  Her cooking “Bible” was the Settlement Cookbook (first published in 1905, my edition is 1976). It had the basics on cooking everything from soup to nuts.

Growing Up English

So my sisters and I grew up in Cincinnati, but we grew up in a kind-of English home.  We all failed spelling tests, over and over again.  Theater wasn’t theatre, color wasn’t colour, airplane wasn’t aeroplane, and I can’t even remember what aluminum foil was (I looked – aluminium, ‘Al-You-Min-E-um’  – foil).  

And we had certain English traditions.  While other kids came home to afternoon snacks of milk and cookies, we absolutely had “tea and biscuits”.  Our tea was tea, milk, and sugar (lots of sugar for me) and our “biscuits” were cookies. The tea was in a pot (no bags in a cup), and while Mom eventually used tea bags, they were always (always) Lipton’s Tea.   And on Sunday, our big meal was a brunch, breakfast at lunchtime really; with eggs and bacon and sausage and toast and coffee cakes; and well, you get the idea. 

Mom learned how to make traditional British dishes.  Roast beef was big in our house, as was lamb.  We had lamb chops and lamb shoulders and lamb roasts.  And lamb was served with mint sauce (not mint jelly).  In fact, it wasn’t just Mint Sauce, it was Crosse and Blackwell’s Egyptian Mint Sauce, a vinegary mix of mint leaves and “sauce”.  It was a “thing”, like strawberry preserves rather than jelly, or Shepard’s Pie (more lamb).

The Queen

Mom lived in the United States from 1945 until her death in 2011.  That’s sixty-six years.  But she never lost her English accent.  I always thought that was one of the reasons Mom went “home” every few years was to “renew the lease” on her distinctive speech.  Mom’s accent was, well, like the Queen’s.  I suspect that was developed in the private boarding schools she went to as a child.  I didn’t know my Mom’s parents much, but looking back, I know they weren’t wealthy.  They must have sacrificed a lot to put Mom and her brothers and sisters (two of each) into private schooling.  But in the early 20^th Century, that was the path to success in England, and Mom was in boarding schools from a relatively young age.  

So especially when we were young, we had a slight English accent as well.  And we all were expert mimics of Mom’s accent (at the risk of a bop on the head).  And when my nephew spent a lot time in his first few years with us in Cincinnati, he got the accent too.  I remember well two year-old Chris whining, “I don’t want to take a ‘ba-aa-th’!” in perfect British diction.

The End

I’ve been “bach-ing” it this week, as Jenn and our son head to California. It’s just me and the dogs.  And while Jenn’s away, I decided to have lamb for dinner (not her “cup of tea’).  While lamb chops are crazy expensive these days, lamb shoulder is still relatively cheap. Our local Kroger’s carries small amounts of lamb, even when it’s not Easter. 

So I dropped by to pick up lamb for dinner.  And while I could find the lamb, I couldn’t find Crosse and Blackwell’s Egyptian Mint Sauce.  I couldn’t even find a “fall back” mint jelly.  In fact, I searched the local Kroger’s for half an hour, and there was nothing that I could even consider serving lamb with.  And then, wonder of modern technology, I pulled up a recipe for mint sauce on my phone.  I bought mint leaves, finely diced them, boiled water, added sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper.  I grilled the lamb, boiled red potatoes and opened a can of peas.  

It was a typical English dinner.  My concoction was “good enough” to get my through, though not anywhere near as good as Crosse and Blackwell’s. I woke up early this morning, and searched the internet.  My thought was to lay in a supply for the next time.  And then I discovered:  Crosse and Blackwell’s stopped making Egyptian Mint Sauce.

It’s probably been more than a century since they started making “my” sauce.  I’m sure tastes have changed, both here and in the United Kingdom.  But my taste hasn’t changed; and Mom would be dismayed.  I ordered a substitute (from Amazon), another “English Mint Sauce”, but I’m not getting my hopes up.  If it’s not good enough, I’ll go back to my recipe and try to tweak it to my memories. 

Happy Birthday Mom.  You’re never far away. 

The Sunday Story Series

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21
• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22
• Fair of Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• The End of an Era – 6/25/23

Lying Eyes

I remember watching the NBC Sunday News Show, Meet the Press, the week after the Inauguration in January of 2017.  It was right after the Trump Administration took office, and one of their first “little lies” was from Press Secretary Sean Spicer (later of Dancing with the Stars fame).   The day after the inauguration,  Spicer stood in front of the press and the Nation and said that Trump’s Inaugural crowd was the biggest in American history.  It wasn’t; we saw that with our own eyes.  

We knew what the largest inauguration looked like.  It was only eight years before, the swearing in of the first Black man as President of the United States, Barack Obama.  The Mall, two miles of green space from the Capitol Building to the Lincoln Memorial, was completely filled.  Trump’s crowd hardly made it to the Washington Monument, about halfway.  But Spicer stuck by his lie regardless of the facts.  

Kelly Ann

Trump’s Campaign Manager and Senior Advisor Kelly Ann Conway was the “Queen of Spin”, able to counter any criticism with a “what-about” (we would hear a lot more of that as Trump went on).  Chuck Todd, the moderator of the show, asked why Spicer came out and lied.  Conway did her best to change the topic, to “what-about” other issues, and to attack the press.  But Todd stuck to his question, and in the end, she simply said that Spicer had “alternate facts”.

At the time it was laughable.  What we didn’t know then, was that much of the Trump Administration, and his movement, MAGAism, would accept lies, intentional falsehoods, as facts.  There were so many lies that the news media, notably the New York Times, stopped calling them “lies” because they said the word lost its impact.  And they were lies much more significant than the size of crowds.  The biggest lie of all; that the election of 2020 was corrupt, and that Trump should have won the Presidency.  That lie created the Insurrection of 2021.

Revising History

Actually, Kelly Ann Conway was prescient.  “Alternate Facts”, lies, became common for much of the Republican Party.  It is “standard” Republican rhetoric that Americans shouldn’t be taught “real” American history; just a version “cleansed” of all controversy.  And elections are corrupt.  And that the Covid pandemic precautions were unnecessary.  All are “alternate facts”.  

MAGAism now sees the Insurrectionists as martyrs to the cause. And they are still going back to erase “real history”. That was the goal of the Durham Report, to “erase” the findings of the Mueller investigation of the Trump campaign.  Yesterday demonstrated how far they would go to get that erasure done. 

It began with Durham himself, testifying in front of a “friendly” Congressional Committee chaired by one of the leaders of “revisionism”, Republican Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio.  (Jordan his personally “revised” his own history, “forgetting” the sexual abuse the wrestlers under his care received from a team doctor). Democrats on the Committee asked Durham basic questions about the Trump Campaign’s interactions with Russia during 2016.  Durham dodged the questions, appearing not to know well accepted facts (real facts, not alternate ones). 

 The lead questioner was Adam Schiff, Congressman from California, and the former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.  Schiff led the Congressional investigation of Trump and the Mueller Report.  He led the first impeachment of Donald Trump for blackmailing Ukraine.  Adam Schiff was the face of Democrats trying to hold the former President accountable for his actions and his lies.

Censure

There are three levels of Congressional punishment.  The first is a “reprimand”, a basic scolding.  The second, a Congressional “censure”, is a scolding that requires the Congressman to stand in front of the entire House while the censure motion is read.  Neither reprimand nor sanction restrict  a Congressman’s authority or impact, but they still are a big deal. The final level of punishment is expulsion, requiring a two-thirds vote of the Congress.

Historically, twelve Congressmen have been reprimanded by the House.  Only twenty-five Congressmen have been censured in the 235 year history of American Government.   Five were expelled.

Yesterday, after Durham was done, the Congressional Republicans got their revenge on Adam Schiff.  It was personal:  they publicly “censured” Schiff for “lying to Congress and the American people about the Trump Campaign”.   But Mr. Schiff’s “lies”, really weren’t lies.  They simply weren’t the “alternate facts” that the Republicans want Americans to believe.  MAGA had to “erase” Schiff, or at least discredit him, so that there “alternate facts” would become “truth”.

Just like the pictures of the 2017 inauguration, Republicans don’t want us to believe our “lying eyes”.  We lived through the election of 2016.  And we read the Mueller Report, and sat through the long hearings in both the House and the Senate about Russian involvement in the 2016 election.  We know what we saw.  No amount of “revisionism” by Durham, or erasure, or censure, will change that.   Facts remain facts, regardless of the “spin”, or the “what-about” or the alternates.  What’s happening in our politics isn’t just about ideology or power.  

It’s about truth. 

Getting Old

Our son celebrated his 32^nd birthday last week.  He’s moving – “gone to California” – and stayed with us for a few days along the way.  We sat down to watch TV for a bit, and I asked him what he’d like to see.  He said that he really doesn’t watch TV.  Sure he catches sports, but he’s selective about his other viewing.  It’s all about streaming (I guess that’s why “we” have Netflix and HBO).  He targets his entertainment, “I’m streaming this show”, and binges for hours.  Jenn and I are more “old fashioned” television viewers.  We have a streaming service, Hulu, that provides us with the local channels and “traditional” networks.  So we often watch just whatever is on at that time.  Our son goes to a show, we go to the “old fashioned” television guide to select one.

Of course, we watch a lot of “cable news” (if you’ve read many of these essays on “Our America”, it shouldn’t surprise you that MSNBC is at the top of that list).  Jenn also sources a lot of information from Twitter.  Our son gets his news from “podcasts” and, as he puts it, research on the internet.  We don’t agree on a lot of issues, but we do try to have careful discussions.  There are things that transcend the day-to-day politics, and we all work at keeping our political conversations “civil”. 

Faux News

Jenn is travelling with him to California, and I’m staying with the dogs.  Last night, I sat down with an eighty pound dog asleep in my lap to watch TV.  All of  “our regular” Tuesday shows (FBI-FBI-FBI) were re-runs, and I can only stand “America’s Got Talent” for spurts.  So I switched over to watch what Sean Hannity at Fox “News” was doing.  

He was in South Carolina, and the highlight of his show was Republican Senator Tim Scott, running for President.  This was my first look at Scott “unplugged”.  He was a dynamic speaker, ignored Hannity and interacted with the audience, almost like a TV evangelical preacher.  But the first fifteen minutes of the show was all-Hannity, and “all about” Hunter Biden. 

Hunter

Hannity went through the litany of “evidence” against the President’s son; from the infamous laptop (remember the almost blind computer repair man with the Tam-O-Shanter?) to crack addiction and tax evasion.  By the time he was done he “proved”:  Vice President Biden threatened to withhold billions of dollars from Ukraine to protect his son (not true), and got millions more as part of the “Biden Crime Family” (also not true).  And all of those so-called crimes were “protected” by the Merrick Garland Justice Department (really not true).

And Hunter himself got a “sweetheart” deal from Justice, probably avoiding jail time while pleading guilty to misdemeanor tax and gun possession offences.  Hannity compared the younger Biden to a “hit list” of Trump men:  Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Allan Weiselberg; all sentenced to jail.  Hannity’s point is that Republicans are victims; of a politicized FBI, a vengeful “Democrat” Justice Department, and of injustice from the very institutions that are supposed to guarantee American justice.

That might make some sense, except for one little issue. 

Republicans 

Let’s start with the Vice President Biden and his Ukraine connections. Sure, Biden talked about withholding money from Ukraine, insisting that they fire a prosecutor who refused to investigate corruption.  A lot of the “evidence” about Biden’s  own “corruption” came from a shaky source, connected to Russian intelligence, and delivered to the US by Rudy Giuliani.  It was all turned over to the Republican US Attorney for Western Pennsylvania at the direction of Trump’s Attorney General, Bill Barr.  After looking at it, Scott Brady determined that there wasn’t any actionable information.  Republican Attorney General – Republican US Attorney:  no charges filed.

And as far as Hunter is concerned, all of the evidence was turned over to another Trump appointed Republican US Attorney, this one for Delaware, David Weiss.  In fact, Democrats Biden and Garland left Republican Weiss in place so that he could continue the Hunter Biden investigation.  Garland treated Weiss like a Special Prosecutor, (like Jack Smith), allowing him the freedom to make his own decision on whether and what to prosecute.  So the “sweetheart” deal for Hunter Biden is a product of an investigation and indictment by a Trump and Barr appointed US Attorney, left in office by the “evil” Democrats.

Tormentors

By the way, two of the original Hannity list, Manafort and Stone; were investigated by an FBI with a Trump appointed Director (Chris Wray, still there), and all put away under a Republican Justice Department, appointed by the Trump Administration.  

So if all of these “victims” were “victimized” by the Justice Department, there’s really only one “common denominator”:  Republican appointees.  That makes it hard to blame Biden (the President) or Garland.  But those “little details” don’t matter to Hannity or Tim Scott, or Jim Jordan and his “weaponization committee”.  They need a “tormentor” to match Republican victimhood. Democrats fit the bill.

It’s too bad that doesn’t fit the facts. 

Kirkersville Bypass

Here in Pataskala, Ohio, we live in what used to be “out in the country”.  Even when I arrived in 1978 though, the country-side was “receding”.  There were already suburban-type developments, and while the school still had a chapter of the “FFA” (Future Farmers of America) it would only last a few more years.  Today, what used to be thousands of acres of farmland are “distribution centers”, Amazon “fulfillment centers”, and other industrial complexes.  In fact, when a combine harvester goes down Broad Street, folks now stop and try to figure out what it is.

One left over of this era of expansion is what our community jokingly calls “the Kirkersville bypass”. Kirkersville is a village on the eastern edge of the local school district, one of hundreds perched on the sides of the National Road – US 40.  The hotels and restaurants in Kirkersville were left high and dry when traffic moved from US 40 about two miles south to Interstate 70.  Even the Kirkersville Ice Cream shop, Kirk Cone, finally closed, though the Post Office still survives.

But, once upon a time in the early sixties, Kirkersville was an “end” of I-70.  It was easy to build interstate highways through the farm fields, but as construction approached urban areas it took a lot more effort, time, and dislocation.  So Kirkersville was the “spot” where I-70 was merged over to the older National Road.  From there it was a “local” highway:  Kirkersville, Etna, Reynoldsburg, Whitehall, Bexley, and finally the City of Columbus.  When I-70 eventually “went through” Columbus, the merge was left high and dry, a four-lane bypass connecting US 40 to little State Route 158, avoiding “downtown Kirkersville”.   Two of the lanes were closed, the rest remains the “Kirkersville Bypass”.  

Urban Renewal

It was in the late sixties and early seventies.  The programs were called “urban renewal” and “improved city access”, and they were implemented in many (mostly) urban areas in the United States.  Here in Columbus, Ohio; they built I-70 right through the southside of downtown, splitting neighborhoods with ten lanes of interstate highway (Hanford Village).  Not surprising, the neighborhoods that were paved over were poor, and mostly minority.  The beautiful “ribbons of concrete” replaced old houses, businesses, churches and schools. They destroyed communities.

It’s wasn’t just in the sixties and seventies.  Whole neighborhoods are still vanishing:  what two decades ago was Mohawk Middle School and Africentric High School is now part of the ever-expanding “Nationwide” Children’s Hospital complex here in Columbus, covering more than a mile on the south wall of downtown I-70.   

To the city leaders it was a “no-brainer”, especially after the urban unrest of the 1960’s.  Tear down the old, build the new.  Move the poorer neighborhoods farther from the city-center, and make downtown “safer”.  And even when the neighborhoods remained, many were “gentrified”.  The old homes were re-built, old warehouses made into “loft” apartments, and the cost of housing went up so much that the original occupants couldn’t afford to stay.  In Columbus it’s now the areas surrounding downtown:  German Village, Italian Village, “Old Town East” and the Children’s Hospital complex.  The city’s near west side is now under “development” as well.

A New Holiday

It all “looks” great.  We can drive on Broad Steet in Old Town and marvel at the turn of the century homes.  There are expensive new apartment complexes in Italian Village, within walking distance of downtown.  Downtown Columbus is “revitalized”, a place where people can live as well as work.  But at what cost?  Where did the folks who lived there “before” go?

Yesterday was Juneteenth, the new national holiday celebrating the end of slavery as an institution in the United States.  But we should remember that Juneteenth itself is a holiday based in deception.  While the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect January of 1863, and the Civil War ended in April of 1865, it wasn’t until June that the Black communities around Galveston, Texas find out that they were now emancipated.  It wasn’t that the governing white folks didn’t know, they just refused to acknowledge or tell their enslaved people.

A Long Way To Go

Juneteenth didn’t end discrimination.  Neither did the Thirteenth, Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, or even the 1964 Civil Rights Act almost one hundred years later.  Today we have many who say that “it’s all even now”, and that America shouldn’t worry about discrimination.  Here’s some statistics to think about.  70 out of 100,000 Black mothers die in childbirth today, compared to 27 White mothers.   Black people make up 35% of imprisoned Americans, though they are only 13% of the population.  Black household income average is $45,300; White households average $68,785.  

And when it comes to building new highways, factories, hospitals; it’s still easier to pave over a poor community than a wealthy one.   America calls that progress, but it’s also the destruction of someone’s home, community, and livelihood.  We’re still doing that today, in the 21^st Century.  There’s no such thing as “all even” now.  We have a long way to go for that.

QAnon

I heard a new phrase last night:  “Kennedy-Republican”.  At first, I thought this was some QAnon inspired reference.  The QAnon theory, that John Kennedy Junior didn’t die in a plane crash off of Long Island, and is coming back to lead (along with Donald Trump) an American Revolution, has been around for a while.  And while we don’t hear much about QAnon anymore, some of its “mythology” still permeates the far right.  So a “Kennedy-Republican”; is that John Junior returning from the grave?

But then I caught on.  There is another Kennedy, the same generation as John Jr., who is actually alive and running for President.  And he’s running for the Democratic nomination, (as any good Kennedy heir should).  Robert Kennedy Jr, Bobby Jr,  the sixty-eight year old third child of Senator Robert Kennedy (brother of the President) filed to run in the Democratic Primaries against Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination.

Bobby Jr

Robert Kennedy Jr is a long-time environmentalist.  He made a career out of environmental law, and was in the fore-front of New York State controls on pollution.  He’s against fossil fuels and nuclear energy,  pushing for use of renewable energy sources.  He believes that the fossil-fuel industry controls the Environmental Protection Agency.  He endorsed Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 run for the Presidency and John Kerry’s 2004 campaign based on their environmental views, and is an advocate of the Green New Deal plan.

But, while Joe Biden hasn’t gone as far as the Green New Deal, he is seen by many environmentalists as progressive on environmental policy.  So why would Kennedy take on an incumbent Democratic President of the United States?

Kennedy Tradition

First, there is a Kennedy tradition, established by Robert’s uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.  Ted took on Jimmy Carter in 1980, despite Carter being the incumbent President. That divisive Democratic fight was the first step leading to Carter’s defeat by Reagan in the 1980 general election, as the “liberal” wing of the Party felt abandoned by the more moderate Carter/Mondale ticket.  (The inevitable “victory” of Ronald Reagan wasn’t at all pre-ordained going into the 1980 campaign.  A fractured Democratic Party and the Iranian hostages both led to the resounding Carter defeat). 

So Robert Jr. can look to family tradition:  a Kennedy running on “principle” against the incumbent.

And he, like his father, is an anti-war Democrat.  That includes the current war in Ukraine, which Kennedy characterizes as a US war of aggression using Ukrainian bodies to fulfill American foreign policy goals.  He believes Ukraine is just a continuation of the “Neo-Con” wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan;  all started, according to him, by Americans for financial gain.

Anti-Vaxxer

But Kennedy’s real strength isn’t in the Democratic Party, it’s in the far-right of the Republican base.  Because for the past decade Kennedy made anti-vaccination and anti-big pharma his main banner headline.  Kennedy believes that big-pharma and the American wealthy used Covid-19 to their advantage, creating billions of dollars of wealth with what he termed dangerous and useless treatments.  Kennedy was against Covid restrictions and firmly against the Covid vaccine.

He wrote a book accusing Anthony Fauci as being a “technocrat” who used both the AIDS epidemic and Covid to make money for the Pharmaceutical industry.  Kennedy believes the modern vaccinations cause many of the childhood issues of today, including autism and violent allergies.    He is anti-vaxx, anti-mask, and a conspiracy theorist.   

In our modern world of disinformation, the “post-fact era” of social media, Robert Kennedy Jr fits right in.  He has great appeal in the generation that believes that the “mainstream” media is all “fake-news” and propaganda. The more the mainstream tries to fact-check Kennedy, the more popular has views become.  And, of course, despite being denied by the most of his famous family,  Robert Kennedy Jr still has the name, the smile, and the legacy to reach a great many people.

Different Myth

Maybe he isn’t really so far from the QAnon myth.  Kennedy personifies all of the mystery;  he is the “heir”, striking out against  the “hidden movers”, that social media thrives on today.  He is really just saying aloud what’s already whispered in the darker recesses of our phones and computers:  that there is some “dark conspiratorial force” changing the world to their benefit. 

Is it QAnon, or Star Wars?  Bobby Kennedy Jr might fit the role of the older Luke Skywalker, called back from exile to save the Republic.  Like Skywalker, he is scarred by time, his voice damaged by spasmodic dystonia.  But he still has the “magic” of his father, the smile, the grace, and those vague memories of another time, when Bobby Kennedy called us to greatness.

Kennedy won’t attract many Democratic votes in the primary.  But don’t be surprised if he carries his campaign on into the general election as a third party.  After all, if the Democrats strike him down, won’t he come back, “…more powerful than we can possibly imagine?”  It’s all about myths and conspiracies, podcasts and old movies.  

And Bobby Junior fits right in.

The Flag Law

While the twice impeached and indicted former President awaits trial, my Congressman here in Ohio is up to something much, much, more important.  He’s out there, backing a law to require American flags used by the Federal government to be – wait for it – MADE IN AMERICA.   And even though Troy Balderson is a right-wing Republican, on the face of it this seems like a remarkably sound idea.  Of course, it’s the symbol of our country. When the US Government  buys and flies it; the flag should be made in the USA.

So that got me to thinking:  why wouldn’t the government buy “made in USA” American flags? That means the United States; not Usa, Japan; or the thirty-seven places in the world called “America”, and not in America.   Maybe, like shoes and computer chips, flags just aren’t made in the US today.  Ask the folks who used to work for US Shoe down in Cincinnati.   Or maybe the cost is prohibitively expensive, so much so that the national debt would balloon from All-American flags.  Or…maybe there’s some nefarious “woke” plot to buy Chinese or Russian or Burundian made American flags!!!!

Strange Bedfellows

 My personal rule is this: when I find myself in agreement with Balderson, and Elise Stefanik, and worst of all, Ted Cruz; I better start questioning what’s going on.  So, I looked into the “flag” situation.  Here’s what I learned.

According to the Flag Manufacturers of America Association (FMofAA), 94% of American flags sold are MADE IN AMERICA (ours).  Moreover, the FMofAA notes that the Department of Defense buy 100% made in America flags.  The rest of the government buy flags that are at least one-half made in America. (Yeah, I don’t quite know how that works, stars from Korea, stripes from Decatur).  But, since 94% of the US flags sold in the US are made in the US, then I figure that while the government could find 50-50 flags; there more likely to buy good, old, Made in America flags, statistically speaking.

In fact, it seems that my good Congressman from Zanesville (he was a car dealer there) is pulling a fast one here. Like the time I had to pay extra for a rearview mirror on my first Jeep (it wasn’t standard equipment, neither was the back seat, and I never did get a radio).  You see, they are implying a problem: “Woke Democrat (sic) Government buys foreign American flags”.  It’s like we need a LAW, on the books, part of the United States Code, to make sure some “Democrat” Postmaster or ATF agent or GSA bureaucrat (Government Services Administration, they have 8,600 buildings, all with flags) isn’t out buying cheap, knock-off, foreign made flags.  But if they were, then the FMofAA would be raising (flag-pole joke) Hell about it, wouldn’t they?

Ain’t Broke

When you get right down to it, the USA FLAG LAW is doing what Republican politicians seem to do best:  fixing a problem that ain’t a problem. It’s like a law proposed here in Ohio to ban trans-gendered girls athletes in high school. There are only six, a whole hand and a finger, playing in Ohio high school sports anyway.  So we need to write a law banning those six?

So why is Cruz and Stefanik and Balderson all “up” about this “horrific problem”, even though the FMofAA statistics come from their own Congressional newsletter?  Because it’s easy.

They can say they support their “Law”, without ever having to explain that it fixes a problem that ain’t broke.  Just like it’s easy for Republican state legislators to “save” high school girls’ sports by telling six kids (out of 400,000 playing in Ohio) that they can’t play.   Those Republican legislators, and the Congressmen and Senators on the “USA Flag Bill” are “playing” the voters.  They’re “standing up” for America, American jobs, and American pride.  And there doing so without paying a price. 

Easy Way Out

Flags are easy.  Computer chips, almost all made in Taiwan, are harder.  President Biden got the Chips Act passed, and in this next decade computer chip plants will open all over the United States.  That will create jobs, and ensure that we control a supply of this foundation product for America’s economy.  Now that’s a real problem, with a real fix, that required a real political price.  And while Joe Biden will remind us in the next election that he got this done, it’s so much more than just a checkmark in the culture wars.  And it doesn’t hurt anyone.

Chips were hard.  Flags are easy.   But what they’re doing to those six girls should be a crime. 

Indictment

What did we expect?  Tuesday, for the first time in the history of the United States, a former President was indicted on Federal criminal charges.  While that was no moment of celebration, it should be one of some satisfaction.  Regardless of the “talking points” of Trump supporters (see Monday’s essay – The Difference), Tuesday’s actions demonstrated that for a least a brief moment, no American is above the law.  

So when I woke up this morning, I guess I thought that somehow the world would be different.  Somehow there would be a “sea change” in American attitudes.  Somehow, we took a step towards a future of less partisanship, and less divide. But I was wrong.  Nothing was different.

Old Friends

I sat with two old friends a couple nights ago, talking about track and field (I was at a track and field camp), the Cincinnati Reds, and life.  But even after the momentous legal events of that day (which we avoided) there was little change in the “crisis” of politics.  We spent a lot of time on the “woke culture wars”, coming from opposite sides, looking for some “middle ground”.  But we found little.  Our conversation was amicable, and both sides reached out to each other.  In the end, we drank our beer (Coors Light not Bud Light) and called it a night.   Safer to talk about the intricacies of track technique.

And I received a message from another old friend, reacting to the events of that day.  His thoughts seemed to have little hope, seeing the indictments as cementing the divide.  I am reminded of Patrick Henry’s speech to the House of Burgesses at the beginning of the American Revolution.  “Gentlemen cry peace, peace, but there is no peace.  The War is actually begun.  The next gale that sweeps from the North shall bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms.”  

Henry knew, as Caesar did crossing the Rubicon in open rebellion to Rome:  “Alea lecta est, The die is cast”.  History has passed a point of no return, there is no going back to other days.  My old friend was sad, with little hope for an American future without divisiveness.  There is no way back, and seemingly no way forward which avoids the hate, polarization, and rhetoric.  For him, the indictments signal a new era of hate.  He may well be right.

Whose History?

The rest of Patrick Henry’s speech charts his path forward into Revolution:

“Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

The only way forward is through it, through the future.  Like our “old coaches” conversation, there is really no middle ground.  As President Biden is fond of saying, there is simply a “binary choice”:  Trump, MAGA, culture war; or Biden, “woke” (whatever that means) and inclusion.  

It’s kind of funny.  Biden was the definition of a man of the middle, a Senator known for reaching out to the other party, a man who would eschew partisanship to get an idea into law.  And yet he becomes the leader of what really is a culture war, a war in our society (so far) without guns, but a war nonetheless.   

And it’s also funny that the language of our history, from Patrick Henry to Abraham Lincoln will be used by both sides to defend their position.  I guess the rebellious Confederates saw themselves walking in the father’s footsteps, fighting a revolution against tyranny in Jeffersonian terms (even as they protected the most tyrannical institution of all, slavery).  Washington, Jefferson, and Lee were literally their “kin”.  And so “… liberty or death” could be the “battle cry” of both sides of our looming “war”, both sides of the “binary choice”.

The Flag

There is nothing more American than both sides of a struggle trying to wrap themselves in the “flag”.  And while the Star Spangled Banner has become symbolic of Trumpism, the history of our Nation is also one of increasing rights and struggles for freedom.  Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQ rights movement, the children marching against guns all are just as big a part of the American tradition as those that want to turn the clock (and calendar) back to the oppression of the 1950’s.  

There were indictments on Tuesday.  More will come, in Georgia, in Washington, DC, and now rumored in New Jersey (I guess everything isn’t really legal in ‘Jersey’).  While I see each indictment as a step forward towards justice and against corruption, my old friend is right.  As each indictment is unsealed, it will further “seal” division in our Nation.  And no one can know what the final outcome of that schism will be.

Twenty-Five Years

For the first thirteen years of my life, I didn’t know much about my Mom.  Oh, I knew she was from England, and devoted to her family here in America,  and her family at “home”, especially her father and the Queen.  As my eldest sister Terry says, Mom made England into a “fairyland” for us.  Mom was the youngest in her family by far, “Babs” (for baby) to them and the rest of the world.  Even when some of her siblings were estranged from each other, they all welcomed Babs and her family to their homes.  To us, everyone smiled in England.

I heard some rumors from my sisters and Dad about what Mom did during World War II. But she really told me nothing about it.  That is, until I was thirteen years-old, in the back seat of a 1963 Ford station wagon with Terry driving – Mom didn’t drive.  We were in Kettering, heading south towards I-75 on the South Dixie Highway.  It was one of those events I can detail, like a car wreck (we didn’t) or a tragedy.  Mom turned to me and said, “It’s been twenty-five years since the end of the war. I’m now free to talk about ‘most’ of what I did.”

The Act

Mom was a spy for England’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the War. (There’s lots of essays about that, click here to see some.) She went into Nazi occupied territory over and over again. Mom helped organize resistance activities, delivered important messages, and sabotaged Nazi troop movements.  Dad knew about it, because he knew the Americans she worked with, and I’m sure he got a better inkling from Mom.  But generally, Mom didn’t talk about her work in World War II until 1970, twenty-five years after, when her oath of secrecy under the British Official Secrets Act finally expired.

Mom knew how to keep a secret.  And she knew what her obligations were under the law, British Law, even decades after the War was over.  She kept her secrets even from her family and friends, so much so that there was always a note of skepticism from our British cousins when we mentioned it later.  After all, they, her direct family, didn’t know. (That is, except for her oldest brother, who was engaged in similar work.  They ran into each other at a mission briefing).  My grandparents thought that Mom was going to work at the “Old-Age Pension Office” during the War, though I suppose they too had some inkling.  “Old-Age Pension” officials didn’t consistently go on weeks-long trips, completely out of contact from home.

Keep the Faith

Secrets, Government secrets, were important.  The SOE was merged into British Intelligence (MI-6) after the war.  The methods, tactics and some of the personnel that fought the War against the Nazis went onto fight the Cold War against the Soviet Union.  Things they did during the War came back to help (or haunt) in the 1950’s and 60’s.  So keeping secrets was important, not just to the past, but to the present and future operatives.  Mom understood that only too well; of the ninety-six members of her SOE unit, she was one of only five to survive the War.

So I come from a family well aware of government secrets.  And we learned the cost of those secrets, not just in terms of the government, but to individuals as well.  The SOE sometimes sent agents with mis-information into the field, set up, unknown to them, to be captured.  They would fight to retain their secrets, until the Nazi torture brutally wrung it out of them.  And those hard kept secrets, given finally to the enemy, got the Nazis to believe things that weren’t true.  It was all part of Duty to Country: sacrifice one to save hundreds.

Revelation

So when folks seem cavalier with our Government’s secrets, it makes me concerned.  I understood when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the “Pentagon Papers”, showing that our Government consistently lied in the Vietnam War.  No lives were at risk, it was “just” a history the Pentagon didn’t want Americans to know.  But when folks that I generally agree talk about Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning as “heroes”, I disagree.  How many lives were lost because of the secrets they revealed?  

And when a former President of the United States proves to be careless with our secrets while in office, and even more dismissive of them after he is out of power, I shudder.  When then-President Trump revealed shared secret Israeli information to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov about Syria, it is said that an Israeli informant died in Damascus.  How many lives are at risk with Top Secrets scattered around a dinner club in Palm Beach?

Yesterday it was revealed (by the Trump side) that a Federal Grand Jury has indicted Donald J Trump, the 45^th President of the United States, on seven criminal counts. Some are violations of the Espionage Act, America’s version of the Official Secrets Act.  As President, he accessed all of the United States’ “secrets”.  When his Presidency ended, he chose to keep some of those secrets for himself.  After years of negotiations, obfuscation, falsification and obstruction; the Justice Department was pushed to take him to Court.  

Here we are, a former President learning the “hard way” how important secrets are.  Mom would approve.

Literary Exercise

When I was thirteen, I got my first official introduction to art history.  I read two different novels written by Irving Stone, about two great artists.  One was A Lust for Life about Vincent Van Gogh, a massive (for me) 512 page novel.  And the second was The Agony and the Ecstasy, about Michelangelo and more specifically, the painting of the Sistine Chapel.  It was even longer with over 700 pages.  

Completing books of that  bulk was an adolescent achievement at the time, and opened me to the summer reading tomes of James Michener (The Covenant, The Source, Hawaii, The Drifters) and Leon Uris (Exodus, Trinity, The Haj).  “Big books” were no longer scary; and as a growing teenager, the sheer weight of the novels didn’t intimidate me anymore either.  Reading became a physical workout as well as an intellectual exercise.

All to get to this:  in the Agony and Ecstasy; as Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling in excruciating detail, Pope Julius II kept coming in to see if he was done.  “When will you make an end?” the Pontiff would cry from the floor, yelling up into the scaffolding where Michelangelo was doing his work.  “When I am finished!” was always the artist’s infuriating answer.  He spent four years laying on his back on the top scaffold, paint dripping into his eyes and face, crafting the intricate details of God touching Adam and giving him the spark of life.  (That literary moment became a pivotal scene in the Hollywood blockbuster movie, with Charlton Heston as the artist and Rex Harrison as the Pope.)

Anticipation

My news feeds are full of anticipation.  Former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows cut a deal with Special Prosecutor Jack Smith.  He testified to the Grand Jury and agreed to plead guilty to lesser crimes.  Did he talk about the Mara Lago documents, about the Insurrection; we don’t know.  What we do know is that if Smith reached Meadows, he’s only “one move” away from the former President himself.

Smith also called his Washington, DC Grand Jury back into session this week, after a several week hiatus.  My “TV” Prosecutors, all former Justice Department officials, prognosticate that the Smith “team” has prepped its final case for the Jurors, and are ready to call for indictments.  We are all holding our breath, is TODAY INDICTMENT DAY?

And we discovered a whole other Grand Jury, meeting in Miami, dealing with the document case.  That makes sense, the documents were in Southern Florida, the search of Mara Lago was in that jurisdiction, and, if there were crimes committed (lying to the FBI, hiding classified documents, obstructing justice) many of those actions were also in South Florida.  But we didn’t know about the Miami end of the probe.  Is THIS where the document indictments will come down?  Is the DC Grand Jury just dealing with the Insurrection?

Boiling

Trump lawyers met with the Department of Justice, with the Smith “team” on Monday.  We “know” they were told Trump was a target of the investigation, the last step before he becomes a defendant in a Federal Court.  Of course, the former President tweeted he wasn’t indicted. But, he is a target, but the Grand Jury arrow hasn’t been released … yet.

Meanwhile, the “pot is boiling” in Atlanta. State charges seem to be pending for Trump and others, dealing with election interference.  Is South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham included? Are the false electors who signed onto the fake Georgia petition to Congress?  Prosecutor Fani Willis warned local law enforcement to be ready for a July or August announcement, will that be the next “shoe to drop” on the twice-impeached, once defeated former President?

Smith

And finally, we actually saw video, real live images, of Jack Smith himself, walking to work.  The haggard man in the drooping suit looks like the long-worn Michelangelo, beard and all.  And where is the security for a man who might bring down the pivotal figure of our time, Donald Trump?  Just that one guy beside him with a vest?  Don’t they realize how crazy this whole thing could, will, get?

And Jack Smith’s answer to shouted media questions:  silence.  He has nothing to say to the public, to the American “Popes” waiting on the floor of our judicial chapel.  We will see his work, his own “Creation”, on his terms. We must wait for him to complete it, to finish.   Then we’ll know. It’s either a masterpiece, or it needs painting over.

Blueprint for Life

I was a Boy Scout; in fact, Scouting played a huge part in my development.  Scouting gave me a blueprint for living.  The “Law” demanded that I was:  Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent.  I strived, “On My Honor”, to “Do my Best to do my Duty to God and My Country”.  I was to “Obey the Scout Law” (the twelve above); “…Help other people at all times”, and to “Keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”

Clear cut and simple rules for living at eleven years old.  

Mentally Awake

As I grew older the “Black Letter Law” of Boy Scouts gained nuance.  Isn’t that the definition of “Mentally awake”?  My first crisis:  did my loss of faith in my organized religion mean I was no longer doing my “…duty to God”?  Could I be “reverent” without attending Sunday services?  I had to look hard at my own view of religion. I determined that my Scout foundations allowed me to “Do My Best” to serve humanity as a religious experience.  Besides, Scouting put me hiking through an Ohio pine forest in the cool fall breeze, camping on the shore of a remote Canadian lake at sunset, and sleeping under the stars at 9,000 feet in New Mexico. How could I not feel reverence.

I was a child of the Vietnam Era. I learned that my “Duty to Country”, Loyalty and Obedience did not require me to blindly follow the dictates of Government.  In fact, my “Duty” might require me to protest against those dictates, and strive to make my Government do right instead of wrong.  I could be Loyal to the United States, without being blind to our faults. 

Morally “straight” (in an era before the defined “straight and gay”) seemed clear cut.  Do what was right, both legally and morally.  But in that time, right after the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement, I found that you could be morally “straight” while still violating the law.  Scouting’s code didn’t tell me which was more important, but making our Nation morally “straight” seemed the higher calling. 

My Duty

The Scout Law and Oath might have required interpretation, but it was still a great place to begin.  In my life, I continue to try to “help other people at all times”.  “Other” didn’t just mean people that agreed with me, or those that shared my “moral compass”.  Other is just that, others.  And in helping, I try to defend their right to determine who they are, and how they live.  Defend is an important term:  the Scout Foundations empowered me with direction and purpose.  

It was “My Duty” to defend those who are not as empowered, or felt that they were left out of the American experience.  Scouting does not brook bullying of those that are different, and neither should we as a Nation.  My definition of being “physically strong” and “morally straight” required me to defend those that are less able to defend themselves.

When I think about our world in the 2020’s, I struggle. It’s now fifty-six years since I first stood in a green uniform, held up my right hand in salute and took the Scout Oath.  We are a Nation where many don’t “help other people at all times”, and are trying to force their own version of “morally straight” on our entire population. Could there be anything more immoral?   

Be a Scout

Nothing in the Scout Oath or Law says anything about gaining wealth and power. But that seems to be the “law” that many of our leaders are following.  Instead of empowering the less fortunate, bringing the benefits of our national wealth to help all (help other people at all times), some are just helping themselves.  There’s nothing in the Scout Foundations that encourage selfishness, but there’s so much selfishness in our Nation today. 

There is an old insult – “Stop being a Boy Scout”.  Stop standing up for what’s right.  Stop looking out for others, for “doing a good deed daily” (the Scout slogan).  Don’t use your physical and mental strength; your moral courage, for the good.   For some in our post-covid, post-truth era, being a “Boy Scout” is just not cool.  

Insult me all you want.  But the Foundations of Scouting still apply today, fifty-three years since a kid with black curly hair and glasses became an Eagle Scout.  In fact, Scouting is “woke”, and so am I.

Sorry it’s been a few days. I spent three days at the State Track Championships, officiated three exciting pole vault competitions, and had three days of ninety degree heat with some lightning and even hail added in. It was fun, but it’s good to be writing again.

Covid World

First, let’s get this out.  It feels way, way, way too soon to be talking about Presidential elections.  It seems like just a few months ago that President Biden won the 2020 election, in the haze of the Covid pandemic.  We strive to forget the shutdowns, the masks, and the “drive-in” rallies; somehow those memories seems to have a different time dimensional warp.  Looking back, I think some of them may be erased from my memory in a “Covid fog”, along with my sense of smell.

But here we are in 2023, “only” eighteen months before the election.  Barring disaster, Joe Biden will be the Democratic candidate for President.  But there is an open race for the Republican nomination.  For Republicans, it’s a simple question; choose the past, or choose the future.

Past or Future

We all know what the past is:  Donald Trump.  And Trump still has a firm grip on the Republican Primary voters:  53% of them support him, far more than he had in 2016 (CNN) and 20% more than any other candidate.   Like it or not, he still has a stranglehold on the base.

Most of the other candidates are trying to “parse” the Trump base:  DeSantis and Scott, Haley and Hutchinson, former Vice President Pence and business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (kind of a harder edged Andrew Yang).  As DeSantis says over and over again, they all have Trump’s MAGA ideology, without Trump’s legal baggage.  And there sure is a lot of baggage, likely to get even heavier as more indictments come down this summer.

The indictments are the “elephant in the Republican room”, just as Biden’s age stresses Democrats.  Sure the MAGA base will make the argument that the New York indictment is a “political hit job”, an issue already “adjudicated” in the Federal Courts.  But the Georgia indictment(s), and the Federal classified documents indictments soon to come, will create a heavier load.  And, should the Department of Justice actually move ahead with an Insurrection indictment, the Nation will be just as polarized as we were that day in 2021.  

Slice and Dice

It might be that “the politics” of indictment actually works in favor of Trump.  MAGA ideology is one of “victimhood”, and there’s nothing more victim-like than having multiple charges in multiple courts for multiple crimes.  His base may respond by “having his back”, and try to give him (and some of themselves) the “protection” of the Presidency. 

The political risk that all of those “Trump-like (lite)” candidates take is that they can keep MAGA, without keeping Trump.  As long as Trump remains in the field though, that seems unlikely.  Trump’s 2016 “slice and dice” strategy was to divide the field by winning a third of the votes, and leave the multiple other candidates to slice the remainder up.  It worked:  Trump didn’t receive a majority vote win until April, after the nomination was already won in the March primaries.  It’s the setup that Trump’s strategists would like to see again.

And then there is the “full” alternative to Trump.  Chris Christie, former Republican Governor of  “blue” New Jersey, is preparing to jump in.  Christie is no “moderate”, but he definitely takes a more traditional conservative business-Republican view.   Christie will need to make the argument to the Republican primary voters that winning a general election against Biden is more important than  either strict adherence to MAGA ideology; or having the confidence of the former President himself. 

No Labels

And lurking behind all of that is the “No Labels” movement.  “No Labels” is a center-right movement who are considering a third party run for President.  Think of them as old fashioned:   “Blue Dog Democrats” meet “Rockefeller Republicans”.  They portray the existing political parties as extreme, and promise a middle ground like the “good old days”.  John Kasich (R), Liz Cheney (R), Joe Manchin (D), former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman (D), and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) are all possible choices for the “No Labels” ticket.

Democrats argue that “No Labels” (unintentionally?) will create a general election version of the Trump 2016 “slice and dice” strategy.  Our National elections are tilted towards Republicans in the first place, with the structure of both the Electoral College process and the Congressional tie-breaking procedures slanted to gerrymandered Republican states.  While “No Labels” is highly unlikely to have a winning candidate, they are very likely to split the “moderate” vote, leaving a Trump candidacy with a winning path through our institutions.  Think of the impact of Ralph Nader on the 2000 election, where his minimal vote was enough to put George W Bush in office.

Doubt

For those who wonder if a re-match of 2020 is inevitable there is one small shining speck of doubt.  In the New York civil trial where EJ Carroll sued Trump for sexual impropriety, one of the jurors noted that he got almost all his “news” from a right-wing podcaster.  Despite getting a Trump-slanted view of politics and the world, the juror still joined in the unanimous five million dollar verdict against Trump.  Perhaps the MAGA “monolith” for Trump has more cracks than we know.

Or that might just be another Covid induced brain fog.  Either way, welcome to 2024. Or, here we go again.

Frustration

For weeks I’ve been frustrated.  The “Debt Ceiling” debate, waged on the Nightly News and twenty-four/seven on cable, has been all Kevin McCarthy.  McCarthy set the tone, making the President the “bad guy” who refused to negotiate.  McCarthy talked about how there couldn’t be a deal without more compromise.  The Speaker used his “bully pulpit” to be the “good guy”, trying to “save money” for the American people.  He painted Democrats as “loose spending, liberals with a ‘woke’ agenda.”

In short, Speaker McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus Republicans were winning the “messaging” war.  The White House seemed to be sitting on its hands, with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre constantly on defense.  It was frustrating, particularly on an issue where Congress created the whole debt obligation in the first place.  If they decided not to spend the money, then there wouldn’t be a debt.  But since they DID pass the laws spending the money, Congress itself created the obligation to pay it. 

Hostage 

And now, they were (are?) holding the Nation hostage to their agenda:  give us what we want, or we will throw the entire economy into disaster.  It should be an easy message for the White House to “sell”: it’s Congress’s mess to clean up. But the Administration did little to fight the battle in the media.  It was frustrating for me, to say the least.

That is, until former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki explained what the President was doing.

As the former “voice” of the White House, Psaki shared her frustration with the messaging war.  But she made a very important point:  that the “war” wasn’t really about messaging.  The “war” was to avoid a US Government debt default and the catastrophic national and world consequences that would occur.  It wasn’t that the White House didn’t care about the messaging, but was focused instead on the result.  If a deal could be reached, then in the end, President Biden could take the credit for saving the economy.  If the negotiations failed, then Biden would share in the blame.

Public v Private

The problem with all of the public posturing is that positions get “frozen”.  If you promise something publicly, then failure to achieve that promise is just that, a public failure.  It makes private negotiations difficult, because the public promises become “deal breakers”.   Those “deal breakers” break both ways too.  What McCarthy promises in public his Freedom Caucus backers demand he achieve in private.  And Biden also has a constituency to worry about: the “Progressive Caucus” in the House and Senate who already feel like they been left “holding the bag” on earlier legislative efforts.  

Progressives aren’t going to like any deal with McCarthy.  Members like Congressman Jamie Raskins of Maryland demand that instead of negotiating, President Biden invoke an obscure and untested clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They want Biden to ignore the Republicans and order the Treasury Department to continue to borrow money.  That’s the kind of Constitutional confrontation Biden avoids, like proposals to re-balance the Supreme Court by increasing the number of Justices on the bench, or ending the Senate filibuster.

Binary Choice

So the President hasn’t said what his team demanded, or, more importantly, what they were willing to give away.  That’s all going to come out, now that there’s a deal on the table.  The extremes of both parties will have to decide whether to be responsible for accepting the deal, or tanking the economy. That “binary choice” should be enough to get compromise through (though the key word there is “should”), with more moderate Democrats joining with “less Freedom Caucus-ie” Republicans. And that’s what President Biden wants.

Speaker McCarthy has his own problems.  While he may have won the short-term messaging battle, now he’s going to have to convince some of his core Republican backers to accept much less than he publicly demanded.  For a man who fought for weeks to become Speaker, only squeaking by on the fifteenth ballot by a few votes; any opposition could cost him the Speakership.  Those same Freedom Caucus members were able to push John Boehner out of the Speaker’s job in 2015, and are a thousand-fold more powerful now. 

Friday the news broke that there was “a deal”.  Congress went home for the Memorial Day weekend, and the President stayed at nearby Camp David for the holiday.  Come Tuesday, the details of the agreement will break, and both sides will begin the hard task of convincing their “friends” that the deal is worth their sacrificing cherished changes.  What happens now in the hallways and offices of the Congress will be intense.  

Both sides will declare “victory” in the end; but if a default is avoided, then Joe Biden is the real winner, of the messaging, and the war. He’s smarter than you think.

There’s been several Memorial Day essays – but this is one of my favorites.

Calling Home

It’s Memorial Day, and for the first time in a very long time, I actually felt like calling Mom and Dad.  I do think about them a lot, but it’s not often that I just feel like picking up the phone and talking to them.  Mom passed away in 2011, Dad in 2016, so it’s really not possible to make the call.  But we talked a lot throughout their lives, often by phone, and always on Sundays and holidays.  So there’s that “motor memory” of connecting.  

You didn’t call before nine.  By nine they were both up, at the table, drinking coffee.  Before nine they’d answer the phone, but they weren’t really ready for a conversation.  We could talk about almost anything; Mom and Dad were always involved in the world.  This morning’s conversation might have been about school shootings and politics.  Mom would be happy that I retired; she always worried that something would happen at my school and I might get hurt.

Memories

And we would have talked about Memorial Day.  It was always a day of remembrance for them.   Mom and Dad both served in World War II:  it was the seminal event in their lives.  Not only did the offer up their lives for their country, but they met, fell in love, and married all in the crucible of world conflict.  Memorial Day is not Veterans Day; it’s a time to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice in their service.  But Mom and Dad lost lots of friends in their War, “the War” as they would say.  Memorial Day took them back to those times.  For them, like Dickens, it was “…The best of times, it was the worst of times”.  There was nothing worse than the losses, but there was nothing more involving, energizing, and intense than their war experiences.

“Their War” ended a whole lifetime ago, seventy-eight years.  Since then there have been American wars in Korea and Vietnam, Panama, the Balkans, Kuwait, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq.  We have asked our military to defend our national interest, and they have.  And there has been political turmoil about many of those wars, turmoil that has sometimes spilled over onto those just doing their duty.  It isn’t that every war the US has fought was “righteous”, but that’s not the fault of those soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice on all those foreign fields.

So on Memorial Day, we should remember those who sacrificed in all of those wars, whether we were in favor of them or not.  

There are two memories, “stories” I would share on this Memorial Day.  

Small Town Boy

The first is about my early teaching years living in the small town of Pataskala.  As a teacher I’d hear the kids talking about the “scary old guy” who would walk the streets of the town, talking to himself.  The kids didn’t know what to do, and made up all sorts of tales about him.  

I found out the real story.  He had been a kid, just like them, in 1943 in the middle of World War II.  He graduated from high school and went into the Navy to serve his country.  And he was on board a ship when it got torpedoed in the Pacific.  We don’t know exactly what happened on that ship, but we can imagine the terror of flames and explosions.  Eventually the order was given to abandon ship, and that young man, hardly a year out of high school, went into the sea.

Hours later he was pulled from the waves, physically undamaged.  But sometime in the crisis, from the chaos on deck and into the water, he lost his mind.  It turned inside itself, and he was never the same.  High school kids sign up for the military, and they know the risks.  They might die in combat, or come home injured or even disfigured.  But they don’t think about losing themselves out there in the battle.  But that’s what happened to him.

He lived with family here in town, and every morning he’d walk the streets, talking to himself.  The local restaurants knew his story, and he had a free coffee or breakfast whenever he stopped.  He was our little town’s “memorial” to the ultimate sacrifices of war.

A New Monument

And the second is about Mom and Dad.  It was around 2007, and they had not visited the new World War II monument in Washington.  So we loaded up in my Suburban, and did the trip “overland” along US 50 to the Capital.  It would be their last time to go, and we couldn’t walk the miles we used to in DC.  But we could go to the Mall, and Mom and Dad could see the new memorial to “Their War”:  to them.

Mom was in a wheelchair to save her strength, and the three of us explored the beautiful columns and water features of the monument to the “Greatest Generation”.  But what really struck them were the engravings on the wall, depicting iconic images of the War.  You could not only see them, but feel them, touching the figures in the bronze pictures.  Mom cried, Dad was solemn, and folks came up and thanked them for their service. There were others from “the War” there as well, and Mom and Dad shared “the honor” with all those other World War II vets; and all that did not live to see the monument. 

I’m glad I could take them to see it.  I’m honored that I was able to share that experience with them.  And I wish I could talk  to them about it on the phone today.

This is a part of the “Sunday Story” series.  No politics today – just a “race for life” into the sunset of the Eastern Ohio hills.

Sunset Drive

Part of officiating high school track and field involves long drives into the sunset.  We finished a great pole vault competition at Muskingum University in Eastern Ohio about six-thirty Thursday evening, and by the time all of the paperwork and talking was done, it was past seven before I headed west for home on I-70.  

The early evening traffic on the fifty mile stretch to home was light, and speed was fast.  My old (2004) Jeep was pressed to hang with the eighty mile-an-hour crowd, and in sympathy, I spent some time in the “slow lane” for a break.  As I crested one of the rolling green hills, the setting sun hit me “full” in the windshield.   Jeep windshields are flat, ninety degrees parallel to the road.  Because of that, no bug ever “glances” off it.  Jeeps are killers of mosquitoes, destroyers of grasshoppers, demolishers of lightning bugs.  Because of that, there’s always a sheen of bug “goop” on the windshield, spreading the direct sun’s glare across most of the field of vision.

And that reminds me why not to put the windshield down. (Yes, you can lay the windshield flat on the hood of the Jeep, they even give you a nylon strap and appropriate hood-loop to hold it steady there.  It’s reminiscent of all those black and white  World War II shows we watched as kids like the “Rat Patrol“). The problem with that, is where are all the bugs to go?  Right in your teeth, or eye, or up the nose is my guess.  Better to keep the windshield, “shielding”!

Life in the Slow Lane

So I crested the hill in the right lane.  Not only did I have sunglasses, but a baseball cap pulled low to try to block the sun. But I still hit the glare, and struggled to realize that the two-door Chevy ahead of me was driving super-slow.  I looked to the mirror (it was clean!) to see a black SUV coming up on the left, so switching lanes wasn’t an immediate option.  So I slowed down, below sixty, behind the Chevy.  Then I noticed that the SUV was slowing down too.  So I switched lanes, accelerated back to seventy, and went by the Chevy, sliding back into the “slow” lane after the pass.

I glanced back into the mirror to see what was up with the SUV.  And in that glance, I got this entire story.

Both the SUV and the Chevy continued to slow.  And while I was struggling with the glare to the front, the scene in the mirror was quite clear, in fact, hyper-clear in the reflected sunlight.  In front of the black SUV, sprinting for its life, eyes as wide open as they could get, was a young, spindly deer.  And, to the SUV driver’s credit, he managed to slow enough that the deer maintained a steady lead, frantically trying NOT to become road-kill on westbound I-70 between the Norwich and State Route 93 exit.

Buck Tales 

The road ahead was clear, so I too slowed to watch the drama.  The young deer continued his sprint, and the Chevy slowed even more, giving him an opening to dodge right, back into the safety of the forest.  And that’s what he did, diving across the road and down the high berm into the wood line.  I’m sure there were tall stories told around the grass at the deer herd that night, about the crazy speeding vehicles and how really, really fast that deer could go.

Then I thought, wait a minute.  What did I miss?  Or more directly, how did I miss the young buck?  He must have been in front of the Chevy (that’s why they were slowing) when I went past on the left, then he must have then switched into the left lane to get in front of the SUV.  Essentially, I drove by the deer on my right, but didn’t see it as I focused through the haze on my windshield.  Then when I checked my right mirror to make sure I was clear of the Chevy, the deer must already have been in the left lane. We crisscrossed. He must have changed lanes right behind me.  

I guess he wasn’t the only lucky one on that stretch of rural highway on Thursday night.

The Sunday Story Series

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21
• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22
• Fair of Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23

Soft Landing

It starts like a barroom joke.  “What do Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis have in common?” The answer, “When either one laughs, no one believes them”.  But their “affect” similarities aside, the Governor of the “Free State” of Florida introduced himself as a candidate for President in 2024 last night, and he did it in an “odd” way.  There was no rally in Tallahassee,  no confrontational gathering across the lake from Mar-a-Lago and his chief competitor for the nomination.  There wasn’t even a reminiscent introduction from the DeSantis “homestead” in Dunedin, Florida.

Instead, Governor DeSantis officially began his quest to “slay” Donald Trump in a podcast, actually a “twitter-cast”, with the controversial billionaire owner of Twitter, Elon Musk.   They were excited – mostly because the Twitter feed broke down, the technical “room” on Twitter couldn’t deal with the volume of subscribers.  It turned into a good old fashioned “radio” interview, something that Herbert Hoover or Wendell Wilke would be proud of.  The “next level” of American politics ended up going back to the old days of “Fireside Chats”, though the fire seemed to flicker from time to time.

Woke is the Word

DeSantis got to give his “speech”, again doubling down on his wedge issues: crime,  virtue signaling and pandemic controls.  He pledged to take on important issues, but seems to spend a lot more time on “wokeness” then results.  In fact, “woke, woke, woke” – whatever that really means – was the central theme of his statement.  DeSantis wants Florida to be the place “…where woke comes to die”. And he would like to make the nation the same.  

From a purely political standpoint, DeSantis has a tough task.  The Republican Party membership (as opposed to the leadership) is “locked down” by the twice impeached, once indicted, defeated former President of the United States who lives on the east coast of Florida.  The Governor is trying to get to the “right” of Trump without attacking that most popular Republican.  And he wants to contrast himself as a “winner”, indirectly portraying the man of Mar-a-Lago as the ultimate loser – all without using his name.

It’s an interesting dance, trying to avoid getting swatted by Trump, while running against him.  So far, he’s avoided many Trump attacks, but hasn’t made much political headway against the MAGA leader.  Trump’s best line so far, Ron DeSanctimonious;  isn’t working.

Non-Elite Elites

It’s also interesting to hear both DeSantis and Musk rail against “elites” and big tech.  If elite is determined by education, both Musk and DeSantis are Ivy Leaguers, the very definition of American elitism.  And, of course, you can’t be more elite than being one of the top-ten wealthiest men in the world, or bigger tech than the creator of Tesla.   But that’s all straight from the MAGA playbook; “I’m not a common man, but I know what you need”.  

The Musk Twitter-cast descended into a long discussion of Covid policy, with Musk, the moderator, and DeSantis’s own “expert” all bemoaning the Federal Covid response.  It’s reminiscent of Steve Bannon’s desire to “deconstruct” the so-called “administrative state”.  The podcast went on to talk about how they could remove bureaucratic power from the Federal agencies. That’s probably not the most important point for most “regular” voters.

Then it was onto Disney. DeSantis made the corporation of Mickey Mouse the “lawless bad guy”, backed by the corrupt media.  The reality, again:  this can’t be resonating with “Joe MAGA” – it’s a political-business feud.

Twittering

Ok, after an hour of listening to Twitter, I guess I’m showing my age.  I’m not a podcast guy, other than it serves as a good way to fall asleep.  Looking back at recent “opening arguments”:  Obama on the steps of the Illinois Capital in Springfield, Biden coming “out of retirement to save the Nation”, and even Trump coming down the Golden Escalator; this Twitter-cast seems pretty lame, more like C-Span Radio.  You have to be deeply invested in the subject to even pay attention.

An hour of Musk, DeSantis and “guests” was hardly groundbreaking conversation, and seems an unlikely “launch pad” for the DeSantis campaign.  He’s officially in, hoping to be the Trump-like alternative to the man himself for the MAGA world.  But my take:  he’s ready for softball questions on “Twitter time”, but not ready for “prime time”.  I look forward to seeing him on a debate stage with Trump.  

His only hope there:  that the Network crashes as fast as Twitter did.

Voting in August

Let’s call this out:  Republican legislators in the state of Ohio didn’t like August elections.  They were expensive to hold, at $20 million statewide.  They were unrepresentative; less than ten percent of the voters showed up on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in August.  It was vacation time, and back to school time, and the “dog days of summer” time.  No one wanted to go to the polls, much less stand in an outside line in the ninety-degree heat. 

But most importantly, August elections were just too easy to manipulate.  Instead of having to reach the more than four million Ohioans who vote in the Presidential elections, or a similar number turned out for the mid-term elections (when Ohio chooses the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and several other major state offices), the August target is the narrow 638,708 voters  (August 2022) out of nearly eight million registered voters.  Only the most “activated” voters show up in August, and if an extremely expensive targeted campaign can “reach” them, a small minority can decide important issues in the state.  

Believe it or not, I agreed with the Republican legislature when they ended August ballot issues.  In the end, they were simply undemocratic (small ‘d’).  That was, until being targeted, expensive, and undemocratic (small ‘d’) became the goal of the Republican Party of Ohio.

MAGA Ohio

As I’ve mentioned in previous essays, Ohio’s “MAGA” agenda manages to fly under the radar.  While Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature made big headlines banning abortions after six weeks, that’s been on the Ohio “books” for years.  The so-called “Heartbeat Bill” (there is no physical heart at six weeks, just pulsating nerve impulses that mimic a heart-like sound on an ultra-sound) has been Ohio law for years.  It just came into effect with the Dodd Decision by the US Supreme Court.

While Florida made big headlines with their “Don’t Say Gay” law restricting teacher actions, Ohio is in the process of following up with anti-diversity, equity and inclusion legislation passing the legislature.  And while lame-duck Governor Mike DeWine began with reasonable efforts to handle the Covid pandemic, he ultimately was undercut by his party’s legislature, so badly that he abandoned his choice for Ohio’s Director of Public Health, Amy Acton, and let her “take the fall” to the MAGA anti-mask, anti-shutdown, anti-life-saving Republican majority.

So what’s the “MAGA” legislature up to now?  They are “reading the tea leaves”, foretelling the future of Ohio’s voters. And they don’t like what they see.

Ruby Red, Baby Blue

It started in Kansas, ironically in a similar August election.  The Kansas State Constitution contained an “inconvenient” clause guaranteeing a woman’s right to control their own healthcare, including abortion rights.  The ruby red Kansas legislature wanted to ban abortion, but first, they had to amend the state Constitution to remove that right.  So they put the change on a statewide ballot in August, as the hot winds blasted across the prairie. To everyone’s surprise, the statewide ballot to change LOST, 58% voting against, in a huge voter turnout (near Presidential level).  The people of Kansas resoundingly spoke out, defending a woman’s right to control their healthcare, including abortion.

Then last fall in the November election, the bluer Michigan voters passed an abortion protection addition to their Constitution by almost 56%.  So pro-choice organizations in Ohio organized to put a similar initiative on the next “available” statewide election ballot, November of 2023.  Ohio’s MAGA majority in the State Legislature (and their pro-life financial backers) were worried.  If Michigan, and even Kansas voters chose pro-choice, what would Ohio voters do?  While the west-side of Cincinnati is the “home” of the pro-life movement, the northern suburbs of Columbus is the current home to the powerful national pro-choice movement, “Red, Wine and Blue”.  They mobilize mostly Republican suburban women, and had a tremendous impact in both Kansas and Michigan outcomes.  

Move the Goal Post

The MAGA Republicans in the legislature didn’t want to risk a “straight-up” vote.  So they used their legislative super-majorities to change the rules.  While the abortion issue had to wait for the November election, they reinstituted the discarded August election date they previously outlawed.  And they did it for one purpose:  to require that statewide Constitutional changes need a SIXTY percent vote to pass.  (Even the successes in Kansas and Michigan would be voided by a sixty percent threshold).  And, of course, their change only has to pass by – wait for it – FIFTY percent.

And since August elections are so small and targeted, the MAGA Republicans hope they can win the “little one”, and eviscerate even a majority win in bigger November by the pro-choice groups.  The undemocratic (small ‘d’) legislature changed the rules, at the behest of their own ideological and financial backers.  And they are doubling down on the MAGA ideology, to make sure that only they can determine what “the will of the people” should be.

Coat and Tie Corruption

Ohio is a state of dirty politics, covered by a veneer of Republican coat and tie respectability.  We are the state of First Energy and the $60 million bribe; of a Governor removing most of the State Board of Education’s powers (because there were a majority of Democrats – big ‘D’), and now “moving the goal posts” to try to make a pro-choice amendment unattainable.  There’s only one answer to all of this dishonesty.

OHIOANS:  Wear light clothes, put on sunscreen, take water, and line-up to vote on August 8^th.  

Democracy (little ‘d’) is at stake.

In Your Pocket

This is what everyone, and I mean everyone, needs.  We need a “magic coin”, they could be of any value.  By simply having this coin in your pocket all your debts would be paid.  You could have anything you wanted, anything that money could buy, because, you have a “magic coin”.  It wouldn’t require a “sack” of coins, or even a coin purse.  A single “magic coin” in your pocket would more than solve financial problems – it would make you rich almost beyond measure – for life.

You can hear the “infomercial” now, can’t you?  I mean, this would put the “Pocket Hose” and “Prevagen” (the over-the-counter memory drug – like jellyfish!!) to shame.  Get your own “magic coin” and your life will be – different. 

You may be thinking, this whole topic is just a “setup” for some long-winded economic argument, the beginning of a lecture, like talking about “widgets” or “the two boys with stones”.  And economically speaking  some of my more practical friends might suggest the negative economic impact of people having “magic coins”.  Inflation would skyrocket, ultimately rising so much that the “magic coins” would be devalued to “regular coins”.  So here’s the trick:  everyone can’t have a “magic coin”.  Just me — or just you.  Nah, just me.

31 U.S. Code § 5112

The US Code is the complied laws of the United States of America.  While the Constitution outlines the structure of government and the rights of citizens, the US Code fills in the details of how it all works.   31 US Code § 5112 is pretty dull stuff.  It describes the size and content of coinage:  how big is a one-dollar coin (1.043 inches in diameter) what it’s made of, and where it can be minted, for example.  But buried deep in the code, way down in item “k” is the following paragraph:

(k)  The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.

It’s written right there, in the law – “The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins…with such denominations…as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe…”.

Way down in the middle of a law about what percentage of what metal goes into a quarter and such, is the formula for – wait for it – the magic coin!!

Spending Money

The United States Congress does “funny” things.  First of all, when they pass a law to do something, they also have to pass another law to pay for that something.  And both sides of the Congress, the House and the Senate, have to agree to both of those laws (and the President) for that action to happen.

Congress, like most organizations, often (not always) passes a budget.  That budget states how much they are going to spend in the next fiscal year, and it’s thousands of pages long.  So when they pass the budget, they allow for all of the “normal” activities of the government to be paid for the next year.  And some other things, (think billion dollar aircraft carriers and the like), are passed separately as well.  When it’s all said and done, Congress spends a great deal of its time determining how much money the United States is going to spend.

Paying Bills

But once the laws and the budget are passed, Congress is committed to pay for what they did.  At least, they should be.  The United States operates in a deficit, living on borrowed money to the tune of $32 Trillion.  But Congress put another impediment to spending – they limit how much the United States can go in debt.  We are now at nearing the “moment” when the debt is reaching its statutory limit.  Remember – Congress spent (and borrowed) all of this money in the first place.  Now that the “bill is due”, they are considering NOT paying it.

Defaulting on the debt would have immediate and dramatic economic impact.  After all, if you can’t trust the US Government, the US Dollar, US Savings Bonds; then what can you trust?  So if Speaker McCarthy and President Biden can’t come to some agreement, we are going to literally go off a cliff.

Desperate Measures

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  President Biden does have some “wild ideas” that might dodge a debt default without agreeing to a deal with McCarthy.  I wrote about one of those, invoking the Fourteenth Amendment (the debt of the United States cannot be questioned) a couple of weeks ago.  While the Amendment is “black letter law”, it’s possible that the Supreme Court might still overturn a Presidential action.  After all, it’s the Court of Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Barrett and Kavanaugh; anything can happen.

So there’s another move that the President, through the Secretary of the Treasury, can make.  He can order the minting of a “magic coin”.  Under 31 U.S. Code § 5112, item k, we know that the Secretary can mint a platinum coin and determine its value.  The US Mint can mint a $1 Trillion coin.  There’s already a design!!

A couple of $1 Trillion coins means that the US isn’t going over the debt limit.  They just become “money in the Treasury”, and so the Department can continue to pay the bills.  Now, we all know, that it effectively DOES raise the debt limit – but it’s within the law, good ol’ part ‘k’.  Is this inflationary – surely.  But it would do less damage to the economy than the US defaulting on the debt.  

And it’s fun to think what you could do with one in your own pocket!!