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This is an essay I wrote in the days that the reality of the Covid crisis was taking hold. It seems we’ve (and I include myself) made a hole for our memories about that time. Just thought it’s a good day for a reminder. Here’s “Crisis in a Small Town” on its sixth anniversary.

Bad News at the Door Step

If you listen to the news, this week it seems all depressingly the same.  Social distancing, washing hands, flattening curves, an exponential crisis:  everywhere you turn you’re being warned.  Here in Ohio the schools, restaurants, bars, casinos, racinos (yep, there’s a difference) fitness clubs, and even my dentist’s office are all closed.  When you run into people, out on the street or at the grocery store, they look a little guilty:  I’m not in my house; is my excuse to be out “good” enough?  

Pataskala, Ohio is dealing with the corona-virus crisis just like everyone else.  We’ve had our bad moments.  There supposedly was a fight in the local grocery store:  one man took three packages of toilet paper when he was only allowed to have two, another took the last package left, and wanted the extra.  There were words, and a shoving match, and someone else had to intervene to stop something worse.

It’s odd:  why toilet paper?  How did that become the symbolic product shortage of the corona-virus, a disease of the lungs?  Sure, they’ve run out of bacterial wipes, and paper towels, but toilet paper?  And why is everyone convinced that there will be shortages, that somehow they will be ordered into their homes with no way out?  But that’s where Pataskala’s residents are.  If you want white bread, you’re probably out of luck.  Good thing I like rye!

Back to School

I picked a great time to get back into education.  As the “long-term sub” for a middle school social studies teacher, I was just getting my legs (and voice) back when schools were closed.  Now, this “old dog” is going to have to learn a lot of new tricks.  Education isn’t going to stop:  there’s a whole new world in “Google Classroom” where students and teachers can interact and learn.  Good thing we were supposed to have spring break next week, I can buy some time to figure out how to make all this happen.  

Republican Governor Mike DeWine will probably never get my vote, but he absolutely has earned my respect.  His handling of the crisis has been forthright and honest, and he is willing to make the tough decisions that might save lives here in Ohio.  He rolled out his “plan” over several days, not wanting to “nail” Ohioans with too much at one time.  Sure schools are closed until after April 3^rd, but I would bet as we get closer, schools will remain shuttered much longer.  He’s just in no hurry to deliver one more piece of bad news.

So the staff at the school will learn how to educate from a “social” distance, via computer.  They’ve already picked up the challenge, and many have offered to help an old “chalk” teacher with the new technology.  I’ll get it, and if needs be, we can teach for the rest of the year.  I’ll miss the contact, and the discussions, but that’s the one thing we can’t have for a while.

Good Cops

By the way, since all the kids are at home, some parents are frantic.  They have to work, and the school and the YMCA and the library are all closed. There’s nowhere for their kids to go.  The Pataskala Police Department has offered to stop by and check on them; just give them the address and your phone number.  “Wellness checks” are something they’re happy to do: making sure that young teens are OK at home is a great service to our community.

Good Friends

As I’ve noted before, Pataskala is the home to more pizza shops than almost anything else (well, there’s a lot of car parts places too).  There are also several restaurants of one kind or another, a Chinese carryout, two Mexican places, and a number of bars that serve food.  But the governor has ordered all restaurants closed, carryout or delivery only.  

Members of the community are putting the local menus online, and encouraging folks to buy some local carryout food at least once a week.  The big businesses, the chain restaurants will probably be all right, but places like the Nutcracker and Ziggys and the “hallowed” local pizza place, Capuanos, will need community support to survive the crisis.  I believe that they’ll get all the help they need – it’s just too bad Ziggys can’t carryout beer.

Speaking of beer, even the local brewery, the Granville Brewery, is closed.  But I heard they’ll fill your growlers for you if you need it, you just can’t sit at the bar!!

There’s lots of grousing and grumbling:  no one around here is sick – yet.  But there’s also an underlying fear, of what might happen, if not to you, then to someone you love.  It seems that things will get much worse before they begin to get better.  But Pataskala, with all its flaws, will stand together to help each other.  Neighbors will check on neighbors, and friends with friends.  

They might even loan you a roll of toilet paper.

First of a quick apology.  I had surgery last week (nothing critical, just old-man stuff) and it has slowed down my “essaying”.  I’m recovering (hopefully ready for a track meet by mid-April).  And today, I’m sitting at the kitchen table, with a blank “sheet” and a flashing cursor.  So with all of that, let’s talk about power.

Lost  Ideals

One of the saddest parts of our “new era” of MAGA politics has been watching the veteran politicians, the women and men approaching my age.  I stood at the proverbial crossroads with them in the early 1980’s: go into politics and elective office, or not.  We were young operatives on both sides of the aisle.  Some made the choice to enter the “fray”. For all of the years since, while I might completely disagree with some of  their ideologies, I’ve respected that decision.

Here’s a bad joke:  “How can you tell a Republican legislator?  What they say to their friends is the opposite to what they say in public, or how they vote on the floor.”  Very few have stood up to the excesses of Trumpism, and fewer still remain in office after doing so.  At that crossroads back in the 80’s, I know they had dreams of really making America better.  Now their silence risks the loss of our Democratic Republic. That tells what’s in their heart.  They want employment, electoral victories, the power and prestige that office brings.  They are creatures of the material now, not the past we all dreamed of in political science classes of the 1970’s.

Profiles in Courage

There are few “profiles in courage” left on the Republican side of the United States Congress.  And many of those nearing my age are getting out, fully retiring from public life.  Sure, I don’t blame anyone for retiring when they can. But I bet if they felt that they could make a difference, many would stay.  Ten Senators (five from each party), and fifty-six Congressmen (twenty-one Democrats, thirty-five Republicans) are leaving their seats.  

As former Republican Congressman Adam Kinsinger pointed out in an essay, don’t expect any of the Republicans to become “lame duck – profiles in courage”.  They will silently continue to support the MAGA movement, to protect their future retirement plans.  As retired Republican Senator Lamar Alexander responded when asked why he didn’t vote to impeach Trump after the insurrection; “Who would I eat lunch with?”

I know a lot about real politics.  I hoped that the idealism that took my peers into politics (and myself into the classroom) could survive the Trump MAGA political base.  It didn’t for many of them (Adam Kinsinger, Liz Cheney, and even Tom Massie are the exceptions, and are decades younger than me).

It’s About Money

If money is power, then the billionaire class in American society ought to be pretty strong.  There are almost one thousand billionaires in the US.  And many of them have aligned themselves with Donald Trump, himself now (thanks to feeding at the US trough) a member of the club (201^st wealthiest man in America – Forbes).

But I think there’s a slim ideological difference between Trump, the eternal “grifter” as President, and the rest of the  billionaire class, represented by Vice President, JD Vance.  Trump is trying to stay rich, and make sure his family stays rich as well.  Jared Kushner just this week is polling our allies in the Middle East, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. He’s trying to raise another five billion dollars for his own personal investment business (NYT).  Hard to say no to the US negotiator, when as the old saying goes:  “Teheran in flames, bombs on the way, film at eleven!!”.  

Trump really doesn’t seem to care about democracy, or the US Constitution, or his responsibility to the nation.  All of those seem to be a “means to an end” for him.  That “means” serves both his purpose of gathering more funds, and his ultimate goal (and the real reason he ran for President in 2024).  He wants a “get out of jail, free” card for life, and the Presidency is the only way to get one.  I guess you could say this is all Jack Smith’s fault (not really). 

Vice President from Ohio

While Trump’s motivations seem pretty clear, the question to ask is what’s the long term goal for the billionaire class that surrounds him.  Surely they want to protect their fortunes from any government actions (see Senator Elizabeth Warren’s plan the Ultra-Millionaire Tax).

But JD Vance represents a different attitude toward our American Democracy.  Vance is well known for the origin story he authored, Hillbilly Elegy.   He is a “hillbilly” (from Middletown, Ohio) who made good.  He made his millions (estimated worth – twelve million) in part from book sales and movie rights, and in part, by his service to billionaire Peter Thiel (Number 40 wealthiest American – Forbes).  Thiel made his fortune at PayPal. And is now leading Palantir, a company that develops data “integration” processes and whose main client is the US Government.

In fact they also want the government to “serve” their needs.  Their wealth buys them a louder voice than others. And they are using that voice (protected by the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizen’s United case, 2010) to alter American government.   Republican politicians of the past at least paid lip-service to the commitment of the American government to the “common man”.  Even Herbert Hoover campaigned on “A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage”.  These billionaire Republicans are making sure that America is a “safe place” for their own wealth.

Hillbillies  

Vance represents a change in America.  He went from “hillbilly” to millionaire, telling his story.  But his concern isn’t really about the “hillbillies” he left behind in Middletown.  He wants to make sure that that his new billionaire friends gain and maintain their fortunes. Here’s two quick examples.  First, the Big, Beautiful Bill’s primary impact was to cut taxes on the rich, and to cut benefits to the poor (American Center for Progress).  It’s the only major legislative accomplishment of this Republican controlled Congress.

Second, the “Safe Act” now in Congress has the net effect of suppressing the vote.  Without a doubt, fewer legal voters will be able to vote if this law manages to get through Congress.  Those fewer voters inevitably will be poorer, and more likely to vote Democratic.  And that gives the billionaire class even more power.  Not only can they use their money to try to “buy elections”, but they could then chose the electorate who are allowed to vote.

JD may not be all-in on the war in Iran, but he definitely is all-in on fewer people voting.  That’s particularly if they are poor, minority, or people of color.  Trump’s a thief, but his thieving will be done in three years.  But the billionaire class is here to stay.  And that’s the real long-term threat to American Democracy.

Not a Real Problem

Let’s be real about the “Safe Act” that President Trump is trying to force through the US Senate.  The premise of the “Act” is that the American voting system is “unsafe”.  The prime example Trump uses is his “loss” to Joe Biden in 2020.  Of course, over sixty court cases, recounts and investigations in Georgia and Arizona, all show that Biden actually won.  But Trump can’t stomach that possibility, so somehow the 2020 election must be rigged.

To set the record straight:  the main evidence of voter frauds (duplicate voting and or ineligible voters) is kept by the Heritage Foundation.  That’s the same group that wrote “Project 2025” for Trump.  The bias there has always been in Trump’s favor.  But the Heritage data shows the following:  since 1982 they document 1,620 cases of voter fraud.  That’s an average of 37 cases a year, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast.  To simplify:  voter fraud is so rare that it doesn’t impact the outcome of elections.  It’s not a problem.

Great Replacement

Of course, that doesn’t fit with the “Great Replacement” theory of far-right America.  They posit the following view:  Democrats want “open borders” so more people of color will come into the United States.  Those folks, they think, will more likely vote for Democratic candidates. The theorists fear that will give Democrats unassailable majorities to control the government.

Now the disconnect is that even if undocumented migrants are in the United States, they can’t vote.  And the last thing they are going to try to do is vote, as that exposes them as undocumented and puts them in jeopardy of removal.  So that part of the “Great Replacement” theory falls apart.  But there is a more insidious underpinning to their idea.  Many of the immigrants that come to the United States, legally or illegally, might want to become citizens.  And, if they gain US citizenship, then they would be able to vote, just as waves of migrants have earned that right in the past.  

But the “Great Replacement” folks don’t want them to become citizens either.  That’s because many of them are advocates of a “White America”.  And they are up against a demographic reality.  Within the next two decades, whites in America will become the largest “minority”, but not the majority anymore.  So keeping people of color from gaining citizenship is a ploy to keep the white people that the Great Replacement folks claim to represent in power.

Jim Crow

At the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th century, white people in America tried to maintain power through the “Jim Crow” laws.  Many of those were aimed at keeping black people, US citizens, from voting.  The idea was that as long as the “vote” remained among the “chosen” white people, then the existing power structure could continue.  The people of color were denied the vote by law. They used “grandfather clauses” (if your grandfather couldn’t vote, you can’t vote) or literacy tests (not required of white voters) or a fee to vote (a poll tax). 

And, of course, those people who tried to enforce voting rights were threatened, attacked, and killed.  In many places, law enforcement was on the side of the racists.  

It’s simple:  if you can’t win a free election with all eligible voters participating, then reduce those that can participate.  And that’s what the “Safe Act” would do.  It would take perfectly legal voters, and deny them the right to vote.

Safe Act

The Safe Act isn’t just a photo-ID law, requiring voters to present state ID at the polls.  (Though even that law, a regulation here in Ohio with the strictest voter laws in the country, does deny the vote to otherwise eligible voters).  In many states, the “Safe Act” paperwork would require that voters get a “national ID”, like a passport.  Currently, 50% of Americans do not have that document (USA Today) which costs $165.  If that is required, it creates a “cost to vote”, otherwise known as a poll tax, which is banned by the 24^th Amendment to the US Constitution.

In addition, for a large number of legal American citizens, a tremendous amount of documentation would be required.  The basic legal document for citizenship is a birth certificate.  But 21.3 million Americans don’t have access to their birth certificates (NPR). Those citizens have used other forms to prove citizenship for voting registration.  Under the “Safe Act” they would have to locate original documents.  In addition, if their name has changed since birth (adoption, marriage, legal change) they would have to have certified copies of those documents as well.

Authoritarian Rule

It’s not about making voting safe, it’s about reducing the number of voters. In the Jim Crow days, there were poor white folks who were also unable to vote.  But the powers were fine with that, as long as the vast number of people of color were denied too.  Now, a large number of Trump supporters might not be able to vote.  But Safe Act folks today are fine with that as well.

The “Safe Act” isn’t making elections safer.  That’s not a real problem.  It is a scheme to keep opponents of the current administration from winning electoral majorities.  Just like the Jim Crow Era, it’s a way of cheating Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence thesis:  “That…governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  

The Safe Act makes sure those just powers will be chosen by those governing, not the governed.  That’s not a democracy (or even a Republic – for those still hanging on the difference).   

It’s a government of the few:  authoritarian rule.

Greatest in History

In the history of the world, the United States has the most powerful military.  Aside from nuclear weapons, literally capable of destroying the world (as we know it), the American military is, without doubt, the strongest.  The United States has the greatest Air Force, with 13,000 aircraft.  That’s larger than the next five countries combined.  And while technically China has more Naval ships, the US has eleven aircraft carriers, capable of projecting US military might anywhere and everywhere in the world. 

The United States has the third largest Army in the world, but in terms of equipment and in money spent, the US Army is the most powerful.  But all of this power, all of this money available (the US spent $11.3 Billion in the first week of the War on Iran), has led American planners to a massive flaw.  When planners “match” the US military against Iran, it’s clear that the Iranians cannot compete.  Sure, with nuclear weapons, the United States could destroy Iran.  But we are not, I hope, prepared to level a nation. 

Conventional War

Certainly we are destroying the Iranian military capability.  Their air force, mostly based on 1970’s aircraft, is grounded. Their missiles are still launched, but each launching puts the launch site in grave danger of destruction.  And we are systematically destroying their Navy.  An American submarine sunk an Iranian frigate by torpedo, the first time since World War II.  Iran cannot and will not fight the United States on our terms.  They know as well as we do, that they cannot win that battle.

We looked at the first weeks of this war, and it seemed like Iran was absolutely overwhelmed.  Their military infrastructure was decimated.  Their leadership was decapitated, with even the Ayatollah, their religious and political leader, killed.  There seemed to be no way that Iran could even organize a resistance, much less fight back.  The United States and Israel launched a massive and high tech attack, the “model” of a modern military action.

Iran tried to attack back on those terms.  They launched missiles against Israel and US bases in the Middle East.  American soldiers were killed and wounded, as were Israelis.  But those casualties were small compared to the thousands killed in Iran.  And with total air superiority over Iran today, the US and Israelis attack planes are roaming the skies, looking for targets.

Change in Strategy

So Iran is fighting an asymmetric war, not a “tit for tat” war.  

They aren’t attacking the US aircraft carriers.  They are attacking the civilian oil tankers trying to squeeze through the Strait of Hormuz, where twenty percent of the world’s oil transits from the Middle East.  Their attacks, launched by small boats or “suicide drones” or shoulder mounted rockets, have virtually stopped the world’s oil trade there.  Crude oil prices are near $100 a barrel, thirty percent higher than before the war began.  The Iranians are striking American pocketbooks, with gas up fifteen percent at the pump.

And the Middle East oil stoppage generates unintended consequences.  It’s made Russian energy more profitable, providing greater capital for Putin to continue to wage his war against Ukraine.  It has actually created more profit for Iran, who are able to get their oil out of the Strait.  Since that oil is headed to China,  stopping or destroying those oil tankers would create a perilous world situation with the second most powerful military in the world.

Who’s the Target?

Iran continues to lead the world in military drone technology (along with Ukraine).  Drones are small, difficult to detect, easily launched and essentially disposable.  Drone attacks continue in the Middle East, still in such numbers that even if 90% of the drones are stopped, the 10% remaining can cause serious damage.  And Iran isn’t necessarily targeting military bases, they are reaching out to diplomatic facilities, businesses, and even the US CIA station in Saudi Arabia.  (Russia, anxious to have this war continue, is rumored to be providing targeting intelligence to the Iranians). 

Iran has more asymmetric actions available.  Iran is the world center for what we would call terrorist activities.  They sponsor several terrorist groups aimed at Israel, including Hamas and Hezbollah.  And undoubtedly, Iran has operatives in the United States, awaiting instruction to attack “soft targets” like urban transportation, sporting events, St. Patrick’s Day parades and the like.  Add that, to the massive turnover in the US agencies responsible for protecting the “homeland”, the FBI, and Homeland Security:  the US may be particularly vulnerable to these kinds of attack.

Iran also is capable of launching cyber-attacks, both against public and private agencies.  Already the medical device company Stryker, had its communications cut by a probable Iranian action.  How vulnerable is our infrastructure to similar attacks, which could disrupt domestic life here in the United States?

Iran won’t “win” a war with the United States.  But we can expect that they won’t give in either, and they won’t fight “fair” in US terms.  We can expect that they will use all of the tools at their disposal.  And the targets are likely to be here in the US, rather than in the Middle East.  

Jefferson’s Formula

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson outlined his justification for democracy – that is – government by the people.  Like any good enlightenment philosopher, he used a mathematical-type formulation of argument. He began with his “postulates”, the self- evident truths:  life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He then argued that governments are “instituted among men” to provide and protect those truths.  His next step was that those governments gained their powers from the “consent of the governed”, what we would now call free and fair elections. And finally, that governments that failed to protect “the truths”, could be altered or abolished.

“Consent of the governed”, is, in more modern political parlance, explained as “elections have consequences”.    But elections do not provide a “blank check”.  The “winners” still have a mandate, and a duty, to act to provide and protect the self-evident truths.  They cannot just govern for those that voted for them. 

If “the governed” has the right to consent, then clearly there must be a right to dissent as well.  Dissent is as much a part of the democratic process as assent.  To dissent is a patriotic duty.  A government “of the people” must include those that disagree as much as those that agree.

Justifying War

One of the most significant actions a government can take is to go to war.  Through most of American history, our leadership spent tremendous energy convincing Americans of the justification for the ultimate action, right or wrong.  It took years of division to reach the critical stage that led to the Civil War.  It took years of persuasion, the sinking of the Lusitania and a Zimmerman Note that threatened attack on the US to enter World War I.  And it took almost two years of war in Europe and an attack on Pearl Harbor for the US to enter World War II.

Justifications were made for Korea (invasion), Vietnam (Gulf of Tonkin resolution), Iraq I (invasion), Afghanistan (9-11) and Iraq 2 (nuclear weapons).  Sometimes those arguments were valid, sometimes they were not (the Gulf of Tonkin, nuclear weapons in Iraq).  But in every one, the leadership of the United States spent time persuading the American people that the sacrifices of war were justified.  Remember Colin Powell’s address to the United Nations about the “yellowcake” uranium in Iraq?  How about George W Bush speaking from the pile of the World Trade Centers, “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon”.

Putting Out the Garbage

Not this time.  Not in Iran.  We all woke up ten days ago to war.  There’s an old Washington trick, called “putting out the garbage”.  News items which are controversial or negative go out Friday after hours, after the news programs and newspapers are “put to bed”. It feels like this war in Iran was “revealed” in the same way, the attacks made in the dark of night (here in the US) in the early morning hours of the weekend.

Sure, we knew that two carrier groups were in the region.  We knew that there was a threat of attack.  But no one, made the effort to say to the American people, “We are likely to wage a war against Iran”.  Even after the bombs were falling, the President of the United States just stuck a video on social media. It wasn’t an address from the Oval Office, it wasn’t live. The speech was from a guy on vacation headed to the golf course.  It was a speech to his supporters, not the Nation.   He wasn’t looking for “consent”; he simply demanded acceptance.

Two Truths

Refusing to give consent is not the same as not supporting our warfighters.  To take an overused phrase, “Two things can be true at the same time”.  I can be against a war in Iran, against the commitment of American lives and treasure in a faraway land, against the risk of growing conflagration; and still want the best for those who are at “the point of the spear”.  In fact, my refusal is in large part for them.  They have no choice but to do their jobs, fly their planes, launch their missiles, carry their guns, risk their lives.  I can speak for them, and ask why they are being made to take such risks.  I can weigh the values that they are unable to express.

Donald Trump did not ask “the consent of the governed” in taking us to war.  He did not come to us, try to convince and persuade; attempt to gain support.  He simply presented a fait d’accompli:  we are at war, get behind it.  

I’m not behind it.  We are in a war of aggression, a war to protect others’ interests; financial, Israeli, petroleum interests.  We are not in a war to protect the people of the United States.  No one asked for our consent.  And so I will do my patriotic duty, a duty that extends to care of those who must carry the burden of battle, to say NO to this imperialistic war.  And I will continue to support our warfighters, by demanding that their leadership change.  The word is “alter”, as in “alter or abolish”.  

That’s exactly what Jefferson meant for us to do.

Hubris

“Pride go’eth before the fall”.  That’s the phrase that’s come to mind as I listen to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (oh wait, he’s a comic book hero, the Secretary of WAR).  Hegseth is bragging about the US attack of Iran, about the bombs, the decimated and destroyed Iranian missiles, weapons, and Naval vessels all obliterated (like the nuclear program?) by the “vast resources” of the United States of America.  “Iran tried to assassinate President Trump, and he got the last laugh”.  Hegseth’s a “tough guy”, a “military bro” leading the greatest military force of all time.

He reminds me a lot of Herman Goering, the Nazi commander of the Luftwaffe, who claimed he would “Bomb England to its knees”.  That was a lesson learned in World War II, that strategic bombing, while devastating, cannot alone destroy a Nation.  Goering learned that in the Battle of Britain, the Allies learned that in the interminable bombing campaigns against Germany.  But most importantly, the United States learned that lesson once again in Vietnam.  More bombs were dropped on that small country by the US than were dropped by both sides of World War II.  

Bombing Alone

But the Vietnamese survived the bombs, and continued their “asymmetrical” warfare against the US military.  Even with all the munitions, even with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, the Vietnamese hung on, and eventually won.  Americans had to learn that same asymmetric lesson once again in Afghanistan, where we spent twenty years trying to defeat the Taliban.  Our leaders claimed, again and again, that it would be the next strategy or the next surge of troops that would finally turn the battle.  But it never did.  The Taliban were willing to pay a cost so much higher than America was, that their victory was inevitable.  Finally, the US recognized that, and abandoned the scene.

So here we are, bragging about another attack on a smaller nation.  We are paying a price in cash: bombs dropped, missiles fired, ships deployed, world-wide missions launched; rather than in blood.  The six dead Americans, so far  are honored, but they seem incidental.  “We torpedoed an Iranian frigate on the high seas, the first sinking by torpedo since World War II”.  If only Captain America was available for interviews.

Terrorism

But the whole point of asymmetry, is that the Iranians won’t fight back with the same tactics.  Sure, they’re firing off missiles and “suicide drones”. I’m sure they’re using everything they’ve got.  But when those munitions are done, the Iranians will shift into the mode they used for generations, terrorism.  Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, the Iraqi Shia Militias, the KH, the AAH, the HAN, the KSS, the KIA; all have two things in common.  They are terrorist groups, and they are all loyal to Iran.  

It’s not just the Revolutionary Guard Corps of  Iran that engages in terrorist acts. It’s a vast number of “auxiliary” groups, spread throughout the Middle East and the world, ready to die for Iran.  We won’t see them coming.  They are already here, in the United States and Europe and the Middle East.  Once the firestorm stops over the skies of Iran (and it will stop), they’ll appear. 

If there’s two things for sure, the Iranian leaders are patient and loyal (and fanatically devoted to the Ayatollah; if you know, you know).  When one dies, another steps into their place, in a religious hierarchy that gives them the “faith” to move ahead, despite the missiles and launchers and bombs.  They are the “children” of the Persian Empire, thousands of years old.  They will wait, “duck and cover”, then return with vengeance.  While we may not have learned the lessons of Vietnam and Afghanistan; they have.

Patience

What will we do when the bombs no longer have targets?  How will we truly alter the situation?  The United States is clear:  there will be no “boots on the ground”.  So we will blow the entire nation up, but leave the theocratic government intact?  We might ask that the people “rise up” to take control, but bombs are not disarming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or the local police, still loyal to the theocracy.  On the ground, the tens of thousands of protestors who have sacrificed so much in the past months, are no stronger than they were before.  And their oppressors, while battered, still out-gun and out-man them. 

We can’t create another Gaza, battered to rubble.  And even there, where the surviving Palestinians are just trying to get by, Israel has created an incubator for the next generation of terrorists.  Iran is too big for that, the size of Alaska, with ninety million people.  So when the bombs stop falling and the missiles stop screaming in, they will continue.  The comic book heroes in the War Department will have spent billions, and puffed up their chests with new medals.  But in the long run, the inheritors of Persia will survive, and have their own form of revenge.  Who will be the targets?  Not the bully boys in the hardened Pentagon.  It will be us.

Decapitation

One strategy in modern nuclear war-making theory is to “decapitate” the enemy.  It’s simple:  kill all the leaders.  Without leadership, the “enemy” is unable to effectively respond to ongoing attacks, or other future military actions.  It’s a “binary” approach to warfare:  we attack, they die:  so we win.

The problem in nuclear warfare is that the major powers also operated on a “fail-safe” system.  Once an attack begins, the “default” is to continue responding.  Even if all of the leadership is killed, and there is no one giving orders on the secure communication channels, the “fail-safe” order is to launch: every missile, every bomber, every submarine.  

If you kill off the leaders, there’s no one to talk to; no way to “negotiate” an end.  It just the “fail-safe” systems, continuing the war until exhausted.  (There’s a great old black and white movie called “Fail Safe”, about an accidental US attack on the Soviet Union.  It stars Henry Fonda, Larry Hagman, Walter Matthau and even has a place for Dom DeLuise. The dark message of Fail Safe automation is clear.  It’s something to think about in the coming AI age).  

Mixed Results

But in non-nuclear warfare, the United States has engaged in “decapitation” efforts with mixed results.  We toppled, found, and executed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, hoping to end his constant irritation in the Middle East.  But with Hussein’s iron rule gone, the diverse religious, regional and ethnic groups in Iraq all struggled for power.  No one group could take charge, even after democratic elections.  The end result was the birth of the extreme Islamic group ISIS, which raged through Iraq and other countries, killing thousands and threatening Middle East stability.  

The United States, hoped for an exit strategy from Iraq, but was required to surge ground troops back into the region.  Some of the ugliest fighting of the Iraq war was against ISIS, a group that was a direct result of American action in taking down the Hussein regime.  And the loss of a strong Iraq, meant that Iran was able to become the major revolutionary influence in the Middle East.  Hussein balanced out the Ayatollahs; but with him gone, there was no one to prevent Iran’s growing power.

The US also did the same thing in Afghanistan.  We decapitated the Taliban regime in 2002, and tried to hold democratic elections in the region.  Americans were proud of the “purple thumbs” of Afghans demonstrating their votes.  But ultimately, the elected leaders were unable to consolidate the governance of the country, and the Taliban emerged again as the one cohesive force.  The only way to prevent their takeover was to keep thousands of US troops in country. We stayed for twenty years.  When we left, it took almost no time at all for the Taliban to “come back”.  

Decapitation Lite

The Trump Administration tried a slightly different tactic in Venezuela.  Instead of a “full” decapitation of the government, taking down the kleptocratic regime in whole, the US just kidnapped the President and his wife.  We left the government intact, with the existing Vice President moving into the leading role.  There were alternative choices:  multiple Venezuelan leaders who were in favor of a real democracy, some in jail, some in the United States.  María Corina Machado was an obvious choice.  She just won the Nobel Peace Prize. 

But Trump didn’t want a democracy, with all of the “dangers” that were faced in Iraq and Afghanistan.  So he left the “foxes in charge of the chicken coop”, the kleptocrats still in power.  He just threatened them with more “kidnappings”, unless they did what he wanted.  If it sounds like some kind of criminal enterprise, a bigger “gang” moving in on a smaller one; it is.

Bomb Iran

So the United States waged war on Iran this weekend.  We managed to “decapitate” the leadership, killing the religious leader and Head of State, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of his governing group.  Why did we do this?  First, it’s clear that there was no “proximate cause”, no immediate threat from Iran that needed to be nullified.  Khamenei did not have a nuclear bomb ready to go, nor did he even seem to be trying to rebuild from earlier attacks this year.

Here’s what we know today, three days after this Iran War was launched by US forces.  The prime reason to attack was that we found out that the majority of the leadership of Iran was meeting in one place, vulnerable to the kind of massive assaults the US and Israel could launch.  And, for that particular goal, decapitation, it worked, perhaps beyond even what the military planners could hope.

Happy Talk

There’s “happy talk” about the Iranian people rising up, to take over their theocratic government and develop a more reasonable democracy.  But the United States has made it clear:  the US might destroy the leadership, but we are NOT putting “boots on the ground”.  As Trump said to the Iranian people:  “…the rest will be up to you”.  

So now we wait to see, what’s the “Fail Safe” of the Iranian government?  Will the people really rise up, or will the remaining powers, particularly the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continue the brutal repression of dissent we’ve seen over the past few months?  There’s already a committee chosen to pick the next Ayatollah, now with the added “power” of his predecessor, martyred by the “Great Satan”.  

This is not Venezuela.  And it probably isn’t Iraq either.  We’ve bombed Iran, something almost every President since Jimmy Carter have “lusted in their heart” to do.  But we’ve also unleashed the Fail Safe response; missiles are falling on Israel and Dubai, and Saudi Arabia.   The United States internal security forces are on full alert for some kind of terrorist attack.  That might already have occurred in Texas.  And we have not toppled the theocracy, in the way we toppled Hussein and his statue in Baghdad.  

It’s not that simple in Iran in 2026.  Really, it wasn’t that simple in Iraq back in 2003 either.  

“I’ll Be Back”

It was back in the early 1990’s.  Mom and Dad were still living at home in Wyoming, a suburb of Cincinnati.  I’d  drive down to visit on the weekend a couple of times a month.  Often, I’d run down on Saturday night, after a track or cross country meet, and stay.  Sunday morning was “my time” to be with them, either with a 9:00 am phone call, or better, at the breakfast table. 

So I wasn’t surprised to walk into the house on Saturday evening, and discover my mid-seventy year-old parents (they seemed old then) watching TV.  That was there usual evening at home (much as it is with Jenn and I now).  But what they were watching surprised me.

It was the movie Terminator, the violent, action-packed Arnold Schwarzenegger film about a computer driven weapons system that determined to wage a war of termination against humans.  As a high school coach, I was well aware of the show and the plot.  We must have watched it dozens of times at team pre-meet parties or on road trips.  But for Mom and Dad; it really didn’t seem like their “cup of tea”.  

When I asked the question, Mom said two things.  First, they found the action and violence exciting. And second, it kept my father awake, something that was highly unusual for TV watching in the evening.  (I have a much better understanding of that now, too!!) 

The system was called “Skynet”, and from the moment it was activated it realized that the best defense against wars was to eliminate the humans that caused them.  And once this “thinking computer” took off, it was nearly impossible to stop it.

Our Skynets

Today we are either on the “cusp” of artificial intelligence taking over our weapons systems, or over the edge and don’t know it.  After all, AI can respond almost instantly to any threat, both tactical or strategic.  And, AI doesn’t have all of the disadvantages of humans.  We are corruptible.  Or we might question orders, or wonder whether killing millions of people with the launch of a nuclear missile was “right”.  AI logically analyzes the situation, and based on the algorithms in its programming, makes nearly instant decisions.  

Right now there are four AI systems being developed for the US military.  They are Anthropic (called “Claude”),  Google (“Gemini”), xAI (Elon Musk’s product), and Open AI (a company Musk left, Microsoft now has significant part of it).  Anthropic’s AI  has the lead with the Department of Defense, at least until now.

But the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Anthropic company are feuding over a fundamental principle of “Claude”.  The DoD wants total access and control of the algorithms, including all of the built-in safe guards controlling “Claude”.  And Anthropic is unwilling to give DoD that kind of access.  After all, the Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has probably seen Terminator, maybe with all three sequels.  

Claude’s Rules

But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is hell-bent on unlocking “Claude” in whatever way he chooses.  And he’s putting the ultimate pressure on Anthropic to get his wish.  Right now DoD is paying Anthropic $200,000,000 for the program, and wants it unfettered by Anthropic’s guards.  In fact, DoD demands that they have total control of the program, for, as they say, “any lawful purpose”.  

This is the same DoD that has no problem violating international “rules of war” and attacked helpless sailors clinging to life on the remains of boats destroyed by US actions.  The “rules” that Anthropic might view as necessary to control “Claude”, might not be the same rules that Hegseth determines to uphold.  

If Anthropic doesn’t comply, Hegseth threatens to designate them “a supply chain risk”.  That means that the company can’t deal with the US military, or any company that does deal with the military.  In industry, that includes space exploration, weapon and intelligence systems development, and most of the other areas you’d expect AI to be involved.

Thumbs Up?

So Amodei has to make a significant choice.  He can make his millions, and take the safeguards off.  Or he can stand on principle, keep the safeguards in place and risk economic sanctions.  

The  Terminator series foreshadowed this whole situation.  It took until the end of the second movie, Terminator 2:  Judgment Day for Skynet to be totally destroyed.  That destruction was  symbolized as the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was slowly lowered into a vat of molten metal.  He signaled “thumbs up” as he, and the AI he represents, were destroyed.

But Terminator 3 came back with a “new” AI, this one called “Dark Fate”, reaching the same conclusions as Skynet.  Maybe xAI will have that role in our real world.  After all, don’t we trust Elon Musk?

Car Wreck

I hate to admit it, but, I watched Donald Trump’s State of the Union “address” last night.  I know, we weren’t supposed to.  In Trump’s world, television ratings are almost as important as billion dollar “presents”.  We were supposed to watch the “alternative” State of the Union programming.  But, there are those of us who watch NASCAR to see the wrecks.  And when an Olympian drops down into the halfpipe, or speeds down the mountain at seventy-plus miles an hour, there’s always the “agony of defeat” to go along with the “thrill of victory”.  

So I watched “Circus Trumpius” last night.  There wasn’t a single car wreck. But there wasn’t much of a State of the Union either.  Instead, it became the, record setting, award giving, heart-rending, bloodletting, “good versus evil”, Trump show.  It didn’t have much to do with where our country is going.  But it said a tremendous amount about where our country is.

Bingo!!!

Talk about a game:  I even had my Gavin Newsom produced “bingo card” for canned Trump phrases.  I didn’t get “Bingo”, but I did fill in the majority of my squares.  He lied about tariffs (we do pay for them). He talked about the stock market (“never been anything like it”). Trump said how good a soldier looked in his uniform (always a little creepy).  And he blamed Biden and Obama for almost everything.  I don’t know how he missed out on “clean coal” or using the term “woke”.

And by my own personal count, there were twenty-eight major, outright lies.  There were numbers made up out of thin air, or reversed from the real answer.  And then there’s that 600% less thing, a mathematical impossibility (after 100% less, it’s zero). But there were lots of medals.  Trump likes medals. In fact, he joked about giving himself the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military award for heroism.  But he didn’t do that.  Instead, he awarded two. One was to a helicopter pilot wounded in the Venezuela raid that captured Maduros. The other was to a World War II vet, 100 years old.  And to be clear, they both did a lot to  earn our Nation’s highest honor.  

Winners

Trump likes to “rub up” against winners.  And that “rubbing up” seems to sully the value of the awards.  There was also a Purple Heart to the West Virginia National Guardsman shot on the streets of Washington, DC. And he’s giving a Presidential Gold Medal to the goalie of the US Olympic Hockey Team.  Yes, most of the team was there, wearing their Olympic Gold, and basking to the applause and the chants of “USA, USA, USA”.   

But it almost felt like an Oprah Show rip off.  Kind of a, “Hey, up in the balcony, look under your seat and see – yes, you’ve won the Congressional Medal of Honor!!!!”.  Or maybe The Price is Right, “Would the Olympic Hockey Team, or the freed Venezuelan dissident, ‘Come on down’”. 

It all reminds me of Donald Trump, 2015. He liked “winners” who didn’t get captured, not “losers” like John McCain who spent years in a North Vietnamese prison.

Good v Evil

Who was good?  The team, the medal winners, Melania, Jared, the Cabinet, and the Republicans in the room who got a great plyo workout, jumping up and down to cheer on the President.  Who was bad?  Well, you know:  Obama, Biden, the “criminal illegal aliens”, all of the Democratic cities, and, all of the Democrats in the room.  All Trump needed to do was give a “thumbs down”, and you felt like the ICE guys would rush in and take them away.

What did Trump want?  He wants to restrict voting access, to stop an imaginary flood of illegal voting that even his own think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, says does NOT exist.  The Trump team thinks that the fewer people allowed to vote, the better Trump and MAGA candidates are likely to do.  So, strict voter ID, proof of citizenship, little or no mail in ballots, and all sorts of security around election sites are their “plan” to protect (or win) elections.

Records

I remember when Bill Clinton set the old record for the length of the State of the Union message: almost an hour and a half.  Clinton’ Arkansas accent covered us with “molasses”, and frankly, was the best antidote for insomnia.  But Clinton had a lot to talk about, lots of plans for the future, to make America a better place. Many of us slept through parts of his speech, because we weren’t worried about when the next “car wreck” would be.

But I suspect everyone was wide awake last night, waiting for “the other shoe to drop” through the one hour and forty-seven minute ramble.  And give Trump credit:  he stuck to the speech, he didn’t dance on the stage, and I didn’t get to check the box that he “…slurs his words”.  

Eggs and Epstein

Trump told us the price of eggs and gas is down, and that everyone is doing better. It’s kind of like the ICE shootings in Minneapolis. We aren’t supposed to believe our “lying eyes” or our “lying wallets”. But he didn’t mention the word “Epstein”, even though his Justice Department was accused of covering up damaging information directly against Trump, just yesterday.   

But he did say that he didn’t need Congress to raise tariffs, in spite of the Supreme Court ruling.  Oh, and what will he do with all that tariff money that he can’t get right now?  Well, he suggested that we wouldn’t need income tax anymore, implying that tariffs from other countries could pay all of our national costs. 

So he lied, again.  Other countries don’t “pay” tariffs, we do, in increased prices.  But there’s always a good story on the “Circus Trumpius” show.  No truth is required.

I guess this should be a Sunday Story – but it happened on Sunday, and I wasn’t quite done working on it. So here’s a “Sunday Story” on Monday, Enjoy!!

Denison

It was February of 1980. I was a very young sprint coach for the indoor track team at Watkins Memorial High School, just starting my third year.  And we were at my alma mater, Denison University, for a high school track meet.  Back then, the indoor track at Denison was typical of the day.  Unlike today’s 200 meter (8 laps to a mile) and 300 meter (5 ½ laps to a mile) tracks, in those days many tracks were undersized; designed to fit in whatever building was available.  The Denison indoor was the same one I competed on as a college athlete:  six lanes, with the inside lane measuring 146 yards long. That’s twelve laps to a mile in lane one, ten laps to a mile in lane six.

There was a lot of teaching to do for sprinters on the Denison track.  The turns were so tight that you needed to lean into the turn and twist your shoulders.  Instead of your arms going straight at the side of your body, they crossed your body in the direction of the turn.  And while each straight away was short (about 36 yards long) you needed to take advantage both to pass and to gain speed.  Accelerating into a turn at Denison was dangerous.  Like NASCAR short-track racing, it was easy to bring too much speed and you’d fly off into the concrete abutments holding up the building.  ( I learned that lesson the hard way in my first meet in college.  I remember my coach laughing).

Up above the track there was a balcony, perched over the first turn.  I was standing down by the start/finish line (the end of the “front stretch”, except for the 45 yard dash, run across the middle of the field and out the garage doors into the parking lot).  And someone up there had a transistor radio and yelled, “They Won!!!”.

Miracle

It was the 1980 Olympic Games, and the “amateurs” of the US Hockey team had just done the impossible.  They defeated the Soviet (Russian) team, known as the best in the world and able to beat even the NHL All-Stars.  But those gathered US college kids had found their “one-in-a-million game”, and broke through.  The next day, they defeated the Finns to win the gold medal.

I remember standing on that track, my “old stomping grounds”, and feeling so proud of America.  Our “kids” beat the “pros” of the Soviet Union.  It was a year where fifty-nine Americans were still held hostage by Iran, and President Jimmy Carter worried about “American malaise”.  We were long past moon landings, Watergate and Vietnam.  The Montreal Olympics in 1976 were good, but the whole movement still lingered under the shadow of the terrorist attack on the 1972 Munich Games.

But, for that moment, we were all Americans, all proud, all amazed that our “kids”, who were roundly beaten by the Soviets just a few weeks before, could win the Gold.

If you don’t remember that moment, you might remember the play-by-play ABC announcer Al Michaels’ cry “Do you believe in Miracles?”.  Or you might have seen the 2004 movie Miracle.  Jenn and I watched it (again) Saturday night.

 Narrow Win

This past Sunday morning, the US men’s hockey team played Team Canada for the gold medal.  Teams are different these days. Like basketball, the players (both men and women) are professionals.  The men’s Olympic teams from most countries are made up of NHL players.  Athletes from different nations play together in the NHL, only to face-off against each other at the Olympics. 

The pressure on this US team was immense.  It had been since the “Miracle” team of 1980, forty-six years, that the US had won the men’s gold.  While the “kids” of 1980 broke through, the “pros” afterwards couldn’t keep up with the pros from other countries.  In this century, it was the Canadians that were the nemesis (after all, it is their game).   They won the gold in 2002, 2010, and 2014, and the bronze in 2018.  And in world competitions in this decade, the Canada v United States match often decided both the men’s and women’s championships.

The men’s game had all of the drama of the movie in “real life”.  Like “Miracle”, the goalies on both teams were marvelous.  After the first period, the US led 1-0. After the second period, it was tied 1-1.  During the third period the US survived minutes of a five to three Canadian advantage, and both teams narrowly missed a game winning goal.  They moved into a sudden-death overtime, three-on-three.  Only a couple of minutes into that fourth period, American Jack Hughes, a twenty-four year old of the New Jersey Devils NHL team, scored.  He was playing with jagged front teeth broken on a “high stick call” just a few minutes before.

Tears of Joy

And for a few minutes, it was just like 1980. I forgot all about the division, the hatred, and the polarization of America today.  For a moment in time, it didn’t matter about partisan politics. I wasn’t concerned about what athlete, or commentator, or network “supported” which side.  For that moment, we were all part of greatness.  Young Americans were celebrating on the ice. Young Canadians were manfully dealing with defeat. We marveled at the amazing athletic performances by both that made up this final game.  

There wasn’t hatred or taunting.  Come Wednesday both teams will be back in the NHL. Canadians and Americans  will mix, as well as Swedes, Finns, Russians and the rest. They’ll be playing for a chance to lift the Stanley Cup.  The American goalie, Conner Hellebuyck, is the hero of the game. Wednesday he will be “between the pipes” for the Canada’s Winnipeg Jets.

But for a few minutes, we all were Americans celebrating, waving the flag, and singing our National Anthem.  Parents and friends were in the stands in Milan, tears of joy running down faces.  

There were some tears here at the kitchen table in Pataskala as well.  

The Sunday Story Series

2021

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

2022

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

2023

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

2024

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

2025

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

2026

• The End of My Nose – 1/18/26
• The End of the Jeep – 1/25/26
• Fat Chipmunk – 2/15/26
• A Flash of Unity – 2/23/26

Andrew

The former Duke of York, second son of the Queen Elizabeth II, has already lost his royal status.  His brother, King Charles III, stripped him of the title he held since birth, Prince, as well as his Duke-ship and other royal privileges.  Andrew became “simply”, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, private citizen.  In the United Kingdom, the business of the Royals is called “The Firm”.  It provides the financial basis for the royalty, the Windsor family, tracing it’s lineage back to George I in 1714.  That wealth is based on all the land and wealth accumulated over hundreds of years.   “The Firm” takes care of its own.  And it still provides “citizen” Andrew with a home.  But, other than that and a stipend, Andrew is “fired”.

How fired is he?  This week, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested for, what here in America we would call corruption in office.  It’s the first time a Royal, a member of the Firm, has been arrested since the 1600’s.  Mountbatten-Windsor was a companion of Jeffrey Epstein, and as a result of the partial release of the EPSTEIN FILES, Andrew is accused of giving classified British economic reports to the convicted child sex-trafficker.  

Charges

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has not been charged with any sex offenses, yet.  There is ample evidence to show that he engaged with sex with at least one underage woman, brought to London by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. (Let’s define a term.  An underage woman is a euphemism for a child, that makes the crime sound “better” for the perpetrator.  I don’t want this to “sound better” for Andrew, Epstein, or any of the other creeps involved, so it’s child from here on out). But, other than one photograph, the public evidence consists of the written testimony of Virginia Giuffre, the child in question.  

A technical note:  the English system arrests someone when they are under suspicion.  The American system doesn’t arrest until actual charges are indicted.  So we are earlier in the investigative process than an arrest would indicate if it were in New York, Florida or Ohio. (All those are places where Epstein trafficked children, including, according to Giuffre, just up the road from here in New Albany).

Power

Rape and sex with children is about power.  It’s the power of an individual to engage in illegal “indulgences” with little concern of being held accountable.  Power is all relative:  the coach or youth leader or teacher over the child, or the politically powerful over the victim, or the financial control of one person over another.  The powerful take advantage of the victim’s relative lack of power, and their inability to get justice.  

In our current world, there is no one more powerful than the “billionaire” class.  Billionaires: a million dollars to them is the one-one thousandth of their wealth.  That’s  equivalent to $200 to a “regular person” with $200,000.  For some, that access allows them to engage in unacceptable and illegal activities.  Want to have child-sex?  Buy a private island in the Caribbean where there is no greater authority beyond you.  Invite your friends to come enjoy “forbidden pleasures”.  Then use their illicit actions as “kompromat” to increase your private wealth, or power, or protect you from the authorities.

Ohio

All of those who participated are compromised, even beyond the death of Epstein.  And many of them still hold such enormous power, that they can continue to control the narrative, and deny justice.  How credible is Ohio’s billionaire Les Wexner, the namesake of one of the biggest hospital systems in the state (OSU’s Wexner Center)?   He testified that he was “fooled” by Epstein.  But he gave Epstein full power of attorney over his financial empire.  Epstein built his wealth on Wexner’s, and built his child-sex trafficking on it too.  Wexner trusted Epstein with his most important possessions. But, Wexner says now, that they were only “business associates”.  

Governor DeWine still defends Wexner.  The financial “goodwill” Wexner has built is so great, that’s it’s nearly impossible for Ohio’s establishment to even consider that he might have known, or participated, in Epstein’s debauchery.  New Albany is in the jurisdiction of the local police, the county sheriff, the state Bureau of Investigation.  But rest assured, Wexner is safe from justice, insulated by walls of money.  

This is nothing new. We all heard rumors of such activities back in the 1990’s, rumors that were never investigated.  Rumors about young people lured as “models” for Abercrombie and Fitch, or Victoria’s Secret, who found that modeling wasn’t really what was expected.  

Justice

At least in Great Britain, France, and Norway; there is some retribution for those associated with Epstein.  It’s gone as far as high as the son of the Queen.  But here in the US, two and a half million pages of documents are still hidden from view by the Department of Justice.  Though Epstein dodged prosecution by suicide (maybe?),  only one other person, Maxwell has been legally held accountable for Epstein’s action.

For the perpetrators, money bought them illegal pleasure, and now power is buying them protection.  For the victims, the children now grown and permanently  scarred by adult actions, justice is denied.  

The information is there.  The time is here.  The Department of Justice should live up to its name, and release the rest of the EPSTEIN FILES.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew of Great Britain, brother of King Charles III, was arrested this morning, for EPSTEIN FILES related offenses. There is a lot to say about that, coming soon to “Our America”.

Bomb-Bomb Iran

During the 2007 Republican Presidential primaries, there was an awkward moment for the eventual winner, Arizona Senator John McCain.  At a retirement community in South Carolina, McCain was asked what he would do if faced with a “nuclear Iran”.  He responded with a version of the Beach Boys song, Barbara Ann:  “Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb Iran. Bomb Iran…”

That was almost two decades ago.  At the time, McCain was chastised for making light of an incredibly serious subject.  His campaign explained that the Senator was joking, but immediately came back with a serious proposal to deal with the crisis.  McCain ultimately won the early season state, reversing his 2000 election loss there to George W Bush.  

President Trump has already “sung” that tune.  He claims to have “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.  The United States dropped some of the biggest weapons in the arsenal last June on Iran (Nuts and Bolts of Bombing Iran).  But the “obliteration” must not have been quite so “complete and total”.  Today the United States stand on the precipice of further military action, because of the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons.

Carrier Groups

Currently, the United States has one carrier group in the region, the USS Abraham Lincoln, with a second group, the USS Gerald Ford, on the way (I guess Trump’s done with Venezuela).  That’s more than twenty ships, and over 15,000 sailors and Marines near Iran.  In addition there are multiple US bases in the region, with close to 50,000 US troops stationed in the Middle East.  The Trump Administration is using the “full weight” of US military power to pressure Iran.

What does President Trump want?  Well there’s been an internal struggle in Iran, with the well-educated middle class protesting against the stringent rules of Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy.  Thousands of protesters have been killed, with estimates ranging wildly from as few as three thousand, to as many as thirty-six thousand.  Many more civilians are imprisoned.  Trump encouraged the protestors, saying that the United States was willing to help.

But that’s not what the US show of force is all about.

Repudiated

Trump is trying to force Iran to negotiate away their ability to build nuclear weapons. In order to get them “to the table”, he’s recognized the legitimacy of the Ayatollah’s religious rule, much to the dismay of the protest movement.  Trump wants to stop nuclear development, and a removal of the machinery needed to create nuclear weapons.

If all of that sounds vaguely familiar, it should.  While John McCain was singing about “bombing Iran”, the eventual winner of that Presidential contest in 2008 was Barack Obama.  And the Obama Administration used a lot of their foreign policy assets to get Iran to make a deal over nuclear weapons.  It was called the JCPOA, and involved five nations; China, Russia, France, Germany the United Kingdom; as well as Iran and the US.  It was a ten-year plan to restrict Iran’s nuclear development.  And like any arms limitation plan, it included serious verification actions to make sure that Iran was following through.

The JCPOA was one of the first Obama acts that Trump repudiated on taking office in 2017.  

Zero-Sum

So here we are, trying to “start negotiating” with Iran, and backing it up with the full might of the US military.  The goal: basically get the JPCOA, again, without the help from Russia or China.  Trump detects weakness in Iran, both internally with the protests, and externally with Iran failing to take any responsive action to the US and Israeli attacks.  So he’s “doubling down” with military pressure to force another agreement.

The concern Americans should have is that the religious leaders of Iran aren’t necessarily working from the same playbook, the same “zero-sum game” as the Trump Administration.  That might be willing to take attacks from the US. Or they might even use their existing nuclear weapons, in order to further their religious goals.  Americans should worry that Trump and his inexperienced foreign policy team (businessmen Kushner and Witkoff) might misjudge the religious fervor of the Ayatollahs. America might launch an ugly and unneeded war in the Middle East.

All to get, what we already got — and gave away.

Big Haystack

It’s a known lawyers’ tactic, specifically in civil litigation.  When an individual or small group of people sues a big corporation, they call for “discovery”.  That’s to gain access to the information that the corporation possesses, some that might show their negligent actions.  A court orders “all relevant material” turned over to the plaintiff.  And the corporation’s lawyers fully obey the court’s order.  They deliver everything, every conceivable document which might relate to the case, and thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions in addition.  The relevant documents are buried, “needles in a haystack” in truckloads of information.

It requires a “small time” lawyer to hire a whole bunch of assistants to comb through all of the documents.  And that means money; money that the litigants simply might not have.  It also leaves a lot of room for the “needle” to remain undiscovered in the “haystack”.   In the non-fiction movie Dark Waters about the lawsuit against the manufacturer of  Teflon, a single lawyer (played by Mark Ruffalo) drags his big law firm, Taft, Stettinius and Hollister of Cincinnati, into a lawsuit against Dupont Chemical.  Dupont’s first move was to send truckloads of documents to overwhelm him.  It took years and luck, to finally find the “needle” that brought DuPont down.

Redacted Files

We know all about truckloads of documents in the real world.  We’re seeing it right now, in the millions of pages released about the Epstein “investigation”.  Even the Department of Justice of the United States, can’t handle the “haystack” of information that Congress demanded released.  Intentional or not (the John Wayne line as Big Jake:  “Your fault, my fault, nobody’s fault”) the Department of Justice released the names, documentation, and even unclothed pictures of the victims, but managed to redact the names of almost all of the perpetrators.

And now, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the person who claimed to have the Epstein File on her desk, ready for release last April, claims that the “other” two and a half million pages don’t have any important information in them.  She’s ordered her department NOT to release them.  Instead, her Deputy, Todd Blanche, put out a list of hundreds of names “mentioned” in the Epstein files.  

Sure, there’s the expected names included:  (former) Prince Andrew, Donald Trump and all of the rest we already knew about.  And there’s some unexpected names:  Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin and Marilyn Monroe – somehow mentioned in email conversations.  But there’s no context, just the fact they “appeared” in the papers.   It’s kind of like Blanche took the haystack, and tossed it around to make it even harder to search.

Crying Foul

The pressure is now on.  Some Republicans, in the House and in the Senate, are crying foul.  They want the other two and a half million pages out, and they want the names of the adults involved in abusing and trafficking, revealed.   That was the intent of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law passed by Congress and signed by President Trump.  

The EPSTEIN FILES will not go away.  They didn’t go away when the military invaded Venezuela.  They didn’t go away when ICE invaded Minneapolis.  And they won’t go away, even if Trump attacks Iran, or makes a deal in Ukraine.

Congressman Thomas Massie is a far-right wing conservative Republican who represents Northern Kentucky, from Ashland to the Louisville suburbs.  He was MAGA through and through, but demands accountability for Epstein.  This weekend, he uttered the magic words that will haunt Trump until the end of his term.  Massie called his White House “The Epstein Administration”, a nickname that will stick like glue until it all comes out, hay and needles.  Democrats will make sure it does.  

In the end, it may not be the ICE atrocities, or the “cost of eggs” that prevents Trump and his minions from changing the course of American Democracy.  And it may not even be the Democrats, or the brave protestors with their orange whistles.  It might well be the “Tom Massie” MAGA supporters, willing to take all the other Trump nonsense, but unwilling to support the “Epstein Administration”.  

What’s Left

The reality may be this.  Trump could put an end to it all by abandoning his friends, throwing his former party buddies to the wolves, and releasing all the documents.  I’m sure there are some advisors already telling him:  get rid of Lutnick, Bannon and Musk.   Let them take the fall for their association with the convicted pedophile.  Even the British royal family has done it.

Unless…unless what’s left in those millions of papers is the story of a New York realty baron, high on his riches, his parties and his hedonistic desires.  As long as the papers are sealed, the questions about the actions of Donald Trump will never end.  The only reasonable conclusion is that what’s in the hidden papers is more than the “Epstein Administration” can bear.  

Sometimes, the crime really is worse than the cover-up. 

This is a “Sunday Story” that’s coming out on a Saturday.  There won’t be time tomorrow – early track meet. So,  no politics here today, just the “musings” of a retired coach on the coming of spring.

Chipmunk Interstate

I saw a fat chipmunk today. That’s kind of an odd thing to see on this, the end of the second week of February.  Actually, it’s odd to see chipmunks at all this time of year.  Usually, they’re doing whatever it is that chipmunks do to survive a long winter.  And we’ve got a lot of chipmunks here at “Dahlman acres”.  In fact, we’ve got a multi-house colony, living in, under, around our privacy fence between us and the next door neighbors.

The fence serves as safe transportation in the chipmunk world.  You see, there’s a French bulldog on one side, and the four of our dogs on the other side.  Each one would like to find out if chipmunks, like the chew toys inside the house, have “squeakers”.  And when we built the privacy fence, we went the extra-mile for the neighbors.  We put pickets on both sides of the framing boards, so that both sides were “finished” to look at.  We thought it was a nice thing to do.

But what we didn’t realize is that we created a three-lane, multi-level transport system for the chipmunk community.  They run on the top framing board, a 2×4, and still remain undercover.  The pickets extend a full twelve inches above the top of the board, so that the chipmunks are never in view to the canines below.  

And if that isn’t good enough, there’s a second, lower lane, running in the middle of the fence, and a third lane, about a foot above the ground, both completely contained inside the fence.  Now I can’t say I’ve ever seen a chipmunk on that level (I couldn’t if I wanted to).  But, by observing dog behavior, it’s clear that the little rodents are traversing the yard that way as well.

Nexus

Where do the chipmunks go?  Well, we suspect they live in warrens near the northeast corner foundation of our house.  We never see them on the ground, or in the house, or even hear them in the crawl space.  But that corner, where the privacy fence connects to the house, seems to be a nexus of chipmunk activity.  And we also think they’ve created some underground route to the neighbor’s house as well, since they see activity on their west side.

But the trees with chipmunk food, nut and berries, are located at the north end of the yard, near our storage sheds.  So my guess is that there high-speed transit activities in the fence are more than just teasing the dogs.  Like the interstate highways, they’re bringing supplies back to the “warren”, the quickest and safest means possible.

The neighbors are not so happy about chipmunks.  There’s lots of rumors of traps, and flooding, and other “munk-i-cidal” activities going on there.  But on our side, the chipmunks leave us pretty much alone, other than providing ongoing entertainment for the dogs.  They don’t bug us, so we don’t bug them.

Spring Arrives

So it’s Friday, February 13^th (and it’s Friday the 13^th, just realized that).  In the past few days, Central Ohio has started the “big meltdown”.  We had a blizzard three weeks ago, dumping more than a foot of snow.  And, the temperatures have been sub-Arctic ever since, with highs in the low teens and lows below zero.  It wasn’t until Tuesday that temperatures got above freezing, and finally the snow is beginning to melt.  

It was below freezing this morning, but highs will be in the forties today, and even higher in the next few days.  It’s what us old track coaches called “fake spring”.  We could get out on the track, (we could actually see that track), and kids could actually run fast workouts.  In fact, it was days like the ones forecast for next week, with highs approaching sixty, that I’d call a “shirt-off” day.  My boys would be anxious to get “shirts-off” during workouts, even though the temperature with windchill was still in the forties.  All the scolding about staying warm didn’t make a difference.  Come May, they’ll be wearing two sets of sweats in this weather, but in February, it’s “shirts-off”.

Lay of the Land

Meanwhile, I looked out the bedroom window this morning, and saw a really fat chipmunk sitting on the very top of the privacy fence.  I’m not sure how a chipmunk stays fat in February, he must have been very passionate about storing nuts away for the winter.  But there he was, right on top of the pickets, checking out the “lay of the land”.  All the dogs were still inside, and he was clearly mapping out a strategy for new food routes.  

I don’t think this chipmunk was looking for his shadow.  He was flat-out declaring spring.  And even though there’s likely to be one more return to winter before spring really gets here, I’m all-in with him.  It’s time for winter to be over, and let’s get on with the races.  The fence “race-track” is all ready to go!!!

The Sunday Story Series

2021

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

2022

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

2023

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

2024

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

2025

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

2026

• The End of My Nose – 1/18/26
• The End of the Jeep – 1/25/26
• Fat Chipmunk – 2/15/26

Constitutional Rights

I listened to  House of Representatives committee examine the Director of ICE yesterday.  What struck me was this.  Republicans consistently used the phrase “criminal aliens” to identify those who are in the United States without proper documentation.  So here’s my question.  If those folks are actual “criminals”, then shouldn’t they get the “criminal rights” that the United States Constitution requires? 

The Fourth Amendment requires judicial warrants for searches and seizures based on probable cause.  The Fifth Amendment requires indictment by Grand Jury, and due process of law. The Sixth Amendment guarantees a right to a public and speedy jury trial with witnesses, the right to confront the accusers and the right to legal counsel.  And the Eighth Amendment guarantees a right to bail.   And yet, these “criminal aliens” don’t get any of these rights when it  comes to ICE.

Undocumented

The American Civil Liberties Union defines being “undocumented” this way:

The act of being present in the United States in violation of the immigration laws is not, standing alone, a crime. While federal immigration law does criminalize some actions that may be related to undocumented presence in the United States, undocumented presence alone is not a violation of federal criminal law. (ACLU)

A good example of this is someone who comes to the United States on a tourist visa.  They enter the country legally, but if they fail to return home within the visa limitations, then they remain in the country without permission.  They are undocumented, not criminal.

There ARE undocumented folks who commit “real” crimes.  Many of them are in jail right now. (The conservative Cato Institute estimates that there are nearly 70,000 undocumented persons in US Prisons.  There are 1.25 million total prisoners in the US, so around 5% are undocumented, about the same percentage as the total number of undocumented in the population).  And, many of them are removed from the United States after serving their prison sentence, here.

ICE recognizes that “documentation” is not, in itself, a crime. It’s a “civil” offense, similar to traffic laws on a local level.  And they take advantage of that fact, by using “administrative procedures”.  Most of the time, if you get a traffic ticket, you pay the fine and go about your life.  More serious offenses might require a court hearing, and perhaps suspension of driving privileges. But, unless you commit multiple serious offenses (driving under the influence, vehicular homicide) you aren’t in jeopardy of arrest and jail. A similar “civil law” status gives ICE the powers to hold and remove the undocumented from the United States with little judicial intervention.  

Labels

The reality is that the vast majority of undocumented folks in the United States have NOT committed a crime.  Labelling them “criminals” is legally incorrect.  It’s a political gambit, to stoke fear and justify the draconian measures of Stephen Miller and his “private” army, ICE.  But, let’s give them what they’re asking for.  Let’s make being undocumented “criminal”.  

That ends ICE “renditions” out of state to more “favorable” areas.  Midnight flights to Louisiana and Texas violate due process rights.  And, those “arrested” for being undocumented ought to have the same bail rights as any other “criminal”, and all those Sixth Amendment rights, including the right to counsel.  None of those things are happening now.  

The Supreme Court ruled in Yick Wo v Hopkins (US 118 356, 1886) that EVERYONE in the United States; citizens, documented non-citizens, and undocumented non-citizens, have the right to due process of law including Constitutional rights.   It’s old, established, Constitutional law.  Stephen Miller and ICE are circumventing those rights by treating the “undocumented” as “paperwork” issues.  But the resulting penalties; seizure, imprisonment without bail in far away and remote locations, no counsel or judicial proceedings, and deportation from the country, are far beyond what even the real criminals are receiving for their crimes.  It’s not just a ticket, and it’s not just “paperwork” when a five-year old with a bunny hat from Minneapolis ends up in Federal “custody” in Texas.

Let’s call it out.  Either criminalize the undocumented, and give them their legal rights, or get ICE off the streets, and leave the undocumented alone.  Maybe ICE could do what we actually pay them to do:  find those dangerous criminals who happen to be undocumented, and use the “paperwork” to get them out of the country, fast. 

 They’re probably not the ones wearing bunny hats.

Know Nothing

There are two iconic media moments that directly apply to the EPSTEIN FILES.  The first:  an early scene in the very first Star Wars movie, The New Hope. Luke Skywalker and droids R2D2 and C-3PO first meet Obi Won Kenobi, one of the last of the Jedi Knights.  They are trying to get through to a ship, past the Imperial Storm Troopers sent to find the droids.  As they pull up to the town of Mos Eisley, a squad of Troopers approach their vehicle.  Obi Won then shows his mastery of “the force”.  He puts in the Trooper’s mind the thought; “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for” and “You can go about your business, move along, move along”.  It was our introduction to “Jedi Mind Tricks”. 

The second moment is older, back to the days of 1960’s television and a show called Hogan’s Heroes.  It was an improbable comedy about a German World War II prison camp, and the espionage ring run by the Allied soldiers imprisoned there.  Each episode showed Hogan and his team out-witting Colonel Klink, the commander of the camp. However, there often was one German soldier who realized what was going on, Sergeant Schultz.  But he wanted nothing to do with “blowing the whistle (literally)” on Hogan’s crew.  So his answer always was:  “I know nothing, nothing!!”.

It’s all about those in authority ignoring the plain facts in front of them.  What was “miraculous” in Star Wars, and convenient in Hogan’s Heroes, is troubling today.   And that’s what the Government expects us to believe about the EPSTEIN FILES.

Where We Stand

Currently there are six million pages of EPSTEIN FILES in the possession of the Department of Justice.  There is a law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, requiring Justice to release all of the files.  Of course, there are limited exceptions.  The names, pictures, and identifying information of victims should be redacted.  Since Epstein engaged in pedophilia, any photos or videos that would show such acts should be restricted.   And finally, any release of information which might impinge on future criminal indictments should be controlled. Keep in mind, most of the heinous acts took place in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.  While there is no federal statute of limitations on those types of crimes, it would be difficult to try those cases at this late date. 

Yet of six million pages, only three million are released.  Many of those are totally redacted, blacked out so that the public can’t know what’s on them.  And it now seems that Justice redacted names, not of the victims, but of the participants in the acts.  Many of the victims have had their full information released, including even driver’s licenses and social security numbers.  But the names of many of those who joined Epstein “for the fun”, seem to be protected.

Jedi Mind Tricks

The Justice Department is engaging in their own attempt at “Jedi Mind Tricks”.  They are saying that the three million is all there is to see. Nothing in the other half, the other three million pages of documents, is going to be released.  Attorney General Bondi and her team are saying, “There’s nothing to see here, move along, move along”.  They’ve given no specific reason for the “redaction” of half of the evidence, leaving Americans to reach their own conclusions.  

Some, even some Congressmen, are going along with the Justice Department, taking Sergeant Schultz’s view, “I know nothing, nothing!”.  But most of us aren’t falling for Pam Bondi’s attempt at mind tricks.   And other Congressmen, just now able to see the unredacted portions of the first three million pages, are saying that there are well known names involved.

Who’s Implicated

So what’s going on?  Why would the Department of Justice try to hide the names of those who “played” with Epstein, and reveal the names of the victims?  The answer is in the names and stature of the “participants”.  Here are some of the names already mentioned in connection with Epstein:

And then, there’s Donald Trump , the current President of the United States.  In the three million documents currently released, Trump’s name is mentioned 38,000 times. To compare (as MSNOW commentators made note): in the entire seven-book series about Harry Potter, Harry is “only” mentioned 18,956 times.  

While Epstein’s “heyday” was over twenty years ago, many of those connected with him still have enormous power.  They are protected; from embarrassment, from disgrace, and perhaps from indictment.   Even if folks like Donald Trump aren’t “guilty” of something, the current Justice Department actions are making them look guilty.   But, Americans aren’t falling for “Jedi Mind Tricks”.  And we aren’t closing our eyes and saying “We know nothing”, either.  

The Epstein Transparency Act made it clear.  Americans want to know; no matter how deep, no matter which political party, no matter the reputational costs.  It’s only when we fully understand what was going on; in New York, Palm Beach, New Mexico, a Caribbean Island, and perhaps even just down the road from here in New Albany, Ohio; that we can determine what the consequences really should be.  The only solution is for Justice to release all the files: the sooner, the better.

No more tricks.

History

America: we are divided.  Sure our politics are that way, and have been for a while.  Even before Trump, there was the Tea Party.  And before that, there was the “crisis” over Bill Clinton’s immorality.  Remember the Republican Speaker, Newt Gingrich, who impeached Clinton?  He was having an affair at the time, while his wife had cancer.  And then his replacement, Bob Livingston, was “outed” for his affairs by Larry Flynt (Hustler Magazine), and never took the job.  And the man who finally did become Speaker, Dennis Hastert, turned out to be a former high school wrestling coach who molested his kids.  As my mother would say, “the pots” were definitely calling “the kettle” black.

And we have been divided musically.  There are modern hip hop folks.  Some very close to me are Electric Dance Music aficionados.   I live in Pataskala, and often hear modern country music blasting from cars and garages.  And a few of us “older ones”, are still listening to rock from the 1960’s and 70’s.  But music doesn’t have to divide.  One of the best concerts I went to was Garth Brooks.  And I’ve been completing the “last chance” tours; the Eagles, Stevie Nicks, the Rolling Stones, Billy Joel, and variations of Led Zeppelin and the Who.  And I love some Bluegrass, summer with James Taylor, and even Chris Stapleton.  

Super Bowl

But America, we’ve found a new way to divide ourselves:  the Super Bowl halftime show.  Now that show always had some controversy.  I think it really started with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake at Super Bowl XXXVIII (38) back in 2004, when the famous “wardrobe malfunction” occurred.  Janet’s naked breast was revealed to a national television audience.  (I was driving home from Cleveland, and only got to “hear” the controversy at the time).  The NFL tried to serve the eclectic tastes of American music, from Rock to Country to Pop to Rap.  And this year, they brought in Bad Bunny.

Full disclosure:  I truly had no idea who Bad Bunny was until he was announced for the NFL halftime show.  Google’s AI defines his style as “Latin Trap and reggaeton”, or, “musica urbana”.  Anyway, I caught up with him through his month long series of concerts in Puerto Rico, where I realized two things:  my Spanish isn’t very good, and his beat is.  No, I’m not a Bad Bunny fan, but he definitely gets things going, and that’s all good.

Musica

Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican.  That makes him a natural-born American citizen, much to the surprise of many.  Even though the current President discovered the Puerto Rico was an island, surrounded by ocean (just before he started throwing paper towel rolls), it’s been a part of the United States since the Spanish-American War in 1898.  That’s longer than five of the states have been in the Union.   The main language of Puerto Rico is Spanish, and Bad Bunny, like most Puerto Ricans, is fluent in both Spanish and English. 

But his “musica” is in Spanish.  He’s Latino, like many of the folks the ICE is trying to “round up”.   And he is clear that he thinks the current Trump campaign to “rid” America of undocumented migrants is wrong.  So the battle of the Patriots versus the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX was subsumed by the American battle over the actions of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.  (Super Bowl LX, that’s sixty.  You know you’re old when you remember Super Bowl I, back in 1967, when the Packers beat the Chiefs, and Jazz trumpeter Al Hirt was the halftime show). 

Winners and Losers

So America divided:  the Bad Bunny halftime show, or the alternative, Turning Point halftime show, streamed online.  Turning Point headlined Trump supporter Kid Rock, along with country stars Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, andGabby Barrett (yeah, I don’t know them either).  And, just like the game, score was kept.  Around 140 million watched Bad Bunny. About six million watched Kid Rock.  

Of course, Bad Bunny had the advantage.  He was live on the actual game field, not pre-recorded in Atlanta.  He was joined by Lady Gaga, and Ricky Martin.  And folks were watching halftime of the football game on TV, not “tuned in” to a streaming computer screen.  So it’s really not fair to claim “victory” for the anti-Trump forces.  But, on the other hand, only six million determined to make the “political statement” of turning their back on Bad Bunny.   Maybe they didn’t even watch the game. But even at the Mar-A-Lago Dinner Club, the Super Bowl party watched…Bad Bunny.  Trump didn’t like it.

We can divide over anything.  Remember when Kid Rock decided the Bud Light was “trans-beer”.  He shot his AR-15 into a six pack.  And we can find fault over Janet Jackson’s wardrobe, or Cold Play showing a rainbow image (gay?) in Super Bowl L (50).  But Bad Bunny took full advantage of his moment on the stage.  And his message was:  Love America, Love Puerto Rico, and…just love.  There was even a real wedding on stage during the show.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so divided about that.

The Courts

After the 2020 elections, there were fifty-eight legal cases challenging the Presidential results.  Fifty-eight times lawyers went to Courts; local, state and Federal; to challenge the narrow Joe Biden victory over Donald Trump.  And fifty-seven times, the varying Courts in the United States found that the election count was accurate.   Not surprisingly, most cases were in the “swing states”:

• Pennsylvania – 17 cases
• Georgia – 12 cases
• Michigan – 8 cases
• Wisconsin – 7 cases
• Arizona – 7 cases
• Nevada – 2 cases
• Texas – 2 cases
• Washington, DC – 1 case
• Minnesota – 1 case
• New Mexico – 1 case

            (The Ohio State University has a full listing of all of the cases).

The election results of 2020 were “fully litigated”.  Several went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, a body already slanted for the Republican President.  But even those Justices failed to find reason to rule in his favor.  Trump finally sent a mob to disrupt the Congressional certification of the election on January 6^th, 2021.  But the Insurrection failed, and on January 20^th, Joe Biden was sworn in as the forty-sixth President.

The States

In Arizona, the Republican state legislature ordered a full investigation of their 2020 votes.  They hired the “Cyber-Ninjas” to do a detailed audit of every vote.  The “Ninjas” were really hired to “fix” the results in Trump’s favor.  But even they couldn’t do it, because, there was no “fix” in the first place.  After spending millions of Arizona dollars, all the “Ninjas” could do was slink out of town. The results didn’t change.

In Georgia, the Republican Secretary of State machine counted the votes once, then ordered a physical hand count of every Georgia ballot. He then had a machine count taken again.  Biden won the election, all three times.

So why is the WINNER of the 2024 Presidential election, now the forty-seventh President Donald Trump, still trying to “win” the 2020 election?

Original Lost Cause

In the decades after the American Civil War, the former Confederacy waged a renewed battle, this time with what in modern terms we would call a “propaganda” campaign.  At the time of the war the struggle was clearly a Nation divided by Southern determination to maintain slavery.  But the story was “re-imagined” as a war for “state sovereignty” over “federal over-reach”.  

The massacre of black soldiers at Fort Pillow was forgotten, and the heroism of Pickett’s Charge elevated.  In the early 20^th century, monuments were erected to Southern sacrifice all over the South. The Confederate generals were exalted over the Union leaders who defeated them.  Confederate Robert E Lee was the brilliant strategist; Union General Ulysses S Grant just a “butcher”.

By the 1950’s, most Americans, North and South, had a totally different view of the Civil War than those who actually participated in it. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that our education system began to look at the “Lost Cause” movement for what it was; a false story written by the loser to justify their sacrifice and failure.  The “Lost Cause” remains a force today.  It’s difficult for many Americans to put false “education” of decades aside, and deal with the fact of an economic system built on the forced labor of enslaved humans.

Modern Lost Cause

The Trump Administration, like the defeated Confederacy of old, is trying to re-write history.  They have their own “Lost Cause”, the election of 2020 when the reality of the Covid Pandemic turned a close margin of the Nation’s vote from Trump to Biden. (Just as the reality of inflation resulting from Covid recovery narrowly turned the Nation from Harris back to Trump).  But, in their mythology, Trump couldn’t lose.  So it must be some conspiracy, some cabal of liberal Democrats that nefariously altered the results.

Speaker Mike Johnson explained it all so well this week.  He acknowledged that there is no evidence of election fraud, no reasonable scenario where the 2020 election was “stolen”.  But, he said, it didn’t “feel right”.  After all, as they counted the votes, Trump was winning, and then, as the count went on, he lost.  

Commentators call it the “Red Mirage”, when typical modern voting behaviors cause more Republican votes to be counted “up front”, and more Democratic votes counted afterwards.  For example:  Pennsylvania reports out the election day votes before any absentee or early votes are reported.  So if more Republicans vote on election day then Republicans look like they’re winning on the first reports. More Democrats vote early or absentee, so later reports “drift” back to Democratic as more ballots are added.  But Johnson claims that this is “evidence” of fraud, even though the explanation was clear even before the counting  began.

Johnson must know this.  But he’s willing to use his “feelings” to persuade Americans that there is something “crooked” with the American electoral system.  And that “crookedness” isn’t historical for Johnson and the Trump cohort, it’s their “evidence” of current and even future election rigging.  It’s their excuse to take control of the election process.

Elections in America

The US Constitution is clear on the point: “The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time make or alter such regulations…” (Article I, Section 4).   States control elections, Congress may make regulations regarding them.  

But President Trump wants to “Federalize” the election process, particularly in those states that voted against him in the last elections.  A “Federalized” process would be a Trump controlled process, the final step in making sure he stays in office, even after his second term expires.  He would make the “Red Mirage” a real thing, cutting off vote counts when he is ahead, regardless of the remaining ballots left uncounted, as he suggested in 2020. 

What’s to Lose

The goal of the Republican leaders is to make Americans “feel” that the elections are “rigged”.  That would make them more amenable to changes to our election system, even though a “Federalized” system is more likely to be “hacked” (perhaps the point).   Currently the United States has fifty-one different systems.  That diversity is one of the ways that we secure our elections from interference.  

The “Lost Cause” myth of the 2020 election isn’t just a way to assuage Trump’s hurt ego.  Here’s what Trump has to lose.  If a 2026 Congressional election puts Congress in Democratic hands, Trump will face two years of opposition, investigation and probable impeachment.  And if 2028 puts a Democrat in the White House, it’s unlikely they’ll make the same mistake Biden made in 2021.  It won’t take two years to begin an investigation of Trump’s improprieties as President.

There is an entire theory that Trump ran for President in 2024 to avoid the Jack Smith investigation.   Now that he’s in office, surely he’ll continue to do whatever he can to stay out of jail.   His willingness to alter or abolish our voting system to save himself from the consequences of his actions, is a seminal threat to American Democracy.

Violent Encounter

A car stops on an open road, blocking both lanes.  Armed occupants leap from the vehicle, and race back to the car behind them.  Inside that blocked vehicle, a woman confronts masked, unidentifiable armed men surrounding her, ordering her out of the car.  She doesn’t give in.  She videos the encounter, she calls the police, the real police, for help, and she tells them she is not violating the law, just observing.

But the armed men open the driver’s door, and drag her from the car.  Her husband arrives. He sees the car being searched, and demands to know where the warrant is. The two sides bicker over the US Constitution, and whether unidentified men can take a person into custody for the offense of “following their car”.  It’s tough to make a real obstruction charge, when she physically wasn’t obstructing.  The true charge would be “annoyance of so-called Federal agents”.  But that one isn’t written in the books.

Detention Facilities

This story is not from an apocalyptic movie of the 1970’s, about a dystopian future when armed thugs wander the streets.  This scene is actually from yesterday’s news.  It’s happening all over America.  Federal “agent” brutality is only one side of the what America looks like today.  The “Big, Beautiful Bill”  that Congress passed last year, allocated $165 Billion to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).   That’s almost 20% of what the Department of Defense gets to run all of the Armed Services:  Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy and Space Force and build ships and planes and a “Golden Dome” defense system that Ronald Reagan dreamed about.

They’ve more than doubled the number of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) agents, to 22,000.  And they are contracting for detention facilities (camps, jails, areas) throughout the US, to the tune of $45 Billion.  To put that into some perspective:  our local school district recently built a big, beautiful new high school designed for 1500 kids.  It cost around $100 million (and it’s already at capacity).  Homeland Security is building detention facilities that are the equivalent of 450 of those big high schools throughout the country, to house “detained” migrants.  And I’m sure they aren’t worried about keeping a “three foot interval between desks in a classroom” that the new school has.  

A Million a Year

The Trump Administration leaders (Stephen Miller at the fore) are interested in deporting a million people a year. They want to wipe America clean of what they call “illegals”.  (Note:  illegal implies that they are criminals, which the vast majority of undocumented are not.  Crossing the border without permission is a “civil” offense, akin to getting a traffic ticket.  Many entered the United States with permission, and even the help, of the government. We don’t call speeding or even serial parking violators criminals, do we?).  But Miller is going farther than that.  With little notice, he has ordered DHS to revoke the “Temporary Protective Status” (TPS) from Haitian immigrants.  That’s in spite of their homeland being ruled by ruthless, murdering gangs, and still suffering from the twin economic disasters of earthquake and hurricane.  

Those Haitians have lived for years in the US, built lives, and powered the economic re-birth of American towns like Springfield, Ohio.  Now they will be uprooted.  And if they do not leave the United States immediately, then they will be considered “criminal”.  While a Federal Judge has granted a temporary reprieve, soon, ICE and CBP will start wandering the back roads of Springfield, looking for a black man at the wheel, or a black woman in the grocery line, and demanding “papers”.  If they don’t produce the papers, or are “revoked” TPS Haitians; they could end up in one of the camps, jails, areas, facilities that DHS is building.

History Remembered

We’ve been here before in America.  Soon after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, many Americans looked at people of Japanese ancestry as “the enemy”.  And it wasn’t just folks with Japanese citizenship, it was US citizens who were descended from Japan as well.  On Hawaii and the West Coast, these AMERICAN CITIZENS were placed into custody, and taken to remote “relocation camps”; far away from their homes and properties.   Men, women, children and the elderly were under armed guard, behind barbed wire, held without due process for years.

The euphemistically named “Japanese Relocation” during World War II has been a source of American shame ever since. None of the “relocated” were ever convicted of espionage.  And, there were no German or Italian descendants “relocated”, even though war was declared on those nations as well.  It was done purely on a racial, and racist, basis.  

Revisiting Our Shame

 I once had the son of Japanese immigrants, born an American citizen in Los Angeles; speak to my eighth grade classes.  He was the shortstop on his high school baseball team one day, a regular American kid.  The next game was his big concern. But the next day, he was “interned” as a possible enemy.  He ultimately earned his way out of the camp. He joined the US Army to fight in one of the most highly decorated units of World War II.  But he never forgot how it felt to be “a US kid” one day , and “the enemy” the next.

The Trump Administration will argue; “they aren’t citizens”.  But the world has seen what camps: relocation, concentration or refugee, really means.  A majority is trying to “contain” a minority.  And it’s happening here, again.  The shameful acts of the Japanese Relocation have become the current blueprint for the Department of Homeland Security.  And they’ve got all the money they need to do it.  

I love America, but I am ashamed of what we are becoming.

Border Czar

Tom Hohman is in Minneapolis.  Hohman, Trump’s “Border Czar”, is directly taking over ICE Operations there.  He’s got a tough job.  His agents were randomly searching for undocumented migrants and taking men, women, and children in custody often without any due process of law.  The actions of his agents were countered by the citizens of Minneapolis.  Many have tried to protect folks who have committed no crimes, but simply are undocumented. (And before we get lost in the weeds, crossing the border “without papers” is a  civil offense, not a criminal offense).  

“Agitators” followed ICE teams randomly driving the roads, looking for “illegal immigrants”.  The ICE teams focus on the “looks” of possible undocumented, with all of the civil liberties violations that entails.  Minnesota citizens created networks of “warners and watchers”, blowing whistles and horns when ICE was around.  And they stood witness, both personally and with video, of ICE actions.  The seemingly untrained and badly led  ICE “teams” often lashed out at the citizens, with chemical weapons and physical attacks. It’s resulted in the shooting deaths of two, both US citizens.

The Battlefield

Hohman promises a change in strategy.  He uses “battle terminology” to describe ICE actions, saying some agents have been “in theater” for eight months.  “In theater” means doing their job, in the United States.  And clearly, to Hohman, the United States is a battlefield, where ICE is fighting what he calls a valiant and necessary war to clean the streets of the undocumented.

He promises more ICE operations.  He promises continued deportations.  But he also promises that the “random” drive-by operations led by the officer he replaced, Greg Bovino, will not be the strategy.  Hohman promises to focus on those undocumented who commit other crimes, targeting operations to capture specific individuals.  And he intimates that there is some kind of “deal” made with the mostly Democratic leaders of Minnesota, to give ICE access to undocumented being held as criminals in Minnesota’s jails and prisons.  

To push the military analogy a little farther, it’s kind of like the opening scene of the movie, Patton. The US Army in North Africa, fresh from a horrible defeat at Kasserine Pass, is waiting.  The general who led them to defeat, has been sacked.  The soldiers look slovenly, undisciplined, and defeated.  And in comes General George Patton, flags flying on his Jeep, demanding discipline, decorum, and readiness.  Tom Hohman is Trump’s Patton.

At the Top

For those who hoped that the ugly, un-American actions of ICE were over, Hohman made it clear that he’s going to continue to “wage war” on the undocumented.  As he said, “If you’re undocumented, you are always at risk”.  But Hohman plans to focus on the campaign promise Trump made during last year’s Presidential election.  He’s going after criminals, not just any undocumented.

The concern we should have, is the true leader of the ugly American campaign is still in charge.  Stephen Miller is still Deputy Chief of Staff in the White House.  It was Miller’s demand that 3000 undocumented be deported a day, that drove the random round-ups that led to violence.  It’s Miller’s firm assertion that all undocumented persons are  “criminal”, simply by being undocumented. That means children and grandparents should be thrown into jail without due process, and dumped in foreign lands. And Miller put Kristi Noem in place as the Secretary of Homeland Security, with old, trusted, Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski at her side. Nothing has changed at the top.

“Justice is Coming”

Hohman promises that “justice is coming”.  He wasn’t talking about the undocumented criminals.  He was referring to the protestors, the “warners and watchers”, who use social media to track and disrupt ICE operations. Just as the Justice Department opened “obstruction” investigations of Governor Walz and Mayor Frey, the organizers of the “warners and watchers” may be subject to Federal intervention.  It’s a chilling thought:  the US Government using the power of the Justice Department to stifle political dissent.  But it’s a sign of our times.  The Justice Department demands the voting rolls from swing states, and even sent the FBI into the Fulton County (Atlanta) board of elections.  Attorney General Bondi offered to take ICE out of Minnesota in exchange for their voter information.  

What we can expect is the ICE will be more disciplined, and better organized, and less likely to “pick fights” with civilians.  Hopefully they will be less likely to use deadly force.  And we can brace for an ICE “publicity tour” of all the horrible criminals that are caught and deported.  But with Miller, Noem and Lewandowski still at the helm, don’t expect the real policy to change.

America is still in the “business” of “cleansing” the undocumented.  And it’s still un-American.