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Project 2029 – Part the First

Unalterable Change

In an essay last week, “It’s Getting Near Christmas”, I proposed that Progressive/Democrats (or, my favorite label, Liberals) follow the example of our right-wing fellow citizens.  In the interregnum between the first and second Trump Administrations, those right-wingers were distraught at losing the Presidency.  They thought that their “last best chance” to alter America to their own image was lost. 

But instead of wallowing in despair, they went to work.  Even as Democrats in power led the way towards “normalizing” the United States, the “boys” at the Heritage Foundation (few women involved) were dreaming “big dreams”.  Instead of “giving up” and finding ways to accommodate themselves to the new Biden order, they prepared for total revolution.  And it worked.

It was a grim happenstance of history. The Trump Assassination plot and Biden’s aging, blended with the nomination of Kamala Harris as the first  Black/West Asian and woman candidate of a major party for President.   In the end, my foil hat theories to the contrary, it was too much for the American people to deal with. They narrowly re-elected Trump.  That opened the door to Project 2025, Stephen Miller and Russell Vought, and a wholesale revamping of American government, and life.  

I met some friends last week at a Christmas Party.  They read my essays, and feel that I was more than just uncertain about the future of America.  They said, I sounded like I was in despair, and that our “last, best chance” was done.  Looking back at some of those writings, they’re right.  I am concerned about what could happen to America.  I am saddened by what I see Americans doing.  And I am worried that should we fail to stop the Project 2025 “boys”, they will make unalterable changes to the American “story”.  

Visualization

So, I look to a technique I used as a high school track coach.  It’s simple:  if an athlete can’t envision clearing a bar, or winning a race, or throwing a distance; it’s unlikely they can achieve it.  My coaching mentor, John McGowan, often wrote it on his “post-game” reports to the team:  “What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve”.  Others put it more simply:  “If you say you can’t, you won’t.  If you say you can, you will!”   As a coach, my job was to train the body, instill technique, and provide opportunity.  But it was also to convince them that what I was asking wasn’t impossible.  

How could a boy clearing 10’6” in the pole vault see themselves growing to clear 15’0”, if they couldn’t imagine even making 11’0”?  They had to see a path, the progression towards a goal.  We simply had to envision it, step by step.  I had them close their eyes and visualize success.  Feel the pole shooting their body into the air. Watch the technique of going over the bar. Hear the air rush with the bar cleared and the long fall towards the pit. Stand and see the bar still up. Feel what it is like to have a goal achieved.  

Conceive

Today, we must conceive what victory will look like.  We must envision what needs to be done to make sure that the United States will never be so degraded again.  We must visualize the process, the progression to the America we want it to be.  And, for me, that process is hard to do.

It’s taken me a while to figure out why.  I’ve done it before.  I lived through Nixon, and Reagan and Bush.  But, I’m sixty-nine years old. It will take decades to repair the damage done, decades that I don’t necessarily have.  So, like the boy who couldn’t envision making 11’ and therefore couldn’t see 15’, I see the ultimate goal as beyond my time.   What I resolved, is to see the path, the progression towards the America I believe we can become.  And, maybe, help get to 13’6” before my time is done.  It’s not 15′, but it’s a start.  So let us begin.

Restrain the Presidency

One of the most difficult things to do is to achieve power, then give it up.  But that’s exactly what the next Democratic President must do.  The Trump Presidencies have proven one thing:  that old saw that “The Presidency makes the man” is a myth.  The United States depended on norms, precedents, and traditions to restrain our elected leader.  But Trump, and the “unitary executive” theory of the Heritage “boys”, proves that self-restraint is not enough.  So the first thing the President, and the new Congress must do, is codify the powers of the President.  Put them into law, and place boundaries on Presidential power in black and white.  

There’s precedence for that.  After Watergate and Nixon’s resignation, the Congress instituted a series of laws to prevent his kind of corruption.  The Presidents after Nixon did as well, building a legal “wall” between the White House and the Department of Justice.  But that Presidential “wall” was built with “norms”; unwritten rules.  And clearly the Trump Administration feels no compunction today about breeching all of those norms for their own gain.  So now, it needs to be “Black Letter Law”.

Nuclear Threat

We need to renew the laws we already have,  ones that were gutted by the Supreme Court.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is now a “paper tiger”, with all of its enforcement mechanisms removed.  Somehow, Chief Justice Roberts and his majority have decided that there is no discrimination in America, and therefore no need to remediate electoral discrimination.  

That’s exactly the “judicial activism” that the Heritage “boys” have been decrying for years.  Congress must step in and make policies to protect minorities in America, a Nation where minorities are in fact, the majority.   The same is true with the Affordable Care Act. The provisions that made it “affordable” were gutted by the same Court.

And if the Court determines to not give up its power grab, then Congress has remedies, including the “nuclear option” of adding more Justices.  When that was threatened in the 1930’s, the Court was overruling the New Deal legislation to rebuild America’s economy.  While “Court Packing ” never became law, oddly, the existing Justices began to find for the New Deal, instead of against it.  So change can happen, if the right levers of power are exercised.  And there’s always the “nuclear threat”, if need be.

Represent People, Not Parties

We need to guarantee that the Congress actually represents America.  Gerrymandering has altered American political life, putting an emphasis on extremism over compromise.  While I agree with Gavin Newsom in fighting redistricting “fire with fire” now, ultimately the United States needs to get beyond this naked political power play of slicing neighborhoods and communities for political gain.  We need to recognize that we are a government “of the people”, not of political parties or geographic expanses.

And, as far as the Senate of the United States is concerned, it too should be more representative of our Nation.  Washington DC should become a state, as should Puerto Rico.  If that results in a more permanent Democratic majority in the Senate, so be it.  If the opposition party doesn’t like it, then they should adapt to a new American reality, rather than restrict representation.  Political parties can change:  Republicans used to have liberals, and Democrats used to have conservatives and even segregationists.    Republicans had a complete plan to change after their loss in 2012, but abandoned it with their total sellout to right-wing forces.  We are all paying the penalty for that now.

Non-Linear Progression

If you need precedent for that, simply look back at our history.  In the years before the Civil War, compromises were constantly made to control Senate membership.  The Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act; all pivoted around the two more seats in the chamber each statehood created.  While they failed to stop a Civil War, they are precedent for change to reflect the Nation.

There are more changes, more proposals to consider.  If Project 2025 ran to 900 pages, Project 2029 may take as many.  Detail is important; it’s a plan, not a dream.  So this is “Part the First”.  I promise to return with more.  In the meantime, visualize what America is learning, and what we can still become.  Our hope for a “more perfect union” isn’t dead. It’s just isn’t the linear a progression we wanted.

Who Ya’ Fooling?

What About

The Department of Justice is already four days late.  The law requires all of the EPSTEIN FILES released by December 19th, 2025.  It’s now December 23rd (I checked the Advent Calendar), and only a small portion of those files are in the public.  

Much of what DOJ has “released” is already in the public sphere.  Other parts are simply “redacted”, blacked out and containing no information whatsoever.  Some is actually new stuff, but was put out, then pulled back by the Department.  Odd, some of those were pictures containing images of Donald Trump.  Who’d have believe it?

When challenged on the issue, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche did exactly what the Trump Administration “playbook” says to do under pressure: say “What-About”.    When asked why so little new information was released to meet the LEGAL requirement, Blanche quickly fell back on “What-About the Biden Administration, they didn’t release any”.  

What about that, Todd?  What about the candidate who ran for President in 2024, promising that all of the information would be released?  That wasn’t Joe Biden, and it wasn’t Kamala Harris either.  It was the current President, your boss, the man who signed the “EPSTEIN FILES Transparency Act”, Donald Trump.  What about that?

Delay-Delay-Delay

The successful legal strategy used by the Trump team for years is simple: delay, delay delay.  The longer they can “hold off”, the better the legal outcome turned out to be.  Look at the National Security charges the President faced over the Mar-A-Lago boxes.  They (then Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche lead the way) stalled in every way, shape and form.  That is, until after the 2024 election, when they gained control of the Justice Department, and dropped the charges.

Trump knew he was in trouble with the national security charges.  His only way out was to win the Presidency.  Trump also (according to Prosecutor Jack Smith) was “dead to rights” on charges of abuse of power,  and advocating insurrection.  The only way for Trump to dodge that bullet, was to win.  

Delay was always effective for them.  So the question that needs to be asked about the EPSTEIN FILES  is:  delay to what purpose?  Trump’s the President now. What benefit will he gain from delaying the inevitable pictures of a younger, partier, Donald and much younger women?  The Republican Senate isn’t going to convict him of impeachment, and his own (owned?) Department of Justice isn’t going to indict him for sex offenses (twelve year statute of limitation, except for DNA evidence).  

Worth It

So what is he waiting for – America to forget?  To become a “wartime” President so that the United States won’t, as Abraham Lincoln put it, “Change horses in mid-stream”?  To create such a climate of fear (ask CBS or ICE) that no one would dare to bring up the possibility that he “indulged” in young girls, along with his best buddy, Jeffrey.  That, this self-acknowledged sexual “athlete”, the man who has publicly bragged about the “size of his sword” (versus his hands), the man with a known predilection for younger women (ask the Miss Teenage USA contestants) might have actually participated in Epstein’s bacchanals?  

It seems inevitable that Trump is directly involved in the Epstein affair.  And it seems he’s organized the entire American Justice system, to protect him from that obvious revelation.  The harder Trump tries to deny it, the more his involvement seems…total.

In other words, to go through so much, it must be worth it.  He turned on his own MAGA base, calling them fools of a “Democratic Hoax”.  He lost an important ally, Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Then he completely flipped, and told the Congress “…don’t bother to debate this, just send it over and I’ll sign it”. He made THE EPSTEIN FILES Transparency Act a law.  And now, finally, he’s doing what we always thought he would do: lie, obfuscate, obstruct, and deny.  There must be some things in those files, really bad:  bad for Donald Trump.

Burn the Tapes

A little tidbit to remember about Donald Trump.  There is a direct connection between the end of the Nixon Administration, the final collapse of the Watergate coverup, and Trump.  His closest political “mentor” was Roger Stone, a young Nixon political operative and a minor figure in the Watergate investigation.  The ultimate downfall of Nixon was the tapes.  

Nixon “bugged” his own offices, and ultimately the revealed words on those tapes led to his resignation.  Stone believed that if Nixon destroyed the tapes rather than turn them over to the Courts, his Presidency would have survived.  In fact, Stone suggested Nixon should just burn the tapes on the White House lawn.

Look out for smoke from the newly paved Rose Garden, or the backyard of the Department of Justice.  Trump might follow his old mentor’s advice.

Getting Near Christmas 

My favorite “sad” Christmas song – James Taylor’s version of Joni Mitchell’s – River

Christmas Week

It’s Christmas week, 2025.  This week is always a time of family, food, Great Lakes Christmas Ale, and fun. (I think we bought out the local supply of Ale).   But it’s also a week of reflection, on last year, and on what the future will be.  

It’s Christmas week, and ICE has come to Columbus.  A hundred or more ICE “officers” are staying at the Airport hotels for the next three weeks.  I don’t wish ill on anyone, but their actions seem especially heinous in the Christmas season.  Families of mixed immigration status will need to hide in their homes, hoping for help with food from those willing to risk “aiding and abetting”.  Some of them will still have to go to work (pay taxes, add to the economy) at risk of detention and removal. ICE showed up at a Columbus high school last week.  It’s was the “joyous” last day of school before Christmas Break, now it is remembered by students as the day that masked, anonymous, military men threatened them and their classmates.  

It’s Christmas week, and the Department of Justice flaunts the law.  The House, the Senate (by unanimous consent) and the President signed a law requiring ALL EPSTEIN FILE materials turned over to Congress by Friday, December 19th.  But the Deputy Attorney General simply said, “No”.  Instead, he turned over thousands of already released documents, hundreds of totally redacted pages, and some actual new material. Many of those were pictures of known Democrats with or around Jeffrey Epstein.  The Department of Justice has a very different understanding of the word “ALL” then do the rest of us.  And a different meaning of the word “Justice” too.  The law enforcers are now scofflaws.

Un-Doing

It’s Christmas week, and we are still murdering men in boats in both the Caribbean and the Pacific (nearly one hundred).  We are threatening war with Venezuela, and we are bombing Syria. (Of all that, the Syrian bombing makes the most sense, since an ISIS remnant recently killed three Americans).  Oh, and Donald Trump has added his own name to the “top line” of the Kennedy Center.  Credit where credit is due:  gas prices are down.  But the literal “cost of Christmas”, buying food and presents and decorations and everything else, is higher than ever.  It’s getting near Christmas.

There is so much to undo.  In the eleven short months since Donald Trump assumed the Presidency, our Nation has become nearly unrecognizable.  We now have a  “secret police force”,  called ICE.  We have rolled back protections for minorities, particularly people of color.  Our Nation is in the process of real indoctrination, what the Right has always accused supposed “lefty” public education of doing.  Now, even the State of Ohio has listed the “Christian” elements that should be taught in public school.  

There are raging measles and whooping cough epidemics already.  We will soon add other “childhood” diseases to the list.  Like the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services no longer worries about Health.  Instead, it is pursuing the political agenda of extreme anti-vaxxers.  The vaccinators have become the vaccine skeptics.  And the National Park Service wants the authority to sell park land to private owners.  Those who remember reading George Orwell’s 1984 in high school are having flashbacks.

The List

The infamous Project 2025 is a nine hundred page list of changes the Right-wing Heritage Foundation wants to do to the American Government.  It is the blueprint for the Trump Administration, from DOGE to ICE to disbanding the Department of Education.  The Plan short circuits the Constitutional system.  Instead of the “Schoolhouse Rock” version, laws first passed by Congress then signed by the President; Project 2025 depends on their own interpretation of executive authority.  They “believe”, almost in the religious sense, that the President has the ultimate and singular authority to make all and any decisions for the unitary executive branch. 

All of the “checks and balances” within the branch are short-circuited.  Even the massive reform of the 1880’s, civil service, is threatened.  (As a reminder:  in 1881 President James Garfield was assassinated by a disgruntled office seeker.  Garfield’s successor, Chester Arthur, got the the civil service act  through Congress in Garfield’s name. It required that the vast majority of government jobs be filled based on merit and ability, rather than political loyalty.  But this non-partisan workforce is a threat to the Project 2025 plan.  The authors call Civil Service the “Deep State”, and intend to destroy it.) 

Executive orders are put in place of laws, and are supposed to obeyed with the same alacrity.  And those executive orders have the added “bonus” of exactly fitting with a newly Supreme Court created Presidential “power”.  The President is now immune from criminal responsibility for any of his “official” acts.  And, since executive orders are “official”, he now can do almost anything with impunity.

Project 2029

We in the “opposition” have a lot to do.  First, we need to start clawing back power.  That’s happening:  in the elections held since Trump took office, Democrats are winning overwhelmingly.  We still have eleven months until the mid-term elections, when Democrats may be able to wrest back the House and Senate.  Then, we need to put the Administration under a microscope, and fight to protect the balance of power.

And we better be starting a list of what we have to “undo” from the Trump Administration.  There is so much damage done, both here in the United States, and worldwide.  It’s going to take a Democratic President more than just his or her eight years to rebuild the “guardrails”, now no longer in “norms” but in law.  I suspect we already have more than nine hundred pages of things to fix.  Call it “Project 2029”. 

It’s getting near Christmas, 2025.  At least Santa Claus gets to start a fresh list on December 26.  Our list will just get longer, and uglier, until we finally get to deliver for the American people.  There will be plenty of time to “check it twice”.

Our Hey-Day

Changing America

My grandfather was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1880, and died there in 1967.   He was a sports editor for the Cincinnati Post; an expert on horse racing.  Being an expert, by the way, didn’t mean that he got rich “betting the ponies”, but he did help “set the odds” with his expertise.

One of the marvels of Ben Dahlman’s life, was that he was born when the United States was waging war against the Native Americans in the West.  The fastest means of transportation was the railroad, and long distance communication was by letter, or, for shorter messages, telegraph.  The telephone was invented four years before he was born, but wasn’t in use yet.  

He lived to see the horse drawn trollies down Mitchell Avenue (with strategically placed water troughs – see photo – throughout the city) become gas powered, then electric.  Whole industries like livery stables, “Icemen” delivering for iceboxes, and “Milkmen” delivering daily, disappeared.  The telegraph was replaced by the telephone, then the radio, then the television.  Passenger trains were on the way out when he died in 1967, air transportation and interstate highways took their place.  

His lifetime was full of dramatic change.  And so is ours. 

1920’s Policy

Today we have a White House that would have been very familiar in my Grandfather’s “hey-day” in the 1920’s.  Current US immigration policy is modeled after the one used post-World War I,  when the US was highly restrictive of immigration from anywhere except Northern Europe.  (Of course, we would let folks in from Norway then, too!!). American foreign policy ignored Europe.  We were secure in the belief that the Atlantic and Pacific provided a wall of security against foreign incursions. They called it “Fortress America”.

US foreign policy in the twenties was almost constantly engaged with Central and South America, a continuation of the “Banana Wars”.  US military forces were engaged in Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Honduras.  In addition, the US continued to have border issues with Mexico. We actually launched an invasion of Mexico in 1914, led by General John “Blackjack” Pershing. In the 1920’s, those problems continued, often involving immigration.  

So it shouldn’t be such a surprise that the US military is now nearing a full-on war with Venezuela.  Trump is trying to return to the era when Standard Oil drilled in the Venezuelan jungle, back in 1921.  The President has threatened direct military intervention in Mexico against “narco-terrorism”.  And, of course, over ninety men are dead from US attacks on boats supposedly smuggling drugs, perhaps even headed to the United States.  As far as Europe is concerned, the Trump Policy has a familiar name:  “America First”.  That’s the same name taken by those who opposed involvement in Europe before both World War I and World War II.

Industrial Life

Like my grandfather’s era, we are looking at dramatic changes in industry.  The current tariff policies, targeted to bring companies back to the United States; will take decades to, maybe, be successful. (And only if future administrations continue it).  But even if many industries do return to US soil, they won’t bring the “good old factory” jobs back.  Like a lot of our society, much of the industrialization, from building cars to making tires, is now automated.  But Trump replicates the tariff policies of the 1920’s, with stiff “protective” tariffs against foreign competition.  Those tariffs helped slow European recovery from World War I, making it more vulnerable to the economic disaster of the Great Depression.

In fact, the next big change in our lives will be the impact of artificial intelligence on employment.  Think of it this way:  right now, I could “assign” an artificial intelligence program to write this essay comparing the foreign policies of the 1920’s and the 2020’s.  It might do a better job.  Last week, I ran into a former teacher who left the classroom to write learning objectives for an educational software developer.  She lost her new job this past year:  AI can do it, without a paycheck.

The loss of industrial jobs in the 1970’s and 1980’s had a tremendous impact on American society.  What used to be jobs that paid for a middle class lifestyle, were gone overseas.  Those same jobs are not coming back.  And, with Artificial Intelligence, a whole new class of jobs will go the way of the livery stable, the iceman, the telephone operator or the gas station attendant.  Huge swaths of jobs:   copy writing, developing educational lesson plans, advertising, basic design and structural development, almost all kinds of information entry and processing; will become an “AI” problem.  The “nurse” from your doctor’s office will no longer call with information.  It will be the computer, that doesn’t require health insurance, or weekends.

Harding and Coolidge

This is the implicit promise of the Trump White House:  we will bring back the “hey-days” of the 1950’s, with industrial jobs, and an “idyllic” way of life symbolized by the suburban TV lives of “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Leave it to Beaver”.  The path he  follows is one blazed by Presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.  They are the “authors” of the historic actions that Trump finds so promising.  

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”.  And the current “rhyme” with the 1920’s ended with the 1930’s:  the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism, and World War II.  We can see the signs already.   America needs to change the rhyme, the pattern, the rhythm. Otherwise Trump’s “hey-days” risk repeating historic tragedy.

With Malice

American Standard

I didn’t laugh when Charlie Kirk died.  And I didn’t crow either.  No one should die at the end of a rifle barrel, or on the tip of a blade.  Even those that I oppose politically and morally, I don’t want physically dead.  Isn’t that the essence of civic contests?  We want our view to prevail, but we don’t want our opponent in a coffin.  In fact, as the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania showed, the “shadow of death” changes everything, even Presidential elections.

What we should expect in American political  discourse is that we will fight  for our beliefs, and our opposition will fight for theirs.  But when we face the common opponent of extreme violence, we should stand together to oppose it.   That’s where America has been.  John McCain made it clear in 2008, when he spoke out against the old woman who called Obama an “Arab”.  He said, “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man and a citizen.  I just disagree with him on important issues.”

Abraham Lincoln made this clear.  He did not call for the execution of Davis and Lee and the other leaders of the Confederacy.  He set the American standard in his second inaugural address.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all.”

Reiner

Donald Trump is a citizen, and now President.  I don’t wish him dead, though I do wish him out of office.  I will do all I can to achieve the latter, not the former.

Last weekend, Rob Reiner and his wife were stabbed to death in their home.  Today, it seems likely that their own son committed the deed.  Reiner was one of the most talented movie makers of our generation.  He made dozens, some that defined their decade.  Reiner directed “Stand By Me”, “A Few Good Men”, “This is Spinal Tap”, and “When Harry Met Sally”.  And for an earlier generation, he was the actor who starred as “Meathead” on the seminal comedy series, “All in the Family”.  

Reiner was also a Progressive political warrior.  He fought for all sorts of progressive causes, and saw Donald Trump as a massive threat to American Democracy.  He and the President were not on the same side.

Failed

In the moment of death, it is a mark of leadership to show “grace” to your opponents.  Here’s what Donald Trump said:

“Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and uncurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS…”

This is the President of the United States, after the brutal murder of an American citizen, perhaps, at the hand of his own son.  Trump makes it clear: dare oppose me, and create anger enough to be killed.  There:  it is the “unspoken threat”, spoken aloud.

And, for my truly MAGA friends – this isn’t an “AI” hoax.  These are the words of the 47th President (or, at least the words of those who Trump empowered to write for the 47th President).  They remain, two days later, still on Trump’s own social media site, “Truth Social”. 

Grace

President Obama often was able to put into words the grief of the Nation.  Joe Biden took his own personal grief, and shared the burden of loss with those loved ones in mourning.  President Bush was able to rally a Nation after 9-11 without calling for a war against religion.  But President Trump, well, he claims that Reiner was killed for his “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.   

There is the obvious egocentricity in that:  it’s all about Trump.  It looks likely now, the gruesome crime was not.  But more significantly for the Nation, there is an obvious lack of grace.  And, this is not some post from a local teacher, or the ranting of some social media addicted shut-in, rejoicing about the death of Charlie Kirk. (There were a few).  This is the President of the United States, leading our Nation, setting the example of how Americans should deal with political conflict and real tragedy.

There is no “grace” in Donald Trump.  His own near miss with death did nothing to make him a better human.   What it left is a President who takes pleasure in the death of those who oppose him.  What could be more un-American?

Just Talk

Random Violence

We are America.  We are awash in violence.  If one more media commentator uses the phrase “unspeakable” to describe these actions, I may fracture the screen.  It’s not “unspeakable”.  We speak of this violence all of the time.  In fact, that’s pretty much all we manage to do; talk.

This weekend a shooter interrupted a final exam study session at Ivy League Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.  Eleven students were injured, two have died from their wounds.  Police held a “person of interest” for several hours, but he was released.  The shooter remains at large.

This weekend, activist and legendary director and actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home.  Reiner, originally of “Archie Bunker” fame; directed “A Few Good Men”, “the Princess Bride” and “This is Spinal Tap”.  He was a driving force in progressive politics; and a leading voice opposing the Trump Administration.  The attacker remains at large and unidentified.

Surprise

And, as if to prove that random violence is contagious, this weekend there was an attack on a Jews celebrating Hannukah, the festival of light, on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.  At least two shooters took the high ground, randomly shooting into the joyous crowd.  Fifteen were killed, twenty-seven more wounded.  

One attacker is dead, the other in custody. Both are of Middle Eastern background, as is the courageous man who wrestled the rifle away from one of them. That hero was shot twice by the second shooter, and is in the hospital.

At least that’s a “surprise” in Australia.  After a horrible mass shooting in 1996, when 35 people were killed, the Nation instituted strict gun control laws.  While this hasn’t prevented all shootings, it did make these incidents rare.  Which makes this attack perhaps even worse.

But violence is no surprise here in the United States.  It’s common place.  And the phrases “unspeakable” and “hearts and prayers”, are only weak salve on the wound.  No one is seriously suggesting a real response, a real solution to our ongoing failure to protect. 

Solutions 

We can lock up our children in their schools.  We can add more police.  We can, as some suggest, arm EVERYONE so that the “good guys can shoot the bad guys”.  We can put more police around Jewish gatherings, protecting them from growing anti-Semitism.  But America’s reality is that we are a nation of violence.  It must be in our national DNA.  At least Australians can take some solace in the fact they’ve taken action, and plan to take even more.  Here in the United States, all we do is talk.

Someone will say:  well, the Reiner’s were stabbed to death.  Gun controls wouldn’t have helped them.  In fact, if they had guns, maybe they’d be alive.  And that’s true; American violence is endemic.  But tell the Brown University students that cowered behind desks that guns aren’t a “root” of our violence.  Tell the two National Guardsmen shot in Washington, DC just a few weeks ago.  Tell all of the children who will hide in the back of a classroom in a “school shooting” drill this week.

Here in America we should learn from Australia.  Today they are talking about what they can do to prevent this kind of tragedy.  Today, America is talking about “thoughts and prayers”, of “unspeakable acts”.  We are in an age of political paralysis, led by a President and a Party only interested in securing their own financial benefits.  

Thoughts and prayers are the best we can do: it’s just talk, and  just cowardly.

Essays on Mass Shootings

Shut the Front Door

New Rules

The Customs and Border Protection Division (CBP) of the Department of Homeland Security has proposed new rules for examining visitors to the United States – all visitors to the United States.  Folks coming here would be REQUIRED to share five years of their social media history.  Want to come to the US: Disney World, Las Vegas, the World Cup Soccer matches, the 2028 Olympic Summer Games?   Avoid the line, and type your name and passwords into an “app” before you leave home.  Or, be prepared to hand your passport, your phone and your passwords to a CBP agent at the border, and wait.  

What were you saying five years ago?  It was 2020, “Covid Christmas”; “Zooming” with our family and friends over traditional dinners held in separate locations.  Many of us had colorful masks to match our holiday apparel.  And it was a month before the inauguration of Joe Biden as President of the United States.  It was only a few days before Trump invited his supported to come to Washington on January 6th for a “wild time”.  Many of us weren’t sure what would happen.

Now, CBP isn’t proposing this rule for returning American citizens (though they can “explore” your phone on re-entry).  But what were folks from Europe, Asia and Africa saying about the US in the last five years, the years of our intense political turmoil?  And what will be the “criteria” to determine denial of entry?  If you were a “pro-masker or anti-masker” in 2020?   Were you concerned about the state of the American democracy?  Did you think that the decimation of USAID by Elon and the DOGE boys was disgusting and immoral? 

The App

And how do you actually go about “sharing” five years of social media history?  Do tourists have to come with “books” of printed out Facebook, Telegram, Instagram and Reddit posts?  What about Tik-Tok and You-Tube, do they have to find a way to share all their videos as well? There must be an “AI” answer to that, some application that will scrub names and passwords through years of material.  I bet a simple key-word search works:  Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, ANTIFA, 50501, Democrat.  I’m sure Peter Thiel’s Palantir company has already sold it to Homeland Security and is ready to install it nationwide.

Months ago, Americans traveling abroad were advised to get “burner phones”, without any connection to their social media, to travel abroad.  That was just to avoid the “inspection” at the borders by US authorities.  Ultimately, US citizens do have the right to re-enter, but CBP could make it difficult.  

Many will say that this is “just fine”.  If you want to visit the United States, you should be willing to “pay the price”, and open up your life to investigation.  After all, we don’t want “international terrorists” coming in!!  Of course, real “international terrorists” probably don’t have accessible social media histories revealing their inner-most thoughts.  Sure, this process might snag a few dumb terrorists.  But at what cost?

The Price

About half of the United States already doesn’t trust Homeland Security to act in the interest of, well, homeland security (Gallup).  Nearly half of Americans see CBP, and ICE, and the more mysterious HSI, as extensions of the Trump Administration political operation.  If half of “us” don’t trust them, what do you think foreign tourists coming to the US think?

Foreign tourists spent around $250 Billion in the US in 2024.  That number is already down, almost by half.    Canadian tourism has dropped in reaction to Trump policies, including tariffs.  There are other beaches, places to gamble, and even Disney Worlds, in the world.  And while there’s no Yosemite National Park anywhere else, the US has already jacked the entry price for foreign tourists ($200 fee per person at the entry gate!!).   So, beyond all of the concerns about “politics”, there is a real economic impact of reducing tourism.

The Host

What kind of “host” are we?  Two major world sports events are scheduled in the next three years:  the World Cup soccer finals in New Jersey, and the Olympics in Los Angeles.  It’s not just the tourists:  the players and coaches and all of the management officials will be subject to the same scrutiny.  Inevitably, there will be some conflict with the “search program”: will the US serve as host, or filter?   Is it too late to move the events somewhere more inviting?

Final point:  this is a “recommendation”, put up for a sixty day review.  At the moment, the CBP does not analyze all of this.  But if there’s no outcry, no complaint, then, like the actions of ICE towards migrants in the US today, where do we draw the line?  And if moral implications aren’t your concern, what about the economic impact?  How far are we willing to “tank” the US economy for Trump’s billionaire friends (like Peter Thiel)?

What does this proposed rule say to tourists to America?  We don’t trust, you, and we don’t want you.  

America is saying, “shut the front door”.  

The New Prohibition

The saying goes:  History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.   Perhaps Mark Twain said it.  That’s a small historic controversy;  if he didn’t, he should have.  

Need a Drink?

History has ample evidence that banning something makes it more popular.  The generational example is the great early twentieth century experiment of the United  States, the Eighteenth Amendment. The term that describes the 1920’s is “the era of Prohibition”.  And while the law banned alcohol, society took an entirely different direction.  It was the “Roaring Twenties”. Rather than “bars”, there were “speakeasys”.  Instead of reducing alcohol use, by the end of the era drinking the United States was almost to 70% of pre-Amendment consumption.  

What Prohibition did do was take a social behavior that most thought was acceptable, and make it illegal.  But instead of stopping the behavior (though drinking did drop 70% in the beginning), it made “criminal” behavior acceptable.  By 1933, when the Twenty-First Amendment passed to repeal Prohibition, many of the “heroes” of the era were the providers of illegal booze.  As I used to teach in history class, America was in the depths of the Great Depression and needed a legal drink.

Prohibition gave us “rum runners” and “bootleggers”.  The echoes of Prohibition still exist today, a century later.  America’s most popular motorsport, NASCAR, traces it roots to the transport of “moonshine”. Drivers were able to outrun the “revenuers” with a trunk load of illegal booze.

Need a “hit”?

The “rhyme” in our history is the banning of marijuana. (A ban notably supported by the alcohol manufacturers:  drink, but don’t get high!).  Recreational use of marijuana was illegal in every state in the Nation until just thirteen years ago.  But, like prohibition; criminalizing recreational use, didn’t reduce the amount of users.  It simply made that “criminal behavior” acceptable.  We are still in a difficult phase of legality when it comes to marijuana.  Only twenty-four states allow recreational use, while ten still don’t even allow medical usage.  And the Federal government maintains laws against marijuana.

But, we all know where the United States will ultimately “land” on marijuana use.  We’re just not there yet.  Someday history will teach about the end of this prohibition.   Maybe the “joke” will be, “Donald Trump was President, and we all needed a ‘hit’”.  

Need a Chat?

Many of my “media sources” are excited about the Australian experiment.  This week, their Government banned social media sites from their citizens sixteen years old or under.  They include:  Facebook, Tik-Tok, Instagram, You-Tube, Snapchat, Reddit, Snap and Kick.  The law doesn’t punish children for being on the sites, but it threatens the site-owners with massive fines if they are.  

There is an enormous amount of talk about the “horrors” of social media, from bullying to body-shaming to fatalities caused by copying “Tik-Tok” videos.  And all that is true, it really happens.  But, as Joe Biden would say, “here’s the deal”.  For the vast majority of teens, Australia took a legal, acceptable behavior and essentially criminalized it.  It took the teens most common way of communicating with their peers, and made it “bad”, so “bad” that it had to be banned.

Smarter Than a Teenager

But the vast majority of those teens know  their primary means of socialization isn’t “bad”.  And, being teenagers, they are more likely to not only take risks, but to have a better understanding of how to get around the legal “bans” than those who are trying to enforce it.  What it definitely does, is push the “horrors” of social media deeper, farther away from the adults who might be able to intervene and protect.  

While the news from Australia currently is about kids complaining about the ban, there also is the quiet under-current of kids who already are finding ways around it.  The new “risk taking” will become the draw, just like the risk taking of going to the speakeasy, or making a buy for that illegal joint.  

I’m a “Boomer”, with all of the negatives that come from that term.  I’m so old that video games weren’t part of my childhood. “Pong” came out when I was sixteen.   And even I use social media, from Facebook to X to You-Tube.  It seems to me the teen use ought to be more like the teen use of alcohol.  Sure, no one really wants teens to drink.  But we also recognize it’s going to happen.  The decision then becomes, do we make teen drinking so “unacceptable” that a drunk child can’t call home for a ride?  Or do we balance our desire to control, with the reality of teen risk-taking: please call and I’ll come get you.

History shows us that “prohibitions” are doomed to fail.  When they do, the problems still remain.  Without Prohibition, Al Capone doesn’t exist.  Without the marijuana ban, Cheech and Chong were just bad comics.  

What will the Australian ban create?

Video-Game

Zombies

Back in the 2010’s (is that how you say it?) I was still working at the school, and I had a high school senior boy living with me.  He, and his friends, were “hooked” on video games.  The dinner table conversation often went something like this:  “I killed over a thousand Nazi Zombies today, how ‘bout you”? And while I didn’t have much compassion for “Nazi Zombies”, it did stir a bit of concern.  All of this killing, all of this tremendous focus on a screen, and a game, and not on school work (or real work).  It just seemed too much.  When the TV screen got cracked (did a Nazi Zombie strike back?) there were limits placed on the new one.

Those boys are in their thirties now, and I suspect have moved on from Nazi Zombies.  They have “real” jobs, and kids, and lives. But, I imagine, they are still “gaming” in one way or another.  And they aren’t the only ones.  The skills “honed” on Nazi Zombies now have war-time uses.  What seemed like  “Star Trek” kinds of fantasy weapons only a couple of decades ago, are very real today.   

Drones

Look at Ukraine’s continuing war against Russian aggression.  The Russians have more troops, more tanks, more missiles, more of almost everything.  But the Ukrainians are the “masters” of drone warfare.  “Killer drones” that are programmed to remotely attack far locations.  Guided drones that communicate back to base, controlled by devices eerily similar to the “controller” that attacked Nazi Zombies.  Drones that can lock onto a single individual, follow them, and destroy when ordered. And “dumb” drones, swarms of them, attacking in numbers difficult to defend.  

And with all of this “remote” warfare, we grow used to seeing grainy black and white pictures of a tank, or a building or an oil storage facility; standing one moment, engulfed in explosion in the next.  It’s nothing new: back in 1991 General Schwarzkopf showed us the footage of the “luckiest man in Iraq” as a bridge exploded right behind him.  The explosion must have filled has rearview mirror.

The question I have is this:  is all of our exposure to “remote death” somehow cheapened the value of life?  Is this, a by-product of over exposure to “death” on TV, in video games; as a “way of life” – how many Nazi Zombies did you kill today?

Replay

My “old man who did not grow up on video games” experience is this.  In the past week, the media focused on the US military blowing up boats in the Caribbean.  One boat, supposedly filled with narcotics and eleven humans, was destroyed by a remotely controlled drone. When the smoke cleared, two survived the attack. A second strike was launched.  The military called it a “double-tap”.  

My chosen news source, the newly renamed MSNOW, spent hours talking about the legality and morality of the second strike. As the discussion went on, they showed the first strike attack over and over again.  If you watched (I didn’t) they showed the death of nine people in a black and white blast on replay.  

And now, the “proof” in this whole conversation is in the “second tape”, the one “we” haven’t seen.  The description of that video depends on the politics of the viewer.  Democrats say that two helpless men are clinging to the wreckage of the “drug boat”.  They are in “shipwreck” mode, looking for help, perhaps even waving a white shirt of surrender to the drone/weapon circling overhead.  Then the “double-tap” hits; another explosion, and nothing left after.  That’s the “story” Democratic Congressman Jim Hines tells.

Republicans, after watching the same thing, have a very different story.  They tell of the two survivors trying to right the capsized craft, save the narcotic cargo, and contact help by radio.  That’s how Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton saw it.

There are often situations where two very different things can be true – but this video isn’t one of them. 

Execution

It’s a lot easier to order a “double tap” on a video image, than on the reality of killing two more men, even if they are smuggling narcotics.  The act of smuggling itself is not a “death penalty” offense. But that doesn’t seem to even enter the conversation.   Is this so much easier for America, because we’ve been doing it “as a game” for so long?

What we can all agree on is this:  Americans are inured to video death.  We watch it without emotional affect.  We can put human execution (even of drug smugglers) on replay, without concern.  And, for many Americans, the dinner table conversation seems to be, “How many narco-terrorists did you kill today?”. 

Shadow Bomber

Caught

They caught the “shadow” person who left improvised explosive devices in Washington, DC, in the pre-dawn hours before the January 6th Insurrection.  Nothing pleases me more.  It was a unique “unsolved mystery”; left hanging, overshadowed in the midst of the later chaos of the that day.  Was it someone aligned with the Insurrectionists? Or part of the weapons cache in nearby Virginia hotels, or the “assault columns” up the Capitol steps?  Or was it, as current FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said over and over again as a commentator, an “inside job”.  Did someone in the American intelligence world, plant devices as some nefarious means of protecting a Biden victory?

The Justice Department and FBI were unable to identify a suspect during the Biden Administration; one more piece of evidence for the “Biden conspiracy” crowd.  It took Trump stalwarts: Attorney General Bondi, FBI Director Patel, and Bongino, to bring this case to a head.  And now, they have a suspect not only in custody, but apparently confessing to the crime.

The fact that the IED’s were inoperable, unable to explode, doesn’t really matter.  Placing them outside the two major party’s headquarters was a clear attempt to induce public panic.  And it worked.  It was an important and concerning story even that day, and remained an ongoing concern after the tear gas cleared, the gallows were removed, and the halls of the Capitol restored.  

Ham Sandwich

But, to be truthful, I don’t trust the Trump Justice Department.  They’ve spent the last eleven months doing the political bidding of the President.  It’s currently indictment by Presidential tweet.  Their standing as the acolytes of “Blind Justice” is non-existent.    (My more right-wing friends will claim  that before them there was “Biden lawfare”.  Even if you were right about that, which you are not, it doesn’t excuse a continuation with “Trump retribution”).  

I have written lots of essays extolling the virtue of the FBI in the past almost nine years.  And I suspect that the core of the agency, the professionals, are still struggling to uphold their motto:  Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.  But the leadership was purged of those unwilling to pay personal fealty to Donald Trump.  If the Patel/Bongino regime demanded an arrest of a bomber, valid or not – that arrest would be made.  

I’m waiting for the indictments.  Maybe they’ve “caught their man”, or maybe, like former Director James Comey or New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Federal Grand Jury won’t swallow this “ham sandwich”.  (In case you miss the reference, the legal joke is;  “A good prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict even a ham sandwich”).

The Shoe Fits

It’s kind of amazing though, how far we have come in the last year.  My right-wing friends would say that turn-about is fair play, that now I know how they felt for the last nine years.  The rock foundation of America used to be the legal system; law enforcement, prosecution, and the Courts.  How quickly the veneer of truth, the blindfold around the eyes of Justice, were ripped away.  

There is little left in my faith in our Federal legal system.  The leadership of the investigators are true-believers in MAGA.  So is the Justice Department.  And while the lower Federal Courts are doing yeoman’s work to stand for Justice, the Supreme Court is completely — I hesitate to use the word corrupted, but “that shoe fits”, except for the three.  Precedence means nothing:  look at the 1965 Voting Rights Act now decimated.

So maybe they caught the bomber.  I’m sure he’s going to turn out to be a crazed anarchist, someone they can label as the “dreaded ANTIFA”.  And, maybe it really was just a nutcase who coincidentally picked the day that American Democracy was imperiled.  Or maybe not.

It’s US

What I can tell friends on “my side” of the political chasm:  don’t depend on the Courts.  Don’t depend on the institutions of American justice.  The majority at the top of the Federal Courts is as biased as the Trump Justice Department.  

The ultimate authority in the United States is enshrined in the Constitution itself. It’s the first three words:  “We the People”.  And it takes “we the people” to undue all of the damage done, not just in the past year, but in the next three years.  The mission will take decades, beyond my lifetime, I’m sad to say.  But it’s the only “institution” we can still depend on.  It’s me, It’s you, It’s US (in both forms).  

Let’s get to work. 

Teaching Religions

An Act of the Ohio Legislature

It’s called “The Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act”, carefully inserted  between lines 375 to 536 of the “regular” education finance legislation annually passed by the Ohio State Assembly.  Named after the recently martyred political commentator and Christian Nationalist, the Act claims to give permission for public school teachers at; “…a state institution of higher education may provide instruction on the positive impacts of religion on American history…”.

The old “black line” was simple:  teach about religion, but don’t advocate for any religion.  When I last wrote lesson plans during the Covid closures, I was teaching sixth grade world cultures.  Of course, religion was a huge part of the course material.  I found myself explaining all sorts of major religions and their variations, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism,  and Shintoism. 

In the Day

In the “old days” when I started teaching, there was no question where to start.  The vast majority of my students were “church-going” Christians.  They were a very slight smattering of Jewish kids, and a few avowed agnostics or atheists.  So most of my teaching beyond Christianity was all “new news” to the kids in my classroom.  

But today, there’s a lot fewer “church-going Christians”.  And there are still those few Jewish kids.  But there are also Muslim kids, and Buddhist kids, and a vast majority of kids who really have no faith at all.  It’s a different world, one that requires an “even hand”.  Teach about the religions:  leave advocacy to parents and ministers, rabbis, imams, gurus or monks.   In this second decade of the 21st century, teaching about religion in suburban Central Ohio is complex.  

There’s always a story.   I was well aware that some of my students were Buddhist, and worked hard to give a complete explanation of their religion.  Then I got an email from one of their fathers.  My heart sank, I was ready for the “how dare you!!” assault for somehow screwing it up.  Instead, it was a thank you note, for giving a “Westernized” explanation of the religion they practiced to his “Westernized” son .  For the first time, his son was interested in their shared faith.  It was a very “middle path” experience.

But advocacy isn’t just a matter of saying “my” religion is right, “yours” is wrong.  As with any topic, a teacher can present a “slanted” case, that would leave the student with a biased view of what American History is.   And that’s what the Charlie Kirk Education Act is all about.

Cherry Picking

I’ve attached the detailed “permissions” outlined in the list at the end of this essay.  In all fairness, the Act does not “require” the teaching of these historic “points”.  But it does lay out a “lesson plan” of positive Christianity through American history, to be written in “black letter law”, should the State Senate agree and the Governor sign on.  Any teacher in this highly partisan world could ignore the “Act” only at their peril.

Some of it is innocuous.  Of course the Pilgrims were people of faith, it’s the entire reason they risked the journey.   And Thomas Jefferson did appeal to “the Creator” in the Declaration of Independence.  What the “Act” doesn’t speak to, is that Jefferson’s view of “the Creator” was very different than the Christian view of the time.  Jefferson was a “Deist”, who believed that “the Creator” started the world, then stepped back to watch what would happen.  It wasn’t a Christian view.  But that’s NOT in the Charlie Kirk Act.

The list also includes that the Pilgrims “kept” their treaty with Native Americans.  That’s true, but it’s the last mention of Native Americans in the “Charlie Kirk Act”.  Meanwhile, the US Government made at least 368 treaties with differing tribes, and broke almost all of them (History.com).   

Mandates

The State of Ohio is trying to mandate a view of American History that would be familiar to teachers of the 1950’s. It’s one where Booker T Washington, Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King (and maybe Harriet Tubman) are the extent of African American history.  Where Americans pledged “One Nation, Under God”  as the original intent of the “Pledge of Allegiance” (it was not).   And an America where the Founders mentioned religion, not in a “generic” sense, but one dominated by Christianity. 

That’s something that the Founders specifically opposed. That’s a “State Church”; the same kind that the Pilgrims, Puritans, Quakers and Roman Catholics who settled America escaped from in England.  But that detail isn’t included in Ohio’s “Charlie Kirk Act”.   James Madison said it best:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”.  

It was the FIRST Amendment for a reason.

The Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act

When providing instruction on the topic of American history, an instructor at a state institution of higher education may provide instruction on the positive impacts of religion on American history, which may include the following historical accounts:

(A) The authentic history of the pilgrims, including the following:

                  (1) The organization of the pilgrims as a church;

                  (2) The history of the portrait of the pilgrims displayed in the United States capitol rotunda, which depicts prayer, an open bible, and the inscription “God with Us” on the sail;

                  (3) The religious implications of the Mayflower Compact, which was modeled on a church covenant;

                  (4) The treaty with the Native Americans signed and upheld by the pilgrims;

                  (5) The first Thanksgiving that was observed as an act of gratitude towards God.

(B) The appeals to divine power and protection embedded in the Declaration of Independence;

(C) The appeal made to the biblical exodus in the fight for independence;

(D) The religious background of the signers of the Declaration of Independence;

(E) The influence of religious leaders like Reverend John Witherspoon who signed the Declaration of Independence;

(F) The impact of the first and second great awakenings on public policy;

(G) George Washington’s direction regarding chaplains in the army;

(H) George Washington’s farewell address calling religion and morality “indispensable supports”   that lead political prosperity, and their tributes to patriotism “great pillars of human happiness” and the “firmest props of the duties of men and citizens”;

(I) Benjamin Franklin’s appeal for prayer at the constitutional convention and the hiring of chaplains that followed;

(J) The influence of religion on the United States Constitution, as evidenced by the exclusion of Sunday from the allotted time for the president to sign or veto a bill and the dating of the Constitution according to the birth of Christ;

(K) Reverend John Leland’s influence that led James Madison to advocate for a Bill of Rights including the First Amendment to the United States Constitution;

(L) The history of the concept of the separation of church and state dating back to its religious origins with Roger Williams;

(M) The influence and debates of Reverend John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg and his brother Reverend Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, the first speaker of the house;

(N) The historic role of the black robe regiment;

(O) The nation’s response to Thomas Paine’s, “The Age of Reason,” including Benjamin Franklin’s suggestion that he burn it, the national rejection of it, and multiple responses to it including Elias Boudinot’s, “The Age of Revelation”;

(P) The role of the Ten Commandments in shaping American law and their presence in art and sculpture embedded in the United States supreme court;

(Q) How religious influence shaped civil rights and the civil rights movement through men like Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and others;

(R) The impact of religious leaders such as evangelist minister Billy Graham on the culture of this nation;

(S) The history of the national motto: “In God We Trust,” dating back to the national anthem and traced through its appearance on currency and the inclusion of “under God,” in this nation’s pledge of allegiance;

(T) That “religion, morality, and knowledge” are essential to good government, as expressed in Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance and Ohio Constitution, Article I, Section 7.

White Hats

Cowboy Movies

I am “old”; approaching the Biblical definition of “old”; three score and ten.  I grew up in the 1960’s.  But even as old as I am, I was a little bit past the age of the “cowboy movies”.  That was more in the fifties, though I definitely saw my fair share of John Wayne epics.  But I was a little bit past the heyday of  Audie Murphy, Tom Mix, Gary Cooper and Randolph Scott.  I saw their black and white movies, usually on TV  on Saturday afternoon. But they were definitely before “my time”.   

Besides Wayne, my cowboys were Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, with a sprinkling of Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, and Henry Fonda (my favorite actor).  They were kind of anti-heroes.  Newman and Redford, in the wonderful “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”; portrayed criminals, doomed to destruction.  And Clint Eastwood, either in the Spaghetti Westerns like “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, or the later  “Outlaw Josey Wales” was definitely not the typical good guy.

Hats

But I still got it:  they were “good guys”, even if they weren’t perfect. And then there were the real “bad guys”.  In the fifties movies you could usually tell by their hats: good guys wore white, bad guys wore black.  John Wayne almost always wore white, except when he played the sheriff in “True Grit”.  And when Wayne played Davy Crockett in the Alamo (coonskin cap, of course), we were again reminded the difference between the “good” and “bad” guys.  Mexican General Santa Anna ordered his buglers to play “El Deguello”, the throat cutting.  There were to be no prisoners, and no mercy, for the Texican rebels.  The Mexican Army even wore black hats.

America used to think of itself as a “white hat” country.  We were the good guys, John Wayne in “The Cowboys” or “Big Jake”, my favorites. (Okay, both of those movies were in the early seventies, but close enough).  There was no ambiguity.  We knew who was good and who was not.   Wayne even took that Western role into Vietnam in the 1967 movie “The Green Berets”, where David Jansen (of the original “The Fugitive” TV series) played the jaded reporter.  John Wayne was “pure” good guy, even in a war where there wasn’t much pure or good to go around.  It was Jansen who had to be won over.

Bad Guys

Sure there’s been a change in some American’s view.  The “Neo-Cons” of Dick Cheney ilk believed that whatever was good for the US, was good, even if we had to act like the “bad guys”.  Americans committed war crimes at Abu Gharib in Iraq, justified in their minds by the horrific attacks on 9-11.  There was “good guy” America:  waterboarding captives, and making them stand naked in front of women, threatening their genitals with guard dogs and electric probes.  John Wayne would never has stood for that, even in the Green Berets. 

And today, the Trump Administration seems to take great pride in being “the bad guys”.  The United States of America has no problem bringing the full weight of the government down on  a nineteen year-old woman in college going home for Thanksgiving, or a grandmother, or the tenants of a Chicago apartment building.  There’s no “good guy” in that, only “bad guys” reveling in the idea that their atrocities are “in the name” of the USA.

And now, Defense Secretary Hegseth has (metaphorically) ordered “El Deguello” for every one on board a targeted “drug boat”.  Unlike Santa Anna, we aren’t at war with any of the countries involved, nor are the boat crews even “rebels”.  No; instead US Special Forces launched a second missile into the wreckage of a ship, to make sure that two survivors of the first attack, wouldn’t make it.  They even have a cute name for it, a “double tap”.   That’s the term used by assassins to make sure their target is completely dead: two shots to the head.   So we are not only attacking ships on the high seas, an illegal act of piracy, but we are assassins as well.

Tarnished City on the Hill

Seal Team Six is the highly touted group of Special Forces, heroic beyond heroism.  They brought us the death of Osama bin Laden, in the dramatic raid that finally achieved America’s ultimate retribution for 9-11. But recently, it was revealed that they assassinated North Korean fishermen who interrupted a surveillance operation.  The fishermen saw something they shouldn’t have, and innocents lost in the name of gaining North Korean information.

 But now, the Team is ordered to remotely destroy boats in the high seas, and kill the survivors.  I guess it’s good Seals don’t have a uniform cap. It would be hard to determine what color they should wear.  And, before anyone starts to say “they’re just following orders”; the “good guys” are better than that.  It was the United States that demanded the Nuremburg Trials after World War II, rather than just summarily executing the leaders of the Nazi regime.  We wanted a clear delineation; that “following orders” wasn’t an excuse for “war crimes”.

Ronald Reagan (not my favorite President), in his farewell address, spoke as America as “…a shining city on a hill”; an example for the world of freedom, and justice. As I would put it, “the good guys”.  But, as we round up grandmothers and children, kill survivors of our military actions, threaten Venezuela and Columbia; we no longer deserve a “white hat”.  Our “shining city” is now badly tarnished gold, just like our very real White House. 

Our reputation is gone. I don’t know how we get it back.  

Gas War

So here’s a “Sunday Story” – about gas prices and the “old days”. 

The Bubble

Woo Hoo!! Here in the “Amazon Bubble” of high gas prices, I “scored”.   As I drove by the local United Dairy Farmer, there it was on the price list:  Regular – $2.12!!  Across the street at the Duke and Duchess/BP Station, it was $2.17.  I felt like partying like it was 1999, or at least, 2007! (Sure, we all vaguely remember Covid prices lower, but where was there to go during Covid??).

It’s doubly odd that gas prices are so low in Pataskala.  As I’ve whined about before, we are in the “Amazon Bubble”.  Lined up, seven days a week, are the little blue Amazon vans, filling up on Pataskala gas.  And, if local gas prices really are a product of good old micro-economics, simple supply and demand, then the demand at the gas stations in this “bubble” is always high, and drives prices up.

Normally our local stations around the corner run about $0.30 higher than gas stations just a few miles away.   All those little blue vans, line up right here.  In fact, drive ten miles to the “Flying J” in Kirkersville, even though it’s located on I-70, and you might save $0.40 or even $0.50 a gallon.  So $2.12 meant it was time to line up the cars, and “fill-er-up”. (That’s an old phrase from the era when there were actually gas “attendants”, who filled up your tank, checked the oil, and cleaned the windshields.  Let AI try to do that!!). 

Whiplash

And “score” twice – my UDF loyalty card got me another $0.03 off – $2.09!!

I’m even more sensitive to gas prices than usual this month.  Jenn and I are “working” on recovering a dog in New Concord, a small village in Eastern Ohio. (It boasts of Muskingum University, John Glenn High School, and the boyhood home of Astronaut and Senator John Glenn).  It’s about fifty miles away, and we’ve been “commuting” to a trap there several days a week for almost a month.

So we first hand get to see gas prices rise and fall.  On Thanksgiving morning about 3 am, we paid almost $3.00 a gallon for gas at the local Sheetz Station.  There’s a variety of gas prices between home and New Concord, usually cheaper at the Love’s truck stop in Zanesville than the Love’s just down the street in Etna, Flying J almost always the lowest.  Except for the Fuel Mart in New Concord, the nearest restroom to the trap.  Ninety percent of the time, it’s the cheapest.

But $2.09 a gallon in “downtown” Pataskala.  What’s going on?

Fury III

I’m reminded of when I first got my driver’s license, in 1972 back in Cincinnati.  I was driving a “boat”, the used car I bought from my cousin Brendan for $200.  It was a 1969 Plymouth Fury III, and it was huge, with two giant bench seats; easy to put eight kids in the car.  And, since it was modeled off of the “police special” of the time, it could fly.  It was a great first car, and big enough to protect a novice driver.

Tom Morgan, our neighbor and a Proctor and Gamble engineer, taught me how to replace the head gaskets and generally keep the “Fury” running.  It was a big engine in a big car with a ton of mileage on it.  But it worked for the first few years of my driving career, and served as a  great way to learn “how to turn a wrench”.  

BC Glasses

And gas mileage – well – who cared?  Gas prices were $0.25 a gallon.  And when there were “gas wars”, stations across the street fighting for business, the price might dip down to $0.18 a gallon.  A fill-up cost $5.00.  In fact, gas prices got so low that gas stations were giving stuff away to get your business.  The Marathon Station down on Springfield Pike in Woodlawn, gave away a “BC Glass” (after the BC cartoon) with each fill-up.  When I finally got my first apartment in 1978, almost all of my glassware had the characters from “BC” on them.

So is there a gas war going on here in Pataskala?  Maybe just on the corner of Broad and Vine.  Less than a mile away at Kroger, gas is still $2.47.  But don’t worry, Jenn and I will get one more chance to get cheap gas before the “war” ends.  We got home from New Concord at 3 am last night, and we’re headed back there tonight.  Sammy (that’s the dog) has to eat sometime – hopefully somewhere in the dark of  New Concord tonight in our specially designed panel trap.  So we’ll need to fill-er-up again, at least one more time.

The Sunday Story Series

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

Circles 

Targets

Up front:  there’s never an excuse to “gun down” anyone.  The two National Guard soldiers shot in Washington on Wednesday were not “legitimate” targets for any kind of protest.  They were American young people, doing the job they signed up for.  I’ve got friends in the National Guard.  They joined with a sense of duty, to be a part of something bigger than just themselves, a little adventure, and maybe some advantage in training for future employment.  Those West Virginia soldiers didn’t in any way, shape or form, “deserve” this.

We live in a society where madness happens.  There are more guns in America than people. (Check that, more guns in America than people, statistically, one and a half guns per person).  And, I know, my “Second Amendment” friends will say that “guns don’t kill people, people do”.  That trite phrase is true on the surface.  But it’s unreasoning.   We also live in a nation polarized to an historic extreme.  Not since the late 1850’s have Americans been so against each other.  Into that sea of division we stir in an overwhelming amount of deadly weapons.  So why is it any surprise that those who are on the edge of mental breakdown, “fall off” and use guns to show it?

Action/Reaction

It’s hard not to think that these kinds of horrific events aren’t exactly what the Trump Administration is looking for.  They have turned up the heat on the “pot” of unrest.  Armed troops, ICE, are skirting or ignoring American legal protections, rounding up individuals based on the color of their skin or the sound of their accent.  Their randomness, and the “pride” ICE takes in its own inhumanity, is stoking the fire of discontent.   We don’t know why an Afghan who fought bravely with American troops in his homeland, decided to drive across our country and target two kids from West Virginia.  But we can see the inevitability of it happening, somewhere, sometime.

So what is the Trump Administration response.  Add more fuel to the fire.  Send five hundred more troops to Washington, five hundred more “targets” of discontent.  Instead of reducing the causes of division, they are doubling down; using the results of their own actions to make things worse.   Because, in the end, the Trump strategy is to show Americans how bad things are.   And if they aren’t really that “bad” (see Portland), it seems they are creating situations where it will be.   They are offering this choice:  troops in the streets, anonymous forces disappearing neighbors, mass detention facilities, or civil unrest and violence.  But the unrest and violence is, in large part, a result of the Administration’s own actions.

Better Angels

I don’t blame the National Guardsmen, doing the job they signed up for.  And I don’t excuse the madman with a gun. He should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  But I do blame Donald Trump and the people around him for acting in an inhumane and unamerican ways.  They are acting to provoke violence.   And they got what they wished for.

So I worry, about the fate of the remaining National Guardsman still alive, and about the extent of the reaction of the Trump Administration.  And I truly worry about the future of our Nation.  If we cannot find a way to step away from this division, that it will ultimately consume the American Democracy.  We are losing our values, our ideals. America is giving away freedoms to gain “protection” from forces that the White House itself is creating and aggravating.  We are in a circle of increasing authoritarianism, with each action creating an even greater reaction, and less freedom. 

We need leadership back to our “better angels” of law, democracy, and freedom. But we’ve got a long way to go to get there.

Political Hits

Three issues came up this weekend that are much more “political” than “real”.  

Peace in Our Time

The first:  the so-called US peace plan for Ukraine.  This twenty-eight point plan was accepted by President Trump and Russia, and sent to Ukraine with an ultimatum that they needed to agree by Thanksgiving.  (That’s the US Thanksgiving, not Canadian Thanksgiving, or whatever holiday might coincide with Thanksgiving in Ukraine).  

The plan gives Russia 20% of Ukraine’s sovereign territory including areas not now under Russian control. It reduces the size of the Ukrainian military and guarantees that Ukraine will not ask NATO for membership. This weekend it was revealed as Russia’s plan, not America’s plan.  That shouldn’t be a surprise; it’s a virtual Ukrainian surrender.  What should be a surprise is that the Trump Administration didn’t just “pass it along” to Ukraine.  They put the imprimatur of the United States on it, declaring it “our” plan for Ukrainian peace.

Change the Subject

President Zelenskyy, after Trump’s White House meltdown a year ago, now knows how to “handle” the US President.  Instead of calling the plan out for what it is, Zelenskyy took the plan under advisement, and suggested that he would also consult with his European allies (who used to be our allies in NATO:  now, not so much).  He didn’t throw it out, he just “laid it on the table”, the legislative term for letting it go.  

Trump is desperate to change the subject after losing control of his MAGA Congress over the EPSTEIN FILES.  Here was the chance, a plan that Russia agreed to and his Administration didn’t care about.  So, if he could ram it down Zelenskyy’s throat, maybe there’s a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the rainbow.  But, like the “Gaza Peace” negotiated a couple of months ago, this deal won’t work.  Ukraine isn’t Hamas, and won’t snatch defeat from the jaws of stalemate.  The world sees the Trump Plan for what it is:  a Russian plant, from an “unserious” President of the United States.  It will make real negotiations, where Putin is required to make sacrifices, even more difficult.

Running Red Lights

The second “hit”:  Democrats stated the obvious.  At the end of last week, several Democratic Congressional members, all veterans of the US Armed Forces, reminded current serving servicemen that they are not required to follow “illegal” orders.  In fact, they are duty bound to deny those orders.

Those Democrats got exactly what they were looking for.  Republicans went nuts, from Trump on down.  The President even suggested that they should face the death penalty for treason, saying they should be hanged.  All weekend, other Republicans made similar (but less tyrannical) threats.  The topic of the weekend was clear:  Trump is perilously close to violating the law in two different areas of the military.  He is already violating the Posse Comitatus Act of 1778, which bans the US Military from “policing” actions within the United States.  And now, the American military is in position to launch military action against Venezuela. That’s all been done without consulting the branch of government that actually declares war, the Congress.

So Democrats made a statement of fact:  each individual servicemember is personally responsible to obey legal orders, to not follow illegal orders, and to recognize the difference between the two.  It’s kind of like the Democrats reminding the country that we don’t run red lights.  It put a spotlight on actions of the Trump Administration that are clearly illegal.  

The First Shot

The third political “hit” is an internal Ohio issue.  Next year there will be several hotly contested statewide races.  While Ohio is dramatically Gerrymandered to the Republican advantage, in statewide elections it remains relatively close, 55% Republican to 45% Democrat (at worst).  Donald Trump will NOT be on the ballot next year, putting the pressure on Republicans to find a way to get their MAGA supporters to the polls.  

There is a Senate seat up for grabs.  Former Republican Lieutenant Governor John Husted was appointed to fill Vice President Vance’s vacant seat, and is running to win the remainder of the term.  Against him is the formidable Democrat Sherrod Brown, who lost his Senate seat to  Republican Bernie Moreno in the 2024 election.  Brown is guaranteed to be well financed, and ran well ahead of Democratic Presidential candidate Harris two years ago.  It’s likely to be a tough, expensive, and ugly campaign as the gloves come off once again here in Ohio.

Vivek versus Amy

But the more intriguing race will be for Governor.  Republicans are set on Vivek Ramaswamy, the billionaire who ran for President, supported Trump, and lost control of the DOGE boys to Elon Musk.  Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati to Indian immigrants, and so has Ohio roots.  The former venture capitalist now lives in suburban Columbus.  

This week the Democrats also settled on their candidate, Dr. Amy Acton.  Acton gained notoriety as the State Director of Health during the Covid pandemic.  She took dramatic action to protect Ohio’s citizens, including closing schools, mandating mask wearing, and curtailing public events.  For the first couple of months, she had the powerful support of Republican Governor Mike DeWine, but as the anti-mask, anti-Vaxx movement grew stronger in his Republican Party, DeWine ultimately let Acton  resign to “take the fall” for his government’s actions.

Acton, who lives in the Columbus area city of Bexley, became a celebrity for Democrats, and has spent the past couple of years trying to stave off political rivals.  Her main competitor, once Brown declared for the Senate race, was former Congressman and Presidential candidate Tim Ryan.  Last week, Ryan declared himself out, leaving the field to Acton.

Anti-Vaxx

Acton is a polarizing figure in Ohio.  Republicans hope that can use “anti-pandemic” emotions to drive voters to the polls.  This week they introduced a bill in the legislature to make Hepatitis B vaccination “optional” for school children.  In fact, not only would they allow parents to exempt their children from the vaccine, but they would also require schools to allow unvaccinated children to remain in school during a disease outbreak.  

It might seem like a typical MAGA-Republican move, one that Ohioans are growing used to with our heavily Gerrymandered legislature.  But it also is an opening “shot” in the Governor’s campaign.  Ramaswamy is a man of Indian ancestry running in a state that has never elected a person of color Governor.  He’s the standard bearer of the Party that is least likely to vote for one.  Republicans have to find a way to “gin up” their voters.

What better way than to bring back the “horrors” of the Covid pandemic.  The entire state will get to re-litigate the emergency actions that DeWine, and Acton, took to protect citizens five years ago.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that Republicans are introducing anti-vaxx legislation. It’s to motivate their own anti-vaxx voters.

The Orange Wall

Lame Duck

It looks like a wall, not the porous border wall, but a big, beautiful, orange tinted wall.  While Democrats traditionally are divided, easily accused of being a “circular firing squad”, the MAGA-Republican party holds firm.   Those Republicans who stood against MAGA, old names from the past like McCain, Flake, Corker, and Portman, were long ago shunted to the side.  

But there have always been “factions” in MAGA-world, divisions that were papered over by Trump’s leadership.   Now the 47th President is an admitted “lame duck”.   He toyed with the idea, but he’s not really going to run for an Unconstitutional third term as President.  So the battle for the “soul” of MAGA has begun.

Believers

It’s always been an uneasy coalition.  There are “traditional” Republicans, who swallowed all of the insults in order to pursue their goal:  unbridled capitalism; “Let Billionaires be Billionaires!”   As long as the markets are good, all is right with the world.  But, they had to accept Trump’s differences in foreign policy, and all of the cultural baggage that MAGA brought. Most would normally be staunch supporters of Ukraine and our European alliances. And many are near-Libertarian; fiscal conservatives but cultural liberals.  Trump certainly is neither of those things.

Then there are the ideologues, like the Heritage Foundation.  These Project 2025’ers dreamed their whole lives for the opportunity to change America’s direction.  From stopping multi-culturalism to cutting the social safety net, they want to remake America into what they imagine as a “gloried past” resembling the 1950’s.  That was before the Warren Supreme Court, the passage of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, the woman’s rights movement, Medicare and gay equality.  

And their cultural goals dove-tail with Christian Nationalists, who see Trump as “God’s imperfect vessel” for their religious state.  They don’t want a theocracy (I guess).  They just want Christian Primacy.  The United States is to be “One Nation Under God”, a God that they have defined as their own.  They found a powerful martyr in the death of Charlie Kirk.

Sure there can be “others”, but those others aren’t allowed to influence American life.  The one exception; fundamental Jews.  While they don’t believe in Jesus, they do believe in Israel.  That’s the site of the impending Second Coming, according to the faithful, the time of judgment and rapture.  So protecting Israel (and Netanyahu) is literally an article of faith for Trump’s Christian friends.

Regulars and Crazies

Then there are those that just want to “throw all the bums out”.  They liked The Apprentice, they like the lack of verbal inhibitions, and they like the promises to make their lives easier, prices lower, and their world safer.  A lot of Americans were uneasy with the quick progress of American multi-culturalism, and Trump promised to make it stop.  Democrats were portrayed as the party of the minority, from skin color to sexual preference. Trump said it was “OK” to say no to other’s lifestyles. So they voted for him.

And last but not least, there were the crazies.  With the ascendance of the internet, some fell down deep wells of conspiracy.  The Trump team was masterful in weaving those already known theories into the MAGA liturgy.  It was no mistake that QAnon themes found their way into Trump rallies, or extremist groups were told to “stand back and stand by”.  And the real child-sex rings of the “Billionaire class” became “Democrats in the basement of a pizza place” in Washington, DC.  

The Files

The EPSTEIN FILES are a point of fissure.  The crazies recognized that some of their misdirected theories were real, and Trump protects the wicked.  The Christian Nationalists struggle to accept that their “imperfect vessel” is THAT imperfect.  The ideologues see Epstein as a threat to their plans, and want it to “go away”.  And traditional Republicans:  maybe protecting child-sex billionaires is just a bridge too far.

Honestly, Trump’s about-face on Epstein was an astute political move.  If you can’t win, switch to the winning side, then control the outcome.  Sure there’s a law that says the “files” must be released.  Trump signed it.  But there’s already another law protecting the secrecy of “investigative materials”.  Trump ordered investigations into Democrats who may or may not have participated.  Of course, these investigations may take a long, long time – maybe until the end of the administration.

So when  Greene and Bobert and Mace called out the Trump Administration and demanded the files be released, they exposed the first apparent fractures in the Big, Beautiful, Orange Wall.  And behind the scenes, folks like JD Vance, Marco Rubio and others are maneuvering to become the “chosen one”, not just of Trump himself, but of one or more of the factions.  

America First?

It’s not just the EPSTEIN FILES though.  A portion of “MAGA” is “America First”.  Wide ranging foreign entanglements; blowing up boats in the Caribbean, threatening military action in Venezuela and Columbia and Mexico, offering US “peace-keepers” for Gaza, and allying with dictators is not what many expected.  Add to that the economic upheaval of the constantly changing tariff policies, and it doesn’t “feel” like America First.  It feels more like a weird mix of Dick Cheney neo-conservatism and “Let Billionaires be Billionaires”, as long as Trump gets another hotel in Riyadh and builds a “nice” ballroom on the White House. 

And there is one more political reality.  Trump is the proven “winner” on the ballot (only Joe Biden could fix that!!).  But his name will no longer be on the ticket.  Trump himself said: “I started MAGA, I say what it means”.  But what happens in the “post-Trump” world? 

Here’s your “daily” Bible verse:

“So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city” – Joshua 6:20 (KJV).

Will Democrats pull themselves together, and blow the “trumpet” to make the already fissured Orange Wall tumble?  Is 2026 just another next step in the MAGA saga, or will America return to bending “the arch of the moral universe” towards justice?  

That’s America’s choice.

A Grand Jury

Amendment V – United States Constitution

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury…

Taking the Fifth (and Sixth)

Americans usually have a pretty good idea about their rights in the criminal process.  Embedded in our media, in every “cop show”, we hear the almost medieval chant: 

“You have the right to remain silent, if you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in a Court of law.  You have the right to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during questioning.  If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you by the Court. You have the right to have questioning end at any time.”

We call them the “Miranda Rights”, after the Supreme Court case Miranda v Arizona that required the explicit reading upon arrest or identification as a criminal suspect.   And even grade school students know the phrase, “I’ll take the Fifth”, the right to not testify against yourself, guaranteed in the Constitution.  As a high school Dean of Students dealing with discipline, I often got that “teachable moment” to explain when the Fifth might apply to high school students, and when it didn’t.  The Government Teacher in me came out, even if the kid on the other side of the desk  just wished I’d write the suspension papers and be done with it!

Grand Jury

Just as important in the Fifth Amendment is a procedure called the “Grand Jury”.   The Founding Fathers, only a few years past the American Revolution, worried about the power of the Government over “regular” citizens.  They looked to English Common Law that gave those citizens two separate opportunities to check the Government.  One is familiar to most:  a trial by jury.   Every person accused of a crime has the right to a trial, where a jury “of their peers” determines guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” by unanimous vote.  

But the authors knew that forcing folks to stand trial was an arduous and expensive process. Even if the accused was found “not guilty” it still altered their lives.  So they placed a second standard, where “regular citizens” determine if there is even enough evidence to bring a case to trial.  That second Jury is called the “Grand Jury”.  They hear just the government’s side of a criminal case.  If, after that evidence is presented, this jury determines that it is “more likely” that the crime was committed by the accused than not, then an indictment is issued.  That formally charges the accused and brings them to trial.  If the jury decides that the government doesn’t reach that low bar of “more likely”, then the jury votes a “No Bill”, meaning that the charges are dropped. 

Ham Sandwich

There is a legal “joke” that says, “(A) grand jury could indict a ham sandwich”.  It recognizes that the prosecutor controls all of the information that the Grand Jurors hear.  Any “good” prosecutor should be able to present that evidence, without contradiction, to convince the jurors to bring an indictment.  Grand juries don’t even have to be unanimous. Federal grand juries require twelve of sixteen jurors to agree.  Here in Ohio it’s seven out of nine.

Unlike trial juries, Grand juries can ask witnesses questions, and can even get more information  by issuing subpoenas requiring folks to appear before them.  But, like trial juries, in the end a grand jury deliberates in secret, away from prosecutors and court recorders.  They decide through private discussion and vote whether the “more likely than not” standard leads to indictment.

I have the privilege of serving on the Grand Jury here in Licking County.  Every person accused of a felony must have their “case” heard by “us” first.  Unlike a regular jury, we serve for three months, once a week, to hear all of the felony charges.  If you read about a criminal arrest in the local paper on Friday, the Grand Jury is likely to hear those charges next week.  If the charges are “dropped”, then the accused is released from jail.   But if the Grand Jury indicts, then the process to trial continues.

Due Process

In every case, the prosecutor brings witnesses.  They lay out the evidence and convince the jurors “more likely than not”.  Often it’s the arresting officers, and the victims of crime who testify.  It’s an eye-opening experience for jurors.  I can now identify the difference between meth, crack, coke and fentanyl, and even how much is for “personal use” or is “bulk for sale”.   Unlike a jury trial where the proceedings are public, the Grand Jury is secret.   The idea is simple.  Someone’s reputation should be protected from accusation, until at least the “more likely than not” standard is applied.

The “paperwork” is seemingly endless.  Each allegation is defined by the Ohio Revised Code, and the evidence needs to point directly towards that law.  There is a significant different between assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with a vehicle, or specific forms of assault, like strangulation.  All of this is carefully defined in law, and the application is determined by the Jury.  It’s all a matter of “due process”.  The process must be fair to the accused and guarantee that their rights are protected, even though there is no “defense” presented to the Grand Jury.

And while the vast majority of cases (we hear a dozen or more each week) are indicted, unanimously, there are some where jurors just aren’t convinced.  There is the occasional “no bill”. Sometimes prosecutors just don’t meet their burden of evidence, or witnesses are so contradictory that it just doesn’t “make sense”.

And after our session, every indictment is “crossed checked” against the law.  Every signature (and there’s plenty) is triple checked.  Every change to a possible indictment is confirmed.  And finally, the week’s efforts are reported out to the Common Pleas Court.  

Jim Comey       

Former FBI Director Jim Comey recently was indicted for lying to Congress.  There is a lot of controversy about that charge.  Was what he said over different Congressional testimonies contradictory?  Was the contradiction intentional?  From what we can gather, the Federal Grand Jury originally issued a “No Bill”, then, was presented more information and indicted Comey on two of three possible counts.  

But yesterday, a government attorney admitted in Court that the indictment they presented was never actually heard by the Grand Jury.  The “paperwork” was revised after the Grand Jury hearing. And the signatures on it, including the jury “foreman”,  did not represent what they actually decided.

In essence, the government lied about what the Grand Jury said.  And that lie has a single government signature on it:  the newly appointed US Attorney Lindsey Halligan, in her first Federal indictment.

Soup Sandwich

Grand juries hear a lot of cases, in secret.  In Licking County, the notes we take about each case are destroyed as soon as we vote.  But the memories of how we decided aren’t.  It would be clear to us, and surely is to the Federal Grand Jury in Virginia, if a decision was altered.

The Fifth Amendment is clear, the Grand Jury must decide between a ham sandwich and a soup sandwich.  And if the Prosecutor ignores their decision, the Court has a clear remedy.  The Comey indictment must be thrown out, with “prejudice”.  The charges in this set of facts must be forever dropped.  It’s the only way to make the message clear. Upholding the US Constitution is more important, even than the desire of Donald Trump to get “revenge” on Jim Comey.

Bad Advice

Harvard

Larry Summers, the former Secretary of the Treasury and ex-President of Harvard, is stepping back from his “public roles”.  He plans (hopes) to  maintain his “private role” as a professor at Harvard, but even that’s a question for him right now.  Summers maintained a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein until the last months of Epstein’s life, right before the once convicted pedophile was indicted again, imprisoned, and ultimately died in his prison cell.  

There is no evidence that Summers was involved in sex acts with underage women.  The issue is that, even though Summers knew what Epstein was involved with, he continued to take financial, political and personal advice from him. In one of their last emails, Summers asked Epstein for help with a new “girlfriend”.   He clearly didn’t find Epstein’s personal actions rose to the level of cutting off their own private relationship.

Summers is guilty; guilty of bad judgment.  It’s such bad judgment that it brings into question his ability to advise the “high and mighty” about his own area of expertise, finance.  Senator Elizabeth Warren, herself a former Harvard faculty member, asks whether Summers should be educating the next generation of financial experts.  That’s a good question.

Clinton

It’s the same question we need to ask of former President Bill Clinton.  There is no current evidence that Clinton was engaged in inappropriate activities through Epstein.  Clinton himself says that they shared a common interest in African economic development through the Clinton Foundation.  But even at the time, the early 2000’s, Clinton should have known that Epstein was more than “shaky”.   At least Clinton cut ties with Epstein after his first sex offense conviction in 2007.

Of course, we all know Bill Clinton’s own history of sexual exploits.  Of anyone, he should have been hyper-aware of the “optics” of Jeffrey Epstein.  So, to use an old phrase, there’s a lot of smoke, where’s the fire?

Dream Team

How important was Jeffrey Epstein?  To round-out the circle, one of Epstein’s lawyers in the 2007 child-sex case was former Federal Judge and US Solicitor General Ken Starr.  He was best known for prosecuting President Clinton, first for questionable Arkansas land deals, and ultimately for lying on a deposition about having sex with a White House intern.  This led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House, and acquittal by the Senate. (And my having to explain that oral sex was really still sex to a bunch of high school seniors in my government class!)

Epstein had Starr, Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, and noted defense attorney Roy Black on his 2007 defense team.  No wonder the US Attorney (and future Trump Secretary of Labor) Alex Acosta cut Epstein an incredibly lenient deal.  He was looking at a legal “dream team” across the table.

Revealed

Of course, Americans want to know what prominent Americans like Summers, Clinton, current informal Presidential advisor Steve Bannon, and others had to do with Epstein.  Sure there’s the prurient interest; did these leaders actually abuse underage women (and men)?  But there’s also the “Summers” question.  How did these leaders, and seemingly so many other prominent men, have the bad judgment to “stick with Epstein”, even after his actions were publicly revealed?  

Recent published emails suggest that Epstein thought he had “leverage” over many of these men.  Maybe it’s the obvious: they participated in Epstein’s ongoing underage sex “business”.  Or maybe just the bad judgment they showed in “using” Epstein for financial advice was enough to make them vulnerable.  Either way, it’s not just a matter of punishing the “guilty”.  We must also question their judgment.  

Americans ask a simple question, one that President Trump has failed to answer as well.  It’s unimaginable that all of these highly informed “gentlemen” didn’t know what was going on.  Here in Central Ohio, back in the early 1990’s Epstein was a key part of the growth of Les Wexner’s Limited Corporation.  Even then, there were rumors of sexual impropriety at Wexner’s New Albany mansion, involving both young women and men. If I heard them here in Pataskala, others must of heard them as well.

It may not be about depraved actions, the commission of crimes. It’s just as important to determine the depths of our leaders’ judgment. What “omissions” were they willing to tolerate?  And perhaps just as important, what “kompromat”, if any, did Epstein use to control them? Because if he could do it then, and even now from beyond the grave; who else might have that same control? 

We need to know.

Speaking Truth

Go Bucks

I live just twenty miles from “The Shoe”, the horseshoe shaped stadium where THE Ohio State University football team annually competes for National recognition.  Ohio State has a tremendous influence on the culture of our area.  Go to any American location: on a beach, in an airport, to a bar, up a mountain, and call out the letters “O-H”.  Someone nearby will always respond “I-O”.   That’s National impact.  With that kind of effect; imagine the athletic, cultural, and academic influence of Ohio State here locally.  It is immense.

Teachers went to Ohio State, Administrators got their advanced degrees from Ohio State, doctors (all) went to Ohio State, the guy selling you a car went to Ohio State.  So whether you like the “Buckeyes” on the football field or not, “Scarlet and Gray” permeates our communities here in Central Ohio. 

It’s so powerful that Ohio State can recruit athletes just with the name.  In my track and field career I coached athletes good enough to compete at the NCAA Division I level.  Several earned scholarships to Big Ten schools.  A couple turned down better offers from other schools, just to run for Ohio State.  Being a “Buckeye” was that important to them.

The Secret

But here’s a “dirty little secret”.  US News and World Report issues an annual academic ranking of schools in the same conference with Ohio State, the Big Ten. And the Buckeyes are not on top.  They aren’t even in the top five.  Here’s the top ten list:

  •             1 – Northwestern
  •             2 – UCLA
  •             3 – Michigan
  •             4 – USC
  •             5 – Illinois
  •             6 – Wisconsin
  •             7 – Rutgers and OHIO STATE (tied)
  •             9 – Maryland
  •             10 – Purdue and Washington (tied)

            Then there’s the other seven members of the “Big Ten”(US News).

When the football team is losing on the field, the Harvard University band is known to chant:  “That’s OK, you’ll work for us!!”  I guess Northwestern can use that same refrain.

I’m taking a risk writing this essay.  I live in the heart of “Buckeye Country”.  But I’m really not trying to be so critical of Ohio State.  What I am doing is making a point: sometimes the facts don’t fit with local biases or loyalties.  Any good educator will lay out the facts, and then use it as a jumping off point for discussion.  Is the US News survey really accurate?  Are there areas, Veterinary Medicine for example, where Ohio State is the best, perhaps in the Nation?  And, of course, what about those Buckeyes on the football field.

Controversial Issues

But we are in a “new era” of education, both in the K-12 public schools, and state sponsored universities.  In this “MAGA age”, educators are required to make sure that their students are “comfortable” with the teaching materials.  Any lesson that challenges the students assumptions, political or otherwise, risks becoming “controversial”.  And controversial lessons, are now considered “against the law”.  

In Ohio it’s embodied in the newly passed Senate Bill 1.  “For classroom discussion, the bill will set rules around topics involving “controversial beliefs” such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion. (Ohio Capital Journal)”.  If a professor “teaches” a view which makes a student “uncomfortable”, the student is empowered to demand that administrators discipline or remove the professor.

The Chart

Indiana has a similar law.  This week, a lecturer at Indiana University (somehow rated 15th in the Big Ten for academics) used a pyramid chart to describe racism in America.  The chart uses terms to describe both implicit and explicit racism in our society.  Here it is:

(Egalitarian Publishing).

If you haven’t found it yet, the chart lists on the left, an unconscious sign of White Supremacy, the term “Make America Great Again”.   

Now that’s a loaded term, certainly one designed to stimulate thought and discussion.  Like any classroom in America today, there are likely to be students who believe in the political tenets of “Make America Great Again”.  Any good teacher would use that as a jumping off point for the discussion of implicit bias.  That’s exactly what the Indiana University lecturer was doing.

Students should engage in that discussion, defending their “MAGA” view,  and stand up for what they believe in.  But the new “controversial issues” laws gives them a whole different path.  They don’t have to examine their own views, they simply have to say, “That chart makes me uncomfortable”.  

Making America Great

The Lecturer was suspended from teaching the course.  Indiana University administrators are “investigating” whether further employment action is required.   But even if the University ultimately stands up for “academic freedom”, it really doesn’t matter.  The point is made.  And teachers, lecturers and professors are all learning.

I took a risk pointing out Ohio State’s academic standing in the Big Ten.  So far, that’s not against the law.  But in Indiana, and here in Ohio, making students critically think about their own political views, is. I did that as a high school government teacher.  Critical thinking was a basic tenet of my class. It’s what our teachers and professors should do.  But they’re not likely to take that risk anymore.  It can cost them their jobs.

Is that Making America Great Again?