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Inflation, Covid virus variants, Russian threats to Ukraine, Chinese transparency and tariffs, supply chain improvements, infrastructure repairs, arcane rules of the United States Senate, criminal insinuations about a son, political ideology, Central American policy, America’s divisions:  President Joe Biden stood in front of the press for almost two hours, and answered questions.  He showed an in-depth knowledge of all the issues facing our Nation.  And President Biden demonstrated an openness to the press, and the Nation, about the crises of our time.  

Big F**king Deal

Biden has been accused of three failings.   First, the famous Biden “faux-pas” (“Barack this is a Big F**king Deal!”).  The only possible “faux-pas” in this two hour grilling on national television, was Biden musing about what actions Russia might take against Ukraine.  Some suggest that he was signaling to Russia that the United States and NATO would “tolerate” a small incursion, but not a full scale invasion.

Maybe he was, or maybe he was simply laying out for Vladimir Putin the levels of retribution that the US and NATO were considering.  Or maybe President Biden was giving the American people some insight into his own thoughts.  But what the President made clear was that Putin had not signaled his own intentions, and that consequences would depend on provocation.   It’s just as possible that he was communicating to Moscow, rather than just “slipping up”. 

Others, notably Peter Baker of the New York Times, hammered Biden for not “staying on message”.  The Biden message, according to Baker, was supposed to be a White House “re-set”, after the failure to pass Build-Back-Better and the Voting Rights bills in the Senate.  Biden started down that path, placing the blame over and over again for failure firmly on the Senate Republicans who voted against as a block.  Biden spent much less time talking about Democrats Manchin and Sinema, Democrats who favored the bills, but refused to break the filibuster rule.

Baker felt that Biden went on to long, leaving the “re-set” behind.  While The Times is welcome to their opinion, Biden did demonstrate a wide ranging knowledge of all of the issues, and laid out a case for other Democratic accomplishments, versus Republican intransigence.  

Irish Up

The second failing Biden is accused of is having a hot temper.  Biden is known for harkening back to his heritage, including “getting his Irish up” when angered.  And the President had several good reasons to become angered, as certain media representatives (not really reporters, more provocateurs) made statement trying to bait him.  Newsmax asked whether the President was in “cognitive decline”, while Fox asked why he had trended so far to “the left”.  

Instead of losing his cool, Biden gave a one word answer (“No”) to Newsmax and moved on.  As far as the Fox question, Biden answered coolly, saying that while he was friends with Bernie Sanders, he wasn’t Bernie Sanders and was and remains a moderate, mainstream Democrat.  He didn’t get red in the face, nor did he fall in the trap of the predecessor and start attacking the questioners.  Fox News, of course, claims that the conference was a “total disaster”, and even suggested Biden “lost his cool” with a reporter when he told him to “go back and read” a speech that Biden made about the voting rights bills.  But as a direct observer myself, I didn’t see that.  I saw the President refusing to accept the “factual” premise of a question.

And when a reporter suggested that Biden didn’t demand tough answers from China because of an alleged relationship between Biden’s son Hunter and China, the President didn’t take the bait.  Instead, he ignored the “Hunter” part of the question, and corrected the reporters “facts” about his conversation with President Xi.

Cognitive Decline

Biden spent two hours in the hot light of the national media.  Biden answered questions on every topic in front of him.  He mused on the state of America, and sympathized with a people “fed up” with the coronavirus.  By the end of the conference, the biggest complaint may be that he gave too much “fodder” for a hostile media to swallow.  Reading this morning’s press, it’s clear the “right” will give him no credit, and the “left” won’t let go of Manchin and Sinema.

Biden made his point.  He is a man of the middle, perhaps in a time where the middle doesn’t exist.  He is a leader who believes that America will join him in change, if he can simply explain what he’s trying to do.  There’s no “cognitive decline” in that.

It’s the picture of a President trying to bring America back to a “safer” center.  We’ll see if that works.

Polarized

There are a whole lot of things to disagree about in America today. We align on our sides, from voting rights to Covid .  We’re right, they’re wrong, and they must be idiots to think the way they do.  Polarization is the watchword of American politics, and life, in 2022.

When I was an eighth grade American History teacher back in the 1980’s (forty years ago!!), one of the key concepts I taught my students was that polarization led to the Civil War.  America was divided, riven by the issues surrounding enslavement. There was no turning back.  All of the “tricks” of the legislators, from Henry Clay’s Missouri Compromise to Stephen Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act, were unable to resolve the issue.  

Kids

Back in “the day”, my kids didn’t quite get it. How could America be so divided, that Virginians would fight Pennsylvanians, and Missourians fight among themselves?  Why did best friends like Winfield Scott Hancock and Lew Armistead lead armies into battle against each other?  It just didn’t seem possible, even after Vietnam, and Watergate, that Americans couldn’t find some common purpose.  It wasn’t just the “pathos” of brother versus brother. There was the sheer waste of lives, blood and treasure over what seemed in hindsight to be an inevitable outcome.  

Kids in class today would get the division just fine.  They would feel right at home with the hate of the 1850’s, the justification of “my side is the right” and “you’re in the wrong”.  Look at today’s arguments pitting “freedom” against public health, and you’ll get the idea.

I’m not predicting another civil war (but I’m not discounting that possibility anymore either).  And while I certainly have a “side” on the issues of today, the purpose of this essay is to examine  how we got here.

Gerrymandering

Ohio is in the throes of another “gerrymandering” debate.  The majority Republican State Supreme Court just turned down its own Republican plan as being too partisan and ignoring the expressed desires of the people.  But as a national issue, gerrymandering has significantly contributed to our national division.  That’s not an issue of blame, just fact.  We’ve divided ourselves in a way to encourage more division.

How does that work?  Gerrymandering for political gain is simply drawing the district maps so that one political party or the other is guaranteed a win.  Take Ohio’s 4th Congressional District, carefully etched into the countryside by the Republican controlled 2011 re-districting.  It goes from the outskirts of Dayton east to the edges of Columbus, up north to near Toledo, then again east almost to Cleveland.  It is the tenth most Republican district in the nation.

Base Rules

So when a Republican runs for Congress in the 4th, they know that winning the primary election is a guarantee of winning the Congressional seat.  Primary voting turnout is notoriously low compared to general election voting. Only the most “motivated” voters show up, the Base.  And the most motivated are usually those more extreme voters, the ones who are “fired up”.  Gerrymandering has put the power to select legislators in the hands of those few extremists, not intentionally, but practically.  And to keep getting re-elected, the legislator must continue to pander to that Base, the few that vote in the primary, versus the many who vote in the general.

Multiply that by the sixteen districts in Ohio.  And then add many of the states in the Union, both Republican and Democrat.  Gerrymandering fills the Congress (and the state legislatures) with members who have little to gain in compromise, in “making sausage”.  Instead, their personal interest to remain in office pushes them to the extremes, to non-negotiable stands.  Look at Jim Jordan from Ohio’s 4th, or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez from New York’s 14th.  To what common purpose could those two work?

Media

In 1996, Media mogul Rupert Murdock hired Republican campaign consultant Roger Ailes to set up a new kind of “news” channel.  It would represent the “conservative” view, despite its promise of “fair and balanced” news.  Ailes, who campaigned for Nixon, Reagan and HW Bush, did a remarkable job of creating Fox, a news source for “the right” and  the supposed counter-balance for CNN.  But to have an effective strategy to gain “the right” viewer, Ailes needed a better bête noire, an opposing network that was more obviously “left” than CNN.  

When Microsoft and General Electric came together to create MSNBC about the same time as Fox, Ailes had what he needed.  The market was calling for a “left” news source to counter-balance Fox, and MSNBC slid that direction to pick up viewers.  Ultimately both Fox and MSNBC eclipsed the older CNN, and both served to further divide the viewing public.  Today there is “a balance”:  Fox has a little more than half of the cable viewing share, MSNBC and CNN split the rest.

For Profit

With the expansion of cable broadcasts, other networks have tried to gain shares by outflanking Fox to the right.  Newsmax and OANN joined the right, challenging Fox to skew even more.  But Fox found the ultimate viewer enhancer, a political candidate who was already a television “star” (created by NBC oddly enough) who became the President of the United States.

But it’s really all about money, not politics.  I learned that at a very early age.  My Dad, a “Rockefeller Republican” back in the 1960’s, put a very liberal Phil Donahue on television in Dayton.  Donahue and Dad didn’t agree on politics, but they both knew a good thing when they had one.  By the end, the Donahue Show was in every television market in the country, all 210 of them, and lasted twenty-six years.  It was about money and success, not politics.

Information

And now in the past two decades, there is an entirely different source of information.  Mass use of the internet and social media has allowed everyone to “silo” their information.  They get what they “want to hear”, with little alternative or criticism.  The infamous “algorithms” of Facebook (and Google, and Twitter, and, and, and…) constantly pour gas on our fires of ideology.  That’s all about money as well.  Social media is monetized by “clicks”, by the number of people who view a particular site.  And nothing drives “clicks” like outrage.  From a financial standpoint, the more outrage – the more clicks – the more money.  

And so the wedges polarizing us are pounded in deeper by the unseen mathematical forces that keep appealing to our emotions.  It isn’t “love” that drives us to the next site or the next message – it’s negative. Hate, anger, and indignation are the powers that make social media the place for profit.  Tired of hating McConnell – move onto Manchin!!  Tired of hammering Biden – try despising Fauci!!

Revolution

The “theory of revolution” postulates that people don’t “revolt” when they are at their lowest.  Instead, they “revolt” when their lives improve, or they see “hope” for the future, and then that improvement and hope is dashed.  The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States might be one example of this.  For a significant number of Americans, the election of a progressive Black man as President was a “bridge too far”.  They were shocked, both by his politics and his race, especially after the conservative administration of George W Bush following “Republican Lite” Bill Clinton.  That shock soon became organizational anger, and the “Tea Party” movement began.  It wasn’t all “racist”, but it was definitely encouraged by the racial issue.

Should it be any surprise that their ultimate response was the election of the diametric opposite t0 Obama, an opulently rich White man who voiced “Tea Party” like views, and had the support of the “right’s” media?  Especially when the alternative choice was another ground breaking candidate, a woman for President? And with Trump’s election there was a predictable progressive response to that “outrage”, from Inauguration day on, culminating in the elections of 2018 and 2020. 

The Middle

Enter Joe Biden, quite literally a man “of the middle”.  And for many, there was hope that his electoral success would bring our nation to a “middle” where common purpose could again be the driving principle.  But Biden ran into the realities of 2021-22 American politics.  We are polarized by all the other forces in our lives – politics, healthcare, media; the phones we spend so much time on (my daily average an incredibly low 2 hour and 17 minutes this week).  

In an environment where magnifying failure is so much more profitable than touting success, and where much of the “middle” has been wedged to the sides, it’s no surprise that Biden is struggling.  Look at the Senate of the United States.  They can’t even manage to reaffirm the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1965.  The no-brainer of a decade ago is now controversial.  Even some Democrats don’t support it (or at least, won’t support a means to pass it).

I wish I had a “good answer” for what we need to do to “fix” all this.  But to start, we must at least recognize where it began, and why it continues.  My bet:  when the money can be made by fixing rather than dividing, we might be on our way to a common good:  Capitalism at its finest.  I’ll hold my breath.

Sinema

She seemed almost in tears as she stood in the well of the Senate.  Arizona’s Kirsten Sinema was committing the ultimate political insult. She was telling the President of the United States, the leader of her party, that she would not support him.  And she was doing it as publicly as possible,  as his motorcade was driving to the Capitol and to her, the Mountain coming to Mohammad, to ask her and fifty other Senators for help.   It doesn’t politically get more “in your face” than that.

But the “almost” tears weren’t for the possible consequences of her insubordination.  No, she was choking up for the need for bipartisanship. She is trying to end the dramatic divide that splits the American body politic into two immobile forces.  She was speaking in favor of the filibuster, an arcane rule of the Senate that, in its present incarnation, required sixty Senators to agree to even discuss any piece of business, any issue.  The “greatest deliberative body in the world” is shackled from even talking about something, anything, without a super-majority agreeing to do so.

Before we confer sainthood on the second year Senator from Arizona, recognize that she has made an objective political calculation.  The President is “weak” politically, with a current approval rating of 45% (Reuters).  And Sinema is from a “purple” state,  depending on the support of “McCain Republicans”. They are still angry at their Party for the insults poured on their deceased hero by former President Trump.  Sinema’s mathematics obviously conclude that insulting Biden costs fewer votes than standing for the Senate’s 
“regular order”, a frequent talking point of McCain in his last few years.  This was Sinema declaring independence from the Democratic establishment, her “thumbs down” moment.

Biden

Joe Biden himself, was a “man of the Senate” who stood with McCain for “regular order” (including the filibuster) for his thirty years there.  The President has made a journey since his inauguration speech a year ago, when he called for unity and common purpose.  In his first year in office, he was struck with a fierce reality:  in the US Congress there is no common purpose.  

Republicans have made it clear:  no matter how reasonable, or necessary, or even common sense a proposal might be, if the Democrats are for it, they are against it.  Not a Republican voted for the first Covid relief package.  Only a handful voted for the “bipartisan” infrastructure bill.  In fact, the Republicans in the Senate were willing to temporarily break the filibuster itself, so Democrats could raise the debt ceiling and keep the Nation from going into financial default. Just as long as they didn’t have to vote for it.

Debt Ceiling

That requires just a bit more analysis.  Clearly every Senator with the exception of the “hair-on-fire” crazies like Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, recognized that the debt ceiling had to be raised.  They all, Democrat and Republican alike, knew that it had nothing to do with future spending.  They were simply paying the bills from what they ALL had voted for in the past two years, the heavy Covid relief bills that kept the Nation out of financial depression when the pandemic hit. 

But the Republicans recognize that the American public doesn’t quite get the “debt ceiling”.  It looks like spending, like getting a bigger credit card limit so more money can go out.  In fact, it is getting a bigger credit limit, but to cover money already spent. But that distinction will be lost in the 2022 campaigns, when Republicans will rail against the “big spending” Democrats. 

So Republicans forced Democrats to break the filibuster, in order to pass the debt ceiling. That way, no Republican had to vote for it. That might be “smart” politics, but it definitely denies the common purpose of good governance.  That doesn’t matter anymore, the “men of the Senate” just want to win.

On the Record

So last week, Biden called out the Senate, and especially Sinema and Manchin, the roadblocks to defeating a filibuster.  Biden said they had to make a choice:  support voting rights or be listed with the great racists of our history:  Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Jefferson Davis.  It doesn’t get starker than that.  The President, the “man of the Senate”, is calling members of his own political party racists.  The unity and common purpose of a year ago is lost in the raw political calculations.

Chuck Schumer is doubling down on the President’s threat, forcing the Senate to vote on breaking the filibuster to debate the Voting Rights Acts.  Schumer knows he doesn’t have the votes to win, but is “putting everyone on record”.  He’s making sure that all the Republicans are “against voting rights”.  But he is placing his “purple” Senators, like Tester of Montana and Kelly of Arizona, in a bind. Like Sinema, they depend on Never-Trump independents to get re-elected.  It would be different if the votes were there to do it, but Sinema and Manchin have made it abundantly clear they are not on board.

It is a symbolic  vote, for the record, and thirty-second ads  in the 2022 campaign.  But it is another move of division, not one of common purpose.  That doesn’t make it wrong, just sad, on this Martin Luther King day of 2022.

We Didn’t Start the Fire – Billy Joel  (an amazing “ballpark” concert last fall!)

The Jeep

I was driving around in my 2004 Jeep yesterday.  Though it’s an older vehicle, I updated the sound system to “modern” times – blue tooth connectivity, all new speakers, no CD player (or tape or eight track).  On longer trips I use my phone to select what’s playing.  Sometimes it’s classic rock, especially on those summer excursions with the top down and the sun tempered by the breeze. Often, it’s MSNBC keeping up with the constantly shifting politics. And sometimes its lectures:  the Civil War, the Federalist Papers, Constitutional Law, and all cued up for this spring’s travel season, the American Revolution.

 But if I’m going on a shorter trip, I don’t go to all the technical trouble of setting my phone for the audio presentation.  I just listen to the radio – either a classic rock station, whatever ballgame is on WLW (like my father before me), or National Public Radio (NPR).  All that, to explain the brief excerpt I heard on NPR that led to consideration of the “isms” of our time.

CRT

We all know about Critical Race Theory (CRT). It’s a study of the impact of legacy racism on the legal system.  The term was intentionally misappropriated to become the “watchword” of the right.  They use it to explain any attempt to diversify our educational system, or correct the injustice of history lessons written to intentionally protect racist actions.  It’s an inappropriate “shorthand”, but because it sounds bad: “critical” like near death, “race” with winners and losers, and “theory” like the science that the “right” disparages, it works for them.  It’s sounds so much better than just being “racist”. 

CRT is just another battle of the soon to be minority white culture warriors, trying to maintain power. Gerrymandering and voter suppression are two more battlefields in the same conflict.  And while I sometimes despair for what my country has become, there is an inevitability in the census statistics:  America will ultimately be a diverse nation without a single “majority” racial or ethnic group.  We will change, willingly or not.  

Ageism

But there are other, less well known “watchwords” that try to explain our cultural behavior. “Ageism” is used to describe the discounting of the older generation, what in slang seems to be defined in a single, now pejorative term, “Boomer”.  The impact of ageism is subtle. As I arrive at the “age”, I’m just beginning to notice it. It’s not just the slightly slower and louder speech pattern some take with me.  As a highly qualified sixty-five year old who didn’t get a job to a highly qualified thirty-eight year old, the thought can’t help but creep into my mind – was it the gray hair and long resume?  

The other day there was a long Facebook response to my “rant” about Covid (I’m Done).  Part of their argument compared the total US death rates from the flu (pre-Covid) to Covid deaths of those under sixty-five, trying to show how the flu and Covid were kind of the same.  My first thought was that those sixty-five and over were part of the flu deaths, so the argument was inherently flawed.  But even more, why would discounting the deaths of those sixty-five and over from Covid be an “OK” argument to make?  Are their lives less valued by their gray hair or slowed gait?

Ableism

Or the term I heard on NPR the other day, “Ableism”.  That’s the watchword used by those who have disabilities to explain the inherent bias against them in many physical and social areas.  What we think of as infra-structure issues:  ramps and elevators versus stairs, the “jokes” about braille on the drive-thru banking machines, are only part of the issue.  Like the gray hair, does a wheelchair change the opportunities for employment?

The speaker pointed out that those who are disabled are often “written-out” of the conversation about Covid.  For example, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control, stated that those with “co-morbidities” had the highest risk of dying from Covid, but that for most others there was less risk.  While the statistic is certainly true, it includes many people with disabilities.  Her using it to justify how well the vaccines are doing seems to them that, like the “sixty-five and over” crowd, they are somehow in a different category that discounts the importance of their deaths.  

Perspective

I’m sure that’s not what Dr. Walensky meant, but hearing it from a different perspective is important.  Just like the casual “sixty-five and over”, the “co-morbidity” argument denies humanity.  Sure Colin Powell had a long-term cancer.  Sure he was weakened by the treatments.  It made him “less-able”.  But to say his death from Covid was somehow less tragic or less important is wrong.  But for Covid – Colin Powell would still be alive.  The blood cancer didn’t kill him: Covid did.

And a final point on “ableism”.  Millions of Americans had Covid infection.  Some are left with “Long Covid”, varying symptoms that don’t go away.  So the ranks of “persons with disabilities” are likely to swiftly increase from the impact of Covid.  How will they be treated in the future?  Will our current national desire to “forget” Covid include forgetting them?

Fight the Fire

Racism, Ableism, Ageism, Sexism, Audism (against the deaf), Cissexism (against transgendered), cultural appropriation; are all just some of the list.  It all reminds me of the Billy Joel song, We Didn’t Start the Fire, with his verses of lists:

…Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore, China’s under martial law
Rock and roller, cola wars, I can’t take it anymore.

We didn’t “start the fire” of these “isms”.  As Billy Joel put it:

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it.

Labeling is always the first step in a battle.  The “right” won on that count: Critical Race Theory now means so much more than an obscure legal theory.  All of these “isms” represent real issues for the American future, for an America that should welcome diversity and differences.  That’s what makes a better.

To get there, we’ve got some fighting to do.

The Farce

You know, it hasn’t been a great week.  It looks like President Biden and Majority Leader Schumer were leading us on.  I know, both of them kept saying “how hard this was going to be” and “we have lots of work to do”.  But you had to think they wouldn’t have raised our hopes, without some hope themselves that they could succeed in convincing Manchin and Sinema to play ball.  Now it looks like it was all a farce, a show put on to demonstrate “how hard” they were trying.  

We don’t need shows, and we don’t need false hope.  All that does is solidify the view that “the enemy” isn’t the Republicans, but the two recalcitrant Democrats.  I’m struggling to see why that’s a good idea for my Party.  The reality is the fifty Republicans stand rock solid for voter suppression.  Former Attorney General Eric Holder stated yesterday that the average white voter in Fulton County (Atlanta) waited eight minutes to vote in 2020, while the average black person waited over fifty.  If that’s not discriminatory, what is?  But those conditions will be made worse in 2022 by the legal changes made in that state. A total of nineteen states passed thirty-three bills to do the same.  And more laws and states are in the “suppression” pipeline.

Marching on Main Street

But that’s not where Democratic ire is directed.   The Republicans are getting a “pass”.  Manchin and Sinema are taking the “heat” for all fifty-two opposing Senators from both parties.  The idea was that the pressure would somehow move “the two”, but looks now that it’s made them “stand firm” for the filibuster.  Wow – I’m sure the good folks in Flagstaff, Arizona and Beckley, West Virginia are proud:  “filibuster or bust” they cry out as they march down Main Street – not.

I know it’s not over “until the lady sings” (we will not be body shaming here!) but it sure sounds like she’s warming up.  How proud Senator Sinema looked yesterday, standing in the well of the Senate of the United States and defending “tradition”.  She might as well have said she was defending “heritage”, a word that has come to stand for the “old, racist” days.  And Manchin with his “elevator” interviews, always leaving a tidbit of room to wiggle, and reveling in the attention.  They’re both raising campaign funds on this issue, though it not regular Democrats giving the money for this.  You have to wonder; who is?

Trump Card

On top of that, the Supreme Court played their “Trump” card, and took another weapon out of the vaccine fight.  Government can’t mandate businesses keep their employees safe by vaccination.  At least five of the Justices agreed that medical workers ought to not infect their patients – duh.  

So this has not been a “winning” week – more of a “whining” week in reality.  

But there is one small light in the tunnel, though it too is flickering.  A few years ago, the voters of Ohio passed two State Constitutional Amendments calling for an end to political gerrymandering of legislative districts.  One was for the state representatives and senators, the other was for Congressional districts.  The “people” made it clear that districts like Jim Jordan’s, which stretches from the outskirts of Dayton to the outskirts of Toledo to the outskirts of Cleveland, aren’t really representative.  Even worse, the “snake on the lake” district, stretching from Toledo to Cleveland, fifteen miles wide along Lake Erie.

Will of the People

But when it came time for the Republican majority to redraw the maps, they went right ahead and kept doing what they always did.  Their new district maps would guarantee even more Republicans elected.  Ohio averaged 54% Republican to 46% Democrat in the past decades elections, but the Republican gerrymander would guarantee over 80% of the Congressional seats and more than 60% of the state legislative seats.

Ohio Supreme Court Justices are elected, not appointed.  There are four Republicans (including the Governor’s son) and three Democrats. The “betting” was that the Court would allow the maps, by a four to three decision. 

But there was a pleasant surprise.  Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor flipped, citing the intent of the people in passing the amendments. The state legislative maps were tossed out, and the mapping committee has ten days to come up with something less partisan.  The Congressional maps will be up for the same review soon.  

Flickering

So in a week of disappointment, it’s good to see one government official take a stand, and try to do what she sees as the “will of the people”.  Her willingness to cross “the line” and side with the Democrats on the court, is refreshing.  She didn’t do it because of partisanship, but in spite of it.  A flickering flame of hope, for a generally dismal week. 

Come to the light!!!!

Rant

This is a Covid rant.  We all have them, no matter what “side” of Covid you’re on.  And let’s think a bit about that sentence.  Here in the “modern world”, where we have made amazing progress and found vaccines for a killer disease in less than a year, we have made the “disease” a political issue.  No wonder the world looks at the United States with head shaking amazement.  The nation that thinks it’s the best – is still leading when it comes to Covid deaths.  The United States leads the world with over 860,000 deaths in the past two years.  Brazil comes in a far second with 620,000.

Remember the first few months of Covid?  Some said it was no worse than “the flu”.  In the worst year in the past decade, it’s estimated 50,000  died in the US from the flu.  Covid – averaged over eight times that number.  OK, so where do we stand now?  We are a Nation “sick and tired” of Covid.  As a whole, we seem to not care anymore.  800,000 gone, a million on the horizon, and why not?  Certainly our politics are so much more important than people’s lives.

What are the lies – and what do we do?

Vaccines

The Vaccines don’t work:  except they do.  The first area is in prevention of disease, protecting us from Covid.  For the original Covid variant here in the United States, the Beta version, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were 90% or better in preventing infection.  In the six months from the vaccine rollout to universal adult availability, we could have gotten control of Covid.  But, since only around 60% of American adults got vaccinated, we remained vulnerable to the next variant – the Delta variant.

The Delta was more than twice as infective as Beta, and the vaccines worked at about 80% effectiveness.  Not quite as good as against the Beta version, but still preventing a lot of disease.  And then the Omicron variant arrived, just in time for Christmas.  Omicron was even more infective than Delta, a “ten” to Delta’s “seven”. The vaccines showed diminished protection from Omicron, unless a third “booster” was included.  Then protection was back to 80% or better.

And, in the works, is a vaccine that could actually protect against all corona-viruses.  It may still be a year away, but is the next “best answer” to Covid variations.  So the bottom line is while the current vaccines aren’t perfect, they do provide increased protection from the current Covid variants.

Deaths

Covid deaths are exaggerated – but they aren’t.  What about those break-through infections, despite vaccination?  Vaccinated folks are much less likely to be hospitalized, or end up in an ICU, or dead.  The toll in the United States is averaging almost 2000 Covid deaths a day.  Of the 2000 dying from Covid, it’s estimated that more than 90% of them are unvaccinated.  

The unvaccinated are dying from Covid.  For the vast majority of those dying; they made a choice, “exercised their freedom”, and died as a result.  If that’s not the definition of…well, however you categorize that decision, it’s probably best not to go there.  

Just an aside.  Over 90% of Americans regularly wear their seatbelt in a car.  Statistics show that almost half the people killed in car accidents were not wearing their seat belts.  So of the more than 22,000 killed in car wrecks in 2019, the 10%  non-belt wearers made up half of the deaths.  The moral of the story, you have an astronomically better chance of surviving a wreck with a seat belt on –  you get it.

72% of Americans have at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.  Just like with seat belts, of the 2000 Americans dying each day from Covid, over 90% are unvaccinated.  That means that the vast majority of those who die from Covid are from the 18%.  The conclusion seems crystal clear.  You can refuse to wear a seatbelt.  You can refuse to get vaccinated.  I guess you are exercising your “freedom of choice”, to risk you own life.

Not Prepared

We weren’t ready for Omicron.   That’s not a lie, it’s true.  Why wasn’t the US government, read those “Democrats” in the Biden Administration, ready for Omicron?  Didn’t they realize that the next variation would be more infective (if less deadly)?  Why weren’t they ready with millions (or billions) of tests?

The answer to that is simple. They can’t solve a problem that they don’t know about.  It was Thanksgiving, less than two months ago, that the newest variant was detected in South Africa.  Now, with astonishing speed it is the dominant strain of Covid worldwide.  Before Thanksgiving, the Biden Administration strategy was sound:  vaccinate as many as possible.  With the Delta variant, vaccinations worked well, and kept people from getting Covid, or if they did, getting seriously ill.

But Omicron was more infective, so more people got sick.  It was different enough that the vaccines didn’t do as well in protecting from infection (through it still prevented serious disease).  If vaccinations aren’t the answer, then prevention of spread, through testing, is.  And that’s the pivot we are in now.  Vaccinations are still critically important, but testing will allow the economy to continue to boom.  Test negative, and get back to work.  Test negative, and go to school.  Or, test negative and go in the game.  All of that depends on the availability of tests. And they are coming.

Schools

Teachers are looking for excuses to stay home.  We hear national “commentators” condemning teachers, in Chicago and Cleveland and now in Columbus.  Teachers are concerned that the Omicron variant is so pervasive, that full classrooms will simply speed infection.  Most schools are at full capacity.  Mask mandates were dropped, either because of vaccinations, or because of the community threats in the Board meetings.  And, of course, we don’t test either the teachers of the children. So teachers are faced with classrooms literally full of infection.

Chicago’s Mayor Lightfoot, herself sick with Covid, basically called the Chicago teachers cowards for not “doing their civic duty” and teaching in their classrooms.  I get the costs:  if schools aren’t in session, kids aren’t learning (even online), and more importantly, parents aren’t working.  They are at home with their kids.  No one is pretending that online teaching is a comparable experience to being in the classroom, but the real issue is childcare.

But how many teachers are in schools that are decades old, with poor ventilation, in packed classrooms?  In spite of the billions of dollars in Covid aid, a 1960’s building is still a 1960’s building.  Teachers, especially in the big cities, have a legitimate grievance.  And, unlike the universities, no one is being tested at the door to the school house. They are just being dropped into an “Omicron stew”.  

I’ll Do Me

You do you, I’ll do me, it doesn’t matter. But one problem:  your choice impacts others.  Our hospitals are filled with Covid patients, the vast majority of them unvaccinated. So filled, that it impacts care of “regular” emergency patients – heart attacks, strokes, accidents, even those who didn’t wear their seatbelts.  And others who are having “elective” surgery, can’t.  Those are postponed, waiting for a more “appropriate” time.  Let’s hope your heart pacemaker can wait.

And there’s one other issue.  As Omicron rips through, it thrives and gets the opportunity to mutate.  That’s what “successful” viruses do.  So the more infection there is, the more opportunity for the “next” variation to appear – creating a whole new set of problems, just like Omicron did.

 Many are ignoring the testing, ignoring the vaccines, ignoring the pandemic.  They live life without their “seatbelt” on, somehow assured that the laws of statistics will never confront them with Covid.  And for many, they’ll “get the ‘Vid’” and get over it.  Only a few (approaching a million) will go through the windshield and get smeared on the pavement.  Let’s hope they don’t take too many of the rest of us with them.

End of rant.

“Me thinks the Lady doth protest too much”  (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2)

“The American people are tired of Democrats’ nonstop investigations and partisan witch hunts. Your letter of December 22, 2021, unfortunately continues this Democrat obsession…The American people deserve better than the Democrats’ incessant focus on partisan investigations. Rampant inflation is hurting American families, an unmitigated crisis at the southern border threatens American communities, the Biden Administration is weaponizing counterterrorism tools against American parents, and President Biden’s weak leadership endangers American service members overseas.” 

– Congressman Jordan’s letter to the January 6th Committee.

Jordan

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio refused to appear before the House Committee on January 6th yesterday.  The Committee already has multiple communications that link Jordan to the decision-making process at  the White House during the hours of the riots and mob invasion of the Capitol Building.  In fact, Jordan was in direct contact with the White House Chief of Staff at the time, and may even have communicated with the President himself.   They want to know more.

Instead of coming forward and sharing what he knows with the Committee, he’s choosing to fall back on the standby Republican excuse:  “It’s a partisan witch hunt”.  That’s a case of, what my Mother would  say is “…the pot calling the kettle black”.  Jordan was a leading figure in the three year, $7 million Benghazi investigations. And when the majority Republican Judiciary Committee dragged FBI Director James Comey to testify during the early years of the Trump Administration, Jordan led the attack on him and his investigation into the Trump campaign contacts with Russian Intelligence.  I guess you could say, he should know a witch hunt when he sees one.  He’s done enough hunting himself.

Tactics

There seems to be three different tactics taken by Trump “associates” in response to the January 6th investigations.  The first, taken by Trump advisor Peter Navarro and others, is to openly admit to their desire to overthrow the legitimate results of the 2020 vote, and explain how they thought they could “legally” do it.  Navarro is unrepentant in explaining the plan, “The Green Bay Sweep”.  He was perfectly happy that the mob on January 6th was directed to the Capitol, though he quickly adds that the violence and vandalism disrupted “the Sweep”. 

The second tactic is to tacitly acknowledge they may have committed a crime.  Author of the “Green Bay Sweep” attorney John Eastman, and others are “Taking the Fifth”, claiming that any testimony they gave might incriminate themselves.  That is not legally a “confession” to illegal activity, but it surely opens the possibility that such activity occurred.

And the third tactic is to simply try to bluster through the Committees requests and subpoenas.  Steve Bannon, the supposed executor of the entire January 6th operation, completely ignored the Committee’s legal summons, and was indicted for criminal contempt.  It’s now up to a Judge and jury to determine his guilt.

Mathematics

Jordan is taking a different tack.  He’s simply saying he’s “too powerful” as a United States Congressman to be summoned to a committee hearing.  And he’s doing everything he can to create a smokescreen of Trumpian rhetoric to go with it.  Thus the laundry list of Republican complaints about the Biden Administration in his refusal letter.

It’s a matter of simple math. Over half who identify as Republican (as if party were gender) believe the 2020 election was “stolen”.  And many believe that the violence at the Capitol was justified.  In total terms, they may only represent 15% of the total voters, but in real numbers that’s still twenty million people. If America is to avoid a “revolution” after every Presidential election, we as a nation must understand what happened on January 6th, and the months that led up to it. 

In our present state of absolute polarization, those “true believers” aren’t just going to change their minds.  But all of those other millions of voters who are NOT “true believers” need to know the truth of what happened.  

American Exceptionalism

America is at a fork in our national journey.  It’s easy to think that we are in some temporary historical phase, like the Civil War or the McCarthy Era.  Part of “American Exceptionalism” is a firm belief that America will ultimately “win out”, even after dark periods.  After all, we always have.

But “winning out” isn’t just a matter of fate.  Ending McCarthyism required people to take real risks, like those taken by attorney Joseph Welch (“…have you no humanity?”) and broadcaster Edward R. Murrow.  We cannot just “ride out” Trumpism, and hope that the sheer momentum of the American experiment will guarantee success.  It is just as likely that our Democratic institutions are permanently altered to maintain the privileges of the few.  

Jim Jordan will never testify before a committee. He will continue to be the man who “… doth protest too much”.  But America needs to discover what “…game was afoot”, (more Shakespeare), or we will be doomed to repeat it.  And the next time, the plotters might be successful. 

Hardball

Politics is not a “recreational sport”.  Politics, at every level, has real consequences.  Ask your local school board about mask mandates during the Covid pandemic, or the state of Virginia about I-95 snow removal.

The United States Senate has two voting rights bill under consideration in the next few weeks.  One, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, would modernize original Voting Rights Act passed in 1965.  That law protected the voting rights of minorities from state actions that restricted voting, by allowing the Justice Department the “right” to pre-certify state changes.  If a state law restricted voting, it didn’t go into effect.  The 1965 Act put the burden on the state to show it was NOT discriminating, rather than on the Justice Department to show discrimination.  

The Voting Rights Act was re-enacted several times since 1965, usually by huge margins in both the House and the Senate.  However, in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the pre-certification clause in the case Shelby County v Holder.  The Court made it clear that the Congress had the authority to control voting, but that they thought the reasoning underlying the 1965 Act was out of date.  

Freedom to Vote

A second bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, is also under consideration by the Senate. This Act would do a lot to standardize voting across the United States in Federal elections, including:

• Allow for same day voter registration,
• Establish automatic voter registration,
• Protect and expand access to voting by mail,
• Establish 15 days of early voting, including at least two weekends,
• Restore voting rights to individuals previously incarcerated,
• Prevent partisan gerrymandering, and
• Protect against voter intimidation.

Both of these bills will counter the Republican state-by-state insurgency. It’s fueled by the “Stop the Steal” lie, and “legally” prevents many Democratic supporters from voting at all.

Fifty Plus One

There are fifty US Senators who agree that both these bills should become law.  They are the forty-eight Democrats, and the two Independent Senators (King of Maine, Sanders of Vermont).  There are fifty US Senators united in opposing both these bills, all of the Republicans.  Were these bills to get to a final vote, a fifty-fifty tie would be broken by the Vice President, Democrat Kamala Harris, and both bills (already passed by the House) would be signed into law by President Biden.

But the Senate has the procedural rule allowing a “filibuster”.  While many think of the  movie scene with Jimmy Stewart speaking for hours in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in practice today’s filibuster is simply a vote count.  To allow for debate (and subsequent vote) on a bill, it requires sixty Senators to agree.  Otherwise, the bill is considered “filibustered” and blocked even from discussion.

The filibuster is not in the Constitution, and not even written into the original rules of the Senate.  It was added later.  As a procedural rule, it can be altered by a simple majority of the Senate, fifty votes (plus the tie-breaker).  That alteration is the so-called “nuclear option”, but it actually is already part of the process.  On budget bills and Presidential judicial appointments, the Senate already debates and  votes on a simple majority basis.

So the question isn’t about “ending the filibuster”.  The question is:  can voting rights be added to the list of issues that are “exempted” from the filibuster rule.  And that is where the politics begin.

Forty-Eight plus Two

There are two Democrats who, while they claim they are in favor of the voting bills, stand opposed to adding voting to the filibuster exemptions:  Kristin Sinema of Arizona, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  There voiced reason is simple:  if Democrats add voting rights to the “exempted list”, there will be nothing to prevent a future Republican controlled Senate from adding something else.

They aren’t wrong.  Democrats added non-Supreme Court judicial appointments to the exempted list during the Obama Administration.  When Republicans gained control of the Senate and the Presidency, they added Supreme Court appointees, allowing for the three Trump Justices now on the Court.  Democrats have since added “debt ceiling” votes to the list.  So when Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says that “Democrats started this”, he’s right.

But regardless of what Democrats do now, there is nothing to prevent a future Republican Senate from adding issues to the “exempted” list, or getting rid of the filibuster all together.  The Sinema and Manchin argument:  “If we do it now, they’ll do it later,”sounds good. But “they” could do it later anyway.

Sinema

The political question is what can Democrats do to pressure their own Senators Sinema and Manchin to allow voting rights to be added to the exempt list, and then passed into law.  Kirsten Sinema is more “vulnerable” to internal Democratic pressure.  She is up for re-election in 2024, and there are several progressive Democrats in Arizona interested in challenging her in the primary.  Sinema’s “theory” of re-election is that she can appeal to the “middle ground” of Arizona politics, what she calls the “McCain Republicans” who crossover to her as a result of Trumpism.  Her stand on the filibuster is based in that “McCain” tradition.

But those “McCain” voters won’t be voting in the Democratic Primary.  Sinema needs financing for the primary, and would like her opponents to be “underfunded”.  This is where pressure from the national Democratic Party can make a difference.  The Party can offer, or refuse money, both to Sinema and to her potential primary opponents.  So the road to Sinema’s agreement goes through the 2024 Arizona Primary.

The Unicorn

Joe Manchin is a different issue. He too is running for re-election in 2024.  But as the only statewide elected Democratic official in West Virginia, he holds a unique position.  While Democrats could challenge him in a primary, there is little likelihood of them defeating Manchin, or a Republican candidate in the general election. Donald Trump received two-thirds of West Virginia vote in 2020.  Manchin is a “unicorn” in West Virginia, and like any “unicorn” he must be coddled and cared for, or he will cease to exist.

So it is difficult to pressure Manchin, and there’s not much weight that can be brought to bear.  But Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, I think, has the answer.  He suggests that Joe Manchin doesn’t want to go down in history as “the Democrat who stopped voting rights”.  Manchin himself re-wrote the John Lewis Bill to try to gain some Republican support.  And while there were a few Republican Senators who showed interest, there was nowhere near the needed ten to avoid the filibuster.

History’s Eyes 

Look at two famous figures in American Senate politics.  The first is Strom Thurmond, a Senator from South Carolina who served past his one-hundredth birthday and married a twenty-two year old woman when he was sixty-six.  He was an original “Dixiecrat”, a Democrat who switched political parties because he was so opposed to civil rights.  Thurmond led the filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, setting the “record”  of twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes for holding the floor.  When he switched parties, he became a senior Republican Senator.  Like the removed statues of Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson, he is a symbol of the segregated South.

The other figure is Lyndon Johnson, a master Senate tactician who became President of the United States.  Johnson was a Southern Democrat from Texas, also a segregationist for most of his political career.  But Johnson as President, masterminded the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights.  Along with his Great Society Program, they were the highpoints of his political life.  

Google states that Unicorns eat “…grass, plants, flowers and berries”.  What can Democrats offer their “unicorn” from West Virginia?  All they have for Joseph Manchin III, besides whatever campaign financing he might need, is a place in history.  

He can stand for civil rights with Lyndon Baines Johnson. Or he can stand for discrimination with James Strom Thurmond Sr.  

It’s the unicorn’s choice.

This is the next in the “Sunday Story” series.  No politics here – just a story about  snow, and cold!!!!!!

We are in the age of global warming – right?  Doesn’t that mean the weather should be warmer in the winter?  Isn’t the theory that someday Ohio will be like Tennessee or Georgia, and that Upper Ontario will have the “typical Ohio” winter weather? 

It’s 13 degrees outside right now (with windchill – 0) so you can’t convince me were living in Chattanooga yet.  But it does seem that our weather was so much worse “back in the day, when we walked to school in the blinding snow, uphill, both ways!!!”  And here’s a story about it.

Winter Camp

I was in a “hard core” Boy Scout Troop in Kettering, Ohio, in the late 1960’s, Troop 229.  It was the height of Boy Scouting, with over six million Scouts nationwide.  We Boy Scouts were not scared away by a little cold, or snow, or freezing weather.  In fact, we took great pride in our “winter campout”, an annual January event.  We went out in February too, that was the annual “Klondike Derby” with the younger Scouts acting as the sled dogs.  (Maybe that’s where I got my later attitude about track and cross country meets. Except for lightning we always ran!!).

I was in sixth grade when we went out on what turned out to be the coldest day (and night) of the year.  I was still a “novice” camper, and didn’t have the down sleeping bag that would protect me in the mountains later on.  My equipment was what every Tenderfoot Scout had at the time:  a Sears and Roebuck sleeping bag and high topped boots.

During the daytime on Saturday it wasn’t too bad.  The temperature hovered in the single digits above zero, and we Tenderfoots spent a lot of time gathering as much firewood as possible in preparation for the night. We also learned how to erect canvas wall tents, looking much like they did in a Civil War Camp.  The canvas was stiff, from age, and even more from the cold.

We put four kids in a tent, lined up parallel to the entryway.  If you were the kid “in the back”, you wanted to make sure you did your nightly “duty” in the woods – before everyone got settled in.  Otherwise, you had to try to walk out over everyone in the dark.  If you did that, you learned another important lesson of Scouting, the appropriate use of profanity.

The Fire

So there we were, huddling around the fire, as the sun went down early and the temperatures began to drop. The “Dinty-Moore” Beef stew was tasty, but froze to the side of the aluminum pot before it was cleaned. We had to boil more water to melt it off.  

How cold was it?  You could stand a couple of feet from the fire, so close that the tips of your Sears boots were starting to smoke, and still feel the icy cold on your backside.  Turn around to warm that up, and now your whole front was shivering.  We dressed in layers, thermal underwear, blue jeans and sweatshirts.  I added my Uncle Buddy’s Navy Arctic jacket, good for wear on a World War II destroyer’s bridge in the North Atlantic, but it was still really cold.

The Experiment

We Tenderfeet had a mission. Mr. Fella, our Scoutmaster, brought a thermometer, and it already had dropped below minus ten.  We heard a rumor, that once it got past fifteen degrees below, your pee would freeze before it hit the ground.  This fascinated us – a story for the ages!  (By the way, we weren’t the only ones interested in the topic – Google it, something we couldn’t do back in 1969.  There are lots of answers, with temperature gradients and values for volume and angle of release).   

So we shivered and shifted around the fire and drank a lot of hot chocolate.  One kid melted the toe of his boot, another lost a glove (that was serious, one of the older kids had backup gloves).  But in the dark, under the amazing stars that made it feel like we were in outer space itself, we waited for the mercury (do thermometers still use mercury?) to shrink past the 15 below mark.  And finally, it was there.

Scientific Method

So it was really cold, and there were several layers to get through, but a gaggle of eleven and twelve year-olds lined up with flashlights to proceed with this advanced scientific investigation.  We were all primed to find out the answer – hot chocolate will do that to you.  The first discovery we made was that whether or not our urine would freeze before it hit the ground, other parts were freezing from the moment of contact with outside air.  The mercury wasn’t the only thing shrinking.

So the experiment was a quick one.  What we hoped would be a “frozen rope” really didn’t work out.  Later academic investigation when I was in my twenties (involving beer at a bar on a very cold and snowy night) showed it would have to be much colder, even more than 25 below, for that to happen.

But we discovered that, on contact with the snow, the pee froze solid.  So while it wasn’t “clinking” as it hit the ground, it froze soon enough.  And soon enough satisfied us, as we realized how cold our exposed parts were getting.  We closed up, and headed back to the fire. 

Cocooned

That night I slept in my clothes, hat, and gloves. I used my Arctic Jacket to close up the top of my sleeping bag, and huddled in a hopeful cocoon of Sear’s “Satisfaction Guaranteed” warmth. Any leak brought frigid air pouring in, so sealing up the top was critical. But even sealed, there still was the zipper that ran the length and bottom of the bag, and that was icy no matter what I did. It was a long, shivering night, talking to my brother Tenderfeet about whether we should re-evaluate our experimental results, or our choice to be in Troop 229.

The early light raised another question for us.  Sure, we were freezing in our sleeping bags.  But to get up, pull on frozen boots, and go outside required even more exposure to the cold.  The only answer was to build a fire (Jack London wrote a short story on the subject), and our theory was that the Scoutmasters should do that for us.  After all, they needed coffee more than we wanted to face more cold.

So we huddled, sharing the little warmth in our cocoons wadded next to each other.  Shivering, we talked in jerks and starts, staying quiet less someone in authority might “order” us to move.  And soon we heard axes of the wood being chopped, and smelled smoke and coffee, the aura of every good Scouting adult I ever knew.  We finally staggered out of our frozen solid canvas tent, drawn to the fire like moths, hoping for a little heat.

A Little Numb

That day my toes went numb as we marched a five mile winter hike.  Two of them remain numb to this day, some fifty-three years later.  But I learned so much from our experience, and not just about peeing in the cold.  The next time we went winter camping, there was a down sleeping bag, and double socks in my boots, and even more layers on the rest of me.  

I bet they don’t do those kind of winter campouts anymore.  Parents would be “helicoptering” in to keep their child from such brutal exposure.  And maybe they’d be right.  But those kids will never have the stories to tell, of huddling in the cold, staring directly into space, overcoming adversity – and of course – watching pee freeze on the snow.  

You don’t need to feel all your toes anyway.

• The Sunday Story Series
• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21
• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22

Facts

A year ago yesterday, a mob attacked the United States Capitol, with the express purpose of stopping Congress from certifying the election of Joe Biden as President.  In a nation that prides itself on a history of calm transitions of power:  from Adams to Jefferson, from Carter to Reagan, and even from Obama to Trump; this was the absolute opposite.  It was what the Founding Fathers worried about and the reason George Washington voluntarily gave up the Presidency in 1796 in the first place (teach them how to say goodbye).  Remember when we were upset (or amused) when the Clinton staffers stole all the “W’s” from the keyboards as they left the White House?  Now that was a real “rebellion”. 

It wasn’t just a riot.  It was a crime in and of itself – attempting to disrupt the Congress.  Had it been just slightly more “successful”, and actually captured Mike Pence or Nancy Pelosi or the “Old Jew” Chuck Schumer (his words yesterday), it would have succeeded in decapitating our legislative branch of government.  Don’t forget, the gallows were already erected on the Capitol lawn.

Fox

It is a truth of our current political world, that there are two different universes of what we call “facts”.   So here are the Fox News headlines from yesterday, the first anniversary of “the Insurrection” (just a “riot” to them).

• Kalm Before the Storm
  • Harris announces new shake-up after VP office plagued with reports of dysfunction and infighting
  • Ari Fleischer rips Kamala Harris for comparing 1/6 to 9/11, Pearl Harbor.  ‘It is a ridiculous comparison’
• Mission Failed
  • Biden ripped for continued COVID failures after presser
• MSNBC anchor flies off handle after Republican stands firm on GOP Future
  • MSNBC’s Wallace ‘gob-smacked’ more kids haven’t gotten COVID vaccine
• Teacher’s Pets
  • Watch hosts on liberal squawk box defend unions refusing to work
• Get the Buc Out
  • Whiplash from player’s future after another 180 over shirtless tantrum
• Watch:  group holds candlelight vigil on one-year mark of Capitol Riot (first mention of ceremonies other than Fleischer criticizes Harris)
• Pence does not join in Democrats Capitol Riot Events
• Former President responds to Biden’s sharp criticism in Capitol riot speech
• Dems, media demand you think of Capitol riot in same way as 9/11, Pearl Harbor…even the Holocaust

The Middle

I’m not going to compare that to MSNBC.  Not to be snarky, but it isn’t MSNBC’s leading commentator being asked to testify to the January 6th Committee (though that is the lead article on the MSNBC website).   But let’s look at the “center” of the “media bias” chart – Newsweek.

• Republican Rifts on display as GOP Lawmakers respond to Jan 6 Anniversary
• January 6 Anniversary live updates:  Vigil Underway on Capitol Steps
• Donald Trump didn’t run the January 6th Riot.  So why did it happen?
  • Jan 6 timeline – from Trump’s first tweet, Speech to Biden’s Certification
  • Donald Trump was the true winner of Jan 6
  • Remembering the January 6 Capitol Deaths, from Brian Sicknick to Ashli Babbitt
• Biden’s Former Health advisers urge him to change COVID strategy.

The Lead

Just out of curiosity – which news outlets “led” with the President’s speech?

• The New York Times – Year after riot, Biden denounces Trump as divide endures
• The Wall Street Journal – Biden assails Trump over Jan 6 Riot, Efforts to Overturn Election Results
• The Washington Post – Biden blasts Trump on Jan 6 Anniversary
• NBC News – Biden condemns Trump’s ‘web of lies’ and directly blames him for Capitol riot and election turmoil
• NPR News – President Biden blasts Trump for ‘spreading a web of lies’ in Jan 6 speech
• St Louis Post Dispatch – Democracy held on Jan 6, Trump failed: Biden marks anniversary of attack on Capitol
• CBS News – Biden’s denounces Trump’s ‘web of lies’
• Los Angeles Times – Analysis:  For a year, Biden has mostly refused to go after Trump. Until today.
• Washington Examiner – Avoidance and Remembrance – GOP avoidance and remembrance:  GOP attitudes vary on Jan. 6.

So most of America’s media, even those in the middle and some on the right (Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner) recognized the obvious.  What happened on January 6th, 2021 was important, and is not “over”. President Biden recognizes that, and so do the Law Enforcement Agencies who are tasked with protecting our government.  But if your primary news sources are Fox News or Newsmax, or The New York Post, I guess nothing happened. According to the Post, the first mention of January 6th was six stories down, about Ashli Babbitt, the woman shot by Capitol Police.  Her mother is defending her actions.

Two Worlds

The problem always was, different points of views, different visions for America.  That’s what our country has been about since before Hamilton and Jefferson started arguing in Washington’s Cabinet.  And even they found a “middle ground”: the Capitol in the South, the Federal government to fund the American debt (In the Room where it happens).   

But when they are different bodies of “facts”, it’s hard to find any common ground.  Here’s the obvious example.  How do we explain what happened on January 6th?

To one side, there is a sincere belief that they were following the “orders” of the President of the United States.  They were told to “defend their country”,  and as  believing Patriots, they thought that’s what they were doing.  They “legitimately” felt betrayed by Vice President Pence, and saw the actions of Speaker Pelosi and Democrats in general as literal traitors.  And they select (or the algorithms select for them) the media that reinforces their view.

To the other side there is a similarly sincere belief:  that they won the election and saved the Nation from a catastrophic second term of President Trump.  They know there wasn’t a “stolen” election, and they don’t understand why the other side thinks there was.  And the media – from center to left, supports their views (and the algorithms make sure they keep seeing it).   

I’m Right

It is easy to say, “I’m right, you’re wrong, get over it”.  But, of course, there is no way to prove who’s right to the other side, if there are no commonly accepted facts.   Joe Biden hoped to find a way to unite “the middle” against the edges, but it seems that the information bias has made that impossible.  Hillary Clinton was excoriated for her “basket of deplorables” description, but she was only saying “out loud” what her side is still thinking.  

Biden, in his speech today said:

We are in a battle for the soul of America. A battle that, by the grace of God and the goodness and gracious — and greatness of this nation, we will win. Believe me, I know how difficult democracy is. And I’m crystal clear about the threats America faces. But I also know that our darkest days can lead to light and hope.

I’m not sure how we’re going to do that. 

 I sure hope Joe Biden can figure it out.

One Year Ago

It was just a year ago today, that Jenn and I sat down to watch the results of the Georgia Senate runoff.  The balance of power was at stake.  We were depending on the improbable outcome that both John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock would win, two Democrats taking statewide seats in Georgia.  But we knew it was possible.  If Joe Biden could win Georgia, so could they.  We stayed up late that night, cheering when the positive results came out.  But that was only the “first act” in politics for those twenty-four hours. 

 The second, and more important action, was the Congress of the United States certifying the results of the 2020 Presidential election.  We were worried.  Unlike any other President in our history, Donald Trump denied the election result, claimed the election was stolen, and openly tried to subvert the outcome.  And in true Trumpian fashion, much of that subversion was done in the full light of day.  So we weren’t sure what the next step would be.  

Insurrection

We watched the speeches on the National Mall, and the crowds carrying their Trump flags and chanting “Stop the Steal”.  At the same time, Vice President Pence gaveled the joint session of Congress into session, and they began to read the electoral votes.  It only took three states to get to Arizona, and objection to Biden’s victory there by both House and Senate members.  The  Houses adjourned to their chambers, for two hours of debate and what was a pre-ordained vote to accept Biden’s victory.  It was the first of seven different objections:  we expected the pro-forma certification to go late in the night.

And then the Insurrection started.  Security whisked Pelosi from the House dais. Pence, looking a bit confused, was vanished by the Secret Service.  The other Congressmen and Senators seemed left to their own devices as the doors and windows were smashed and the halls literally desecrated with human feces.  The Confederate flag, kept out of Washington for four years at great cost in blood and treasure during the Civil War, was paraded through the building.

We all know what happened after that.

Lying Eyes

As horrifying and tragic as January 6th 2021 was, not much has really changed.  The Congressional leadership and Vice President Pence came back in the middle of the night, and despite  even more Congressional objections, Biden was finally confirmed.  Trump was impeached by the House again, and tried by the Senate, but not until  after Democrats gained Senate control on Inauguration day.  Trump was found “not guilty”: though fifty-seven Senators voted to convict.  It took sixty-seven.

And for the past twelve months, we have watched folks try to rewrite what our “lying eyes” saw that day.  First it was “Antifa and Black Lives Matters” rioters in the halls of Congress, then it was just a few individuals, looking “…just like tourists”.  Then the topic kind of went away, submerged into battles about public health measures to save people from Covid.  Now it’s back, both because of the anniversary, and also because of the January 6th Committee of the House.  Only the House, because Senate Republicans couldn’t be persuaded that the event even needed to be investigated.

False Equivalence

The new talking point is “what about”.  What about Hillary Clinton, did she ever confirm the “legitimacy” of the 2016 election?  What about the Russia investigation and all the talk of foreign interference?  Will Democrats do the same thing if they lose in 2024?

I remember election night of 2016 very well.  It was the beginning of a long national and personal nightmare for me, one that merged into the pandemic and  won’t seem to end.  Hillary Clinton stood on the stage, flanked by her husband Bill, staff and friends.  She talked about not breaking the final glass ceiling, and conceded the election.  And she spoke of her conversation with President-elect Trump: 

“Last night I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a president for all of our country. I’m sorry that we did not win this election for the values we all share.”

She did concede, and urged her supporters to work together for the country.  

Democrats did try to object during the certification proceedings in the Congress.  The Vice President refused to hear their objections, ruling them as improper. They did not have both a member of the House and Senate signed on.  That Vice President was a Democrat, Joe Biden.

Pussy Hats  

Many Democrats did go to Washington to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump.  They went the day after, the “Pink Pussy Hat” protests with hundreds of thousands of women and men exercising the First Amendment rights without violence or destruction.  They came to make their point, not stop the government.  

The day before there were a few hundred “black-clad” (Antifa) rioters who looked to clash with DC police.  It was violent, but it was small, and not likely to disrupt the government.  217 were arrested.   By the way, very few (any?) were arrested on January 6th.  It took most of the past year to get 727 facing federal charges.

The 2022 and 2024 election results are in jeopardy.  Twenty-seven states have passed laws making it harder to vote.  Some have even taken the ultimate power to determine the outcome of elections from the voters and given it to the State Legislature.  Our future elections are being “rigged”, legally rigged.  It’s hard  to “Stop the Steal” in the future, when the thief is the government itself.  

When Democrats believed that the election might be “rigged” in 2016, they put on their “Pink Pussy” hats and demonstrated.  When Trump supporters believed the same in 2020, they tried to overthrow the government. There is no “equivalence” in that.

So “what about” that?

Place Blame

If this were a card game, Democrats still hold a (sorry) trump card.  The Federal government can pass the two voting rights laws now in front of the Senate, to control the state changes restricting the vote.  It’s all about two Senate Democrats, and whether they will stand for procedure, or stand for justice.  I’m still a believer, but more skeptical than before.   

We can hope the Senators Sinema and Manchin will “see the light” and allow the voting rights acts to pass.  But recognize that the reason that it comes down to those two, is that every, single, Republican Senator is colluding in the states’ legal hamstringing of the vote.  Put the blame where blame is due.  The “legal steal” is wholly owned by the Republican Party.

So what will happen in 2022, and 2024?  Until the rules are determined, there is no way to know.  But there is precedent.  In 2016, pink pussy hats or not, Donald Trump became President.  Republicans controlled the House and the Senate. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell represented the “normal” GOP.  Democrats didn’t revolt, there was no “Insurrection”.  We went to work, and won back the House in 2018, and the Senate and Presidency in 2020. 

Get the Job Done 

In this twenty-first century, when most folks don’t even have paper checks to pay bills anymore, it seems more than ridiculous that anyone would have to wait in line for hours to vote.  And it’s even more suspicious that those lines aren’t in the suburbs, and are made up mostly of Americans of color.  But we Democrats will find a way to “get the job done”.  

Our Democracy has an opportunity, right now, to protect itself.  We can protect voting rights, nationwide.  And we can put those that plotted to overthrow our Constitution in the full public light of day.  But if we don’t, if the Senate filibuster “wins” and the results of the January 6th committee are ignored, it doesn’t mean the end of our experiment in government.

Pink Pussy hats are a powerful force.  So are the voices of Reverend Barber and Stacy Abrams, and all of those others toiling to make America better for all.  The nightmare might last longer, but we will wake up.  

So what about that?

A Year Later

It’s January 3rd, 2022; a year since the Insurrection that almost kept Donald Trump in office against the will of the American voters.  I’ve been looking back at my essays here on Our America from that week.  The overall theme was:  we are in a time of crisis, a time when our Republic is at risk – what will we do?

And the answer to that, so far, is nothing.  Sure, they tried to impeach and convict Trump,  but “after the fact”, after the inauguration of Joe Biden.  The fifty Democrats/Independents who made up the majority voted to convict, as did seven Republicans.  But that fell well short of the necessary sixty-seven needed.   As Republican Senate Minority Leader McConnell told us at the time, the “Courts” were the “proper” place to hold Trump accountable for his actions.

But a year later, we are far from seeing Donald Trump “in the dock”.  He’s still raising hundreds of millions of dollars.  That money is ostensibly going to his 2024 Presidential Campaign, but it’s also his “legal aid” money, and used to buy political influence throughout the country.  In fact, a year after the shock of the Insurrection, we are just about back to the “normal” of pre-Insurrection Trumpian times.  It’s as if that was a bad dream; one to be shrugged off and forgotten.  

Bad Dream

The “bad dream” is that there has been no justice, no apportionment of responsibility for the Insurrection. Sure, hundreds of the “pawns”, the “soldiers” who followed their mistaken cause up the steps of the Capitol and into the hallowed halls, are being put on trial.  But they are exactly that:  pawns in the game.  Not even the rooks and bishops have been charged, much less the King.  It’s as if the pawns played the chess match all by themselves.  

And this weekend on several of the national Sunday shows, I heard a new “Trumpian” talking point, just like the old Kelly Ann Conway days.  “It was Trump’s fault, but now it’s Joe Biden’s fault.  He was elected to ‘heal’ the nation, and instead he’s pushed all of these Roosevelt-like New Deal changes.  So it’s Biden’s fault that folks are still turning to Trump”.   Remember what the Majory Stoneman Douglas kids chanted, after the shootings and the pablum served by the Republican leadership?  I call BS.

Mythical GOP

Republicans: if it was Trump’s fault, then call him out for it.  If it was Trump’s fault, then denounce his actions.  If it was Trump’s fault, then Republicans take your own Party, and purge the evil from your ranks.  Then you’ve “earned” the right to complain about Biden.

Here’s a little “inside baseball”.  When NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd suggested on Sunday, that there were many Republicans who, whispering behind closed doors, speak out against Trump, NBC’s Congressional Correspondent Garrett Haake literally rolled his eyes and shook his head.  He’s on the Hill, talking to Congressmen all the time.  He knows.  

The myth of the “closet anti-Trump” Republican is just that, a myth.  Either they are the few that are “out”, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and the like; or they are co-opted into Trumpism.  There is no middle ground, no “backroom reasonableness”.  The myth of the “Grand Old Party” that will someday return to reason has sold out to the votes that Trump represents.  Ask former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who is molded into a Trump-clone, in hopes of being a US Senator.

History Rhymes

After the American Civil War, there was a period of time called the Reconstruction.  It was a time when the changes to the South, the end of slavery and the citizenship of the Freedmen, was enforced by Union military presence.  There were Black Congressmen and even a Black Senator from Mississippi (Hiram Revels), backed by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.  Reconstruction, was not, as my generation was taught in our sanitized history classes, a time “undeserved military occupation of Southern soil”.  It sought to consolidate the gains won by the hundreds of thousands of dead on the battlefields of the war, including 40,000 Black men.

Who Won

But changing society seemed a bridge too far for the politicians of the 1870’s.  In the contested Presidential election of 1876, a deal was cut.  The apparent winner, Democrat Samuel Tilden of New York, was denied southern electoral votes.  Instead, Republican Governor of Ohio Rutherford B. Hayes became the President of the United States.  In return, the troops were removed from the South, and a law written to prevent them from returning, the Posse Comitatus Act.  Soon the South disenfranchised Black voters, and  created Jim Crow Laws to build a segregated society.

It’s been over one hundred and fifty years, and we are still struggling with the results of those decisions in the 1870’s.  After the Insurrection that was the Civil War, the Union won the battles, but lost the peace.  After the Insurrection of January 6th, 2021, who won?  

That question is still not answered.

Essays After the Insurrection

• No Guardrail – 1/7/21
• The 25th – 1/8/21
• Revenge – 1/9/21
• Politics and the Republic – 1/10/21
• Compromise or Revolution – 1/11/21

Live With It

It’s the beginning of a New Year, the third year of the third decade of the twenty-first century of the Common Era.  So first of all, Happy New Year.  While 2022 seems as fraught with peril as 2021, there are also signs of hope.  In 2021 we missed the opportunity to “stop” the Covid 19 pandemic.  Now in 2022 we are learning how to live with it (at least, those of us who can survive it).

There’s the old comedy line:  “We’ll, I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news”.  So here it is:  the good news is the Omicron variant seems to be a less severe form of Covid, more akin to the flu in terms of symptoms.  The bad news:  it’s more contagious than the Delta Variant we were dealing with.  If the “original” Covid was a three, Delta is a seven, and Omicron is a ten in terms of “infectivity”. 

So more people will get sick, and because of that, more people will have severe cases.  But since the Omicron isn’t as “bad” as the earlier versions, and there are now medications to combat Covid, and our physicians have learned how to treat it; hopefully deaths won’t increase.  It’s just where we are.  

The Jetsons

By the way, vaccination still helps.  It reduces (but no longer virtually eliminates) the chance of getting Covid, but it absolutely, definitely, for sure, improves the “prognosis” if you get the disease.  So a vaccinated person can still get the Omicron variant, but being vaccinated means they are less likely to end up in the hospital, or worse.  The “facts” aren’t in about “natural immunity” folks, those unvaccinated who already had Covid.  All we know, is they are getting getting infected with the Omicron variant too.  

So who’d of “thunk” back on New Year’s Day 2020 as we entered the third decade of the 21st Century, we would now be fluent with words like “variant”, “infectivity”, “molecular PCR tests” and “antigen tests”.  Not to mention our new expertise with paper, cloth, surgical, N-95 and KN-95 masks.   Oh, and be “comfortable” with sticking a swab an inch or so up our noses and “swirling it” as our literal “ticket” to go out in public.  That’s not what 2022 was supposed to be like – George Jetson never had to hold “his boy” Elroy down and stick a swab up his nose.

Terms Make the Argument

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to stop letting others define what certain terms mean.  I already made a big deal about the term “pro-life” in my essay to end 2021.  How did we let the terms of the abortion debate become “pro-life” and “pro-choice”.  “Pro-life” has an obvious alternative, “pro-death”.  And since no one in that debate is really “pro-death”, accepting the “pro-life” labeling is just stupid.  Those who are for allowing abortions are put in the exact position that abortion opponents want them to be.   Stop letting them define the terms.

Maintain White Advantage

Another term is “Critical Race Theory”.  I watched Meet the Press last week, and the entire show was supposed to be about it.  But instead, the discussion was about diversity training, acceptance of racial differences, and teaching truth in public school history classes.  So let’s call that debate what it is:  “Maintaining White Advantage”.  Now that’s the debate we all should be happy to have.  

But instead, it’s now labeled “Critical Race Theory”, using three words that all have bad connotations:  critical like just before dead, race like racist, and theory like science (and we all know how popular science is right now).   I was disappointed that instead of making the point that “Critical Race Theory” is a legal concept taught at the advanced graduate level, Chuck Todd and the NBC folks acceded to using it as the label for the entire diversity discussion.  That might have been a convenient shorthand for them, but it casts the argument one direction before it even begins.

Whose Lives Matter 

Sometimes groups shoot themselves in the foot with their own labeling.  “Defund the Police” is a prime example of that.  Up until that phrase, most police organizations would have agreed with “re-purposing” some of their tasks.  Police, like schools, have been the catchalls for society’s problems.  For example:  police became mental health “specialists”, especially after President Reagan cut the funding for mental health in the 1980’s, closing the old asylums and putting a lot of the mentally ill on the streets.  Guess who got to take care of them?

So if the argument had been about “repurposing” or “reimagining” all the public service issues involved in today’s policing, if would have found sympathetic ears.  Instead, “defunding” becomes a vision of anarchy:  no police, go get an AR-15 for protection, those “city-people” are coming to the suburbs to take “everything”.  

On the other hand “Black Lives Matter” was right on point.  When the obvious alternative was “All Lives Matter”, it brought the discussion exactly where it needed to be.  If “All Lives Matter”, why are black people so disproportionately the victims of police violence?  Why aren’t “Black Lives” valued as much as “All Lives”?

Redefining

And then there’s the “redefining” of terms.  I spent a workout watching Fox News, to, as my mother would say, to see how the “other half” lives.  To my surprise, there was a segment on the “Russia Investigation”, a term I hadn’t heard for a while. It turned out not to be the “Russia Investigation”, but the waning Durham investigation into the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the Trump campaign.  It ain’t about “Russia”, it’s about finding scapegoats for investigating the Trump Campaign’s dealings with Russia.  

So I do hereby resolve to select how I use my terms, and not allow the “frame of reference” to determine the outcome before the discussion even begins.  

And on that, I hope that 2022 turns out to be a pleasant surprise.  We’ve all had enough turmoil for one generation.

 Happy New Year!!

It’s the last day of 2021, a year that has seen too many needless deaths, and too much needless suffering. I am not pro-death – I am Pro-Life. Have a Happy New Year!!!

I am Pro Life.

So I believe in universal health insurance.  That’s so every baby can get the pre-natal and birth care they need – and every child can get the medical care they require to be healthy.  And every teenager, and twenty-something, and (whatever we call thirty and forty year olds), and middle agers and senior citizens can all get the health benefits they need for a good life, regardless of their financial status.  The right to health should not be controlled by income. 

I am Pro Life.

So I believe in child tax credits so parents can raise their children with good nutrition, warm clothes and homes, and a comfortable life.  Every kid doesn’t get to be “Richie Rich”, but every kid needs to have the basics of life.

I am Pro Life.

Education shouldn’t be a matter of money, residence, race, gender, or identity.  Education is the key to lifetime success, to our originally Declared “pursuit of happiness”.   Everyone has the right to that key.  So we should be paying not just for a free high school education, but for free (community) college education or vocational training.  And we should support those who don’t have the foundation at home that enhances that education.  

I am Pro Life.

Everyone should have the right to vote, to determine who governs us.  Just because one political party seems unable to appeal to a majority of the nation, doesn’t mean they get to change the rules to protect their power. Pro Life means pro-empowering everyone to vote.

I am Pro Life.

Folks should live the lives of their “real” selves, not ones enforced by artificial societal standards.  We need to accept that our “binary” life, isn’t.  We know, as a fact, that sexual identity is a spectrum, not necessarily determined by anatomy.  So let people live as who they are, not what society says they “should” be.

I am Pro Life.

Prisons ought to only be for violent criminals.   Non-violent crimes require non-prison solutions, and our prisons need to be places for real reform and re-entry to public life, not penitentiaries for punishment and profit-making.  Only the truly violent dangers to our society need to be restrained, and then only to the extent necessary to protect others.

I am Pro Life.

I am glad that American soldiers, my former students, are no longer at risk in Afghanistan and Iraq.  And while there remain reasons that might require us to fight, those reasons need to be held to the highest standards.  By the way, we were right to go there, but we were wrong to stay.

I am Pro Life.

So I don’t believe the state should take a life as punishment:  ever.

I am Pro Life.

Quality of life means more than quantity of life. Sufferers of fatal illnesses and injuries should not be required to live a life without quality.  Society doesn’t have a place in determining their choice, just an obligation to protect the integrity of the decision making process.

I am Pro Life.

As I believe we as a society should provide for our youngest, we should take care of our elderly as well.  Living in silence because hearing aids are too expensive, living in darkness because vision is not a “right”, being unable to eat because dental care is “extra”, is not Pro-Life.  It is, in fact, anti-life.  It values money over living.

I am Pro Life.

Our society needs to save our climate, and save our planet.  That is a role for government, one where the good of the many should out-weigh the profits of the few.  

I am Pro-Life.

It infuriates me that the politics of our times are leading people to die from a disease that can be prevented. The “fruits” of modern science should be and are available. That there are those who are using “the politics” to their own advantage, and killing people in the process, is literally “pro-death”.

I am Pro-Life.

And yes, I believe it is NOT a right of anyone to impose their moral or religious beliefs on another. The term “pro-life” has been mis-appropriated to mean anti-abortion. But it means so much more than that, and so much of the “pro-life” movement is so neglectful of life after birth. So yes, I am pro-choice, because, as a man, abortion is clearly not MY decision. And as humans, we cannot enforce our moral or religious view on others. We can only try to live up to them ourselves. So next time you think about pro-life, think about more than just abortions. Because that’s not pro-life, that’s simply pro-birth.

And for my friends who are truly pro-life – really pro-lifetimes, not just pro-gestation – remember this. We have so much more in common than we have differences. Let’s work from the “middle ground” where we can agree. Because we are all in favor of a better lifetime for everyone.

Adams and Jefferson

Two of America’s Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, died on the same day.  They were early allies, compatriots in developing the ideas that Jefferson brilliantly described  in the Declaration of Independence.  While they both were lawyers, they used their personal and regional differences:  Adams a firebrand from Boston, Jefferson a scholarly man from Virginia; and joined the older Benjamin Franklin to shepherd the document through the Continental Congress.

Adams and Jefferson both went onto to serve in the Revolution, Adams in the Congress and Jefferson as Governor of Virginia, but came together again in France to negotiate the treaties to finally end the war and establish a new nation. Their “styles” clashed: Adams was a Boston “puritan” who looked with disdain at the excesses of the French royal court. Jefferson, like Franklin, was enamored with the intellectual breadth of the Age of Enlightenment, and with the luxuries Parisian social life provided.

Constitutional Government

And when a new government was instituted under the Constitution in 1787; both came back to serve President Washington and the Nation.  Adams was Vice President, and Jefferson Secretary of State.  They, along with the next generation of leaders like Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and others; clashed mightily over how the government should function.  

Relations became so bitter that the friendship forged in Revolution was torn asunder.  Through the Adams’ Presidency they continued to fight, even as Jefferson was Vice President.  And in 1800, Adams’ left the new capital at Washington early, rather than see Jefferson’s inauguration to replace him.

Old Men

They remained enemies through Jefferson’s Presidency.  But after they both retired from government life, the death of a comrade from the Revolution, Dr. Benjamin Rush, gave them pause.  The generation that wrote the Declaration were in their seventies and eighties, and disappearing.  In 1813, Jefferson wrote to Adams that only six remained of the fifty-five original signers.   And so for the last thirteen years of their lives, they rekindled their friendship and regularly corresponded. 

Like many old men, they seemed to choose the moment of their deaths.  July 4th of 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration and the beginning of the United States, saw the final moments of both men. Adams was ninety-one years old and Jefferson eighty-three.  The last words of John Adams’:  “…at least Jefferson still survives”.  He didn’t know that Jefferson was already gone.

Revolutionaries in the thirties, diplomats in their forties, government leaders in their fifties and sixties:  they were the Revolutionary generation.  They fought together.  As Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately”.  They knew what was at risk – the final words of the Declaration itself made it clear:   “…(W)e mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor”.

Common Purpose

And they fought against each other, as representatives of different visions of what the American government, and society, should be.  It was more than bitter; as ugly a public fight as we have today.  Adams was “fat-shamed”, called “His Rotundity”; and decried as wanting to become “King” and begin the “Adams Dynasty”.  Jefferson was derided for having a slave as his paramour, and being a coward for not serving in the Continental Army.   It was the kind of campaign where the wounds are so deep and personal, they never heal. It was the kind of hatred we are so familiar with today.  

But in their last years, the ideas they risked “their sacred honor” for brought them together again.  As old men, now observers of the government they created, they had a commonality of purpose.  These two intellectual giants of the Revolution found each other again.

The New Year

The end of a year seems to a time of choosing the end of life for our retired leaders.  Just in the past few weeks, we have said goodbye to Bob Dole, a wounded World War II veteran and a power in the United States Senate for decades.  And just two days ago, Harry Reid passed away, less than a decade after he retired from that same Senate.  

Both were men known for their biting wit and insults.  But both were fierce warriors for their parties and beliefs, and for their vision of America.  They could battle for their causes but still respect their opponents, a trait that seems lost in our current political climate.  

Today’s essay, here at the end of 2021, is not to place blame for being in our current political circle of Hell. It is actually to point out that there is hope. Former friends, then bitter enemies Adams and Jefferson, reconciled at the end of their lives. America mourns both the loss of Bob Dole and Harry Reid. Maybe 2022 can offer some reconciliation, some hope. Or maybe we’ll have to wait longer, for a new generation to takeover, like Hamilton and Burr from Adams and Jefferson.

That turned out so well.  

Prologue

On December 20th, 2020 an article describing a White House meeting appeared in the New York Times.  The Trump White House, already in disarray from the election loss and the resignation or firing of several key officials, was trying to deal with a President who was still searching for a way to remain in Office.  That day,  I re-wrote the description of what went on in that meeting into a “movie script”.  I titled the article “Seven Days in December”, a reference to the dark 1960’s fiction book and movie Seven Days in May, about a military coup to overthrow the President.

It’s December 28th, 2021.  We are just now getting a better understanding of what was really planned in that Oval Office meeting.  We know that dramatic changes in the leadership of the Departments of Justice and Defense were aimed at “softening them up” for a potential revolt.  And we know that the Trump campaign was building a “mob” for January 6th, one that would be directed to march on the Capitol Building.  There was a “coup headquarters”, led by Steve Bannon in the Willard Hotel.  A central figure, former General Michael Flynn, had his brother, also a General assigned to the Pentagon, in a key decision-making role.   And we all know what happened after that.

A Real Plan

John Eastman developed the legal strategy to overturn the election, and even published it in a PowerPoint presentation.  Several United States Congressmen and Senators were “in” on the plan, to aid in the “legal” overturn of the election results.  In short, what seemed like “farcical” story of White House desperation in December, 2020, was really part of a much more sinister plan.

So this is a “re-run” of last year’s story.  There is a bit of literary license:  some of the characters weren’t physically in the office.  They called into the meeting. But a year later, we are just learning how close to a real coup we came.  And it’s not over.  Thirty million Americans still believe that President Joseph Biden is “illegitimate”.  That hasn’t changed.

Seven Days in December

The Scene

The meeting was on Friday, December 18^th, 2020 in the Oval Office in the West Wing of the White House, Washington, DC.   Snow was on the ground outside the ballistic windows, and Christmas lights on the trees beyond the fencing.  The faint echo of a madrigal choir was heard, singing in the main lobby of the West Wing, in front of the massive Christmas tree.

The President was sitting behind the large oaken desk made from the timbers of the British Ship HMSResolute, and given as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria.  Arranged in front of the desk were armless straight-backed chairs, designed to accentuate the lesser status of those sitting in front of the President.  The President himself was hunched uncomfortably in his $5000 Gunlocke-Washington chair behind the imposing desk, not interested in the Christmas activities or much of anything else.  He was angry, depressed, and desperate.

General Flynn

In the straight-backed chairs were three subordinates.  The first, was retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.  Flynn was one of the first “high profile” supporters of the President six years ago.  He had a storied career: rising to prominence in the Army, and becoming Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under a previous Administration.  But Flynn’s unwillingness to adhere to policy led to charges of insubordination; he was fired from his post and after thirty-three years forcibly retired from the Army he loved.

He then went on a quest for fortune, working as an intelligence consultant for several corporations.  But the real money was in advising foreign nations about US strategy, and ultimately lobbying for them with the US government.  Flynn had multiple links to the Russian government earning hundred of thousands of dollars.  But the biggest money came from Turkey, where Flynn’s skills and classified knowledge were used to attack Turkish government opponents in the US.

National Security Advisor

With the success of Donald Trump’s candidacy for President, Flynn latched on as a senior foreign policy advisor.  What he didn’t advice Trump was his personal links to Russia and Turkey.  And when Trump surprisingly won the election of 2016, Flynn became National Security Advisor, despite several warnings to Trump from the Obama Administration.

Prior to Trump’s inauguration, Flynn had conversations with the Russian Ambassador, encouraging him to ignore the Obama Administration actions.  FBI agents interviewed him about the multiple phone conversations. Flynn lied to them, in spite of knowing that the agents had direct transcripts of the calls.  Why did Flynn lie knowing they already had the calls?  Perhaps it was simply hubris:  thinking that the FBI would never charge a serving National Security Advisor.  Or, perhaps it was the misguided view that the FBI “was on his side”, and would overlook the felony.

Flynn also lied to the Vice President and other senior White House officials.  He was forced to resign, and ultimately charged with lying to Federal agents.  He twice pled guilty to the charges, and made a deal with prosecutors to help with further investigations of the Trump campaign.  But Flynn ultimately reneged on the deal, and after years of legal maneuvering, was pardoned by President Trump.

The Lawyers

Also in the straight-backed chairs were two attorneys.  The first, Sidney Powell, was Flynn’s current legal counsel.  She was a conspiracy theorist, who recently was fired from Trump’s post-election legal team for claiming that long-dead Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez rigged the 2020 election.  She also told Georgia voters not to show up for the January 5^th Senate election, since she believed the entire election system was corrupt.  Powell was the reason for Flynn’s change of heart with Federal Prosecutors.  Rumor had it that she was so sure of a Presidential pardon that she persuaded Flynn to remain silent about other Administration and campaign actions.  She was right.

The other attorney was former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.  He represents the President in ongoing legal actions to invalidate the 2020 election results, claiming widespread election fraud. But he has been met with a long series of court defeats, accompanied by public relations disasters.  This included Giuliani holding a press conference in the parking lot of a sex shop, bringing a seemingly drunk witness to a hearing, and hair dye streaking down the side of his face while speaking to the press.

Change the Votes

Their conversation was simple:  how to overturn the legal results of the 2020 election.  While Biden won by over six million votes in the popular election, the margin in the Electoral College was much narrower.  A change of a mere 45,050 votes in three key states; Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, would reverse the Electoral College and result in a tie.  That tie would put the decision to the House of Representatives, where voting by one vote per state, they would re-elect the President.  

The Trump campaign challenged the vote count in each of those states.  Georgia recounted their votes three times, including a literal hand count of each ballot.  In Wisconsin, the Trump campaign paid three million dollars to recount votes in two key Democratic counties.  And in Arizona, where Republicans controlled all of the election counting mechanisms, re-counts and political pressure didn’t change the outcome.  The votes as they were cast in November, elected Joe Biden.

And of the over fifty court actions filed, none were successful in changing the outcome.  All were appealed, and a few reached the US Supreme Court.  But the Supreme Court denied them all.  Even Trump’s own appointees on the Court refused to hear them.  There seemed to be no way forward.

Trump’s Card

But Trump still had one last card to play.  74 million voters chose Trump in the 2020 election, the second most votes ever earned.  And of those 74 million, a majority believes that Trump’s election defeat was as a result of corruption.  That means that almost 40 million Americans believe that the 2020 election was stolen, and many were waiting for Trump’s word to take action.

Flynn had a plan to delay the Electoral College results.   He advised the President to declare an “insurrection” due to election fraud in the three critical states, and use the military to seize the voting machines.  Then there could be a “do-over”, where the only form of voting would be through the machines.  The mail-in vote, which overwhelmingly went to Biden, would be wiped out, ostensibly in the name of “election security”.  And of course the outcome would be different:  if only election day polling is allowed, in all likelihood Trump would win the margins needed to take the Electoral College.

Insurrection

And there was precedent for Flynn’s action.  During the Reconstruction Era, Federal troops were stationed in the former Confederate states.  Those troops guaranteed the 15^th Amendment right of the freed slaves to vote, as well as preventing unrepentant Confederates from participating in the process.  For the ten years after the Civil War, Federal troops in blue patrolled the electoral process.  It was only the political deal to end Reconstruction in 1877 that removed the troops that allowed those states to regain control of the voting process.  And Federal troops were forbidden to go back into any states again under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

 So under “Posse Comitatus” how could Flynn propose to send in troops?  An even older law, the Insurrection Act of 1807, allows the President to proclaim an “insurrection”, and then send in Federal troops to control it.  The Federal troops would be “authorized” to both seize the election machinery, and hold a “substitute” election.  And who would lead these troops into the electoral “battle space”?  The recently retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn; recalled to active duty.

Post Script (from 2020)

Is this a movie plot, or a proposed series for Netflix? 

This actual conversation took place in the Oval Office with those participants.  We know that the general conversation of declaring “insurrection” occurred, and that others joined the discussion, including White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.  We also know that the meeting degenerated in shouting and yelling, as Cipollone and Meadows pushed back against the plan.  

And we know that at that same meeting, Mr. Trump considered appointing Ms. Powell as a Special White House Counsel to investigate Hunter Biden.  He wanted to give her national security clearances. 

Today is Tuesday (December 22nd, 2020) – and while reporting indicates that the “cooler heads” of Cipollone and Meadows prevailed – we don’t really know.  Internet conspiracy rumors put the day of the “insurrection” declaration as December 24^th, two days from today.

The Vice President is scheduled to leave the country on January 6^th, hours after the Congress officially declares the Electoral College winner. 

It’s not over, until noon on January 20^th.  Only when Joe Biden takes the official oath of office, can we be sure that Donald Trump won’t try to overturn the results of the election, and with it, our Democracy.

Note – fifteen days after this essay first appeared, the United States Capitol was seized in the “January 6th Insurrection”.  

There’s a danger using “sports analogies” about life.  They often treat life too simplistically, as if scoring a goal or committing a foul tells all about “real life” experiences.   Life is so much more complex than points on a scoreboard, or a yellow flag on the field.  And as a long time high school coach, I try to be very aware that the nuance of sport is my former profession, but not an innate part of everyone else’s life.

So with those caveats, let me try to draw an analogy between sport and life.

Sports and Life

I was a high school track and cross country coach, but what many people don’t know is that I was also a high school and middle school wrestling coach.  Wrestling is a profoundly different sport than the others.  In cross country, you are in a race with hundreds of others each time.  Only a few have the talent and have put in the effort to run at the front of the race, the rest are working to improve “in the pack”.  

And track is seldom “just you”, though it happens in the field events occasionally.  But in wrestling, every time, it’s one on one.  There’s no “field” to disappear in, no eight runners leaning at the line.  It’s just two athletes trying to best each other in the most physical, elemental way possible.  It’s about one imposing physical control on the other, against their will.  The coaches yell, and the team cheers, and parents literally mirror every move in the stands.  But on the mat, no one is blocking, no one passing the ball, no one is pacing. Out there on the mat it’s just you, and the other guy.

It’s About You

Wrestling and distance running are similar in one respect.  While talent is important, the willingness to sacrifice yourself to work is paramount.  Want to be a good runner?  Start running, then run more and more and more. Want to be a good wrestler?  You have to literally “live the life”. How many sports require teenage boys to restrict how much they eat?  A good wrestler puts in seemingly unending hours of drills, exercises, conditioning every part of their body;  their “practice” never really ends.  And it’s all for those moments one on one on the mat.

Wrestling, essentially, is all about the wrestler.  It is an all-consuming, often lonely quest to push your body to new levels of suffering, in order to conquer that opponent one on one at the center of the gym.  The phrase goes that “there is no ‘I’ in team”, but in wrestling, there often is no “team” in “I” either.   

It’s been a long time since I’ve read the “essential” book of conservatism – Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.  But top level wrestlers remind me of her characters, succeeding or failing all on their own, without regard for who they literally have to pin to get to the top, and what damage they leave along the way.  They are “Howard Roarks”; unbent and unyielding, convinced of their own individual superiority.  And they have the record to prove it.

Cooperation isn’t Important

A good soccer team, or football team, or cross country team is just that – a team.  Each member has a role, and should they fail in that role, the team fails.  Sure a cross country team might have the “best” individual.  But if five runners don’t cross the finish line, the team fails to score, fails to be a team.  The fifth runner’s score is just as important as the first.  A quarterback without linemen, or a soccer team without a goalie, all will ultimately fail.  Cooperation is a key element in success.

Wrestling does keep a team score.  But, much like track, that score is a compilation of individual results.  The main impact of “team” on wrestling, is the level of competition in the practice room.  Good wrestlers get better by wrestling better wrestlers.  So the level of competition “in the room” determines the success of the “room’s” members.   

In the Room

A National Champion or Olympic qualifying wrestler is a huge asset to any wrestling team, even if that individual doesn’t actually compete for the team. Their presence in “the room” raises the level of practice competition, making those team members who practice with them better.  But it’s a tough “apprenticeship”; and often frustrating for the apprentice.  Goals are marked in small increments:   score a point, counter a move, don’t end up on your back.  Winning isn’t really a possibility, at least at first.

A sport that places so much emphasis on the individual might well create a “mindset” for life.  

Jim Jordan, now a United States Congressman, and former National Collegiate wrestling champion, was hired into the Ohio State wrestling room as an assistant coach.  His role was to raise the level of competition “in the room”, first as he trained for the Olympics, and then simply to aid the college athletes.  The fact that the wrestling team physician was molesting those athletes wasn’t really his concern, I suppose.  If Dr. Strauss touched Jordan inappropriately, he’d kick his ass.

Institutions

But the athletes on the team didn’t have that option.  Sure, they were Division I college wrestlers, and all of them were perfectly capable of defending themselves.  But Dr. Strauss was the “institution’s” doctor.  Strauss had control over who could wrestle and who could not.  So while Assistant Coach Jim Jordan might consider resisting the doctor, for the members of the team, it was a totally different case.  They essentially didn’t have a choice.

Some went to Jordan and head coach Russ Hellickson, to let them know they were being molested. They were taking the only course of action available to remedy the situation.  Their only other choices were:  be molested or quit.  And when they were ignored, it fit right into the model of life Jim Jordan now stands for:  you are on your own.  You rise on your own abilities, and fail on the same.  It is not the “institution’s” duty to protect you, even from the institution itself.

Model for Life

Doesn’t that sound just like his view of our government?  Ayn Rand, the intellectual mother of modern conservatism, would be proud.  The individual is totally responsible for their own fate. The institution, whether it’s a university or the national government or the coaching staff; doesn’t have much of a role.  The fact that those being mis-treated don’t have a choice, that the institution doesn’t allow them any way out; well, that’s too bad.  The individuals should have somehow been better to overcome the mis-treatment.

I’m not saying that all conservatives would allow sexual abuse of those under their authority.  In fact, the coaches I know would absolutely stand up against such abuse, conservative or not.  But I am saying that, for some at least, it fits their model of life, the same model they bring to governing America.  

You’re on your own.

I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas and got to hug those they love. Today, it’s time for another “Sunday Story”. There’s no politics here, just reminiscences about forty years of team trips!!!

Track Trips

The other day, I wrote an essay about trips I took as a kid. That got me thinking about travelling.  As a coach, I took teams all over the country to track and cross country meets.  In the summer it was the “big reward” for training all summer, going to the Nationals, no matter where in the Nation they were.  It not only gave the athletes a “big competition” experience, but it became part of the “legend” of our team.  After cross country, it was a reward for all the work in the season.  And during the official high school season, I tried to “road trip” our teams at least once each year.  Not only was it to find new and usually tougher competition, but it was a great team building experience and recruiting tool for the next year.  Most importantly, we had fun.

Platte River Drifting

Whether it was singing The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” as we rolled down Interstate 5 from Seattle towards Eugene, Oregon; swimming in the American River behind our hotel in Sacramento; or “post-holing” through two feet of snow in Rhode Island; those road trips were always exciting.  But sometimes we had to make our own excitement.  After a National Meet in Omaha, Nebraska, we went to see the “largest catfish in Nebraska” a big white one in a tank, more than 100 pounds. Another year there, we tubed down the Platte River (maybe scrapped down the river more than floated).  That same day we tried the flight simulator at the Strategic Air Command museum.  The kids loved it, but I somehow put my simulator into a “near fatal” spin.  I was dizzy for three days.

  But we always managed to have fun.  We stayed at a lake house in North Carolina for a week, swimming and diving off the dock.  We became part of the dance routine on Times Square in New York City.  And sometimes we just made it up. One group just dodged the “electric Indians”:  the electric arrows on the construction signs as we drove hundreds of miles across the country. It became a thing!

Lobster

Food was always important on our trips.  When a crew went to Rhode Island to pole vault, I made it “mandatory” that we stop for a lobster dinner along the way.  The deal was everyone had to order lobster – but they didn’t have to eat it.  One of the vaulters wasn’t a “seafood” guy, so I ate two lobsters, and we ordered an extra cheese burger.  Lobsters came back into play when we went to the Nationals in Boston more than two decades later.  We ate at the oldest “continuously operated” restaurant in the United States, the Union Oyster House.   It was lobster dinner again – and this time everyone ate their own.

Barbecue

One August we headed to Baton Rouge for the National Track meet.  By the way, what sense does it make to have a National meet in Louisiana in August?  It was so hot they had to shift some of the races into the middle of the night.  Almost as bad as having it in Miami, or Los Angeles.  But I guess location didn’t really matter:  the year we were in Seattle, the Northwest was hit with the worst heat wave of the century.  I only passed out once at a National Meet, when I decided it was a good idea to go for a long run in Omaha’s August 95 degree sun.  A couple of water bottles solved that problem.

Anyway, we were headed south, and made an overnight stop in Memphis, the absolute capital of barbecue.  I asked our hotel clerk where the “best” place was, and he directed us to a shaky looking old building in a rough part of town.  We almost didn’t get out of the van, but the smoky flavor coming out of the building dragged us in.  Then the cook came out, and after I explained our lack of barbecue expertise, took over the dinner menu.  We must have had hundreds of dollars of food, all sorts of dry rubs and sauces, on pork ribs and beef briskets and whatever else could be barbecued.  The check was only around $75 for the five of us.  I hope that place is still around, I’d love to go back.

Walking

Part of any road trip was sightseeing.  On that same Baton Rouge trip, I took the guys down to New Orleans.  We were walking down Bourbon Street in the afternoon, listening to the music wafting out of the bars and clubs.  It was a warm December day, and the doors were all thrown open.  One of athletes decided to take a quick peek inside, just to see if the dancers really were topless.  From inside the bar came the call of the bouncer: “When it’s family night, we’ll let you know!!”

Road trips were all about walking.  At the DC Nationals, we probably left our entire competition on the National Mall, as we did all the mileage of the legendary “Dahlman DC Tour”.  And in New York, it was hard not to wear everyone out, walking from our Times Square Hotel up through Central Park to the “Imagine” John Lennon marker.  

We’ve wandered through the “Heartland of America Park” in Omaha, and the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee.  And at Yosemite, we climbed out of the valley up to Mirror Lake, and almost lost Coach Eastham.  He suffered from a long term back injury, but he was too excited to be at the Park to miss any of the experience.  He struggled up the climb but the look of accomplishment on his face when we reached the top was worth it.

Water Sports

For the summer meets, we always found somewhere to swim.  We drove to Ocean City, Maryland from the Baltimore Nationals, and hit the big Atlantic waves.  And we stopped on the Oregon Coast to try the Northern Pacific waves, though it was pretty cold for everyone (except Eric).  When the air conditioning in the van broke, we spent a couple of hours at a municipal pool in Peoria, Illinois.  We swam at Newport Beach south of LA, Daytona in Florida, and in Lake Tahoe in Nevada.  And, as mentioned, in the American River  right out the back of our hotel in Sacramento.  If there was a way to swim, we found it.

We even managed to “pole vault” in the hotel pools.  Well, we really didn’t vault into the pool, but we used the poles to do actual “pole vault technique” drills in the deep end.  We always got the management’s attention just pulling the pole out, and then fascinated every little kid in the place.

But Perhaps the most “exotic” ocean experience was on South Beach in Miami.  We were playing in the waves when a six foot manta-ray came cruising along the shoreline.  Everyone  raced  out of the water.  And since we were out,  the guys decided it was time “for a walk” up the beach.  They were looking for the world famous “topless” part of South Beach.  They must have found it, because they soon came running back – “Coach, it’s ‘old’ topless people!!!”  

Firsts

First time in a hotel, first time in the ocean, first time on a plane, first time to see mountains:  kids got so many firsts on those road trips.   We went to meets in thirty different states, we ran at sea level (Baton Rouge) and 6,000 feet (Provo), in snow (Rhode Island), rain (Miami), blistering heat (Los Angeles), freezing winds (Portland) and, occasionally, in perfect weather (it had to happen sometime).  

Track and Cross Country legends were written.  And while those are now “old-timer” stories, told around camp fires, dinner tables, and over a beer at some bar:  there are generations of athletes and coaches that got more than just a time, place and a medal from their track or cross country career.  

It was awesome.

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

Wyoming

When I was sixteen, not yet a licensed driver in the state of Ohio, I lived in a suburb of Cincinnati called Wyoming.  It  was a small, middle to middle upper class community, with a police force all its own.   I don’t quite remember, but maybe there were twelve or thirteen officers on the whole force.  Today it’s grown to nineteen, but forty-seven years ago I doubt it was that big.  We teenagers knew must of the patrol officers by name.

Late one night at the corner of Burns and Springfield Pike (the center of town) a friend of mine was pulled over.  It probably was for “Kid driving at Night”, but I’m sure there was a lane or turn signal violation involved.  The Officer approached the driver side, and the anxious boy handed his license, registration and insurance papers to him.

Kids at Night

This wasn’t a “racial incident”, this was a “kid” incident.  The Officer went back to call the license in.  This was before the days of in-car computers, and every license and registration had to be checked by the local dispatcher for “wants and warrants”.  It must have been a busy night in Wyoming, because the time seemed to go on forever for the young man behind the wheel.

He couldn’t take it.  Anxiety overcame him, and he jammed the car into drive and took off, turning right on the Pike, then left up Reily Road.  

This could have been a chase through the dark suburban streets of Wyoming.  The officer could have gone full lights and sirens, and who knows what might occurred when full panic struck the sixteen year-old behind the wheel.  There’s plenty of big oak trees lining the roads of Wyoming, and it doesn’t take much to lose control and hit one.  But that didn’t happen.

The Officer had the license and registration.  No house in Wyoming was more than three miles away from the center of town.  So he calmly drove over to the kid’s house, and waited in the driveway.  When the boy finally came home, he was greeted with the Officer, the ticket, and his parents.  My friend didn’t do much driving for the next year.

Make the Call

I suspect this wasn’t a difficult call for a Wyoming policeman.  While I don’t remember if he already knew the kid involved, Wyoming police knew most of us, at least by vehicle.  Back in those days, the worst offenses seemed to be reckless or drunk driving.  You could get in big trouble for reckless driving, but driving home from the party after too much to drink might land you in the backseat of a cruiser for a “ride” home, not a citation.

As my police officer friends tell me, that kind of “leeway” is impossible today. The cameras on the officer’s chest are a good thing when it comes to making sure “proper procedure” is followed.  The term “street justice”, when an officer made a call on what’s appropriate, doesn’t work when it’s on camera.  That may be a good thing, but like all good things there is a bad side as well.  That sixteen year-old with a few too many isn’t getting a ride home anymore.  It’s all on public record, so it’s down to the station, to court and into the system.

Air Freshener

Twenty-two year veteran Brooklyn Heights Officer Kim Potter was convicted of first degree manslaughter yesterday in a Minneapolis courtroom.  She was the training officer when her trainee made a traffic stop.  The “proximate cause” of the stop:  expired license tags and an air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror.

They stopped twenty year-old Daunte Wright, a black man.  When they got his “wants and warrants”, it was discovered that he had an outstanding arrest warrant out.  The trainee and a backup Sergeant proceeded to ask Wright to exit the vehicle, and tried to place him under arrest.  

Panic

This was the same week as the Derek Chauvin trial, held in the same Minneapolis courtroom where Ms. Potter was later convicted.  Chauvin, a Minneapolis Officer, kneeled on a handcuffed George Floyd for almost ten minutes, during which Floyd died.  So there was heightened tensions, not just among police officers, but also among young black men.  Daunte Wright panicked, and struggled to get back into his car and escape.

He made it back into the driver’s seat, and Potter came up to assist in controlling him.  In the midst of the struggle, she reached for her Taser to shock Wright into submission.  She instead, grabbed her service weapon, and shot him.  Wright died.

They had his license and address.  They could have done what that Wyoming officer did long ago, and waited for him at his home.  The officers were certainly justified in making an arrest, but no one, Potter, Wright, the Trainee, or the state of Minnesota, wanted this arrest to end up in death, especially a death when the cause of the stop was an air freshener.

Officer’s Dilemma

 “Proper procedure”, documented on the chest-mounted camera, calls for the arrest to be made. And what if they let him go?  

Six were killed and another sixty-two injured when Darrell Brooks drove his SUV into the Waukesha Thanksgiving parade.  Brooks was out on bond for attempting to run over a woman with his car, and had just been involved in a domestic disturbance.  No one was chasing him when he plowed through the barriers and into the marchers.  

There is a danger in taking someone into custody, both to the suspect, and to the officers.  And there is a danger to allowing a suspect to go, to catch him later.  And that’s the call we ask police officers to make, every day.  I have no doubt that Officer Potter should be held responsible for her mistake.  Her grabbing the wrong weapon took a young man’s life.  But it’s too easy to say, “they should have just let him go”.  They would be just as responsible.  Ask the judge who released Darrell Brooks on only a $1000 bond.  

Our Responsibility

Is race a part of all of this?  Of course it is.  Is training?  Certainly that was the case that Officer Potter’s defense made, that she was not adequately trained on the new tasers recently issued.  And, as Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison said, there needs to accountability for the taking of Wright’s life.  But it’s not a simple problem, nor is there one simple solution. We ask police officers to make decisions, on the record, that can almost instantly become life and death determinations, both for the suspect, and themselves. 

They need clear guidance, and training to handle complex situations.  They need to be prepared and wise, and they need to be accountable for their decisions.  That’s a lot to ask.  But that’s an officer’s dilemma. And it’s also our responsibility.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God (Oath taken by all Members of Congress).

Subpoena Power

It was October of 2015, the year before the Presidential election that “changed the world”.  The Republicans were in the majority of the House of Representatives.  That gave them control of all the House Committees and the topics they investigated.  And again and again, for over three years, five different committees investigated the tragic loss of four American lives in Benghazi, Libya.  One of those lives was the US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.  

What happened at Benghazi, even after five different committees reported, is still clouded.  What was thought to be a spontaneous riot turned out to be an organized and planned assault on the two US diplomatic compounds there.  The Committees wanted to know what happened, why the United States Ambassador wasn’t better protected, and why the response to the attack seemed so slow.

Hillary

But the Benghazi investigations also served a very different purpose.  Republicans used it as a way to attack the probable Democratic Presidential candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  As Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity said at the time:

“And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?  But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable (sic). But no one would have known that any of that had happened had we not fought to make that happen.”

And how did Secretary Clinton respond to these long term, multiple attacks on her actions, character, and honesty?  On October 19th, 2015, she appeared before the Select Committee on Benghazi, chaired by South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy.  And she answered their questions, from Gowdy, Jim Jordan, Mike Pompeo and others, for eleven hours straight.  After her testimony, there was little else to do.  The Committee put out a long report, full of conjecture about what Clinton might have done, but short on facts.  Three years of five committees investigations and $7 million, and all they really found was that Hillary Clinton could outlast them all on the witness stand.

But they got what they wanted.  By sheer repetition, they were able to damage her “trustabliity”. 

Insurrection

Today’s Democratic House of Representatives has a select committee investigating the events of January 6th, 2021.  It is the day of the Insurrection, but as the Committee is discovering, much like Benghazi what looked like a spontaneous mob action turns out to be highly organized.  The “tentacles” of organization weren’t only in the Trump Campaign and the fringe organizations like the Oath Takers and the Proud Boys.  We now know that multiple Congressmen and Senators; the Pentagon the Justice Department, and the White House Staff were all part of the process leading to that near-disaster.  And it seems to lead all the way to the Oval Office.

Hundreds of Americans are currently on trial for their actions at the Capitol on January 6th.  But the legal process hasn’t reached beyond the trenches; the rioters on the steps or in the halls of the seat of our Democracy.  And, as far as the public knows, the Justice Department hasn’t reached beyond the actors to those that “pulled the strings” on the Insurrection.  In the “normal” world of Attorney General Merrick Garland, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  Remember we didn’t know anything about the ill-fated  “Russia Investigation”, of the Trump Campaign, Crossfire Hurricane, for ten months before Congress exposed it.

Tentacles

So the January 6th Committee is the only apparent investigation of the “tentacles” of the Insurrection.  They’ve called high profile witnesses to testify about their roles.  Many, perhaps more than three hundred, have given depositions and “staff” testimony.  A few, including former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark and Trump advisor Roger Stone, are using the Fifth Amendment Constitutional protection against self-incrimination to avoid answering questions.  

And a few are denying the “legitimacy” of the Committee, or claiming an extra-legal right of former-Presidential privilege to avoid answering questions.  Currently Steve Bannon is facing criminal contempt charges from the Justice Department, and Congress has recommended that Mark Meadows do the same.

Scott Perry

Congressman Scott Perry is a Republican from Pennsylvania, and a former Brigadier General in the Pennsylvania National Guard.  He’s been in the Congress since 2012, and is the current Chairman of the House “Freedom Caucus”, the forty-four member right-wing group of Congressmen that includes Jim Jordan, Louie Gohmert, Matt Goetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Mark Meadows is a former Chairman of the group.  

The House Committee investigation has uncovered many contacts between members of the Freedom Caucus and the organizers of the Insurrection.  Scott Perry pressed the Trump Administration to make  Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark the interim head of the Justice Department.  Clark, and Perry, both were prime drivers of the “Stop the Steal” false narrative that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Donald Trump.  

The Committee has asked Congressman Perry to answer questions about his actions.  He could, if he’s afraid he could face criminal prosecution, shelter behind the Fifth Amendment.  Or, he could claim a “Congressional privilege” of free speech and debate.  But instead of making those claims, or following the example of Hillary Clinton and confronting his accusers, Congressman Perry is pretending that the Committee is “illegitimate”.  

Answer the Question

It’s not.  The House can constitute whatever Committees that the majority want.  The Republicans actually had the opportunity to agree to a wholly bi-partisan committee, but chose not to.  Instead, the Democrats moved on their own, and then included two Republican members who asked to join, Congresswoman Cheney and Congressman Kinzinger.  

All of this raises the question:  did the leaders of the “Stop the Steal” movement think they were acting to correct an injustice, or did they know that they were lying to the American people.  If they think they were in “the right”, what is preventing them from testifying and defending their position.  Don’t Congressmen and other public officials have a legal obligation to “defend the Constitution”?  Isn’t that what they thought they were doing?

Or they can act like folks that know they did something wrong.  They can dodge and obfuscate, make up “rights” that don’t exist; all to avoid taking responsibility for the stand they took.  Hillary Clinton stood up to her accusers, and for eleven hours gave as good as she got.  These men are hiding behind legal fiction.  

America will decide who is right.