Category: Uncategorized

• “I said, war, huh, What is it good for?
•  Absolutely nothing, say it again…” – War, The Temptations

Declaring War

Ask Donald Trump:  the United States is at “war”.  We are at “war” with narco-terrorism.  We are at “war” with domestic “left” extremists.  And, of course, we are at “war” with undocumented migrants and on “crime”.  The Executive Branch of the American Constitutional Government is “declaring” War after War, War, and taking action based on those “declarations”.   ICE, the “front line” in the “war on the undocumented”, is expanding from 6500 to 16500 agents.  The President is Federalizing the National Guard in certain “Blue” states, Oregon, Illinois, and California, in order to “control the streets” of “Democrat Run” cities.  The US military is blowing up ships on the high seas.

Those of us raised on “School House Rock”, are a little confused.  We thought that the United States Constitution granted the power to declare war to the Congress (Article I, Section 8, Clause 11), not to the President.  But it’s not Congress making all these “declarations”, it Donald Trump and his minions, Stephen Miller or Russell Vought.  America is at War, and President Trump is “leading us”.  

Heritage Foundation

It isn’t that the President can’t take action against drugs.  We’ve been “waging” war against drugs for half a century. Richard Nixon “declared war” on drugs in June of 1971.  But Nixon’s “declaration” at a press conference was “symbolic”.  Nixon really wasn’t planning on waging war, he was simply emphasizing a White House focus on combatting drug use. (In a half century that war continues to be lost).  

But the Trump Administration has a different “attitude” about the word, “war”.  It’s technical, based on the Constitution and recent law. And it’s important to consider as we wage war against such dangerous “undocumented criminal hotbeds” as Chicago and Portland.  (Even the far-right fear of “black helicopters” is now reality, as masked military-like agents fast-roped down onto a Chicago apartment building). 

It all started in the heartbeat of right-wing political thought, the Heritage Foundation.  When the January 6^th Insurrection ended, those “thinkers” were faced with ultimate failure.  Joe Biden was going to be President, and the House and Senate were Democratic.  After four years of the first Trump Administration they were unable to change America to what they wanted, and now Democrats were bringing things “back to normal” once again.

They had years of political “exile” to think through a “do-over”.  What if they got a second chance to run America?  What could they do differently to really change the fundamental structure of the American government, and make America “Great” (White?) again?  And while they publicly pressed a “states’ rights” agenda (ask the Governor of Texas), privately they were developing a whole theory based around a “unitary executive”, that gave the President unprecedented power and control over the entire Federal government.   

Immunity

They were even willing to risk extending some of that power to Joe Biden.  The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court created a brand new Presidential perk during the Biden Administration; absolute immunity from prosecution for any “official act”.  Biden didn’t take advantage of a power he didn’t want or believe in, but if Trump could get back in, that could “excuse” any action he took.  It simply had to be “official”, and nothing is more official than an “Executive Order”.  

Congress still has the power to declare war.  But, Congress hasn’t “declared war” since the days after Pearl Harbor in 1941.  Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, Lebanon, the invasion of Panama, the Persian Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, all took place without declaration, but simply with Congressional authority ceded to the President.  The AUMF (authorization of use of military force) from 9-11 is still in effect, twenty-four years later.  There’s a specific reason that the Trump Administration uses the words “narco-terrorism”.  Terrorism is a defined term in the AUMF, so the President can claim to take “approved” war action against “narco-terrorists”.  

War gives the President expanded authorities.  During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, the right to have a hearing in court if arrested, for some parts of the United States.  During the Second World War, Roosevelt rounded up American citizens of Japanese descent and put them in “relocation” camps. Those clear violations of citizenship rights were tolerated, because “we were at war”.  

Changing America

The geniuses at the Heritage Foundation want to expand those Presidential War powers even farther; against undocumented migrants, and now, against any opposition to their political plans.  We keep hearing the words “domestic terrorist” applied to folks like George Soros and the mysterious “ANTIFA”.   

The President always claims extraordinary powers in times of war.  The other American institutions, Congress and the Courts, have recognized the need to “act swiftly” in wartime, assuming the risk of mistakes that swift action might entail.  But the “norm” has always been to retract those powers after the crisis was over.  Today, the Heritage scholars are reversing that trend, creating issue after issue where “war powers” are given to the President.  Congress is unwilling to stand up for themselves, and the Supreme Court majority  is aligned with the Heritage views.  And it doesn’t help that Congress has declared the government, and themselves, “closed”. The Executive is all that’s left.

And this President, unlike his predecessors, sees no imperative to restrict his own powers.  War is “good” for him, “good” for his power, and “good” for those behind him who believe in an altered America.  They are striving to achieve their vision, even at the cost of the very foundations that made America different than any other country in the world.   

“Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set Ye Free”

(John 8:32) Engraved on the entrance of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia

Just Dems

This essay is specifically written for my Democratic friends.  Republicans, MAGA-world folks, please, please don’t read this one.  This is the “secret sauce”, the hidden issues that our debates are really all about. This one’s about “the Truth”.  In this age of “my facts” and “your facts”, this one doesn’t fit, because it’s just “truth”:  too much “truth” for many to handle (A Few Good Men – “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH”!!!)

So let’s call this out:  MAGA-world is claiming that Democrats want to give money to undocumented migrants for health care.  It’s their big talking point screamed from the mountain tops, the podium of the White House briefing room, and every time House Speaker “Harry Potter” opens his mouth.   That’s a straight-up, bald-faced, lie; a lie they know is a lie.  But they don’t care.

Against the Law

It is against US Law to give undocumented migrants US money.  That includes Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP benefits, Affordable Care Act benefits, and the Children’s Health Program.  The Law forbidding it: the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 (that rolls right off of the tongue).

Now if you ask Democrats if they “want” to give health care to undocumented migrant children, that’s a whole different story – ask Maxine Waters (or me).  But it really doesn’t matter what we want.  The law is the law, and Democrats are NOT trying to change the law.  

There is ONE exception:  hospitals are required to treat emergency aid cases, regardless of their documented status.  And some of THOSE expenses can be reimbursed through emergency Medicaid payments.  But Americans are usually pretty good about saying “nobody should die because they can’t pay”, so we let doctors in the emergency departments continue to save lives.

If it is illegal to give government aid to undocumented migrants, and it will continue to be illegal to give government aid to undocumented migrants; then what is the shutdown argument really about? The answer, of course, is what almost every government argument is about, money.  In this case, a lot of money:  $1.4 Trillion.

Rich Get Richer

The “Big Beautiful Bill” cut $1.4 trillion from government health care programs.  Among those was the Republican “boogey man”, the Affordable Care Act, where funding was added to help America get through the Covid pandemic.  That funding helped keep ACA insurance costs lower, and allowed millions of Americans (not undocumented migrants) to have health insurance.  That added money was cut.  It was used to pay for what the Republicans wanted most:  a huge tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the biggest tax payers:  the rich, and the corporations.  

The budget now in front of Congress is where “the rubber” of the tax cut meets “the road” of higher insurance costs.  Under the US Constitution, Congress is required both to pass a law saying what they want to do (the “Big, Beautiful, Bill”) and a law funding what they want to do (the Budget).  Now it’s time for “round two”, the Big, Beautiful Bill’s budget resolution. 

Party Lines

The members of the House of Representatives voted as expected, along party-lines, with the Republicans exercising their six vote majority to approve the budget.  But the arcane rules of the US Senate require that to pass the budget, there must first be a “cloture” motion passed to end debate on the budget.  That “cloture” motion requires sixty Senators to support it.  Republicans have a 53 to 47 majority, so it requires seven Democrats to agree to end debate, and bring the Budget for a direct vote where a majority would win.

Two Democrats, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez-Masto, joined the Republican majority, as well as Maine Independent Angus King (who usually votes with Democrats).  But to get to “cloture”, it will require four more Democrats to join in.  Until an agreement is reached with four more Democrats, there is no US Budget, and therefore the government is “shut down”.  

Fooled Again

So what we really are debating is the cuts that will raise millions of Americans insurance costs, and also will cut Medicaid benefits to millions more Americans.  Those cuts will give a lot of already wealthy people and corporations more money. 

Unfortunately (to me), none of that will help undocumented migrants.  They will still be pursued by masked ICE militia, and harassed for just trying to make a better life in the world.  But that has nothing to do with the budget, the government shutdown, or US health care. 

But don’t be “fooled again”.  This shut down isn’t about migrants.  It’s about giving rich people more money, and making health insurance more expensive for everyone else.  

Insurance Season

It’s October in Ohio.  The burning bushes in front of the house are just starting to tint.  Soon, they’ll live up to their name, flaming red for the autumn season.  The very first set of leaves are already on the lawn, but plenty still hold fast to the maple trees above.  The mornings are actually cool, even sweatshirt cool, while the afternoons are still summer eighty degrees.  Within a few weeks, that too will fade.  Almost time to put the shorts away for next spring, and get used to “long pants” once again.

October is also “insurance season”.  It’s the time when health insurance companies notify their customers what coverage will cost for next year.  And while the season may be called “fall”, falling isn’t likely to be reflected in the cost of coverage.

Look, I’m old and retired.  A major part of my insurance is covered by Medicare.  But if you haven’t had to navigate the “Medicare” world, there’s two things you probably don’t know.  First, Medicare “major medical”, pays 80% of  hospital costs. But the Medicare that pays part of regular doctor appointments, and vaccines, and “equipment”, is called Part B, and has a monthly bill.  I’ve had Part B for four years, and already the cost has gone up 25%.

The rest, the 20% of costs, and drugs, and dental, and vision, requires a separate private supplemental insurance.  

How High?

Like the leaves falling outside, the bills will arrive on the kitchen table here in Pataskala.  Several of those bills will come from insurance companies.  I don’t dread the maple leaves on the lawn, or the Burning Bushes changing.  But I do worry about what’s coming in the mail:  the increase in insurance costs.  Even “old folks” like me, on Medicare, share the concern – how much of our income will have to go to pay insurance this year?

The Medicare Part B 2026 cost is already out there:  an 11% increase.  What will happen with the supplemental insurance?  We’re holding our breath, but even the conservative estimates in the press call for at least a 6.5% increase.  And for those Americans who get their insurance outside of their employer or the Medicare program?  If they were able  to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act, it’s likely that their costs will jump as much as 75%.  If they used to qualify for Medicaid, they may no longer even be eligible because of changes made by Congress.  And, even if they do still qualify, they will find that Medicaid covers less, and costs more. 

I don’t know how your personal finances work, but a 75% jump in health insurance would be devastating to ours.  Already, insurance is one of the “big three” expenses  along with mortgage and food.

Driving Costs

What’s driving all these costs?   

US Hospitals are the fourth most profitable industry in the country.  Direct Insurance, including workman’s compensation, is the eighth (IBIS).  So don’t worry; folks are definitely making money on your healthcare.  But there are other factors driving health care costs.  There are rising costs in everything, from the wages of health care workers to the costs of syringes (mostly made in China, and subject to increased tariffs).  And then, there’s the cost of the uninsured.

We live in the United States.  At least until now, we all agreed that if someone is sick and goes to the hospital, they ought to be treated, whether they can pay for it or not.  When someone shows up unconscious from a fall, hospitals don’t wait for a credit card.  And until this year, the government helped cover the cost of the uninsured.  But that was slashed in Mr. Trump’s “Big, Beautiful, Bill”, to help pay for the $4 Trillion in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.  

Hospitals will still treat the uninsured, and the cost of those treatments will be shared by everyone.   Everyone, that is, who pays for health insurance.  

Hold Your Breath

What’s today’s government shutdown all about?  It’s about this:  Democrats are trying to put some of the money back in healthcare spending, money that was taken out for the big tax cuts.  Republicans want the tax cuts, and are perfectly content to have health care costs go up for the rest of us.  It’s not an “even trade”; most folks taxes won’t go down, but their insurance costs will certainly go up.  

So as you sit at your kitchen table on this beautiful fall day – don’t hold your breath for a lower insurance bill.  

You’ll end up in the hospital, and you might not be able to afford it!!

Hubris

I just caught a glimpse of Secretary of “War” Hegseth preaching to the top command echelon of the United States military.  I’ll call it what it is:  pure hubris.  This relatively young man, a combat veteran himself (but most qualified for his current assignment by his “dangerous” Fox News Weekend duties) demanded that ALL of the leaders of the military, from every branch, come to him.  He didn’t want a video link, and he couldn’t send an email. 

No, he needed “butts in seats” in Quantico, Virginia, regardless that those leaders had to travel from all over the world. In spite of the literally millions of dollars this exercise in ego cost America, he required them to leave their incredibly important posts.  The US Armed Forces is publicly “deactivated”, the American military threat-response compromised, for Pete, because he wanted their attention, RIGHT NOW.

Warrior Ethos

Pete is a “true believer” in the “Warrior Ethos”.  It’s all the rage in the white, male, thirty-something set (though Pete himself is forty-five).  It’s modeled from what they call “The Teams”, the near mythical Special Forces who do America’s “dirty work” throughout the world .  Most Americans are familiar with Seal Team Six, who “took out” Osama Bin Laden back in the Obama Administration.  But younger men know them better from video games like “Call of Duty”.   

Hegseth didn’t want to lead a “Defense” Department.  He wants to be an offensive guy, who gets it; that battles are dirty, and takes “tough guys” to win out.  He sees the military as a brotherhood, almost a Priesthood of dedicated men who put on the vestments of the uniform and sacrifice themselves for the Nation. 

It’s a “war” out there, so we should be a “War” department.  It’s all kind of “George Patton” thing. That’s for the Boomers who remember George C Scott’s opening monologue in the movie “Patton”, the one that President Nixon watched to steel himself for military decisions.  Hegseth (and Trump) both spoke in front of a US Flag backdrop today, identical to the movie set. That’s not a coincidence.

Brilliance

And there is a place for Warriors in the “War” Department.  But to go back in our history for a moment, Patton is a great example.  He was a “Warrior” in the Hegseth model.  He used profanity to make himself a “common guy” like his soldiers. Hegseth just told the mass of Generals in front of him, “FAFO”.  He used initials.  (I’d expect a “real” Warrior would just say it: “Fuck Around and Find Out”).  Patton led forces successfully into battle. He even mixed an almost childlike Christian religious devotion with his Warrior ethos.  

But what is easy to forget is that Patton was a tool (yes in both ways).  He was managed by two of the greatest military leaders of any time, Generals Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall.  Neither of them were part of some physical “Warrior Ethos”.  In fact, General Douglas MacArthur called Eisenhower, “…the best clerk I ever had”.  Marshall and Eisenhower were brilliant organizers, able to put personnel, materiel, and strategy together to win World War II.  Sure, Patton had his part, but he wasn’t “critical”.   He was the “point” of one spear, of the thousands of spears that the brilliant organizers had to put in place to win.

Modern Defense

We need “Warriors” in the military.  We also need “Programmers” and “Guidance Specialists” and “Supply Clerks” and “Nuclear Engineers” and “Research Analysts” and “Strategists”. And, to put it bluntly, it doesn’t require testicles to be any of those things.  This “brotherhood” concept is based on a mythical, video game view of what American defense is all about.  It’s not real – and never really has been.   George Washington as a young man was a Warrior.  But, during the American Revolution, he was a strategist, willing to retreat, give away key cities like New York and Philadelphia, and even be a “politician” to win the war.  

I’m sure that there are “Warrior Ethos” Generals in the military, who are proud of what “young Pete” is doing.  And I’m also sure there are generals who recognize that in our modern world, “Warrior Ethos” isn’t the key need in American defense.  What is needed:  an ability to use all the “tools” available, men and women of all kinds, physically strong or mentally adept or both.  It was the “odd man” in his bathrobe who “won” the Battle of Midway, detecting the Japanese code for Midway Island.  It was the gay man who broke the Enigma code for Great Britain. And, it was courageous women, like my own mother, who led the fight in Nazi occupied Europe.  

They wouldn’t be part of Pete’s vision of the “brotherhood”.  They aren’t welcome in Pete’s military today.  

And that is a big loss for America.  

Color of Law

This may be the most delicate subject I’ve tackled.  So, up front, I need to be clear:  assassination and terrorism are not legitimate tools of protest.  In my view, the assassination attempts on Trump and the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk, all were politically beneficial to the MAGA movement.  There’s nothing so powerful as a martyr.  Trump’s “Fight-Fight-Fight” moment in Butler, Pennsylvania won him the Presidency.  And MAGA-world is now raising Charlie Kirk to political “sainthood”.  Vice President Vance in particular is doubling-down to stifle protest, all in the name of Kirk.

But there’s plenty of political violence to go around, much of it committed under the “color of law”.  The signature Trump policy of sending out roving squads of “ICE Agents” to round up undocumented migrants without warrant or due process is violence that we see every day.  People of color are tackled in the street by masked para-military “agents”, thrown into unmarked vehicles and whisked away to unknown locations. 

Those undocumented are dumped into brutal and inhumane conditions.  The Administration brags about it; “Alligator Alcatraz” and El Salvador’s CECOT and  Rwanda (for God’s sake). The violence is the point.

Sending military forces onto the streets of American cities against the express wishes of local and state governments is violence. Using the Justice Department, and regulatory agencies as cudgels to attack ( get “retribution” on) political enemies is violence.  And the stripping of political and physical rights from visa holders, the transgendered, and many Americans whose sole “flaw” is to stand against the President, is violence.

Crazies

American history is replete with the people’s response to this kind of  “legal” violence.  Sure, there was the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s, based on Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence.  But there also were Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who took further actions. And ultimately the Black Panthers, were willing to stand for their rights with guns. 

There were the anti-Vietnam War marches, student non-violent protests on college campuses across the country.  But there also were the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), who were willing to go farther. And finally the Weathermen who specifically targeted government buildings for destruction.

Again, I am not advocating violence in response to Trump’s authoritarianism.  What I’m pointing out, is that once the government chooses violence as a means of controlling the nation, it shouldn’t be a surprise that violence is also a response.

And, independent of political ideology, there are “crazies” who will find motivation in the chaos created by violence.  They might kill Democrats (Minnesota) or they might kill Republicans (Utah), but their common thread isn’t political ideology, it’s personal instability.  In American history, the violence of slavery not only generated over 300 “slave rebellions” (not insane, just desperate), but also an environment where attacks like John Brown’s raid on the US Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry were not only foreseeable, but inevitable.

Norms

Of course, the violence of one side is used to justify an increase in violence on the other side.   A policeman once explained to me about how he engaged with a suspect. “I will respond with one step higher than they do”.  It’s easy to say, they did this, so I’ll do this much more. And that’s the path our Nation is on right now.  One side says they have the “legal power” of the government, the consolidated authority of the unitary executive, to do almost anything they want   The other side says they “represent” a defense of American freedom and tradition, with the  “moral authority” of our historic legacy on their side.  

Previous Presidents, even in tremendous times of crisis, felt the weight of maintaining American “norms”. George Bush’s response to 9-11 was the huge power-grab of the Patriot Act.  Government actions that were seen as intrusive and likely Unconstitutional before 9-11, were handed over to the Executive branch soon after. But as time passed, the extremes of the Patriot Act were narrowed by the Courts, the Congress, and also by the Presidents themselves.  

Witch’s Brew

But President Trump is steeped in the extremist ideologies of the Heritage Institute. He’s advised by Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, Tom Homan, and billionaires whose fortunes give them unlimited access and authority. There seems to be no boundaries.  He’s backed by a Congress unwilling to exert their independent authority.  And, he’s “regulated” by a Supreme Court majority beholden to those same ideologies and billionaires.   It’s a “witch’s brew” that sees violence under the “color of law” as an acceptable path of governance.  

The inevitable counter-violence plays right into their hands.  It’s what they want, to justifying even more power, and more violence.  It’s an ugly, unending circle, and where it stops … nobody knows.

Hamilton

There is an entire section of the Broadway production of Hamilton, The Musical, when the personal tragedies of the central figure overwhelm the show.  Hamilton’s torrid sexual affair is discovered by his political opponents, and he counters by publishing all the details in the “Reynolds Pamphlet”.  His wife, Elisha, doesn’t leave him, but she cuts him out of her life.  Then their oldest son, Phillip, is killed in a duel while defending his father’s good name.  That ultimate tragedy brings Alexander and Elisha back together again.

It’s heartbreaking, culminating with the haunting song, “It’s Quiet Uptown”, about living the unimaginable loss of losing a child.

As the audience deals with all of the Hamilton’s personal agony, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison enter the stage.  Jefferson pleads to the unseen playwright, speaking for himself and the audience; “Can we get back to politics?”  Madison joins in, “Please?”

Rhyming

Sometimes, history “rhymes”.  America has been on a roller coaster of emotions from ICE roundups to troops in the city streets.  A scandal of massive proportions looms with the EPSTEIN FILES.  Then the darling of the MAGA-Republican movement, Charlie Kirk, was brutally shot down on an Utah college campus.  The fallout from the assassination is still reverberating, but meanwhile, another shooter opened fire on a Dallas ICE facility.  One detainee was killed, two others were wounded.  America is stricken with the tragedies, and the steep fall into the chaos of the Trump Administration.

Can we get back to politics, please?

Deadlock

Congress is deadlocked over a looming budget deadline.  On September 30^th, the government authorization to spend money expires.  If there is no new authorization, essentially a law passed by Congress and signed by the President, the government will literally shutdown.  

This is a common political issue, regularly dealt with by America’s leaders.  But to avoid a shutdown, it requires something very difficult to do in our ultra-polarized world; cooperate.  It takes a majority of the House of Representatives, but more importantly, it requires sixty Senators to reach an agreement.  In the US Senate, the count stands at 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats.  At least seven Democrats are needed to sign onto a deal. Then the President still needs to sign the “bill” into law.  

Democrats, in the minority in both Houses of Congress, are making a stand on health care.  They are fighting to keep the government support of the Affordable Care Act at the same levels.  Republicans plan on cutting that support, likely throwing millions off of government assisted health insurance.   The Senate seems nowhere close to reaching some sort of budget deal, though, that’s really not unusual, five full days before the “drop dead” date. 

Hard Ball 

But the White House is playing an even greater game of political “hard ball”.  Today, they’ve threatened to fire thousands of Federal employees if the Democrats refuse to sign off on the health care cuts.  The Trump Administration will not only close the government down, they’ll take the opportunity to cut more jobs (after the thousands let go in the DOGE cuts earlier this year).  

This is the kind of threat that concerned Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last spring.  Back then, he was afraid that shutting down would increase the Presidential power grab that was then just beginning.  It will be interesting to see if Schumer will fold again this next week.  Perhaps Trump already grabbed the power that Schumer was so worried about.

All of this is nothing new.  President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich had a similar standoff back in the 1990’s.  And Jimmy Carter famously walked from the White House to the Capitol to resolve a budget standoff back in the 1970’s.  But today, there is one significant difference.

What Trump Wants

Past shutdown standoffs always were predicated on the belief that all parties, ultimately, wanted the government to stay open.  Government shutdowns are messy.  Folks that depend on the government, from healthcare, to payment for government contracts, to the National Parks, get closed down.  While Social Security payments (and Medicare, run by a private contractor) continue, many other government functions stop.  It’s bad for the country, and bad for the economy.

But there are real questions whether the Trump Administration wants the government to stay open.  They are committed to cutting the Federal government to “the bone”.  A shutdown may give them the excuse to do that anyway.  

It’s back to “normal” politics this week, but with a twist.  There’s nothing “normal” about the Trump Administration.  A shutdown may be just what they want to do.  After all, if Congress can’t do anything, all that’s left is the President, unfettered by Congressional oversight.  Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison would roll in their graves about that.

Bad Drugs

President Trump told everyone Monday that maternal use of  acetaminophen is a cause of childhood autism.  While he struggled with saying the word “acetaminophen” (full disclosure:  spell-check fixed my first attempt), he finally dropped back to the brand name – Tylenol.  As a result, Kenvue, the manufacturer of that brand, lost 9% of its stock value.

Now that’s Kenvue’s problem.  If they are marketing a “bad” drug; dropping stock values are the least of their concerns.  The problem is, that “science” doesn’t back the Presidential statement.  And that’s where we begin today.

Tylenol

Tylenol was first marketed by Johnson and Johnson back in 1960 as an over-the-counter pain remedy, and an alternative to aspirin.  It’s been evaluated in scientific studies hundreds of times, and found to be both safe and effective.  That’s particularly important during pregnancy, because there are known health risks with the use of aspirin.  Tylenol is considered a safe alternative for pain relief. 

And, if you listen to the doctors, to the experts, to the folks who can analyze the studies and interpret the results, Tylenol still is safe for pregnancy.  So what is President Trump talking about?

There is a long standing “counter-culture” to medical science, recently led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  He made his legal career as an environmentalist, and in the early 2000’s turned to questioning “big pharma” about what was included in pharmaceuticals.  He’s attacked vaccines, medications, and claimed Americans were ingesting deadly doses of thimerosal and mercury.  

Snake Oil

Like every “snake oil salesman”, there’s a kernel of truth in some of what he says.  We only have to look to Oxycontin to know that drug company profits can overwhelm public safety.   But, for every Oxycontin, there are hundreds of drugs that made our lives safer, and better. (That includes the Covid vaccine – all the “snake oil” about that to the contrary.  It saved, and still saves, millions of lives worldwide.  It allowed us to get back to life, and, ironically, was Trump’s greatest Presidential achievement.)

So, do you believe the “snake oil salesman”, Kennedy speaking through Trump, or do you believe the science?  The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Kennedy) did something that’s a “verboten” in the scientific world.  He ignored the vast weight of scientific study, and of scientific expertise.  Instead, he “cherry picked” a single study that claimed to show a linkage between Tylenol and Autism.  It’s not that other analysts, the real experts, don’t know about this study.  But they think it’s flawed; small, and misinterpreted.  Kennedy (and his chosen “scientists”) decided that this one, “unicorn”, was right, and all of the others are wrong.

Experts Matter

Of course, there are lots of opinions.  But there’s a catch to that:  not everyone is entitled to an opinion on the matter.  Sure, with a click of the keys and a whiff of AI, we can all claim to be experts.  But here’s reality:  I can look at a pole vault attempt, and diagnose what’s right and wrong – can you?  Probably not, that’s not your expertise, it’s mine, hard-earned through forty plus years of coaching.  And I’m pretty good with most other track and field events as well, except for hammer throw (the ball with the cable, kind of medieval). 

When I want a hammer “diagnosis”, I turn to my hammer coach friends.  It a distinct specialty in the track and field world.  By the way, they turn to me with pole vault issues too.

Interpretation

So when I want to interpret the scientific data regarding Tylenol, I don’t declare an expertise just because I take four a day.  I don’t even try to read all of the “data” about Tylenol, because I don’t have the expertise to understand it.  Instead, I take two steps.  I listen to my carefully chosen doctor, the one I trust.  And he listens to the real experts on pharmacology, ones HE trusts.  

So when the President gives medical advice (“tough it out, pregnant ladies”), I call “BS”.  And while Robert Kennedy probably could give practical advice about heroin addiction, something he’s experienced, his NYU Law degree doesn’t give him any expertise in interpreting scientific data.

Monopoly

Here’s the rub: both the President and the Secretary have good reason to want a monopoly on the truth.  It’s not really about Tylenol and autism.  It’s about the “REAL” issues where the administration comes head to head with money and power, like climate change.  Today, the President told the United Nations that manmade climate change was a hoax, a false premise that was damaging their economies and ruining their citizens lives.  “Let’s get back to ‘clean coal’” he said to the world’s nations.  And, of course, if coal is good, petroleum is even better.

Where’s the money?  Trump literally asked the big petroleum companies leaders for a billion dollars and he’d make sure to protect gas, and they paid up (The Hill).  And we know that the Middle Eastern oil producers have long funded the Trump family.

And if climate change is a hoax, then the Democrats are liars, and so is China.  China is the world leader in solar power, far out-distancing the strangled efforts of President Biden.  Turn to the US, get oil, and West Virginia coal.  Turn to China, and get renewable solar energy.  The rest of the world probably already knows what to do,  take the renewable fuel of the future not supply-limited fuel of the past.

Believe the Lie

Trump needs them to believe the lie.  And he needs Americans to believe that “only he” knows the real truth, about everything.  That’s important to him on so many issues:  elections, urban crime, undocumented migrant costs, climate change, and, of course, the EPSTEIN FILES (they haven’t gone away).  If Trump can control the truth, then he can control the Nation.

If it sounds like George Orwell’s 1984, it is.  The enemy today is the friend tomorrow, ask Robert Kennedy, the son of a liberal Democrat.  But, here’s the rub:  there really is a scientifically based truth. You just need to ask a real expert.  Don’t take my word for it;  or Bobby’s, or Donald Trump’s.

Biden

It was forever ago, actually about fourteen months.  President Biden was in the throes of determining whether to run again or not.  He had a lot going for him:  an economy that was going up, inflation that was finally going down, and a series of laws passed that were almost universally approved.  The problem:  Biden completely failed in his June debate with Trump. He came out  looking like everything the opposition claimed he was:  old, tired, lost, perhaps even demented.  And those around him, who knew best that wasn’t the case, were struggling to find a way out. 

There’s nothing like a first impression (or a first re-introduction).  And Biden’s performance played exactly into the hands of Trump.  When Trump said, “I don’t know what he said, and I don’t think he even knows what he said”, Trump showed his tremendous instinct for the political “kill”.  Even I agreed with him.

So there was a month of “what’s he going to do”.  I even wrote an essay, stating that the Democratic Party had no choice but to follow Biden’s will, and double-down on his candidacy (Nailing It).  But, it became clear that the leadership of the Party left Biden behind.  He had to make the choice (Changing Horses).

Assassin’s View

In American history there is another, dark tradition.  It’s political change at the end of a barrel; the immediate, unforeseeable consequence of the assassin’s bullet.  On July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania, an assassin tried to take Donald Trump’s life.  There is much to say about that whole episode; the failures of the Secret Service, the incredible swiftness of the investigation, determination, and cremation of the assassin himself, the miraculous condition of the candidate for President.  But it didn’t really matter.

It was political “magic”.  Trump went from a defeated, indicted, convicted, former President, to an icon of strength.  He fought his own protection agents to rise up and address the crowd, blood on his face, fist in the air, “Fight, Fight, Fight.”  While some might question that Trump could be so heroic; the political imagery was undeniable.  

Five Million Votes

In my view, the election was decided right there, in Butler.  Current American elections are determined by one thing – turnout.  The contrast was mighty:  a seemingly befuddled Joe Biden and a heroic Trump.  It probably didn’t change many voters, but it drove the Trump voters to the polls. 

 And that didn’t change much when Kamala Harris took the nomination. In the end, Trump didn’t defeat Harris.  It was the millions of voters, particularly in the “swing” states, that left the Vice President high and dry, not coming to the polls. 155,500,000 votes were cast in 2020, versus 150,327,000 in 2024.  That’s five million voters, who might and probably would have supported the Democrat, who stayed home. The election was decided for Trump, who won by a little over two million votes nationwide.

Martyr

An assassin struck again a couple of weeks ago, this time with deadly accuracy.  Charlie Kirk, a darling of the MAGA-conservative movement, was struck down, on stage, in front of thousands of students.  Kirk was memorialized yesterday, a martyr to the MAGA cause.  Tens of thousands of admirers; the President and the Vice President, and almost every MAGA luminary was there to extoll his virtues and mourn his loss.   

Even more importantly, Kirk combined both their political sentiments, and a form of Christian fundamentalism. That’s a powerful admixture of politics and religion, one that the United States hasn’t seen since the populism of Williams Jennings Bryan at the end of the 1800’s.

It really doesn’t matter if you agreed with Kirk’s views or not.  The “politics” of his death will be a “known, unknown”, and perhaps a powerful force to be reckoned with in 2026 and beyond.  How many new, young, adherents  will be motivated by his death?   How many of them will be “new voters”, altering the narrow balance of our electorate?

The nation is on the cusp of change.  Any one factor could be the difference.  History is replete with martyrs raised up to drive “the masses”.  The impact of this tragic act of madness may well be more than just the loss of one individual.  

That’s just one more “thing”, as we worry about the fate of American democracy.

Now

It’s easy to lose hope.  The dark future is today:  National Guard in the streets, ICE squad roundups based on accent and color.  Many afraid to speak; they fear retribution.  Neighbors spying on neighbors, encouraged to “tell” any slip from the orthodoxy of the “party line” – just text JD Vance.  Conversations stilted; not knowing who’s on “the other” side.  Families riven apart, unable to agree even on the simplest facts.  

The powerfully mixed potion of politics and religion, make it nearly impossible to reason or discuss.  If the Party is also the Church, disagreement is no longer a political difference to settle with a handshake and an “agree to disagree”.  Instead, it’s heresy, a mortal sin against the Lord.  How can there be any recourse or recovery from that?

Opposition oppressed, not by law, but by economic coercion.  Sure, you can say what you want, exercise your First Amendment right, but if it crosses the “invisible line”, you might lose your job, your position in the community.  You might be willing to “stand” for your beliefs, but will your employer accept the risk of having you on the payroll?  What government approvals or contracts will the company lose by employing you?  Ask Kimmel and Colbert.

1984 Revisited

What happened to the Voltarian quote:  “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”?   It was a fundamental block of our democracy.  But now, Voltaire is lost to polarization.  Today, it’s more, “If I disagree with what you say, you are cast from my life, my neighborhood, and my community”.  That’s happening:  the red states grow redder by the day, and the blue states even bluer.  Folks search for the comfort of  “their own kind”.  We used to call that “de-facto segregation”, but instead of race, now it’s by political ideology.

This is not a dystopian novel, “1984 Revisited”.  This is our world, right now, here in the United States of America.  The rest of the world was aghast at first, but quickly adapted to the needs of the moment.  The current President is lauded with praise and gifts.  And more:  if there’s something in the deal to financially benefit the new President; even better.  The graft is in the open, as is the criminality.

Of course, he is a man with prior immunity, “forgiven of his trespasses” by both the Courts and his followers. Does Trump sound like a President, or more like a gangster?  Is he making peace in the Middle East, or simply taking from them an “offer he won’t refuse”, more bitcoins in the pocket? It’s hard to tell.

Helpless

And “my side”, the Democratic side (both party and belief), seems helpless.  We are doomed to frustrated protests and interminable law suits. We are in, what the military calls, a holding action at best, or a defended retreat at worst.  Even if we can hold,  for the two years until we can change Congress, and the two years from there to the Presidency, will America ever be the same?  I suspect not.  We are living a nightmare now, even awake in the future the memories will still be strong. 

And worse, there’s an insidious threat, looming in the background.  Will we still have fair and free elections?  At each turn the rules are changed to benefit the other side.  Will we ever again trust the count, the outcome, the promises of honesty and fairness?

So Why fight?

Gary Kasparov was a Russian Grandmaster chess player.  As he ended his chess career, he moved onto politics, and was a driving force in the brief flash of Russia’s democracy in the 1990’s.  It was shut down by the forces that evolved into Russia’s oligarchy today, governed with an iron fist by Vladimir Putin; opposition pushed out the window or injected with Novachuk.  Kasparov was forced into exile.

Kasparov delineates all of the familiar signs of authoritarianism he sees in the United States today.  He travelled that road before, from the light of freedom to a new darkness of control.  But Kasparov has one proviso, one glimmer of hope for American democracy.  He noted that the Russian people were steeped in authoritarianism, from the Czars to the Soviet Politburo to Putin’s regime.  There was no experience, no shared strength learned by real democracy in action.

American Fools

With all its flaws, the memory of freedom is strong in America.  We have nearly 250 years of making our Nation “more perfect”, striving for a goal never realized.  In this moment when we see the real risk of losing democracy, we have one advantage over Russia, Hungary, Venezuela, even Italy or Poland.  Democracy is in our DNA – from the original Declaration of Independence on.  Even our greatest crisis, the Civil War, was ultimately fought for freedom.  

Things are bad, but it’s not over. Stand for Democracy.  Stand for the United States of America.  Maybe Lincoln said it best:  “You can fool some of the people, all of the time, and all of the people, some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people, all the time”.  Many Americans may be dazzled by the present regime, but we all are not fools.  The fight is now, and democracy will win.  Americans will not be fools forever.  But, we must maintain the fight until they wake up.

As Tom Bodett might say; “We’ll leave the light on”.

US Constitution, First Amendment 

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

Inalienable Right

It is a building block of personal freedom. The check and balance on government. A unique feature of the American system. All of these terms are used to describe the First Amendment.  There are over 150 nations in the world that guarantee “free speech”.  But there is no other country that does it the “American Way”.  The First Amendment doesn’t grant a freedom. That freedom is “assumed” as part of the “inalienable rights” of the Declaration of Independence. 

Instead the First Amendment places a stricture on the government:  “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press”.  And, since all of the powers of the government envisioned by the Founding Fathers emanate from the Congress; that means that the US Government in total cannot “abridge”.  

What is speech?  The Founding Fathers saw it as the ability to critique (and criticize) the government.  They believed in a right of “Englishmen” that went all the way back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That right was taken away from them by King George III.  It was a founding cause of the Revolution.  So it made sense that those same Englishmen, now Americans, would restrict the government (like King George) rather than grant a right they knew already existed.

Unitary Executive

We are in a very different era from the Founding Fathers.  In our era, much of American power has devolved to the Presidency.  It’s been a game of “pass the buck”.  Congress is so politically divided that it can hardly fulfill its most basic duties. They can’t  choose a Speaker, or pass a budget, or determine who may or may not enter the United States. But the President is a single power, where only one mind needs to be “made up”.  That single power is now in the saddle, emboldened by the “Unitary Executive” theory in vogue in American conservative circles.

And the concept of government power is very different as well.  Take the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC.  It is an arm of the Executive Branch, essentially granting the President the right to reach out to control the public “airwaves”.  That made sense, back when there was a finite amount of “airwaves” (band width) to use.  Radio and television took up so much, that the “right to use” a particular “channel” in a particular area was rationed.  And, since the government claimed the total width of airwaves, it made sense they would be the one to ration it out.

With rationing came control.  The ability to give or take away a license to operate on a particular airwave, say “channel 2” in Dayton, Ohio, was life or death to a television station. Dayton’s Channel 2 in the early 1970’s was owned by Avco Broadcasting, who operated WLW-D.  My Dad was the station manager, and ultimately responsible for the station keeping their FCC issued license. 

Broadcast License

Dad started an early television talk show that help create a whole new genre of programming.  Phil Donahue took over the late morning show, and interviewed people in the news in a single-guest, hour long format.  Local folks, at that time often stay-at-home Moms, were able to call in and ask questions.  Ultimately the Donahue Show was on 225 stations nationwide, and lasted for almost thirty years, broadcast first from Dayton, then Chicago and finally New York.

In 1970 the Phil Donahue show had radical anti-Vietnam war activist Jerry Rubin on air, and Dad was very concerned.  Jerry Rubin was always and intentionally profane, using it to shock his audience into attention.  Dad knew that Rubin’s profanity could NOT go “over the air”.  His first “F–K” would immediately threaten Avco’s license.  And since President Richard Nixon was the general target of Rubin’s wrath, the FCC would jump on the chance to punish WLW-D for giving him airtime.

Ten Second Delay

It was a “mechanical era” of technical broadcast.  Dad needed a “delay”; time to push the literal “bleep” button to keep Rubin’s profanity off of the air.  And since the broadcast was live, it wasn’t a matter of editing later on.  The bleep had to be as needed, on time.  So the station engineers set up two massive videotape machines, across the room from each other.  The first machine would record the show onto tape. Then the tape was strung across the room to the second machine and would play the tape for broadcast, ten seconds later.  

That gave Dad time to push the literal “bleep” button.  Rubin’s interview went out, and Rubin, true to form, was “bleeped” a lot. Nobody got tangled in the ten-feet of tape. And everyone got what they wanted:  Rubin got his “bully pulpit”, Donahue got the interview, the public got a great show, and Dad got high ratings and managed to keep WLW-D on the air.

Bandwidth

It’s a totally different age today.  Cable and streaming have added amazing amounts of content to entertainment, without using the “public airwaves”.  So the internet isn’t regulated by the FCC in the same way.  We all know this, what comes across our screens (like it or not) is in no way “cleared” for broadcast.

But broadcast over the airwaves stations, still exists.  Two major owners of Broadcast stations are the Nexstar Corporation (265 stations, WCMH here in Columbus) and Sinclair Broadcasting (185 stations, WSYX and WTTE in Columbus), about 40% of the total stations in the US.  Almost all independent stations usually are “affiliated” with a broadcast network, one of the “Big Four”: ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox.   Other than the network’s “owned and operated” stations, the networks themselves are NOT subject to FCC control.  But all those individual stations are, just like Dad’s station back in 1970.

ABC Did It

So when late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel called out MAGA-world for using conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassination for political gain, the FCC took notice.  And when Nexstar, already in negotiations with the FCC to expand to even more stations nationwide, realized that the Trump appointed Chairman took umbrage to Kimmel’s comedy, the company knew what to do.  Nexstar told it’s ABC affiliated stations NOT to air the Jimmy Kimmel Show.  Sinclair Broadcasting, already known for its strong right-wing bent, followed suit.  

ABC was faced with a choice.  They could continue to air Jimmy Kimmel and face the wrath of the FCC on their own stations, plus all of the other ABC affiliates, or pull him.   They made, what I’m sure to them, is a “logical” business decision.

It’s the same “logic” that caused Paramount (CBS) to cancel “The Colbert Show”.  They needed government permission to merge with Skydance Media, and Colbert is a thorn in Trump’s side.  In both cases, neither the President nor the Federal Government “ordered” the comedians off the air.  But the FCC exercised its “legal” right to license,  and pressured the companies to cancel them.

“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of the speech or of the press”.  But the President, through his Federal Communications Commission, can threaten the economic well-being of hundreds of broadcast stations.  And he can do it because he didn’t “like” what was said, or how he was characterized, or who made “fun” of him.  If it looks like abridging, walks like abridging, talks like abridging, and acts like abridging, it probably is abridging.

What a childish way to lose our founding freedoms.  

United States Constitution, Art I, Sec 8

“The Congress shall have the power…

• To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
• To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
• To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
• To provide and maintain a navy;
• To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
• To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
• To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;”

United States Constitution, Art II, Sec 2 

• “The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States…”

Experience

The Founding Fathers spent a lot of time thinking about war.  After all, war was a part of their life experience.  Not only did they survive the American Revolution, but many fought in the French and Indian War before (part of the Seven Years War, the first world-wide war).  In fact, the first shots of that first world war were fired by a twenty-two year-old American officer in Western Pennsylvania on his first assignment, Lieutenant Colonel George Washington.  And there continued to be conflict on the frontier with the independent nations of Native Americans. 

One of the reasons for writing the Constitution in the first place was to more efficiently defend the new nation.  The Articles of Confederation, the prior “organizing document”, didn’t have a provision for a Navy, and more importantly, the capacity to raise the funds to create one.  And while there was a provision for a National Army, there still wasn’t funding.  So the individual states were ultimately responsible for National defense.  

The Constitution put the responsibility for creating and funding both a National Army and Navy on the United States Congress.  It also gave Congress the power to pay for state militias (the National Guard), that could be nationalized, but generally maintained under state command.  But most importantly, the Constitution of the United States gave  the power to declare war to the Congress, not the executive.

The President

The President is the Commander-in-Chief of all of various forms of military:  Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, and the National Guards of the several states when Federalized.  The Founding Fathers were clear:  Congress creates, Congress declares, the President executes.  George Washington as President, took personal command of the State Militia to put down an insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.  He was authorized to do so by Congress in the “Militia Act of 1792”.

There was historic tension between the Congress and the President throughout history.  In the Civil War, Lincoln took the actions he thought necessary, with Congress getting pulled along.  The classic example was the Emancipation Proclamation, what today we would call an Executive Order.  Lincoln only freed slaves in those states still in rebellion, because his authority only extended to those areas in insurrection.  The states that remained in the Union but maintained slavery (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and the parts of Louisiana and Tennessee under Union control) were not “in” insurrection, and the Order did not apply to them.

Congress

And while Woodrow Wilson staked his Presidency on the treaty ending World War I, guaranteeing American support for the new League of Nations, the United States Senate refused to ratify it.  The United States never participated in the League, perhaps dooming it to failure, and World War II.

After the Civil War, and World War I, Congress moved to reclaim war powers away from the Presidency.  However, the threat and expanse of World War II caused the President to gain greater powers over the military than ever before.

But the real change in the balance of power between Congress and the President came after World War II.  With the advent of nuclear missiles, that could launch a devastating strike within minutes, the process of declaring war seemed cumbersome and probably irrelevant. Instead, Congress gave the executive long-term “use of force” powers.  The last “declared war” was World War II, but there remains a long list of conflicts, still with Congressional approval:  Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Kosovo.  And even more actions were justified after the attacks of 9-11; in Iraq and  Syria, and America’s longest war (two decades) in Afghanistan.

Why War?

The term “war” is used a lot today.  We are “at war” with organized narcotics traffickers, now called “narco-terrorists” in order to “fit” under the use of force provisions passed by Congress after 9-11.  The United States is committing arbitrary actions on the high seas, destroying a second presumed narcotics trafficking boat just the other day.  What Congress might have defined as piracy back in 1788, now is an ongoing US policy.  

We are also “at war” with undocumented migrants, using some of the same reasoning and executive authority that allowed for the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.  There’s a “war on crime”, so much so, that the National Guard is being Federalized to patrol the streets in Los Angeles, Washington DC, and now Memphis. (Even though the Federalized National Guard cannot, by law, do policing actions such as arrests).  And, after the assassination of conservative figure Charlie Kirk by a disturbed individual, the executive branch is ready to “declare war” (a power they do not have) on the vocal opposition to their actions.  

War Department

“War” allows for the President to exercise the nearly unbridled authority of the Commander-in- Chief.  There are only two checks on that power:  Congress “clawing back” their authority, or the Supreme Court restraining Presidential overreach.  And, if past actions are prologue, don’t expect either to happen very soon.

And one final point:  war by definition is violent.  This week we speak constantly of “dialing back” the violence in American life.  But if the Executive is constantly using the language of war and conflict, it’s difficult to conclude that anything other than more violence will be the outcome. 

America has a long way to go, to get beyond our current sad state.  Using “war” as an excuse for action (or the name for a department of government) won’t help.

Lapsed

I don’t practice religion anymore.  As I tell my Catholic friends, I haven’t been “blessed” with faith.  I think it would be nice to have a firm belief in a God, a purpose, a plan greater than what’s seeable and feelable here in earth.  The ability to ask and receive Godly forgiveness in this life would be amazing.  But, I am not so blessed.  It felt hypocritical, even as a teenager, to sit in a church pew, and recite all of the “correct” prayers, participate in all of the “correct” ceremonies, and sing all of the “uplifting” hymns.  I always figured that, if there was a God, they’d know I was faking it.  I surely did.

But I was raised in the Episcopal Church, and when I return (for weddings and funerals) the warm familiarity of the liturgy takes me back to my youth. It always reminds me of Mom, who had a real faith anchored in Roman Catholicism.  Not only did we attend church on Sunday, but there was often a mid-week “youth group” meeting.  And, back in the early 1960’s, there was even a once-a-week walk from school down to the church for instruction (though, unlike today, there was no fee to participate).  Where we lived in Cincinnati, Clifton; the Episcopal Church was two blocks from the school, and only a block from our house.

And I have studied (and taught) many religions over the years, from variations on Christianity, to the other great religions in the world.  Every time, I gained academic knowledge, but never felt a desire to become a practitioner.  I have not been called to Faith.

Religions 

What did I learn?  That most religions are tolerant, and merciful.  That most religions believe in charitable acts; of an obligation of those who “have” to help those who “have not”.  And that most religions recognize that while “they” think they’re right, others with differing views of faith should be respected.  Muslims call Jews and Christians “people of the book”, acknowledging that they share a common fundamental source. 

So I grew up with a vision of Jesus Christ as merciful and forgiving.  After all, he did wash the feet of his own disciples.  And he “fed the world”, or at least the multitudes, with loaves and fishes.  He even showed compassion for prostitutes AND tax collectors.

Now, to be clear, I don’t believe that the United States is a “Christian” nation.  In fact a reading of American history indicates to me, that the Founding Fathers were intent on keeping religion out of our government.  Sure, Jefferson attributed “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to a Creator.  But his version of Creator is not the traditional Christian one.  In fact, Jefferson himself envisioned a “wall of separation” between church and state.  

Even here in little Pataskala, we have Christians (of all sorts) and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, Bahai and Hindus.  Years ago Buddhists bought a local soybean field to build a sanctuary.  The soybeans (sometimes feed corn) are still growing and the priests bless the field every year.  But someday, when the time is “right”, there will be Buddhist sanctuary, to paraphrase The Music Man, “Right here in Pataskala City!!” 

Nationalism

I worry about that.  Many in our Nation are enamored with a form of Christianity that is linked to an almost rabid Nationalism.  They use Christianity as a cudgel to control others, not just their adherents, but everyone else.  “Judge not, lest you be judged” doesn’t seem to be a working tenet of their faith.  Instead, everyone is “judged”; the LGTBQ, the migrants, urban versus suburban and rural. They are judged, convicted, and banished, even without judicial review.

I know we are in a time of great division and polarization.  As an historian, I recognize the echoes of the 1850’s before the Civil War, and the turmoil  of the 1960’s.  That’s bad enough.  That there seems for some to be, a “religious” basis for our current turmoil only makes things worse.   There’s a difference between political views, and religious faith.  We Americans have a long history of debating political views.  But once faith becomes involved, one side believes the other side is “in sin”.  And that changes everything.

Politics no longer is, as Ezra Klein proposed in a recent New York Times opinion, two differing opinions reaching for a common goal of American greatness.  There really isn’t a common goal anymore.  The Christian Nationalist view of America is antithetical to my own view of what our Nation should become.  I guess that puts me, and many Americans, “against” their view of God.  We are the sinners.

How else do we expect their adherents to react?

Awakening

I date my “political awakening” to the spring of 1968.  I was eleven years old and it was the year of assassinations.  Martin Luther King was shot in the beginning of April.  I remember the terrible suddenness of his death. But even more, I remember the frustrated out-pouring of grief that turned into riots in downtown Dayton, Ohio.  Dad ran a television station there, and we lived just south of town in Kettering.  

We sat and watched Dad’s station, the camera crews and reporters braving the violence on the streets to tell us all what was going on. I was worried, for our city, but also for Dad. He spent the night at the station, not far from our home.  I didn’t know what he might have to do.

Bobby

That night in April also cemented my admiration for Senator Robert Kennedy, then running for President.  I was always a “Kennedy man”, but on that night, Bobby landed his campaign plane in Indianapolis, and went, against the advice of the police and advisors, downtown to talk to the assembled mourners.  His speech that night was off the cuff.  In part, this is what he said:

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

He not only shared in the pain and frustration of those assembled, but he took that shared emotion and tried to re-direct away from violence, and towards a better country.  I was a “Kennedy man” for sure, from that moment on.

Again

But it only lasted a short, two months.  On June 6^th, one of the last days of school, my radio-alarm clock went off at 7:00 am.  The first words out of the speaker were fateful:  Bobby himself was shot in Los Angeles, soon to die.  At eleven years old, it was difficult to understand such violence.

But it was 1968, and the violence was far from over.  The cities burned in riots during the summer, the anti-Vietnam War movement grew more powerful, and the Democratic Convention in Chicago became known for the “police riots” that tore the Party apart.  Mayor Daley cleared the streets of demonstrators with the full force and violence of his department.  The Democratic Party, and the United States; were splintered, divided, polarized, and violent.  

And Bobby’s speech in Indianapolis became a foundation of my political life.

A Single Bullet

I am now a full-fledged, “card-carrying” Boomer.  For my generation, assassination and violence in politics is no stranger.  The power of a single bullet can alter history; whether it was fired by a “contract killer” like the assassin of Martin Luther King, or a “madman killer” like the assassin of Bobby Kennedy.  

We don’t know what we don’t know about yesterday’s assassination of Charlie Kirk, an incredibly popular young right-wing podcaster and influencer.  He was killed on a Utah college campus.  In our incredibly polarized, social media driven world, the accusations are there:  “They (left-wingers) did it!”  Maybe so, or maybe a calculating madman with a personal grudge, or maybe someone else. 

What we do know is the power of a bullet.  Seldom does a bullet cause the “love and wisdom through the awful grace of God” that Bobby addressed.  Instead, it is just as likely to drive us even farther apart.  It doesn’t help that many of our  hand-held “news sources”, are driven by algorithms designed to heighten the drama.  Most of us, like it or not, saw the actual strike of the bullet, the “Zapruder film” of this generation.   It serves to create even more division. If you don’t think so, check out “X” or “Facebook” or any of the other “news” (not really) sources.

The Divide

Other than his political views, I don’t know much about Charlie Kirk.  I do disagree with almost everything he stood for.  And I do know that his murder will not further my political cause or beliefs.  Creating a martyr to “their cause” never does.  

But, like the 1960’s, the assassination of Kirk, the attempted assassination of Trump, the murders of the Democratic legislators in Minnesota, and the constant drumbeat of school shootings (even yesterday in Evergreen, Colorado); tell us one thing.  Our Nation is so divided, so intensely partisan and hateful, that those on the fringes are likely to “fall off”, and decide they can use that ultimate power to make single-handed change:  the bullet.    

And that division is one we all have some responsibility for.  

Missions

They both wear uniforms.  They both carry guns.  And, they both hold a special and usually honored place in American life.  The local police and the National Guard are a lot alike, but they are NOT the same.  And to quote Robert Frost, “…that makes all the difference.”

It’s all about missions.  Proctologists and Orthopedic surgeons are both doctors.  They’re both trained in medicine.  But I wouldn’t want a Proctologist to repair my shoulder, or an Orthopedic running my next colonoscopy.  Police are trained to prevent and arrest people committing crimes.  As part of their specialized education, they learn the communities where they work.  Policing is more than just “busts”, it’s also listening to the community.  That communication enables better law-enforcement.

Here in Pataskala, my elderly backyard neighbor had a “beef” with me. He didn’t feel like telling me the problem, so instead he called the police.  Now, the police officer could have told him that his concern (some grass clippings encroaching on his back property line) wasn’t a police matter.  But the officer didn’t.  Instead, he served as a messenger, trying to solve a community problem at the lowest level.  I took care of the clippings, (a phone call or a simple knock on the door would solve it).  And, of course, I was annoyed that the police were involved.  But I very much appreciate that the officer solved the issue.

That’s good policing, what you hope for by those with a badge. 

A Well-Regulated Militia

And it’s not anywhere near the job of the National Guard.  The National Guard is the real-life enactment of the Constitutional “state militia”, a localized defense force.  It made perfect sense in the era when the Federal Army was small, far away, and months from “coming to the rescue”.  When there was a hostile attack at the edge of the frontier, it was the militia, now termed the National Guard, who could respond with alacrity.

The National Guard is the state defense force.  They are trained in the art of warfare.  But they have become more than that.  They are also the emergency force sent in after a widespread disaster.  The Guard organizes relief efforts when the tornadoes sweep through, and does search and rescues after the floods.  

And the Guard also has a role in civil unrest.  Those of us who remember the Vietnam War era, remember the ultimate threat against college campus protest:  calling in the National Guard.   

That pitted two different groups of young people against each other:  college students protesting and folks the same age (some also in college) who chose to go into the Guard.  And we saw the fallacy of using troops untrained in crowd control on a college campus.  Kent State, an Ohio campus of 20,000 students, became the rallying cry for protest, as ten students were shot with four killed by the Guard during a protest.  Neil Young called it out:  “Four Dead in Ohio”. 

The National Guard does not have a badge. They are NOT trained in policing.  They are NOT a substitute for effective police work.  While both the Guard and Police wear uniforms, and carry guns, they are not the same.

Urban Crime

There are unacceptable levels of crime in America’s big cities.  This was particularly true right after the Covid era, when crime, like inflation, rose to record levels.  But most cities responded to the crisis, and crime rates (even in Chicago) are close to pre-pandemic levels.  They have found some answers:  more policing in communities, more cops on a “beat” that they come to know, more involvement with the community in a non-law enforcement role.  All of that costs money, and the Federal government, up until January, was helping to fund those increases.

But with the second Trump Administration, much of that police support was cut.  And while crime rates continued to go down, President Trump is using crime as his “niche” issue.  There’s a political reality there:  big cities are almost invariably run by Democrats, and Trump’s base of support is Republican, white and suburban or rural.  Trump is using the fear of the big city as a cudgel to beat Democrats, cutting funding then decrying their still improving crime statistics.

The Smell of Deportations

Then there’s the whole racial issue. Most of the victims of crime in big cities are minorities. But when the National Guard arrived in Washington, DC, they were ordered to patrol the tourist areas, not where minorities live, and where the most serious crimes are committed. The Guard is for “show” there, not to reduce real crime. But, to the MAGA base, Trump sent in The Guard to get control of “them”; the same black and brown people he threatens to imprison through ICE.

Trump wants to prove that HE can do something that the local governments cannot.  So he’s declares a faux emergency to Federalize the state National Guards.  Once they are under Federal command, he can direct them where ever he chooses.  Last week, he declared “war” on Chicago, even displaying himself as a character from the war movie of the 1980’s Apocalypse Now.  Robert Duvall’s line in the movie is, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”  Trump altered it to, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”  It conflates his aggressive and illegal roundup and deportations of undocumented migrants with crime.  Except, of course, that conflation isn’t true.  

All Show

So it was all for show, when the armored vehicles rolled through the streets of our Nation’s Capital, as if an occupying army arrived.  It had.  But the Guard are not police.  They ended up picking up litter, and painting fences, and laying down mulch, all at the cost to the Nation of a million dollars a day.

This week he plans on doing it again.  Like California, he will declare a fake “emergency” in Illinois, Federalize the Illinois National Guard, and send them into the streets of Chicago.  It’s a great spectacle, and his supporters will feel more secure if they venture to the Navy Pier or the Miracle Mile.  Other “red” states wil volunteer their Guard to join in (Ohio Guardsmen are still in Washington today).  But the reality is:  the Guard doesn’t fight crime.  And if they try to do so, with loaded weapons of war, it’s likely to become the same disaster that occurred at Kent State.

Want to spend millions of dollars to fight crime? Authorize more police on the streets, pay for more foot patrols in the high-crime neighborhoods that need them, develop alternatives to “gang life” for young people. None of that is achieved by the performance of militarizing the streets of America. That’s just for intimidating political opponents, not the criminals.

Teaching

I spent most of my career teaching social studies.  As I stood in front of a classroom, explaining Gettysburg or World War I (two of my favorite lesson plans), I didn’t expect my students would remember all the details.  While I would (ask my wife) get incredibly detailed about Confederate movements around and up Little Round Top, or vividly create a picture of life in the trenches of Northern France, I was really trying to teach my students something else.  

I wanted them to “feel” the incredible courage of Americans, willing to risk everything for a cause they believed in.  I tried to make them “live” in that moment with a nineteen year-old from Texas, or Maine, or Ohio, as they faced the existential threat of death.  My hope was they would understand that being an American (even an American fighting against the Union) was a cause worth fighting for, and even dying for.  

If there was any “indoctrination” going on, it was that even with all of its flaws, the concept of the American experiment was and is, worth it. It was so important, as the Founding Fathers so eloquently put it, that: “(W)ith a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” (Declaration of Independence).

Benjamin Franklin put it succinctly:  “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”  It was true outside Independence Hall in 1776, and it is still true today. 

More Perfect

I based my goals for the class on this “hanging together”; and one other phrase, this by James Madison.  “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…” (Preamble, US Constitution).  It’s that odd phrasing, “more perfect”.  We’d spend just a little time dealing with the grammatical issue created by “more perfect”.  Clearly if something is perfect, there is no more “perfecting”, nor making it “perfect-er”.  But it wasn’t a Madisonian grammar error, it was an intentional understanding.  

America was not perfect.  It was a Nation with enslavement and economic inequity, and huge regional diversity.  But instead of saying the negative, a “flawed” America (is that “woke”?), Madison instead recognized that the Constitutional Republic was a form of government so much better, that it simply need be allowed to “grow”.  The growth is the “more perfecting”, and we could see it in the Constitution itself.  The inclusion of an Amending process (Article V) allowed the Constitution to “grow”, from the Bill of Rights on.

The American experiment in democracy was literally based in change, in becoming “more perfect”.  {This is exact opposite of the legal argument of the Supreme Court “Originalists”.  Their opinion is that the Constitution was set in stone, like a tablet down from Mount Sinai.  Their idea is that anything other than amending, leaves the Constitution static and unchanged.  That doesn’t fit with Madison’s model at all}.

Learning Outcome

My goal for my students was to see America as a place where regardless of our ethnic, regional, racial, religious, gender or political differences; we could all still “hang together”. And that, together, even in a Nation full of flaws, we could continue the process of making it, and our lives, “more perfect”.  That was a goal worth living for, and if need be, dying for; despite the imperfections that America has.  And that was what teaching social studies in America was all about.

Today, all of those “vaunted ideals” are being erased.  The current America is becoming, in my view, “less perfect” at an alarming rate.  Patrick Henry in his famous “Liberty or Death” speech said:  “…The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms.” Today, you might say the next news update “shall bring to our ears” the sound of American democracy failing, on piece at a time.

Prudence

It would be easy to “go small”.  The “prudent” move might be to hide.  The shield of white, suburban America, of old age, of stable pension and mortgage; all seductively call out; “Lay low. Let the gale pass by”.  But what about those young Americans who drove into a hail of minié balls at Gettysburg with nothing but the bayonets on their rifles?   What about the heroes who held the trenches at Second Battle of the Marne?  What about my parents, who placed their lives on the line to stop Fascism in World War II?  They stood up to the tempest, regardless of the risk.  Those “ordinary” heroes (how can a hero be ordinary?) might not have articulated the Founding Fathers’ reasoning, but they were defending the American experiment.  

If not us, who will stand up for Jefferson’s and Franklin’s and Madison’s ideals?

And, what do I owe those thousands of students who watched the battle lines of Gettysburg move across the chalk-board, or imagined the stench of mud, feces and human rot in the trenches of my class?

American Answer

It must be more than being small; more than prudence in my actions.  There are many ways to stand for “more perfect” today, but hiding is not one of them.  So I too must call out a government that is acting Un-American, from secret police round-ups to blowing up ships on the high seas.  The Founding Fathers would have understood the need to leave their homes and act, as soldiers or legislators or statesmen, or even as authors.  Thomas Paine, the “conscience of the American revolution”, said it.  

“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess. Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”

He also wrote:

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” 

It is no time to be a summer soldier or a sunshine patriot.  Our souls are being tried, but the clear duty to our Nation remains.  We must stand by it now:  for our families and our ancestors, and for students past and future.  

Because those future students will ask, in a freer America; “what did you do?”  

We must provide the answer to that question; one that makes America more perfect again.

Political Process

OK, I know what a lot of you already think:  all politics are dumb, and ruin the lives of everyone it touches. From local elections here in Licking County, to the “Raw Milk” folks in the state legislature, to the daily shenanigans in Washington, DC: it’s hard to argue that much “good” is coming from politics.  

So, I’m not trying to describe the entire political world, just one particular political move by the Trump administration.  It’s dumb. And that’s unusual; like them, or NOT, the folks around Trump are usually pretty good at the “game” of give and take.  But they are blowing this one.  From a “political process” side, they need to be called out.

The Survivors

There was a dramatic media “conference” on the steps of the Capitol Wednesday morning.  Some of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse openly called for the release of all of the information the government has about him, THE EPSTEIN FILES.  They spoke in compelling terms: they were tragically damaged as young adolescents for the adult sexual pleasures of Epstein, Maxwell and their friends.  The survivors spoke with direct knowledge about what was done to them and who did it. And now, more than twenty years later, they have not recovered.  Some of those victims never did recover:  suicide is a constant concern.

Games are being played:  the Department of Justice released over 30,000 pages of “information” to the House Oversight Committee.  But, almost all of those pages already were available to the public, and the remainder are so highly redacted as to be useless.  Many thousands of pages remain under-wraps.  The survivors are calling on the Administration, and particularly on Donald Trump, to release them all.

The Trump “conspiracy”

And in response, Trump called them a “Democrat conspiracy”, and the demands like “information about the Kennedy assassination”.  He might even have arranged for an Air Force flyover to disrupt their conference.  So let’s breakdown what actually is going on here.  

THE EPSTEIN FILES were a major campaign point FOR Trump.  His folks demanded, and he agreed, that ALL the files be released as soon as he got elected. I don’t think it was a pivotal issue: no one voter for Trump and full FILE release, instead of Harris. But it was one that drove his already convinced voters to the polls, helping his turnout.  The EPSTEIN FILES were a major part of the whole “Deep State” Government concept, the “swamp” that Trump promised to drain.

While swamp mitigation wasn’t really on the Trump agenda, what his followers hoped for was at least a list of mostly Democratic names.  Some were already floated: Bill Clinton, Bill Richardson, George Mitchell, Alan Dershowitz, Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom, and of course Columbus’s own Lex Wexner, of Limited Brands.  Trump essentially threatened to “out” them all as sexual predators, by revealing the EPSTEIN FILES.

Frankly, most Democrats think the whole “swamp” thing was stupid (still do).  And most of us assumed that Clinton probably was involved. It fits his well-known proclivities.  So release the EPSTEIN FILES or not, it wasn’t really a big deal for Democrats.

But it sure was for Trump’s MAGA disciples.

The FILES Go On 

So we’ve been dealing with the EPSTEIN FILES for a couple of months. Here’s two essays I wrote about the subject already: It’s Not the Crime, It’s the Coverup, and  Tale of Two Deals.  But, somehow, the Trump Administration has put itself on the side of the coverup, when they ran for office on the side of “transparency”.  It just seems like a politically stupid place to be.  

Trump, and a sympathetic Melania should be meeting with the survivors.  Trump should be pressing the Congress to reveal all the EPSTEIN FILES. He should order Attorney General Pam Bondi to put them all online, with some redactions to protect “the innocent”.  But instead, The President is telling Republican Congressmen that they will be “hostile to the Administration” if they vote for making all the EPSTEIN FILES transparent.

It’s just a dumb political move.  He’s on the wrong side of HIS OWN VOTERS.  And while Trump (probably) won’t run for the Presidency again, he still needs the MAGA-faithful to exert his personal influence over the rest of the MAGA-Republican office-holders.  Why are Republicans Congressmen so afraid of Trump?  Because of his power and sway over the Republican primary voters.

All of which leads to the question:  why?  Why the reversal, why the sudden turn-around, why blame the Democrats for the issue Trump himself started?  For all the political “downsides” to his action, there seems to be only one, singular, solitary, answer.

Trump himself must have so much to hide, that he’s taking the heat and this damage to his own base, rather than have it revealed. 

 What other reason could there be?????

Pasteur

We know the great French scientist of the 19^th Century, Louis Pasteur, as one of the fathers of “germ theory”.   He created the rabies vaccine, preventing certain death from the bites of rabid animals.  And, he was a practical man.  He developed vaccinations for not just rabies, but also anthrax and cholera.  

When I was a child, I read the “Landmark Book” of Louis Pasteur. He occasionally bent the rules of “science”.  It was only after brief experimentation (fifty dogs) that Pasteur applied his rabies vaccination to a human. He used it on nine-year old Joseph Meister, badly mauled by a rabid dog.  In fact, Pasteur didn’t have a medical license, and so he supervised the process as the actual injections were made by a doctor.  

While it was really a no-lose situation – if the boy developed rabies it would surely kill him – it certainly wasn’t up to scientific standards even then.  But the boy survived, and rabies vaccinations today are improved from the original, incredibly painful, seventeen shot series  (one per day) in the stomach.  It’s now  four or five shots in the arm, similar in pain to tetanus shots.

Germ Theory

Pasteur applied his germ theory to prevention of disease.  So, he invented the process named after him, pasteurization.  It raised the temperature of a product, such as milk (and since he was French, wine of course) to kill bacteria.  This allowed for not only safer products, but also increased the shelf life.  Diseases such as tuberculosis, brucellosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and Q fever were prevented, as well as food poisoning from salmonella, listeria,  and Escherichia coli (Michigan).  That was in the 1860’s.

So, unless you grew up on a dairy farm and took a “straight shot” after milking,  all the milk we consume is pasteurized.   And looking at the disease list above, it’s a good thing.

Liberty

This week, some Republicans in the Ohio State Legislature are proposing to legalize raw milk production for human consumption.  One of the co-sponsors of the legislation, Kellie Deeter of Norwalk, says the quiet part out-loud:

“I’m personally not a raw milk advocate; I’m a liberty advocate,” Deeter said. “As long as people understand what they’re consuming,” (Newark Advocate).

And that’s a problem.  “In Florida, 21 people — including six children younger than 10 — have suffered infections since January after drinking raw milk from a dairy farm.”(Newark Advocate).

It’s the new MAGA-Republican “mantra”; freedom over science.  So what if non-pasteurized milk can cause all of the diseases.   It’s all about the “liberty” to make dangerous choices for themselves, their children and even unborn children.

Raw, unpasteurized milk has a cult-like following in some health food circles.  It’s one of the recommendations from Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr as part of his “MAHA” (Make America Healthy Again) program. Raw milk advocates even have a slick website put together, the Raw Milk Institute, extolling the virtues of raw milk, and displaying pictures of cute children pouring glasses of it. They claim it’s “just like human breast milk”.  But it’s not.

Science

Science proves it.  Pasteur fixed it, 165 years ago.  But today, science doesn’t “count” anymore.  After all, there’s a website, and there’s folks with letters after their names (MD, DVM, PhD, MS) that say raw milk’s great!! So who needs to listen to science?  Like pharmaceuticals, they claim it’s “Big Dairy” that’s keeping the “wonder” of raw milk from American consumers; forcing us to drink cheap, unsanitary, long-shelf-life “CAFO” milk (CAFO – Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, a “dirty word” for big dairy farms). 

It’s the so-called mystery of our time, the “specter” of big business, keeping health away from us regular folks in order to sustain their profits And while there may be a kernel of truth in that, there’s also a reality:  a product that has known dangers shouldn’t be marketed as a “wonder food”.  Remember, cigarettes in the 1930’s were “physician tested and approved!” (Healio).  Even more, good public health should do whatever it can to mitigate risks.  That’s not just common sense, but financially sound.  Treating folks who get sick costs all of us in one way or another.  If public health can prevent those expenses, it makes all health care a little bit cheaper.

What we shouldn’t do is allow already known dangers to be legal in the name of “FREEDOM”.

Childhood Vaccination

It’s an underlying theme of America today:  “freedom” versus “the public good”.  The most obvious example is in our ongoing public health crisis about gun death.  One side correctly points out the Second Amendment. It states:  “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  They want to end the conversation right there.  (Of course, there’s the “magic …”, the horizontal ellipsis, implying that the amendment said more.  And it does. “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”, implies that regulation and militia somehow temper “the right of the people”.)  

But this is not an argument about guns today.  It’s about an even more important public health issue, childhood vaccination.

Iron Lung

When I was a kid, back in the “dark old days” of the 1950’s and 60’s, we all ran the gauntlet of childhood diseases.  I had the mumps, measles, and scarlet fever.  Somehow I missed chicken pox, but that caught up with me in my early thirties.  There were no vaccines for those diseases then, and for most kids, it was a blip in a normal life.  But for some it was life altering, even life ending.  We all read about Helen Keller, blinded and deafened by childhood disease.  So while we “knew” we were likely to get sick, we (and our parents) could only hope we would be okay.

The great threat to us was polio, the “summer-time” disease. Some recovered from it, some were paralyzed or placed in “iron lungs”, and some died.  Our family’s luck was right down the street from our home in Cincinnati. Albert Sabin, who developed the oral vaccine, lived a couple of blocks away.  So while some of my sisters friends risked polio just a few years earlier, by the time I was at risk, I simply had to drink a cherry syrup, and be protected.

Eradication

And, since we travelled back to England to visit Mom’s family, we were also required to get smallpox vaccinations.  I still have the dime-sized scar on my left arm, the mark of “protection”.  Smallpox vaccinations were so successful that the disease was eradicated worldwide in 1980.   The scrouge of mankind for centuries, killing and scarring hundreds of millions without regard to status or financial standing, was wiped out, and no longer a risk.

Smallpox spread from one human to another.  It took a worldwide program of vaccination to disrupt the cycle of transmission. Once everyone was vaccinated (literally everyone) then there were no “transmitters” left, and the disease ended.

Weighing the Risks

It might sound hyperbolic, but getting a smallpox vaccination wasn’t just protecting yourself, it was protecting the entire human race.  And it worked so well, that kids today don’t even know what the “scar” looks like, or what it was for.

Today smallpox is “just” history.  And my generations gauntlet; measles, chicken pox, mumps, scarlet fever, rubella, whooping cough and the rest, are generally avoidable.  There are vaccines that can provide wide protection from all of those, and more.  In being vaccinated, children get personally protected. But they also protect other children whose conditions do not allow them to receive the medications.   If no one in a class gets measles, then, no one in the class risks measles.

The Public Good

There are risks in any medical procedure.  And it’s easy today for parents to get “scared away” from vaccination.  In our online world, it takes only a few keystrokes to find horror stories of measles (actually MMR) vaccine reaction.  Oddly, it difficult to find a reputable “scientific” site warning of those reactions. Instead, it’s someone’s blog, or opinion on Reddit, or some other personal account. Oh, and the law firms who will take your case of “for free” to sue if there is a vaccine reaction. (Free really means contingency fee based on collecting a settlement).

What does the “public good” require?  It requires that many assume the tiny risk of vaccine reaction, in order to protect all from the much greater risks of the diseases themselves.   It is the public duty, that our internet “informed” society is struggling to uphold.  And, it doesn’t help that the worm-damaged brain of the Secretary of Health and Human Services feeds the disinformation.

It took a vaccine to get our Nation back to work from the Covid pandemic.  That vaccination, and the, infamous “mask mandates”, helped us avoid the worst of Covid. In fact, it’s estimated that if everyone had followed the mandates, instead of taking “political stands” against them, another 220,000 Americans would have survived (NIH).  Their position was based on “Freedom”, but without regard for the public good.

To put it bluntly, some Americans were not only foolish, but selfish.  And they are now the ones running our public health systems today.  

America’s Problem

I resisted writing this essay.   With all of the craziness going on in American politics, for the Nation to actually come to grips with a “real” problem seems hopeless.  But the absolutely irony of what happened in Minneapolis this week is too great to ignore.

This is a far too familiar story, one unique to American life.  Children massed together, in school, at a church service.  A young, white person determines they are good “targets” for venting rage for whatever reason.   Shots fired:  children dead.

We struggle with the unfathomable grief of the parents and friends of the dead children.  We marvel at the stories:  the ten year-old whose best friend jumped on top of him to “take the hit”.  The fourteen year-old who marshaled his friends to safety under the pews.  The unlikely heroes who saved lives out of the strongest bond; the childhood duty of friendship.

Then, just like every other time for over a quarter of a century; we wring our hands, send out heartfelt thoughts and prayers, and go on about our lives.  This is an accepted part of our society, one that our Nation must condone.  How can that be?

Acceptance

Sure, you’re saying “It’s not accepted!  How dare I suggest such a thing?”  But if mass killing is not accepted, why aren’t we doing something about it?  Drunk driving, something that used to be “accepted” to the point that officers gave the offenders a ride home, now is seen as a heinous offense.  Need an example:  remember the Mayor of Columbus, Ohio, picked up “inspecting the city”?  That attitude changed, because a single group, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, made the loss of their loved ones to “accidents” unacceptable. Our national perception of the drunk behind the wheel went from a friendly ride, to opprobrium and jail.  

Marijuana use was “unacceptable”.  We arrested, jailed, and condemned the use of the drug for decades, ruining the users lives: “Reefer Madness”.  But now, twenty-four states have completely legalized its use, including here in Ohio.  What was a covert purchase in the shadows, now is a walk into an airy shop with different varieties of dope displayed on the shelves.  We changed our national perception of getting “high”.

And all of those “woke” things that MAGA-world rails against:  LGBTQ and DEI and the rest, were discriminated against and persecuted for generations.  In this same quarter century, we recognized that a free society should stop judging individual differences.  That’s up for question right now, as the current crowd tries to roll back those hard-won freedoms.  But, either way, we changed our perception of what individuals “can” be.

So, we can change.

Our Rights

The ultimate irony:  America sends its “Thoughts and Prayers” to those who were attacked while praying.  And when some made the suggestion that prayer wasn’t enough, the right wing media tried to make that the story:  “Minnesota bishop fires back after Mayor Frey knocks prayer…” (Fox News).  Of course, that’s just one more excuse, along with, “it’s too soon”, “we need to mourn the dead”, and “we HAVE OUR RIGHTS!!!”.

America has always been about balancing rights.  Justice Holmes made the point about the First Amendment; “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic” (Supreme Justia).  Justice Goldberg declared, “…for, while the Constitution protects against invasions of individual rights, it is not a suicide pact” (Supreme Justia).  So where does my “right” to own a high powered, multi-shot rifle get “tempered” by the blood of  8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski, killed in prayer?

Oh, I know, this is a two-sided conversation.  Of course the shooter was mentally deranged.  This is the definition of derangement:  shooting through the stain-glassed window of a Catholic Church at children.  How we handle mental illness is one side of the “acceptance” argument.  Because it’s easier to get “physical ailments”, from broken bones to cancerous organs, diagnosed and treated, then it is to access mental health care.  That is part of the problem.

Their Blood

But the other part is simpler:  those guns are designed to kill humans.  Somehow, in our national psyche, they have become synonymous with “FREEDOM”, wrapped up with some Jeffersonian quote:  “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” (Monticello.org).  These guns aren’t for hunting, or protection; they are symbolic of FREEDOM.

So those kids in Minneapolis, were they patriots or tyrants?  Because they paid the price of the so-called “liberty” for us to own the weapons.  Their blood watered “the tree” of gun FREEDOM.  And since we won’t do anything about either side of the “coin”, I guess we then must accept and condone the outrage.  We’ve done it over and over and over and over again.  When will it be enough?  

Essays on Mass Shootings

• Guns and Sadness    10/3/17
• A Teacher with a Gun   2/23/18
• Don’t Change the Subject    3/25/18
• Again    4/15/18
• Staying Small    5/3/19
• Saving Lives Is Not Politics   8/4/19
• The Pain Becomes too Great 8/5/19
• Who’s Your Daddy    8/21/19
• A Good Guy With a Gun   9/1/19
• Rights and Guns  5/17/20
• Pittsburgh  6/17/20
• Our Choice   12/1/21
• Toxic Mix    5/16/22
• Apple Pie    5/25/22
• Prairie Dogs   6/9/22
• The Will to Do It   7/6/22
• Hanging Together  8/12/22
• Swatted    9/23/22
• They Aren’t Pro-Life   9/23/22
• Motive, Means, Opportunity 1/25/23
• Accepted Losses  2/14/23
• German Rights   3/28/23
• Fear Itself   3/30/23
• The Gravel Pit    4/16/23
• Butcher’s Bill     5/8/23
• Right to Live        10/26/23
• On the List      9/5/24

Interstate Driving

Reverend Al Sharpton said it all on MSNBC this morning:   “They’re worried about the logo, when there’s nothing healthy on the menu”.  Yesterday I wrote about the month of August, “silly season” in the media world.  There’s not much silly in our current news, but here’s one.  It’s about a restaurant chain called “Cracker Barrel”.

Cracker Barrel found a niche in American life.  They were originally an Interstate stop, a restaurant that you’d pull off on a long trip, and depend on the menu and food quality.  And it worked. Their menu is based on what would have been served on Walton’s Mountain. (Remember the long-running TV show, the Walton’s, with John-Boy and Jim-Bob and the rest of the clan?)  Cracker Barrel décor is straight out of post-Depression America:  washboards and long timber saws, old metal signs advertising  tooth powder and Brylcreem, RC Cola and Goody’s Headache powder.

One proviso:  if you’re the driver, you need to be careful at Cracker Barrel.  The food is heavy on carbs; biscuits and gravy, fried chicken and mashed potatoes, country-fried steak and beans.  You might went to hold back a little bit, or find yourself yawning  fifteen miles down the road.  

Local Breakfast

And for locals who go to Cracker Barrel, well, I used to say that Jenn and I lowered the average age whenever we went.  Maybe, at sixty-eight about to be sixty-nine, I don’t do much lowering anymore, but Jenn still does!!!  It’s the Bob Evans crowd, and like that more local chain, both serve a mean breakfast, all day long.  At Bob Evans it’s called the “Homestead”, two eggs, bacon, ham, or sausage, biscuits and gravy, hash browns.  It takes two plates.  The similar meal at Cracker Barrel is called the “Old Timer’s”.  I’ve got both memorized.   If breakfast is your favorite meal, it’s the bomb. 

The final Cracker Barrel touch is the “old country store” in the lobby, and the rocking chairs on the front  porch.  That all works too. You can often find the elderly watching the world go by in the rockers as their biscuits settle.  And if you are looking for brand new versions of old LP records – why it’s at the Cracker Barrel.  And not just Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn, I found Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced”, a brand new press, as well.

The Sign

So what’s the news?  Well, Cracker Barrel’s original logo was the words “Cracker Barrel” in what looked like a pumpkin outline, beside a barrel.  And sitting by the barrel was an old guy in a straight-backed chair.  It was like if you came down from Walton’s Mountain to town for supplies.  The problem is the logo’s complicated: from afar, coming down the interstate with only seconds to decide whether to exit or not, you could read the words but the rest of the sign was too hard to decipher.

Last week, Cracker Barrel “corporate” decided to simplify things.  They announced they were going with just the words, and cutting out the old guy, the chair, and the barrel.  And MAGA world went nuts.

Why would corporate mess with what a pretty good thing?  It’s simple:  I made a  “Walton’s” reference at the beginning of this essay.  “The Walton’s” went off the air in 1981.  That’s forty-four years ago.  While the show went into syndication and reruns, you have to be in your fifties to even, maybe, have a memory of the original.  There’s a reason why I probably equal the average age in the restaurant. Management was looking to appeal to a younger generation.

But, MAGA-world saw the removal of the old guy and the barrel as, somehow, “WOKE”.  And WOKE, along with the “secret” initials “DEI”, are the worst possible insults.  Say that the hash browns are soggy, demand that the country-fried steak be more than hamburger, inquire what really is in the sawmill gravy:  but don’t call Cracker Barrel “WOKE”.  Even if the MAGA-world doesn’t really know what “Goody’s Headache Powder” or “RC Cola” was, they demanded the corporate Cracker Barrel rescind the changes.

Dying Off

And they did.  The wrath of MAGA-world is more than their restaurant chain can bear.  So the old guy is back, in the chair, beside the cracker barrel; telling a visual story far too complicated to understand.  And the corporate problem remains:  how to compete with the “cooler” restaurants down the road, from BW’s (wings) to Scramblers (breakfast).   The appeal of Cracker Barrel may still be strong, but their demographic is doing the absolute worst thing for their business – they’re dying.

And, as far as Reverend Al and MSNBC are concerned, they are getting their own “make-over” soon.  Comcast, decided to break off their cable business from their broadcast business.  So NBC remains with Comcast, but MSNBC (and CNBC) will now be in a company called Versant.  For the news side, the “NBC” has to go.  Soon, MSNBC will become MSNOW.  Even the MS (which was an original cooperation between Microsoft and NBC) will be rebranded as “My Source” – for “news, opinion, and the world”.  

But MSNBC is WOKE anyway. So other than a few of us “old” NBC-news fans, who remember Chet and David, John, Tom, Brian and Lester; no one else will care.