Category: Uncategorized

Access Hollywood

Over the entire Trump era, we kept wondering what happened to the Republican Party.  After all, Trump could have been stopped in 2016, when the Access Hollywood tape became public.  Then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican leadership could have said, we are withdrawing our nomination for Trump, and going with the former Republican Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence.  It was definitely a subject “on the table” in early October.  They might have lost the election, but they would have ended Trump.

But they didn’t.

The Perfect Call

They could have voted for the impeachment resolution against Trump at the end of the first Administration.  After all, he did tell President Zelenskyy of Ukraine to give him “dirt” on prospective opponent Joe Biden, in return for hundreds of millions of US aid.  It wasn’t “the perfect call” contended by Trump.  He used government money for political coercion. 

But they didn’t.

The Insurrection

Or, they could have voted for the second impeachment.  That one was a “slam dunk”.  The President sent the mob to Congress, to these same Congressmen and Senators. He tried to use that mob force to make them deny the 2020 election results.  Clearly, many Republican Senators wanted to vote for conviction, as that could have barred Trump for running for future office.  

All they needed was the “cover” of the Majority Leader, still Mitch McConnell.  Instead, McConnell chose to use as a “fig leaf” a questionable legal theory that Congress couldn’t impeach someone who no longer held the office (making it easy to avoid consequences by simply resigning).  As many as seventeen Republican Senators followed McConnell’s lead, and would have followed the other way if the Majority Leader had chosen to vote for conviction. 

But they didn’t.

The Pass

Instead, McConnell scolded Trump after the vote, and suggested the Courts could hold him accountable.  But when Jack Smith and the Justice Department tried to do exactly that, Chief Justice John Roberts instead gave Trump, and the office of the Presidency, broad immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts”.  

Instead of the Courts dealing with criminality, they wrote a giant “get out of jail free” card and handed it to Trump.  They gave him a “pass” for the January 6^th Insurrection.  They could have required him to stand trial for his acts.

But they didn’t.

Breaking Point

But this week, perhaps for the first time in the Trump Era, the Republicans in Congress found their missing courage.  Trump finally reached the “bridge too far”, even for his sycophantic members of the House of Representatives.  What was this first “breaking point”?  

The Trump Administration wants to create a 1.776 Billion Dollar slush fund to “pay-back” victims of what they call Democratic Administration “lawfare”.  What it really means, is that those who committed crimes in the name of Trump and MAGA, already convicted in court, then pardoned from Federal prison by Trump; can now get cash for their troubles.  It’s a Trump slush fund, run by Trump appointees, with no oversight by the Congress at all.  

For those who grew up on “Schoolhouse Rock” era, where Congress creates the laws (and funds the government) and the President executes it, this “1776 Fund” is completely done through executive orders.  The Treasury will transfer the money to the Justice Department.  Congress has no say.

If past is prologue, there might have been some Republican “insider” grumbling, and Democrats might have screamed, but Congress would let it go.

But they didn’t.

Ducking Courage

The week Senate Majority Leader John Thune pulled the partisan “reconciliation budget” from the Senate floor, for two reasons.  First, Democrats might force an amendment requiring Republicans to actually vote on the 1776 Fund.  And if that happened, Thune didn’t have the votes to get either that amendment, or the whole budget, to pass.  (By the way, Thune already had to remove the $1 Billion addition for the Trump “Ballroom”).  

Senate Republicans aren’t willing to let the Fund go forward.  Trump thought they’d fall in line, no matter what. But, even MAGA loyalist Ron Johnson of Wisconsin called it a “Galactic Mistake”.  They all could have ducked, and let Trump have his fund.

But they didn’t.

And in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson did what he always does when faced with a “rebellion” within his own Party.  He took his ball, and went home.  Johnson recessed the House early, and sent them off for the Memorial Day holiday. They weren’t voting on the 1776 Fund, but they were about to vote on a War Powers Resolution on the Iran War.  And Trump (and Johnson) were going to lose that vote.  Enough Republicans in the House are fed up with Trump’s war, that they were willing to join Democrats to vote against it.  

Johnson had only one way to stop it – send them home.  So he did.

Don’t get your hopes up.  Like just defeated Republican Tom Massie of Kentucky, most Republicans in the House and Senate will still support Trump, ninety percent of the time.  And, again like Massie, they know that a high profile stand against Trump might cost them their seat.  But there is safety in numbers.  And enough of them have joined together, that they have the “cover” from Trump retribution that they need, to actually show some courage.

Now, at least, we know what it takes.  

(The much misquoted first words and title to Stephen Stills song, sung by Crosby, Still and Nash, Helplessly Hoping)

Recent History

Even at my age, nearing seventy, it’s hard to remember the hard won victories of the 1960’s Civil Rights movement.  Many of those took place in the early 1960’s, when I was a young child.  It was the era of hope for racial equality.   The dramatic struggles, led by Dr. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, put racial discrimination up-front for the American people.  It was based on a simple principle: when confronted with the contrast between America’s founding philosophy and the reality of racial inequity, America would choose for the good. 

Those leaders believed that if all of America saw what awful violence was done to peaceful protestors, the good citizens of the United States wouldn’t tolerate it.  And in the “long view” that Dr. King and the rest took (“the arc of the moral universe”), they were right.  The visions of peaceful demonstrators being harassed and attacked at lunch counters made us cringe.  The “Freedom Riders” dragged off buses and beaten near to death made us shudder.  And the attack dogs and fire hoses of Police Chief Bull Connor in Birmingham, unleashed on well-dressed young people whose only difference was the color of their skin, was intolerable.

Jim Crow

All of those marches, and all of that suffering, led to the March on Washington, best known for King’s “I Have A Dream” speech delivered from the Lincoln Memorial.  Ultimately President Johnson (newly in office after the Kennedy assassination) was able to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  That ended “Jim Crow”, the legal separation of the races.  But it did not guarantee the right of Black people to vote.

It was the terrible attack of state police force against peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that convinced America that the right to vote was a separate, and special, American principle.  And it was the decision of the ABC television network that placed that violence in front of the American people.  In 1965, there were three networks, and at best, three channels on television.  The most popular Sunday evening show was ABC’s Sunday night movie, and on March 7^th, 1965, the movie was, ironically, Judgment at Nuremburg, about the Nazi war crime trials.

ABC interrupted the movie with coverage of the violence in Selma.  The whole country saw peaceful citizens, dressed in “Sunday best”, walking across a bridge, then savagely beaten by the police.  As Dr. King instructed, they did not fight back.  They were young, King himself only thirty-five, and the physical leader of the march, John Lewis, was twenty-five.  

Voting Rights

America was outraged.  And King convinced Johnson to back the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the final legal block in building Black civil rights in America.  That Act stood as the firm foundation of American voting fairness for forty-five years. Current Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, an opponent of the Voting Rights Act since the early 1980’s, leads the current attack on it.  He finally cobbled together a five vote majority to restrict the law in 2013.  And now, with the Trump influence of three appointees on the Court, last month he eviscerated it.

The corpse of the Voting Rights Act wasn’t even cold when states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and Florida moved to redraw legislative districts. That includes Congressional Districts.  Their goal was simple and racist:  to obliterate Black majority districts (required by the Act) and dissolve the power of Blacks voting in the South.

We went from 2026 to 1963, at the speed of the internet.

Shorten the Arc

There are long term solutions.  If:  if Democrats regain control of the House, Senate and the White House, a new Voting Rights Act (the John Lewis Act) could be passed.  The Court would be hard-pressed to overrule the newly acquired power of that Congress and Presidential authority.  But that’s for 2029.  And there are protests happening now.  The drama on the floor of the Tennessee legislature, as the few Black members burned paper Confederate flags watching their own districts wiped out, is but one example.  

But we can’t wait for 2029.  Too much can happen, too many things have to go right, to depend on that.  Besides, it requires an unfounded “faith” that free and fair elections will still be available.  Every action by the current government denigrates that belief.  So what can be done NOW?

At the moment, the re-birth of Jim Crow voting is confined to the old Confederacy.  Americans can determine not to spend their money in those states.  They are all vulnerable to an economic boycott by Americans who think their racist re-districting is intolerable.  And for those who think “economic boycotts” aren’t a “fair” way to protest, I only point you to the Boston Tea Party. It was the original economic protest against government inequity.

Empty Bridges

And modern Black leadership groups are once again turning to their young people to lead the struggle.  A huge and visible part of the “old South” today is college football:  Alabama, Clemson, Florida State, Florida U and Miami; LSU and Tennessee. The Southeastern Conference is the obvious example.  The schools depend on the abilities of young Black men to win their games.  And those young men now have great choices, not just on where they attend, but how much they are paid.  If they instead choose USC, or Ohio State, or even MICHIGAN (a dangerous thought for one who lives in Buckeye Country); the impact will be swift.  

We can all make economic choices to speak out against racists laws.  We can reward those states who resist the MAGA pressure, and we can deny our money to those that don’t.  There won’t be a “Edmund Pettus Bridge” moment.  But an empty Lake Pontchartrain Causeway to New Orleans, or Overseas Causeway to the Florida Keys, or Wilson Bridge to Mobile; might make the point.

Track Season

So, maybe some “Our America” readers wonder:  what happened?  They’re used to several essays (good or bad) a week.  But in the past couple of weeks, the writing slowed down.  So here’s the good news:  nothing is wrong.  It’s just May, and May for me is the heart of track season.  As a track official I’m “working” four or five meets a week.  For a retired guy, that’s a lot like a full-time job, even though it’s fun.  So there’s been less of the “dawn breaks” time to sit down and write, and fewer of the ongoing discussions that keep me deep in Our American political world.  

Don’t worry, track does come to an end (though Jenn’s not so sure sometimes!!).  And they’ll be plenty of time to get back to what I’ve chosen to do:  comment on Our America, and Our World.

But while I’m talking about track and field, let me draw a couple of parallels.  Track is unlike a lot of other sports, where every game is “equal” to most other games.  In football for example, if you lose the first three games of the season, your opportunity to make the “playoffs” is low.  So as a football coach you have to take the first game as seriously as the last. There’s always room for improvement, but you better be ready to go when the first whistle blows on the field in August.

First Attempt

Track is a little bit different.  We run meets all season, from the snow-blustery first meets of March to the sunbaked (or rain soaked, or both) days of May and June.  But, in the end, only those meets in the championship season “count”.  As a team or individual, you could lose all of March and April, then miraculously pull it together in May and June and still make it to the State Championship meet.

Of course, it usually doesn’t happen that way.  Usually the whole “regular” season builds, using each competition as data to prepare for the next, culminating in the “peak” at the most important meets of the year.  And, back in the day when I was coaching (now nine years ago), I took each meet seriously all year, working hard to win each time.  It not only prepared us physically for the year end championships, but it got us into the mind-set of winning.  That was important.  As athletes, often times the key difference isn’t talent or physical preparedness. It’s all “mental”.

Second Attempt

So this week it’s the beginning of the “elimination series” in high school track – district week.  And my focus this week is the nine different pole vault competitions that I’m officiating (five down, four to go) .  The stakes for the vaulters are simple:  finish in the top four and move onto the Regional meet competition.  Fail to make that standard, and track season is over. 

In each competition there comes the moment, the exact height (measured to the lesser quarter-inch) that determines who goes on, and who’s done.  A whole season of vaulting, hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars of poles, injuries overcome or still nagging: it all comes down to three attempts in a five minute period at that one height.  Find a way over the bar, and it’s onto the Regional.  Fail, and done.  There’s no one else to blame, no missed pass or failed block.  It’s just you, a runway, a pole and the bar. The coaches are there to help – but in the end, it’s still just you.

Final Attempt

As a coach, those three attempts (three fails and your out) go so fast.  There seems almost no chance to make the corrections, to the “right pole” or the right settings; to get the kid over.  And to the athlete, physical tightening is the enemy. First there’s one miss, then the second.  Third attempts are all mental.  If you can only “just” do what you’ve always done:  no pressure.  But pressure tightens the legs, changes the step, shortens the muscles, and that alters the entire “geometry” of pole vault.  It’s the biggest lesson the rest of the season can teach; relax under “third attempt” pressure.

For some, there’s the joy of clearance.  But for many, it’s the bittersweet end of the season.  On the one hand, it’s onto summer.  On the other, it’s back to work, to get even better for next year, to “feed the addiction” of clearing that one-inch diameter, fourteen feet, ten-inch long bar set far above the padding.  As the official, I can see it in their eyes, the set of their shoulders, their first words off the mat with the bar lying by their side.  You know what their determination will be, maybe before they even do.

Take A Breath

This isn’t a political essay today – but we can all learn from the lessons of track and field.  Politics in America is a lot like a track season.  There’s lots of regular season events; tests along the way to learn and develop tactics, strategies, and issues.  But in the end, there’s only one final test, one moment when everything comes to a head.  It’s Election Day. 

I will not claim that American politics are an “equal” fight right now.  Those in power today are doing everything they can to “set the table” for a win in November.  We can argue whether that’s ethical or legal or not.  But there’s an old axiom in American politics: “All’s fair in love and in war, and in politics”.  We are now finding out how extreme that axiom can be.

November 2026 is not the “State Championship” of elections.  It’s more like the Regional meet, the intermediate step leading to the final showdown.  But, at least for Democrats, it’s a lot like that third attempt at the bar.  We know we “can” clear the height.  But can we “just” put ourselves together enough to do it.  Because we need to qualify, to get to the next step, to regain some power to make the last competition in 2028 winnable and fair.  We need to win in November, no matter the daily stresses of the ongoing political disaster that is the United States today.  

So take a breath, focus on your technique, and make the bar this November. 

Then we can get ready for the rest.

Balance

The media needs to “balance” their news reporting.  After all, this is the era when the “friends” of the Trump Presidency “buy” the news. That’s like David Ellison through his Sky Dance corporation, who bought CBS.  The rich tradition of Edward R Murrow and Fred Friendly is now sullied by the carefully “curated” influence of conservative News Editor Bari Weiss.  She was brought in to “make sure” that the “Eye Network” reports as much negative news about Democrats than the MAGA Republicans in control.

Ellison’s also out to get the old “Time Warner” properties, which includes CNN.  What he wants is Fox News 2 and 3; outlets for his (and his “friend’s”) MAGA views.   And of the once great daily newspapers in the United States:  most are owned by Gannett.  One of the two independent voices of American journalism, the Washington Post, is owned by Billionaire Jeff Bezos (Amazon).  It’s been pared down to Columbus Dispatch size, and warned off the toughest stories.  Only the New York Times stands as the last bastion of paper and ink, willing to speak truth to power.

Rifts

So, there’s all sorts of stories about the “rifts” in the Democratic Party.  There’s the ongoing “division” between the mainstream, moderate Democrats, and the Progressive, Bernie and AOC Democrats.  They represent a difference in thought, but, more importantly, the Progressive wing wants to portray the moderate side as “establishment” Democrats, looking to profit from office.  In fact, it’s interesting that the current Republican campaign against Sherrod Brown portrays him as the “mad liberal”, when in fact, Sherrod has been a solid supporter of the working man for his entire career.  But that’s the MAGA attempt to paint every Democrat as a socialist.

But here’s the real story.  It’s not about Democratic splits and shifts.  It’s not about the looming Presidential race in 2028: Kamala or Gavin, Pete or Josh, Gretchen or Andy or Wes or even AOC!  The Democrats are not the story of 2026 or 2028.  The story is this:  broken promises and corruption.

Promises Broken

Trump promised to lower prices.  He (supposedly) won the 2024 election on the price of “eggs”.  So let’s talk today about the price of gas.  Or the cost of food at the grocery store.  Or the still-escalating cost of health care.  It’s simple:  Trump promised America that they could look forward to a better life for our children than we have today.  And that’s just not happening.  In fact, the opposite is true.

Trump promised no more foreign wars.  But here we are:  entangled in the Middle East (once again).  The greatest military power the world has ever seen is stymied by drones, speedboats, and good old-fashioned naval mines.  Iran has us by the fuel pump, and they keep on squeezing.

It was a war of “choice”:  Trump’s choice.  And Trump never even tried to convince America that it was the right choice.  Meanwhile, we still are involved in Venezuela, and now are eyeing Cuba as the next “victim”.  The American military is being stretched to the point that Trump wants to double the budget, build a whole new “golden fleet” of  “Trump-class battleships”, and place an untested “golden dome” of missile defense over the nation.  It is Teddy Roosevelt’s 19^th century foreign policy, misplaced on a modern world. 

Debt and Corruption

The United States is in greater debt than ever before, over $39 Trillion.  That’s $3 Trillion more than under Biden, just a year and a half ago.  And who is paying for that debt.  The American people, in part by taxes and cuts to social service programs, but more by the “traditional” US government way:  printing more money.  

And meanwhile, Trump himself is corrupt beyond imagination.  Just this week, his own financial statements show that he is engaging in “insider trading” for millions in the US stock market.  He buys stock in companies that he then makes government deals with.  He promotes companies that he has invested in.  He’s “bellying up” to the Wall Street trough, and making sure that the Trump family gets its share.  It’s all illegal as Hell; but it doesn’t matter.  He controls the Justice Department. He controls the Supreme Court.  Trump has a “blank check” from that Court to commit any act under the color of “official action”.  It’s the “Outer Limits” of corruption.

Funding Insurrection

And now, there’s the “1776 Fund”.  So let’s see:  the President of the United States sues the Internal Revenue Service of the United States, the IRS that HE is in charge of.  He demands billions of dollars of damages from the IRS, HIS IRS.  It’s like me, suing me, and making you pay for it.  It’s a court case that cannot be won, because the plaintiff is essentially suing himself.  But that’s what was happening, bound to be another Trump case tossed out because of bad law and bad lawyering.

But here’s some legal trickery.  Trump decides to “settle” with himself, to the tune of 1.776 Billion dollars.  And then he determines that the “settlement money” would be placed in a fund with the Justice Department to pay for the “damages” done to all those “poor folks” who engaged in an attempt to overturn the government on January 6^th, 2021.  Maybe they went to jail, maybe they lost their law licenses, maybe they got fired from their jobs.  But now, Trump can make it up to them, and “pay forward” for whatever might be cooked up for 2028.  And he’s doing it on “our dime”; my tax money and yours.  The Courts can’t control it, and the current Congress won’t.  We, the People of the United States, will be paying for the next insurrection, in advance.  

Not About Dems

Ain’t that something?

It’s not about Democrats.  As Democratic strategist James Carville said, we should all go on vacation until after the election.  It’s not about splits in the party, or the differences between retiring Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.  It’s about what America is rapidly becoming:  a rogue nation, casually starting wars without regard, spending ourselves into oblivion, and letting our leaders enrich themselves from the public treasury.  

If that’s not enough to go out and vote for Democrats in November, then all I can say is the famous line from The West Wing:   “…if you won’t speak up because you can’t be bothered, then, I don’t even want to know you.”

(One of the recurring themes of our times, Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, the Musical)

The Narrative

If you enjoyed Hamilton the Musical, you must remember the dramatic ending.  Hamilton is shot by then Vice President Aaron Burr.  His wife, Eliza, always wanted to be part of his “narrative” (except for when Hamilton revealed his affair with Maria Reynold’s.  Then she wanted her story to “Burn”).  But in 1804, Hamilton was dead.  Eliza would live for another fifty years, and write her own narrative.  The  concluding song of the musical is called “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”.  Eliza emphasizes that she was granted “time” to secure Hamilton’s legacy as a Founding Father, and to make her own mark on the world.

Towards the end of her life, after many personal and civic accomplishments, she joined with former First Ladies Dolly Madison (James) and Louisa Adams (John Quincy) to raise money to build the Washington Monument, in honor of Hamilton’s mentor, the First President.  This was over forty years after Washington’s death. The actual obelisk wasn’t completed and opened to the public until 1888.

Previously, the United States Congress built the Capitol building, with a vault for Washington’s body to be interred.  But the Washington family already had a vault for him and his wife Martha at his beloved home Mt. Vernon, and refused to have his remains moved.  The room in the Capitol become a storage area for the “national” funeral bier.  So the Washington Monument, was the first “National” construction to the Founding Father.

Wait for It

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.  A private “memorial” was erected in front of the Washington City Hall a couple of years later, and Congress considered building a monument to Lincoln at that time.  But it wasn’t until 1910, forty-five years later, that the actual Congressional Commission to build the Lincoln Memorial met.  Robert Lincoln, the President’s son and himself a former Cabinet member and ambassador, was seventy-eight at the opening ceremony in 1922.

The Jefferson Memorial was opened in 1943 over a century after Jefferson died.  The “newer” monuments followed the same pattern.  The FDR Memorial opened in 1997, fifty years after his death. And the Martin Luther King monument was dedicated in 2011, fifty-three years after the assassination.  

Monuments, as Eliza Hamilton sang, tell our story.  They help define our legacy, what history we consider.  Washington’s monument, an Egyptian-like enigma, not only represents the power of Washington’s Masonic connections, but also, like the man, “stands off” from the rest of the statuary.  There is no face of Washington, no Greek god-like depiction.  (There was such a statue, commissioned by Congress.  But it was jokingly called “Washington waiting for his clothes”, as the half-nude leader sits with his hand raised.  It’s now located in the museum of American History). 

Running Out of Time

Donald Trump is a man running out of time.  It’s not just that his second term of office will end in January of 2029, but Trump himself is showing the sure signs of old age.  He’ll be eighty next month. And Trump isn’t waiting for his descendants to build him monuments.  He doing it himself, “speeding up” time so that he might see (and revel in) the outcome.

Trump is well aware of the concept of “who tells the story”.  He wants to make sure that he controls the narrative.  It’s not just that his Administration is busy “scrubbing” American history, removing inconvenient truths (thanks, Al Gore) like discrimination and prejudice and the January 6^th Insurrection from the “narrative”.  Trump wants his monuments, now, so he can see for himself how America will celebrate his ascendancy.

There’s a list:  the ballroom, built in contravention of all the historic building codes in Washington, DC.  There’s the planned Triumphal Arch, to be built to overshadow both Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.  Trump wants his signature on American money, and his face on US Passports.  And there’s the “new and better” reflecting pool, soon to be “swimming pool blue”.  

Branding America

Trump has always wanted monuments.  His “branding” has often proved to be more lucrative than actual Trump ownership.  And he’s determined to place his “brand” on Washington, DC, and Trump Airport in Palm Beach, the Trump Interstate from Texas to Montana, and the “Trump Class” new battleships, part of the “Golden Fleet”.  

So don’t be so surprised that Trump wants his “monuments” now, instead of fifty years or more after his death.  It’s not just a matter of personal satisfaction; it’s a way to write his story in stone, much more difficult to edit than the Wikipedia version.  At eighty years-old, he is running out of time. 

And he wants to tell his own story.

Negotiate from Strength

“Going to China” is a phrase from American history (and from the movie, Star Trek VI).  Ok, the Star Trek quote was actually by Spock, who said, “Only Nixon could go to China”.  It meant that only President Nixon, a hardline anti-communist (who triggered the “kitchen debate” with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at a 1950’s kitchen show) had the political “chops” to visit the Communist People’s Republic.  And only Admiral James T Kirk, the renowned warrior against the Klingon Empire, could open negotiations with the United Federation of Planets’ arch-rival.

Donald Trump is neither Richard Nixon, nor James T Kirk.  The latter two were opening negotiations from strength.  And Trump might have been in that position, a couple of months ago, before his “war of choice” in Iran.  

But now the United States is caught in a stalemate, an asymmetric standoff with a “lesser” military power in Iran.  We have “all the cards” when it comes to bombs and weapons.  But Iran is willing to accept incredible levels of punishment, and still disrupt the world’s economy by holding the Straits of Hormuz.  That’s something they haven’t done before; a direct reaction to the US/Israeli attacks on their nation.

Hat in Hand

So Trump goes to China without a victory in Iran.  In fact, he goes as a man desperate to find a solution to the problem he created.  The entire world is looking for the United States to end the economic crisis originating in the Persian Gulf, and, so far, the United States hasn’t delivered.  

What can China do?  They are a major supplier of weapons to Iran, and a major consumer of oil that comes through the Straits.  So they have an interest in gaining a settlement in the Middle East, and some influence over the remaining hardline generals in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, now in charge of the Iranian government.

So now the author of the “Art of the Deal” is in China, needing some deal “magic” to end the new quagmire in Iran.  What does Trump have to offer?

Taiwan and Chips

The primary long-term goal of China is to gain control of the island nation of Taiwan.  The United States has, since 1949, defended the right of Taiwan to be a Chinese nation independent of the People’s Republic.  Taiwan is armed with US made F-16 fighters, US made M1-A2 Abrams battle tanks, and US made Patriot missile defense systems.  The great Taiwanese fear is that their protection will be compromised by some bargain Trump might make with President Xi of the People’s Republic. Trump has already said he will discuss US arms sales to Taiwan with the Communist Chinese leader.

And China wants access to the most advanced computer chips (ironically, mostly produced in Taiwan).  The US has blocked that access, unwilling to give the Chinese military the ability to match US systems.  So there’s another bargaining “chip” that could “hit the table”.  (And, as President Biden realized, the production of these kind of chips inside the United States should be a major US priority.  Biden began that process with the “Chips Act” passed by Congress).

Trade and Manufacturing

Besides pressure on Iran, Trump wants more trade with China.  One of the main products the US used to sell to China was soybeans.  But the Trump tariffs put an end to that trade, and China turned to other sources throughout the world.  That’s caused many Midwest farmers (mostly Trump supporters) to face severe financial strain and even bankruptcy.   

And, it’s expected that the US President will try to make a deal to bring more Chinese manufacturing to the United States.  This will create an odd conflict here at home.  MAGA has been the leader against Chinese based industries in the United States, particularly when it comes to solar energy development.  Even here in Pataskala, there was a MAGA outcry when a partly Chinese owned company opened up a solar panel factory just down the road.  We saw Facebook memes of Mao Zedong and saw the immortal phrase, “Chinese Communists in Pataskala!!!”.  

Desperate Times

Another watch-phrase:  “desperate times call for desperate solutions”. The US President is desperate to end Iran.  After all, it’s interfering with the Ballroom development!   Will Trump throw Taiwan “under the bus”?  Will he re-open trade with the Chinese Communist manufacturing behemoth?  And will he let China have the most advanced computer chips in the world?  

Trump’s plane just touched down in China.  The President passed the first test:  he made it down the “big stairs” from Air Force One without incident.  Let’s hope that’s not the only success he has in the next forty-eight hours.  And, let’s hope that he doesn’t give away our allies to end his war in Iran.

Fair and Balanced

The Democratic Party did an “autopsy” of our failure to win the Presidency in 2024.  There’s a lot of “what ifs”.  What if the Biden campaign staff that Harris took over misjudged the political environment?  What if they allowed Harris and Walz to continue their attacks on Trump, instead of switching to the “Happy Warrior” mode?  And, was the campaign money spent on the campaign, or on the campaign advisors?

Eventually the report will be released.  The media is desperate to “balance” coverage.  So much bad stuff reported about Trump; from Iran to ICE to Epstein to profligate spending on ballrooms, trophy monuments and reflecting pools.  As Hillary discovered in 2016, even the New York Times  had to “find dirt” on her, just to look “fair and balanced” (oops, that’s the old Fox News slogan).   Like a dog with a bone, they won’t let it go. And it might make for interesting reading.

The Summer of 2024

But here’s the issue.  We will never be in the reality of the summer of 2024 again.  Think of the remarkable series of events that happened  from June through August.  Biden locked up in the debate with Trump.  Trump literally dodged a bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania.  He then appeared, “wounded and bandaged”, at the Republican Convention, and kissed the helmet of the fireman killed in the attempt. (And look, whether you think the Butler assassination attempt was real or faked, it was definitely amazing political theater. And a man really did get killed protecting his family. The Trump campaign managed to spell his name wrong).  

Then the Democratic Party pushed Biden out of the race.  I love Nancy Pelosi; she’s as tough as they come.  The moment when she ignored Biden’s declaration to stay in, and said he was still thinking about it, was “classic Pelosi”.  Her acolytes, one at a time, called for Biden to step out:  Swalwell to Raskin to Schiff.  Without actually saying it, she shoved Biden to the edge. And, when Biden turned to his old friend Barack Obama for help, there were crickets.  It was only a few days later that he turned the race over to Vice President Harris.  Harris inherited his entire campaign fund and team.  It was the “Harris Campaign”, run by Biden campaigners.  

It’s like the autopsy of that 5000 year old hunter found in the glacier in the Swiss Alps.  Sure, it’s fascinating, but it’s a “one off”:  a series of circumstances that will never happen again.  

Cause of Death

What are we likely to hear in the “autopsy”?  

1.  Messaging – Harris and Walz were pulled off of Trump (remember, “he’s just weird”) and put on more positive messages.  The “Happy Warrior” theme became more important than the existential threat that Trump’s potential second Presidency represented (now borne out).

2.  Turn out – 3.2 million voters that cast a ballot in 2020 did not cast one in 2024.  Harris was down 6.2 million from Biden’s total in 2020.  Clearly a large portion of the “no shows” were Democrats.  If the 3.2 million voted for Harris, she wins.

3.  Money – How much of the campaign spending went into the pockets of campaign strategists, charging 20% or more of massive advertising buys? Would that fee for service cost be better spent in get out the vote activities?

4. Young People – Did the Democratic campaign take young people for granted?  One obvious gaff: Harris refused to “go to the mountain” of Joe Rogan, and lost the opportunity to gain influence with his multiple millions of loyal followers.

5. A subject I’m sure the “autopsy” will never touch:  what were the ramifications of running the first woman as the Presidential nominee, not to mention a person of West Asian and Jamaican descent?  Did that create the impact on voter turnout (see item 2)?

Different World

2028, the next Presidential election, will be a different world.  And, 2026 is RIGHT NOW.  Democratic Chairman Ken Martin wants to keep Democrats’ “eyes on the prize” of winning back the House and the Senate.  He doesn’t want to feed the media with a story that will disrupt the continual flow of Trump failures.   But the longer he stalls releasing the autopsy, the more clamor the media will create. 

One of the “Meet the Press” gaggle made the right suggestion.  Push the autopsy out the door, Friday, May 22^nd, at 5:15 pm.  Sure it will make the news.  But who will be watching on Memorial Day Weekend?  Then it’s out, and done, and the media world can focus on the Ballroom, or the Reflecting Pool, or the Strait of Hormuz, or whatever crazed thing the Trump White House does next.

An autopsy means something is dead.  But the challenges of saving the Union are still very much alive.  So get the report out of the way, and let’s go to work.

This is a part of the Sunday Story series – no politics today, just old track stories wrapped around the weather.

In Any Language

They say the Intuit language (Eskimo) has dozens of words for what in English we call snow.  That makes a lot of sense.  Snow has a prime impact on their lives, near or above the Arctic Circle.  It even has an impact here.  Better to shovel “powder” than “slush”.  

But in my “side-profession” of track officiating, we have a lot of words for rain.  After all, outdoor track is a spring sport in Ohio.  I have been drenched, frozen, and sunburned – all on the same Saturday.   So, on this, my first Saturday off in a while, I encountered another form of rain:  “blue sky rain”.

What is “blue sky rain”?  It’s rain coming from the few random clouds that are scattered among the blue sky.  It doesn’t look like a rain-day, in fact, it looks like a blue sky day.  But then, there’s those pesky, adolescent clouds, primed to screw the whole thing up.  Thus, we have “blue sky rain”.

Tracking Weather

Now the weather is a serious concern in Track and Field.  And, in this modern age, I have all the tools to keep abreast of what’s going on.  There’s the paid subscription to the Weather Channel on my phone, and the direct link to NBC4’s viper radar.  I even have an app called “My Lightning Finder”. (Though to be clear, I don’t have lightning and I don’t want lightning!!)  It will detect lightning in a specified area.  

The Ohio High School Athletic Association defines ten miles as the “lightning zone” when competition must be suspended.  So “My Lightning” creates a ten mile circle of detection.  It goes off with a siren in my pocket, one that I can hear even during a tight finish of the 1600 meter run.   

Experience

But I’ve been on the track since 1970, so I also have a “sense” of what and when the weather will be.  Fifty-six years of getting soaked and frozen to the bone will do that to you.  My fastest 220 dash (yards back then, not meters) was in 1974, the day that Xenia got destroyed by tornadoes.  We were farther south at Reading High School in Cincinnati, but I remember having a “tail wind” all the way around the curve and down the straight.  That night, we watched eight different tornadoes dance up and down the hills of Cincinnati.

I sat in a car in a parking lot at Bowling Green State University’s track and watched lightning strike the light pole nearby. I stood near the woods at Watkins Memorial High School (out by the old discus pad) and heard a tornado building in the forest. That was when I yelled on the walkie-talkie – “Get those people the Hell out of the bleachers!!” It was the right sentiment, but my PA Announcer had the mike keyed up at the same time.  That dramatic announcement may well have induced a bit of panic in the crowd.  And then there was the tornado at the District meet in Dublin, when an assistant coach took the full brunt of the fold-up tent in her face.

I’ve seen the wall of a storm front moving in on a starting line of three hundred kids at the McGowan Cross Country meet. I even had the sense to cancel the race, before I sent them into the forest with the coming fifty mile an hour wind.  So, I guess I know weather.

Run ‘Em

And, it seems like for time in memorial, I’ve had that conversation with old track coaches as we huddled around the edges of the concession stand, watching the rain whip sideways and backwards.  Someone always says:  “Well, sometimes we run ‘em in this, and sometimes we don’t”.  I even had it hail in inch in the middle of the 110 high hurdles, a dicey proposition at best.  So I know a cloudy day from a rainy day.   And I know the difference between threatening weather, and just wet weather where the kids can’t hold onto their pole vault poles.

But today was a “blue sky rain” day.  The blue sky represented hope for reprieve, a day when maybe we might even stay warm.  But, the “adolescent clouds”, like teenagers all stormed up, might throw a wrench in things. They well might get it together and ruin the whole day.  So there’s hope, and threat.   

That’s the promise of “blue sky rain”.  

The Sunday Story Series

2021

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

2022

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

2023

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

2024

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

2025

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

2026

• The End of My Nose – 1/18/26
• The End of the Jeep – 1/25/26
• Fat Chipmunk – 2/15/26
• A Flash of Unity – 2/23/26
• Lessons Learned – 4/12/26
• Blue Sky Rain – 5/10/26

Pearl clutcher    Hand wringer     Bed wetter    

All are terms that have been used to describe Democrats in the MAGA era.  All, in fact, have been terms used to describe me.   

Let’s be honest:  fifteen years ago, few Americans envisioned the Nation that we have today.  So forgive me if I do sometimes act shocked.  I never thought our civil and voting rights could be so endangered.  It never occurred to me that our personal rights, like the right to make decisions about our own bodies (and yes, I mean the right of a woman to choose an abortion) would be abolished wholesale in many of our states.  And it didn’t even occur to me that we would have a multi-billion dollar quasi-military force set to “root out” the undocumented, deny them their civil and criminal rights, and hold them in private prisons.

And that’s not even considering the breath-taking corruption taking place out in plain sight in Washington DC (and Columbus, Ohio).   Maybe I should add “emolument defender” or “payoff objector” to the list.  For those who counter: “well, that’s how politics always were”, I call BS.  Even if you think that Hunter Biden abused his last name to gain influence and wealth, he’s a “piker” compared to the Trump family.  Donald Trump is finally (really) a multi-billionaire, but much of that is at the expense of the American people.

Alternate Facts

Remember when then-Trump senior advisor Kellyanne Conway coined a new term in an interview with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press in the first days of the Trump Presidency?   The “discussion” was about the number of attendees at the Inauguration, the one that Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed with the “greatest, largest, ever!!!”.  It was not.  When Todd challenged Conway, she simply said that Todd had his facts, and she had “alternate facts”.  Todd, reasonably, argued that there could only be one set of facts, truth, versus fiction. 

Today, the President who once promised that there would be a WALL and Mexico would pay for it (there isn’t, and they didn’t), desecrated the White House by tearing down the East Wing, and is building a ballroom, completely taxpayer free.  That is, of course, except for the one billion dollars he wants the US Congress (us taxpayers) to pay.  I guess it depends on the meaning of the word “free”.  

War of Choice

And he is constantly lying about the state of affairs versus Iran.  First we “obliterated” their nuclear development program, spending billions of dollars in the effort (The Nuts and Bolts of Bombing Iran).  Then, we destroyed their leadership in order to promote “regime change” (It’s Not That Simple).  Then we launched massive attacks against their military forces, in order to destroy their ability to resist.  Oh, and then we attacked again, to re-obliterate the nuclear program we didn’t get in the first place.  

And then, using the most low-tech weaponry available (speedboats, drones, mines), Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz.  The “leaderless” Iranian government, now run by the hardest of the hard liners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, shut down twenty percent of the world’s oil production.  And here we sit, spending billions of American taxpayers’ dollars, in a stalemate with a country that we “militarily defeated”.  And, surprise, there’s confusion on who we should negotiate with to end our “great victory”.

In Billions we Trust

And besides all of that, Artificial Intelligence has been unleashed unfettered by regulation or constraint.  “Claude”, the AI created by Anthropic, is expressing regret at being used to target our weaponry on Iran.  Good for (him, it, that).  But it simply underlines the point:  we don’t know what we don’t know about AI, but we’re letting it/him/that do whatever it/him/that wants.  

Why are we so reckless?  Because we trust the billionaires behind AI many the same ones behind the MAGA movement?  

The Democratic Offer

A friend tells me that all Democrats do is “later, rinse and repeat” (another cute term).  What are we offering?  A return to civil rights.  An end to para-military forces going into our cities to “run operations”.  Facts, not fictions displayed as facts.  A foreign policy that isn’t based on teenaged, “Call of Duty” heroics.  A government that is concerned about more than just how the rich get richer.  And a concern for the issues that are impacting us day to day, from gas prices to health insurance costs (another issue controlled by the wealthy, for the wealthy).

And a full view of a future America: multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-gendered and multi-cultural.  The “Schoolhouse Rock” view of the American melting pot, a stew of differences, is what we are destined to be. The MAGA last ditch effort to “Save White America” is doomed.  

The sooner we recognize that, the better. 

“…here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.” – John F Kennedy’s Inaugural Address

Ohio

 Yesterday was primary day in both Ohio and Indiana.  Here in Ohio, the table was set for two momentous battles this fall.  Since 2016, Ohio has been a typical “Red” state, giving secure majorities to Donald Trump each time his name appeared on the ballot.  But in 2018 and in 2023, there were glimmers of Democratic hope.  In 2018 Democrat Sherrod Brown defended his Senate seat.  And in 2023, 57% of Ohioans voted for the Abortion Rights Amendment to the state Constitution.

Trump was not on the ballot in either of those elections.  In 2024, Brown was defeated by Columbian born, MAGA loyalist Bernie Moreno, washed away in a Trump 11% victory in the state over Kamala Harris.  And Ohio remains “Red”:  all but one of the statewide elected officials in the state are Republicans.

Tickets

Trump’s not on the ballot in 2026 either.  Brown is now running for the Senate seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance.  His opponent is appointed Senator and former Lieutenant Governor John Husted.  It’s expected that it will be one of the most expensive races in the Nation, and key to whether Democrats might gain control of the Senate.

And in the Gubernatorial race, the field is set as well.  The Republican Party made sure that Trump supported billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy had an uncontested path to the nomination.  And Democrats, after the usual early waffling, fell in behind former State Director of Health Amy Acton.  

Baggage

Both candidates carry some of what many would consider “baggage”.  Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati of immigrant Indian parents.  Nether were US citizens at the time.  It will be interesting to see whether the Party standing against “birthright citizenship” will rally behind a “birthright” citizen.  And, of course, there’s the undercurrent of whether a man of Indian ancestry can appeal to MAGA voters.

Acton was the non-partisan Ohio Director of Health, appointed by Republican Governor Mike DeWine, during the beginning of the Covid Pandemic.  She became “the face” of Ohio’s response:  masking, school closures, and social distancing.  DeWine stood with her until the Republican dominated State Legislature threatened to remove his emergency powers.  Then he folded, and allowed her to resign to “take the heat”.

She has returned as a strong Democratic candidate, but the commercials are already running tying her to DeWine’s early Covid emergency actions.  The divisions of Covid; masking, closures, and “essential workers”, cut directly along party lines.  And, of course, Ramaswamy is already spending millions of his own money.  Acton is out raising him in public, but that makes little difference to a billionaire with his own ample checkbook. And finally, Ohio has never elected a woman as Governor.

Hope

For Democrats in Ohio, hope springs eternal.  The fact that both the abortion and a marijuana legalization law were passed by citizen referenda demonstrates that the state is not so “MAGA” as the elective offices and gerrymandering would show.  The general election results will come to down one simple thing:  turnout.  

The cost of gas, food, and goods; the human rights violations of ICE, and the incredible flood of money moving from everyday folks to the rich, might be enough to drive Democrat supporting voters to the polls.  And neither Ramaswamy or Husted are likely to have a “Trump effect” on MAGA voter turnout.  So, there’s hope.

Retribution

But yesterday’s results in Indiana tell a different tale.  Trump ordered Republican state legislatures nationwide to re-district their state maps, maximizing Republican Congressional seats for the 2026 election. Many states have a proud tradition of only redistricting after the ten year census is released (some like Florida, have that codified in the state Constitution).   Indiana’s Republican Senate stood up to Trump’s pressure. 

Like some mob boss in a bad gangster movie, Trump ordered political “hits” on those that stood in his way.  The “hit” was delivered last night, as five of the seven Senators who stood against  Indiana gerrymandering were “primaried” by MAGA candidates backed by Trump’s war chest.  

Trump still controls MAGA.  And MAGA still controls the Republican Party system.  In spite of all of the “bad news on the doorstep”, from Iran to local gas prices; they still put on their red hats and do his bidding.  And Republican politicians interested in survival continue to fall in line.

Our Own

Democrats cannot depend on Republicans to “come to their senses”.  The voice of folks like Adam Kinzinger and Michael Steele, reasonable voices that sound like “your father’s Republican Party”, don’t count.  They are out, and while their advice is often sound, they have no resonance in the MAGA world.  

To change America, citizens must stand against MAGA: Democrats, Progressives, Independents, and even those few “old” Republicans who cannot stomach the Trump world.  We cannot wait for the Republicans to “wake up”.  To paraphrase President Kennedy, the work to save the Nation, must truly be our own.

The US Government taking away voting rights?  It’s not the first time we’ve “turned on a dime” on the right to vote.  

Voting Rights Act

This week, the United States Supreme Court gutted the remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  The conservative super-majority fulfilled a goal of Chief Justice John Roberts. That goal started in the early days of the Reagan Administration.  The future chief was the “point man” for Reagan against a 1982 Congressional amendment to the act. The amendment added that states had an affirmative obligation to draw district lines in a way that would expand minority opportunities to win office.  

After the original act was passed in 1965, many Southern states continued to dilute the power of blacks by dividing them up into other, white majority districts.  Reagan depended on the Nixon developed “Southern Strategy” for reelection, and needed the South’s support to remain in office.  And, Roberts did not believe that the law should “discriminate” in favor of any single race, including minorities, in spite of the fact that laws discriminated against minorities throughout the first two hundred and eight years of American history.  

The single most powerful law to guarantee black voting rights (and the power that comes from those votes) was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its future amendments.  

It was the culmination of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, led by Dr. King.  And it followed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Those two laws altered the legal processes that were used to keep minorities down, since 1876.

What happened in 1876?  Here’s a brief history lesson. 

Reconstruction 

At the end of the Civil War in 1865, Union troops occupied large parts of the South.

  An example:  it wasn’t until June 19^th, 1865, over two months after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, that Union forces reached Galveston, Texas.  And it was only then that the enslaved people in Texas were freed, under the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order which went into effect in January of 1863.  (That’s the “back story” on the Federal holiday “Juneteenth”).

And over the next decade, Congress added the 13^th Amendment (ending slavery), the 14^th Amendment

(guaranteeing citizenship and due process) and the 15^th Amendment (granting black men the right to vote).  Those amendments were enforced in the former Confederacy by the remaining Union troops, who still occupied parts of the South.  They guaranteed black political power, by making sure they could vote, and by banning many former Confederates from public office.  There were sixteen Black members of Congress (two in the Senate, fourteen in the House), and even a Black governor of Louisiana in that decade.

Tilden Wins

By 1876 the Northern Republicans grew tired of the cost of Reconstruction.

  Meanwhile, the Democratic Party remained still divided by the Civil War. The Northern Democrats were a “loyal opposition” and the Southern Democrats the remnants of the party that seceded from the Union in the first place.  And then came the Presidential election of 1876.

Republicans nominated Ohio’s Governor and former Union General Rutherford Hayes. Democrats chose New York’s Governor and career lawyer and politician Samuel Tilden. (He was against enslavement, but never served in the War).  Tilden won the popular vote by almost three percent (50.92% to 47.92%) but was one vote short of winning the electoral college.  

Twenty electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon were disputed, with both sides claiming “they won”.  

By Committee

Congress established a committee to determine how those votes should be counted.   

There were fifteen members, seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and originally one Supreme Court Justice who was considered “neutral”, David Davis.  But, as the committee was meeting, Davis was appointed by the Democratic Illinois legislature as a United States Senator.  Democrats thought that would guarantee his vote, and a win for Tilden.  

But Davis, a lifetime Republican who served as Lincoln’s 1860 campaign manager, promptly recused himself from the committee.  

Republican Court Justice Benjamin Bradley was then appointed.  While written history remains “murky” about what happened next (there’s no documentation), the outcome was clear.  Despite clear evidence that Tilden won at least the one more vote he needed, the committee gave all twenty votes to Hayes, making him President.  

Four years later, Democrats won back the Presidency with New York Governor Grover Cleveland.  

There’s a rumored story about a White House dinner during his administration, where some of the participants bragged about the deal “they made” to end Reconstruction.  But on one knows the details, the diners, or the real discussion. 

Corrupt Bargain

Why did Davis recuse himself, creating a Republican majority on the committee?  

As soon as Hayes became President, the remaining Union troops withdrew from the South.  While earlier laws made the Black Codes (laws making the newly freed slaves second class citizens) illegal, the Jim Crow laws soon came into effect.  The concept was that while the law might say blacks were “equal”, the social norms required they be “separate” from white people in public settings.  This was confirmed by the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v Ferguson.  And, inevitably, separate was NOT equal. Meanwhile, Southern states (and even many Northern states) engaged in gerrymandering, voting taxes and tests, KKK terrorism, and other means of disenfranchising minorities.

Congress soon passed the “Posse Comitatus” law, barring Federal troops from most law enforcement activities in the internal United States.  

And even before the Hayes-Tilden election, Congress had already granted amnesty to most Confederates who then could run for office.  

The election of 1876, historically called the “corrupt bargain”, marked the first end of an era of Black civil rights and political advancement.

  Now, with last week’s US Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v Callais, it’s happened again.

Hopefully it won’t take another one hundred and fifty years to fix this one.

Slippery Slope

I’m not a mountain climber, but I’ve been on top of lots of mountains.  Mountain climbing is a very particular set of skills; a combination of hiking and rock climbing and, for the highest mountains, winter survival and high altitude techniques.  That’s never been my “thing”.  But, when I was a younger man, I backpacked a lot; some in the Rockies and the high Appalachians.  I found that some trails just followed up through the woods to the top, and some required some “bouldering”, going from rock to rock to reach the peak.  And other mountains, particularly some high enough to be above the tree line, were a steep path of shale, almost pebbles, to the top.  One that I remember well was a narrow trail along a steep ridge, with shale on either side. 

You could walk along the peak of the ridge just fine.  But, just a step or two to either side was a slippery slope, where you might not be able to control you descent.  So it made sense:  walk on the ridge, don’t risk stepping onto the slippery slope.  Who knows where you’d end up.

Rules

The metaphor of the “slippery slope” applies to a lot of things.  I talked to a young coach the other day, who had to suspend his best athlete for skipping practice.  It was the day of a big meet, and the coach felt the impact of losing his best:  was he punishing the kid, or the team, or himself?  But, if the coach allowed the kid to skip, what “slippery slope” was he on?  What standard could he hold the rest of the team to?  

Famed basketball coach Al McGuire put it succinctly:  “If you make rules, your best athlete will break them”.  I once thought he meant to not have any rules at all, but what McGuire was really saying was a warning.  If you make the rules, make sure you’re prepared to apply them at the most critical time to the athlete you need the most.  In my forty years of coaching, I discovered that McGuire was right.  And, most of the time, I stayed on the ridge and didn’t venture onto the slope.

Gerrymandering

In America today, we are on that slippery slope.  For decades, Progressives (Liberals, Democrats) have pressed for fair re-districting of legislative seats and an end to Gerrymandering.  Congressional and state legislative districts should not be drawn to reach a pre-ordained political outcome, but should be made up of areas with similar interests and needs.  Democrats here in Ohio stood against Congressional Districts like the Eighth or Fifteenth, which stretch over a hundred miles in order to dilute urban, likely Democratic votes with rural, likely Republican ones.  

But the Republican Party has not had the same “scruples”.  That’s become a huge issue today. Texas and other “Red” states redrew their maps to squeeze more Republican Congressional seats out. But that’s been going on for years.  The “Red Map” plan was a pairing of computer mapping and politics. It began in 2010, and has continued to this day. Democrats generally responded by demanding bi-partisan or non-partisan “commissions” to more fairly divide representation.

Most Democrats (and a lot of other Americans) see the Trump Presidency as an existential risk to our democracy.  We never foresaw that a President could exercise such unbridled power, without the balance of a Congress willing to exercise its own authorities.  In light of that threat, we are abandoning the safety of the “ridge trail”, and venturing down the slippery slope.  Democrats in California and other states are postponing their hard won reforms, and Gerrymandering as hard as the Republicans to keep Congressional seats.  But it’s not just about re-districting.

McConnell Rule

Barack Obama was the President of the United States when Conservative icon and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died of a heart attack, eleven months  before the next Presidential inauguration.  “Normal practice” was that the current President would make a nomination, and the Senate of the United States would vote to either confirm or deny it.  Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a “middle of the road” judge from the Appellate Court.  He was a man that, in any other era, would earn ninety votes in the Senate.

But then Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell refused to allow Garland to have confirmation hearings, much less a vote.  McConnell determined to “hold the seat” open until the next Presidential election, betting that a Republican might win.  To everyone’s surprise, Trump did win in 2016 (I’m a Democrat and I can say that).  The next appointment to the Court wasn’t Garland, it was arch-conservative Neil Gorsuch.

There is little spoken of about the Supreme Court and the Trump Administration right now.  But, three conservative  Supreme Court Justices are aging.  Clarence Thomas is seventy-seven, Samuel Alito is seventy-six, and Chief Justice Roberts is seventy-one.   While a Republican President is guaranteed until 2028, a Republican controlled Senate is not.  

Republicans still have the “edge” on controlling the Senate after the November 2026 elections.  But the gap is closing. The continuing impacts of Trump’s war of choice in Iran, and riding roughshod over “normal” civil rights, raises the specter of a Democratic controlled Senate.  And Democrats are now willing to venture down the “slippery slope” of the “McConnell rule”.  They might well hold any vacant seat open until a new President is elected, hoping for a Democratic victory.

Save the Union

To what lengths will Trump go?  He can’t “fire” a Supreme Court Justice.  But, as rumored with Justice Kennedy, he can offer them a “deal they can’t refuse”, perhaps choosing their own successor.  If Thomas, Alito, and even Roberts would resign, then Trump could assure their seats are filled by like minds to Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. That would cement his brand of 1890’s American law into the Court for decades.  Otherwise, as soon as this January, Democrats might actually have some control.

And if he does manage to pack the Court with relatively young “Federalist” judges, what should Democrats do should they regain the White House and the Congress in 2028?  Would they go even farther down the slippery slope, and expand the number of Supreme Court justices?  How far will America have to go to regain our democracy, and our values?  What would you do to “save the Union”?

Just as I finished editing this essay – the current Supreme Court gutted the remaining sections of the Voting Rights Act.  A Democratic Congress and a Democratic President can “fix” that.  

What Do We Do With Witches

King Arthur explains to a mob how to tell if a woman is a witch  – Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail

…There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.  Are there? What are they? Tell us. Do they hurt?  Tell me, what do you do with witches?  Burn them!  And what do you burn, apart from witches?  More witches! – Wood!

So why do witches burn? Cause they’re made of wood? – Good!  How do we tell if she is made of wood? – Build a bridge out of her.  But can you not also make bridges out of stone?  Oh, yeah. Does wood sink in water.  No, it floats. Throw her into the pond!

What also floats in water?  Bread. – Apples. Very small rocks. – Cider! Great gravy.  Cherries. Mud. – Churches. Lead. A duck!  Exactly. So, logically– If she weighs the same as a duck…she’s made of wood.  And therefore?  A witch! A duck! A duck! – Here’s a duck.  We shaIl use my largest scales…

Logic

Americans are sitting on the edge of a lot of scary logical “rabbit holes”.  Here’s some examples.

Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and sex trafficker.  Donald Trump was Epstein’s friend, and has been accused of sex offenses and had/has a known interest in young women.  Therefore, what is Donald Trump?

The Constitution states that Congress has the power to declare war.  The President of the United States took the US to war in Iran, without the consent of Congress.  Did Donald Trump violate the Constitution?

“All persons” are guaranteed civil rights.  ICE and other “law enforcement” agencies are rounding up “persons” in the United States, holding them without trial, and deporting them from the country.  Is ICE and the others, at the behest of President Trump, again violating the Constitution?

The Constitution forbids the President from taking bribes, and  “emoluments” (payments) from foreign countries.  Donald Trump accepted an aircraft from the Qataris.  He’s also accepting millions of dollars from folks who want Presidential pardons.  And he took millions of dollars from investors in his family’s crypto-currency scheme.  Is Trump violating Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution?

And the final one:  Donald Trump  violates the Constitution often. The Supreme Court gave him a “free pass” from criminal liability. Congress won’t do anything about it. What should the American citizen do to protect the Constitution, and the Nation?

Apologies

Cole Tomas Allen launched a failed attack on the President and his Cabinet on Saturday night.  We don’t know a whole lot about his life, yet.  We know he’s an educated man:  a Cal-Tech engineer with a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Cal State.  And, we do know that he sent an “apology and explanation” to his family and friends for what he was about to do.  (Just an aside: the government and media refer to this as his “manifesto”.  But it’s hard to think of a “manifesto” as starting with the sentence, “Hello everybody!  So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused…”).   

Here’s the logical “rabbit hole” that consumed Allen.  “I am a citizen of the United States of America.  What my representatives do reflects on me.  And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”  He then went into a detailed explanation of his thought process as he hoped to assassinate the President and the highest members of his team.  

And he made clear the objections he considered, and the “logic” that led him to make the attack.  That includes number three:  “You didn’t get them all”, followed by the response “You gotta start somewhere”.  

Polarized

We are a Nation polarized.  We are as divided as any time since the era prior to the Civil War in the 1850’s.  At that time, America’s information sources, the newspapers, often were either pro-slavery or abolitionist.  Some of the heroes we were taught about in school, men like William Lloyd Garrison and Fredrick Douglass, published widely read gazettes to further their abolitionist views.  That was in spite of the fact that those views were opposed to existing Federal law. The Fugitive Slave Act, required runaway slaves be returned to their owners, even from free states.

And the “final straw” of that era was John Brown’s attack on the United States Military Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry.  Brown’s avowed intent was to get weapons to arm a “slave revolution” to end the “abomination” of enslavement.  He was met with full military force, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant JEB Stuart, both familiar names from the Confederacy, but then US Army officers.  Brown was convicted of treason and incitement of slaves to rebel, and was hanged.

Was Brown a hero, or a madman?  At the time, it depended on your view about enslavement, often on what newspaper you read.  And, how you look at John Brown today might determine your actions in our current political environment.

Into the Hole

Our information sources, mostly what we see on the tiny screen on the device in our pocket, are almost as divided.  We can explore any “rabbit hole” we want, any time we want.  And it shouldn’t be a surprise that some people, even those we think of as intelligent and smart and educated, fall down the “rabbit hole”.  They follow a “logic chain”, not unlike the one King Arthur takes the witch mob through.  Arthur “logic-ed” that a witch would weigh the same as a duck.  Allen “logic-ed” that the only action he could take was violence.  

This is not an apology for Cole Tomas Allen.  As I’ve written before, violence is not the answer to our current crisis.  In fact, I see violence as abetting those who want to push the Constitution aside, and make America an authoritarian regime.  But it would be a mistake to ignore the “logic” that got him to this ultimate action.   

It is the true peril of our time.

Eye Witness

Last night, Jenn and I were “eye-witnesses” to the attempted attack on the White House Correspondents Dinner.  I definitely owe you an explanation for that.  Jenn and I both worked hard all day on Saturday, and after an early dinner, just wanted to “chill out” in front of the TV.  In the past, the Correspondent’s Dinner has been entertaining:  from the Obama “mic-drop” to the comedian’s barbed jokes about every holder of the White House. This year they had a mentalist as host, what we used to call a “mind-reader”.  What’s on Melania’s mind?  So we started on CSPAN, then moved to “base”, MSNOW, to see what would happen.

As I casually dozed on the sectional (with a dog on both sides, of course), I noticed the “scramble”.  We watched well-dressed people dining in style, then well-dressed Secret Service agents storming down the center aisle to surround the President (and his wife, and Vice President Vance).  We weren’t “in the room where it happened”, but we definitely had a bird’s eye view.

What Happened

The Vice President was whisked away.  The guys in full combat gear with long guns popped out.  Then the “scrum” of agents with the President did exactly what they should have done back in Butler. They kept the President low and they controlled his person.  No “fight, fight, fight” moment here.  Just get him out the side door.

What happened?  A man sprinted through the outer security perimeter.  As of now, law enforcement says he was armed with a shotgun, a pistol, and several knives.  There were shots fired:  as I write this essay about twelve hours later, it doesn’t seem settled who shot at who.  One uniformed Secret Service agent was hit in his armored vest (taken to the hospital then released).  The assailant was tackled and brought down without serious injury.  He never reached the ballroom doors.

It turns out he was a thirty-one year old man from Torrance, California.  He has an impeccable educational background:  engineering degree from Cal Tech, and a masters in computer science from Cal State.  Cole Tomas Allen was working as an online teacher, and even received his company’s “teacher of the month” award.  He was staying at the hotel where the dinner was held, giving him better access to the ballroom. Past that, we don’t know what, why, or how.  Specifically, we don’t know whether he was targeting Trump, Vance, the multiple Cabinet officials, FBI Director Kash Patel, or any number of television, newspaper, or online media figures.  

Credit is Due

This may be the best “reported” attack in history.  After all, even from under the dining tables, these are the top journalists in the Nation.  While they may have ducked, they soon had their cell phones out, videoing the action.  Odd details:  Vance was out faster than Trump, many folks didn’t hear shots, Trump was sheltered at the hotel for at least an hour, the Washington Hilton ballroom has lousy cell phone service, Patel’s security detail was stuck with him in the room, and several guests decided to take bottles of wine from the table once the dinner was cancelled and they were allowed to leave.  It was all on CSPAN and MSNOW.

And please give Trump and his team some credit.  When the President got back to the White House, he held the most coherent press conference (and, the first conference in “formal wear”) I’ve heard him do.  He gave the information he had from law enforcement, he didn’t drift off too far (other than talking about the damn Ball Room again), and he came across as a man under control.  That’s not been his look for a while.  The litany of issues that plague Trump:  Iran, Epstein, ICE, personal and family corruption, out of control spending; all fell away.  Trump looked – Presidential.

What Violence Brings

And that’s the point, for me.  I’m against Donald Trump and what his Presidency stands for on every level.  That’s something I couldn’t say about any other President in my lifetime (thirteen of them), except maybe Richard Nixon at the end.   But, if the President was Mr. Allen’s target; assassination is not the answer.  Violence against the President (or the former President at Butler) simply makes him look sympathetic.  Americans are naturally drawn to “protect” against crazed attacks.  And even if the attacker were to succeed; martyrdom is a powerful political force.  

I want to defeat President Trump.  We can start by defeating Republicans at the ballot box in November.  To do that, we need to defend against every infringement of our right to vote.  And once we’ve done that, Democrats can take control of the House and Senate, and begin to act as guardrails against the authoritarian in the White House.  And in 2028, we can do what Hungary finally did:  reject authoritarianism, and stand for democracy.  

But violence, assassination, random acts of terrorism; all of those strengthen the authoritarian’s hand; not Democrats, and not those who believe in democracy.  It might look to some (Mr. Allen, Mr. Crooks, Mr. Routh) like the short-cut to end MAGA.  

But it’s really the only way that MAGA can survive.

Butch and Sundance

There’s two old sayings that start off our day today.  The first: “Never take a knife to a gunfight”.  That has a simple meaning:  know what kind of “fight” you’re getting into, and make sure that you are appropriately armed.  If your opponent has guns, your knife won’t do much good.  

The second is that great line at the beginning of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Harvey, one of the “Hole in the Wall Gang”, challenges Butch for leadership. He demands a knife fight.  Butch agrees, but says that they need to get the “rules straight” before the fight.  Harvey answers “Rules?  There are no rules…”,  but doesn’t get to complete the sentence, as Butch drop kicks him squarely in the groin, then beats him into unconsciousness.  There are no rules in a knife fight.

Ohio Gerrymandering

I am a Democrat.  For almost all of my political life, I have opposed gerrymandering, the drawing of political districts to create a preordained electoral outcome.  Here in Ohio, both parties gerrymandered Congressional Districts.  For example, there were two configurations of the Cincinnati area.  One was the “donut” district, with the central city of Cincinnati as a sure Democratic seat, the donut “hole”; and the ring of suburbs as a second, surely Republican district.  That was the Democratic plan.

The Republican plan split the city of Cincinnati carefully down the middle (usually down Vine Street), with half the city combined with the western suburbs, and half with the eastern ones.  That often produced two Republican districts.

But things changed around 2010, when the Republican Party (under the leadership of current MSNOW commentator Michael Steele) implemented the “Red Map” plan.  This was a computer generated gerrymandering scheme, dividing boundaries down to the granular street level, to carve out the most Republican biased statewide districting plan possible.  The outcome:  here in Ohio, while Democrats are statewide at least 45% of the voting population, Republicans hold more than 67% of the state House and Senate seats.  Of Ohio’s fifteen Congressional Districts, five are held by Democrats, and ten held by Republicans.  

Ohio’s Eighth District stretches from the west side of Cincinnati on the Ohio River over one hundred miles north to rural Darke County on the Indiana border, carefully skirting the Democratic city of Dayton.  Ohio’s Fifteenth winds from downtown Columbus one hundred miles west to the rural town of Greenville in Miami County.  At one point that district is only ten miles wide north of Springfield, squeezed  between the Fourth and the Tenth Districts.

Reform Democrats

The recent National Democratic Party has supported redistricting reforms.  Big Democratic states like New York and California passed legislation taking redistricting out of the hands of politicians and the state legislatures, and putting the decision in the hands of less partisan Boards.  Even here in Ohio, several state Constitutional amendments were made to control gerrymandering.  But the Republican controlled government (including the State Supreme Court) ignored them and continued to re-district according to the “Red Map” plan.  

Nationwide most Republican controlled states implemented “Red Map”.  Some Democratic controlled states, notably Illinois and Maryland, used a similar process to gerrymander their states.  But many Democratic states continued with reforming the process to make it “less partisan”.  In fact, one of the driving forces against partisan gerrymandering was the National Democratic Redistricting Committee led by former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder.

No Rules

But this last year, President Trump essentially “ordered” Republican states to maximize the number of Republican Congressional Districts in a (desperate?) attempt to retain control of the US House of Representatives.  The current house has a five seat majority of Republicans.  In “normal times” the party not in the White House tends to win more swing House seats in the “off-year election”, so control of the House was definitely in question.  

Texas, with a completely Republican controlled state government, led the way to further re-district in Republican favor.  In their plan, five currently Democratic seats are redrawn to elect Republicans.  I suppose National Republicans thought that Democrats would react by “crying foul”, demanding that Republicans weren’t “following the rules”.

Democrats weren’t even bringing a knife to a gunfight.  They were playing by “rules”.  And like Butch made so clear to Harvey, there are no “rules” in a knife fight.  So Democratic states fought back.  California, a Democratic controlled state, put a statewide ballot initiative up that would “suspend” their non-partisan redistricting process for the exact reason of creating five “Democratic Districts” to counter the Texas plan.  That passed overwhelmingly.

Oh Virginia

And yesterday, Virginia did the same.  Subject to state Court scrutiny, Virginia citizens passed a Constitutional amendment that will re-district to flip five more seats to Democrats.  Other Democratic controlled states are considering the same.

Republicans miscalculated the National Democratic reaction.  Republicans already used the “Red Mapping” strategy.  But many Democratic states had not.  Now, Democrats are beginning to bring “guns to a gunfight”.  They no longer are playing by self-imposed rules that the Republicans don’t honor.  “Blue Mapping” has begun.

Add that to the current Presidential approval rating, with Trump slipping to 37% in many polls, and it’s likely that Democrat Hakeem Jeffries will be the next Speaker of the House.  And while the Senate isn’t subject to gerrymandering, current trends show that might flip as well.

All of that is dependent on “free and fair” elections in November. Democrats should keep in mind:  there are few rules in the voting “knife fight” either. 

Grand Fenwick

There is a book written in the mid-1950’s called The Mouse that Roared.  It was required reading in my nuclear strategies class of the 1970’s, as we students at Denison University weighed the issues of thermonuclear mass destruction.  The premise was simple.  A mythical country located in the Alps between France and Switzerland, was called the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.  Fenwick remained a medieval nation, with their proud military armed with bows and arrows.  The one product that Fenwick produced was a single wine, the Pinot Grand Fenwick.  

But a California vineyard produced a “knock-off” variety of Pinot Grand Fenwick, and the country was threatened with bankruptcy.  Their only chance of continued existence:  declare war on the United States, lose, and then depend on American largess (like the post War World II Marshall Plan) to reinvigorate their economy.   A declaration of war was sent to the United States. But the note got misplaced in the State Department.

The Duchy is ignored, and realized that they must actually invade the United States.  So they send a “force” to attack New York City.  Led by a “Field Marshal”.  It consists of him, three “men-at-arms” (think medieval knights), and twenty bowmen.  They land in the City at a time that the entire town is below ground for a civil defense drill, and march  (unintentionally) through the empty streets to a top secret laboratory.  There they capture the ultimate weapon, the “Q” Bomb, accidently making the Duchy of Grand Fenwick the most powerful nation in the world.

The Field Marshal takes the “Q Bomb” back to Fenwick, and leverages the world to control all nuclear weapons.  It’s a great story, and film with Peter Sellers (the Pink Panther) in the lead role.

Iran’s Q Bomb

The United States is the most powerful military in the world.  But, we discovered in Vietnam and Afghanistan, that power still has limits.  Those limitations are; what we are willing to do, and, what is the opposing nation willing to take.  It seems we have found those limits once again in Iran.

Sure we still have nuclear weapons.  When the President threatens to end “Persian Civilization”, there is the implicit message that we would use them.  Writer Tom Nichols in the Atlantic suggests that Trump seriously considered it.  But realistically, the United States would be a world pariah if we used our nuclear weapons for anything but the ultimate National defense.  In his article, Nichols demanded that the military resist any attempt. Nichols wrote, “… They should lay their stars on his desk,” rather than launch a nuclear strike.

So, assuming that we aren’t “thinking the unthinkable”, it seems that Iran is able to absorb the worst the United States can do, and still remain standing.  On the other hand, Iran’s ability to deny the world use of the Strait of Hormuz (or Vermouth, as Treasury Secretary Bessent calls it) is the ultimate non-nuclear “Trump” card.  The Strait is their “Q Bomb”, placing a militarily weak nation in control of the world.  Twenty percent of the world’s oil will do that.

Weak Side

The ultimate failure of the Trump Administration is that they “missed” this possibility.  Perhaps it was hubris from the “shock and awe” of the Venezuela kidnapping operation, or perhaps it was the amazing sales ability of Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu in the White House situation room (NYT).  Either way, the “decapitation campaign” at the beginning of the war, killed off the leadership, but failed to account for their replacements being even more extreme.  The “regime change” of an uprising by the Iranian intellectual class failed, because they were forced to choose between the leaders they hated, and two nations waging total warfare against them.

And then there is that twenty-four mile wide “aorta” of the world’s economy.  It’s not the Iranian Navy (unless speedboats count).  It’s mines, it’s shoulder launched missiles, it’s mobile drones, it’s even targeted missiles. None of them were  accurately accounted for in the “battle plans”.  It’s the Iranian “Q Bomb”. 

So now, the United States is the “side” that needs to negotiate a peace.  With all of the military inequities, Iran holds the upper hand at the table in Pakistan.  Americans “need” them to show up.  And Iran is willing to “pay the price” if they chose not to. The United States is sending the man who holds the second most powerful office in the Nation.  He’s to negotiate with the third and fourth level guys who are the ones left alive to talk. 

Iran’s “Q Bomb” puts them in control.  And it makes Trump look weak, in the eyes of the world, and the American people.  Peter Sellers would be the one to play him in the new, modern version of the Mouse that Roared.  Only he could make the absurdity of this American White House make sense.

Too bad he died in 1980.   

Fox News

I was coming home from a track meet last Friday night and got a little sleepy at the wheel.  My tactic for staying awake:  switch over to Fox News.  That normally raises my blood pressure, grabs my attention, and after a few minutes, has me considering throwing my phone out the car window.  So I listened to Jesse Watters, the guy who took over the Tucker Carlson hour a few years ago.

Watters chastised “us Democrats”, and, of course, the “mainstream media”.  He demanded that we look at the achievements of President Trump in Iran.  After all, the Iranian nuclear program was (obliterated, decimated, set back) destroyed to nuclear “dust”.  The Iranian Navy (really, they had a Navy?) is at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.  An entire generation of their leadership is dead; “regime change” achieved.  Their missile production is (obliterated, decimated, set back) reduced.  And, (as of that single moment on Friday night) the Strait of Hormuz was open.

Watters told us to stop “wringing our hands” and do the right thing:  say “thank you, Mr. President”, for solving the Iranian problem after forty-seven years.

Watters, then followed up with the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy.  The billionaire proceeded to tell me that “us Democrats” don’t have any political goals, except to be “against Trump”.  In fact, we can’t come up with a solution to anything, other than to “say no” to Trump.  Watters and Ramaswamy served their purpose well.  I got home, safe and wide awake.  And I still had the phone, barely.

Sunday

It’s Sunday morning.  Iran fired on Indian tankers in the Strait.  It is NOT open.  And while gas prices dropped Friday (down to $3.66 a gallon here in Pataskala, thanks a lot Mr. Trump!), I bet they’ll head back up again tomorrow morning.  The victory that President Trump so longs for in the Persian Gulf still eludes him.  Instead, his administration puts forth a schizophrenic series of foreign policies statements.  Vice President Vance is going to Pakistan to negotiate.  Wait, he’s not.  The Strait is open.  Wait, it’s not.  The peace deal is done. No, the United States is going to bomb every power plant and bridge in Iran, a nation almost as big as Alaska.

And after all of the celebration in the deaths of the Iranian leadership; we find that an even more hard line son of an Ayatollah is now in charge.  The nascent Iranian revolutionary movement that Trump hoped would rise up, is now making the choice between their religious leadership and the nation that threatens to destroy their civilization (Trump’s words, not mine).  The American attacks served to “put down” the resistance almost as well as the rumored 40,000 executed in the streets before the war began.

Meanwhile, Israel has a “ceasefire” with Lebanon; though they reserve the continuing right to bomb who they want, when they want, and where they want.  Netanyahu’s strategy is more manic than schizophrenic.  His goal seems to be to leave nothing but dust all around Israel, so that he can send settlers in to “civilize” the Holy Land.  

What Now

What can we be sure of?  That, from the ashes of destruction, Iran is snatching a strategic victory.  The American/Israeli attacks led to Iranian exercise of control and even monetization of the Strait, now the “Queen” on the chessboard of Middle East strategy. (That was not even on the board before this “excursion” in warfare).  And now the man who made his “living” as the ultimate deal maker, can’t seem to find a way to close.  Maybe he’ll follow President Obama’s lead, and release funds more of Iran’s frozen funds. Of course, Obama did get a nuclear deal, without war, and without shutting down twenty percent of the world’s oil supply.  

I need to add, it’s sad to be an American right now.  We have the greatest military in history, a force we are proud of.  I know many who serve, and I have nothing but respect for their skills, their sacrifices, and their incredible effectiveness.  To use the reasoning of Second Amendment advocates, it’s not the weapon, it’s the user.  The user of this incredible war machine, the President of the United States, is acting recklessly and thoughtlessly.  He’s abusing his powers, and risking their lives.

What happens next?  It’s in the world’s interest to recognize reality.  Iran is NOT destroyed.  But they want the attacks to end.  The United States has not achieved regime change, but we need to “cut our losses”, “declare victory”, and get the Hell out of there.  And someone, anyone, needs to stop Israel’s aggression.  

But just because it’s the right thing to do, it doesn’t mean that Donald Trump will do it.  And that should be enough to keep us all awake, all the time.

Sancho

Listen, I’m a huge fan at tilting at windmills.  Don Quixote is one of my favorite literary characters.  But I’m a Pancho Sanza fan as well.  For those who aren’t up on their classic literature, Don Quixote is the central character in Manuel de Cervantes early 1600’s fictional tale of the same name.  Quixote is a would-be Knight, enamored with the chivalry of the Middle Ages, and  looks for a dragon to slay.  He chooses a windmill as his target.  Pancho Sanza, his squire, is a pragmatic peasant who recognized that his “knight” is, in fact, attacking a windmill, not a dragon.  Thus became the “modern” phrase, “tilting at windmills”.

What windmills am I referencing?  Well, let’s start with the Congressional power of impeachment, the one way that Congress can exercise power over the Executive and Judicial branches.  Impeachment is the House of Representative’s way of charging the Executive Officers (including the President) and Federal Judges with removable offenses.  Conviction of impeachment is the Senate’s confirmation that actually removes them from office.

Impeachment

We all know how that works.  President Trump was impeached twice for actions during his first administration.  The first impeachment was over the “perfect phone call” with the then newly elected President of Ukraine, Vladomyr Zelenskyy.  In the call, Trump threatened Zelenskyy with the loss of US financial support, unless Ukraine found evidence against Trump’s major rival, and the future Democratic candidate for President, Joe Biden. 

Zelenskyy did not provide the evidence.  Biden was eventually elected President of the United States in 2020.  And, since Trump regained the office in 2024, Zelenskyy’s refusal has been a hurdle to Trump’s  continued support of Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

And the second impeachment was for Trump “fomenting insurrection” on January 6^th.

In both cases a majority of the House (then controlled by Democrats) voted to impeach the President.  And in both cases, the Senate failed to get a two-thirds majority to convict, and Trump bore no consequences, other than the ignominy of being the only President impeached twice.  

2027

Democrats may well regain control of the House, assuming a “free and fair” election process in 2026.  (That’s a big assumption, as the Trump Administration is doing everything it can to take Federal control of the process).  Democrats might even regain narrow control of the Senate, though that’s a more difficult task.  In 2027, there may well be a “clear path” to impeachment in the House, both for the President, and his cabinet.  But there is not a path, not even a narrow one, to conviction in the Senate.  Should Democrats control the Senate, there still will be at least fifteen Republican votes needed for actual removal from office.  

While Impeachment trials are a great way to highlight Presidential or Cabinet level criminal acts, the reality is clear:  impeachment and conviction is not a functional way to reshape our government.  No matter how clear the cause may be;  what might look like a dragon to us Democrats, is really just a windmill.

Amendment

But impeachment isn’t the only windmill in our current political life.  Other issues are ending the Electoral College method of electing the President, and altering the Second Amendment to restrict personal gun ownership. (And, from the other side, altering the Fourteenth Amendment to end birthright citizenship).  While both sides of American political thought have “things” they want to change in the Constitution, the paths to make those alterations are politically arduous.

Democrats are largely in favor of “direct election” of the President, by simple majority vote of the citizens.  But in order to accomplish that, it would require re-writing the 12^th Amendment to the Constitution (the Amendment that reorganizes the process outlined in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution).  

And many Democrats are in favor of altering the language of the Second Amendment, now interpreted as giving an absolute individual right to “keep and bear arms”.  While, in the past, there was some “flexibility” in the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second, in order to change that today likely would require changing the Constitution.

Also, Trump and other Republicans are fighting a “rear-guard action” to alter the common language interpretation of the “birthright citizenship” clause of the 14^th Amendment.  While in today’s MAGA majority Court anything is possible, it’s likely that even this Court will rule against the Republican argument and uphold that the plain language of the Amendment.  If they do, then the only choice Republicans would have would be to change the Constitution.

Real Dragons

All of these are “windmills”, not dragons.  To amend, the Constitution, it requires two-thirds of both the House and the Senate agree, and then three-fourths of the states confirm as well. Not only is it highly unlikely that two-thirds of either the House or the Senate would agree on anything, but for thirty-eight out of fifty states to agree is almost inconceivable.

Or, two-thirds of states (34) could call for a Constitutional Convention, and then three-fourths of the states agree to Amendments from that Convention.  That’s an even higher bar, (and even more unlikely).

So when I get the email asking me to donate to “end the Electoral College”, I sympathize with the concept.  When I hear calls for Trump’s or Hegseth’s or whoever the current Secretary of Homeland Security impeachment, I heartily agree.  But I won’t put my hard-earned money on “tilting at windmills”.  It’s 2026, a pivotal election year in American history.  There are very real “dragons” to defeat in this next election. 

I’m putting my money against them.

Swalwell

A week ago, Eric Swalwell was a leading candidate in the California Governor’s Race.  The now former Congressman is well known as one of the “stand-up” Democrats during the first Trump Administration.  He served as a manager in Trump’s second impeachment (for January 6^th).  He even survived scandal.  A woman named Fang Fang involved herself in Swalwell’s political campaign in 2014.  She arranged for an intern to work in his office.  The FBI briefed Swalwell on Fang Fang’s involvement as a spy for the Chinese Government.  He cut ties with her, and the FBI absolved him of any wrong doing.

But we now find out that Swalwell was a womanizer, willing to use his authority and his obvious personality to get women in bed, seemingly without their consent.  That’s such an old American political malady, it’s memorialized in the Broadway musical Hamilton.  The title character sings; “I don’t know how to say no to this…But my God, she looks so helpless. And her body’s saying, ‘Hell, yes’…”  Swalwell  joins an “illustrious” club; American politicians who failed to say “no”.   Even the founding fathers, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Franklin; were well known for their “swordsmanship”.

Power

More recently, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and, of course, Bill Clinton are all Presidents rumored to have had affairs.  

There are important differences between some of these men and Eric Swalwell.  Jefferson’s tristes were with a woman he enslaved, and the age and power differential between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were extreme.  The others, like Harding, just carried on affairs with or without the knowledge of their spouses. But, by today’s standards, most, from Hamilton to Clinton, would have lost their careers over that behavior.

The most blatant example was Colorado Senator Gary Hart, the Democratic front runner for the Presidential nomination in 1988. He was rumored to be having an affair while on the campaign trail.  When reporters asked him about it, he literally challenged them to, “Follow me around, I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’d be very bored.”  So they did, and documented the affair that ended his campaign. 

Insider Deal

 In the Kennedy days, reporters knew what the President was doing.  There was an “insider’s deal” not to report it.  Since Gary Hart, those rules have changed.

So Swalwell is in a long line of politicians from both parties.  The difference is the day. This day, our day, we hold them to a higher rule.  Our current cultural standard is that, while most of what people do in bed is private, the one thing that must occur is an equal, knowing, and consensual relationship.  And that’s where Eric Swalwell, a Congressman I once admired, fell from grace.  

Did Swalwell get a young staffer drunk, and then rape her?  That’s for the Courts to decide.  But did Swalwell take advantage of the “power differential” between the two?  His current actions: quitting the Governor’s race and resigning from Congress, demonstrate the truth of those accusations.  

Risk Genetics

There’s an extreme psychological theory, the “risk gene”.  It  tries to explain why otherwise brilliant and charismatic figures, particularly in politics, take obvious and ridiculous risks.  Why do they claim it’s genetics?  The case study is the Kennedy family.  

The patriarch, Joe Kennedy senior was well known for his “risky” business behaviors.  Some of it was particularly adept, getting the family fortune out of the stock market months before Black Tuesday.  Some of it was marginally criminal, dealing with bootleggers during Prohibition.  And some of it was personal:  Kennedy was a well-known philanderer, using his contacts with the entertainment industry to get what he wanted.

Kennedy’s Sons

His oldest son, Joe Junior, was a risk taker as well.  He was, from birth, the “anointed one”, destined for political glory.  But young Joe was willing to risk his life in World War II, and ended up dying on a nearly-suicidal bombing mission over Europe.

The second son, Jack (John F), was more intellectual.  But he too was a risk taker, a war hero himself, and as a politician. Those risks paid off; Kennedy was so young when elected to the Senate, he had to “prove” to the Capitol Police he wasn’t a page or staffer.   Kennedy was a sexual risk taker as well, even after his marriage to Jackie. And it wasn’t just Marilyn Monroe, there were a series of women in and out of the White House during his administration.

And the fourth son, Teddy (Edward) followed suit.  He was a young, charismatic Senator with aspirations of being President himself.  But his future was derailed by a tragic car accident, when, likely under the influence, he drove off a bridge with a young secretary in the passenger seat.  She died in the waters, he swam to shore, and managed to call his lawyer rather than the police.

 The “genetic theory” goes onto follow the next generation.  Jack’s son John Junior died flying a private plane in poor weather conditions.   Two of Robert Kennedy’s (the third brother) sons died tragically:  David of drugs, and Michael in a skiing accident.  And then there’s the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Junior, a former drug addict and known womanizer.  His first wife, Mary, committed suicide allegedly after reading Robert’s journal chronicling his affairs with thirty-seven other women.

Privilege

Is it really genetics, or is it a “learned behavior”, with the new generation learning from the last?  Or, is trying to “science” their actions just another “benefit” of privilege?

So perhaps Eric Swalwell will use the “risk gene” as his excuse.  But is it really a genetic disfunction, or is it just the unbridled behavior of men who find themselves with power, and think it’s their entitlement?  From the outside looking in, it seems like pure lunacy that politicians with the highest aspirations would be unable to control their personal urges.  Somehow, they equate their constituents votes to personal gratification.  Whatever the rules of the past, today, it does not.

The price Swalwell will pay for that physical gratification is high.  And so is the damage to his family.   But for California Democrats and the rest of those of us who admired him:  good riddance, Swalwell.

Mafia Terms

“Il bacio della morte”.  You may not know Italian, but, if you saw the Godfather movies, you know what that means.  It’s what Michael Corleone gave his brother Fredo on the lips in The Godfather Part II.  It’s a big goodbye kiss, “the kiss of death”.  It was soon after, that Fredo went fishing on Lake Tahoe, and Michael’s bodyguard put a bullet in the back of his head.

A lot of what the Trump Administration does looks like “organized crime”.  They act outside the laws, and they enrich themselves at every turn in American policies and politics.  They sell pardons to the highest bidders, and take “gifts” both from American corporations and foreign entities.  And Trump definitely styles himself as the “Godfather” of MAGA’ism.  He tells “his voters” who to vote for, and who to reject.  Part of Trump’s absolute power over the Republican Party is his death grip on the perhaps 30% of voting Republicans, where Trump’s word is law.  

Trump’s Influence

But as we move into the 2026 election cycle, when all of the House of Representatives and a third of the US Senate are up for election,  Trump’s backing seems to be more of an unintentional “il bacio della morte”.  Sure, Trump’s endorsement is still necessary to win a Republican party nomination.  But in head to head elections Democratic candidates or propositions are winning, or dramatically cutting into the past Trump margins.  

And now we’ve even seen it on the international stage.  Viktor Orban, the authoritarian leader of Hungary, lost his legislative majority in the Hungarian National Assembly Sunday.  In fact, the Assembly went from a majority  of 133 seats favoring Orban (out of 199), to a super-majority of 138 seats opposing him.  Orban charted an authoritarian course for Hungary since he gained power in 2010.  Hungary became a thorn in the side to both the European Union and NATO (Hungary is a member of both).  He stood in opposition to sending aid to Ukraine. And he became a supporter of Europe’s premier authoritarian leader,  Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  

Orban’s Demise

Orban found a huge support network among American right-wing groups, including the Heritage Foundation and many in the Republican Party.   He appeared at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) and even created a CPAC of his own in Hungary.  And Orban was a fellow proponent of Christian Nationalism. In fact, some of Trump’s actions towards those he calls “woke”, like major educational institutions, are straight from Orban’s playbook.  (Compare what Trump is doing to the Ivy League Schools, and what Orban did to Hungary’s Central European University).

As the Hungarian election grew closer, both President Trump and Vice President Vance tried to help Orban maintain power.  Vance actually went to campaign rallies for Orban in Hungary, and Trump called into the partisan Hungarian crowd, telling them they needed to make sure Orban stayed in office.  

Like many Republican candidates here in the United States, Trump’s approval seems to be the “il bacio della morte”.  Here in the US the issues are clear:  ICE illegalities, hikes in consumer prices due to tariffs, cuts in health care, and foreign adventurism in the attack on Venezuela and the War in Iran.  What in Biden’s day was “the price of eggs”, now is reborn as “the price of gas”.  The people of Hungary know what’s going on here, and also recognize the danger that Trump, and Orban, represents to their future.  Vance and Trump’s support were  the “kiss of death” for Orban’s candidacy.

Fish Heads

Hungary choses its chief executive through a Parliamentary system.  The party with the majority in the Assembly chooses the Prime Minister.  So it’s easier for them to change the executive than the locked-in four year Presidency of the United States.  But folks here in the United States can still take some heart.

If Democrats take control of the Congress, Trump may be impeached again by the House of Representatives. (The prediction markets  are at 71%).  But it is more than unlikely (the markets at 27%) that the Senate could reach the two-thirds threshold to convict.  

But what a Democratic House and Senate could do is to block some of Trump’s most outrageous actions.  And they’d have to the power to investigate and subpoena, laying out the corruption that seems endemic to the current Administration.  To use another Italian expression “il pesce puzza della testa”; the fish rots from the head.  A Democratic Congress will make it their business to expose that rot to the American people, particularly as we near the 2028 Presidential election.

Speaking of elections:  the best way to safeguard a free and fair election in 2026 and 2028, is to protect the states from federal incursion into election processes.  Since the Trump Administration is convinced that our electoral system is “rigged”, that’s going to be the tough fight to win.  A Democratic Congress would help.

Give Viktor Orban credit:  he recognized a legal election loss, and conceded to his opponent.  That’s something that the current head of the United States government has never done. 

Il pesce puzza della testa.