Category: Uncategorized

Chew Gum and Walk

The President of the United States walked into a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate Minority Leader yesterday morning.  The purpose of the meeting was to reach some agreement on a plan to improve the infrastructure of the United States of America.  This is traditionally one of the most important roles of the Government.  From the building of the National Road, to the Cumberland Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad, the National Highway System, the Interstate Highway System, America’s system of airports and air traffic control:  all have been government projects.

Some have been done under difficult circumstances.  Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War, was able to pass legislation to enable the transcontinental railroad.  It is a constitutionally mandated power of the Government – and it is a part of the job of being a leader of the United States.

With battered roads, aging bridges, threats to the power grid and worn out dams, it is clear that “infra-structure” shouldn’t be a punch line.  And the benefits in increased employment and more efficient transportation would add to quality of American life.

The President walked into his meeting yesterday, and instead of dealing with the very real problems confronting America today, he chose to “make his stand” over Congressional investigations of his Administration.  The President “expressed his outrage” over Democratic Congressional meetings about those investigations and the Speaker using the term “cover-up,” (some would say he threw a tantrum) and then, instead of turning to the real issues at hand, he walked out, moving to a pre-prepared press briefing in the Rose Garden.  He then said he would not work with Congress until they stop all the investigations.

Many Americans have had to do their jobs under difficult circumstances.  Some continue to work while under obtrusive scrutiny of their bosses, some are frequently audited and checked.  There is an American colloquialism for that, “knowing how to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

In Trump’s previous world, where he was the sole proprietor of his business enterprise, perhaps throwing tantrums and walking out of meetings was acceptable.  There was always another building to brand, another golf course to control, or another casino to run into bankruptcy.  It seems that Mr. Trump was enabled in his actions: when he failed to pay a billion dollar loan to Deutsche Bank and they called him on it, he sued the bank.  They then lent him even more money.

But the Congress of the United States isn’t Deutsche Bank  (hopefully they aren’t as indebted to Russia.)   Sometimes in government, and in life, you have to work with those you don’t like.  It’s your JOB.

The President doesn’t have to like what Congress is doing.  Certainly Mr. Trump is continuing to act like a guilty man, something he has done since that first meeting with the Intelligence leadership in 2016 at Trump Tower.  But regardless of his ultimate guilt, he currently holds a JOB, President of the United States.  Instead of doing that job, he is holding the well being of the American people hostage.

It is certainly possible that the Democratic leadership of Congress and the President will have difficulty reaching agreement on what needs to be done here in America, and how it will be paid for.  Negotiations are often tough, and frustrating.  But, for those who voted for Trump, isn’t that what you thought he could do?  Wasn’t he the “Great Negotiator” who was the master of the “Art of the Deal?”  So, Great Master, your JOB is to go figure out how to make this deal.

Bill Clinton negotiated with Newt Gingrich, passing multiple laws, while Gingrich was in the midst of impeaching him.  Richard Nixon signed lots of legislation, making deals with Congress, even as the Watergate noose drew closer around his neck.  They could “chew gum and walk at the same time;” and wanted to get things done as President despite the Congressional investigations.

So Mr. President, take your great deal making skills, and go make a deal on infrastructure.  Go fix our roads and bridges, go repair the damages from the extreme weather we seem to have created; you might even find a little more money for your vaunted Wall.  But please, Mr. President, do your JOB.  Get over your personal affront, and get onto America’s business at hand.  Do that, or, as President Harry Truman said, “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

A Matter of Noses

Democrats in the House of Representatives are faced with a stark choice.  They can follow the politically expedient path:  keep questioning the Trump Presidency, but emphasize the other, more popular aspects of the Democratic Agenda.  This is the direction that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would like to follow.  She rightly sees all of the benefits:  it contrasts a Democratic platform of helping the working class, solving the insurance issue, and stepping back from brinksmanship on the Southern Border and the rest of the world; with the scattered and terrifying Trump approach. The Speaker sees that as the best plan to keep the House, gain the Senate, and win the Presidency.

The other option is to proceed with impeachment proceedings, even though there is little chance that, no matter what is revealed, the Senate would ever even take up the matter, much less vote to remove the President.  The “nose count” is simple:  it requires twenty Republican Senators and all of the Democrats to agree to remove Mr. Trump.  Impeaching the President would inevitably become the singular issue in the House of Representatives, and seems to be exactly what the Trump Administration wants.  

“We want to be investigated by someone who wants to kill us just to watch us die.  We need someone perceived by the American people to be irresponsible, untrustworthy, partisan, ambitious, and thirsty for the limelight.  Am I crazy, or is this not a job for the House of Representatives?” (CJ Cregg in the television series, – The West Wing– air date, October 24, 2001)

The President and his strategists must have watched a lot ofWest Wing over the years; echoes of the show turn up in many of the White House actions (not that I would ever equate Trump with the fictional Josiah Bartlet.) They have reached the same political decision:  that the best move for them is to let the House of Representatives investigate, and even better, move to impeach the President.  The Trump “aura” has always been that of a victim, treated unfairly first by the Republican Party, then by the media, then by the intelligence agencies, and now by the House.  What better  “victim” image then to be impeached.  Trump will claim that the House is trying to overturn the “will of the voters,” despite losing the election by over three million votes, and try to ride that victimhood to four more years of the Presidency.

And he can make that look even better, by trying to stymie every move of the House to gather information. Regardless of the law, the President has tried to prevent witnesses from testifying and House committees from gathering information.  He has even claimed “executive privilege” over the redacted portions of the Mueller Report, and is actively preventing Mueller himself from testifying to the House Judiciary Committee.  And if the Courts overrule him, then Trump can claim to be a “victim” and then show himself to his base as a winner, fighting the unrelenting “liberals,” the “Obama Courts” and the “media.”

With all of this, why would the House even consider the “I-word” impeachment?  The answer is simple:  duty.

The House of Representatives, according to the Constitution, has the ”sole power” of impeachment (US Constitution Art. 1, §2.)  With the Department of Justice’s ruling that the President of the United States cannot be indicted or prosecuted while in office, the House becomes the only check on Presidential power, behavior, or criminality.   The President can be impeached and removed from office for “…committing treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” (US Constitution Art II, § 4.)

The House is the ultimate check on Presidential powers and actions.  If the members of the House determine that the President has in fact committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” (high crimes are not necessarily legally defined felonies, but are actions that go against the interest of the Constitution or the US Government); then they have an obligation under the Constitution to proceed. Though impeachment has seldom been exercised, only three times in US History; that rarity emphasizes its importance. 

House members have a Constitutional duty to determine if a President has committed an impeachable offense.  That determination process is through investigation; it would be dereliction of that duty if the House failed to examine witnesses and documents to determine if offenses have occurred.  With the evidence already publicly available about President Trump’s actions presenting a “prima facie” case, it is difficult to see how the House cannot proceed.

My mother used to have an expression: “don’t cut your nose off to spite your face.”  It took a long time for me to understand what she meant by that, but what I finally determined was that I shouldn’t do something, even if it seemed like the right thing to do, if it ultimately made the situation worse. 

Duty: the House must investigate the President. The best and legally most effective way to do this is to start impeachment proceedings.  Politics:  Democrats want to end the Trump Presidency and the McConnell tyranny in the Senate. The best way to do that, continue to contrast Democratic ideas with Republican actions.

So Speaker Pelosi, and the Democrats of the House of Representatives are faced with that difficult choice, political expediency, or Constitutional duty — and the nose thing.   

Field of Dreams and History

Baseball– James Earl Jones soliloquy from Field of Dreams

I was a “track” guy.  I played baseball until I was thirteen, but when I was twelve, I read the Jesse Owens story and went to a flat spot in the back yard and dug holes for my starting marks.  I didn’t know then, that there were devices called “blocks” that you used to start, but I knew I could be fast.  My commitment was cemented by meeting Jesse Owens himself when I was fifteen; about ten minutes of two “220 guys” talking shop.  I ran; Junior High, Junior Olympic, High School and College, then onto a forty year coaching career and now officiating.  I was a “track” guy.

But I went to a Cincinnati Reds games this weekend, the first one since – well, I was working for Jimmy Carter in his first Presidential campaign, and the infield was Perez, Morgan, Concepcion and Rose:  the “Big Red Machine.”  We’d sit in the high, high seats in Riverfront Stadium, drink ‘3.2’ Beer, smoke cheap cigars and watch the “Machine” take the National League apart on their way to a second World Series Championship.

Riverfront was the massive 60,000 seat stadium then, home to the Reds in summer and the Bengals in the fall. It replaced Crosley Field (I always loved Crosley, I think because Dad worked for Crosley Broadcasting), where baseball was played from 1912 to 1970, and put sports front and center in downtown. Riverfront marked Cincinnati’s commitment to keeping major league sports, and the city re-upped their allegiance in the late nineties by building two new stadiums near the same site, Paul Brown Stadium for the Bengals, and the Great American Ballpark for the Reds.

Great American is a mix of the best of Crosley, Riverfront, and Cincinnati.  The concessions are lined with Cincinnati favorites: Graeters and Skyline, Frischs, and Khans.  Sitting behind the left field wall it seems you aren’t that far from home plate; there aren’t many “nose bleed” seats among the 42,000 available.  And when you sit in the sun and watch the game, you feel the history, the story, of the Reds, Cincinnati, baseball and America.

The Reds were in the “1912” throwback uniforms, but they really didn’t look out of place in 2019.  The game was about trying to beat the Dodgers (they didn’t) but it was also about making little kids become part of “the game.”  Before the first pitch, kids from Celina, a small town in Ohio, were put in all nine positions on the field.  When the Reds starting lineup were introduced, the players went to their positions besides the kids, and autographed their hats.  One kid wanted a hug; he got it right there at second base.

It’s about kids, it’s about a game that has been played since 1869, it’s about the pride of a mid-sized city and a common thread through America.   When I sit in the outfield at Great American, I think about walking with my Dad in the early 1960’s at Crosley.  I recall long trips in the car, marveling how we could listen to the Reds on 700 WLW radio even though we were hundreds of miles away from home, waiting for announcer Joe Nuxhall to sign off, saying he’s “…rounding third and headed for home.”  

I’m a track guy, but baseball is about American history:  the grand years of the 1920’s, and the sole entertainment of the Great Depression.  It’s story includes the influence of Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier in the majors in 1947, and the place where today “old white men” (like me) listen to rap, hip hop, and Latin music, as each player has his own “theme song” coming up to bat.

I’m a track guy, and there’s nothing that get me as fired up as a tight 4×400 Relay in the hot sun at the state high school track meet.  But even this devoted track fan has to admit, there’s a whole world of history and America, out there in left field, section 104  two rows up from the wall, at the Great American Ballpark. 

It’s a Matter of Faith

I had a long conversation with an old Republican friend the other day.  We were talking about what the Justices of the Supreme Court would do with the Alabama abortion ban.  I expressed concern that the five Federalist Society Justices would move to overturn the forty-six year precedent of Roe v Wade and its related cases.  He responded with “faith.”

He had faith that the members of the Supreme Court would stay with their conservative view of the power of precedence in the law.  Faith, that they would see the Alabama case for what it was:  a challenge to the Court’s power to interpret the law.  Faith, that the Court would defend the continuity of law; rather than fall into the ideological argument over this particular case. Faith in stare decisis, Latin for “stand by things decided;” taught as the bedrock of the law from day one of law school.

My faith in the “bedrock principles” of Republican leaders has been sorely tested in the past two years.  I have seen many, really most, abandon the principles they have avowed their entire lives, and fall into the thrall of the Trump Presidency.  The only ones who seemed to have the courage of their convictions were on their way out:  McCain, Flake, Corker, Kasich.  They stood for what they believed, then departed from the scene.

I have always believed in American exceptionalism.  I ascribe to the theory, that Americans will rise to the crisis, that a man who led no more than a platoon could rise to lead an army and a nation (Washington) or a country lawyer save it (Lincoln.)  This is what Americans do.

I was raised on the stories told by John F. Kennedy in his book Profiles in Courage; that Americans would be willing to sacrifice their careers for the Constitution and nation they served.  My favorite:  Edmund G. Ross, the Republican Senator from Kansas who turned against his party and voted to prevent the removal of President Andrew Johnson.  He had no love for the President, but he recognized that his impeachment and removal would fundamentally alter the Constitutional balance of power.  He gave up his career with his vote, but he stood for his convictions of what the Constitution, and the Country, meant.

That belief has been sorely tested in the past two years.  I have seen men that I disagreed with but admired, Republican leaders of our nation; silenced by a “Tweet.”  I have seen dedicated Americans who did their duty as they saw it, literally “flayed in the public square.”  Men like James Comey, John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, and even the terribly flawed Peter Strzok, all were faced with an apocalyptic choice. They could either investigate a possible arrangement between a Presidential candidate and Russian intelligence and risk their careers; or ignore what the evidence demonstrated, and allow the possibility of a Manchurian Candidate turned real.

There are those who have shown courage on the Democratic side:  Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Maxine Waters, Elijah Cummings, and perhaps most of all, Nancy Pelosi.  They have all been attacked, all excoriated by the President and his minions; and all have stood firm for what they believe is the good of our nation. 

There are only three paths from our current crisis.  The facts can be brought out into the light of day, as they were exposed in the Watergate hearings.  Americans can hear for themselves without the filter of Attorney General Barr or Rudy Giuliani; Robert Mueller’s unvarnished facts in cold, hard testimony.  Then the people can decide what needs be done.

That will require some bipartisanship, some breaking of the silent “red” wall.  Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina has allowed a crack, subpoenaing the President’s son, but it will take more than one to allow the American people access to the facts.

This will also require the Supreme Court to decide whether the President’s “stonewall” against all investigation and subpoenas can hold.  Stare decisis should determine their decision, but this Court has yet to be openly tested.  Of the five Federalist Society members in the majority, where will they stand?  At least one, probably Chief Justice Roberts, will need to fulfill my old friend’s expectation, his faith.

Or, as I now expect will be the case, the American people will decide themselves; educated by whatever means they have available, in the 2020 elections.  Republican voters will have to decide whether to stick with their leader, regardless of what he has done, justifying their gains in the Courts and the stock market against his personal and political behavior.  They will have to decide to exercise the courage their leaders have been unable to find, in the secrecy of the voting booth.

Or, finally; America will be unalterably changed, and the laws, norms and behaviors of the current Republican Administration becomes who we are. 

It just takes a little faith.

It Was Obama’s Fault

It is the “new” party line for Trumpsters.  It goes something like this:

1. The Mueller Report proves that Trump didn’t do anything wrong in 2016, but
2. President Obama didn’t do enough to stop Russian involvement in 2016, so
3. When Trump worked with the Russians in 2016, it wasn’t his fault, it was Obama’s fault.

So, Trumpers, now it’s time to stick your index fingers in your ears, wave with your hands and say:  “neener – neener – neener.”

Step One – The Report

The Mueller Report did NOT prove that Donald Trump, has children, or his campaign were innocent of helping and getting help from Russia in the 2016 Presidential election.  It actually proves the contrary:  that they not only were interested, but they in fact welcomed Russian involvement and help.  There are one hundred and one known contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians (Business Insider).  There are statements from the candidate (“Russia, if you’re listening, find Hillary’s missing emails”) and the son (“dirt on Hillary – love it”).  There are Campaign Chairman meetings with Russian agents in the Manhattan Cigar Bar, and phone calls from the future National Security Advisor and the Presidential son-in-law.

What the Mueller Report did say, was that they were unable to put together a case  “beyond a reasonable doubt” to bring legal charges. The Report also states that obstruction, perjury, and evidence tampering all had roles in their inability to reach that legal standard.

Step Two – What President Obama Did

President Obama took several actions prior to the 2016 election, including a warning from the US Intelligence Agencies to the American people.  That warning got lost as it was released, the day after the “Access Hollywood Tape” and the Wikileaks drop of the Podesta emails, but the warning was clear.  Obama wanted to do more, including a joint message from the Democrat and Republican leadership about Russian interference, but Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan chose not to agree.

So the President was faced with a choice:  speak out himself and risk looking like he was putting his “thumb on the scale” of the 2016 election, or work in the background against the Russian intervention. He chose, right or wrong, to avoid the perception of taking a side.  We certainly know that the Trump Campaign would have screamed from the farthest rally stage had he spoken out.  From Mr. Obama’s perspective, it was a lose-lose proposition.

Step Three – What Trump Really Did

We expect that most people who dare to dream of being President, bring with them a “norm” of patriotism.  Common sense would indicate, that working with or receiving help from a foreign power would be “de facto” unpatriotic, and unacceptable.  There aren’t “laws” written about that, because it was such a “given” that no one thought laws were necessary.  But with the advent of Donald Trump as a Presidential candidate, there were no such things as “norms.”  All of the respected rules of behavior were not only ignored, but those “norms” were in fact ridiculed and intentionally rejected.  Trump made “breaking the rules” a campaign theme.  Mueller was forced to try to stretch existing conspiracy law to fit what was clearly wrong, but didn’t fit into a neat legal statute.  

(This, by the way, is another reason Congress should investigate what happened in the Trump campaign.  Their primary duty is to write “good” laws for the United States, if the “norm” of not cooperating with foreign powers isn’t a law, then it should be.)

It isn’t President Obama’s fault, though hindsight would suggest he should have taken the chance and spoken out publicly.  What is true, is that President Trump portrayed himself as the ultimate “victim.” He was planning on losing; of being the victim of a “rigged” election.  He even threatened not to honor the election results.  When he (along with most of the rest of the country) was surprised and won, he soon claimed to be the victim of an attempted “intelligence coup” to stop his Presidency.

Step Four – “Neener-Neener-Neener“

The one thing Trump supporters get right – the right to thumb their noses at the rest of the country. They did, by hook or by crook, get the majority of votes in the Electoral College and win the Presidency; there’s no denying that.  The nation has been paying the price ever since.  But don’t buy Trump’s victimhood, and don’t buy the false narrative of the Mueller Report as proof of innocence.  And don’t let Barack Obama get stuck with the blame for Trump becoming President:  after all, it was you and me*. 

*credit where credit is due, thanks to the Rolling Stones for that phrase, and see you soon!!!!

Life, Politics and Alabama

I was wrong.  I thought that the pro-birth program to outlaw women’s choice to have abortions was a gradual one.  I thought that they were going to “chip away” at the right to choose, slowly convincing the Supreme Court to restrict the Roe v Wade decision. I thought the ultimate goal was to return the United States to a pre-1973 standing, when states would decide individually whether to restrict abortion, or ban it.

I was in good company in that thinking:  states like New York and Virginia had already altered their laws in anticipation of changes in the Court’s interpretation of the Roe case.  But the pro-birth supporters, the ones who look to ultimately ban all abortions in the United States have made a different decision. They are “going for it all.”

When a human life begins is an ethical and religious concept.  Science can outline in detail the progress of conception and pregnancy. We have absolute knowledge of the stages of development of the fetus.  What science cannot determine is at what point that potential human life becomes an actual, legal person.

Some, notably the Roman Catholic Church, believe that even contraception, preventing pregnancy, is wrong. Their view is the only moral way to prevent pregnancy is not to have sex.  They have gone onto legalize their view, joining others in going to Court to attack laws that require Catholic insurers to provide for contraceptive drugs and devices, most recently attacking the Affordable Care Act.  By the way, the Church has no problem with paying for drugs that support male erections.

Many other churches and individuals believe the human life begins at the moment of conception, the moment that the sperm fertilizes the egg.  Their view is that at that moment, the embryo deserves the legal right of “personhood.”  Personhood means that the only way that the embryonic “life” can be taken is to protect an equally protected “person;” the life of the mother.  

Some states have taken a third position for the purposes of their law:  that the “personhood” right is bestowed at the time that the fetal heartbeat can be detected.  Ohio is one of those states that passed a “heartbeat” bill, effectively outlawing most abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.  Practically, most women don’t realize they are pregnant in the first six weeks; the legal result would be an almost total ban on abortion.

The Supreme Court in 1973, in its carefully nuanced decision, determined that those “personhood” legal rights, become an enforceable concern for states after the point of “fetal viability.”  Viability was determined as the earliest point in pregnancy when a child could be born and survive, somewhere after twenty weeks of pregnancy, or five months.

These are four differing standards of when a “potential” life becomes a legal “person.”  There is hardly a consensus view, but there are widely and strongly held opinions.  And given that those opinions are all about what an individual woman should do with her own body and her own life, it would be reasonable to assume that her individual opinion, her right to make a choice, should be protected.

But the pro-birth faction believes they can push their view into the law of the United States.  They have good reason:  President Trump’s two appointments to the Supreme Court, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, are likely to vote to overturn the Roe decision. Along with conservative Justices Thomas and Alito, it would only take the one vote of conservative Chief Justice Roberts to change America.

The pro-birth plan had been to allow those conservative Justices the “cover” of restricting the Roe decision.  The Ohio “heartbeat” law was part of that cover; take the Roe reasoning, and change “fetal viability” to “fetal heartbeat.”  That would practically have the effect of banning most abortions, while not technically overturning the Roe decision.

But the “Great State” of Alabama has decided to go for it all:  the legislature has passed and the Governor has signed a total abortion ban, with the only exception being the life of the mother.  The legislature specifically considered and rejected exceptions for rape and incest:  their goal was to present the Supreme Court with a black and white choice.

Alabama is not asking the Supreme Court to turn abortion regulation back to the states, to run the clock back to before 1973.  Alabama is asking the Supreme Court to rule that human life, legal personhood, begins at conception.  They are “going for it all;” and trying to force the ultimate question on the Court. The conceit of the conservative Justices that they can maintain precedent, restrict abortion and not overrule Roe v Wade, would not be possible should they hear the Alabama case.  

Alabama’s actions are likely to mobilize the pro-choice advocates.  Since the Roe decision, the pro-birth side has had the advantage, and the motivation, to organize and pressure for change.  Pro-choice had it easy; the law was on their side. But Alabama’s law is likely to make “choice” a major issue in the 2020 elections, bringing voters out from all sides of the issue.  

According to Gallup polling, 48% of Americans identify as pro-choice, and 48% of Americans as pro-life.  In that same poll, 79% felt that abortions should be legal under any or some circumstances, while only 18% thought all abortions should be illegal.

All of which may influence the one man who will make this momentous decision for the entire nation. With five conservatives on the Court and four liberals, it will fall to the “middle” conservative, Chief Justice Roberts, to make the call.  The fate of women in this country, and of fetuses, and of the nature of the law, will be on his shoulders.

The Battle Against Smart

We seem to be in a battle; against history, against science, against education:  our society seems to be in a battle against “smart.”  There is a “meme” floating around Facebook; a cartoon showing a street sweeper working, and a woman commenting to her child “if you don’t go to college, you’ll end up like him.”  In the second panel, a woman beside her states to her child, “that man has a job with full union benefits, and makes more money than that b***h with her liberal arts degree.”  Is this a part of “Trumpism,” or, like many aspects of America today, is the Trump phenomenon just another symptom?  

Full disclosure:  I have a liberal arts degree, Bachelor of Arts from Denison University in Political Studies, and a Masters Degree in Education from Ashland University; both “liberal arts” institutions.  As a career public school teacher, there are a whole lot of people with a whole lot of different jobs that made more money than this “b***h.” 

Sherrod Brown, US Senator from Ohio, has made the touchstone of his career representing “working people.”  Brown calls it the “dignity of work,” the importance of not only earning a living, but of contributing to society by doing something of value. Brown makes it clear that how you make that contribution isn’t what’s important.  His line is, “…it doesn’t matter whether you take a shower before work, or after…”  It’s the fact that you contribute; everyone doesn’t need a college degree.

But many Americans today seem to want to relate “liberal arts” with “liberal” Democrats.   They obviously weren’t at Denison University when I was there:  most of the faculty may have voted Democrat during the 1970’s, but most of the students were Republicans.  The faculty served to challenge their views and beliefs, forcing the students to re-think (or think in the first place) why they took a particular stand, but I know that not many political affiliations were changed.

The campaign today against “science and knowledge” seems to tie into the Trump movement.  Does the reality of climate change interfere with driving your SUV:  deny climate change.  Does the gnawing fear of autism make you crazy:  don’t get your child vaccinated.  Do the factual statements of the media conflict with your world view: call it “fake news” and keep the television on Fox.

Don’t like abortion?  Write a law requiring ectopic pregnancies to be re-implanted into the womb, a procedure that doesn’t exist, but was still considered by the State Legislature for an Ohio law.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.  – Franklin D. Roosevelt

We depend on educated voters to make decisions in our nation.  We have prided ourselves on the accomplishments of our knowledge; from the vaccines that some now deny, to the journey to the moon (also denied) that we now are trying to replicate. When we were confronted with the dangers of lead in our gas, or chlorofluorocarbons in our spray cans; we made the scientific and engineering discoveries and social changes that solved the problems. All these advances were made through education.

We called for more mathematicians and engineers in the 1950’s, and we got them in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  They produced the technology that we take for granted today. Americans need to be educated.  Americans need to be able to question, and to reason, and to learn:  all products of education.  

But today, in our era of unlimited information without shield or check, folks can choose their facts like they choose their socks.   Don’t like the consequences of global warming:  there’s a series on the internet that will explain how 98% of scientists are wrong.  Don’t want to be corrected about what you think; then don’t “fact-check” it, or don’t believe the results if you do.

In the 1900’s education was often a matter of literacy:  if you couldn’t read, the world wasn’t accessible.  But if you had that skill, then getting books, the “keys to the kingdom,” opened the world of knowledge.  The stories of how a young Abraham Lincoln spent his hard earned money on books and used so much time reading under a tree, or with his long legs propped on the desk, or by candlelight at night; those are the stories of how a man educated himself on the frontier.  And when the Civil War broke out, Lincoln read everything he could find on the tactics and strategies of war; he knew how to gain knowledge:  books.

Today that kind of information is as available as your laptop, or the phone in your pocket.  Anything you might want to know, from building atomic bombs to the Karma Sutra, is a “Google Search” away.  The trickle of knowledge available to Lincoln is now a fire hose of “facts.”

“Facts”:  the new education is not about memorizing dates or knowing names; it is in learning how to handle the volume of information that can be accessed. Information used to be about availability, it’s now about “vetting,” determining what is true or not.  That is the skill educators need to impart to their students.  Lincoln learned to read, opening the world.  The modern student needs to learn how to discern truth from fiction.

But to generations not equipped with those skills, it is easy to slip into the habit of finding only the “facts” that fit their political views and to denigrate those who stand up for the “real” truth.  What could be more comforting than denying those with “degrees” who bring inconvenient truths, and using the internet to provide the “facts” to do it.

There is dignity in all work.  The guy who drives the Waste Management garbage truck is important to our society.  So is the guy sweeping up the street.  But so is the professor who walks into class to discuss philosophy, and the students who participates in that discussion.  Education is not a threat to Democracy; like that introductory course in college, it is a prerequisite.  

Do We Care Why the Civil War Began?

There seems to be a “new” hot historical debate about why the US Civil War began.  I t’s been 154 years since the end of the War, you’d think that historians would have it pretty well figured out.  And, factually, they do; but current American politics, with its focus on “fake news,” has found a way to try to revise this story of America.

Fake news:  the Civil War was fought between two sovereign countries, a “War Between the States” not a technical “civil” war.  To reach that conclusion, it requires that the US Constitution be seen as a transitory document; one that could be dissolved at the “will” of a given state government.  But the founders, and the states that ratified the Constitution, did not see their “bond” that way.

The founding fathers, children of the Enlightenment era, were incredibly aware of the power of the words they wrote.  They parsed every phrase, in full knowledge that, as the musical Hamilton notes; “…history had it eyes on them.”  So when the Constitution starts with the words  “We the People of the United States…” those words were intentional.  The Constitution was an agreement among the people, a contract of the people, and as Lincoln later added, “…by the people (and) for the people.”  It used the structure of state governments to reach those people, but it specifically does NOT say that it was a contract among the states, unlike the Articles of Confederation, the previous organizing document.  The Articles of Confederation was an agreement of “…perpetual union between the states…” and proceeded to name each state.  The Constitution did not.

The Founding Fathers understood the “perpetualness” of their agreements, first with the Articles, then with the Constitution.  They recognized that the new “American people” were the union.

A contract of the people cannot be broken by the states.  This was the key argument that Lincoln made to preserve the Union, and was confirmed in the blood of 600,000 Americans on the battlefield.  

When the “states” of the South seceded from the Union, they were exercising a “right” they did not have. When the Union acted to preserve itself by going into the South to put down that War of Rebellion (as the United States government characterized the Civil War at the time) they were not “invading,” they were putting down insurrection and restoring civil government in their own nation.

The battle of interpretation started soon after the war, when Southern apologists pushed the phrase “War Between the States” to try to reassert a state basis for secession.  It was “fake news” then, and still is today.

And why did those Southern states find it necessary to try to secede?  The answer is easy:  slavery. Take slavery out of the equation, and there is no reason for Rebellion, and no Civil War.  

The United States had spent “four score and seven years” squirming under the inherent conflict in a nation, founded in the words “…all men are created equal,” enslaving millions of humans.  While just before the War, the law allowed slavery to continue in those places where it existed, the “compromises” reached in 1850 and 1854 restricted slavery’s expansion into new territories.  

The cotton growers of the South were trapped by the economics of their product.  Cotton growing and picking required massive amounts of human labor, most easily provided by slaves.  And cotton, by the nature of the plant, wore out the ground. Long-term cotton growth required new fields; if the cotton-growers were restricted to the old South, they would ultimately fail.  To those Southerners, slavery had to expand to the new territories, or their whole economic model would collapse.

They could not tolerate restriction.  Therefore, they had to either expand slavery, or rebel.  The rest of the Union, recognizing that slavery was incompatible with America’s founding principles, was not willing to allow that expansion. 

It is certainly true that the Civil War did not begin as a war to “free slaves.”  It was fought to preserve the Union, and as Lincoln said at the time:

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

He wrote this just a few weeks before the battle at Antietam, where in one day over 22,000 men were killed, wounded, captured or went missing.  But it was right after Antietam that Lincoln authored the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in those parts of the United States in rebellion.  He did it to hurt the Rebels, and he did it to encourage the abolitionists.  But he also did it with full knowledge that once on the course of freeing slaves, there was no turning back for the United States.  He knew that Union victory and the end of the War would be the end of slavery.

In today’s politics many try to rewrite history. Some see an advantage in restricting the Federal government, particularly when it comes to expanding civil and religious rights.  To those who claim that the Southern states were simply claiming their Constitutional sovereignty by seceding, and therefore states have similar rights to ignore the Federal government today, it is simply not true.  And to those who claim that the Civil War wasn’t “about slavery,” and therefore the Secessionists weren’t fighting to maintain ownership of humans, that’s not true either.  

Political convenience today does not allow us to revise the sacrifices of our ancestors.  They knew what they were fighting for, and against, and so should we.

Stockholm Syndrome

 …Stockholm syndrome, in which hostages begin to develop positive feelings toward their captors, an effect thought to occur when victims’ initially frightening experiences with their kidnappers are later countered with acts of compassion or camaraderie by those same individuals.

The Stockholm Syndrome:  when a person taken hostage develops positive feelings towards their captor.  While this psychological state was named in 1973 after a bank robbery turned hostage situation in Sweden, Americans know it best from the Patty Hearst kidnapping.

In 1974, the nineteen year old heir to the Hearst newspaper fortune Patty Hearst was kidnapped by leftist radicals who called themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army.  They held her for nineteen months, demanding that her parents donate millions to feed the poor.  Her father donated $2 million to a San Francisco food distribution group.   Two months after her captivity,  now calling herself Tania, she joined her kidnappers in a bank robbery, holding an M-1 Rifle on the customers.  She recorded an audiotape for the public, stating that she had become a member of the SLA.

For the next several months, she crisscrossed the nation with her fellow SLA members, participating in multiple crimes.  While the majority of the group were killed in a shoot out with police, Hearst and a few others survived and tried to revive the SLA.  After participating in a bank robbery where a customer was murdered, Hearst was finally captured in in a San Francisco apartment.  On getting booked into jail, she gave her occupation as an “urban guerilla.”

Hearst was ultimately convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to thirty-five years.  She served less than two:  her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and ultimately she was pardoned by Bill Clinton.  

As a “Democrat/Resistancer” I watch the leaders of the Republican Party and wonder, have they become victims of the Stockholm Syndrome?  There certainly are true believers, the Lewandowskis, Millers and Sanders.  And there are those who have found Mr. Trump as someone “clearing the road” for them to lead a similar political life: Jim Justice, the governor of West Virginia, a multi-millionaire who refuses to even live in the capital of the State, is a great example of that.

But what of the “regular” Republican leadership, what happened to them?  Mitch McConnell is following his singular course of packing the Federal judiciary with his ideological view, and obviously is willing to pay almost any other price to achieve that goal.  But what about the Republicans that seemed “normal”:  Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Thom Tillis, and all of the rest who have taken an almost sycophantic position to Mr. Trump?

Christie, Graham and Paul all ran against Trump in 2016.  They all were pounded mercilessly by Trump criticism, tweet, and insult.  Like Patty Hearst when she was first kidnapped, they were faced with political death.  Don’t believe me – check the further career of Jeb Bush.   So they have made the choice, or maybe they in fact fell into the Stockholm Syndrome. If you listen to those politicians today, agreeing with every political move, justifying every outlandish tweet, and becoming “the President’s Men,” they aren’t pretending to agree with Trump. They are true believers, members of the cult.

Even the much-maligned Jeff Sessions still longs to be part of the “Trump Army,” spouting the Trump rhetoric even after his political neutering by the President.   

These “men of the Senate” are willing to give away the power and prerogatives of that body, allowing the President to set precedents that they would never accept from a Democrat.  They have allowed Mr. Trump’s perceived political influence to threaten them so much, that they have abandoned long cherished principles, and friends like John McCain, to kowtow to him.  Their incredible one-hundred eighty degree turnabout on tariffs is only the latest example.

Anticipation of political death must be so terrifying, that men of power are willing to give up, give in, and join the “SLA” to keep their careers.   They need to give up their names:  Lindsey, Thom, Marco, Rand, Chris, Jeff:  they can all be “Tania” now.

There is a 1990’s movie, made before the Clinton scandals and the extreme polarization of today’s political world.  “Dave” with Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline, was a story of a President who has a stroke, and his lookalike, Dave, is put in his place.  Dave ran a temporary job service in “real life,” and brought that perspective to his illegitimate Presidency.

In the climatic scene – Dave as President speaks to the Congress, and says: 

See, there are certain things you should expect from a President.  I ought to care more about you than I do about me… I ought to care more about what’s right than I do about what’s popular… I ought to be willing to give this whole thing up for something I believe in… (Dave “the whole truth”)

It’s an old movie, but it’s a message that the “Tania’s” in the Senate ought to hear. It might remind them why they were elected, and what their duty to America should be.

The Noose

Every junior high kid has a “talent,” something they can do that other kids can’t.  Some can cross their eyes, some wiggle their ears, some are double jointed and can pull their shoulders together.  I had a couple: I could “roll” my tongue like a wave, and I could tie a “legal” noose.

A “legal” noose is one with thirteen wraps.  It was something I must have looked up; in all of my Boy Scout training in knots and lashings, I don’t ever remember the “noose” class. But somehow I learned how to tie one, along with a bowline-on-a-bite and a diagonal hitch.  In junior high you could usually tell what classrooms I was in; the drawstrings for the blinds would often have one of my knots tied into the ends.  A noose was part of the repertoire.

In 1969 in Kettering, Ohio outside of Dayton, I never thought of the “noose” as a racist symbol. I thought of it as a cool knot with a symbolic history in the American West; that’s where the horse thieves and the murderers would find themselves, literally, at the end. And I could make a “legal” one.

Kettering was a very, very, white community in the late 1960’s.  It was a residential suburb of Dayton, a town that was booming with Delco, National Cash Register, Frigidaire, and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  In my junior high there was one black family, my two friends from Scouts, but no one else.  I don’t know what they thought of nooses, or whether they knew they were mine. 

It’s a different world today, fifty years later.  We have a much greater understanding of the symbolism in racism, from calling someone a “boy” or worse, to “driving while black,” and to the “noose.”  We now know, and should have realized even back in 1969, that a noose is the symbol of lynching, of enforcing racist standards by torture and murder.  While in 1969 I didn’t have any idea of that, in 2019 one would have to be willfully ignorant not to make the connection. I wish that someone had told me of the racial significance then, I would have stopped in a second.  I didn’t believe that message then, or now, and I wouldn’t have wanted to send it.

This week in an elementary school in Palmdale, teachers found a noose tied into a length of rope. Palmdale is a community in Southern California.  Diversity is a big part of Palmdale, with 24.5% of the population white-Hispanic, 24.5% non-Hispanic white, and 15% black.  In 2019, finding a noose in a length of rope, even in an elementary school, sends a message. The teachers should have read it.

Instead, they took a group picture, four elementary teachers, smiling, pointing at the noose held up by one of them.  The photographer was their principal.   And like all such pictures, taken as a “joke” for the inner circle of teacher-friends, it got out.  The local TV station picked up the story (CBS 9) and the whole community blew up.

The community is right. Even though these are veteran and respected teachers, they have, at the least, revealed an ignorance and insensitivity to racism.  At the worst, they are in fact insensitive racists.  Either way, they have brought into question their twenty-year careers, and shaken the confidence of the community in their classes, and their school system.

As for the Principal behind the camera, she was applying to become Superintendent.  Now she, and her four staff members, are on paid administrative leave.  Whether they keep their jobs or not, they have displayed incredibly poor judgment, and lost the trust of the parents in Palmdale.

It wasn’t right for a thirteen year old back in 1969, even though there was no “intent.”  For five seasoned educators in 2019 California, or anywhere else in the United States, it is unacceptable.   We all need to get the message.

This is Our Solution?

Kids shooting other kids at school:  it seems that since the 1990’s we have been struggling with how to deal with this. We have tried lockdowns, run aways, and throwing rocks, balls, and soup cans.  The police went from waiting outside to negotiate, to charging in to take down the shooter.  

But the drumbeat of shootings goes on and on and on.  In the last two weeks we have had two school shootings, one in Charlotte, North Carolina, and one in suburban Denver.  And while we adults have come up with all sorts of ideas and training to prepare our students for what seems like the inevitable attack, nothing has worked.

So the students have found their own way.  Someone; some heroic kid, attacks the shooter.  They are likely to be killed in the attempt, but as long as the shooter doesn’t have an assault rifle, there’s a reasonable chance that the first attacker will slow up the carnage.  Then, others will have time to run, or to mass and overwhelm the “gun.”

Riley Howell:  he was a soccer goalie in high school, and now was studying environmental science.  When a shooter entered his classroom at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Riley Howell chose to attack rather than hide.  He knocked the shooter down, pinning him until the police arrived.  Riley died from gunshot wounds.  

Kendrick Castillo: four days from his graduation at the STEM School at Highland Ranch, he wanted to become a Marine.  He was a four-year member of the STEM School robotics club. When the shooter came through his classroom door, he charged rather than hide under a desk.  He took the shots, but knocked the shooter down.  His classmates then controlled the shooter until the police arrived.  Kendrick died from gunshot wounds. 

We need to celebrate their heroism.  We need to say their names, rather than the names of the shooters.  We need to be proud of their sacrifice, and we need to recognize the sorrow of their parents and friends.  These were obviously two very special men.

But Riley and Kendrick also represent an absolute failure of our society to deal with our problem.  We have given the students nothing:  no solution, no way to avoid what seems to be a more and more frequent tragedy.  We have said:  we can’t fix this, do it yourself.

We have allowed our political divisiveness to handcuff our actions.  Politicians; those elected officials to whom we have entrusted the honor of finding solutions to our problems, are so afraid of offending radicalized gun owners, that they do nothing.  Nothing, that is, besides sending their thoughts and prayers to the parents of Riley and Kendrick.

There are lots of solutions that might take the guns out of the hands of the shooters.  But we are so paralyzed by political fear that we can’t even agree to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, much less kids at the door of the classroom.  We have checked our courage at that door, and allowed these young adults, and the ones who have been marching since Parkland, to carry it for us.

We, adults in the United States, are making a choice.  We are ALLOWING this to go on.  We are making the political choice to do what is easy, nothing; rather than what is hard. By not reaching a solution, coming up with a plan better than sacrificing the best or throwing soup cans; we are failing the future, our children.

Other nations do it. Whether you like the solution or not, New Zealand took less than two weeks to react to a white nationalist attack, and ban assault weapons.  Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and most of the rest of the industrial world has found a way to protect their kids.  

We need to overcome our impotence.  We need to stop asking our best to sacrifice themselves to protect their classmates. We need to act as adults and find real solutions. It’s what our kids expect us to do.

No Taxation Without Representation

The “Sons of Liberty” were some of the “up and coming” men of Boston.  They were merchants and craftsmen, journalists and lawyers, and plenty of common workers.  They believed that they were English citizens, with the right to representation in the legislature.  But they had none, and resented taxes that were levied on them by the far-away British Parliament.

The most noxious tax for them, was the “tea tax,” a charge of ten percent on tea imported into Boston, and the rest of the American colonies.  Like coffee in America today, tea was the drink of choice for most Americans in the 1700’s. This tax wasn’t charged directly to the consumer, but to the colonial merchants who received the tea on consignment from the British East India Company, the primary tea exporter.

But the merchants then, like merchants today, didn’t “absorb” the cost of the tax.  They passed it onto the consumer.

In protest, the Sons of Liberty gathered at the Old South Meeting House on the night of December 16, 1773, and dressed in costumes resembling the Mohawk tribe.  They went down to the harbor, boarded three ships, and dumped 342 chests of tea into the sea.

The current President of the United States has said he will impose $200 billion in tariff (tax) increases on Chinese goods starting on Friday. Best Buy, Apple, and Wal-Mart are not likely to “absorb” the cost, just as the merchants of 1773 didn’t absorb the tea tax.  Like days of yore, the $200 billion will not be a tax on the Chinese, in the sense that they will be the ones who pay.  If the tariffs are enacted, then it will be the American consumer that will pay the increased costs. 

In the current Administration’s defense, China has been a unfaithful trading partner.  They underpay their workers and subsidize their businesses with government funds.   They also boldly steal intellectual property; ignoring American copyrights and patents by simply taking the plans and products, reverse engineering the processes, and make the goods themselves.  They are not fair partners.

There are few in the business world who defend the Chinese trading practices.  It is clearly time to “reset” the relationship.  But Americans be warned:  the “reset” is going to require Americans to suffer.  The $200 billion will not come from Chinese coffers; it will come from our bank accounts.

In the long term, it might encourage Americans to purchase American made products rather than “made in China.”  The problem: the vast majority of computer chips, electronic goods, and machinery come from China and are not made in the “good ol’ USA.”  So if you want an IPhone, or a Sony television (components),  you’re going to pay more.

And like any good trade war, don’t expect that China is going to accept their “punishment” without consequences.  China will retaliate on US imports:  aircraft (though they could probably get a good price on Boeing’s 737 Max’s right now,) optical and medical instruments, and agricultural goods.  China buys $9.3 billion in American farm goods.  They have already raised taxes on some. And China has gone shopping, getting products from other places and simply not buying from US farms. 

So Americans will be left baring the burden of this tariff fight, particularly the American farmer.  

Ross Perot was a wealthy businessman who ran as an Independent for President in 1992.  Perot advocated Americans “bite the bullet,” pay off the Federal debt, and reset our trade positions with the rest of the world. He let America know that his plan would hurt, causing financial difficulty for many, but was necessary in the long run.  He received almost 19% of the popular vote.

President Trump always ran as a “tariff” guy.  But he is about to “rip the bandage off” of America’s trade policy, and it will be the American people, and particularly the American farmer, that will feel the pain. He needs to make it clear that the $200 billion tariff increase on China is really a $200 billion tax increase on Americans.

Or perhaps modern day Sons of Liberty will go to the Port of Los Angeles, and dump IPhones into the Pacific.

No Collusion

Collusion – “a deceitful agreement or compact between two or more persons, for the one party to bring an action against the other for some evil purpose, as to defraud a third party of his right.” – Blacks Law Dictionary

Looking at the Black’s Law Dictionary definition of Collusion – it sounds bad, and it definitely sounds like it ought to be illegal.  To participate in “collusion” means having a “compact for evil purpose” and to “defraud.”  But as we have heard over and over again from the many attorneys that have peppered the media for the past two years, there is no US law against collusion.

Some of the Trump Campaign actions that are called “collusion” describe behaviors that might well fall under the definition of conspiracy against the United States under Federal Law (18 US Code §371):

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

It is not a “legal mistake” that the President, his attorneys, the Attorney General, and the Republican Congressmen and Senators who are defending him keep chanting the same mantra:  NO COLLUSION, NO COLLUSION, NO COLLUSION.  Since the term doesn’t have legal meaning, it’s a safe thing to say.   No one is going to drag, for example, William Barr the Attorney General into court to determine whether he “lied” about collusion.  There is no legal definition to lie about.

All of them should have read the Mueller Report (though Mr. Barr, hearing his answers to the Senate, doesn’t seem to have done so, and Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham admits he hasn’t completed the 448 page task.)   I have; and while Mr. Mueller does not believe he uncovered enough evidence to satisfy filing charges under 18 US Code §371, there are lots of incidents of contact with Russia; with meetings, shared information, and joint benefits and goals.  That’s evidence of conspiracy violating Federal law. That Mr. Mueller does not believe he has a case rising to the criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” is quite different than the NO COLLUSION battle cry.

But Bill Barr’s actions in misrepresenting the report, leaving his interpretation as the only available information for almost a month, has solidified the Trump talking point – NO COLLUSION.  And what the President, his supporters in Congress, and the Attorney General are now doing is simply buying time.  The longer that their “narrative” is unchallenged by the actual testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, or White House Counsel Don McGahn, or the multiple other possible witnesses; the longer the NO COLLUSION false conclusion will set into stone.  

I heard an estimate today that only three percent of Americans have read the Mueller Report.  I get that: even though it’s important, 448 pages of legal document with enumerated footnotes is a lot to get through, along with work and life.  So for many Americans, the only way to find out about the Mueller Report will be to hear it from Mr. Mueller himself, and the witnesses that he included.

We know the strength of spoken testimony.  In the past few years we heard Hillary Clinton testify for eleven hours, James Comey testify to investigating the President, and Michael Cohen call his former boss a crook and a racist. There is a tremendous impact from hearing the spoken word.  We heard them, and we will eventually hear Mueller, McGahn, and the others.  It’s how America will learn, just as we learned about Watergate from Nixon’s White House Counsel John Dean and the man who revealed the tapes, Alexander Butterfield.

For the Trump forces it’s all about time.  The longer they can stave off the investigation, the more firmly their false narrative becomes established, and the closer the election of 2020 will come. When we get within view of the Presidential election, we will hear the same false reasoning that Mitch McConnell used to stop President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court:  “…we are within a year of the election, we should let the American people ‘weigh-in’ at the voting booth.”  It’s the rationale that Mr. Trump has used to justify not releasing his taxes, and paying hush money to porn stars, and assaulting women: the people voted for me, so it’s over.

Literally, time will tell. The Courts are likely to rule in favor of the Congress in their fight for information, but it will take time, time that benefits Mr. Trump.  That’s why it’s important for Democrats to campaign on more than just Trump in 2020.  This issue may well be decided at the ballot box; for the sake of the nation, Democrats need to be in the right. 

Addendum: Secretary of Treasury Mnuchin has just denied the Congressional demand for Mr. Trump’s tax returns.  He is defying clear law (26 US Code § 6103 (f) (1)) but it just another part of the strategy – stall-stall-stall.

To read more on the House Ways and Means Committee and the President’s taxes  Click this link.

Stolen History

I have Facebook “friends” from all sides of the political spectrum.  We look for lost dogs, discuss repairs on the local roads, and share birthdays and funeral announcements.  We also confront each other’s politics from time to time, but no matter how opposed we are in political beliefs, we try to respect our differing views in order to maintain our friendship.

But sometimes I am dismayed by what they post.  Yesterday while perusing Facebook I found a repost on a friend’s site, that claimed the following:

“Thomas Jefferson founded the Marine Corps, and used it to attack Muslims (in the form of the Barbary Pirates),” and, “…the orders of the Marines were to confront Muslim pirates in battleand follow them back to their villages and kill every man, woman, and child they found.”

The post goes onto state that Jefferson himself spoke out against “Radical Islam.”  It claims:

 “…The Quran (Koran) – the Muslim holy book not only condoned but mandated – violence against non-believers of Islam and that was totally unacceptable to Jefferson.  (His) greatest fear upon leaving office was that someday radical Islamist (sic) would return.  He believed Muslims would pose more threats on the United States and its citizens as time went on.”

In our time of polarization, many search history to find justification for their current political stands.  A Google Search can find almost any information to back any political view.  But just because it’s on the INTERNET doesn’t make it true, and in this case my friend has chosen to absolutely distort history to support his current bias.

I was a history and government teacher for thirty-six years. While I haven’t done an in-depth study of Jefferson and Islam, it seemed to me that a Muslim massacre by the United States Marines would have quickly come to mind. It’s not that massacres of different people would be so incredibly unusual in US History; the record of US treatment of Native Americans demonstrates that the orders of “…kill every man woman and child found,”was not uncommon.

And Jefferson, our brilliant Enlightenment founding father, was certainly capable of holding incredibly contradictory positions.  The author of the Declaration of Independence, he wrote this:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But he owned hundreds of slaves who made up such a big part of his economic fortune that he could not and would not allow them to have freedom.  He kept one slave as his “consort” (a great classical word) even though she was taken by him when she was fifteen.

Americans are full of contradictions, even from our Founding moments.  And the founding ideologue, Jefferson, was more apparent than most in his inconsistency.  

But you can’t make up your own history.

To start with, Jefferson didn’t “found the Marines.” The Marines were founded in 1775, when Jefferson was a delegate to the Continental Congress from Virginia. And when Jefferson did send those Marines to “…the shores of Tripoli” to contest the Barbary Pirates, it wasn’t about “Radical Islam.” It was about extortion: the pirates operating out of modern day Libya would force ships to pay tribute or be captured, and the new United States decided to flex its foreign policy “might” against them.

The US Navy and Marines were able to defeat the “pirates” in the First Barbary War in 1805 (there was a second War in 1815), paid a ransom for held American prisoners, and no longer paid the tribute. Neither of these conflicts had anything to do with “Radical Islam;” it was about respect for the US Flag vessels on the high seas.  And there was no massacre of women and children. 

Jefferson in the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, stated:“…that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion…”

In his unfinished autobiography, Jefferson further stated that he intended the Statute to protect:“the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.”In the language of the 1820’s, a “Mahometan” was a Muslim.  Jefferson’s own copy of the Koran became a part of the Library of Congress.

We all have our political differences and opinions. But as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan so famously said: “You are entitled to your own opinions, but not you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Particularly when you try to warp American History to make it fit your own political views.

American Expectations

Harry Truman was known as the “Senator from Pendergast.”  Tom Pendergast was the leader of the Democratic political machine of Kansas City.  He controlled the patronage – the political jobs – for Western Missouri.  One of the politicians that Pendergast sponsored was Harry Truman, elected Judge (commissioner) of Jackson County.  

During the Great Depression, Truman moved from Judge to Missouri’s Director for the Federal Reemployment Program, a patronage job from the Roosevelt Administration.  Truman wanted to move onto Washington, DC, but he wasn’t Pendergast’s first choice for the US Senate in 1934 (actually he was the fifth.)  Pendergast eventually changed his mind, and Truman was able to win the Democratic nomination and the election.

Truman did solid work in the Senate, leading a sub-committee investigation of price gouging and abuses in military appropriations in the months before World War II.  As a middle-of-the-road, middle-of-the-country Democrat, he was the perfect “middle” choice in 1944 when the Party decided to drop the more liberal Henry Wallace as Roosevelt’s Vice President.

There weren’t many expectations for Truman as Vice President.  He was politically the right man; but Roosevelt did little to bring him into the critical decisions of 1945:  the end of World War II, the development of the United Nations, the atomic bomb.  Truman managed to get in some trouble with the press, allowing Lauren Bacall to pose on the piano while he played in the Press Club, and attending the now disgraced (tax evasion) Pendergast’s funeral.

Then Franklin Roosevelt died.  Truman rushed to the White House, asking Eleanor Roosevelt if there was anything he could do. The First Lady responded, “is there anything we can do for you, for you are the one in trouble now.”  Truman told the press later the next day:

“Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”

There is an American traditional belief that the “man” will rise to the Presidency, regardless of his background or previous service.  Harry Truman has always been the greatest example of that story; the machine politician who through political happenstance fell into the Presidency at one of the United State’s, and the world’s, most critical times. 

It was Truman who decided to use the atomic bomb, develop the Marshall Plan and NATO, and encourage the United Nations.  It was also Truman who faced the economic impacts of the post-war America, as the wage and price controls of the Great Depression and war economy were released.  Prices went up, workers demanded higher wages, and the Democratic President found himself in direct conflict with the railroad unions.

And it was Truman who got the last laugh ay all of the polls that predicted he would lose to Republican Tom Dewey of New York in 1948.  The famous picture of a smiling Truman holding up the Chicago Tribune with the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman” opened his second term as President.

Like Truman or not, he was a President who steered America through the beginning of the Cold War.  And while he left the Eisenhower Administration with the twin concerns of Korea and McCarthyism, he is generally acknowledged as a man who “rose above himself” in his Presidential service.

Other American Presidents have risen to the office as well.  George W. Bush gained stature during 9-11, and a corporate lawyer and one term Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, became arguably our greatest President during the Civil War.

But, with the Trump Administration, we now know that it’s not “magic.”  Not everyone who enters the Oval Office emerges in greatness, and not every elected President gains the “gravitas” of the Presidency.  Certainly Donald Trump is the exception to prove that point.

And now there are even greater concerns that Donald Trump, the candidate who pointedly refused to accept the legitimacy of the 2016 election in advance, might not accept defeat in 2020.  

Another American tradition is recognition of the will of the voters.  It started in one of the roughest elections in American history, where the governing party was faced with a diametrically opposed political force.  It was an election where the press attacked both sides, even accusing one candidate of having an affair with an under aged “employee.”  It was the election of 1800, and Federalist John Adams did everything he could to hang onto the Presidency against Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson. 

On inauguration day, Adams packed up and left the White House early. He didn’t stay to participate in Jefferson’s swearing in ceremony.  Adam’s wasn’t a “good sport” about it, but he did acknowledge Jefferson’s victory, establishing the tradition of peaceful transition of power.

Should the election of 2020 turn the Trump’s out, we can only hope he will do the same.  Will the President who created the phrase “fake news” cry foul against an election that went against him?  We know that was his intent if he had lost in 2016, now with the trappings of Presidential power, it is an open question what Trump will do.  

The power of the Presidency only resides in his authority to direct the government.  Regardless of who Trump appoints, we know that those leaders have sworn an oath:

“I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”

It is an oath to the United States and to the Constitution; not to any individual leader.  If that tradition were to be lost, then we truly have lost America.  

Stay Small

My town, Pataskala, has a gun range.  It is a popular place where folks can shoot, buy weapons, and socialize.  Guns are a reason they get together, discussing, evaluating, and comparing.  It’s become a very successful business here in town.

The range has been around for a few years, but this year they opened an outdoor shooting area.  It’s two miles from my house, and I don’t really think we hear them on Sunday afternoons, though we occasionally hear shots. There’s enough farm fields and woods nearby, the sound may be coming from there.  But there are folks who live much closer to the range, and one of them had the temerity to complain about the noise on Facebook.

The town rose en masse to defend the range. There were over eight hundred comments, with very few defending the complainant. And, unfortunately, many seemed to personally attack the person who spoke out against hearing gunshots half a mile away.

“…you’re not a man if you don’t own a gun”

That was one of the comments on the post.  Here in Ohio, some young men in their twenties and thirties, walk around openly carrying pistols on their belts, even at kids birthday parties.  During the Renaissance, nobles wore a “codpiece” as part of their apparel.  The codpiece was an article of clothing worn over the groin of various shapes and sizes, implying, the size of the male equipment underneath.  To some today, the openly carried pistol seems to serve that same purpose.

But to others it is a sign of the fear that permeates many in our time.  Fear of the unknown:  of crime in the city, usually associated with people “different” than them, and with the threat of “brown people” from the border, or as columnist Mike Barnacle puts it, “…fear of the other.”  Many are afraid of “the other” who will come to hurt them or steal from them, and that “codpiece” on their belt is a visual demonstration of that fear.

Fear of the government coming to take something away:  that’s why some claim to need military type weapons.  That’s for some, but not all.  Many want assault weapons not for protection or defense, but because they are fun to fire. And that’s another part of the problem: there is a distinction between fear that demands a loaded weapon always close at hand, and firing weapons for fun and socializing.  

Perhaps the mass reaction wasn’t about the range, or the guns, but about the fear.  We live in an era where fear is “purveyed;” sold on television, by politicians, and in our social media.  The old newsroom saw, “if it bleeds, it leads,” has been around for a century, but today it seems even more prevalent.  On the Fox News webpage this morning:  murder in the Caribbean, bridge collapse, police kicked and kneed, eagles poisoned, Obama feels like mobster, Everest covered in bodies and trash, child abuser found hanged in cell, hospital drops newborn; that’s the scary and disturbing list of headlines.

We are being told to be afraid.  And we are being told to “Stay Small;” to keep a low profile, not stand up, not put yourself  “out” in the world.  Maybe that started after 9-11, when we all worried about where the next terror attack might be.  The caution still is apparent:  metal detectors to go the hockey game or Broadway plays, lockdown drills in schools, armed guards in the malls and at the games.  These are very real symbols of fear, symbols that keep people trapped in their familiar communities, afraid to “venture” into the city or the world. 

The person complaining about noise at the gun range, wasn’t demanding that the Second Amendment be repealed.  She wasn’t inviting a political discussion, nor was she asking for more than just a cessation of disturbing noise from a neighbor.  But it tapped into a wellspring of fear in the community; and challenged a lot of folks at a very core level.  It challenged the way they dealt with fear.

Don’t get in between people and their guns. They need to “Stay Small”:  not allow themselves to become a target, nor get in unfamiliar places or positions.  And if they have to go there, then bring a gun to balance the scales.

The Sullying of Bill Barr

Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country – John F Kennedy Inaugural Address – 1961

The New Moral Compass: not what is best for the country, but what is best for Donald Trump – former CIA Director John Brennan 5/1/19

The Attorney General of the United States said under oath yesterday that the President of the United States is above the law – former Senator Claire McCaskill, 5/2/19

William Barr, sixty-eight years old, is the Attorney General of the United States.  He is a product of New York City, with Bachelors and Masters degrees from Columbia University, and a law degree with highest honors from George Washington in Washington, DC.  He served in the CIA, as a clerk in the US Court of Appeals, and on the policy staff of President Ronald Reagan.  

He then moved to the Department of Justice, serving as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, Deputy Attorney General, and in 1991was appointed Attorney General of the United States under President George HW Bush.

During his first term of service, he was instrumental in gaining Presidential pardons for six members of the Reagan executive branch who were convicted or charged in the Iran/Contra Affair.  The scandal involved selling surplus US military weapons to Iran, and spending the resulting profits to support insurgents in Nicaragua, both violating US law. Casper Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense, was the highest profile pardon recipient. The pardons effectively ended the investigation into the Affair, and Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel prosecuting the case, stated:

“[The] pardon of Caspar Weinberger and other Iran-contra defendants undermines the principle that no man is above the law. It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office—deliberately abusing the public trust without consequence. Weinberger, who faced four felony charges, deserved to be tried by a jury of citizens.”

With the election of Democrat Bill Clinton as President, Barr went into the private sector.  He was executive vice president and general counsel to GTE (now Verizon) then went into private practice as a consulting corporate attorney.  During that time Barr was also active in conservative Republican politics, including the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. 

In the beginning of the Trump Administration, Barr was secure as an elder statesman of conservative attorneys.  He weighed in on several issues, supporting further investigation of Hillary Clinton, and surprisingly sent a nineteen-page unsolicited memo to both the White House and the Department of Justice, questioning the legal underpinnings of the Mueller Investigation.   It was that memo that brought him to the attention of the White House. They were looking for a long-term replacement for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who fell out of favor with the President by recusing himself from any Trump related issues.

When Barr’s name was first mentioned, many Republicans and more moderate Democrats looked at him as a Department of Justice “institutionalist,” who would protect the reputation and traditions of the Department as a quasi-independent executive agency.  He was seen as a safe pick who would bring balance to a Department still rocked by the Comey firing, the revelation of the Strozk texts, and under attack from the radical right led by Congressmen Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, and the President himself.  Barr would be the “adult” at the head of the Department.

But Barr’s actions in the Iran/Contra Affair, and his nineteen page memo to the White House should have been the “tell.” Democratic Senators in the Judiciary Committee tried to make that point in questioning Barr, but he was adroit in the testifying skills of dodging and obfuscating.  And many depended on Barr’s friendship with Mueller, reminiscent of Watergate days when Attorney General Bill Saxbe and Prosecutor Leon Jaworski testified side by side to the Congress.

But whatever that friendship signified, it didn’t apply to “business” when it came to Attorney General Barr.  His mischaracterization of the Mueller Report with a four-page summary that “cleared the President of any wrong-doing” allowed the Trump forces three weeks to press a false narrative of Presidential innocence. Mueller’s own protests, including a letter to the Attorney General that Barr summarized as “snitty,” came out this week, but Barr has consistently defended his own false interpretation of the clear language of the now public Mueller document.

Mueller outlines ten possible lines of obstruction of justice charges against President Trump.  Barr dismisses them all, not on the facts, but on his own interpretation that the President has the right to protect his own innocence, by disrupting any investigation into himself.  Barr seemed completely oblivious to the possibility that a guilty President might protect himself through obstruction.  He places the President beyond the purview of Justice Department inquiry, saying:  “ …the Department of Justice is out…there’s an election in 18 months.” 

In 1992, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh warned us that Barr believed that some were above the law.  In his statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Barr made it clear that he absolutely regards the President in that way, subject only to election or presumably Congressional impeachment.  

Bill Barr has returned to public service, not to stabilize the institution of the Department of Justice, but to serve as President Trump’s “protector-in-chief” from legal attack.  He has brought a radical view of Presidential power to the highest law enforcement office in the land, one that prevents any check on Presidential actions.  And now, he is participating in a “stonewalling” operation by the executive branch, refusing to give any information to the Congress.

He is doing the political bidding of the White House and the President.  They have determined that it is to their advantage to force the House of Representatives to openly impeach Donald Trump; their only remaining action that can force the White House to produce information.  Bill Barr, the Attorney General, has chosen to become Donald Trump’s “Roy Cohn.”  That will be his historic legacy.

My Hometown

Thanks for the title Mr. Springsteen – here’s the video – My Hometown

Or – if you into a more “Sublime-like” song – here’s John Reuben, former student turned rapper  – Pataskala

I live in Pataskala, Ohio. When I first came here in 1978, a twenty-one year old teacher at the nearby high school, Pataskala was a town adrift.  Located twenty miles due east of downtown Columbus; it was originally a farm town. The grain elevator still stands “downtown,” though it’s been used for storage for the past fifty years.  At the high school there was a “tractor day” when the Future Farmers of America class would bring their machines to school, and they grew a couple acres of corn behind the building.

But it was changing. The farmers were selling their land; financially there was so much more profit selling a couple hundred acres here for development, then buying double or more the acreage farther away from the city. Suburban housing was springing up, and all of a sudden (or at least over ten years or so) Pataskala went from a rural town, to a suburb.  Soon the high school band got out of school to play at the grand opening of the new McDonald’s on Broad Street, and the hometown grocery store Roseberry’s was bought by Cardinal, then driven out of business when Krogers hit town.

The cities nearer downtown; Reynoldsburg and the city of Columbus, were encroaching on the countryside. A major industrial plant, the clothing giant The Limited,  was built on the western edge of the neighboring township.  It was quickly lost to Reynoldsburg for its tax valuation. It was a sign of things to come, the urbanization of the rural outlying areas.  The village of Pataskala reorganized itself, added Lima Township to the west, and became a CITY, now 15002 strong, as the sign at the city limits says.  Being a city defended the “borders” from poaching, but made it the twelfth largest city in Ohio (out of 280 some) in geography.  The village police department was forced to expand, and the City forced to catch up on road and bridge repairs.

So now Pataskala is a suburban city.  The citizens like the rural heritage, and don’t want it “citified.”  They like to be near fields and woods. But they also want the conveniences of “city life,” with restaurants and activities.  And though they love the “forests and fields,” they’re not so much about the coyotes prowling the margins, and the deer eating their gardens.  

The local newspaper was sold to the Gannett Media Group in the 1990’s, so there isn’t a real local news source anymore.  The closest Pataskala has to a central information source is on Facebook, where the residents voice their concerns.  Sometimes it’s a “hoot:” hundreds of responses when the topic is local taxes (called RITA for Regional Income Tax Authority here in Ohio) or the complicated water bills.  There are two different water/sewer systems in the City, depending on location, with different billing and costs.  Everyone has something to say about that.

It’s definitely “Trump Country”, in 2016 the President won 61% of the City vote; Clinton only gained 34%. And it’s not just support for Trump, in 2018 in the hotly contested 12^thCongressional District race, the Republican candidate gained 58% while the Democrat polled 40%.  My political views are definitely an “outlier” here.

The traffic is getting heavier. You know it’s a working class town; Broad Street is crowded at 5:30 am with folks headed towards Columbus to make the 6 am start. And the evening rush hour at Broad Street and State Route 310 can stop the whole town. What used to be a clear eight mile drive to the Columbus city limits now has ten stoplights; more are on the way. One of the school districts, Licking Heights (there are two in the City) is the fastest growing school in the state.

But there’s still a lot of small town here in Pataskala.  Want to see everyone you know; hang out at Kroger’s for an hour on Friday around five.  Want to just see the retired people, try Tuesday at ten in the morning!  If a dog is lost, Facebook explodes with help, and neighbors go out looking.  It’s a good excuse for “a walk,” but it’s also a community that wants to help.

When snow closes school, the local coaches are urging their teams to grab shovels and help their neighbors, and when five inches of rain fall in an hour, the community is out checking to make sure everyone is OK.  In our little block, we check on the 87 year-old widow across the street.  I must be getting older, they’re starting to check on me now too!

And Pataskala has a great Mayor, Mike Compton.  I imagine we are not on the same side as far as national politics are concerned, but the Mayor always shows that he cares about the community.  He’s constantly willing to explain, and to help, and to stop and be a part of a local fundraising effort.  And he posts lots of pictures:  the sun setting on his back deck, the new police station, the picnic in the park, and, the goats.

The goats have become the running joke in town, hanging out in the field on Mink Street near Broad. Mayor Compton made them famous on Facebook, and when they were taken to winter pastures, he assured us they would return when the spring came.  

They are a good representation of Pataskala:  a remnant of rural life in what is a burgeoning suburban city.   Folks move here for the goats, and the fields, and the woods.  But they stay for the community, working to make life better as we struggle with growth and change.  It’s not that there aren’t differences, but in our era of national discord, Pataskala is a surprise:  a place where people still work together.  

Put on My Foil Hat

WASHINGTON — In the months before the 2016 presidential election, Russia’s military intelligence agency penetrated computer systems in at least one Florida county government and planted malware in systems at a manufacturer of election equipment, the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, said in his office’s final report on Russian interference in the election.  – New York Times – 4/18/19

There are words I’ve only whispered to my closest family.  They sound crazy, like one of the “nut-jobs” you see online at the extremes of the internet.  I keep an aluminum foil crown on my desk just to remind me to not get too off the wall. 

Right after the 2016 election, Mike Farb, author of the “Unhackthevote” website, put volumes of statistical material out about the vote.  It was so much stuff that it was difficult to figure out exactly what he showed, but he ultimately drew the conclusion that either the 2016 election was fixed by Americans, or, it was fixed by the Russians.

I know, my foil hat just began to glow.  

We knew fairly early, say January, 2017, that Russian intelligence was trying to penetrate the American voting process.  We aren’t talking about Facebook ads or Twitter bots, we are talking about hacking into voting rolls and the software that runs the machines that tabulate our votes. At first, we were told that thirty-nine states were attacked, but no attack succeeded.  Then it was narrowed down to twenty-one states, and even later, only nine.  

And the story kind of faded away.  No one, media or government, spoke about what happened when Russians got into the voter registration files in Illinois.  No one explained what happened to the software developer out of Florida, supplier of voting machines for that state and North Carolina.  Not a word, about the multiple counties in Wisconsin using the voting machines controlled from a strip mall storefront in Minnesota.  It was all “OK.”  The National Security Agency two years ago said that they were certain no election computers had been compromised.

This is America.  When we watch the Super Bowl, we have the assurance that while the referees may make mistakes, they aren’t “rigging” the game (yes – not even for the Patriots.)   When we see a sprint in the Olympics, we get to see the “photo-finish” picture, so we can assure ourselves that the results were fair.  And, when some of us watch World Wrestling Entertainment, the WWE, we know that we are watching a show, with a scripted ending. We know it’s rigged, that’s a part of the deal.  We watch the show – without much concern for the results already written in stone.

If we knew that the outcome of the Super Bowl, or the Olympic one hundred meter dash, were pre-ordained, they wouldn’t be very interesting.  And if we found that our voting processes were altered and that our votes didn’t actually count, why would we accept the outcomes of our elections?

This is the great fear. If the Russians hacked our elections, would we ever be told?  Would our government actually let us know that the results of say, 2016, weren’t legitimate; that rather than the President being chosen “by the people,” he was chosen by the GRU (Russian Intelligence?)

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee stated in the New York Times this week:

“I don’t believe the specific victims of the intrusion have been notified. The concern was that in a number of counties across the country, there are a couple of people with the attitude of: ‘We’ve got this; we don’t need your help. We don’t think we need to do what you are telling us we need to do.’”

So not only is the national government not telling the public, they aren’t even telling the specific counties that were hacked.  Instead, every county is given general instructions on how to prevent hacking.  This way, no one gets singled out as having “their system” infiltrated, and their vote totals under suspicion.  

Why would it be handled that way?  Because if multiple counties in multiple states were notified that they were hacked and votes altered; that’s information that could not be held secret. It would slip out in local news, and ultimately someone would put a national view together.  It would bring into question the legitimacy of our entire government.

There’s no such thing as a national do-over in electoral politics.  Creating distrust in the American system is clearly one of the goals of Vladimir Putin and his Russian Intelligence apparatus.  Add those together, and it’s not likely that even if there was hacking in key states, we wouldn’t know.

So if we can’t change 2016, what can we demand as voters to protect 2020:

Paper Ballots.

Many states use a paper ballot backup system for their electronic voting.  Here in Licking County, Ohio, each vote is tabulated electronically, and also printed on a paper roll.  That roll is stored for backup purposes; if there were questions about the outcome, the paper roll can be hand counted.

But other jurisdictions don’t, including the entire states of Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina.  Other states have some counties with and some without: Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.  

Senator and Presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar has authored “The Secure Elections Act” calling for paper ballot backup nationwide.  She has bipartisan support in the Senate, and a companion bill in the House.  And yet, the bill has been held up by Republican leadership in the Senate, at the behest of the Trump White House.  The White House says they have all the authority they need to protect the election process, but the basic premise of the Secure Elections Act raises a question that Donald Trump cannot tolerate:  the legitimacy of 2016.

Keep your foil hat on.

The Ultimate Stand

The core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that has made America, America, is at stake.   That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. Joe Biden, 4/25/19

Joe Biden entered the Democratic Presidential primaries on Thursday.  He did so with a stark statement, that the current President was a direct threat to our system, and to the core values of our nation.  He simply said:

 “…if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation — who we are — and I cannot stand by and watch that happen.”

Biden, Vice President for eight years and a US Senator for thirty-six, is seventy-six years old.  He speaks of entering this race almost as a duty, a Cincinnatus, called back by circumstance to stand at the gate once more. There has been media criticism of Biden’s statement and his candidacy, but he presents Democrats a stark, bottom line choice: America cannot afford four more years of Donald Trump, and I’m the one candidate who can defeat him.

This week, a nineteen year old went into a synagogue in Southern California with an assault rifle, killing one and injuring more.  He posted a manifesto admiring the Pittsburgh and New Zealand killers.  From current information, a jammed weapon and advancing parishioners chased him away before he could wreak more havoc. Also this week, a man in Northern California drove his car into a crowd of Muslims, praising Jesus as he did so.  Eight people were injured.  Three weeks ago a white man was captured in Louisiana after burning three black churches.

According to the FBI, the rate of hate crimes in the United States has increased by seventeen percent since 2016, equaling the increased divisiveness in our political rhetoric.  

Don’t give Donald Trump too much credit.  His success as a politician is more of a result of the growing divide in our nation, rather than the cause.  He is “riding the wave;” a wave he didn’t create.  But he is certainly augmenting that wave, further fueling the divisiveness and hate among us.  We know: he found “fine people on both sides” at the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville.  He has chosen some of those “fine people” as his advisors, and constantly threatens Americans with an onslaught of “brown people” from the South. 

The Presidency has many powers, but perhaps its greatest is access to the “bully pulpit.”  Trump has shown himself to be a master of communicating from the White House, using his “old fashioned” rallies and “new fashioned” social media to speak to America. He continually reaches and energizes his base, and frustrates and infuriates his opponents.

The new phraseology for Democratic candidates for the nomination describes them as finding “lanes.”  Like highways with multiple lanes, each one is trying to find the open road that will allow them to advance their candidacy.  There are twenty declared candidates and a comprehensive list would be too long, but examples are:  Jay Inslee emphasizes the environment, Bernie Sanders reshaping the American economy, and Eric Swalwell gun control.  

Biden has been criticized for not talking about the core Democratic issues:  healthcare, jobs, education, and the environment.  He will ultimately address all of those issues; and will probably be criticized for taking moderate stands that are out of step with the more Progressive majorities in the Party.  His opponents need to attack him on those stands, because Biden is the only candidate who has an open lane when it comes to speaking to all of us.

Other than President Obama, Joe Biden is the Democrat most qualified to speak for America.  When Biden spoke at John McCain’s funeral, or Congressman John Dingell’s funeral, or his own son’s funeral; he told us about what America means.  His opening sentence from John McCain’s eulogy said it all: “My name is Joe Biden.  I’m a Democrat. And I loved John McCain.”

He constantly speaks of an America where we can cross party lines and where those with differences can still be loved.  That’s Joe Biden’s message.  I don’t know whether he’s the 2020 Democratic candidate, but his “lane” addresses the essential problem of our time:  he’s going to be hard to beat.