Will Biden or Trump Be Target at Dem Debates?

Chum is filling the waters surrounding Joe Biden, bringing in political sharks eager to rip his candidacy to shreds. At times, inadvertently, Biden himself contributes to the bloody waters. All the while his Democratic rivals are doing Donald Trumps’ unspoken bidding in weakening his appeal. 

With each passing day, each revelatory past and present quote or vote, Biden is discovering for the first time that being a campaign frontrunner means the dissection of the corners, sometimes the dark, obscure corners, of his public life and his family’s private lives is fair game (https://mol.im/a/7167911).

Biden can take small comfort that other candidates are under intense scrutiny. For Bernie Sanders it has meant explaining how a self-proclaimed socialist became a millionaire (a book contract and book sales). Bernie’s wife also has had to answer questions about her business conduct. 

Elizabeth Warren has earned veteran status answering queries about her heritage. Native American or not? Who really cares? Only those, including Trump, who care more about appearances and less about the substance of a campaign to ease the economic burden of struggling families. 

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is finding out how one nationally reported incident involving the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white policeman can dispel the tranquility and image of a well-run city. 

But it is Biden who has the most baggage from four and a half decades of public life in Washington. Votes he is proud of. Votes he regrets. Votes he once was proud of but now regrets. The press is eager to cite his shortcomings either through its own investigations or through “oppo” research provided by Democratic and Republican detractors. 

Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination—the first debates are Wednesday and Thursday nights in Miami—he or she will face an incumbent whose integrity and character are shameful but irrelevant to much of the electorate. Yet, he or she will be held to a higher standard. 

Not fair, but surely true. Which leads us back to Biden. How should the acknowledged-by-all-frontrunner deal with the Chinese-water-torture drip of negative stories? Should he explain those were different times? Should he apologize? Should he recant and state new positions as he did with the Hyde Amendment restriction on federal financing of abortion (he’s now against any restriction)?

Or should he let the voters decide if he is Trump-challenger worthy? I’m inclined to pick that course, combined with selective usage of the recant and restate option. 

No candidate will emerge perfect and unscathed during this looooong nomination process. The media will do its share of nitpicking and hole punching. Other Democrats, on the other hand, must refrain from poisoning their brethren. They must remember the real objective is unseating Trump. It means nothing to secure the nomination if the prize eludes the nation because of party fratricide. 

They also must keep in mind that national elections are won by appealing to the broadest section of the electorate. Most Democrats and Independents are centrists, not radicals. The country is tiring of Trump’s extremism. It is not looking for a pendulum swing all the way to the left. Voters are seeking equilibrium with traditional American values. Democrats would be wise to heed the words of Charles Sykes, a conservative Wisconsin-based political commentator on how not to blow the election (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/06/25/democrats-trump-election-2020-227215?cid=apn).

“She’s not my type.”: In other words, if she was, then, yeah, maybe I would have done it. 

That, in essence, is Trump’s latest defense against a claim of sexual assault in his pre-presidency days. Pictures at the time repudiated his alibi of never having met E. Jean Carroll. So he falls back on a frat house response to date rape. Nah, I wouldn’t touch her ’cause she’s not my type. 

As if that ever mattered to an oversexed, entitled-believing misogynist who has been outed for cheating on his two previous wives and on his current spouse just days after she delivered his fifth child. He at first denied the Stormy Daniels tryst but her version of their encounter apparently is the factual one. 

Undeniably Unreliable: I was amused by this AP headline above an article on fallout from Trump’s last minute decisions not to strike Iran for shooting down an unarmed American surveillance drone and for postponing the start of an ICE roundup of illegal aliens:

“AP Analysis: Trump moves show him to be unreliable partner” (https://apnews.com/a47ecf2848ee4df5a6cf62e84c35bed8)

I was amused because Trump’s personal history has time and again shown him to be an unreliable partner. He has cheated on all three of his wives. He has stiffed numerous contractors for work they have done on his properties. He has defaulted on loans. His businesses have declared bankruptcy six times. He has bilked thousands of customers who enrolled in his “university.” He has reneged on deals he made with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. 

People! Hello! What more proof do you need before realizing he is not to be trusted?

Rumbles From Above, Superman's an Illegal Alien, Native Americans are Immigrants too, Oprah Rejects God's Entreaty

Few things are more disconcerting than hearing a rumbling sound during a snowstorm that shakes the very foundation of your house. Not once but at least six times in the space of 90 minutes the house shook Wednesday afternoon as snow from the upper reaches of our home tumbled down to a lower roof level.

Each rumble transported me back in time, more than three decades ago, when I first heard a similarly unnerving cascade that defied my comprehension. 

Back then Gilda and I, and our infant son Dan, lived in a Tudor style house with a slate roof. After an especially deep snow fall, we were getting ready for bed when the rumbling started, lasting about six seconds. I thought someone had rolled up the garage door and was breaking into our home.

I yelled to Gilda to call the police as I threw on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and sneakers, grabbed a baseball bat from the closet and raced outdoors to confront the intruder. 

Outside I saw the garage door had not been opened. I spotted a pile of snow on an otherwise smooth blanket of snow. I looked to the roof and realized the snow had rumbled down the slate. I felt foolish.

But not as concerned as Gilda felt. The police had cautioned her I should not be outside lest they suspect I was the suspected burglar, armed as I was, with a bat. The patrol car arrived just as Gilda opened the front door and screamed for me to get inside.

Not so fast. After due process, the police let me go with an admonition never again to play the brave fool. 

Oscars Followup: Superman was mentioned during the Oscars telecast which got me thinking that despite all the good the caped crusader has performed since 1933, Donald Trump’s Homeland Security authorities would eject him from the United States. 

He is, after all, an undocumented alien. His parents transported him from Krypton to America while still a baby, but he’s too old to be a Dreamer, so he would not be shielded from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). They couldn’t send him back to Krypton as it imploded. They’d have to find a country willing to take someone who “fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way,” not traits readily identified with Trump’s United States. 

Natives, Really? In most conversations, oral and written, about immigrants, legal and illegal, it often is stated that only Native Americans—Indians—did not emigrate to America. 

Oh, really? Let’s be clear: the first settlers of America were immigrants from an as yet undetermined land or lands. Numerous theories abound https://www.voanews.com/a/native-americans-call-for-rethink-of-bering-strait-theory/3901792.html.

Bottom line: Everyone in America is descendant from an immigrant. 

God Couldn’t Talk Her into It: Even an appearance by God on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert couldn’t convince Oprah Winfrey to launch a campaign for the presidency in 2020. The tete-a-tete between titans produced laughs and some real longing by those seeking a cultural change in the White House (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkUKRkN-nTY).

Oprah’s progressive positions are well documented, but she is correct in distancing herself from a political future. She need only gaze at the shattered legacy of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) to visualize what her future would be. On Wednesday, a 2012 human rights award she received from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was revoked because of the ongoing mistreatment and massacre of Rohingya Muslims during her reign as Myanmar’s state counsellor (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-holocaust-museum-aung-san-suu-kyi_us_5aa022f4e4b0d4f5b66cd500). 

The minute Oprah equivocated on any tenet of progressivism she would be criticized by leftist radicals no less sharply than by conservatives who would be merciless in their everyday abuse. 

Americans do not want their icons tarnished by real world politics. Since politics is supposed to include the art of compromise, Winfrey could not be expected to deliver on all items on her constituents’ wish list. She is better off leaving politics to the politicians while championing causes and rallying voters.  

Squirrel's Revenge

Just when I thought I’d outwitted the squirrels, along comes Mother Nature to fight on their side.

I awoke this morning, as did most metropolitan New Yorkers, to a sheet of ice across the landscape. I knew it was bad when Gilda reluctantly opted not to travel into work. She’s more reliable and dedicated than the fiercest postal worker, so it was apparent this storm was a real game changer.

As I peered out the kitchen window I noticed tree limbs sagging under the weight of the ice. The dip in their arc meant the birdseed and suet feeders were dangerously close to ground level. My fears were soon realized. The reddish-grey tailed squirrel, against whom I had installed baffles Monday to thwart his assaults from above, was easily able to leap up onto the bird feeders. He leisurely—actually, that’s not a a good word for a squirrel; squirrels rarely do anything in a leisurely fashion—sampled one feeder after another. If it were just snow on the limbs, I’d have ventured out to knock some off to raise the limbs. But knocking a branch encapsulated in ice could crack it and send it and the birdseed feeders crashing to the ground.

I waited till well into the afternoon thaw, till after I spent 90 minutes clearing the driveway of ice, before trudging out through the ice-capped snow in the yard to replenish the food in the feeders and gingerly poke off some ice from the trees.

Once you’ve become a caterer to the winged world, it’s difficult not to feel a sense of obligation to maintain a constant food supply, especially during times when the ground is covered in snow or ice and birds can’t easily find their normal sources of nourishment. I don’t really mind that the squirrels partake as well. They are cute. But I do expect some decorum—hanging from the feeders, literally pigging out and denying access to the birds is unacceptable behavior.

Mother Nature also must learn to fight fair. But then, I should have anticipated some shenanigans. Today, after all is a semi-squirrel holiday. It’s Groundhog Day.