Day 121 Nat'l Emergency: Disaster for Trump or the Country? The People Will Decide

The letter in Wednesday’s New York Times called the Trump presidency a “disaster, a record he can’t run on.”

I share the sentiment but disagree with the analysis.

One need only look to the Supreme Court and federal judicial appointments to recognize that for conservatives Trump has been a most successful president, defanging consumer and employee protections, undercutting Obamacare, dissolving the wall that separates church and state, providing religious cover for discrimination against women and minorities. It is a record Trump is proud to run on.

Or one could look to a watering down of environmental protections to realize Trump has succeeded in poisoning our atmosphere, polluting our rivers and lifting safeguards on national lands, to know that Trump has handed big business successes they never imagined. It is a record Trump is proud to run on.

One could look at our frayed international relations to see Trump has succeeded in making America a shadow of its once dominant position in the world, just what the isolationists along with Russia and China hoped to achieve. It is a record Trump is proud to run on.

One need only reflect on the universal meaning of the Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address to comprehend that Trump has succeeded in pushing back against the twin drives for equality and tolerance for women and people of color to the joy of white supremacists. It is a record Trump is proud to run on.

One need only listen to the venom within political discourse to appreciate that Trump has succeeded in dehumanizing and demeaning political engagement, reducing it to an exchange of insults rather than ideas. Bullying vs. compromise. It is a record Trump is proud to run on.

One need only close one’s heart to the sorrow seeping through our land from Trump’s failure to act decisively in a timely manner to thwart the spread of the coronavirus, to accept Trump’s dismissal of science and medical expertise as a success against coastal elites. In his failure to express compassion for victims and their families, in his disdain for wearing a mask and shutting down schools and places of work, Trump not only places more importance on dollars over deaths but suggests a variation of his rebuke of John McCain, that he doesn’t like servicemen who become prisoners of war—he apparently doesn’t like anyone weak enough to succumb to COVID-19.  It is a record Trump is proud to run on.

Trump has brought the country to a tipping point.

It is said the only perfect vision is 20/20 hindsight. Four years ago one could only assume the worst based on his rhetoric.

Now, in 2020, Americans must choose if the trail Trump has led us on for four years deserves another four years. Or if the process of reconciliation can begin with a new president committed to our founding ideals no matter how imperfectly they have been realized in the past. 

Polls show Trump has support from less than 50% of the population. It is up to the majority to disavow Trump and his enablers in the House and Senate. Only the majority can turn Trump’s reelection campaign into a disaster—for him or for the country.

Day 100 of Nat'l Emergency: Books Plague Trump

If, as John Bolton writes in his new book, “The Room Where It Happened,” all of Donald Trump’s actions have been taken with a view to how they would affect his re-election, even if they undermined U.S. interests, it means Trump has a malevolent opinion of a majority of the American public. 

Trump would have to believe they are racist, misogynist, bigots who would deny equal rights and protections to anyone outside their tribe, be they Moslems, Latinos, immigrants, Blacks, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, or queers. Women who want equality and Democrats also are not to be tolerated, but dictators in other countries are to be embraced. 

If the facts are as Trump’s former national security advisor writes, it is no wonder the non-reader-in-chief wants to bar(r—pun intended) the book from publication. It also means Trump is either the shrewdest politician of his era or the most incompetent. 

He either has figured out how to win re-election by securing the required 270 Electoral College votes from his malignant base in red states, or he will go down as a president who squandered every opportunity to expand his base into blue states. 

He has foot-in-mouth disease. Even when he tries to explain his actions or tweets he reinforces his meager standing among those who might be willing to grant him the benefit of the doubt, as when he claimed in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests to have done more for Blacks than any other president, including Abraham Lincoln (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/12/trump-criticizes-lincoln-brags-he-has-done-a-lot-to-help-black-americans.html?__source=sharebar|email&par=sharebar), or his rejection of calls to rechristen military bases named for Confederate generals.

Some might say Joe Biden suffers from the same ailment. Theres a difference, however. Former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Biden misspeaks because his brain cannot keep up with his mouth. So he makes benign miscues, misstating dates or the sequence of events. Troubling, but not egregious.

Trump, on the other hand, doubles down on his whoppers. He fabricates “facts” he believes are reality and chastises any who would challenge his version of the truth. He presumes that as president no one has the right to correct his record. 

Much to his displeasure, he has found journalists and elected officials have the temerity to disavow his “truthiness,” even as his millions of zombie-like followers  believe him. They believe only him.

John Bolton is merely the latest insider who has awakened from the Trump trance. His book, if and when it is officially released (copies have been obtained by various media), will add some spicy examples of political power portioned out by Trump pique and incompetence.

It won’t change any minds. No votes will shift from red to blue or blue to red. Based on current conditions, only two intertwined things will matter to voters November 3—the state of the economy and the status of the novel coronavirus pandemic in America. 

First Enabler: I have long suspected Melania Trump is not a captive of politics, a hostage in the White House, a prisoner of conscience who sends out messages with clothing or a hand slap that she is a reluctant participant in her husband’s attack on our democracy.

Rather than calling her the First Lady she should be called the First Enabler. According to a new unauthorized biography, “The Art of Her Deal” by Mary Jordan, a Pulitzer Prize reporter for The Washington Post, Melania pushed her husband to run for president. She has stood by Trump despite repeated credible allegations of his sexual infidelity and misconduct (https://nyti.ms/2ArHgpA).

Gilda long ago nailed the reason Melania delayed moving into the White House. She wanted a renegotiated prenuptial agreement, Gilda postulated. Jordan agrees.

Family Matters: As if the First Family didn’t have enough reason to stoke a book burning on the White House lawn, one of Trump’s nieces has decided to air some of his dirty linen (https://mol.im/a/8429643). 

Mary Trump, daughter of his deceased brother, Fred Trump Jr., is the author of “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” scheduled to be released July 28. Uncle Donald has threatened a suit to block its distribution because she allegedly signed a nondisclosure agreement about their relationship.

It will be titillating reading, no doubt, but mere reinforcement for anti-Trumpers and of no consequence to his groupies. 

Day 98 of Nat'l Emergency: Provocateur-in-Chief Could Turn Into Cable TV Agent-Provocateur

It was a busy week for the provocateur-in-chief even by his grotesque standards. Pick your offended targets:

Blacks and supporters of Black Lives Matter protesting police brutality and systemic discrimination; 

An elderly, injured-by-Buffalo-police protester accused of being a member of Antifa; 

Military leaders who criticized his use of troops to clear constitutionally permitted protest across from the White House so he could have his picture taken in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church; 

Episcopalians and Catholics vexed by his photo op performance holding a Bible;

Anyone who believed military bases named for traitorous Confederate generals should be renamed; 

Professional football and soccer leagues for permitting athletes to express political dissent; 

Nascar for banning Confederate flags;

LGBTQ community for being denied Obama-era health patient protections; 

The media for questioning his many actions; 

Abraham Lincoln for not doing enough; 

And of course Joe Biden and Democrats for everything they do. 

Donald Trump did, however, try to put to rest the fear among his detractors that he would barricade himself in the White House should he lose the election November 3. 

“Certainly, if I don’t win, I don’t win,” Trump declared on Fox News in an interview with Harris Faulkner. “You go on, do other things” (https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/trump-says-will-leave-office-peacefully-if-he-loses-315736?cid=apn).

Of course, given his footloose and fancy free track record with the truth the liar-in-chief cannot be trusted on his word. Skepticism is called for. 

Removed from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by force or tradition January 20, the provocateur-in-chief will not go gently into the night. 

He will turn into an agent-provocateur unrestrained by any protocols of office (as if he ever was) to dispense bilious dissent and conspiracy theories as the featured anchor of a cable television network. 

Probably not Fox. Either one of his own creation or OAN, One America News Network, a far-right pro-Trump cable channel founded by Robert Herring, Sr., owned by Herring Networks, Inc. of San Diego. OAN is well-liked and often cited by Trump for its conspiracy theory stories. OAN is not considered to be reliably truthful. 

A deposed Trump will seek to keep the divisions in our country red hot, thwarting any chance Biden might have to forge harmony among the citizenry and our traditional international allies. Trump will act not as a dedicated, doctrinaire Conservative Republican but rather as a vindictive egotist seeking revenge for his ultimate humiliation. 

A chair in front of a cable TV camera would stoke his goal of recapturing the seat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. As a one term president the 74-year-old would be eligible to run again in 2024. Biden has shown a candidate who would be 78 years old when taking the presidential oath is not disqualified by voters.  

Neither would a conviction for tax fraud or any other felony bar Trump from holding federal office again. Even if in prison he could run. Aside from his cable gig Trump could also try for the U.S. Senate from his new state of residence, Florida. 

Sadly, the cult of Trump will linger as long as The Donald and his three henchmen eldest children stay in the public eye. Trump has sucked the soul out of the GOP. 

Short of a cataclysmic election debacle the Republican Party has cast its foreseeable future with a modern day Dracula and his offspring, both biological and ideological. 

Day 94 of Nat'l Emergency: Uplifting Words, Some Not

I don’t normally read newspaper ads. I tape television shows for later viewing so I can fast forward through ads. It is a rather cavalier attitude considering my income for more than three decades was contingent on earnings my publication could squeeze from advertising revenue.

I’m not sure what drew me into reading a full page ad in Wednesday’s New York Times. No picture or illustration captured my attention. Perhaps it was the red ink lettering at the top and bottom of an otherwise black and white page of 38 quotes from famous Americans. Juxtaposed among uplifting statements from past presidents, government officials and luminaries were counterpoint messages from Donald Trump. 

Here are some samples: 

From President Herbert Hoover—“It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.”

Followed by Trump’s “Fake news is the true enemy of the people.” 

Albert Einstein was cited as saying, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”

Under that quote is one from Trump: “More people attended my inauguration than any other President’s. Anyone who wants a test can get one.”

From Founding Father Benjamin Franklin came this aphorism: “He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” 

Trump’s rejoinder: “I look forward to showing my financials because they are huge.”

In smaller letters at the bottom of the page is a note that the ad was “Paid for by the Author of the New York Times Bestselling Book, What Would Ben Say?”. 

Ben, as in Benjamin Franklin. 

That author happens to be Tom Blair, a successful businessman and author of several books, a person with some passionate interests. Blair, according to his Amazon books page, owns “the world’s largest personal collection of WWII British aircraft, many of which he flies.” His interest in World War II might well stem from the fact that “his father, an American serviceman married to a young British girl, was killed at Normandy in 1944.” He was born a few weeks later. 

Wednesday’s ad was not the first time Blair has purchased a full page in The Times. He did so back in 2016 in apparent disappointment at the choice of presidential candidates nominated by the Democratic and Republican parties. 

Running a full page ad does not come cheap. It can cost upwards of $150,000. Small change for Blair who, one of his biographical blurbs noted back in 2016, sold one of his companies for $4.6 billion. 

In case you’re not able to read the ad which I included with this post, here are more point/counterpoints followed by the quotes in red at the top and bottom of the page:

“People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.”—Stephen Hawking

“Sorry losers and haters, by my I.Q. is one of the highest. Please don’t feel stupid or insecure. It’s not your fault.”—President Donald J. Trump

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”—Mark Twain

“The people are the rightful masters of both congresses, and courts—not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.”—Abraham Lincoln

Impeachment Charges, Biden Lets Loose and Historic Facts

Here’s an example of what one of my graduate school journalism professors called a “nothing new” headline:

“House Impeaches Trump.”

Here’s another example:

“Senate Acquits Trump.”

It doesn’t take a genius to know as sure as the first headline will be realized before Christmas, the second will follow in short order, possibly before the end of January.

Unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has an epiphany and switches his allegiance from the autocratic orangeman in the White House to the U.S. Constitution there is scant expectation Trump will face any penalty greater than history’s assessment of his guilt. 

However, in the debate over what charges the House of Representatives should level against the nasty-man-in-chief, there is an important bit of politics that must be played out. Should Trump be charged merely with abusing the power of his office for personal and political gain through an attempted bribery of the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden in return for arranging a White House meeting and unfreezing Congressionally approved military aid, or should the House lay out a laundry list of offenses including obstruction of justice? 

Those in favor of the former argue it would be a more focused indictment, easier for the public to wrap its mind around. That argument, however, presumes the possibility of a conviction. 

Ha! It will never happen (not “would never happen” which implies “maybe;” under McConnell it is a certainty the Senate will not convict).

The Democratically controlled House, therefore, should engage Republican hands by throwing the kitchen sink at Trump, forcing GOP senators to go on the record to condone each and every behavior that is injurious to American interests and constitutional norms. Make each senator run on his or her compliance with actions they would never tolerate if a Democratic president undertook them. 

A Biden Bite: A show of raw emotion was just what Joe Biden needed to spark his candidacy. But I would suggest the former vice president should not have called an Iowa farmer a “damn liar” during a campaign stop Thursday for regurgitating Trump and Fox News charges that he sold access to the Obama presidency and helped his son Hunter obtain a lucrative job with an energy company in Ukraine, a position for which he had no experience.

Instead of directly insulting the 83-year-old retired farmer, Biden should have countered thusly: “You’re repeating falsehoods, lies, that were created by Russia and Vladimir Putin and promulgated by his corrupt ‘useful idiot’ in the White House and his unscrupulous supporters in the House and Senate. You’re repeating a false narrative which is undermining our democracy.”

Biden took a more in-your-face response. It displayed fire in the belly that has been lacking and, if he is fortunate enough to secure the Democratic Party nomination, will be required if he is to successfully confront Trump.

Historic Facts: Just when you thought the public could not get any crazier, here are two stories that boggle the mind:

A majority of Republicans believe Trump is a greater president than Abraham Lincoln (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7742883/Majority-Republicans-think-Donald-Trump-better-president-Abraham-Lincoln.html). I’ll let you parse that one without further reflection on my part.

Here’s the Mideast Problem in Brief: In a speech in November, Riyad Al-Aileh, a Palestinian political science lecturer at Al-Azhar University, said Jews only came to the region “as invaders 70 years ago.” Another Palestinian “intellectual,” Abir Zayyad, an archaeologist and member of Fatah’s Jerusalem branch, asserted “We have no archaeological evidence of the presence of the children of Israel in Palestine in this historical period 3,000 years ago, neither in Jerusalem, nor in all of Palestine.” 

So there you have it—A rejection not only of Jewish heritage in the land of Israel but also, by inference, of the existence of Jesus, his visit to the temple in Jerusalem and his later return to the city, his trial and crucifixion. A rejection of Roman historical records. It makes one wonder how any peace can be achieved when one side is so delusional. 

Winners Wanted, Not Almost Winners

Beto O’Rourke is running for president. The ex-Democratic congressman failed in his bid last November to unseat Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Sorry, Beto, but I cannot conceive of choosing a candidate for the nation’s highest office if he could not win the support of his own state. We’ve been there before. We muddled through eight years of George W. Bush because Al Gore couldn’t carry his home state of Tennessee. Sure, Beto has more charisma than Al, but I still want a winner, not a close second, as my candidate.

I learned the other day reading a Gail Collins column on Beto that he is so enraptured with the Odyssey that he named his first child Ulysses. Which made me wonder, why didn’t he name his son Odysseus, the Greek name of the heroic character of the epic poem by Homer who spends 20 years away from home, 10 fighting the Trojan War and another 10 on an action-packed journey back to his wife, the ever faithful Penelope? Why did he choose the Roman counterpart name, Ulysses? Was he already playing identity politics because he knew there are more Italian-American voters than those of Greek ancestry? Why didn’t he just call the kid Homer? That way he’d also get the Simpsons crowd behind his candidacy.

For the record, I’m also against Stacey Abrams thinking that coming in second in a tight Georgia gubernatorial race entitles her to think she is the best choice to be the Democratic presidential nominee able to send Donald Trump and his family packing from the White House. 

Ditto for Andrew Gillum, former mayor of Tallahassee and near-winner of the governorship of Florida.  

Where do these people get their hubris? Hubris is another one of those Greek words we should all pay attention to. 

Yes, as Gillum pointed out to Bill Maher last Friday night, Abraham Lincoln failed to beat Stephen Douglas in their Senate race from Illinois back in 1857, but let’s not equate Beto or Stacey or Andrew with our 16th president. 

To Impeach or Not? People who advocate for Trump’s impeachment argue he is unqualified for the job of president. They might be right, check that, they are right, but being unqualified is not an impeachable offense. 

So let’s stop using that argument. Qualified or not, Trump received sufficient votes in states with enough Electoral College votes to win the election. 

The task now is to pick a candidate who can carry states with more than 270 electoral votes. Beto, Stacey and Andrew may excite enough voters to win some primaries but could they win a general election? I’m not convinced.

How Do I Feel? My friend Mark, who will be turning 70 in a few months, asked me the other day if I felt any difference physically now that I am into my eighth decade. Not really, I replied. As a reputed hypochondriac to friends and relatives I told Mark it was all a matter of mind over matter. 

But last night as I was waiting for sleep to overwhelm my too active brain near midnight I cataloged what had transpired since my March 6th birthday:

My dentist told me I needed two replacement crowns and a filling repair. Within a week a temporary crown he installed cracked during breakfast, necessitating a frantic dash to his office;

A prolonged head cold left me with inflamed ear canals; ear drops prescribed by an ENT specialist;

And, most troubling, for the third March in four years I am experiencing back pain near my right kidney. Four years ago I suffered with a kidney stone throughout a most unpleasant flight from London. Fortunately, the pain subsided once I showed up in the emergency room of White Plains Hospital. Exactly a year later what I thought was another kidney stone turned out to be a bladder stone. That ailment required what doctor’s call a bladder blaster procedure and an overnight hookup to a catheter. I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking of that predicament. I don’t know how this new pain will be resolved but I do marvel at its timing, always slightly past the Ides of March. 

Was this ache like the mysterious hip pain that afflicted me for about 10 minutes on my 35th birthday, or could it be traced to a muscle strained Monday morning while chopping some lingering ice along the pathway to our yard? As I lay in bed in the middle of Monday night it hurt if I faced left but not if I faced right or remained on my back. By morning the pain was mostly gone, hopefully never to return, at least for another 12 months.

Oy! A Common Refrain In the Age of Trump

Oy.

Oy vey.

Oy-yoy-yoy. 

Oy—a Yiddish exclamation of chagrin, dismay, exasperation or pain.

It looks like it will be worse than expected. It looks like Donald Trump will systematically destroy the foundations of our country while a vast majority of the Republican Party shows itself to be a spineless entity only interested in staying in office with no regard for truth, justice and the tenets of their sainted Ronald Reagan.

Oy vey—Yiddish for “Oh, how terrible things are.”

Let’s start with some basic agreements. First ISIS and al Queda are terrorist organizations. They can attack us and kill scores at a time but they are not existential threats to America, at least not in a physical sense. They do no more physical damage than Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., or Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.

The danger from Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernadino, Calif., or a Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, is that we will overreact and start to dismantle constitutional protections. We should fear the loss of liberties we all take for granted.

We are in no danger of sharia law overtaking our judicial system.

Second thing to agree on, existential threats may come from governments with the power to undermine our democracy, our safety and our economic system. Those threats can come from two countries—Russia and China.

Or they may come from within, from politicians who issue falsehoods while denying the truth, who divide to conquer, who fail to see real existential threats while promoting false ones, who undermine belief in our country’s principles and institutions by substituting their own misguided values and by not sharply rebuking and disavowing the bigoted rants of fringe groups, thereby giving them undeserved legitimacy.

OY-YOY-YOY: Yiddish for an exclamation of sorrow and lamentation.

It is widely believed by intelligence experts inside and outside our government that Russia tried to influence our recent election by hacking into Democratic Party and officials’ computers.

Donald Trump doesn’t believe that. But then Donald Trump believes it is okay to retweet falsehoods as legitimate news. So does his choice to be national security advisor, retired general Mike Flynn. So does his choice to be chief strategist, Stephen Bannon.

But as troubling as those individuals are with their careless and carefree regard for the truth it pales in comparison to the hundreds, if not thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Republican politicians and voters who are not protesting their insanity.

Now that the election is over, GOP senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, especially the former, now seem ready to fight for the integrity of the government rather than for the in-the-moment-victory of a Republican presidential candidate no matter how flawed he might be or how crass his behavior toward them was during the last 18 months. 

Under the existing rules of our electoral system, Trump won the election, though not a mandate, as he claims, as close to three million more voters opted for someone besides him to lead America. He won the Electoral College vote, but that shouldn’t mean all truth and logic gets dissolved in his acidic view of reality. The optimal word in that last sentence is “shouldn’t.” 

Oy.

Trump is creating an alternative universe where intelligence does not exist if it doesn’t match his gut instincts and his desire to make a buck. He has mastered the art of the sham and the public diss. How exquisitely perverse was his dangling interest in Al Gore’s explanation of climate change and environmental vigilance only to rebuff it quickly by nominating an Environmental Protection Agency chief who rejects it all and has no appreciation of the link between fracking and the thousands of earthquakes that have shook his home state of Oklahoma.

Cabinet departments were established to further the benefits of their disciplines and constituencies. Yet Trump has chosen a labor secretary who doesn’t believe in a minimum wage and who is anti-union. Trump has chosen a housing secretary with no prior experience in public housing other than the fabrication (by others) that he grew up in public housing rather than near it. He’s chosen as United Nations ambassador someone with no foreign relations experience. During the campaign Trump blasted Hillary Clinton for being close to Goldman Sachs, yet he picked three current or former Goldman Sachs bankers as teammates (Steve Mnuchin as Treasury secretary, Bannon and Gary Cohn, the current Goldman president, as director of the National Economic Council).

The Bill of Rights was adopted to protect and enshrine freedom of speech, religion and assembly. Yet Trump disparages—bullies, actually—those who make fun of him, those who burn the flag as a protest, those who adhere to Islam, those who assemble peacefully. 

Republican values are being torn down by Trump. From Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon such values included stewardship of the land and natural resources. Yet Trump surrounds himself with fossil fuel advocates and climate change deniers even as the oceans rise, the polar cap melts, residents of cities like Beijing and New Delhi choke under pollution from coal and fossil fuel exhausts. Do we really want to return to the days of smog in Los Angeles when children, seniors and those with respiratory ailments were advised to stay indoors? Is that how Trump will make America great again? 

Abraham Lincoln is revered for fighting for racial equality. Yet Trump and his minions want to roll back laws that have advanced voting rights of minorities. 

Reagan was the consummate anti-Russian. Yet Trump rejects such Republican orthodoxy. He sees Russia only through the eyes of an entrepreneur, as a market to exploit, failing to see how Vladimir Putin has aggressively sought to undermine Western values and democracies. 

Trump lacks a world view commensurate with the responsibilities of the commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation on earth. There is one silver lining in his leadership. He is a teetotaler, so there’s no danger of his being drunk and ordering some dangerous military adventure as Nixon’s top staff worried in the days before his resignation. Of course, our last experience with a non drinker would not instill such confidence. Abstainer-in-chief George W. Bush got us into two wars in the Mideast in which we are still engaged. 

Trump also poses a downside risk—he says he gets just four hours of sleep a night. Last week AAA said driving on four hours’ sleep is as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. Driving on 4-5 hours’ sleep increases the chance of an accident by 400%. Less than four hours increases the crash risk by 12 times.

Teenagers, older adults and those who have sleep debt are among the group with the most risk of an accident, according to AAA.

So how comfortable should we feel about the decision making skills of a 70-year-old future president who boasts he gets just four hours sleep a night?

Oy vey!

Reflections on Lincoln’s Legacy vs. Today’s GOP; For Democrats, The Wonk vs. the Prophet

Abraham Lincoln was born 207 years ago today. Our 16th president was the first to win under the banner of the Republican Party. We know highlights of Lincoln’s presidential career: ending slavery, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, preserving the Union, along with instilling a vision of America through inspiring speeches including The Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address. 

My goodness, how far today’s GOP stalwarts have drifted from Lincoln’s vision of a nation of equals blessed with equal opportunities. 

Even in the midst of the most partisan conflict in our nation’s history, Lincoln invested in infrastructure, both physical and strategic. Consider these accomplishments by Honest Abe (courtesy of learnodo-newtonic.com) and ponder if his would-be successors would sustain his achievements, much less propose and enact similar measures:

*Lincoln signed a bill that chartered the first transcontinental railroad. Republicans today hardly want to invest in rail transportation improvements or any form of mass transit;

*Lincoln signed the Morrill Land Grant Act. The act gave each state 30,000 acres of federal land for each member in its congressional delegation. The states sold the land to fund public colleges that focused on agriculture and the mechanical arts. Sixty-nine colleges were funded by these land grants, including Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Republicans today are cutting funding of Pell grants and other expenditures for education; 

*Lincoln signed The National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864, laws that helped shape today’s national banking system and its support of a uniform U.S. banking policy. Republicans today want to limit the powers of, or eliminate, the Federal Reserve; 

*Lincoln signed the first of the Homestead Acts, allowing poor people to obtain land. Republicans today are against virtually all federal assistance programs; 

*Lincoln established the United States Department of Agriculture. Republicans today decry as excessive government regulations pertaining to farming, agriculture, forestry, and food; 

*Lincoln favored a progressive income tax. He signed the Revenue Act of 1862 that established the Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue along with taxes based on tiers of income. Republicans today want to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, a successor to Lincoln’s tax office.

The Wonk vs. the Prophet: If you watched the Democratic Party debate Thursday night all the way to the end you were rewarded with the appearance of a third character on the podium. Joining policy wonk Hillary Clinton and prophet of revolution Bernie Sanders was a passionate candidate of change and context hidden from view for nearly two hours.

In the final moments of a substantive debate on policy, experience and differences, the smoldering fire inside Hillary erupted. Not just in words but also in demeanor she seized the imperative as to why she deserved to be her party’s nominee and the nation’s next president.

Too bad only those wonky enough to stay with the show till its conclusion were rewarded with this transformative moment (do not fret, loyal readers—here’s a link to her closing statement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbjKZ4I_jSU&sns=em). 

For those who abandoned the debate midstream the passion vote skewed toward Bernie, an adept debater who masked few policy details with populist rhetoric no less appealing than past leaders who advocated revolution. For after all, who would follow a boring revolutionary?

By the way, throughout the debate Sanders displayed a timely, if insensitive, cough, timely in that he never coughed while he was talking but did so repeatedly during Clinton’s answers. To her credit, she never flinched or looked over in annoyance. As a good policy wonk she plowed straight ahead spouting facts and figures without too much emotion, until that closing argument.

Belgian Waffles Rocked the 1964-65 World's Fair

What do I remember about the 1964-65 World’s Fair that opened in Flushing Meadow, Queens, 50 years ago today?

Belgian waffles.

The DuPont pavilion where a scientist, or maybe just a well trained actor, poured a clear liquid from one flask into another, turning the fluid into a different color, the hue of which I cannot recall.

A talking, walking Abraham Lincoln in the Illinois State pavilion, the handiwork of Disney audio-animatronics engineers.

More Belgian waffles.

Floating in the It’s a Small World ride, another Disney creation.

Even more Belgian waffles, which is to say, I don't remember too much else about the fair. I think I visited it twice, first on a class trip, which explains the Belgian waffles—coming from an Orthodox Hebrew high school, I couldn't eat an unkosher hot dog or some other treyf (that's Yiddish for unclean, unfit to be eaten) in front of my classmates. Eating Belgian waffles surely was no abomination. Who, after all, doesn't like waffles and ice cream? 

Snow Day Thoughts: LinkedIn, Water Pipelines, and Baseball Sans Derek Jeter

They’re coming out of the woodwork. Like characters from The Walking Dead, people I hadn’t heard from in years have been sending congratulations messages and asking to re-connect, all because I failed to update my LinkedIn profile. So, they all think I am celebrating my third year anniversary at Green Retail Decisions as director of industry relations when in truth I stopped consulting for them last summer. Still, it’s nice to know some people still care enough about me to want to keep the relationship alive ... 

I cleared 11 inches of snow from the driveway and walkway around noon today. Thank god I bought that snowblower a few years ago. Waiting for the second round of snow from this storm …

Perhaps you’ve thought of this idea as well: If we have the capability to build the Keystone XL (crude oil) Pipeline from Canada to Nebraska, a distance of 1,179 miles, with the hope there won’t be any negative environmental impacts from leaks or spills, why can’t we build a water pipeline to take the inevitable runoff of spring flooding along the Mississippi River in Iowa and points south to the parched Texas landscape, a distance of about 1,000 miles? Or maybe divert flood waters from the Missouri River to Denver? Sure, each would be a massive project, but would provide jobs and much needed drought relief. Plus, we wouldn’t have a catastrophe if a few gallons of water leaked along the way. 

I just did a Google search and found several entries outlining the difficulties of advancing these projects, from structural, financial and, even more importantly, political perspectives.  We had massive public works projects during the Depression and the building of the interstate highway system beginning in the 1950s. But it is doubtful all the stars would line up to implement any such tasks in this day and age ...

O Captain! My Captain! I don’t mean to trivialize Walt Whitman’s tribute poem to the assassinated Abraham Lincoln, but one of the first thoughts I had upon hearing of Derek Jeter’s pending retirement from the NY Yankees at the conclusion of the 2014 season was the opening lines of the poet’s elegy:

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;

Nobody can play forever. Jeter’s departure, along with that of Robinson Cano in free agency and the joint retirements of Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte in 2013, will leave no internally grown superstar among pinstriped players. What a pity. The long line of Yankee greats, that started with Gehrig and wound its way through DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, Ford, Howard, Guidry, Munson, Mattingly, Posada, Pettitte, Rivera and Jeter appears to be, at best, in hiatus.

My hope, probably shared by anyone who has appreciated Jeter’s professionalism, is that injury will not mar his final trip around the basepaths of major league baseball. Let’s hope that just as Mariano enjoyed a splendid comeback year after his injury-shortened 2012 season, Jeter will play to the level of 2012 when he led the American League in hits with 216.   

Damn Yankees, For One Night Only

Now I know the joy of rooting against the NY Yankees. Bliss would be one more loss, tonight, against the Tampa Bay Rays followed by New York victories throughout the post-season. But tonight, this die-hard Yankee fan wants his team to lose again to Tampa to give the Rays the opportunity to edge out the Boston Red Sox for the final baseball playoff spot. Boston must play its part in this psycho-drama by either losing tonight or tomorrow in a potential one game showdown against Tampa.

It was a truly weird experience watching the Rays last night turn a near-disastrous bases loaded with Yankees, no out, one-run-already-in situation into a thrilling around-the-horn triple play, and then to cheer when Matt Joyce unloaded a three-run home run to give Tampa a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the seventh. It was even stranger hoping Kyle Farnsworth would record a save against the very same Yanks he so miserably could not perform for during his stint as a set-up man for Mariano Rivera a few years back.

Sports talk radio and the blogosphere are full of the pros and cons of Yankee fans wanting Boston in or out of the playoffs. Only a fool would want his mortal enemy to have time to regroup to fight another day. Don’t those who want Boston to make the playoffs so the Yanks could beat them in the second round (assuming both teams make it there) realize that scenario would mean the Red Sox have righted their slide and defeated either the Texas Rangers or the Detroit Tigers, both formidable foes? When they would play the Yankees they’d have their swagger back.

No, it’s much better to stomp out your opposition when they are down, before they can recover. Abraham Lincoln knew this. That’s why he anguished over the failure of several generals to pursue Robert E. Lee’s forces during the Civil War. It was only when he found a kindred mind in Ulysses S. Grant that Lincoln was confident of victory over the Confederacy.

How strange to be rooting against the Yankees, even for one night. I won’t be watching the game. Gilda has prepared a sumptuous feast for 31 members of our family and friends on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. A Yankee loss, coupled with a Boston loss, would be a grand way to start the new year.