Day 132 of Nat'l Emergency: Lawn Sign for Justice, Petty President, Will Trump Take a Shot

We have proudly joined the woke lawn sign brigade. Designed by Gilda, our sign displays an illustration of eight children of various ethnicities next to a Martin Luther King Jr. saying, “Injustice Anywhere Is a threat to Justice Everywhere.”

Presidential adviser and not-too-secret white supremacist Stephen Miller notwithstanding, Jews have been at the forefront of civil rights activism. We believe in the legitimacy behind the Black Lives Matter movement but have been repulsed by the open antisemitism and anti-Israel stances of some of its leaders and followers, made all the more reprehensible by the organization’s failure to call out repression and discrimination common in Arab Moslem lands. 

Our sign already has won approval from neighbors. We’re at the end of a cul de sac so the sign will get limited exposure. But it’s the sentiment that counts, not the number of eyeballs that see it.

Petty President: The pettiness, the mean-spiritness of Donald Trump continues to know no bounds as it continues to amaze. His latest denigration of the office of the president involves the removal of the official portraits of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush from a public viewing area and their placement in a non public room of the White House.

He couldn’t remove Barack Obama’s portrait because it has not been officially unveiled in deference to the longstanding animosity Trump has toward his immediate predecessor.

One has to wonder how Trump will be treated by his successor, an especially trenchant thought if it is Joe Biden in 2021 or a different Democrat in 2025. Will he be invited to ceremonial functions? Will he be shunned by the members of the exclusive Past Presidents club? 

Will foreign governments welcome him, not that he was an avid jet-setter before his election? As he was not overly complimentary to most foreign leaders while in office, his options for frequent flyer points are limited. Okay, he could visit Turkey, Russia, Brazil. And Israel. Perhaps his good buddy Kim Jong-un will invite him to a deeper visit inside North Korea. Or Xi Jinping might want to show him China’s biological warfare labs that Trump is always talking about.  

Will He Take the Shot? Should an anti COVID-19 vaccine be introduced while he is still in office, will Trump display presidential leadership by publicly taking the shot, or will he punk out and reinforce the cautionary call of the anti-vax brigade that rejects all types of inoculations? Perhaps he will claim an exemption to the injection because of a flareup of his bone spurs.

The current fight over wearing a mask to contain the pandemic’s spread will be child’s play compared to the opposition anti-vaxers will wage, especially if anyone administered the vaccine becomes infected (https://nyti.ms/2OAxMM1). 

It is truly a sad time when the health care system once touted as the best in the world has become a shell of its former prominence. 

Feds vs. States: Where does federal vs. state responsibility begin? States’ rights vs. federal authority. 

During the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has chosen to push responsibility for containment of the virus to governors, except when he sees political gain advocating opening up the economy and schools. He is trying to strongarm states to do his bidding even as case numbers and deaths rise. But his bottom line is that states, not he, are responsible for the pain the country is experiencing.

On the other hand, having clearly lost his bid to be a successful wartime general in the battle to beat COVID-19, Trump has shifted gears to be the law and order president by sending in federal troops to Portland, OR, to arrest and control Black Lives Matter and related protesters. No state or local official asked for federal troop assistance. Indeed, they have vociferously rejected their presence.

But Trump doesn’t care because this narrative fits the image he wants to project to his base and to voters who might feel threatened by the protesters. 

Day 105 Nat'l Emergency: Extremism Reigns

Back in 1964, in accepting the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater said, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” 

It should be obvious to any thoughtful citizen that we are in the midst of extremism from the right and left. Destroying statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ulysses S. Grant were not acts of excessive exuberance in support of Black Lives Matter but rather acts of excessive ignorance and intolerance. 

The very public displays of white supremacists bearing neo-Nazi and Confederate flags, coupled with the reluctance of Donald Trump and other Republicans to unequivocally denounce such actions, chills hope that right wing extremism can be tamped down to the fringe corners of society.

Grant’s statue was toppled, despite his being the Union general most responsible for destroying the Confederacy and slavery, because at one time he owned a slave. One slave. Without any compensation Grant freed William Jones two years prior to the Civil War, an act of courage uncommon where he lived around St. Louis, MO. 

Out of their mind protesters acted like an unruly mob absent any knowledge or context. Ridding public spaces of memorials to traitors who fought the Union or politicos who defended slavery or held beliefs counter to the nation’s creed of equality, however elusive its attainment has been, is not in itself a contemptible act. 

While Confederate generals and office holders are part of the country’s heritage, there is merit in denying them a public place of honor for actions that were not honorable and not sustainable on the battlefield. Nor should they be rewarded for the back door tributes they secured from Jim Crow laws and a media-manufactured retelling of the antebellum South. 

But tearing them down, acting like a lynch mob, besmirched the cause the protesters espouse (unless the protesters were anarchists acting under the cover of legitimate protest). 

Those who are seeking perfection in our national heroes past and present will be sorely disappointed. They come adorned with character warts we at present would find not just discrediting but also disqualifying for elective office or reverence. Martin Luther King was no saint. Neither was Malcolm X. Nor JFK. Nor FDR. Nor Barack Obama. 

What can be said of our icons is that despite their flaws they advanced the dignity of our country, they fought and sometimes died for the expansion of rights and freedoms. 

They were better than the prevailing mores of their times. They weren’t perfect. We should not judge them solely by 2020 standards. 

Perhaps it is a good moment for a collective time out to look at the Bible. Not the New Testament, not because I am not Christian, rather because Jesus seems to be beyond reproach with no flaws.

Look to the Old Testament for leader upon leader, patriarch after patriarch, who is imperfect. King David was an adulterer and conspired to have his consort Bathsheba’s husband killed in battle. He was not a great father. He turned a blind eye as his henchmen assassinated his foes. Yet, he is venerated as Israel’s greatest monarch. 

Jacob was a trickster, on multiple occasions. Samson married a pagan. Saul failed to follow God’s command to kill all of the Amalekites and destroy their possessions. 

Even wise King Solomon, who should have known better, succumbed to excess—excessive taxes, excessive marriages to pagan women and excessive construction of temples to his wives’ gods to whom in his old age he followed. 

Despite his shortcomings, Solomon is lionized. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is a figure’s place in history must be measured by his entire resume, not just a smudge on the page. 

At the 2015 funeral of one of the nine martyred at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, Obama concluded his eulogy by singing “Amazing Grace.” It was a stirring moment. 

But that haunting hymnal was written by a one-time slave trader, John Newton. By today’s ethos of puritanical extremism, should “Amazing Grace” be stricken from the roster of messages of consolation, forgiveness and redemption because of its originator? 

I think not. 

A Voting Choice for Patriots: Live Under Authoritarian Rule or Constitutional Law

(Editor’s note: Some articles can be written days, weeks, months before an actual event occurs. This is one of them.)

And so, after years of investigation by an independent counsel, impeachment by a Democratic controlled House of Representatives and acquittal by a Republican controlled Senate, Donald Trump’s future, nay America’s future, will finally be decided November 3 by the people. John Q. and Jane Public finally will be given the opportunity to express their values over and above what they registered in the 2018 congressional elections.

Will they vote for the founding principles of the greatest land on earth, or will they choose to reward an egotistical autocracy because the economy jumpstarted by Barack Obama continued to surge under Trump? Equally important, will they vote at all, or will they take their freedoms for granted even as they are slowly but inexorably whittled away? 

There is no denying more people are working (though the type of jobs they have often are not the high wage ones that instill financial security); the stock market flirts with record after record highs (though the benefit accrued from such heady heights is limited to the already well-off); corporations have reported top flight earnings (though they did not reward their employees with higher pay and they did not widely invest in capital expansion).

It is also true that the national debt has soared, tax revenue has shrunk, air and water quality has deteriorated because of reduced or eliminated environmental safeguards, and consumer protections have been watered down.

The gap between the haves and have-nots has widened.

The gap between truth and falsehoods is now a chasm dug deeper every day by a huckster-president and his sycophantic followers.

Will the public at large acquiesce to Mitch McConnell’s transformation of the Senate from “the world’s greatest deliberative body” into a “chamber of death” where forward-thinking legislation passed in the House dies upon arrival, without even the courtesy of debate?

The Democratic standard bearer (regardless of who it will be) surely is not the favorite of many party faithful. But if we have learned anything from past elections, when Democrats splintered their votes to whimsical third party candidates or simply chose not to vote at all, it is that every ballot counts. Democrats must bury the hatchet in Trump, not in their own party’s back. Trump became president because he won three key states—Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—by less than 80,000 votes. His claim of a mandate was hyperbole, but it still allowed him to appoint two conservative Supreme Court judges while packing lower federal courts with equally regressive jurists.

It is often said voting is everyone’s patriotic duty. A patriot puts the country’s interests above their own. A patriot looks beyond personal financial gain, focusing instead on the government’s capacity to lift the downtrodden from educational and fiscal poverty. A patriot invests in the industry and defense of the nation while recognizing the obligation of America to act fairly as part of the family of nations. A patriot cherishes the values enshrined in our Constitution and does not accept the notion that a president can be above the law, that a president becomes our sovereign. A patriot believes in a viable, legitimate checks and balances system of executive, legislative and judicial bodies of government.

We have already witnessed the abandonment of principles by party poobahs cowed by fear or enraptured by allegiance to a false messiah. Trump’s coterie in Washington and capitals across the land is based on their lust for power and the monetary bounty that can be reaped from political office.

To what end has he corrupted the values of America’s citizenry? Will they recall the civics lessons of their youth on the choices made by our Founding Fathers to reject authoritarian rule in favor of living under a nation of laws equally applied, even to our highest official?

A patriot votes. Here’s hoping patriots come out in droves November 3.

Trump Is at Yogi's Proverbial Fork in the Road

I wonder what his good friend Bibi is telling Donald Trump about the need to show strength in the face of unprovoked attack, about the need to strike quickly to teach miscreants a lesson that Israel, er, the United States is not to be trifled with. Of course Bibi Netanyahu would like nothing more than the U.S. annihilating Iran’s power. Ditto the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Trump and some of his advisors, notably National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, want regime change in Iran. They hope to see an Iran not led by a religiously despotic ayatollah. Iran’s last regime change occurred in 1979. Since then the United States has had six regime changes led by half a dozen presidents with divergent world views. Given this historical perspective it is more likely there will be a new president of the U.S. before a new ayatollah with a fresh view that America is not satan. 

Rather than react rashly to the downing by Iran of an unarmed intelligence gathering drone early Thursday morning, Trump trod cautiously, even providing Iran with a plausible explanation for the assault, that a stupid officer went rogue and fired the surface to air missile that shot the drone out of the sky above the Strait of Hormuz. It was an uncharacteristic response from Trump. 

Or was it? A certified bully, Trump, it could be said, reacted just as any bully would when confronted. He cowered at the prospect of actual confrontation. Iran is not like Syria that was in no position to retaliate when Trump twice ordered cruise missiles to strike Syria after Bashir al Assad rained down chemicals on rebels. 

Perhaps Trump’s wariness was the result of an underreported fact about the incident. The drone was capable of flying at 55,000 feet, a height believed to be above Iran’s defensive capabilities. Wrong. “That is a demonstration by the Iranians that they have that capability, something the United States will take note of in the future,” according to The New York Times.

Perhaps Trump’s pulpit has more than bluster. We learned Friday morning he authorized three strikes on three targets. But with 10 minutes to spare, he cancelled the counterpunch. 

Politico reported he said he felt such a move was “not proportionate” to Iran’s attack on an unmanned drone. “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights (sic) when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world,” Trump tweeted.

Besides Bolton and Pompeo, and perhaps Vice President Mike Pence, the only disappointed faces most probably are in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem. No one should embrace the idea of a war, but a proxy war by America against Iran would be welcome in those Middle Eastern capitals, even if Iran fulfilled a threat to retaliate by launching missiles into their countries. “Minor” damage and casualties would be a small price to pay for the elimination of an existential threat. 

Iran has complicated the calculus, asserting it exhibited restraint by not shooting down a military transport carrying 35 servicemen that accompanied the drone (how they knew the number of passengers was not explained). 

Trump is at a critical juncture. Yogi Berra allegedly said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Trump must now choose the path his administration will take and project during his presidency. He blasted Barack Obama for not following through on his threat to punish Assad for use of chemical weapons. 

Few people especially politicians believe Trump is a man of his word. With scant credibility to marshal international or domestic allies Trump must engage a strategy few believe he has any idea how to originate, much less implement (https://nyti.ms/2L3jliS). 

Trump Off and Running Leaves Me in Wonder

Inexplicably to me, the official start of Donald Trump’s reelection campaign began Tuesday night in Orlando. Silly me. I thought the dastardly deed had been baptized back on January 20, 2017, when papers were filed with the Federal Election Commission by the Trump campaign declaring his intention to run again. 

Why the rush when other presidents waited years to formally register? Follow the money, as we learned from Watergate. According to Huffington Post, “Trump’s paperwork renewing his campaign committee allowed him to collect donations and spend money for an election three years and 10 months away. It also permitted him to continue diverting some of those donations into his own private businesses, which he still controls and from which he still profits.

“In that same time period, the Republican National Committee, which Trump effectively took over at his nominating convention in 2016, spent $690,181 at Trump’s golf resort in Doral, Florida; $403,259 at his hotel in Washington, D.C.; and $289,335 at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

“In all, the Trump campaign and the RNC together have funneled $4,341,083 to Trump businesses since Trump took office, with some of that going directly into the president’s own pocket.”

There were some who held out hope Trump would tire of the demands of office. Ha! They didn’t compute Trump’s creative use of “executive time.” Nor did they appreciate how he could turn golfing into a government paid job. He clearly has shown Barack Obama was an amateur when it came to leisure world activity while the world heats up from man-made climate change and assorted tension spots. 

Some had hoped the Mueller Report and a Democratic House of Representatives would shame him into early retirement. How little they know the bully. He relishes combat, or should I say, verbal haranguing. He has debased our modern modes of political decorum (for the record, numerous presidential contests were much more rancorous in the 1800s). 

Trump has fashioned an extreme presidency that some, including myself, fear could result in the ultimate constitutional crisis. Should he lose the election he may well invoke emergency powers to challenge the legitimacy of the vote. After all, before the 2016 ballot he said he might not accept its validity if he lost. He has since repeatedly questioned the tally and has done nothing to protect the sanctity of the election process from interference. 

Prior to his Tuesday night rally, as I drove to one of my errands, I heard a Floridian interviewed by CBS News exult in Trump’s accomplishments. He is “looking out for the common people,” the man explained. 

I wondered, how does undermining Obamacare help the common people? Trump claims he has a great replacement with more coverage at less expense, but like snake oil salesmen who plied the country in the last two centuries he won’t reveal what’s in his elixir. 

I wondered how the common family was helped by a tax reform bill that gave the lion’s share of benefits to the one percenters and just crumbs to common working folks, especially those who relied on mortgage, state income tax and charitable contributions to reduce their tax burden. 

I wondered how common people would benefit from a change in the way the federal poverty line is computed. According to ThinkProgress, a progressive news site, “The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, has released its analysis of a government proposal for updating the inflation rate that determines the federal poverty line. The study suggests that if authorities adopt a “chained Consumer Price Index” — which calculates the cost of living at a slower pace than the current method — millions of low-income Americans will lose health and food benefits within 10 years.

“Who would suffer most? The technical change would disqualify 300,000 kids and pregnant women from receiving health coverage under the Children’s Health Insurance Program.”

I wondered for how long the American people will remain gullible and susceptible to re-education according to the Trump-is-great doctrine. Trump and his propagandists erase all mention of the positive economic performance under his predecessor. They only tout the rise in the stock market since Trump took office.

To put some perspective onto what has transpired economically, Fortune magazine recently compared how Wall Street fared during Obama’s and Trump’s respective first 28 months in office:

“So, how do the two presidents measure up in terms of growth in major indexes, measured between their inauguration and May 31 of their third year in office?

“The short answer is that Trump has quite a way to go. Under Obama, the S&P 500 grew by 56.4%. The Dow Jones Industrials Average was up 50.6% and the Nasdaq, 92.9%.

“The numbers under Trump were 21.4% for the S&P 500, 25.2% for the Dow, and 34.2% for Nasdaq.”

I wondered how common people would do better with dirtier air and water from Trump’s push for more fossil fuel use and lower pollution standards, how deregulation of health and labor safeguards would make their lives better.  

I wondered about a lot more before reaching my destination. I pondered the idea of a consecutive term for Trump before settling onto a variation of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s comment, “I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison.” For me, “consecutive terms” would refer to consecutive prison terms.

When Will This Nightmare End?

The other day I read a Letter to the Editor in The New York Times from Jay Markowitz. Commenting on a May 2 Op-Ed piece by former FBI director James Comey entitled, “How Trump Co-Opts Leaders Like Barr” (https://nyti.ms/2VDZsEX), he crisply wrote, “In William Barr, President Trump has found his Roy Cohn. When will this nightmare end?”

First, let me say that in the two-plus years that The Donald has been our fearful leader, this is the first time I wrote the consecutive words, “President Trump.” Oh, the downside of accurate reporting!

Now, to respond to Jay Markowitz’s obviously plaintive plea—Not until January 20, 2021, at the earliest, but only if the American people wake up from this nightmare, only if they have not become inured to Trump’s assault on the Constitution and its tricameral form of equal branches of government, only if they have not been lulled into submission or complacency by an economy that continues the remarkable rebound initiated by Barack Obama, only if they have not become complicit or accepting of his destruction of the rule of law, only if the American people believe again that their country’s values are the best export we can offer the world and the best import are people from all creeds, religions and regions who are dedicated to equal opportunity and freedom for all. 

It will be impossible to remove Trump from the White House through impeachment, unless he fulfills his wild 2016 campaign boast—that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes—and Senate Republicans defy all reason and excuse his assault as, in the words of Attorney General William Barr, that of someone “frustrated and angry.” 

It was just such reasoning that enabled me to co-win a friendly contest predicting the length of Trump’s presidency. All but two of the 15 contestants thought he would vacate the White House by April 6 of the second year of his term. Connie Goldberg and I chose his full term as the end date.

Of course, I previously opined that Trump might be emboldened to declare a national emergency and not recognize the 2020 election if he loses. He’s already started to lobby for a six year first term, retweeting a Jerry Falwell Jr. comment that he deserves a two year extension because the first two years of his tenure were “stolen” because of the Mueller investigation. 

The man’s chutzpah knows no bounds.

Trump’s defiance of constitutional norms goes beyond the actions of most presidents to minimize scrutiny of their administrations by Congress. James Reston Jr. argued in The Times that failure to comply with congressional subpeonas is an impeachable offense, as Richard Nixon found out during his impeachment proceedings 25 years ago (https://nyti.ms/2ZVizK5).

But Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is in no rush to impeach. “Trump is goading us to impeach him,” Ms. Pelosi said at a Cornell University event in Manhattan, according to The Times. “That’s what he is doing, every single day he is just, like, taunting, taunting, taunting. Because he knows that it would be very divisive in the country. But he doesn’t really care; he just wants to solidify his base.”

Her reticence or political savvy aside, the Democratically-controlled House might be more willing to act if it is able to secure testimony from former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II, both of whom Trump has said should not appear before Congress. Both are privy to information on alleged obstruction of Mueller’s probe into Russian interference with the 2016 election by Trump and his gang of family and aides. 

McGhan is a private citizen; Mueller attains that status at the end of the month. Thus, their willingness to testify would not be subject to Trump’s authority. 

Rather, it would position them as either patriots or more Trump dumpster detritus. 

Trump has repeatedly degraded the FBI, the Justice Department and members of the judiciary. Lately, he has cast the FBI investigation of his campaign as “spying,” a term repeated by Barr during Senate testimony last month. But the current FBI director, Christopher A. Wray, refuted the characterization during a Senate hearing Tuesday (https://nyti.ms/2Wz6isI).

And so, the nightmare continues. Trump’s handpicked FBI chief is staying independent as an officer of the law, even as Trump’s handpicked attorney general, ostensibly the people’s lawyer, has shifted the interpretation of his  role to be defender of the malevolent.  

The Future Hinges on Voters of Suspect Intellect

Less than two weeks until the fate of the country is decided. Not specifically on the ballot are the futures of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Obamacare, civil rights, voting rights, gender rights, labor rights, nuclear arms control, environmental laws and a host of other issues that will directly affect the lives of most Americans, even if they don’t realize it (for example, those who complain about socialism overtaking our daily existence do not comprehend that Social Security and Medicaid are forms of socialism, as are public schools and public police forces and fire departments).

Let’s be honest. You’re probably as sick and tired of election coverage as I am. That goes doubly for having to see and listen to Donald Trump at rally after rally as he foments crowds into raw meat delirium. How hypocritical of him to blame the media for inciting incendiary behavior.

Now let’s be really honest. You’re probably melancholy, perhaps more than a bit disappointed, maybe even angry that Barack Obama didn’t fire up his faithful in 2010 and 2014 to defend his progressive platform, as the provocateur-in-chief is doing almost every day with his rabble of a following. Had he done so maybe we wouldn’t have so many Republicans currently in office on the national and state levels.  

For now, I am beyond soaking up all the minutia of 435 House races, 35 Senate square offs and countless state house and gubernatorial contests. I just want it to be over, like I wanted the Mega Millions lottery to finally find a winner (I am really disappointed my five tickets contained no more than one of the picked numbers; I didn’t fare any better with Wednesday’s Powerball drawing). I’m even too exhausted to watch Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers skewer Trump, or listen to Brian Lehrer on WNYC public radio impart more reasoned analysis of our disastrous political state. 

That could be the Trumpster’s plan all along. To rope-a-dope us all into submission. 

I wonder how many people under 45 would get that rope-a-dope reference. Muhammed Ali used that strategy on October 30, 1974, in the Rumble in the Jungle fight to tire out George Foreman. Ali allowed Foreman, the reigning heavyweight champion of the world, to barrage him with punches through seven rounds while he nestled on the ring’s ropes, a tactic that allowed Ali to dissipate much of the impact of each punch. His energy spent from swinging lefts and rights to little effect, Foreman succumbed to Ali’s assault before the bell rang to end round eight. 

Why did I pick 45 as the age factor? Because a recent national survey found that just 19% of those 45 and younger could pass a citizenship test if it were required of Americans born in the United States. 

“With voters heading to the polls next month, an informed and engaged citizenry is essential,” Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, which conducted the study, said in a statement. 

“Unfortunately, this study found the average American to be woefully uninformed regarding America’s history and incapable of passing the U.S. Citizenship Test. It would be an error to view these findings as merely an embarrassment. Knowledge of the history of our country is fundamental to maintaining a democratic society, which is imperiled today.”

Citizens 65 and older fared much better, scoring passing grades 74% of the time, the highest mark for any age cohort. (An actual citizenship test is just 10 questions, six of which must be answered correctly. Take a longer—96 question—test by clicking on the “select all questions” button in the link: http://www.citizenshipstudyguide.com/member/citizenship-test-questions-quiz.php.)

According to the foundation’s press release, “The survey also found that:

• 72% of respondents either incorrectly identified or were unsure of which states were part of the 13 original states;
• Only 24% could correctly identify one thing Benjamin Franklin was famous for, with 37% believing he invented the lightbulb;
• Only 24% knew the correct answer as to why the colonists fought the British;
• 12% incorrectly thought WWII General Dwight Eisenhower led troops in the Civil War; 6% thought he was a Vietnam War general; and
• While most knew the cause of the Cold War, 2% said climate change.

Simply put, too many of our electorate are dumb. Without basic knowledge of our history, our founding principles and values, it is no wonder that a lying, uninformed autocratic bigot can manipulate the truth and lead a throng of morons to repudiate what this country has stood for domestically and internationally for more than eight decades. 

American Values Under the Microscope

Hardly a day goes by without someone advocating our return to traditional American values. But just what are they? Are they the values of the Declaration of Independence (“All men are created equal”), or the Constitution’s acceptance of slavery coupled to a formula equating Afro-Americans to but two-thirds of a white man? 

Do our historical values include the willingness of a vast segment of our citizenry to go to war to defend their ownership of another human and to treat that person as property without any rights or feelings? That they believed slavery was divinely ordained? And, after they lost the battle to retain bondage as a permitted way of life, do our values include devotion to laws to eternalize the second class citizenry of former slaves and others who came to our shores as free men but whose skin tone was darker than white folks? 

Do our values include the near annihilation of indigenous Americans and their near perpetual subjugation on reservations? 

Do our American values include our historic prejudice against most immigrant groups, from the Irish to the Chinese to the Southern Italian, the Eastern European, the Jewish, the Hispanic? Did you know that while we encouraged Chinese immigration to build the transcontinental railroad and other infrastructure projects, legal immigrants from China could not become naturalized U.S. citizens until 1943?

Were you aware that concurrent with Russian pogroms against Jews in the 1880s, white Americans ransacked Chinatowns across the country and killed their residents? At the same time, Southerners threw out Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan grew and Jim Crow laws became widespread in the states of the Confederacy. 

It seems white Americans, regardless of era, are endlessly mandating and legislating rules and regulations to protect their supremacy even as demographics works against them. To keep their hold on the levers of power, white America—now mostly those who are conservative Republicans—preach fear. 

“Fear is powerful,” former president Barack Obama has said. “Telling people that somebody’s out to get you, or somebody took your job, or somebody has it out for you, or is going to change you, or your community, or your way of life—that’s an old story and it has shown itself to be powerful in societies all around the world. It is a deliberate, systematic effort to tap into that part of our brain that carries fear in it.”

Before you jump to the conclusion that fear-mongering is exclusively a Republican tactic, recall that John F. Kennedy ran on fear of a missile gap versus the Soviet Union; Lyndon Baines Johnson made voters fear a nuclear holocaust if Barry Goldwater became president. It is instructive to note, however, that Richard Nixon’s law and order platform and George H. W. Bush’s Willie Horton election campaign ad played on racial fears.  

To Charles Blow of The New York Times, fear drives conservative thought and action. It is not a fear of loss of physical security. Rather, it is fear of loss of power. 

A little history: Woodrow Wilson is lauded for his leadership on the world stage, for his 14 Points program for peace after the Great War, including the creation of the League of Nations,  which ultimately America did not join (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points).

But Wilson, a Southerner born and bred, brought to the White House racist beliefs. He removed blacks from civil service jobs. The military was segregated. And, despite his advocacy of democracy with its inherent foundation of free speech, Wilson stifled dissent to his conduct of America’s involvement in the war in Europe. 

With the compliance of a Democratic controlled Congress, Wilson attacked his detractors through the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. The laws made it illegal to “willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States.” Nearly 1,000 people were convicted of violating the law which the Supreme Court upheld as constitutional (https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/capitalism/sources_document1.html).

Under a president who has declared the press “an enemy of the people,” and a Republican Congress that has abdicated its constitutional responsibility to act as a check and balance to executive excess, imagine the potential for similar authoritarian action, especially after a Republican majority is confirmed on the Supreme Court. 

In his eulogy of Senator John McCain, his long time friend and former Senate colleague Joe Lieberman said our founding values were freedom, human rights, opportunity, democracy and equal justice under the law.

To former vice president Joe Biden our values entail “inclusivity, tolerance, diversity, respect for the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press” (https://nyti.ms/2eZFNZ1). 

Lieberman and Biden’s recitations are values we should strive for but in many instances have failed to achieve, not just in the distant past but in the last 50 years as well. We continue to deny human rights and opportunity to all; voting rights have been restricted; intolerance is endemic; respect for the rule of law has been undermined; freedom of the press has been challenged; diversity is portrayed as anti-American.

Two hundred years ago for many our values included the idea that it was permitted, even biblically sanctioned, that slavery was an acceptable practice. A hundred years ago it was accepted that women were not appropriately competent to be entrusted with the right to vote. Until 1913 with the ratification of the 17th Amendment, the choice of U.S. senators was kept out of the hands of the public at large. Senators were chosen by state legislatures. There are some politicians today, mostly Republicans given their dominance of state legislatures through gerrymandered elections, who would like to go back to that system by rescinding the 17th Amendment. So much for their dedication to democracy!

American values are an evolving concept. Every so often they are assaulted, as they were under McCarthyism. Only through education can we hope to instill in each and every American a knowledge of where we came from and what we have attained and how far we still have to travel to reach the ideals Lieberman and Biden illuminated. 

Some Acts of Protest and Praise

I try to shop Costco during the midday, the better to snag and snarf down one, er, many, of the sample foods offered throughout the store. During my most recent visit, Costco was giving out bite-sized samples of Nathan’s all beef hot dogs.

Hard to resist. But I did. At least for the short term I will defer any pleasure from swallowing a Nathan’s dog. It’s a form of resistance to the news earlier this month that Howard Lorber, executive chairman of Nathan’s, a real estate developer and one of Donald Trump’s closest friends, held a $3 million fundraiser in the Hamptons for the Republican National Committee attended by the Trumpster (https://dailym.ai/2vRjRrN).

I’m under no illusions or delusions that my gastronomic protest will have any impact. Nor am I suggesting starting a consumer boycott of Nathan’s. To do so would be counter to many of my edible experiences.

For example, I obsess over Chick-fil-a chicken strips. Our daughter Ellie has admonished me for patronizing a  chain that in many policies is the antithesis of my progressive beliefs. As I generally only eat at Chick-fil-a when visiting Ellie in Omaha, I mostly adhere to her restriction, when I’m not in Omaha because there are few Chick-fil-a outlets where I live (okay, so I’m not perfect). 

It would be easy to document my other hypocrisies on food and nonfood purchases. For instance, I have never bought a German car. But I use a Braun coffeemaker and electric toothbrush. Go figure.

Which translates to a short recess from my Nathan’s denial.  What can I say? I’m an imperfect extremist. 

Neil Simon died last Sunday. He was the most successful American playwright. 

One of Gilda’s and my early dates was to a Broadway production of Simon’s The Gingerbread Lady starring Maureen Stapleton. I don’t recall any of the plot—the show opened in mid December 1970 and ran for just six months, the shortest of any Simon play, though it did secure Tony and Drama Desk awards for Stapleton. 

What I do recall is that Gilda and I wore jeans to the show. My parents were aghast that we would see a Broadway show so attired. I like to think we were in the vanguard of the movement to democratize theater attendance. 

Some 25 years later, while walking down Park Avenue to Grand Central Terminal after work I spotted Simon walking towards me. He had just come out of the Waldorf Astoria hotel. I often recognize celebrities and sports figures on Manhattan streets, luminaries including Dustin Hoffman, Richard Lewis, Johnny Damon, Al Pacino. My customary reaction is to shake their hands as I express appreciation for their work, all the while careful not to draw attention to their presence among us ordinary folks. 

In retirement I miss those serendipitous moments. 

The Last Word: Since his death last Saturday, John McCain’s farewell plans have pointedly excluded Donald Trump (https://nyti.ms/2ws0w0Z). Considering how Trump treated him, one cannot really blame the Arizona senator and Vietnam war hero. 

But in publicly shunning, some would say humiliating, Trump by not only failing to invite him to any of his bereavement services but also asking former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to deliver eulogies, McCain might have missed a more visible rebuke. 

Would it not have been more of a reprobation to have Trump seated in the first pew as his two predecessors—men he has verbally criticized—praised McCain’s patriotism, heroism and commitment to bi-partisan American values? The cutting irony would not have been lost on all attendees and the millions viewing on television as cameras switched back and forth from speaker to Trump back to speaker to Trump for his reaction.

It would be reminiscent of Trump’s stern visage as he endured Obama and Seth Meyers skewer him during the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. Some pundits claim Trump immediately started planning revenge, ultimately enabled by his election in 2016. 

So maybe it wouldn’t have been a good thing to give the vengeful-hater-in-chief another reason to diss John McCain. How any veteran and prisoner of war could support Trump after the insulting manner he has displayed toward McCain is beyond my comprehension.   

Politics and Poker Don't Mix in the Age of Trump

The monthly poker game was at my house Tuesday night. Unlike a scene in the Tony award winning musical Fiorello!, which ran for 795 performances on Broadway beginning in November 1959, we did not talk politics while cards shuffled around the table. 

In case you’re not familiar with the song “Politics and Poker,” here’s a link to the original cast rendition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APsYihdXPRE. For those not interested in musical diversion, here are the appropriate smart and jaunty chorus lyrics that encase deliberations of New York City Republican machine politicians grappling with the difficulty of finding a candidate to run for Congress in a district thought to be unwinnable): 

Politics and poker, politics and poker 

Shuffle up the cards and find the joker 

Neither game's for children; either game is rough 

Decisions, decisions, like 

Who to pick, how to play, what to bet, when to call a bluff 

Politics and poker, politics and poker 

Playing for a pot that's mediocre 

Politics and poker, running neck and neck 

If politics seems more predictable 

That's because usually you can stack the deck! 

Politics and poker, politics and poker 

Makes the average guy a heavy a smoker 

Bless the nominee and give him our regards 

And watch while he learns that in poker and politics 

Brother, you've gotta have that slippery haphazardous commodity 

You've gotta have the cards!

My poker buddies don’t smoke. We didn’t talk politics because, frankly, it’s too depressing. To my knowledge they all share my progressive leanings. 

Not that I am not friends with Trumpsters, few though they may be among my acquaintances and relatives. It’s just becoming a lot less taxing to simply avoid them or set ground rules for discussion topics.

Trump is not unique in dividing allegiances among the populace. Think back to the tenures of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. But with Trump the divide seems to be deeper, more extreme, more personal. 

Perhaps it’s a Forseter gene, but my sister Lee feels the same way. She has permitted me to share an exchange we had the other day after it became known that Trump waged a global war against breast feeding in favor of corporate America’s infant formula empire.

“The worse it gets the angrier I get at people I know that still support him,” wrote Lee.

“Or as they say, ‘we agree to disagree’. I’m about to tell them that their reckless silence or support of his behavior is so disgusting to me that I can no longer value them as friends and until they realize how hurtful he is and what a threat he is to democracy I do not wish to associate with them.

“Endorsing his hateful attacks on minorities and children and weaker nations is bigger than any friendship I feel for his supporters, regardless of how long I have known them. I feel I then become complicit in supporting him by not rejecting my friends.”  

“I informed David (her husband) that there will be no Fox News allowed in our home anymore. Certain radio stations are also banned. Emails are also off limits if they support him. Our home will be purged of all conservative venues.

  

“As for my friends, I am still confused and struggling with what to do. But the worse it gets the harder it is to remain connected to those who advocate and support him.”

When I first read those words I felt the real pain engulfing Lee, a retired early elementary school teacher in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood in Los Angeles, and still a semi-practicing psychiatric social worker. I identified with it. 

A year ago in late May I wrote about the Trump fatigue factor (“The fatigue factor is setting in. Donald Trump and his gang that couldn’t shoot straight is overwhelming me. There’s too much to write. If I miss a day the accumulated copy weighs me down.”)

I am not as depressed by Trump’s actions as I am by the reaction of too, too many of my fellow Americans. As Maureen Dowd observed in The New York Times the other day, “On the occasion of America’s 242nd birthday, we must ask who we are, if we can see accounts of infants snatched from their parents and returned covered in lice, and not worry about our country’s soul.”

Could be a timing coincidence, but I was intrigued by an article, “The Power of Positive People,” currently among the most popular on The Times Web site. Teased with the question, “Are your friendships giving you a boost or bringing you down?,” the article opines, “Friends can exert a measurable and ongoing influence on your health behaviors in a way that a diet never can,” according to Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow and author, later adding, “I argue that the most powerful thing you can do to add healthy years is to curate your immediate social network” (https://nyti.ms/2m4V7Hr).

Sounds like a no-brainer, but keeping the Trump Fatigue Effect from infecting my personal relationships could become a full-time job. Not something I would relish in my retirement.

By the way, in case you’re interested, I won $10 Tuesday night, not enough to cover the expense of hosting the game, but better than losing at poker. For the short term, at least, national politics is a lost cause.

A Poster Boy for the Supreme Court, But Will He Follow Kennedy's Lead To Protect Rights

If you could judge a judge nominated to be a justice of the Supreme Court merely from his public acceptance speech Brett Kavanaugh would be confirmed in a heartbeat. Unanimously. 

Sure, he spoke in hyperbole when he proclaimed Donald Trump’s “appreciation for the vital role of the American judiciary. No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.” 

Donald Trump sought out the most diverse input before making a selection? Really!?! 

Just how many progressive voices did the divider-in-chief invite to the White House or to one of his golf or resort properties to discuss the qualities he should look for in a justice for life? No doubt he talked to gun lobbyists, and big business lobbyists, and anti-abortion lobbyists, and anti-immigration lobbyists, and anti-environment lobbyists. By lobbyists I am including elected Republican officials for they have, in effect, become part of the partisan network, rather than staying independent in their evaluation of issues and candidates. 

Let’s call it the Trump Effect. It is difficult to cite any action his administration has taken that has not rolled back advances in the quality of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans and peoples of the world. Even as he espoused his dedication to life Trump pursued a measure at the World Health Organization that would undercut the health of newborns by advocating feeding them infant formula rather than breast milk which is universally considered the best food they could consume. 

Judge Kavanaugh outwardly seems like a nice, all-American guy. A little shy and awestruck at the podium, gushing over his parents, daughters and wife. Young enough to coach his daughter’s basketball team. Not ramrod straight like Neil Gorsuch but someone fluid enough to tease his younger daughter about her incessant talking and have her be okay with it in front of a national audience. 

Just irresistible. Who wouldn’t want this dad to parse legal conflict for us all? (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-announcing-judge-brett-m-kavanaugh-nominee-associate-jus)

Kavanaugh clerked for his predecessor Justice Anthony Kennedy, as did Gorsuch. It has been said that Kennedy opted for retirement at this moment so a Republican president and GOP-majority Senate could pick and confirm a successor in his image.  

One wonders if Kavanaugh absorbed Kennedy’s compassion for the privacy rights of women and gay communities. Gorsuch apparently didn’t. He seems to be more in line with the originalist doctrines of Antonin Scalia whose seat he now occupies because Republicans blocked the centrist jurist Merrick Garland nominated by Barack Obama.

It will be up to Kavanaugh to sustain rights Kennedy protected. As Gorsuch has shown, clerks do not always agree with their bosses. 

If you didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, or if you wasted your vote on a symbolic alternative candidate like Jill Stein, you relinquished the right to complain about Trump’s selection of his second Supreme Court justice and the near hundred lower court federal judges who will shape the direction of the country for decades. 

Forget about protesting or expecting Democrats to thwart his nominations. They don’t have the votes, not in the Senate now and, thanks to you and likeminded fools, not in November 2016. 

Decency Does Not End at the Border

Look in any Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, Koran, Hindu holy texts, or any religious writings, and you are likely to find justification for almost any action you may desire to take. Slavery. Capital punishment. Treating women as chattel. All are condoned in various scriptures.

So it was not unusual for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to cite the Apostle Paul in his defense of Trump administration policy to separate children from their parents if the family unit tries to enter the United States illegally. 

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,”said Sessions (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/06/14/jeff-sessions-points-to-the-bible-in-defense-of-separating-immigrant-families/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8d4f916357a3)

It is futile to duel with Bible verses. Let’s remember religions set many of their guiding tenets during eras with mores far different than those of today’s western civilizations. 

Decency, on the other hand, does not require divine validation. So let’s be blunt: Trump and his minions are being indecent and cruel. They are traumatizing children, children!, perhaps for life, to win political points. 

Have they no shame? 

They are compounding their immorality by lying, by trying to lay the blame for their inexcusable actions on Democrats when they know perfectly well that under Barack Obama children were not separated from their parents (https://nyti.ms/2HS0MsV). 

The Big Lie is Trump’s usual defense, but even some of his evangelical supporters are not being duped by it this time. It is comforting to know even his own church, United Methodist, has disavowed Sessions’ use of the Bible to justify an abhorrent practice (http://theweek.com/speedreads/779547/jeff-sessions-church-slams-use-bible-defend-separating-migrant-families). 

Here’s a chilling perspective on the practice of separating children from their parents. As Sara Boboltz reported on HuffPost, families of color have been subjected to such cruelty since the 1800s (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/history-separating-families-of-color_us_5b241a78e4b0f9178a9d1866).

There is no denying the United States has a problem with illegal immigration, the severity of which is subject to honest debate (though it is difficult to imagine an honest, truthful debate from Trump’s side). But what should be obvious to anyone with a caring heart is the cruelty of taking children from their parents for no other reason than they sought a better future from the lottery of life that planted them in a country south of the United States border. 

Decency should know no boundaries.