To Legitimize the Dreamers, Fund the Wall

When the Branch Davidians holed up in their compound outside Waco, Texas, the federal government pleaded with cult leader David Koresh to release the children inside the building. They, after all, were too young to differentiate right from wrong, the wrong being the Davidians alleged sexual abuses and illegal weapons violations. The  children should not suffer any consequences for actions taken by their parents. Nineteen children were evacuated before the 51-day siege turned into a conflagration that killed 76 Davidians. That was in 1993. 

For the most part it has been the position of our government, at all levels, to absolve children for the misdeeds, alleged and real, of their parents or elders.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that juveniles should be treated differently than adults. It ordered a review of mandatory life sentences handed out to youths. Included in the fallout from that ruling is Lee Boyd Malvo, the teenage accomplice of the Beltway shooter whose killing spree totaled 10 victims around Washington, DC, in 2002. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/local/beltway-sniper-lee-boyd-malvo-granted-new-sentencing-hearings/2017/05/27/e252529c-4300-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_video.html?utm_term=.f0622a41d5fc

According to Allen Weintraub, an attorney involved in asylum law, “The Trump  immigration policy is … denigrating American ideals of justice and fairness by the administration’s refusal to recognize the long-standing  common law tradition, codified in many state and federal statutes, differentiating the application of the law between minors and adults. In civil law, any contract entered into by a minor is void on its face; and in criminal law there are major differences in determining the guilt and sentencing for a minor. In no way are the DACA minors complicit in violating U.S. immigration laws. They cannot be punished for the illegal acts of the adults who brought them into the U.S.”

The sympathy, if not benevolence, of the federal government seems to have dissipated under Donald Trump. His vacillating stances on the fate of youngsters (median age 6) brought to America illegally, mostly by their parents, have become conflicting chapters in an ongoing saga of venality as Trump uses the precarious position of the so-called “Dreamers” to push Congress to fund a southern border wall with Mexico. 

Last year Trump vacated DACA (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program initiated by President Obama), setting March 6 as the day deportations could begin if Congress didn’t pass enabling legislation to grant the near 800,000 Dreamers enrolled in DACA renewed residency rights. 

(March 6 happens to be my birthday. I have always comically associated the date with the fall of the Alamo to Mexican forces. How ironic that Trump could exact revenge on Mexico—for the Alamo and for rejecting any suggestion it would pay for the border wall—by beginning deportation procedures on March 6 as 79% of DACA recipients are from Mexico. Here’s a statistical profile of young undocumented immigrants brought here: https://nyti.ms/2xN3tIu.)

Folklore would have you believe America was always a welcoming country. Not so. Our past is speckled with eras of discrimination against the Irish. The Chinese. Southern Italians. Eastern European Jews. Even in the face of death our shores were not open to those yearning to breathe free from persecution.

Trump has cut by more than half the number of legal immigrants permitted to enter the United States each year. It is 45,000, the lowest since the 1970s, an especially harsh number given the unprecedented volume of refugees around the globe. 

Pushed by zealots such as presidential advisor Stephen Miller, Trump says he wants to restrict immigration to an educated, professional class that could integrate smoothly and quickly into the country’s manpower needs and all but erase entry based on family ties beyond spouses and children. 

Miller apparently has forgotten his family history. A descendant on his mother’s side of the Glosser Brothers retail company of Pennsylvania, Miller’s ancestors fled pogroms in Russia. He and other members of his extended immigrant family started a successful, but now defunct, chain of department stores (http://jewishjournal.com/opinion/rob_eshman/214361/stephen-miller-meet-immigrant-great-grandfather/).  

My father, as well, came from Eastern Europe in 1939 when he was 28, with little beyond initiative and moxie, to become a successful small manufacturer who, if memory serves me right, supplied Glosser Bros. with lingerie. As for Trump wanting only the highly skilled and educated, my father, again, had no more than a sixth grade education. He spoke little English when he arrived on our shores. I shudder to think where I might be if Trump’s Draconian immigration measures were in place decades ago.

But enough of my personal story. How about the poster boy for the value of benign immigration? 

As many others have pointed out, imagine if Trump’s restrictions on Muslim immigrants were in place in the early 1950s. The biological father of Steve Jobs of Apple fame, a Syrian leaving Lebanon because of political unrest, would have been denied entry into the United States. He would not have met Jobs’ biological mother. They would not have spawned the co-founder of the richest company in the world.

The question remains, why do all immigrants have to be skilled? Or rich? Or from Caucasian countries? Is there something wrong with immigrants serving in the home health care field, or in foodservice, or in agriculture, or in any field open to those with less than a college degree? 

Late Thursday afternoon the White House packaged sweeping changes to immigration law tied to the possibility of a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/25/white-house-presents-immigration-plan-with-path-to-citizenship-for-18-million-369457?lo=ap_a1).

Hailed as a compromise that could get 60 votes in the Senate, the White House is mum on prospects for passage in the more conservative House where the prospect of amnesty is anathema to hardliners. 

Should Democrats sign on, even though it includes $25 billion for a southern border wall and other security measures as well as changes to our traditional immigration policies?

I’d have to say, yes, as it represents the only avenue Dreamers have to legitimize their lives in the United States. Let Republicans be the guilty party if the proposal dies in Congress. 

Our heritage is as a nation of immigrants. Through quotas and discrimination we have grown stronger because of our open doors. Overwhelmingly, according to surveys, Americans favor granting residency to Dreamers. We should not let a vocal minority, a repressive, self-centered minority, change the criteria upon which the best values of our country rest.

The Trump Saga in Four Acts Continues

I am no fan of Attorney General Jeff Beauregard Sessions, but his treatment by the bully-in-chief is turning him into a sympathetic character. Even in the best of times Beauregard looks like he is about to spout a torrent of tears. But ever since he is being greased for a Trump dismissal, or resignation, he seems even more pathetic. 

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Keep in mind that though the attorney general is supposed to be the country’s top legal representative sworn to uphold the Constitution, Sessions earlier this year questioned how a federal judge on an island in the Pacific could thwart a presidential executive travel ban order. Apparently, he thinks Hawaii doesn’t have the same statehood standing as his native Alabama. Equally troubling, he must believe the judicial branch of government does not have review authority over presidential and legislative actions.

Sessions also showed a disturbing lack of memory in not recalling several meetings with Russian officials prior to his confirmation hearing. He is a former prosecutor. One can only imagine how he would have excoriated a witness who not once, not twice, but three times failed to recall pertinent testimony.

Trump’s pas de deux with Sessions shines a spotlight on the one-way loyalty the blowhard-in-chief practices. In simple terms, Trump is a “user.” And a bully who prefers to publicly humiliate a supporter rather than have the courage to fire him to his face. Running the government is not a reality TV show. There are real consequences to his actions. 

Transgender Service: I’m happy Trump has barred transgenders from the military. No, I do not support Trump’s decision. Rather, I am happy because it again exposes the duplicity and contradictions behind promises Trump and Republicans make and their actions.

The reversal of the policy promulgated under President Obama is another example of Trump reversing his predecessor’s actions not based on any study or open debate but rather on cold political calculation. 

These are self-inflicted wounds. By running his administration through tweets, Trump presents the impression (often accurately) that he does not weigh the issues deeply, that he fails to consult divergent views before letting his fingers do the governing. By saying he acted after consulting with unnamed “my generals and military experts,” Trump blindsided his own secretary of defense who weeks ago ordered a six month delay in a transgender policy review.

Sadly, we should no longer be surprised by Trump undercutting his own appointees.

No matter the outrage by the LGBTQ community and its supporters, some of whose members took Trump at his word that he, not Hillary Clinton, would be their advocate, the rejection of transgender military personnel will go down easy for his voter base of soul-less religious believers from the evangelical Christian, Jewish Orthodox and conservative Catholic communities. They’re soul-less in sticking by politicians who would cavalierly cut Medicaid from millions of the needy and infirmed.

History Repeating Itself? When I was in high school back in the early 1960s, my social studies teacher, Lewis Moroze, cautioned his students that the United States had a financial reason for fighting in Vietnam—offshore oil! 

Now, nothing came of it during the war years, but oil companies are there now. Why do I bring it up? Because the Trumpster is considering military options in Afghanistan—our longest war—based on the possibility rare-earth minerals could be extracted from that beleaguered country. His two predecessors also considered the mining possibility, but keep in mind that Trump once said he would have taken Iraq’s oil had he been commander-in-chief when our troops invaded that country. In case you missed it, here’s a New York Times article: https://nyti.ms/2tXFwuM

Montezuma’s revenge? Papaya from Mexico is being recalled because of an outbreak of salmonella linked to the fruit. Just wondering … how long will it take for the Twittersphere to say it’s Mexican retaliation for Trump’s disparagement of their country and people? 

In The Age of Trump Live for Today, Who Knows What Tomorrow Will Bring

Welcome on this Presidents’ Day, on this the end of the first month of a new presidency, to the Age of Trump where The Donald rules, where we live for today because who knows about tomorrow.

Don’t bother drinking the water. The Donald thinks it is okay to permit coal companies to flush their mining waste into our rivers. He doesn’t worry about pipeline leaks so he is okay with placing an oil line under the Missouri, longest river in our country.

Have you bought any TrumpAir bottles yet? You soon may have to as The Donald doesn’t believe in the Clean Air Act or the Paris climate change accords for environmental protection.

Those safeguards are based on science but Trump World doesn’t believe in science.

It also doesn’t believe in education. No reason clouding people’s minds with data that might conflict with the alternate realities Trump World is creating.

Speaking of creating, creationism is the preferred theory of Trump World. God must have ordained Trump World’s existence—those godless Russians couldn’t have had anything to do with The Donald’s election victory.

In the Age of Trump every black-skinned, brown-skinned, yellow-skinned person is a terrorist. They must be contained, kept out of America. Those who have managed to get here prior to The Donald’s ascension to leader must be watched, registered and, if possible, sent back to their country of origin.

Don’t bother looking to the media for information. Alternative facts form the foundation blocks of Trump World. All the media print or air are lies and fake news. Even media Trump believes support him, like Fox News, spread falsities, like reports of terrorist attacks in Sweden. You just can’t trust the media in the Age of Trump.

Most presidents and world leaders think of the future. In the Age of The Donald think only of the present. Don’t worry about retirement savings. Your investment counselor has been freed up to do as he pleases. He is under no obligation to invest in your best interest, so there’s no recourse if you question his judgment. 

Don’t worry about getting seriously ill and having enough money to pay medical bills. In the Age of Trump there is no affordable care while Medicaid and Medicare will be revised so only the rich may benefit, the better to limit our entitlement expenditures so we can spend more on the military and homeland security to keep all those terrorists on the other side of the wall that surrounds our 49 states.

Oh, did I forget to mention that rising ocean levels will swamp all but the highest points of Hawaii, so it no longer will be a state. And that we no longer will have to deal with that pesky issue of what to do with Puerto Rico—make it a state, keep it as a territory, or let it become an independent country. Well, it will join Atlantis under the waters of the Atlantic.

After the Eastern Seaboard, including sad to say Mar-a-Lago, flood from rising sea levels, Trump World will build a 30 -foot high sea wall along our eastern and western coasts and along the Gulf of Mexico. The sea walls will link up with the beautiful wall Mexico will pay for along our land border. Soon, the last section of our walled state will be completed across the 49th parallel as those refugee-loving Canadians cannot be trusted to keep terrorists from filtering down from their utopian land.

Don’t think this will all change with the next election or two. Trump World is cleansing voter rolls of his so-called three to five million illegals who voted in the 2016 election. He and his Republican-controlled state governments are also making it harder for any person of color to register to vote.

No matter. The Donald has set up presidential succession for the next three administrations, culminating with the first woman, first Jewish, president. Ladies and gentlemen, hail to the chief—Ivanka Trump Kushner.

Does Donald Trump Have an Ebenezer Scrooge Moment in Him?

His whole lifetime Donald Trump has channeled Ebenezer Scrooge in his quest for boundless riches, often at the expense of the everyman. He stiffed contractors. He wouldn’t rent to minorities to keep his property values high. He chiseled widows and other desperate souls yearning for a semblance of his wealth out of thousands of dollars spent on Trump University tuitions and affiliated expenses. He pandered to the wistful by opening casinos to exploit their get rich quick fantasies. He ran a campaign for the highest office in the land and didn’t pay many of his hired professionals.

I can’t imagine what Trump dreams as he lies next to Melania. If the nation is fortunate, perhaps he will be visited by specters of lives past, present and future. I’ll leave it to others to psychoanalyze exactly which personalities would enter his subconscious.

But if we’re lucky, just as Scrooge changed after visits from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, Trump’s nocturnal apparitions will channel a change from his scorched earth campaign rhetoric. Aides and friends, after all, are saying he will be “a softer, kinder” Trump as president.

Does that mean he will not deport “dreamers,” those illegal immigrants brought to the United States as infants who have not known any other country? Will he resist separating families, deporting illegal alien parents from children born the United States and therefore able to stay as citizens? If he tears up NAFTA and causes the loss of jobs in Mexico, is he ready to deal with an influx of more illegal immigrants, wall or no wall? Will he abandon his ideas to reinstitute torture and to kill the families of terrorists, actions that could prompt resignations from military and security officials? With his Mar-a-Lago home and resort on the beach in Florida, will he be ready to concede the effects of climate change? Will he fend off Evangelicals in their determination to roll back same-sex marriage and LGBTQ equality laws?

Now that he’s been elected, he’s officially a politician and the first job of any politician is to get re-elected. Keep in mind Trump did not win the popular vote. He secured more Electoral College votes than Hillary Clinton. The conventional wisdom espoused by many pundits, including yours truly, is that Trump was elected by racists, misogynists, neo Nazis, anti-Semites and xenophobes.

But that denies the reality that disaffected blue collar white voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Wisconsin—men and women who twice had voted for Barack Obama—abandoned the Democratic Party in favor of Trump and Republican senatorial candidates. They didn’t overnight become racists, misogynists, neo Nazis, anti-Semites and xenophobes.

They chose populism over traditional Democratic memes. They swallowed his promise of radical change and revived manufacturing jobs.

So Trump must deliver within four years without reducing their health care benefits, regardless of what he does to Obamacare.

Which begs the question, would Bernie Sanders have prevailed over Trump? As a populist himself, would Bernie have negated Trump’s cross-party appeal? We will never know. What we are left with is the reality that we were thisclose to electing the first woman or the first Jewish president.

Trump is an enigma. We don’t really know what he stands for since he has walked back many of his earlier pronouncements, including a tweet from 2012 wherein he called the Electoral College “a disaster for a democracy.” Doubtful he thinks so today.

A most troubling potential aspect of a Trump presidency is who he will include in his inner circle. Ex-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Steven Bannon of Breitbart are divisive figures who would signal a hard right administration. The danger is that Trump would delegate policies to cronies with more reactionary thoughts than his. It’s especially apropos of vice president-elect Mike Pence, decidedly more radically conservative in voice and action than Trump (http://nyti.ms/29Dx7CO or for another take read http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/think-trump-is-scary-check-out-mike-pence-on-the-issues_us_57f137d5e4b095bd896a11db).

Before Trump, Richard Nixon probably was the president-elect (and president) most reviled by Democrats. But Nixon took some decidedly progressive actions. He created the Office of Minority Business Enterprise in 1969; achieved voluntary desegregation of schools in seven Southern states; reoriented the Federal Native American policy, becoming the first president to encourage tribal self-determination; established the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and signed into law The Clean Air Act; abolished voter discriminatory tests by extending the Voting Rights Act in 1970; declared war on cancer; and signed Title IX, a civil rights law that prohibits gender bias at colleges and universities receiving Federal aid.

Nixon also changed U.S. relationships with China and the Soviet Union. He signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT 1) in 1972.

True, Nixon wasn’t always progressive. But his legacy offers clear evidence that the presidency can bring about goodness. 

So, over the next four years we will wait to see if Trump remains the Ebenezer Scrooge of the beginning of A Christmas Carol or if he emerges as the reformed Scrooge at its conclusion. 

Regret Is Not An Apology

I’m starting to get really, really worried. Donald Trump and I seem to share an increasing number of traits and experiences. Like Trump, I evaded the draft during the Vietnam War by flunking my military physical in 1970 and receiving a 1-Y deferment. My draft lottery number of 139 was high enough, like Trump’s, not to be called in subsequent years.

Fast forward to 2016. We both have a tendency to spout the wrong things when agitated. But where I have always apologized for my indiscretions, The Donald never ever backtracked, never ever apologized. Thursday, in Charlotte, NC, Trump looked like he was eating crow, admitting that sometimes his mouth runs a little faster than his brain.

“Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that. And believe it or not, I regret it.

“And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues,” Trump told a rally of his supporters.

But wait. My apologies always cite my specific transgressions. Trump was vague. He never delineated what exactly he regretted. Was it his slur of a Gold Star family? Was it his deprecation of prisoners of war and specifically John McCain for getting captured? Was it his demeaning Mexico and its people? Was it his undermining of the legitimate election of Barack Obama with his advocacy of the birther movement? Was it his scary, unprecedented request for Russia to hack the emails of his opponent? Was it his veiled invitation to second amendment advocates to take out Hillary Clinton before she could take away their guns, which, by the way, as president she would not have the power to do but which Trump riles up his audience with the suggestion she does? Was it his consistent fabrication of the truth, be it his alleging Obama and Clinton founded ISIS, or they wanted to engage in nation building in the Middle East, or that he never supported the invasion of Iraq, or any number of other deliberate misstatements of the truth? Was it his heartless ridicule of a physically handicapped reporter?

Funny, Trump blamed the heat of the moment during debates for his foul mouth disease. But all those apology worthy examples cited above came out during speeches or tweets or interviews when he had ample time to consider what he was saying.

We just don’t know what he regrets because Trump hasn’t told us specifically what he regrets. It is like his plans to end terrorism or improve the economy or solve the racial divide in the country. We just have to trust him that he will do a fabulous job and do it quickly.

So I guess I’m not really like him. I apologize in specific detail. With a promise not to do it again. Trump offers no such assurance of future behavior, especially since the one on one debates with Clinton are more than a month away from starting and just days ago he double-downed on his behavior by vowing to act the same way he has throughout the primary season and general election campaign.

I regret when I say something untoward. I regret that my incendiary words elicit offense, hurt, pain and any number of other reactions. And, I regret the loss of stature in the eyes of those I’ve offended and those who heard me. I regret my embarrassment. I regret that I have to apologize for my actions.

No doubt, Trump regrets the drop in his poll numbers from his insults and diatribes. 

But regret does not encompass or substitute for an apology. Donald Trump needs to specifically apologize to those he has demeaned and to the American public for dragging the political campaign for the highest office in the land down to the lowest depth of any modern day candidate.

Border Walls, Boundary Waters, Dumb and Dumber

Uh oh! Donald Trump may have to start talking about building another wall. This wall would be a lot longer than the wall between the United States and Mexico. This one would span the longest non-militarized border between any two countries—the United States and Canada. 

Canada and the 48 continental states share a 3,987 miles border. The border between Canada and Alaska adds another 1,538 miles. By comparison, the U.S.-Mexican border is 1,989 miles.

Why the sudden need to shore up defenses against a country that has been, for all intents and purposes, our soft sister for more than two centuries, even ceding us domination of its national sport, hockey? Islamophobia, of course. Specifically, the acceptance of Syrian refugees. http://nyti.ms/294mHw6

And we all know what comes next, warn the fear mongers, chief among them, The Donald. Terrorists will be embedded among the refugees and sooner, or maybe later, under cover of Canadian residency papers they will slip quietly, make that simply walk, through border passport control and start killing Americans. 

Trump can point to a 2015 U.S. Senate report, “The State of America’s Border Security,” for validation of a plan to wall off the country, top and bottom.

“Security observers have argued that Canada represents a substantial vulnerability, because it provides immigrant visas to individuals who pose a significant threat,” said the report. http://washex.am/1Nzujr8

He can also remind us of Ahmed Ressam who planned to blow up the Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Eve 1999. Ressam was an Algerian al-Qaeda member who had lived in Montreal. He was caught with a bomb in his car by Washington State border security. 

So get ready America for cement mixers and chain link fence planters to be working overtime should Trump get elected president. 

Boundary Waters: One of the joys of writing this blog is the opportunity it affords me to reminisce and reflect on current events associated with my past. Today, July 4, for example, is the 40th anniversary of the successful Israeli raid on Entebbe that freed 100 Jewish hostages from Palestinian and German hijackers and the clutches of Idi Amin, the madman leader of Uganda. 

By coincidence, Gilda and I were at Ben Gurion Airport that day, awaiting a flight to Rome as the triumphant Israelis and the freed captors returned to Israel to a celebration reserved for feats of heroic grandeur such as Lindbergh’s crossing of the Atlantic, V-J Day at Times Square and the inauguration of our first Afro-American president.

Two days ago I was catapulted back 35 years by an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times by former Vice President Walter F. Mondale and Theodore Roosevelt IV, the great grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. “Protect Minnesota’s Boundary Waters,” they wrote. They opined against a mining proposal that could imperil the region (http://nyti.ms/299T7pE).

I suspect most people seeing the term Boundary Waters had faint ideas about its meaning and the attachment Minnesotans have to it. I, too, would have been mostly ignorant to its meaning had it not been for an October 1981 cover story Chain Store Age did on Dayton’s Department Stores of Minneapolis and its new merchandising concept, Boundary Waters. 

“The Boundary Waters is an area of northern Minnesota along the Canadian border that is one of the few true wilderness regions remaining in the country,” Stephen E. Watson, then Dayton’s sr. vp and general merchandise manager for men’s and women’s apparel, explained (Watson would go on to become president of Dayton Hudson Corp., now known as Target Corp., before assuming executive roles at other retail companies). “The people in the community here see themselves as very outdoors-oriented, active and adventuresome. To them, Boundary Waters have real, as well as symbolic meaning.”

Dayton’s no longer exists, but a scion of the founding family, Mark Dayton, is now governor of Minnesota. He has come out against the mining project. 

Dumb and Dumber: For all his political skills, just how dumb is former President Bill Clinton? And is Attorney General Loretta Lynch dumber for agreeing to meet with him at the Phoenix airport as the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server while secretary of state is still ongoing?

Before he does something dumb again (he always seems to do something that ruffles his wife’s campaigns, as he did in South Carolina eight years ago), he should be confined to grandfather duty full time with only limited public exposure, such as at the Democratic convention. Hillary has more than enough surrogates to campaign for her. She doesn’t need her husband to give Trump any opportunity to ridicule him and her.

Your political witticism of the day, courtesy of whowhatwhy.org:

“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” —Joseph Stalin

Questions to Trump the Trumpless

With the first votes ready to be cast Monday in the Iowa caucuses, how much do we really know about the positions of the Republican candidates. Sure, we know they all want to repeal Obamacare and undo virtually everything he has accomplished. But specifics are sorely lacking, at least to my general knowledge and perhaps to yours as well. So, with The Donald not on the stage Thursday night (at least as I write this), here are some specific questions I’d like to see asked to and answered by the Republican contenders (some might remember that I posed similar questions last September):

1. Should worker health and safety be protected by OSHA? If not by OSHA what recourse would workers have under your administration?
2. Which cabinet departments and government agencies would you eliminate? Would you replace any of their functions?
3. Do you believe in a federal minimum wage? If yes, what level should it be at? Should it be pegged to rise with inflation? 
4. Do you believe in the Social Security system? At what age should workers be entitled to collect social security? How would you protect its solvency?
5. In a global economy what incentives would you favor to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States?
6. Should the federal government own any land, such as national parks or wildlife refuges? If not, how should the government dispose of that land?
7. Are there any Defense Department programs you would eliminate?
8. After scrapping the Affordable Care Act, would you replace it with a different form of health insurance available to all Americans? Are there any aspects of the Affordable Care Act that you would retain? 
9. How would you replace the non abortion-related health care provided by Planned Parenthood if you defunded it?
10. Does the federal government have any obligation—legal or moral—to help its less fortunate citizens?
11. Should there be any restrictions on voter registration such as producing a valid ID or driver’s license?
12. Should medical marijuana be legalized in all states?
13. Should marijuana for general use be legalized?
14. Do you support stem cell research? Would you impose any restrictions?
15. Would you build a wall along the border with Mexico?
16. Would you restrict immigration from any country, region or religion?
17. Should the federal government have any role in education?
18. Is there a need for campaign funding reform?
19. Do you favor any form of regulation for Wall Street, banks and the financial sector?
20. What is your plan for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure?
21. Does ISIS or any Islamic fundamentalist group pose an existential threat to the United States?
22. What and from whom is the greatest threat to our country?
23. Are you in favor of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact as currently negotiated? If not, what changes would you want?
24. Do you believe in “personhood,” the concept that an embryo has the same rights as a fully born person, such as the right of inheritance and the right to sue for damages if injured in an accident?

I am under little illusion that any of these questions will be aired but at least you know what I would want Megyn Kelly and her Fox News cohorts to ask. 

The Bride of Frankenstein Is Back

The bride of Frankenstein is back on the hustings to haunt us.

Not content to have been chosen as her party’s 2008 nominee to be a heartbeat away from the presidency—but thankfully not elected—Sarah Palin now wants to influence the choice of the next Republican standard bearer. She’s thrown her support behind Donald Trump, a classic example of the blind leading the blind.

As populist speakers Trump and Palin are the mouths that roared. They can fire up an audience. But they lack depth, the ability to put together comprehensive programs based on a complex and nuanced understanding of an issue. Trump’s idea to solve the illegal immigration problem—build a wall paid for by Mexico and throw all 11 million illegals out—is a soundbite solution that fails to consider the legal status of children, the disruption of families, the economic impact of reduced labor in many industries where Americans do not want to work, such as on farms or meat/poultry processing plants, not to mention the absurdity of audaciously expecting Mexico to pay for a wall. But hey, it sounds good on the stump.

We can thank, ruefully, John McCain for saddling us with Palin, perhaps the least qualified person ever to grace a national election ticket. Even the discombobulated retired admiral James Stockdale, Ross Perot’s vice presidential choice in 1992, sounded erudite compared to her.

Palin gave birth to the no-nothing Tea Party which only wants to tear down government, or, in her case, find excuses for behavior and commentary beyond the pale. She was such a good family role model that her daughter not once but twice had a child out of wedlock. And after her son was recently arrested for assaulting a woman she blamed his behavior on President Obama’s alleged indifference to the trauma American servicemen, including her son, suffered during their deployment in the Middle East. 

But here’s the problem with Trump and Palin: Too many of our fellow citizens are willing to give them a pass. They are willing to gamble our country’s future because they feel left out of its present. They forget that without Obama’s stewardship our economy would have tanked from mismanagement under Republicans; they forget that Obama has been president during one of the largest job creation periods in our history; they forget that the stock market has more than doubled under Obama (even with the recent downturn) and with that the value of their retirement plans; they forget that the car industry would have all but vanished without Obama; they forget that 17 million more Americans are now covered by health insurance (yes, Obamacare is imperfect but it is better than no insurance); they forget that Obama has championed alternative energy sources and that our country is now less dependent on imported oil; they forget that fewer illegal immigrants are crossing the Mexican border. 

Do they really want another land war in the desert? Do they really want the wealthy to get richer, with more and more influence? Do they really think in a global economy manufacturing jobs will return to our shores? Do they really think that investment in education and physical infrastructure can be postponed? Do they really think there is an armed forces anywhere in the world equal to ours, that we need to invest in new, costly armaments to fight 20th century wars while our true enemies take aim at real vulnerabilities in our power grid, our Internet and communications networks, our ports of entry, our water supplies? 

All they want to do is focus on a bogus claim that Obama wants to take guns away from individuals; or the misguided belief that ISIS can be carpet-bombed into oblivion; that nuking Iran is an option; that their lives would be better if the federal government stopped watching out for product and worker safety, that worker conditions would be improved if only unions would go away, that bosses would benevolently offer adequate raises and health care benefits. 

I don’t know about you, but it depresses me to write these things. Does it depress you to read them, depressing because you realize I am not making this up? 

Soda Jerk, Double Dipping and a History Lesson

My personal, in-house nutrition guru—aka Gilda—has advised me that ingesting real sugar is better for my health than absorbing artificial sweeteners like Splenda or Equal. Seems recent scientific studies have shown humans react the same to pseudo sweeteners as they do to sugar, so why risk the introduction of unnecessary chemicals into one’s body. 

As a lifelong Coca-Cola drinker who had a hard time acclimating my taste buds to Diet Coke once I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, I was all for a return to the Real Thing. But a funny thing happened on my way back to Coke. Turns out Diet Coke tastes better.

I’ve actually cut back on my soda drinking. When I do indulge with a meal at home I opt for an 8-oz. glass bottle of Diet Coke or a 7.5-oz. can (glass being the preferred vessel as we’re trying to cut back on plastic or metal containers). I don’t think of myself as being part of a major trend, but soda consumption of all types is decreasing for more than a decade, with diet versions dropping even more precipitously, no doubt plunging ever more rapidly as new studies on health risks emerge.

Double Dipping: Speaking of health risks, you’ve probably heard about the Listeria scares associated with such foods as Blue Bell ice cream and Sabra Hummus. Product recalls have been initiated, one of which unfolded before my very eyes at a local Costco. 

A customer directly before me brought back for a refund an almost fully eaten tub of original Sabra Hummus. He received his money but after he walked far enough away so he wouldn’t hear me I couldn’t resist noting to the cashier that the mostly consumed hummus obviously had not harmed him. I guess he felt as long as money had been set aside for the recall he might as well take advantage of it even if he had not been inconvenienced by Sabra or Costco. Voilá: another form of double-dipping!

History Lesson: For the moment, our troubled (illegal) immigration policy has been shunted off the front pages and airwaves as the country deals with the horrific and seemingly unending assault by police officers on unarmed men of color. 

The other day, however, I was intrigued by a comment from Drew Holcomb I heard on the radio (Holcomb, for those of you like me who have no idea who he is) is the lead singer/songwriter of Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors). 

As the story was told, one of Holcomb’s Los Angeles friends was complaining about the influx of Hispanics to his city. To which Holcomb replied, “What was the name of the city you live in?,” immediately calling attention to the Hispanic origins of Los Angeles. 

I don’t know where Holcomb attended elementary school but if it was anything like my Brooklyn school the history of European settlement of America was concentrated on the original 13 colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. Spanish holdings in Florida were largely ignored despite the fact that St. Augustine was the first European settlement in the continental United States. Indeed, Spain’s contribution to the Americas mostly was related in terms of its conquistadors, their pursuit of gold alongside subjugation and often violent religious conversion of Native Americans. 

Spain and then Mexico governed most of the Southwest. It was the “gringo” who was the unwanted intruder in land eventually taken by force, first in Texas and then in points further west. 

I don’t have a solution to the immigration crisis. But I do know that too many people forget we are a nation of immigrants and the forefathers of the first Europeans who settled here spoke Spanish, not English, not French, not Italian, not German, not Russian nor any other European language. 

The Real Mass Murderers Among Us

Safe to say, Afro-Americans have suffered more discrimination in our society than any other population segment. Yet, other than Colin Ferguson, the Long Island Railroad shooter who killed six commuters and wounded 19 others in 1993, I’m hard-pressed to recall any other instance over the last several decades when an Afro-American vented his frustrations and executed a mass shooting and murder as perpetrated last week by James Holmes, another white man, in Aurora, Colo., or in Columbine, Colo., or at Virginia Tech, or in Tucson, Ariz., or just last week ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., where, thankfully, none of the 17 people shot in a bar died (okay, technically, the Virginia Tech shooter was Asian, but hardly a member of a discriminated race).

Through their gangs, blacks have the unfortunate habit of shooting and often killing their own, both gang members and innocents, often children unlucky to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Those are serial events, not the singular violence shooters like Holmes trigger. You’d think if anyone could be justified in taking it out on society it would be an Afro-American, or maybe an Hispanic-American. Thankfully, they don’t.

I don’t mean to belittle the tragedy in Aurora, but the real tragedy of America is that gang-related murders evoke little more than hand-wringing and not enough resolve to alter the conditions that are killing hope in minority neighborhoods. In Chicago, for example, 272 have been killed this year through June 30, mostly from gang-related incidents. That’s up 36% from a year ago. 

Since the mass assault in the movie theater in Aurora we’ve been trying to analyze the alleged shooter, determine his motive, flesh out his psyche, somehow try to figure out what would drive an individual to do such an extreme act against society. Perhaps it would be more worthwhile to figure out why whole groups of men have abandoned social mores. Let’s figure out how to stop their discriminate and indiscriminate shooting rampages.

We’ll never stop random acts of mass murder, no more than we can eradicate random acts of terrorism. But we must work to stop what has become “institutionalized” murder by gangs, even if it’s against other gang members. We don’t tolerate Mafia wars. We shouldn’t tolerate minority wars. We cannot allow neighborhoods of our cities to degenerate into semblances of drug-cartel controlled Mexico where the value of a life has lost its true meaning. 

Getting back to James Holmes, did anyone else look at his picture and think he resembled the devil incarnate, what with his lips turned up into a smirk, pointy ears, arched eyebrows and two wisps of hair on each side of his head looking for all accounts like horns? Click on this link to see a picture of Holmes. Make up your own mind: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1118502.1342871848!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/james-holmes.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/james-holmes-aurora-shooting-suspect-med-school-dropout-loner-neighbors-article-1.1118501&h=491&w=635&sz=30&tbnid=ISjZJ4mf-HKI4M:&tbnh=92&tbnw=119&prev=/search%3Fq%3Djames%2Bholmes%2Bpictures%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=james+holmes+pictures&usg=__LG6xslFseV5rCVNdS1W0W4GxJ-Q=&docid=C6KP7QA6-EN9NM&sa=X&ei=hKQNUNqnH4m40QGviNDIAw&ved=0CFoQ9QEwAw&dur=547

Everybody's Doing It

“Everybody does it, so why pick on me?,” is not a viable defense for the alleged actions by Wal-Mart executives in Mexico. As you may have heard since The NY Times ran an expose last Sunday, Wal-Mart allegedly bribed officials in Mexico to pass or expedite approval of building plans for its network of stores south of the border. Moreover, when these alleged violations of law were reportedly brought to the attention of corporate executives, they were swept under the rug, according to The Times. Now, the world’s largest retail company, and the largest retailer in Mexico, has been engaged in major face-saving activity. 

I have no direct knowledge of the allegations beyond what has been reported, but I can tell you with fairly good authority it has not been uncommon for retail and shopping center companies with aggressive growth strategies to engage in activities that are questionable at best, illegal at worst, including favors (okay, bribes) to secure necessary permits or negative action to block competitors from entering a market. 

In other words, Wal-Mart is no more guilty than other companies. It’s just bigger. It’s the same reality whether it’s building permits or low wages or no health care for workers or an anti-union bias—Wal-Mart is no worse than other large (and small) chain store retailers. Which doesn’t excuse or explain away what happened in Mexico. 

This corporate black eye is the latest in a long string of image-blackening revelations about the way American companies exploit their interests in foreign lands. Apple, as well as other technology firms, has had its reliance on Chinese suppliers and their labor practices put under the magnifying glass. Nike did, as well. Half a dozen years ago my magazine co-sponsored a one day conference, “Making it Right,” on the business implications of fair labor standards throughout the worldwide supply chain. Though progress has been made, exploitation of workers persists. 

Sadly, it seems significant progress occurs only when the media spotlights egregious conditions. 

Food for Thought: I’m married to a foodie. Now, some of you might know Gilda is a good, even great, cook. I am fortunate to enjoy many a good meal she whips up, even after she works a long day in Manhattan. 

But being a foodie means her taste buds work differently than mine. Whereas I enjoy foods that are generally sweet, Gilda prefers foods that are bitter, sour and something called umami, a Japanese word for pleasant, savory. It hasn’t been easy meshing our different tastes, but now Gilda has reason to believe she is a trend setter. Read for yourself: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/story/2012-04-25/food-snobs-tastes-wired-differently/54540652/1

Wrong Number: Just had a most interesting phone call from the Republican National Committee. Seems I’m on one of their “conservative” lists, thus would I be willing to join the RNC with a pledge of $300, $200, or $100 so the ultimate goal of removing Barack Obama from the White House could be realized? 

After telling the woman on the other end of the line I was “fascinated” to find myself on such a list, she embarrassingly fumbled her way through the rest of our short conversation, apologizing for bothering me. I guess the RNC doesn’t read my blog. 

Mythbusters Edition

Davy Crockett, Illegal Immigrant? Disney’s “king of the wild frontier,” who preferred to be called David Crockett, and who, in the words of new biographer Chris Wallis, was “the lion of the west,” actually was an illegal immigrant to Texas who wound up at the Alamo not by choice but through assignment by those fomenting rebellion against Mexico, the rightful owner of Texas.

Speaking on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Thursday night (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-11-2011/michael-wallis), Wallis punctured some long-held myths about the folk hero. He was, for example, born in the State of Franklin, not Tennessee. At one time Franklin hoped to become a state of the Union, but was later absorbed mostly into eastern Tennessee.

Crockett was a not above self-promotion, even attending a play about his exploits. An Indian fighter, he served two terms in the U.S. Congress, only to be swept out of office after he broke with President Andrew Jackson for the latter’s treatment of the Cherokee Nation and their forced removal from Tennessee land granted them by treaty.

While the Cherokee were moved to Oklahoma, Crockett made his way down to Texas where American settlers sought to build plantations worked by slaves in a land where slavery was outlawed by Mexico. To be part of this illegal migration, Crockett had to join the local militia and was assigned to the mission in San Antonio where he died at the age of 49.


The American Dream: “Nobody understands the American dream today better than an Indian, a Chinese or a Mexican,” said Anthony Bourdain on last week’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

The chef and host of the Travel Channel’s No Reservations said there’s a “failure of will” in our society today, “we’ve become a lazy and entitled population.” He said in 20 years of running a kitchen he never once had an American-born kid ask him for a job as a dishwasher, cleanup person or even an entry-level prep cook.

“There’s a whole strata of jobs Americans don’t want, frankly haven’t wanted for a while, don’t think they should do and think they’re too good for,” said Bourdain.

His thoughts were echoed by Stephen K. Bannon, a Tea Party activist and filmmaker of the Sarah Palin bio-pic The Undefeated. Young Americans, he said, are competing with the upwardly mobile in China and India, (metaphorically) “their parents and grandparents.”


Corporation Are People: In defending his no new taxes position while in Iowa Thursday, Mitt Romney said corporations are people, too, as their profits go to shareholders and employees.

You can’t argue with that reasoning, but it does make one wonder if we should stop and do a quick asset check on anyone we might consider friending. You wouldn’t, for example, want to be BFF with someone responsible for, say, the housing debacle of the last few years. So ignore anyone who worked for Countrywide or any other mortgage lender. While you’re at it, strike off your friendship list anyone who works for Standard & Poors, Fitch or Moody’s, as those companies gave high ratings to all those mortgage-backed securities that got us all in trouble with our investments.

Don’t like paying high gas and oil prices? Then cross off anyone from any energy company. Angry at rising food costs? Look again at your LinkedIn and Facebook contacts and delete those who work for agri-businesses or any the processed food makers.

Under Romney’s rules, the rich and powerful, and that includes corporations, shouldn’t be taxed more. It won’t matter to them that you’ve dropped them from your social circle. They’ll be quite content to mingle with their own behind the gated walls of their communities that keep the rest of the world, like us, away from them.


You Read It First: While the rest of the world waited until Thursday to read a front-page NY Times article on a European test that charges drivers based on the miles they travel (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/science/earth/11meter.html?scp=3&sq=elisabeth%20rosenthal&st=cse), No Socks Needed Anymore readers were treated to my pay-as-you-go formula four days earlier (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/08/pay-as-you-go-government.html).

My idea incorporated passenger fees as well, including fares for fetuses (applicable only to right-to-life supporters).

It’s reassuring to know even in retirement I’ve not lost my ability to be on top of the news.

Return from the Land of Az

Just back from the Land of Az, otherwise known as Arizonastan, the Land that Progressive Thinking Mostly Forgot.

I found it amusing one of the main roadways from Mexico, I-19, was the only route I saw with posted distance markers in kilometers, not miles. How civil of the authorities to make illegal immigrants feel right at home...

Tucson is an oasis of progressive thought in an otherwise state of repression. Over Saturday breakfast with a dozen men 50 to mid-80s, the conversation rarely veered away from their anathema of the politics of the ruling Republicans and Tea Partyers. They were embarrassed their governor had no more than a GED diploma. They were shocked their state legislators allowed guns to be carried anywhere except inside the state capitol where they might do some good...

Visiting Tombstone, “the town that wouldn’t die,” I encountered my first, and thankfully only, packing pedestrian. He had a Glock strapped tightly to his right hip. Gilda wanted to take his picture. Not knowing how receptive he’d be, I suggested it was not a good idea. She insisted. I bravely walked away from his line of vision. She shot him. He didn’t know what hit him...

A cartoonist and columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, David Fitzsimmons, captured some of the zaniness of life and politics in Arizona with his entry last Saturday. Among his dead-on missives describing state lawmakers: “Most of them think a Rhodes scholar is an asphalt expert and PBS is something that happens to the wife to ‘make her edgy.’”...

Saturday night Gilda and I had a delicious dinner with friends Steve and Judy at a trendy Tucson restaurant. Both couples live roughly two miles apart in White Plains, NY. So we traveled a combined 8,000-plus miles, each way, to break bread together. Only in America.