Day 136 Nat'l Emergency: Person of the Year Choices, Turkey Time Off, Jobs Off, School Time

Five months before Time magazine releases its Person of the Year issue it is safe to say there are three significant candidates whose image could grace the front cover: 

*George Floyd, whose cellphone-recorded death at the knee of a Minneapolis policeman sparked nationwide outrage and galvanized Black Lives Matter protests; 

*Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose calm Dutch uncle counsel on the coronavirus has soothed and informed a frightened and conflicted nation; 

*The embattled frontline healthcare worker, who has selflessly placed themself in danger to heal a sick country and comfort the dying in the absence of quarantined loved ones.

Even if he wins the presidency, Joe Biden would not be elevated to cover boy status. Not this year. 

Similarly, Donald Trump wouldn’t qualify even if he manages a comeback to secure a second term. 

Chief Justice John Roberts has received lots of ink for his high-wire role in shepherding the Supreme Court, but he, too, falls short in overall dominance of the year. 

For sure, the two main stories of 2020 have been the coronavirus with its worldwide impact on health and the economy, as well as international political repercussions, and the outpouring of protest and energy for racial equality after the killings of unarmed Blacks and actions by ordinary white citizens to physically and verbally assault minorities.

It’s About Time: More than a dozen years have passed since I called on retail chains to keep their stores closed on Thanksgiving so employees could spend time with their families instead of aiding in the pursuit of every last disposable dollar. Consumers, as well, would benefit from not running out to the store once dessert has been shoveled down their throat. 

My perch as editor and publisher of Chain Store Age is long gone, but it is pleasing to note that Walmart, the nation’s, nay, the world’s, largest retailer has decided it would not open Thanksgiving. Apparently, Walmart listened to the suggestion advanced by one of its employees in a letter to management.

“We know it’s been a trying year, and you’ve stepped up. We want you to enjoy the day at home with your loved ones,” John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart USA, wrote in a memo to employees. 

Fewer Jobs: Donald Trump promised to bring back manufacturing jobs if elected in 2016. How’s he doing?

Not so great. Though manufacturing jobs increased in the first two years of his presidency, the last two have been not so good. 

Compared to when he took the oath of office there are almost 300,000 fewer manufacturing jobs. Of course, the pandemic is a key factor, an excuse Trump will surely cite if challenged on his record. 

But as The New York Times pointed out, “U.S. factory output declined throughout 2019, as Mr. Trump’s trade war intensified, and it has dropped further this year, suggesting there is no boom in new American factories. Since peaking in mid-2019, corporate investment has  declined for three consecutive quarters. Total foreign direct investment in manufacturing was nearly one-third lower in the first three years of Mr. Trump’s tenure than it was in the final three years of President Barack Obama’s.

“Mr. Trump ostensibly fought his trade war on behalf of American manufacturing. But economists say it has actually been a drag on most U.S. factories, by increasing prices for components and inciting foreign retaliation.  It has also coincided with a plunge in Chinese investment in the United States to $5 billion in 2019, the lowest level since 2009, according to Rhodium Group, a research firm” (https://nyti.ms/2CClSib).

School Time? As part of his reelection strategy Trump is pushing for a September opening of schools. But evidence on the impact of bringing children back to classes where they could become infected, and then sending them home where they could transfer the coronavirus to other family members, is mixed (https://nyti.ms/2ZjbJj5). 

New research has shown that children under 10 years are not as susceptible, but transmission is more prevalent as student age hits double digits. If schools open before the general public has appropriately contained the pandemic, a rebound in cases could occur, as happened in Israel.  

Few dispute the benefit of having children resume classes. But just as most parents believe in inoculations to protect their offspring from childhood illnesses, most also would think twice about placing their children at risk with the added fear they could be exposing themselves and other family members, especially grandparents. 

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

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

I share the sentiment but disagree with the analysis.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump has brought the country to a tipping point.

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

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

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

Day 115 Nat'l Emergency: Four More Years

How relentlessly depressing it must be to be a political reporter these days. Sure, election coverage is supposed to be exhilarating, but in the Age of Trump it cannot be anything but depressing, at least if you are a thinking woman or man.

It is not policy differences that traumatize. After all, one can disagree on the best course for the economy or foreign relations. Republicans and Democrats have been at odds for generations.

But if one has even half a brain it is cruel and unusual punishment to be a reporter required to listen to continual degradation of science and medical precautions in the wake of a pandemic that already has snuffed out the lives of 125,000 Americans. The sad tally will rise countless thousands more because Republican administrations in Washington, DC, and numerous states refuse to listen to healthcare experts. 

I don’t listen to Trump’s rally speeches, other than snippets national news programs air. I don’t follow his tweets or Facebook rantings. I am convinced from news reports and, regrettably, from the few friends I know who are Trumpsters, that the Trump-converted cannot be enlightened that he is a danger physically and metaphysically to the health and welfare of the United States. 

Responding to a middle-of-the-road friend’s inquiry as to who would be blamed if Joe Biden fails to defeat Trump, I responded, “The basket of deplorables—not the Trump voters but the deplorables who chose not to vote.” 

Political punsters opine that it is up to Biden to sufficiently enthuse the electorate to unseat Trump. Yes, Biden needs to sell a vision for America. But it is equally important that everyday Americans come to grips with what Trump has stripped from our nation’s ideals and values. They must want to return to civility, to respect, to a position admired, not pitied or flabbergasted, by the rest of the world.

Trump won in 2016 because anti-Hillary voters in key swing states thought Trump would be a lesser evil than Clinton. Some Never Trumpers and disaffected Bernie Bros sat out the election rather than cast their votes for Hillary. Or they voted for third party candidates. Many more, millions across the country, just didn’t vote because. No real reason. Just because. 

All those voters that didn’t go against Trump now have an inflection point decision to make. They’ve seen what Trump can and cannot do as manager of our country. They must decide if the country can survive or thrive four more years of his (mis)management. 

Recent Supreme Court decisions protecting abortion rights in Louisiana, LGBTQ rights nationwide and Dreamers from deportation provide Trump a red-meat platform to stir up his base and possibly others who want a more conservative court. Having delivered two Supreme Court justices and 198 lower court judges, Trump will argue his work to overhaul the judicial system is not complete. 

Of course, that argument also works as a counterbalance to pump up Democratic opposition.

Unlike four years ago, Trump must run on his record. He likes being the center of attention, but that spotlight comes with liabilities. 

He clearly has an attention span problem. He doesn’t hear what others tell him or what is contained in Internet files he retweets. He doesn’t hear himself. His staff is forever reclassifying what he willingly reveals in public. He plays with his smartphone during meetings of his economic advisors. 

He is what we would call a gifted child, only in his case it refers not to his brain power but to the millions in cash father Fred Sr. gifted him.

As his polling numbers turn south—an otherwise favorite geographic area for Trump (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun)—some are wondering if he will decide he’s had enough abuse and just abandon the reelection effort. 

It will never happen! His ego would not permit him to walk away. He sees his rabid fans as sufficient to secure a second term. If he were to abandon them they would abandon his post-presidential role as a TV talking head. 

He will not be restricted by tradition, as past presidents have been, to standing by without commenting in the extreme about his successor’s actions. He has no compunction about destroying tradition or national heritage.

Trump is a tumulter through and through. That’s why if he loses the election he will keep his public profile high through TV work as a commentator on the ultra-conservative One America News Network with an eye to running again in 2024. 

He will use that as a springboard to launch a new campaign because in his mind he MUST avenge his humiliating defeat in 2020, much the way he decided to run in 2016 to avenge his humiliation at the White House Correspondents dinner in 2011.

Political reporters will have no respite from Trump for at least the next four years, whether he wins or not. And neither will the rest of us. 

Day 7 of National Emergency: Does a Wartime President Have the Power to Delay Elections?

Our fearless, fearful, fear-mongering draft-dodger leader now embraces a self-proclaimed title of “wartime president.” 

As comically absurd as that moniker sounds, it is true, to the extent that we and the world are at war against the coronavirus. So let’s consider what qualities we might want our president to have.

According to UShistory.org, the website of the Independence Hall Association, some common leadership qualities that good presidents appear to have include: 

*A strong vision for the country’s future

*An ability to put their own times in the perspective of history

*Effective communication skills
*The courage to make unpopular decisions
*Crisis management skills

*Character and integrity

*Wise appointments

*An ability to work with Congress

We want someone with character and integrity who can instill in us trust and confidence. Sadly, from day one of his presidency Trump has spouted falsehoods (let’s call his pre-election humdingers as campaign rhetoric) that undermine any hope we might believe him when it matters. 

Wednesday he promised big news from the Food and Drug Administration. Thursday he said the FDA greenlighted a malaria drug for treatment of COVID-19. But shortly thereafter the head of the FDA had to correct him. The drug had been approved for limited usage and further study as it has severe, sometimes fatal, side effects (https://mol.im/a/8131613).

We’d want a leader who can inspire us with calming, motivating oratory, much like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill did during World War II. Or how Obama comforted the nation after several mass shootings. Trump’s communication skills when he isn’t riffing on his standard rally speech are pathetic. He has a hard time reading prepared text, which in itself is anything but inspirational. At the beginning of his presidency Trump made a big to-do about installing Churchill’s bust in the Oval Office. Inspiration is not transferable from a slab or marble. All the more reason to be disappointed by his failure to express compassion for those ill or now unemployed. He is heartless.   

In a crisis we want a leader who recognizes his or her limitations, who can acknowledge his/her imperfections, who can accept the advice of experts, be they generals, scientists or doctors. Trump rated his pandemic response performance a “10,” rejecting his earlier dismissal of the coronavirus as anything more troublesome than the flu. He has repeatedly undercut expert advice. Here are several comments he made about the viral outbreak over the last several months:

“There’s nothing to worry about”

“It’s a Democratic Hoax”

“It'll be over by April”

“It’s a pandemic”

“I take no responsibility”

“I always knew it was a pandemic”

“This snuck up on us” (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-coronavirus-snuck-up-on-us_n_5e731e27c5b6eab779424d52)

Hail Caesar: Of all the deaths to be lamented from the pandemic, the most tragic may well be to our democratic republic.

I do not mean to be histrionic. But Trump may as president be able to postpone or cancel next November’s election as part of his emergency powers.

I, along with other commentators, have long opined that Trump would not go lightly from the Oval Office if he loses the election. It doesn’t take a genius to reason out his possible move to negate the election if his polling numbers plummet and he and his hard-core advisors believe he has no way of winning November 3.

The COVID-19 disaster provides the “perfect” shield for a power-grabbing play. Though The New York Times last week said it would be near impossible to postpone the election (https://nyti.ms/2U6p3n5 ), it might easily pass constitutional review given the composition of the Supreme Court.

In the midst of wars and economic depressions no president has invoked emergency powers to deny the American people the right choose their leader every four years. But no president has been like Trump. He has upended norms both domestically and internationally. Moreover, he has cowed the Republican Party into such deep submission that it is doubtful any but a handful of elected GOP officials would object to his postponing an election that might very well cost them control of the Senate and with that future federal court nominations. A sign of their anxiety was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s overture to elderly Republican federal judges to retire so Trump would have the chance to fill their seats with conservative judges. 

Around the world we have seen juntas and strongmen dissolve duly elected governments, proclaiming they did so in the interests of national security and even of democracy, couching their treachery with a vague promise of conducting elections when the emergency has passed. Of course they define when that time arrived, if ever.

Trump has acted like a banana republic president. He has teased about serving beyond the constitutionally mandated two terms. A national emergency declaration abolishing the November election would enable his dream to become a reality.     

The rise of an American autocrat would not occur in a vacuum. Trump has witnessed, envied and even lauded Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, India’s Narendra Damodardas Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, The Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.

He feels more comfortable with foreign strongmen than with any of his recent predecessors who valued America’s leadership and moral standing throughout the world.

How ironic that an acknowledged germaphobe might achieve his ultimate coronation because of a pandemic. 

Memories from Holocaust Memorial Day

My grandparents—my father’s parents—Moses and Lina Fürsetzer, never made it to Auschwitz. Neither did my Uncle Max. Nor Aunt Klara. Neither did Uncle Willy’s wife and son.

Like almost all the 1,200 Jews of Ottynia in Galicia, in what is now Ukraine but back in 1941 was a small town in Poland, they were taken to a nearby forest and gunned down by Nazis and their local henchmen.

Willy evaded death that day because he already had been hiding in fields and, sometimes, in barns belonging to sympathetic peasants. He hid for some two years until the Russian army liberated the sector at which point he was drafted and sent to Siberia for military training.

In America since January 1939 my father knew nothing of his family’s fate as the few postcards that managed to come from his mother stopped arriving in the mid 1941. The progression of the war can be discerned from their stamps and postmarks. Polish stamps on the first. Russian stamps with CCCP letters on the second reflecting Ottynia’s location in the half of Poland controlled by the Soviet Union as part of the country’s partition with Germany in September 1939. CCCP stamps on the last postcard as well, but a fading postmark of a flying eagle carrying a swastika in its talons conveyed a message of impending doom.

After the war my father reunited with Willy in New York but the two never talked to their American families about what happened in Ottynia. Until one Passover about 30 years ago when my brother Bernie and I videotaped their memories of life in the shtetl and got Willy to recount his harrowing evasion from death.

We have no idea what happened to my mother’s family. Her father, Louis Gerson, perhaps Gershonovitz before being anglicized at Ellis Island, came to New York in 1920. His wife Sarah and their four children—Solomon, Pola, Sylvia (my mother) and Vicky—arrived in 1921. A fourth daughter, Lily, was born in America.

The Gersons came from Lodz, one of Poland’s largest cities. During World War II the Nazis confined Jews from the region in the Lodz ghetto, one of the most populous they established in conquered territories. Hundreds of thousands lived in the ghetto before dying there or being transported to concentration and extermination camps. 

I have no doubt members of the Gerson family were among the dead. My mother and her sisters never talked about it. Louis and Sarah died in 1951 and 1955, respectively.

As I have previously written about our experience at  Auschwitz I had not intended to write anything about the commemoration of the liberation of the death camp 75 years ago Monday (use the search engine at the top of the blog to read past articles about Auschwitz). 

Amidst all the articles on the impeachment trial and international commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz, perhaps you missed a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that permitted the Trump administration to proceed with a plan to deny green cards to immigrants who might need public benefits like Medicaid, food stamps and housing vouchers. The plan is being contested in court, but the justices permitted interim implementation (https://nyti.ms/2RTmJPf).

Now Trump’s plan should be an impeachable offense. Not on a legal basis. On a moral one. Trump says he is against chain migration yet that is how his current wife’s parents came here. He is against illegal migrants working here but his resorts and golf courses routinely employ illegals.

 How many of our ancestors would not have been granted entry to America had Trump’s heartless guidelines been in effect when they landed on our shores?

From rags to riches is a foundational American story. Yet Trump’s policies would probably kibosh that ever happening again for an immigrant.

Auschwitz and Holocaust Memorial Day are reminders not only of mankind’s potential bestiality but also of what may transpire when people who have the power to help don’t. When people and governments who could extend comfort and protection don’t. When leaders hide behind conventions of government and do nothing instead of rising to the occasion to show their humanity.

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.

Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, The Court Should Now Hear The U.S. House of Representatives v. Donald J. Trump

The time has come to find out if we live in a constitutional republic or in an autocratic state. It is time to go directly to the Supreme Court for a decision on the House of Representatives’ powers of impeachment and whether the executive branch can withhold documents and other evidence the House deems crucial to its investigations. 

By an 8-0 vote in 1974 the Supreme Court ruled Richard Nixon had to turn over secretly recorded White House tapes that ultimately revealed criminal behavior by the president in the Watergate scandal coverup. But that was back then, when respect for the rule of law was central to our political essence, regardless of party. We did not have a president who demeaned courts and judges who disagreed with him. And we did not have a president who openly flouted the law, often doubling down on the very crime he is accused of committing. 

Today’s Supreme Court must decide if the Constitution is still relevant. If a president can stonewall due process. If the Founders’ belief in equal branches of government is an 18th century anachronism or if it remains a document a democratic republic nation can live by. 

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi must give up any hope of White House cooperation for surely Donald Trump has provided no reason or action to maintain that illusion. She must immediately authorize an expedited challenge to the Supreme Court to verify the House’s absolute right to obtain material relevant to its inquiries. The court must reaffirm its 1974 ruling that the claim of executive privilege has limitations when it comes to a legitimate House investigation, that no one, not even the president, is above the law. 

It is counterproductive to waste the nation’s time and patience with thrust and parry politics. The Supreme Court must be asked to accept the challenge and must rule expeditiously. 

Nancy Pelosi, it is your move!

A Red White House: To those who bicker that Democrats are trying to take over a White House they couldn’t win in 2016, let me remind them that a Trump removal would not turn the Oval Office blue. A solidly conservative Republican vice president, Mike Pence, would succeed the dumped Trump. 

In many ways Pence could prove to be more anathema to Democrats as he is more deliberate, more focused, more of an ideologue, more conservative, more religious, more schooled in the ways of governing, and less of a lightning rod than Trump. 

One of the more vexing questions confronting Americans, New Yorkers in particular, is the transformation of Rudy Giuliani from “America’s Mayor” after 9/11 into Trump’s rabid attack dog. 

So, naturally, I was drawn to a New York Times Op-Ed Tuesday with the relevant headline, “What Happened to Rudy Giuliani?”. When I looked at the byline I was more intrigued. I thought the name looked familiar, the uncommon way it spelled Frydman. Hadn’t a Ken Frydman worked on Nation’s Restaurant News, a trade newspaper, shortly after I did some 40 years ago? Sure enough, it was him. 

I checked out his online background discovering Ken not only worked for Giuliani but was actually married by him in a city hall ceremony. For decades Ken carried a picture of the ceremony in his wallet. 

Here was an intimate witness to Rudy’s transformation. So, without further ado, here are two links, the first to the Op-Ed piece, the second to a bio of Ken who has quite an accomplished resume:

What Happened to Rudy Giuliani?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/opinion/giuliani-trump-ukraine.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Ken’s bio

http://sourcecommunications.net/about/

Move If You Want to Save the Republic

Volunteers needed: Who wants to move to Pennsylvania?

Or Michigan? Or Wisconsin? Maybe you would prefer a sunnier clime? Okay. How about Florida or Arizona? 

It is all for a good cause. It doesn’t have to be permanent, but it does require a residential move relatively soon that would appear to be forever but has to last through November 2020. 

If you haven’t figured out my idea yet, then you haven’t read Nate Cohn’s recent analysis in The New York Times that swing states Donald Trump barely won in 2016 may be sliding further into his Electoral College victory column despite an expected national surge in popular votes for the Democratic nominee no matter who she or he may be (https://nyti.ms/2Y7SdX9).

Since Trump won the Electoral College votes of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by a combined 77,744 votes it is simply a matter of realigning residencies for some, okay, many, anti Trump voters from sure-win Democratic states to battleground states to turn them from red to blue. 

So, are you with me? Who enjoys cheese? Who can visualize themselves in the fall wearing a tricornered cheesehead hat cheering on the Green Bay Packers? Forget how cold and snowy Wisconsin can be come December. Your patriotic duty to defend our country should warm the cockles of your heart, even as your fingertips and toes tingle with early stage frostbite (of course, you can buy those glove and sock warmers for the one season you’ll be  exposed to a Wisconsin chill).  

Or maybe you’re a Revolutionary War or Civil War buff and would like to live closer to where the action was, say in Valley Forge or Philadelphia or Gettysburg. See, it’s not as if you have to move away from East Coast civilization to save our democratic republic. You could be happy in Pennsylvania. 

We can’t take anything for granted in 2020. No doubt, Republicans will get wind of this plan and try to pass laws that require at least two years of residency before a newly arrived citizen may vote. Let’s be thankful Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have Democratic governors who would veto any such legislation because we all know which way the Supreme Court would rule if a court challenge ever reached its once hallowed hall of justice. 

Saving a democracy requires commitment. It won’t be enough to spend a few days in a battleground state canvassing districts or driving seniors to the polls. You have to be like the pig in the old joke about breakfast and the roles played by a chicken and a hog. For a bacon and egg breakfast a chicken must make a contribution. A pig must make a commitment. 

Keep in mind you can return to your posh liberal quarters after November 2020. In the meantime, you could Airbnb or VRBO your home. Saving our republic can be concurrently profitable and patriotic.

Does Trump Fit The Profile of a Fascist?

Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s 1964 amorphous description of obscenity (“I know it when I see it”), fascism is a concept much bandied about lately but little understood. It is often invoked to disparage political extremes on the right or left, leaving its true meaning murky. Most people associate fascism with Hitler and Mussolini and they want nothing to do with it. 

Of course, the reality is more imprecise in our application of the epithet “fascist.” Is Donald Trump a fascist or just an ill-spoken nationalist? 

Here, thanks to an article in Haaretz, a liberal Israeli news organization, by Dan Tamir, author of “Hebrew Fascism in Palestine, 1922-1942,” is a critical analysis of the features of fascism (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-when-jews-praised-mussolini-and-supported-nazis-meet-israel-s-first-fascists-1.7538589). You can decide if some or all strains of the fascist model have invaded our government: 

“... what is fascism? What sets it apart from other right-wing political streams? In 2004, Robert Paxton, in his book “The Anatomy of Fascism” (disclosure: this writer [Tamir] translated that book into Hebrew), listed seven features that collectively might delineate the nature of fascism as an ideology and as a political practice. They are: 

“certainty in the supremacy of the group—national, ethnic—over every right of the individual, and the individual’s subordination to the group; 

“belief that the group in question is a victim of other groups, as a consequence of which there is justification for every action taken against its enemies (domestic or external, real or imagined); 

“fear of harm befalling the group from liberal tendencies or ‘foreign’ influences from outside; 

“the need for closer integration of a ‘purer’ national community, whether by agreement or through violence;

“insistence on the group’s right to rule others without any limitations—a right accruing to the group by dint of its singularity or skills; 

“a sense of the existence of a severe crisis, not amenable to any traditional solution; 

“belief in the need for the authority of a lone and solitary leader, and obedience to that leader based on the conviction that he possesses supernatural insights or capabilities.”

Tamir added an eighth characteristic: “Another trait that some would add is fierce opposition to socialism in all its forms—a characteristic that was especially apparent in the practice of fascist movements active in the second half of the 20th century, even if not in their declared ideology.”

I’m not quite ready to declare Trump a fascist but it is troubling to see features of fascism that may be checked off when reviewing his actions. How many would you check off?

Underpinning Kamala Harris' Popularity Wave

Turns out I am part of the wave Kamala Harris is surfing towards the lead of Democratic Party presidential hopefuls. 

Right before dinner Monday evening I did something I normally resist: I answered a land line telephone call from a number I didn’t recognize because the screen indicated the caller emanated from New Haven where Gilda and I lived 42 years ago. 

An elderly gentleman—I could tell he was elderly by his slow, raspy voice, his cheerful colloquial demeanor and the way technology challenged him—said he was calling from the Quinnipiac University national poll. 

Having employed consumer researchers for my magazine for more than 30 years, I am a sucker for surveys if they don’t interfere with what I am doing. He caught me at a good time. 

I haven’t chosen a preferred candidate, though I have opined that Joe Biden should be given a chance to strut his stuff to determine if he is 2020 qualified and not stuck in a 20th century time warp. Sadly, last week’s initial debate revealed him to be slow-footed in word and thought. Donald Trump must have been salivating at the prospect of squaring off against him.

On the other hand, Harris followed up on her sharp questioning of Trump Supreme Court nominees with a piercing attack on Biden. For those who later complained that she bushwacked Biden with a well planned foray, I say it showed she would be adept at confronting and countering Trump during a debate (assuming the chicken-in-chief agrees to participate—mark my words, he will at first reject any debates and then, in what he, in his own mind, will consider a majestic concession, will agree to debate three times). I want a candidate who prepares, does homework. Biden’s people had prepped him, but he failed to rise to the occasion. 

So I gave Kamala Harris a vote of confidence, though not an unqualified endorsement as I yet don’t know enough about her.

“A new national Quinnipiac University poll, released Tuesday, July 2, shows Biden, who once led the field by around 20 points, now clinging to a two-point lead over California Sen. Kamala Harris, 22 percent to 20 percent,” The Daily Voice reported. (For you political nerds, follow the link to Quinnipiac's release: https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2631)

Now, one debate does not a president, or a party nominee, make, or break. But the winds of change are blowing hard, fueled by Trump’s take-no-prisoners stands on immigration and the detention of asylum seekers, census citizenship questions, tariff wars, relations with allies and Russia/North Korea/Iran, climate change and a host of other issues.  

Biden’s early strength came from the Afro-American community and senior citizens. It is dissipating. Biden is a “Yeah, I’m comfortable with him” vote. Harris, on the other hand, will ignite passion among black and hispanic voters, and among old-time liberals. Unless he shows more vigor during subsequent debates Biden would be no match against Trump. Harris has shown herself to be a sharp inquisitor and someone who could hold her own against a man.  

My Supreme Court Nightmare

I had a nightmare last night. Not while sleeping. I had woken up as I often do in the middle of the night. I picked up my iPhone to view the most popular stories on The New York Times website. 

I read several articles before opening an analysis by Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan Law School professor (https://nyti.ms/2Y7UsXg). If he is correct, the country I have inhabited for more than 70 years might radically change. 

In that newly formulated country programs such as Social Security, the Food and Drug Administration and Medicare would be invalidated because their rules and regulations were not voted on by Congress. Rather, they were formed by administrators never elected by the people. 

This topsy-turvy approach to government could come about if a conservative majority on the Supreme Court reasons that rules regulating these programs violated the Constitution because administrators and not Congress authorized them. 

For decades it has been the conservative dream to exterminate New Deal and subsequent liberal safeguard and safety net programs, beginning with Social Security. Politicians might consider Social Security to be the third rail of politics, to be touched at the risk of losing election or reelection, but the justices on our highest court sit for life. They need not worry about tenure. 

The nightmare I am describing has already started to form. Long-held legal precedents have been overturned. Though they might have sworn allegiance to “stare decisis” during their confirmation hearings, justices may conclude that verdicts by earlier Supreme Courts were flawed, thus releasing them from their vows of upholding precedent. 

It can be only a matter of court terms before Roe v. Wade and other key liberal beliefs are put asunder by the currently constituted court. The result will be government by the powerful, increasingly represented by special interests and Big Business, with little or no congressional or federal oversight. 

This nightmare is a legacy of those Americans who so reviled Hillary Clinton that they voted for Donald Trump or Jill Stein of the Green Party. Or didn’t vote at all. Elections, we are seeing, have consequences. 

My nightmare kept me awake for an hour. There were no imaginary monsters to dismiss from memory. There were real life demons—Trump, McConnell, Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito, Roberts, Kavanaugh. 

Don McGhan: Patriot or Trump Enabler?

In the pantheon of American patriots who sacrificed position to preserve the republic and avoid a constitutional crisis, how would you rank former White House counsel Don McGahn?  

Is he worthy of adulation for thwarting the worst impulses of a petty president? Should we laud him for ignoring the rants of Donald Trump, the commands of a megalomaniac, the wanton dictates of a wannabe autocrat? For surely on more than one occasion, according to his own testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller, McGhan saved Trump’s presidency by not executing his orders. 

So where do you stand on McGhan? Patriot or enabler of tyranny for keeping Trump in the White House?

Before you respond, here’s a thought to muddle your thinking: Along with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, McGhan is responsible for a decades’ long turn to the right in our federal judiciary. He managed the selections and confirmations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and dozens of lower court judges appointed for life. 

Now what do you say? Is McGhan to be praised or reviled? Trump has him tops on his most current “s— list” because he has revealed the nakedness of Trump’s intellect and disdain for the Constitution. He spilled the beans—on the record—on the dysfunction in the Oval Office. He corroborated previously reported stories, based on sources, that Trump’s aides ignored his directives and assiduously worked to keep him from violating the law or corroding the government. 

Naturally, the denier-in-chief rejected the idea that anyone stifled his impulses, but testimony under oath to the contrary is difficult to rebut, especially since it came from several officials.

Yet, there are those judges McGhan put on the bench. Would America be better off if McGhan had resigned rather than helped Trump stay in office? 

Probably not. Because Mike Pence as a replacement president would have nominated those same judges, if not more conservative jurists. Liberal values were screwed no matter who served as president or counsel to the president as long as Republicans held a majority in the Senate. 

Ideology aside, it may be argued McGhan acted in the best interests of the nation. He forestalled a constitutional crisis. It will be interesting to observe how he reacts and responds to the subpoena Congress just extended to him. 

Attorney General William Barr, on the other hand, has openly displayed his bias. Rather than be the people’s attorney, Barr has shown himself to be Trump’s best defense lawyer. His repeated use of Trump’s catch-phrase “no collusion” was an open acknowledgment that he was conspiring with Trump to undermine the findings of the Mueller report. 

Collusion is not a legal term to be used in the context of the Mueller probe. Mueller found insufficient evidence to say there was a conspiracy with Russia to sway the election. He did not make a judgment on the question of obstruction of justice. Barr did, saying no obstruction occurred. But Mueller’s report provided numerous instances where Trump interfered with the investigation or its legitimacy. 

An unbiased attorney general would have let Congress decide the matter. He would not have pre-judged the question. Unlike McGhan, Barr added fuel to the fire of possible impeachment and constitutional crisis. 

Trump's Next Constitutional Crisis?

Buried amid all the sordid revelations of backbiting, incompetency and corruption in “Team of Vipers,” Cliff Sims’ first person account of life within the Trump campaign and White House, is the nation’s next and potentially most catastrophic constitutional crisis. 

According to Sims, former director of White House message strategy and a special assistant to the president, as returns were coming in election night 2016 Trump was ready to declare via Twitter the results a fraud if he did not win. 

We were saved from this crisis, Sims relates, by Steve Bannon, of all people, and the failure of Hillary Clinton to win sufficient votes in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida. Had he lost, Trump would have gone on a Twitter tear, but no amount of tweeting or fulminating in public or in the courts would have ensconced him in the Oval Office.

But with 2020 looming and his polling numbers down, Trump is now in a position to do real damage to the republic should he lose reelection. He would continue, after all, to be president for more than two months until January 20, 2021, a lame duck in name but not in power to respond to emergencies. 

It is not a far reach to think Trump would invoke executive powers to declare a rigged election created a national emergency. Consider the border wall contretemps a potential test case before the Supreme Court of his authority to enact executive rule. 

The orderly transition of authority has been a hallmark of the United States since George Washington voluntarily stepped down after two terms of office. The Trump presidency, however, has been anything but an affirmation of political norms. 

To be fair, almost all administrations are populated by competing personalities and interests. Abraham Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals,” as portrayed by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, united in their combat to defeat the South. Trump’s cadre of conspirators, on the other hand, seem particularly vile, ineffectual, dumb, vengeful and venal. 

Sims is but the latest to reveal the innerds of a dysfunctional organism. With each expose the question of how long Republicans can abide a Trump presidency becomes more focused. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6642039/Trump-p-ed-ex-aides-tell-book-lifts-lid-White-House-chaos.html

If I am right about Trump’s post-election-emergency-powers-executive-action it would be up to Vice President Pence and the Cabinet to remove him from office, that is, if they are not first removed from their positions by Trump. Then it would be up to the military to enforce the Constitution. Maybe Putin would send private Russian military contractors to protect Trump as has been rumored he has done recently in Venezuela to bolster security for embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

Sounds like a geopolitical thriller novel, doesn’t it?

Trump Admits Kavanaugh Made a "Little Mistake"

It is hard keeping up with all the noise coming out of the Trump administration especially when the biggest noisemaker is an uncensored egotist whose morals have depressed America’s traditional values. 

While addressing supporters at a campaign rally Friday night in Lebanon, Ohio, the misogynist-in-chief railed against Democrats for questioning the character and temperament of Brett Kavanaugh to sit on the Supreme Court. As reported by DailyMail.com, “He specifically blamed Democrats for the circus surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, accusing the party of trying to end the judge’s career over a ‘little mistake’” https://dailym.ai/2yje2EO.

“Little mistake?” Did Trump just acknowledge that Kavanaugh really was unfit for a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court? 

To what “little mistake” was he alluding? Could it have been his illegal underage drinking and failure to acknowledge the illegality, even going so far as to state his drinking at age 18 was legal in Maryland when the state had already raised the legal drinking age to 21? Could it have been to his perpetual lying and obfuscating during his Senate confirmation hearing on subjects ranging from limits on presidential power to his involvement in vetting court nominees while a member of the Bush II administration? Could it have been his attendance at parties where his high school friends gang raped girls, as alleged by Julie Swetnick? Could it have been when he exposed himself to Deborah Ramirez while a student at Yale, as she claims? Could it have been when he was drunk in high school and sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford in a second floor bedroom, just as she testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee?

Each and every one of those “little mistakes” would have been grounds in past times to reject Kavanaugh’s nomination. But Trump has so eroded Republican values that he won confirmation.  

Now that was a BIG mistake!

News Updates: Kavanaugh, Living in a Bubble, Trump's Week, Building a Name and Wiring Rod

Brewski Anyone? As Brett Kavanaugh takes a seat on the Supreme Court consider how awkward it will be at day’s end, any day’s end, when someone, perhaps Kavanaugh himself, suggests unwinding with a beer or two…

The continental political and social divide the country finds itself in is difficult to fully fathom until one encounters real-life proof that the respective sides live in distinctive bubbles with little chance they will meld together.  

Case in point: Recently Gilda met a Harvard law school graduate. A resident of the Washington, DC, metro, he related that he grew up in Kentucky. Yet, upon earning his law degree and returning to his home town he found the region preferred lawyers with social ties rather than legal scholarship. Fitting in was more important than knowledge. 

Gilda and I encountered the same primitive mindset more than four decades ago when we moved to Connecticut. Connecticut had an aura of being a state populated by sophisticated, educated residents. Home to headquarters of Fortune 500 companies. 

But there were plenty of factory workers, as well. Trouble was, in the Lower Naugatuck Valley where I was assigned as a reporter for The New Haven Register, hard times had befallen the workers who toiled in the brass mills of Seymour, Derby, Ansonia, Shelton and surrounding towns. Factories cut back production, laid off workers or closed down completely. Still, the dream of most fathers was to have their sons join them straight out of high school on the assembly line. Few aspired for an education-based escape from the Valley. 

Gilda’s acquaintance went on to detail his Kentucky education. The Civil War, he explained, was called the War Between the States as the teacher said it had everything to do with states’ rights and nothing, nothing to do with slavery. Indeed, slavery was not discussed. The war was hardly studied. Students learned about a few battles won by the South. Imagine his consternation upon being exposed in college and law school to the full historical record.  

Unable to find a job in Kentucky, he took his Harvard law degree to Washington.

Alternative facts. Fake News. Outright lies. When the assault on truth comes directly from the White House it reinforces provincial attitudes that are in conflict with principles of equality and tolerance.

The Week That Was: Whatever it was—a napkin or toilet paper—stuck to Donald Trump’s shoe and clearly visible as he ascended the stairs to Air Force One last Thursday, the embarrassment was palpable, the humor undeniable. He surely can blame an inattentive staff, or maybe Deep State conspirators, for the humiliation seen around the world (could the Deep State really have infiltrated his bathroom, or his dining area?). The trail of paper was as bad as when a wind gust last February swirled through his combover exposing his scalp as he climbed stairs into Air Force One.  

Then there were the optics of Melania’s trip to Africa. Ordinarily, dispensing much needed books to schoolchildren would result in laudable coverage. But the very educational programs Melania was endorsing in Malawi have come under attack by her isolationist husband who has disparaged African countries and who wants to cut aid to them. In one of its few acts of spine and resistance Congress rejected Trump’s budget cuts (https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/08/politics/melania-trump-africa-trip-wrap/index.html).  

Perhaps the unkindest but appropriate cut of all, Trump was denied the Nobel peace prize he so desperately covets. Rather than award his still vague peace and denuclearization overture with North Korea, the Nobel was given to Denis Mukwege of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nadia Murad of Iraq for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. 

How ironic that sexual violence was the dominant theme in the United States last week. Regardless of your opinion on the veracity of Christine Blasey Ford’s claim of sexual assault by Kavanaugh (Trump has moved from saying her testimony was “credible” to her being part of a Democratic “hoax” to discredit Kavanaugh), it is clear that gender relations will be a more hot button election issue in November than the economy, taxes, foreign relations and health care.   

Trump’s campaign for a peace prize, this year or in the future, probably took a hit with his addresses at the United Nations. It took a high degree of chutzpah to stand at the podium of a world organization dedicated to peaceful coexistence and shared values and spout selfish bromides. 

Trump likes to project toughness and a singular focus on America First. He did that to the approval, no doubt, of his base and even to many who liked his no-nonsense non diplomatic rhetoric. How refreshing for them to hear candor at the UN where obfuscation and deceit are practiced arts. 

The UN is the ultimate global entity. Trump all but tore up its charter before the world’s eyes. Patriotism, not globalism, was his mantra. Inside your borders do what you wish as long as you don’t impinge on America’s self interests. 

You could visualize tyrants the world over smiling. The world’s policeman, the country that had corralled their basest instincts, was hanging up its night stick. Abandoning its beat. Throwing away its handcuffs in favor of a free-for-all posture as long as you said nice things about its orange-faced, golden-locked leader. Play to his ego, not his humanitarian sensibilities. 

Okay. Through our archaic political process we elected Trump to a four year term. He can legally reverse the course of U.S. history and with it the future of the world. 

But only so far as we the people enable him. November will be the first referendum on America’s choice for tomorrow. 

Building a Name: If Democrats gain control of the Senate, this year or in some future election, they should move to rename the Russell office building for the recently deceased Senator John McCain. 

Never mind that McCain was a Republican. He was a strong symbol of integrity and patriotism. Though a Democrat, Richard Russell embodied the white suprematist, racist attitudes current among Republicans. Russell served before Southern Democrats converted en masse to Republicans. 

By initiating the renaming of the building, as minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has proposed, Democrats would be sending a message of unity, though to be honest, those who support Trump and his distaste for McCain, would not welcome such an action. To them Russell is an icon. 

The Wire: Lost among all the excitement surrounding Kavanaugh was the postponed meeting between Trump and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. 

Rosenstein, who oversees special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and more, has at various times been accused of wearing a recording device while with Trump. The New York Times also reported several weeks ago he entertained the idea of organizing cabinet secretaries to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from the presidency. Rosenstein has denied both allegations.

If ever there was a time for Rosenstein to wear a wire, that postponed meeting with Trump would be the day.

Even though Trump has recently said he is not ready to fire Rosenstein, the dissembler-in-chief is not a credible communicator (see above about his thoughts on Blasey Ford). 

So Rosenstein’s tenure toehold seems to be more precarious with each passing day. An announcement of his departure, never officially distributed, was even prepared for dissemination by the Justice Department on the presumption the meeting with Trump was going to occur, according to the Daily Mail (https://dailym.ai/2OU2iiF). 

Rosenstein is in a seemingly can’t-win situation. Trump has long wanted him out so someone more to his liking can be installed to control Mueller. So what has he got to lose by wearing a wire so he can capture Trump in his firing element?

Now, we’ve all watched Homeland, Mission Impossible and other thrillers that rely on high-tech listening and speaking devices embedded on a body so as to be non detectable. Surely Rosenstein knows intelligence officials, current or former, who would be willing and able to outfit him for sound. Heck, maybe even Mueller’s team would be a possible link-up option.