Let's Go to the Yearbook, then the Videotape

It has become a common practice for anyone involved in a hiring process to first check an applicant’s social media pages before extending an employment offer. Conversely, it is not unusual for smart candidates to scrub their postings of any offensive or questionable entries. 

With the Brett Kavanaugh and Ralph Northam debacles as guidance, it seems we have descended into a new level of background exposure—high school and college/graduate school yearbooks. How better to know the person sitting anxiously across the desk from you than to gaze onto his or her adolescent picture and wonder what “real” image might be found within the pages of a yearbook? As if actions of a decade, two decades, or more, ago have relevant bearing on the values and character of the adult in the room.

Does anyone doubt that in most Southern states blackface pictures similar to those in Northam’s medical school yearbook could be found in high school and college yearbooks from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s? 

Yet, I return to my stated belief that the high jinks of youthful indiscretion should not be a disqualifier. How a candidate, or an elected official, comported him- or herself in adulthood should be paramount. 

In other words, short of a criminal act, such as that alleged against Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, there should be a statute of limitations for dredging up old behavior deemed inappropriate by today’s standards.  

Politicians, especially those seeking the ultimate higher office, must practice patience. Yes, the 24-hour non-stop news cycle demands comment. How about a simple, let’s wait for all the facts to come out before rendering judgment? The rush to judgment practiced by too many today might make for a good soundbite but demonstrates little capacity for contemplative decision making.

No doubt part of the equation considered by politicians is how specific voter segments will respond to allegations. It has been presumed that blacks, so crucial to any effort to unseat Trump from the Oval Office, would be clamoring for Northam’s removal, by his own choice or through impeachment. 

Leading Virginian pols, black and white, have called for his departure. But do we know what a majority of black voters feel about him?

According to a poll by The Washington Post/Schar School, more Afro-American voters in Virginia (58%) say Northam should stay on as governor compared to those who want him to resign (37%). (https://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-claims-african-americans-very-angry-about-northam-blackface-but-60-dont-want-gov-to-resign/)

Not surprisingly, the poll demonstrates that the black community is not monolithic. Consider the controversy over Adam Levine and his group Maroon 5’s halftime show during last Sunday’s Super Bowl. Several black performers rejected the idea of headlining the show as a way of expressing solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49er quarterback who sought racial justice against police actions by beginning the take-a-knee protest during the national anthem before games. Kaepernick has been unsigned for two years, what his supporters claim is coordinated and racist retribution by team owners and the league. 

Consciously or not, the National Football League went out of its way to spotlight black entertainers at the game. Chloe x Halle sang “America, the Beautiful.” Gladys Knight sang the national anthem. Travis Scott and Big Boi performed with Maroon 5. Most of the players in the NFL’s own TV ad were black. 

It’s time to step back and reflect on what’s good for Virginians. The end result might not complement what we want to see, but one yearbook picture—even if it represents a thousand words— does not speak for the progressive deeds of a lifetime.

Let’s Go to the Videotape: Sportscaster Warner Wolf made an impressionable career from his signature exhortation, “Let’s go to the videotape.” Now in retirement in Florida, videotape has captured his rebellion against a vestige of racial oppression.

According to a one paragraph story in The Journal News, “Sportscaster Warner Wolf is facing a felony charge after police said he damaged a sign outside his (Naples) Florida community because it included the word “Plantation,” which he considers racist. Collier County records show Wolf, 81, surrendered Thursday on a felony criminal mischief charge and was released. The sheriff ’s office said Wolf long complained about his community’s name, Classics Plantation Estates. Deputies say surveillance video shows Wolf removing the letters Nov. 30. They say he gave the letters to a security guard, telling him to pass them to the property manager. Damage is estimated at $1,100. Wolf declined comment Saturday and his attorney didn’t immediately return a call.”

Bravo, Warner!

To the Barricades: Socialist Dems Under Attack

To much applause from his party apparatchiks during the State of the Union speech Tuesday night Donald Trump voiced the oft-repeated trope America will never become a socialist country. 

“We are alarmed by the new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence and not government coercion, domination and control. We renew our resolve that America will  never be a socialist country,” said the demagogue-in-chief.

To which I would respond, go back to school, Donald. What about Social Security? Unemployment insurance? Disability insurance? Medicare? Medicaid? Farm subsidies, energy subsidies, food stamps? National parks? Public transportation systems? The Tennessee Valley Authority? The list could go on and on. 

We live in a republic imbued with democratic and socialist policies and programs. Yes, the country may have been founded on the pursuit of liberty (for all but the enslaved) and independence (except for slaves), but it was not done without coercion (think slavery), domination (government sanctioned slavery) and control (slavery once more). What’s more, today’s Republicans want to remove liberty and independence from women’s reproductive options through coercion, domination and control. 

Casting Democrats as socialists may be the newest fear bogeyman by a bully who has already labeled Hispanic and Muslim immigrants the source of most evil in our country (https://nyti.ms/2DWLuEp). He could succeed in his dark portrayal if Democrats do not fight back immediately and vigorously.

With rare exception senior Americans have come to rely on their Social Security checks arriving each month. Some even rely on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver them. Democrats need to educate the electorate that Democrats initiated Social Security and that Republicans have for years tried to dismantle it.

Democrats need to begin an ongoing advertising campaign pointing out all the support programs they started amid the Republican record of dissent and budgetary cutbacks.

Turn the discussion away from socialism to social welfare and healthcare programs.

Pose: Were you struck as I was by the posture Trump took during his speech? (Take a look at the picture accompanying this article: https://nyti.ms/2DYYREg). Often pursing his lips, Trump thrust his chin up and out, like…like Il Duce, Benito Mussolini. All that was missing was an upward thrust of his right arm at the beginning. (Look for yourself at video from a 1934 speech at Taranto, Italy: https://youtu.be/OOv-Ncs7vQk)

And, as long as I’m comparing Trump to an Italian dictator, does anyone else conjure up images of a Mafia don when they see Trump walking around in an open overcoat (no doubt cashmere) while his capos are comfortable in just suit jackets? 

Chutzpah à la Trump: The definition of chutzpah used to be when a man accused of killing his mother and father seeks mercy from the court because he is an orphan. That explanation, advanced by Leo Rosten in his book “The Joy of Yiddish,” can be supplanted by the racist-and misogynist-in-chief calling out Virginia Democrats for their acts of racism and alleged sexual assault. 

No doubt the image of Democrats in Virginia has been tarnished. To call out their faults, however, Republicans would have to explain how they overlook Trump’s repeated falls from grace. 

If All 3 Democrats Resign, GOP Can Say, "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus"

And Jesus said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone …”

I don’t usually quote from the New Testament, but it seemed appropriate to cite the text from John as it relates to the circus-of-a-state we are witnessing in Virginia as the governor and his two potential immediate successors—the lieutenant governor and the state attorney general—are caught up in sexual and racial improprieties, both the alleged and real kind. 

As Christine Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University, said on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show Wednesday, “Well, it seems everyone in Virginia is wanting when it comes to being without sin.” 

While Republicans basically abandoned any ethical principles with their selection of Donald Trump as their standard bearer, Democrats have an-eat-their young attitude of moral purity. 

Their unforgiving puritanical stance is combined with rush to judgment alacrity. 

Here’s where dedication to purity becomes problematic. We’re not dealing with the entertainment industry, a la Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby, where individuals, scores of individuals, had their lives traumatized. No. In the mess of a commonwealth called Virginia, the lives of millions are at stake. 

If Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, resigns, first in line to succeed him is Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, also a Democrat. If Fairfax resigns, he is succeeded by Atty. Gen.s Mark Herring, also a Democrat. If Herring resigns, he is succeeded by the Speaker of the House of Delegates, Marvin Kirkland Cox, a conservative Republican. 

Now, before you finish howling gleefully or despondently, add this peculiarity to how Cox finds himself poised to become governor if all the Democratic dominoes tumble: Back in 2017, the race for control of the 100-seat House of Delegates was settled not by voters but rather by the drawing of lots. 

Democrat Shelly Simonds and Republican incumbent David Yancey wound up with the same number of ballots in Virginia’s 94th District. The winner was chosen by a random drawing of one of their names out of a bowl. Yancey was chosen, giving Republicans a 51-49 majority of delegates. Cox was elected speaker. 

What would it mean in Virginia? Northam advocated for expanding Medicaid, stricter gun regulations and protecting abortion rights. Cox would not. Keep in mind Northam’s victory was decisive, 53.9% vs. 45.0% for Republican Ed Gillespie, in a race widely seen as a referendum on Trump and his policies.

In no way am I condoning Northam or Herring for wearing blackface almost 40 years ago. Nor am I siding with Fairfax in his defense of alleged sexual misconduct 15 yers ago.

I am suggesting that context and, sometimes, pragmatic politics need to be considered.  

Northam was not even 25 when he appeared in blackface in 1984. Herring was 19 in 1980. Though young, both men should have known better, but in the context of growing up in Virginia, where just a little more than a decade earlier interracial marriages were illegal, appearing in blackface was a common act. And, in 1976, Gene Wilder appeared in blackface in the film Silver Streak with Richard Pryor.  

More relevant to the dialogue about Northam and Herring is their behavior since their blackface days. By all accounts known to me, they have been free of racist acts. 

The case of Fairfax is more troubling. Justin Fairfax was 25 when he allegedly forced a woman to perform oral sex on him. It is entangled in the #MeToo moment. To read Vanessa Tyson’s statement about her prior disclosure to friends of the alleged assault is starkly familiar to testimonies provided by victims of known predators (https://www.mediaite.com/online/breaking-lt-gov-fairfaxs-accuser-releases-harrowing-statement-detailing-alleged-sexual-assault/). 

I don’t want to see Virginia regress into a red state. I also don’t want to see Democrats embrace a holier-than-thou stance toward potential presidential candidates if their so-called transgressions occurred decades ago (as is the case with Joe Biden’s Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing flub or Kirsten Gillibrand’s past support of unrestricted gun rights). 

Republicans would like nothing more than to cast Democrats as hypocrites in the morals arena. Yeah, right. As if the public, at least the thinking public, would not see them as pots calling the tea kettle black. 

Yes, Virginia, if all three Democrats resign, Republicans will have a right to say there is a Santa Claus, so let’s not give the GOP a present, and a possible path to Trump’s reelection.

Marcal Blaze Reminiscent of Famous Sponge Rubber Products Fire 44 Years Ago in Shelton

The spectacular eight-alarm fire at the 45,000 sq. ft, Marcal paper plant in Elmwood Park, NJ, Wednesday night illuminated not just the sky but also memories of a similar conflagration 44 years ago. 

Gilda and I had just gone to bed about half an hour before midnight on Saturday, March 1, 1975, when the phone rang in our Seymour, Conn., apartment. We were living in the small town about 13 miles northwest of New Haven because I was a reporter for The New Haven Register. My initial beat had been the towns of Seymour and Derby. After a year, I was reassigned to cover another town in the economically depressed Lower Naugatuck Valley: Shelton (side note: in my new beat I succeeded Dan Collins, husband of Gail Collins—yes, that Gail Collins). 

My bureau chief, Don Anderson, called asking what I was doing in bed while downtown Shelton was in danger of being wiped off the map, consumed by fire. From nearby Ansonia Don had been rocked out of bed by an explosion several miles away in Shelton. 

I hastily dressed and sped south in my Chevy Vega. The sky became redder the nearer I approached Shelton. The largest structure dominating the downtown, the 475,000-square-foot Sponge Rubber Products Plant 4 perched along the Housatonic River was ablaze. Hundreds of volunteer and paid firemen from dozens of fire departments in southern Connecticut were attempting not so much to extinguish the inferno in freezing weather but rather to keep it from spreading to Main Street. 

Stretched out along 2-1/2 blocks, the plant had once been owned by the B.F. Goodrich company. Foam mattresses were it main product. Declining sales promoted Goodrich to sell the plant to Charles Moeller, an Ohio businessman who renamed it the Sponge Rubber Products Company. 

The fire had broken out shortly after 11:30 pm. As I talked with the police chief the reason it had spread so quickly and devastatingly became known. It was deliberately set. Arson. 

More astounding, the suspects were said to be members of the Weather Underground. They had tied up the night watchmen, strategically distributed 500 pounds of dynamite and 24 55-gallon drums of gasoline throughout the plant, and told the watchmen who they left unharmed in a nearby woods they were Weathermen. 

It didn’t make sense. Of all places, why would a radical group target the Sponge Rubber plant in Shelton in what turned out to be the most costly case of arson in the nation’s history?

Well, it turned out the Weathermen were not responsible. Moeller had a spiritual guru, the Rev. David N. Bubar of Memphis, Tenn., a Baptist minister and self-proclaimed psychic, who sought to relieve him of the financial mistake he made in buying the factory in 1974. Bubar recruited men from Ohio. They rented a Ryder truck to convey their explosive materiel. It was through the Ryder rental that they were nabbed. 

Moeller, as well, was charged but found not guilty. The others were convicted. 

Watching a fire can be exhilarating. But for a reporter, more emotional may well be the followup interviews with workers who no longer had jobs and whose prospects in Shelton and the other river towns of the Lower Naugatuck Valley were dim at best. Some 4,000 workers lost their jobs.

Several months after the fire I was promoted to bureau chief of West Haven, Bethany, Orange and Woodbridge. We moved to New Haven. Within two years I had taken a job in New York City. We moved to White Plains. 

Shelton slowly, ever so slowly, recovered. It converted the plant site “into open, public space with a veterans memorial, a pavilion, an annual farmers market and a riverwalk” (https://www.ctpost.com/news/amp/40-years-ago-fire-marked-turning-point-for-6106842.php). With the completion of a multi-lane Route 8 Shelton became a hub of clean, light manufacturing and an affordable bedroom community to Fairfield County Fortune 500 company executives. 

A little more than a year after moving to New York and writing for Chain Store Age I was assigned an article on a new trend in supermarkets—generic products. To understand the economics of these non branded alternatives I talked with a marketing executive from a then-family owned paper goods company: Marcal. 

Marcal was sold to an investment firm several years ago. The workers who saw their livelihood flame out Wednesday night face the same tough future as those who witnessed arson most foul 44 years ago. 

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?

My My Fair Lady for 46 Years

To celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary Monday, I took my fair lady Gilda to Lincoln Center Sunday to see the revival production of My Fair Lady. I am in no way implying that under my tutelage Gilda transformed into the accomplished women she is today. But I will say that I have been there all along as she grew from a young woman who barely knew her way around the kitchen to as close to a gourmet cook you can be without certification. 

But cooking is in many ways a minor accomplishment compared to her professional development. I’m a fairly accomplished person in my own right. Despite my parents’ trepidation at my career choice as a journalist, I achieved some success as a newspaper reporter and then a business magazine editor and publisher. In terms of intellectual development and immeasurable contributions to public welfare and health, however, my story pales compared to Gilda’s.

When we first married in 1973 Gilda had a degree in political science from Brooklyn College, our joint alma mater. After moving to Seymour, Conn., part of my beat as a reporter for The New Haven Register, her degree qualified her for a job with a budding new industry: selling cable television hookups. It was a no-brainer. Cable offered some 20 station options versus the one to three most people in Seymour and the other towns of the Lower Naugatuck Valley could receive in their homes.

Not surprisingly, after a few months Gilda sought a higher calling. She fulfilled a decade old ambition to become a nurse. After two years she graduated at the top of her class at the University of Bridgeport and immediately was hired by Yale-New Haven Hospital. 

Offered a position on any patient floor, Gilda chose the newborn intensive care unit, a pioneering discipline that treated distressed babies born in a region roughly 100 to 150 miles around New Haven. She and a doctor would travel by ambulance to stabilize and then transport a newborn, often the size of an adult male’s hand, back to the NICU in New Haven. She worked there for two years.

What I didn’t mention was taking that job in the NICU was the start of a pattern of healthcare employment that has been central to her career. Prior to working in the NICU, Gilda had no experience with newborns, let alone those with complications so debilitating that she would come home semi-traumatized and in need of withdrawal through discussion over dinner. Of course, hearing about babies with unformed intestines, heart related issues or some other defect usually related to their premature birth was not the kind of dinner conversation I wanted to hear, so I stifled her release outlet. 

After we moved to Westchester Gilda again took a position without prior experience, this time as a step-down nurse in the Intensive Care-Cardio Care Unit at Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville. She left that job for the most important one any person can have, as a mother to her (our) children. 

During those next seven years she supplemented her mothering with part-time work as a pre-natal and post-partum instructor and as a nursery school teacher. In one area, she helped expectant and successful mothers understand and adapt to the changes their bodies were undergoing. In the other she helped shape their progeny.

Seeking a full-time position after Ellie started school, in early 1987 Gilda went for an interview for a post she admitted she was not qualified for. She went, she would tell you, because I suggested it would provide experience sitting through an interview. She got the job, serving for the next nine years as the research coordinator for the infectious disease department of New York Medical College and Westchester County Medical Center in Valhalla. 

The ID department studied three of the most volatile illnesses of the time—hepatitis, Lyme Disease and HIV. From knowing virtually nothing about any of those diseases Gilda became expert in each of them. For example, she was part of the team that discovered HIV could not be transmitted through body sweat. She coordinated the Lyme clinic at the medical center. And, during those professionally challenging years she found time to serve two years as co-president of our children’s school PTA and also earned her Family Nurse Practitioner’s license.

Her next major job placement came in another area for which she lacked experience. Three spine surgeons at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan hired her in June 1998 to do pre- and post-operative patient assessments. In time, Gilda learned how to read MRIs, X-Rays and other diagnostic tests better than most doctors. Her skills were so appreciated by the surgeons that the transfer of their practice to Mount Sinai Medical Center was contingent upon their ability to bring Gilda with them.

Nearly 21 years after beginning as a neophyte in spine-related medicine Gilda retired as an expert earlier this month. For almost five decades she counseled the infirm and those who needed assistance. On numerous occasions she saved lives, mostly for friends and their families unrelated to her expertise in spine or infectious diseases. She became a “go-to” healthcare resource. She is now free to carve out new challenges, for I am sure she will not idly let her energies go unstructured. 

Forty-six years ago there was no way either of us could foresee how Gilda would spend her life. I have been blessed to have accompanied her ride. I am so proud of My Fair Lady.  

Walled In: What Emergency Powers Could Bring

In my living room and on a plaque on the wall next to my home office desk are two large chunks from the Berlin Wall. I would like to say I chiseled them out from the notorious reinforced concrete edifice, but that would be a lie. My meager efforts February 16, 1990, produced paltry chips the size, perhaps, of dominoes pieces. I came by those two impressive rocks courtesy of a much more adept chiseler who shared his excavation work with me that fateful afternoon just three months after East Germany opened the floodgates on its repressive regime. 

The fearmonger-in-chief prophesied what would happen absent a similar concrete wall spanning our southern border with Mexico. “You’ll have crime in Iowa, you’ll have crime in New Hampshire, you’ll have crime in New York” without a wall, Trump warned during a trip to McAllen, Texas, Thursday. 

ABC News asked the mayor of McAllen what the murder rate in his city with no wall was. Zero, he said, asserting McAllen was among the safest in America. Statistics corroborate his belief. 

Why are Democrats so stridently against funding a wall? After all, friends have asked, $5.7 billion is sooooo small compared to the trillion dollar-plus federal budget fattened by the billions wasted on military and social aid programs every year. 

My response is that the debate over the wall far transcends the dollar amount. The wall, the barrier, the what-have-you, represents a good old-fashioned horse trading negotiation. 

Regardless of its efficacy, Trump wants to show his base he can fulfill a campaign pledge to build a wall, though he has admitted the second part of his pledge to have Mexico pay for it is not going to happen as promised. His dissembling on how the wall will be funded and by whom just adds to Trump’s portrait as a grifter and con artist. 

What Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer want is a commitment from Trump to extend safety to DACA children brought to America by their parents. Every time Trump seems ready to commit to shielding the so-called Dreamers, he turns into the reneger-in-chief when he hears howls from Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and their compatriots on the right. 

Behind the scenes efforts to parlay DACA safety for wall funding have been rejected by Trump. It would take a revolt by Senate Republicans to force Trump’s hand to accept a quid pro quo.

Instead, before the weekend is out our would-be king might invoke national emergency powers to funnel funds into wall construction. Should such a move survive a court challenge, Republicans might rue the precedent. 

Imagine the next time a Democrat is president and a mass shooting occurs. Considering that firearms are used in tens of thousands of homicides every year, far greater than the number of deaths perpetrated by undocumented immigrants, a president could declare a national emergency to ban gun sales and confiscate all assault rifles. 

Now that is an extreme hypothetical (and I doubt any president would do it) but for years the National Rifle Association has fearmongered such a possibility every time a Democrat won the presidency. 

If Trump opens the Pandora’s Box of emergency powers, there is no telling what a president could try to implement.

To stem a measles or flu epidemic turning into a pandemic, a president could declare a national emergency and order the vaccination of all residents. If anyone refuses, he could isolate them in internment camps so they would not spread any infection. To reduce damage and deaths from coastal flooding, a president could order the permanent evacuation of the shoreline. 

Too far-fetched? Perhaps. But it all hinges on how the Supreme Court views presidential power. Given that the Republican majority on the court is believed to endorse almost unlimited presidential power, Trump could win a challenge to the emergency powers question. But such a win could plunge the country into uncharted waters for all subsequent presidents, not to mention Trump’ own crazed view of what a president may do with unchecked power.

Trump said Friday afternoon he wasn’t ready to pull the emergency powers lever. Which to me signals he is about to this weekend, as he constantly contradicts himself.

As I’m writing this a friend related an irony—his community in Palm Beach County, Florida, has many wealthy retired New York City teachers who “want immigration laws enforced.” 

To which I replied, “Maybe the sun fried their brains and they forgot the immigrant history of their families. Sure, they would tell you they came legally but how many of them thought the quota system from 1920 on was a good thing, how many of them thought restricting access to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution was acceptable, how many of them see any comparability to those Hondurans seeking safety from violence in their homeland, how many of them think a wall is a better symbol of America than the Statue of Liberty?”

Walls can and do serve a purpose. The Berlin Wall kept East Germans inside their living hell. Many who tried to seek freedom lost their lives trying to pierce their enclosure. But some succeeded. No wall is impenetrable. 

All objective evidence affirms that most illegal drugs enter the United States at ports of entry, not by human “mules” infiltrating illegally across the border. Most undocumented aliens enter legally, arriving here by plane and overstaying their visas. Though Trump trumpets their egregious murders, rapes and other violent deeds in his bid to instill fear, statistics show the undocumented commit far fewer crimes than the American population at large. 

Bottom line: Some type of restraint along the border will be built. Dreamers will have their dreams fulfilled. Some federal workers will lose their homes, have their credit ratings marred, have their trust in government employment shattered by the partial government shutdown now entering its fourth week because of the inability of the artless-negotiator-in-chief to reach an agreement with the newly emboldened Democrats who control the House and who still maintain sufficient numbers in the Senate to withstand cloture calls on most legislation.

It won’t be pretty, but it will happen. As Trump says, trust me.