#993: Far, Far Worse Than Smoot-Hawley?

Hopefully, by the time you finish reading this week’s post, you will be able to answer the following  3 questions:

Willis Hawley (1864-1941) & Reed Smoot (1864-1941)

1. What are the 3 ways the federal government can raise revenue?

2. Who were Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley (that’s them in the photo), and what’s the only thing they are remembered for?

3. What is the definition of “stagflation?”

If, by the end of this post you can successfully answer these 3 questions, you will know a hell of a lot more about American political history and economic theory than the Republican Party’s putative presidential nominee.

As MSNBC news anchor Stephanie Ruhle says every weeknight on her 11:00 pm show, Let’s get smarter! But before we do, permit me to confess that I am neither an economist, nor anything more than an amateur when it comes to macroeconomics or monetary theory. Rather, I have spent a lifetime being unceasingly curious about all things intellectual, and had the good fortune to study with a couple of masters in my early years at university: Daniel Burbidge Suits, professor emeritus of economics who specialized in the field of Economic Growth Theory and Models, as well as renowned American political history professors  Page Smith and Laurence Vesey. Then too, I have, over the years,  devoured just about every word the exalted Richard Hofstadter, Michael Beschloss, and Doris Kearns Goodwin ever wrote. 

(I guess that makes me a librarian’s best friend . . . one of the only advantages of being afflicted with Crohn’s Disease.  How’s that? Well, in Hebrew, the answer to that question is    רק הנאורים יבינו  - namely, “only the enlightened will understand.”)

 And so, without further ado, let’s roll up our sleeves, don our eyeshades, and get down to the business of learning something about taxes, tariffs, and Trump . . .

 First and foremost, the federal government finances its operations with taxes, fees, and other receipts collected from many different sectors of the economy. In the last fiscal year, federal receipts totaled about $4.4 trillion, or 16.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The largest sources of revenues are individual income taxes (49%) and payroll taxes (36%) followed by corporate income taxes (9%).

Another source of revenue comes from tariffs. Tariffs are a form of tax applied on imports from other countries. Most economists say the costs are largely passed on to consumers. Countries have used them to protect domestic industries, such as agriculture and renewable energy, as well as to retaliate against other states’ unfair trade practices. And, if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, thus giving him the power to (among many, other heretofore unthinkable things) make his economic vision a reality: instituting an "all-tariff policy" which would enable the U.S. to get rid of its income tax. Egad! The man actually wants to replace individual and corporate income taxes with tariffs!

Almost every country imposes some tariffs. In general, wealthy countries maintain low tariffs compared to developing countries. There are several reasons why: developing countries might have more fragile industries that they wish to protect, or they might have fewer sources of government revenue. The United States, for instance, maintained high tariffs for decades, until income taxes supplanted tariffs as the most important source of revenue in the 1930s. After World War II, tariffs continued to decline as the United States emphasized trade expansion as a central plank of its global strategy.

Trump’s insane quest for a policy of “all-tariffs-all-the-time,” (which he floated at last week’s gathering of the spineless on Capitol Hill) garnered nary a snicker - let alone a raised eyebrow - from the confederacy of dunces wildly applauding their leader. I’ve got to wonder if any of them - even if but for a nanosecond - heard a voice whispering “Smoot-Hawley . . . remember Smoot-Hawley. It was an unmitigated disaster back in 1930; it will be worse than a catastrophe in 2025.”

        Senator Reed Smoot (R-UT)

Smoot what? Hawley who? Reed Smoot (1862-1941) was a Republican Senator from Utah from 1903-1933; was also the first apostle of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) to be a national political figure. In 1930, he was chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Smoot's election to the Senate in 1903 by the Utah legislature sparked a bitter four-year battle in the Senate on whether Smoot was eligible and should be allowed to serve. Many Americans were suspicious of the LDS Church because of its earlier polygamous practices. In addition, some senators thought Smoot's position as a Mormon apostle would disqualify him from representing all his constituents. Many were convinced that his association with the church disqualified him from serving in the United States Senate.

            Rep. Willis C. Hawley (R. Ore)

Willis C. Hawley served as a Republican Representative from Oregon from 1907-1933.  Although not what one might call a “shining star” within the House, he somehow rose to the Chairmanship of that chamber’s most powerful committee,  Ways and Means, for the 70th and 71st Congress. From that powerful perch, he joined with Senator Smoot to coauthor the eponymous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930.  Signed into law by President Herbert Hoover against the advice of almost every titan of industry (including Henry Ford, who stayed overnight with President Hoover to repeat his belief that the bill was “an economic stupidity,” and Albert Henry Wiggin, head of the Chase National Bank of New York), Smoot Hawley (the last consequential tariff measure Congress ever passed) contributed mightily to the early loss of confidence on Wall Street and signaled U.S. isolationism. By raising the average tariff by some 20 percent, it also prompted retaliation from foreign governments, and many overseas banks began to fail. Within two years some two dozen countries adopted similar “beggar-thy-neighbor” duties, worsening an already beleaguered world economy and reducing global trade. U.S. imports from - and exports to - Europe fell by some two-thirds between 1929 and 1932, while overall global trade declined by similar levels in the four years that the legislation was in effect.  It was also but one more nail in the political careers of Smoot, Hawley and President Herbert Hoover, all of whom were roundly defeated for reelection in 1932.

Historically, Smoot-Hawley would become to American economic legislation what Dred Scott v. Sandford  and Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization  are to Supreme Court Decisions: the worst of the worst. In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, reducing tariff levels and promoting trade liberalization and cooperation with foreign governments. Some historians have argued that this particular tariff, by deepening the Great Depression, may have contributed to the rise of political extremism, enabling leaders such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to increase their political strength and gain power.

             Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO)

As noted above, Smoot-Hawley was the last time major tariff legislation was enacted by Congress. Ever since, tariff policy has moved from the legislative to the executive branch. Ironically, another Hawley, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, the MAGA Maniac from Missouri, recently introduced S.1537,  the “Raising Tariffs on Imports from China Act of 2024,” legislation. According to a report from Reuters, Senator Hawley’s proposal would raise the base tariff rate on Chinese cars by 100% (especially “EVs” - electric vehicles) from the current 2.5%, effectively putting a 125% tariff on imported Chinese vehicles. It also seeks to apply a 100% tariff to cars assembled in Mexico by China-based automakers. Besides being a disciple of “Trump’s Tariff Czar” Robert Lighthizer, the man who never met a levy he did not love, Hawley’s gambit is that this legislative ploy (which to date hasn’t signed up a single cosponsor)  might get him a Vice Presidential nod.  Just what is it about the family name “Hawley?”

 Now, what Donald Trump proposes is, in my relatively untutored opinion, far, far worse than Smoot-Hawley. Suggesting that this "all-tariffs-all-the-time” bilge would put dollars into the pockets of the middle class is, like his tax cut, both a fraud and an outright lie . . . not to mention something which could easily pull the rest of the developed world into economic chaos. As I understand it, tariffs hike consumer prices because companies pass on the cost of the tariffs they pay. Tariffs currently account for $88.3 billion of the $4.4 trillion in revenues the U.S. government reported in fiscal year 2023. Income taxes brought in about $2.2 trillion, the Treasury Department reported.  To bring tariff revenues even close to income tax levels would require a dramatic spike in import taxes, much, much higher than Trump’s proposed 10%. 

His proposed 10% tax on all imports, and 60% tax on all imports from China, specifically, would also raise costs for average Americans, according to the analysis, amounting to a $2,500 annual tax hike for the typical family. That sum includes annual tax increases of $250 on electronics, $160 on clothing, $120 on oil and $110 on food.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has also said he would use revenues from import taxes to extend his 2017 tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, which are set to expire. That would mean the top 0.1% of Americans would experience a tax cut of about $325,000 a year while middle-income families, after extending the tax cuts, would see a $1,600 net tax increase.

Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist and a Nobel Prize winner in economics, did some quick math and posted on X that a "first-pass estimate" suggests Trump's proposal "would require an *average* tariff rate of 133 percent.”  If Trump had his way, taxes on middle-income households would rise by $5,100 to $8,300 a year, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal advocacy group. By contrast, the top 0.1% of households would see their taxes cut by about $1.5 million a year, per the analysis, which notes that it would not be mathematically possible to replace all income taxes with tariffs alone.

Former Treasury Secretary (1999-2001), President of Harvard University (2001-2006) and the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government flatly stated that Donald Trump’s proposal, besides being the worst in all American history, is “. . . a prescription for the mother of all stagflations.”  What is “stagflation,” and why is it so incredibly dangerous? 

“Stagflation” is a not easily achievable economic amalgam of stagnant (zero) economic growth combined with high inflation and high unemployment all at the same time.  The U.S.'s last memory of stagflation was in the 1970s when double-digit inflation and unemployment rates scarred the economy. To combat it, then Fed Chair Paul Volker hiked rates to 20 percent, a drastic and unprecedented move that forced the U.S. economy into a 16-month recession through November 1982. And this is what Trump’s economic plan is for America should he be reelected?  In the (supposed) words of that master of the malaprop, Sam Goldwyn, “Include me out!”

There are tons of reasons why Donald J. Trump must be kept far, far away from the White House.  The entire alphabet argues in favor of putting him in a padded cell: A(ttitude), B(igotry), C(upidity), D(emeaning). E(gomaniacal), F(atuous), G(ross), H(ateful), I(nsufferable), J(ejune),  K(ooky), L(ethal), M(endacious), N(oisome). O(bnoxious), P(eurile), Q(uisling), R(epugnant), S(hifty). T(errifying), U(nstable), V(icious), W(hiny), X(enophobic), Y(obbish) and finally,  Z(ombielike).

Class dismissed!

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#992: I'd Swap MTG, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, Matt Gaetz and the Rest of the Congressional Clown Car For Florence Kahn Any Day of the Week. . .and Twice on Sunday

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer 

Back in the early 1980s, when Chuck Schumer was an unknown, very junior member of the House of Representatives, a savvy political journalist glimpsed into his or her crystal ball and prognosticated: It won’t be long before the most dangerous place in American politics will be the 5 or 6 feet between a television camera and the very young, very brash freshman representative from Brooklyn’s 16th Congressional District.  

It turns out, of course, that the journalist hit the nail on the head.  For not only has Chuck Schumer been one of the most oft-quoted members of Congress for the past forty years; he is the Senate Majority Leader -  the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in all American history. Over the past half-century (Schumer was originally elected to two terms in the New York State Assembly starting in 1975), Schumer has been far, far more than a show-horse; he has long been a doer. He has long been a successful legislative leader whether in the majority or minority. Schumer’s fingerprints are easily visible on some of the most important bills enacted over the years including the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (1993) and the Violence Against Women Act (1994), as well as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka “Obama Care” 2010), which he played a decisive roil in steering it through committee and on to passage. Throughout his career, he has sponsored or cosponsored more than 2,300 pieces of legislation.

Schumer has long evinced the kind of mind, work ethic, collegiality, and understanding of the political process that easily sets him apart from the current crop of fatuous third-stringers currently striding the Halls of Congress . . . people like Senators Tuberville and Britt, Hawley, and Johnson, as well as Representatives Greene and Boebert, Gaetz, Luna, and Donalds, Gosar, Good, and Mace. 

        The “JK” Playground in San Francisco

Over more than 3 decades, I have researched, written and published more than 215 biographic sketches and articles on the nearly 225 Jewish men and women who have served in the United States Congress. One of my very favorites, without question, is Florence Kahn, who represented what would eventually become Sala Burton’s, Barbara Boxer’s and Nancy Pelosi’s District in San Francisco. In interviewing the three for my biographic works The Congressional Minyan (2000) and The Jews of Capitol Hill (2010) they all remembered with great fondness the many hours they had spent with their young children (and now grandchildren) at the Julius Kahn Playground and Clubhouse which was named after Florence’s late husband Julius, himself a member of Congress for 24 years. Located at Jackson and Spruce, the “JK” was, until its name was officially changed to the “Presidio Wall Playground” in 2019, the nation’s largest urban park. (The name change came because Julius, it turned out, was also one of the members in Congress who helped extend the racist Chinese Exclusion Act [originally passed in 1882] to 1902.  As a result of this, in 2019, the citizens of San Francisco demanded the name change.) 

       Rep. Julius Kahn (2861-1924)

Florence’s husband, the German-born Julius (1861-1924) was originally a pretty well-known actor who trod the boards in his new country for a number of years.  His wife Florence encouraged him to go to study law; by the early 1890s, he was a practicing attorney and, with his wife’s guidance got himself elected to the California State Assembly in 1892. She managed his first Congressional campaign in 1899 and worked as his Chief of Staff and campaign manager until he died in 1924.  During his quarter-century in the House, Kahn became an expert on foreign affairs and, although a Republican, became President Woodrow Wilson’s guaranteeing American  involvement in what was then called “The Great War.” 

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 9, 1866, Florence’s parents, who had emigrated from Poland, were actually friends with the Mormon leader Brigham Young. Florence Prag Kahn lived a life of firsts:

• The first Jew born in Utah

• The first woman to graduate from Berkeley (class of 1887)

• The first woman to manage a congressional campaign (for her husband Julius, in 1899)

• The first Jewish woman elected to the House of Representatives

• The first woman to serve on both the House Military Affairs and Appropriations Committees.

Additionally, she was largely responsible for the funding of both the Golden Gate and Oakland Bay Bridges, and was so instrumental in the early funding of the FBI that its director, J. Edgar Hoover, always referred to her as “The mother of the FBI.”

  Florence Prag Kahn (1866-1948)

Politically adroit, fearless and frumpy, Rep. Kahn also had a dry sense of humor and was known to possess the quickest wit on The Hill. Once, when asked how she was able to pass far more significant legislation than most of her male colleagues, she famously responded: “Don’t you know? It’s my sex appeal, honey!” When assigned to the Committee on Indian Affairs, she flatly turned it down, telling then-Speaker Nicholas Longworth III (the husband of T.R.’s daughter “Princess Alice” Roosevelt) “The only Indians in my district are made of wood and sit outside cigar stores . . . and I can’t do a damn thing for them! Put me on Military Affairs!” Then there was the time that New York Representative Fiorello LaGuardia accused her of being “. . . nothing but a standpatter, following the reactionary Senator Moses of New Hampshire.” Mrs. Kahn is reported to have wriggled loose from her chair, jammed her nondescript hat over her nose, and bellowed: “Why shouldn’t I choose Moses as my leader? Haven’t my people been following him for ages?” The House erupted into gales of laughter, LaGuardia - himself the son of a Jewish mother - included.

My favorite Florence Prag Kahn quip - and one which likely wouldn’t get a laugh from members of the current Congressional “Clown Car Caucus” - comes from the time when the House’s most ultraconservative - and least liked - member acidly asked her, “Would you support a birth control law?” Without taking time to draw a breath, Rep. Kahn answered, “Yes I would . . . if you personally make it retroactive!”

I remember doing my initial research on Mrs. Kahn back in the early 1990s. I was occupying a tiny cubby on the top floor of Harvard’s Widener Library. When I came across this line I cracked up and almost fell out of my chair . . . so much so that there quickly erupted the sound of a couple of dozen people “shushing” me. Believe me, it was hard to stop laughing . . .

Frequently, Mrs. Kahn used her rapier-like wit as a cover for her revulsion or distaste; call it the verbal version of Bonaparte’s “iron fist in a velvet glove” . . . firmness being couched not with outward gentleness, but rather with wit. Alas, such is rarely the case within the halls and walls of Congress. Today, instead of wit and double-entendre zingers, we hear catcalls and shouts of “YOU LIE!” as well as inanities such as “a stepmother really isn’t a mother at all,” or “Women who support abortion rights are too ugly to need them. Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.”

The various members of “Clown Car Caucus” who make these sort of comments - comments which drip with animus and ignorance - are perfect examples of the sorts of people to whom Florence Kahn was referring - those who would have made far greater contributions to society by never having been born in the first place. Think of the Frank Capra/James Stewart classic it’s a Wonderful Life . . . but in reverse. In the 1946 classic (the best film never to have won an Oscar), Stewart’s character, George Bailey, sees his life fall apart so quickly that he contemplates suicide . . . that his family - indeed, the entire world - would be better off with him dead. But the prayers of his loved ones result in his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody, (played to perfection by Henry Travers who’s in the photo alongside Stewart) coming to Earth to help him, with the promise of earning his wings. He shows George what things would have been like if he had never been born. And of course, being a Frank Capra film, everything comes up roses, sweet tea and scones.

Now let’s reverse that by implementing Rep. Kahn’s sarcastic quip, and granting retroactivity to the births of people who are daily making the world more dangerous, less civil, and stupefyingly more intolerant by march, marching to the beat of their dictatorial drums. These are the merchants of mayhem, whose chief wares are fear, fanaticism provincialism, and bigotry . . . four things the world can definitely do without.

Oh, if only they had never been born!

I’ll take the likes of Florence Prag Kahn over the clowns any day of the week . . . and twice on Sunday!

Copyright©2024 Kurt F. Stone

#991: Contraception and the Future of Medical Research

Of all the many “hats” I have worn over the past half-century - rabbi, political historian and speech-writer, author, blogger and essayist, occasional actor, professional “Hollywood Brat,” and medical ethicist - it’s this last one which has always given me the greatest sense of purpose, pleasure, and pride. Why? Well, simply put, it’s the one pursuit that has always given me the feeling that perhaps - just perhaps - I’m making a difference. I mean, week in, week out for more years than I can remember, I have been charged with the task of vetting medical research “informed consent” forms (ICFs) whose purpose is to safeguard the rights of men, women, and children who might well become volunteer participants in serious clinical trials.  It is my job - along with a host of brilliant medical specialists, surgeons, scientists, and bioengineers who work for the Institutional Review company called Advarra - to further the aims of medical research in fields ranging from oncology and infectious diseases to gynecology, gastroenterology, and dozens of other ologies in the pursuit of progress.  Indeed, it is the greatest of all honors to be the enemies of those who reject science . . . who believe that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a criminal who should be put in jail for crimes against humanity.  We who gladly labor in the vineyards of medical ethics are the ones, after all, who were instrumental in making sure that various COVID-19 vaccines got into the veins of people in record time . . . thus saving tens of millions of lives.

 This past Wednesday (June 5, 2024), while spending the better part of the day vetting several Informed Consent Forms (ICFs) dealing with trials concerning various diseases and syndromes, I was keeping an eye on a computer “crawler” keeping me up-to-date on a particular vote in the U.S. Senate; one dealing with the future of contraception. In order to understand just what it was that the Senate was voting on this past Wednesday, one must first recall something Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion overturning Roe v Wade (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization et al ): “[The Court] should reconsider” all three decisions, saying it had a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents (Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 decision that declared married couples had a right to contraception; Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 case invalidating sodomy laws and making same-sex sexual activity legal across the country; and Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case establishing the right of gay couples to marry.) Then, Justice Thomas wrote, after “overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions” protected the rights they established.

The bill the senate was voting on this past Wednesday, was the Right to Contraception Act (S1999), sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey and cosponsored by nearly every Democrat in that body. Its purpose in being brought to the floor for an up-or-down vote at this particular time was as clear as clear can be: to force Senate Republicans (as well as those in the House where there is a companion bill) to go on the record as to whether they are for or against permitting women to have legal access to virtually any form of birth control (sans complete sexual abstention). From a political point of view - and in an election year - it was a great idea: make Republicans accountable. According to the national poll 538, “, . . . around 90 percent of Americans said condoms and birth control pills should be legal in “all” or “most” cases, and 81 percent said the same of IUDs (intrauterine devices). And, there is very little difference in support for the legality of each of these contraceptives across party lines.’ It seemed like a slam dunk for the Democrats.’

But what did the Republicans do? Instead of voting against Senator Markey’s bill and exposing themselves as a bunch of retrograde Luddites, they voted to block action on the legislation. Senate Republicans, aware that contraception access is overwhelmingly popular even with their own voters, pretended their “no” votes were meaningless. “This is a show vote. It’s not serious. It doesn’t mean anything,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. More than 20 GOP senators signed a statement from Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., declaring “There is no threat to access to contraception… and it’s disgusting that Democrats are fearmongering on this important issue to score cheap political points.” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., baselessly claimed the bill could be applied to protect access to abortion pills. He also scoffed at the notion that Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that struck down state criminal bans on the sale of birth control to married couples, is in danger. “Nobody’s gonna overturn Griswold,” he said. “No way.”

 What’s that old retort from childhood? Liar, liar, pants on fire . . . “  I have to believe that those Republicans old enough to remember this verse also remember its response: I don’t care, I don’t care; I can buy another pair.  The final vote was 51-39 on this procedural issue that required at least 60 senators in order to move forward. But they are unwilling to go on the record; to put their votes where their mouths are, thus facing the political consequences of their cowardice. In the main, GOP lawmakers said the measure was too broad as well as unnecessary. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, both Republicans, broke with their party and voted to advance the legislation. Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. JD Vance didn’t vote.

At the precise moment the crawler on the bottom of one of my computer screens flashed the news about the failed vote, I was vetting an informed consent document on the efficacy of administering an injection of a particular drug SubQ (into the fatty tissue just beneath the skin, as opposed to IV -  directly into the vein) for subjects with Multiple Sclerosis - a long-lasting (chronic) disease of the central nervous system which is thought to be an autoimmune disorder . . . a condition in which the body attacks itself by mistake.  The object of the study I was working on was to see if a SubQ injection is as safe and clinically efficacious as the same drug when infused or injected into a vein. 

As my eyes moved over to the screen with the crawler, I was reading through the section dealing with pregnancy; both the inclusionary and exclusionary criteria, and what forms of birth control must be used by women (and men) if they are going to be participants in the study.  (n.b.: there are currently more than 1 million people living with MS in the United States; women are three times more likely than men to be diagnosed with this potentially debilitating condition.)  

Just about any and every Informed Consent Form (ICF) contains a rather lengthy and all-encompassing section dealing with pregnancy.  In most cases, pregnancy (or the ability to get a partner pregnant) is an exclusion . . . unless the potential subject of the trial or study uses one or more forms of birth control.  Then the form will continue with a long list of various acceptable methods of control.

As I was scanning this section, half my brain was thinking about the vote just concluded in the U.S. Senate.  Then it dawned on me: if birth control is (G-d forbid) outlawed, it likely lead to the utter dismantling of most future medical research.  How so? Well, if one cannot prevent pregnancy (except via total abstinence) one cannot participate in most - if not all - clinical trials; and without the ability to conduct ethical, well-monitored medical research, few if any new drugs or treatments will ever see the light of day.  I wonder if any of these “pro-birth” (my preferred term for what has heretofore been called "pro-life”) conservatives and anti-science conspiratorialists have considered this chillingly ironic political sequela (a medical term defined as “A pathological condition resulting from a prior disease, injury, or attack.”)  As much as I would like to give the anti-birth control, anti science crowd the benefit of the doubt - i.e. that they haven’t considered the very serious real-life consequences of their political actions - I cannot; the fact of the matter is that the further they progress, the more medical science - and thus all of us - retrogress. 

Not a day goes by without hearing that in 2024, Democracy, freedom, and the right to choose are all on the ballot.  Those making this breathless statement are telling the truth.  Now we can add another truth: in 2024, the future of both science and medicine are also on the ballot.  Think wisely; be proactive; the future is ours to protect, so that we may all be protected in and from the future. 

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#990: The Verdict?

Sidney Lumet’s 1982 film The Verdict, based on a novel by celebrated attorney Barry Reed, has long been considered one of the greatest trial-based films of all time. It’s no wonder for the simple reason that the movie had it all: a dream cast (Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, and James Mason) a gripping screenplay by the young David Mamet, an equally gripping plotline, real flesh-and-blood characters, and world-class directing. In a deceptively simple tale, Newman plays hard-drinking Frank Galvin, who is a cynical lawyer on the skids. Then a vital, young woman dies in a Catholic hospital, and Frank smells blood. Suddenly, with something to fight for, Frank comes alive, exploding in the courtroom, taking on both the hospital and the Catholic Church.  Tellingly, the original final draft of David Mamet's screenplay contained no verdict. Producer Richard D. Zanuck commented that without a verdict, the title would require a question mark on advertising materials making it "The Verdict?". Director Sidney Lumet convinced Mamet to add a verdict so that the film could have a third-act dénouement.  Hence, it became The Verdict . . . plain, simple, and declarative. 

Having read the first paragraph of this week’s essay, you are no doubt aware that it is not about a great motion picture.  If it were, you would be reading it on my other blog, Tales From, Hollywood & Vine.  And you no doubt have already noticed that I am using the original title for the movie . . . The Verdicts. Indeed, this piece is about both the verdict handed down by a jury of 12 Manhattanites against the former POTUS - 12 men and women found Trump GUILTY on each of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a case stemming from a payment that silenced porn star Stormy Daniels  - as well as what the verdict of Judge Juan Merchan will be when he announces the sentence against Donald Trump on July 11, as well as what verdict the American public will give come November 5 - precisely 153 days from now. Just as a wide swath of the American public - those who actually paid attention throughout the trial’s 7 weeks held their breath awaiting the jury’s decision - so too are an even wider swath of the public waiting to see what verdict the public will issue; will it matter that Donald Trump is a convicted felon?

As the jury foreperson called out each guilty verdict, the former president became transformed. He was no longer a man to whom the laws of gravity no longer applied, but a defendant in a courtroom like any other; one who now faces the indignities of sentencing—potentially including prison time. He has said that he plans to appeal, and an appeals court could eventually toss out the conviction—but that would be a long ways away, almost certainly after voters have finished casting their ballots in November. And even if an appeal succeeds, there is no undoing the moment when the country first saw a former president convicted of crimes in a court of law. Then too, in the just-finished trial, Trump was entering as a non-felon. Now he will enter a series of trials - in 2 Federal cases in Washington, D.C., and one in Georgia - he enters the courtroom a convicted felon. And that, my loyal readers, can make all the difference in the world.

Trump did not help himself one iota when, exiting the courtroom, the first former POTUS found guilty of committing felonies, continued right where he left off: calling the trial “the Biden trials” and a “kangaroo court,” proclaiming his innocence, and accusing both judge and jury of being biased political hacks and a couple of dozen other things. Perhaps no one told him that attacking the judge who holds your very future in his hands is not the smartest move on the chessboard.

       NYC Councilman Yusef Salaam 

My personal feeling about the decision was best summed up by New York City Councilmember Yusef Salaam, one of the Exonerated Five, a group of Black and Latino men who were wrongly convicted of raping a jogger in Central Park when they were teenagers. In his official statement he said: “Even though Donald Trump wanted us executed even when it was proven that we were innocent, I do not take pleasure at today’s verdict.” He added: “We should be proud that today the system worked. But we should be somber that we Americans have an ex-president who has been found guilty on 34 separate felony charges.”

Amen.

While some Democrats were singing a Hallelujah chorus as a result of the verdict, WinREd, a major conservative money-raising website, proudly announced that it had crashed due  to so many contributions being made to Donald Trump. They claimed that within the first 24 hours after Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts, his supporters sent in more than $34 million  worth of donations.  What  percentage of this take will go to his presidential campaign - as opposed to paying his attorneys - is anyone’s guess.   

There is no doubt that Trump and his legal team will appeal Judge Merchan’s sentencing decision, regardless of what it may be. Just yesterday Trump said that he would accept home confinement or jail time, but in the same breath warned "I think it'd be tough for the public to take. You know, at a certain point, there's a breaking point." There is a faintly “dog whistle-like” quality to this statement, reminiscent of Trump’s September 2020 “Stand back and stand by” message to the “Proud Boys” and other white supremacists.  I for one shivered at hearing this. Remember, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), “Recent [gun] purchasers and owners who always or nearly always carried firearms in public were more supportive of and willing to engage in political violence than other subsets of firearm owners.”  One suspects that Trump and  his team didn’t need a scientific study to understand this . . .

  It is the Trump team’s hope - and expectation - that the appeals process will eventually reach the United States Supreme Court who, they fully believe, will overturn the verdict.  But that likely would not happen until well after November 5, the day of the national elections.  Many leading Democrats and legal scholars have already pointedly spoken about the inherent problem of this particular SCOTUS weighing in on a Trump appeal.  This court has a deeply conservative majority; 3 of its 4 newest members were named by Donald Trump, the only president who, having lost the popular vote, was nonetheless able to appoint 3 justices.  For quite some time, various legal scholars - some liberal, some conservative - have been calling for Justices Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves from any and all cases involving Donald Trump.  Both have publicly refused to recuse.  In matter of fact, there is no binding Supreme Court ethics code to force them to do so.  The roll of the Chief Justice is murky; he has nothing more than the power of moral and political persuasion.  Good luck to him.

A recent New York Times op-ed by Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), likely Congress’ leading Constitutional scholar, suggested that there well be a legal way to recuse the  two justices, " . . . not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law."   In his essay, Rep. Raskin who, prior to entering Congress spent 25 years teaching Constitution Law at American Unviersity, wrote: The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland can invoke two powerful textual authorities for this motion: the Constitution of the United States, specifically the due process clause, and the federal statute mandating judicial disqualification for questionable impartiality, 28 U.S.C. Section 455.  Raskin explained the clause thusly:  “Any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The only justices in the federal judiciary are the ones on the Supreme Court.  This recusal statute, if triggered, is not a friendly suggestion. It is Congress’s command, binding on the justices, just as the due process clause is. The Supreme Court cannot disregard this law just because it directly affects one or two of its justices. Ignoring it would trespass on the constitutional separation of powers because the justices would essentially be saying that they have the power to override a congressional command. 

Yet another verdict to be determined.

Precisely what lasting effect Donald Trump’s recent conviction will have on the 2024 election is, at this point, nearly impossible to gauge.  To say that his hardcore supporters will steadfastly remain in his corner goes without saying; to them, he is still the guy, who 2 weeks before the 2016 Iowa caucuses proclaimed he could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and he "wouldn't lose any voters."  Not that long ago, his legal team suggested in federal court that a president could order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and — unless he was impeached and convicted by Congress — be immune from criminal prosecution. This issue of presidential immunity is currently awaiting a public pronouncement by the SOCTUS.  No one knows for sure what effect Trump’s 34-count conviction will have on those voters who self-identify as “Independent.”  Let’s face it: we live in an age where there are as many polling firms as there are stars in the heavens (to murder an old MGM tagline).

At the moment, we are living in David Mamet’s original version of the 1982 film - which garnered 5 Academy Award Nominations - The Verdict?  Whether or not reality will eventually mirror the Sidney Lumet/Richard D. Zanuck version (sans question mark) is anyone’s guess.  Don’t pay attention to the daily polls; they only project the stats their financial backers pay for.  We are the only jury that counts. We are the ones who will ultimately add that “third act dénouement.”  It is up to we, the jury, to remove that question mark (e.g., “The Verdict?), and make the title plain, simple, and at last, declarative.

THE VERDICT!

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#985: As Goes Florida, So Goes . . . ?

Mark Twain, that most revered and authentic of all American writers, had the ability to cloak profundity in the garment of wit, better than anyone who ever took pen to paper. And, like all true geniuses, he made it look oh so easy and utterly natural . . . like Ted Williams swinging a bat or Lord Olivier playing King Lear.  Twain’s great gift was used to entertain, to make us laugh and above all, to make the reader pause and think.   Yes, some of his chapters and paragraphs are, by today’s political standards, decidedly “un-PC.”  But this should by no means keep anyone from drinking deeply from the well of his artistry.  The man really, truly, understood the human condition with all of its wens and warts. 

My five all-time favorite Twain aphorisms are:

• The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

• Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love Truly. Laugh uncontrollably. Never regret anything that makes you smile.

• A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn no other way.

• The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.  And, to my way of thinking, the best of the bunch:

• Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

  I can hear you asking “What in the world do the best of Mark Twain’s epigrams have to do with the title of this week’s blog As Goes Florida, So Goes . . .”  As Grandpa Doc would say, “Vell . . . I’ll tell ‘ya.”  (In truth, Doc didn’t have an accent; he occasionally would adopt one to make a point or begin a story).  The story here is that I was doing my research for this week’s blog, which  was meant to discuss some of the wackier, inane new laws passed by our overwhelmingly MAGA-supporting legislature and signed by Governor “Rhonda Santis.” In the midst of reading some of several of the most noxious bills, I found myself wanting to know if all this crappola was keeping people from moving to the Sunshine State.  This query quickly expanded to the question of which states were gaining and which were losing, the greatest numbers of people over the past two years.  Coming upon an article on the topic published in MarketWatch.com (a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company, a property of News Corp, along with The Wall Street Journal and Barron's), I learned that the top 3 states losing people were:

  • California (A net migration of -407, 633)

  • New York ( −283,792) and

  • New Mexico ( -177,710), while the 3 biggest gainers were:

  • Florida ( +205,163) 

  • Texas ( +144,032) and 

  • North Carolina ( +99,406).

The rest of the states reporting net positive migration are, in order, Arizona, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada and Idaho.  With the possible exceptions of Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, the rest of the positive-migration states are solidly, irredeemably, hardcore MAGA in their politics and legislatures. (I for one refuse to call it ‘the MAGA wing’  of the Republican Party for I, unlike many, cannot find a solitary remnant of what used  to be nicknamed the GOP . . . they are all MAGA).  And, from where I sit, this bodes poorly for the future of politics in these United States.  For MAGA-controlled legislatures, serving under MAGA-supporting governors, who appoint MAGA-istic Federalist Society judges, can jointly enact just about any measure they please coming out of the autocratic playbook coauthored by the  likes of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Susie Wiles, and Stephen Miller.  

Think I’m going a bit too far?  Well, consider just a few of the things happening here in Florida, the state I have been hanging out in since July 6, 1982:

• We have a state Surgeon General/Secretary of Health, Joseph Lapado, M.D., PhD., who is anti COVID and MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccines - among other things - and has totally politicized medicine here in the Sunshine State.  As someone who has been gainfully employed on two of the best Institutional Review Boards in America for nearly 30 years, and have reviewed hundreds upon hundreds of clinical trials in the fields of infectious diseases, oncology and epidemiology, I am simply amazed (and scared witless) at the man’s ability to place partisan politics way, way ahead of provable science and medicine.  Whatever happened to “First, do no harm?”

• Here in Florida, as of July, 2023, we have a gun law which allows  Florida residents to carry concealed weapons without benefit of a license - let alone taking a single safety course - with impunity.  This is perfectly in keeping with the MAGA reading of the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment; they firmly believe than any limitation on guns is unconstitutional.

• Just this past week, the 63rd anniversary of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, (a failed invasion of Cuba supported by the CIA) Gov. DeSantis signed a bill (SB 1264) requiring the teaching of “the dangers and evils of communism” in Florida public schools from grades 1-12.  Coming on the heels of so many Republicans in both the House and Senate voting against sending aid to the Ukraine - which is fighting against the Communist expansion of Putin’s Russia - one wonders if DeSantis and his Florida colleagues are living back in the 1950s, when fighting Communism and individuals they deemed to be Communists - AKA “liberals” or “progressives” - was the sine qua non of “true" Americanism. 

• Less than 2 weeks ago, DeSantis signed a bill into law allowing “volunteer chaplains” to counsel students in traditional public and charter schools,  despite warnings from a pastors group, the ACLU and the Satanic Temple that it would violate the First Amendment.  In signing the bill, the governor said: “There are some students [who] need some soul prep, and that can make all the difference in the world. And so these chaplains … come in and provide services.” DeSantis said the law, set to go effect in July, would stand up to court challenges because the program was voluntary and parents would have to provide consent for their children to meet with the chaplains. “No one’s being forced to do anything, but to exclude religious groups from campus, that is discrimination,” he said. “You’re basically saying that God has no place. That’s wrong. That’s not what our Founding Fathers intended.”  And this guy is a graduate of Yale and earned a law degree at Harvard!  His “understanding” of the Founders and the Constitution’s 1st Amendment guarantees is steeped not in knowledge, but in partisan politics.  (n.b.: The new law uses the title ‘chaplain’ but requires none of the specialized training that health care facilities, the military, and most prisons require of chaplains.)

• Florida ranks second (behind Texas) in the greatest number of banned books. In the most recent ranking by World Population Review, the Sunshine State instituted bans on 565 books in 21 of the state’s school districts.  Governor DeSantis is one of the main people leading the charge against called “critical race theory” (CRT). Many of the books that he and his acolytes have targeted have to do with issues related to race. It is important to note that critical race theory is not taught outside of upper-level college and law school classes.

• Florida ranks just behind Michigan in the states with the highest annual premiums for auto insurance; it is the 4th highest in the cost of homeowner’s insurance (if you can find it), and 4th most expensive for annual healthcare coverage.  

• And to add injury to insult, in less than 48 hours, Florida’s new 6-week abortion ban will go into effect. This past April 1, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the state Constitution's privacy protections do not extend to abortion, overturning decades of legal precedent and effectively triggering the more restrictive law.  On November 5, 2024, Florida voters will vote on a citizen-initiated Constitutional Amendment (#4) which will legalize abortion.  Its text states, in part: “The initiative would provide a constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability (estimated to be around 24 weeks) or when necessary to protect the patient's health, as determined by the patient's healthcare provider.” The fact that proactive citizens managed to collect more than 1 million signatures  to place this measure on the November ballot is the good news.  The not-so-good news? It will take a supermajority for it to pass, and there is already a measure on the November ballot that would increase the supermajority voter approval requirement for constitutional amendments from 60% to 66.67%. 

So,  keeping all the above in mind, why do so many people pick up and move to Florida?  For the sunshine?  Because it has no state income tax?  Because the governor has his own militia? You tell me.  If this is the future of even half of America, we are in dire straits.  It used to be said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek that "As goes New Hampshire, so goes the rest of the nation.”  What the surreality that is currently Florida portends for the rest of the nation is anyone’s guess.

Let us give the final word to Mark Twain (from his Autobiography, Vol. 1): “Look at the tyranny of party -- at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty -- a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes -- and which turns voters into chattels, slaves, rabbits, and all the while their masters, and they themselves are shouting rubbish about liberty, independence, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, honestly unconscious of the fantastic contradiction.”

Coyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#984: A Movement Or Just a Moment?

At the outset, let me make one thing robustly clear: that despite the fact Speaker Mike Johnson successfully managed to get the House to pass 4 crucial bills - aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, plus a TikTok ban and Iranian sanctions - our political differences are wider than the Grand Canyon and deeper than the Mariana Trench. Simply stated, we view reality through radically different eyes. Nonetheless, I doff my cap to him and applaud the political courage it took to do the right thing. Indeed, in addressing the press just after the bills passed said, most simply, that “History will judge it well.”  I couldn’t agree with him more.  I can’t remember the last time I heard a House Republican use the word “history” in referencing their mission or motivation. 

Three cheers must also go to Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies.  Those who understand how Congress truly works – on those rare occasions when it does - know that the most important measures cannot be enacted without a lot of closed-door interaction between both party’s leadership teams.  In comparison to Speaker Johnson’s task this past Saturday, Leader Jeffries’ was, relatively speaking, far easier.  Although 33 of the 99 progressive Democrats wound up voting against aid to Israel, Jeffries knew that the rest of his caucus would vote in its favor . . . and that virtually the entire Democratic Caucus (210 in number) would vote “yay” on aid to Ukraine and Taiwan.  Not so Speaker Johnson: he heads up (it’s hard to say “leads”) a caucus in which an unwieldy minority is as contentious and hide-bound as a congregation of contrarians. And. mind you, most of these naysayers and bomb-throwers are the living embodiment of what another murderous Vladimir (Lenin) termed “useful idiots.”  As things turned out, 44 of 48 members of the so-called “Freedom Caucus” (a.k.a. the “Clown Car Caucus) wound up voting against aid to Ukraine.  

BTW: It should be noted that the Republicans - both “Institutionalists” and “Freedom Caucus” members voted overwhelmingly (193-18) for aid to Israel, 182-16 for aid to Taiwan, and 186-21 for the TikTok ban/sanctions for Iran.  All in all, a very good day; indeed, likely the most memorable of the 118th Congress.

So why the swift change in Speaker Johnson’s political weltanschauung?  He certainly wasn’t pushing aid to Ukraine in order to buttress his position as Speaker;  truth to tell, by working with Leader Jeffries and the Democrats he merely increased the bile stuck in the throats of Reps. Gosar (R-AZ), Thomas Masssie (R-KY) and their leader, the mouth that roars, Rep. Marjorie Taylor (“Moscow Marge”) Greene of Georgia.  The three have publicly  threatened that if Johnson won’t resign his position, they will do everything in their power to remove him from office . . . ala Kevin McCarthy. Greene’s kvetchiest kvetch is that by leading the charge for funding the Ukrainians, Speaker Johnson has in one fell swoop become both a RINO (“Republican in Name Only”) and a fire-breathing liberal. From statements he has made, Johnson doesn’t seem overly concerned about being ousted.  Could this mean he has already received assurances from Minority Leader Jeffries that should the tyrannical triad try to give  him, Johnson, the heave-ho, that the Democrats will provide enough votes to keep him in as leader of the House?  No one knows for sure; this isn’t the kind of thing to be bandied about in public . . . But then too, when even Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post fails to side with Rep. Greene, it is a plausible sign that something’s afoot. 

Isn’t this the same Mike Johnson who just a little more than a week ago made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to shore up support from Donald of Orange?” Yes it is, without question.  But perhaps the Speaker is a better chess player than the former POTUS.  In dividing the bill passed by the Senate into four separate measures, Johnson was essentially laying the groundwork for passing all four.  And it worked . . . along with a lot of help from Jeffries and the Democrats.  Now it is on to the Senate, where it will be quickly passed (over the dead body of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance) and then hustled over to the White House where it will sit on the Resolute Desk (also known as the “Hayes Desk”) for just  a minute or two before it is signed into law by President Joseph Biden.  Score one for Speaker Johnson; score one for President Biden; score one for the 118th Congress; and above all, score one for American prestige in the eyes of our allies.  

Am I the only one who has yet to hear a peep from our former Commander-in-Chief?  I keep waiting for him to say that in  his heart of hearts he really, truly favored funding the Ukrainians in their war against Putin.  As implausible as that may seem,  remember this: the man is a world-class liar.  In truth, he hasn’t uttered a word.  It brings to mind one of best Sherlock Holmes stories, “The Adventure of Silver Blaze.” In it, Holmes solves the theft of a prize racehorse by focusing on what didn’t happen rather than what did. In so doing, Holmes (or more precisely, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) gave us the phrase “the dog that didn’t bark.”   In the case of Donald Trump, don’t wait for the bark . . . he’s too busy glowering at all  the  witnesses and evidence against him in a Manhattan courthouse.

As much as I may pray that yesterday’s triumph in the House was the beginning of a movement, I know in my heart-of-hearts that it is a moment . . . a good one, to be sure.  And as much as I applaud Speaker Johnson for his strength and courage, I know that come next week, he will still be, at base, an ultra-conservative Christian Nationalist who fully supports a national ban on abortion; a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the Second Amendment who cannot bring himself  to deny anyone’s right to stockpile their own assault weapons and nuclear devices; who wishes to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in order to balance the federal budget.  Let’s face facts: a predator  isn’t likely to change its markings.  Nonetheless, I will never cease praying that the carnivores, once they have stepped back from their predatory ways for even a moment, will see the “humanity” of the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the deep blue sea.

     To all of my fellow "Members of the Tribe,” I wish you and yours a kosher un a ziss’n Pesach.    

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#981: Splitting Rails and Telling Tales

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Question: What do actors Ralph Ince, Sam Drane, George Billings, Joseph Henabery, Francis Ford, Walter Houston, Henry Fonda, Raymond Massey, John Carradine, Bing Crosby, Gregory Peck, Jason Robards, Jr., Hal Holbrook, John Anderson, Sam Waterston, Kris Kristofferson, Brendon Fraser, Kevin Sorbo,  and Daniel Day-Lewis (among many, many others) all have in common?

             Henry Fonda in “Young Mr. Lincoln,” 1939, 20th Century Fox

Answer: They all, at one time or another, played Abraham Lincoln on the silver screen. Most film historians agree that ever since the turn of the century (4 score years after Honest Abe’s assassination) until today, there have be more films (at least 200) about America’s 16th President than any other person in human history. And of all the actors to portray Honest Abe on screen, only one - the British born and bred Daniel Day Lewis - took the Oscar for Best Actor. 

(There are also more biographies about Lincoln than any other American, including G. Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Donald J. Trump - for which the pestilential predecessor is thoroughly pissed).

From both a cinematic and a literary point of view, Lincoln was - and continues to be - simply too good to be true - just what the doctor ordered: angular and self-taught; an American with a life straight out of Horatio Alger (who, by the way, would not publish his first “boy’s novel” - Paul Prescott's Charge: A Story for Boys - until 1865, the year of Lincoln’s tragic death); he was witty and wise, a great leader and a martyred prophet; a man of mythic  proportion who is considered to be the greatest of all American presidents.  And, to top it all off, at 6’4”, the tallest of all 46 of that illustrious group.   

         With his top hat on, Lincoln stood nearly 7’ tall 

The mythology surrounding the life of Abraham Lincoln - the kid from Hardin County, Kentucky of a thoroughly undistinguished Virginia family who grew up splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois, who was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, read law and  rode the circuit of courts for many years is pretty much the absolute truth. (He did, by the way, wind up being one of the most in-demand and highest-paid railroad attorneys in the country, who could afford to have his suits made by Brooks Brothers.)

His law partner said of him, “His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.”  It is utterly remarkable that the hagiography surrounding his early life should be so truthful.  It reminds me of the John Cheever short story The Worm in the Apple,  in which the narrator discovers that the Crutchmans, a family that seems too perfect to be real, must be hiding a proverbial “worm in their apple” are, in fact,  just as good as they seem to be. 

Yes, Abraham Lincoln did suffer tremendous emotional and psychological loss in the death of his true love, Anne Rutledge, and yes, his future wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, was a difficult person - a harridan by all accounts - which led to her husband’s melancholy (manic depression); nonetheless, he went on to become a brilliant and utterly valorous leader.   And oh, how he could spin a tale!

In 1890, a quarter century after Lincoln’s assassination, journalist Alexander McClure, editor of the Philadelphia Times, and one of the founders of the Republican Party, published a large tome entitled Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories.  The book contains hundreds of marvelous tales told by a master.  Here’s one of my favorites, which still brings a loud guffaw.  It’s entitled  Done With the Bible. He never told a better one:

A country meeting-house, that was used once a month, was quite a distance from any other house.

The preacher, an old-line Baptist, was dressed in coarse linen pantaloons, and shirt of the same material. The pants, manufactured after the old fashion, with baggy legs, and a flap in the front, were made to attach to his frame without the aid of suspenders.

A single button held his shirt in position, and that was at the collar. He rose up in the pulpit, and with a loud voice announced his text thus: “I am the Christ whom I shall represent to-day.”

About this time a little blue lizard ran up his roomy pantaloons. The old preacher, not wishing to interrupt the steady flow of his sermon, slapped away on his leg, expecting to arrest the intruder, but his efforts were unavailing, and the little fellow kept on ascending higher and higher.

Continuing the sermon, the preacher loosened the central button which graced the waistband of his pantaloons, and with a kick off came that easy-fitting garment.

But, meanwhile, Mr. Lizard had passed the equatorial line of the waistband, and was calmly exploring that part of the preacher’s anatomy which lay underneath the back of his shirt.

Things were now growing interesting, but the sermon was still grinding on. The next movement on the preacher’s part was for the collar button, and with one sweep of his arm off came the tow linen shirt.

The congregation sat for an instant as if dazed; at length one old lady in the rear part of the room rose up, and, glancing at the excited object in the pulpit, shouted at the top of her voice: “If you represent Christ, then I’m done with the Bible.”

Sad to say, were Abraham Lincoln alive and running for the White House in 2024, he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting the nomination of the party he founded, let alone getting elected.  Why?  Well, first and foremost, he had, what laughingly used to be known in Hollywood as “A face made only for radio.”  If you think Donald Trump’s bird’s nest hairdo, tailored paunch, and ersatz tan have been the butt of every late-night TV host’s opening monologue, imagine what they would have done with Abe. Then too, there was the matter of his earnestness; he spoke from the heart and refused to slosh about in the political muck ‘n mire like a majority of today’s supposed leaders.  He had big dreams and knew how to turn most of them into reality.  But most importantly, the average modern American, like the narrator in Cheever’s marvelous short story, is simply too damned cynical, gullible, uninformed, and politically naïve to see what an absolute jewel this man was.

Back in 1938, the great director John Ford approached the young Henry Fonda to star in his next film, “Young Mr. Lincoln.” For an up-and-coming actor like Fonda to star in a film directed by Ford, Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, and penned by the preeminent screenwriter Lamar Trotti should have been a no-brainer. I mean we’re talking about John Ford here; a man who Fonda later described as “A son-of-bitch who happened to be a genius.” And yet, when first asked, Fonda turned Ford down flat.

“What are you,” Ford demanded. “Nuts? Don’t you realize how perfect you’d be for the part?”

“Sorry,” the 33-year-old Fonda replied. “Playing Abraham Lincoln . . . it’s like being asked to play Jesus! I just can’t do it.” Ford, not a man to beg, asked Fonda if he would at least pay a visit to the make-up and wardrobe departments and then do a very brief screen test. Fonda agreed . . . after all, who was he to deny the great Ford a small favor? Fonda went off and spent the better part of a day with makeup stylist Clay Campbell. costume director Sam Benson (who put 3-inch lifts in the 6’1” Fonda’s boots), and then filmed a two-minute scene. By the time Ford put his first in front of the camera lens (which was his custom instead of yelling “Cut!” or “Cease!,” Fonda wanted nothing more in the world than to play the young Lincoln.

And what a choice it turned out to be; the most honest of all American actors portraying the most honest of all American icons.

Do yourself a favor and get hold of a copy of this film; you’ll be glad you did. And who knows? Perhaps it might inspire you to be a bit less cynical, a bit less intolerant of human flaws in essentially good-hearted people who want to serve . . . to unite rather than divide, to split a rail and tell a tale.

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#980: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Believe it or not, back in 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was so busy being POTUS that he didn’t really acknowledge he was also in the midst of a presidential campaign until Monday, October 28th. . . a mere 8 days before the election.  Republicans were hammering Roosevelt for what they claimed was the nation’s lack of military preparedness, and isolationists and anti-Semites were holding mass demonstrations against America getting involved in Europe. Democrats were alarmed enough to persuade FDR to take to the campaign trail in the final weeks before the election. The Republican nominee, Wendell Willkie, seemed to be gaining momentum. Roosevelt fought back in a speech at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Monday, Oct. 28.

On that date, FDR, perhaps the best pure politician to ever occupy the White House, made his case to the American people, creating a model for how a president can make American leadership abroad a selling point rather than a problem. He named names, and it connected with voters.

In the speech, Roosevelt deployed the full force of his rhetorical talents against three leading Republican isolationist leaders: Mass. Rep. (and future House Speaker) Joseph Martin, the then-House minority leader; N.Y. Rep. Bruce Barton, a conservative ad man and best-selling author who had founded the agency BBDO; and the patrician N.Y. Rep. Hamilton Fish III, who had opposed measures to rearm the nation and aid the victims of Hitler’s aggression.

In the first draft of the speech, the names — Barton, Fish and Martin — were listed in alphabetical order. But during one of their late-night writing sessions, FDR and his speechwriters, Robert Sherwood and Judge Samuel Rosenman (who first coined the term “The New Deal,” and whose daughter Lynn is the wife of Attorney General Merrick Garland), hit on a more rhythmic option: Martin, Barton and Fish. Roosevelt immediately seized on the new rhyming litany. As one aide later recalled, “The president repeated the sequence several times and indicated by swinging his finger how effective it would be with audiences.”  Within 2 days, wherever Roosevelt campaigned (whistle-stop speeches), he repeated  the rhyming meme to adoring crowds who would drown him out by repeatedly chanting “MARTIN, BARTON, AND FISH!” The 3 became akin to a triple-headed Uriah Heap to FDR’s David Copperfield.  It worked well: Roosevelt trounced businessman Wendell Willkie by more than 5 million votes, capturing 41 of the 48 states.

MARTIN, BARTON, AND FISH! It should be noted that Wendell Willkie, unlike so many politicians (which he was decidedly not), and candidates for high office put patriotism before party; he supported FDR’s Lend-Lease program and backed legislation creating the nation’s first peacetime draft. Thanks to its passage, some 1.65 million men were in uniform when America finally entered the war in December 1941. Needless to say, Willkie’s true patriotism - plus the MARTIN, BARTON, AND FISH! chant - made FDR’s reelection to a third term all but inevitable. (It should be noted that Willkie planned on running against Roosevelt again in 1944, but was denied the nomination; he was anathema to a wide swathe of the GOP. He died at age of a massage heart attack at age 52, just weeks before the election.)

Today, it is all but impossible to find (with perhaps the exception of Liz Cheyney) a Republican who will put principle ahead of  partisanship. Then too, it is nearly as impossible to imagine President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. employing a slogan that works as brilliantly as FDR’s MARTIN, BARTON, and FISH! Let’s face facts: as good a public speaker as Biden can be, he’s no FDR; indeed, since FDR, the only ones who come close are JFK, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.  And of course, both the times and the society in which we live are incredibly different.  When FDR spoke to the nation over radio, there were perhaps 5 or 6 microphones sitting in front of him.  Today, a speech or campaign stop by Joe Biden has tens of dozens of journalists (some real, some as phony as a 3 dollar bill) videotaping his every word so they may be edited or put through A.I. (artificial intelligence) to make him look like fully-in-charge political figure or an ancient stumblebum who doesn’t know his right from his left.    

My suggestion is that President Biden and his campaign staff “show some hair” (as we used to say back in the sixties) and, taking a page from the FDR playbook start putting names in cadence. Shaming and ridiculing the likes of “Gym” Jordan (Chair of the  House Judiciary Committee),  James Comer (Chair of the House Oversight Committee who never met a high-ranking Democratic member of the Executive Brranch he didn’t want to start impeachment proceedings against), Marjorie Taylor Greene (The Republican Party’s own Tricoteuse (Think Madame Defarge in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities), “Legislative Terrorists” Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert, and, of course, Donald Trump himself.  And although there is no euphonious twin for "MARTIN, BARTON, and FISH!, perhaps we can come close.  How’s  about:

• JORDAN AND JOHNSON & TRUMP

• GAETZ AND GOSAR & TRUMP

• TUBERVILLE, HAWLEY & TRUMP 

• STEFANIK, SCALISE & TRUMP

If anyone reading this piece has their own meme of political names, please drop me an email . . .

Unquestionably, there are more members of Congress and their cult leader whose names can become as effective as MARTON, BARTON & FISH, or as historic as TINKERS TO EVERS TO CHANCE.  The main point is to use them as derisive needles.  And they have earned these needles.  So many of the new class of MAGAite Republicans elected to office have not come to Congress to get things done on behalf of the American people, but rather to undo virtually anything and everything the legislative branch has done since the days long ago when FDR’s speechwriters shot arrows bearing the names of MARTIN, BARTON &FISH!

They have earned our scorn and contempt; they deserve to be forced through a gauntlet of ridicule.  Who knows, may, just maybe, Donald Trump himself - whose existence is stretched between the Scylla of financial ruin and the Charybdis of global humiliation - might give vent to his final public tantrum.  

Between Trump and his congressional sycophants, they just can’t keep from going against the public will; of proving time and again that they are as unqualified a group of “leaders” as this country has ever seen or known. In refusing to pass a bipartisan bill regarding America’s Southern border (which had great bipartisan support) or backing off support for the Ukraine (which they originally supported), they made the kind of headlines no one wants.  Time and again they have shown that these MAGA Republicans (like Gaetz & Gosar or Jordan & Johnson, or Stefanik & Scalise) have only one criterion: following the marching orders of Donald Trump. Through their (in)actions, they are digging their own political graves. 

Which is why this article came to be entitled “The Gift That Keeps on Giving.” 

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#978: Caffeine, Crucifixes and Cleavage

Over the past 96 hours - the time since Joseph R. Biden concluded his 3rd - and by all measures best - State of the Union (SOTU) of his presidency, things have been going pretty damn well for the Democrats. For not only did Biden receive nearly universal applause for his barnburner of a speech; he all but erased the nasty nickname “Sleepy Joe” from the airwaves. Those on the other side of the political aisle who have long portrayed him as a doddering octogenarian likely suffering from pre-senile dementia, are now accusing him of having been “over caffeinated” during his historic address. Even Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, long accustomed to trashing “Uncle Joe” with such front-page headlines as Where’s Joe?, He Said What?,  Biden’s Secret Emails, and Glazed and Confused, were forced to damn him with faint praise with the two-word headline He’s Alive!”  Of course, in smaller print the front page article says “Bitter exchanges over border,” and “Tax raid on the rich.”  Sometimes you just can’t win for losing.

Within 24 hours of giving his SOTU address, the Biden campaign raised more than $10 million in donations from more than 116,000 supporters.  Compare this to the Trump campaign/Republican National Committee, which is, as the saying goes, “Down on its uppers.” Most of their cash is going to pay for their boss’s legal bills. The very next day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economy added upwards of 275,000 new jobs in February, easily besting the Wall street Journal ‘s 200,000 prediction.

Does this mean that the MAGAites are going to stop accusing the President of being a doddering codger? Of course not; I’m sure they’ve already put together a edited version of Biden’s SOTU showing nothing but his rhetorical stumbles and coughs. The only thing they have to worry about is that the Dems also have their own edited takes on all times the “Predecessor” has stomped on his tongue or lapsed into incomprehensible Klingon-speak over just the past week. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander . . . but not so good for Democracy. Would the MAGA cultists on Capitol Hill give Joe Biden at least a couple of days off from their normal stridency? Of course not; as I write this, CSPAN is broadcasting a hearing on why Biden should be impeached for hiding secret documents.

But let’s go back to last Thursday night; what happened within minutes after President Biden’s resounding peroration: the rebuttal by 1st-term Alabama Senator Katie Britt. And what a tone-deaf address it was. She wasn’t as bad as then Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal when he gave the rebuttal back in 2009; she was far, far worse. She wasn’t as much of an amateurish joke as Florida Senator Marco “Water Bottle” Rubio in 2015; her appearance and deliverance (not to mention the June Cleaver kitchen mise en scène) were far too bizarre to be a mere joke. Even Arkansas Senator Sarah Huckabee Sanders did a better job last year . . . sticking almost exclusively to how President Biden and the Democrats were nothing more than tools of left-wing “woke” culture. Jindal Rubio, Huckabee Sanders and now Britt all came in with high expectations; their rebuttals were tryouts for future positions in future Republican administrations. All failed the test; none will ever be POTUS or even VPOTUS.

Britt’s response was so out-there that even as she was speaking, bloggers and podcasters were asking who would portray her on the next Saturday Night Live.  Tom Nichols, (@RadioFreeTom) posted at 11:01 that night, There is no way that this Katie Britt address does not end up as part of the SNL cold open.  Within minutes his comment had gone viral.  The View’s cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin, referring to what she called Britt's ASMR freakiness called it "a disaster from start to finish," pointing out the bad optics of the senator choosing to film her speech in a kitchen — just in time for International Women’s Day. Not to be outdone, Joy Behar put in her own two cents: "Get some medication, Katie. I haven’t seen acting that bad since my wedding night," she joked. "So, which genius in that party decided that she was the perfect spokesperson? I’ve never seen mood swings like this. One minute she’s like [sobbing noise], then she’s like gonna take a knife and stab you. Then she’s laughing like an idiot. What is wrong with her? She’s like Sybil . . . the girl needs mood elevators." (NB: “ASMR,” which stands for autonomous sensory meridian response is a term used to describe a tingling, static-like, or goosebumps sensation in response to specific triggering audio or visual stimuli.)

For  those who did not see it, actress Scarlett Johannson absolutely nailed Britt . . . both in look and delivery  Her opening lines:

“My name is Katie Britt and I have the honor of serving the great people of Alabama. But tonight I’ll be auditioning the part of scary mom performing an original monologue called ‘This Country is Hell.”

The end of her 17-minute kitchen chat - in which she parroted Britt’s We see you. We hear you. We feel you,” had Johansson add And we smell you. We are inside you. We are inside your fridge. And what do we find there? MIGRANTS.

Where Johansson ‘s parody was both brilliant and hilarious, Senator Britt’s presentation was both haunting and toxic. To paraphrase the end of T.S. Elliott’s The Hollow Men:

This is the way the rebuttal ends

This is the way the rebuttal ends

This is the way the rebuttal ends

Not with a smile but a sniffle.

In many ways, Senator Britt was the ideal person to deliver the Republican response to Joe Biden. Her selection tells us a great deal about who the Party of the Predecessor is aiming to attract  and what values they hoped her presence would imply:

•  Younger voters: At 41 (and the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate), she is but half the age of Joe Biden.

•  Women and especially mothers: Almost the first words out of her mouth were “I am a wife and most importantly, a mother . . .” 

•  The Family Values Crowd: clearly wearing a crucifix, hanging somewhat ironically above just a hint of cleavage (like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert), talking about sitting around the kitchen table and discussing their concerns as a family, and standing in a kitchen which may well have been a “green screen” creation.  (I mean, when was the last time you saw a real refrigerator without a single magnetized note, report card or photograph on it, or a countertop without a bowl of fruit or a plant?) 

The past several days have brought into extraordinary and obvious focus the extreme differences between the newly-refashioned Republican (aka MAGA) Party and the Democrats. When it comes to platforms, the Democrats - whether one agrees in toto or not - at least have fully articulated specifics, and Republicans next to nothing other than bromides and wistful images of times long ago. Where Democrats have dreams they would love to create in an ideal world - dreams that for the most part benefit the many over the few - the Republicans have nightmares - nightmares in which Democracy is what they say it is.

Republicans want us to live in Katie Britt’s kitchen, as if it really exists and we could all afford it. They wish for the nuclear family to sit down to dinner every night - sans televisions, and I-phones and have mom serve a home-cooked meal while the children all say “please” and “thanks.” But this dream - as nostalgically nice as it may seem - would require a time machine . . . or a world which stands before a cosmic green screen,

If we’re ever going to take steps towards healing this world, we’ve got to begin with the search for what is best, and not worst, in one another. We will have to bring into sharper focus that which we demand of others as opposed to that which we are glad to overlook in ourselves. Otherwise, our war of words is going to become an open and bloody battlefield.

I conclude with a bit of wisdom my slightly older sister Erica sent me the other day. (With every passing year, she becomes wiser, wittier and more understanding)

Times zones are weird. In Europe it is today; in Australia it is tomorrow. And in Alabama, it is 1890 . . .

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#977: Putin on 'da Blitz

(Note: The title of this essay is, for those in the know, a word-play on a popular 1927 song by the great Irvin Berlin entitled “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” a slang expression meaning “to dress very fashionably.” There are 2 versions of the song: the original late ‘20s rendition in which the “swells” are Black Harlemites, and the updated 1946 version in which the nabobs are Park Avenue dandies. The latter version is known for the lyric “Dressed up like a million-dollar trouper/Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper”).

    Rally for the “Hollywood Ten” (Dalton Trumbo holding microphone)

For the past 7 weeks (with 1 week left to go), I have been presenting a film course at Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter campus, on films written by the masterful two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.  He was easily one of the best and most versatile wordsmiths in the 100+ year history of Hollywood.  His masterpieces ranged from the romantic (Kitty Foyle and Roman Holiday) to film noir (He Ran All the Way and Gun Crazy), historic spectacle (Spartacus and Exodus), guts and glory war pictures (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo) adventure (Papillon - his last) and two-hankie weepers (Our Vines Have Tender Grapes and The Brave One). 

Despite his glowing track record, Trumbo - along with fellow screenwriters John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Herbert Cole, Ring Lardner, and Herbert Bieberman, as well as director Edward Dmytryk were sent to prison and essentially blacklisted from the Hollywood film industry as members of the “Hollywood Ten.”  Their crime?  Members of the House Un-American Activities Committee, as well as what used to be called “Ladies’ Groups”,  leading Hollywood gossip columnists (Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and Walter Winchell et al), and the Catholic Legion of Decency declared them to be “Communists,” “Communists sympathizers” and “Premature Anti-Fascists.” Eventually the net spread out by the so-called “defenders of 100% Americanism” ensnared hundreds - perhaps even thousands - of actors, editors, cinematographers, musical directors, and trade unionists; some went from the sound stages of Hollywood to the stages of Broadway or the microphones of radio; many lost their jobs, some packed up their families and went into exile; a handful even committed suicide.

Looking back on the politics of that dark, dark time, it is easy to see that the vast majority of those behind the “Reds Under the Beds” scare were staunch ultra-conservatives - largely midwestern Republicans and Southern Democrats. Many were racist or anti-Semitic. Whether or not they really, truly believed all the rhetoric they spewed or had simply found anti-Communism to be a great tool with which to climb the political ladder, is still unknowable. Many reveled in having the ability to look into the eyes of a Hollywood personality and ask, for seemingly the millionth time “Are you now, or have you ever been, a Communist?”

Frequently, the evidence used against a witness to “prove” that they were a “Red” (or a “Pink,” in the vocabulary of the era) was as thin as a sheet of Kleenex. Case in point, Trumbo was asked if he wrote the film “Tender Comrade,” which, at one point, had Ginger Rogers say “Share and share alike . . . that’s the democratic way.” “Yes, Trumbo responded. When he explained that the term “Tender Comrade” came not from his pen but rather from a poem that the late Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child’s Garden of Verses among other wonderful works) had written for his wife. Trumbo read aloud a few lines from Stevenson’s poem, simply entitled My Wife (1896): To my wife: Teacher, tender, comrade, wife. A fellow-farer in life . . . “ The Congressman who asked Trumbo the question then asked, “Was this Stevenson a Fellow Traveler like you?” Shades of Jim Jordan!

There is an old saw which states “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”  The way things have been going these past several years, I must conclude that this adage must be tossed out. Why?  75 years ago, when Dalton Trumbo and his ilk were facing a Republican-led inquisition those sitting above them were staunchly anti-Communist.  Anything - ANYTHING - that smacked of Joseph Stalin, Russia or collectivism, liberalism or universalism was the work of the Devil . . . evil incarnate.  Today, large parts of the Republican Party (a.k.a. “The Party of Trump”) treat Vladimir Putin as if he were an ideological ally. Putin, by contrast, continues to treat the U.S. as an enemy.  How the Trumps, Jordans, Tubbervilles, and (Mike) Johnsons of this world support the blitz against Democracy that comes from Putin’s Kremlin, Viktor Mihály Orbán’s Hungary and other autocrats with blood on their hands is incomprehensible. 

For quite a few years, the loyal opposition has believed that the FPOTUS must walk in lockstep with Putin because the latter has some salacious scandal - with or without photos and video - with which to keep him in line.  Whether true or not, I think it goes far, far deeper.  As David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick wrote in a recent piece in the New York Times: Trump and many other Republicans seem to feel ideological sympathies with Putin’s version of right-wing authoritarian nationalism. They see the world dividing between a liberal left and an illiberal right, with both themselves and Putin — along with Viktor Orban of Hungary and some other world leaders — in the second category.   

Already, House Republicans have blocked further aid to Ukraine — a democracy and U.S. ally that Putin invaded. Without the aid, military experts say Russia will probably be able to take over more of Ukraine than it now holds.

If Trump wins a second term, he may go further. He has suggested that he might abandon the U.S. commitment to NATO, an alliance that exists to contain Russia and that Putin loathes. He recently invited Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that don’t spend enough on their own defense. (Near the end of his first term, he tried to pull American troops out of Germany, but President Biden rescinded the decision.)

Trump has also avoided criticizing Putin for the mysterious death this month of his most prominent domestic critic, Aleksei Navalny, and has repeatedly praised Putin as a strong and smart leader. In a town hall last year, Trump refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win the war.

There are some caveats worth mentioning. Some skepticism about how much money the U.S. should send to Ukraine stems from practical questions about the war’s endgame. It’s also true that some prominent Republicans, especially in the Senate, are horrified by their party’s pro-Russian drift and are lobbying the House to pass Ukraine aid. “If your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position,” Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said last month.

The shift in elite Republican opinion toward Russia and away from Ukraine has influenced public opinion.

Shortly after Russia invaded, about three-quarters of Republicans favored giving Ukraine military and economic aid, according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Now, only about half do.

Republican voters are also less likely to hold favorable views of Zelensky. In one poll, most Trump-aligned Republicans even partly blamed him for the war. Republicans also support NATO at lower rates than Democrats and independents, a shift from the 1980s. These are the kinds of things that those speaking on behalf of the Democratic Party should be warning American voters about. Republican fascination with Putin and Russia is real. - and extraordinarily dangerous to the future of democracy. 

And whether they realize it or not, the Russian autocrat is “Putin on ‘da blitz.”

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#975: Heroism vs. Cowardice: Alexei Navalny vs Vladimir Putin, Joseph Biden vs Donald Trump and Mike Johnson

                           Alexei Navalny (June 4, 1976 — February 16, 2024)

The late Alexei Navalny - who died (murdered, actually) just a few days ago in an icy-cold Russian gulag - and former president Donald Trump, have precisely 2 things in common: first, both will be remembered by history (albeit for totally different reasons) until the end of time and second, neither man will ever be awarded the Nobel Prize. In the first instance, of course, Navalny has earned his eternal niche as a hero among heroes; a world-class political organizer who gave millions upon millions of people hope in a time and a place where human degradation was a - if, indeed, not “the” - operating principle of a brutal autocratic regime. Trump’s place, on the other hand, will always be part of a different archive: one sparsely peopled with history’s most malevolent, narcissistic, self-serving, self-deluded cowards.

(n.b.: It should be noted that since 1974, the Nobel Foundation’s charter disallows prizes, regardless of category, to be awarded posthumously).

Within hours of the announcement that Navalny had died “while taking a walk” around the frozen prison grounds, nearly every leader or person of political influence or importance in virtually every small ”d” democratic country expressed their profound sympathies to the fallen lawyer/activist’s family and followers, and utter outrage and contempt at Russian President Vladimir Putin, who unquestionably had Navalny killed. The one gaping hole in the litany of leaders expressing their thoughts, feelings, and outrage was Donald Trump and the vast, vast majority of Republicans in the  U.S.A., who, either through sheer cowardice or a not-so-well-hidden admiration for the Russian autocrat and his thugs, decided to remain mum.    

There can be no question that Mr. Navalny, Putin’s most strident and best-known nemesis, was murdered. Most of Putin’s victims “fall out” of second-floor windows or die from exotic poisons or nerve agents. (Indeed, less than 24 hours ago, Maksim Kuzmanov, a Russian pilot who defected to the Ukraine, was “shot dead” in Spain.”)  

In addressing Navalny’s death, President Biden said,

Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny's death. What happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin's brutality. No one should be fooled, not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world. . . What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality.  No one should be fooled — not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world.  Putin does not only target his [the] citizens of other countries, as we’ve seen what’s going on in Ukraine right now, he also inflicts terrible crimes on his own people. 
And as people across Russia and around the world are mourning Navalny today because he was so many things that Putin was not: He was brave.  He was principled.  He was dedicated to building a Russia where the rule of law existed and of — where it applied to everybody.  Navalny believed in that Russia — that Russia.  He knew it was a cause worth fighting for and, obviously, even dying for.  

Biden concluded by saying:  He was brave. He was principled. He was dedicated to building a Russia where the rule of law existed and where it applied to everybody.

Shortly after the President made his remarks, democratically-elected leaders from nations around the globe began issuing their own statements; echoing the Biden’s sentiments - both on the positive and the negative side of the equation; praising and eulogizing both Navalny’s patriotic charisma and heroic grit, while excoriating and condemning the homicidal psychopathy of Vladimir Putin . . . the man who murders anyone who gets in his way.

Finally . . . finally, 72 hours after Navalny’s murder, Donald Trump, head of the MAGA Party and putative Republican Party candidate for POTUS, made his first and, so far, only statement . . . in which he never so much as uttered the words “Russia” or “Putin.” Having written and delivered thousands of eulogies in my rabbinic career, I’ve got to tell you: this one was sui generis (iunprecidented): a eulogy in which the eulogizer speaks only about himself and not the deceased.

Here, in its entirety are the 63 words he wrote on Truth Social, of which only 2 are devoted to the deceased:

“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country. It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION! MAGA2024.

It makes one wonder what in the Hell Putin has on Trump that the latter won’t even utter the name of the former for fear that . . . what? It’s got to be a doozy. Meanwhile, Trump’s cultists, in keeping with their master’s tortured silence, have kept suit and, likewise, maintained their own craven, pigeon-hearted reticence. The assassination of Navalny comes as the GOP is under the thrall of Putin. Trump and congressional Republicans are doing Putin’s work by refusing to provide supplemental funding for Ukraine. MAGA poster boy Tucker Carlson provided a platform last week for Putin to spread his lies about Russia’s history and territorial claims—including his claim that Ukraine is “not really a separate country.” Even Putin was derisive of Tucker Carlson’s pathetic interview.  Putin Says He Thought Tucker Carlson Would Ask Tougher Questions.

The heroism of Navalny highlights the craven cowardice of both Donald Trump and House Republicans. Speaker Mike Johnson. for his part, Johnson is damaging US foreign policy so he won’t have to provoke the ire of Trump’s strongest, most obnoxious devotee, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Remember, Johnson’s Speakership hangs by a thread that is even thinner and more fragile than the sword swinging about the head of Damocles. In his mind, should he do the right thing and bring the Ukraine/Israel aid bill to the floor, his head will be quickly become separated from the rest of his anatomy.

Against Mike Johnson’s cowardice (emblematic of all congressional Republicans) is the heroism of Alexei Navalny. In anticipation of his own assassination, Navalny left these words to those who remained behind:

“If they decide to kill me, then it means we are incredibly strong.

We need to utilize this power and not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed . . . . We don’t realize how strong we actually are.  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing,, so don’t be inactive.”

My friends and readers: go with the heroes and heroines (like Navalny’s widow Yulia, who has sworn to keep up his mission) and do everything in your power to fight the cowardice of the Trumps, Johnsons, Greenes and Tubervillles of this world . . . and always remember Alexei’s self-written epitaph.

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#793: Once Upon a Time In America

      Lullaby and Good Night . . . 

Once upon a time in America, a vast majority of television stations - like the people who watched them - shut down at midnight and got a good night’s sleep. For those who are of a certain age, as the current expression goes, the Indian-head test pattern on the left will bring back instant memories: once Jack Paar, Jeepers Creepers (for those living in L.A and watching channel 13 [KCOP]) or George “Here’s to a Better, Stronger America” Putnam (KTTV, channel 11) signed off, it was time to check out.  Or, as the ultra-conservative   Putnam would have it, “That’s the up-to-the-minute news, up to the minute, that’s all the news."

Unless memory is pulling a fast one on  yours truly, I recall fewer and more wholesome commercials.  Who amongst the “gang of a certain age” can help but identify:

• “Katy Winters” (real name Anne Starr Roberts) who was the face of “Secret” deodorant;

• "Bucky Beaver” (“Brusha, brusha, brusha, with the new Ipana”);

• Oscar Mayer” (“Here comes little Oscar [George Molchan] in his Weinermobile”); 

• “Mikey” (John Gilchrist, Jr,) of the single Life Cereal commercial (“He likes it! Hey Mikey!”) which seemingly ran forever, or

• Mr. Whipple (Dick Wilson) the hypocrite who just couldn’t help but "squeeze the Charmin” despite warnings to the opposite.  

Today, of course, there are literally thousands of stations, most broadcasting 24 hours a day, 168 hours every week. Many people go to bed (if not to sleep) with the blasted thing still on. Is it any wonder so many people are so exhausted? And, so far as commercials go, the wholesome Katy Winters’s, Bucky Beavers, Josephine the Plumbers, Madge the Manicurists and Clara Pellers (“Where’s the beef?”) have been replaced by Allstate’s “Mayhem Guy” (Dean Winters), the unnamed couple who are so proud they had UTIs (urinary tract infections) last year; that debunked con artist who wants nothing more than to rush you free of charge his “Miracle Spring Water” so that you will suddenly become richer than Croesus; and all those anonymous folks who have lost gazillions of pounds by taking (?), GOLO. I mean nowhere - but NOWHERE in this ad is there even a hint as to what in the world GOLO is: a product? A pill? A dietary regimen? A psychological ploy?

Once upon a time in America, every bit of “medical merchandise” on the tube was easily purchasable without a prescription . . . like Bactine, Band-Aids and Bromo Seltzer. Nowadays, we are inundated with information about prescription drugs and medicines that we should be informing out physicians about. For every systemic condition there is a new monoclonal antibody (drugs ending in “mab”), a new beta blocker (ending in “lol”) or new drugs to treat anxiety (ending in either “pam” or “lam”). And of course, half of each commercial fulfills its legal obligation to the FDA by telling us what possible adverse events (bad side effects) are possible. This is all well and good, but shouldn’t it be the other way around; that our doctors prescribed the medications?

My least favorite commercials are those which hide the truth behind miniscule wording on the bottom of the screen; from “law firms” that want nothing more than to help us file personal injury suits against anyone and everyone who has ever harmed us; those which promise to sell us guaranteed life insurance regardless of our health, bad habits or age . . . and all for less than a dollar a day; of products which, if we are among the first 250 to call, they can double our purchase (“simply add a handling fee”). Every once in a while, I record commercials such as these, then run them back and stop in order to read all the wording at the bottom of the screen; most make it clear that everything you hear should be taken with a rather large grain of salt. Occasionally, I even count the words; many of these “obviations” contain more words than my favorite Shakespearian Sonnet: #18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) . . . which contains a mere 114. Once upon a time in America,

Once upon a time in America, most of the people we elected to solve problems and fix potholes did just that. Many followed the sage advice of President Harry S. Truman, who  taught us “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit,” In today’s America many, without every having known of Truman’s dictum  do exactly the opposite: “Sit on your hands and do nothing; doing something may give the opposition the ability to look good in the eyes of the  public; doing nothing gives you the opportunity to pin the blame on them for not having solved the problem. in the first place” 

Once upon a time in America, impeaching a public official - especially at the Federal level - was as rare as rocking horse manure. Ever since the days of President Bill Clinton, impeachment has become increasingly more de rigueur.  Where Nixon resigned before he could be impeached (knowing that he, in all likelihood, would be convicted), Clinton was impeached (though not convicted)  on two articles, charging him with perjury in his grand jury testimony and obstructing justice in his dealings with various potential witnesses.  In both of Donald Trump’s 2 impeachments, there was a wealth of evidence that he had committed “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” And yet, in both instances, the Senate failed to convict.  Nonetheless, Trump, most Congressional Republicans and the MAGA wing of the party have continued proclaiming that he never did anything wrong (despite thousands upon thousands of pages of testimony) and was merely the “victim of a political witch-hunt.”  And thus, one of history’s greatest self-proclaimed “victims” started getting front page headlines for being a casualty of partisan politics . . . along with all his followers.

The impeachment pandemic is still with us . . . and growing in both scope and baseless nothingness. (n.b.: if the term “baseless nothingness” rings a bell with you it can only mean that you’ve read your Nietzsche; he referred to it as ‘nihilism.’)  Case in point: on January 21, 2021 - a single day after Joseph Biden’s inauguration - Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed an article of impeachment against the nation’s 46th POTUS.  What sort of “High  Crime and/or Misdemeanor” could the poor fellow have committed in his first 24 hours in office?  You tell me. 

Precisely six months later, Donald Trump expressed interest in pursuing a scenario in which he would run for a Congressional seat in Florida in the 2022 House elections, get himself elected Speaker of the House, and then launch an impeachment inquiry against his successor.  (n.b.: If Trump or his associates knew anything about the U.S. Constitution, they would know that one need not be a member of the House in order to become Speaker. I wrote about this in March 2021 in a piece called “My Friend Marvin, in which I recommended somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that the House look to former Oklahoma Representative Mickey Edwards to become Speaker despite not being a member of that body.

                        Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis

Following the withdrawal of American military forces from Afghanistan, the Fall of Kabul on August 15, 2021, and the subsequent attack on Kabul's airport, several Republicans, including Representatives Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Ronny Jackson, called for either the stripping of Biden's powers and duties via the 25th Amendment or removal of Biden from office via impeachment if Americans and allies were left behind and held hostage in Afghanistan by the Taliban.  At the time, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pledged a “day of reckoning” against Biden. There were also Republican calls for Vice President Kamala Harris and other Biden Cabinet officials to be impeached and removed as well.

And now, in addition to all the hearings on President Biden’s son Hunter (who cannot be impeached because he has never been elected to any office) there comes the newest and, in my estimation, the most  frivolously brainless of all attempted impeachments: that of Alejandro Mayorkis, the nation’s 7th Secretary of Homeland Security.  After discussing the matter of impeaching Secretary Mayorkis for nearly a year, this past Sunday (January 28, 2024), House Republicans released two impeachment charges against the Cuban-born Mayorkis (he came to the  U.S. when he was 2).  accusing the Secretary of high crimes and misdemeanors for his implementation of US immigration policy. The first article charges Mayorkas with “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” by implementing a so-called “catch and release” policy, which allows many migrants awaiting court proceedings to remain in the United States without being detained.  It should be remembered that Republicans have, by and  large, despised Mayorkis since his time in the Obama Administration when it took him a mere 60 days to implement the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  During his nearly 3 years as Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security during the Obama Administration, he led U.S. government efforts to rescue orphaned children following the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti and led the advancement of a crime victims unit that, for the first time, made it possible for the agency to issue the statutory maximum number of visas to victims of crime.   This has never sat well with Republican members of Congress.

On November 9, 2023, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to impeach Mayorkas, citing a dereliction of duty and saying he "failed to maintain operational control of the [Southern] border." The motion to impeach failed to pass on November 13, with the House voting 209–201 to defer the resolution to the House Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Tennessee Republican Mark Green. Eight Republicans joined all Democrats in blocking the measure.

On January 28, 2024, House Republicans introduced two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, alleging "willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law" and breach of the public trust. Constitutional experts and Democrats asserted Republicans were using impeachment to address immigration policy disputes rather than for high crimes and misdemeanors, of which there was no evidence. One Legal scholar and law professor, Jonathan Turley, commented that the impeachment lacked a "cognizable basis" and that the inquiry had failed to show "conduct by the secretary that could be viewed as criminal or impeachable.” Former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, a Republican, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that "Republicans in the House should drop this impeachment charade and work with Mr. Mayorkas to deliver for the American people." On the eve of a committee vote on the impeachment articles, the conservative Wall Street Journal Editorial Board also questioned the reasoning for impeachment, writing "A policy dispute doesn't qualify as a high crime and misdemeanor."

On January 31, Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee approved the articles along party lines for referral to the full House. The rest remains to be seen.  However, it is obvious that as is succinctly stated in the cartoon above, the Republicans reason for seeking to impeach Secretary Mayorkis (a practicing Sephardic Jew) is to blame him for “doing nothing” about the crisis at America’s Southern border . . . which Republicans wish to use as a cudgel against Democrats in the 2024 presidential election.  

Once upon a time in America, politicians placed progress above partisanship.  Apparently, this is no longer the case.  

We conclude with a thought from Republican Nikki Hayley, a woman who, although I would never vote for her, does seem to understand the nature of  politics in the modern age:

I think it's very important to get ego out of the room. I think it's important to realize it takes two hands to clap - stop the pointing, stop the blame game. I think we've seen enough of that, I think the country is tired of it. I think they want to see Washington function, they want to see action.

Once upon a time in America was indeed, a long time ago.

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#972: A Word to my Family, Friends, Classmates and Readers in California

I must admit that while I have not voted in any California election in nearly 48 years, my heart, soul and political attentions have always remained in the state of my birth and first quarter century. As I have long proudly averred, “while I may reside and cast my votes in Florida (or Ohio, Arkansas, Pennsylvania or Vermont) “I am still a ‘Hollywood Brat.’ I still follow California politics as closely as ever.

Down here in Florida, where I have “resided” for decades,  politics is pretty damn dismal.  It has become so lopsidedly, so militantly, so mindlessly conservative as to make one truly fear for the future of America.  Our Governor, “Rhonda Santis,” calls it “The Free State of Florida.”  And, mind you, he says this without a hint of irony.  “Free?”  This is a state which leads the nation in banned books, has a militia that statutorily is beholden only to the gubernator, is about to eliminate Sociology as a core course at all 9 state universities, (replacing it with a history class which includes “America’s founding, the horrors of slavery, the resulting Civil War and the Reconstruction era”) and outlawing women traveling to the Sunshine State in order to obtain an abortion, And just the other day, the legislature, which is currently in session, has decided to follow the wishes of their anti-woke leader, and take up legislation which will forbid all children under the age of 16 from being on social media . . . even if their parents approve.

Ah for the sanity of California. I’ll take Gavin Newsome over Rhonda Santis any day of the week and thrice on Shabbos!

“No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe”  John Steinbeck                                

Back home in California, politics are decidedly different. The state is firmly in Democratic hands from the governor’s office (Gavin Newsome, a possible future presidential candidate) to the state legislature (the Assembly is 62-18 Dem.; the 40-member Senate 80% Dem.); the 3 largest cities (L.A., San Francisco and San Diego) all have Democratic mayors, two of whom are women of color, the other a man of color). The state boasts the best system of public universities and colleges in the nation, and has the nation’s most awesome topography. Yes, California does have high taxes, high gas prices, very expensive homes and other assorted problems and challenges . . . but at least its leaders are doing their best to manage the world’s 4th largest economy. To people in the so-called “Red States” who equate California with “La La Land” and nothing more, let me inform you: this is an outright slander; indeed, we are far, far more.

1 week ago, 4 candidates for the United States Senate seat vacated with the death of the late Dianne Feinstein, engaged in a debate in front of a crowd at the University of Southern California.  Included in this debate were 3 Democratic members of Congress (Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff) and one Republican . . . former Dodger first baseman Steve Garvey.  Reps. Lee, Porter and Schiff have long served in Congress: each is a distinct person with a distinct personal history and easily capable of becoming a creditable senator: 

• The 77 year-old Barbara Lee has represented an East Bay (Oakland, Berkeley) district since 1998.  She is easily one of the most progressive members of Congress.  At one time, she was a homeless single mom doing her best to raise 2 children on public assistance and food stamps while earning a degree in Social Work at Mills College in Oakland, becoming a social worker and then getting elected to the California state legislature.  In the U.S. House, she was the only member of Congress to vote against the authorization of use of force following the September 11 attacks, and one of just 17 members of the House to vote  against a House resolution condemning the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel.  She is a strong advocate for gun control, has supported a number of efforts to reform cannabis laws in Congress, and has made affordable housing a top priority.

• Rep. Katie Porter, a 50-year old Iowa native, has represented an Orange County district since 2019.  She is a graduate of Phillips Academy, Yale and Harvard Law School.  While at Harvard, she studied bankruptcy law under future Senator Elizabeth Warren, and eventually became a tenured professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law.  As a 3 term member of Congress, she has supported President Biden 98.2% of the time, and has become best known  for her pointed questioning of public officials and business leaders during congressional hearings, often using visual aids such as whiteboards.  Porter was recognized by the press as one of the first Democrats in a swing district to support an impeachment inquiry based on the findings of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation.  She wound up voting for both the first and second impeachments of Donald Trump.

• Now age 63, Adam Schiff, a graduate of Stanford and Harvard Law , Schiff  began his career as a highly successful Federal Prosecutor; In this position, Schiff came to public attention when he prosecuted the case against Richard Miller, a former FBI agent who spied for the Soviet Union. The first trial resulted in a hung jury; the second trial resulted in a conviction that was overturned on appeal. Miller was convicted in a third trial.  Schiff went on to serve a four-year term in the California State Senate where he authored “tough on crime” legislation which did not always get past a governor’s veto.  Defeating veteran Republican Joe Rogan, Schiiff was elected to the House in 2015, where he eventually rose to become Chair of the House Intelligence Committee (2013-2013), manager of the first Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump, and a key member of the January 6th Committee, which investigated Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. His emotional 25-minute closing speech before the Senate vote for or against the conviction of Donald Trump, garnered Schiff a lot of praise from Democrats and “grudging respect” from Republicans.   Nonetheless, for his efforts, he was eventually censured by his House colleagues which, to this day, he says he “wears as a badge of honor.”:  Schiff is the only Jewish candidate in this race, and, has made his support for Israel’s right to defend itself against the terrorists of Hamas a major part of his candidacy.  Among the 3 members of Congress currently running for the senate nomination, he has clearly passed the greatest amount of legislation, and has garnered endorsements from Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi as well as the endorsements  of an overwhelming number of his colleagues in the California Congressional delegation. 

• Steve Garvey: the 75-year old former Major League baseball player who spent most of his professional career playing first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Winner of the National  League’s 1974 MVP award, Garvey has been hinting about someday running for political office ever since.  Despite finishing his Major League Career with a lifetime .294 batting average, 2,699 hits, 272 homeruns and 1,308 RBIs, he has yet to be elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.  During the recent televised debate,, Democrats Lee, Holmes and Schiff ganged up on him, trying to get him to state whether or not he would support Donald Trump (let alone vote for him in 2024). He refused.    Moreover, he refused to stake himself to any positions on the major political issues of the day.  Regrettably, the former baseball icon wound up looking more like a “deer in the headlights” than a serious candidate.

By law, California has a unique “open primary” voting system, wherein all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, run on the same primary ballot. Following the primary, the top-two vote getters - regardless of party affiliation - face off against one another in the November general election. This means that it is possible for 2 Democrats to be running against one another in the general election. In the case of this Senate race, Adam Schiff, prior to the debate, outpolled both representatives Lee and Porter, with Garvey a distant fourth.  In the first post-debate poll, the Emerson College Poll listed Adam Schiff at 25%, Steve Garvey 18%, Katie Porter 13% and Barbara Lee 8%.  If these figures remain reasonably stable until the primary election (March 5th), this would put Schiff and Garvey squaring off in November.  And in a state as liberal as California, that would make Adam Schiff all but assured of victory. From where I sit and type, this is a very good thing; Adam Schiff is clearly one of the shining stars in Washington, D.C.  He has succeeded at every level, is a thorough-going gentleman who can both take a punch and deliver a political uppercut with the best of ‘em. 

Steve Garvey will likely never make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Although he had a stellar career both on the field and at the plate, he has never worked or served a day in office.  He is merely a millionaire celebrity whose last hurrah was way back in 1987. 

To my California family, friends, classmates and readers, please cast your vote for Adam Schiff - whether by mail [which will be going out February 5] or in person [on March 5].  He will hit the ground running (after all, he is both a marathoner and pentathlete), and continue ably representing his constituents for many years to come. He can easily fit into the shoes last worn by the late Dianne Feinstein.  I predict that one day  Adam will be the Senate Majority Leader . . . if some future Democratic POTUS doesn’t nominate him for Attorney General.

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#966 Ken Paxton: Malefactor Of the Year

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

   Trust me: I would be far, far happier writing a piece about Taylor Swift, Time Magazine’s “Woman of the Year,” or Shohei Ohtani, the “second coming of Babe Ruth,” who just signed a 10-year. $700,000,000 contract with my (and my sister Erica’s) Los Angeles Dodgers, then one about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom I am designating the “Malefactor of the Year.” This title, akin to calling him “Paxton the Terrible,” is his lifetime achievement award for last year, this year, and unquestionably next year as well.

   For most Americans not living in the Lone Star State, the 60-year old Texas A.G. Ken Paxton (that’s him on the left) has, until just a a couple of days ago, been as unknown as Rob Bonta, Ashley Moody, Lynn Fitch or Michelle Henry, respectively, A.G.s of California, Florida, Mississippi and Pennsylvania.  Unlike the vast majority of America’s state attorneys general, Paxton has made quite a name for himself for mostly the wrong reasons. As but one  example, on December 8, 2022, Paxton sued the states of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where certified results showed President-elect Joe Biden the victor over President Donald Trump, alleging a variety of unconstitutional actions in their presidential balloting, arguments that had already been rejected in other courts.  In Texas v. Pennsylvania, Paxton asked the United States Supreme Court to invalidate the states' sixty-two electoral votes. Because the suit was cast as a dispute between states, the Supreme Court had original jurisdiction, although it often declines to hear such suits.  This time, SCOTUS decided to take a look-see; within 3 days, they shot down Paxton’s suit, making him a bit of a legal laughing stock.

Ken Paxton served 5 terms in the Texas Legislature (2003-2013) and 2 years in the Texas State Senate (2013-2015), before declaring his candidacy for A.G. During his years in the legislature he developed a reputation for being a hard-core conservative of the Tea Party stripe, and a full-throated Christian Nationalist, whose views and votes were based on his religious principles. Along with his wife Angela Allen Paxton (who currently serves as the Majority Leader of the Texas Senate), the popular political team helped to found Stonebriar Community Church, a Christian evangelical megachurch, in Frisco, Texas. On January 5 2015, Ken Paxton was sworn in as the 51st Attorney General of Texas, a position to which he was reelected in 2018 and 2022 - in which he beat his Democratic opponent by slightly more than 10 points.

As A.G., Ken Paxton has developed among voters a “you either love him or hate him” attitude. Devoutly, rabidly anti-abortion, he gave his employees a paid vacation day to "celebrate" the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and sought to block rules from the US Health and Human Services Department that would require hospitals to provide abortions to women when the procedure is necessary to save their lives. In 2018 Paxton initiated a lawsuit seeking to have the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) ruled unconstitutional in its entirety. Three years earlier (2015), Paxton created a human trafficking unit within the AG office. In 2019, he convinced Texas lawmakers to more than quadruple the human trafficking unit's annual funding. The year after, the unit did not secure a single human trafficking conviction and only four in 2020.

In 2018, Paxton falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants had committed over 600,000 crimes since 2011 in Texas. PolitiFact said that it had debunked the numbers before, and that the numbers exceeded the state's estimates by more than 400%. In October 2020, seven of Paxton's top aides published a letter to the office's Director of Human Resources, accusing Paxton of improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other crimes, and said they had provided information to law enforcement and asked them to investigate. The Associated Press reported that the allegations involved Paxton illegally using his office to benefit real estate developer Nate Paul, who had donated $25,000 to Paxton's 2018 campaign.

But things were to get even worse for Ken Paxton: The Associated Press also reported that the allegations include the claim that Paxton had an extramarital affair with a woman, and that he had later advocated for that woman to be hired by Paul's company, World Class. Mr. Paul acknowledged employing the woman but denied that he had done so at Paxton's behest. Then, four of the former members of the Texas AG's Office sued the Office of the Attorney General, alleging that Paxton had fired them for reporting misconduct to law enforcement, a form of illegal retaliation under the state's Whistleblower Act. Paxton countersued, claiming that they hadn’t pursued their case in a lawful manner; the Texas Supreme Court and a court of appeals. both agreed that the 4 employees had done things correctly and overturned Paxton’s claim. He was fined $3.3 million and then tried to get the state to use taxpayer funds to pay the settlement; this too was overturned.

In spring 2023, the Texas House passed a bill of impeachment against Paxton, citing 16 separate charges. It was also decided that Paxton’s wife, the Texas Senate Majority Leader, had to recuse herself from the trial. After much back and forth between Paxton his attorneys, the State of Texas and the Texas Bar, Ken Paxton was acquitted on all 16 impeachment charges by the senate on September 23, 2023.

But the worst of Ken Paxton was yet to hit the surface . . . that which would make him a truly reviled person, both in the United States and much of the so-called “civilized world.”

But before we get to the latest and - in my opinion - the worst in the man I choose to name the “Malefactor of the Year,” a few words about the two people I’d greatly prefer to be writing about: singer/songwriter/billionaire philanthropist Taylor Swift and Shohei Ohtani who, barring serious injury, will likely be named the greatest (if not the richest) baseball player of all time.

To be perfectly honest, until I read about Taylor Swift being named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” she was just the name of a celebrity, nothing more, nothing less. (n.b. From its inception in 1927 until 1999, the award which Ms. Talyor wonwas called Time’s Man of the Year.” During these 72 years, only 3 women achieved this status: Wallace Simpson [1936], Queen Elizabeth II [1952] and Corazon Aquino [1986]. Since 1999 Melinda Gates [2005], Angela Merkel [2015] Greta Thunberg [2019] and Kamala Harris [jointly with Joe Biden in 2020] have had the honor bestowed upon them.. And now, in 2023, Taylor Swift.)

I have never knowingly heard a Taylor Swift song, and certainly cannot name even one. However, in performing research for this piece, I have discovered that she is all but universally considered to be a top-flight singer and songwriter, with 10 studio albums, 10 Grammys and more than 50 million album sales as of 2019 and 78 billion streams as of 2021. She is also the highest-grossing female touring act of all time. She is a world-class philanthropist who has made literally tens-of-dozens of donations of more than $1 million to various disaster relief projects and has paid for medical care for many of her concert-going fans. Swift is a self-made billionaire who has invested her earnings wisely in both people and property (which includes the Samuel Goldwyn estate at 1200 Laurel Lane in Beverly Hills). And oh yes, as of earlier this year, she is dating Kansas City Chiefs all-pro wide receiver Travis Kelce.

Since the day I first heard that the Dodgers were going to be moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles (it must have been late 1957), I have, as we say in L.A., “been bleeding Dodger Blue.” And now, with the signing of two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, we are deeper than royal. Imagine that: he’s going to be making $700 million over the next 10 years. Can any athlete be worth so much money just for playing a game? I mean, if he merely has an average (at least for him) season in 2024, he will be earning $522,388.00 per game, which is also $165,485.00 per at bat or, if he is merely pitching, $727,266.00 per inning. And to think, when Babe Ruth was at the height of his glory (1927-28), he only made $70,000.00, which is $1,237,756.90 in 2023 dollars (minus, of course, sales of merchandise, advertising, etc.). When asked if he realized that he, “The Sultan of Swat,” made more money in 1927 than President Coolidge Calvin Coolidge, he supposedly answered, “Well, I had a better season than he did.” (Actually, in 1927, President Coolidge was paid $75,000.00)

In answer to the question can any athlete be worth so much money just for playing a game?” the answer is “Yes!” The Dodgers are owned by Guggenheim Partners, whose board includes Mark Walter (the team’s CEO), Magic Johnson, Stan Kasten, and Tennis legend Billie Jean King. They didn’t get to be that rich by throwing money away. Obviously, they went over the figures and determined that Ohtani was worth $700 million to them . . . in increased ticket sales, cable television and network rates and assorted paraphernalia. For that, they land, as mentioned above, a young (29 years old this past July 5th)man who just may turn out to be the greatest player of all time. And . . . he’s handsome, very well-spoken (in Japanese and increasingly, English), and is a flawless gentleman. And by the way, his nickname is “Shotime” - how perfect for Hollywood.

We wind up this week’s piece by briefly discussing that which Texas A.G. Ken Paxton - as well as Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick will long be remembered for standing in the way of Kate Cox, a 31-year-old native of Dallas to undergo an abortion. Cox had petitioned a state court this month for an exemption from the state’s strict laws to receive an abortion once it was determined that her 20-week-old fetus was diagnosed with full trisomy 18 (Edwards Syndrome). Life expectancy for children diagnosed with Edwards syndrome is short due to several life-threatening complications of the condition. Children who survive past their first year may face severe intellectual challenges. It can also, in some cases, prove fatal to the mother. Mrs. Cox’s doctors argued that carrying the fetus to term and giving birth via Caesarian section could be dangerous, possibly resulting in her losing the ability to have children in the future.

Texas District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble gave Cox a temporary restraining order this past Thursday, giving her, husband and her doctor immunity from prosecution to perform an abortion procedure. For a few moments, it looked like Mrs. Cox and her “team” could breathe a sigh of relief. But within less than an hour, Ken Paxton appealed to the Texas State Supreme Court, asking the court to halt the lower court’s ruling. In his appeal, Mr. Paxton urged the court to act “with all due speed,” and noted that and wrote that if an abortion was allowed, “Nothing can restore the unborn child’s life that will be lost as a result.” The court did act “with all due speed”: the very next day, the Texas Supremes said that, “without regard to the merits” of the arguments on either side, it had issued an administrative stay in the case, to give itself more time to issue a final ruling.

P:axton’s appeal to the Texas Supreme Court in Ms. Cox’s case followed his letter to three Houston hospitals where he warned that Dr. Karsan (Ms. Cox’s personal OB-GYN) is authorized to admit patients and could perform the abortion, was hereby warned that the judge’s order would not shield them from eventual prosecution or civil lawsuits. Lawyers for Dr. Karsan have said in legal filings that she believes her patient’s abortion is medically necessary to preserve her health and future fertility.

But regardless of what a board-certified OB-GYN says, Ken Paxton feels he knows better. As an ultra-conservative Republican, he demands that the government stay the hell out of people’s lives . . . except in any and all matters of sex, marriage, giving birth and what they read. And despite the fact that according to Texas law, there are exceptions which have been carved out in anti-abolition legislation when pregnancy is the result of rape or incest . . . or when the life of either the fetus or the mother is in jeopardy. According to “Dr.” Paxton, he does not deem carrying a 22-week-old fetus who has been diagnosed by real physicians with Edwards Syndrome is nothing to worry about. “Don’t worry about whether or not giving birth will kill you or make you infertile; don’t give a moment’s thought that you are going to give birth to an infant that will likely be blind, deaf and dumb, incapable of movement, experiencing excruciating pain and likely dying within anywhere between sixth months and a year. If and when it dies, that is just G-d’s will.”

What the Malefactor Of the Year is hoping for is that by the time the state Supreme Court finally hands down its ruling (whatever it may be), Kate Cox’s pregnancy will have proceeded well beyond the legal time limit for any abortion to take place.

In any event, Ken Paxton will have earned even more street cred with his Christian Nationalist crowd, thus allowing him to continue living a godly - if infuriatingly - immoral - life.

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

PLEASE NOTE THAT JUST BEFORE POSTING THIS, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO REPORTED THAT KATE COX AND HER HUSBAND HAD LEFT TEXAS TO SEEK FURTHER MEDICAL ATTENTION OUTSIDE OF TEXAS. PRECISELY WHERE IS NOT YET KNOWN. KFS

#965: Oh What a Week . . .

Without question, the past 168 hours have contained more news stories and headlines of historical importance, drama, tragedy and trepidation than any in recent memory. Some of these stories and headlines concern people, places and events that will be prominently noted in history books so long as people read and write history. Other stories and events will ultimately become nothing more than mere historic asterisks like 3’7” Eddie Gaedel, the smallest player to appear in a Major League Baseball game. (Gaedel, who had signed a one-day contract with the St. Louis Browns, walked on 4 pitches tossed by Detroit Tiger southpaw Bob Cain, and then was pulled for pinch runner Jim Delsing. The only people who remember Gaedel and that August 19, 1951 stunt some 72 after his single at-bat, are undoubtedly the geekiest of baseball aficionados.)

This past week (168 hours) has seen the passing of Dr. Henry Kissinger, America’s first Jewish Secretary of State at age 100. Unlike Gaedel, Dr. Kissinger will be long remembered. (Actually, America’s first Jewish Secretary of State was Judah P. Benjamin, known to many historians as “The Brains of the Confederacy.” The one-time planter, slave-owner, America’s highest-paid attorney and United States senator from Louisiana, Benjamin variously served as Jefferson Davis’ Attorney General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State; at war’s end, he wound up his professional life moving to England, where he read British law and rose to become Queen’s Counsel. He is buried at the famed Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, not far from the graves of Jim Morrison, Marcel Marceau and Edith Piaf.)

Without question, Dr. Kissinger was a titan. Over a span of nearly 60 years, he served, advised and counseled 9 different presidents and even more Secretaries of State. Considering the vast differences of these men and women (Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton) in terms of intelligence, experience, worldliness and weltanschauung (world-view), this is a rather remarkable record. On the plus side, Kissinger, perhaps even more than Richard Nixon, was responsible for bringing China and America closer together; back then it was called “Ping Pong Diplomacy. Unquestionably, his biggest, most grievous negative would be the secret bombing of then-neutral Cambodia during the Vietnam War. During that war, Kissinger and then-President Nixon ordered clandestine bombing raids on Cambodia, in an effort to flush out Viet Cong forces in the eastern part of the country.

It should never be forgotten that the US dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on Cambodia from 1965-1973. (For context, the Allies dropped just over 2 million tons of bombs during the whole of World War II, including the bombs that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki.). Until the end of his life, Kissinger maintained that the bombing was aimed at the Vietnamese army inside Cambodia, not at the country itself. The number of people killed by those bombs is not known, but estimates range from 50,000 to upwards of 150,000.

We shall not - G-d willing - see his kind again for a long, long time.

This week also sees the passing of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court. A rancher’s daughter from Arizona, she earned a law degree at Stanford, tried to get a job after the passing the California Bar, only to be told that perhaps she should lower her sights and look for work as a legal secretary.  Eventually, she became an icon for future generations of women in the law. A legal conservative - though not as we think of them today, she served during a crucial period in American law — when abortion, affirmative action, sex discrimination and voting rights were on the docket.

Although William H. Rehnquist, her Stanford Law School classmate, served as chief justice during much of her tenure, the Supreme Court during that crucial period was often called the “O’Connor court,” and Justice O’Connor was referred to, quite accurately, as “the most powerful woman in America.” Very little could happen without Justice O’Connor’s support when it came to the polarizing issues on the court’s docket, and the law regarding affirmative action, abortion, voting rights, religion, federalism, sex discrimination and other hot-button subjects was basically what Sandra Day O’Connor thought it should be.

That the middle ground she looked for tended to be the public’s preferred place as well was no mere coincidence, given the close attention she paid to current events and the public mood.  Among her most important decisions were:

• In Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation v. EPA (2004) she said the Environmental Protection Agency could step in and take action to reduce air pollution under the Clean Air Act when a state conservation agency fails to act.

• In Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran (2002) O’Connor upheld state laws giving people the right to a second doctor’s opinion if their HMOs tried to deny them treatment.

• In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) she broke with Chief Justice Rehnquist and other opponents of a woman’s right to choose as part of a 5-4 majority in affirming Roe v. Wade.

• In Hunt v. Cromartie (2001) Justice O’Connor affirmed the right of state legislators to take race into account to secure minority voting rights in redistricting.

Returning to the land of the living, this past week had bit of a unique first: a televised prime-time “debate” between a sitting governor and presidential candidate and another governor who may become a presidential candidate in another 4 years. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and California’s Gavin Newsom spent their ninety minutes on a well-designed stage taking shots at one another about banning books, who has the greatest tax burden (Florida has no income tax), the price of homeowners insurance (Florida’s is the highest in the nation) and who gets along best with Disney. DeSantis’ major advantage was having Fox News’ Entertainer Sean Hannity throwing him softball question whenever Newsome backed the smaller man into a corner.  One positive thing to say about the two: man, do they have great heads of hair!

At one point, as both men were talking over each other and the volume got louder, Newsom played his best Joe Cool imitation, threw his hands open, turned to DeSantis and said with a smile, "Hey, Ron, relax." The one thing DeSantis may have learned from the evening’s 90-minute tussle is that it’s next to impossible to get under the skin of a man who has nothing to lose. As soon as the 90 minutes were up, a panel of Fox hosts spent hours declaring him the obvious and overwhelming winner, while the major cable outlets decided not to report on it until the next day. When they did, a clear majority yawningly gave Newsom a collective thumbs-up.

Donald Trump spent last week further outlining what he has in the works for the next 4 years should he be elected. Besides making personal loyalty to him the key qualification for getting a position in the federal government (hasn’t he ever heard of the Civil Service?) and reversing the “weaponization” of both the DOJ and DOD, the FPOTUS doubled down on his calls to replace the Affordable Care Act, (“Obamacare”) if he’s elected president again. “I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to REPLACE IT with MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE. Obamacare Sucks!!!” Trump said in a pair of late-night posts on social media.

It seems that he has gotten his hand on an old speech . . . or has forgotten that back when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate they failed to do precisely what he is once again promising to do. Interestingly, only a handful of prominent Republicans have voiced anything even approaching approval of the plan. The reason? The ACA now scores highly with most Americans. As Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., reminded his colleagues just the other day, reopening the ACA fight in 2025 would require Republicans to craft a replacement plan ahead of time, which they have never done.

Over on Capitol Hill, President Biden’s son Hunter played a masterful game of political chess with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, which has been misspending tons of time and taxpayer money in their attempt to impeach President Biden.  Hunter’s attorneys “castled” Committee Chair James Comer by telling the Kentucky Republican that their client, whom the committee recently subpoenaed (along with Hunter’s former business associate Rob Walker, and the president’s brother James Biden) would be glad to appear . . . but only if the hearings are held in public.  Needless to say, Comer, his committee colleagues and a clear majority of the Republican caucus are dead set against the demand.  Why?  Because the public would quickly learn that when it comes to real, honest to G-d charges against the Bidens, in the immortal words of Gertrude Stein, "There’s no there there.”  In a letter to Comer, Hunter Biden’s attorney,  Abbe Lowell. wrote: “We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public.”  Comer et al realize that Hunter and Abbe Lowell have got ‘em in checkmate.  They just cannot abide by it.  Of course, this does not mean that they will discontinue the current game of political chess; they’ll likely switch to political checkers.  Counselor Lowell, by the way, will be remembered a lot longer than Chairman Comer . . . and for good reason.

We conclude with the one former member of Congress who in future years, like little Eddie Gaedel (number “1/8”) will likely only be remembered by political geeks: the expelled fabulist, George Anthony Devolder Santos. By a vote of 311 (206 Dems., 105 Reps.) to 114 (2 Dems., 112 Reps.), Santos became just the sixth member of Congress to be shown the door . . . and likely the third of this group to wind up being incarcerated. In many regards, Santos is the Platonic Absolute of a MAGAite: venal, hypocritical, mendacious to the  max, larcenous, a moral albino (you figure it out) and possessing all 9 signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  I mean, lying is one thing in politics.  But lying for the sake of Botox, Ferragamo and Hèrmes?

As Vanessa Williams noted in a New York Times essay:

In the end, it may have been the luxury goods that brought down George Santos.

Not the lies about going to Baruch College and being a volleyball star or working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Not the claims of being Jewish and having grandparents who were killed in the Holocaust and a mother who died of cancer as result of 9/11. (Not true, it turned out.) Not the fibs about having founded an animal charity or owning substantial real estate assets. None of the falsehoods that have been exposed since Mr. Santos’s election last year. After all, he did survive two previous votes by his peers to expel him from Congress, one back in May, one earlier in November.

 I for one am not sure what ultimately brought him  down . . . or made enough of his fellow Republicans (though not a majority of them) to finally show him the door.  Perhaps it was the looming not-too-distant presence of the 2024 elections; an unvoiced  fear of having to answer questions about his presence in their caucus . . . along with questions about their caucus’ all-but-invisible agenda.  Under normal circumstances (if they still exist), a disgraced former member of Congress with a penchant for publicity could look forward to eventually making a fortune on Fox, starting his own podcast or radio talk-show, or having a ghost write him a tell-all book while  spending his hefty advance on G-d knows what.  This probably won’t happen, because soon, he, like his beloved leader, is  going to be spending his every waking hour (and what cash he can put his hands on) proclaiming his innocence in federal court. 

Who knows: perhaps future generations will remember George Anthony Devolder Santos for having been Donald J. Trump’s cellmate in prison . . . 

Oh what a week! 

Copyright2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#960: Meet the Johnsons: It's Not a Sitcom

                 Most of the Cast of “Meet the Johnsons”

One of the great advantages (and disadvantages) of living in a world enswathed in Internet technology is how even the most relatively anonymous person can, within a matter of hours, become as well-known as Benjamin Franklin or F. Scott Fitzgerald.  For those possessing but a scintilla of cyber competence, we have Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Openverse and You.com to act as our personal Library of Congress.  To paraphrase the old Westinghouse all-news-all-the-time tagline, “You give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world.”

Case in point: less than 72 hours ago, outside of his Benton, Louisiana neighborhood, the people in his church or the constituents in his 4th District House seat had ever heard of the newly-elected House Speaker Mike Johnson. Upon first televised glance - and comparing him visually to the oft-uncoated “Gym” Jordan, he seemed like a pretty normal fellow: well-tailored, well-coifed, bespectacled, and about as benign as Clark Kent. The first published photos of his wife and 4 children, (minus his “adopted” African American son who, for reasons not yet known, was “expunged” from his official biography years ago), made them look like a “ready for prime time” super-photogenic family.

But alas, to paraphrase the Hebrew Bible (1 Samuel 16:7), Looks can be deceiving. To be both fair and honest, I have never met nor interviewed Speaker Johnson. Heck a huge percentage of elected officials on Capitol Hill (except, perhaps, his colleagues on House Judiciary or Armed Services) had to either check out his Congressional Website or find him on Wikipedia. It turns out that his relative anonymity among the 219 members of the House Republican caucus turned out to be beneficial; flying beneath the clouds (unlike Reps. Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, George Santos, Steve Scalise,  or Marjorie Taylor Green, to name but a few) meant that he had few - if any - hardcore enemies. Considering the amount of acrimony and waspishness that has been on display throughout the three-week Speaker imbroglio, Johnson’s relative equanimity must have seemed to like a gift from on high.

To use the words “a gift from on high” when referring to Speaker (and Mrs.) Johnson is no mere literary device; rather, it is purely intentional. For without question, no inhabitant of the Speaker’s Office has ever been as thoroughly besotted with the word of G-d than its newest occupant. Johnson has long described himself as “first and foremost a Christian.” An evangelical of the Southern Baptist stripe, Johnson has said: "My faith informs everything I do.” We should all prepare ourselves for a lot of “G-d speak” from the Speaker in the days, weeks and months to come. In his very first address to the House, Speaker Johnson got off to a start filled to overflowing with the rhetoric of religious fundamentalism: “I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a manner like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you, all of us, and I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment in this time. This is my belief. I believe that each one of us has a huge responsibility today to use the gifts that God has given us to serve.”

If Mike Johnson was the very best person the Republican caucus could agree on to become Speaker of the House, it scares the living bejesus out of me. As a practicing traditional Jew (who also has a pretty well-developed sense of humor), I cannot feel comfortable putting the Speaker’s gavel - the very gavel wielded by the likes of Joseph “Czar” Cannon, Sam Rayburn, Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, and Nancy Pelosi - into the hands of an election-denying, Christian Nationalist like Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Coming from a tribe that has long gone out of its way to stay out of the business of converting others to its religious weltanschauung (worldview), I find myself beset with insomnia over the thought of a Speaker - the person 2nd in line to the Presidency - who religious creed is based on saving my soul . . . or else.

Let’s take a look at what our new Speaker supports and where he expects to lead us.

• In a 2017 House Judiciary Committee meeting, Johnson argued that Roe v. Wade made it necessary to cut social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid because abortion reduced the labor force and thus damaged the economy.

  Johnson has co-sponsored bills attempting to ban abortion nationwide, such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children From Late-Term Abortions Act, and the Heartbeat Protection Act of 2021. All three bills would impose criminal penalties, including potential prison terms of up to five years, upon doctors who perform abortions.

• In 2015, Johnson blamed abortions and the "breakup [of] the nuclear family" for school shootings, saying, "when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it's expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters."

• In 2018, he was involved in GOP efforts to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, introducing legislation to do so. 

• In 2020, Johnson signed an amicus brief alongside more than 100 House Republicans supporting a Texas lawsuit that aimed to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Johnson also voted to object to the election results in both Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, 2021. 

• Johnson has been a long-term, outspoken opponent of LGBT rights. He has called homosexuality "sinful" and "destructive" and argued that support for LGBT equality would lead to support for pedophilia and bestiality, and that sex for any other purpose than procreation between a lawfully married man and woman should be considered a crime.

• Johnson previously worked as senior attorney and spokesperson for Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, a Southern Poverty Law Center–designated hate group that pushes its far-right agenda through the courts.

• On May 19, 2021, Johnson and all other seven Republican House leaders in the 117th Congress voted against establishing a national commission to investigate the January 6, 2021, storming of the United States Capitol.

• During a town hall in 2017, Johnson said that he believed that Earth's climate was changing, but questioned the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by humans.

  Under Johnson, the Republican Study Committee in 2019 called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal the "Greedy New Steal", called "wind and solar" "the most inefficient energy sources we have", and claimed that living near wind turbines could cause "depression and cognitive dysfunction".

• Johnson came to some prominence in the late 1990s when he and his wife appeared on television to promote new laws in Louisiana allowing covenant marriages, under which divorce is much more difficult to obtain than in no-fault divorce. In 2005, Johnson appeared on ABC's Good Morning America to promote covenant marriages, saying, "I'm a big proponent of marriage and fidelity and all the things that go with it".

• In 2016, Johnson delivered a sermon that called the teaching of evolution one of the causes of mass shootings: "People say, 'How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?' Because we've taught a whole generation—a couple generations now—of Americans, that there's no right or wrong, that it's about survival of the fittest, and you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there's nobody sacred to whom it's owed.

• In a one-on-one interview with Sean Hannity this past Thursday, just the mass murder in Lewiston, Maine,  Speaker  Johnson made an old Republican line new again, claiming that it’s not guns that kill people—it’s their hearts. “This is not the time to be talking about legislation.”  

If this were not enough, there is Mrs. Speaker Johnson, Kelly. a mental health counselor who, along with her husband, has a popular podcast called ”Truth be Told” With Mike and Kelly Johnson. You won’t find it on the top podcast charts — they haven’t managed to hit the top 100 in the “Religion & Spirituality” section of Apple Podcasts, where it’s designated due to its emphasis on their evangelical Christian beliefs. The project is a blend of political and religious analysis, occasionally featuring guests, that illuminates Johnson’s faith-driven views on governance — and is sure to inform how he approaches his new role.

After a career as a teacher, Kelly Johnson to working as a pastoral counselor at “Onward Christian Counseling Services” where she serves as founder and president. The practice provides religious-based individual, marriage and family counseling to people across Louisiana.  Onward Christian Counseling Services is grounded in the belief that sex is offensive to God if it is not between a man and a woman married to each other. It puts being gay, bisexual or transgender in the same category as someone who has sex with animals or family members, calling all of these examples of “sexual immorality.”  “We believe and the Bible teaches that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex, is sinful and offensive to God,” says the eight-page business document. (Interestingly, over the past several days, the counseling services’ website has become subscription only.)

Mike Johnson, I am sorry to report, is going to be one of the few Speakers in history who will have to get on-the-job training while leading and shaping the House.  Unlike recent speakers like Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner, Mr. Johnson has no deep ties or muscular network of allies across the country. As such, he lacks one of the most important strengths one looks for in a Speaker: an ability to raise vast sums of money. Say what you want about Kevin McCarthy, he is a six-foot tall ATM when it comes to putting the bite on people. There is nothing in Mike Johnson’s career history to suggest that he is in this league. And with the number of red seats open to question in the 2024 elections, money is going to be key.

So welcome to the world of Speaker and Mrs. Mike Johnson.  While it is definitely not going to be a sitcom, it will likely bring tears to the eyes of the American Eagle.

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#959: Here Comes Mr. Jordan

Yes, I know: the title of this piece should, in reality, be There Goes” (not “Here Comes”) Mr. Jordan. Truth to tell, when I first started mulling over this week’s op-ed, Ohio Rep. “Gym” Jordan יש"ו  (a Hebrew acronym pronounced y’mach sh’mo v’zikro and meaning “may his name and memory be blotted out” . . . in modern Latin. it’s Damnatio memoriae, “condemnation of memory”), was still in the race for Speaker of the House. The House went through 3 votes this past week, with Gym, who could afford having no more than 4 of his Republican colleagues voting against him if  he were to have any hope of snaring the gavel.  As things turned out, he kept losing more Republican votes in each go-round until by vote number three, he managed to lose the confidence - if not affection - of fully 25 of his colleagues.  In so doing, Mr. Jordan managed to enter the history books by losing more votes from his own party than any Speaker candidate in more than 100 years. And mind you, all this occurred despite Mr. Jordan having received the public endorsement of the FPOTUS, Donald J. Trump.

So what’s this Here Comes Mr. Jordan all about?  Well, first and foremost, it’s the title of a sparkling 1941 Columbia comedy/fantasy/romance starring Robert Montgomery as boxer Joe Pendleton (aka “The Flying Pug) who, flying off to his next bout, appears to have died when his plane crashes while en route.  Joe’s soul is retrieved by 7013 (played by Edward Everett Horton), an officious angel who assumed that Joe could not have survived the crash. Joe's manager, Max "Pop" Corkle (James Gleason), has his body cremated. In the afterlife, the records show that the kind-hearted Joe’s death was a mistake; he was supposed to live for another 50 years. 7013’s superior, Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains) , confirms this, but since there is no more body, Joe will have to take over a newly dead corpse. Jordan explains that a body is just something that is worn, like an overcoat; inside, Joe will still be himself. Joe insists that it be someone in good physical shape, because he wants to continue his boxing career.

After Joe turns down several "candidates", Jordan takes him to see the body of a crooked, extremely wealthy banker and investor named Bruce Farnsworth, who has just been drugged and drowned in a bathtub by his wife and his secretary. Joe is reluctant to take over a life so unlike his previous one, but eventually changes his mind and agrees to take over Farnsworth's body.  There’s a lot more to the story including a murder mystery, Joe’s return to the boxing ring and Joe’s beloved saxophone. Perhaps you may want to see it for yourself. (BTW, Here Comes Mr. Jordan received Academy Award nominations for best picture, best director best actor, and best supporting actor and won for best screenplay and best story.)  

In truth then, this essay would have been better served had it been entitled There Goes Mr. Jordan, for undoubtedly Gym Jordan’s career on Capitol Hill is, from this point on, going to be but a wisp of what it was a mere 10 days ago. Never again will he even dream of scaling any Congressional heights. The reasons for his embarrassing defeat (for which sane people should give thanks) are many-fold. Most importantly, during his 16 years in the House, Congress has yet to pass a single bill Gym Jordan wrote. Then too, he one of the most disliked people on Capitol Hill; to his colleagues, he is nothing more than a bully without a single guiding principle to his name. And oh yes, he is a terrible - and I mean lackluster to the max - fundraiser . . . a prime responsibility for any Speaker. 

Make no mistake  about it: now that Jordan has been hurled onto the trash heap of American political history, Congress - and America’s very future - are in peril.  Without a properly elected Speaker, Congress (meaning both the House and Senate) are incapable of addressing - let alone seriously dealing with - America’s most pressing issues . . . such as funding wars in both Israel and Ukraine, keeping the government from shutting down, and virtually anything that deals with appropriations. Oh  sure, the Republicans and their 4-vote “majority” can continue holding hearings on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the possible impeachment of the POTUS . . . which in the real world  amount to far, far less than a hill of political beans.

 At the moment, there are upwards of 9 Congressional Republicans being considered for the speakership:

• Tom Emmer (Minnesota)

• Austin Scott (Georgia)

• Byron Donalds (Florida)

• Kevin Hern (Oklahoma)

• Jody C. Arrington (Texas)

• Jack Bergman (Michigan)

• MIke Johnson (Louisiana)

• Pete Sessions (Texas)

• Dan Meuser (Pennsylvania
  

A brief look through the nine’s websites will show that all are Trump acolytes, that 7 of the 9 (with the exception of Scott and Emmer) voted against accepting Joe Biden’s victory in the 2022 presidential election. All, with the exception of Mr. Donalds of Florida, are White males, are pro-gun, anti-WOKE and, when it comes to the FPOTUS, absolutely spineless. Several are leaders of the “Freedom Caucus,” founded by the aforementioned Jim Jordan, and the majority of whom are against working together with Democrats on virtually anything and everything.

In the 3 votes for Speaker of the House over the past week, the person claiming the greatest number of votes was, not surprisingly, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. This is not to say that he will ever become Speaker in a House controlled (even by 4 votes) by Republicans, but rather that he leads a totally unified party. It is becoming abundantly clear with each passing day that Jeffries’ Democrats are not only speaking with one voice, but that they actually have an agreed-upon political platform. This is beginning to sink in on the Republican members of the House who, by comparison to their Democratic colleagues, are known for what they are against - like Social Security, Medicare, Student Loan Forgiveness, Covid-19 vaccines, gun safety measures and aid to Israel and the Ukraine, than what they are for: tax cuts for the hyper-wealthy, the banning of books in public school libraries, anti-immigrant legislation, and turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism. And for what?  Certainly not for the purpose of “Making America Great Again.”  With each passing week and each dropped pass, it seems that what the majority of Republicans are after is maintaining good standing with their party leader, the FPOTUS and continuing to be recipients of the toxic crumbs he doles out for obedience at best, silence at worst. 

Needless to say, this is looking pretty damn embarrassing for the Republicans and does not bode well for 2024. Not that long ago, The COP stood for smaller government, lower taxes and greater individual liberty. Sort of like the Republicanism of the late actor Robert Montgomery, the star of “Here Comes Mr. Jordan.” Montgomery, (1904-1981), the well-born son of a corporate executive, quit Hollywood when Dwight Eisenhower asked him to join his administration in order to become his political "image consultant." He thus created a new position in the world of politics. (BTW: Political historians have often speculated that had Montgomery been Richard Nixon’s media consultant in 1960, JFK would never have been elected.)  It is interesting to speculate precisely which party Montgomery (the father of Elizabeth, the future star of “Bewitched”) would have assisted in the age of Donald Trump, Gym Jordan, Matt Gaetz et al. One gets the feeling that even a star of his magnitude couldn’t have done a damned thing.

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#954: Hip, Hip Hooray Nate White . . . Whoever in the Hell You May Be

An introductory note: My Pal Al sent me an marvelously witty, totally on-point bit of satire about our twice impeached and four times indicted FPOTUS. Try as I might, I could not discover who the purported author, Nate White is. It seems to be some Brit’s nom-de-plume. So far as I can tell, what follows was originally published back in 2020. I just had to share it with you, because in my humble estimation, it is the very best summary of Donald Trump I have ever read. Enjoy!

Why do so many Brits hate Donald Trump?

Someone asked “Why do so many British people not like Donald Trump?”

Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:

A few things spring to mind;

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.

I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W. look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

‘My God… what… have… I… created?’

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

#951 Article XIV, Section 3: The Constitutional Equivalent of the Manhattan Project?

81 years ago this month (Aug. 13, 1942 to be precise) The United States - along with the United Kingdom and Canada - commenced on what would become known as the “Manhattan Project.” For those who don’t know much about mid-20th century history (or have not as yet seen the movie “Oppenheimer,” starring the Irish actor Cillian Murphey as the fabled yet troubled nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer), the “Manhattan Project” was the top-secret program to make the first atomic bombs during World War II. The project, which employed more than 130,000 people over a period of nearly 5 years, had profound impacts on world history.  It was a truly monumental effort created, crafted and accomplished in the darkest of all earthly shadows.  Without it, it is likely that the Allies would never have defeated the Axis in 1945; only G-d knows what the world would look like today, in 2023.

To a haunting extent, we are once again faced with an evil that threatens our very future: Donald Trump and the threat he and his MAGA cultists pose to the very future of democracy. In both political and psychological terms he himself is a freak of nature.

Despite having been twice impeached; currently facing 4 separate state and federal indictments totaling 91 different charges; having been found guilty of defamation of character against a woman who accused him of rape; having been caught spreading more than 30,000 lies and mistruths during his four years in the White House; getting his followers to pay his legal fees . . . etc., etc., etc., his supporters trust him more than their families or religious leaders. This essay is not the place to get into a discussion of either the nature of cult leaders and their rabid followers or the psychology behind conspiracies . . . though both deserve a thorough airing.

It seems pretty obvious that behind closed doors, a vast percentage of Republican office-holders despise Trump (who my friend Alan refers to as “The Orange Blob”) and wish he and his MAGA maniacs would just fade away. They know and understand (again, “behind closed doors”) that he represents clear and present danger to America. Sadly, most all of them - save former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie - lack the backbone to speak the truth in public. What they pray for is some sort of “magic bullet” that will do Trump in without their having to lift a finger or utter a discouraging word . . . and the skies are not cloudy all day.

Back in 1942, when the future of democracy was in dire straits, the “magic bullet” was underwritten by the FDR Administration, who turned to the sages of science . . . people like J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, Hans Bethe and Ernest O. Lawrence to create that weapon. (Do note that with the exception of Dr. Lawrence, the rest of these distinguished physicists who headed up the Manhattan Project were all Jewish immigrants.) Today, the magic bullet so many seek to put Donald Trump out of democracy’s pending degradation, may well come in the form of Article XIV, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, which states:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

     Prof. Laurence Tribe and Judge J. Michael Luttig

A couple of days ago, Laurence Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard Law and J. Michael Luttig, the longtime (1991-2006) Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, co-authored a remarkable article in the Atlantic entitled “The Constitution Prohibits Trump from Ever Being President Again."  The two august Constitutional scholars - Tribe a progressive and Luttig a conservative who has often been compared to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, began their article thusly: As students of the United States Constitution for many decades—one of us as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, the other as a professor of constitutional law, and both as constitutional advocates, scholars, and practitioners—we long ago came to the conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment, the amendment ratified in 1868 that represents our nation’s second founding and a new birth of freedom, contains within it a protection against the dissolution of the republic by a treasonous president.

“The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again. The most pressing constitutional question facing our country at this moment, then, is whether we will abide by this clear command of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause. …

Tribe and Luttig are by no means the first to discuss - let alone conclude - that Article XIV, Section 3 can and should disqualify Donald J. Trump from ever again serving as POTUS.  Indeed, this legal/political thread has been a hotly debated issue among academics and political geeks since January 7, 2021.  The swirl of approval surrounding the use of XIV:3 to remove the “disability of Donald Trump" has been growing ever since. Many of the most vocal are conservative members of the Federalist Society.

Writing in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, law professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, members of the conservative Federalist Society, agree: “In our view, on the basis of the public record, former President Donald J. Trump is constitutionally disqualified from again being President (or holding any other covered office) because of his role in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 election and the events leading to the January 6 attack.”   

This is not to say that there is total agreement ridding the nation of Trump via Constitutional mandate; some are uncertain that it can work.  Since when was there unanimous agreement on anything concerning “the Orange Blob?” And yet, this could be, as they say in Yiddish פֿון הימל קומט אַ מתּנה - “a gift from Heaven.” For Democrats, most Independents and all those Republicans who really, truly don’t want Trump to win the nomination - thus bringing a plague of frogs, lice, vermin and utter defeat at the polls raining on their political parade - this provides the perfect out: keeping quiet and letting the Constitution answer their “behind locked doors” prayers.

As journalist Bill Press, my long ago boss in Governor Jerry Brown’s “Office of Planning and Research” noted just the other day: The language (of article XIV, Section 3) is so clear, not even today’s conservative Supreme Court could read the Constitution any other way. Trump is not only unfit to be president, but he is also constitutionally prohibited from holding that office. Period.    For leaders of the Republican Party, the next step is clear. Follow the 14th Amendment. It’s time to stop entertaining Donald Trump and find another candidate.”

  One gigantic difference between the Manhattan Project and Article XIV, Section 3 of the Constitution is that the former was done under cover of darkness, while the latter is (hopefully) going to be concluded in the bright light of day.

Here’s looking to a better, more democratic tomorrow . . .

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#950: I Really Do Love Israel . . . However

There is an old tale (most likely originally told in Yiddish) about a Jewish man who got lost at sea and eventually made his way to an uncharted island in the middle of nowhere. After many decades, a passing ship noted smoke rising from the heretofore unknown piece of land, and thus sent a small launch in its direction to check it out and satisfy their curiosity. Tying up their launch, less than a half-mile from the island’s shore, they swam over and were amazed to be greeted by an elderly man with a long beard.

After exchanging pleasantries and learning how he had wound up being there - and that he really had no idea precisely how long ago that was - he asked if he could take them on a brief tour so that he could show them the beauty of his home. The visitors were amazed to discover that over the years the old man had created numerous vegetable gardens, a small patch of land devoted to growing wheat which provided him with flour, a lovely pasture with goats and sheep, and a hatchery for fish. He proudly showed them the grass hut he had built for his home, and then urged them to go with him to the other side of the island so that he could show them "the pièce de résistance.” Trekking to the other side of the island, they immediately spotted two beautiful huts standing proudly on their own mound of highly compacted sand.

“And what are these?” the launch leader asked, “and why are there two, considering that there are no other people living here?”

“Ah,” said the old man, “a good question indeed. Why two? You see, the elderly fellow told them, these are my two shuls.” Quickly seeing the lack of comprehension in their faces, he said : “My two synagogues . . . my places of Jewish worship.”

“But why two?” they asked once again. “Simple,” he told them.” Then pointing to the one on the right he proudly told them “This is the synagogue I go to religiously seven days a week, three times a day in order to pray.” "

“And the other one?” the leader asked.

“That’s the one I would never step foot in!” he said, spitting on the sandy ground . . .

“The Talmudic Argument” by Giuseppe Bonalini

This whimsical bit or irony is probably best understood by what we Jewish folk refer to as “M-O-T” - namely, “Members Of the Tribe.” You see, for as long as we’ve existed, despite being a single people (עם אחד - ahm echad - in Hebrew), we have had our arguments, disputes, and fallings-out with one another. Sometimes they have been vehement enough to cause one segment to walk away from another - e.g. building a shul to which no one goes, as in the story above. But in the long run, over many millennia, we have, more often than not, stood shoulder-to-shoulder when things got really dicey.

Another tale - this from the Talmud: Rabbi Eliezer was in an argument with five fellow rabbis over the proper way to perform a certain ritual. The other five Rabbis were all in agreement with each other, but Rabbi Eliezer vehemently disagreed. Finally, Rabbi Nathan pointed out "Eliezer, the vote is five to one! Give it up already!" Eliezer got fed up and said "If I am right, may God himself tell you so!" Thunder crashed, the heavens opened up, and the voice of God boomed down. "YES, RABBI ELIEZER IS RIGHT. RABBI ELIEZER IS PRETTY MUCH ALWAYS RIGHT." Rabbi Nathan turned and conferred with the other rabbis for a moment, then turned back to Rabbi Eliezer. "All right, Eliezer," he said, "the vote stands at five to TWO."

OK. I’ve - hopefully - gotten the point across that among Jews, arguing can sometimes be akin to sport, sometimes a matter of seriousness.  So let’s get serious . . .  

Over the past year or so, politics in מדינת ישראל (midinat Yisrael - the “State of Israel”) has become more than the subject of argumentation; they have become both unsettling and potentially earth-shattering.  In many ways, what’s been happening on the Israeli political scene is not all that much different from what’s going on in the United States: an increasingly right-wing, religion-driven minority enacting their other-worldly will over the will of the majority . . . as well as leaders whose greatest desire is to remain (or regain) their seat of power in order to stay out of prison.

        Israeli P.M. Bibi Netanyahu

Over the past two years, Israel has seen a number of governments collapse due to coalition partners being unable and unwilling to work with one another. Not even a so-called “Unity Government” could get along. To American observers of Israeli politics, their system is close to incomprehensible; it has aspects of British Parliamentarianism (from which the executive branch achieves its power) and the post-Ataturk Turkish Republic system of governance. Like the U,.K. (and New Zealand, Canada and Saudi Arabia), Israel has no constitution . . . which is part of their problem. Its heterodynamic (sometimes active, sometimes dormant) system makes political unity all but impossible. Case in point: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, the state’s longest-serving PM, in order to remain in that post, cobbled together a coalition which included two of the most ultra-orthodox parties in the business. In turn, these parties - which represent a small minority of the country’s voters and/or wishes, have the power to turn one of the world’s most modern, best-educated, and most technically advanced countries into a 8,560 square mile (approximately the size of New Jersey) shetl . . . the name for medieval Eastern European Jewish market town where rabbis ruled, women’s main tasks were to cook, clean and bear children, and there was no distinction between secular and religious.

This not having a constitution wasn’t the original plan. Israel’s Declaration of Independence explicitly called for a constitution, and the first Knesset (parliament), elected on January 25, 1949, was supposed to create one. They deliberated it for many months but the discussions reached a deadlock. It rapidly became clear that no constitution would be enacted; instead the Knesset would enact a series of Basic Laws that would in time be combined into a constitution. After nearly three-quarters-of-a-century, Israelis are still waiting.

Bibi Netanyahu’s current governing coalition is, as mentioned above, easily the most ultra-conservative and religious in Israel’s history. This is not to say that the various religious parties have remained on the political sidelines up until now. To the contrary: religious parties have always held seats within the 120 member Knesset and have been minor partners in various coalitions in exchange for which they fulfill their major goals. To wit, maintaining the Orthodox strangle-hold on marriages, divorces and conversions, receiving deferments for their young men from military service (so that they may spend their lives studying Talmud) and receiving monetary appropriations directed to the haredim (Hebrew for “those who tremble” - the most ultra-Orthodox) community. On May 23, 2023, Netanyahu’s Knesset approved a raise for Agudat Israel and Otzma Yehudit - the two most powerful religious parties - NIS 250 million raise, to be used for building additional settlements. Even this “chanukah present” came as the result of argumentation: the two party’s opening demand was for NIS 600 million. The cash handouts to the ultra-Orthodox have sparked anger as Israelis of all backgrounds contend with soaring prices and increased interest rates.

Netanyahu’s pandering to the religious parties in his coalition (there are five different parties occupying 31 of the 64-seats making up this session’s majority), has led him to pass legislation calling for a complete overhaul of the Jewish State’s Supreme Court. The 15-member court — which meets in a graceful building on a hill in Jerusalem alongside Parliament — includes secular liberals, religiously observant Jews and conservative residents of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. One justice is an Arab Israeli; six are women, including the court’s president.

  Protesting Netanyahu as a Threat to Democracy

The government has primed itself for battle against the court by portraying it as a bastion of a secular, left-leaning elite and a closed club out of touch with changes sweeping the country. Experts say that characterization has not been true for years.  On September 12, the Court will hold hearings on the overhaul legislation . . . putting them in the Orwellian position  of ruling on their own legitimacy. The legislation in question cancels the court’s ability to use the somewhat vague and subjective standard of reasonableness to overturn government decisions and appointments.  This has raised the hackles and the ire of Israel’s politically astute, mostly secular, majority.  Many believe that Netanyahu has pushed for this legislation as a means of circumventing his own legal problems. 

At the same time, Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox allies in the Knesset are seeking to expand the powers of all-male rabbinical courts, and to bar women and men from mixing in many public arenas.  As part of his agreement to give his ultra-Orthodox allies what they want in exchange for keeping him in power, Netanyahu has already made several concessions that have unsettled secular Israelis. Among them are proposals to segregate audiences by sex at some public events, to create new religious residential communities, to allow businesses to refuse to provide services based on religious beliefs, and to expand the powers of all-male rabbinical courts.  Israel’s laws have not been amended to reflect the concessions, but some fear that the changes are already coming, at the expense of women. The Israeli news media has been full of reports in recent months about incidents seen as discriminatory. 

Bus drivers in central Tel Aviv and southern Eilat have refused to pick up young women, because they were wearing crop tops or workout clothes. Last month, ultra-Orthodox men in the religious town of Bnei Brak stopped a public bus and blocked the road because a woman was driving.  As a response, members of בונות אלטרנטיבה (Bonot Alternativa,  Hebrew for “Building an Alternative,”, a  pro-democracy group, as well as a nonpartisan umbrella group of women’s organizations) show up at weekly antigovernment protests dressed in scarlet robes and white wimples that mimic those of the disenfranchised women forced to bear children in the dystopian television show based on Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

There are any number of similarities between Netanyahu’s obsessive need to maintain his premiership, and  Donald Trump’s need to regain his presidency: Both need to give in to their country’s most conservative supporters in order to retain (or regain) power; Both are narcissistic ego-maniacs; Both need power in order to stay out of prison.  

Why Trump needs to be reelected is obvious; everyone in the world knows of all the legal challenges he faces.  Unless he returns to the White House in January 2025, he’s going to wind up in Leavenworth; no Democratic POTUS would ever deign to grant him a pardon.

In the case of Bibi Netanyahu, not nearly so many people know that he has been charged with fraud, breach of trust and corruption. He has pleaded not guilty and says he is the victim of a politically orchestrated “witch-hunt” by the media and the left to remove him from office. (Sound familiar?) As a sitting Prime Minister, he cannot be forced to leave office. (BTW: Netanyahu is not the only member of the cabinet with a troubled legal past: Deputy P.M. Aryeh Deri was convicted of taking $155,000 in bribes while serving as the interior minister, and was given a three-year jail sentence in 2000; Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir has faced charges of hate speech against Arabs and was previously convicted of supporting a terrorist group known as Kach, which espoused an extremist religious Zionist ideology.)

There are those who, reading this post, will accuse me of being either a “self-hating Jew,” a “Jewish anti-Semite,” or a “radical anti-Zionist.” Nothing could be further from the truth. I really, truly love the people of Israel; I love its history, its language and literature (I speak, read and write Hebrew with passable fluency); I love its many, many achievements in the worlds of science, medicine, technology and the arts; of how this tiny country is, generally speaking, the first one to send emergency medical services to both friend and foe alike whenever and wherever the need arises.  I also love it enough to forgive those on the religious right who do not consider me a rabbi, nor will permit me to perform a wedding or effect a conversion within its borders.  G-d willing, some day that will change . . . if and when the people who see the Jewish state the same way I do, recognize that they/we are a majority.

What troubles me - and greatly so - is the direction its politics have taken over the past many years. The very nature of Israel’s national identify has been radically altered by a small faction that seeks to replace the Zionist-humanitarian-socialist democracy of Ben Gurion, Golda Meier and the founders, and turn it into an unrecognizable place based on a rigid Biblical/Rabbinic code of law . . . even if it means going against the will of the majority.

But make no mistake about it: one can be inalterably opposed to this wrenching right-wing turn and still be a patriotic מאהב ישראל (m’ahayv Yisrael _ a ”lover of Israel”). 

Debate, disagreement and divisiveness, after all is said and done, are all part of the Jewish genome.

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone