How Low Can You Go?

                                Charles Kushner: Trump’s Mechutan

Unlike a majority of Jewish  people (especially rabbis) residing here in South Florida, I was neither born nor raised in a Lower East Side family where the parents spoke Yiddish whenever they did not want the children to understand what they were saying.  Both I and my slightly older sister Erica (Riki) are 100% Californian. Neither our grandparents nor great-grandparents for that matter were Eastern-European immigrants who came through Eliis Island or Castle Garden and then settled a short distance from their  place of disembarkation. Rather, the earliest generations of Hymans, Greenbergs and Schimbergs were born in 19th century Virginia, Maryland and Minnesota. Their children - our great-grandparents - were native English speakers about as far removed from “Tevya,  Golda and the girls” as can be imagined. The next generation - our great grandparents - raised their families in places like Baltimore, Richmond, Virginia, Chicago and Kansas City. (Granny Annie, my mother’s mother, was born in 1896 in the same St. Paul neighborhood  where just a few days earlier, F(rancis) Scott Key Fitzgerald (F. Scott) had entered the world - not exactly a Yiddishe shetl). As such, neither our great grandparents, grandparents nor parents understood more than 5 words of Yiddish. (I myself did learn a bit of Yiddish with the late Professor Herb Paper out of an urge to be able to read Sholem Aleichem in the original) Indeed, today, whenever we want to speak in front of “Madame” (our soon-to-be 97 year old matriarch) in a language she won’t understand, we (meaning me and Annie) chatter away in Hebrew. (Unlike most America-born, Hollywoodish Jewish great-grandmothers of her generation, she does do reasonably well in French and Italian.) So what in the world does any of this have to do with “Politics & a Whole Lot More,” as the subtitle of this blog has proclaimed for going on 17 years? 

To wit: our purpose is to introduce a Yiddish word that takes a paragraph to explain - a word that soon may become as well known as schmuck, mazal tov, meshuggah, chutzpah, glitch, mensch, shtick and yente - all of which likewise take a brief  sentence or two to explain.  And that word is מחותן (pronounced m’chut’n for a male,  מחותנתטע (pronounced m’chutn’steh for a female, or מחותונים (pronounced m’chutonim in the plural.  Let’s, for the moment, pay attention to the male version (מחותן) of the term.  Derived from the Hebrew word for “groom,” a mchut’n is how one describes the relationship between you and your child’s father-in-law.  A simple example (and getting ever closer to the purpose of this little linguistic exercise) would be to explain the relationship between Donald Trump and Charles Kushner - Jared Kusher’s father . . . the one just given a presidential pardon.  Charles Kushner is Donald and Melania Trump’s m’chut’n, while Seryl Kushner (née Stadtmauer), Jared’s mother and Charles’ wife, is the Trump’s m’chutn’steh; together, they are Donald and Melania’s m’chutonim. (BTW: For those who speak/understand Spanish, the word consuegro/consuegra is pretty close  . . . “the father-in-law/mother-in-law of one’s son or daughter.”). In issuing a pardon to his m’chutan just days before he (please G-d) heads for the exit, Donald Trump has done something which has never happened before in American history and undoubtedly will never happen again.  

Ever since George Washington issued the first presidential pardon in 1795 (forgiving two Pennsylvania men sentenced to death for treason after participating in protests known as "The Whiskey Rebellion”) there have been some forgotten doozies. How many recall that in 1868, Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, fully pardoned every soldier who fought for the Confederate Army? Or that in 1989, Ronald Reagan pardoned George Steinbrenner, the loud-mouthed owner of the New York Yankees, who had been convicted in 1974 on 14 criminal counts for making illegal financial contributions to Nixon's reelection campaign two years earlier? 

Of course, up until just the other day, President Gerald R. Ford’s pardoning of his predecessor Richard Nixon had been the most notorious such act in all American history. Now mind you, ‘45 isn’t the only president to pardon a family member: Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger (who had pleaded guilty to cocaine distribution charges and served a year in prison). Roger’s pardon was one of 147 issued by the outgoing president on his very last day in office.  45’s pre-Christmas pardons were far, far more than mere gifts to loyalists such as Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and his m’chutan Charles Kushner; they were knockout punches aimed directly at core American principles.  For in addition to these particularly noxious characters, there were three former Republican members of the House of Representatives -  Chris Collins of New York, Duncan Hunter of California and Steve Stockman of Texas — who were guilty of, respectively, insider trading, stealing hundreds of thousands in campaign money and robbing a charity.  These pardons, in the words of columnist/constitutional law professor/professional whistleblower Harry Litman “. . . delivered an especially brutal kick in the teeth to the DOJ.” Generally speaking, in order to receive a presidential pardon, petitioners are supposed to have served their sentences, demonstrated genuine remorse for their crimes and led a productive life afterward. Such requirements are just one more joke to Trump — by a conservative estimate, more than half of his pre-Christmas pardons went to people who did not meet Justice Department criteria.

Ivanka Trump’s billionaire father-in-law Charles Kushner had pleaded guilty in 2004 to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering, and making illegal campaign donations. Moreover, he had confessed to retaliating against his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities, by hiring a prostitute to seduce him. He filmed the encounter and sent it to his sister, the man’s wife. Prosecuted by then U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, Kushner served 14 months of a two-year sentence in federal prison.  Christie, who recently referred to Kushner’s crimes as “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. attorney,” gained enough notoriety and positive publicity that he was eventually elected governor of New Jersey. His involvement in prosecuting the case also got him kicked off the Trump political jet.  I guess what they say is true: קיין גוטע מעשה ווערט נישט באשטראפט (keyn gute meshh vert nisht bashtraft - viz. “No good deed goes unpunished”) Prior to 2016, Charles Kushner was a major donor to Democrats in New York.  Once Donald Trump started his race for the White House, Kushner switched his allegiance - and donations - to the G.O.P.  And yes it is true, he has long been a major contributor to Chabad and other Jewish educational institutions.  

But Roger Stone?  Paul Manafort?  Michael Flynn? Have they shown or voiced any contrition?  What have they done to indicate any rehabilitation?  Former general Michael Flynn, who served about 2 weeks as Donald Trump’s first National Security Advisor, has, of late, been appearing on News Max and OAN urging his former boss to put the country under martial law in order to get the 2020 election overturned!  This is how one earns a presidential pardon?  Or, have the Stones, Manaforts and Flynns done something far more important: put cash into the Trump coffers?  Although there is as yet no hard proof that a crime has been committed by Donald Trump, the history is both clear and ever-present: the man has consistently used his office as a personal ATM. 

There will undoubtedly be more pardons between today and 11:59 a.m. on January 20, 2021.  And who knows, perhaps the  final pardons - which easily could be issued to many Trumps (Donald, Don, Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Jared certainly come to mind) won’t be signed by the man who, up until he left for Mar-a-Lago just other day, sat behind the Resolute Desk . . . but by Mike Pence who may well become “President for a day” just so he can pardon his former boss. Only time will tell.  (BTW: Anyone seeking to purchase a handsome replica of the Resolute Desk, it will set you back $6,118.49.  Ironically, the best venue for purchase is Overstock.com, whose former C.E.O., Patrick Byrne, plays a significant role in the conspiracy to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.  And by the way, the Resolute replica is made not in the United States, but rather Indonesia.)

In pardoning his m’chut’n - another billionaire real estate tycoon who got his start because his father was very, very rich - Donald Trump has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt the truth of two things:

1. דאָס עפּעלע פֿאַלט ניט װײַט פֿון בײמעלע (Dos epele falt nit vayt fun beymele - “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” and

2. When it comes to Donald Trump, the answer to the question “How low can you go?” is נידעריקער ווי די נייַנט קרייַז פון גענעם (nideriker vi di naynt krayz fun genem) . . . “Lower than the ninth circle of hell!”

8 days until the Georgia election;

23 days until Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are inaugurated.

Be safe . . . See you next year!

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Pardon Me?

At the outset, let me be clear: I am not an attorney, never attended law school and didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn last night. Nonetheless, I do have both a stepson and a son-in-law who are practicing attorneys and did take two challenging courses in Constitutional Law taught by a visiting faculty member of the Harvard Law School. Even after a half-century, I well remember such landmark cases as Marbury v .Madison, McCullough v. Maryland, Schenck v. United States, Plessy v. Ferguson and Schechter v. United States, not to mention the worst decision of all time (with the possible exception of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission) Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford. And it is possible - just possible - that before too long, there may be yet another infamous case brought before the nation’s highest court: that of Trump v. United States. The issue? Whether or not it’s legal for the President of the United States to grant him/herself a pardon.

Before getting to the issue at hand and predicting whether or not the outgoing POTUS - along with his family and most loyal toadies -  will, in fact receive pardons, let’s clear up one thing: I for one couldn’t care less whether or not he pardons himself, gets someone else to do it for him, gets Mitch McConnell’s hand-picked Supreme Majority to throw him a legal lifesaver,  or constructs a  piranha-infested moat around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. No matter how the scenario  plays out, it’s going to ultimately be a lose-lose situation for him and his family.

First things first: according to the U.S. Constitution (article II, Section 2, Clause 1 the president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” While the president’s power to pardon seems unlimited, a presidential pardon can only be issued for a federal crime, and pardons cannot be issued for impeachment cases tried and convicted by Congress. The way things work these days under this particular Department of Justice, Trump enjoys broad immunity from federal probes as president; there are currently no known federal investigations being conducted into possible crimes by him. That could all change at 1:00 on January 20, 2021, when he is no long POTUS. In any event, there are also a minimum of 9 state cases on the drawing board up in New York for which only Governor Andrew Cuomo could issue a pardon. And the way things stand, there are precisely 2 chances of that ever happening: absolutely none and a heck of a lot less than that.

So what choices does Boss Tweet have?

1. Pardon himself. (Trump recently retweeted a post from ultra-out-of-it GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz which said that the he should pardon "everyone from himself, to his administration, to Joe Exotic if he has to.”) From the point of view of legal logic, pardoning himself would be a clear admission that he, Donald Trump, had committed crimes. Let’s face it: one cannot be pardoned for a crime one has not committed. There is precedent for people receiving a presidential pardon even before they have been convicted. But in the case of Donald Trump, he has long insisted that he has never done anything wrong or illegal; it has all been the product of a vast conspiracy created by his enemies in the “lamestream media,” or the entire Democratic Party or all those who are just plain jealous of his success.

2. Another possibility would be for him to his Cabinet to institute the 25th Amendment, thereby having him resign from office, thus turning the presidency over to Mike Pence, thus giving him the constitutional authority to pardon his former boss. One “huuuge” problem with this is that were Pence to pardon Trump, it would thrust a lethal political dagger into the heart of the Hoosier Hero, who has already expressed interest in running for president in 2024. Remember what pardoning Richard Nixon in 1974 did for President Gerald Ford in 1976?

President-elect Joseph Biden has, to date, made it fairly clear that he will not seek to use his Department of Justice to pursue federal investigations about his predecessor.  Whether or not this remains the last word remains to be seen.  It is more than likely that ‘45  still has a few things up his sleeve for his final 50 days in office; these may serve to change the new president’s and his DOD’s mind.  Without question, Biden and Harris are already receiving advice and pressure from a fractionated party as to what they should do.  

According to various anonymous sources within the Trump camp, the president has been seeking advice recently as to whether pardoning himself is even legal in the first place. There was a legal memo written by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel just days before Nixon's resignation in 1974 that argued a president could not self-pardon. The DOJ’s position was quite simple: "Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, it would seem that the question should be answered in the negative." That was, of course, a legal opinion, not law; but much like the opinion that a sitting president can't be charged with a crime, these things take on the feel of precedent. Instead, Nixon's successor and former vice president, Gerald Ford, as previously mentioned, gave his old boss an unconditional pardon a month later, thereby scuttling his own ambition of being elected President of the United States.

Of course, at the moment, Trump’s questions are largely academic (despite the fact that he is likely our least academic president since Warren G. Harding); as mentioned above, he has yet to be charged with a federal crime for which it would take a presidential pardon in order to keep him from being sentenced to living out his years at Club Fed. As things now stand, so long as he is POTUS, there is every reason to believe that he is incapable of being in this position: after all, attorney general, Bill Barr, has made very clear he'd follow existing Department of Justice guidance which prevents a sitting President from being charged with a crime. If Trump gets creative, perhaps he could a try to use a preemptive self-pardon to deal with a potential future federal tax judgment against him. The IRS, for instance, says he incorrectly claimed a $72.9 million tax write-off, according to the New York Times reporting on his tax returns.

But once again, a pardon - whether granted by a succeeding president (like Mike Pence) or the president himself, is, at base, an admission of guilt. And that sort of guilt can neither be lived down nor denied by calling it a hoax. A pardon would make a 2024 presidential redux next to impossible . . . no matter how many apostles still believe he walks on water and makes Abraham Lincoln look like an also-ran.

As I stated at the outset, no matter which path Trump chooses to take, he will find himself in the middle of a lose-lose predicament. Let’s pray for him like the rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof prayed for the Tsar:

May G-d bless and keep Donald Trump . . . far away from us.

36 days until the Georgia election.

51 days until Biden and Harris are inaugurated.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

"Not With a Bang But a Whimper"

Poet T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), who was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature, was one of the twentieth century’s truly great literary downers. Among his best-known downers were The Waste Land (“April is the cruelest [sic]  month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land . . .), The Love Song of J. Alfred Proofrock (“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be . . .”), and above all, The Hollow Men with its soul-stirring last lines:

This is how the world ends

This is how the world ends

This is how the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

To be perfectly honest, I‘ve never been all that enamored with Eliot’s poetry; it is too dark, too disheartening and goyish for my tastes.  And yet, The Hollow Men has been crawling up my spine for the past several days . . . ever since former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani made a hair-dyed fool of himself at a nearly two-hour press conference, only to then be followed by Sidney Powell - another member of the Trump “illegal team” - who crazily insisted that her boss’s “overwhelming victory” was ruined by the worst, nastiest, most bestial political crime/conspiracy in all American history. Against all sanity and logic, Ms. Powell, while somehow maintaining a straight face, accused Republican officials of being involved in a payoff scheme to manipulate voting machines. Her ramblings also included a mishmash of lunacy involving Venezuelan Socialists, German Communists and, of course, financial bogeyman George Soros. And all the while, Rudy’s hair-dye continued its drip-drip-dripping from temple to zygomatic arch.  If this had been classic cinema, it no doubt would have starred Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester.

By day’s end, the Trump legal team (including Giuliani himself) issued a tweet stating “Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own.  She is not part of the Trump Legal Team.  [sic] She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.”  Talk about one’s world coming to an end “Not with a bang but a whimper.” Within 48 hours, things got even worse in Trumpland: Federal Judge Matthew Brann (a former conservative Republican and member in good standing of the Federalist Society who nonetheless was nominated by President Barack Obama to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in 2012) issued a scathing order dismissing the Trump campaign’s futile effort to block the certification of votes in Pennsylvania, shooting down claims of widespread irregularities with mail-in ballots. 

Brann wrote in his order that the Trump legal team had asked the court to disenfranchise almost 7 million voters. “One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption,” Brann wrote, so much that the court would have no option but to stop the certification even though it would impact so many people. “That has not happened,” he concluded. Having been legally mauled by Judge Brann in Pennsylvania, Trump decided to turn attention towards Michigan, and issued an invitation to Republican leaders of the Wolverine State legislature to come visit him at the White House, hoping against hope that he could convince them to “take one for the team” by invalidating hundreds of thousands of mail-in votes. Another foray into Never Never Land, another failure; the Michiganders refused to beckon to their leader’s call and announced that they would certify Biden’s victory.  The same thing happened with Georgia.

And that’s when the whimpering began in earnest . . . 

For the past 4+ years, a heck of a lot of political practitioners, writers and geeks have wondered aloud how and why the vast majority of Republican offer holders have stood mutely by while their beloved leader has trashed, humiliated and torn asunder the very fabric of American democracy.  How, we have queried, how is it possible for so many supposedly intelligent, patriotic people to let him get away with all the lies, the mindless dismantling of the America we know and love?  Isn’t there, we have cried out, even a single heroic voice on the other side of the aisle that is capable of shouting out “You have done enough! Have you left no sense of decency?” like Joseph Welch of old? Those who know their political history will remember that Welch’s words (which he delivered on June 9, 1954) were aimed at then-Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, who had turned the nation upside down and inside out with his paranoid conspiracy theories about the Communist takeover of America. Within 6 months of Welch’s rhetorical joust, the senate would censure McCarthy; within another 2 1/2 years, the disgraced “Tailgunner Joe,” long an alcoholic, died of cirrhosis of the liver at age 48.  (n.b. It should be noted that back in the 1950s, McCarthy’s chief political advisor/amanuensis was a young New York attorney named Roy Marcus Cohn; a generation later, this same Roy Cohn would become chief political advisor/groomer for one Donald John Trump.)

As the whimpering grows ever louder, we now learn from Watergate journalist and CNN analyst Carl Bernstein that there has long been a sizeable number of Republican officeholders who privately despise Trump, even as they have remained faithful to him in public.  Bernstein has now published a partial list of 21 Republican senators who have “privately expressed their disdain” for the president: the list includes Senators Rob Portman, Lamar Alexander, Ben Sasse, Roy Blunt, Lisa Murkowski, John Cornyn, Mitt Romney, Mike Braun, Todd Young, Tim Scott, Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, Chuck Grassley, Richard Burr, Pat Toomey, Martha McSally, Jerry Moran, Pat Roberts, and Richard Shelby. In an interview with Vanity Fair staff writer Eric Lutz, Bernstein said: “We are witnessing the mad king in the final days of his reign, willing to scorch the Earth of his country and bring down the whole system . . . They know what's going on.” '

Finally, yesterday the whimper became manifest; the world as Donald Trump and his legions have known it, began its final descent into oblivion. Emily Murphy, the administrator of the General Services Administration, announced that the transition from Trump to Biden could finally commence. In a memorandum sent to White House employees late last night, Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, wrote that Ms. Murphy had made an “ascertainment” about the results of the 2020 election “to allow the start of a presidential transition.” (Interestingly, Trump tweeted that he - and he alone - was responsible for passing along the transitional key card to the Biden team.  This, of course, is yet another lie; federal law assigns this task to the GSA administrator alone . . . not the POTUS).

Almost immediately, the Biden transition team opened up their first “.gov” website: https://buildbackbetter.gov/ - and started announcing nominees for the new Cabinet. If you get a chance, follow this link and see who the President Elect has already nominated.  Unlike with the Trump administration, these nominees (Secretary of State [Anthony Blinken], Treasury [Janet Yellen], Homeland Security [Alejandro Mayorkas], Ambassador to the United Nations [Linda Thomas-Greenfield] (back to being a Cabinet-level appointment), National Security Advisor [Jake Sullivan] Director of National Intelligence [Avril Haines] and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate [Former Secretary of State John Kerry] as well as his first appointment, Chief of Staff Ron Klain, . . . these nominees are a highly impressive group. The caliber of these men and women, the diversity of their experience, and the fact that expertise - not loyalty - is the bedrock of their collective appeal is the bipolar opposite of what we’ve been experiencing since January 2017.

Indeed, the whimper with which the Trump years are ending, will no doubt continue to be heard for years and years to come.  The whimper of a loser who now, for perhaps the first time in his life, must face up the consequences of his actions. 

For as T.S. Eliot wrote in Little Gidding, the fourth and final poem of his Four Quartets: 

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."

42 days until the senate elections in Georgia;

57 days until the inauguration of the nation’s 46th President.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F Stone

There's Still a Lot of Work to Be Done

Last week’s theme song was “Dancing in the Streets” as immortalized by Martha and the Vandellas. And while people of a certain age undoubtedly remember Martha Reeves and her sisters (Lois and Delphine) for such classics as “Heatwave,” “Nowhere to Run,” “Jimmy Mack” (written by Phil Collins) and, “Quicksand,” very few are aware of the fact that Martha was also a “Motor City” political activist and an elected member of the Detroit City Council from 2005-2009.  Strong, proud and highly intelligent, Martha Reeves (who as of today is nearing 80 and still performing year round), always felt that there was more to life than simply entertaining . . . that “there’s still a lot of work to  be done.”

Yesterday’s “MAGA March” on D.C. didn’t come close to the million-man figure predicted by the White House or claimed by Presidential Press Secretary Kaleigh McEnany.  While the gathering was taking place, their once-and-always POTUS was playing golf in Virginia.  He has yet to concede defeat, grant the incoming administration key cards so that they continue the serious work of transition, and no doubt hasn’t given thought to whether or not he will attend Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021.  Let us all presume that he will not . . . and for any number of reasons.  His absence from the inauguration will put him in a most select and historic crowd: In all American history, only 3 other presidents have absented themselves from their successor’s oath-taking: John Adams (1801) who left town for Massachusetts at 4:00 a.m. rather than smile upon Thomas Jefferson; his son John Quincy Adams (1829) who absolutely despised his successor, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson, the first “accidental president” (following the much beloved Abraham Lincoln’s assassination) and couldn’t even get his party’s nomination for a full term, and was thus succeeded by another much beloved figure: General U.S. Grant. (I for one find it fascinating that these three had the same initials: J.A., J.Q.A. and A.J.  Soon we will add another set of initials: D.J.T.)

(n.b. The fact that the incoming Biden administration is being denied access to the reins of government, while incredibly nasty and utterly amateurish, is not the end of the world.  Joe Biden is likely the best-prepared future President in American history.  His staff is equally ready and able to hit the ground running . . . and, he has every world leader’s home phone number . . .)

One has to believe that the main reason why DJT will never concede to President-elect Biden is that to do so would represent a double Trumpian first: the first time he has admitted defeat and the first time the spotlight will no longer be shining directly upon his pancaked punim . . . his face.  In a matter of weeks, he will have to face the daunting prospect of being without an income, a shield of legal invulnerability, and the very real prospect of being under multi indictments without a legal team to help protect him.  (Legal talent the likes of which he will no doubt require does not work pro bono, and the once-and-future ex POTUS has a long, long history of not paying his bills).

But just as President-elect Biden, Vice President-elect Harris and their blended staffs are already hard at work preparing to hit the ground running, so too must we - the nearly 79 million (as of this morning) people who voted for the Democratic ticket get back to work so as to insure that the United States Senate will be controlled by the party of Biden and Harris. If this does not occur - if Mitch McConnel continues on as Majority Leader, there is every reason to believe that he will spend at least the next 2 years making life miserable for the 46th POTUS. I can actually see him ordering his fellow Republicans to vote against virtually every Biden Cabinet nominee . . . perhaps not even calendaring them for committee hearings or visits (remember what he did to Federal Judge Merrick Garland during the last year of the Obama Administration?) What does McConnell care if he looks like a colossal horse’s rear end? It’s not as if he’s going to be running for reelection in 2026 when he’ll be 84 years old. He simply does not care what happens to the United States; he’s played his role to the hilt by paving the federal court system for the next 3-4 decades with judicial luddites . . .

No, we need to roll up our sleeves and get back to work; we need to fill the 2 remaining senate seats with Georgia Democrats Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff. Then the senate will be 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris providing the tie-breaking 51st vote, and turning majority leadership over to New York Senator Chuck Schumer (or whomsoever the Democrats wish to elect).

Can Warnock defeat Kelly Loeffler and Ossoff defeat David Perdue?  Considering that the Biden/Harris ticket defeated Trump/Pence by slightly more than 14,000 votes (49.5%-49.2%) and that Trump/Pence will not be on the ballot January 5, 2021, there is a reasonable chance that  the Democrats can take back the Senate.  However, hoping is not nearly enough.  Contributions certainly help.  Both incumbents, Loeffler (likely the wealthiest member of the U.S. Senate) and Perdue, can raise vast sums of money from their billionaire backers.  But so can Reverend Warnock and Mr. Ossoff . . . although their funding comes mostly from members of America’s middle class.  

Republican strategists have already attempted to block contributions from potential Jewish donors by claiming that the two Democratic candidates are both devout “tax and spend Marxists,” are anti-Israel (if not anti-Semitic) and will thus do everything in their power to destroy American Democracy. In other words, they are using the Trump playbook.  In one of her first ads, Senator Loeffler painted the Black pastor of the Atlanta church once led by Martin Luther King Jr, as a police-hating, Castro-loving Marxist. "This is America, her ad ran; “Will it still be if the radical left controls the Senate?" the narrator asks, while images show street riots.

Warnock has made climate change and environmental justice an important part of his campaign. Loeffler avoids talking about climate and boasts of being the senator most loyal to President Trump, who has led the nation out of the Paris climate accord and pursued energy policies that champion the fossil fuel industry. 

On Election day, Nov. 3, Warnock topped a field of 20 candidates running in a "jungle primary" special election that included Loeffler, who Gov. Brian Kemp appointed to fill the Senate seat vacated by Johnny Isakson in late 2019. Warnock received 32.9 percent of the vote, while Loeffler got 25.9 percent. Her main Republican challenger, Rep. Doug Collins, received 19.9 percent.

Warnock has already begun attempting to preemptively inoculate himself from Loeffler's attacks in ads of his own. In one, he says: "Get ready Georgia. The negative ads are coming. Kelly Loeffler doesn't want to talk about why she's for getting rid of healthcare in the middle of a pandemic. So she's going to try to scare you with lies about me." 

He also told voters on election night that he plans to "lean in" to his biography—that he is one of 12 children; the product of public housing and federal programs that helped him become the first member of his family to graduate from college.

"If you need somebody who will stand up for ordinary people, here I am. Send me," Warnock said.

Loeffler and her strategists have also done their utmost to paint Warnock as being an anti-Israel and anti-Semite. They did this by repeatedly bringing up a May 2018 sermon Warnock gave at the time Trump moved the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in which he flatly asserted that the move was meant mostly to please the president’s evangelical supporters. Additionally, Warnock has been accused of being in favor of the BDS (“Boycott, Divest, Sanction”) movement and supports a two-state solution (as do a majority of Jewish Americans). In recent polling, Warnock is a clear favorite of Jewish voters in Georgia.

Warnock has the endorsement of Georgia’s only Jewish state senator, Democrat Mike Wilensky, as well as several Jewish US senators and the Jewish Democratic Council of America, a progressive pro-Israel group. This past Tuesday, he tweeted its support for Warnock.

Defenders of Warnock point to Loeffler’s affiliation with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the recently elected representative for Georgia’s 14th District who has advanced the antisemitic QAnon conspiracy theory. Loeffler campaigned with Greene just before Election Day.

“Reverend Warnock stands with the Jewish community, Jewish values, and stands with Israel; that’s why I support his candidacy to the United States Senate,” Biden organizer Ben Kanas tweeted on Tuesday. “His opponent stands against Jewish values and embraces those who favor the antisemitism of QAnon.”

During the other senate race - that between incumbent David Purdue and businessman/political activist/former/Congressional staffer Jon Ossoff, Perdue’s strategy centered around reminding George voters time and again that Ossoff is Jewish. During their one and only televised debate, Ossoff attacked his opponent, saying “First, you were lengthening my nose in attack ads to remind everybody that I’m Jewish; then when that didn’t work, you started calling me some kind of an Islamic terrorist And then, when then that didn’t work you started calling me a Chinese communist.”

“Instead of leading and inspiring, he stoops to mocking the heritage of his political opponents,” Ossoff, the Democratic nominee, said when sharing a clip from the debate on Twitter.

The video got a quarter of a million views within 48 hours. Another video grab from the debate, in which Ossoff accused Perdue of insider trading for buying stock in personal protective equipment after a private January briefing for senators on the potential for a coronavirus pandemic, has gotten more than 12 million views. Perdue denies insider trading accusations. That’s when he started referring to Ossoff as a “Chinese communist.”  He also announced that he  would no longer participate in any future debates.

In addition to contributing to Warnock’s and Ossoff’s campaign, we can assist by sending out postcards to potential Georgia voters. If you would like to take part in this simple yet highly effective campaign, please email Suzi Stoller (one of my ardent readers at suzi.stoller@gmail.com this is a postcard initiative. The postcards kits are supplied by Reclaim Our Vote (ROV). They are attention-getting fronts. ROV provides the words to be written. They ask that they be handwritten as sent. The scripts are put together by those familiar with what is comfortable and familiar to locals. If you choose to do this you will receive:

1. Postcards

2. The script-to be handwritten

3. A list of names and addresses-to be hand addressed

4. Last time (I assume this time, too) a sticker to be included which has specific information depending on the County it is going to.

You will be asked to put a postcard stamp on each and mail. I believe postcards should be mailed not later than Dec. 7. You will receive very specific information.

They ask that you also pay the postage for the packet that is mailed to you. If you do the work, just let me know, I will be happy to pick up the cost of the packets being mailed to you.

What follows is part of an email I received from Suzi Stoller.

If you would like to participate, please send me your name, addresses and the number of cards you would like. Packets are in sets of 30, so you request, 30, 60, 90, 120 or more, just always in packets of 30.

Let's all work together and turn the US Senate Blue.

Once I hear from you that you will participate I will order your packet. You should receive it in less than a week.

Last time my letter generated about 3500 postcards. Hoping to reach that goal again. If you know anyone who is interested, I'll order for them and send to them or you can order for you and your group.

Good Luck to ALL of US. Suzi Stoller suzi.stoller@gmail.com

Together, we can help change the world.

Remember, there’s still a lot of work to be done!

66 days until the inauguration.

51 days until the Georgia election!

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Pass the Maalox . . . and While You're At It, Get Me Three Fingers of Glenmorangie Spios

One week to go - 7 days, 168+ hours until the polls close everywhere from West Quoddy Head, Maine to Cape Wrangell, Alaska, and from Point Barrow (again, Alaska) to Pago Pago.  This is not to say that we will know the final results of the presidential race 168+ hours from now.  Only the good Lord knows when the contest will be called; when “30” will be affixed to the bottom of the story and most importantly who the POTUS will be beginning on January 20, 2021. Both sides have their hopes and dreams; both sides fear what the nation - let alone the  world - will be like should “the other guy” win.  Without question, none of us have ever lived through such a presidential race . . . one that seems to have been going on for at least half a century.  Oh, the sleepless nights; the nasty invective, outright lies, the anger and the utter churlishness of the incumbent.  I for one have a medicine cabinet filled with Maalox and a personal stash of Glenmorangie Spios on the barroom shelf.  It’s been that kind of a political dual.  

On the bright side, there is a fairly good possibility that things are going to change; that the asinine Tweetstorms will abate; the unabashed nastiness and playground catcalls will diminish; that we will stop being treated like a swarm of gullible morons.  I know that for me - should my prayers and hard work be answered - that which I will miss even more than the constant polling, the chance to once again hear the name “Hunter Biden” come from the lips of the worst president in American history or the vomitatious claim that he has “done more for Black Americans than than any other president, with the “possible exception” of Abraham Lincoln.

Many of us remember the election of 1980, when Ronald Reagan gave incumbent President Jimmy Carter a shellacking: The Gipper won 44 states to the peanut farmer’s 6 (including the District of Columbia) and a 489-49 pasting in the Electoral College.  Those with decent political memories will remember long gas lines, super-high inflation and a 444-day crisis where the entire American diplomatic corps was held hostage in the American Embassy in Teheran.  It seems to me that we moderns have been going through our own long “hostage crisis” since January 20, 2017; unlike 1980, all of America has been held in thrall to Donald Trump, his massive ego, his march-in-step loyalists and the billionaires who underwrite and make possible his every deranged whim.  Should Joe and Kamala win, I for one will be overjoyed to no longer have to see, hear or be concerned with the likes of D.J., Trump, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Rudy Guiliani, the Kushners and whoever is the latest Chief-of-Staff.  

Without question, former Vice President Biden has higher personal ratings than Clinton, which is good news, but Trump seems to be campaigning much harder than Biden in these last several days. And when I see a reputable poll that puts Biden neck and neck with Trump in Texas - where no Democrat has won, let alone campaigned since 1994 - , it can mean only two things: Either we are headed toward the biggest electoral landslide in a generation, or pollsters are once again clueless about who is really going to turn out to vote.

It’s at this point that I renew the request to pass the Maalox and get us those three fingers of Glenmorangie Spios. Once we’ve medicated, we would do well to keep our hopes and dreams in check, lest like in 2016, we put a jinx on Joe.  But even if our favorite uncle does win, can we count on a normal transfer of power?  In a recent op-ed by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat bluntly headlined “There Will Be No Trump Coup,” Mr. Douthout argued that, as aspiring autocrats go, Donald Trump is too incompetent to pull off anything so ambitious as stealing an election.  Oh how I pray that Ross knows of what he  writes!

Come to think of it, successful strongmen like Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan spend years carefully laying the groundwork for autocracy by first gaining broad public support, then by getting their allies to control the mainstream media, then by appointing their toadies to key positions in the military, and so on. Trump, by contrast, is despised by more than half the country, most of the media and his own secretary of defense. If someone ever uncovers his college transcript, I’m guessing he got a C- in the class on dictatorship, which is better than the D’s and F’s that I’m guessing he got in his classes on business analytics, financial accounting and management essentials. 

Like you, I am lousy at predictions . . . despite all the polls, interviews, advertisements and news clips.  All I know is that I long for the day when I no longer have to fear turning on Morning Joe at 5:00 a.m.; fearful that ‘45 did, said or commanded something overnight which will make the day another bloated belly terrible case of dysgeusia (a bad taste in the mouth). 

And so while we’re waiting, please bring on some more Maalox and crack open a new bottle of Glenmorangie Spios.  Who knows? Perhaps it will be in celebration! 

c. 175 hours to go . . .

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

"No Longer Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breath Free"

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There once was a time when every school child could identify the term “Mayflower” - the name of the first ship to arrive in the New World. To be the descendant of a Mayflower family meant that one was a “blue-blood.” The roster of passengers on that famous 1620 voyage contained names like Alden, Allerton, Bradford, Carter, Mullins, and Priest; Standish, Story, Wilder, Williams and Winslow. Among their descendants across many generations we find such famous (and infamous) people as Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Poet Robert Frost, the late Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, Barbara Bush, Helen Keller, Humphrey Bogart and even the Wright Brothers, Sarah Palin, Jane Fonda and John Hinckley, Jr.  Without question, the original passenger list of the Mayflower consists of some of the most successful families in American  history.  And although, as legend would have it, most came here in search of religious freedom, the truth is that just as many arrived on these shores looking for lower taxes and greater wealth.  I well remember a cartoon which adorned a wall in my cubbyhole of an office when I worked as “environmental ethicist” for California Governor Jerry Brown back in the mid-1970’s: Two pilgrims were standing on the bowsprit of the Mayflower.  One said to the other: “Religious freedom is a great thing, but I came here to get into real estate!” Whatever the case, to be part of the “Mayflower generation” has long marked one as a member of America’s aristocracy.

Not so well known was a ship that arrived in  Nieuw Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan on September 22, 1654.  It was called the “Ste Catherine,” which had embarked from Recife, Brazil months earlier and has ever since been known as “The Jewish Mayflower.” The vast majority of its passengers were Sephardi - Jews whose ancestry could be traced to Spain and Portugal.  Non speakers of Yiddish, their native tongue was mostly Ladino (a linguistic blend of Spanish and Hebrew) or Judismo (sometimes referred to as “Judaeo-Arabic”).  Among its passenger list were families named Gomez, Seixas, Nathan, Cardozo and Lazarus.  One of the Cardozos - Benjamin [1870-1938] would become the second Jew to serve on the United States Supreme Court; another, Haym Salomon (1740-1785) was one of the two greatest financial backers of the American revolution); a third, Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) became one of early America’s most respected poets, and the author of the sonnet which adorns the base of the Statue of Liberty: The New Colossus, which reads in part:

                                                                                    "Give me your tired, your poor,
                                                                          Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
                                                                             The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
                                                                            Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
                                                                                   I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

For generations, immigrants to these shores - including, I would imagine - the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents of many readers of this blog, entered the United States through New York Harbor . . . and this poem, sitting at the base of the “Lady With the Lamp,” was the first thing they saw . . . a message of heartfelt welcome.  My wife Annie, although she and her parents arrived at Kennedy Airport rather than Ellis Island when they came here from Argentina a half-century ago, were well aware of the welcoming arms which awaited them. Both sides of my family - with a single exception (Grandpa Doc) came in through either Charleston or Baltimore harbor long before “Lady Liberty” had been created by the French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, built by Gustav Eiffel, and given a permanent home on Liberty Island. Nonetheless, their arrivals - around the time of America’s Civil War - were met with overwhelming optimism and pride . . . and the certain knowledge that at last they had found a home where being Jewish was neither an obstacle nor an impediment.  And so it has been for countless generations.  America welcomed generations of Schimbergs, Greenbergs, Hymans, Kagans and Zamosces with open arms and the promise a peaceful, prideful and productive future.

And it’s largely because of that inviolate promise that both my mother and my wife have devoted their time and energy to introducing newcomers to the mysteries of the English language, Democracy and the American way of life.  My mother – a long-time Midwesterner from Chicago, Kansas  City and Hollywood -  tutored a new generation of Russian-Jewish refugees back in the 1960s; she recently told me that one of her best teaching tools was “the good old Yellow Pages” (remember them?) My wife, an immigrant from Argentina who earned both a B.A. and M.A. in English as a Second Language, has spent decades serving as teacher and mentor to refugees and asylees from all over the world, teaching them not only English but how to shop, read maps and menus, vote, create a proper resume, find a job, and generally participate in civil society.

That is until just the other day . . . 

This past Friday, the Trump administration announced an exorbitant increase in fees for some of the most common immigration procedures, including an 81% increase in the cost of U.S. citizenship for naturalization. It will also now charge asylum-seekers, which is an unprecedented move. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a final rule in the Federal Register that details the new cost for dozens of immigration and naturalization applications, a further change in immigration policy to curb legal immigration of low-income foreign nationals.  In an accompanying press release announcing the drastic and unparalleled changes, USCIS claimed they were enacted  to "ensure U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recovers its costs of services.”  While it is true that unlike many government agencies USCIS is largely fee funded, the timing is more than suspicious.  The last time the agency raised its fees (by a weighted 21%) was in late December, 2016 - the very last days of the Obama administration.  Changes like these don’t happen overnight; they are, generally speaking, the product of months - if not years - of investigation.  But to publish and make manifest such draconian raises (which will go into effect on October 2, 2020), seems suspiciously political. The Trump team based an entire presidential campaign on the issue of immigration, dumping refugees, potential asylees - the “huddled masses yearning to be free” - into a cauldron bearing the legend “Go back from where you came; you are nothing but job-stealing, drug-dealing murderers and rapists who are intent on nothing less than living off the federal government for the rest of your lives.”  And while a majority of the American public never really bought into this Kafkaesque nightmare, there were enough to form a strong political base and buy into the “MAGA” master plan.’  

For months now, immigrants, refugees “the wretched refuse of your teeming shores” have largely disappeared from  both presidential press conferences and the nightly news.  And for obvious reasons which can be summed up in just a couple of syllables: impeachment, pandemic, job-loss ‘law ‘n order’ and 'massive voter fraud.’  But now that the national election is a mere 3 months away, it’s a great time to rev back up the issue of immigration; to make sure the Trumpist base is back on board.

And, as mentioned above, the fee hikes are without question, punitive to the max.  Here are just a few:

• The fee to apply for U.S. citizenship through naturalization will increase from $640 to $1,160 if filed online, or $ 1,170 in paper filing.

• Form I-881, Application for Suspension of Deportation. Current fee: $285. Final Fee: $1,810. Percentage change: 535%.

• Form ▪ I-929, Petition for Qualifying Family Member of a U-1 Nonimmigrant (Victims of Criminal Activity). Current fee: $230. Final Fee: $1,485. Percentage change: 546%.

It should be noted in passing that one of the main reasons why USCIS is in such perilous budgetary straits is that the current administration has so clamped down on refugees and those seeking asylum that now there are far fewer people paying fees. Somewhat surprisingly, this issue has received little notice in the mainstream media. At the same time, Trump’s political base is well aware of the “final rule” and all it entails.

The Lady With the Lamp must be shedding tears at this turn of events. That which has long made the United States so successful and unique - its melange of newcomers from the four corners of the earth - has been unalterably changed. Oh sure, we’ve had bouts of anti-immigrant lunacy across the centuries; but now, it’s become both codified and made the central focus of an entire political movement. Shame on all those who have clothed themselves in the garments of cowardice and permitted it to happen.

In 1982, four years before the Statue' of Liberty’s centennial anniversary, President Ronald Reagan appointed Lee Iacocca, the Chairman of Chrysler Corporation, to head the Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation. The Foundation was created to lead the private sector effort and raise the funds for the renovation and preservation of the Statue for its centennial in 1986. The Foundation worked with the National Park Service to plan, oversee, and implement this restoration.  At the time, Lady Liberty was badly in need of repair; she was falling apart and begrimed with nearly a century’s worth of grime and slime.  And yet, by the time of her centennial, she was back to being a gleaming shrine; a vivid exemplar of what makes America unique among the nations.  At its unveiling in 1986, one of the things that people most remarked on was the pristine and hopeful idealism of the words at her base  . . . the words of Emma Lazarus, seen here in her own hand:

“The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Copyright©1883 Emma Lazarus

Trump, Bezos and Ben Franklin: A Chess Game Played in Hell

On July 26, 1775, the Continental Congress appointed Dr. Benjamin Franklin Postmaster General of what would within a year be called the United States of America. Over the past 245 years, America has had 75 Postmasters. The first - and to far only - woman to serve as Postmistress General, Megan Brennan, is scheduled to retire shortly.  According to a survey last year by the Pew Research Center, 90% of the American public has a favorable view of the United States Postal Service (USPS), handily outdistancing even such other popular federal agencies as the National Park Service and NASA.

Not only is the Post Office widely popular: it is of immense importance to the well-being of the nation. Establishing “post offices and post roads” is one of the powers of Congress explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, right up there with the power to tax and borrow, declare war, coin money, establish federal courts and issue patents and copyrights. And yet, despite its vast popularity and historic centrality, there are those who have long sought to dismember and then privatize the USPS. Chief among them are the nation’s current Chief Executive and his most doting, most conservative acolytes and financial backers. The question is, of course, “Why? Why do they want to dismember the USPS?” In truth, IMPOTUS’s reasoning is quite a bit different - and more obvious - than that of his political allies. In order to get a grip on the political right’s modus operandi, we must go back in time to the year 2006, when the Republican-controlled 109th Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) which required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs . . . 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation. PAEA must have been extremely important to those who introduced, supported and voted for its passage: from its initial introduction into the hopper to presidential signature was a mere 13 days (Dec. 7-Dec. 20, 2006).  

Writing in the journal of the Institute for Policy Studies, authors Sarah Anderson, Scott Klinger and Brian Wakamo noted: If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers. Again, the question is “Why?” I’m not terribly sure what was behind the original bill and the speed-of-light alacrity which Congress used to get it passed and signed. For Republicans it is understandable: they have a tendency to want to see the federal agencies and programs shrink-wrapped to the point where they are eventually turned over to the private sector. That I can understand even if I am decidedly against it. However, two of the three co-signers of the PAEA (H.R. 6407) joining in with the bill’s author, Virginia Republican Tom Davis - were Democrats . . . one of whom was Henry Waxman (D-CA), one of his era’s craftiest and most universally respected progressives. So when I say “I don’t understand,” believe me . . . I don’t understand!

The part I do understand - minus the Democratic support - is that Congress was setting a future trap for USPS; making it possible to blame them for fiscal incompetence . . . for losing billions upon billions of dollars. Well, if it hadn’t have been for passage of H.R. 6407 in the first place, Ben Franklin’s great great, great, great grandchildren would have been showing sizable profits.

Just about a year ago (April 29, 2019 to be precise) Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio filed H.R. 2382, the “USPS Fairness Act,” which would eliminate the pre-funding requirement. Advocates claim that it could single-handedly put the Postal Service out of the red and into the black. (At present, it is estimated that unless something is done soon, USPS will run out of money by 2024). Supporters argue the bill makes financial sense, puts the Postal Service on an even footing with literally every other federal agency, and helps ensure the solvency of one the programs that most directly affects ordinary Americans. The bill garnered 301 cosponsors (61 of whom were Republicans, and passed the House on February 5, 2020 by a veto-proof vote of 309-106. It was then sent over to the Senate where it picked up 5 cosponsors and was assigned to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. It has gone no further since and likely will languish . . . especially in light of IMPOTUS’s recent involvement in the issue.

Then there’s IMPOTUS’ line of argumentation. This past Friday he threatened to block an emergency loan to shore up the U.S. Postal Service unless it dramatically raised shipping prices on online retailers, an unprecedented move to seize control of the agency that analysts said could plunge its finances into a deeper hole. “The Postal Service is a joke,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. To obtain a $10 billion line of credit Congress approved this month, “The post office should raise the price of a package by approximately four times,” he said.  Several administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said Trump’s criticism of Postal Service rates is rooted in a desire to hurt Amazon in particular. They have said that he fumes publicly and privately at Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, for news coverage that Trump believes is unfair.  Of course, raising postal rates “by approximately four times” would likely hurt rural Americans - heretofore among his strongest, most loyal allies - the most. 

Delivering packages has been a good business for the Postal Service, making up just 5 percent of the Postal Service’s volume, but accounting for 30 percent of its revenue. And package volume jumped 53 percent last week, compared with the same period in 2019, as a homebound nation dives into e-commerce for groceries, prescriptions and household essentials. As much as IMPOTUS believes this to be the start of a game-winning strategy which will end up in a fifteen-move “check mate,” he is actually playing his to opponent’s game plan.  What he likely does not realize is that should USPS raise its shipping rates by 400%, Amazon can easily save money by doing even more of its own shipping . . . which no doubt would be quite harmful to USPS.  But far from being able to blame Amazon for the post office’s further economic slide, voters will blame Donald Trump.  And there’s not thing one he can do about it.

‘45 has long claimed that he is “the most transparent president in American history.”  Goodness knows, he says it at  least one a week.  And it’s just possible that in this deranged bit of braggadocio, he is telling the truth without really knowing it. How so?  For as long as he’s been in the public eye - whether in real estate, on television, in the air at the head of some eponymous wine, water, airline or tie - he has clearly massaged those who massage him and attempted to pummel those who will not praise him.  Cases in point: his obsessive ridding - if not eradicating - virtually every accomplishment of Barack Obama and his administration.   His belittling, deprecating and re-tagging people who do not, will not and cannot go along with him.  In these things, he is both obvious and transparent.  (One of the latest is his renaming Amazon founder - as well as publisher of the  Washington Post and wealthiest person on the planet  - Jeff Bezos “Jeff Bozo.”)  It must really be galling for IMPOTUS to have to  play someone else’s game only to realize that he’s getting closer and closer to hearing the words “check mate.”  

189 days until the next election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

"Damnatio Memoriae" Or, When Was the Last Time Anyone Named a Kid Caligula?

Damnatio memoriae is a Latin phrase literally meaning condemnation of memory, the sense being a judgment that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought dishonor to the Roman State. The intent was to erase someone from history, a task somewhat easier in ancient times, when documentation was much sparser. In ancient Rome, the practice of damnatio memoriae could be used to condemn Roman elites and emperors after their deaths. He/they could have their property seized, their names erased, and whatever statues, coins or friezes might exist, reworked. Then too, it was a sure sign that no one would ever again be called by those names; I mean, when was the last time anyone named a child Caligula, Nero, Domitian (that’s his effaced bust on the left) or Vespasian?

(n.b. the Romans weren’t the only ones into damnatio memoriae: centuries before the Romans, the Egyptians removed all mention of Queen Hatshepsut and Pharaoh Akhenaten (the husband of Queen Nefertiti) from royal history; as recently as 2011, Hosni Mubarak, the President of Egypt for almost 30 years, was deposed. After his deposition, the names of both Hosni and his wife, Suzanne, were removed from all Egyptian monuments. The Soviets under Stalin were also hip deep in this practice, becoming expert at eliminating enemies of the state from photographs in which they were originally posed next their “revered leader.” The most famous case was likely that of Nikolai Yezhov, nicknamed ‘The Vanishing Commisar.’ Then too, it is an ancient Jewish custom to “blot out the name of Amalek” - from whom the wicked Haman was descended “from under the Heavens” - by the sound of noisemakers on the joyous [some would say “frivolous”] holiday known as Purim (c.f. Deut. 25:15.)

Were it up to me, I would heartily reimpliment damnatio memoriae and not just for the current POTUS.  Indeed, I would gladly place under this umbrella of ignominy the names of Mike Pence (V.P.), Mike Pompeo (Sec. of State), William Barr (Attorney General), Steven Mnuchin (Sec. of Treasury), Wilbur Ross (Sec. of Commerce), Betsy DeVos (Sec. of Education), Ben Carson (Sec. of Housing and Urban Development), and Elaine Chaio (Sec. of Transportation, not to mention Senator Mitch McConnell (Senate Majority Leader) and Chief Congressional Enabler), and Rep. Devin Nunes (Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee, not to mention Jared Kusher and Stephen Miller, (Senior White House Advisers).

Why these folks, one well may ask?  Because they have gladly, willingly and chillingly lent their wholehearted support to a president whose political raison d’être has had since day one far, far more to do with his ego and their personal interests than the needs of the people or nation they are supposed to be serving.   I cannot for the life of me understand why these supposedly well-educated, highly successful people could maintain such silence and servility in the face of so much psychopathy. Are they afraid of being fired or of being called names? Or  are they more interested in bringing about some sort of religious rapture for the very well heeled?

Of course, the mere exercise of those mentioned above, who in my humble opinion should be considered for a spot on our national damnatio memoriae list, is a bit of satiric wish fulfillment. Nonetheless, what’s been going on these past 3+ years - and especially the past several weeks - certainly qualifies the POTUS and his enablers to be part of this ancient ritual. The sins for which he and his clique should be eliminated from memory include far more than the tax bonanza granted the hyper wealthy, the steady stream of lies, and the utter incompetence and what The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols calls his “political glossolalia.” The worst of the worst it seems to me, is the sin of convincing a solid minority that the media can neither be trusted nor believed ever again; that they are consciously engaged in taking this administration down; that anyone who disagrees with the POTUS - and this list includes the likes of Speaker Pelosi, Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff and the likely soon-to-be-fired Dr. Anthony Fauci - is a traitorous conspirator bent on destroying not only the president, but the nation itself. And if for no other reason than the video-taped fact that ‘45 will not supply states whose governors aren’t “nice to” or “supportive of” the man in the Oval Office with respirators, surgical gloves, masks and gowns . . . makes him eminently worthy of being forgotten.  Oh, I forgot, all these medical necessities belong to him personally .  . . not the people. 

The time will come when well-heeled Trump supporters begin collecting gazillions of dollars in order to create a presidential library/museum in perpetual remembrance of a man they never truly liked in the first place. For those who believe in damnatio memoriae, I am happy to report that purchasing land for such a library will be next to impossible. Think about it: the price of empty space to build a presidential library in:

• Independence, Missouri (Harry Truman)

• Grand Rapids, Michigan: Jerald R. Ford)

• Simi Valley, California (Ronald Reagan)

• Atlanta, Georgia (Jimmy Carter)

• College Station, Texas (George W.Bush)

• Little Rock, Arkansas (Bill Clinton) and

• Hoffman Estates, Illinois (Barack Obama)

was and is far, far less pricey than 725 5th Avenue, New York, New York, where the Trump Library/Museum would likely be located. And despite the fact that none of America’s previous 44 presidents were  outright paragons of moral or political perfection, they all spoke and wrote English with greater facility, and knew more about the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Emancipation Proclamation than the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  None, so far as I know, exhibited the mass of foibles, personal insecurity or contempt for both the people and the nation they were elected to serve as does ‘45.  It seems to me that the  greatest punishment the nation could mete out to this self-proclaimed “stable genius” would be a declaration of damnatio memoriae.

Just think: no more children named Caligula, Hatshepsut, Domitian or . . . Donald.

204 days until the next election . . . whether in person or via mail.

  Copyright©2020, Kurt F. Stone

The Psychology and Politics of Unfriending

As of 7:00 a.m. today, I have precisely 701 Facebook “friends.” For reasons largely unknown (perhaps the relative boredom of isolation), I decided to cull through this list and see how many of the 701 I could identify. I’m happy to report that easily more than half were known to me; a mixture of family, old school-mates, fellow “Hollywood Brats,” political people, students and colleagues from various universities, former synagogue youth group/summer camp chaverim (Hebrew for “friends”) and former and current congregants. Then too, there were literally dozens whom I had virtually no idea of who, how and why they were on my friends list, and more than a handful of people who were no longer alive . . . although their Facebook pages were still “idly active.” All this took somewhat a bit less than 2 hours. 

After (sadly) deleting the deceased, I started looking over the pages of people I couldn’t for the  life of me identify.  That’s when it dawned on me that if I checked  out who was on their friends list that might explain our “relationship.”  In many cases, it was but a single  individual we had  in common.  One such person - a writer who had one of my politics students on her list - had just posed a message stating, in part, “It's after midnight Sunday night, and I can't begin to think about getting to sleep. Listening to the things Trump said today has made that impossible. I know I have a number of "friends" on FB who support this man, and I have come to the end of my tolerance for you. Tonight I am unfriending all of you—and I don't care if we have been friends for decades or if we are related by marriage or blood. . . .You are no longer my friends or relations, on Facebook or in real life. Don't contact me to defend your position; I never, ever want to hear from you again. Goodbye.”

To be perfectly honest (unlike the POTUS), I’m not sure whether I agree or disagree with this Facebook friend. To unfriend or not to unfriend: that is the question. On the one hand, I really, truly hate the nausea and bile that well up every time I read the words of praise these otherwise intelligent, successful people heap upon their miscreant-in-chief.  But who ever said that just because a person is successful it follows that they understand thing one about civics, civility or sanity? Ridding oneself of the bile is as simple as pressing the “unfriend” button . . . one, two, three and voila!  They and their noxious nostrums have evaporated into the political putrescence. But it comes at a price: knowing that they are forever gone from my life.   On the other hand, there is a part of me that truly wants to believe that to unfriend those who are intolerably smug and small is to make me far less a mentsch - a decent human being - than I could cope with. But then I remember that quote from Winston Churchill: “Never give in, never, never, never–never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

This week’s essay is the 874th I’ve posted since February 2005 back when this blog was called “Beating the Bushes.". In all these years, I’ve received thousands upon thousands of comments . . . most praiseworthy, many thoughtful, and more than I care to remember nasty and vile. Since many are sent to one of my many email addresses, I have the ability to pre-screen and send the writers of vile drek directly into the various spam files. I must admit that every once in a while I do read what these folks write. Some are so strident as to be a stitch; others are threatening, horribly misspelled, and make me proud to have come from a bright, well-educated family. With Facebook it’s a bit different. If you want to keep the rest of your little world from seeing just how nuts and politically poisoned people can be, you first must unfriend them. But then I think: what do I care if the rest of my readers think they’re village idiots? That’s their - e.g. the village idiots - problem!

While I can certainly applaud my anonymous Facebook friend’s decision to unfriend all those who persist in being aggressively, aggravatingly pro-Trump – despite all the lies, the inability to accept the input of those far, far better versed than he, and that otherworldly egomania - I myself cannot push these folks overboard. Of course, I don’t have to read their screeds.    Sooner or later they will suffer loss, and may well come to grasp that there are more things under heaven and earth than can ever be blamed on Obama and Clinton, Pelosi, Biden, George Soros or even Dr. Fauci.

In the long run, unfriending those who annoyingly, flippantly oppose one’s political point of view and hate you for not loving Trump and all he stands for (and against) will, it seems to me, do next to nothing.  On the other hand, supporting those who agree can at least let you know that there are more sane people in the world than you ever dreamed of. Instead of grousing get cracking; there are candidates to support and elections to be won. There’s a country and a world to be saved . . .

“Never give in, never, never, never–never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

219 days until the next election.

Be well, read books and watch movies, be extra nice to those you are quarantined with and WASH YOUR HANDS!

Copyright ©, 2020, Kurt F. Stone

Is History History?

Among those who are reasonably well-educated, it is generally agreed upon that Herodotus (that’s him in the photo on the left) is “The Father of History.” Born and raised in Halicarnassus (modern-day Turkey), Herodotus (c. 484-425 B.C.E) is best known for his work The Histories, a straightforward account of the origins and execution of the Greco-Persian Wars, which lasted from 499 to 479 B.C.E. “Here is the account,” the work begins, “of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus in order that the deeds of men not be erased by time, and that the great and miraculous works–both of the Greeks and the barbarians–not go unrecorded.”  Most of what we know about the Battle of Marathon is from Herodotus. “The Histories” also incorporated observations and stories, both factual and fictional, from Herodotus’ travels.

Ever since, the writing, editing and reading of history has been of extraordinary importance. Across the centuries and generations, the study of history has been of paramount importance. “'Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” philosopher Georges Santayana. Speaking before the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill modified Santayana just a tad, changing it to “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.' Whichever is the true rendering, the truth remains; without knowing, understanding and caring about history, our mutual future is in dire jeopardy.

Over the past several weeks and days, national attention has been fixated on the United States Senate as to whether or not the Upper Chamber would vote to convict or acquit our impeached president of the United States (IMPOTUS), Donald J. Trump of abuse of power and contempt of Congress.  Among those Republicans in the political cross-hairs, none were more prominent than Senators Romney (UT), Murkowski (AK), Collins (ME) and Alexander (TN). All 4 had publicly spoken about their desire to subpoena witnesses for the senate trial. In the long-run, Senators Romney and Collins decided to vote in favor of subpoenaing witnesses like former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, Acting Chief of Staff and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Nick Mulvaney. and Michael Duffey, a senior official in the Office of Management and Budget. Senator Romney evinced a level of moral courage seldom seen among members of the Republican caucus.  As can best be determined, Senator Susan Collins was given a pass by Majority Leader McConnell: not only was her vote unneeded; had she voted against subpoenaing witnesses, voters in Maine would likely have voted her out of office.  In the meantime, Senators Alexander and Murkowski changed their minds stating, in essence, that although the IMPOTUS was obviously guilty of the charges against him, they did not add up to impeachable offenses. So far as Tennessee Senator Alexander, who is retiring and thus not running for reelection, his rationale is, to my way of thinking nearly incomprehensible.  On his official website, he (or his staff) wrote:

I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense. …The Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate. 

“The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday. …Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.” 

Likewise, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s logic was more than a bit skewed: 

“Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout. I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”

What Senators Alexander and Murkowski - along with a lot of other Republicans (and a few Democrats) - are going to wind up with is a tainted reputation - an acidic asterisk - for the rest of time for being elected leaders who, for whatever reason, decided that despite the IMPOTUS’s obvious guilt, were not going to vote to support hearing from a single witness against him. Imagine that: a trial of momentous import without a single witness! This makes virtually no sense. It seems that in the long run, Senators Alexander, Murkowski et al care not a whit about the judgment of history; they are far, far more concerned about what the president, his henchmen and supporters care about them today.

In other words: to hell with tomorrow.

History has become history . . .

In this essay’s second paragraph, we presented the nearly identical aphorisms of Santayana and Churchill about those who forget history being doomed to repeat it. Pretty chilling stuff. Well, in this instance - the senate’s 51-49 vote against subpoenaing witnesses - the man of the hour is neither as wise as the former nor as politically adroit as the latter. In this case the aphorist of note was a legendary industrialist and multi-billionaire (about $200 billion in today’s $$$) who also happened to be one of most the hateful bigots of all time: Henry Ford.  Unlike Santayana and Churchill, Ford believed with every fiber of his being that “History is bunk.”  In a widely-reported 1916 interview with a journalist from the Chicago Tribune, Ford told the writer, one Charles N. Wheeler:

"Say, what do I care about Napoleon? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I don't know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I don't care. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today."

(It should be noted that not only did Ford create the industrial assembly line and the world’s first affordable automobile, he also purchased a newspaper [The Dearborn Independent] in order to publish a multi-issue screed entitled The International Jew: The World’s Problem . . . which incorporated most, if not all of, history’s most vicious anti-Semitic tract: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  To this very day, Ford remains a god to White Nationalists, neo-Nazis and conspiracy addicts of all stripes.)

It is more than depressing to imagine people who are supposedly of accomplishment and rank, people who are in a position to play a significant role on the stage of history, having so little - if any - concern whatsoever about their future place on that stage. I guess so long as they maintain their political positions, not draw the fury or ire of their “highly stable genius” and live out lives of comfort and recognition, that’s all that matters. I for one cannot understand how so many people whose lives are both guided and guarded by deeply-held religious scruples and theological concerns of eternal life, can at the same time be so lacking in curiosity - so uncaring - about their place in the annals of history. Does it not matter to them that history - if not G-d co-self (my term for “him/herself”) - will have the final judgement. Has it not dawned on them that in five, ten, fifty years and more, historians will have uncovered just how corrupt, self-serving and traitorous this administration has been from even before day one? That in large part, it was due to their spineless lack of moral courage, their robotic need to put partisanship above patriotism that led to America’s no longer being the world’s “last great hope?” If history will remember them at all, it will not likely be for their greatness . . . but for their turning their backs on both the people they were supposed to selflessly serve and on history itself.

Tell me: has history, like Herodotus, himself, become history?

274 days until the presidential election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Adam Schiff: Superego to '45's Id

There are any number of Yiddish words which have, over the years, become recognizable to speakers of American English. Most of these folks - whether Jewish or not - know the words mentsch, meshugga (or meshuggeneh), chutzpah, drek, gonif and perhaps even kvell, to mention but a few This last one - kvell - which figuratively translates as “boast” or “brag” takes a bit of explaining. When one boasts or brags, it is frequently about oneself, and just as frequently can be a bit overblown and self—serving. When one kvells however, it is rarely if ever about oneself; one kvells over a child, grandchild . . . even the family dog or cat. And unlike boasting, kvell’n (the verbal form) can be better than true. In the Jewish world a kvell can be as simple as “My daughter the doctor” or “My grandson the Hollywood screenwriter.” To kvell is to publicly bust one’s buttons over someone else . . .

Imagine, if you will, how much kvelling (that’s “Yinglish”) Ed Schiff (Rep. Adam’s Schiff’s father) must be doing these days. For not only is his son Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s choice for lead “Manager” in the upcoming impeachment proceeding against the POTUS, but has just been named by the Gallup Poll one of America’s 10 most admired men - a list which includes Barack Obama and Donald Trump (tied for first at 18%), former President Jimmy Carter, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Pope Francis, Bernie Sanders, the Dalai Lama, and Warren Buffett.  Ed, who is not one to spread the word about either of his sons (there’s also Adam’s older brother Dan, a financial planner in San Jose) couldn’t help but send out en email to family and friends giving us a proud-as-proud-can-be heads-up about Adam’s Gallup Poll ranking. That’s the living breathing definition of kvellling! 

Mazal tov Ed!

Without question, Adam is the best choice for lead manager in the impeachment trial. For in addition to being both terribly bright and a highly skilled, experienced prosecutor; he is the straightest arrow in the Congressional quiver, possesses a thick skin, a low temperature setting, and can show a surprisingly witty sense of humor. In other words, he is, in just about every imaginable way, the bipolar opposite of the man on trial. Where Trump is a congenital liar, Schiff has long been addicted to the truth; where The Donald barks and threatens, Adam hums and listens.

Brother Dan recently recalled a situation when Adam was about 7: Already a striver, Adam determined that he would outdo the neighborhood boy who was the best “burp-talker.” His relentless faux belches wore on his brother’s nerves, until Dan threw his jacket and the zipper caught Adam squarely in the mouth. Dan begged Adam to come up with a story, any story, to tell their parents. Adam howled. “There was all this blood. But what triggered him was that I was asking him to lie,” recalled Dan. “The fact that he was being steered to a lie . . . that really rankled him.”

Where the POTUS is voluble, high-strung, insulting and can, without notice, go off like a Roman candle; Adam Schiff is mostly low-key and laid-back. Schiff also possesses a far, far greater degree of self-awareness than the man he is prosecuting, and thus understands the important advantage it gives him: “What I’ve discovered is that ... in an irrational time when you have an erratic hothead in the Oval Office, there is a real premium on not having your hair on fire,” Schiff recently reflected to a reporter. “I suspect that part of it is just my own temperament, which I couldn’t change even if I wanted to.”

This is not to say that Adam Schiff takes all the insults lying down. During the Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings he compared the president’s furiously debated phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a mob boss engaged in a “shakedown.” Trump and his followers then bestowed two nicknames on the committee chair: “Shifty Schiff” and “Pencil Neck Adam Schiff.” He has been called a “liar” and “traitor,” and watched as Republicans urged that he himself be impeached on grounds of being a traitor.

In Adam Schiff’s Capitol Hill office, one will find a photo of President Theodore Roosevelt, the nation’s 26th Chief Executive. Although I do not know of a certainty why T.R.’s photo adorns the wall, I would guess it’s because of a truism that the old Bull Moose committed to print in a 1918 essay: “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President . . . “ (n.b. the rest of the quote, from an essay entitled ‘Lincoln and Free Speech'  continues: “. . . or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in so far as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth — whether about the President or about anyone else — save in the rare cases where this would make known to the enemy information of military value which would otherwise be unknown to him.)  This is the truth which permeates Adam Schiff’s political life.

More than being Donald John Trump’s legal and political adversary, Adam Schiff has also become what might be referred to as “The Superego to ‘45’s Id.” What in the world does that mean?” one may well ask.  

Before answering, let’s dip a toe into the pond of Freudian psychoanalytic personality theory. Don’t worry: it’s neither difficult nor obscure. According to Freud, there are 3 parts of the human personality which develop at different stages of a young person’s life. These three parts combine to create the complex behavior of human beings. He refers to them as “id,” “ego,” and “superego.”

• The “Id” (das Es): the most basic part of the personality, the Id represents our most basic, animalistic urges. It is the first part of the personality to develop. The Id seeks instant gratification for our wants and needs . . . such as a man who grabs and kisses women at will . . . because that’s what he wants to do. If animalistic needs or wants are not met, a person can become tense, anxious, or angry.

• The Ego (das ich): The ego deals with reality, trying to meet the desires of the id in a way that is socially acceptable in the world. The same man, really wanting to grab a pretty woman and kiss her, refrains from doing so because he knows he could get into a lot of trouble. He compromises by complimenting her on her glasses or hairstyle.

• The superego (Über-Ich) The superego develops last, and is based on morals and judgments about right and wrong. Even though the superego and the ego may reach the same decision about something (such as not grabbing and kissing a beautiful woman), the superego's reason for that decision is based mostly on moral values, while the ego's decision is based more on what others will think or what the consequences of an action could be on the individual.

Taking our toes out of the Freudian pond, it should now be pretty understandable what referring to Adam Schiff as “The Superego to ‘45’s Id” means. What fuels Donald Trump’s actions (mainly if not exclusively) is his Id - the most primitive, psychologically puerile and self-centered aspect of his being.  He does what he does and says what he says because he wants what he wants. And if he cannot get it or finds his actions, statements or claims challenged, lashes out with childlike anger. Period.  He has little or no ego (at least in the Freudian sense of the term) to act as a restraining mechanism.  Adam Schiff, on the other hand - like many fully-realized, better balanced human beings - is guided largely by his superego.  He knows right from wrong and uses that knowledge as a measuring rod for his actions.  Although accused of being a  “deranged ultra-leftist who hates America” by both the POTUS, his followers and political allies, he is anything but.  Adam Schiff’s upbringing, education, professional experience and superego have made him a quintessential moderate . . . in both life and in politics. When it comes to acting as manager in the upcoming Senate trial, Adam Schiff is the ideal package; one which will no doubt stick in the Trumpian craw for the rest of his life. 

But before getting on with the “rest of his life,” ‘45 and his team must deal with a prosecution, a trial and a vote . . . not to mention a headlong collision between the supreme presidential id and a towering superego. I predict that the proceedings will so enrage the POTUS that he will find it next to impossible to forgo Tweeting, performing for the camera or sinking even deeper into the swamp of absurdity.  If his ‘45 further embarrasses himself before the public, it could cause some Senate Republicans (especially those up for reelection) to start paying more attention to their own egos and superegos . . . even if it is at the expense of their leader’s Id.

Adam Schiff, who is my pick for either Attorney General or Director of the CIA in a Democratic White House, is the right man in the right place at the right time.

And for that, we can all rightfully kvell.

287 1/2 days until the election . . .

Copyright 2020 Kurt F. Stone

Nancy Pelosi: Strategist Par Excellence

Those who have been paying attention to the televised portion of the impeachment process, have undoubtedly observed the many differences between Democrats and Republicans - and not just in terms of whose side they’re on. The most obvious difference, it seems to me, is that for Democrats, facts are paramount, while for Republicans its process. I guess it’s that way because the Republicans know that arguing against the facts would be a waste of breath. Another obvious difference is that Democrats serving on both the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (chaired by California’s Adam Schiff) and the Judiciary Committee (chaired by New York’s Jerry Nadler) are nowhere near as gratingly voluble as their Republican colleagues. To compare the relative decibel level of an Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell or Jamie Raskin to that of a Devin Nunes, “Gym” Jordan or Doug Collins is akin to comparing Herons to Hoot Owls.

Then, after a long day’s worth of 5-minute speeches, everyone “reserving the balance of their time,” recording votes on useless resolutions that were bound to be defeated along strict party lines and forensic codas by House leaders, came the final votes on 2 articles of impeachment commenced. And standing high above the House, dressed in black, gavel in hand, stood Speaker Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in America, both the de facto and de jure leader of her party. When, after results of the first vote were announced, Democrats, below and to her right, began to cheer. Within a nanosecond, the speaker had shot her colleagues a stern look and pointed a tally card directly at them. Immediately, there was total silence from her side of the aisle. The same thing occurred after results of the second vote were announced. Where another Speaker might have used the gavel to quiet down the majority, Speaker Pelosi did it with a single sharp-eyed glance; the power of her presence. Say what you want about her: the woman is a political force to be reckoned with.

And yet, despite how long she’s been around, how much respect she has garnered and her unparalleled political skills, most Americans know little about her . . . outside of the fact that the president calls her “Nervous Nancy,” and that she’s from San Francisco . . . which I guess means we’re supposed to assume she’s some kind of a gonzo Commie. Actually, she comes from a famous and politically powerful Baltimore family; both her father and brother served as mayors of the place John Quincy Adams tagged “The Monumental City.” At the time of her birth in March of 1940, her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, had just been elected to Congress, where he would serve for 3 terms. She’s been around the political scene long enough that she attended JFK’s inaugural 59 years ago and interned in Senator Daniel Brewster’s  (1923-2007) office with fellow college student Steny Hoyer, who today is her #2 (Majority Leader) in the House.

Rep. Schiff and Speaker Pelosi

Since returning to the post of Speaker of the House on January 3, 2019, Nancy Pelosi has been at the epicenter of the entire impeachment debate.  Viewed from afar, it would seem that she has been uncertain as to what to do; of what possible effect going ahead with the impeachment of Donald Trump would have on her party in the 2020 elections and beyond.  Would it put victory firmly into the hands of the GOP or would it work to the Democrats advantage?  Yes, until rather recently, she was publicly against going ahead with the procedure.  And then, shortly after news of the Trump/Zelensky/Hunter Biden imbroglio became public Speaker Pelosi seemed to change her mind and decide to go ahead. In matter of fact, she was just waiting for the right time. And in giving House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff a greater public role than Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler, she was showing great political wisdom; for Rep. Schiff is a world-class prosecutor, totally unflappable, and can go toe-to-toe with the opposition without ever losing his smile. She knew that he would make the ideal face of the forces of impeachment. Look for her to name him - and perhaps Rep. Eric Swalwell (also a former prosecutor) to act as “managers’ (prosecutors) for the upcoming trial in the United States Senate.

Now comes the Speaker’s latest move on the political chessboard: delaying the start of the impeachment trial in the senate.  According to an op-ed piece by Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe published in last Monday’s Washington Post, Speaker Pelosi’s delaying tactic is nothing short of brilliant . . . and for a couple of reasons. Wrote Professor Tribe: “As a tactical matter, it could strengthen Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) hand in bargaining over trial rules with McConnell because of McConnell’s and Trump’s urgent desire to get this whole business behind them. On a substantive level, it would be justified to withhold going forward with a Senate trial. Under the current circumstances, such a proceeding would fail to render a meaningful verdict of acquittal. It would also fail to inform the public, which has the right to know the truth about the conduct of its president.“

Responding to one revered Harvard Law professor with the words and thoughts of another, Fox News broadcast an op-ed by retired Professor Alan Dershowitz which originally appeared in Newsmax rebutting Professor Tribe and declaring that Pelosi’s delaying tactic is grossly unconstitutional: "It is difficult to imagine anything more unconstitutional, more violative of the intention of the Framers, more of a denial of basic due process and civil liberties, more unfair to the president and more likely to increase the current divisiveness among the American people. Put bluntly, it is hard to imagine a worse idea put forward by good people." 

Senators Graham and McConnell

It so happens that I am in total disagreement with Professor Dershowitz, and find myself wondering whatever happened to him; he used to be far more progressive in his legal reasoning. I also find myself in awe of Nancy Pelosi’s strategic acumen; the ease with which she maneuvers about the political chessboard is truly something to behold. If there is to be anything resembling a fair trial, it will necessitate Senators McConnell and Graham (and many of their colleagues) taking a step back, rereading the Constitution, and finding the courage to live up to the oaths they take. And while I do not for one moment believe our IMPOTUS (“Impeached President Of The United States”) is going to be found guilty, I, along with every fair-minded American, can at least hope for a semblance of even-handedness in the proceedings to come. Unless and until they can, I know that Mrs. Pelosi will continue holding on to the Articles of Impeachment. like any world-class strategist would. Let her tie McConnell et al in knots until they do the right thing. And may they come to understand just who it is they’re dealing with.

298 days until the presidential election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Refusal and Recusal

By the end of the week, we can expect to see the POTUS impeached by a majority of the House of Representatives. It will undoubtedly be on a strict party-line basis, although there is a chance that a couple of Democrats may - I repeat may - cast their votes against impeachment. If so, it will neither be because they are enamored with ‘45 nor believe there is insufficient factual evidence to impeach, but rather because they are looking to save their political hide from an electoral tanning come 2020. From there, the bill of impeachment will move over to the United States Senate for trial. Said trial will be, according to the Constitution, presided over by Chief Justice Roberts. The prosecutors, chosen by Speaker Pelosi, will likely be Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, both members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and both former prosecutors.

Prior to beginning the trial, each senator will, according to strictly dictated rules, swear an oath to carry out “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.”   Most lamentably, several Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have already publicly stated that they are steadfastly in support of the president, and absolutely refuse to cast a vote for conviction.  In other words, they see no purpose in pledging “impartial justice,”  which means that legally, they have announced their intention to suborn perjury.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took that a step further, telling Fox News last week that he was working in “total coordination” with the White House.  Responding to leader McConnell’s perjurious statement, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler said that was like “the foreman of the jury saying he’s going to work hand in glove with the defense attorney.” This attitude amounts to a “violation of the oath that they’re about to take, and it’s a complete subversion of the constitutional scheme.” Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) went further, calling on McConnell to recuse himself from the Senate proceedings based on his Fox News remarks.  

Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress ever since he defeated Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College, also said that his mind was made up even before the process began. “I’m not trying to hide the fact that I have disdain for the accusations in the process,” Graham said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation. Speaking with CNN on Saturday, Graham further said that he wasn’t “trying to pretend to be a fair juror.” Graham predicted that impeachment “will die quickly” in the Senate and vowed to “do everything I can to make it die quickly.” It should be remembered that in 2015 and 2016, Graham referred to then candidate Trump as “a complete idiot,” and “a nut job,” and swore that under no circumstances would he ever vote for the New York real estate magnate for POTUS.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the  Union” yesterday, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told interviewer Jake Tapper  he doesn’t expect any Republicans in the House to vote in favor of impeachment and that he expects a “handful of Democrats” to vote against impeachment efforts. In terms of the Senate, he said he believes all Republicans will vote against convicting Trump and that they’ll likely be joined by two Democrats.  “I think what we’re seeing is this is a very partisan thing,” Paul told Tapper. “This is a disagreement. People on the Democrats’ side don’t like President Trump. They don’t like his demeanor, and so they’ve sort of decided to criminalize politics. But I don’t think it’s a good thing,” Paul added. “I don’t think it’s a good day for the country. I think it’s a sad day because I hope it doesn’t devolve into every president — like in different parts of Latin America — we either impeach or throw presidents into jail just because we don’t like their politics. I think that will really dumb down and destroy the country.”

Paul concluded by saying quite incorrectly, “This is a disagreement over policy and this is sort of an extension of politics, but this isn’t about the Constitution or the president breaking the Constitution.” 

Where Senator Paul - and Senators Graham and McConnell - most obviously err, is in contending that the House’s impeachment of ‘45 has nothing  to do with the Constitution; that it is simply because they don’t like him and are still as angry as a swarm of hornets over Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.  How utterly inept and disingenuous. 

I have the feeling that  already, Republican strategists are plotting separate impeachment scenarios for Vice President Biden, Senators Sanders and Warren and Mayors Bloomberg and  Buttigieg - whoever may possibly defeat Donald Trump in November 2020.  As much as I fear that ‘45 may be reelected, what nauseates me the most is the thought that American politics will devolve in to 2- and 4-year clashes between Democrats and Republicans where nothing gets done; that the central focus is cutting down the other side to size.

There has been so much whittling away at the Constitution, political credibility and maturity that it now seems as if generations have passed since our leaders last acted  or worked with seriousness of purpose.  Our elections more closely resemble a turf war between vicious neighborhood gangs than serious political competition.  

I am of the strong opinion that those senators who have already announced their votes even before the first gavel is heard or first witness deposed should be brought up on charges of subornation of perjury. This is not a 1st Amendment “freedom of speech” issue.  It is, without question, a gross conflict of interest.  Senator McConnell: you should recuse yourself if for no other reason than the fact that your wife serves in 45’s Cabinet as Secretary of Transportation.  Senator Graham: you should listen to some of your early speeches and refuse to partake in the hearings.  Senator Paul: you must determine whether your first allegiance is to the law or to your fundraisers.  And in general, members of the Republican Party, you must acknowledge in public what you whisper behind closed doors.  The very future of this once grand country depends on  it.  

Ask yourself: how do I want history to remember me?

222 days until the election . . .

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Ralph Waldo Emerson Is Turning Over in His Grave

If I am not mistaken, it was Ralph Waldo Emerson, that most American of all philosophers, who first noted “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Found in perhaps his most memorable essay, “Self Reliance,” Emerson (1803-1882), nowhere explained the difference between “foolish” and “wise” consistency. Nonetheless, it would seem that the “Father of American Transcendentalism” was warning future generations against those whose public pronouncements run counter to their private predilections; whose words would be at obvious odds with their often heartless deeds. Emerson would have had a field-day pointing out the utter inconsistency of those who today are publicly - and self-righteously - “pro-life,” but politically supportive of most everything which counters their oft-stated position. In matter of sad fact, they are misnamed: they are really “pro-birth.” Once the “pre-born” take their first breath, they are pretty much on their own . . .

The Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which struck down a Texas statute banning abortion (thus effectively legalizing the procedure across the United States), was far more than a victory for women; it also created an issue which has served as both a 30-decibel storm warning and perhaps the most divisive political litmus test of the past 150 years.  Prior to Roe v. Wade, far, far fewer conservative and fundamentalist Christians participated in the political process than today. In truth, in pre-Roe times, many of their pastors, reverends and other assorted religious leaders thundered from thousands of pulpits that politics was the work of the devil. Then came the Roe decision, and secular political strategists discovered an untapped market, which they initially referred to as the “Moral Majority.” (I remember wearing a button bearing the slogan “The Moral Majority is Neither!”) Secular political strategists convinced several generations of the devout that they could enact God’s will - especially when it came to the “the pre-born” - if only they would lend their voices, votes and overall support to those who were running on the side of the Lord. And by the way, so the strategists informed them, God also favors low taxes for corporations, a generous oil depletion allowance, far, far fewer federal regulations, support of charter schools . . . the entire conservative agenda.  And by the way, “global warming” is lie perpetrated by those who do not believe in the word of the Lord . . .

But it all began with the divisive clash between the forces of morality (e.g. pro-life/pro-birth/anti-welfare/anti-science) and the forces of evil (e.g. pro-choice/pro-environment/anti/anti ”trickle-down” economics). Nearly a half-century after the Roe decision and all that it has wrought, the sides have become so case-hardened that one side will rarely - if ever - engage in civil debate with the other, let alone find an ounce of humanity, comity or moral consistency on the part of their political opponents. 

Protecting the lives and rights of the “pre-born” became so absolutely central to the politics espoused by the merchants of morality that they somehow convinced their customers that nothing else really mattered.  Poll after poll proves this point: so long as ‘45 (backed by the cacophonous "hallelujahs” of the Federalist Society) continues appointing anti-Roe judges to lifetime seats on the federal bench (where they will hold sway for the next 30-40 years), his utter lack of probity, humility  and humanity will not keep his largely white-Christian base from supporting him . . . from believing he’s the second coming of King Cyrus.  These people form the strongest, most consistent part of the Republican base . . . despite the fact that in  a 2019 survey, about six-in-ten U.S. adults (61%) said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 38% who said it should be illegal all or most of the time.  

And yet, the past several years have seen state legislatures passing increasingly restrictive laws - banning abortions after a mere six weeks; limiting (and even eliminating) the number of abortion clinics in a state; threatening any doctor who performs an abortion with serving a maximum of 99 years in prison, and forcing women seeking an abortion for any reason (including incest or rape) to have to wait several days after initially appearing at a clinic.  Studies have shown that these laws - some of which have already been overturned in state courts (and now heading towards the Trump-appointed federal bench) have a far greater negative impact on poor, rural, non-white women than those who are largely white, urban and middle-class.  You had better believe that were, God forbid, the daughter of a far-right senator or representative become pregnant as a result of rape or incest, her family would find a way to terminate that pregnancy.  Oh yes, it’s still legal; I almost forgot. 

And now comes the most frightening law of them all: Ohio House Bill 413, known as the “abortion murder” bill, which carries language that appears to require doctors treating a woman who suffers an ectopic pregnancy to re-implant the fertilized egg in the patient’s uterus or face criminal charges.  The procedure required by this piece of legislation is both medically impossible and morally reprehensible.  If passed, it would mean that a state legislature is now in a position to tell a physician how to practice medicine or face a charge of murder.  In checking with several physicians whom I work with on an Institutional Review Board (IRB - a group of doctors, pharmacists, bio-engineers and lay specialists whose job it is to protect the rights and safety of subjects partaking in medical research) they all quickly (and firmly) said the same thing: “re-implanting a fertilized egg in a woman’s uterus is alchemy.  Period.”  And yet, there are enough “pro-birth” members of the Ohio legislature that the bill will likely be enacted. 

If I live to be 120 (the same age as Moses), I will never understand the inconsistency of some people; of how they can demand that the government stay away from regulating in any way, shape or form the air they breath, the water they drink or the guns they purchase - to give but three examples - and then turn  around and fervently support the government’s intrusion into our bodies, bedrooms or marriage canopies - to again name but three. Historically speaking, “morality by fiat” has always had a chilling effect on civil society.  What one does, says or believes within their church, shul or mosque - the religious dictates people follow within their own faith-based lives - must neither be ordained, transmuted nor demanded for people of different persuasions. To create a secular political identity out of the clay sectarian belief is both cynical and foolhardy - not to mention a foolish consistency that can easily tear apart a secular, democratic society.

Emerson taught a far younger America a lot about “small minds.”  I wonder what he’d say about our modern hobgoblins?

228 days until the 2020 election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Maddeningly Inevitable . . . Frighteningly Unconscionable

Frankly speaking, I’m a bit surprised that the ugly, twisted specter of anti-Semitism has taken quite so long to reappear on the stage of impeachment. To me, it was all but inevitable that as the dramatis personæ of the tragedy entitled Trump v. Constitution of the United States became better known to the public, a certain twisted segment of America would once again claim that Jews - merciless, acquisitive, immoral Zionists - were behind the craven plot to overthrow the Chritian world.  This has been on my mind for quite some time; the question was not “will the age-old conspiracy reemerge from the shadows?” but rather, “when?”  

About two weeks ago - November 22 to be precise - Rick Wiles, a controversial right-wing pastor, and founder of TruNews, an online hate site, launched a virulently anti-Semitic attack on leading congressional Democrats, claiming that impeachment proceedings against POTUS amounted to a “Jew coup.” On his “True News” program, Wiles, putting Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff between the cross-hairs (“Just look at his eyes . . . you can tell he’s utterly demonic”) and warned:

“That’s the way the Jews work, they are deceivers, they plot, they lie, they do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda. This ‘impeach Trump’ effort is a Jew coup and the American people better wake up to it really fast because this thing is moving now toward a vote in the House and then a trial in the Senate. We could have a trial before Christmas.

This country could be in civil war at Christmastime. Members of the U.S. military are going to have to take a stand just like they did in the 1860s with the Civil War. They are going to have to decide: are you fighting for the North or the South? People are going to be forced, possibly by this Christmas, to take a stand because of this Jew coup in the United States.

This is a coup led by Jews to overthrow the constitutionally elected president of the United States and it’s beyond removing Donald Trump, it’s removing you and me. That’s what’s at the heart of it. You have been taken over by a Jewish cabal.”

Wiles and his demented allies are scared witless by the roster of Jews “leading” or “involved in” the impeachment of the POTUS:

• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Chair, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

• Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): Chair: House Judiciary

• Elliot Engel (D-NY) Chair: House Foreign Affairs

• Ted Deutch (D-FL) Chair: House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Terrorism

• Ted Deutch (D-FL) Chair: House Ethics Committee

• Steve Cohen (D-TN) Chair: House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

• Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman: Director of European Affairs, National Security Council - witness

• Amb. Gordon Sondland: U.S. Ambassador to European Union - witness

• Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine

• Other Jewish members of the House Judiciary Committee include Steven Cohen (D-TN), Ted Deutch (D-FL) David Cicilline (D-RI), and Jaimie Raskin (D-MD)

• Other Jewish member of Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence: Elise Stefanik (R-NY)

Not surprisingly, many of those accusing Jews of belonging to an insidious, conspiratorial cabal bent on overthrowing the government, claim it is being financed by George Soros, a liberal Jewish billionaire. (These same anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists have also long believed that during the Holocaust, the then-teenage Soros was a Nazi collaborator.)

During her testimony before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Dr. Fiona Hill, former deputy assistant to the president and senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council staff, likened a right-wing narrative casting liberal Jewish billionaire George Soros as all-controlling to a notorious anti-Semitic forgery. The narrative that Soros is behind an array of evildoings “is the new Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Hill said Thursday in hearings. “It’s an absolute outrage.”

Soros has become a bugbear for some right-wingers, who blame his liberal philanthropy for a number of ills, citing little evidence. Trump himself last year blamed Soros for an “invasion” of Central American migrants that never materialized. Even loony Texas Representative Louie Gohmert brought up the Soros-as-Nazi-collaborator canard while being interviewed on Fox News. Despite having been thoroughly discredited years ago, the Soros fabrication, like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is a lie that will not die. 

Even as “classical” anti-Semitic memes and tropes are beginning to resurface with a vengeance, evangelical support for Israel - which they tend to refer to as “The Holy Land” - remains strong.  It is a fact that the largest pro-Israel group in America is not the overwhelmingly Jewish AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) but the overwhelmingly Evangelical “Christians United For Israel,” which was founded by the Pastor John Hagee in 2006.

Indeed, it is more than anomalous that some of the most fervently pro-Israel Christians can, at the same time, find such innate, conspiratorial evil in Jewish people themselves. But even here, a crack is beginning to appear. “Doc” Burkhart, Rick Wiles’ on-air co-host recently gave a call for listeners and viewers to repent for supporting Israel. Burkhart led his audience to confess their sin of standing with Israel: “Lord, I’m so sorry. I don’t how I was so deceived. I don’t how I was so bewitched by all of this,” he asks his viewers to pray. “I thought it was a good thing to support the people of Israel. I thought it was a good thing to help Israel. But now I see it’s just people using the name of Israel, people using the people of Israel in order to line their own pockets, in order to build their own kingdoms, in order to make themselves feel important.”

Burkhart/Wiles’ astonishingly foul heresy even has a name: “Replacement Theology,” which teaches its adherents and acolytes “Jesus, You are my Zion. Jesus, You are my Promised Land. Jesus, You are my Temple. Jesus, You are my Eternal Capitol, Lord.”

We live in an increasingly angry, maddening and dangerous world. That Jewish support for Israel has been called into question by those who see it as a portal to the Apocalypse and its Chosen People as agents of evil is frighteningly unconscionable.

חָזַק חָזַק וְנִתחַזֵּק

(Chazak chazak v’neetchazayk):

“Be strong, be Strong and We Shall Be Strengthened”

335 days until the presidential election

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

The Revolving Door

Stephen Miller

As anyone with half a brain knows, access and egress to the Trump White House comes in the form of a revolving door. The list of those who have either resigned or been fired extends all the way from Foggy Bottom to Fredericksburg, Va. and from the West Wing to the West Coast. The list of the dismissed is a lengthy one. The reasons for their leaving - whether voluntarily or by fiat - vary and are occasionally even eyebrow-raising.  The latest to be fired - America’s Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Louise "Masha" Yovanovitch - never got a reason for her dismissal.  Sneering at her to his 66 million Twitter followers, ‘45 informed them that “Wherever  Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad . . . . She started off in Somalia, how did that go?” Gee, I for one never fully realized how much political and strategic power a single ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary possesses; I must have been sleeping when they covered that subject in my diplomatic history class.

The roster of the rejected in Trumpland is both long and occasionally inexplicable.  What, for but one example, caused Anthony Scaramucci’s tenure as White House Communications Director to last a mere 6 days, the shortest tenure in American history?  (For those who are trivia buffs, the second shortest tenure belongs to Ronald Reagan’s Communication’s Director, Jack Koehler, who lasted in his post for 11 days back in March 1987.  The longest tenure belongs to FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins - an amazing 12 years, 4 months.) It is true that Scaramucci was and is a world-class egomaniac with a mouth like the Okefenokee Swamp; then too, he is totally self-aware and has disproved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s epigram about there being “no second acts in America.”  

By far, employment-wise, the two greatest mysteries of the current administration are Senior Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller, the president’s Senior Adviser for Policy.  Of the former, one can be amazed that she still occupies her position if for no other reason than who she’s married to: George Conway, a conservative Harvard-trained attorney who spends a great deal of his time being a hostile thorn in the president’s side. The other day he likened his wife’s working for ‘45 to being a member of a cult. For his rhetorical efforts, Mr. Conway has been compared to Martha Mitchell, the wife of Richard M. Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, and an open critic of the Nixon administration during the Watergate scandal.  And yet, Kellyanne still has her job.  

Of the latter, Stephen Miller, much has been written.  By now, most news junkies know of his early years, being raised in an  upper-middle class Jewish home in Santa Monica, California; of his early “conversion” to hardcore political conservatism and his years at Duke University, where he helped future white supremacist leader Richard Spencer raise funds and promote an immigration policy debate between between Peter Laufer, an open-borders activist and University of Oregon professor, and journalist Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigration website VDARE.  

Prior to going to work for Donald Trump, Miller served as press secretary for former Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachmann and as an adviser to Alabama Senator (and future Attorney General) Jeff Sessions.  Miller signed on early with the Trump campaign, aligning himself with Steve Bannon on most political issues.  He traveled the country with the campaign, often acting as Trump’s “opening act.”  It was Miller - along with Bannon - who created the anti-immigration strategy which would become central to the 2016 presidential race.  He, more than anyone, created the anti-Muslim ban, the removing of refugee and immigrant children from their families, and keeping the administration from showing the public an internal study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees had a net positive effect on government revenues. Miller insisted that only the costs of refugees be publicized, not the revenues refugees bring in.  Then too, Miller - along with then-Senator Jeff Sessions - was largely responsible for creating and priming Trump’s obsession with building a wall on America’s Southern Border - the one that Mexico was going to pay for.

Stephen Miller is the great-grandchild of Jewish immigrants; people who came to the United States from Czarist Russia at the turn of the 20th century in order to escape murderous pogroms, state-sponsored anti-Antisemitism and the prospect of serving 25 years in the Czar’s army. Had Stephen Miller been a White House adviser back in 1903, his family would have been sent back to Europe, where they likely would have been exterminated by the Nazis years later. How in the world did Miller, who came from such a background and a family that prospered so greatly in a land which welcomed them with open arms, turn out to be such an anti-immigration hawk? How does a person reared in an atmosphere of progressive idealism and civility come to be a such a strident white nationalist?

MIller’s affinity for white nationalism has been thoroughly researched and documented through leaked emails. From what has been revealed - largely by the Southern Poverty Law Center - Stephen Miller really, truly believes that non-Nordic people possess lower IQs than Hispanics, Muslims and people of African descent; that they present a clear and present danger to the West. In sum, Miller wants America to look more like his home town of Santa Monica - rich and white. He is worse than an utter embarrassment to his family, his heritage and indeed, his country.

Of late though, various groups and Congressional caucuses have been gathering signatures and support, all demanding that Miller either be fired or resign his White House position. The chances of ‘45 ever firing him are somewhere between slim and none. The chances of him resigning are even less than that.

For those who refuse to sit back and groan in pain, there are petitions to be signed and steps to be taken. Among the places to go and add your name to the fight are:

1. MoveOn Petitions

2. Change.Org

3. The National Council of Jewish Women

4. The Action Network

5. Stephen Miller Must Go!

To paraphrase a line from Fiddler on the Roof: “May God bless and keep Stephen Miller . . . far away from us!”

The revolving door is right in front of you . . .

350 days until the next presidential election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

To Boo or Not to Boo: That Is the Question

Like you, I am both pleased and thankful that American Special Forces took out Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the most wanted murderer on the planet. Although he undoubtedly will be replaced by yet another fanatic mastermind, for the moment Isis is both headless and flat broke.  In watching and listening to the president’s speech/press conference about al-Baghdadi’s demise, I  found myself comparing his presentation to that of President Obama at the time he announced the death of Osama bin Laden. Obama’s 1,383-word report took just under 9 minutes to deliver, and consisted of precisely 9 uses of the word “I” or “I’ve.”  It was anything but a “victory lap.”  By comparison, President Trump’s 7,728-word announcement - including a brief Q and A - lasted 48 minutes, 15 seconds, during which he used the words “I,” “I’ve,” “me” and “my” more than 125 times. 

(n.b. For what it’s worth, the picture above shows the ‘situation room’ during both the al-Baghdadi and bin Laden strikes. One is obviously posed - the president and his men are looking straight into the camera; in the other the president and his men and women are looking at a screen. In the top photo, neither the computer nor phone cables are plugged in to anything; that on the bottom shows a fully operational cyber table.)

One of the other major differences between Obama’s announcement regarding the death of bin Laden and Trump’s about al-Baghdadi was tonal: while the former’s was as solemn and matter-of-fact as a Yom Kippur confession, the other’s was far more akin to a victory lap - a rookie running back spiking the ball and receiving a 15-yard penalty for taunting the opposition. As the Washington Post’s Max Boot noted, “President Trump has a preternatural ability to turn any occasion, no matter how solemn or important, into a ridiculous, risible spectacle. . . . When he began to ad-lib about what happened near Idlib, Syria, he treated the world to his usual blend of braggadocio and bluster — dishonest and distasteful in equal measure.  

Among other things, ‘45 managed to insult Democratic congressional leaders by not informing them of the upcoming raid (although he did notify both Russia and Turkey) and offer a minute-by-minute account of al-Baghdadi’s final moments worthy of an obsessive compulsive.  The only problem with this accounting (“. . . he died like a coward . . . whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.”) was that there was no audio, so how did he know what Baghdadi was saying? When asked about this, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Mark Milley pointedly refused to confirm those details.

One of the eeriest, most ear-scratching aspects of this past Sunday is what occurred that night . . . when the POTUS attended the World Series game between the hometown Washington Nationals and the American League champion Houston Astros: upon seeing ‘45 up on the stadium, Jumbotron, a sizable percentage of the fans booed him and shouted “LOCK HIM UP!!” over and again.

The morning after the boo-fest at Nationals Park MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and his wife and co-anchor Mika Brzezinski (who are by no means Trump supporters) said it was “un-American” and “disrespectful” for the crowd to have acted in the manner they did. Quickly, more than 10,000 tweets including the phrase “sorry Joe” began trending on Twitter as users defended the actions of onlookers at Nationals Park on Sunday night. “The misrule, cruelty and infantilism of this administration is such that some sense of an enduring ethos is actually redeemed when we the people openly express our contempt,” wrote author and TV writer David Simon. “Dissent is the most American thing there is -- and to get clean, we need as much as there is on display.”

Scarborough took to Twitter after the segment aired to defend himself against his critics.

“So let’s see if I’ve got this straight: When crowds chant 'Lock her up” toward Hillary, it is illiberal and anti-American. (I agree). But when crowds chant the same toward Trump, it is suddenly a fulsome exercise of sacred First Amendment rights. What hypocritical clowns,” he tweeted.

He added that those who “think that democracy is strengthened by calling for the arrest of political opponents” are as “ignorant and illiberal” as the president himself.

“Delete your account and read some civics,” Scarborough fired back. “Stop embarrassing yourself.”

And so, to boo or not to boo . . . that is the question. This is no simple thumbs up/thumbs down question. To me, it is a real challenge:

On the one hand, I myself have a deep and abiding respect for the office of the President. Indeed, over the past 230 years, it has been occupied by 44 men (Grover Cleveland having served 2 non-consecutive terms) whose backgrounds, personalities, accomplishments and shortcomings were as varied as the nation they led. And whether or not they be blue bloods or tailors, slave owners or abolitionists, professorial or plainspoken, they managed to share one common trait: a deep-seated respect for both the Constitution and the Office they held. And up until recently, this has been an utterly true statement of fact. Sadly, this statement of fact now contains an asterisk . . . which reads “*except for Donald J. Trump.“ For in his words and actions, his demeanor and psychological makeup, he has shown himself to lack that one telling trait which has bound all the nation’s chief executives together.

But one can blithely argue - and correctly so - that his asterisk represents the failure of the man himself, and not the office he holds. If one accepts this argument, then the boos and catcalls (“Lock Him Up!”) even if unintentionally directed at both the man and the office are, in my humble opinion, wrong.

On the other hand, one can say “Enough already! He’s besmirched the presidency, abused his power and turned the White House into just another Trump, Inc. subsidiary. He gets what he deserves!” Although one can certainly understand and perhaps even accept the emotional anger this response engenders, it pushes the swamp well beyond the Anacostia River and perfectly-named “Buzzard’s Point” all the way to America’s collective front porch. This response, although again, understandable, is tantamount to fighting stink with stench, inhumanity with incivility. 

So what are we to do?  To boo or not to boo . . . that is the question.

Personally, I would never join with those shouting “LOCK HIM UP!! LOCK HIM UP!!”  It is both a waste of time and a further degradation of the office.  Seems to me we are better off using our energy to VOTE HIM OUT.  Then too, perhaps we can take chapter out of the book of the sixties’ protests.  I remember a day long ago when then-California Governor Ronald Reagan came to a meeting of the university Board of Regents on campus.  Now mind you, this was at the height of the anti-war, anti-draft  “Don’t trust anyone over the age of 30” era.  And so, when the governor entered the campus, we formed two long, long lines of greeting . . . a cortege of complaint.  As he entered the line, likely wondering if he were about to be screamed at, pelted with eggs or what have you, a unique form of protest ensued: we all, one by one, turned our backs on him, thereby forcing the Governor of California to cross the quadrangle surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of silent backsides.  We opted for silent humiliation in lieu of cacophonous insult.

What are your thoughts?

To boo or not to boo . . . please share your answer.

378 days until the next election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

The Audacity of Taupe

Exactly five years ago today (i.e. September 28, 2014) then-President Barack Obama became embroiled in what was the gravest (and to my knowledge, only) scandal of his administration. So what happened? After surviving “birtherism,” being damned for having bowed down to the Saudi King and assorted other heresies, the 44th POTUS had the utter gall to show up at a press conference clad in a . . . are you buckled up and ready for this? . . . a beige suit! Horror of Horrors!

Predictably, Fox News commentators came down on Obama for wearing the suit, claiming that he was “cheapening” the presidency; Representative Peter King (R-NY), who is still a member of the House, fumed that the suit “pointed to a lack of seriousness” on the president’s part. Five years later it’s hard to recall just how much press time this “scandal” consumed. Cable news shows held round-table discussions, fashion critics and image consultants weighed in, and TV news reporters conducted person-on-the-street interviews to find out what the people of Northeast Ohio thought of the controversial look. (Happy to report that to a person, they thought the question was absurd; that there were many things of far greater importance to discuss.)

Where Obama normally limited himself top either grey or blue suits and, unlike Gerald Ford never wore a vest, he by no means was the only president to wear a khaki-colored suit. Check out FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and JFK to see their color sense. Interestingly, most of them - including Barack Obama - had their suits made by the same tailor: “George of Paris” (née Georgios Christopoulos) of Kalamata, Greece. Unlike ‘45, who wears $5,000.00 suits that are tailored to hide his bulging gut, monumental tuchas and over-long red ties, Barack Obama was a fashion plate whether clad in jeans, or khaki slacks. He must have learned from my father - a wonderfully-tailored gentleman in his own right - who used to say that the best way to keep one’s weight in check was to find a great tailor whose prices were just a hair beyond your means. “This’ he used to say, “would force one to keep their size, shape and weight because five pounds one way or the other would cause your trousers and jackets to be obviously out of whack.”

But this is far from the purpose of this essay. As much as I may personally chortle at 45’s tailoring, I am far more disgusted by his absolute inability to laugh at himself. Where ‘45 responds to any negative comment about himself with all the vengeance of a tiger (long recognized as the most retaliatory creature on the planet) Barack Obama’s innumerable cracks about the suit became part of his repertoire of bad jokes: He told attendees of a September 2014 awards dinner for the Congressional Black Caucus that he would have worn his tan suit if the event wasn’t black-tie, and joked at his final news conference in January 2017 that he had been “sorely tempted” to wear a tan suit for the occasion.

How’s About Them Sartorial Apples?

And although after 5 years most fashionistas still contend that Obama’s taupe suit (no matter how impeccably tailored) was a boo boo, what shocks them most is that it came to dominate an entire news cycle. If this turns out to be the worst personal scandal of the eight Obama years, so be it. In comparison to what his successor has put the planet through over the past 19+ months, Obama’s “Audacity of “Taupe” is nothing more than a quaint twitter (pun intended) in the annals of presidential history. In retrospect, the Obama years now seem as innocent and charming as an episode of The Donna Reed Show. Of course they weren’t; after all, these were the 8 years which included Obama’s “red line in the sand” vis-à-vis Assad’s Syria, the assassination of Bin Laden and the deportation of more illegal immigrants than ‘45 ever dreamed of. And yes, for virtually everything Obama did, did not do, said or wore, he had tons of militant detractors.

But if anyone had looked into the political crystal ball and foretold that our next president would be known for monetizing his office; for making creepy comments about finding his own daughter attractive; for being investigated for allegedly colluding with Russia and obstructing justice; and for cozying up to dictators from Rio to Moscow to Pyongyang, we would have immediately sent that crystal ball to the repair shop and deported said seer to the lunatic asylum of Charenton.

What most of us crave is a return to sanity and maturity; to honesty and humility; to empathy and compassion . . . if not to far more use of the first person plural instead of a steady diet of the first person singular. And who knows, perhaps even a return to the audacity of taupe, if not pin stripes or power pantsuits . . .

435 days until the next election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

The Inexplicable Confidence of the Utterly Incompetent

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It seems that with every passing week and month, the partisan political divide has become wider, nastier and far more case-hardened. Political stereotypes (“Hollywood is made up of nothing but intellectually snobbish, irreligious, far-left dupes”; “the South is made up of uneducated, gun-toting bigots”) have supplanted reason and made conversation - let alone progress - next to impossible. We’ve all been victimized by stereotypical belief patterns, whether at work, while socializing or at family gatherings. And, to be perfectly honest, it hurts; precisely because it drives a wedge between people who used to be close. One of the hardest things to deal with is the political certainty of those who in reality evince precious little - if any - knowledge of politics. If it is of any succor however, remember the words of King Solomon, writing under the name of Kohelet:

.מַה־שֶּֽׁהָיָה֙ ה֣וּא שֶׁיִּֽהְיֶ֔ה וּמַ֨ה־שֶּׁנַּֽעֲשָׂ֔ה ה֖וּא שֶׁיֵּֽעָשֶׂ֑ה וְאֵ֥ין כָּל־חָדָ֖שׁ תַּ֥חַת הַשָּֽׁמֶשׁ

Namely, “What has been is what shall be; and what has been done is what shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Long, long ago, the extreme confidence of the incompetent was noted by Socrates who, we are told, said something along the lines of “the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Then there was Charles Darwin who, towards the end of his life noted that “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” Not long after Darwin’s demise (1882), a new academic field, Political Philosophy, proved that this was actually true. The so-called “father” of political philosophy was a French polymath (a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning) by the name of Gustav Le Bon. Le Bon (1841-1931) whose areas of academic interest included medicine, sociology, anthropology and physics, was most famous for his 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which has long been considered one of the seminal works of political psychology. As far back as 1895, Le Bon described the psychological underpinnings of support for such demagogues as Hitler, Mussolini, Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump - who wouldn’t become part of the world scene for decades to come.

In a 1999 paper, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger brought statistical truth to what has been known by philosophers since Socrates and Darwin. Simply put, that incompetent people think they know more than they really do, and tend to be more boastful about it.

To test Darwin’s theory, the researchers quizzed people on several topics, such as grammar, logical reasoning and humor. After each test, they asked the participants how they thought they did. Specifically, participants were asked how many of the other quiz-takers they beat.

Dunning and Kruger were shocked by the results, even though it confirmed their hypothesis. Time after time, no matter the subject, the people who did poorly on the tests ranked their competence much higher. On average, test takers who scored as low as the 10th percentile ranked themselves near the 70th percentile. Those least likely to know what they were talking about believed they knew as much as the experts.

What do YOU see when you look in the mirror?

Dunning and Kruger’s results have been replicated in at least a dozen different domains: math skills, wine tasting, chess, medical knowledge among surgeons and firearm safety among hunters. For readers of this blog, the most important finding of their study - and those studies which have since followed - is that the less people know about civics, politics and foreign policy, the more they claim to understand. Whether or not Donald Trump, his advisers and strategists have ever read, heard of or digested what has come to be known as the “Dunning-Kruger Effect” is as irrelevant as it unlikely. Nonetheless, they act as if they do.

The Dunning Kruger Effect is a type of cognitive bias, whereby people with little expertise or ability assume they have superior expertise or ability. This overestimation occurs as a result of the fact that they don’t have enough knowledge to know they don’t have enough knowledge. When they look in the mirror - assuming they ever do - they see a genius . . . or a titan or one whose every judgment is correct. A study published in the April 2018 issue of the journal Political Psychology aimed the “Dunning Kruger Effect” specifically in the direction of partisan politics. Researched and written by University of Maryland Political Science professor Ian Anson, Partisanship, Political Knowledge, and the Dunning‐Kruger Effect found that those who evinced the least political knowledge (e.g. the ability to name Cabinet secretaries, identify the length of term limits for members of Congress or the names of programs that the U.S. government spends the least on) were far more likely to overestimate their level of political knowledge. Anson’s study found little difference between unknowing Democrats and unknowing Republicans. Indeed by itself, this is awfully depressing.

While the results of Anson’s study suggest that being uninformed leads to overconfidence across the political spectrum, other studies have shown that Democrats now tend to be more educated than Republicans, possibly making the latter more vulnerable to the Dunning-Kruger Effect. In fact, a Pew Research Center poll released in March of 2018, found that 54 percent of college graduates identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, compared to 39 percent who identified or leaned Republican.

Writing in Psychology Today, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian speculated that the Dunning Kruger Effect “ . . . may help explain why certain Trump supporters seem to be so easily tricked into believing proven falsehoods when the President delivers what have become known as “alternative facts,” often using language designed to activate partisan identities. Because they lack knowledge but are confident that they do not, they may be less likely than others to actually fact-check the claims that the President makes.”

Getting through to people is never easy . . . especially in light of what everyone from Socrates and Darwin to Dunning, Kruger and Anson have both posited and proved. The best answer on the horizon is, of course, to overwhelmingly defeat Donald Trump and all those who feed their partisans with half-truth and outright lies, and replace them with people possessing greater intellectual honesty and modesty.

Remember this: a wise person knows what they know; a very wise person knows what they do not know; a truly wise person knows, trusts and engages with those who know the things that they themselves do not know.

452 days until the election . . .

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

It

Clara Bow: The “It” Girl (1905-1965)

This week’s essay, simply entitled “It,” is the 756th hebdomadal (weekly) essay I’ve written and posted since February 5, 2005. Back then, the blog was entitled Beating the Bushes: Barack Obama was a virtually anonymous junior senator from Illinois, Pete Buttegieg had just graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, and was heading off to Oxford’s Pembroke College where had had just been named a Rhodes Scholar; real estate magnate Donald Trump was beginning the second season of The Apprentice, and the bestselling fiction novel was John Grisham’s The Broker. No one had yet heard of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, or the terms sexting, and ransomware; for weeks and months on end, one of the top news stories dealt with Terri Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged woman, whose epic life-or-death battle came to the forefront of America's conscience — and to the highest court in the land.

One of the biggest differences between writing essays in 2005 and today is that back then, one had at least a week’s worth of leisure to research, cogitate and prepare before coming up with – and committing to - a title . . . let alone determining what in the Hell one was going to be writing about. By comparison, today, each potential topic lasts about ten minutes before taking a backseat to some other breaking news of earth shattering importance. Take for an example this week: just as one was beginning research on an essay dealing with the 2nd round of Democratic debates, there was the presidential attack on Rep. Elijah Cummings, and the city of Baltimore with all its racist overtones; the Presidential son-in-law’s involvement in that city’s decline, and the horrific massacres in Gilroy, California, El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio which have led to yet another debate about automatic weapons, gun safety laws, mental health and the relationship between the current administration and galloping white supremacy. This is not even to mention the Iranian seizure of additional oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, North Korea’s newest nuclear missile tests or the administration’s promise to impose new tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese consumer goods.

All-in-all, a vast smörgåsbord of temptations guaranteed to afflict one with acute weltschmerz combined with progressive intellectual dyspepsia. Oh how one longs for the days when screaming headlines were the exception, not the commonplace. What those of us who closely follow, write about - and are deeply invested in - politics on all levels, we cry out for change; for a reality in which class replaces crass; for a stable of political animals who place the broad weal of humanity above the narrow straitened path of partisanship. In short, we seek those who possess that ineffable quality called “It.” Being ineffable (too great to be spoken in words) “It” is nearly impossible to define; but one senses it when one sees it.

On the window shelf in my library, one finds several keepsakes which are, in my estimation, the symbols of my rather complex being. There, from right to left one finds a small statue of Moses grasping the Tablets of the Law, (representing my Jewish self); a magnificent wooden cigar box (my fascination with the inexplicable); a bust of Thomas Jefferson (symbolizing the ultimate Renaissance Man); a photo of my beloved father Henry in uniform, with the Taj Mahal looming in the background (the ultimate gentleman as warrior); a photo with Annie (the strongest, most resilient human being I know), and a truly rare photo of silent actress Clara Bow - the original “It” girl - my all-time favorite movie star.

I am happy to report that over the past several weeks I believe we have been in the presence of an “It” leader-on-the-rise: South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg, whose name is still so unpronounceable that most people refer to him as “Mayor Pete,” possesses “It.” He is a masterful articulator and very good at sidestepping controversy. Asked, as he stood next to Bernie Sanders onstage at the most recent Democratic debate, whether age was an important factor to consider in the upcoming election, Buttigieg gave a roundabout answer that stressed the importance of ideas and vision over age, while also explaining that looking to younger people was the important evolution needed for our country’s future. But probably most memorable was his directing a statement to sitting Republican congressmen: “And if you are watching this at home, and you are a Republican member of Congress, consider the fact that when the sun sets on your career, and they are writing your story—of all the good and bad things you did, the thing you will be remembered for is whether in this moment, with this president, you found the courage to stand up to him or you continued to put party over country.”

As a serious practicing Christian (He was raised and educated Catholic as a child, and became an Anglican [Episcopalian] while studying at Oxford), Mayor Peter has had no problem calling out Republicans for what he sees as their sectarian hypocrisy: “For a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that … God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages,” Buttigieg said, “has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.” This is the kind of straight-shooting attack that many Americans have been waiting for. Possessing “It,” Mayor Pete has the ability to be animated without being antagonistic; didactic without being demeaning and plain-spoken without resorting to puerility.

At age 37, Mayor Pete may seem too young to be a serious contender for POTUS. Indeed, he is 36 years younger than ‘45, 40 years younger than Joe Biden, 41 years younger than Bernie Sanders and 33 years younger than Elizabeth Warren. Were he to be elected, this would represent the greatest age differential between a president and his successor; JFK was 27 years younger than Dwight Eisenhower. The one thing JFK and Mayor Pete have in common - besides a Harvard education - is that ineffable quality we began this essay with: IT.

(And by the way, for those whose primary interest in any candidate is where they stand vis--à-vis Israel, Mayor Pete is a strong - though not totally uncritical - supporter of the Jewish State . . . far more prominently so than most progressive Democrats.)

2020 may well not be Mayor Pete’s year, although, in my humble opinion, the time is ripe to - in the soaring words of JFK, to

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans . . . .unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

458 days until the election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone