#936: Ten Trillion Here, Twenty Trillion There #🟦

Fairbanks & Chaplin: 1918 Wall Street Bond Rally

Mark Twain, that most notable and quotable of all American authors once wrote “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” Because, so far as I know, he wasn’t referring to any contemporary situation in particular, his aphorism is thus both brilliant and timeless; it speaks to human nature in general.

In reflecting on how little time remains until the United States - for the first times in its history - defaults on its debt obligations . . . which, as of this past January, stood at $31.38 trillion and rising . . . Twain’s remark seems all the more tailor-made.

Trying to access blame – to determine precisely which side shoulders the greater burden in the nation’s titanic debt obligations – brings to mind yet another writer of renown:  the occasionally controversial cartoonist Walt Kelly. Kelly (1913-1973) put into the mouth of Okefenokee Swamp-dwelling oposum Pogo, his greatest creation, the immortal words “We have met the enemy and he is us!” (n.b. This is an abridgement of what Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry announced at the Battle of Lake Erie, when his small naval force had defeated the British in 1813: "We have met the enemy and he is ours.")

In other words, Democrats and Republicans alike share a mutual blame for America’s massive debt; it’s just that the former are more “tax-and-spend,” the latter “cut-taxes-and-spend.”  With America's Debt Ceiling about to be breached (it’s already been reached) by June 1, President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy are about to sit down and see if anything can be done. POTUS wants a “clean bill,” wherein Congress passes an increase in the ceiling without any attached budgetary strings. Period. 

By contrast, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's "Limit, Save, Grow Act" of 2023, as recently passed by the House, would require broad-based spending cuts totaling $4.5 trillion over the next decade. President Biden had said in no uncertain terms that he will refuse to sign the act into law; he spoke truth-to-power when he referred to it as "dead on arrival" in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Speaker McCarthy wants to tie any rise to a series of draconian spending cuts which would most likely affect the poorest among us: veterans, children relying on food-stamps, students being crushed by debts, Medicaid Recipients, etc.  Moreover this act mandates dramatic cuts in monies already allocated for such things as climate change programs and the addition of 78,000 new IRS agents . . . whose purpose is to make sure that millionaires and billionaires are paying their fair share.  

Can you say “stalemate?”

The United States started running up debt long before July 4, 1776.  Someone had to help pay for General Washington’s troops and the creation of the Continental Congress. The Revolutionary War was, to a great degree, financed through the selling of “Continentals bills of exchange,” arranged for by one Hayim Salomon, a Polish-born Jewish businessman living in Philadelphia. Salomon (1740-85) risked his growing fortune to travel to Europe and broker these bills of exchange at rock bottom prices. For his services, Salomon - who also made interest-free loans to many of the Founding Fathers and himself died a pauper at age 46 - charged a measly one-quarter-of-one-percent. (BTW: In 1941, Howard Fast wrote an impressive historical novel about Salomon, called Hayim Salomon: Liberty’s Son. If you are interested, there are still copies available . . . )

From 1776 to the turn of the 20th century, the Treasury Department had to go to get Congress’ approval whenever it needed to engage in deficit spending. Then, in the early 20th century, the debt limit was instituted so that the U.S. Treasury would not need to ask Congress for permission each time it had to issue debt to pay bills. During World War I, Congress passed the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917 to give the Treasury more flexibility to issue debt and manage federal finances. All over the country, people gathered to buy tens of millions of dollars worth of war bonds to help finance the Great War. The most famous such gathering was on Wall Street, where movie stars Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Marie Dressler, along with then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, reached out to an estimated 20,000 people crowded into Wall Street, doing their best to get them to buy, buy, buy, lend, lend, lend. Within two hours, the assemblage bought more than $3,000,000 worth of bonds. (The actuality at the top of this article is a photo of that historic event.) Similar rallies would occur all around the country.

The first debt limit was instituted by Congress in 1939. Congress consolidated limits on specific forms of debt (e.g., separate caps on bonds and shorter-term debt) into one aggregate debt limit. The first federal debt limit was set at $45 billion and gave the Treasury Department wide discretion over what borrowing instruments to use, so long as total debt did not exceed that level. From then until now, Congress has raised the debt ceiling with every passing war (whether Congressionally mandated or not) and crisis. During the 4 years of the Trump administration, the president and Congress increased America’s debt limit by nearly 25%, due in part to an unprecedented tax cut which he sold to both Congress and the American public by claiming that it would pay for itself by greatly increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by up to 6% per annum. He was wrong.

Indeed, raising the debt ceiling used to be most commonplace, least dramatic event of a congressional session. Why even during the Trump years, Congress increased the nation’ ability to borrow on 3 separate occasions. In matter of fact, when asked about threatening spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, he told reporters “I cant think of anyone using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge.” (Someone should have asked a follow-up question, like “Mr. President, can you explain to us precisely what the ‘debt ceiling’ is? Come to think of it, of all 46 presidents in American history, he likely knows more about debt than any of his colleagues . . . real estate empires are, after all, colossi of debt.)

Speaker McCarthy’s insistence that the House will never accept a “clean” bill unless the White House accepts massive spending cuts is, in the words of President Biden, “D.O.A.” . . . “Dead On Arrival.” The MAGA branch of the House appears to believe that they can actually sell the American public on this toxic witches’ brew. How is that possible? Don’t they know that raising the debt limit has virtually nothing - NOTHING - to do with future spending? That cutting spending from the next budget will have no effect - NONE, NADA, GORNISHT - on what we have already committed ourselves to spending? Or, even worse, don’t they really care? Are they more interested in winning the next election - even if it means seeing the American economy go up in smoke, thus triggering the loss of millions of jobs, trillions of dollars of losses in people’s retirement savings, a major stock market crash and ensuing global depression? Are they looking to finish that which January 6, 2021 began . . . the overthrowing of the government? Nothing provides greater fodder for revolution than economic uncertainty and collapse. But do remember, all fodder is, when one puts it under a microscope, nothing more than manure.

               $1,000,000,000,000,000.00!

To be certain, there are a couple of bizarre, dystopian suggestions on the horizon. Some economists (none I trust) have stated it's time for a break-the-glass option: a trillion-dollar coin. The coin — which wouldn't need to be bigger than an average coin, and can be made quickly — as part of a potential debt-ceiling loophole. The Treasury Department can mint platinum coins of any denomination. That's led to a school of thought that says Secretary Yellen should simply mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin and deposit it to pay off the debts until a more permanent solution can be found. Even conservative economists have found the notion to be “beyond silly.” The first problem, of course, is that it would have to get past Treasury Secretary Yellin; the second that the courts would, in all likelihood, shoot it down. But this is precisely the kind of simple-mindedness that MAGA Republicans believe they can sell their base on . . . even if they themselves know it is twaddle.

Then, there is a theory being discussed behind closed doors at the White House ,that the government would be required by the 14th Amendment to continue issuing new debt to pay bondholders, Social Security recipients, government employees and others, even if Congress fails to lift the limit before the so-called X-date. This theory rests on the 14th Amendment clause stating that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

Some legal scholars contend that this language overrides the statutory borrowing limit, which currently caps federal debt at $31.4 trillion and requires congressional approval to raise or lift. Top economic and legal officials at the White House, the Treasury Department and the Justice Department have made that theory a subject of intense and unresolved debate in recent months, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

It is unclear whether President Biden would support such a move, which would have serious ramifications for the economy and almost undoubtedly elicit legal challenges from Republicans. Continuing to issue debt in that situation would avoid an immediate disruption in consumer demand by maintaining government payments, but borrowing costs are likely to soar, at least temporarily.

Oh how I wish I had paid better attention to Dr. Daniel Suits’ class in “The Politics of Economics” 50+ years ago! All I know at this point in time is that playing “Debt Chicken” is an incredibly dangerous, economically lethal, game.

As of today, all I can hear is Ella Fitzgerald singing “Something’s Gotta Give.” Where oh where are the adults? There’s far, far more to politics than winning another term . . . or the White House, or taking back the Senate. Whatever happened to doing the right thing for the nation?

To paraphrase the late Senator Everett Dirksen (after whom a senate office building is named): “A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone #🟦

#935 Let's Heed Florence Kahn's Advice (Satire) #🟦

           Rep. Florence Prag Kahn (1866-1948)

Of the more than nearly 225 Jewish men and women who have served in the United States Congress, one of my favorites, without question, is Florence Prag Kahn, who represented what would eventually become Sala Burton’s, Barbara Boxer’s and Nancy Pelosi’s District in San Francisco. In interviewing the three for my mammoth biographic works The Congressional Minyan (2000) and The Jews of Capitol Hill (2010) they all remembered with great fondness the many hours they had spent with their young children (and now grandchildren) at the Julius Kahn Playground and Clubhouse which was named after Florence’s late husband Julius, himself a member of Congress for 24 years. Located at Jackson and Spruce, the “JK” is the nation’s largest urban park.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 9, 1866, her parents, who had immigrated from Poland in the early 1860s, were actually friends with the Mormon leader Brigham Young.

Florence Prag Kahn lived a life of firsts:

• The first Jew born in Utah

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

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

• The first Jewish woman elected to the House of Representatives

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

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

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

My favorite Florence Prag Kahn quip - and the genesis for this satiric posting - comes from the time when the House’s most ultraconservative - and least liked - member acidly asked her, “Would you support a birth control law?” Without taking time to draw a breath, she answered, “Yes I will . . . if you will personally make it retroactive!” I remember doing my initial research on Mrs. Kahn back in the early 1990s. I was occupying a tiny cubby on the top floor of Harvard’s Widener Library. When I came across this line I cracked up and almost fell out of my chair . . . so much so that there quickly erupted the sound of a couple of dozen people “shushing” me. Believe me, it was hard to stop laughing . . .

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

       Stewart and Travers in “It’s a Wonderful Life”

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

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

Oh if only they had never been born!

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone                                                                                             #🟦

#934: Musophobia: Rhonda Santis and the House of Mouse #🟦

One obvious measure of success - or notoriety - for people in the public eye or historic spotlight is the acquiring of one or more easily recognizable nicknames. In politics, “Honest Abe,” “Governor Moonbeam” and “The Governator” are, of course, respectively, Abraham Lincoln, and former California governors Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In baseball, most fans can immediately identify “The Babe” (Babe Ruth), “The Georgia Peach” (Ty Cobb), “Mr. Cub” (Ernie Banks), “Mr. October” (Reggie Jackson) and my favorite, “The Splendid Splinter” (Ted Williams). Basketball fans have no trouble identifying “The Stilt” (Wilt Chamberlin), “Zeke from Cabin Creek” (Jerry West) and for my money, the best of the best, “The Round Mound of Rebound” (Charles Barkley.) For those who are gaga about classic Hollywood movie stars, there’s no problem in identifying the identities of “The Little Tramp” (Charlie Chaplin), “The King” (originally Wallace Reid, most famously Clark Gable), “The Great Profile” (John Barrymore), “The ‘It’ Girl” (Clara Bow) and “The Italian Marilyn Monroe” (Sophia Loren.).

One will note that historically, most nicknames were either descriptive (“The Stoneface” - Buster Keaton) or laudatory (The Father of His Country” (G. Washington). Today, nicknames can be either satiric or downright mean and insulting. Perhaps no one in recent history has bestowed more insulting nicknames on public figures than former President Donald Trump:

• “Lyin’ Ted” (Texas Senator Ted Cruz)

• “Disloyal Sleezebag” (Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell)

• “The Nutty Professor” (Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders)

• “Gretchen Half-Whitmer” (Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer) and

• “Maggot Haberman” (New York Times White House Correspondent Maggie Haberman).

Of late, the politician who has garnered the greatest number of potential nicknames - whether descriptive, laudatory or downright mean and insulting is current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who I almost always refer to as “Rhonda Santis,” due to his obsession with drag queens. Indeed, there is even a website devoted exclusively to his many sobriquets, both congratulatory and disparaging. Because he was, until late, considered to be Donald Trump’s strongest competitor for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, he is being most closely vetted by both the national media and the former president’s strongest, most steadfast allies. That’s how the game is played; any- and everyone considering running for high office had better know this . . . and have about them the hide of a rhinoceros. 

At this point, the question is whether or not Governor DeSantis is “ready for prime-time.”  Paying very close attention to what he has been doing, saying and mandating here in Florida, I would have to say the answer is a rounding NO! HE IS BY NO MEANS READY FOR PRIME TIME!! Anyone who is following DeSantis from the point of his being the Florida Governor will likely conclude that virtually everything he declares or does within the Sunshine State is meant to send a message to what he deems the Republican base. He seems to be not at all aware that running to the right of Donald Trump is not smart; that his advisors are little better than rank amateurs. Compared to the obnoxious, narcissistic, dumb-as-a-bag-of-hair, twice impeached Trump, DeSantis is little more than the former President’s “Mini-Me.”

That which keeps the MAGA wing of the Republican Party in Donald Trump’s shadow is mostly his audacity; his lack of concern about what anyone else believes or thinks about him.  Politically speaking, he is rara avis; the only politician I am aware of who, when he is indicted for 34 different felonies, actually gains in the polls!  To his followers, he is the future of an America which will soon become a minority/majority country. DeSantis, on the other hand, seeks to collect brownie points by attacking and punishing those who disagree with the Trumpian vision of the American future.  Back in 2011, when he was beginning his run for governor, DeSantis published a book-length screed against then President Barack Obama entitled Dreams From Our Forefathers. In this truly terrible, child-like tome, DeSantis screamed at President Barack Obama for 286 pages, implying he was a closet Marxist, and at one point wrote that Obama had "Muslim roots."  Even worse, DeSantis' book included justifications excusing the legalization of slavery in the U.S. Constitution, as well as repeated complaints about policies designed to protect women from rape and domestic violence.

We were warned as far back as 2011 . . . and still, 62 of Florida’s 67 counties voted for him in 2022.

But as the commercial tagline goes: “But wait . . . there’s more!”  In many parts of America - and even here in Florida itself - he is making himself look like the “Fool on the Hill” . . . 

“Nobody seems to like him, they can tell what he wants to do 
And he never shows his feelings. But the fool on the hill
sees the sun going down, and the eyes in his head see the world spinning 'round."

As Florida’s fool on the hill travels the country, ostensibly hawking his new book, The Courage to be Free (which contains a chapter entitled “The Magic Kingdom of Woke Corporatism”), he is becoming well-known for that which revs his political engine:

• Banning books in public school libraries;

• Putting the nation’s fifth most progressive institution of higher learning -  Sarasota’s New College - into the hands of a newly appointed board that wishes to remake it in the image of, say, Michigan’s Hillsdale College, a private conservative Christian school founded by members of the Free Will Baptists in 1844.  In a DeSantis dictatorship, he would ban diversity, equity, and inclusion (D.E.I.) programs and the teaching of critical race theory, give New College trustees broader powers to review and fire faculty, and compel all state colleges to deprioritize fields deemed to fit a “political agenda”; 

• Making sure that any entertainment spot featuring performers in Drag while there are children present (even if brought there by their parents) will lose its liquor license;

• Threaten any teacher who teaches about anything involving sex, gender or what he calls “The WOKE history of the Civil War” will likely loose their teaching license, be fined and even subject to imprisonment  . . . and the most notorious, most puzzling and most publicized of ‘em all:

• His all out  war on the House of Mouse - by far the state’s largest single employer and payer of taxes.  

It’s not that Rhonda is musophobic (i.e. overwhelmingly and irrationally fearful of mice and other small rodents);  I mean for crying out loud he and wife Casey’s 2009 nuptials took place at Disney World.  In his book. DeSantis explains that he grew disillusioned with the corporation as it moved “beyond mere virtue, signaling to liberal activists.” So how did it morph from being “The happiest place on earth” to being a coven of crazies? Simple: its leadership exercised their First Amendment right to speak their mind.  Now, the disparagement - if not dismemberment - of the house of mouse is a core part of his political identity.  Everyone remembers that it was Nero who fiddled while Rome burnt to the ground.  In the case of DeSantis, he פארקויפט (sold) copies of his new book while Broward County (which happens to be the most Democratic county in the state) washed away. It’s akin to Senator Ted Cruz vacationing in Cancun while Texas froze.

The latest imbroglio began when Disney announced it would halt its political contributions in Florida and pledged to work to get the “Don’t Say Gay” law overturned.  As in a game of chess between a beginner and a grand master, DeSantis took aim at the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which had overseen Disney World’s government services since the 1960s.

Vowing to end Disney’s “special privileges,” DeSantis had the stupid-majority Florida legislature pass a law to put the district under state control; Disney responded by reaching a development agreement meant to undo that law; mate, Disney.  Now, DeSantis is threatening to have the state take over safety inspections for rides and monorails at Disney World, or potentially sell off the company’s utilities . . . or even build the state’s largest prison right next door to the state’s most powerful tourist magnet. This comment made national headlines and became fodder for cartoonists and comedians.

It also has caused his polling numbers to plunge.

Not only is Disney the state’s biggest employer, its economic multiplier is vast.  Without Disney World, there would likely be no Universal Orlando Resort, no Sea World, no Disney Hollywood Studio, no Sea World Orlando, no Toy Story Land . . . as well as all the hotels, motels, restaurants and shopping areas servicing the area.  And don’t forget to think about all the thousands upon thousands of people who have jobs as a result of all these tourist attractions.

None of these places are cheap.  I well remember when Disneyland opened in 1955.  We went there shortly after it first opened its gates on July the 17th.  Then, the one attraction which drew the longest  lines was "Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” (it still exists); believe it or not, in 1955, a day’s ticket was $1.00 . . . $.50 for children.  If you were upper middle class, you might follow up a visit to Disney with a jaunt over to Knott’s Berry Farm in nearby Buena Park.  Situated on 57 acres, admission was free (until 1968, when the fee was $1.00 for adults and $.25 for kids).  And then, after a long, joy-filled day, you would go home.  Today, minus hotel and food charges, a one-day pass to Disney World will set one back anywhere between $109.00-$189.00.  This is to say that in 68 years, the price of a good time has gone from pocket change to a second mortgage.

And this is the ultimate cash cow that Governor DeSantis wants to punish for having the audacity to stand up for the rights of LGBTQ+ men, women and children . . . as well as their grandparents, friends and tourists to the Sunshine State.

 To my way of thinking, Ron DeSantis and his narrow-minded clique are even more toxic than the mice and other small rodents they so breathlessly fear . . . 

 Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone.     #🟦

#933: "A Toad Under the Harrow"

Matthew Kacsmaryk is a Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He is the jurist (?) who, just the other day issued a ruling in case No. 23-10362, called ALLIANCE FOR HIPPOCRATIC MEDICINE et al v. U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION et al, by which he single-handedly fulfilled the hopes, prayers and genuflections of millions of “hyper-moral, liberty-loving Americans” by issuing a nationwide ban on the use of the abortifacient Mifepristone (Mifeprex, a progesterone blocker), one of two drugs (the other being Misoprostol, a hormone originally created to prevent stomach ulcers caused by anti-inflammatories [NSAIDs] which are  commonly used to medically terminate pregnancies. (n.b. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals quickly reversed part of Kacsmaryk’s ruling, though the case will likely go before the Supreme Court for full resolution.)

Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling, to say the least, was and is both bizarre and deeply troublesome. Unquestionably, the most bizarre aspect of his 49-page ruling (much of it a listing of the various plaintiffs and defendants) was his repeated reference to the 150-year old Comstock Act . The Act is an anti-vice law passed in 1873 that prohibits the mailing of “obscene or crime-inciting matter.” Kacsmaryk’s effort to resuscitate this 19th-century relic, indicates that an antiquated law passed during the Reconstruction era, will play a central role in the post-Roe v. Wade apocalyptic landscape of abortion law.    #🟦

As described in a December 2022 memorandum by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the original Comstock Act arose from “the handiwork of Anthony Comstock—‘a prominent anti-vice crusader who believed that anything touching upon sex… was obscene.’”

Comstock—who helped found the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice—championed the initial version of the law which forbade the mailing of any drug, medicine or anything “for the prevention of conception, or for causing an unlawful abortion.” The prohibition on contraception and the word “unlawful” were eventually dropped. In its current form found at 18 U.S.C. 1461 (Mailing obscene or crime-inciting matter), the law prohibits “every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device or substance; and every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use” as well as advertising anything falling within these broad categories.

The most deeply troublesome part of his ruling, of course, is its central assertion: that in giving the legal stamp of approval for the use of Mifepristone in 2000, the FDA got it wrong; that the agency - whom many of the ‘hyper moral’ claim is run and staffed by liberal doctors, scientists and elitists with a pro-abortion agenda - all but ignored the possible bad (or even lethal) side effects (called “adverse events” in medical research jargon) for purposes of getting it on to the market.

In the first 18 years of its legal existence, the FDA reported that 24 women, out of approximately 3.7 million (0.000064%), have died after taking mifepristone for the purpose of medical abortion. However, as the FDA notes, “The adverse events cannot with certainty be causally attributed to Mifepristone because of concurrent use of other drugs, other medical or surgical treatments, coexisting medical conditions, and information gaps about patient health status and clinical management of the patient.”

In other words, Judge Kacsmaryk’s contention vis-à-vis bad side effects is utter stuff and nonsense.

The FDA first approved Mifeprex (mifepristone) in September 2000 for the medical termination of pregnancy through seven weeks gestation and this was extended to ten weeks gestation in 2016. The FDA approved a generic version of Mifeprex, Mifepristone Tablets, 200 mg, in April 2019. The agency’s approval of this generic reflects its determination that Mifepristone Tablets, 200 mg, are therapeutically equivalent to Mifeprex and can be safely substituted for Mifeprex. Like Mifeprex, the approved generic product is indicated for the medical termination of intrauterine pregnancy through 70 days gestation.

By extension, Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling could be used to call any FDA-approved drug or device into question. What’s to say that next week, some fundamentalist group of physicians, pharmacists or chemists wants to sue the FDA over the approval of contraceptive pills, hormones or medical devices because the pre-marketing research wasn’t as muscular as it should have been? Or that the major COVID vaccines and boosters cause far too many deaths? First they came for the press in order to get the public to distrust anything they said or printed. Next they came for the White House and the Congress until its ratings were in the sewer. Now, if Kacsmaryk and his “patriotic” cronies have their way, trust in the Food and Drug Administration (which, by the way, was never run by Dr. Fauci, as many of them claim) will also fall beneath the sub-basement.

(n.b. Yesterday (4/15/23) Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued an administrative stay of Judge Kascmaryk’s ruling until the end of the day, Wednesday, April 19. The Department of Justice has filed paperwork with SCOTUS, arguing that Kascmaryk’s ruling is legally unsupportable, and thus should be overturned.)

Those of us who labor long and hard in the vineyards of research, clinical trials and medical ethics (which is not an oxymoron), know very well just how long, exhausting and thoroughgoing the process is for getting anything medical, pharmaceutical or technical approved by the FDA. Generally speaking, it takes years, billions of dollars, and innumerable trial phases (starting with laboratory animals, then healthy human subjects,  then  subjects having a particular disease or condition and finally, post-marketing statistics. Anyone participating in trials is fully informed as to what is going to happen if they voluntarily consent to enter a study. Any and all potential adverse events are spelled out; anything in a consent document that is even remotely pushy or fanciful is deleted. Every step along the way is evaluated and overseen by either a Board of Ethics or an Institutional Review Board. This is how I’ve been earning my living for several decades . . .  (And by the way, all consent documents contain a boilerplate comment to the effect that “there may be other potential adverse events that we are not currently aware of.”)

Debunking Judge Kacsmaryk’s contention that not all dangerous side effects were investigated prior to FDA approval of Mifepristone or Misoprostol is actually pretty easy: all one has to do is go to www.clinicaltrials.gov type in which ever drug, device or surgical technique you wish, and you will get a full history of any and every trial ever done. As but one example, if you go to the site and type in Mifepristone, up will pop 227 different trials and studies carried out over the years. You will discover that there are still active studies investigating other uses for this drug . . . including certain types of breast cancer, type2 diabetes and Adenomyosis. Type in Misoprostol and you will find 566 past, present and proposed studies on many, many issues affecting women.

(Please note: deciphering medical terminology can be difficult. If you go on to the clinical trials website, you may need to ask your family doctor, specialist, pharmacist or, in some cases, your rabbi (!) to translate things into understandable English.)

                Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk (1977- )

At about the time Matthew Kacsmaryk was being considered for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench (early 2017) he submitted a draft article to a Texas law review criticizing Obama-era protections for transgender people and those seeking abortions. At the time, he had already spent several years working for a conservative legal group fighting legal fights on behalf those who demanded that their religious beliefs and scruples be protected as a matter of law.

The Obama administration, the draft article argued, had discounted religious physicians who “cannot use their scalpels to make female what God created male” and “cannot use their pens to prescribe or dispense abortifacient drugs designed to kill unborn children.”

But a few months after the piece arrived, an editor at the law journal who had been working with Kacsmaryk received an unusual email: Citing “reasons I may discuss at a later date,” Kacsmaryk, who had originally been listed as the article’s sole author, said he would be removing his name and replacing it with those of two colleagues at his legal group, First Liberty Institute, according to emails and early drafts obtained by The Washington Post. The article, titled “The Jurisprudence of the Body,” argues that religious physicians “cannot use their scalpels to make female what God created male” and “cannot use their pens to prescribe” abortion medication “designed to kill unborn children.”  Kacsmaryk asked for his name to be removed from the article for “reasons I may discuss at a later date” and be replaced by two coworkers at the religious freedom-focused law firm

When Matthew Kacsmaryk appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his dossier and collection of legal essays did not contain any information about “The Jurisprudence of the Body." It had simply disappeared from his record.  In swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he told the assembled senators that his private religious beliefs would in no way affect his ability to make dispassionate decisions based solely on the law and legal precedents. In other words, like the 3 justices named to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett), Matthew Kacsmaryk lied; they too proclaimed that they would follow legal precedent when it came to Roe v. Wade.  And of course, all 3 voted in favor of its dismemberment.

I wonder how Judge Kacsmaryk or the current Supreme Court would respond to a lawsuit filed on behalf of plaintiff’s claiming that the drug Sildenafil should never have been approved by the FDA? Using the Texas judge’s legal logic, it should be banned.  This, of course, will never happen; it will never even be considered.  Why? Because Sildenafil is known by 2 generic names: Viagra and Revatio.

The next time we vote, please remember that positions on the federal bench are lifetime appointments. It is far too easy for ideologues like Kacsmaryk or G-d knows how many Trump/McConnell/Federalist Society appointees who urrent occupy seats and gavels which will give them the power to veto the wishes of vast majorities for at least the next generation, if not 2. This should become a major, major issue for the 2024 elections.

As to Judge Kacsmaryk himself, he should be feeling, in the words of the great British novelist and wit P.G. Wodehouse, like “a toad under the harrow” . . . like one soon to be chopped up into little pieces. Although Wodehouse was writing about Hildebrand Spencer Poynt de Burgh, twelfth Earl of Dreever, it could easily have been about Matthew Joseph Kacsmaryk. Writing about the good Earl of Dreever, Wodehouse noted: “Nature had equipped Hildebrand Spencer Poynt de Burgh with one of those cheap-substitute minds. What passed for brain in him was to genuine gray matter as just-as-good imitation coffee is to real Mocha. In moments of emotion and mental stress, consequently, his reasoning . . . was apt to be in a class of its own.”

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

A Star is Born! (#932)

          Introducing John Wayne: A Star is Born

Because I am a “Hollywood Brat,” who has taught at least 2 film classes a week for more than 25 years, my thoughts and opinions have always held a lot of sway with my students. My favorite movie of all time? Casablanca. My all-time favorite comedy? Buster Keaton’s brilliant 1924 5-reel film Sherlock, Jr. Best musical? 1951’s An American in Paris, starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron.  The best western of all time? Unquestionably, 1939’s Stage Coach, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne as “The Ringo Kid”  (top billing went to Claire Trevor, who played “Dallas,” a “lady of pleasure”).         #🟦                                           

 John Wayne (Marion Michael Morrison) and John Ford (John Martin Feeney) had a long, long love-hate relationship. The two originally met in 1929, when Ford went to direct a sports-themed film  called Salute at USC, where both Wayne and Ward Bond were members of the Trojan football team. He put the two to work hauling furniture and eventually started giving them uncredited bit parts in his films. After 21 walk-on roles, Wayne was signed to star in a major western called The Big Trail - a 1930 Fox Films stinker which, in old Hollywood parlance, “wasn’t released . . . it escaped.”

Ford was incredibly angry with Wayne for having been disloyal and signing with Fox without even informing him. For the next 9 years, Wayne had to learn his craft without any help from Ford. He wound appearing in 61 grade-B/C films, playing everything from playboys and mill workers to singing cowboys. Finally, in 1939, Ford approached Wayne, told him he was finally ready for the big-time, and hired him to play the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach (based on Boule de Suif, a French story written by Guy de Maupassant). In order for the movie-going public to know that John Wayne was going to be a major star, Ford crafted an incredibly long-range “zoom shot” (a “star maker”) to hone in on Ringo when he first enters the picture. At that moment his face filled the screen, a star was born.

As I was watching in rapt - though horrified - attention as the overwhelmingly Republican state Legislature voted to expel two young, Black male representatives for their roles in leading youthful protests calling for gun control, after a mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville which killed 3 nine-year olds and 3 adults, one thought kept going through my mind: “Two Stars Are Born” and both are named Justin, which, most fitting, is Latin for “just, honest.” (It should also be long remembered that the white Republican legislators voted not to expel the 3rd protestor, Gloria Johnson, 60, a white female lawmaker who had stood with her Democratic colleagues; nonetheless, her expulsion came within 1 vote of enactment).

During the Thursday debate, Democrats argued that the Tennessee Three’s actions were a mistake, but that expulsion would set a dangerous precedent for democracy. Republicans said expulsion was necessary to prevent further potential attempts to disobey the chamber’s rules. The GOP representatives used a more aggressive line of questioning during cross-examination of Jones and Pearson, calling the two lawmakers disruption makers and attention seekers.

In expelling 2 Gen Z-ers, Justin Jones, 27 and Justin Pearson, 28, House Speaker Cameron Sexton compared the 2 to the rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. During debate, he called the “Tennessee Three’s” actions in joining protesters chanting “no action, no peace,” “unacceptable” and a violation of House rules of decorum and procedure. (It should be noted that Speaker Sexton and his Republican colleagues have repeatedly referred to the January 6, 2021 insurrection as nothing more than a “loud tour” of the Capitol by patriotic Americans.)

Tennessee, of course, is the state where the Ku Klux Klan first drew breathe in December 1865 in the town of Pulaski, and then, 60 years later, in Dayton, put high school teacher, John T. Scopes on trial, accusing him of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it illegal for teachers to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. Despite having elected such stalwart progressives as Senators Albert Gore, Sr. and Jr., and Steve Cohen, Tennessee has long been a state where racism and white supremacy refuse to die. Today, as in 1925, the state is once again a laughing stock. The Republican members of the state legislature should be hanging their heads in shame; they won’t, because their rendering of history and fundamentalist Christian values makes them, at least in their own eyes, filled with merit.

Rather than respond to – let alone even consider – changes to gun laws in the Volunteer State (especially when it comes to dealing with semi-automatic weapons), Republican members of the legislature are far more concerned with blaming transgender people for gun violence (the shooter at the Christian Charter School in Nashville was transgender), outlawing drag shows, removing “unacceptable” books from school libraries, and making abortion virtually impossible.  Tennessee leads the charge in passing laws which target LGBT rights. Their religious beliefs and principles force them to put partisan politics above people, and declare that a zygote is far more worthy of legal protection than an elementary school child. Indeed, for them, life begins at the very moment of conception . . . and ends at the moment of birth.

    The Tennessee 3: Johnson, Jones and Pearson

During the floor debate before his expulsion, Justin Jones - who represents parts of Nashville, where the three 9-year olds were murdered - told his colleagues: “This is a historic day for Tennessee, but it marks a very dark day for Tennessee because it will signal to the nation that there is no democracy in this state. It will signal to the nation that if it can happen here in Tennessee, it’s coming to your state next. And that is why the nation - indeed the whole world - is watching us, what we do here.”

Here, Justin Jones hit the nail on the head. Those who have been paying attention to Florida politics under Governor Ron DeSantis and his supermajority legislature, know what he has done to stifle both free speech and Democracy.  Florida’s government implemented new state regulations this year requiring groups that want to hold rallies or events at the Capitol to be sponsored by a state agency or lawmaker. Democrats and liberal advocates say that is hard to do in a state where Republicans control the governor’s mansion and have supermajorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate.

In Montana, Republican lawmakers are advancing legislation that would open up next year’s Senate primary to allow the top two vote-getters in the primary — no matter their party — slots on the general-election ballot. This is a bald-faced maneuver to stymie the reelection of Sen. Jon Tester, the long-serving Democrat seeking a fourth term, because it would only be applicable to the 2024 Senate election. Third-party candidates, who in the past have cut into Republican candidates’ totals, would probably not be on the general election ballot, which could set up a defeat for Tester, the sole remaining Democrat elected statewide.

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) tried to force a county school board to hold new elections, which would have shortened the terms of members he disagreed with. State observers said the governor’s move, which failed, was unprecedented in the state’s modern history.

And so on and so forth . . .

Now, before we all join hands and leap off the front lawn, let’s look at some positives which might be beginning to percolate.  First and foremost, we are beginning to see the emergence of Gen Z-ers (or informally, “Generation Zer”) on to the political stage.  Up until last week, the most prominent was 25-year old Florida Democrat Maxwell Alejandro Frost (born in 1997) who has already made a name for himself for his wise-beyond-his-years understanding of how politics works, his ability to think on his feet, and his inability to back down on the issues which he and his constituents in Florida’s 10th District truly care about . . . like abortion rights, the abolition of automatic weapons, and the furtherance of Democracy. Then there are the two new “stars” who were birthed on the national and international scene just this week: Justin Jones and Justin Pearson.  They have already won rave reviews for their maturity, steadfastness of purpose, and poise.  Both will likely be returned to the Tennessee legislature shortly by their respective city council/board of supervisors. Having watched them being interviewed by the national media, I am deeply impressed with how passionate and articulate they both are; I cannot remember either of them yet say “um” or “you know.”

Representative Jones is cut out of the same moral cloth as the late Representative John Lewis; like his predecessor, he too is an advocate of non-violence who instills in  his constituents, Lewis’ concept of “good trouble.” (It should be noted that as a student at Fiske University, he was recipient of the “John R. Lewis Scholarship for Social Activism.”  Like his mentor, he stands every chance of becoming a lightening rod for his generation; young people of all colors and ethnicities who are largely pro-choice, pro-gun safety (and anti-automatic weapons), and above all, pro-Democracy. 

I am greatly impressed with the members of Generation Zer; to a great extent, they remind me of the political activists of the 1960s who became damn good organizers and, to this day (for those of us still alive) are still involved in politics.  These new activists are bright, well-educated, and, for the most part, both color- and gender-blind.  And, they will soon be running for school board, city council and county supervisor seats . . . and then on to state capitals and eventually Washington, D.C. 

Once John Ford gave John Wayne the zoom-in “a star is born” treatment in Stagecoach, "Duke” (his nickname came from the horse he rode in all those grade-z oaters) starred in more than 100 more movies.  Although his politics made me nauseous, I admired his filmmaking ability.  Eventually, he became one of the most popular stars in the world. 

This week, we have seen - I suspect - the birth of two new stars. They already have begun building up a following of twenty-somethings who can benefit from the likes of “The Justins,” and identify the "good trouble” which ultimately may well save Democracy for future generations. 

    #🟦

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

#🟦 Standing Up to Jewish Hate

         Standing Up to Jewish Hate

The word antisemitism was first popularized in Germany back in the year 1879. Its originator was a German agitator and journalist named Wilhelm Marr (1819-1904). As early as 1862, Marr, a Lutheran who was, for a short while, married to a Jewish woman, published an essay entitled “The Way to Victory of Germanicism Over Judaism” (Der Weg zum Sieg des Germanismus über das Judentum. Marr’s conception of antisemitism focused on the supposed racial, as opposed to religious, characteristics of the Jews. His organization, the League of Antisemites, introduced that into the political lexicon and established the first popular political movement based entirely on anti-Jewish beliefs.

(n.b. There has long been an uncertainty as to precisely how to spell the term; is it hyphenated or not? In German, French, Spanish and many other languages, the term was never hyphenated. The unhyphenated spelling is favored by many scholars and institutions in order to dispel the idea that there is an entity ‘Semitism’ which ‘anti-Semitism’ opposes. Antisemitism should be read as a unified term so that the meaning of the generic term for modern Jew-hatred is clear. At a time of increased violence and rhetoric aimed towards Jews, it is urgent that there is clarity and no room for confusion or obfuscation when dealing with antisemitism.)

Long, long before Wilhelm Marr, there was an Egyptian priest who likely lived in the Ptolemaic kingdom in the early 3rd century, B.C.E.  His name was Manetho, and he was rather famous during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who ruled Egypt from 284-246 BCE.  During his reign, wrote Manetho the Aegyptiaca (History of Egypt) in Greek, a major chronological source for the reigns of the kings of ancient Egypt.

In one of the volumes of his work, Manetho presented a counter-narrative to the traditional story of the Biblical work Exodus. He depicts the Jews most negatively — as Lepers and Shepherds – exuding anti-Jewish themes. While the Hebrew Bible's Exodus tells of the Jews escaping Egypt, and thus, with the help of G-d and Moses - liberating themselves, Manetho tells a different story: that Egypt expelled lepers because of their impurity who then chose to revolt against Egypt pioneered by leader Osarsiph — later revealing himself as Moses. — who imposed various anti-Egyptian laws. Together with the Shepherds, they conquered Egypt in a 'barbarous manner…set[ting] the cities and villages on fire…roasting those sacred animals…and forced the priests and prophets to be the executioners and murders of those sacred animals." (For a thorough examination of Manetho’s counter-narrative, one can check out Flavius Josephus’ Against Apion.

Hatred against Jews and Judaism - as a people, a religion, a culture and (falsely) a race, is as old as recorded history. Sometimes it is a bit better, and others one hell of a lot worse. It is both omnipresent and universal; there have long been reports of societies, kingdoms and cultures which, although never having offered a home to Jews, have nonetheless despised them. The “whys?” range from “They were complicit in killing Jesus” (I’ve never understood how anyone can kill a supposedly divine being) and “they foment and finance revolutions everywhere they go,” to “they control the banks, the media and the food supply,” and “they are avaricious, incapable of telling the truth, and are the most malodorous people on the planet.”

Depending on time, place, and contemporary circumstance the reasons for upticks in Antisemitism vary. But they always lead to the same thing: hatred. Sometimes Jews are pilloried for having killed Jesus; at others, being blamed for “poisoning the water supply” (during the medieval Bubonic Plague), of destroying the economy or funding revolutionary causes . . . do note that the majority of actors, directors and screenwriters accused of being Communists during the post-war “witch hunts” were Jewish. And the capital-H Holocaust, in which the Nazis murdered more than 6 million Jews, was not the only lower-case-h holocaust in human history: the massacre of English Jews in York (and their eventual exile) in 1190; the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th century; the notorious Kishniev Pogrom of 1903 . . . and today, the rapid rise in Antisemitic acts here in the United States, Europe and South America.

Where once the name “Rothschild” and even “Roosevelt” (whom Antisemites tried to convince unlettered people was in fact, a Jewish family) has now been replaced by “Soros.”  As recently as this past week, diehard MAGA Republicans and the cheerleaders at Fox are claiming that Donald Trump’s indictment at the hands of a NYC grand jury and D.A. Alvin Bragg was “politically motivated.” What’s the proof? That D.A. Bragg had received campaign donations from none other than billionaire George Soros . . . which, they insist, means that the Jews are behind it all. I have had a couple of nauseating conversations with people who gladly mention Soros’ name in discussing Trump’s legal woes. “Who’s George Soros?” I ask, “and what does he have to do with the indictment?” Most just answer “You know . . .“ In response, I either remain silent or simply say, “No I don’t . . . please enlighten me.” So far, no enlightenment has yet come my way.

Over the past decade or so, Antisemitic acts, statements and beliefs have grown exponentially here in the United States. This is not to say that antisemitism was barely existent before  MAGA came on the political scene, for such is certainly not the case. It has always been there . . . but until recently, operating in the shadows. In his new book Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right, Professor Matthew Dalleck shows how since the time of its founding in the late 1950s, the John Birch Society has fought tooth and nail against the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ to take over America, as well as promoting America as a Christian nation, looking to ban books which they found to be “unwholesome,” against international cooperation and against NATO and the United Nations, and funding candidates who would bind themselves to the eradication of the federal income tax, immorality, and federal funding for nearly everything save the military. Sound familiar?

What the Birchers did not have in their time were two things: first an internet, through which they could introduce, induce and inculcate tens upon tens of millions of potential supporters with their far-right ideas, and second, a potential base of radicals armed to the teeth with military-grade weaponry. In the 1950s and 60s, Birchers could only hope for a second Civil War; today, their descendants are gearing up for one. In the 1950s, Birchers were against a democratic state because it was “communistic”; today, they are in favor of a fascist state because it is not “woke” . . . even if they cannot define it.

Jewish people in America are feeling far less safe than at any time since the end of McCarthyism.  When a former POTUS invites known, vocal Antisemites to his private club for lunch; when synagogues are being bombed and Jewish philanthropists put on the hot seat, this is indeed a cause for concern.

The question is: what can we do about it?  There are certainly going to be those - both Jewish and not - who will claim that since the former POTUS has a Jewish son-in-law and Jewish grandchildren, he cannot harbor any Antisemitic tendencies.  Stuff and nonsense; to my way of thinking, Trump/Kirschner was far more a merger than a marriage; tantamount to the old saw “Some of my best friends are Jewish.”

We now come to the “blue emoji,” which will be showing up on television and computer screens more and more in the days to come.  These blue squares are meant to fill about 2.4% of each square . . . equal to the percentage of Jews living here in the United States.  Despite this small percentage, 55% of all religious hate crimes in this country relate to Jews.  This is unconscionable, to say the least.  What we are hoping is that television newscasts, blogs and other communications will contain the  #🟦 as a way of keeping the message that we - both Jews and non-Jews alike - are #Standing Up to Jewish Hate.

Last week, billionaire Robert Kraft, owner (among other things) of the New England Patriot’s football team, donated $25 million  to create the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. which uses the blue square emoji, which is already on all smartphones, as a "simple, but powerful symbol of solidarity and support for the Jewish community."

The campaign's launch follows last week's release of a report by the Anti-Defamation League asserting that Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. rose 36% in 2022. The report tracked 3,697 incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault aimed at Jewish people and communities last year. It's the third time in five years that the annual total has been the highest ever recorded since the group began collecting data in 1979.

The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, based at California State University, San Bernardino, reported last week that Jews were the most targeted of all U.S. religious groups in 2022 in 21 major cities, accounting for 78% of religious hate crimes.

During Kraft’s campaign, the blue square will take up 2.4% of television and digital screens, billboards, and social media feeds. That number as mentioned above, symbolizes that Jews make up 2.4% of the American population, yet are the victims of 55% of religious-based hate crimes. The foundation already has its own website: #StandUpToJewishHate - Uniting to Combat Antisemitism.  In announcing the creation of his foundation, Kraft said the campaign “is designed to raise awareness for the fight against antisemitism, specifically among non-Jewish audiences, and to help all Americans understand that there is a role for each of us to play in combating a problem that is unfortunately all too prevalent in communities across the country today,”  

Already, the blue square #🟦 is appearing on television shows, digital billboards and social-media sites.  The campaign is encouraging people to download the blue square and share it widely. You can also watch a clip on Twitter explaining it.

Said Kraft: “We must stand up and take action against the rise of all hate, and I hope everyone will post and share the blue square to show their support in this fight.”  Already, former New England Patriot quarterback Tom Brady and former Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson have joined the crusade.

Sadly, one cannot convince an avid anti-Semite to stop hating Jews; its a lethal part of their genome. One can, through knowledge, diligence and smarts, open the minds and hearts of those who never hated in the first place to understand that they can do their share to spread the word: a society that is not safe for Jews is ultimately not safe for anyone . . . of any color, any religion, any ethnic origin or sexual orientation.

Do check out the online ADL report Antisemitism Uncovered: A Guide to Old Myths in a New Era. To be knowledgeable is to be well armed. And while you’re at it, you may want to check out the latest statistical report from ADL about the horrifying growth of anti-Jewish, racist attacks in the United States. 

If antisemitism has grown exponentially with the growth of social media (it definitely has), perhaps we can fight it on social media as well.

 #🟦

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

Isn't Life Wonderful?

                A Scene From Griffith’s 1924 Film “isn’t Life Wonderful?” 

In early 1924, D.W. Griffith, the greatest of all silent film directors, led a cast and crew to Berlin, where they made what is now considered one of the greatest of all films: the ironically titled Isn’t Life Wonderful?  The film, based on a short story by British soldier/writer Geoffrey Moss, starred Neil Hamilton (who 40+ years later would play police commissioner Gordon on Batman) and Griffith’s protégé, the long-forgotten Carol Dempster.  Isn’t Life Wonderful? takes place in real-time: the post “Great War” ‘20s, when hundreds of thousands of refugees (such as the film’s main characters, “Inga” and “Paul” flocked to Germany in search of food and shelter.  Historically, this was the time when the Weimar Republic was beset by hyperinflation, caused almost entirely by Germany’s staggering ($33.3 billion) debt it owed the victorious Americans, Brits and French.  The inflation that held the Republic in a strangle hold for several years was unlike anything ever seen before . . . or since.  As an example, a loaf of bread in Berlin that cost around 160 Marks at the end of 1922 cost 200,000,000,000 Marks by late 1923; by November 1923, one US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 (that’s a mind-bending  four trillion, two hundred ten billion, five hundred million) German Marks.  Paper money reached such a level that Weimar issued 50 trillion Mark paper. This is the Germany that Griffith chose to shoot his picture in.

And we kvetch and call for a radical change in government when the inflation rate stands at 6.04% (as it did yesterday)?

Griffith, ever a master at telescoping dire reality into  a few feet of celluloid, captures this monstrous hyperinflation in the scene pictured above.  In long shot, we see dozens of families pushing wheelbarrows laden with paper money to a bakery where there is already a long, long line.  Then, camera pulling up closer and closer, we see the baker emerge from his place of business every 30 seconds, wiping off the chalk board that bears the price of a single loaf of bread.  The figure gets larger and larger with each rewrite, as more and more starving families exit the line and go back to God knows where.  This is the brutality and apocalyptical doom which led the common folk to demand to know precisely who was to blame, and the followers of the soon-to-be Führer only too happy to provide the answer: the Jews.  From there, the slide to gruesome dictatorship was all but guaranteed.

Democracy is having a tough time all over the planet; from the world’s oldest (USA) to its largest (India) its newest and most raucous (Israel) to its least comprehensible (France), the forces of intolerance, bigotry and self-regarding defiance for the rule of law are making insomniacs of the masses.  “How is it,” so many of us ask, “that minority political factions are increasingly capable of turning their warped version of reality into the law of the land?  When was the last time democracy was attacked by so many bellicose bullies and would-be dictators?

We are all, of course, familiar with the scene here in the United States, the oldest of all democracies.  Day in, day out, the former president, the MAGA and Clown-Car-Caucus, are stirring the pot and shifting attention to how much freedom their followers at the hands of “Woke” - the new way of saying “Commie Bastard.” They spend their time convincing them that they are losing their freedom to choose what their children should read, learn, see or hear; their ability to carry automatic weapons without registration . . . let alone education.  And on and on.  We are daily witness to the diabolical commands of the former Commander-in-Chief that if he is indicted in any of a number of state and/or federal cases, his followers must "protest, protest, protest” and further warning that should this happen, the American public should “be ready for  potential death and destruction.”  Say what you will about our former POTUS; he knows his supporters well.

                                                   Rahul Gandhi

In India, the world’s largest democracy, P.M. Narendra Modi has summarily disqualified M.P. Rahul Gandhi (the leader of the party opposing the current P.M.) from serving in that country’s Parliament,  after a court found him guilty of defamation over his remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surname.  Now mind you, Mr., Gandhi isn’t just some garden-variety member of Indian society; his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) was India’s first Prime Minister; his father Rajiv Gandhi (1944-1991) who served as India’s 6th P.M., was assassinated by a member of the Tamil Tigers, a radical Sri Lankan separatist group,  in 1991. In a sense, to be a Nehru/Gandhi in India, is the equivalent of being a Roosevelt or Kennedy in America.  Rahul Gandhi, who has served 19 years in the Indian legislature, was removed after he was found guilty of defaming Modi’s surname in a 2019 case filed by a politician in the prime minister’s party. Gandhi was convicted on the defamation charge this week and sentenced by a court in Modi’s home state to two years imprisonment, which, under Indian law, allowed the parliamentary speaker to suspend him from politics.  This is an unprecedented move; one which potentially fires an arrow into the heart of India’s democratic body politic.  Without question, this is an earth shattering event.  One simply does not disqualify a member of the Indian Parliament (especially one with Gandhi’s familial roots) simply because he attacks the P.M.  It is an example of anti-freedom that is all but unsurpassed in that country’s history.  Needless to say, many people in India are up in arms and accusing P.M. Modi and his judiciary of engaging in anti-democratic actions.

In France, protests involving upwards of 1.3 million people (out of a population of about 2.2 million) have become a fixture of Parisian nightlife after the French government rammed through a pension bill last week raising the retirement age to 64, from 62, without a vote in the lower house of Parliament.  The fact that President Macron did this without a parliamentary vote is highly unusual, and highly unlike how things are normally done in France.  The wild protests are part of a larger trend that has seen previously peaceful demonstrations growing increasingly menacing as the government refuses to back down on the pension overhaul. This past Thursday, nearly 1,000 fires were lit by protesters, about 440 police officers and firefighters were injured, and about the same number of demonstrators were arrested throughout France, according to the French interior minister. Those huge protests have shifted in character over the past week. They have become angrier and, in some cities, more violent — especially after nightfall.

                           French President Emmanuel Macron

These protests have been less about the fury felt over the raising of the retirement age to 64 from 62, and more about Mr. Macron and the way he rammed the law through Parliament without a full vote.  Finally, they have broadened into something approaching a constitutional crisis.  As a result of all this, the postponement of a state visit to France by King Charles III  became almost inevitable; the optics of President Emmanuel Macron dining with the British monarch at the Château de Versailles as Paris burned were not just bad; they would have looked like a brazen provocation to the blue-collar workers leading a wave of demonstrations and strikes across the country.  One must remember that the country’s far right, in the person of parliamentarian Marine LePen’s National Rally, which consistently blames France’s educational, social and economic problems on Macon’s immigration policies and left-wing predilections.  Sound familiar?

Then there is the Middle East’s sole Democracy, Israel, which has seen tens - if not hundreds - of thousands of people taking to the streets  protesting Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s changes to the Israeli Judicial system . . . all seemingly for the sole purpose of keeping him free of legal liabilities so long as he holds office.  For the past weeks, Prime Minister Netanyahu - sounding more and more like former President Donald Trump than David Ben Gurion or even Ariel Sharon - has defied critics of his plan to weaken Israel’s highest court. 

Earlier today (March 26), An Israeli good governance group asked the country’s Supreme Court to punish Netanyahu for allegedly violating a conflict of interest agreement meant to prevent him from dealing with the country’s judiciary while he is on trial for corruption. The request by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel (התנועה לאיכות השלטון בישראל) intensifies a brewing showdown between Netanyahu’s government and the judiciary, which it is trying to overhaul in a contentious plan that has sparked widespread opposition.

                             Israeli P.M. Bibi Netanyahu

The Movement leaders have demanded that the court force Netanyahu to obey the law and sanction him either with a fine or prison time for not doing so. It’s repeated refrain is “He is not above the law” (הוא לא מעל החוק). The fast-paced legal and political developments have catapulted Israel into uncharted territory and toward a burgeoning constitutional crisis. After the last election, Netanyahu put together a coalition larded with far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties in order to maintain power . . . something which has many Israelis both angry and on edge. It has potentially buried a dagger into the heart of Israeli democracy. For the first time in the State of Israel’s nearly 75 year history, the words
”anarchy” (אנרכיה) and “dictatorship” (רודנות) are being heard.

As I’m editing this blog just prior to recording, word has gone out over the Internet that Bibi has abruptly fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for challenging his judicial overhaul plan. Gallant, a former senior general, had called for a pause in the controversial legislation until after next month’s Independence Day holidays, citing the turmoil in the ranks of the military. This is big stuff; Bibi’s government is pushing for a Knesset (parliament) vote this week on a bill that would give his governing coalition the final say over all judicial appointments. It also seeks to grant the Knesset the authority to override Supreme Court decisions by a simple majority and give the coalition the final say over all judicial appointments. Can you say “constitutional crisis?” (משבר חוקתי).  

Bibi and his allies say their plan will restore a balance between the judicial and executive branches and  “rein in” what they see as an interventionist court with liberal sympathies.  It sounds to me like they are taking  a page out of the MAGA/Clown-Car-Caucus  playbook

These are indeed perilous and most jarring times. Those who were once considered part of the extreme right are now considered the newly emerging center. Where once experience, education, good judgement, diplomacy, and civility were keys to successful leadership, brutishness, extreme commonality, narcissism, the use of fear and a “what’s in it for me” attitude have become central to attracting followers and acolytes . . . people who will follow come hell or high water.

Citizens in India and France, Israel and the U.S.A., have, of late, come to a breaking point; they are fed up with so-called leaders who refuse to listen to their voices, heed their majority wishes or act like adults. They see in these “leaders” men and women whose main concern is feeding their followers a daily diet of mis- and disinformation, and setting up straw dogs whom the public can both fear and hate. In this way, they believe they can keep their followers’ votes and their backers’ dollars. In so many countries, the concept of e pluribus unum (Latin for “out of many, one”) to Après moi, le déluge (French for “after me, the deluge” - King Louis XV’s bon mot which stands for leaving a place or job and predicting disaster or chaos after their departure). What a way to live life!

Much of what made Inga and Paul so desperate in Isn’t Life Wonderful? was that their reality had been turned upside down. Where once, despite their poverty, they led lives worth living, now they had to subsist on horse turnips or, if lucky, a single potato per day. But unlike many of we moderns, they refused to spend their days and nights trying figure out who or what was to blame for the vast changes their lives had undergone. Somehow, they understood that life’s complexities could not be overcome or fixed through vapid simplicity. Despite everything, the came to realize by the film’s end, that they had one another to love, to share with and cheer on . . . the basic ingredients which helped them conclude that indeed, Life is Wonderful.

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

Please Forgive My Relative Lack of Humility . . .

Dear Family and Friends, Colleagues and Congregants, Students and Readers:

From time-to-time, I am asked that most obvious of questions “What do you do for a living?” It is usually met with silence and a pull on my beard. I have long thought that the reason a rabbi has a beard is so that he may look reasonably wise even though he hasn’t the slightest idea of what the answer is. (I use the masculine pronoun here; despite the fact that I have many brilliant female colleagues, none of them have beards!)

The problem I have in answering this rather simple question is that over a period of more than a half-a-century, I have been:

• A practicing rabbi;

• An adjunct professor of Politics, History, Cinema and Literature at several universities for more than a quarter century

• A political biographer with numerous published books under my belt;

• A political speechwriter, Capitol Hill staffer and campaign surrogate for the likes of Barack Obama and HIllary Clinton;

• One of the first environmental ethicists ever to serve in government;

• A radio journalist who covered both Watergate and the Patty Hearst kidnapping;

• A blogger with more than 1,000 essays posted on everything from Ancient, American and European History to classic literature, baseball trivia and the creation of the motion picture industry;

• A longtime medical ethicist who has participated in a majority of all COVID-19 and Cancer Moonshot clinical trials;

• An actor who has staged more than 400 performances of “An Evening With Sholem Aleichem.” over a 45-year period.

• And most importantly, a son, brother, husband, father, grandfather and pet lover.

Writing all this out brings on a wave of fatigue . . . but that’s part of what I’ve been doing to earn a living since my late teenage years.

Is it any wonder that I pull on my beard when asked what I do for a living?

Well, just the other day, the good people of “Who’s Who in America,” of which I’ve been a part since 1997, informed me that I have been selected as a recipient of the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. Unlike most of the other recipients over the past century, I will be one of the few who is not listed in any one field. . . . it’s the “polymath syndrome” within me. By definition, a “polymath” is a person characterized by a great curiosity that leads him/her to continuous learning and involvement (if not mastery) in many different subject areas and languages,

I guess that’s me. I’ve always believed that “growing old is a fact of life; growing up is purely one’s choice.”

I did not want to share this “achievement” with all of you lest you think I was qvelling (Yiddish for “boasting” or “bragging.”) However, Annie urged me to write this essay for, as she bluntly stated, “You’ve earned it.”

Even though it’s not the Oscar, it’s something I will value all the days of my life.

Thanks for reading . . . and for being my family and friends (some, like fellow “Hollywood Brat” Alan Wald, since early childhood) students, and congregants, critics, naysayers and admirers.

KFS

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

The Historic Importance of January 6th . . . 1941

                     January 6, 1941: “The Four Freedoms”:

It seems like the prime-time presenters on MSNBC (Ari Melber, Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell ) have been reporting on nothing but the historical importance of January 6, 2021 for the past year-and-a-half. Who can blame them? After all, that is a day - which, to borrow a quote from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt - “which shall live in infamy.” The major difference, of course, is that FDR’s December 8, 1941 “live in infamy” address to Congress, concerned Japan’s bombing of the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor; our “day of infamy” is the seditious storming of the U.S Capitol on January 6, 2021.  The people of MSNBC have spent the lion’s share of their on-air time investigating and reporting on virtually every aspect of that day when democracy was nearly destroyed.  It fascinates me no end that no one has mentioned or figured out what, most eerily, happened on Capitol Hill precisely 80 years before (that’s 29,200 days and 700,800 hours before) on January 6, 1941: FDR’s State of the Union Address, where he set out in bold and eloquent detail that which has ever since been known as “The Four Freedoms.”  What makes it all the more eerie - not to mention prescient and breathtaking - is how much FDR’s speech mirrors America and the world 80 years later . . . to the day. 

To be certain, there are a handful of speeches which stand out in American political history:

• George Washington’s “Farewell Address” in 1796.

• Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (“Four score and seven years ago . . . “)

• JKF’s Inaugural Address (“Ask not what your country can do for you . . . “)

But topping them all, in my humble opinion, is FDR’s State of the Union address to Congress on January 6, 1941. For his “Four Freedoms” address, while not white-washed with the good news and optimistic phrases of most annual presidential addresses, set a course and a purpose for this nation that has never since been equaled. As America entered the war these "four freedoms" - the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear - symbolized America's war aims and gave hope in the following years to a war-wearied people because they knew they were fighting for freedom. Indeed, it is the only one speech in American history that inspired a multitude of books and films, the establishment of its own park, a series of paintings by a world famous artist, a prestigious international award and a United Nation’s resolution on Human Rights.

At the time of Franklin Roosevelt’s State of the Union address on January 6, 1941, he had just been reelected president for an unprecedented third term. At the time, the world faced unprecedented dangers, instability, and uncertainty. Much of Europe had fallen to the advancing German Army and Great Britain was barely holding its own; London was being strafed from the air by the German Luftwaffe on a nightly basis. A great number of Americans remained committed to isolationism and the belief that the United Sates should continue to stay out of the war, but President Roosevelt understood Britain's need for American support and attempted to convince the American people of the gravity of the situation. 

In his State of the Union, FDR articulated a powerful vision for a world in which all people had freedom of speech and of religion, and freedom from want and fear.

The ideas enunciated in Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms were the foundational principles that evolved into the Atlantic Charter declared by Winston Churchill and FDR in August 1941; the United Nations Declaration of January 1, 1942; President Roosevelt’s vision for an international organization that became the United Nations after his death; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 through the work of Eleanor Roosevelt.

As tyrannical leaders once again resort to brutal oppression and terrorism to achieve their goals, as democracy and journalism are under attack from extremists and conspiratorialists both in the United States and across the globe, and as surveillance and technology threaten individual liberties and freedom of expression, FDRs bold vision for a world that embraces these four fundamental freedoms is as vital today as it was more than 80 years ago.  For those who are interested in reading the speech in its entirety, please check out FDR’s Four Freedoms Speech.

Interestingly, FDR, after consulting with his behind-the-scenes advisors, dictated the speech in a matter of minutes to his secretary Grace Tully.  Unlike presidents ever since, FDR rarely used a team of speechwriters.  This SOTU  came from his heart; it would wind up changing the world. 

               FDR’s Handwritten Notes for the January 6, 1941 SOTU                 

In 1941, there were plenty of people who believed that FDR was a “traitor to his class” - an aristocrat who actually cared about the state and fate of the downtrodden; one who believed that democracy was the most superior form of government. There were also those who found him “too much of a Socialist” (FDIC, Social Security and the Tennessee Valley Authority). He surrounded himself with a stellar brain trust (Samuel Rosenman, Benjamin Cohen, Felix Frankfurter and Bernard Baruch, to name but a few) and listened intently to the advise he was given.  He also understood that the fate of America and her allies was ultimately up to him, and did whatever he could to motivate a nation to do the right thing.  Yes, it is true, his State Department didn’t always do the right thing when it came to the Jews attempting to escape Nazi oppression (which causes many modern-day Jews to throw him on the ash-heap of history); nonetheless, FDR responded to his ilk by telling them that Democracy belonged to everyone . . . not just the WASPS he grew up and was educated amongst.

At the time of the January 6, 1941 State of the Union address, there was both a loud, staunchly vituperative isolationist wing of  the Republican Party (“America First,” led nationally by Charles A. Lindbergh) and a fully-armed batch of Nazi sympathizers (The “German American Bund,” led for many years by Fritz Kuhn, the so-called “American Fuhrer.” 

Today, more than 80 years  after that first, historic January 6th, America is once again beset by isolationists (the MAGA wing of the Republican Party), growing anti-Semitism and conspiracies galore. This time, we are led by a decidedly non-Blue Blood president who like FDR, understands the critical role America can and must play in a world that once again is falling in love with autocracy and fascism.  But unlike FDR, who was accused of being an enemy of America’s hereditary aristocracy, Joe Biden is attacked for being the leader of a “woke” nation; the leader of a left-wing socialist/communist conspiracy which attempts to make “sissies” of us all.  It is just as moronically idiotic today as it was 80+ years ago.  

    jean Baptiste Alphonse Karr 

 Way back in 1849, French critic, journalist and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose “ – the more things change, the more they stay the same…  From January 6, 1941 to the same date in 2021, many, many things have changed in and about the United States of America . . . if indeed, not the entire world.  But Karr was and always shall be unerringly correct for in modern idiomatic English, “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose means “What goes around comes around.”

Let us work and teach, give voice and vote that which FDR pledged on the first historic January 6 - the Four Freedoms - will continue to go around and come around.  For it is only through maintaining these four indelible freedoms that America can continue being a beacon of bright light for the rest of the world.

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

Purim, Politics, and Satire

This evening, when the sun goes down, Jewish folks the world over will observe the holiday of Purim, the happiest - and least theistic - of all our holidays. Costumes, noisemakers, wine and sweet treats (called hamentashchen) are all part of the celebration. It is said that unless and until one cannot distinguish between baruch Mordechai (Blessed be Mordechai) and arur Haman (Cursed be Haman), one has neither consumed enough wine nor entered the true riotous, satiric spirit of the day.

Purim, the “Feast of Lots,” celebrates a Jewish miracle in ancient Persia. It commemorates the Divinely orchestrated salvation of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian empire from a plot orchestrated by a narcissistic, racist bigot’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.” Literally “lots” in ancient Persian, Purim was thus named since Haman (the ultimate bad guy who happened to be the King’s Prime Minister) had thrown lots to determine when he would carry out his diabolical scheme, as recorded in the Megillah (the Biblical book of Esther . . . the only one which does not specifically mention G-d).

The Persian Empire of the 4th century BCE extended over 127 lands, and all the Jews were its subjects. When King Ahasuerus had his wife, Queen Vashti, executed for failing to follow his orders, he arranged a beauty pageant to find a new queen. A Jewish girl, Esther (Jewish name, Hadassah), found favor in his eyes and became the new queen, though she refused to divulge her nationality.

Meanwhile, the Jew-hating Haman was appointed prime minister of the empire. Mordechai, the leader of the Jews (and Esther’s cousin), defied the king’s orders and refused to bow to Haman. Haman was incensed, and he convinced the king to issue a decree ordering the extermination of all the Jews on the 13th of  the Jewish month of Adar, a date chosen by a lottery Haman made. 

Mordechai galvanized all the Jews, convincing them to repent, fast and pray to G‑d. Meanwhile, Esther asked the king and Haman to join her for a feast. At a subsequent feast, Esther revealed to the king her Jewish identity. Haman was hanged, Mordechai was appointed prime minister in his stead, and a new decree was issued, granting the Jews the right to defend themselves against their enemies.

On the 13th of Adar, the Jews mobilized and killed many of their enemies. On the 14th of Adar, they rested and celebrated. In the capital city of Shushan, they took one more day to finish the job.

Purim is a raucous holiday; it involves most people being clad in costumes, consuming more wine than usual, cheering on Mordechai (the hero) each time he is mentioned, and blotting out the name of Haman (the bad guy) every time his name is mentioned.  It is also a time for satire and parody.  For years, I have written and performed parodies based on Broadway musicals (Westside Story, Oliver!, The Pirates of Penzance, as well as "A British Invasion Purim”, and “A Woodstock Purim.”

As but one terribly small example, Paul Simon’s The Boxer was turned into The Fixer:

Esther, once Hadassah has a story quite well-known,

She’s the girl who saved our people,

From the mania of Haman, he’s the enemy.

He was a pest, ‘cause he cast a lot that sealed our fate

To put us all to rest.  Lai lai lai . . .

When she heard the news from Mordechai

Of what Haman planned to do,

She retreated to her chamber,

In the quiet of the royal palace, good and scared.

Praying slow, seeking out the one solution

That would “let her people go”

Looking for the blessing only G-d would know.  Lai lai lai . . .

Then too, it became the custom over the centuries to create what came to be known as The Purim Torah, in which rabbinic scholars would do parodies of Talmudic tractates. One of the most famous was done in 1929 by “Reverend” Gershon Kiss of Brooklyn as a parody on the era of Prohibition (the cover page can be seen above.  It’s title, translated into English is Tractate Prohibition).  It captured the spirit of Purim brilliantly poking fun at both Rabbinic dialectic and American society. Written in a combination of Hebrew, Aramaic and the occasional Anglicism (“do not read for the Jews there was light and joy va-yikar, rather there was light and joy and liquor”) and formatted like a traditional Talmudic tractate, with a “gemara” framed by a Rashi-like commentary, This little-known work makes for excellent reading and even study as part of the holiday festivities. Regrettably, it is not easily translatable. “Tractate Prohibition” is best enjoyed by readers familiar with Talmudic terminology, who will appreciate its subtle allusions to classic passages, Mishnah and Gemara (“ha-kol shokhtin,” the opening of tractate Hulin, is rendered as “ha-kol shotin:” “everyone is eligible to perform ritual slaughter” now reads “everyone is eligible to drink”). Even readers with less experience in Talmud, however, will enjoy the social satire evident on every page. The text wonders, for example, if the mandated temperance extends to “Mar (“Mister”) Vilson,” meaning President Woodrow Wilson, during whose term the 18th Amendment was enacted. The “Rabbis” conclude that President Wilson is exempted from prohibition “ki gavra rabah hu,” meaning “he is a great man.”

Every year, I prepare myself for Purim  by rereading the Biblical Book of Esther along with its commentaries and rereading what, to my way of thinking, is the greatest of all modern satires: Voltaire’s Candide, a satire about eternal optimism.  After so many, many years, Candide. his tutor, the “optimistic metaphysician” Dr. Pangloss (“This is the best of all possible worlds”) his true love, Cunégonde, and her brother, The Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, are friends.  This week, while rereading Candide, I also continued reading the political news from around the country, focusing in closely on the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and the upcoming annual session of the Florida State Legislature.  I was amazed by just how closely the pronouncements of MAGA Republicans seemed to be satiric . . . except they weren’t.  

Let’s deal with the latter first - that which is being proposed in Tallahassee.  Just the other day, State Senator Jason Brodeur (R.- Lake Mary) filed a bill which would require bloggers who are covering political figures in Florida—including the governor, lieutenant governor, Cabinet or state legislators—to register with the state and report whether they received compensation for their posts.  This would include yours truly who, although I have never received a single cent for any of the nearly 950 political essays I’ve posted over the past 18 years,  would, if this asinine legislation were to become law,  have to fill out a ton-and-a-half of paperwork and likely be both fined and arrested.  

The bill has drawn criticism from free speech advocates, who have warned that it would eat away at the constitutionally-protected right to freedom of speech and press.  Sen. Brodeur has defended the bill, saying that paid bloggers equate to lobbyists and should therefore be required to report their compensation.  I wonder if he, Brodeur, would be willing to list the names and amounts of everyone who has contributed to his campaigns were, by law, required to be listed.  This legislative proposal (SB 1316) is so obnoxious and unsavory (and obviously meant to curry favor with the ultra-right MAGA wing of his party) that even former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has spoken out against it: "The idea that bloggers criticizing a politician should register with the government is insane. it is an embarrassment that it is a Republican state legislator in Florida who introduced a bill to that effect. He should withdraw it immediately," he tweeted.  (Ironically, Prior to his election in 2022, Senator Brodeur was found to have dumped tens of thousands of dollars of campaign money into firms operated by prominent Republicans, as well as payments to Jacob Engels [a.k.a. “Roger Stone’s “Mini-Me”], an Orlando blogger associated with InfoWars and a neo-fascist group the Proud Boys.

The other “Purim satire” centers around conservative pundit/actor/Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles who, speaking before attendees at the annual gathering of CPAC, boldly declared that “trans people do not have a right to exist.” Predictably, he denied having said this . . . despite tons of videos proving he did.  “For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.”  That’s what he said, verbatim. Knowles subsequently claimed that “eradicating” “transgenderism” is not a call for eradicating transgender people and demanded retractions from numerous publications, including Rolling Stone. This would be as laughable and parodic as a Purim gathering - if it were not so incredibly horrifying.  Knowles and his many followers - both in and out of public office - have loudly voiced their support for bills to deprive transgender people of gender affirming medical care, bans on using public bathrooms, and the targeting of live performances by trans individuals.

Geoff Wetrosky, the Human Right’s Campaign National Campaign Director, responded to Knowles and other Cu speakers, saying they were attempting to appeal to a right-wing audience — and putting trans people and other members of the LGBTQ community at risk.

“Their vile, anti-trans rhetoric does not resonate with the majority of Americans who are interested in solutions, not slander. But that doesn’t mean their transphobic hate and propaganda won’t cause harm,” Wetrosky said. “Their words rile up far-right extremists resulting in more stigma, discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ people. The rights and very existence of trans people are not up for debate. We will keep fighting back until we are all treated equally, with dignity and respect.”

Knowles occupies a not-unique space on the far-right spectrum.  His A-historicism is as bone-chilling as that of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda: “Nobody is calling to exterminate anybody, because the other problem with that statement is that transgender people is not a real ontological (relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being) category — it’s not a legitimate category of being, There are people who think that they are the wrong sex, but they are mistaken. They’re laboring under a delusion. And so we need to correct that delusion.”  

According to Jewish tradition, Haman ha-rasha (“the wicked Haman) was a descendent of Amalek, who was the grandson of Esau and likely history’s first anti-Semite. The Hebrew Bible (Deuteronomy 25:17–19) commands “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt . . . you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under the heaven. DO NOT FORGET!” This is why we put our noisemakers (called either graggers [Yiddish] or ra-ahsh-shanim [Hebrew] to work, making a noisy cacophony of sound every time Haman’s name is mentioned in the reading/chanting of the Purim scroll. It’s somewhat akin to the ancient custom of writing the name of one’s enemy on the soles of one’s sandals and then stomping about in the mud.

And so I say, wineglass in hand, noisemaker at the ready: ARUR (cursed be) MAGA! ARUR CPAC! ARUR HOMOPHOBES, WHITE SUPREMACISTS AND ALL RIGHT-WING CULTURE WARRIORS!

!חג פוּרים שמח (Chag Purim samayach) Have a riotous Purim

 Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

Sorry to Say, But Karl Marx Knew What He Was Talking About

Without question, Madame’s first cousin, Mercedes (Mitzi) Debardas Dworin (1922-2016) was my favorite member of the Hyman/Kagan/Chicago side of the family. For not only did Mitzi throw the party at which my mother and father first met in Beverly Hills more than 80 years ago; she was a literate, thorough-going political animal who had no fear calling a spade a spade or a virulent anti-Communist a fascist troll. (She was also the only one in the family who pronounced my name in the European fashion . . . “Kourt.” Up until nearly the end of her life, she was tweaking the political right; in 2014 she responded to an article on former Texas Governor (and then Secretary of Energy) Rick Perry on her Facebook page, writing: “Not even his new-fangled glasses can mask the fact that Gov. Perry is dumber than a bag of hair!”

For quite a few years, Mitzi would host a smallish December luncheon in her home at 313 N. Maple Drive for the surviving members of the Hollywood Blacklist.  As one can well understand, with each passing year, the number of luncheon guests dwindled until, by 2011, the sole survivors who were able to attend, were screenwriter Norma Barzman (who, so far as I know will be 104 this coming September 4), and Norman Corwin, "The Grand Master Of American Audio Theatre," and screenwriter for Kirk Douglas’ 1956 film “Lust For Life.” Mitzi always scheduled these lunch-gatherings for late December, knowing that Annie and I would be in town to listen to them discussing contemporary politics sharing their most difficult memories and letting them know that someone (moi) would keep their names, history and travails alive for yet another generation or two. . .

From the late 1930s through the beginning of the Kennedy era, to be a virulent anti-Communist generally meant being either an ultra-conservative Republican isolationist, or an unreconstructed Southern Democratic racist. These anti-Communists aimed their knives at, among others, union members and their leaders, teachers and blacks. When it came to the movie industry, these hellions of hatred became completely unhinged, hauling actors, screenwriters, directors and producers (a majority of whom were Jewish) before various Congressional committees in order to ask what became the most haunting question of the age: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Many took the Fifth, and were forced out of the industry; others “named names,” thus becoming pariahs to their colleagues. Some were sent to prison. Then, there were the self-taught “experts” on Communism who, at the drop of a hat, pointed fingers and told tales of precisely who was out to foment revolution within our borders. Such “experts” became so reviled by progressives that they became eternally damned, their names never again mentioned in polite company . . . among them were the likes of Adolphe Menjou, Robert Taylor, Cecil B. DeMille, Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Reagan (who, ironically, was the only POTUS to ever lead a trade union . . . the liberal Screen Actors Guild . . . but then again, Ronnie at one time supported actress/U.S. Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas [aka “The Pink Lady”] over Richard Nixon in the 1952 California senate election).

Not only were people in those days attacked for having been a member of the C.P. back in their youth; they were accused of being “premature anti-Fascists,” “Fellow Travelers” and what today we might call either  “influencers,” or “groomers.”  (One of the actors on my paper route, the blacklisted Hershel Bernardi told me that indeed, he had joined a couple of left-wing groups in his youth due to a girl friend he sought to impress.) There were far too many victims, and not enough heroes or heroines.  It was a terribly difficult time; so many lives, reputations and the ability to earn a living were at stake. There also emerged a kind of PTSD; to the best of my recollection, Madame never, ever signed a petition - even if it was something she believed in - for fear that it would come back to haunt her.  The fear and paranoia engendered by the daunting conspiracies of a generation did not fade; many of the victims took the fear and paranoia with them to their graves.  (BTW: One of the best histories of this era of blacklisting was written by the late actor Robert Vaughn: Only Victims, which served as his PhD dissertation when he was a doctoral student at the University of Southern California. in the late 1960s.)

Being both a Hollywood Brat and a longtime student of American political history and its psychological underpinnings, I have long had my doubts about whether all these virulent anti-Communists really, truly feared Karl Marx’s “haunting spectre” — “the spectre of communism,” or whether they merely glommed onto a political cause which would pay dividends both in the press and at the ballot box. Remember that before “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy became the end all and be all of anti-Communism, he was known around Washington as “The Pepsi Cola Kid” - a tool of business interests who had accepted a loan from Pepsi-Cola in exchange for working to end sugar rationing (he paid it back), and money from a construction company in exchange for opposing funding for public housing (which he eventually voted for).

From the time of his election to the Senate in 1946 until he gave a history-changing speech in Wheeling, West Virginia in February of 1952 (in which he held up a piece of paper proclaiming “I have here in my hand the names of dozens upon dozens of Communists who are infecting our State Department”), McCarthy was considered a light-weight. Once he gave that speech - and many just like it - he was on the front page of every newspaper in the country and soon found himself the leader of a movement . . . which up to the age of Marjorie Taylor Green and Ted Cruz, is still referred to as “McCarthyism.” Oh to be the eponymous ancestor of a movement!

In years past, anti-Communist Republicans and racist Southern Democrats loudly attacked and spoke and tried their damndest to legislate out of existence such “Socialist” programs as Social Security, Medicare and federal spending on everything from education and public housing to feeding poor children. The rhetoric never changes, just the names of the speakers. We recently saw another McCarthy - Speaker Kevin - promise to legislate against Social Security and Medicare in exchange for being given the gavel he has long dreamed of wielding. He has as much of a chance of succeeding as Robert Taft did back in the 1950s or Newt Gingrich in the 1990s.

Make no mistake about it: MAGA Republicans are just as much against anything and everything that smacks or smells of communism or socialism as were their predecessors. The one enormous difference between yesteryear and today is from whence these MAGAites see the conspiracy emanating. In an earlier age, the face belonged to Stalin, and the place was Moscow. Today, the faces are those of Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schiff, George Soros and anyone who believes in Democracy over autocracy or freedom over oligarchy. Unbelievably, where Russia was freedom’s greatest enemy during the Cold War, today, Vladimir Putin is more praiseworthy than the Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (How ironic it is to hear President Zelenskyy attacked as “nothing but a third-rate television comedian” by those who revere Donald J. Trump, a fifth-rate television presence.)

It makes one ill to hear Republican leaders deride the war in Ukraine, attack President Biden for his surprise visit to Kyiv, and for being more concerned about that war than about the needs of the American people, or warning that there should no longer be a “blank check” for that war. Whatever happened to proudly being a beacon of freedom for the rest of the world? Then again, perhaps the Clown Car Caucus has been spending so much time deriding the President, his family and his party, that they’ve failed to note all the bills he’s passed which will lower drug prices, beef up micro-chip production and rebuild bridges, highways and schools.

Will we ever awaken from this nightmare where Russian autocracy is preferred over American Democracy? Or was Karl Marx being spot-on when he noted nearly 175 years ago that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

I for one am sick and tired of farce being played out by a bunch of political philistines.

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

Is the USA a "Melting Pot" or a "Salad Bowl?"

  This past Valentine’s Day, PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute, which describes itself as a “nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy,” issued a report on the astonishing growth of Christian Nationalist beliefs within the American political system . . . overwhelmingly so among conservative “MAGA” Republicans and Evangelicals.  Researchers for PRRI found that more than half of Republicans polled believe that America should/must be a strictly Christian nation, either adhering to the ideals of Christian nationalism (21%) or sympathizing with those views (33%).  

  Christian nationalism is a worldview that claims that the U.S. is a strictly Christian nation and that the country's laws should, therefore, be rooted in Christian values. This point of view has long been most prominent amongst white Evangelicals, but of late, has been receiving a lot of lip service from non-Evangelical Republicans in general.

  During an interview at a Turning Point USA event last August, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told the overflow audience that Republican Party leaders must of necessity become more responsive to the party’s base which, she claimed, is made up largely of Christian nationalists.  And Ms. Taylor Greene, who is gaining media minutes with every passing day, is by no means the loudest voice in the pews advocating the ideals and political theology of Christian Nationalism within  the public square.  Whether they take the Bible literally - or go to church every Sunday, or publicly advocate living morally upright lives - is well beyond the point; they have found yet another cause by which they can capture the votes of otherwise under-educated, politically unsophisticated naïfs. 

  Over the past many years, members of Congress have offered up resolutions - and even a proposed Constitutional amendment - proclaiming that “America is a Christian nation.” Their arguments never seem to change: either, that the Founders ‘intended” America to be a Christian nation,” or citing Supreme Court Justice David Josiah Brewer’s lead opinion in the 1892 case Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States. The first argument - that the Founders “clearly intended the United States to be a Christian Nation” can - and has been - easily disproven. Even before he became President, George Washington may have said it best, if not first: “Religious controversies are always more productive of acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.” President Jefferson denied that Jesus was “a member of the Godhead,” and Benjamin Franklin, a co-author of the Declaration of Independence with Jefferson, (and like him, a thorough-going Deist) decried Christian church services for promoting church memberships instead of “trying to make us good citizens.”
  So far as the 1892 Supreme Court case, whose origin was an 1885 law called the Alien Contract Labor Law which prohibited “the importation and and migration of foreigners and aliens under contract . . . “, the Court ruled unanimously that the Church of the Holy Trinity was not in violation of the law and could indeed employ the services of an Anglican minister who had been brought to New York from England for the purpose of service to the congregation. What is still remembered and frequently cited from this case is one sentence in Justice David Josiah Brewer’s opinion: “These and many other matters which might be noticed add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.” Justice Brewer’s obiter dictum has come into question dozens upon dozens of times over the past 120+ years. And yet, it is still raised by Christian Nationalists to “prove” that their belief is settled law.

Over the past several years, one of the unlikeliest - and least comprehensible alliances has been that between Donald J. Trump and America’s Evangelical/Fundamentalist community. How and why such a rigorously pious swathe of America could lend so much support and so many dollars to a man who has evinced less moral fiber than any of his predecessors is beyond reason . . . except for the fact that preachers from Maine to Southern California have told their flock to do so. An article in last Thursday’s Rolling Stone authored by Tim Dickenson summed up this mystery . . . and the possible fall from “messiahship” for Trump in 2024: “White evangelical Christians are the beating heart of the GOP base. Perhaps the wildest feat of Trump’s political career was convincing the fundamentalist faithful that he — a philandering, thrice-married, “pussy” grabber — could advance the cause of Godliness in the White House. If this bloc were to lose faith in Trump, it could doom his dream of recapturing the GOP nomination.”

At this juncture, it would seem that the mantle of political Messiah is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ to lose. Throughout his time in office, he has increasingly risen within the ranks of Christian Culture Warriors - even without using too much overtly Christological language. His support for the removal of “immoral” books from school libraries; making the teaching of CRT (Critical Race Theory) in schools which do not even teach it a crime; decrying anything which even hints at “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) studies in Florida schools from K through graduate level and leading the charge for restoring the death penalty (despite the fact that the Catholic Church - of which he is a member - is universally against it . . . mark him a man who is, by implication if not invocation, fighting hard to become the leader of the Christian Nationlist pack.

Then there is Nikki Hailey, former Governor of South Carolina and Ambassador to the United Nations, who announced her candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination just the other day. She had little to say about what she would do as POTUS, made not a single reference to her former boss by name, and spoke mainly about how difficult it was to be raised as the daughter of a Sikh family in small town South Carolina.

                                                 Sarah Silverman 

To my way of thinking, the most telling thing about her announcement came even before her she made her announcement. The invocation at the event was delivered by controversial pastor John Hagee, who Ambassador Haley told the crowd she wants to be like she when “grows up.” Hagee’s history of controversial statements includes remarks that a God-sent Adolf Hitler was tasked with hunting Jewish people as part of a divine plan to send them to Israel, that Hurricane Katrina “was God’s retribution for a planned gay pride parade” in New Orleans, and that women “are only meant to be mothers and bear children.” Speaking about the event, The Daily Show guest host Sarah Silverman (one of the best comedians/political satirists in the business!) mocked Haley’s praise of Hagee: ““Oh, Pastor Hagee, I hope one day I can appreciate Hitler as much as you do,” Silverman joked. “Right now my appreciation of Hitler is like here (she raises her hand). I want to get it up, get it up to about here,” she continued with a raised-hand salute. She concluded by saying “Sure, this guy thinks the Holocaust is good and that’s not good but on the bright side, he does believe it happened. You know, you got to take the Ws (“Wins”) where you can.”

Hagee’s comment about Hitler and G-d’s divine plan to “send them (the Jews) to Israel,” is one of the most horrifying aspects of the Christian fundamentalist rendering of the Bible.  According to recent  polling by LifeWay, upwards of 80%  of evangelicals believed that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about the Second Coming . . . which means that anyone who has not accepted Jesus as their Messiah will be destroyed.  To a great degree, this explains why the largest and most fervent Zionist groups in the United States are Christian . . . not Jewish.  As a fairly knowledgeable and literate Jew, I could never support anyone who’s love of Israel is based on this revelation; if they succeed, we lose.

 Christian Nationalism posits that America must be a Christian Nation, which entails one hell of a lot of conversion.  To Jews, proselytizing and "spreading the 'Good News’ is about as foreign as ham and cheese on white bread.  We Jews do not have an exclusive on G-d or salvation. Co (my pronoun for “he/she”) belongs to everyone, and everyone belongs to Co. In fact, Judaism is the only religion that offers specific commandments for nonmembers. Following the story of the Great Flood, G-d commanded Noah and his sons to keep seven basic laws. Judaism believes that any Gentile who keeps those laws is righteous and will go to heaven.  Oh yes, Jews did go in for forced conversion once: there is one known case in which Jews (as a ruling power, which in itself is extremely rare) did in fact force gentiles to convert. This took place in the Maccabean era, around 168 BCE. A group called the Idumeans was forcibly converted by second generation Maccabees. However, the Idumeans’ ‘conversion’ was terribly ineffective. We learned our lesson; it doesn’t appear that the policy of forced conversion was popular with other Jewish zealots of the time and has never occurred since.  

Let us get to the original question posed in the title of this essay: “Is the USA a “melting pot” or a “salad bowl.”  According to Christian Nationalists it must be the former; according to American history it really should be the latter.  For what is a “melting pot?”  It is a place where a variety of peoples, cultures, or individuals assimilate into a cohesive whole.  (n.b. the term itself comes from a very popular play written by the Victorian/Edwardian-era playwright and novelist Israel Zangwill.  It tells the story of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, whose mother and sister were killed in a pogrom, hoped for a society free from ethnic divisions, and a refuge for all those suffering persecution for political or religious beliefs. Zangwill wrote, "America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming... Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians – into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American." The play was so popular and well-received that when it opened on Broadway in 1908, playwright Zangwill’s “date” was none other than President Theodore Roosevelt!)

For many generations, the “melting pot” theory worked pretty well.  Although there were certainly racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian feelings, the immigrants themselves wanted nothing more than to become accepted as Americans . . . to melt into the social and cultural fabric of the new world.  The melting pot provided America with a plethora of talent, skilled workers and new citizens.  But alas, in recent times, the very concept of a “Melting Pot” has morphed into something akin to a multi-Christian nation.  More and more, we have become a “Salad Bowl” - an entity which despite being a whole (a “salad”) is composed of innumerable ingredients whose individual shape, size and individuality can still be easily identified.

To my way of thinking, “Christian Nationalism” is not only unpatriotic; it is also un-American and grossly chutzpadik (Yiddish for nervy, impudent or brazen).

If I choose to live my life as an American citizen who observes the Sabbath on Saturday rather than Sunday, to read my holy books from right-to-left rather than left-to-right or stay the hell away from shellfish and cheeseburgers, that should be of no one’s concern. I am still a patriotic American; a (hopefully) noteworthy ingredient in the greatest salad ever created. For those who disagree on religious or cultural grounds know this: you are the minority . . . get used to it.

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

The 21st Century's Most Malignant Legacy?

This past Tuesday (Feb. 7, 2023) President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. delivered his second State of the Union (SOTU) address before a joint session of Congress. Depending on which side of the Congressional House of Worship you occupied, you were either witness to a political chess master easily parrying the jabs and overhand (far) rights of a bunch of punch-drunk amateurs, or cheering on the manhandling of a WOKE-supporting, mentally unstable octogenarian by a courageous group of young Republicans who understand that “there are no rules in a knife fight” (Yes, this is of course a famous line from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which the likes of Marjorie ‘Cruella Deville’ Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and the rest of the Hole-in-the Head Gang have, in all likelihood, never heard of.)

For proof of this bipolar analysis of last Tuesday’s SOTU, all one needed to do was catch the “post-game” recaps provided by either MSNBC and CNN on the sensible middle, or Fox News and OAN (One America News) on the freaky far right. To watch and listen to both would give one the impression that there were actually 2 totally different realities surrounding the President’s speech; one with heroes (and heroines) sitting on either side of the aisle telling nothing but the truth (i.e. that MAGA Republicans are on record as wanting to cancel both Social Security and Medicare), the other totally incapable of anything but utter dishonesty, putting masks of incomprehension on their faces and shouting out “LIAR!  YOU LIE.”  While watching all this take place, I was reminded of something I read long ago: “Never attempt to destroy someone else’s life with a lie when yours can be destroyed with the truth.

                Rep. Marjorie Taylor “Cruella Deville” Greene (R-GA)

 I for one gave President Biden’s State of the Union address an “A.” (Personally, I have never given any student an ““A+” and certainly don’t believe that there should be any G.P.A. higher than 4.0.)  He was everything a POTUS should be: warm, upbeat, unflappable, occasionally showing that Biden 20 megawatt smile, humorous when called for, and above all, presenting a full-bodied, well-conceived legislative wish-list with a minimum of ho-hum political bromides.  One of the longest-lived politicians in American history (36 years as a Senator, 8 years a Vice President and now 2 years as POTUS), Joe Biden understands better than most the dignity demanded of his office, as well as knowing how to handle himself in front of a camera, and how to deflect a political haymaker with extraordinary éclat (striking effect).  He is, in brief, everything his predecessor was not.  Unlike '45, he doesn’t affix nasty nicknames to his political foes, nor carry himself about like a deranged cult master.  He really, truly believes in working across the aisle (note that was he who initiated the handshake with Speaker McCarthy) and is a gentleman.  

Sara Huckabee Sanders, the newly-elected Governor of Arkansas was, against all reason, chosen to give the response to the State of the Union . . . historically, a position which adds next to nothing to a politician’s c.v. Sanders was likely chosen for two, perhaps three reasons: first, she is 40 years old where President Biden is twice her age; second, she is a woman . . . a demographic which the Republicans are seeing slip through their fingers in the post Roe v. Wade era; and third, she can sling red meat to the MAGA base with the best of them. And if Donald Trump faces a large field of Republican office holders in the 2024 primaries, he’s going to have to capture every last MAGA vote in America . . . that’s where Sanders likely comes in.

In her 20-minute rebuttal, the former Presidential press secretary painted a dystopian portrait of the country leaning heavily into Republican culture war issues and accusing Biden of pursuing “woke fantasies.” “While you reap the consequences of their failures, the Biden administration seems more interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face every day,” said Sanders, the former White House press secretary. “Most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom and peace, but we are under attack in a left-wing culture war we didn’t start and never wanted to fight.” She didn’t mention Trump by name, which to the base, is tantamount to a preacher delivering an impassioned Sunday sermon without once mentioning Jesus. Instead, she embraced conservatives’ fights against the way race is taught in public school. She called Biden’s administration “completely hijacked by the radical left.”

“The dividing line in America is no longer right or left,” she said. “The choice is between normal or crazy,” she said. Democrats made much of that line, giving it full-throated support while endlessly running video captures to prove the point that its the Republicans who are the crazy ones . . . Indeed, this line may go down in history as the 2022 equivalent of Senator Marco Rubio reaching for a bottle of water during his 2013 response to President Obama’s SOTU.

In other words, Governor Sanders, like the Republican’s Capitol Hill “Crazy Caucus” are planning on running (and winning) in 2024 on the lies and mistruths of the past many years . . . likely their most malignant legacy to America.  Lies and mistruths have become so endemic to politics and society in general - thanks  in part to the growth and omnipresence of social media and cable “news” outlets, and in part to the moral albinism of its most hypocritical practitioners - that it’s become neigh on impossible to separate the wheat of truth from the chaff of mendacity.  For far too many, that which goes against their grain is the product of “fake news.”  This is incredibly dangerous for the future of civilization.  When lies become nothing more than a commodity to be sold under the brand name “truth,” then our republic - let alone civilization itself - is definitely imperiled and likely subject to autocratisation. 

It never ceases to amaze me how much trash and dishonest bloviating a goodly segment of the public is willing to accept as the god’s honest truth.  A few examples: going into the 2020 election, a photo was posted on Facebook claiming that “Joe Biden lives in the biggest mansion in his state and just bought another mansion in Washington, D.C.”  It was quickly shared more than 1,000 times and became “a well-known fact” shortly thereafter.  Stuff and nonsense!  Delaware is the ancestral home of the DuPont family . . . ergo, no one has ever - or shall ever - possess a residence larger than theirs.  The  Winterthur Estate could be considered Delaware's largest mansion. The house was originally built in 1839 but has been enlarged considerably over the years. Henry Francis du Pont renovated the building between 1929 and 1931, resulting in a 175-room mansion sitting on 2,500 acres. This estate was turned into a museum in 1951, however, so some may not consider it to be the "largest mansion" in Delaware.

The Du Pont family built another massive property in Delaware in the early 1900s. While the Nemours Mansion dwarfs the properties owned by Biden at 47,000 sq. ft. (compared to 7,000 for the 2 Biden properties), this property, too, no longer serves as a single-family residence and therefore may not be an applicable comparison.  

Then there is the entire universe of Hunter Biden tales.  Depending on the source of your news, the president’s son made anywhere between $45,000 and $83,677 per month for a position on the board of the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma Holdings from 2014 to 2019 - a time when his father was V.P. through the beginning of his presidential campaign.  Recently, rocker Ted Nugent (“The Motor City Madman”) posted a Facebook meme falsely insinuating that Hunter’s payments from the company ended with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Then there is Fox’s Tucker Carlson who issues negative reports on President Biden’s profligate son so often, that somehow he has forgotten the days when he actually asked Hunter for his help in getting his son into Georgetown University, including writing a letter of recommendation. And by the way, why hasn’t anyone suggested looking into all the money the Trump and Kushner families made during the time ‘45 was in office?  What Jared and Ivanka pulled in in a single  year would have taken Hunter nearly 640 years to make.  (And this does not include Jared’s $1.3 billion loan from the Saudis . . . )

One of the first items on the House Republican’s agenda in this new congress is the impeachment of President Biden, based largely on the many so-called corruptions of his son.  Indeed, Hunter is about to become the “Hillary Clinton Benghazi Hearings” of the 118th Congress.  Many will recall that Congressional Republicans spent more than 2 years and $7 million looking for something - anything - which  would lay guilt at the feet of the former Secretary of State in the death of Chris Stevens, the American Ambassador to Libya.  What they were hoping for, of course, was an indelible stain on her at the beginning of the 2016 presidential election cycle. After 6 hearings, they issued their 800-page report; it landed with a thud.  And yet, to this very day, there are those Republican House members who want to reopen the Benghazi probe.  And so do their most hypnotized followers who, to this day, “know for a fact” that Secretary Clinton was guilty of murder.

As Mark Twain (or Winston Churchill) once noted, “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Or better still:

 Lies are like a pain killer; it gives instant relief, but has lethal side effects forever.

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

A Look Back to the Original "Beating the Bushes" . . . Feb. 4, 2005

Eighteen years ago yesterday (February 4,, 2005), I posted my first blog essay. This week I will be posting my 923rd. Add into this number the 57 essays posted on my “Tales From Hollywood & Vine Blog, and we’re getting ever closer to 1,000 . . . my original goal oh so many years ago.

As an anniversary remembrance, I am reposting that very first article . . . back in the days when the blog was called “Beating the Bushes.” I hope you will enjoy this look back in time . . . and perhaps discover that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

February 4, 2005

Dad used to say: "The gravest sin of all is treating me like a fool." Well, the Bushies commit that sin on a daily basis -- against all of us. Just how stupid and gullible do they think we are? Who in their right mind would attack a mountain of overdue bills by first going on a spending spree? Who but a fool would be concerned with rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic? Well, the Bush Administration's proposal for privatizing Social Security is just that. Making all the recent tax-cuts permanent is more of the same.

Fudging facts (and here I'm being overly kind) and telling the American public that unless "fixed," the Social Security program is going to be totally bankrupt by (pick a year) is the height of arrogance. And for what? Giving your friends and political allies short-term financial gains? Making the world safe for . . . save for what? With each day's headlines, I am more and more reminded of the 1920s -- the era of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover -- three of the weakest, most politically inept men to ever occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Unless we, the loyal opposition, mount a serious unified campaign in both 2006 and 2008, America is going to become a second-rate nation. Its time to begin beating the Bushes . .

Copyyright©2005 Kurt F. Stone

A Pandora's Box of Existential Fears

For the past several weeks I have been spending an hour or so of daily time doing a bit of research on what - at least for me - is the newest thing in Artificial Intelligence (AI): ChatGPT. For the uninitiated (myself near the top of the list), ChatGPT was created by OpenAI, an AI and research company headquartered in San Francisco’s Mission District. The company launched ChatGPT on Nov. 30, 2022. It is “an artificial intelligence text generator,” which our “Mind Children” (as the Harvard roboticist Hans Moravec dubbed them more than 30 years ago) consider it to be the “future of work.” Simply stated, ChatGPT is an AI tool that can generate human-like text.  It is a natural language processing tool driven by AI technology, that allows users to have human-like conversations and much more. The language model can answer questions, and assist the user with tasks such as composing emails, essays, and code. Usage is currently open to the public free of charge, because ChatGPT is still in its research and feedback-collection phase. The more I have read, learned and digested, the more I fear that potentially, it’s akin to Cliff Notes (remember them?) warping on crystal meth.  

Let’s face facts: most of us have never seen anything remotely like ChatGPT outside of science fiction. As with most new cyber technology, it is more quickly grokked and grasped by the young than their elders. There’s nothing new about that. I mean, what immigrant parent or grandparent didn’t stand in awe of their young one’s mastering English long, long before they themselves spoke their first intelligible sentence? In most cases, it never dawned on them that the children were immersed in the new language from the first moment they went out to play. What parent or grandparent doesn’t believe their 3, 4, and 5-year olds are geniuses because they can run circles around their elders on an I-Pad, or Smartphone? I often tell my lifelong learning students (many of whom are in their 80s and even above) that if there’s something they don’t understand about accessing information, “Ask your youngest great-grandchild for help.”

As time progresses, the uses of Chatbot technology are going to grow and become ever more sophisticated. For now, students are already handing in written assignments which are the products not of their cerebral synapses, but rather their computer’s software. In a piece published a couple of days ago in the New York Times, 4 writers - Claire Cain Miller, Adam Playford, Larry Buchanan and Aaron Krolik reported on a research project in which a random assortment of 4-graders were each given a writing assignment. “We used real essay prompts from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the standardized test from the Department of Education, known as the nation’s report card). We asked the bot to produce essays based on those prompts — sometimes with a little coaching, and always telling it to write like a student of the appropriate age. We put what it wrote side by side with sample answers written by real children.” None of the experts involved in the project, which included a fourth-grade teacher; a professional writing tutor; a Stanford education professor; and Judy Blume, the beloved children’s author, could tell the difference . . .

As a university instructor and writer, I do not want to wake up one day and find that I’ve become irrelevant due to some devilish bot . . .  

It should come as no surprise that educators ranging from elementary, middle and high school teachers through instructors at such prestigious institutions of higher learning as the Wharton School of Business (whose graduates include Donald and Ivanka Trump, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Jr.) and Harvard Law (whose graduates include Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Jaimie Raskin and Merrick Garland) have voiced extreme concern over the negative impact that ChatGPT can have on learning. True, students may receive higher grades because their essays and papers are structurally and grammatically perfect . . . but what about learning itself? The major purpose of education - especially at the lower grades - is to teach critical learning skills . . . not just to achieve the highest possible grade point average.

While as of now it seems unlikely that poets, playwrights and comedians will be replaced by machines, I am truly frightened by the existential threat ChatGPT may well have on Democracy itself.  As Nathan E. Sanders, a data scientist, and Bruce Schneier, a security technologist noted in a recent Times report: “ChatGPT could automatically compose comments submitted in regulatory processes. It could write letters to the editor for publication in local newspapers. It could comment on news articles, blog entries and social media posts millions of times every day. . . . Facebook, has been removing over a billion fake accounts a year. But such messages are just the beginning. Rather than flooding legislators’ inboxes with supportive emails, or dominating the Capitol switchboard with synthetic voice calls, an A.I. system with the sophistication of ChatGPT but trained on relevant data could selectively target key legislators and influencers to identify the weakest points in the policymaking system and ruthlessly exploit them through direct communication, public relations campaigns, horse trading or other points of leverage.

If a bot could create a successful autocrat, he or she would look, act, sound and campaign like Donald Trump or George Santos; soulless creatures who are directed by the soulless algorithms of their crafty creators. Their fibs could be told with straight faces, their polling numbers presented as the god’s honest truth.  AI has yet to create subtlety or satire, and knows virtually nothing about the effect its words have on human minds. 

(Speaking of George Santos [or "Kitara Ravache,” his nom de drag], I came across a marvelous definition of fibs in a P.G. Wodehouse novel last night: “Fibs, my dear [are] artistic mouldings of the unshapely clay of truth . . . “) 

Let’s see such gleeful snottiness emerge from  a Chatbot!)

Way back in 1932, MGM costarred the 3 Barrymores, Ethel, Lionel and John, together for the first and only time in a film called Rasputin and the Empress. The model for Princess Natasha (played by Diana Wynard) in the movie was Princess Irina Romanoff Youssoupoff. The real Princess Irina filed a lawsuit against producer Irving Thalberg and MGM, claiming invasion of privacy and libel in portraying her as a mistress and, later, a rape victim of Grigory Rasputin (called Prince Youssoupoff in the movie). She won an award of $127,373 in an English court and an out-of-court settlement in New York with MGM, for  reportedly $1 million. As a result of the success of Princess Youssoupoff's lawsuit against MGM over this movie, Hollywood studios began inserting the disclaimer "This motion picture is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental" in the credits of virtually every film released since.

Taking a cue from MGM, perhaps in the near future, Congress will pass a law requiring a disclaimer averring something like “BEWARE: That which follows is the creation of Artificial Intelligence. Any resemblance to the human thought process or the truth is purely coincidental.”

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

Guinevere Had Green Eyes

Note: There are numerous live links in the following blog; many lead to performances [some with written-out lyrics] of songs made famous by the Byrds and CSNY.   Enjoy!

Just 24 hours before he died (Jan. 18, 2023), 81-year old singer/songwriter/icon David Crosby, in his first Twitter of the day, wrote about heaven. The musician, who was a founding member of 2 Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame bands (Crosby, Stills & Nash and The Byrds), responding to various posts about heaven and loneliness, joked "I heard the place is overrated….cloudy." The statement was so typical of the multifaceted Crosby. At once a stellar writer of songs that provided the lyrics of a generation who themselves are now in their late 60s through 80s (I  Almost Cut my Hair, Teach Your Children Well, Carry On) and one of the best, most romantic ballads of all time (Guinevere), he was both a blueblood (related to both the Van Cortland and Van Rensselaer families; the son of, Floyd Crosby, the acclaimed cinematographer of such classic films as High Noon, From Here to Eternity and Tabu: A Tale of the South Seas, (for which he won an Oscar); a recovering drug addict, a twice-imprisoned felon, and a financial supporter of many progressive candidates for public office.

Despite all this, he somehow managed to live 81 years and continue recording albums until his late 70s.  Even at the end, his singing voice was crystal clear, his ability to make great harmonies with his longtime friend and compatriot Graham Nash a miracle.  In many ways, he was a freak of nature.   I remember first seeing him at Doug Weston’s Troubadour in West Hollywood; then, he was in his early 20s, a thorough-going folkie sans the lion-like mane and fu manchu moustache.  He was even wearing a coat and tie!  Within a few years he became a seminal member of the Folk Rock group The Byrds, and catapulted to fame and fortune with such timeless classics as Mr. Tambourine Man (written by Bob Dylan), Turn, Turn, Turn (lyrics by Pete Seeger, originally from the  Biblical book of Ecclesiastes) and The Bells of Rhymney (first recorded by Pete Seeger with lyrics by the Welsh poet Idris Davies) and Eight Miles High.   

By this time, he had the iconic moustache he would wear for the rest of his life.  As time went by, his long brown hair thinned and became white, until what was left made him look a lot like Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.  Almost from the day he received his first royalty check, Crosby began contributing to political campaigns and causes.  Although I’m not 100% sure, I seem to remember that in the summer of 1969 he hosted a fundraiser for the California Assembly Speaker Jess “Big Daddy” Unruh, who was running against Governor Ronald Reagan.  (I did check this out with my former boss in that campaign, Fred Taugher, who, despite making several calls, was not able to guarantee that my memory was correct . . .however, Fred could verify that Crosby had purchased a 59-foot yacht [the “Mayan”] just 2 years earlier).  Crosby continued his political ways up until the 2020 presidential campaiign.

In addition to at one time being addicted to both cocaine and heroin, Crosby suffered from Hepatitis C (which led to undergoing a liver transplant (paid for by rocker Phil Collins) in 1994, and Type 2 Diabetes, which caused him to put on a great deal of weight.  In January 2000, Melissa Etheridge announced that Crosby was the sperm donor of two children with her partner Julie Cypher by means of artificial insemination. On May 13, 2020, Etheridge announced on her Twitter that her and Cypher's son Beckett had died of causes related to opioid addiction at the age of 21. In February 2014, at the urging of his doctor, Crosby postponed the final dates of his solo tour to undergo a cardiac catheterization and angiogram, based on the results of a routine cardiac stress test. And yet, he continued living up to the words of one of his earliest songs: “Carry on.”

More than most singer/songwriter/performers David Crosby, whose professional career lasted nearly 55 years,  was both a symbol and vivid remembrance of an era of peace, love, long hair, beads and pot.  His image as the twinkle-eyed stoner and sardonic hedonist of the cosmic age was said to have been a model for the obstinate free spirit played by Dennis Hopper in the 1969 movie “Easy Rider.” (Hopper died from prostate cancer in 2010).  In one of his last interviews, the notoriously cantankerous Crosby spoke about how he had alienated nearly all of his old musical associates: “All the guys I made music with won’t even talk to me,” he said. “I don’t know quite how to undo it.”  In the second of his two autobiographies he mellowed, writing: “I was tremendously lucky, surviving injury, illness and stupidity,” he wrote. “As for the music, I was blessed early and often, from the Byrds to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and singing with Graham”  

The last time I saw David Crosby live was in 2015 nearly 55 years after I had first seen him performing with Les Baxter's Balladeers at the Troubadour; in 2015, he was playing with Stills and Nash.  The 3 (now minus Neil Young)  were note perfect . . . both on guitar and with vocals.  Their complex harmonies brought tears to the eyes. Watching and hearing them was a truly emotional experience.  It brought me back to my college days where protesting (the war in Viet Nam, the draft, Richard Nixon) took up far more time than attending class. The score for those memories was written largely by Crosby, Phil Ochs, and Tom Paxton.  But without question, the most noteworthy of them vis-a-vis musicality were CSNY.  To this day, whenever I hear them - or watch them through the magic of You-Tube - I feel a catch in my throat, youth in my veins and great purpose in my steps.  

Those of us from the Berkeley, Kent State, Columbia, March on Washington days who still are privileged to walk this earth, have yet to give up the fight and the dream.  David Crosby’s lyrics still suffuse our memory and motivation.  To wit:

Carry on
Love is coming
Love is coming to us all.

As idealistic and saccharine as the refrain may sound in 2023, so long as we remember that Guinevere did have Green Eyes and we must continue to Teach Our Children Well, there is still a hope of succeeding.

Rest in peace David; you made a great contribution to a generation of (hopefully) gracefully aging peaceniks, some of whom have yet to cut their hair . . .

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

Just When We Thought We'd Heard It All

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Let’s face it: nearly all Republicans (we’ll give a pass to the 4 or 5 remaining moderate ones) have little to add to the current political dialog. Other than complaining and blaming Democrats for nearly everything under the sun, they rarely say anything worth listening to, let alone seriously considering.

An example or two or three: Republicans continuously blame Democrats in general (and President Biden in particular) for inflation, high gas prices, high rates of violent crime, the stalled consumer pipe-line (which leads to higher prices), increases in the number of immigrants, asylees and refugees entering the country, and a thousand-and-one other things. (Oh, if only Donald Trump had been able to complete his wall . . . the one the Mexican government was supposed to pay for.) 

On the other hand, Republicans rarely - if ever - offer concrete suggestions about containing, constricting or curtailing - let alone solving - any of these challenges . . . short of legislating deep cuts to entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, lowering corporate taxes, impeaching President Biden, A.G. Garland, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis and Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swallwell, and passing a so-called “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” which  ordains that all infants born after attempted abortions must get medical care. (Do remember that the number of babies actually surviving late-term abortions is infinitesimal . . . save in the imaginations of some truly warped individuals;  it is already a crime [it’s called homicide] to intentionally kill an infant that is born alive.)

Besides not possessing any concrete plans or proposals for dealing with the above referenced political challenges (as amply proven in both the 2020 presidential and 2022 midterm elections), many of these challenges are easing due to the efforts of both the Biden Administration and two years of a Congress controlled by the Democrats. Do note that although high, the rise in inflation is beginning to be contained; gas prices are slumping due to a production surplus; (note that the millions of barrels of oil we “lent” ourselves from our Strategic Petroleum Reserves have already been returned . . . and at a lower price) and regardless of what the disloyal opposition broadcasts, the national debt has been reduced by nearly $200 billion, with more reductions on the way . . . assuming that troglodytes do not prevail.

So what is a political party and their mouthpieces to do? Simple: raise new issues guaranteed to consume the attention of their base . . . even if they are untrue and/or simply asinine. The first of two such attempts to keep their base fired up and fearful deals with gas stoves. According to reports popping up on such slanted sources as Fox, the Washington Examiner and the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, President Biden and his administration are about to take away even more of our personal freedom by “coming to take away our gas stoves.”  (Is that before or after they take away our guns?)

It goes without saying that this canal water about gas stoves is not true.  So how did this rumor - one which numerous Republican members of Congress have been scaring the pants off their constituents over - come to be such a hot issue?  Well, recently, Richard Trumka Jr., a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) agency commissioner, said in an interview with Bloomberg that there was rising concern about hazardous indoor pollutants caused by gas stoves.  In the interview, he floated the idea of a ban as a possible solution to the problem. “This is a hidden hazard," he said. "Any option is on the table. Products that can't be made safe can be banned." 

In a public statement about Commissioner Trumka’s interview, a spokesperson for the CPSC explicitly stated that the agency is not considering new guidelines for regulating, or banning, gas stoves. Anything the group proposes, the spokesperson firmly averred,  would “undergo a lengthy review process."  The CPSC spokesperson further stated that Trumka's views do not reflect the views of the entire organization. While the agency was not considering new regulatory measures, nor a ban, the spokesperson said they were planning to gather information from the public "on hazards from gas stoves and potential solutions to hazardous gas [emissions].

 And yet, despite a welter of information which shows that no one is going to be forced to get rid of their gas stoves on pain of legal penalty, the lie persists. You had better believe that it will continue playing a role in conservative talking points from now until the 2024 elections.

But this is by no means the nuttiest, most mind-numbing of fears tearing at the minds and hearts of the right. Believe it or not, one of the greatest fears is a “. . . no-doubt fury that Mars Wrigley, the candy company that manufactures and markets M&Ms, has gone “WOKE.”  Over the past couple of years, M&Ms has adopted new interior flavors (such as pretzel, strawberry shake and espresso) and a host of new colors.  Additionally, Mars has rebranded six of its iconic mascots to represent "more nuanced personalities to underscore the importance of self-expression and power of community through storytelling."

Mars Wrigley has debuted a new promotional wrapper for M&Ms that features three female candy characters, and introduces a new Purple M&M along with Green and Brown. Mars Wrigley has announced they would be donating some of the profits from these M&M sales to organizations that support a variety of professional pursuits by women. The "sexy" green M&M's character has traded in her signature go-go boots for a pair of "cool, laid-back sneakers to reflect her effortless confidence," while the orange M&M's character will suffer from anxiety "to better reflect young people." From a marketing point of view this makes sense; every product goes through changes in order to attract new customers, thus keeping up sales.

Ah, but according to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson,  whom we are told is the single-most popular and influential face on cable, the newest changes are a conspiracy in order to push a “WOKE” philosophy.  According to Carlson, the “Paul Revere” of this conspiracy “M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous—until the moment you wouldn’t want to have a drink with any one of them.”  Personally, I don’t know anyone (myself included) who has ever had the desire to down a pint or gigger with a chocolate icon.  Methinks Mr. Carlson needs to get a life.

One of the things which bothers and concerns me the most in issues like gas stoves and WOKE M&Ms, is that those who speak the loudest and most passionately about them in reality, could give a rat’s rump.  They don’t really believe that the Biden Administration is coming to take away their gas stoves any more than Florida Governor “Rhonda Santis” believes that children reading certain books will make them want to change sexes, or that the newest shapes, accoutrements and colors of M&Ms are a danger to America’s moral fiber.  No, they are after more political support, more votes, and higher offices.

Just when we think we’ve heard it all, we discover that we’re wrong . . . 

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

The Clown Car is All Gassed Up . . . But With No Place to Go

Whether the great unwashed majority realizes it or not, we the American people have just gone through the eeriest, most divisive week of political danse macbre in at least the past 150 years. It took 15 votes - 15 VOTES - over 4 days for Kevin McCarthy to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives. He managed to accomplish his single-vote victory by trading away virtually all the powers historically vested in the Speaker. He ran a race fueled not by a set of political goals or principles, but solely by the power of his ego. And so, within less than 168 hours, the House went from being a body run by Nancy Pelosi, one of the strongest, most powerful and politically adroit Speakers in all American history, to Kevin McCarthy, whose speakership could come crashing down with a mere finger snap on the part of Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert or any of a number of Freedom Caucus clowns.  Indeed, the House has quickly gone from a body led by a cunning tigress to one that whose leader is both defanged and likely on the road to political defenestration.

Precisely what Speaker McCarthy had to give in to in order to win the gavel is, at this point, unknown. Bits and pieces of his most craven concessions may be easily assumed, such as bestowing plumb committee assignments (Rules, Appropriations, Ways and Means, Judiciary) and chairmanships of various subcommittees to Freedom Caucus disrupters and election deniers. We already know that a minimum of 3 Freedom Caucus members will be appointed to House Rules, easily the most crucial committee under the dome.

Unlike most other committees, Rules is not concerned with policy substance; rather, it is what incoming chair, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma explained to VOX, “. . . is a process committee.” Its role is to set the terms of debate and decide whether bills are subject to amendments on the floor . . . and whether they need to be germane to the subject at hand. It has long been the redoubt (e.g., protective barrier) of House leadership in both parties and exists, in Cole’s words, to “make sure [legislation] gets to the floor in the form that the speaker thinks [or in the case of Kevin McCarthy, is told he thinks] is most likely to pass.” Even more importantly, this committee can keep any bill they don’t like from ever reaching the floor . . . without the House resorting to what is called a discharge petition . . . a means of bringing a bill out of committee and to the floor for consideration without a report from the committee. The problem is, according to clause 2 of rule XV of the Rules of the House, it requires a majority vote in order to succeed.  Good luck!

From what has been learned, McCarthy’s highest-profile concession: to allow any one member — down from his previous compromise of five — to force a House-wide no-confidence vote in the speaker at any time (known as “a motion to vacate”).  Under Speaker Pelosi, a motion to vacate could be offered on the House floor only if a majority of either party agreed to it.  Prior to Pelosi’s revolution, a motion to vacate could be put forth at the instigation of a single member . . . that which McCarthy has relented to.  Therefore, the issue isn’t even that a single member could topple a speaker; it would still take a majority vote of the entire House to actually vacate the seat. Instead, the real issue is that the current, 10-seat Republican majority is so small — and McCarthy’s speakership victory so slim — that the threat of defection is likely to loom over every bill, giving the same rebels who have paralyzed Congress this week endless opportunities to do the same thing again and again.  

What this adds up to is an extraordinary amount of leverage for a miniscule group of men and women who were, in large part, Congressional instigators and backers of the January 6 rebellion.  

These are people who have no political agenda or platform.  They aren’t, when all is said and done, true conservatives,  What they are is a gaggle of libertarians, Christian Nationalists, White Supremacists, “Great Replacement” theorists and QAnon-believing conspirators bent on shrinking the federal government to the point where it can fit into a ditty bag.  

The most frightening thing about all this is that people like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, Bob Good, Matt Rosendale, Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz (the “Ken & Barbie” of Capitol Hill) will, without blinking an eye, do everything in their power to make  sure the debt ceiling is not raised (which will cause America to default, thus causing the stock market to crash, I.R.A.s to become worthless and likely bring on an international Depression (and in their hopes and dreams the Second Coming); cut off all future aid to Ukraine and restore Jim Crow laws.  And they will do all this in the name of “Making America great again!”  And Speaker McCarthy won’t be able to do a thing about it . . . for fear that a single passenger on the Congressional Clown Car will call for a motion to vacate.  And you know what?  He won’t have anyone to blame save himself and his Brobdingnagian ego. The House will be thrown back into utter chaos.

This is no time for Democratic schadenfreude - deriving pleasure from another’s complete misfortune; if the Republicans stomp on the clown car brakes, we all - and I mean we all will suffer. Merely saying “Well, these mental schlubs brought it on themselves” won’t accomplish a damn thing So what can be done? If Democrats band together and refuse to lift a finger of assistance to Speaker McCarthy, it is likely that come 2024, Republicans will suffer a cataclysmic fall the likes of which has never been seen in all American history. But then too, so will all of us. Perhaps under Minority Leader Jeffries (who, by the way gave a historic, brilliant speech stressing the “A-to-Zs” of what Democrats stand for) could, working with his own caucus add just enough votes to keep McCarthy out of the political snake pit whenever he (meaning McCarthy) faces a motion to vacate. In theory, that could force the speaker and the so-called “moderate” Republicans to cut the Democrats a bit of slack out of gratitude. Then too, during a future motion to vacate, perhaps the Democrats could put together a kind of coalition approach to House governance that would essentially throw the clowns off the bus.

Whatever the case, there is no question but that we are going to continue to be observers - if not participants - in history’s eeriest political danse macabre.

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

George Santos, Theda Bara and Other Fabulists

A note to you, my beloved readers: I had been intending for this end-of-the-year essay to be a wrap-up of the 1-6 Committee’s mammoth 945-page final report. Try as I might, I simply could not finish reading it in its entirety before my personal deadline. It is both a work of historic importance and a world-class page-turner. It reads like a finely composed novel . . . and yet is both meticulously-well researched and filled with more verifiable footnotes than the Babylonian Talmud. I promise you that in the next several weeks, I will post an essay that gathers my thoughts, and attempts to put this singular work into its proper historic context . . . In the meantime, let’s spend a little time with Representative-Elect George Santos . . . and such long-forgotten silent movie superstars as Theda Bara, Olga Petrova and Jetta Goudal . . . all of whom have something in common . . .  KFS)

Next to politicians and their campaign handlers, there have likely never been more successful fabulists (liars, that is) on the face of the earth than Golden-Age Hollywood P.R. Directors and the stars they created. Like all you, I have been reading about all the lies Rep.-Elect George Santo ran on this past election season. He managed to mislead voters about his work and educational history, his family’s heritage, his past philanthropic efforts and his business dealings. He claimed he was Jewish and that his maternal grandparents were European “Holocaust refugees.” (They actually were from Brazil, and he actually is Catholic.) He claimed to have graduated from Baruch College in 2010 and to have attended New York University. He repeatedly claimed that his mother Fatimah Devolder, who died of cancer in 2016, was a 9/11 survivor who was “in her office in the South Tower on September 11, 2001,” and “passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.”  He claimed to have lost four employees in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., in 2016, and that he worked for Citigroup and for Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. None of that appears true — and that is only a partial list.

 As the Biblical Kohelet (King Solomon, writing under a pseudonym) famously claimed, “There is nothing new under the sun.” When it comes to both the famous and infamous of my hometown, Hollywood, California, this is triply true. Oh so many of our neighbors were known to the public by names (and biographies) fabricated by studio press agents rather than given by their parents. (Constant readers may recall a piece I posted nearly 3 1/2 years ago on my “Tales From Hollywood and Vine” blog entitled What’s In a Name? which introduced readers to the real (e.g. birth) names of tens of dozens of Hollywood stars, directors and screenwriters. In our house, Mom (a.k.a. “Madam”) was a master; she knew virtually everyone’s real name, where they were born, and who they really were before becoming famous.

A couple of famous examples:

• Although not the first silent movie vamp, Theda Bara (at left) was certainly the most popular and successful. According to information released by her studio (Wm. Fox), this slightly zoftig seductress who, with one sultry glance could drive any man over the edge, was sold to the public as "the daughter of an Arab sheik and a French woman, born in the Sahara" (Other press releases had her mother being the daughter of an Italian nobleman and baby Theda’s birthplace being in “the shadow of the Sphinx). And her name, fans were told, was an anagram for “Arab Death.” In truth, she was born Theodosia Goodman in the Avondale section of Cincinnati in late July 1885, the daughter of a prosperous Jewish tailor from Poland named Bernard Goodman. Bernie and his wife, Pauline, named their daughter Theodosia, after a daughter of the late U.S. Vice President, Aaron Burr. And so, Theodosia (nicknamed “Teddy” from her youth), would, by age 29, become the highest-paid movie star in the world, playing Cleopatra and other assorted man-devouring vamps. At her height, she made $4,000 a week (more than $60,000 in 2023 dollars . . . and without having  to pay income tax), was able to retire by age 35, and spend the rest of her life as a wealthy matron in Beverly Hills.

• Muriel Harding, born and raised in the distinctly non-glamorous English port town of Hull, somehow, despite her lower-class upbringing and distinctive Yorkshire accent, would be one day become Olga Petrova, one of early filmdom’s most exotic feminists. Built up as a daughter of Russian royalty, in the early teens, she was a widely popular actress, starring in more than 30 full-length motion pictures for Solax, the first studio owned and run by a woman, the producer/director Alice Guy.  Always billed as “Madame Petrova,” she starred on Broadway, wrote numerous plays, a fascinating (though utterly untruthful) autobiography Butter With My Bread,  and spent her retirement in Clearwater, Florida, passing away at age 93 on the last day of November, 1977. 

• Last but not least, let’s not forget the ultimate filmland diva, Jetta Goudal (1891-1985). In her heyday, the darkly exotic Ms. Goudal (her name being pronounced Zah-hettah Goo-doll) was a star who rivaled Gloria Swanson, starring in such classic films as Salome of the Tenements and D.W. Griffith’s Lady of the Pavements.  Arriving in the United States at the close of World War I (after a career on the European stage), she presented herself as “Jetta Goudal, Parisienne-born in Versailles in 1901 and the daughter of a prominent lawyer.”  In matter of fact, she was Julie Henriette Goudeket, born in Amsterdam ten years earlier (1891) to Wolf Mozes Goudeket, a wealthy Orthodox Jewish diamond cutter. Coming to the United States wound up saving her life; virtually her entire family died in Nazi death camps.  Following her film career, she and her longtime (1930-1985) husband, Harold Grieve, became two of the most popular interior decorators in the community. No one - save native Hollywoodites - knew of her family background or history. (n,b.: imperious to the end (she lived to 94) Jetta actually sued Volkswagen over “Copyright Infringement” for calling one of the new line of autos the “Jetta.”  The case died a quick death.)  

Few, if any would ever think of holding made-up names and family histories against actors, dancers, directors and studio p.r. staffs.  That Jonas Sternberg would start calling himself Josef von Sternberg, Jacob Krantz Ricardo Cortez, Spangler Arlington Brugh Robert Taylor,  or Texas-born Tula Ellice Finklea Cyd Charisse (and occasionally Maria Istomina, Felia Sidorova and Natacha Tulaelis) is pretty much de rigueur in art forms based on the creation of fictional characters.  But politics?  That’s a whole other slab of cheese.  During the current George Santos imbroglio, one occasionally hears Republicans gleefully reminding their followers of the lies of President Joseph R. Biden and Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal . . . and once in a blue moon, a Democrat will bring up Ronald Reagan’s conflated record in WWII.  (Nearly all of Reagan’s wartime stories and recollections took place at the old Hal Roach Studios (lovingly referred to as “Fort Roach”) where he made training films.  The studio was located at 8822 Washington Boulevard in Culver City.

So far as  Biden and Blumenthal, they both have been caught in telling tales.  In his closing remarks at a 1987 Democratic presidential debate, Biden lifted passages from one of British Labour Party Leader’s Neil  Kinnock’s most moving speeches without attribution.  Biden’s boo-boo was discovered, he both admitted and apologized for his error; it likely cost him the nomination.  Interestingly, in 2020, Kinnock, by now a Labour Peer, interviewed about the 1987 plagiarism ‘scandal’ said that he had always considered it “an innocent mistake.”  “Joe’s an honest guy. If Trump had done it, I would know that he was lying.”  

Then there was Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal. During the September 2018 hearings on Brett Kavanaugh for a acant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, there was much back-and-forth on Kavanaugh’s credibility . . . especially in the area of taking unwanted liberties with women. At one point, Senator Blumenthal told MSNBC that proceeding with Kavanaugh's nomination would "forever stain the Supreme Court.” That quickly brought back the issue of Blumenthal’s successful 2010 campaign for the United States Senate during which the then long-serving Connecticut A.G. said that he had "misspoken" about his military service during the Vietnam War after the New York Times obtained his Selective Service Record, which showed he received five separate draft deferments while a college student and then, when those deferments ran out, secured a spot in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves (serving stateside, not in Vietnam). The issue quickly died down and he went on to win. But to this day, Republicans use it against him as proof that he is no more honest than Donald Trump . . . or George Santos.

Ah but there is a huge difference here: both Biden and Blumenthal have nearly 85 years in elected office between them; their fables have been far and few between; they have a lengthy, lengthy record of positive service which more than outweighs their past errors. Such is not the case with George Santos; without even having taken the oath of office (which could occur tomorrow, January 3), he has yet to be truthful about anything.

A couple of questions emerge at this time:

1.    How could such a pathological liar ever get elected in the first place

2.    What should be done about him?

As to the first question, it would be easy to blame the Democrats for falling down in their opposition  research and the Republicans for turning a blind eye and keeping their mouths shut.  In point of face, there was quite a bit of information available on the man many Republicans in New York’s 3rd District were already referring to as “George Scam-tos.”  The Long Island North Shore Leader revealed quite a bit about him months before the election: “In a list of complaints about the candidate, the paper called out Santos’ policy stances on abortion and Ukraine. It also pointed out that his claim to real estate ownership was false “He brags about his ‘wealth’ and his ‘mansions’ in the Hamptons – but he really lives in a row house in Queens,” the paper wrote. They said he was involved in a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme shut down by the SEC, questioned the use of money raised for his campaign, and his net-worth.  “Santos had no visible campaign until a few weeks ago - no offices, no signs, no mailings, no significant ‘voter contact,’” the paper reported.  The failure is on both sides of the aisle.  Opposition  research (and conversely, the investigation of one’s own candidate, the idea being “If we can find out the dirt about our candidate, so can they”) is cheap, readily accomplished and absolutely essential.  I remember doing research on one our our guys back in the early ‘70s . . . and this was long before Google, Lexus-Nexus and the like. It was pretty easy . . . 

As to the second question, Santos, I firmly believe, is about to become the Republican’s eternal 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, and the Democrat’s oh-so-easy chip-shot . . . to put things into pre-Super Bowl terms.  Come tomorrow, Kevin McCarthy is going to need Santos’ vote in order to become Speaker of the House. He (or whomsoever ultimately wins) will either refuse to give George Santos committee assignments or merely seat him on such duds as The Joint Committee on Printing or the Joint Committee on the Library, on neither of which can he do any harm or gain any press coverage.  Then too, he could resign (possible),be expelled (highly unlikely) or be arrested (there are, after-all, already federal finance cases in the works).  The chances of his ever being reelected are about a million-to-one. The changes of a Democrat replacing him are pretty good.

 No one but true movie buffs and real Hollywood Brats remember Theda Bara, Olga Petrova or Jetta Goudal. They all had their day in the sun, scaled the heights, made their fortunes and wound up living long lives of abundance, far away from the kleig lights of yesteryear. I don’t predict such idyllic circumstances for George Santos. He neither deserves nor or is worth it.

May you reign as the butt of late-night talk show jokes. You’ve certainly earned it.

Wishing one and all a yom slyvester samayach - “A happy Sylvester Day!” which is the Israeli greeting for the secular new year. May 2023 be filled with good health, the ebbing of hatred and increasing santiy.

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

Judah Maccabee Speaks to Congress on Hanukkah

In about an hour, those of us living on America’s East Coast will be lighting the fourth candle of Hanukkah, the Jewish “Feast of Dedication.” In Israel and Kiev, they lit the hanukkiyah (menorah) about 5 hours ago. My sister Erica and her family, who live in Southern California (as do I . . . at least in spirit), will be lighting the candles will be in about 4 hours. Should one ask the question “What is the meaning and purpose of Hanukkah?” and you likely will get a story about the miracle of a single cruse (earthenware pot or jug) of oil lasting a full eight days when there was only enough for a single day. This all took place at the rededication of the second Temple in 164 B.C.E after the Hasmonean Judah Maccabee and his brothers routed the Selucid Empire in their  quest for religious freedom. It’s a quaint story; it’s also no more than a legend, and sadly, paves over the true, historically verifiable miracle (nes in Hebrew) of the commemoration.

This historically true miracle is that in the years 167-160 BCE (Before the Common Era) Judah Maccabee (a priest - a Cohayn), his father Mattathias and brothers (Eleazar, Simon, John and Jonathan) successfully rebelled against and then defeated the mighty Greco Seleucid tyrant Antiochus IV Epiphanes (that’s Greek for “G-d made manifest” . . . quite an egotistical regnal name he gave himself). What made the defeat so miraculous was that Antiochus (also called Epimanes, Greek for “The Mad One”) had the world’s first professional army, whereas Judah and his band were amateur warriors, to say the least. They became the first “army” whose cause was totally ephemeral: not for land, not for largesse, not for women, but solely for religious freedom.  Unlike his Seleucid and Ptolemaic predecessors, Antiochus IV hated the Jews and made their worship an all but capital offense.  Judah and his brothers decided that enough was enough, and managed to beat the pants off of him and his well-paid warriors.  That’s the real miracle.  (Unfortunately, the Hasmoneans (Maccabees) were not nearly as skilled when it came to be leaders in peace as they were leaders during war.  Eventually, they claimed the royal throne for themselves (an absolute no-no for a priest), failed miserably, and invited the Romans to come in and help keep things calm.  Oops!

The Maccabees succeeded first as warriors before they got a chance to lead a nation at peace. In our own time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the son of Jewish parents has had the chance to lead a civil government before becoming a war-time president. Trained to be a lawyer (although he never practiced), coming to early fame as a stand-up comedian and then as a popular television and movie star, he has proved himself to be one of the bravest, most charismatic leaders on the planet. Yesterday, clad in his signature camouflage  sweater and cargo pants, he was visiting troops on the front lines.  Today, after having been spirited out of his country and still wearing the same clothes, he is in Washington, D.C.  He has already met with President Biden, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer and about an hour from now (7:00 PM EST) will be addressing a joint session of the United States Congress.  Unless I am wrong (which I often am), this might be the first wartime address by the head of a government during war since Winston addressed a joint meeting of Congress on December 26, 1941.  

Back then, Churchill warned Congress “You do not, I am certain, underrate the severity of the ordeal to which you and we have still to be subjected. The forces ranged against us are enormous. They are bitter, they are ruthless. The wicked men and their factions, who have launched their peoples on the path of war and conquest, know that they will be called to terrible account if they cannot beat down by force of arms the peoples they have assailed. They will stop at nothing.”

What President Zelenskyy will say is anyone’s guess.  However, I have to believe it will be Churchillian in its scope and power.  .  He will thank us for all we’ve done to date; ask us for more funding, and teach those who do not yet understand, just how important the war in Ukraine is to not only to America, but indeed, the rest of the world.

I’m going to take a pause at this point, light the fourth candle on our hanukkiyah, have a latke or two, and watch President Zelenskyy’s speech to Congress.   He will thank us for all we’ve done to date; ask us for more funding, and teach those who do not yet understand, just how important the war in Ukraine is to not only America, but indeed, the rest of the world.

Back at you in a little over 2 hours . . . . 

. . . It is now 8:30 PM EST. President Zelenskyy finished his speech just a few minutes ago. Although what he had to say was pretty much what I expected, the manner in which he said it, the passion he he brought to his words were thrilling. He made his country’s gratitude for all we, the American people have done, abundantly clear. He said in no uncertain terms that not one cent of the billions of dollars of weaponry we’ve sent Ukraine should be considered a gift, but rather an investment; an investment in the furtherance of freedom and democracy, as well as in the ultimate diminution of Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Zelenskyy proved himself to be a master at holding a room and casting an emotional spell over a diverse audience. It was one of the few times in recent memory when both Democrats and Republicans cheered and applauded with the same gusto. The Ukrainian president told Congress - and the American people - that despite the fact that many, many Ukrainians would be observing the Christmas holiday in underground subway stations, bereft of both light and heat, they would nonetheless, look to the future with hope. He likened their suffering and strength to the Battle of Saratoga in the early days of the Revolutionary War. These are the words of a leader. He also compared the current fight to World War II's Battle of the Bulge.

"Just like the brave American soldiers, which held their lines and fought back Hitler's forces during the Christmas of 1944, brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing this same to Putin's forces this Christmas -- Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender. "

Although he didn’t say anything specifically about Hanukkah, he was definitely speaking in terms of miracles. What the Ukraine, under his stellar leadership, has managed to accomplish in a war against a behemoth - one that was supposed to last but a few days or weeks - is nothing short of a miracle.

Most people are aware that Jewish people engage in doing a bit of gambling during Hanukkah, using a dreidle (a four-sided spinning top. On each face of the top is a single Hebrew letter which represents a word and an instruction on what to do with your bet. The letters nun, gimmel, hey and shin represent the words nes gadol hyah shahm, which stand for “A great miracle happened there.” In Israel, the final letter, shin, is replaced by the letter po, thereby making the message “A great miracle happened here.”

Perhaps we should use both tops this year: one to proclaim that a great miracle happened there (meaning Ukraine) as well as here . . . meaning wherever freedom and democracy fight against heartless aggressive autocracy.

Thank you for your words, your deeds, and your great leadership skills President Zelensky. You yourself are a great part of the miracle.

Indeed, you are our Judah Maccabee!

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone