#983: It’s Lysistrata Time

Vicomte Gabriel de Roton (‘Notor)’s 1898 take on Lysistrata 

Up until last week, most people of sound mind and more-or-less progressive beliefs, considered June 24, 2022 - the day SCOTUS handed down their retrograde decision in Dobbs v. Jackson - the lowest point in American jurisprudence since the 1867 decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford,  which held that . . . “a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves,” whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore did not have standing to sue in federal court.” 

But as of last Tuesday, April the 9th, an absolute new low in American jurisprudence was reached: the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated an 1864 law that would ban nearly all abortions. One should keep in mind that until this decision, abortions were legal in Arizona until 15 weeks; the 1864 law banned abortions in toto.  Can you say “forward into the past?”  For many of us the answer would have to be to be “Yes, we can.”  In 1864, Arizona was a mere territory; there were no paved roads leading to the state Capitol. Its first set of laws - called the Howell Code, contained some pretty antediluvian laws which, if reinstated today, could theoretically  drag the state - if not the entire country - back to the dark ages.  (Eerily, April 9th is also the day - back in 1865 - when General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate troops to the Union's Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, marking thus the beginning of the end of the grinding four-year-long American Civil. Brrr!)

According to the 1864 law, "a person who provides, supplies or administers to a pregnant woman, or procures such woman to take any medicine, drugs or substance, or uses or employs any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless it is necessary to save her life, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than two years nor more than five years." This sits perfectly well with the most fanatical supporters of the so-called “Pro-Life” movement.  For those who have supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade for decades on end for mostly political reasons, it is beginning to cause them sleepless nights; they are beginning to wake up and recognize that they’ve uncorked a bottle from which a malevolent genie has escaped. They are soon going to be facing a significant majority of the distaff voting public who will neither support nor cast ballots for anyone who blindly and ignorantly supports the position that the government has the ultimate right to control women’s bodies, thus delimiting their freedom.  

                  Aristophanes: author of  “Lysistrata”   (446-386 BCE)      

So what is to be done?  What can tens upon tens of millions of women do to politically outmaneuver a bunch of men who seek to control their bodies, their lives, and their very destinies?  I think the answer - believe it or not -  may just lie in a Greek comedy first performed 2,435 years ago (that’s 411 BCE) named after its protagonist: LYSISTRATA.  Written by the brilliant comedic satirist Aristophanes, known variously to history as “The Father of Comedy” or “The Prince of Ancient Comedy,” Lysistrata (λυσιστράτη literally “The one who disbands armies”) is a woman who, along with her friends Lampito, Calorice (Lysistrata’s lieutenant) and Myrhinne (a conventional woman of Athens) organize the entire Athenian sisterhood to end the then 30-year Peloponnesian War, a long (431-405 BCE) and destructive war between Athens and Sparta.   How do the women do it?  Briefly, the women first storm and take over the Athenian Acropolis, thereby controlling the funds required to keep the war going. Next, they proclaim to all the bellicose men of the land that unless the conflict is brought to an immediate end, they - the women - will henceforth deny any sexual congress which, the women well know, is the only thing their men truly and deeply desire.  The men get the message, and before too long, the war comes to an end . . .

A modern theater-going audience or readership can understandably ask “What’s so funny? What makes this a comedy?"  First must understand both the classical definition of comedy and the time in which the play Lysistrata was first mounted. To the classical mind, comedy is a genre that places characters in amusing - even preposterous - situations for the sake of humor. To be a comedy, a piece must end on a happy or ‘up’ note . . . whereas tragedy is the precise opposite; the downfall of a great person. In keeping with this definition, Lysistrata is unquestionably a comedy. Secondly, one must realize that for hundreds of years, Lysistrata - like all stage plays - was performed by a cast made up solely of men for an audience made up mostly of men. It must have been successful; it is still being staged nearly 2,500 hundred years later. Too bad that Aristophanes hasn’t been collecting royalties all these years!

For years, Lysistrata was considered to be so controversial, salacious, and risqué. that it was - and in many cases still is - banned from public libraries.  It is hardly surprising to learn that it was banned by both the Nazis and the Greek Junta (the “Colonels”) that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. In the U.S. Lysistrata was banned for many, many years under terms of the Comstock Law of 1873 . . . which, hauntingly, is once again in the news. This is the federal law that made it “ . . . a crime to sell or distribute materials that could be used for contraception or abortion, to send such materials or information about such materials through the federal mail system, or to import such materials from abroad.” Back in 1873 it was motivated by growing societal concerns over obscenity, abortion, pre-marital and extra-marital sex, the institution of marriage, the changing role of women in society, and increased procreation by the lower classes.

Sound familiar? It should; many rightwing legislators and jurists are looking to breathe life back into it and prop up a growing movement to ban the mailing, marketing, or use of such progesterone blockers as Mifepristone Misoprostol. and Methotrexate - FDA-approved drugs that are used - among other indications - for medical abortions.

I for one find it both fascinating and horrifying that a 151-year-old act could be used to ban both abortifacient drugs and a classic Greek comedy that satirically suggests a remedy for ridiculousness.  And so, to all those - both sisters and brothers - who firmly believe that the government must stay out of our bedrooms or wax theologically over when life begins, please recognize what a powerful and deeply motivating set of issues we possess to unite, fight and expel all misogynists from their platforms of power.  And, although the actions of Lysistrata and her sisters long may be little more than an hour’s bit of cheeky satire, their message, their passion, and their ultimate victory are hopefully here to stay. 

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#981: Splitting Rails and Telling Tales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#980: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• JORDAN AND JOHNSON & TRUMP

• GAETZ AND GOSAR & TRUMP

• TUBERVILLE, HAWLEY & TRUMP 

• STEFANIK, SCALISE & TRUMP

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#978: Caffeine, Crucifixes and Cleavage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the way the rebuttal ends

This is the way the rebuttal ends

This is the way the rebuttal ends

Not with a smile but a sniffle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#977: Putin on 'da Blitz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

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

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

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

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

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

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

In addressing Navalny’s death, President Biden said,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#970: Riddle Me a Riddle

(An introductory note: To the gentleman I spoke with at yesterday’s lecture on the making of “Citizen Kane,” please know that I wish you a successful operation later this week.  R’fuah sh’layma” [a speedy recovery],  KFS)

For more years than I care to remember, my typical workout “uniform” has consisted of a pair of grey fleece sweatpants, thick-soled deep black Sketchers, and an Obama/Biden tee-shirt from the 2008 presidential election emblazoned with the slogan “Yes We Can!” Back in 2008 and  on through 2012, the tee shirt garnered quite a few “thumbs up” gestures from my fellow gym rats. After Trump’s victory in 2016, few people seemed to be bothered by the shirt’s sweaty message. During the pandemic years, I began noting a growing number of “thumbs down” - and even “middle finger” salutes; now that we’ve reached 2024, I am beginning to consider putting my beloved workout shirt into the back of my dresser drawer. It’s gotten that bad . . . and I live in one of the few bright blue counties in Florida!

As I write these words, we are a mere 48 hours away from the first figures hitting the airwaves from snowy, blowy Iowa where the nation’s first caucuses will be winding up.  Whatever meteorological kinks and curves will be thrown into the final tally is beyond anyone’s comprehension.  Suffice it to say that even if, as expected, there will be a lot of citizens remaining home, hunkering close to the fireplace, Donald Trump will emerge victorious.  But regardless of the final statistical count, it is highly likely that Trump’s victory won’t provide him with as much of an  electoral slingshot into the New Hampshire primary as he might have expected even a week ago.  A week ago, network reporters blanketed Iowa, asking voters if, regardless of the non-electoral challenges currently facing Donald Trump that they would vote for him, the answers were overwhelmingly positive.  Most of those interviewed by members of the national media proclaimed that they would vote  for Trump because they trust him, think he is far, far better than anyone else for the economy, knows how to handle world affairs far, far better than Joe Biden, and know that he will be the one person who can keep the United States from a second Civil War.

Unlike voters in past elections, these Republicans aren’t voting for their candidate because of any specific policy proposals, for indeed, outside of pardoning the J6 “hostages,” dismantling the DOJ and FBI, and seeking retribution against anyone and everyone who has ever made their avatar’s life a living hell, there are no policies.  The Trump MAGA campaign is well on its way toward becoming the most negative one in at least the past century.  Instead of  past memorable slogans such as "National Unity. Prosperity. Advancement” (T.R. 1904), "Happy Days are Here Again” (F.D.R. 1932), "The Buck Stops Here” (Truman, 1948), "A Time for Greatness” (J.F.K. 1960) and the aforementioned "Yes We Can” (Obama 2008), what do we have in 2024? It’s "Let’s Finish the Job” for Joe Biden and either "Make America Great Again” or "I Am Your Retribution” for Donald Trump. This pretty much says it all; about as much bipolarity as the Yankees and the Dodgers, the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s, the Jets and the Sharks or, to put my head on the chopping block, between those who act and those merely react.

One of the most telling differences between the nation’s political “approaches” was just summed up in a recently-released Florida Atlantic  University Poll which asked the state’s voters what personality trait they value the most in a presidential candidate. Empathy was dead last, at 4%.  What’s worse is that since the survey’s margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points the true share of people who most want empathy could be close to zero.  Among Democrats, it’s “integrity,” which was the top choice by far, 51%, followed by leadership (20%), intelligence (13%), stability (9%) and empathy (8%).  Among Republicans, the top choice was “leadership,” at 56%, followed by integrity (34%), intelligence (7%), stability (3%) and empathy (0%).  Go ahead; start fearing for the future of the United States.

The Trump campaign, consisting of he who my friend Alan Wald refers to as “The Orange Blob,” and said “Blob’s” 2 sons, are proclaiming over and over and over again that nothing - absolutely NOTHING - has been accomplished on Joe Biden’s watch while, in comparison, everything was just hunky-dory during the days of the Trump Administration.  The litany of accomplishments which Don, Don, Jr., and Eric endlessly stress is that during the Trump Administration, there were “No wars and no terrorists attacks,” both inflation and gas prices were much lower, American leadership was respected around the globe, G-d was in His Heaven and all was right with the world (sorry, Mr. Browning). But since Biden became POTUS (for those who accept this lie, which a majority of Republicans  do not), inflation has gone through the roof, thus wreaking havoc on most retirees retirement accounts; the price of gas and food has skyrocketed, and wars about all over the world. Most, if not all, of these claims can be disproven; they are both factually and morally incorrect.  

Take just a few of these factually absurd claims: in a recent Fox News Town Hall forum in which Donald Trump held center stage (as opposed to being on the debate stage) he asserted: “We had no terrorist attacks at all during my four years.” “I had no wars. I’m the only president in 72 years, I didn’t have any wars.”  For those who want to learn about precisely what did occur during his 4 years in the White House, check out the following Washington Post article.  Then too, there is the Donald Trump, Jr. claim that  there’s not a “single metric” by which “anyone” is better off now than they were three years ago. Say what?  Three years ago – January 2021 – was the deadliest month of the pandemic up to that point – around 80,000 people died from complications connected to Covid-19 that month alone.  CDC data shows that in the week ending 9 January 2021, 25,974 deaths were recorded. For the week ending 9 December 2023, that figure was 1,614. In January 2021, the unemployment rate stood at 6.3 per cent. By last month, that number was 3.7 per cent.

I took a break from completing this essay and went back to researching a clinical trial on a new devise to be used for people diagnosed with Stage 1 diabetes mellitus (caused by inherited factors).  Without getting into the specifics of this trial (they are proprietary), I became rather excited about the prospects of effectively dealing with this costly killer.  Then it dawned on me: one of the greatest things the Biden Administration has accomplished since he took office was the drastic lowering of the price of insulin for the millions of people suffering from diabetes.  Believe it or not _ which MAGA Republicans definitely do not - since 2023, drug manufacturer Eli Lily - with a major push from both the Biden White House and a divided Congress - has lowered the price of Insulin by 70%, which can mean the  difference between life and death for those who suffer. And yet, the Biden campaign has just begun talking about this supreme accomplishment, thus permitting Trump and his MAGA strategists to continue convincing their cult members (many of whom suffer from diabetes) that Biden has accomplished virtually nothing.  These folks know nothing about all the infrastructure programs the Biden/Pelosi-led Democrats have passed which will create hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of good paying jobs in the private sector.    But again, the MAGA Trumpsters refuse to cede a single accomplishment to Biden or the Democrats.  Why?  Because if they did, it might lose them a  couple of votes.

Outside of having a boatload of personal grievances for which he seeks redress, Donald Trump has no platform. Oh, he is still running on building his wall along America’s southern border, repealing the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) “Drill Baby Drill” and hinting at having the U.S. leave NATO. If all of this sounds like the Trump platform from 2016 and 2020, that’s because it is - despite the fact that many things have changed during the first 3 years of the Biden Administration:

• According to a recent Citibank report, “Total gross crude and other liquid exports hit a record of 11.128 million barrels per day, more than the total output of either Russia or Saudi Arabia,” Citi energy analysts wrote on March 1. “U.S. net crude imports fell to lows not seen since the 1950s.”

• According to a recent report from KFF (formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation), “Republican voters are far less interested than Democrats in hearing the candidates talk about the health care law, according to new polling data . . . . Only 32 percent of self-identified Republican voters think it’s very important for candidates to talk about the future of the Affordable Care Act, the poll shows, compared to 70 percent of Democrats. . . . . [Moreover}, opposition to Obamacare is a loser with independents: 62 percent viewed the law favorably.

• According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research’s founder and lead economist Dean Baker “We now have the greatest economy ever. I’m saying that because President Biden won’t, and everyone knows damn well that if Donald Trump was in the White House and we had the same economic situation, he would be boasting about the greatest economy ever all the time. Every Republican politician in the country would be touting the greatest economy ever. And all the political reporters would be writing stories about how the strong economy will make it difficult for the Democrats to beat Trump in the next election.”

These are neither lies nor fabrications . . . unless you are a MAGA devotee who fully believes that Donald Trump is the Second Coming.  Those who are willing to read facts instead of ingest opinions, will find it terribly difficult to understand how the Trump minions can swallow such bilge.  One possible reason is that they are just plain stupid and uneducated.  (Sorry to be so damnably nasty and seemingly superior, but that’s just the way I understand things to be.)

So riddle me this riddle: how are progress and a track record of success against the odds ever going to best retrogression, bald-faced lies and a storied past that never truly existed?  By working our tails off, going to the polls regardless of the weather or roadblocks, and redefining the meaning of just who is a patriotic American.  America is just too precious for us - and for the world - to be taken over by the forces of autocracy and bigotry.  Yes, there is a plague of victimization alive in this country; a plague that can never be cured through clinical research . . . for it is a plague created by the victims themselves.

 Remember: There are just 269 days until Voting Day (November 5, 2024). 

 Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#968: Don't Know Much About History

Political campaigns - especially on the presidential level - are exercises in exhaustion; tense, highly-scripted affairs in which a single slip up, questionable facial expression or obvious misstatement can exact more damage than a 4th-quarter 15-yard penalty or a three-base throwing error in the bottom of the 9th with no outs. Those possessing robust political memories will easily recall that in the 1960 televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon, Richard Nixon’s sweaty upper-lip and generally wan appearance likely lost him the election; ever the showbiz professional, JFK had spent several days soaking up  rays in Hyannis Port and wearing professionally-applied stage makeup prior to the televised debate. By comparison, Nixon looked like a man running a fever.

Then there was 1976, when incumbent POTUS Gerald R. Ford lost his race against Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter when he, Ford, flatly stated “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” (Of course the Soviets did, in fact, occupy much of the region at the time.) Or the 2004 Dean Scream, in which former Vermont Governor Howard Dean emitted a high-volume, high-pitched scream of ebullience (complete with matching body language) while speaking before a group in Iowa.  That scream not only tossed his presidential aspirations on to the trash heap, but essentially brought his national political career to a crashing end.

               The “Dean Scream” (2004)

Indeed, running for political office is not an activity for sissies.  In theory - if not in actual practice - the requisite ingredients for success are knowledge and education; a modicum of grace, charisma; the ability to connect with least part of the electorate; indefatigable drive; the ability to think on one’s feet; and at least the appearance of compassion, humility and charm.  And oh yes, it occasionally helps to have both a platform and a message.  In today’s hyper cyber political world, the platform is, generally speaking, more important to Democrats than Republicans, and visa-versa when it comes to the message.  Unless, of course, one’s platform is an ad nauseum expression of who you or what you are against, while obnoxiously pinning meaningless labels – “Dangerous atheistic Leftists,” “Marxists,” “Socialists,” “Nazis,” or “Wannabe Dictators.” on the other. 

Up until a few days ago, it seemed as if former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley might be the only credible alternative to Donald Trump in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.  Not that she really stood a snowball’s chance in Hades of becoming the party’s nominee; just that she seemed like a a breath of fresh air when compared to the “Man of a Thousand Nasty Nicknames.”  Throughout the sans Trump Republican debates, she came off as poised, easily able to defend herself, reasonably knowledgeable about the issues, charismatic, and not  prone to stepping on her own tongue.  Of course she made it clear that she was a card-carrying conservative, but one with far more compassion and far less craziness than the “leader of the pack.”  Then came last week’s dumber-than-dirt gaff during a town hall forum in New Hampshire, when one of the members of the audience asked her what she believed caused the Civil War:

For those without access to the above YouTube capture, she began her answer with a seemingly humorous quip “Well, don’t come with an easy question.” Then, pausing and pacing the stage, she talked about the role of government, replying that it involved “basically how the government was going to run” and “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do”. She continued with a by-the-book state’s rights opinion: “I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And we will always stand by the fact that I think the government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people, “It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom.” At this point, the questioner said to Governor Haley: “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word ‘slavery.” This prompted a retort from Haley. “What do you want me to say about slavery?” she asked. 

The next day (Thursday 12/28) amid wide reporting of her response and in apparent damage limitation mode, Haley said in a radio interview: “Of course the civil war was about slavery.”

According to the Washington Post, Haley told The Pulse of NH radio show: “I want to nip it in the bud. Yes, we know the Civil War was about slavery. But more than that, what’s the lesson in all this? That freedom matters. And individual rights and liberties matter for all people. That’s the blessing of America. That was a stain on America when we had slavery. But what we want is never relive it. Never let anyone take those freedoms away again.”

 My immediate response to Haley’s comments on “the role of government . . . and the rights of the people” was “Hey Nikki, you want government out of the lives of individuals . . . unless they are women wishing to control their own bodies, members of the LGBT+ community, impoverished individuals or families, anyone in need of assistance, or just generally poor.” This line of reasoning - or lack thereof - intends to say that being gay, poor, a woman who has been raped and a host of other things is a matter of free will. Sorry Nikki, that’s simply not the case.

                   Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

The only major Republican to slam Haley’s response to the question of whether slavery had anything to do with the Civil War was, not surprisingly, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who began 2023 as a rising star in the Republican firmament, and ended it running a distant third. DeSantis was quick to criticize Haley at a campaign stop in Iowa campaign stop Thursday morning, telling reporters that she, Haley, is "not a candidate that's ready for prime time. . . .The minute that she faces any kind of scrutiny, she tends to cave." DeSantis said. He then continued with: "I think that that's what you saw yesterday. Not that difficult to identify and acknowledge the role slavery played in the Civil War, and yet that seemed to be something that was really difficult."

The Florida governor, has been instrumental in radically altering how the Civil War, the eventual abolition of slavery and much American history is to be taught in the Sunshine State. Among his more unreconstructed lesson plans for Florida’s students is teaching that “in many instances, slaves developed skills which, in some instances[sic], could be applied for their personal benefit." Just the other day members of his overwhelmingly conservative legislature begun pushing legislation that will fine and punish local leaders for removing memorials to the Confederacy.

 What’s going on here? Do Nikki Haley, who grew up and was educated in South Carolina (the first state to secede from the Union), and Governor DeSantis, (who earned a degree in history from Yale in 2001), really know so little about American history (among other things)? If that is so, we have every right to assume their favorite song is Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World, which begins with the words:

Don't know much about History
Don't know much Biology
Don't know much about a Science book
Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be 

 If so, than the “You” that Cooke’s lyrics are aimed would have to be the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.  

Outside of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Representatives Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, about-to-become former Representative Ken Buck and about-to-become former Senator Mitt Romney, most of Donald Trump’s Cabinet and the founder, donors and members of the Lincoln Project, (who has already endorsed President Biden), few prominent, office-holding Republicans have spoken out - let alone found fault with - the putative head of their party.  And it’s not because Trump is, unbeknownst to the rest of us, a top-notch leader with a sound mind and a solid record of accomplishment . . . outside of passing the largest tax-cut for the hyper-wealthy American history.  No, for behind closed doors, the men and women who remain publicly silent, likely know precisely what kind of toxic political excrescence he really is.  By their silence they are putting an overwhelming amount of cowardice on display; seemingly preferring a "leader” who bills himself as "your retribution,” over a man like Joe Biden who, although far from perfect, at least has a fifty—year political track record of being on the side of the angels. 

What do all these poltroons of political mediocrity expect in exchange for their silence?  Getting reelected and then sitting on their fat derrieres doing virtually nothing for the nation for another two or four years?  Filling up their saddlebags for the day when they return to the private sector?  They are the shame of the nation, who collectively seek to prove that Sinclair Lewis was wrong: “It Can Happen Here.”  (Then too, perhaps the illusion to the Nobel Prize-winning Lewis is lost on them; they don’t know much about literature either.)    

                                                                           Don't know much about geography
                                                                           Don't know much trigonometry                         
                                                                           Don't know much about algebra
                                                                           Don't know what a slide rule is for

                                                                           But I do know one and one is two
                                                                        And if this one could be with you
                                                                   What a wonderful world this would be 
                                                                             (Written by: Herb Alpert, Lou Adler, Sam Cooke)

It’s a great song . . . when sung by Sam Cooke, but a horrifying reality when hummed by Trump’s legionnaires. 

 Copyright2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#965: Oh What a Week . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As Vanessa Williams noted in a New York Times essay:

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

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

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

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

Oh what a week! 

Copyright2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#964: I Never Met a Banned Book I Didn't Want to Read

Nearly 2 years ago (January 2, 2022, to be precise), I posted essay #873 entitled What do Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield and Harry Potter All Have in Common? In that post, I discussed (railed against, to be honest) Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ push to ban innumerable books from public school libraries which, in his opinion, included dangerously “woke” and “immoral” characters, themes and words. At the time, he was convinced that he could easily defeat former POTUS Trump in the Republican primary by placing himself far to the right . . . on such issues as 6-week abortion bans, outlawing the teaching of Critical Race Theory, and anything that smacked of Woke philosophy.

To me, it is axiomatic that those who decry the danger of teaching “CRT” in public schools (which it almost never has been), principles of WOKE (which most of those who fear it haven’t any idea of its definition or meaning) or of banning hundreds of “dangerous,” “pornographic” or “immoral” books (which few have ever read) are living on another planet.  Somewhere long ago I read an aphorism which states that “A truly great library contains something in it to offend EVERYBODY.”  Having been raised to be a perpetual reader of classics, satires, plays and as much of the  world’s truly great literature as possible (with brief forays into the  likes of P.G. Wodehouse, Raymond Chandler and David Lodge), I have also read the vast majority of books that have been banned going all the way back to the first, Thomas Morton’s 1637 anti-Puritan work New English Canaan, in which he critiqued and attacked Puritan customs so harshly that even the more progressive New English settlers disapproved (and eventually banned) it. Hey, when a book compares you to a crustacean, it’s unlikely you’ll be begging the author for a sequel!  (For those who ask where I ever find the time to read so many books in consideration of my jam-packed schedule, I always answer with a chuckle, It’s one of the only benefits of having Crohn’s Disease!”  For those who have no idea what this means, you may want to familiarize yourself with its symptomology).

So what leads me to return to this topic once again? Has anything truly changed over the past 23 months? Well, yes and no. Here in Florida - the land of sunshine and political insanity - the number of books removed from public school libraries has grown exponentially. In Hernando County, north of Tampa, six picture books were recently removed from school libraries including the late National Medal of Arts winner Maurice Sendak’s classic In the Night Kitchen ("Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! We bake cake and nothing’s the matter!"), and Caldecott-Honor winner David Shannon’s classic No David! Why? For the simple reason that both books have illustrations that show kids’ naked bottoms, or in one case, a goblin’s bare derriere.  Shame, shame!  Can you imagine all the harm it would do for a 6-year old to realize that people - even goblins - have tucheses?

Then there's Collier County in southwest Florida, where more than 300 - count -’em 300 - novels have been taken from the shelves, packed up and put into storage.  Among the forbidden 300 are works by such monsters, atheists and pederasts as Ernest Hemmingway, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor, Ayn Rand, Leo Tolstoy and Alice Walker. 

A confession: I am currently finishing my second reading of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (which is banned from some libraries), and then diving into the literary wonders of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which is banned throughout school libraries in many parts of the United States.  The oh-so-moral harridans of Moms for Liberty need not worry about 10-year olds becoming infected with Anna – one of the first truly liberated women in all Western literature; I cannot imagine too many youngsters will put up with reading any novel of nearly 900 pages that doesn’t star Harry Potter.  

Governor DeSantis has criticized what he calls a “book ban hoax,” but PEN America (founded way back in 1922) said school book bans are on the rise nationally, and that in the 2022-23 school year Florida led the national and was responsible for 40% of them.  A Florida law (HB1467) passed last year by the state’s  Legislature and signed by Gov. DeSantis requires the Florida Department of Education to publish a list of all books objected to by parents and removed in any Florida school district.  The department urged all districts to consult the list.  

It appears to be working; parents are consulting the list and then contacting their local school board in order to have even more books banned. In Clay County (Northeast Florida) a father who leads a group called “No Left Turn in Education,” - has filed hundreds of book objections and told the state he plans to object to no less than 3,600 more.  All those who believe he has read all these books please raise your hand (the right one, not the left).

Before you get suicidal and start contemplating jumping off the front lawn, please read on; it just might be that the book-banners and staunch moralists have gone too far, and are finally beginning to be taken to task by the voting public.

• A Brevard County (East-central Florida) School Board member, backed by Moms for Liberty proposed removing all the books on the Florida list; fortunately, this brought out a lot of angry citizens to a board meeting; the proposal was quashed by a vote of 3-2. 

• A Pennsylvania school board that consistently engaged in banning books and Pride flags, as well as prohibiting transgender athletes from playing on sports teams, managed to slip a last-minute item into their final meeting before leaving office; hastily awarding a $700,000 exit package to the superintendent who supported their agenda. But the Democratic majority that swept the conservative Moms For Liberty slate out of office, hopes to block the unusual — likely illegal — payout and bring calm to the Central Bucks School District, whose affluent suburbs and bucolic farms near Philadelphia have been roiled by infighting for quite some time.  

• While reporting on various “off-year” elections held earlier this month, most political commentators and analysts owed the Democrat’s success to voter concern and anger over the Supreme Courts’ overturning of Rowe v. Wade; about how states with pro-choice amendments on the ballot played a major role in Democratic victories. What many of these same analysts and commentators missed was, at least to my way of thinking, an even bigger and potentially more important story:  the number of Moms for Liberty and Project 1776 -endorsed candidates who went down to defeat in state after state. These progressive successes came mainly in races for local boards of education and state legislatures.  This is big news.

• According to the American Federation of Teachers, groups like these lost close to 70% of the races where they made endorsements. And while conservatives made some modest inroads in places like the Houston suburbs, they fell short in many of the most high-profile races in swing states like Pennsylvania – where Democrats swept several school boards while rejecting the culture war – as well as Iowa, Ohio and Virginia.

  So why did so many Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidates perform so poorly? For one thing, their agenda was simply too extreme for most voters outside of the deepest-red districts. National polling from earlier this year found that the majority of Americans oppose book bans, trust teachers to make curricular decisions, and think schools should teach the history of slavery, racism and segregation.

  This dynamic was reflected in the repudiation of figures like Teri Patrick – a school board candidate in West Des Moines, Iowa, who once fought to criminally charge a school district because its library had two books about LGBTQ+ issues. Patrick was endorsed by Moms for Liberty but crushed in the election, receiving a measly 9% of the vote

  .

Hopefully, these are all good omens. As the late Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O'Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” Let Democracy work its way up from the town to the county to the state and eventually the both houses of Congress and the White House itself.

And getting back to books, let’s conclude with a thought from that most beloved of all American writers, Mark Twain, whose Huckleberry Finn is high up on nearly every list of literature that must never be read by a child: 

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     Prof. Laurence Tribe and Judge J. Michael Luttig

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#939 A Majority of One #🟦

Besides being the title of both a superb Broadway play that ran for 556 performances back in the late 1950s, and an even better motion picture that garnered 3 Golden Globes in 1962, A Majority of One, as a concept, doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. I mean, when you stop and think about it, isn’t a “majority of one” a rather clunky way of saying “unanimous?” It seems to be the living-breathing definition of an oxymoron.  I mean, how can a single “yeah” or “nay” vote be a majority? Actually, there has long been one place where a single vote can defeat unanimity: the United States Senate. 

Ever since 1846, the nation’s upper legislative chamber has  operated under terms of what are called the "Unanimous Consent” agreements.  As the senate website explains, these agreements "bring order and structure to floor business and expedite the course of legislation.”  Anyone who watches CSPAN has repeatedly heard an individual senator begin the day’s work with the words "I ask unanimous consent that the Senate dispenses with the reading of the previous day’s minutes.”  Then, the chair will silently count “One Mississippi, two Mississippi,” bang down the gavel and move on to the next item on the agenda . . . which may or may not call for a unanimous consent agreement.  No minutes will be read, thus saving the body from wasting at least an hour-and-a-half of its supposedly precious time. 99.999% of the time, that’s the way things work.   Rarely in its history has a single member of the United States Senate availed him/herself of right to hold up legislative action by being the sole individual to object to the unanimous consent agreement. This more often than not was done by a Southern member seeking to slow things to a deadly halt during the Civil Rights era.  

Frighteningly, a new and utterly eerie form of “Unanimous Consent” has begun emerging in political society, wherein a single citizen objects to something going on in the state, county, or town that gets the powers that be to pay immediate heed. Two cases in point: both of which involve book banning in Florida, the state where I have resided (not truly lived) for the past 41 years.

The first involves Amanda Gorman, the 25-year old poet, Harvard graduate, the nation’s first “Youth Poet Laureate” and youngest person to ever read a poem at a presidential inaugural. That poem, The Hill We Climb, immediately went viral, thus marking her as a dazzling literary talent who, like Emily Dickenson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath as well as Thoreau, Sandberg and Emerson could easily become, in her time the American poet. What all these great poets had in common was an ear attuned to their own time and station, as well as being the quintessence of America.  The two things they did not share with one another was that they were neither African American, nor visible to millions via YouTube.     

Ms. Gorman composed the poem on short notice; she was invited to serve as inaugural poet in late December 2020. During such challenging times this was no small task. Gorman, as befitting a Harvard alumna, conducted preliminary research by reading the poems of previous inaugural poets (and talking to two of them, Richard Blanco and Elizabeth Alexander) and studying speeches of famous orators such as Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Winston Churchill. As reported by The New York Times, Gorman had completed about half of the poem when the January 6 events unfolded at the U.S. Capitol. The events spurred her to finish the poem late that night, with several new lines alluding to what had transpired. 

Despite all her breath-taking talent, her having taken center-stage at both a presidential inauguration and the U.N, General Assembly, a single parent’s complaint about her inaugural poem resulted in her book containing that poem being pulled from the library shelf in a Miami-Dade County (Florida) school.  The parent making the complaint (Daily Salinas) alleged that the book in which the poem was included, ". . .  would cause confusion and indoctrinate children.”  What precisely it might "indoctrinate” them into was never stated.  The form Ms. Salinas filled out in her complaint/warning wasn’t even filled out properly: for one question, asking whether she has seen professional reviews of the materials, she replied, "I don't need it."  She also claimed that the book was both written and published by Oprah Winfrey! (In reality, Ms. Winfrey wrote the forward).  Nonetheless, the book was pulled from the library shelf at the Bob Graham Education Center, the school where her two children attend. Despite all the flaws in both Ms. Salinas’ thinking and  paperwork, the book was put under a ban; neither the principal, school librarian nor many of the teachers wished to place their careers in jeopardy.  And so, a majority of one had its way.

The second instance of a “majority of one” removing a book from a public school library shelf - by a single complainant  -  recently occurred when the Duval County (Jacksonville - the state’s largest city) Board of Education removed some 176 books from their libraries.  The list of banned books includes stories of people who are Hispanic, LGBTQ, Asian, Muslim, Black and Native American, among others.

And by the way, there is one more group: Jews who observe Shabbat. 

The censored book, Chik Chak Shabbat, by Mara Rockliff and Kyrsten Brooker has an intended audience of kids who are 7 years old and younger. (And from here, I owe a debt of extreme gratitude to my colleague Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin - a most enlightened scholar whose many online essays [Martini Judaism] are brilliant).

Chik Chak Shabbat is the tale of a woman named Goldie Simcha. Normally, she makes her famous cholent (stew) for the Jewish sabbath, but as the book opens, she is under the weather. Hence, the neighbors in her diverse apartment building find a way to help. The book is categorized by online booksellers as being appropriate for preschool through second grade.  

What could possibly be wrong with a book about making a Jewish stew for Sabbath? (Cholent is a stew that observant Jews eat on Shabbat. It is a mixture of meat, beans, potatoes and anything non-dairy one might find in the fridge or a kitchen cabinet. You light the fire on the stove before Shabbat, so as not to violate the prohibition of starting a fire on the holy day, and then let it cook. It continues cooking, slowly, of its own free will throughout Shabbat.

Cholent is the bipolar opposite of fast food. You cannot do it chik chak, (Israeli slang for “in the wink of an eye”).  I’m not sure what in the world the members of the Duval school board found to be SO damnably controversial about this book other than the fact that (a): the cholent was made by a bunch of diverse people all working together to help Goldie (nascent Communism?) and that (b), most of them - including Goldie - are immigrants . . . outsiders. Whatever it was that bothered the members of the school board (whether they had, in fact, read it or not), was enough to pull Chik Chak Shabbat off the school shelves. Another instance of a majority of one (in this case, one school board).

A Majority of One, written by Leonard Spigelglas, tells a gentle tale of a middle-aged Orthodox Jewish widow (played on Broadway by Gertrude Berg and in the film by Rosalind Russell) and a Japanese multi-millionaire industrialist who is a practicing Buddhist (played on stage by Sir Cedric Hardwicke and in the film by Sir Alec Guinness). The unlikely couple have two things in common: both widowed, and both lost children during WWII . . . her only son was killed while serving in the Pacific Theatre; his only daughter in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  Despite their deep-seated cultural aversions, they manage to become friends - and more - through learning the lessons of tolerance, kindness, and forgiveness.  Against all odds these vastly dissimilar people become “a majority of one.” A great - though nearly impossible - lesson for our present time of political, cultural and demographic insularity.

                        H.D. Thoreau (1817-1862)

The likely origin of “a majority of one” comes from a poet mentioned above: Henry David Thoreau. In his 1849 essay Civil Disobedience, Thoreau argued that citizens must disobey the rule of law when the law proves to be unjust. Thoreau drew on his own experiences and explained in his essay why he refused to pay taxes in protest of slavery and the Mexican War. Thoreau wrote that there are two laws: the laws of men and the higher laws of God and humanity. If the laws of men are unjust, then one has every right to disobey them. He is, of course, referring to an eternal, universal moral law, not one which is either temporal or purely political. The most telling line in the essay - and the one best remembered in light of this blog article reads: " . . . any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already."

It should be noted that Thoreau’s “moral majority” has virtually nothing to do with that of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell; his “moral majority” was based not on universal principles, but rather a narrow view of American society as seen under the flawed microscope of fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity . . . for the sake of partisan political gain.

Banning books, making immigrants, refugees, members of the LGBTQ community and other “undesirables” the scapegoats of the present time is yet another form of a “majority of one.”  In this case, the “one” is the  “one way” to understand how society must be if it is to survive. And it matters not a fig if the vast majority disagree; the “majority of one” will always live, act and believe that they - and only they - have God on their side.

One of my all-time favorite British comedies is Are You Being Served? which ran on the BBC from 1972-1985.  It dealt with the misadventures of the staff of a retail floor at “Grace Brothers” Department Store.  Filled with stereotypic (at least for Brits) characters - the fey Mr. Humphries, sexy Miss Brahams, curmudgeonly Capt. Peacock and batty Mrs. Slocomb - the half-hour show was filled with hijinks, incomprehensible Cockney and more malaprops, double-entendres and catch-phrases than can be found in all the works of Sheridan, Shaw and Oscar Wilde. My favorite of all comes from the opinionated Mrs. Slocomb (Molly Sugden) who, whenever voicing her opinion, would conclude by saying "And I am unanimous in that!”

Sounds hauntingly like the cast and crew of MAGA . . . 

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.     #🟦