#981: Splitting Rails and Telling Tales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#980: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• JORDAN AND JOHNSON & TRUMP

• GAETZ AND GOSAR & TRUMP

• TUBERVILLE, HAWLEY & TRUMP 

• STEFANIK, SCALISE & TRUMP

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#978: Caffeine, Crucifixes and Cleavage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the way the rebuttal ends

This is the way the rebuttal ends

This is the way the rebuttal ends

Not with a smile but a sniffle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#977: Putin on 'da Blitz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

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

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

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

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

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

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

In addressing Navalny’s death, President Biden said,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#793: Once Upon a Time In America

      Lullaby and Good Night . . . 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#966 Ken Paxton: Malefactor Of the Year

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

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

#965: Oh What a Week . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As Vanessa Williams noted in a New York Times essay:

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

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

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

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

Oh what a week! 

Copyright2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

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

                 Most of the Cast of “Meet the Johnsons”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#959: Here Comes Mr. Jordan

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Tom Emmer (Minnesota)

• Austin Scott (Georgia)

• Byron Donalds (Florida)

• Kevin Hern (Oklahoma)

• Jody C. Arrington (Texas)

• Jack Bergman (Michigan)

• MIke Johnson (Louisiana)

• Pete Sessions (Texas)

• Dan Meuser (Pennsylvania
  

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

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

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

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

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

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

Why do so many Brits hate Donald Trump?

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

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

A few things spring to mind;

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘My God… what… have… I… created?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     Prof. Laurence Tribe and Judge J. Michael Luttig

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And the other one?” the leader asked.

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

“The Talmudic Argument” by Giuseppe Bonalini

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

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

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

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

        Israeli P.M. Bibi Netanyahu

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

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

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

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

  Protesting Netanyahu as a Threat to Democracy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#946: Senator Potato Head

Were it not that Alabama’s senior senator Tommy Tuberville is single-handedly holding up Senate approval of virtually tens of dozens of Generals, Colonels and Admirals to lead the nation’s military, he might easily be the butt of every late-night talk show host not currently picking up a paycheck from Fox, Newsmax or OAN.  But what he is doing is far from funny.  In matter of fact, he is engaged in one of the most dangerous, mindless and thoroughly unpatriotic of all political ploys in the nation’s history.  What’s gotten the Alabama football coach-turned-senator particularly obstructive and petulant is the Pentagon’s decision to reimburse female service members for travel-related abortion expenses, as many of them are stationed in states that are hostile to reproductive rights. Not only that, he is demanding that these women be confined to base and be disallowed from traveling to another state where abortion is still practicable.

Because the overwhelming majority of upper-echelon military promotions are approved by unanimous consent in the Senate, if even one senator objects, the whole process is derailed.  Tuberville has flatly stated that if senators don’t like his unilateral move they can always vote on each separate officer . . . by on-the-record voice votes . . . which would take months to achieve. For decades, all these vacancies have been filled within a few minutes, thus saving time for the senate to engage in other serious business.

Because of the senator’s “feet-in-concrete” position - putting abortion ahead of America’s military readiness at a critical time in history - the United States Marine Corps will be without a Commandant for the first time in 164 years . . .  since before the Civil War.  The last time the Marine Corps was left without an acting commandant was in 1859, when Archibald Henderson, the fifth commandant of the Marines, died at 76 without a successor in place.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger officially retired on this past Monday, leaving Assistant Commandant Gen. Eric Smith as the acting commandant and leader of the military branch until he is confirmed in the Senate.

It’s unclear when Smith could be confirmed. Tuberville’s hold on the Pentagon nominees, which he began in March to protest the Defense Department’s new abortion policy, shows no signs of weakening, even as the block has sparked bipartisan frustration. In addition to the Commandant’s position, there is that of Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Mark Milley, the current chairman, who retires in September. As of late June, Tuberville’s hold was nearing the beginning of its sixth month. Talk about obduracy!

In a piece he (or a member of his staff or one of his financial supporters) wrote and published in The Washington Post, the former Ole Miss (1995-1998) and Auburn (1999-2008) head coach tried to defend his much maligned move in stating “Acting officials are in each one of the positions that are due for a promotion. The hold affects only those at the very top — generals and flag officers. The people who actually fight are not affected at all.”  This statement all but proves that Tuberville is the dimmest bulb in the lamp, for not only are all those “who actually fight” without official leadership; they are denied the 5.2% pay raise guaranteed in the Defense Department appropriation bill, which is now larded with anti-abortion amendments, thus guaranteeing it will never pass the Senate.

  And what’s more, between 5,000 to 7,400 active-duty service members or civilians employed by the DoD (Department of Defense) have an abortion each year, according to the RAND Corporation. And following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, 40 percent of active-duty female service members live in states where abortion care is unavailable or severely restricted. That’s roughly 18 percent of the active duty military in this country. On top of that, the U.S. military is plagued by alarming levels of sexual assault. So if one happen to stationed in a state with an abortion ban—which may or may not have rape exceptions—the help with travel expenses could be life-changing.

The press has been reporting on Tommy Tuberville’s political shortcomings ever since he first threw his hat into the ring back in 2019. At his first post-election interview, he misidentified the three branches of the federal government (he said they were “House, Senate and Executive”), claimed erroneously that World War II was a battle against socialism, and wrongly asserted that former Vice President Al Gore was president-elect for 30 days. Up until defeating incumbent Senator Doug Jones, he was best known for having defeated in-state rival University of Alabama football team six times in a row and being named Walter Camp Coach of the Year in 2004.  But now, he is getting to be even better known for waging his one-man war against the Department of Defense - at what cost and what purpose no one knows for sure. 

Despite both his fame on the gridiron and infamy in the U.S. Senate, there is still some uncertainty as to the correct pronunciation of  his last name: is it "Tubber-ville” or Tuber-ville?” I’ve heard both. I rather prefer the latter, (Tuber-ville). The first doesn’t work so well; he is anything but physically out of shape. When it comes to mental acuity, he is more like the tuber - a potato or yam or huti huti. Hence the nickname with which I’ve chosen to endow him: “Senator Potato Head.”  

Despite this, the senior senator from Alabama (the junior being Katie Boyd Britt) is no laughing matter; he is a man to be extremely wary of. For not only has he chosen to place a partisan political roadblock in the path of the nation’s military; he has chosen to put service to a sectarian religious creed over service to an historic need . . . namely, keeping the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Merchant Marine far away from politics. And what’s worse, he has also declared that to be a White Christian Nationalist serving in the military is the sign of a patriot.

How very much like a greasy French fry.

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#943: A Scintilla of Sanity?

           Reps. Adam Schiff & Anna Paulina Luna

The way things go these days of future passed (a reference to the Moody Blues, not the X-Men franchise which is, btw, “. . . future past), many hopeful, potentially ground-breaking news stories never make it into the headlines, but rather - as Grandpa Doc used to refer to it - “ . . . just beneath the truss ads on page 47.” Case in point: While virtually every network, cable, and print media outlet made loud, large headlines out of FPOTUS Donald J. Trump’s pleading innocent to 37 federal charges in a Miami court the other day, little to nothing was mentioned about the fact that 20 - count ‘em 20 - House Republicans refused to support Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna’s (née Meyerhofer) censure resolution concerning Democrat Adam Schiff.

Seeking to vault herself into the topflight rank of MAGA extremists (ala MTG, Boebert, Gaetz, and Higgins) the first-term Republican who represents Florida’s 13th C.D. moved to expel Schiff - the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee and lead impeachment manager (prosecutor) in the first impeachment trial of then-POTUS Trump. In addition to seeking Schiff’s expulsion from the House, Luna’s resolution also called for the California Democrat to be fined an astounding $16 million. In introducing H. Res 412, Luna told an empty House chamber: “Adam Schiff lied to the American people. He used his position on House Intelligence to push a lie that cost American taxpayers millions of dollars and abused the trust placed in him as Chairman. He is a dishonor to the House of Representatives . . . The Durham Report makes clear that the Russian Collusion was a lie from day one and Schiff knowingly used his position in an attempt to divide our country.”

(n.b. The “Durham Report,” which was named after Trump-era special counsel John Durham, who was tasked with reviewing the origins of the FBI's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Four years after his probe began, Durham concluded the Justice Department and FBI "failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law" about the events during the 2016 election. He also found senior FBI personnel "displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor toward the information they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities." And he concluded the FBI had relied heavily on investigative leads provided by Trump opponents. 

But much of the information disclosed in Durham's report had already been revealed in a 2019 examination conducted by the Justice Department inspector general into the origins of the FBI's probe into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. That investigation identified several procedural errors, but overall concluded there was no "political bias" at the bureau.)

Outside of attempting to earn some street cred and score some points with her colleagues on the LUNAtic right, I can think of no other reason why the Florida fresher would ever take on a man of Adam Schiff’s stature.  Ever since the days when Schiff, then serving as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California won a major conviction in the trial of Richard Miller, a former FBI agent who spied for the Soviet Union, he has been on virtually every political cognoscenti’s watch list.  In many, many ways, Adam Schiff has always impressed me as the living embodiment of John Cheever’s "Larry Crutchman” (from his brilliant 1958 short, short story The Worm in the Apple): too good, too successful, too even-tempered, too meritorious to be true  . . . at least for cynics.  But like Larry Crutchman, with Adam Schiff, what you see is what you get . . . he’s just that good.  So in what world could a political neophyte like Anna Paulina Luna ever believe she could bring down a congressional colossus like the gentleman from California’s 28th C.D.?

She must have been dreaming . . . or else taking nips from the bottle of MAGA merlot.

In his more than two-decade House career, Adam Schiff has as mentioned above, served as chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence, manager of Donald Trump’s first impeachment, and as one of seven Democratic members of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6, 2021 Attack on the U.S. Capitol. In comparison, Ms. Luna, in addition to trying to expel Mr. Schiff from the House and fine him $16 million, has cosponsored H.Res.113 - Ukraine Fatigue Resolution, (sponsored by Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, which would suspend all foreign aid for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately. She was also among 52 Republicans who voted in favor H. Con. Res. 30, (sponsored by Matt Gaetz) which would remove American troops from Somalia. In baseball terms, Anna Paulina Luna is the Aberdeen IronWorks (the Oriole’s single-A affiliate) challenging the Los Angeles Dodgers and expecting to beat them hands-down.   

In addition to all his accomplishments in the public arena, Adam Schiff is also a truly great writer and a masterly orator . . . when the situation calls for it. (At one point he wanted to be a screenwriter. I personally have had the pleasure of reading some of his stuff through the generosity of his father Ed.)  Adam’s concluding speech before the vote on impeaching Donald Trump the first time has received some of the highest accolades imaginable. He began his speech  with a quote from a letter that Alexander Hamilton wrote to President George Washington, at the height of the Panic of 1792, a financial credit crisis that shook our young nation:

“When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”

He also quoted Abraham Lincoln’s message to Congress in December 1862: “Fellow citizens we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us the fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.”

The response to Chairman Schiff’s speech was - except on the part of Trump supporters in the media - overwhelmingly - even historically - positive:

• Greg Miller national security correspondent for the Washington Post who contended that Schiff is perhaps the most “underestimated” politician California has ever produced, predicted that the speech “will leave a mark on history, exceeding nearly all contemporaries.”

• Richard Stengel, the former editor of Time magazine declared: “When we get back to teaching civics in this country—as we must do—Adam Schiff’s sweeping, beautifully-wrought opening argument, should be on the syllabus.”

• The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin insisted that Schiff had delivered “the most brilliant legal presentation I have heard. None comes close. The tone, the facts, the anticipated defenses. I am in awe.”

• Former Mueller probe investigator Andrew Weissmann, said that Schiff’s speech reminded him of a quote (perhaps falsely) attributed to Lincoln: “’To sin by silence, when they should protest, Makes a coward of men.’ That’s the people who are thinking it’s better to stay silent and ‘I can do better by trying to do the right thing.’ This is really an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment where people really need to stand up.”

• Former Bill Clinton advisor Paul Begala, claimed Schiff’s oratory was, “Sweeping yet specific. Eloquent yet clear. Relentless recitation of damning facts, but with a tone more of sadness than anger. Rooted in our deepest traditions – opening with Alexander Hamilton – yet as current as Trump’s latest tweet. Brilliant.”

And yet, despite all the facts favoring Adam Schiff - at least on paper would have him retaining his seat - the odds seemed long that the MAGA-controlled House would permit Rep. Luna’s H. Res. 142 to go down to defeat.  

And then, something remarkable happened: a scintilla of sanity swept over the House of Representatives. When the final vote was tallied, (20, count ‘em 20) Republicans voted to block the resolution of censure! The final vote was 225-196-7 in favor of killing the measure . . . at least for now. Schiff, in comments after the vote, said he was “frankly surprised.” “And I think it showed a lot of courage for Republican members to stand up to the crazy MAGA folks,” he said “I’m astounded by the vote frankly; it was basically almost 1 of 10 Republicans voted against this resolution,” Schiff later added.  Rep. Luna, who up until the day of the vote Adam Schiff had never met, has promised to come back with another try.

 For the record, the 20 Republicans voting in favor of tabling the resolution were: Reps. Kelly Armstrong (N.D.), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.), Juan Ciscomani (Ariz.), Tom Cole (Okla.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Kay Granger (Texas), Garret Graves (La.), Thomas Kean Jr. (N.J.), Kevin Kiley (Calif.), Young Kim (Calif.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Tom McClintock (Calif.), Mark Molinaro (N.Y.), Jay Obernolte (Calif.), Mike Simpson (Idaho), Mike Turner (Ohio), David Valadao (Calif.) and Steve Womack (Ark.).

Interestingly,  Rep. George Santos, the House “Liar-in-Chief” who hours earlier had posted a video on Twitter arguing that Schiff needed to be investigated, wound up voting “present” - certifying that he was there, but chose not to vote. Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, who voted in favor of tabling the resolution, proved that it is possible for one to do the right thing for the wrong reason. In his statement explaining his vote, he said he would vote against the censure resolution, aligning with Democrats

 “Adam Schiff acted unethically but if a resolution to fine him $16 million comes to the floor, I will vote to table it. (Vote against it) In fact, I’m still litigating a federal lawsuit against Pelosi over a salary reduction she imposed on me for my refusal to wear a mask,” Massie tweeted.

 In other words, Massie couldn't vote for this idiotic censure/expulsion/financial fine measure because it might complicate his equally idiotic lawsuit against Nancy Pelosi. Gift horses, you know. Mouths.

 Whatever their reasons, the fact that one-in-ten Republicans turned against Rep. Luna(tic)’s resolution is a very good thing. Could it indicate that a measure of mental health, a scintilla of sanity has, even if but for a moment, returned to the House of Representatives? Could it mean that for the first time in a long time, merely being opposed to a person’s politics need not mean that the person you disagree with should have their career, their life’s work emblazoned with a scarlet letter . . . or in this case, perhaps, a yellow star?

 One can only hope.

 Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

#941: Ulysses S. Grant, Donald Trump, Kari Lake, Andy Biggs, Voltaire, Isaac Asimov and Stochastic Terrorism

Move over President Grant: As of this coming Tuesday, you will no longer be sui generis . . . in a class by yourself. For the past 151 years you have held the dubious distinction of being the only POTUS to have been arrested. If memory serves well, it was back in 1872 that you were arrested and taken into custody for speeding on a street in the nation’s Capitol. Truth to tell, you weren’t the only one racing a horse-drawn cart that day; a couple of your friends were engaged in competition . . . they likewise were cited. Your bail was set at $20.00 (the equivalent of $500.00 in today’s money) and you were released back to your residence: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The day after your arrest, you didn’t show up in court to answer charges, and thus lost your $20.00. Case closed.

This coming Tuesday (June 13, 2023), fPOTUS Donald J. Trump, along with his ‘Diet Coke valet’ Walt Nauta, will appear in Federal Court in Miami to answer a 49-page, 38-count Federal indictment (read here)  including 31 counts under the Espionage Act of “willful retention” of classified records at his Florida estate and other locations after he left office on January 20, 2021.  The product of more than 6 months of investigation under the leadership of special prosecutor Jack Smith the indictment is extraordinarily comprehensible; a word rarely associated with a Federal indictment  It is also extremely nerve-wracking and makes one wonder just how well the fPOTUS is sleeping. It can’t be very well. I mean, in addition to this latest packet of legal pain, Trump is heading into Miami with two of his best attorneys no longer on the case. He has but one currently working for him . . . far too few for such a hydra-headed beast. Who knows what legal jeopardy all his former attorneys are themselves facing? (Methinks MAGA stands for “Making attorneys get attorneys”).

And he still has all his troubles in Georgia.

In great detail, the indictment recounts how Trump stashed hundreds of documents marked “confidential,” “secret” and “top-secret.”  It also recounts how on several occasions (some were taped) he waved a document around in front of a visitor to Mar-a-Lago, telling them “This is really secret and I know I shouldn’t show it to you but . . .”  Many contained highly classified military and even nuclear matters which, it they found their way into the hands of, say, Russia, China, Iran or North Korea, could be potentially catastrophic. The precise reason why Trump squirreled away all these documents is anyone’s guess:

• For future sale?  

• As a form of “good-faith currency” for future business deals in foreign countries?

• To feed his own ego?

 Last night, Trump addressed several thousand Republican stalwarts in Columbus, GA  at a brick building that ironically, was once an ironworks that manufactured mortars, guns and cannons for the Confederate Army in the Civil War. In this, his first public utterance since the indictment was released to the media, he resorted to using apocalyptic language, tying together a litany of personal afflictions and affronts - his indictments by prosecutors, his utter disdain for the DOJ and FBI, and his bid for the White House - as part of a “final battle” with “corrupt” forces that he maintained are destroying the country. “This is the final battle,” he told his supporters. I use the word “ironic” in describing the building in which he and his acolytes were gathered, because he is, of course, speaking in unguarded terms about a civil war.  

      Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694-1778)

What the fPOTUS is verbally engaged in is what some call stochastic terrorism. Coming from the Greek stochastikos, which means “skillful in aiming” or “proceeding by guesswork,” stochastic terrorism commonly defined as “The public demonization of a person, or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.” To the best of my knowledge it first appeared in an article in the August 9, 2016 edition of Rolling Stone magazine in which author David S. Cohen used the term to describe Donald Trump's suggestion that "Second Amendment people" could "do" something about Hillary Clinton:

Stochastic terrorism, as described by a blogger who summarized the concept several years back, means using language and other forms of communication "to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable."

Long before Donald Trump, there was Voltaire, the French Enlightenment writer and philosopher who understood stochastic terrorism vis-à-vis people like Donald Trump and his MAGAites when he wrote “Those who can make us believe absurdities can make us commit atrocities” ("Ceux qui peuvent nous faire croire à des absurdités peuvent nous faire commettre des atrocités").  Along these same lines, Isaac Asimov, one of our times’ greatest polymaths knew that “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” 

Try as I may, I cannot decide whether the fPOTUS’s mouthiest, seemingly most virulent cheerleaders - people like former Arizona newscaster (and failed 2022 gubernatorial candidate) Kari Lake, Arizona Representative Andy Biggs and Louisiana Representative  Clay Higgins, among others - are really, truly as fixated on the idea of breaking up the United States through violence as they seem . . . or are merely in need of staying on 45’s good side.  Speaking in lieu of former VP Mike Pence at the Saturday gathering in Columbus, Georgia (after Pence, at the last minute pulled out), she told the cheering crowd ““If you want to get to President Trump, you are going to have go through me, and you are going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the N.R.A.”  This is chilling  stuff, to be sure.  This is one wacky woman who has changed political affiliations and religions the way many of us change socks. She used to be a liberal Democrat (voting for both John Kerry and Barack Obama); now she is about as far right as you can get.  She grew up as a Catholic, at one time identified as a Buddhist  according to her friends, and as of 2022, she identified as a evangelical Christian

Then there’s Arizona Representative Andy Biggs, who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance (a most powerful position, considering what’s going on vis-à-vis Hunter Biden’s laptop).  He responded to the 38-count indictment with the words “Eye for an eye,” which he  wrote in a post on Twitter on Friday.  Perhaps the most unhinged stochastic voice out there belongs to Louisiana Representative Clay Higgins.  In a cryptic tweet that prompted thousands of angry responses – and confusion – online, Higgins called the arraignment "a perimeter probe from the oppressors." He also used language interpreted by one author as a call for right-wing militia groups to mobilize in support of Trump when he is arraigned Tuesday in Miami.  

In language that few (including yours truly) can translate, Higgins wrote: “President Trump said he has been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM. This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all.”  Though Higgins did not respond to a request for clarification, author, journalist and professor Jeff Sharlet took his words as a call for war. Sharlet is a scholar who knows of what he speaks: his latest book, "The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War," is an in-depth look at right-wing extremism. 

Parsing/translating Higgins’ highly jargonized tweet, Sharlet  wrote Friday on his Twitter account: “Take this seriously. ’Perimeter probe’: Higgins thinks indictment precedes bigger attack. ‘rPOTUS’: real POTUS, Trump. ‘Hold’: stand back & stand by. ‘Buckle up’: prepare for war. ‘1/50 k’: military scale maps (mostly publicly available that show nearby military installations). ‘Know your bridges’: militia speak for prepare to seize bridges.”

Indeed, we are living in extremely dangerous times. For many intelligent people, it is impossible to see how patriotic citizens could ever bring themselves to vote for such a flawed human being as Donald Trump for president. To understand how this could be, we return once again to the insights of Isaac Azimov:

“When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.”

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti- intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. 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      #🟦

#938: Four Questions #🟦 (Copy)

It’s hard for the approximately fifteen to twenty percent of us - like readers of this blog - who are deeply involved in following “the chess game of politics” to believe - let alone grok - that an astounding 80%-85% of the American public follow it anywhere between “casually and not at all.” The New York Times’ editorial board refers to this as the “attention divide.” According to an astute - though deeply disturbing - editorial published back in October of 2022: “Most Americans view politics as two camps bickering endlessly and fruitlessly over unimportant issues.” If this is true - and I for one have no reason to gainsay their finding - is it any wonder that people like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are being taken seriously as presidential contenders; that more and more state legislatures have passed laws permitting the banning of books in public schools; that at least 14 supermajority Republican state legislatures have passed laws banning drag shows; and that despite more than 60% of those polled supporting a woman’s right to choose, more than 2 dozen state legislatures have already enacted laws banning the medical procedure?.

The precipice at which the American political process - and indeed, Democracy itself - currently lurches, has as much to do with the mega-billions now flooding the undertaking as the quality of its practitioners (at least on one side of the aisle), and the dumbing-down of its content. It’s not that the issues are too complex for the average citizen to follow; it’s more that the average citizen doesn’t feel they have any skin in the game. They don’t know what or whom to believe, and haven’t the slightest idea of what questions to ask of those soliciting their vote. For the 80%-85% who, in the words of the Times’ editorial, follow politics “casually, if not at all,” they can’t tell you why they support candidate X over candidate Y, except for the fact that the former is not the latter. If anyone contemplating suggesting that these folks are, in reality, supporting people who really don’t care a whit about their plight or needs, expect a concussion; this is the typical result of banging one’s head against a brick wall.

I for one long for the day when citizen voters can state positive reasons for supporting candidate X over candidate Y . . . instead of hearing “Well, at least he/she isn’t the other guy/gal.” Perhaps part of the problem is that neither citizens nor members of the professional press ever ask the right questions in such a way as to elicit a response . . . or make the pol at the mike come off as a first-class know-nothing.

Here are 4 questions that should be asked of every candidate at every press gathering or conference:

1. “According to almost every every recent poll - including - Fox News - a clear majority of the American public favors enacting a ban on assault weapons. While 45 percent of those surveyed said they would encourage more citizens to carry guns to defend against attackers, 61 percent said they favored banning assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons. Where do you stand on this issue, and how would you vote on any form of sensible laws concerning lethal weapons in the hands of citizens? And by the way, how much money did you receive from the National Rifle Association in the last election cycle?”

2. “A recent survey found that nearly 60% of registered voters prefer political candidates who will take action on climate change — including more than a quarter of Republicans. Do you see this as a major issue affecting the future of the planet? And if not, why not? How much money did you receive from the oil and gas industry in the last election cycle?

3. Many political analysts have suggested that the Democrats’ surprisingly strong performance in the 2022 midterm elections — which were held about five months after the Supreme Court’s decision which overturned Roe V Wade— stemmed partly from public dissatisfaction with the justices’ ruling. And there’s evidence that Democratic voters in particular were energized to vote because of the change in abortion policy. In recent polling nearly three quarters of adults (74%) and 79% of reproductive age women say that obtaining an abortion should be a personal choice rather than regulated by law. Where do you stand on the issue of a woman’s right to choose? Will you vote to fine and/or imprison women who receive abortions and/or their physicians who perform them? At what age will you vote to cut off abortions?

4. A recent USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds a majority of Americans are inclined to see the word “woke” as a positive attribute, not a negative one. And yet, Republican presidential hopefuls are vowing to wage a war on "woke.” According to this poll, a 56%-39%, majority, say 'woke' means being aware of social injustice, not being overly politically correct. Republican politicians and voters alike have differing definitions of wokeism — and some struggle to define it at all. The rallying cry has recently been used to denounce everything from climate change policies and socially responsible investing to transgender rights, critical race theory, which books must be removed from library shelves in public schools, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Please explain your definition of “woke,” and justify how legislating so many aspects of people’s lives, education, relationships and individual choices is consistent with the classical Republican agenda of smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.

At this point in time, it is more than evident that the gap between Democrats and Republicans is of Grand Canyon proportions. How so? Well, agree or disagree with them, Democrats have a pretty obvious ethical and legislative vision upon which to run. They have pretty clear-cut strategy based on both a a set of ethical principles - such as the moral trinity of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and the furtherance of Democratic values - and concrete political goals such as saving planet Earth for future generations, keeping assault weapons out of the hands of everyone save members of the military, supporting our allies and changing tax laws so that the wealthiest individuals and corporations pay what used to be called “their fair share.” These are all things which can be given expression without having to resort to fear and name-calling. Ask the four questions - or five or six or more - and then demand answers.

On the other side of the political gap, it seems there are no answers to the basic questions - just rhetoric and buzz-terms such as “Socialist,” “Communist,” “Woke,” “anti-religion,” and a laundry list of villains like “George Soros,” “Adam Schiff,” “LGBTQIA+” and pejorative nicknames (“Brandon,” “Sleepy Joe,” and “Pocahontas.”(  Of course, to those of us who love the history of political nicknames, these show little wit and even less tact. Take for example a couple of the best: “Martin Van Ruin” (after America’s 8th president, Martin Van Buren . . . given that nickname after presiding over the “Panic of 1837”); “Rutherfraud” (America’s 19th chief executive, Rutherford B. Hayes who, despite losing the popular vote in the election of 1876 to Samuel Tilden, still managed to win the Electoral College); and “Slick Willie” (obviously Bill Clinton).

I urge all lovers of Democracy and fearers of Führers - whether journalists or just plain citizens - to dig in and ask the four questions at every press conference, town-hall meeting and Passover seder, and not give up until you hear some answers.  And if the questions are avoided or turned into attacks on the other side, remember to ask the best, most obvious follow-up question of all: “Why won’t you answer the question he/she just asked you?”

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone    #🟦

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

Fairbanks & Chaplin: 1918 Wall Street Bond Rally

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

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

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

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

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

Can you say “stalemate?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone #🟦