#1,043: Misreading the Bard of Avon

                   Wm. Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon

It’s simply amazing how many epochal, history-making events can pile up when you stay away from the news for a single week - a mere 168 hours. First and foremost, there was that horrific storm surge that took the lives of oh so many children, along with their parents and camp counselors in a tiny Texas county, not to be overshadowed by the boorish, nonsensical response from Felon47 . . . praising state leaders for their heroic efforts, all the while telling the nation that no one could have predicted a “once-in-a-thousand-year storm.” (n.b. Yes, I know, it now seems that we suffer through a “once-in-a-thousand-year storm” about twice a year.)

Next came the meeting of two world leaders (‘47 and Netanyahu), the latter of whom gave his full-throated endorsement of the former, for the Nobel Peace Prize. Upon hearing this, my morning tea literally started dripping from my nose.  I mean, ANYONE nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Bibi Netanyahu has got to have a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning.  (President T, I would remind you that only 4 of the Nation’s Chief Executives have ever won that award, and despite what you may think of yourself and your actions, you are neither Theodore Roosevelt nor Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter nor Barak Obama.  Can we get a bit of agreement on that salient point?)

Things were so bad during this past week  when I  was paying attention to nothing but my wife’s cardiac surgery that even my beloved Dodgers went on a 7-game losing streak . . . their longest since 2017.  C’mon guys you really didn’t have to do that.  I mean, getting outscored 52-17 over the 7 games, including an 18-1 drubbing by the Houston Astros?  And at Dodger Stadium in front of more than 50,000 fans?   

Getting back to the news I missed,  there was also

•  IT turning on President Putin for being a bully (in other words, finally realizing that the Russian dictator has long considered him to be nothing more than a “useful fool”);

• The utter idiocy of Secretaries Noem and Hegseth, both of whom should find a hallowed spot in the Guinness Book of World Records;  

• The now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t rise and fall of tariffs against our supposed friends;

• Threatening a 35 percent tariff on many goods from Canada, in part because of the country’s role in allowing the flow of fentanyl into the United States. (FACT: Canada makes up just 0.2% of US border fentanyl seizures.)

• The number of lower court judges who have ruled against the regime on every move under the sun ranging from POTUS’ right to singlehandedly eliminate “birthright citizenship” to using ICE to pick up people of color and jail them without any due process;   

• The DOJ’s move to sit on (and utterly deny) the -called “Epstein Files,” which would implicate IT (and a swarm of very, very famous, salacious men) in sex trafficking and having a grand  and finally,

• SCOTUS inoculating POTUS with a legal shield that makes Pumpkin Punim all but immune to any FEDERAL legal charge(s).

It’s this last issue - SOCTUS’ voting 6-3 (so what else is new?) to indemnify their all-time favorite tyrant from any legal trouble - that brings to mind perhaps the best-known (and least understood) line from Shakespeare’s 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 3 long narrative poems . . . this one  coming from Henry VI, Part II, Act 4, Scene 2 . . . where one of the enemies of King Henry, Jack Cade, is told by one “Dick the Butcher” that the solution to all their problems is “The first thing we must do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”  

I cannot tell you how many times I have read or heard people quote this verse without know either:

• Its source of origin, or

• What Shakespeare is doing his very best to say.  Is he really, truly in favor of rubbing out all lawyers . . . or is he being ironic . . . or is it something that few people get?

             The Family’s Avon Edition of Shakespeare (1878)

Before we get into Henry VI, Part 11 and what that famous line of Dick the Butcher means in terms of today’s politics, a bit of transparency: while I am not what you would call a Shakespearean scholar, the Bard has been a  part of our family’s life for several generations.  In each generation, one member of the Hyman/Kagan/Schimberg/Stone clan is given the honor of holding on to (and reading) our family’s one-volume Avon Edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare.  It has been in the family for precisely 147 years.  I received the honor of holding on to it a little over 40 years ago.  And so, while I can claim to have read much of what the Bard of Avon wrote, taken numerous classes, seen quite a few stage productions, and screened what I consider to be the best of his filmed works for my students, I am nothing more than an extremely avid amateur.   

 The context in which Dick the butcher utters this most famous (or infamous) of all Shakespearean phrases is key to understanding its true meaning. And there still are several possible readings.

This is where the quote lies, in dialogue:

JACK CADE: Valiant I am.

SMITH [aside]: A must needs; for beggary is valiant.

JACK CADE: I am able to endure much.

DICK [aside]: No question of that; for I have seen him whipp’d three market-days together.

JACK CADE: I fear neither sword nor fire.

SMITH [aside]: He need not fear the sword; for his coat is of proof.

DICK [aside]: But methinks he should stand in fear of fire, being burnt i’ th’ hand for stealing of sheep.

JACK CADE: Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hoop’d pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass: and when I am king,– as king I will be,–

ALL. God save your majesty!

JACK CADE: I thank you, good people:– there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

DICK: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.

                  Jack Cade and Dick the Butcher (The BBC)

Dick is a villainous character—he is a large, threatening murderer, and he is also the right-hand-man of Jack Cade, who is leading a rebellion against King Henry. Cade and Dick are aggressively anti-intellectual; they kill anyone who can read and burn all the books and documents they encounter. They know that they’ll be able to take over an ignorant population with greater ease than one where everyone understands their rights.

One reading of this strange quote suggests, therefore, that society could not exist in a state of fairness and peace without the protectiveness of both the law and its staunch guardians. Dick is suggesting that, in order for their coup to prevail, they must eradicate society of the very defenders of justice who could both stop the revolt he intends to help spur, and then remove the power he hopes to grab for Cade. Understood in this way, Dick the Butcher is a combined Stephen MIller/Pam Bondi to Jack Cade’s IT.  Cade is so warped that when his personal thug (Dick the Butcher) rapes a Sergeant’s wife, and the Sergeant reports it to Cade, Cade orders the Butcher to kill the Sergeant as well. This is one bloodthirsty dude.

All this suggests that when the Bard puts the words “. . . let’s kill all the lawyers” in the mouth of Dick the Butcher, Shakespeare is actually representing lawyers as the most fundamental defense against the grossest manifestations of power-hungry antics wrought by the scum of humanity.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens actually shared this reading of the line, even analyzing it in a 1985 decision: “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.”

But, as scholar Daniel Kornstein notes in his book Kill all the Lawyers: Shakespeare’s Legal Appeal, this quote could also have been a class-focused criticism of lawyers, a group of professionals committed to securing the interests of the wealthy. Cade is a laborer and longs to overthrow the oppressive upper-classes, and Dick recognizes that lawyers stand in their way.  This is a far more obvious (though IMHO incorrect) interpretation of what Shakespeare had in mind.  

It turns out that “Let’s kill all the lawyers” is a terribly convoluted phrase that (somehow always) refers to the importance of maintaining a fair rule of law that protects the people. But whether lawyers are mere symbols for evil or good is almost irrelevant; the most important thing about this quote is the upholding of a fair and just legal system, itself. Today many are striding (while others are goosestepping) down a perilous pathway in which lawyers can be protectors of justice and enemies of both anarchy and autocracy one moment, then protectors of the hyper-wealthy and enemies of both democracy and the entire legal system itself the next.  It is all so damnably difficult to understand.  Honesty, empathy and civility are in short - or near nonexistent - supply. A misguided sense of fealty has made voiceless,  irresolute cowards of far too many.    

After taking a week off from the news to attend to my wife’s health, I am also reminded of another Shakespearean character:  Ariel, the free spirit in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, who famously said, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

Nonetheless, as we say in Hebrew, גם זה יעבוֹר (gahm zeh ya-ah-vore), meaning “This too shall pass.”  It is said when times are terribly difficult and filled with anxiety. And we mean it. Interestingly, however, it is also said when things are going swimmingly.  It proclaims a balance; nothing lasts forever. Make no mistake about it: this evil era will one day pass; when, no one knows.  But we can help make it happen not by “killing all the lawyers,” as Dick the Butcher would have it, but rather by girding ourselves with greater civility, empathy and inner strength.  And by keeping our mouths open . . .   

For those who want to express themselves, this coming Thursday, July 17, 2025, there will be nationwide protests. If you would like to join in the fight to uphold the Constitution and end executive overreach (and perhaps make the TACO and his gang squirm and shiver, go to FiftyFifty One and find where the closest protest to your home, school, or work will be happening.

Good Trouble Lives On!

Copyright©2025 Kurt Franklin Stone

#1,042: Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus

                     The “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” 

The Latin expression falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is a vintage legal principle found mostly in English common law. Literally translated as “false in one thing, false in everything,” it was long the basis for a trial strategy which held that if a witness or defendant was found to have been untruthful about one part of their testimony, the reliability of their entire testimony could then be called into question. In a sense,  falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus sums up in just 6 words what Aesop’s fable “The Boy (or Shepherd) Who Cried Wolf” was getting at.  (n.b. Many contemporary jurisdictions have abandoned the principle as a formal rule of evidence, applying instead the rule as “permissible inference that the jury may or may not draw.”  So far as I know, the last time falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus was applied in a major case was back  in 1995 in The People of the State of California v. Orenthal James  [O.J.] Simpson, where Judge Lance Ito instructed the jury that a “witness who is willfully false in one material part of his or her testimony is to be distrusted in others.”)

Despite the paragraph above, this post is not about the history of common law, Latin phraseology, or the O.J. Simpson case.  Rather, it seeks to explore the world’s leading epitomization of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus: the 47th POTUS.  While a heck of a lot of the American public is effusively praising him for Saturday night’s pinpoint Operation Midnight Hammer bombing raid on Iran’s 3 major nuclear facilities (Isfahan, Natanz and Fordo), there are just as many Americans (both Jewish and non-Jewish) who are asking Why now?, What’s next?, Is there an exit strategy? and What role did/does political optics play in the attack?  

The main target of the bombing operation was the Fordo nuclear site, which is located roughly 300 feet under a mountain about 100 miles south of Tehran. It's a move that Israel has been lobbying the U.S. to carry out for quite some time, given that only the U.S. has the kind of powerful "bunker buster" bombs capable of reaching the site. Known as the GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator), the bomb can only be transported by one specific U.S. warplane, the B-2 stealth bomber, due to its (i.e. the MOP’s) immense 30,000 pound weight. In his address to the nation announcing the operation, It was accompanied by the V.P, the Sec. of State and the Sec. of Defense.  Chillingly, not a single member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were present . . . a clear indication that political optics were more important than strategic concerns.  He also called the operation a "spectacular military success” and claimed that Iran’s nuclear capability “has been obliterated.”  I may not know sprat about military tactics or weaponry; what I do know is that it is virtually impossible to make such a robust judgment within a matter of hours.  We have every right to be dubious.  Remember, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.  

Not only did POTUS give his patented “thumbs up” to the mission; he did so without consulting Congress.  I guess he isn’t aware (or even worse, care) that there’s been a War Powers Act on the books for the past half century.  This resolution, passed by congress in 1973, limits POTUS’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad. As part of our system of governmental “checks and balances,” the law aims to check the executive branch’s power when committing U.S. military forces to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress.  Already, some lawmakers in both parties are questioning the legality of the mission.  Remember back in late 2024 when IT  repeatedly claimed that if Kamala Harris were to win the election, that she’d get the U.S. embroiled in a war within a year?  Well, he managed to do it within 6 months. One Republican House member, Kentuckian Thomas Massie, responded to POTUS’s announcement of the strikes in 4 words: “This is not Constitutional.”  Massie also introduced a bipartisan resolution seeking to block U.S. military action against Iran “unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran” passed by Congress.  ITs response?  “[Rep. Massie is] a lazy, grandstanding nonproductive” politician. 

In a penetrating response to the president’s action, Atlantic columnist (and former Bush 43 speechwriter) David Frum   noted: Trump did the right thing, but he did that right thing in the wrongest [sic] possible way: without Congress, without competent leadership in place to defend the United States against terrorism, and while waging a culture war at home against half the nation. Trump has not put U.S. boots on the ground to fight Iran, but he has put U.S. troops on the ground for an uninvited military occupation of California.

While ITs air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities may have been, from a strategic point of view, both flawless and precise, it leaves one feeling “we’ve all seen this before.”  One up-and-coming political influencer,  Glee Violette, noted in a recent online post: “When Kamala Harris roared on the scene, and Trump's campaign flagged, he had a ‘miraculous‘ incident, thanks to God himself. But it was only miraculous for HIM. A fan of his died. A family was destroyed. . . Still, later in the campaign there was a second such incident. Inside his own golf course. The only real result of this was that the head of Trump's Secret Service detail, who had total control of BOTH venues, and who should have been fired for gross incompetence, was instead promoted to head the entire Secret Service for Trump after his inauguration.”

In other words, when things start swirling around Felon47’s toilet bowl, he and his puppet masters do everything in their power to turn public attention away from reality. Think about it: in the week just prior to Operation Midnight Hammer, ITs reputation and polling numbers started swirling and spiraling downward. His birthday parade was shunned and shamed and he ended up looking ridiculous. Meanwhile millions upon millions of Americans gathered in places both metropolitan and rural for peaceful “NO KINGS DAY” protests. If that wasn't bad enough, two days later he got shut down at the G7, and his exit, rather than looking like a show of strength, looked like a childish tantrum.

He immediately went on the defensive, huffing that he had left the G7 because he was NEEDED back in Washington. He had something even BIGGER than the Mideast crisis to deal with. “This is not about IRAN”, he said. “Much much BIGGER. Wait until you hear about it!” And so, the next day he had contractors erect two HUGE flagpoles on the South White House lawn, thereby making helicopter take-offs and landings next to impossible. When he was reminded that by law, no American flag can be flown after dark unless it has a source of electric light, it made him even more of a laughingstock. Then he - who had run in 2024 pledging to never get America in to a war - announced that he would make a decision as to what our response would be to Israel’s air attack on Iran within 2 weeks. instead, it took him all of 2 days. I guess this means that he’s as bad at math as he is at telling the truth. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________, 

it is now more than 2 1/2 hours since I wrote the words falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.  During that time I took my daily walk where I attempt to take no less than 10,000 steps.  Mission accomplished.  Upon returning, toweling down and chugging a bottle of Gator-Aid (grape is my favorite) I, like you, learned that POTUS had gone on TV to announce a “complete and total” ceasefire between Israel and Iran. I myself am fascinated - though not overly surprised - that POTUS’s announcement caught his own top officials off guard.  He really wants to have the world see him as the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1906, for having negotiated peace in the Russo-Japanese war in 1904-5.  Sir, there’s a big difference: Theodore Rex worked hand-in-glove with his State Department; he wasn’t a one-man show.  The only thing you have in common is that both of you were born in New York State.

As good and hopeful as this truce sounds - and I for one pray that IT is telling something resembling the truth - I am adopting a "wait and see” attitude.  Middle East politics, especially when it involves such powerhouses as Israel and Iran, isn’t a feel-good movie with a requisite happy ending.  It isn’t some treacly comedy plotted by the likes of a Neil Simon or Mel Brooks; rather it is more akin to the convoluted, absolute absurdism of a Luigi Pirandello, Samuel Beckett or Eugène Ionesco.  While we can - and likely should - applaud the possibility of this ceasefire, we should, at the same time, be painfully aware of what diplomacy is: the process and practice of communication and negotiation between actors in the international system with the aim of achieving their goals and resolving their historic conflicts, disputes and utter lack of mutual trust. Let’s face it: DJT ain’t no T.R.; Bibi Netanyahu ain’t no Itzhak Rabin.   

The U.S. will not - and likely cannot - be totally honest and impartial brokers in the diplomatic process between Israel and Iran.  Remember: IT, in one of his first acts during his first term, formally (and loudly) withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal (a.k.a. the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”) in May, 2018.  In announcing his decision to end U.S. participation in the deal, the White House Press Office quoted him as saying “The Iran Deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”  How’s that for a hyperbolic statement?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It is now Tuesday morning, June 24.  I decided to wait another several hours until continuing this essay, so I could be as up-to-the-minute as possible.  Right now I feel like a sportswriter attempting to write about a tennis match that’s in progress; the height of futility. Overnight the “truce” between Israel and Iran proved to be extremely fragile. In the hours before the cease fire was to go into effect, Tehran  was pounded by the most intense and sustained airstrikes since the war began 11 days ago.  Close to sunrise, the attacks came to an end, according to four residents in different parts of the city. POTUS responded by lashing out sharply, criticizing Israel for firing on Iran “right after we made the deal” and said that the two adversaries didn’t know what they were doing.  In his late-night communication with the White House, Israeli PM Netanyahu’s office said that Iran had fired missiles after the cease-fire took effect.  In a Truth Social post, IT said that Israel “is not going to attack Iran” and that “all planes will turn around and head home.”

And so it goes.

The world waits, watches and prays.  If the cease fire holds, I will be happy to give Pumpkin Punim his props.  But . . . and it’s a big but . . . the proof of its efficacy won’t be known for decades . . . or until the I.A.E.A. can send in a team of inspectors to do a comprehensive assessment of Iran’s nuclear program and determine what it has done with all its fissionable material. 

I just hope we will be alive to sing Oseh Shalom bimromav with conviction and glee . . . 

 Copyright©2025 Kurt Franklin Stone

#1,040: The "Best and Brightest" Are Now "The Bottom of the Barrel"

                 Lt. (J.G.) Harvey Milk (1930-1978)

There is no absolute certainty as to where the expression “the best and brightest” comes from. Most sources believe it was originated by the former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (1916-2009) who served under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson at the height of the Cold War. Prior to his 7+ years (1961-1968) as head of DOD, McNamara worked for the Ford Motor Company, eventually becoming the first president from outside the Ford Family since its initial leader, John S. Gray, in 1903. When McNamara took over as chief of production at Ford, he created a staff of whiz kids who shook up what was then a dying corporation with modern business and analytical methods.  He then brought many of these young people (among whom were Harold Brown [himself a future Sec. of Defense], Adam Yarmolinsky and Wiiiam Kaufman)  into government.  

McNamara used the phrase “best and brightest” when talking about his tenure at Ford in the 2004 Oscar winning documentary The Fog of War.  The phrase became a pejorative because of David Halberstam’s 1993 book of that title, which detailed how the best and brightest nonetheless got us into the quagmire of Viet Nam. Sadly, after that book, the phrase was mostly used ironically . . . or sarcastically. (n.b. It has long been my belief that the phrase goes back to best of all British comic novelists, author P.G. Wodehouse, in his 1921 wheeze, Jeeves in the Springtime.  I for one still use the term in its non-sarcastic Kennedy-era meaning . . . indicating the most capable people to work with.”

Which gets us to the current era.

One will recall that during the presidential campaign of 2016, Pumpkin Punim repeatedly boasted that if elected, he’d “surround myself only with the best and most serious people” - adding; “We want top-of-the-line professionals.”  We know how that solemn oath turned out: during his first 18 months of his presidency, myriad members of his cabinet and senior staff departed - often under suspicious circumstances (remember Paul Manafort, General Flynn and Carter Page?).  Less than 2 years after taking his first oath of office, nearly half of ITs cabinet and close advisors had either resigned or been fired . . . leaving in their wake a panel of “acting” secretaries who did not require Senate approval. 

 His second term can easily be summed up by a silly line from Herman’s Hermit’s 1965 smash hit I’m Henry the Eighth I Am (which, unbelievably, dislodged the Stone’s I Can’t Get No Satisfaction from the top of the billboard chart):  Second verse, same as the first. . .

 Felon 47’s second cabinet is, if anything, even more incompetent and less reflective of the American public than the first. The tie that binds them together is neither prior governmental experience nor the urge to serve; rather, it is lucre and loyalty . . . and ofttimes, a link to Fox News.  Unlike JFK’s and LBJ’s “best and brightest” these men and women are the bottom of the barrel. Just consider that:

• His initial pick for Attorney General, then-Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, withdrew his name from consideration after facing intense scrutiny of allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. in late May, the disgraced Gaetz said he was considering a run for Governor of Florida.

• David Richardson, the person named to head FEMA baffled his staff after admitting he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season. Richardson, who has no disaster response experience made this comment on the second day of hurricane season. Before joining FEMA he was assistant secretary of DHS’ (Department of Homeland Security) office for countering weapons of mass destruction, which has told staff he will continue to lead.

• The DHS secretary, former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem botched a question about habeas corpus - the legal right, guaranteed in the constitution, that allows people detained by the government to challenge their detention. I. Testifying during a recent Senate hearing, she claimed habeas corpus was the president’s “constitutional right” to deport people.

• While discussing artificial intelligence, Education Secretary Linda McMahon referred to it as “A1” - like the popular steak sauce.  Speaking at a summit hosted by Silicon Valley investors,  the learned Secretary (who is a former professional wrestling promotor), said “I wish I could remember the source, but there’s a school system that’s going to start making sure that first graders or even pre-Ks have A1 teaching every year starting that far down in the grades.”  More recently, when asked by Representative Summer Lee (D-PA) “Would it be ‘illegal DEI’ for a lesson plan on the Tulsa Race Massacre?” was, responded that she intends to “look into it more.”  

• Its Social Security Commissioner, Frank Bisignano, a Wall Street billionaire, told his staff that he didn’t even know that Social Security had a commissioner, and had to Google the job when he was offered it.

• Sean Duffy, a former MTV reality television star (Road Rules: All Stars) and now the new head of the Dept. of Transportation won’t let his wife fly in or out of the Newark Airport due to safety concerns.

• Thomas Fugate, a 22-year old former grocery clerk with zero government experience of any kind, was tapped to be the head of an $18 million terror prevention team, replacing William Braniff a U.S. Army veteran with more than two decades of national security experience and  the former Director of the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) within DHS.  CP3 staffers have expressed shock at how little Fugate knows about the basics of his role and likened meetings with him to “career counseling.”

• HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Need we say more? And last but certainly not least,

• Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who is a drunk who knowingly texted war plans and emailed them to his family and friends.  Hegseth is a graduate of Princeton (class of 2003) who became a frequent contributor to The Princeton Tory, the school’s conservative newspaper. For a time he served as publisher, and he was responsible for articles that, as he wrote, “strive to defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity.” Among these pieces, which stirred controversy at Princeton, was an editorial he cowrote that declared that “the homosexual lifestyle is abnormal and immoral.”  In other editorials he criticized Halle Berry for accepting the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Monster's Ball (2001) "on behalf of an entire race", and The New York Times for announcing that it would print gay marriage announcements, arguing that it would justify publishing marriage announcements for incestuous, zoophilic, and pedophilic relationships.

                   The USNS Harvey Milk

After his military service (during which he was a guard at the Guantanamo Detention Center in Cuba, and worked as a civil affairs officer first in Baghdad, then in Samarra), Hegseth returned to his native Minnesota, ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate, ran a political PAC, and then  spent 10 years (2014-2024) as a regular commentator and presenter for Fox News.  In his inaugural press release after being approved by the senate, the secretary stated his goals and philosophy: “We will revive the warrior ethos and restore trust in our military.  We are American military warriors.”  Just recently, grafting this military modus operandi onto his abject phobia of anything smacking of DEI (and anything gay), he announced that he was stripping the name Harvey Milk (a Korean War veteran and the first openly gay man to win elected office in the United States), off of a USNS (United States Naval Ship) . . . a highly unusual and deeply disturbing act.  And, to make things even worse, Hegseth added a hateful exclamation point to his homophobic deed by making his announcement on the first day of “Pride Month”, the monthlong observance of the LGBTQ+ community.  

There is no timeline for the renaming or what new name the ship (a fleet replenishment oiler) will be. The Navy referred all comments to SECDEF Hegseth’s office, which provided a brief written statement: "Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief's priorities, our nation's history, and the warrior ethos. Any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete."  Moreover, officials at the DOD say that other ships under review for possible name changes include:

• USNS Thurgood Marshall (the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court);

• USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg (named after the late Supreme Court Justice, the first Jewish woman on the court;

• USNS Harriet Tubman, named for the woman who helped slaves escape to freedom in the 19th century;

• USNS Delores Huerta and USNS Cesar Chavez, both Hispanic labor leaders;

• USNS Lucy Stone, a 19th century suffragette and

• USNS Medgar Evers, a 1960s-era civil rights leader who, like Harvey Milk, was assassinated.    

 The above are all John Lewis-class ships, meant to be named after civil rights leaders and activist icons.  The lead ship in the group is named after the noted American politician and civil rights leader.  

In essence what SECDEF Hegseth and his Command-in-Chief have done is to offer a one-finger salute to the LGBTQ+ community.  It’s all part of a larger effort to whitewash the accomplishments and arguably, the humanity of women and minorities in the U.S. Military . . . and American life itself.  

If you are concerned . . . or weary . . . or frightened by all the totalitarian dreck that is making America less and less small-d democratic on an almost daily basis, I recommend that the majority of us not retaliate in kind (e.g. not giving back a one-finger salute to the MAGA maniacs and their delusional, self-anointed defenders), but rather by taking to the streets this coming Saturday, June 14: the day of the nationwide "NO KINGS” protests.    

There are any number of trustworthy online sites where you can get information about what is happening in your community and across the country:

 Newsweek

The “NO KINGS” website

Simply Google “NO KINGS DAY PROTEST” + THE NAME OF YOUR COMMUNITY  Here’s an example

In the words of the late Rep. John Lewis: “Speak up, speak out, get in the way.  Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”

Here’s hoping that the best and brightest can put the bottom of the barrel back where they truly belong . . .

Copyright©2025, Kurt Franklin Stone

#1,039 The Ketamine Kid Has Left the Building, But RFK, Jr. Just Might Be Here to Stay

                  The “Ketamine Kid”

We begin the month of June with a bit of good news: Elon “The Ketamine Kid” Musk has taken his shiny chainsaw and moved out of both the White House and Mar-a-Lago. His stint as co-president and leader of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) has been, by any reasonable measure, an abject failure; in the language of Space-X, (his privately-owned, federally-funded [$3.8 billion in 2024 alone] version of NASA), his dream of shrinking the federal government workforce has had a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” While he originally claimed that he would save the taxpayers $1.6 trillion through cutting out “waste, fraud and abuse, and irrelevant programs” his most recent estimate is a paltry $175 million; experts believe the real number is significantly lower. And, in addition to seeing sales of his Tesla automobiles and cybertrucks (the ugliest looking vehicle in history) tank by as much as 50%, his personal net worth has shrunk by more than 25%. Poor fella!

Truth to tell, the Ketamine-addled Musk (who has also admitted to using Adderall, Ecstasy and psychedelic mushroom [Psilocybin]) has done real damage to both the federal government and the nation’s ability to do good for the impoverished masses at home and around the globe.  Our reputation as a caring partner has been shattered.  To my way of thinking, one of the very worst things Musk did during his unsupervised tenure was the shredding of the United States Agency for International Development. Though a rump operation is operating inside the State Department, the administration says that it has terminated more than 80 percent of U.S.A.I.D. grants. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year. That is what Musk’s foray into politics accomplished.

So that’s the good news . . . the Psychopath from Pretoria has left the building.

                 H.H.S Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Now for the bad news: we’re still stuck with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is potentially an even greater threat to the nation’s health (physical, psychological, educational and financial) than the Ketamine Kid.  Even before he was approved by the United States Senate, more than 17,000 members of America’s medical establishment signed a letter from the Committee to Protect Health Care, urging senators to reject his nomination, saying he was “unqualified to lead” and was “actively dangerous”.

RFK, Jr., once known as a highly successful and respected environmental attorney has, over the past many years, morphed into a dysphonic demon who holds dangerous, medically medieval views on everything from vaccines, pesticides, prescription drugs to a description of America’s children as being overmedicated and undernourished. He still  contends that the MMR (Measles, Mumps & Rubella) vaccine is a contributing cause of autism in children . . . a decades-old lie which has been disproven by virtually every epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist on the planet.  In matter of fact, the few “medical people” who agree with RFK seem to be working under him at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which was headed from 1984 to 2022 by Dr. Anthony Fauci, M.D. and  the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, whose administrator, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who promoted the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid.

Kennedy’s cuts in research funding are absolutely mind-numbing. As but one example, just last week HHS pulled millions of dollars in funding for a human bird flu vaccine developed by Covid vaccine-maker Moderna. Before IT took office for his second term, the Biden administration had awarded $766 million to the Massachusetts-based drugmaker. They invested $176 million last summer, and tacked on another $590 million in January. According to Moderna CEO Stėphane Bancel “While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in the interim analysis of the Phase 1/2 study of our H5 avian flu vaccine. . . . These clinical data in pandemic influenza underscore the critical role of mRNA technology has played as a countermeasure to emerging health threats.”

Moreover, RFK’s call for a blanket requirement for placebo-controlled trials threatens research ethics and vaccine access. HHS says the new plan will “promote transparency” in vaccine research.  In matter of fact (and from my decades of experience vetting clinical trials through an Institutional Review Board [IRB]), I can state that it would affect vaccine access and diminish the public trust.  The change would require all new vaccines to undergo placebo-controlled trials before approval, which means that some people would receive the vaccine and others would get an inert substance, like a saline injection, before the results are compared.  If this had been the case with the initial COVID-19 vaccine, tens - perhaps hundreds - of millions more people would have died during the pandemic for the simple reason that the vaccine would still not be available to the public.    

Now mind you, these - and many other - medical and research policy changes are coming from a Cabinet Secretary who is not an MD, never (to the best of my knowledge) served on an IRB, and who, while telling mothers and fathers not to trust what medical experts say about vaccines one moment, then tells Congress “ . . . people shouldn’t take medical advice from me” the next. I don’t know, perhaps that’s what comes from being a recovering heroin addict who had his brain partially eaten away by a Taenia solium - a pork tapeworm.  Whatever the case, he and his entire department represent a clear and present danger to the health and welfare of the American public.

Make America Healthy Again (MAHA), the Regime’s signature omnibus health program, was created by Executive Order (EO) 14212 on February 13, 2025. It established the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, whose stated purpose was/is “to improve the health of Americans, particularly children.” From day one, medical professionals took a “We’ll believe it when we see it” stance. A week ago, HHS and its leadership issued their first report, a 73-page “assessment” of the program. According to Los Angeles Times’ business columnist Michael Hiltzik, “A sloppier, more disingenuous government report would be hard to imagine.“ At least seven sources cited in the report do not exist. HHS hastily reissued the report with some of those citations removed, but without disclosing the changes — an extremely unkosher action in the medical research community. The MAHA report attributes the rise in childhood obesity and diabetes in part to ultraprocessed foods (UPFs). But it’s silent on what experts call the “social determinants of disease,” which are heavily related to economics.  And although the report mentions that safety net programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP, or food stamps, school lunch and breakfast programs, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, could play a role in promoting healthy eating, it doesn’t mention that those programs face severe budget cuts from the White House.

There can be no doubt that RFK. Jr. and his medical conspiracists - who are also in favor of giving children raw milk and getting fluoride out of our drinking water - pose an even greater danger to society than the Ketamine Kid.  For while Musk’s chainsaw approach to reducing the federal spending footprint will undoubtedly cost far more than it saved, Kennedy’s “remedies” will likely affect the health and wellbeing of everyone . . . regardless of how rich or poor they are.  Being a multibillionaire (or even a multimillionaire as is RFK, Jr., one of the “poorest” members of the Cabinet) cannot save you from succumbing to a disease for which clinical trials no longer exist.  This is an issue that the vast majority of the American public should understand and get behind: that conspiracies cannot heal the sick, and that properly, ethically-run clinical trials do save lives.

To paraphrase the rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof, “May G-d bless and keep RFK and his conspiracists . . . far away from us.

Copyright©2025 Kurt Franklin Stone