Shake Hands With the Devil

                        Mnuchin,  '45 and Cohen

OK, by a show of hands, is there anyone out there who remembers the last time we had a 24-hour news cycle without at least one breaking story guaranteed to shoot the old systolic up into the stratosphere?  Waiting . . . waiting.  Hmmm . . . by the absence of hands, I guess that means the answer is "no" - that for the longest time, every day brings at least one bulletin, one screaming headline, one hyper-dramatic (or hyper-inane) matter which is all but guaranteed to eclipse (or make us all but forget) yesterday's screaming headline. Now mind you, it's not just the White House and its current occupant who are totally shouldering the blame for this rise in cacophony; the media plays a huge role as well. After all, there are just so many sources and platforms for news (both real and fake) and views, and thus, so many ways to make a pile through selling ads. The competition for these ad dollars is intense.  In other words, '45 has been a boon-and-a-half to all those who book and sell ad time and space.

In the main, we've become unknowingly inured to the fact that today's front-page-above-the-fold, top-of-the-hour screamers (North Korea, the Mueller investigation, the pardoning of "Sheriff Joe") quickly gets pushed back a page or three until they are largely relocated to the file marked "ho-hum." Occasionally, a story comes along with so many aspects ("sidebars") as to possess what in show business is  called "having legs" -- that is, staying power.  One obvious example is the Charlottesville horror and what it says about the POTUS and the country he supposedly leads.  By now, everyone knows that there is a Grand Canyon of difference between the scripted and off-the-cuff '45. The former presents him as a man possessing a modicum of compassion and a desire to bring a fractured nation together. The latter unshackles him from these chains of sane moderation and permits the "loose cannon" of his soul to escape the censor of his lips.  

One day '45 (unscripted) blames "many sides" for the violence in Charlottesville, absolves himself of any blame by insisting that these sorts of incidents occurred when Barack Obama was POTUS and proclaims that there were "some very fine people" in attendance at the confrontation. Then, less than 48 later (and four days after the actual event) the scripted '45 states "Racism is evil -- and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans . . . . Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America."  Then, in another (unscripted) speech in Arizona, he goes back to his initial approach, in which he does not specifically condemn the KKK, neo-Nazis or white supremacists . . . and which draws ecstatic  reviews from the likes of  David Duke and the White Supremacist website The Stormer. 

That the POTUS does not find any moral difference between neo-Nazis, white nationalists, white supremacists and what he has been told to refer to as the "Alt-Left," is both highly disturbing and terribly frightening. That those Jewish people who support him - either as financial backers or actual employees - have remained mostly mum is disgusting.  Just the other day, '45, flanked by, among others, Gary Cohen (Director of the White House Economic Council) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin came down to the lobby of Trump Tower for what was supposed to be a press event dealing with infrastructure. Instead, the two most visible and highly placed Jewish members of the administration (save Jared and Ivanka, who seem have been on an extended holiday in the "Land Beyond Denial") stood in obvious shock and discomfort as their boss (unscripted) once again proclaimed “There is blame on both sides. I have no doubt about it – and you don’t have any doubt about it either.”

Since that August 15th gobsmacking, much has been made over the fact that 45's Chief Economist Gary Cohen actually gave serious consideration to resigning his post.  To date, he has not.  What the former president of Goldman Sachs did do was  release a critique of the president in an interview with the Financial Times in which he stated “This administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups and do everything we can to heal the deep divisions that exist in our communities."  Giving some insight into the storm brewing in his kishkes (Yiddish for "guts") Cohen further stated “I have come under enormous pressure both to resign and to remain in my current position.  As a patriotic American, I am reluctant to leave my post . . . because I feel a duty to fulfill my commitment to work on behalf of the American people. But I also feel compelled to voice my distress over the events of the last two weeks. Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK."

Good for Mr. Cohen; his words make sense.  But if he is that disaffected, that disgusted and alienated, why in hell is he still working for a man and an administration which kowtows to racists, white supremacists and people who, given the chance, would gladly consign him, his family and all those he loves to crematoria?  And while we're at it, why are Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, '45's son-in-law Jared Kushner, '45's longtime personal lawyer Michael D. Cohen and billionaire backer Sheldon Adelson (among others) as mute as Marcel Marceau?  Sam Nunberg, a former campaign adviser came to '45's defense, rationalizing that “I have spent thousands of hours with this man. He does not have one anti-Semitic bone in his body.” Nunberg, who himself is Jewish condemned the neo-Nazi protesters as “a bunch of disgusting people. A bunch of people saying anti-Semitic stuff.”  Nonetheless, he had not a single word to say about his former boss's lack of response.

I'm sorry; this just doesn't cut it.  I find it difficult to swallow that a man who quietly accepts the plaudits of anti-Semites and racists isn't in some way either an anti-Semite or racist himself, or at best, an egregiously opportunistic fool.  From a political point of view, '45 - who has been campaigning for reelection since the day he was inaugurated - knows how badly he needs to hold on to his ever-shrinking base.  And, if in order to maintain that base - which includes the likes of David Duke, Richard Spencer, Sheriff Joe and all their jackbooted followers - he must be acquiescent . . .  so be it.

WRONG!  To my mind, it is the sacred obligation of any and every American - whether Jewish or not - who believes in equality and humanity to denounce '45 and those who persist in supporting him.  Obviously this is not the case; there are Jewish people out there who are willing to rationalize his actions and overlook his immoral recrudescence.  As a progressive political blogger who also happens to be a rabbi, I am frequently on the receiving end of nasty comments from readers informing me that they are more than willing to overlook '45's "shortcomings" because " . . . on the one issue that matters - Israel - he is the best thing that's every happened!"  Whenever I receive a comment containing this sentiment, I write back asking the correspondent to provide examples with which to under-gird  their contention; to tell me precisely what he has done for Israel that makes him such a great friend of the Jewish State. Generally, the answer is something like "Well, at least he's not Obama, who made an 'Apology Tour,' bowed down to the King of Saudi Arabia and had his Ambassador to the U.N. vote against Israel every chance she got." I'm sorry, but it's always been my strong belief that a POTUS who is not good for the country cannot be good for Israel.

In just a little over a month, Jewish people the world over will be observing Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, where we confess our sins, beg for forgiveness and search our souls for the moral strength we need in facing a new year.  

Are you listening Messrs Cohen, Mnuchin, Kushner, Adelson, Nunberg et al?

218 days down, 1,239 to go.

Copyright©2017 Kurt F. Stone

The Ever Shrinking Universe of Donald Trump

   A Group of Interacting Galaxies (Taken From the Hubble Telescope)

Quantum cosmologists - folks like Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Steven Hawking and Alan Lightman - study and theorize the origins of the universe.  Amazingly, the field is not a new one by any stretch of the imagination; as early as the 5th century B.C.E.,  the philosopher Democritus proposed that all matter was made of tiny and indivisible atoms, which came in various sizes and textures—some hard and some soft, some smooth and some thorny.  To be certain, there are significant disagreements between cosmologists about such things as the age of the universe, precisely when the "Big Bang" (BB) occurred, etc.   But then again, what could you expect when the two words making up the very name of the field (quantum and cosmology) are bipolar opposites? (quantum is the theory of the utterly small, while cosmology is the study of the unimaginably gigantic.)

One thing on which most every cosmologist agrees is the Big Bang theory, which posits that 14 billion years ago the entire observable universe was, in the words of MIT professor Alan Lightman “roughly a million billion billion times smaller than a single atom” and has been expanding ever since, to its current size of something like 100 billion galaxies.  When I first read that statement in Lightman's wonderful 2014 work The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew, I spent the better part of a week pondering the bit about the pre-BB universe being "roughly a million billion billion times smaller than a single atom."  The thing that truly revved my mental engine was contemplating what was outside that universe.  Intellectually, of course, the answer is simply "nothing" . . . for there cannot be anything outside the universe.  But from a "grand-scheme-of-things perspective," the query produces a profound mind cramp.  Nonetheless, I will pretend that I follow what these brilliant ladies and gentlemen are positing, and agree that the universe has been expanding ever since the Big Bang. (Yes, there certainly are female quantum cosmologists; one of the greatest by far is Sandra Faber of the University of California, Santa Cruz,  co-inventor of the "theory of cold dark matter.")

Moving on from the mind-numbing realm of Quantum Cosmology to maddening world of big-time politics, we ask "What's outside a political universe when it starts shrinking?  And here, we are referring specifically to the current POTUS.  For over the past several weeks, his universe has been devolving at an alarming rate.  Consider that during a rather brief span - which for most new presidents would be a "period of good feelings," he has:

• Sacked his National Security Adviser Michael Flynn after a mere 2 weeks and 2 days on the job;
• Canned James Comey, Director of the FBI;
• Shown his Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, the door;
• Axed his Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci after a mere 10 days on the job;
• Fired his Chief of Staff Reince Preibus and Preibus' deputy, Katie Walsh;
• Disbanded both the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum after members began resigning in droves;
• Saw every member (minus 1) of the Presidential Committee on the Arts and Culture submit their resignations in a stinging rebuke which ended with the words "Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too." (BTW, the committee member who did not sign the letter was the committee chair, First Lady, Melania Trump); 
• Accepted the resignation (?) of chief political strategist Stephen Bannon, who has already met with Breitbart News' chief financial backer, multi-billionaire Bob Mercer, and is ready to go to war with "globalists," who apparently include '45, his former boss and protégé;
• Begun to be on the receiving end of some serious rebukes questioning his sanity, stability and moral integrity from leading Republicans including Senators Corker, Flake, Rubio and Hatch as well as a gaggle of former party leaders and professional media conservatives;
• Been utterly trashed by his Art of the Deal ghost writer Tony Schwartz, who  predicted that '45 is getting ready to "call it quits" - and that the resignation will happen soon; 
• And lastly (at least for purposes of this essay) has seen charity after charity, and cause after cause, cancel mammoth black-tie galas at Mar-a-Lago, thus putting a significant crimp in his income.

Indeed, things are not going well for the POTUS; his "base" is beginning to thin even while his world is imploding.  His universe is shrinking, leaving him more isolated than ever.  And what's worse, in the days following the neo-Nazi/white supremacist tragedy in Charlottesville, he has shown himself to be a moral albino; a man without a conscience or scintilla of shame.  And owing to his peculiar "mental makeup" (to be both kind and diplomatic) he has  become increasingly untethered.  I for one fear he is fully capable of launching a preemptive strike against North Korea as a means of expanding his deflated universe.

(n.b. The most recent issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists unequivocally states that the bellicose rhetoric of both North Korea's Kim and America's '45 has obscured a critical fact: to wit, that North Korea's Hwasong 14 ICBM is not nearly as powerful nor lethal as either side advertises, and as of now, is incapable of reaching the continental USA.  Much of what we are hearing and fearing is political hot air. Unquestionably, the misinformation serves both sides' political needs.)

One small sign of just how far his universe has imploded was Friday's announcement that he and the First Lady will skip this year's Kennedy Center honors "in order to allow the honorees to celebrate without political distraction."  Reading between the lines, what he's really saying is "I don't want to be booed by so many cultural icons on national television; my ego couldn't take it."   '45's decision to stay away from the star-studded gala means it will be just the fourth time in the program’s 40-year history that a president will not be in attendance. In 1994, President Bill Clinton skipped the event while on his way to Budapest for a conference. In 1989, President George Bush was preoccupied with a summit meeting in Malta with Mikhail S. Gorbachev. In 1979, Jimmy Carter did not attend because of the Iran hostage crisis.

In the seven months '45 has been POTUS, the moral authority of both Office of President and the country that the vast majority of the planet looks to for leadership has been both critically damaged and severely diminished.  How long it will take to put the brakes on this precipitous slide is anyone's guess.   Clearly though, there already exists enough evidence to impeach '45 on the grounds of abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

There is already enough evidence of mental impairment to invoke the 25th amendment.  Just the other day, Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) did just that; she introduced a resolution asking Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to consider removing President Trump from office under terms of that Amendment. 

Simply stated, the man must be removed from office.

To those who shake their head and say "But if we somehow manage to do the impossible and get him out of our hair, that means Mike Pence will become President," I respond in the words of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich: " . . . a principled right-winger is better for America and the world than an unhinged sociopath."

We conclude with a return to the world of science:

Some quantum cosmologists belong to a school of thought called the "two-headed theory" of the universe. This school sees the Big Bang as sort of a pothole in the long road of time, with the future pointing away from that moment in two opposing directions. In this theory, time moved in a way we would consider backward for billions of years — with the universe contracting all the while — until it shrank to subatomic size. Then the big bang occurred and time began to progress, and the universe expanded, in the way we see now.

So perhaps what we are going through these past 7 months is precisely that - albeit in miniature; a shrinking, chronologically retrogressive period in which our reality becomes too impossible to imagine, let alone wrap our heads around.  But remember, there is that second "head" . . . the Big Bang which causes the universe to progress, to grow, to - in terms of this essay - get us back on the path of political sanity and moral clarity.

It doesn't take an academy of quantum cosmologists or brainy theoretical astrophysicists to accomplish this task.  What it does - and will - take are elected officials with guts and principles and a citizenry that awakens to the realization that one need not be systemically predisposed to speaking out . . . just genetically incapable of remaining silent. 

Donald Trump must go!

211 days down, 1,246 (?) to go.

Copyright©2017 Kurt F. Stone

This Is Serious . . . Very, Very Serious

                                     Indy and Short Round

Up until late yesterday, I was fully prepared to devote this week's essay to '45, North Korea and the insane rhetorical brinkmanship going back-and-forth between the two nuclear nations.  Of how the POTUS has, whether consciously or not, taken a page from Richard Nixon's "I'm madder and badder than thou" playbook in order to scare the pants off of Kim Jong-un, and how '45's North Korean counterpart has ratcheted up his rhetoric to proclaim that his ICBM is " a gift for the American bastards" even as he promised a missile launch in the direction of Guam. I was looking forward to comparing '45's oratorical flourishes ("fire and fury like the world has never seen," as well as "locked and loaded,") to those of his North Korean counterpart, and quoting Asian sources who are now wondering aloud just who is more dangerous - Donald Trump or Kim Jong-un?  I was even thinking about putting in a word or two about '45's wild and woolly threat to take military action against Venezuela. 

I even had what I thought was a pretty good title containing just a soupçon of satire: This Is Serious . . . Very, Very Serious," which as any Indiana Jones aficionado knows, was said  (in slightly abbreviated form) by cinema's favorite archaeologist/adventurer when he and "Short Round" (a.k.a. "Shorty") were trapped in a death room as long-bladed swords began slowly and ominously descending from the ceiling. This scene and quote was of course in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

And then along came the horrifying events of the past 24 hours in Charlottesville, Virginia, which shoved my original essay into the "maybe next week" column. The one thing I have salvaged from the North Korea/mutually assured insanity/utter chaos at the White House piece is the title, which works just as well . . . if not better.

This Is Serious . . . Very, Very Serious. 

At this juncture, there is little need to go into much detail about the "Unite the Right" atrocity which took place in the town along the Rivanna River; constant cable coverage has pretty much made any such recap unnecessarily redundant.   For certain, this is a story that will continue receiving coverage for many days, if not weeks to come.  And among the media sidebars we should expect will be pieces putting faces on the leaders and major perpetrators, as well as informative (and no doubt chilling) sketches about the roughly one-dozen jack-booted, tiki-torch and Confederate flag-bearing, armed White Power, pro-Nazi, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic groups that gathered in the shadow of the University of Virginia and Jefferson's Monticello.  Their goal? According to their leaders, to protest the removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee from a nearby park. Their not so hidden agenda? To come to physical blows with any and all counter-protesters, thus sending a visual message to those who support their twisted, hate/fear-inspired Weltanschauung.  We know what they are and who they hate: Jews, African Americans, the LGBTQ community, Muslims, environmentalists, Democrats . . . indeed, anyone who doesn't look or think like them.  What they fear is that America is no longer "theirs."  In their rheumy eyes, America has been taken over by the dregs of society and must be stopped.  

What took place on the streets of Charlottesville was obviously not spontaneous.  Rather, it was the product of months of not-so-hidden prodding and planning and a couple of generations of growing, twisted psychopathology.  Seeing the torch-bearing hundreds wearing their various uniforms, brandishing guns, rifles and automatic weapons while chanting the old Nazi refrain Blut und Boden ("blood and soil") was - and is - a stark reminder that something serious . . . very, very serious . . . is taking place in the United States.  To wit, a growing and technologically savvy minority of miscreants who want to return to a time when America was controlled by White Men; when Jews, African Americans, women and immigrants knew their place and all heroes looked and sounded like John Wayne.   

Rhetorical responses to the Charlottesville massacre - in which, as of this writing, 3 have died and more than 2 been dozen injured - have ranged from the predictably outraged to the shockingly hateful to the toxically tepid.  A smattering of statements and Tweets:

• David Duke, former head of the KKK (who attended the "United the Right" rally) called is "a turning point" in the effort to help people like him "fulfill the promises of Donald Trump."
• Richard Spencer, co-editor of AltRight.com Tweeted "We came in peace. It was the police and antifa(cists) that used force against peaceful, lawful demonstrators. 
• The POTUS's brief comment to the press was, to say the most, less than room temperature: "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, on many sides. What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives."  Among the questions he ignored at the end of his statement were  "Do you want the support of these white nationalists?" and "Do you think the violence in Charlottesville should be considered terrorism?"

Responses to 45's comments varied greatly:

• Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT): "We should call evil by its name. My brother didn't give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home."
• Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO): "Mr. President - we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism."
• Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL): "Very important for the nation to hear @POTUS describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists."
• Andrew Aglin, Founder of the Daily Stormer (a neo-Nazi, white supremacist, alt-right website): "['45] refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room."
• Barack Obama quoted Nelson Mandela: " . . . for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."
• Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT): "No Mr. President. This is a provocative effort by Neo-Nazis to foment racism and hatred and violence.  Call it out for what it is."
• Even Anthony Scaramucci '45's former Communications Director (he lasted less than 2 weeks) insisted “I think he needed to be much harsher as it relates to the white supremacists, you have to call that stuff out.”

Hours after these responses to his public comments - both negative and positive, the Tweeter-in-Chief took to the internet and wrote "We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!"

Again, he did not specifically condemn the alt-Right, white supremacist or Neo-Nazi perpetrators. This is serious . . . very, very serious.

If '45 really, truly wants to "condemn all that hate stands for" he could start by immediately - and very publicly - firing:

• Stephen Bannon, his White House Chief Strategist  and former Executive Chair of the far-right Breitbart News and
• Sebastian Gorka, his far-right, anti-Semitic Deputy Assistant, who came to his boss's inauguration wearing a badge, tunic, and ring of the Order of Vitéz,  a far-right group listed by the State Department as having been " . . . under the direction of the Nazi Government of Germany' during World War II." (It should also  be noted that Gorka's mother Susan worked closely as a translator with David Irving, the discredited historian described by a judge as a "Holocaust denier … anti-Semitic and racist, and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism."

Alas, there is every reason to believe that '45 would gladly fire Bob Mueller and/or A.G. Sessions before he'd ever let go of Bannon and/or Gorka . . . and for the same reason: he doesn't want to do anything that would possibly alienate his beloved "base."  For it's his base - which apparently includes white supremacists, neo-Nazis, racists and anti-Semites - that ultimately gives him the adulation and ego strokes which keeps his emotional/psychic furnace ablaze.  It's this base that that makes him feel real, feel alive . . . feel presidential.

And this is serious . . . very, very serious.

Copyright©2017 Kurt F. Stone

Ironic? Definitely. Irenic? One Can Always Pray.

                               Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)

Like millions of Americans, I am praying for the recovery of Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise, the House Majority Whip who was critically wounded by a deranged gunman during an early-morning baseball practice nearly two weeks ago.   In the shooting, in which four others were injured, Scalise was only struck once, far from his most vital organs. However, the bullet traversed his hip, shattering bones and unleashing concussive forces that caused severe internal bleeding and organ damage. When he was medevaced off the field, he was reportedly conscious and in good spirits. By the time he arrived at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, in the District of Columbia, he was in critical condition: unconscious, and on the brink of death.  One hopes that the relative dearth of daily news about the congressman's progress is a good sign . . . the "No News Is Good News" syndrome. Indeed, as of the middle of last week, after three surgeries (with the prospect of several more to come), his condition had been upgraded to "fair."

Through no fault of his own, Rep. Scalise has now incurred hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of dollars of future medical expenses.  Fortunately, he is covered by some pretty good health insurance and thus will likely wind up being responsible for only a tiny fraction of these costs.  Now, contrary to the widespread urban legend that members of Congress receive free health insurance for life, Scalise and his colleagues are, ironically, covered under Obamacare.  They sign up through the District of Columbia exchange; the Federal Government pays about 70% of their monthly premium.  It's a good deal; especially for a member like Steve Scalise.  For contrary to the notion that all members of Congress are multimillionaires, Rep. Scalise is, according to the most recent figures (2015), the 19th poorest member of the legislative branch, with a net worth of at least minus $20,999.00  (Actually, this is a vast improvement; in 2007, the year he was first elected, Rep. Scalise reported a net worth of minus $421,438.00.)  

And here's where irony comes in:  Like virtually all of his Republican colleagues in the House, Rep. Steve Scalise voted to (mostly) repeal and (just about totally) replace the very system of healthcare which will save him from even greater and graver financial disaster. For without many of the Affordable Healthcare Act's (Obamacare) best-wrought clauses, Rep. Scalise - like somewhere around 20-24 million other Americans would - were he not a member of Congress - be in dire shape.  The "American Health Care Act" (ACHA) passed by the House back on May 4th,  includes an amendment that would allow states to obtain waivers from certain insurance requirements mandated by the Affordable Care Act. States could get waivers to: increase how much insurers can charge based on age, establish their own requirements for essential health benefits that plans must include, and allow insurers to price policies based on health status in some cases. That last waiver could lead to higher premiums for those with preexisting conditions who don’t maintain continuous coverage.  An amendment — penned by New Jersey Rep. Tom MacArthur — specifically exempts Congress and its staff from the effects of such state waivers.  It must be admitted that this was done for procedural, not political reasons a bit too arcane to be gone into in this piece. A second, stand-alone bill proposed by  Representative Martha McSally (R-AZ) would strike the exemption of Congress from state waiver provisions should the AHCA be enacted into law.   Crazy, no?  But in any event, Representative Scalise - like so many of his fellow Americans - is going to be way behind the financial eight-ball should this hastily-drawn, monstrously conceived legislation get to the president's desk for final approval.

A reasonable political observer might expect the case of Rep. Scalise to be brought up again and again in the AHCA debate.  After all, it is an enormous elephant in the legislative room.  But as reasonable as this might seem, it is not likely going to happen; neither Republicans nor Democrats are going to be mentioning the name "Steve Scalise" - unless attached to the words "Our thoughts and prayers . . ."  Why is this?  Well, as The New Republic's Brian Beutler succinctly put it in a recent article, "Republicans are the governing majority, they have no interest in letting Scalise’s ordeal become a symbol of anything related to health policy . . . . Democrats have been reluctant to politicize the shooting for different reasons: Scalise is a colleague, the dead shooter was a former volunteer for Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, and the media surely would have punished anyone who interrupted the Kumbaya moment on Capitol Hill. Fascinatingly, since the ball-field shooting, none of the normal post-slaughter debate over "More guns vs. Better gun control" has been heard; and I mean nary a peep.  Perhaps this Kumbaya moment  in the case of guns will extend to the current healthcare debate.  Then again, perhaps that's a bit overly Pollyanna.  At least while we are praying for Rep. Scalise's recovery, we can pray for a bit more sanity.

The recently released Senate version of the ACHA (now called The Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017) is - if possible - even worse than that which passed the House last month.  Like the House version, it is ruthless, soulless and vicious; it ensures that healthcare premiums are going to become out of reach for older, less healthy Americans as more and more younger and healthier Americans decide they simply don't need coverage.  It will gut Medicaid, which is a lifeline for a tremendous number of Americans.  Consider that

• 20 percent of Americans are enrolled in Medicaid;
• 39 percent of children in the US are enrolled in Medicaid;
• 49 percent of births are covered by Medicaid; and
• a full 64 percent, or nearly two-thirds of nursing home patients, are covered by Medicaid. 

In a world ruled by sanity, insurance costs and healthcare deductibles are kept in check by having the maximum number of people - people of all ages and stages of well-being - sharing costs.  Republicans of all stripes - and some Democrats - have long argued that requiring people to purchase coverage is wrong, unconstitutional and even Socialistic.  Make no mistake about it: even greater than their hatred of "individual mandates" and "shared responsibility" is their love of extraordinarily generous tax cuts for their already hyper-wealthy backers and benefactors.

And yet, beyond the irony of Rep. Scalise's perilous condition during the very time healthcare is a central focus, is the possibility of the irenic moment this irony could provide.  For those who do not do crossword puzzles, the word irenic may be unknown.  It comes from the Greek word ειρήνη (eirēnē), meaning "peace."  In theology, it specifically  connotes the process of reconciliation between different denominations or sects of a religion.  And that is what this ironic moment could be providing: ειρήνη - a coming together, a reconciliation between those who believe healthcare for all is a right, and those who hold that tax-cuts for the few is a given.  As The New Republic's Beutler wisely notes, "The best thing that could possibly come of Scalise’s shooting wouldn’t be some fleeting moment of political unity. It would be pulling Republicans back from the brink of trading American lives for tax cuts."

How ironic.

156 days gone, 1,301 to go.

Copyright©2017 Kurt F. Stone

Of Witch Hunts and Whiners

  Norman, Norma  & Cousin Mitzi  (c.2008)

About a month ago, '45 began characterizing his many woes as "The single greatest witch hunt of a politician in history"  To say this whine is childish and betrays an appalling ignorance of American history is putting it mildly. Perhaps even worse, it both demeans and utterly trivializes the debasing, life-shortening horrors of the real victims of American witch hunts - from Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba (the first of the so-called "Salem Witches"); to Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Eugene Debs and U.S. Rep. Victor Berger (victims of the post-WWI "Red Scare"  overseen by then-U.S. Attorney General A. MItchell Palmer); to John Garfield, Zero Mostel, Norman Corwin, Norma Barzman, Marsha Hunt and literally hundreds of members of the so-called "Hollywood Blacklist"; to the literally thousands of gay and lesbian government employees whose lives and careers were upended due to Senator Joseph McCarthy's so-called "Lavender Scare." (Eerily, one of the people most responsible for this "scare" was Senator McCarthy's chief counsel, the young Roy Cohn who, it turned out, was himself a closeted gay man and would, many years later, become '45's personal attorney.)

The history, reality and psychological underpinnings of conspiracy theories, witch hunts and blacklists have long been a personal political and academic passion.  Indeed, my senior thesis at University, written more than 45 years ago, researched the impact that McCarthyism had on the 1952 presidential election between Illinois Governor Adlai E. Stevenson and General Dwight David Eisenhower.  Talk about a real drubbing: Republican Eisenhower beat Democrat Stevenson by 6.7 million votes and demolished him in the Electoral College by a margin of 442-89. That year also saw the G.O.P.  recapture both the House and Senate. One big reason for this Republican sweep could be laid at the feet of McCarthy and his "reds under the bed" conspiracy, which Governor Stevenson refused to endorse.  His so-called "effete, Ivy League, blue blood" background (he was a Princeton grad, his paternal grandfather was Vice President of the United States and his maternal great-grandfather had been Abraham Lincoln's campaign manager) did not sit well the majority of American voters. They were in the mood for a witch hunt against anyone who had ever belonged to, supported, or made a donation to a group like "Committee For the First Amendment," "The American Civil Liberties Union," or the "Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions." (HICCASP)

The latter two groups - made up mostly of Hollywood progressives - were the special targets of Senator Joseph McCarthy, California state Senator Jack B. Tenney (who chaired a California version of HUAC and Hollywood film censor extraordinaire. Joseph Breen.  Together, they carried out out one of the nastiest witch hunts in all American history; by comparison, the current '45 imbroglio has as much to do with a real witch hunt as a jug of $10.00 moonshine has to a bottle of Armand de Brignac Brut Rose.  As a Hollywood Brat, I have gotten to know, interview - even befriend - a number of those who were blacklisted and exiled from what was once called "The Land of Mink-Lined Swimming Pools and Plastic Palm Trees."  

For several years, my late cousin Mitzi would invite a group of blacklistees to her house on Maple Drive in Beverly Hills to eat and share memories of times past.  (That's Mitzi in the photograph alongside the legendary Norman Corwin (1910-2011) and screenwriter Norma Barzman, the exiled wife of screenwriter Ben Barzman - best known for the 1948 classic "The Boy With Green Hair."  Now nearly 97, Norma is one of few surviving members of the Hollywood Blacklist. Their senior surviving member, my friend Marsha Hunt, will become, god willing, 100 this coming October 17.  The longtime honorary Mayor of Sherman Oaks, Ms. Hunt still lives in the same house (on the corner of Fulton and Magnolia), just around the corner from ours that she occupied when I was a kid delivering her papers for the now defunct Valley Times.

These artistic souls, along with hundreds and hundreds of their colleagues now deceased - understood the meaning "witch hunt" in a way that our current POTUS could never possibly fathom.  They all woke up one day to find that they were being reviled, hunted down and eventually stripped of every ounce of their creative worth just because certain people claimed they were traitors . . . or sexual deviants.  Most lost their jobs and livelihoods, some actually committed suicide and, if they chose to keep working as actors, directors, cinematographers, choreographers or set designers, had to either leave the country or - if they were screenwriters - to employ a "front" - a person who would put their name on a screenplay for which they had never so much as typed a single letter.  

This, my dear '45, is what a witch hunt is truly like.  These people did not suffer from persecution complexes; nor did they believe that the entire world revolved around them.  They - like the witches of Salem, the Native Americans of America's great heartland or turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe - were subjected to their contemporaneous witch hunts because they were "different," "foreign,"  or had beliefs and ideas that were out of the mainstream.  Then too, they frequently served as convenient scapegoats for ignorant, bigoted, amoral politicians seeking to better their lot in life.  The bulls-eyes were placed on their backs without their knowledge, without their consent, and generally speaking, without due cause.

On the other hand, it is you, Mr. '45, who have put the bulls-eye on your own back - by showing total contempt and disregard for the high office to which you were elected; by being both an enemy of - and stranger to - the truth; by offending far too many decent people and showing far too little concern for anyone or anything which cannot benefit you on a personal level. Yes, you still do have a cadre of  diehard, zealous supporters out there; men, women and children who still believe that everything you say is the god's honest truth and that anyone who disagrees is part of an evil conspiracy meant to bring you down. But please do remember something history teaches: that conspiracies are, far more often than not, built on foundations made of sand . . . and that demagogues are self-deluding builders of sand castles.  Quit whining about witch hunts; you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. To paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen, "I've known victims of witch hunts; some of them are - or were - friends of mine.  Believe me Mr. T.,  you are no victim of a witch hunt."

Mr. President: might I strongly urge that in place of whining, it might benefit you both personally and politically to engage in the study of history.  It has a lot of revealing things to teach . . . even to someone who thinks he's the smartest kid in the class.

148 days down, 1,309 to go.

Copyright©2017 Kurt F. Stone

'45's Null Hypothesis & the Future of Planet Earth

Last week I attended - via teleconference - a daylong medical ethics workshop held at the University of Kentucky.  The topic for this year's gathering was "Human Subjects Protection: Changes." It was a phenomenal, mentally challenging day.  The first speaker was Dr. Craig Kundrot, a Yale-trained molecular biophysicist who is currently Director of the "Space Life and Physical Sciences Research & Applications Division" at NASA.  In other words, he's the person in charge of figuring out the long-term physical and psychological effects that long-term space flight has on the human body. Currently, NASA is working on our Mars venture, which will take astronauts away from planet Earth for a minimum of 18 months. The case study Dr. Kundrot presented dealt with our only set of twin astronauts, Scott and Mark Kelly.  Because the Kellys have virtually the same genetic material, NASA can study how long-duration space flight affects the body and mind, using Mark - who is now retired from NASA -  as the control.  

Needless to say, Dr. Kundrot's presentation had all those in attendance flying high with thoughts of Mars, the vastness of the universe and the courage and brilliance of those charged with turning this fabulous dream into an even more fabulous reality.

And then, 24 hours later, '45's announcement that he was pulling the United States out of the Paris Accord brought us all down to his version of reality.  In '45's view, the historic, non-binding 195-nation accord was agreed to for one reason and one reason only: to stick it to the United States. Or, as he described it, "The agreement is a massive transfer of United States wealth to other countries."  In his mind, the Paris Accord has nothing to do with saving the planet from the ravages of climate change; it is all about money, lost jobs and his "America First" brand of isolationism.  This should come as no surprise, and for two reasons:

• Our President sees reality through dollar signs, and
• He contends that climate change (global warming) is a hoax.

In the words of my former boss, California Governor Jerry Brown, " . . . Trump is the null hypothesis; he's demonstrating that climate denial has no integrity and no future.  And the exact opposite, that climate activism is the order of the day."  Governor Brown is, without a doubt, the best-educated, most philosophically adroit office holder I've ever worked for.   I mean, who else could use the term "null hypothesis" as if he were speaking about today's grocery list? [n.b. During his first stint as governor back in the 1970's, I worked in his Office of Planning and Research where I specialized in environmental ethics.]

Now, just to keep us up to date, a "null hypothesis" is  a commonly accepted fact that researchers work to nullify or discredit. Of course, what is the "commonly accepted fact" today, might become tomorrow's universally rejected twaddle.  That which nullifies or discredits a null hypothesis is referred to as "the alternate hypothesis."  

An example:  In centuries past, several scientists, including Copernicus, set out to disprove their contemporaneous "null hypothesis" that the earth was flat. This eventually led to the rejection of the "null" and the (almost) universal acceptance of the "alternate" - namely, that the earth is round. Most people accepted the alternate — the ones that didn’t created the Flat Earth Society! What would have happened if Copernicus had not disproved it but merely proved the alternate? No one would have listened to him. In order to change people’s thinking, scholars first had to prove that their thinking was wrong.  

In retrospect,  believing  the world to be flat way back when, was about as inane as the "climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese" lyric constantly chanted by '45 during the 2016 campaign.  

Today, although the vast, vast majority of scientists have thoroughly discredited the null hypothesis (that pernicious climate change is a hoax), there are still those (apparently including our POTUS) who think the vast majority of scientists are full of it.  (Never forget that more than 8 years ago, the future '45 and 3 of his children signed a letter to President Barack Obama calling for a global climate deal. Today,  no one working in '45's White House will answer the question "Does the President believe there is global warming?"  Oops!

Over the last several days, numerous "fact checked" transcripts of the president's climate change speech have appeared on the web. The number of untruths, misstatements and outright whoppers are numerous, to say the least.  But then again, the audience before whom the POTUS was speaking in the Rose Garden that day, was predisposed to believe that everything he says  is a pearl of truth.  Among the alternate bits of reality which escaped the fact checkers' attention were  the dire predictions of an organization called "The National Economic Research Associates" [NERA], whose chilling statistics and "what-ifs" of economic catastrophe '45 used to bolster his case for pulling out of the Paris Accord. To listen to '45, his decision was based on economics, his love of coal, and strong desire to keep the world from "laughing at us."   Turns out, NERA, an economic consulting firm founded by the neo-conservative Hudson Institute's Irwin Stelzer (known as "Rupert Murdoch's right-hand man) has long been a shill for the coal industry. Its statistics and warnings of doom have been used by climate change deniers for years . . . including the densest of all deniers, Senator James Imhofe (R-OK).  In other words, '45's null hypothesis - that climate change is a hoax - is itself a hoax backed up by "facts" and statistics which are full of - as Granny would have it- "canal water." That is to say, one hoax backed by yet another.

While '45 was correct about not wanting other countries "laughing at us anymore," his resolve was misplaced: they are laughing . . . at him.  This has been '45's modus operandi from the moment he entered politics: to convince a certain segment of American society that we are victims; that the world hates us, is taking advantage of us. and we should all be afraid. This is what an aged British friend of mine used to refer to as "the Poor Pitiful Pearl syndrome."

Despite all the negativity and predictions of doom the president used to justify pulling out of the Accord (and potential ceding of international leadership to the Chinese),  we are happy to report, that 45's political tone-deafness could actually prove to be a boon for both democratic activism and the future of planet Earth. Again, we return to Governor Brown and  the State California, which has the planet's 6th largest economy (just ahead of France).  The day after '45's speech in the White House Rose Garden, Governor Brown announced that he was leaving for China, where he would work with high-ranking Chinese officials to work on joint carbon-reduction projects.  Moreover, Governor Brown is already putting together a coalition of countries, states, cities and corporations that will work together towards the creation of new energy-efficient projects, millions of renewable energy jobs, and a universal lowering of greenhouse emissions.  He has more knowledge and experience about what we used to call the "theology of ecology" than any elected official in America. 

Already, some of America's most populous cities and states, most profitable corporations and countries around the globe, have shown a deep and abiding interest in joining this movement - regardless of whether or not '45 and the federal government will be a part of it. This is the living, breathing definition of "people power" - a force which has historically disproved more than one null hypothesis.  

Fear ye not. Do not give up.  For together we, the residents of Earth can and will save our planet from degradation. One day soon, humans will land on Mars, thus creating an alternate hypothesis:  that when people of good will, high ideals and abundant creativity work together, dreams can become reality.

138 days down, 1,319 days to go . . .

Copyright©2017 Kurt F. Stone.