Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Point of View Columns

The Wolf Who Cried Boy and Other Fables

Since the earliest humans gathered around the fire at night, fearing the famished saber-toothed tiger or the just clumsy mastodon, stories were told to distract from the darkness and things that were going bump in the night. Those stores have evolved into fables, fairy tales, legends and fantasy. And even in this age we find ourselves occasionally enthralled by stories, which may explain the fantasies that are woven into the daily news reports. Consider just a few:

The Wolf Who Cried Boy

There are times when the puerile nature of Donald Trump appears in its absolute self. Trump is like the mischievous little boy who discovers that if he blows his toy trumpet in a stable full of horses, the horses lose their equine minds and the horse trainers and stable hands have their hands full making sure that these very valuable animals don’t injure themselves while trying to stomp that stable to splinters.

Like that mischievous little boy, Trump discovered that if he used words like “Take Your Country Back” or “You’re Not Going to Have a Country” over and over to his adoring MAGA minions, said minions would actually try to take back the country (that has been nefariously taken from them) by storming the Capitol as the Electoral College votes was about to begin and doing a pretty good imitation of an angry lynch mob intent on killing the Vice President of the United States and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Fast forward two years later and Trump has now discovered that in all of his years of ducking and dodging and bobbing and weaving (with a spin move or two from time to time) with the American legal system, he is learning that Truth or Consequences is a real thing.

And for the first time in his chicanery-spattered life Trump is very close to having to address the consequences of some his many misdeeds that can result in public shaming, very real financial pain and even the possibility (however remote) of his wearing an orange jumpsuit (courtesy of the federal government, or the State of New York or the State of Georgia) to kind of match his signature orange hued hair.

And it appears that he is going back to his 1.6.21. play book and put out the siren call to his still adoring MAGA minions. He seems to believe by chanting the magic words “Take Your Country Back” and/or “You’re Not Going to Have a Country” his minions will once again charge the capitals of the Deep State and rescue him from the clutches of the unclean and unjust.

Except that this time the MAGA response seems to be lukewarm at best. There have been some well-armed demonstration ballets in front to government buildings but the heat of the rhetoric would live a Trump Burger medium rare on his rhetorical grill.

And it may be that Trump is turning into the Wolf Who Cried – and only a Boy answered.

DeSantis in MAGA Land

In tip toeing around the presidential race starting line, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seems to have fallen down the MAGA rabbit hole and found himself in a world that is absolutely illogical and beyond any hope of comprehension. And as reprehensible a character as DeSantis is, it is hard to watch him negotiate the in MAGA Land no sense makes sense, and if he wants to become the Republican nominee for president, then he will have to learn to walk the walk in MAGA Land.

So, he tries to go for the Trump Deflect Move by criticizing New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg for not going after “rising crime” in New York (it is not) instead of persecuting St. Donald of Trump for minor “personal mistakes”.

Deciding to dance on the ice floes like Liza in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, DeSantis claims that the war between Ukraine and Russia is a “territorial dispute”, presumably just like the “territorial disputes” between Germany and Poland in 1939 and the “territorial dispute” between Germany and France in 1940 or the “territorial disputes” between the United States and the indigenous peoples of North America all through the 19th century.

Clearly DeSantis has some work to do before he can be an adept in MAGA Land.

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Point of View Columns

In Celebration of Black History Month 2023

 Last week I had the distinct honor of being the guest speaker at the Black History Month Celebration hosted by the employees of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

So here we go:

Please imagine if you will that we will time travel almost 53 years ago to an America that was still shuddering from the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers – John and Robert – the cause of death was always an assassin’s bullet and always there was mystery, confusion and doubt in the aftermath, some of which lingers to this very day.

It was 53 years ago that tens of thousands of American military personnel along with millions of Vietnamese military personnel and civilians died in what was then one of the most brutal and horrific wars in recent history – the Nigerian civil war certainly being deserving of dishonorable mention.

It was 53 years ago that many American cities were still smoldering ruins after the insurrections following assassinations, police brutality and the daily recognition of rights being denied to Black people, even the right to hope.

And it was 53 years ago that I was a senior at Dartmouth College – an institution that was a critical building block in the institutional bastions that had supported, justified and rationalized racism, institutionalized white supremacy and codified the basic precepts of white male supremacy in this nation that had been built on stolen land and genocide.

In my almost four years at Dartmouth I was (and remain) proud of being part of a brotherhood of young Black men who navigated a path unknown to us or our forebearers. We were following the Drinking Gourd towards some semblance of justice and something other than inequality. And with no playbook, no guide, no griot -we changed that institution called Dartmouth College for good and forever.

And while that institution is far from being perfect, due to our belief in the possibility of change there are now more Black students, Black alumni, Black faculty, Black deans and administrators and Black alumni than could ever have been imagined 53 years ago.

We were too young to believe that there was such a thing as impossible. We had to learn to believe that as we grew older.

And so, with the assent of the Dartmouth College administration my fellow Black alumni of the Class of 1970 chose me to be the first Black person to speak at a Dartmouth College commencement in its 200-year history. And before I begin today’s remarks, I wish to share for you a few closing lines from that speech – please keep in mind that the year was 1970, the speaker was a 20 year old Black man – Richard (Law and Order) Nixon (he was about 4 years away from total disgrace and infamy), and George Wallace, though paralyzed by an assassin’s bullet still remained in the national consciousness and most of all, racism, both benign and overt, was very much a clear and present part of the American character.

That was the America in which I found myself, and at the close of my remarks I said this:

We have been told to believe in America, to believe that there was something deep down inside America that was good. And what has happened?

Black brothers die daily in the Indochina madness that is just another example of the sickness of America spilling out all over the world, and still we try to believe; Nixon tells Black people that he doesn’t give a damn about us, that he would rather put a white man on the moon than put food into a Black (or white) child’s stomach, and still we try to believe; the Congressional Record of the United States details the past plans for the construction and use of concentration camps and still we are supposed to believe.

The time has now come for us to believe in ourselves. The time has come to make ourselves free. Our stars of freedom still shine and our saints of righteousness do live. You only have to look around.

The stars are in the eyes of little Black babies and children who were born destined only for freedom, the saints of righteousness are the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters who have provided the strength for Blackness to survive in the face of the forces of evil seem to be everywhere.

The time is coming, the time has got to come, when freedom will be seen in our smiles, and our Blackness will mean freedom. We have to believe this, because this is the only reality left to us.

That is what we are about, that is what today means for us. To best sum up our feelings though, I would like to quote a poem written by Brother Herschel Johnson, of this class, as this poem speaks for the souls and spirits of all of us:

For you mothers with dirt-rough hands

For you with backs aching from bending

And flushing and scrubbing

For all you women on transit

You with brown bags under your arms

Bringing home the leavings of white folks

Bringing it to your children

For all you Black mothers and fathers

Who had to live with humility

And yet have had the pride to survive

For you Black mothers and fathers who raised up

Your men are now with you.

Thank you and may a beautiful Black peace always be with you.

And at the conclusion of my remarks I received a standing ovation from an overwhelming white commencement audience. Sometimes the truth does indeed prevail.

And now, 53 years later there has been progress and regress. We can cite the progress that has been made with the appearance of Black billionaires and millionaires, the election of a Black president of the United States and a Black vice president of the United State. We have seen progress with the election of Black mayors and governors, and we have seen progress in the number of Black CEO’s heading Fortune 500 corporations. More Black men and women are going to college and medical school and business school and law school beyond numbers that Booker T. Washington couldn’t comprehend in his wildest dreams.

And yet…and yet, more Black men and women suffer the burden of the New Jim Crow, populating American prisons and jails far out of proportion to our percentage of the national population. Our young men, and increasingly our young women, are killing each other in numbers that would make the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan happy as a hog in a mudhole. We have seen our common language and shared culture degrade ourselves with violent, misogynistic self-hatred and a bizarre embrace of ignorance.

Of course, we also have to take to time to observe, assess and consider the present and the future because if we ignore the present and fail to consider the future, then we do so at our own peril.

It should be noted once more that the origins of Black History Month began with the work of the great Black historian G. Carter Woodson. The celebration began in February because the birthday of the great Frederick Douglass was in February. And I would like to share a quote by Brother Douglass:

There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their constitution.

We have seen the birth and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement and white corporate America has paid lip service to the concept – but institutional change has been elusive at best for Black America.

The end of the Trump presidency featured the first truly armed insurrection against the United States government since the Civil War. That the insurrection was led and planned by a sitting President of the United States should make us very concerned that the worst is yet to come.

Right now, Trump lies dormant like a fat rattlesnake in cool weather. But cold-blooded reptile that he is, the warmer the weather the more active he will become. He is already venomous and we would be fools to think that he will not strike again.

Meanwhile, by every indicium – family income, infant mortality, life expectancy, incarceration rates, poverty levels, education and income deficits – the narrative of this country is that no matter where we live, no matter how much money we make, no matter where we went to school – if you are a Black woman, man or child – we live in a different country than that of our white sisters and brothers.

Since the November 2016 election we have seen the deconstruction of American democracy moving from slow motion to warp speed. And even though American democracy has never been the saving grace of Black America that it should be, its demise simply cannot be a good thing. That is because the successor to American democracy could be very well be an authoritarian America that will certainly not be the friend of any Black woman, man or child.

Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 – and I realize that many of you gathered today were not even born then and therefore have enjoyed a level of franchise entitlement that never existed for Black people before that year and…. may soon evaporate before the end of this decade.

We have seen the deconstruction of the Republican Party, at one point the party of Reconstruction- seemingly a million years ago- and is now the vehicle for a proto-conservative, authoritarian, neo-fascist, jackbooted and tattooed cadre of shock troops hell-bent on a reconstruction of America that will not resemble anything that has been seen in this country’s history.

We must understand that instead of worrying about how many times Joe Rogan says “nigger” we should be worrying about how many members of Congress and the Senate will no longer consider Black Americans as a legitimate part of their constituency and that we are not truly citizens of this country. And once that becomes the case, the remaining guard rails are coming down.

The American house is on fire. Like many housefires it may not be that noticeable at first – there might be some oily rags in the garage waiting for a moment of ignition or some old and moldy magazines smoldering in the attic and then – conflagration.

In the future we should never look back and say that we had no idea that it could get this bad. We have been warned and we have a choice. As Frederick Douglass said:

Power concedes nothing without demand

The question now is what do you demand? What do we demand?

We can regroup and reorient our focus towards resistance and resilience. We have to realize that our forebears didn’t even have shoes, but they marched to freedom – spiritually and literally.

Anything that we might consider to be freedom today is in jeopardy.

And if we just hope for better times, if we just go about our daily business with the assumption that things really cannot get that much worse, if we cross our fingers and refuse to imagine a more negative scenario than that in which we live, then we dishonor and disrespect everything that Black History Month is supposed to stand for:

-We will dishonor the enslaved mothers and fathers of our people who endured unspeakable horror, somehow holding on to the hope that if not their lives, the lives of their descendants would be better

-We will disregard the historic and epic achievements of Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner and Frederick Douglass on through to Fannie Lou Hamer, Harry T. Moore, Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

-and we will disrespect the rich legacy of hope and expectation that has been our inheritance

What can we do? We can invest strategically in that aspect of the political process to which we still have access and demand of our elected officials that every moment of every hour of every day should witness their working with the realization that we are at an existential point in American history and our continued existence is not a given – we don’t have time for political labels or petty partisanship or anything else that does not aim for resistance and resilience

What can we do? We can focus on education, healthcare and community development as if our lives depend on it – because they do.

What can we do? We can immediately stop acting like business as usual is going to yield useful results.

What can we do?

Everything!

We can get more serious about voter registration and, as importantly, voter education and, most importantly voter engagement – in your neighborhood and in your community.

We can learn from the opposition to play the long game – focus on the community boards, the school boards, the state legislatures – not just the bright shiny object called the presidency.

We can develop a real agenda that needs to be supported by candidates at every level – local, state and federal– healthcare, housing education, police/criminal justice reform, voting rights, abortion rights – what exactly do you want? You cannot complain that the system isn’t serving your needs if you don’t know what you want, and you don’t know what you need. And we need to know what we don’t know.

What can we do?

If we believe?

Everything!

Now!

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Point of View Columns

Lies at the Foot of the Statue of Liberty

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The next time that Ron DeSantis or Greg Abbott or Marjorie Taylor Greene take an Anti-Immigrant Demagogue Holiday in New York, they might want to take a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty and read the plaque at the base of the statue. While someone might have to help them with some of the words with which they are unfamiliar like “poor”, “wretched”, and “homeless”, one would have to wonder if the full meaning of the Statue of Liberty would seep into their consciousness.

If they took the time to think about it (“thinking” being a herculean effort for these three) they might realize that when it the statue was assembled and unveiled on October 28, 1886, New York City had already been the point of arrival for millions of immigrants from all over the world for over two hundred years. And while there has always been an anti-immigrant virus in the American bloodstream, the sheer number of immigrants who have become Americans should have eliminated that virus from the American bloodstream.

This Less Than Tremendous Trio might have given some thought to the fact that the only non-immigrant descendants in the United States are what’s left of the descendants of the indigenous peoples of North America, indigenous peoples who were the victims of calculated racial and cultural genocide until they were almost extinct – like the buffalo and the passenger pigeon.

It is clear that when Greene and Abbott and DeSantis are talking about stopping the flow of immigrants to this country they are not particularly concerned about the negative economic impact of immigration. Indeed, in states like Florida and Georgia and Texas, the homes of DeSantis, Greene and Abbott the agricultural sectors rely heavily on immigrant labor. Indeed, the history of the American economy reflects a hug reliance on immigrant labor – whether voluntary, enslaved or involuntary (e.g. the Chinese labor on the transcontinental railroad construction).

And while anti-immigration advocates don’t seem to have a problem with Ukrainian men, women and children coming to the United States by the thousands, there is a problem with Haitian, Venezuelan and Mexican men, women and children. Clearly the concern is not American sovereignty – many immigrants become citizens who are fulling committed to the American Way. Clearly the problem is not that immigrants will somehow drain this country of various public service resources – immigrants give as good as they get.

So, what exactly is the problem? Clearly blond and blue-eyed Ukrainians are welcomed with open arms provided with housing, healthcare and employment. Dark skinned Haitians are beaten with batons and trampled with horses at the U.S.-Mexican border, given one hundred dollars and flown back to the hellhole that is now Haiti – a hellhole for which America carries a heavy historical burden of culpability.

It would appear that the issue is about race – which is the case in America since before the United States even existed. And it can be no coincidence that the opponents of non-white immigration are also against reparations for the descendants of Black enslaved people, and they are also against the teaching of racial truths in American schools, colleges and universities.

Donald Trump was on to something when he revived Ronald Reagan’s Make America Great Again slogan (without attribution – but what else could we expect from a true grifter like Trump). The MAGA chant was not meant for Black Americans or Latinos or Asian Americans or the descendants of the indigenous peoples, all of us wondering exactly hen was America great for us?

But the not so subtle, barely subliminal message in Make America Great Again harks back to a time when “minority” concerns were not a priority for white America. There was a time when racial segregated communities and internment camps and reservations were part of the American Way, and it was a time when very few white Americans found any of this to anything more than regrettable, but necessary, ways to keep America great for its white majority.

Today Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump are blowing dog whistles that all of us can hear.

We know now that when America is Great Again it will not be Great for indigenous people. Asian Americans, Latinos or Black Americans.

Maya Angelou once said, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”.

It is time for women and men of goodwill to believe and unite, while there is still time to Make America Great for the First Time.

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Point of View Columns

The Republican Party of 2023 – The Misadventure Continues

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The early days of 2023 can give rise to the belief that we are now living in the twilight zone where the year never ends and it is now December 41, 2022. Indeed, the drama and chaos that churned through much of last year continues unabated. Consider some of the following recent events and you can decide for yourself:

Early Days of the Republican Rule of the House of Representatives: If the clown car crash derby which was disguised as the Republican members of Congress selecting Kevin McCarthy as Speaker is indication, there be a malevolent set of initiatives designed to establish a very real and malevolent minority rule in this country.

While the total of Republicans in the House does not represent the majority of Americans, and the Crazy Caucus (Gaetz, Boebert, Jordan, etc.) represent a minority of a minority within the Republican Party, their claim that the American people elected them to change America by dismantling a flawed system (with nothing to replace it) rings false and untrue.

Their diabolical strategy includes a) defunding the Internal Revenue Service b) limiting the work of the House Ethics Committee and c) an impossible commitment to a balanced federal budget even if that results in this country defaulting on the national debt causing the entire world economy to collapse is what is a thinly disguised plan to weaken many of the institutions of this already imperfect country.

 The United States of Gun, Cont’d: Earlier this week in Virginia, a six-year old boy brought a pistol from his home and into his classroom and then shot his teacher. While the teacher does not appear to have suffered a fatal wound, it is only by the grace of God that she is not dead. And this incident reveals the literal daily danger that all Americans face in the United States of Gun due to the insane proliferation of these weapons in every city, town and village.

As has been noted before in Point of View, there are approximately 330 million Americans in this country and over 400 million guns. There are more gun deaths per capita than in any country in the world except Yemen – which happens to be in the midst of a civil war.

Yet there appears to be no end to the acceptance of this carnage and even modest controls on the ownership of these increasingly lethal weapons is not even possible in the face of the phalanx of the National Rifle Association and the lobbyists for gun manufacturers. In effect the NRA and gun manufacturers are holding this country hostage, while killing hostages every day.

A true definition of insanity.

Republican Attendance at the Memorial for Fallen Defenders of the Capitol on 1.6.21 = 1: Sadly, this is not a misprint. On January 6th of this year members of Congress sought to honor the twelve Capitol Police officers who died in defense of the Capitol and all the members of Congress during the insurrectionist riot of January 6th of the year 2021.

Every Democrat and Independent member of the House and Senate stood on the steps of the Capitol who lost their lives due to the machinations of Donald Trump and his allies, some of whom are in Congress at this very moment. Only one (1) Republican had the respect for the dead and could overcome any partisan debate for at least a few minutes of respectful silence.

The absent Republicans showed their disdain for law enforcement and their inhuman insensitivity for the families of these dead officers.

Shame is not a word strong enough to describe their behavior.

The Incredible Shrinking Trump: All reliable reports indicate that Donald Trump is shrinking before our very eyes. He did not even have enough influence to get his own crazies in the Republican Congressional Caucus support his candidate for Speaker until 15 separate votes were taken. And then only after concessions that make McCarthy a virtually toothless temporary Speaker.

One is reminded of Edward G. Robinson’s classic line in the 1930 movie “Little Caesar”, “Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?”

Could be Trump, could be.

Jair Bolsonaro is the Trump of the Tropics: During his presidency of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro was described as the Trump of the Tropics for his strikingly similar tactics of consistent lying, defying the laws and governing traditions of his country and always, always attacking anyone who opposed his.

Following the Trump Playbook, he started to cast doubt on the 2022 presidential election saying that the only way that he could lose would be due to voter fraud engineered by his opponents. Sound familiar?

Bolsonaro did lose. Bolsonaro did claim that there was voter fraud. Bolsonaro did facilitate a grudging transition to his successor Lula da Silva. And Bolsonaro did not attend the inauguration of his successor, instead choosing to vacation in Florida.

Sound familiar?

But then Bolsonaro threw away Trump playbook. He clearly planned an assault on the Capitol in Brasilia intended to bring about the collapse of the new presidential regime. All this while he was 3,795 miles away eating fried chicken (photos confirm this). Allowing Bolsonaro to claim that he was not complicit – although no one believes it. But he did not leave his fingerprints all over the insurrection as did one Donald Trump.

Perhaps Trump should think about following the Bolsonaro Playbooks.

Last Words from Negrodamus: George Santos is actually the love child of the late Greg Allman and Cher, adopted by Nazi sympathizers in Brazil who were disguised as Jews.

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Point of View Columns

Reflections on the Night Before the Night Before Christmas

As 2022 stumbles and lurches to an uncertain ending, it is useful for us to consider the question of whether this country (and this planet) can veer off the road to self-destruction, and right now it is anybody’s guess as to what the final result will be.

But there is always hope. Hope has sustained humanity from the time our ancestors got their knuckles off the ground and discovered that there was a world of opportunity. Our knuckles have never been on the ground but it remains to be seen if we are able to discern the opportunities that exist today – not just survival, but the pursuit of a better world for everyone.

Of course, there are some reasons to have our doubts, consider:

Just Who Is George Santos?

The only reason that you might even begin to recognize his name is not because he won a congressional seat in New York state, flipping a Democratic seat to the Republican Party.

The reason that you might have heard about him on CNN or MSNBC (or maybe even Fox News) is that it appears he is actually a bigger liar that Donald Trump. Consider:

-He said he attended Baruch College. He did not.

-He said he attend the New York University School of Business. He did not

-He said that he was an executive with Citicorp. He was not.

-He said that he was a banker with Goldman Sachs. He was not.

-He said that he was Jewish. He is not.

-He said that he was gay. The fact that he divorced his (female) wife in 2019 makes that unlikely.

-He said that his grandparents were refugees from the Holocaust. They were not.

There are so many more lies, lies and more lies. Yet this guy named Santos was elected to Congress. The New York State Democratic Party opposition research team was clearly busy getting a tan in the Hamptons and the Republican Party seems to be defending a serial liar because he will help preserve their razor thin majority in the House of Representatives.

The question is whether there is any combination or formerly disqualifying facts that would keep someone from getting elected to office in the modern American political arena.

The Master of Lies, Donald Trump, may have established a new blueprint for success…. lies, lies and more lies.

Exactly Who Does Donald Trump, Jr. Think He Is?

Earlier this week, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, made a surprise (and death defying) visit to the United States and addressed a joint session of Congress. It should be no surprise that Mr. Zelenskyy took the opportunity to request more aid in his country’s existential battle with Russia.

Whatever one’s views are on the current conflict, there can be no doubt that the courage and determination of Zelenskyy and his people should make us wonder if any Americans could endure the hardships of this war with the same level of uncomplaining courage. Keep in mind that a war has not been fought on American soil since the Civil War (more on that in another column).

And then comes Donald Trump, Jr. who, walking in his father’s besmirched footsteps, call President Zelenskyy “a welfare queen” for asking for additional aid in his effort to literally save his country.

Where do we begin:

-First, “welfare queen” was a slur uttered by Ronald Reagan (a racist to his heart who is still occupying a place of honor in the Republican pantheon). It was a lightly disguised code term referring to Black women who were taking advantage of the welfare system, even though, to this day, the majority of welfare recipients are White.

-Second, Trump, Jr. has never worked a real day in his life, and being an heir to the dwindling Trump empire may result in his actually having to work for a living.

-Third, insulting and demeaning the courage of  the Ukrainian people is particularly obscene given that the only thing that Trump, Jr. has ever shot at was an unarmed water buffalo or an elephant that had the misfortune of looking wrong way.

1.6.21 Report

When the 1.6.21 issued its report this week it turns out that the Trump Insurrection was worse than we thought. First and foremost, it was planned for months if not years in advance. The feral creature that he is, Trump knew that he was not going to ever win the popular vote, or even the electoral vote, so he went to his go to mode – cheat, lie and steal.

Second, this country came closer to a very real coup than any of realized in January of last year. If not for just a few, very few, members of the military and Trump’s own administration, we might be slip sliding in the banana republic that would have been the outcome.

We all know that, on some level that democracy, even one as flawed as the American version is, so fragile that it just takes a determined minority to overturn the entire structure.

It happened in Germany and it still could happen here.

Something to remember as 2022 staggers to its end.

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Point of View Columns

Not So Late Breaking News – But News Nevertheless

During the past ten days there have been some items in the news which are worthy of comment as well as concern, to wit:

Oklahoma – None so blind as those who refuse to see

Recently the Oklahoma State Legislature determined that no public-school system in the state could have as part of its curriculum any study of American history that might make students feel ashamed of themselves or of America and passed a law to that effect.

It is ironic that Oklahoma is a state totally established on the land that was stolen from the indigenous people who had lived there for many centuries.

It is also ironic that it was in Tulsa, Oklahoma 1921 that white citizens shot, hung, murdered, bombed and burned the very successful Black community in that city. Unknown hundreds of men, women and children were killed and buried in unmarked mass graves and virtually every building in that community was razed to the ground.

So, it should come as no surprise that the Tulsa School Board would approve curricula that included requiring students to learn about that tragedy and savagery that afflicted their city only a short century ago.

And it should come as no surprise that the Oklahoma Board of Education has lowered the accreditation of the Tulsa school system as if by censoring the truth the truth will somehow disappear; that if by closing the eyes of the Black and white children of Oklahoma genocide and murder and lynching will no longer be a part of history.

Indeed, there are none so blind as those that refuse to see.

The Legacy of the British Monarchy

The death of Queen Elizabeth II turned out to be one of those inevitable events that still had the capacity to impact billions around the world. Of course, most of those billions were or are members of the Commonwealth or were colonized by the British, sometimes for centuries.

There is every reason to believe that Queen Elizabeth II was a perfectly gentle soul who performed her service as monarch during a period of seven decades, even as the notion of monarchy has dimmed as anachronism that has outlived its sell by date by a lot.

It does no dishonor to the memory of the queen to point out that the crimes, sins and outrages committed by the British Empire around the world in the name of the monarchy have to be fully acknowledged or even admitted. The death and destruction committed by Empire in the Americas, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and Asia is undeniable.

And the rapacious character of the British Empire is also undeniable. The current wealth of Great Britain is due to outright theft, exploitation, slavery and genocide. The historical artifacts looted from civilizations virtually lost to time and depredation are proudly on view in museums in London as trophies of such outright global depredation.

It has been suggested that, with the death of Queen Elizabeth, it may be time to give the monarchy and the myth of the British Empire decent burials with little fanfare.

Then it will be time to discuss reparations, restitution and apology.

Dumb and Dumbest

No more cards and letters please, we have a winner for the Dumb and Dumbest Prize of the year.

It turns out that there are some Mensa dropouts in the Democratic National Committee have aligned with political and nonprofit organizations to donate over $50 million dollars in support of Republican primary candidates who are to the right of Genghis Khan, and some of them actually make Donald Trump seem well, rational.

The strategy that has been revealed is that by helping the most outrageous right-wing Republicans win their primaries, especially for House and Senate seats, will result in candidacies that are too radical for most general election voters thereby virtually guaranteeing Democratic victories (remember that word “virtually”).

Of course, if this strategy had been employed in 2016, millions of Democratic dollars would have gone to Donald Trump thereby derailing the likes of Jeb Bush and Chris Christie. And we now know how that would have turned out.

Why anyone would want to risk millions of dollars that might result in the election of one or more mini-Trumps is simply beyond comprehension.

We can only hope that this is not one time where being too smart turn out to be pretty dumb.

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Point of View Columns

Reflections on Labor Day 2022

In most of the northern hemisphere the beginning of Autumn will take place on September 22, 2022. However, in yet another example of American “exceptionalism”, Labor Day marks the end of summer. And so it seems that this is as good a time as any to reflect on the many twists and turns in Life in America true story in which so many of us are living. These six items are as good as any as providing some real time perspective:

  1. Sometime within the last 48 hours Trump is now claiming that the confidential secret documents were in his Mar a Lago estate/resort because he wanted them for……. his presidential library. There is no elaboration as to whether he said this with a straight face since he is (a) notorious for not reading and (b) no member of his senior staff can seem to recall any particular interest that Trump had for a presidential library and (c) although Trump managed to graduate with a bachelor’s degree having attended two universities to attain this goal, there is literally no record of Trump having written anything of note in his entire professional career that would warrant the need for a Trump presidential library. Of course, this is just another example of Trump throwing stuff against the wall in the hope that something will stick.
  2. Meanwhile, the federal judge in Florida that is dealing with the case pertaining the confidential/secret security documents taken from Mar a Lago by FBI agents has partially granted Trump’s request for a Special Master to determine if any documents personal to Trump should be returned. It should be noted that the judge in this case was appointed to the federal branch by Trump in 2020. And while it should be presumed that federal judges would be fair and impartial, all of the over 200 federal judges appointed by Trump, including the three Supreme Court judges, were vetted and recommended by the proto-conservative Federalist Society. So…. this ruling in Trump’s favor should be no surprise.
  3. Meanwhile, across the pond, the Conservative Party in Great Britain designated Liz Truss as the new Prime Minister, succeeding the very troubled administration of Boris Johnson. In her acceptance speech Ms. Truss praised Boris Johnson for engineering Brexit, the British withdrawal from the European Union. That would be the same Brexit that has had catastrophic consequences for virtually every aspect of British life and the British economy and consigning Great Britain to third tier status among nations for the foreseeable future. Hearing this news one is reminded of the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
  4. The most recent news from Canada is that two men in Saskatchewan went on a killing spree stabbing ten people to death with no apparent motive. One wonders what the death toll might be if AR-15 rifles were more easily available in Canada. Of course the NRA would argue that if more Canadians were armed with guns these killers would have been foiled even though the real time experience here is America is that this argument is as full of holes as a target on a shooting range.
  5. Meanwhile, a new COVID-19 booster is now available as a protection on the seemingly immortal omicron virus that continues to plague this country. And now the countdown begins for the vaccination deniers to howl about the violation of their right to die while killing others as the reason why they should not be required to get vaccinated. If historians are even around 1000 years ago it will be interesting how they chronicle the way that means of self-destruction like no gun restrictions and protest against vaccines became so popular.
  6. And finally, many Republicans are upset that President Biden referred to MAGA Republicans as “semi-fascist”. These would be the people who either participated or have supported the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol to prevent the legitimate transfer of power to a duly elected president. These would be the same people who believe that modern day fascists such as Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, should be invited to mainstream Republican conferences. Hopefully President Biden will continue to tell the truth.

And now, since it is the end of summer in America, we will need to prepare ourselves for the virtual and actual Winter in America.

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Point of View Columns

A Failure of Imagination Can Be Dangerous

And now the nation will be subjected to more Trumpfoolery. From the man who brought you bankrupt casinos and Trump Steaks, we are now supposed to care if/when Trump will announce his candidacy for president in the 2024 election.

Of course, anyone with a shred of decency or shame – two items that are totally absent from the World According to Trump – would not subject this country to the madness and turmoil that will accompany another Trump campaign, much less a Trump presidency.

The fact that, after two impeachments and a failed coup attempt, there should be no way that this sad excuse for a human being could ever be a viable candidate for dogcatcher, much less president. But the sad truth is that he would be a viable candidate and a much stronger candidate than he ever was in 2016 or 2020.

And anyone who thinks that Trump cannot be elected in 2024 is either not paying attention or is suffering from a failure of imagination.

Consider that Trump endorsed candidates have won Republican primaries for Secretary of State, Governor, United States Senator, and Congressional Representative. There is a very real chance that a number of these men and women will be elected and will begin to lay the groundwork for the Restoration of Trump.

It is not hard to imagine Republican-led state legislatures making it even more difficult for people to vote. Certainly, Republican Secretaries of State will have no qualms about simply not counting ballots from majority-Democrat districts and we can expect that many of the vote tampering plots conjured up by John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani in 2020-2021 will just be the way electoral business will be conducted in 2023 and of course, in 2024 leading to the very real possibility that Trump will be re-elected despite losing the popular vote in three consecutive elections.

And for those people who think that the federal courts will reverse any wrongdoing, keep in mind that Trump has seeded the federal judiciary with hundreds of right-wing judges who are almost to a man or woman, Federalist Society acolytes. And, at the risk of pointing to the obvious, the 6-3 right-wing Supreme Court, which features three Trump appointees will not disappoint their benefactor if given the opportunity to grant him a second term.

And if the Republican wave tips the Senate and House into the hands of the likes of Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, we can be sure that there will be Senate and House investigations of everything from the “real truth” about Hunter Biden to dredged up accusations against Kamala Harris. And, we can be sure that Joe Biden will not be able to appoint a single federal judge – not one.

Imagine a Senate Committee chaired by Rick Scott or Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley or a House Committee chaired by Marjorie Taylor Green and it is clear that we will be staring to an abyss over the next two years.

And then, with the election of Donald Trump, it will only get worse.

And anyone who would argue that these scenarios are not possible is suffering from a true failure of imagination.

And in these days and times that can be very dangerous.

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Point of View Columns

The Trump Insurrection – A Clear and Present Danger

The January 6th Committee hearings have not produced a lot of “new” news. But it has been revealed that Trump and his minions were trying to implement a conspiracy that was a lot worse than anyone could have imagined.

To be clear, taking cues from the playbook written by the likes of Trujillo, Idi Amin, Francois Duvalier, Saddam Hussein and so many others, Trump attempted to overturn over two centuries of peaceful transfers of power in America so that he could remain as president even though he did not win the popular vote or the Electoral College results.  

To be clear, there were scores of government officials, beginning with Trump and pinballing through federal, state and local officeholders all of whom, so it seems, knew from the start that the whole effort was based on the Big Lie and Trump’s naked grab for power even though he lost.

And while Trump did not succeed, one gets the impression that the entire episode involved the Keystone Cops version of political co-conspirators. Still, the Trump and his Keystone Cops might get some better collaborators before November 2024 comes around this time with the support of co-conspirators seeded throughout local, state and federal governments as well as all of 200+ Trump appointed judges who are seeded throughout the federal judiciary for the rest of their lives.

As the January 6th Committee hearings there are a few more things to keep in mind as you watch with a combination of horror, terror, disbelief and fear:

  • It is doubtful that anyone who believes that the election was stolen from Trump is even watching, much less willing to consider the possibility that the Big Hoax is actually the Big Lie.
  • We can be hopeful that there are enough members of Congress who are willing to understand that the demolition of the American democracy – as flawed as it might be – is simply not a good idea.
  • We should be very concerned regarding the election results in 2024 – the seeds have been sown and America may end up reaping the whirlwind.

In closing we should wonder at why there is not a greater sense of danger pervading the political discourse in this country. Too many Americans seem to believe that the political traditions and governmental institutions are too strong to be overthrown no matter how much they may be abused. But belief does not make it true and history does not lie.

Consider that at one point in Germany there was something called the National Socialist Party which, while espousing a certain amount of racist vitriol, also spoke to the real and imagined grievances of many German people.

This National Socialist Party also had a loosely organized paramilitary arm called Storm Troopers who participated in occasional violence and made a big show of marching around and scaring people – even to the extent of trying to overthrow an election in Munich which led to the arrest and conviction of their leader, one Adolph Hitler.

But there was a great deal of public sympathy for Hitler and he escaped a death sentence, served a short time in prison and within a few years he was Chancellor of Germany and the National Socialist Party became known as the Nazis and the Storm Troopers begat the Gestapo.

We should be concerned as to whether the Republican Party and the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers and Donald Trump become the 21st century version of what was inflicted on Germany and the world less than one hundred years ago.

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Point of View Columns

Here is Why Elections Matter

While it seems like a story from another era, it was only a little over five years ago that an egomaniacal self-promoting misogynist by the name of Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. Not even Trump could believe that he won the election when the race was called in his favor early in the morning after election day. After all, Trump’s big plan was to launch an eponymous news network built on the foundation of the popularity and notoriety gained during the campaign.

There was no rational reason to explain how a man who lies, sometimes just to keep in practice, with no real knowledge of governance or international dynamics could be elected. He was a man who was racist, sexist, homophobic and a denier of the environmental catastrophe that threatens every living creature on the planet.

Yet he was elected president instead of Hillary Clinton who was arguably one of the most well-equipped presidential candidate in modern American history. He was elected by a difference of 50,000 votes cast in four states – Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin – and so he brought his promise to reconfigure the federal judiciary with him even though he know as much about the federal judiciary as he knew about how to run a successful casino.

But there were men and women, particularly the evangelical community and the Federalist Society knew everything about how to reconfigure the federal judiciary. They envisioned a judiciary that absolutely did not reflect the common view of the American people on issues like the importance of a strong federal government, abortion rights, gender equity, racial equity and the very real need to address environmental concerns.

In 2016 too many people who supported Bernie Sanders did not support Hillary Clinton because they felt (1) that Clinton had simply outmaneuvered Sanders by using the levers of the political process to her advantage (true, but that is not a breaking news story) and (2) that if Trump won it would not make a difference in the short term and his obvious incompetence would make it possible for Sanders to be the obvious candidate in 2020 – and too many, actually just enough Sandinistas stayed home and paved the way for the disastrous Trump presidency.

And we see how that worked out.

Trump may do a lot of dumb things. Trump may say a lot of dumb things. But it would be a mistake to believe that he is stupid.

He knew that he was elected in large part because neoconservatives in the Federalist Society and in the evangelical community believed that this liar would keep his promise to reconfigure the federal judiciary. And for once, and largely he could care less about the federal judiciary, he kept his promise.

In four years Trump appointed 226 conservative federal judges that will serve life terms. Trump appointed 54 federal appellate judges (Barack Obama appointed 55 in eight years). Trump also appointed three Supreme Court justices assuring a neoconservative majority on that court for at least a decade.

The Supreme Court has already proved with decisions – “shadow docket” and otherwise – that it is moving to the far, far right on issues like abortion, voting, rights and the environment. And they are just getting warmed up.

And earlier this week Judge Kathryn Mizelle, yet another Trump appointee, struck down the federal mask mandate on interstate travel putting not only the entire nation, but the entire world at risk. Judge Mizelle, a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, is a member of the Federalist Society and appointed by Trump when she was 33 (she is now 35) and whose husband was acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump presidency.

The American Bar Association stated that she was unqualified for the position due to her lack of experience as a lawyer but that did not matter to Trump or his Republican lackeys in the Senate.

And now not only is the mask mandate in question – even as 500 Americans die from COVID every day – the authority of the Centers for Disease Control is now in question and could have a devastating impact on the public health apparatus for years to come.

And that is why elections matter.

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