……. and DON’T COME BACK.
2021
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Category Archives: Commentary
A Story for the Season … & All Seasons
Since returning to Washington from a three-year sojourn in New York City, I have tried to include in this blog a variety of topics, including some with photos I have taken on trips/daytrips and just around the city. Most of the posts are more serious. That was not the original idea behind the blog. It was supposed to cover a potpourri of subjects about our country – hence the title, ShiningSeaUSA, borrowed from the song, “America the Beautiful. “
While in New York I started another blog, AutumnInNewYork, that was about our life in the great city, in the autumn of my years. We expected New York to be the last place we would live. It turned out otherwise, thanks largely to the pandemic, and AutumnInNewYork was terminated.
As I was reflecting on our first year back in the DC area, and the holiday season we are all struggling to experience again, I recalled a blog post from December 24, 2018, entitled “A Story for the Season … & All Seasons.” I am reposting it today in continued acknowledgement of both the person whom it concerns and the spirit of the holiday season. I am sure no one alive today expected to still be dealing with COVID-19 and the aftermath of an attempted insurrection but here we are. We must remember in these troubled times there are still moments of beauty and joy. I was fortunate to witness one and I share it with you now.
“A Story for the Season … & All Seasons
I can’t shake this story from my mind and, considering the season and everything that is going on, I must share it.
I recently visited a doctor in New York City for a follow-up to an earlier consultation. Not unexpectedly, there were patients sitting in the waiting room so I knew it might be a while before I was seen. I always have a book with me for such situations.
As I read, I happened to glance up and notice across from me a younger (30-something, I’m guessing) woman slumped sideways in her chair, obviously dozing. I continued reading but my attention turned to the young woman again when my doctor unexpectedly emerged from the back and approached her, quietly calling her name. The young woman did not react; she was “out cold.” The doctor, realizing the woman was deeply asleep, walked over to her, reached down and gently took each of the woman’s hands in her own. She did not pull or poke. She massaged them gently while speaking softly to the woman. This did the job of waking her, and, after a few moments to collect herself, they walked together into the back, the doctor asking her some question I didn’t catch.
I sat there for several minutes, reflecting on what I had seen. I was moved by it in ways I didn’t, and still don’t completely, understand. The power of witnessing the simple gesture of care and sensitivity took me by surprise. Then, my turn came; I went back, visited with a nurse to take the required “vitals” and waited in a room to see the doctor who came in very shortly.
After some small talk, I told her that I had witnessed what she had done, how gently and sweetly she had awakened the young woman. The doctor responded with “I’ve known her for years and she’s very special.” I said, “you are special, doctor. Doctors generally don’t do what you did.” She thanked me, somewhat embarrassed, I suspect, and we moved on.
I still often think about that simple gesture of kindness that, in most other circumstances I have witnessed over the years, would have been treated quite differently. The way my doctor chose to awaken her patient has stayed with me as an extraordinary example of how natural kindness can work with remarkable power. As I reflect on the scene, as vivid to me like it just happened, and as the holidays come on, it stands in vivid contrast to our national political life that is dominated by rancor, conflict and fear. We’re all trying to experience the holidays in a good way, and likely most of us will succeed in the end. And ‘will’ is the right word, because it feels more like an act of will than a natural thing to do at this time of year.
Part of the power of the doctor’s act was, I think, that it was so natural, so spontaneous. I am virtually certain she did not mull it over first; she just naturally reacted to the situation with humanity and compassion. That young lady is lucky, as am I, to have a doctor with such instincts for kindness. It’s a lesson we all need to learn and re-learn, especially when the times we live in are so burdened with acrimony and lack of concern for those in need of a helping hand. I suspect I will always have that image in my mind and hope to remain aware and grateful for its reminder of what is possible.”
Happy Holidays.
An American Team No More
Americans once believed that when push came to shove, we would unite against common adversaries. A generalization, to be sure, but I believe it was accurate overall. It was true despite our ongoing differences about things like balanced budgets, the size and role of government and many others arising from America as the Melting Pot. Differences in the Pot were inevitable and, in some cases, resulted in sharp divisions. But, still, we believed that, faced with an outside adversary, Americans would come together as one nation to fight back.
World War II was a good example in “modern” times. Men and women went to war, more women worked in factories doing the necessary, and often dangerous, work that men had performed before going off to fight the Nazis and the Japanese. It was a terrible time. Many were grievously wounded, physically and mentally, and many died, leaving behind others ill-equipped to go it alone. People did without many luxuries. Ration stamps were used to allocate food, among other things. It was a a terrible time.
The idea of Americans united against outside adversaries found expression in movies involving alien invaders. Some of those movies showed the entire world coming together to fight the aliens. Faced with an outside threat, often with more advanced technologies, “we” prevailed with grit, ingenuity and a sense of common purpose. That was, of course, a fantasy but “we” always won in the end.
No more. We have a new common enemy that is attacking the entire world from within. This enemy is invisible and highly adaptable. We have seen its like before and always, always came together, solved the puzzle and prevailed. And yes, I know there were always outliers, but they were the exceptions. In 1918, the closest modern parallel to COVID-19,
It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic. [https://bit.ly/3ql2V8v]
You likely know that the United States blew past that 675,000 death figure some time ago. As of two days ago, December 22, U.S. COVID deaths had reached 805,112 and climbing – almost 1,400 deaths on that one day and a 7-day moving average approaching 1,200 and rising.
The numbers are so large that our minds balk at acceptance and comprehension. But the numbers are real. The sickness and death are real. We are not even counting the cases of Long Covid, the condition in which the debilitating effects on the heart, lungs and brain (among others) last beyond the initial illness for … no one knows how long.
Our inability to comprehend is part, but only part, of the reason that so many – in the millions – people deny that COVID is real. Some are so deep in denial that, even when hospitalized in critical or worse condition, they continue to claim their disease is something else, that the doctors and nurses are lying to them when they say, “you have COVID.”
Whatever the roots and reasons that tens of millions refuse to get vaccinated, those people appear to be lost to the team – to Team America. The huge number of unvaccinated Americans – two years into the pandemic – are a breeding ground for the virus to mutate. And mutate it does. All viruses do. The anti-vaxxers are responsible for the prolongation of the pandemic and the personal and economic destruction that the virus has inflicted. Omicron has swept across the globe in weeks, displacing the Delta variant. There is no end in sight. And the next variant may not be as “mild” as Omicron.
The best we can hope for is that, slowly and at huge unnecessary cost, we will reach the point of so-called “herd immunity” when there are an insufficient number of vulnerable hosts that the virus cannot continue its deadly passage through the population. And, of course, medical science is delivering more effective treatments, the latest of which (in pill form) was just announced. Maybe we’ll reach the point where COVID is “just another flu.” Maybe.
Meanwhile, millions more will suffer. According to every credible source, COVID deaths in the United States are expected to exceed 1,000,000 in the near future. Eventually, maybe, we will win again. But it won’t be because of Team America, the coming together of citizens to fight and vanquish a common and deadly enemy. It seems we’re past that. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens are content to have others suffer and die under the name of mindless slogans. Freedom! My body, my choice! Nobody tells me what to put in my body! And on and on.
Instead of a united front against this deadly enemy, we have tens of millions reciting slogans to justify and explain why they are no longer members of the team. The price for their ignorant intransigence has been/will be very steep indeed.
This problem is, of course, only one manifestation of a mental state that afflicts our society. We can conclude that because there is a powerful identity among the anti-vaxxers and the evangelicals/Trumpists/Republicans. Their delusional state of mind regarding the pandemic is closely aligned with their willingness to believe many other unbelievable ideas. Chief among them is the idea that the January 6 assault/attempted coup was not Trump supporters but was engineered, rather like the pandemic, by a global elite of BLM, antifa, liberal/progressive Democrats and others of like mind, aided, if not led, by the federal government (you know, the Deep State lying in wait to destroy the country).
People who hold such beliefs do not comprehend the logical absurdity that those “elites” would have tried to stop the certification of President Biden’s victory (the candidate they favored) in order to continue the presidency of Donald Trump (the candidate they fervently opposed). If they can’t see that, they can’t see the point of joining with other Americans, and other peoples around the world, to stop the pandemic with the only tools that work. They are lost to our team, probably forever. Donald Trump didn’t create these people, but he surely inspired them.
Going forward, then, policy makers must understand the full extent to which our “team” has been broken, perhaps permanently. That means, among other things, that there is no longer anything like “politics as usual.” The aliens have arrived, and they are among us. If we’re not careful, they may kill us all.
The Free Press on the Brink
I read in Sunday’s New York Times an “Opinion” piece, entitled “The Free Press Needs Our Help.” https://nyti.ms/32c2wNh where the title is “Independent Journalism Is at Risk. Here’s How to Save It.” The article is co-authored by a Nobel Peace Prize winner (Maria Ressa) and a former NYT chief executive and director general of the BBC (Mark Thompson). Their argument is a familiar one. It makes a compelling case for its main point: “around the world, independent journalism is on the brink of extinction.”
Their solution is the creation of the International Fund for Public Interest Media that will be funded by governments, foundations and private companies and then make grants to “promising and trustworthy independent news providers worldwide.” Clearly an ambitious undertaking, likely to be challenged by, among other things, the reality that governments in some cases have been the primary force undermining the free press. That said, it’s a good idea.
I was most intrigued, however, by the reference to “trustworthy independent new providers.” What exactly is that? Is there a commonly understood meaning for it? In the United States, how does that concept square with the existence of entities like Fox News, Breitbart, OAN, Newsmax and the others? Not a day goes by that I don’t see someone in social media screaming for the government to “shut down Fox!” That, of course, is not going to happen as long as TrumpPublicans do not control the government and those entities continue to toe the right-wing line with the proper fervor. [There is also the First Amendment, but a second Trump administration faced with (however improbably) an insufficiently sycophantic Fox News would likely have no problem with a direct attack to compel compliance or else].
These random thoughts led me to reflect on certain “realities of American life,” the main one being that if it’s not prohibited, you may, legally, do it. That is one of the root/core principles that govern the American legal and political systems. On the other hand, the “ideal” of total freedom had some dire consequences. Thus, we regulate practices like law, medicine, hair-styling and other occupations who, absent qualifying instruction and demonstrations of minimum [or minimal] competency could make a real hash of things.
Still, even those principles have a fuzzy edge. Some people with doctorate degrees call themselves “Dr.” and mostly no one objects. Most people with doctorates don’t add that appellation outside interactions within their discipline, but some do. It burnishes one’s image in some circles to be known as “Dr.” Mainly, in the U.S., the status of having earned a Ph.D. is added at the end of one’s name, as in ShiningSeaUSA, Ph.D. (or JD for lawyers).
As with all such matters, the history is fraught and complicated. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_(title) if you have time on your hands.
My central idea (at last!) is that in “journalism,” almost anyone can claim the title, regardless of training, certification, experience or, well, regardless of just about anything. Thus, I can claim to be a journalist when I’m covering a protest at the Supreme Court for a potential blog post and who is to say nay? Armed with a camera (Nikon, if you please), and, if needed, a home-made “press badge,” I am indistinguishable from the other “real” journalists who write for actual media like the New York Times and Washington Post.
It occurs to me, then, that we have an opportunity to improve our situation by establishing some criteria of legitimacy for people who want to use the term “journalist.” We could, for example, establish national standards for the use of the term that, like the practice of law and medicine, would sanction persons with demonstrable relevant education and knowledge to call themselves journalists.
I well understand this would be complex and controversial. And, of course, someone (likely someone wanting to be considered a journalist but having neither education, training nor demonstrable knowledge of the field) would bring up the First Amendment. A good argument can be made that the 1A would not be implicated in a proper regulatory system because the requirements do not prevent anyone from speaking or reporting. They would only forbid the unqualified from calling themselves journalists.
I can hear the screams of outrage now, but I think this is an idea worth considering. It would not shut Fox News or Breitbart down, but a properly constructed code of ethics could go some distance to prevent such entities from passing themselves off as journalism. And, by the way, the same goes for the likes of CNN which, over time, has made a practice of presenting right-wing shills as “journalism” when it’s really something else.
This suggestion will not solve the entire problem, which is obviously complex, but this may well be a situation where we should be careful not to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Something to think about.
Why Is Media Not Naming the Names?
We now have reports of a 38-page PowerPoint document laying out a plan for Trump to declare a national emergency and continue in office. That’s 38 pages, not likely something just scrabbled together by some bozo whose mind is infected with conspiracy theories. But, whatever the case there, the document, or versions of it, apparently has been circulating on the internet for a while. Where on the internet, and when and by whom, is a bit fuzzy in the media reports.
What is significant about this report is not that such a PowerPoint exists. It has been clear throughout Trump’s presidency and during the coup attempt near its end that there are around the country numerous people, many holding public office and many just out there is the woods somewhere, who believe, without rational or evidentiary basis, that the election was stolen by various fraudulent means.
No, what is important here is that the document sets out [with the same excitement as the 8th item in food recipe] that members of Congress – both senators and House representatives – received briefings based on the document two days before the January 6 insurrection! https://nyti.ms/31Hho6N
But let’s back up. The title of the New York Times article is “Jan. 6 Committee Examines PowerPoint Document Sent to Meadows.” Sufficiently bland to be easily passed over. But, in case your interest is piqued, the summary deck beneath the headline seems further calculated to prime you to think nothing all that important is going on.
Mark Meadows’s lawyer said the former White House chief of staff did not act on the document, which recommended that President Donald J. Trump declare a national emergency to keep himself in power.
Well, of course, Meadows’ lawyer said that. What else was he going to say?
If you were still interested enough to read it, the article explains that the PowerPoint contained “extreme plans to overturn the 2020 election,” the idea being to have Trump declare a national emergency that would delay certification of Biden’s win. It relied upon claims that “China and Venezuela had obtained control over the voting infrastructure in a majority of states.”
We’ve heard about those types of claims before. FOX “News” and Trump’s team of lawyers promoted such claims repeatedly, without investigation or plausible evidence, and have been sued and sanctioned by courts for filing frivolous suits based on such nonsense.
As reported in NYT, the provenance of the PowerPoint is this:
Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel and an influential voice in the movement to challenge the election, said on Friday from a bar he owns outside Austin, Texas, that he had circulated the document — titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN” — among Mr. Trump’s allies and on Capitol Hill before the attack. Mr. Waldron said that he did not personally send the document to Mr. Meadows, but that it was possible someone on his team had passed it along to the former chief of staff.
You can almost hear the theme song from the Twilight Zone playing in the background.
The actual author is unknown but “it is similar to a 36-page document available online, and it appears to be based on the theories of Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, a Texas entrepreneur and self-described inventor who has appeared with Mr. Waldron on podcasts discussing election fraud.”
More Twilight Zone.
NYT reports further that,
On Jan. 4, members of Mr. Waldron’s team — he did not identify them — spoke to a group of senators and briefed them on the allegations of supposed election fraud contained in the PowerPoint, Mr. Waldron said. The following day, he said, he personally briefed a small group of House members; that discussion focused on baseless claims of foreign interference in the election. He said he made the document available to the lawmakers.
NYT notes that Rudy Giuliani, sometimes known on Twitter as Rudy Colludy, has cited Waldron “as a source of information for his legal campaign.” That would likely be the “legal” campaign that led to Giuliani’s law license suspension in New York.
But wait, stop the music. Where in this article are the names of the House members and Senators who received these briefings two days before the insurrection and attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol? You won’t find them.
Why not? How can the New York Times, one of the country’s most prestigious newspapers report a story saying that members of Congress were briefed by private parties seeking to overturn the presidential election two days before the coup attempt that took lives and inflicted massive damage on the Capitol and there is no reference to the names of those members of Congress and no explanation as to why they are omitted?
And note how casually the article reports that Meadows, a founder of the ludicrously named Freedom Caucus and later Chief of Staff for Trump’s White House, has told the House Select Committee that “he had turned in the cellphone he used on Jan. 6 to his service provider, and that he was withholding some 1,000 text messages connected with the device.” Given Meadows’ central role in the effort to keep Trump in office despite having lost the election, could there be a clearer case of evidence tampering? Why would Meadows turn in the cell phone he used on January 6 if not to hide evidence it might contain? No plausible explanation appears in the article.
And at the same time the article gives Meadows a pass with this: “Even though Mr. Meadows did not appear to act on the PowerPoint….” Why? Because Meadows’ lawyer said so? Really? Meadows is clean because his lawyer says he is?
This article was written by seasoned award-winning reporters. Are they really content with this treatment? Were these details in the article but removed by editors?
Almost simultaneously, the Washington Post, my hometown rag, added more shocking details to the story. https://wapo.st/3lX90Xz Waldron is reported to have said he visited the White House multiple times after the election and “spoke with President Donald Trump’s chief of staff “maybe eight to 10 times.”” He also said he “briefed several members of Congress on the eve of the Jan. 6 riot.”
But, again, no names. No mention of efforts to get the names. Why not?
The names are particularly significant because,
The PowerPoint circulated by Waldron included proposals for Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 to reject electors from “states where fraud occurred” or replace them with Republican electors. It included a third proposal in which the certification of Joe Biden’s victory was to be delayed, and U.S. marshals and National Guard troops were to help “secure” and count paper ballots in key states.
In short, the document set out a plan to overthrow the legitimate government, prevent the transfer of power and install Donald Trump as de facto dictator of the United States.
These “briefings” of members of Congress are not casual affairs. Anyone who has practiced law/politics in Washington for any length of time will confirm how difficult it is to get direct access to members of Congress and especially to a group of them. Someone inside had to be helping arrange all of this and multiple staff would have known about it. Yet, here we are, almost a year from the January 6 attack and we’re just learning that members of Congress were briefed two days beforehand.
The WAPO report goes along with the “both sides” narrative by assuring us that,
it is not clear how widely the PowerPoint was circulated or how seriously the ideas in it were considered. A lawyer for Meadows, George J. Terwilliger III, said on Friday that there was no indication that Meadows did anything with the document after receiving it by email. “We produced it [to the committee] because it was not privileged,” Terwilliger said. A Meadows spokesman, Ben Williamson, declined to comment. Waldron said he was not the person who sent the PowerPoint to Meadows.
Nevertheless, the Post report recognizes that Meadows’ efforts to disappear himself in the post-coup investigation are fading in light of these revelations and the previously reveal fact that Meadows had personally “pressed senior Justice Department leaders to investigate baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud.”
According to Waldron, Meadows sought to help his group pursue their conspiracy theories about foreign interference, quoting Meadows as, “What do you need? What would help?” Of course, the Post also reports comments from an unnamed “person familiar with the matter” purporting to exonerate Meadows from any responsibility. Despite Meadows’ critical role in the White House, he is presented as someone who just received and passed around documents without paying attention to their content. If so, Meadows is monumentally incompetent or monumentally stupid.
Then there is the Giuliani connection.
Waldron said that he and Meadows “weren’t pen pals” and that their communication was often through Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who sometimes asked him to “explain this to Mark” over the phone.
Unsurprisingly, “Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment.”
Waldron’s explanation of events included a claim of a meeting with Trump himself (November 25) and some Pennsylvania legislators in the Oval Office. Waldron also claimed to have briefed Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) “at the White House, in the chief of staff’s office, with Giuliani present.” Naturally, Graham also had nothing to say about that meeting. And Trump, of course, had no comment about the November 25 meeting.
Still, no disclosure of the attendees at the January 4 briefings. The Post did get one thing right,
The role played after the election by Waldron is another example of how the president aligned himself with a cast of fringe personalities as he worked to sabotage the U.S. democratic process
But the issue of members of Congress meeting with, and possibly conspiring with, a person like Waldron to overturn the election is a matter of the utmost national importance. The revelations in the New York Times and Washington Post articles about meetings in the days immediately leading to the attack are evidence suggesting that members of Congress knew about, likely approved of and possibly participated in the planning of the attack.
It is very hard to understand why the Times and WAPO would treat so cavalierly the issue of which members of Congress attended briefings about thoroughly debunked election fraud just two days before the deadly attack on the Capitol. These are FACTS, and the papers owe readers an explanation of why this information was so casually ignored.
Closing Note: I have been told that this post is uncomfortably close to the kinds of attacks Trump routinely levels against the mainstream media with his “fake news” trope. Not so, I say, because I am not saying the news reports are false, only that information crucial to complete reporting has been omitted without explanation. I want the media to tell the whole important truth and when it cannot find it, explain why not.
Steaming at Blues Alley
‘Twas a wet and blustery night
With cold descending on the town,
But the smoke was pouring hot
From the best jazz club around.
It was Saturday night and Kenny Garrett’s sextet was playing at Blues Alley, the premier Washington jazz club in the heart of Georgetown. The club is really located in an alley, which adds somehow to its charm. Inside, it’s the real deal. Tightly packed tables seating 140, surrounding a compact stage that is crowded on a night like this because the sextet has a lot of instruments.
We booked late, a bit unsure about attending such an event indoors, but we had seen Garrett several times before and the attraction of live jazz again, just a few blocks from our apartment, was too much to resist. Very wisely, the club has a firm policy: proof of vaccination to enter and masks-on when not eating or drinking. Even Garrett wore a mask before starting to play. All the audience seats appeared to be occupied as a few late walk-ins arrived to take the few remaining.
The traditional tools of the jazz trade jammed the stage: piano (baby grand, I think), drum kit (everything you can imagine), full-size bass, many microphones and, in this case, a full set of bongos, sound devices whose names I can’t guess and, in the center, a small electronic keyboard. In the hands of musical masters, these instruments enable the creation of the magical place a jazz club can be when a master of the art accompanied by others of surpassing talent are at the top of their game.
The people attending this event were primed for some top-level stimulation and they got it. Garrett’s sextet included: Vernell Brown Jr.: piano; Corcoran Holt: bass; Ronald Bruner Jr.: drums; Rudy Bird: percussion, snare; and Melvis Santa: vocals and keyboard, among other things. Those folks can play. For me, the drummer stood out, driving the music forward with powerful strokes and extraordinary energy. Few people can play like that for so long. But in truth the whole ensemble was a unit in an exceptional display of jazz at its most powerful.
At the end, Garrett called on the audience, already fully tuned up by the propulsive sound, to rise up and “work it out” to the closing number … and they did. I have never seen anything quite like that after attending many jazz performances over the years. Dancing in the aisles, even where there were no aisles.
Garrett’s style may not be for everyone (the first number lasted probably 15 or 20 minutes) but the crowd Saturday night was totally into it, as were all audiences in prior shows we saw. Typically, his entire body rocks back and forth to repeated riffs of sound. Maybe it’s how he keeps time. Doesn’t matter. The man can blow. He never seems to tire. His saxophone dominates the music, but the other instruments have their time as well when the tunes go from post-modern bop to Latin, Cuban, Afro something something, who knows. It’s all great.
At the end, Garrett dismissed each performer by name. The crowd erupted in appreciation and one-by-one the musicians exited. Garrett departed next-to-last, leaving the drummer, playing, for him, sedately. Then, he stopped and just walked off. It was all over but the vibrations. The steam subsided … until the next set.
Tickets are still available for tonight’s shows at 8 and 10.
The Fourth Reich — It’s Them or Us
Disclosure: Much of this post depends on information from the Bob Woodward- Robert Costa book, Peril. Woodward and I were friends in college and have had sporadic contact since then. I still consider him a friend, though we do not communicate regularly. Back in the day, a national magazine (not to be named) briefly suspected I might be Deep Throat. As everyone now knows, I was not Deep Throat. I never was.
This post is also inspired both by the column in the Washington Post by Margaret Sullivan [https://wapo.st/3v4LeMv] that asks the question why the “news” has largely ignored or downplayed the revelation that John Eastman, a Trump lawyer (and thus, legally, Trump himself), produced an outline for the steps to overturn the 2020 election and replace the real winner, Joe Biden, with Donald Trump.
The third inspiration is a line in Steven Pinker’s new book, Rationality:
Many facts, of course, are hurtful: the racial history of the United States, global warming, a cancer diagnosis, Donald Trump. Yet they are facts for all that, and we must know them, the better to deal with them.
So we must.
Since I began thinking deeply about this, we have also learned that Trump’s Department of Justice deliberately sat on its hands and did not brief Congress or others in the administration about what it apparently understood could be a day of violence against the government. https://bit.ly/3npJLON
We have also become aware that,
Republican leaders loyal to Trump are vying to control election administrations in key states in ways that could drastically distort the outcome of the presidential race in 2024. With the former president hinting strongly that he may stand again, his followers are busily manoeuvring themselves into critical positions of control across the US – from which they could launch a far more sophisticated attempt at an electoral coup than Trump’s effort to hang on to power in 2020.
… in recent months Trump has emerged as an unashamed champion of the insurrectionists, calling them “great people” and a “loving crowd”, and lamenting that they are now being “persecuted so unfairly”.
A poll released this week by the Public Religion Research Institute found that two-thirds of Republicans still believe the myth that Trump won. More chilling still, almost a third of Republicans agree with the contention that American patriots may have to resort to violence “in order to save our country”. [https://bit.ly/3ckbwlq]
As Donald Trump Jr has asserted, the Republican Party is now the Party of Trump. He owns it. His army of sycophants are as loyal to him as ever. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, his people believe the 2020 election was stolen, just as Trump continues to claim.
This is so despite Trump’s admitted bungling of the response to COVID that added significantly to the death toll, his incessant grifting and lying and treasonous acts of disloyalty to the United States, and, of course, his many “ordinary” crimes, such as giving secrets to Russia, extorting the president of Ukraine and a multitude of documented obstructions of justice, among many others. Evidence of cultish blindness to Trumpism is everywhere – mainstream media, Fox Propaganda, Twitter, Facebook, even LinkedIn and more.
Even with all that, the Eastman memo, unearthed in Woodward and Costa’s book, is shocking. As explained by Sullivan,
Written by Trump legal adviser John Eastman — a serious Establishment Type with Federalist Society cred and a law school deanship under his belt — it offered Mike Pence, then in his final days as vice president, a detailed plan to declare the 2020 election invalid and give the presidency to Trump.
In other words, how to run a coup to overturn the election in six easy steps.
Yet, Sullivan reports, the mainstream media largely ignored it at first. She rightly asks why this was not the multi-alarm firestorm – a presidential advisor casually informing him of the steps needed to undermine the outcome of a national election and claim the presidency that he had clearly lost.
The answer, it turns out, is as disturbing as the memo itself.
As reported by Sullivan, network executives thought the story unworthy because it was “crazy” and unsurprising. In effect, Trump has so normalized the idea of overthrowing the election that evidence of actual work to do so is not important enough to report. Another didn’t address it because “There’s no indication that Pence considered it seriously.” Others responded that there was much other news that seemed more important. What would be more important than an attempt to overthrow the government?
The normalization of the Trump-Republican attempt to subvert the Constitution and reinstall Trump as president, and de facto dictator, is being enabled by publications as venerable as the Wall Street Journal. The Journal published a letter from Trump on October 27. It did so without comment or any attempt to address the truth or falsity of his claims. The grotesque problems with the letter and the Journal’s decision to publish it are addressed in detail by Philip Bump in the Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3GTiYCg
The obvious and logical, and profoundly disturbing, conclusion is that WSJ supports Trump’s claims of election fraud and his belief that he was denied re-election by widespread vote fraud. Thus, the Wall Street Journal joins the campaign to undermine American democracy and replace it with a Republican autocracy led by Trump and his family.
At the same time, Trump is desperately fighting to prevent the release to the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection/coup attempt of a large trove of documents that would reveal his role, and that of his key enablers, in the attack on the Capitol. https://nyti.ms/3wgXYAc His claims of executive privilege have been rejected by President Biden, but Trump maintains he can assert the privilege even though no longer in office. Trump’s claim of privilege fails on multiple grounds, not least of which is that most of the documents sought have nothing to do with this execution of the job of president – they are related to his personal political objective to remain in office despite the electoral outcome.
Thus, Trump continues to maintain his thoroughly debunked claims of election fraud while resisting efforts to uncover facts that might expose his role in trying to overthrow the federal government.
What else does the Woodward/Costa book contribute to our understanding of all this? A lot.
- The chair of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley, after plenty of chances to observe Trump’s thinking and behavior as president, agreed with Speaker Pelosi’s observation that Trump was “crazy” and had been “crazy for a long time.” Peril at xxii. Colin Powell, former Chair of the Joint Chiefs described Trump as a “f*cking maniac.” Peril at 106.
- Pelosi characterized the Oval Office under Trump as an “insane snake pit.”Peril at xxiii.
- Referring to the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, and under pressure from then-Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump refused to criticize the marchers because “These people love me. These are my people. I can’t backstab the people who support me.” Peril at 8.
- Trump was often unaware of his own actions. He did not know that the money for the border wall in the early 2018 spending bill was an amount he had approved. He finally agreed to sign the bill to prevent a government shutdown. Marc Short, Trump’s legislative advisor told Ryan this chaos was typical of “every day around here.” Peril at 9. Bill Barr, who was committed to run the Justice Department in Trump’s best interest to promote his re-election thought Trump’s big problem was his “pigheadedness and his blindness.” Peril at 71.
- Trump failed to grasp the nature of the threat posed by COVID-19 and refused to accept information that conflicted with his view. Peril at 82.
- Trump rejected advice of Gen. Milley and other senior advisors to rename military bases from Confederate traitors to Medal of Honor winners. Peril at 108-109.
- Even as the U.S. pandemic continued to escalate (approaching 4.9 million cases and more than 160,000 deaths), Trump insisted that it was “disappearing. It’s going to disappear.” Peril at 113.
- Trump tweeted that the “deep state” was interfering with the development of vaccines. When his own appointed head of the FDA tried to explain the process, Trump changed the subject. “the president had no idea how the FDA operated and had made no effort to find out.” Peril at 113-115.
- Aware of his failing election campaign, Trump primed his followers for the possibility of defeat by repeatedly claiming that the only way he could lose was a rigged election. Peril at 131.
- As soon as Trump’s defeat was reported, he announced from the White House that the election was a “fraud on the American public.” Peril at 133.
- Even Michael Pompeo, one of Trump’s most loyal sycophants, told Gen. Milley that “The crazies are taking over,” referring to Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn and Mike Lindell, the key players on Trump’s legal defense team. Peril at 150.
- On November 10, following Trump’s firing of the Secretary of Defense, Gina Haspel, the CIA Director, presciently predicted, “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.” Peril at 152.
- Mark Meadows made repeated efforts to install a Trump super-loyalist into a leadership position at the FBI and, stymied by Barr, later at the CIA, stymied by Haspel. Peril at 154-156.
- Trump acknowledged that Giuliani was “crazy” but claimed that “sane lawyers” would not represent him in attacking the election. Peril at 164. Trump’s AG Barr referred to Trump’s legal team as a “bunch of clowns.” Peril at 170. See also Peril at 180.
- Trump’s team of incompetents had no plan to efficiently distribute COVID vaccines. Peril at 187.
- Steve Bannon advised Trump to focus on January 6, the day the Electoral College votes would be certified by Congress, the last step to elect Joe Biden as President:
We’re going to bury Biden on January 6 …. If Republicans could cast enough of a shadow on Biden’s victory on January 6 … it would be hard for Biden to govern. Millions of Americans would consider him illegitimate. They would ignore him. They would dismiss him and wait for Trump to run again. “We are going to kill it in the crib. Kill the Biden presidency in the crib… [Peril at 207-208]
- Trump directly threatened VP Pence if he refused to reject the Biden Electoral votes and hand the election to Trump. Peril at 229-230.
The above references are just a small taste of the astonishing revelations in Peril. Most of the rational people in the White House at the time of the election and its aftermath appeared to believe that Trump was mentally unstable, incapable of and uninterested in the complexities of governing and focused only on retaining power. There was palpable fear, even among some Republican leaders, that Trump was so unhinged and desperate that he might start a war or try to use the military to retain power. His distraction likely played a role in the continued spread of COVID and his administration’s failure to respond appropriately.
These concerns, which continue in the wake of the January 6 insurrection that Trump inspired and encouraged, raise the gravest questions about the capacity of the American democratic republic, and the Constitution on which it is based, to survive the presidency of an incompetent psychopath like Trump.
Thus far, the only action against the insurrectionists has been to arrest just over 700 of the perpetrators out of what appeared to be several thousand involved in the assault. No charges have been leveled against anyone in Congress or the Trump administration in relation to the attempted coup. Trump continues to claim in every available forum, without any factual basis and in the face of more than 60 defeats in legal proceedings, that the election was stolen. His supporters in Congress continue to obstruct President Biden’s efforts to end the pandemic and restore the economic health of the country.
Republicans around the country continue to alter election rules, gerrymander districts and prepare to overturn the results of any election defeats they may experience in 2022 and 2024. The Doomsday Clock on American democracy is ticking down and, as far as can be told, more than a year after Joe Biden’s election, no meaningful actions to hold the real leaders of the January 6 coup attempt accountable has been made.
Watch this video, produced by Don Winslow Films, listing 19 critical questions central to the January 6 insurrection, that remain unaddressed as far as anyone can tell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2cG1PIhLIA
We are told we must be patient, that building a solid criminal case against a former president requires time. To a lesser extent the same “principle” is offered regarding the members of Congress who actively promoted the insurrection and have worked very hard to sustain a ludicrous phantasmagorical version of what occurred on January 6.
I understand the need for careful preparation, but in a little over a month we will have reached the one-year anniversary of the attack on Congress. I ask what evidence of conspiracy, perjury, sedition and obstruction of justice, to mention just a few of Trump and team’s major crimes, is missing? Has a grand jury been impaneled?
As Don Winslow’s video compellingly asks, why have so many key witnesses not been subpoenaed by the House Select Committee and placed under oath? What kind of investigation is this? Are we going to get another version of the Mueller Report that says we can’t find enough evidence to indict but neither do we exonerate? How could such a conclusion be reached without a full investigation? Mueller failed to fully investigate, as revealed in Andrew Weissmann’s book, discussed at length in an earlier post in this blog, “Lawless White House” – the Mueller Report – “Oh! What A Tangled Web We Weave …” https://bit.ly/32GUDA1
Trump is infamous for using legal processes to stall and delay investigations and actions against his multi-various criminal activities and civil offenses. If the government takes much longer, there will be no chance for meaningful action while Republicans scheme to undermine the democratic process whose survival is central to a full accounting from Trump and his enablers. I am encouraged, not much but more than zero, by the fact that the Biden administration has not announced that it is closing any investigations but that is not sufficient.
Winter for American democracy is theatening and once it is here, there may be no chance for a renewal.
The 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction–My Nomination
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is awarded each year (usually) for books published the previous year. Thus, the 2021 Pulitzer went for a book published in 2020.
I am, therefore, in time to make my sole nomination for the Prize this year. I have never done this before.
My nomination is Late City by Robert Olen Butler. Butler already has a Pulitzer for the remarkable, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. But that was way back in 1993. With Late City, I believe Butler should be considered for the rarified club of double winners occupied by my favorite author, John Updike plus Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner and Colson Whitehead.
I cannot improve upon the dustjacket’s description:
A visionary and poignant novel centered around former newspaperman Sam Cunningham as he prepares to die, Late City covers much of the early twentieth century, unfurling as a conversation between the dying man and a surprising God. As the two review Sam’s life, from his childhood in the American South and his time in the French trenches during World War I to his fledgling newspaper career in Chicago in the Roaring Twenties and the decades that follow, snippets of history are brought sharply into focus, moments that resonate profoundly forward even into our own century.
Given that story line, I was surprised at the deep impression the book made. Butler’s prose is remarkable, and his storytelling has few equals. This book is cleverly constructed and brilliantly written. Part history, part memoir and more. I give you three short examples with little context.
Sam is often beaten by his father. At age twelve, he reads a report of the 62 lynchings of Negroes that year. Sam asks aloud “What’s wrong with us?” and more. Sam’s father prods him with his foot and says, “Stand up.” Sam knows what is coming “But I understand this blow is different. It’s the first one for an idea. An idea that feels like my own.” His father speaks,
“You will not indict America for this, he says. “You will not even indict the misguided white men who did this. These men are your people. They were hasty. They acted unlawfully. But they have grievances. They rely on you for understanding, not censure. Is that clear?”
Elsewhere, in another context entirely, Butler’s gift for prose shines in phrases like “the chaste seemliness of the age, which we have inevitably assimilated.” In another scene, “… our thighs tightly and unwaveringly aligned, ardent but chaste, as our shoulders square around to each other and our lips speak wordlessly of what we have become.”
This is, I believe, a genuine masterwork. Maybe it will surprise, delight and move you as it did me.
An Anti-Masker Walked Into a Bar ….
Actually, no, it’s not a bar and it’s not a joke. They’re boarding airplanes, knowing full well that there is a federal policy requiring that masks always be worn except when actively eating or drinking. Yet they continue to reject compliance and, in many cases, verbally and physically abuse flight crews and fellow passengers.
The situation is so bad that the Federal Aviation Administration is publishing monthly Unruly Passenger Statistics. See https://www.faa.gov/unruly
It’s time to stop calling these miscreants “unruly passengers” and call them by their true name: Criminals. Why?
As stated by the FAA:
Interfering with the duties of a crewmember violates federal law
“Unruly passengers” can be fined by the FAA and criminally prosecuted by the FBI.
“Can be,” yes, but are they? Some are, for sure. You can read about some of the fines imposed in Travel Pulse: FAA Fines 10 Unruly Passengers $225K for Alleged Assault, https://bit.ly/3qGcoJm That’s some serious coin. The Washington Post reports that the FAA has referred 37 cases to the FBI for prosecution. https://wapo.st/3BQT5iq
The problem, as I see it, remains that only a small share of the cases is being pursued, despite a “zero tolerance” policy adopted by the FAA at the beginning of 2021:
The FAA reported 5,033 incidents of unruly passengers as of November during this year, 3,642 of which were related to mask-wearing. From the total number of incidents, the FAA initiated 950 investigations, a sixfold increase from last year.
The agency initiated enforcement action in 227 cases, some of which will lead to a civil penalty. Of the 227, 37 of the most egregious cases of disruptive or violent passenger behavior were referred to the FBI for possible criminal prosecution.
The progression from 5,033 incidents to 950 investigations to 227 enforcements to 37 possible criminal prosecutions suggests to the irresponsible anti-masker (who thinks it’s perfectly fine to violate federal law, assault flight attendants and possibly endanger the safety of an entire aircraft in flight) that his chances of getting away with “unruly behavior” are pretty good.
The words we use are important. Calling someone’s misconduct “unruly” diminishes its significance. It superficially equates attacks on flight attendants with talking too loudly, playing music without earbuds and generally being a slob. But those latter misbehaviors – obvious acts of unruliness — are in a completely different category from refusing to comply with masking rules and, even more obviously, physically attacking a flight crew member.
Aircraft in flight are no place for scuffles and fist fights. Nevertheless, in many cases other passengers have engaged miscreant anti-maskers in efforts to protect flight attendants and to restore order. It’s good that there are people prepared to engage in this way, but it should never escalate to that stage.
I well understand that airlines are reluctant to sound too “authoritarian” in presenting passengers with the “rule of the airways” after boarding, but the fact remains that the dangers of violent passengers on an aircraft present a uniquely problematic situation – for the passengers and crew as well as people on the ground.
The AFA-CWA International that represents flight attendants has argued that,
Expeditiously referring the most violent, physical assaults against crewmembers and passengers to the Department of Justice for public prosecution is the most effective way to deter bad actors and put a stop to the spike in disruptive passengers. https://bit.ly/3Cj0eZh
Absolutely right, but I would go even further and argue for criminal referral of every act of assault against crew members, as well as every act of refusal to follow flight crew instructions to “mask up.” If in the off chance that a crew member oversteps, the passenger can take it up with the airline after the flight, not by verbally or physically attacking the crew. Based on experience to date, it seems clear that the only way to deter this dangerous criminal behavior is to create the certainty that criminal prosecution will ensue.
So, FAA, start using the right words to describe the conduct and refer all the cases to the FBI. And while you’re at it, adopt the flight attendants’ union’s call for,
the creation of a centralized list of violators who will be denied the freedom of flight on all airlines. If a passenger physically assaults crewmembers or other passengers on one airline, they pose a risk to passengers and crew at every airline. They should be banned from flying on all airlines. Period.
The time has passed for putting that issue “on the table,” as suggested by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. It’s time to act.
What If There is No End to the Pandemic?
We are all naturally inclined to think about important events as having relatively clear beginnings and ends. Especially when the subject is troublesome, our innate desire for clarity and safety often leads to unrealistic expectations. This is likely part of our psychological conditioning throughout life.
Summer, like the other seasons, starts and ends. Bad weather can be terrible, but it comes and then ends. We get comfort from knowing that it will.
We also know that illnesses “recycle.” We know we can catch colds and the flu. So, most normal people bundle up against the elements, take cold medicines (mostly to relieve symptoms until the body’s systems kill the cold virus), get flu shots. Other illnesses are different. Cancer, emphysema, kidney failure and many others do not just go away after a simple medical intervention. No one is immune to them.
We also know that the weather is changing, driven by climate change. Storms in many places are more frequent and more severe. A few people, some never heard from again, decide to “hunker down” and “ride out” such storms. Most run when told to evacuate and live to run another day. We don’t want the bad weather to return but we know that it will. We want it to go as soon as possible. Many people thus drive their cars immediately after a bad snowstorm, apparently just because they think they can. I suspect it’s their way of reassuring themselves that the bad news ends.
This phenomenon is present in the response to COVID. We desperately want it to “end” and to have life return to “normal.” For most of us, the year 2020 will be the worst in our lives, one we desperately don’t want to repeat. Unfortunately, the evidence indicates that may be an illusion when it comes to the COVID pandemic.
It is now reported, https://n.pr/3c0G5fF, that the COVID virus is present in the nation’s vast and widely dispersed white-tailed deer population (estimated 30 million in US alone, equivalent to about 10 percent of the US human population). The story is getting relatively little attention in mainstream media, compared, for example, to the “gripping” story of NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ lying about his vaccination, then contracting COVID, then being forced to sit out a game that his team lost – oh, yes, the story was extensively reported. Even Forbes covered it. An entranced nation awaits Rodgers’ return.
Meanwhile, back in the world where human lives and the national/global economy is under threat, and as reported by NPR:
A recent survey of white-tailed deer in the Northeast and Midwest found that 40% of them had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Now veterinarians at The Pennsylvania State University have found active SARS-CoV-2 infections in at least 30% of deer tested across Iowa during 2020. The study, published online last week, suggests that white-tailed deer could become what’s known as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. That is, the animals could carry the virus indefinitely and spread it back to humans periodically….
During April to December of last year, about 30% of the deer that they tested were positive for SARS-CoV-2 by a PCR test. And then during the winter surge in Iowa, from Nov. 23, 2020 to Jan. 10, about 80% of the deer that they tested were infected. At the peak of the surge … the prevalence of the virus in deer was effectively about 50 to 100 times the prevalence in Iowa residents at the time.
The COVID variants in the deer matched those in humans.
The deer species in question is native to North American, Central America and the northern part of South America. Their capacity to move into and thrive in new habitats is well known.
The NPR article notes that the important questions raised include whether COVID can be transmitted from the deer back to humans or to other animal categories such as livestock. And, of course, the presence of COVID virus in such a large population creates the conditions for further mutations, as has been found in the Netherlands and Poland.
The article does not mention what seems an equally or more important question. Deer are apparently not sickened and do not die from COVID-19 infection. WHY NOT? That issue surely ranks as a critical subject to study. Is there something unique about the deer immune systems that mutes the devastating effects the virus has had on millions of humans? If so, that understanding could be the source of new vaccines to combat what seems like the inevitable persistence of COVID-19 for the foreseeable and perhaps indefinite future. No matter how much we may wish it were otherwise.
SHINING SEA 