Category Archives: Politics

First, Nothing – Then …. [Repost]

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{Originally posted September 11, 2021 — two years later, nothing has changed]

In the beginning, the Earth was a void. Just a roundish rock, really. Lots of volcanoes and other nasty things in the early times. How it came to exist, or more importantly, why it came to exist is a question to which mankind will almost certainly never have the answer. Some people are happy to simply believe that some spirit put it here and then planted humans and all the other biological forms. Whatever.

In my worldview, over an unimaginably long time, evolution took its course. Single-celled “creatures” formed, evolved … you know the story in general outline. That’s more than enough for most of us. We could continue to struggle with the question of how to reconcile those biological facts with the spirit mythology but, for me at least, that’s a waste of time. It turns out that evolution gave humans the ability to believe two or more inconsistent concepts at the same time. We live with the cognitive dissonance, partly by compartmentalizing. You can pray on your knees in your worship space on Sunday to the spirit of your choice (there are many to choose from) and then drive in your high-tech car or search for information on your computer/smart-phone and never give a thought to how both are valid. So be it. It’s who we are.

But on this day, this day of terrible memories, on which many say they are inspired to new hope, we should be reminded of the intersection of inconsistent ideas and what that can mean. Men claiming to be men of faith who believed we were evil incarnate decided to teach us a lesson. They used their “faith” to justify killing almost 3,000 people and had hoped to kill many more.

In truth, the actions they took on 9/11 led to many, many more deaths and much, much more suffering. The words of the prince in Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet come to mind:

See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!

And I, for winking at your discords, too

Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished.

Evolution produced the cerebral cortex in the human brain. Over millennia, homo sapiens became the Earth’s dominant species. With that came the capacity to change everything. We could do much more than just kill another animal or eat another plant to survive. We were way smarter than that. We learned agriculture, invented tools and machines, built enormous cities, how to fly in machines, how to write and share knowledge.

But there were hard times too. Times when food was scarce. Times when another “group” had access to resources other “groups” wanted. Dominance rather than sharing was apparently critical to survival and thus the prime instinct, to live on, led to competition, fighting, killing. More for me, less for you. I win, you lose. Too bad. At least for today.

Mankind evolved to be the smartest and dumbest creature on the planet. Able to perform miracles of learning and healing and loving, mankind also learned to hate, to fight even when the fight was self-defeating. To change the planet in ways that now make it likely to become uninhabitable. Yet, we continue. The same mistakes. The same hates.

Compartmentalizing.

Love your fellow man. Love nature. Then kill them both if you think it’s necessary to survive … or maybe just to have more. Acquisitiveness – another human trait. Get more stuff because more stuff is better than less stuff, and it shows other humans your superiority. Your dominance in the hierarchy. Humans are very invested in hierarchies. Animals, too, are invested in hierarchies and one might conclude that hierarchies are essential elements of life. But, of course, animals generally don’t just go invade their neighboring animals’ territory.

Is there another way? I don’t know. As a species, humans have the capacity to do the right thing. We’ve created countries, nation-states, wrapped ourselves in “national identity,” “ethnic identity,” “cultural identity,” “sexual identity,” take your pick. So many identities.

Identities help us know who is in our group and it doesn’t take much thought to see how this can be important in the world we have made. But identities are, by their nature, separating. Categorizing. If you’re X and I’m M, we’re in different groups and never the twain ….

So, here we are. Smart and stupid at the same time. Victims of our own intelligence. Suffering now from an unseen enemy, the coronavirus. Most of us are grateful for the science and scientists who brought us a life-saving vaccine. We are grateful for the healthcare workers who put themselves at risk when we are most desperate for their help and comfort. And some of us, a remarkably large number, believe in conspiracies, in dark images of evil people doing insane and immoral things. This group turns away from vaccines and other established public health measures and consumes instead known poisons and unknown other substances, placing their faith in politicians rather than scientists.

Those people walk among us. Many are our friends and neighbors. Many are dying. Yet they persist in believing the unbelievable. Compartmentalizing to prevent being told what to do or to have their “rights” diminished. These people don’t care much about the rest of us, though many often attend religious services and say many prayers. When there is a mass shooting, they send “thoughts and prayers,” but they resist meaningful measures to control violence, and the poverty and desperation that often precedes it, because … they have “rights.”

I am rambling so I will stop soon. I am distraught, I confess, at the idea that years of my inevitably shrinking future life are being stolen by ignorance and deceit. I’ll never get those years back. Neither will the victims of 9/11, the dead and the families and friends of the dead. Never get them back. The permanent silence that awaits us all draws closer by the day, and I wonder why it is that the smartest creatures on the planet continue to be the dumbest. I wonder why we can’t see and correct the self-destructive paths down which our evolutionary history has driven us. We can look back and see history. Other animals can’t. We can look ahead and predict the future. Other animals can’t. We don’t have to wait until the planetary water hole has completely dried up before figuring out a way to stop the loss. What is holding us back from using our intelligence to do what intelligence demands?

Maybe we’re just not intelligent enough. I don’t know.

Reaching Deeper Into the Bottom of the GOP Barrel

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The latest nominee for Speaker of the (barely) Republican-controlled House of Representatives is James Michael (Mike) Johnson, “representing” the 4th District of Louisiana. His official website touts the “7 Core Principles of Conservatism,” the customary blather about the “rule of law,” “free markets,” “limited government,” etc.

Last on the list is “Human Dignity:”

Because all men are created equal and in the image of God, every human life has inestimable dignity and value, and every person should be measured only by the content of their character. A just government protects life, honors marriage and family as the primary institutions of a healthy society, and embraces the vital cultural influences of religion and morality. Public policy should always encourage education and emphasize the virtue of hard work as a pathway out of poverty, while public assistance programs should be reserved only for those who are truly in need. In American, everyone who plays by the rules should get a fair shot. By preserving these ideals, we will maintain the goodness of America that has been the secret to our greatness.

Let’s unpack some of that.

For starters, note that Johnson conveniently picks up the “all men are created equal” from the Declaration of Independence but then, in a classic Republican head-fake, translates “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” into “in the image of God.” You will see below why this slight-of-hand is central to who Johnson is.

Here’s what Mike Johnson really stands for:

  • Opposed to abortion access.
  • Opposed to medical marijuana.
  • Opposed to same-sex marriage.
  • Falsely claimed Trump had fully cooperated with the Mueller investigation.
  • Opposed to certification of the 2020 election.
  • Voted to overturn 2020 election result in Pennsylvania.
  • Voted against establishing the national commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
  • Supported Trump’s 2017 Muslim ban.
  • Supports ending military aid to Ukraine so it can be absorbed by Russia.

[Wikipedia: https://tinyurl.com/3m38bmsx]

So much for the “rule of law” and the “inalienable right” to the “pursuit of happiness.”

Johnson is a religious zealot who appears to lack a basic understanding of the principle of separation of church and state while claiming devotion to the rule of law and the Constitution.

This is the man the GOP now has focused its attention on to elect as Speaker of the House, next in line behind the Vice President to succeed to the powers of the presidency.

 

Ode to the Republican House of Representatives

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Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground
You in mid-air
Where are the clowns?

Isn’t it bliss?
Don’t you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
One who can’t move
Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns

Just when I’d stopped opening doors
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines
No one is there

Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you’d want what I want
Sorry, my dear
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns
Don’t bother, they’re here

Send in the Clowns (Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim)

House Speaker Election– Everything You Need to Know About GOP

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There are reportedly nine candidates now that madman Jim Jordan has been defeated for the third time. Whatever their actual or presumed credentials are for the job, the single telling distinction between them is absolutely clear:

Only two putative GOP Speakers voted to certify the election of Joe Biden

They are:

Tom Emmer (Minn.)

               Austin Scott (Ga.)

The other seven – well, they are pretty much Trumpers.

Interestingly though, all nine voted for Jim Jordan on all three of his failed attempts to get the Speaker spot. https://tinyurl.com/yf255a4n And,

Emmer … offered his support for a lawsuit that would have even more broadly upended the election results. Scott was included on The Washington Post’s list of election deniers running in 2022.

Finally, not to belabor this, do not forget that the Speaker of the House is much more than the default manager of the House-in-Session. The Speaker is next in line to occupy the office of the President following the Vice President.

Thus, if the Republican clowns in the House had elected Jim Jordan as Speaker, he could have succeeded to the presidency if both the then president and vice president died or were incapacitated. Jordan, who has been elected in Ohio’s 4th Congressional District nine times, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jordan, brought to Congress credentials as a wrestling coach. As reported in Wikipedia,

Jordan is a close ally of former president Donald Trump. During Trump’s presidency, Jordan sought to discredit investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and staged a sit-in to prevent a Trump impeachment inquiry hearing over the Trump–Zelenskyy telephone controversy. After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Trump tried to overturn the election, Jordan supported lawsuits to challenge the election results and voted not to certify the Electoral College results. He refused to cooperate with the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, which subpoenaed him on May 12, 2022….

 Jordan earned a master’s degree in education from Ohio State University and received a Juris Doctor degree from the Capital University Law School in 2001. In a 2018 interview, Jordan said he never took the bar examination.

Note 1: Jordan’s law school entering class in 2022 had a median LSAT score of 151. The range of LSAT scores is 120 to 180. Jordan’s LSAT score has apparently not been reported.

Note 2: Researchers at the Center for Effective Lawmaking – a joint project between academics at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University – rated Jordan as the 202nd most effective Republican in the House of Representatives out of 205 it examined. https://tinyurl.com/3vuf4e26

No wrestlers have accused Jordan himself of sexual misconduct, but four former wrestlers named him as a defendant in a lawsuit against the university. Jordan has denied any wrongdoing, has refused to cooperate with investigations into Strauss and has described his accusers as “pawns in a political plot.”

 As of 2023, Jordan, who has served in the House of Representatives for over 16 years, has never sponsored a bill that later became law.

Jordan is now, apparently, out of the Speaker picture. I laid out some salient facts about him to add gravitas to the situation facing the country as the GOP continues its long journey to find a replacement for the disgraced Kevin McCarthy.

There appears to be a better than 50-50 chance that the Republicans will elect a Speaker who supports the idea that the 2020 election was stolen, that Donald Trump is innocent of the astonishing list of felonious crimes with which he has been charged in four jurisdictions and for which the known evidence of guilt is overwhelming. That person then stands just below the Vice President as a successor to the vast powers of the presidency of the United States.

That is where we are because that is where the Republican Party has brought us.

 

 

When Will We Learn?

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Two cases in point.

Case One:

The Yale School of Public Health reports that

Some “non-menthol” cigarettes that are being marketed as a “fresh” alternative in states where traditional menthol cigarettes are banned use synthetic chemicals to mimic menthol’s distinct cooling sensations, researchers at Yale and Duke University have found.

The synthetic additives could undermine existing policies and a U.S. Food and Drug Administration ban on menthol cigarettes expected later this year that is intended to discourage new smokers and address the harmful health effects of tobacco use.

https://tinyurl.com/35r7t7wz

….

Hundreds of municipalities across the United States and some states – Massachusetts and California – have already restricted the sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes.

In a study published Oct. 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from the Yale School of Public Health, the Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering at Yale, and Duke School of Medicine identified a synthetic flavoring agent known as WS-3 in the newly introduced “non-menthol” cigarettes that delivers similar, or stronger, cooling sensations as menthol but without the minty aroma or taste.

….

Flavored tobacco products such as menthol cigarettes tend to reduce tobacco’s harsh effects making them particularly popular among young people and those just starting to smoke. Historically, menthol cigarettes have also been aggressively marketed towards African Americans, with up to 90% of African Americans who smoke using menthol cigarettes.

It seems likely that this “gap” in the regulatory regime for death-dealing cigarettes results from the regulations being based on specific chemicals rather than on the effects of flavor-enhancing chemicals regardless of type. The lesson to be learned from this, yet again, is that industries looking to make money regardless of impacts on public health will always look for an escape route and finding such routes is always easier when the “thing to avoid” is named rather than relying on the effects of the danger factor or the way it influences behavior.

The historical conduct of the tobacco industry, among others, should be a lesson for governments at all levels that you have to think very deeply about what you’re trying to prevent and how such prevention may be avoided. This doesn’t seem that hard.

Case Two:

The Virginia Highway Use Fee (the “HUF”).

I only recently learned about this assessment even though we bought a highly fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle in late 2020. The fee is not a lot of money, but the purpose of the fee is offensive and counter to other goals, or what should be other goals, as we try to offset some of the worst environmental effects of our dependency on automobiles.

The fee is $25 a year. The Virginia law provides a way of saving, maybe, $5 of the fee but is very complicated and, in my judgment, not worth the effort that involves obtaining another “reader” for your windshield, taking and reporting readings, etc. No thanks. Not to save $5.

More troubling is the motivation for this fee.

According to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles,

     You pay the HUF if you register a:

    • Fuel-efficient vehicle, which is a vehicle that has a combined fuel economy of 25 miles per gallon (MPG) or greater
    • Vehicle made in a year in which the average combined MPG rating for all vehicles produced in that year is 25 MPG or greater
    • Low Speed Vehicles, pay an annual $25 HUF

The highway use fee (HUF) helps make up for the fuel taxes that drivers with fuel-efficient and electric vehicles spend less on, because they’re not using as much fuel.

Among the vehicles exempted from the HUF are:

  • Vehicles with a combined MPG rating less than 25 MPG
  • Autocycles
  • Motorcycles
  • Mopeds

The HUF was started in 2020 but in July 2022,

the state launched an alternative program to let drivers pay the fee at a per-mile rate — a cost savings for those who drive less than the average amount, which officials peg at 11,600 miles annually. For drivers of battery-powered cars, that fee works out to a penny per mile. [https://tinyurl.com/yh4kt6tx]

In plain English, Virginia wants to penalize you for using a fuel-efficient vehicle (like a hybrid or fully electric, that, by the way, costs more than a regular gas-using vehicle) by forcing you to pay taxes based on gasoline consumption you don’t use, BUT you can potentially reduce the penalty slightly by signing up for the complex pay-per-mile program.

Or you can have what’s behind Curtain No. 1.

Seriously, this crazy scheme is a product of multiple conflicting forces, including Congress’s failure to increase gas taxes since 1993, the attraction of fuel-efficient vehicles and the inability of states to see the clear alternative of just taxing vehicles sufficiently to provide the revenue they need for road maintenance without depending on gasoline consumption. The current system must be beloved in the hallowed halls of the oil companies as it disincentivizes the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles.

The more one looks at these systems of regulation, the more our government looks like something created by the Keystone Kops. If you don’t know what they are, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Cops

 

Guns In Schools – American Shame

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If you haven’t seen it recently, or ever, you should watch the YouTube video of Jeff Daniels’ answer to a college sophomore’s question: why is America the greatest country in the world? It’s here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2HKbygLjJs, from a great TV show called The Newsroom, well worth watching in its entirety.

I don’t know whether the data Daniels cites in the excerpt is accurate today but in general terms it likely is. That’s a hard pill for many Americans to swallow. Fear and loathing are rampant throughout the country, especially in the so-called “red states,” where Republicans promote the decline of the United States for political gain but have no solutions to offer except blaming others for what are distinctly American failures.

No better example exists than the data on guns in schools. Guns are seized in U.S. schools each day. The numbers are soaring. https://tinyurl.com/55hxzkm5

More than 1,150 guns were seized in K-12 schools last year

Nationwide, 1 in 47 school-aged children attended a school where at least one gun was found and reported on by the media in the 2022-2023 school year.

One high school student described his school as a “war zone” following the discovery of two guns at school in the first five days of his junior year. Both pistols were loaded.

That student’s experience was typical of “students of every age in every state throughout the school year, a bleak reflection of a society awash in firearms.”

Last school year, more than six guns were seized each day, on average. Nationally, 1.1 million students attended a school where at least one gun was found and reported by the media. Data collection limitations, including the fact that many school districts don’t bother to track the information, make it clear that those figures grossly understate the true magnitude of the danger.

A Washington Post survey of 51 of the country’s largest school systems showed that 58 percent of seizures in those districts last academic year were never publicly reported by news organizations. Those same districts said the number of guns recovered on campus rose sharply in recent years, mirroring the growing prevalence of firearms in many other public places.

In some cases, quick action by other students and school administrators almost certainly prevented mass murders of students and teachers. But reports indicate that some school districts are more concerned about avoiding scrutiny and causing alarm than they are interested in protecting students and school staff.

Police in Golden Valley, Minn., complained in March that middle school officials waited five days to notify them of two boys who appeared to be posing for social media pictures while holding a gun in the school bathroom; a spokesperson for the Robbinsdale Area Public Schools district said officials have worked since then to improve the school-police partnership.

That sounds like, “we take our peoples’ security very seriously. Their safety is our top priority.” Those are probably the most common, and meaningless, clichés in modern American language.

In 51 of the 100 largest school districts, representing 6.3 million students, 515 guns were found during the last school year. Only 42 percent of those seizures were reported publicly. In DeKalb County, Ga., (includes Atlanta) with a 2020 population of 764,382, only two of the 24 guns were reported.

The 47 districts for which The Post was able to obtain five full school years of data saw a 79 percent increase in guns found on campuses over that time frame [past five years]. In many communities, the number of guns found has more than doubled, a trend that mirrors a precipitous rise in school shootings.

While many instances of guns in schools are the result of gross parental negligence, or worse, that is far from the whole story.

The gun brought to Rome High on the fourth day of school was stolen in Alabama. According to media reports, a gun stolen in Las Vegas found its way into the hands of a 16-year-old at a Lawrence, Mass., high school; another 16-year-old brought a gun stolen in Georgia to his Manchester, Conn., high school; in Columbus, Ohio, a high-schooler showed up with a gun stolen in Martin County, Fla.; and in Nashville, a 17-year-old came to school with two loaded pistols in his backpack, one of them stolen out of Madison, Ala. An 18-year-old was arrested at a high school in Ames, Iowa., for possession of a 9mm semiautomatic pistol that was stolen from the center console of a pickup truck in Cape Girardeau, Mo., according to a police report. The teen said he bought the gun from a stranger at a gas station in Missouri, seeking protection, the report said.

While it is tempting to blame the problem in large part on teenage “craziness,” the data indicates that many younger students are involved:

… authorities found guns on at least 31 students age 10 or younger during the 2022-2023 academic year …. As is the case in most school shootings, the majority of those guns were brought to campus by children who could not legally purchase a firearm on their own.

Common Threads

Several common themes leap out from the Washington Post and other reports about kids bringing guns to schools:

  • School administrators are often slow to act and slow to inform parents about incidents.
  • Administrators are sometimes more interested in protecting the school’s “image” than in protecting students and staff.
  • Administrators sometimes refuse to respond to legitimate questions about these incidents, despite their role as public officials with responsibility to protect students and staff.
  • Parents whose carelessness/indifference and/or active support for gun culture are usually not held accountable for the conduct of their children.
  • Kids who bring guns to schools are often sheltered from consequences because they are minors.

That last point raises a bigger question. American society generally is based on the view that minors are not fully accountable for their behavior. This policy is based on the science of brain development and a concern that “immature” behavior” attributed to individuals will haunt them later in life and that this is unfair.

Why, exactly, such accountability is unfair is unclear. Also unclear is why it is more appropriate to be concerned about the perpetrators than about their actual or potential victims, many of whom will be traumatized, possibly forever, by their encounter with a fellow student armed and prepared to kill.

There are other consequences too. Teacher shortages because teachers feel disrespected, unsupported, and endangered. Budget issues arising from lawsuits against school systems that failed to do the right, and difficult, thing when confronted with a gun situation. Distracted students wondering when the next threat will walk into their classroom when they should be paying attention to the lesson. And more.

I urge you to read the full Washington Post story that inspired these thoughts. https://tinyurl.com/55hxzkm5 Every American should be concerned that our submission to the prevailing gun culture has led us to a dark place where young school children must undergo training in case their school is the scene of a shooter. And to a place where school administrators are free to simply refuse to communicate about their failures and their self-interested conduct at the expense of students’ safety.

Teachers in dozens of communities raised similar concerns about school safety after gun incidents last school year. In Harper Woods, Mich., in June, the teachers union accused school officials of trying to cover up an incident in which a student with a gun escaped the school staff and evaded metal detectors; in April, the Massachusetts Teachers Association accused a superintendent of “total disregard for the safety of students and school personnel” after a student posted videos of himself on social media that showed him wielding a gun on campus. The Southbridge, Mass., school system disputed the union’s account and said it was working with police on lockdown drills and other safety procedures.

The WAPO story recounts how students evade security systems and why students are often wary of reporting what they see. Once it becomes clear that the school is more interested in its reputation than in preventing gun violence, most kids are not going to risk being called a “rat” when they report someone who is handled with kid gloves and often back in the school soon after.

The graph below tells the story as well as anything. It does not, of course, measure the trauma experienced by students and staff who managed, by luck or whatever, not to be killed or wounded. This is the price we pay for the American obsession with guns.

One of the comments submitted to the WAPO story argued that the data prove that the “fraction of criminal violators in school populations” is so low, we should stop “propagandizing” about the problem. One response posted said: “Gosh, when you put it that way the blood stains almost fade away…” But, of course, they don’t. Ever.

Trump Confesses

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When you hire a lawyer to represent you, it is presumed that when the lawyer speaks or files pleadings in court on your behalf, he is speaking and/or presenting positions with which you concur. He is, after all and in fact and in law, your representative.

Sometimes, lawyers are forced to make arguments that seem preposterous on their face and are in fact preposterous. They normally do this when they are “out of ammunition” in the form of well-reasoned and at least plausible arguments. They do this when the client is desperate to present a defense when none exists. Those lawyers feel duty-bound to not only the zealous representation that legal ethics required of them, but, one might say, to throw something at the judicial wall and just hope against hope that it sticks.

It is thus with the latest Trump effort to escape responsibility for his treasonous insurrection against the government of the United States. Reports state that Trump’s attorneys have thrown such stuff at the wall in the Colorado case brought by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) seeking to bar him from the 2024 presidential ballot. https://www.rawstory.com/trump-wont-support-constitution/

Recall that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits anyone who has “engaged in insurrection” against the United States from holding a civil, military, or elected office unless a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate approve. I quote the Rawstory article:

Trump’s lawyers are arguing that the specific language of the Constitution argues that this requirement only applies to people in offices who are bound to “support” the Constitution — and the presidency is not one of those offices.

“The Presidential oath, which the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment surely knew, requires the President to swear to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution — not to ‘support’ the Constitution,” said the filing by Trump’s attorneys. “Because the framers chose to define the group of people subject to Section Three by an oath to ‘support’ the Constitution of the United States, and not by an oath to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President.”

My guess is that Trump’s lawyers don’t expect the trial judge to buy this nonsense. They are instead laying the foundation for an appeal, eventually, to the U.S. Supreme Court where, they hope, the “originalist” thinkers led by Clarence Thomas will “strictly construe” the Constitutional language and hold that “support” is not the same as “preserve, protect and defend” such that the Framers left a gaping hole for people like Trump to walk through while toppling the very structure the Framers worked so hard to establish.

But, you ask, why is this argument nonsense? Here’s why.

We could go on with this for hours, but I think it suffices that Oxford Languages (the world’s leading dictionary publisher, with over 150 years of experience creating and delivering authoritative dictionaries globally in more than 50 languages) has solved the puzzle for us.

“Preserve” is defined as “maintain (something) in its original or existing state.” Synonyms include: conserve, protect, maintain, care for, take care of, look after, save, safeguard, and keep. Antonyms include: damage and neglect.

“Protect” is defined as “keep safe from harm or injury.” Synonyms include: keep safe, keep from harm, save, safeguard, shield, preserve, defend, cushion, shelter, screen, secure, fortify, guard, mount/stand guard on, watch over, look after, take care of, care for, tend, keep, mind, afford protection to, harbor, house, hedge, inoculate, insulate. Antonyms: expose, neglect, attack, harm.

Finally, “defend” means “resist an attack made on (someone or something); protect from harm or danger.” Synonyms: protect, guard, safeguard, keep from harm, preserve, secure, shield, shelter, screen, fortify, garrison, barricade, fight for, uphold, support, be on the side of, take up cudgels for, watch over, be the defender of.”  The antonym: attack.

Being my discerning readers, I know you saw “support” in the third list as a synonym of “defend.”

Even if “support” were not listed there, it is defined as “enable to function or act” and is a synonym of: help, aid, assist, contribute to, back, succor, champion, give help to, be on the side of, side with, favor, abet, aid and abet, encourage, ally oneself with, stand behind, stand up for, defend, promote (among others).

One “rule” I always tried to follow in advocacy when I was practicing law was: don’t be stupid. Trump’s lawyers must be utterly desperate to put forward the argument that the President of the United States is not obligated by his oath of office to “support” the Constitution of the United States. Of all the implausible positions advanced for him and his  many co-indicted co-conspirators, this one take the cake.

The word legerdemain leaps to mind: deception; trickery, chicanery, skulduggery, deceit, deception, artifice, cheating, dissimulation. All seem to apply nicely to Trump’s argument. I particularly like “skulduggery” but that’s just me.

 

 

 

Only a Matter of Time Before Firearms Disaster On a Plane

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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

You’ll be thrilled to know that the Transportation Security Administration has released its first-half 2023 firearm interception numbers. https://tinyurl.com/vtnnazfd You will not be surprised, I suspect, to learn that the 3,251 total interceptions, an average of 18 firearms per day (of which more than 92 percent were loaded) was a 6.5 percent increase from the first half of 2022 (3,053 interceptions; 86 percent loaded). TSA is expecting a year-end increase over last year’s record of 6,542.

Granted that 3,251 is a miniscule percentage of the total domestic passenger enplanements during the first half of 2023 (396,154,000), the fact remains that the discharge of a pistol in a pressurized confines of a cruising airplane could have catastrophic consequences for everyone on board and possibly many more on the ground. So far, we’ve been fortunate that the security systems at airports, and the people who staff them, have detected so many weapons before they were taken on board an aircraft. Whether the 3,251 represents all such weapons, however, we can only hope, but we can’t be sure.

In fact, there is a recent report of an on-duty flight attendant who was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport trying to take a loaded pistol onto a plane. https://tinyurl.com/3fxscr3k The weapon in this case was a loaded .38 Ruger semiautomatic handgun. It was in her purse. With five rounds in the magazine.

The article does not specify which of the many Ruger semiautomatic handguns she carried, but assuming it was among the less expensive, it weighed just under 10 oz with a barrel length of less than 3 inches. The online ads describe it as “highly concealable.” Great. Holds 6 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. (In this instance no round was in the chamber, a minor inconvenience if quick shooting were at hand).

Further,

The arrest comes just two weeks after an airport concession worker was stopped trying to take a loaded handgun into the secure airside area of the airport. The worker claimed he forgot the gun was in his bag.

“I forgot I had the gun in my … purse, briefcase, pocket” is the standard excuse offered when TSA detects these items which, in the context of an aircraft in flight, could easily become a “weapon of mass destruction.”

The article says the flight attendant faces firearms charges under Pennsylvania law and “a potential federal financial penalty” related to trying to take a gun through a TSA checkpoint.

And there lies the issue: a “potential financial penalty.” And in many states, no charges would lie under local gun laws because they basically don’t have any.

When passengers bring firearms to the TSA security checkpoint, TSOs contact local law enforcement to check the contents of the carry-on bag, safely unload and take possession of the firearm and process the passenger in accordance with local laws on firearms. TSA will impose a civil penalty up to $14,950, eliminate TSA PreCheck eligibility for five years and may require enhanced screening.

Some passengers will be arrested or cited, depending on local laws on firearms.

Not good enough. Some, but not all?  Why not all?

Then, there’s this:

Aircrew can often skip most security screening at US airports as part of the ‘Known Crewmember’ initiative ….

The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) issued an urgent circular earlier this year warning crew members not to break KCM rules and to be particularly mindful of not accidentally trying [??] to take a firearm through the security checkpoint.

In some cases, the union warned that flight attendants had managed to leave the United States on international trips with a firearm in their luggage only for it to then be discovered as they went to return to the US resulting in hefty fines and even imprisonment.

According to another report, the flight attendant caught in PHL lives in Arizona. https://tinyurl.com/ms36hpmkOne wonders how the pistol came to be with her in PHL if it wasn’t flown there from Arizona. That article notes: “It’s possible that the flight attendant may lose her job here, but generally the consequences for being caught with a gun at a security checkpoint are quite minimal (at least compared to what they’d be in other countries).

A recent report in CNN https://tinyurl.com/3y6tmx4e notes that a June 20023 IATA report shows that “there was one unruly incident reported for every 568 flights in 2022, up from one per 835 flights in 2021.”

Thus, we have reports of deranged passengers fighting with other passengers and crews on in-flight aircraft coming in weekly combined with a multitude of pistols, the vast majority being loaded, being stopped almost literally at the boarding door (and apparently some getting through) – the perfect recipe for an in-flight catastrophe.

We know from statistical principles that even though the chances of an event may be very small, such low-probability events do happen. What will we say when an in-flight disaster brought on by a loaded pistol in-flight brings down an aircraft?

Here’s what: “Oh my, we will undertake a thorough examination of our security protocols because, you know, your safety is our top priority, and we take it very seriously.” That, by the way, is probably the most-repeated and least meaningful cliché in the English language. It is standard public relations formula for after-the-fact, but readily foreseeable, disaster events.

Two days ago, the local news outlet, Patch, reported that a VA Man Blames Wife For Loaded Gun In Carry-On Bag At Reagan National; the man

told officials that she packed his carry-on bag and did not know that he already had his loaded gun inside,” TSA said.

What the article does not discuss is why the gun was already in the man’s carry-on bag. Had he succeeded in taking it on another flight previously and just left in the bag for his next flight when his unsuspecting wife dutifully packed his bag for him?

In a classic example of understatement, TSA’s security director for National Airport was quoted,

It is disappointing to continue to see travelers carrying their loaded guns to our security checkpoints.

Disappointing, yes, indeed. But, more accurately,

There is no reasonable excuse for not knowing you are carrying an unsecured, loaded firearm in your bag. It presents a danger to everyone around you.

Here are the reported firearms captures at National Airport alone:

The current one is the sixth capture in the last three weeks.

What does this tell you? Answer: the current approach is not working and the risk to passengers on planes and people on the ground is growing.

The solution, I suggest, while imperfect, is to have an absolute policy of strictest law enforcement against every person caught with firearms in their carry-on luggage. Every one of them should be prosecuted under federal law and visited with the maximum penalty. Then, maybe, just maybe, gun owners would begin to take the rules seriously.

We can, of course, expect Second Amendment challenges to such an approach. The “originalist” argument will be that that when the Constitution was adopted there was no general prohibition against carrying firearms on planes, therefore, we cannot enforce one now. I don’t have to explain how ludicrous that argument is, so I won’t bother.

Who Was Samuel Johnson?

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Doesn’t much matter. If you must know, Wikipedia has an extensive article on his life as “poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson That’s a lot of jobs for one life.

One of Johnson’s most well-known attributed quotes is: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

I thought of that when reading the reports that Jenna Ellis, an unknown lawyer until she joined forces with Donald Trump to overthrow the government and install him as president/king/despot/rule-for-life, had turned on her liege lord. And make no mistake, overthrowing the government and anointing Trump was the plan.

Of course, it failed. Miserably. Not only was the incitement thoroughly documented on video and otherwise, but the attack itself was also filmed by multiple people, including some of the participants themselves in one of the great self-owns of all time. One of the best videos of the attack was produced by the New York Times:  https://tinyurl.com/4btuf4y5

For her efforts, Ms. Ellis has earned the distinction of being indicted, along with Trump and many others, in Georgia. For reasons currently unknown, she was not indicted by the Special Counsel Jack Smith but that could still happen.

Reports now indicate that Ms. Ellis, like some of the other insurrectionists, has had a change of heart. Jenna Ellis Denounces ‘Malignant Narcissist’ Trump, Publicly Distances Herself From Former President,https://tinyurl.com/km4z7v8b:

I simply can’t support him for elected office again. Why I have chosen to distance is because of that, frankly, malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.” The most notable component of Ellis’ remarks was her criticism of Trump supporters. She claimed that some of them had elevated Trump to the level of “idolatry” and were prioritizing their devotion to him over their dedication to conservative ideas, the Constitution, and the country. She challenged Americans, particularly conservatives and Christians, to reconsider their voting and allegiances.

… And the total idolatry that I’m seeing from some of the supporters that are unwilling to put the constitution and the country and the conservative principles above their love for a star is really troubling. And I think that we do need to, as Americans and as conservatives and particularly as Christians, take this very seriously and understand where are we putting our vote.

And in the Guardian, it is noted that “in 2020 Ellis rose from relative obscurity to become part of what she called an “elite strike force team” working to overturn Trump’s defeat by Biden.” https://tinyurl.com/bsk4rjyp

Covering all her bases, Ellis, while rejecting Trump as a candidate to vote for, hastened to assure him that, “I have great love and respect for him personally.” Trump, being the great transactionalist that he is, will not likely find such professions of affection meaningful if she’s going to withhold her vote.

Reading those reports reminded me of some of the defenses offered by Proud Boys and others like them who conspired to pull off the insurrection and have been sentenced to long prison terms.

One popular one was “I was just following the direction of my commander-in-chief,” an apparent reference to the Constitutional provision (Article II) that “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States….” The problem with that defense, of course, was, among other things, that the Proud Boys were not inthe Army, Navy, or a Militia of the any state called into the actual service of the United States.

But, as the Samuel Johnson quote reminds us, the mind concentrates when faced with hanging and the Proud Boys being sentenced to decades in prison is the functional equivalent of being hanged. The defense has been uniformly rejected by the courts, as it should be.

As for Jenna Ellis’ sudden “awakening” to Trump’s “malignant narcissism,” her statements smack of performative timing inspired by being indicted for multiple felonies for which she has few, if any, realistic defenses. If she had been awake during the months leading up to January 6, she would already have been aware that Trump a cancer on American democracy. Many of the tear-shedding insurrectionists in their pleas for leniency have, once sentenced, reverted to type, and continued to declare their allegiance to Trump and the false-flag “stolen election” nonsense. One can’t help wondering if Ellis won’t do the same thing once she knows just how high her hanging will be.

Memories of 9/11

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As this day has progressed, I have, involuntarily, been drawn back to specific memories of that dreadful morning. I will share what I recall, hopefully accurately. I believe so.

I was driving to my office at the Alexandria, VA-based trade association where I was employed as head of the legal, industry affairs and government affairs departments. We represented what were then called travel agents, now known, more accurately, as travel advisors. I don’t recall how many employees we had back then. but it seems like 50 or so.

My cell phone rang, and our head of communications told me, in a somewhat anxious voice, that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York City. I said, “you mean like a small plane?” Instinctively, it did not seem plausible that a full-sized airliner could have flown into New York City airspace and collided with one of the tallest buildings in the world. It had to be an accident or a person committing suicide in a small plane.

I don’t recall what she replied, but it was clear that this was a major event that would affect the travel industry immediately, among many other things. “I’ll be right there. I’m close.”

When I arrived at our offices, there was much obvious concern. We now knew that there were two aircraft involved in New York and that another had crashed into the Pentagon, about five miles away. Our staff leader was in Europe, unreachable and in any case unable to get back. I was de facto in charge. Through a quick series of meetings, I learned what little had been gleaned from frantic news reports. With the rest of the world, we watched the collapse of the Twin Towers. I learned that one member of our staff had a brother working at the Pentagon. She was hysterical, understandably, because he was not responding to her calls and the reports indicated extensive damage to the building with fires and many casualties. A small staff group was with her offering such comfort and support as they could.

Six years before this, I had miraculously survived a cardiac arrest. One industry friend sent me a card that read, “Now, at least, we know you have a heart. Get well.” It was time, I realized, to be that guy, a calming influence against the chaos and panic that were setting in. My reputation for being calm and emotionless was required by the situation even though inside I was a roiling mess of concern, frustration anger and despair. Who would do something so insane? Why? Like everyone else, I had no answers.

I called a meeting in our large conference room. I decided the best path forward was to be brutally truthful. “I don’t know much more than you do about what has happened or why,” I said. “I believe, however, that everyone will be safest right now by staying in the office. I can’t make you stay. You can leave when you want to, but this is not a good time to be on the streets. I will be here with you until it is safe for the last of you to leave, no matter how long that takes. You are safe here. We will continue seeking information and will share all reliable information.”

I answered the questions I could and urged everyone to remain alert and try to work. The impact of the events on travel would be immediate and our members around the country would be looking to us for guidance.

After the meeting, one staff member came to my office to ask me to lift the policy I had put in place years earlier that prohibited possession of a firearm in the office. He felt we “need to be able to defend ourselves. They’re going to put nails and bombs in post office boxes.” I rejected the idea while trying to reflect understanding of the anxiety that led to the proposal. “Even if you’re worst fears are true, having a gun in the office isn’t going to be much help and could make everything much worse. Let’s just stay calm until we understand more about what has happened.”

As the day progressed into the afternoon with no more attacks, staff began to drift out of the office to make their way home. The brother at the Pentagon came out safe, to our great relief. Air travel was completely shut down by government order. For the moment, there was nothing for us to do realistically. When all were gone, I left too.

As the recovery began and information about the attackers and the ease with which they were able to bring box cutters onto aircraft was revealed, the President and Congress, along with existing federal and state agencies, went into action. Everyone hopefully is at least generally familiar with what all that led the nation to do, some great and some not.

For our part, our head of communications produced a brilliant idea. Seeing that the public needed to be encouraged to resume traveling as soon as it was allowed and working with American Express and the Airlines Reporting Corporation for funding, she proposed a Public Service Announcement using a famous figure, like an astronaut, to assure the public it was safe to travel again. Eventually, we arranged with Jim Lovell, commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, to participate in a filmed short subject. Commander (retired) Lovell was an absolute delight to work with. He hosted us for dinner at his restaurant, Lovells in Lake Forest, outside of Chicago where we discussed the plan for the PSA. After dinner, Lovell took us into his private museum in the basement where we saw many artifacts of the Apollo 13 and other missions.

Commander Lovell approved the short script I wrote for the PSA and met us very early in the morning at O’Hare Airport for the taping. The airport was under the tightest imaginable security at that time, but United Airlines, the principal carrier there, worked to get the necessary permissions for our access. We did multiple takes at the ticket counter; Lovell never hesitated to do what was asked of him. The only record of the PSA exists on a VHS tape, but my best recall is that we had Lovell approach the ticket counter to get his boarding pass, turn to the camera and say, roughly,

When Apollo 13 was in trouble, our best people went to work and solved the problem. Our country is facing another crisis and our best people are working to make sure you’re safe. It’s time to get moving again.”

He took his boarding pass and walked confidently through the security gate.

The PSA was seen by millions and, hopefully, was reassuring that America would indeed overcome the latest challenge.

Today, many ceremonies around the country have been performed to honor the memories of those lost to the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. To those who question American resolve in the face of our current political turmoil, these ceremonies should serve as a reminder that We Will Never Forget. I know I never will.