Here We Go Again

About five years ago, I thought I made headway with a friend on the issue of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Like many MAGA devotees, this friend, a real friend whom I have known for more than forty years, could rattle off the names of victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants as if they were his own grandchildren. As you might expect, these names formed the backbone of his argument that all undocumented people in this country should be deported, extenuating circumstances be damned. 

One name he failed to mention, because his story was not reported on Fox News, was that of a relative of mine by marriage, my wife's cousin. He was killed as he was driving with his wife from a wedding in Chicago to their home in suburban Milwaukee, when their car crashed head on with a car driven by a man going the wrong way on an interstate highway as he was being pursued by the police. Fortunately, my cousin-in-law's wife managed to survive the crash, meaning their two young boys who were thankfully home at the time, were not left orphaned. As these things so often go, the perpetrator of this tragedy who was intoxicated, also survived.

He'll have plenty of time to think about his actions that terrible night while he sits in an American prison, before he is sent back to Mexico where he'll most likely have more time on his hands to contemplate. 

I brought this up with my friend just to let him know that I did in fact, have skin in the game when it comes to the subject of undocumented people in this country committing crimes. I wanted to point out to him that despite the unspeakable tragedy of the senseless death of a loving husband, father, brother and friend, I do not hold all undocumented people in this country accountable, only one. 

That's the way it goes with human beings. If you take a representative sample of any group of people, then make a graph that measured the quality of their character, you'll inevitably come up with an enormous bell curve, with a handful of exemplary people at one end, an equal number of despicable people at the other, and a whole mess of people like my friend and me, average folks somewhere in the middle. 

Then I pointed out for every undocumented alien who commits a crime, there will inevitably be at least one who did something remarkable in the service of others. It's just that for some reason, their story doesn't get reported very often, especially on the ultra-right-wing media outlets my friend and millions of folks like him gravitate toward. 

Nonetheless, my friend seemed to get it. That is until our next argument when again he parroted off the names of all the American victims whose story he heard on Fox. 

Well today, you-know-who is about to become president again and he is promising mass deportations starting tomorrow, his first full day in office. With it will come some justice I suppose along with unimaginable human suffering. And I'm willing to bet my firstborn that none of this will do one iota to improve the lives of the American people as promised. 

The new president, the first and hopefully last Felon-In-Chief, plans to start deporting people by the way, right here in Chicago for reasons I can only assume stem from his animus toward this city. I don't know why he hates us so much, one of our largest buildings proudly displays his name so it can be seen for miles around. 

He loves that kind of shit.

But I digress.

When I told my friend that for every undocumented resident who commits a crime, there is at least another who does something remarkable to help someone else, it seemed so obvious that I just let it rest at that. Now I have something to back it up. Last week as Los Angeles was burning uncontrollably, this story came across the wires. (so to speak). 

Be sure to read it.

In a nutshell, as people were forced to evacuate their homes and their communities for their own safety, another group rushed in to help them. In addition to the first responders who were heroically doing their job, there were many others who volunteered to help put out fires in order to help save homes that hadn't yet caught fire.

Many of these people were undocumented. Here's the money quote. Israel Garcia from Guatemala made this comment as he was in the middle of saving a stranger's home:

I don't know who lives here, I don't know if they had children. But if they did, I'm thinking about what the children are going to feel when they come back and see that their house is gone. And I ask myself, how would I feel?

Interestingly enough, just now as I went in search of an article to share with you, I googled "undocumented immigrants help put out fires in LA." Dozens of articles with the story came up. Not surprisingly, none of them came from Fox. The lone article that popped up from that beacon of "fair and balanced journalism", as they once described themselves (but not anymore), was an article with the headline: "Man arrested near LA fires with a 'possible' blowtorch was an illegal immigrant." I read the article and so far, at least at its writing, the man had not been charged with anything.

And so it goes.

In other news, this month we said goodbye to Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States. Due to circumstances largely beyond his control, Carter was perhaps not our best president but was without question, our best former president. Jimmy Carter was a man of remarkable good will and charity, someone who took to heart the fundamental teaching of his faith, that is to say, love your neighbor, even if he is your enemy. 

Present at his funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. were all the living presidents, including one current and one future, as well as one recently deceased. These six men, as a representative sampling of Presidents of the United States are a good example of the bell curve of human nature. At the one end, representing exemplary character is Jimmy Carter.

At the other end, well let's put it this way, enjoy the next four years. 

After

I have to admit having been a little nervous before tuning in to the debate the other night. All those years as a disappointed Chicago sports fans must have served me well as my motto in anticipating the outcome of practically anything I care about is this: hope for the best, plan for the worst.

That way I'm never disappointed.

Well, it turns out I had little to worry about.

Granted there were things I wished the Vice President had done better: answer more questions directly for one, be a little more hesitant with spouting BS (like bringing up Trump's "good people on both sides" and  "bloodbath" comments which were both taken out of context), and missed opportunities by not nailing the exPOTUS down more on issues like the economy, which he is obviously clueless about.

On the other hand...

Complaining about all that is a little like having your football team win the game 60-0 and then complaining about your quarterback throwing an interception late in the fourth quarter isn't it?

But, on the other hand...

Taking that sports metaphor one step further, one game does not a season make. Or a more familiar metaphor, we may have won the battle, but the war is far from over. 

If you expected a reprise of the Lincoln-Douglas debates the other night, you were certainly disappointed. 

Which is perhaps why this first, and probably only debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump, despite being by any reasonable measure a hand's down, slam dunk, gob smackingly devastating victory for Harris, didn't move the poll needle significantly in either direction. 

Judging by what I heard in post-debate interviews with still undecided voters in swing states, that's because neither candidate made a very good case for his or her plan for the number one issue on their mind, inflation.

I think the bottom line for lots of these voters is this: when Trump was president, their lives were better, while under Biden/Harris, their lives are worse. Yes, that's a myopic point of view but since these folks are really the only people who matter as far as the outcome of the election goes, their concerns must be addressed.

Regarding that, I believe Harris missed a golden opportunity at the very first question she received which was, "When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?" 

As is so often the case in debates like these, she didn't answer the question (admittedly a tough one) but sketched out her economic plan for bolstering the Middle Class, while slamming her opponent's one-size-fits-all solution to our economic problems, stiff tariffs on all imported goods.

All well and good but here's what she might also have said:

Four years ago, we were in the middle of a pandemic which took the lives of over one million of our fellow citizens. Second only to the unspeakable human tragedy, COVID also devastated our economy. Millions of Americans lost their jobs as the unemployment rate doubled, and the annual growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product was in negative territory for the first time in thirty years. 

And yes, during COVID, gas prices were low. Do you know why? Because no one was driving and the demand for gasoline was practically zero, while the supply went through the roof. That's basic supply and demand economics, it got so bad that for a time, if you had a barrel of oil to sell, you had to pay someone to take it off your hands. 

That was the state of the United States economy when Joe Biden and I were sworn into office in 2021. At the time, economists across the board predicted a recession at the very least if not a depression. Now I'm the first to admit that the recovery from the pandemic has been slow and bumpy at times, and things, especially the inflation rate, which by the way is a worldwide problem, is still too high. But we are continuing to work on it and inflation which has been declining over the past few years, is at a point now where it's low enough that the Fed is on the brink of lowering interest rates. 

Don't be fooled, there is still lots of work to be done but far from being the disaster that my opponent will have you believe, despite inflation, our economy is looking bright. The Stock Market keeps reaching record highs. If you don't think that affects you, take a look at your retirement account statement. My opponent will tell you that we are sorely falling behind in the production of oil, but the fact is that the United States currently leads the globe in not only the production of fossil fuels but renewable energy sources as well. My opponent will tell you that our nation is an economic disaster, but the truth is, the United States economy under the Biden/Harris administration, not only staved off a devastating recession, but is leading the world in the broadest measure of economic growth, the GDP. If Donald Trump were president right now with the economy exactly as it is, rest assured he'd be telling you that it's incredible, nobody has ever seen as great an economy as this one.

But no, I'm not going to deceive you like that, we are not there yet in terms of incomes catching up to inflation, but we are getting there.

And yes, I'd say we are indeed better off today than we were four years ago when our economic future was still very much uncertain.

Or something of that nature.

Not only would that have directly answered the question, but it would have given people who may not know better, an important lesson that there are a lot of factors that control inflation, many of which have little or nothing to do with the person who sits at the resolute desk in Washington D.C. 

It would also point out that economic trends develop slowly, usually spanning multiple administrations. As an example, Donald Trump loves to point out that before the pandemic, he "created" one of the greatest economies the world has ever seen. The fact is, he inherited that economy from his predecessor Barack Obama who himself inherited the worst U.S. economy since the great Depression.

Is it possible to tout the achievements of the Biden/Harris administration while still addressing and not belittling the concerns of people who feel they got let behind?

I think it is, but precious time is running out, especially since Trump yesterday announced he won't do another debate, (who can blame him?), and Harris won't have as good an opportunity to address uninterrupted, tens of millions of Americans who get their information from "news" sources that won't give her the time of day. 

But try she must, to reach these folks. 

Because the alternative is simply unthinkable.

POST SCRIPT

I could go on and on and on and on and on about how Kamala Harris completely undressed Donald Trump the other night in Philadelphia, or in her words, "ate him for lunch." I won't though because it's so obvious and so much has already been said and written about it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still downright giddy about her performance, but we have to put it behind us now and move on to the next challenge. 

All I can say is this: Well done.

Before

This post is being written about six hours before the most significant presidential debate in American history. The debate this evening happens to come on the heels of the last most significant presidential debate in history.

I guess that makes these past ten weeks between the debates the most significant two- and one-half months in American presidential debate history, or maybe not.

It is a little hard to believe there are still undecided voters out there who could be swayed by the outcome of tonight's debate. But given our arcane system of electing presidents, and the fact that the outcome of this election will be determined by a small number of people in a handful of states, this is the reality we're living in. 

I heard this morning that yet another poll has determined that up to one third of all undecided voters will likely make their decision based upon the tonight's outcome. Given that Donald Trump's performance is virtually a given, it means that everything will hang upon Kamala Harris's performance. Everyone and their mother, including mine, has advice for the Democratic nominee, and I hope she's listening, nodding her head, and keeps doing what she's been doing.

Yes, I'd like her to get a little more specific about her agenda, policy matters and all that. But let's face it, any president coming into office is inevitably faced with a barrage of issues that are unexpected and have little or nothing to do with the rhetoric that is spewed during the campaign. Contrary to the popular opinion of some of our countrymen and women, a president doesn't have a magic wand that he or she can wave to make an agenda reality, such as making inflation go away. The president not only has to work with Congress, and we've all seen how that's been working out lately, but also has to work with forces that are by and large beyond his or her control such as the economy. The scariest force of all that is beyond a president's control is the unforeseen, events like we've recently seen such as global pandemics and far-off wars. Setting a well-defined agenda at the outset is all well and good but in reality, what's more important to know is what are the tendencies, the values and perhaps above all, what is the intestinal fortitude of the candidate, which hopefully will give us an idea as to how he or she might handle the unforeseen.

In one of the candidates, we've seen all too well how he's handled adversity and the unknown. As I've mentioned before in this space, had the exPOTUS's response to the COVID pandemic, the one and only true challenge during his one term in office, been only barely competent, say a grade of C minus, had he made just a token effort to convince Americans that we were all on the same page in fighting that horrific tragedy together, Americans would have rallied behind him as they have in other times of crisis and he would have easily won reelection in 2020. 

However, he insisted on using the Pandemic to further divide the nation for his own purposes and as a result, he lost that election. It wasn't even close. Then, rather than conceding defeat as every losing presidential candidate up to him had done, well, we saw what happened on that day of infamy, January 6, 2001. 

In that regard, Kamala Harris is a blank slate, as has every person ever elected president for the first time.

Speaking in generalities as Harris has been doing, isn't necessarily a bad thing. In reality, that's all we ultimately have to go on, other than she can't be nearly as bad as her opponent.  

Anyway, I'll get into the act and offer my suggestion to the Vice President for the debate tonight if she's listening, which I'm sure she is...

When Trump brings up her communist tendencies, she should suggest he open up a book (perhaps "The Idiot's Guide to Communism") and read up a little on the subject before opening his mouth about something he knows absolutely nothing about.

And she should concentrate on her facial expressions during the split screen when her mic is turned off. Hers should be a look of dismissal rather than of abject horror which lost a lot of points for Joe Biden ten weeks ago.

We all know that Trump absolutely relishes being thought of as a badass, as a tough guy who takes no prisoners. But brushed off of as irrelevant, that drives him crazy, possibly to the point of spontaneous combustion. Not that I'd ever wish someone's demise as Clarence Darrow once suggested, "but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction."

Who said this is going to be a debate? These things are not about ideas or issues, they're all about the performance, especially the one liners.

Just ask former Vice President Dan "Senator you're no Jack Kennedy" Quayle. 

Go get him Madame Vice President.

Oops, I Did It Again

For the last four years or so, I've done my best to avoid getting into social media spats over politics. That was made easy since the last presidential election, as I either de-friended or have been de-friended by most of the social media "friends" with whom I've had shall we say, heated political disagreements. 

Like banging my head against the wall, it felt so good when it stopped.

I didn't jettison all of my friends with alternative visions of the universe. 

Yet for my part, since the 2020 election, I've kept political commentary to the minimum on my own posts (saving it for this blog), and have bent over backwards to avoid commenting on others' posts when they rubbed me the wrong way. 

But one post the other day was particularly aggravating, and I simply could not help myself. The post was, as are so many of them are, not original, but the repost of a meme. The meme said: "Run on your record. Not your race. Not your gender." signed: "America."

As you can see it was not explicitly addressed to any particular candidate, but you can probably guess who the intended target was. Taking advantage of the ambiguity, this was my response:  

Oh I don't know, if you have a record that includes dozens of criminal indictments, thirty some felony convictions, two impeachments, trying to overthrow the United States government because of not liking the outcome of an election, having Orban, Kim and Putin as BFFs AND total incompetence in handling the one real challenge (COVID) of his administration, what else does he have to run on besides being an old white guy?

I had a flash of Deja vu when I read the comments from total strangers to my response which were posted within minutes of my comment. I learned that I'm drinking the Kool Aid, that I'm delusional, that I don't have an open mind and that I need to stop paying attention to the "mainstream media."  

What they don't know about me (as I said they're perfect strangers so how could they?), is that I stopped drinking Kool-Aid when I was about seven, never really liked the stuff. For much of my adult life and then some I've prided myself on having an open mind, seeking out sources of information from all sides of the political spectrum, especially those with whom I disagreed. After all what can you learn if you just read things that confirm your own biases? Yes, I do get information from the dreaded "mainstream media" as well as from other sources, including Fox "News".

Until eight years ago, I considered myself to be politically moderate, even right-of-center on certain issues.

What they also don't know about me is that no, my opinion of Donald Trump has not been shaped by the MSM or any other political commentary, but rather by observing and listening to the man himself.  I've been following Trump's career for the past oh, forty years or so and can honestly say that for all that time, I never found him to be anything more than an attention grabbing, self-serving crook, a conman and a grifter. And that was back when he called himself a "liberal, very pro-choice Democrat." Needless to say, my opinion of the exPOTUS has not improved in the last eight years. 

As for the delusional part, well in some circumstances, I have to plead guilty as charged. But judging by the words of my comment published in its entirety above, one would be hard pressed to deny anything I wrote; yes friends, Donald Trump is responsible for all that, and so much more.

Fittingly, none of the responses to my comment tried to deny any of what I said. Instead, they dwelled upon what a great president their man was, how the country was so much better off under Trump and what a disaster it has become under Biden. According to them, Trump may have done some bad things, but nothing that the Democrats haven't done.

Well, I beg to differ. 

If you've been reading this blog for the past eight or so years, you've heard it all before so I'm not going to rehash it here. In a remarkable bit of self-restraint, I let it go with my original comment, choosing not to get into arguments over politics with complete strangers. 

I did type out a response to my friend, an actual friend by the way, who made the original post. Basically, she pointed out the predictable: prices are too high, too many immigrants, two wars waging in Europe and the Middle East, and more. 

How much those things are attributable to the current administration is very debatable, which is what I wrote. But I never posted it, seeing no point in arguing with my friend either, since she's as set in her opinions on the subject as I am in mine. 

However debatable though, hers are valid concerns and if the Democrats are going to have any chance of winning in November, they're going to have to address them honestly. 

As far as I'm concerned, they can dump on Trump all they want but they're also going to have to give up demonizing Trump supporters as Hillary Clinton did with her infamous "basket of deplorables" comment eight years ago. That alone I believe, is what doomed her campaign more than anything else. 

Interestingly enough, I listened to an interview with Tim Walz a couple weeks ago. He spoke passionately about all the folks we still see wearing the red baseball caps at Trump rallies and how they're not all that different from folks like us who turn our noses up at them. The Democrats aren't going to reach all of them, probably not even most of them, but the truth is, deep down, most of these folks have by and large the same needs, the same hopes and dreams for themselves and their families as the vast majority of Americans. (Yes there are the dyed-in-the-wool racists too who I'd say comprise a small minority of the MAGA crowd.)  

I was so impressed by Walz and especially his comments about unifying the country, that I became convinced Kamela Harris should choose him as her running mate. Two days later, she did.

Trump was clearly aggravated when President Biden announced that he would not seek reelection and would throw all his support to his vice president. So too were Trump supporters who like their man, were beginning to see a slam dunk victory in November, especially after (for Biden) the disastrous debate performance, the assassination attempt against Trump, and the rousing, bullshit laden RNC in Milwaukee. 

In stark contrast, those of us who wouldn't vote for Trump if our lives depended upon it, were in a state of depression at the thought of the man who waged an insurrection against the United States government on January 6, 2021, returning to office. So, the timing for Biden's announcement, coming just days after the MAGA Convention, could not have been better for the Democrats and anybody who thinks a redo of the Trump presidency is the last thing this country needs.

I'm not often right but I made the right call two posts ago when I said that there were only two legitimate options for the Democrats. Either Joe Biden would have to voluntarily withdraw from the race and get behind Kamala Harris (and no one else), or stay in the race and deal with the ever-growing scrutiny of his mental and physical condition. In either case, the Democrats, if they wanted any chance of beating Trump, would have to be all-in in supporting their candidate, whomever that may be.  

Well, much to Donald Trump's dismay, they chose option A, and it seems to be working out pretty well for them, up until now at least. 

The double whammy was Harris's pick of Walz, who couldn't be farther from the MAGA concept of the wealthy, elitist, Ivy League educated coastal Democrat who has zero connection to or appreciation of Average Americans and their values. 

For the record, both Trump (Penn) and his running mate J.D.Vance (Yale) are in fact, Ivy Leaguers while Harris and Walz both are not. 

That little tidbit in a normal world would be quite irrelevant, as all four have advanced degrees from respected universities. But if the Trumplicans are going to paint a picture of themselves as being more in touch with the lives of average Americans, as you can see, that simply isn't so. 

Harris and Walz would do well to remind folks of that. But it's also important that both candidates don't spend all their time reminding us that they're not Trump and Vance, we already know that. As I said, they're going to need to get substantive and address those bread and butter issues mentioned by my friend in her response to my comment on her post.

Because at some point, as everyone keeps reminding us, the honeymoon will eventually be over with the Harris/Walz ticket and the voters who will determine the outcome of this election, will be a relatively small number of people in a handful of states who will show up to vote, based upon whether or not they feel Harris and Walz are worth the effort. The Democratic candidates need to do everything in their power to reach out to these folks, even some of the ones in the red caps. 

Trump of course will always be Trump, a man who cannot resist the impulse to be a jackass and a bully, no matter the cost to himself. While his base has shown they will support him no matter what he does, his Achilles heel is that he will never lift a finger to reach out to anybody who doesn't already adore him. His choice of running mate proves that in spades. That weakness provides the Democrats with a tremendous opening, if only they'll take the opportunity to run with it.

Well, so far so good.

So, what was it about my friend's post that irked me so? 

Well, you may recall four or five of my posts which address the issue of "colorblindness" that seems to be an obsession with the MAGA right. They just love to brag about how they don't notice race and how inspired they are by the line of the "I Have a Dream" speech where Martin Luther King dreams of a day when: "his children would be judged by their character rather than the color of their skin." When you're reading a rant about race by a MAGA writer, you can set your watch by when that line will come up.  

And how did these same folks react when it was announced that Kamala Harris, a woman of Black/Asian ancestry would be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States? 

They called her a "DEI" hire, implying that she was picked not because of her qualifications but because of her race and her gender. Never mind that she served as Vice President of the United States for four years, a senator from the largest state in the country before that, and the top law enforcement official of that state before that. Before that she was a prosecutor.

And remind me, what exactly were Donald Trump's qualifications before he was elected president in 2016? Oh yeah, he was a talk show host and a businessman who went bankrupt a half-dozen times.

So, if anyone is running on race and gender in this election, it is the Trumplicans. 

That point was made crystal clear during last week's Democratic National Convention here in Chicago, where the milestone of Harris possibly becoming the first woman president of the United States was not lost on many of the speakers, but practically ignored by the candidate herself. 

Meanwhile the exPOTUS is working overtime to portray Kamala Harris with references filled with piggish male chauvinist stereotypes of women, portraying her as weak, frivolous and stupid, someone who will not garner the respect, nor inspire fear in the minds of our adversaries. 

Well, anyone who has ever seen her in action, such as when she grilled the likes of former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, and Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh. understands that Harris, a former prosecutor, senator and vice president, is as serious, intelligent and tough as they come. 

On the other hand, her current opponent, the exPOTUS, extremely vulnerable to attention and flattery, has proven himself to be easily manipulated by our adversaries. His shameful performance in Helsinki with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, is the most but certainly not the unique example of this. 

Of course none of this should come as a surprise, Donald Trump is a master of projection, casting his own faults onto his opponents, only more so with those he truly fears. 

From his unhinged rants on Kamala Harris, we can gather a few things. He's really scared of her and he's the unserious, weak and stupid one.

And how.

Slow News Month

Not much happening in the news lately.

Oh yeah, the attempt on the life of Donald Trump, almost forgot about that one.

So what did I learn from that?

Well first of all it's been a good opportunity to think about a few things regarding one of the great passions of my life, photography. 

You may have had the chance to see the amazing photograph of the exPOTUS shortly before he was grazed by a bullet, with the track of another bullet whizzing by him to his left (our right). We know this isn't the bullet about to hit him because the shooter was to his right (our left), meaning the bullet in the photograph had already passed him. In the amount of time it took to make the exposure, what we call the shutter speed, the bullet travelled a bit of a distance, meaning that it was not frozen still in the photograph, but rather was recorded as a blur, from its location at the beginning of the exposure, to its location at the end, and all points in between.

From looking at the photograph, I'd estimate the bullet covered about two feet during the exposure. Given that, one could presumably estimate the rate of speed per second of the bullet by multiplying those two feet, by the denominator (the bottom number) of the exposure time which is measured in fractions of a second. 

According to the photographer, Doug Mills of the New York Times, the photograph was shot at 1/8000 of a second. So multiplying two feet by 8000 gives us a velocity of 16,000 feet per second, about three miles. 

I wasn't up on the subject of bullet speeds before seeing the photograph, but that seemed way too fast. I looked it up and indeed it is. A bullet from the type of weapon used in the assassination attempt typically travels in the vicinity of 3,200 feet per second. 

So what gives, altered photograph? fake news? conspiracy?

Actually, there is quite a logical explanation for the distance bullet covered to appear greater in the photograph than it actually was. It has to do with the type of shutter on the camera that Mills used. The shutter is the part of a camera that opens up to allow light coming from the lens to fall upon the light sensitive material, be it film or in Mills' case, a digital sensor., that records the image  The shutters found on most modern cameras are known as focal plane shutters. Unlike leaf shutters which open from the center, focal plane shutters open from the side. They consist of two curtains, a leading curtain that opens up a window between the lens and the light sensitive material to make the exposure, and a trailing curtain traveling in the same direction that closes to end the exposure. After the picture is taken, the shutter has to be "cocked" to return the two curtains back to their original location before the exposure was made, so the process can be repeated. 

With slower shutter speeds, usually below 1/200 of a second, there is a gap of time when the entire "window" is open and the whole digital sensor (or piece of film) is exposed to light. Above those speeds however, the trailing curtain begins to end the exposure before the leading curtain is completely open, meaning there is never a time when the entire image is exposed at once. The faster the exposure, the smaller the gap of time there is between the opening of the leading curtain and the closing of the trailing curtain. 

By the time you get to 1/8000 of a second, the fastest exposure you'll generally find. the gap between the two curtains is very small, meaning only a very small slit of the image is exposed at any given time during the exposure.

Now the amount of time it takes for the two curtains to make their complete journey is usually quick enough to stop most motion like race cars, but not bullets*. Assuming the speed of the bullet was around 3,200 fps, in 1/8000 sec, the bullet would travel approximately 3 inches. Which means that if the shutter were moving in the opposite direction as the bullet (imagine yourself in a moving car observing another car traveling in the opposite direction) , there would have been a very small window of time for the bullet to reveal itself in front of the camera during the exposure and the resulting image would have seemingly compressed the trail of the bullet to less than the actual 3" covered by the bullet in 1/8000 second. Conversely, if the bullet and the shutter are traveling in the same direction (now imagine observing a car moving the same direction as your car but at a different speed), as appears to be the case here, there is more time than 1/8000 sec to track the bullet's trajectory. Therefore, we have the appearance of more distance covered during the exposure. 

Moral of the story, photographs lie, or at the very least, mislead.

I already knew that part.

Something I also already knew about photography is this: a well-made still photograph is vastly superior at capturing an important moment than a comparably well-made a moving image. I understood this long before I was able to express it, back when I was a child looking at the great weekly magazines of my childhood such as Life and Time. 

Think of the iconic photograph of the late Wille Mays with his back to home plate catching a fly ball off the bat of Vik Wirtz in the 1954 World Series. In that photograph, we can contemplate everything from the ball about to be caught, to the position Mays is in relation to where the ball is coming from, to the reaction of the fans in the stands, many of whose vision of the play was blocked by the peculiar architecture of the old Polo Grounds. The moving image of that catch is remarkable as well in its own right but as it exists in little over the blink of an eye, it mainly serves to help put the still image, forever frozen in time in our memory, into context. 

The same is true for the most memorable photograph of the Trump assassination attempt, one of several of a bloodied Trump pumping his fist to the crowd after members of the Sevret Service helped him back onto his feet, after literally pushing him out of his shoes to get him out of the line of fire. 

The one that stands out of all of them was made by AP photographer Evan Vucci. 

Here's a link to the AP page that features the photograph along with the story.

Dare I say, this is about as close to perfection as a press photograph can come. it is a shoe-in for a Pulitzer Prize.

Its composition is somewhat reminiscent of one of the most famous press photographs ever made, the Joe Rosenthal photograph of the raising of the American flag on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II. 

Here is an interesting video that gives a little background of that photograph. So you can compare the difference between still and moving images of the same event, the video includes a short film of the flag raising made by a Marine Corps photographer standing beside Rosenthal. The video also refutes the common misconception that the photograph was staged.  

Like Rosenthal's photograph, the American flag is prominently featured in Vucci's picture, flapping in the breeze at the top of the frame. But in Vucci's image, the flag is mere window dressing as Trump himself replaces Old Glory as the object to which all the action is centered upon. In his photograph, four Seret Service agents, three men and one woman are caught in the middle of propping the bloodied Trump up, each one well defined in a distinct pose as they attempt to shield the former president from exposure to any other would-be assassins. If that weren't enough, they were also struggling with Trump in the attempt to haul him off the stage, while he defiantly pumped his fist to the crown admonishing them to "fight."

The photograph became an instant icon, expect to see it again and again through November as team Trump will use it to promote their man's alleged courage in the face of death.

Regardless of your opinion of Donald Trump, I haven't been afraid to share mine, you can't deny the man has more than his share of chutzpah, having the presence of mind to pump his fist to the crowd after being shot, while an average Joe like me would have crawled away to safety like a snake in the grass.

Or maybe it was just too perfect?  

I have to admit having been a little skeptical as I followed the event in real time on the radio while driving home from grocery shopping that Saturday afternoon. My first thoughts after hearing that he pumped his fist at the crowd after being shot was that this was all a setup. I later discounted my own little conspiracy theory after I learned that other people at the event actually did get shot, one of whom died.  

But not everybody gave up their theories.

The funny thing about conspiracy theories is they always portray the narrative of the people who promote them. In this case, I didn't hear any Democrats claim that Joe Biden tried to have Trump assassinated and I didn't hear any Republicans claim it was all a setup by Trump and his minions.

Just for fun playing the devil's advocate, if we could for a moment put the moral implications aside, let's examine the likelihood of a conspiracy, shall we? First of all, assuming this was a conspiracy put in motion by one of the political parties, who would have had the greater motivation to carry out an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the Democrats or the Republicans? 

Well, it seems to me the Democrats had everything to lose and absolutely nothing to gain by snuffing out Trump. As we have witnessed again and again, adversity that befalls the exPOTUS, including the myriad of impeachments, indictments and felony convictions against him, only works in his favor. After the failed assassination attempt, Trump was greeted at the RNC in Milwaukee, just days after the shooting, with religious fervor as many claimed him to have been personally saved by God himself. Using that logic, apparently God didn't care about the retired fireman who was killed by the would-be assassin's bullet, not to mention the children killed in the school attack in Uvalde, TX, or the thousands of people who die from senseless violence every day in this country. 

If the shooting were not bad enough for the Democrats, had Trump been seriously injured or killed, it would have been worse, as his status as a martyr figure among the faithful would have been unstoppable. Heck, even a dead Trump might have won the November election against an increasingly frail Joe Biden.

Fortunately, that didn't happen, and Trump had his moment of glory in Milwaukee as God's chosen one.

So, as the assassination attempt clearly worked in Trump's favor, it's obvious the Republicans had far greater motivation to carry it out than the Democrats. 

But did they? 

Of course not. 

Let's just use some common sense.

It was a real shooter using real bullets who really killed and maimed people. The shooter was a 20-year-old who didn't make his high school shooting club because of his bad aim. And he was using a weapon more suited for taking out a nest of enemy combatants or a classroom of third graders than for picking off a target one and a half football fields away.

I don't know about you but if I were going to sign off on a fake assassination attempt against myself and have someone shoot in my direction, this wouldn't be the guy I'd pick to carry it out.

I think what impressed me the most about this whole unfortunate event, is how vulnerable we all are to conspiracy theories. "How could this happen?" was the question I heard most in the media, social and otherwise, and in real life. 

My answer to that question is "how could this not have happened sooner?" In my 65 years on this planet, I've witnessed countless acts of violence carried out in this country, starting with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The names of the assassins of the sixties are forever etched into the memories of anyone who lived through those particularly violent years. Many of us however have forgotten the would-be political assassins who were less competent in carrying out the task at hand.

But I haven't. These are names I didn't have to look up: Arthur Bremer, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, Sara Jane Moore and John Hinkley Jr. all of whom attempted to kill either presidents or presidential candidates in the seventies and eighties.

I don't remember the names of other would-be assassins such as the ones who more recently tried to kill Congress members Gabby Giffords and Steve Scalise, but political violence is no stranger to this country, nor has it ever been.

I suppose we haven't witnessed close encounters with assassination attempts on presidents in the last several decades simply because Secret Service protection has been beefed up significantly, which made the attempt on the life of Trump lead to more questions about who was involved. 

But seriously folks, the Secret Service participating in a conspiracy to kill a presidential candidate? I simply don't buy it.

Let's face it, even at the highest level mistakes happen and given the political climate in this country at the moment, it should come as no surprise at all that someone would seize on the opportunity to take out a former, current or possibly future president.

If we're willing to accept that people are willing on their own to commit heinous and senseless crimes like massacring children as they attend school, why should it be so hard to understand someone on their own attempting to kill a politician? 

This unfortunately is nothing new, we live in a violent world and a violent country.

Anyway, despite the terrible tragedy that fell upon Corey Comperatore and his family, I'm happy Donald Trump lived to see another day.

Other than that, not much happened this month.

Oh wait...

*The well known photographs made by Dr. Harold Edgerton and others that capture bullets in mid flight were made possible not through the use of fast shutters, but strobe light, the duration of which can be much shorter than 1/8000 of a second. 

Job Number One

An analyst before the debate said the president had to win the first three minutes or else he'd lose the entire debate. Then the debate started and from my perspective, Joe Biden lost the first thirty seconds. 

Then it got worse. 

Yes, Biden lost the debate, but it would be a stretch of the imagination, a huge one, to say that Donald Trump won. With Trump, especially last Thursday night, fact checkers would have had a much easier time enumerating the things he said that were facts. I watched the entire debate and for the life of me, I still can't think of anything Trump said that was remotely true.

Never mind the verbal stumbles and the occasional losses of train of thought, Joe Biden lost the debate because last week Donald Trump handed him talking points on a silver platter that he failed to take advantage of. 

Warning, here comes another sports analogy:

In ice hockey, when a team has a two-man advantage, that is to say when two players on the opposing team are sent to the penalty box at the same time, it's usually a pivotal moment in the game. If the team with the advantage fails to score during that opportunity, they often lose the game.

Using that analogy, Joe Biden had a two-man advantage for at least half the debate.  

At times he appeared even to have a three-man advantage, something not possible in hockey, yet he failed to score. 

The subject of abortion was Biden's greatest missed opportunity. Unbelievably, Trump once again brought up one of his most egregious lies ever, perhaps even worse that his claim that he would have won the 2020 election were it not for voter fraud. Regarding late term abortions he said this:

(Doctors) will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth.

I find it understandable that people would be particularly sensitive to abortions that take place late in a pregnancy when the unborn child has developed beyond a certain point and in our time, might even be viable outside of the womb. 

But using late term abortions to sum up the "pro-life" argument is a logical fallacy, a classic example of the "Strawman", that is, basing an argument upon exaggerated and faulty assumptions. Trump's assumptions here were doozies, not only faulty, but outrageous and shameless, something we've all come to expect from the man.

First of all, everyone agrees that willfully taking the life of a child after birth is nothing short of murder, which has never been legal anywhere in this country. Suggesting otherwise as Trump has done now for at least eight years, needs to be called out for the bullshit it is, unequivocally. 

Biden didn't do that. 

Beyond Trump's reprehensible claim of obstetricians willfully murdering babies outside of the womb, late term abortions need to be addressed for what they really are. These are not cases as Trump suggests of capricious women deciding late in their pregnancy that they can't be bothered with giving birth. 

The most eloquent words I've heard about the subject were spoken by current Secretary of Transportation and former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg:

Let’s put ourselves in shoes of a woman in the situation, if it is that late in your pregnancy that means almost by definition, you have been expecting to carry it to term, we are talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name, women who have purchased a crib, families that get most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about health or the life of the mother that forces them to make an impossible choice.

It would have been nice if Biden could have responded to Trump's stupid, uninformed comment with one tenth of that eloquence. But instead, we got crickets. He even pivoted mid-response from one of the Democrats' most powerful issues this year to one of their least, immigration.

Yes, it was a terrible performance, one perhaps for the ages. Immediately after the debate, one of the TV commentators said that he loved Joe Biden, that Joe Biden was his mentor, but that Joe Biden needed to step down, he's simply not up to perhaps the most difficult job in the world. 

One word immediately came to mind:

Fuck.

But I've had a week to think about it. Quite honestly, I am a little pissed at Biden because I do remember him saying four years ago that he intended to be a transition president and as he would be 81 in 2024, wouldn't intend to seek a second term. Had he lived up to those words, we wouldn't be in this situation today. Of course, the situation could have been worse with another candidate, who knows.

By any reasonable standard, Joe Biden has been a good president. Yes, inflation is still a problem; we're all feeling the pain myself included, especially at the gas pump and the checkout counter of the supermarket. And yes, this is also a terrible time if you want to buy a home for the first time. But the fact of the matter is that's the way of economics, we've been here before and were it not for the selective memory and/or historical amnesia of many Republicans, they'd see it as it is. It's also true as I pointed out in a recent post that the extremely dire warnings made by economists four years ago of an imminent recession did not come true. 

I have to laugh hysterically because if Trump were president now with the current state of the economy, you wouldn't be able to shut him up about how the stock market continues to shatter records, how we're producing fossil fuels in record amounts, and how we have at the moment, the strongest economy of practically every nation in the world. Which reminds me of a line from Bill Clinton, "if you want to live like a Republican, vote Democrat."

Biden has also had to face numerous challenges, especially two major wars that threaten to destabilize the world. The current president has remained steadfast in the American tradition of supporting our longtime allies, democracies that are facing existential threats from totalitarian regimes. In contrast, Trump has shown nothing but admiration for those totalitarian regimes, especially those in North Korea, China and Russia.  

And Biden has addressed the issue nearest and dearest to the hearts of the right, namely immigration, by working on a bipartisan bill to stem the tide of immigrants crossing the southern border. That bill was quashed by Trump who insisted the Republicans kill it in order to prevent the Democrats from having another issue they could campaign on against him.

 

By contrast, Trump had few challenges during his first three years in office. He inherited a strong and growing economy from his predecessor, much of which he erroneously took credit for himself. There were also few international incidents for which he also, without any credible evidence, continues to take credit.

In the final year of his term, he had one tremendous challenge that had he done even a slightly credible job of addressing, that is, no better than a C-, he would have won reelection in 2020 handily. Instead of bringing the country together as any good leader does during a time of crisis, Trump used COVID to further divide the country, this time over the proper response to a pandemic, resulting in the United States having one of the highest rates of mortality from the disease of any nation in the world. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Trump supporters died of COVID at a disproportionately high rate.

Yet even that doesn't seem to dissuade his supporters. 

Nor does the fact that he attempted to wage an insurrection in order to overturn a free and fair election. If you disagree with that last part, show me the evidence, not just theories. 

Is Trump the existential threat to our democracy that many people insist? Well I happen to believe that beyond having been a terrible president, he is a threat and has no business of ever setting foot in the White House again.

Naturally in my opinion, it's job number one to beat him in the election in November. Biden's performance last week certainly didn't help in that matter.  

So in that vein, where do we go from here? If Biden should decide to step down, I would support and respect that. But then what? To me the natural replacement for him on the Democratic ticket would be his vice president. Personally, I would vote for Kamala Harris in a heartbeat, in fact I was kind of rooting for her to win the Democratic nomination in 2020. But truth be told as I pointed out in another post, I'd vote for my cat in a heartbeat over Donald Trump. 

But I'm not sure if Harris could beat Trump in the electoral college in November, since many people seem to despise her as they did Hillary Clinton. As an aside, it dawned on me the other day that their hatred of these two women is perhaps not prejudice against strong women as I once thought. Could it rather be a prejudice against smart women? Margorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are both strong women who get a lot of support from the Right. But certainly no one ever accused them of being smart. 

One thing's for sure, I'd sure love to see Kamala Harris debate Donald Trump. Trump would never let that happen though, even he's not that foolish. 

The polls today show that a Democratic candidate other than Biden would do well against Trump. Unfortunately, "Democratic candidate other than Biden" is not going to be a choice on the ballot in November. And I'm afraid that if the Democrats were to go above Kamala Harris's head and select someone other than her for their candidate, that would lead to a lot of hard feelings, with good reason. 

I also think that the Democrats forcing Biden out would be a terrible idea as he is the candidate who was elected by the people, including me, who voted in the Democratic primaries. 

To me the only credible options for the Democrats going forward are for Biden to voluntarily step down, turning over the reins to his vice president, or Biden remaining the Democratic candidate. 

Both options are fraught with risk but frankly I don't see any other option.

Which means for the first time in a long time, the Democrats are going to have to get their act together and unify themselves in unequivocally getting behind their ticket in November. That means if Biden remains the guy, to assure the public that he can do the job and if by some chance he can't, he has a very capable vice president who can easily fill the shoes. 

If Harris is the woman, again, to a person the Democrats will have to get behind her full speed ahead.

In either case the Democrats, and by that I mean every single one of them, will need to be on the same page doing a full court press (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) to show the country the difference between their party and the other one.  

On the bright side, I believe this week, the largely Trump-picked Supreme Court handed the Democrats a tremendous gift in ruling that a president has complete immunity in his or her official acts while in office. Why do I believe it's a gift to the Democrats? 

Remember that the Supreme Court ruling goes both ways. As Joe Biden is the current president, he could now do all sorts of things including enacting an executive order banning convicted felons (have anyone particular in mind?) from running for president. Heck while we're at it, he could even, thanks to the Supreme Court, take out a contract on his chief political opponent with likely impunity. True he might get impeached by the Republican House but likely won't get convicted by the Democratic led Senate.

By not doing any of that, he's showing the nation that he means business by not wanting to be king or dictator, which six members of the Court seem to have said is his right. 

Assuming these things won't happen, the Democrats will be able to rightfully say that Republicans,  including an obviously biased Republican leaning Supreme Court, not the Democrats, want to increase the powers of the president in ways never imagined in the Constitution. Combined with the 2025 Project, the work of the Heritage Foundation which is effectively the planform of the Republican Party in the upcoming election, the Democrats can rightfully argue that they are the party committed to preserving and protecting the Democratic Republic that has served this nation well for the last 248 years, while the Republicans in what they are calling a "new American revolution" are looking to overthrow all that and return this country to the monarchy it rejected on this day, July 4, 1776, or worse, introduce a type of government that no one in their right mind ever imagined for this country. 

Between that and the Dobbs ruling which overthrew the federal government's protection of a woman's right to choose her own healthcare, the Democrats will have a lot to work with in terms of convincing the American people that they are the party that looks out for the rights of the people and the fights for the preservation of the democracy we have enjoyed for nearly 250 years. 

Of course, all bets are off if the Democrats drop the ball and lose sight of the big picture by letting their personal grievances take precedence and refusing to compromise their more extreme positions. 

I understand that it may not be the best of choices this year, but there couldn't be a more clear choice.

It's a 50/50 chance at best the Democrats and their voters will come together to do that but if they do, I'll bet my firstborn the Democrats will win in a landslide this November, no matter who leads their ticket.

Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans.

Let's not fuck it all up.

Rigged!

My late father-in-law, may God rest his soul, was a life-long, die-hard fan of the Green Bay Packers football team. 

He can be forgiven for that. 

But there was one particularly aggravating aspect to his fandom, for him there were only two possible outcomes to a Packer game, they could either win, or else the game was rigged, stolen from them by the refs. Could the Packers legitimately lose a game? Unthinkable.

This isn't an unusual trait of many passionate sports fans, a word which of course is short for fanatics. Fortunately, those folks are in the minority because if they weren't, if enough people seriously believed that the games were not played on the up and up, the world of legitimate spectator sports would lose all credibility and become a mere offshoot of professional wrestling.

What? Professional wrestling not legitimate? I'm shocked, shocked!!!

That's precisely why ever since the mother of all sports scandals, the 1919 Black Sox fiasco, Major League Baseball has been so strict in regard to its dealings with players and coaches who have been caught betting on the game. Just last week, Tucupito Marcano, who was until last Monday a middle infielder for the San Diego Padres, was banned from baseball for betting on games that involved his team at the time, the Pittsburgh Pirates. While MLB denies that the outcome of any games was affected by Marcano's wagering, the mere hint of impropriety was enough to get Marcano booted out of the game for life. 

Legitimate spectator sports work because of three fundamental principles:

• Everybody plays by the same set of rules. 
• Everyone involved with a team, from players to coaches to support staff, is committed to putting the best team they possibly can on the field.
• The acceptance that there can only be one winner at any given time.

These three principles form the basis of a covenant between fans and the sport. The first two are a matter of faith, fans trust the leagues to ensure fair play, and they trust the teams to do their best to win. The third and most important of the three, is the expectation that winners will be gracious in victory, and that losers be sportsmanlike in accepting defeat, and will be around to play another day.

Unfortunately, like everything that involves human nature, these principles are aspirational. In other words, shit happens. 

• Bad calls, especially a series of them, can make fans seriously question if everyone does in fact, play by the same set of rules. 
• Seeing a player "dogging it" during a play can make it appear like he or she is not putting every ounce of effort into their performance, or worse, has an ulterior motive.
• Bad sportsmanship, truly the root of all evil in sports, deflates or even has the potential of destroying the very spirit of athletic competition.

Therefore, in order to preserve the covenant between the sport and its fans, the governing bodies of legitimate sports do their utmost to address these issues. 

Some would say they don't do enough while others would say they do too much.

I guess you just can't win.

But they must be doing something right because legitimate spectator sports continue to be a remarkably successful endeavor in this country and in much of the rest of the world.

And in my humble opinion, that's a very good thing because there are few things in this world that bring people together like sports, once you cut through all the business and political BS that is. Think of the World Cup, the Olympic Games, or on a more parochial level, the Superbowl, just for starters.

During these events, people set aside their religion, political ideologies, and most of the things that separate us, sometimes even allegiance to a team, to celebrate the sport.

Because in the big picture, it's the game that really matters, and while almost every fan favors a particular team or athlete, in a perfect world at least, every sports fan is at heart, a fan of the game, be it baseball, Australian Rules Football, Wife Carrying, yes, such a thing exists, or whatever.

As hackneyed, trivial and downright off-the-wall as what I'm about to say may seem, legitimate spectator sports are in a sense, a model for democracy. There, I said it.

 

Let me explain:

A democratic republic like legitimate spectator sports, depends upon a few basic principles in order for it to function, ideally:

• Everybody plays by the same set of rules.
• Chosen by free and fair elections, legislative and executive representatives govern reflecting the will of the majority, while protecting the rights of the minority clearly spelled out by a constitution.
• While there can be only one winner of any election, new elections without fail, are held on a regular basis.

Again, like sports these principles form the basis of a covenant, this time between citizens and their government. The first two again are a matter of faith, here citizens trust the electoral system and if necessary, the courts to ensure free and fair elections, and they trust their elected officials who, without ulterior motive, govern to the best of their ability. The third is the expectation that winners of elections will be gracious in victory, and that losers magnanimous in accepting defeat, will form the loyal opposition, and have the opportunity run for office another day, if they so choose.

Talk about aspirational.

One would think it a no-brainer that most people would want to live in a country ruled by the will of the people, rather than the will of an all-powerful king or a dictator. In the United States, we've been living so long in our own democratic republic, nearly 250 years, that we have taken it for granted, assuming that nothing could ever come around to destroy it. But not so fast. 

I think it's fair to say that the most important part of a democracy is that despite differences of opinion, a critical mass of its citizens, and by that I mean a super majority, ultimately put their country ahead of their ideology and political party. 

Doing so means supporting the government, the electoral system and the safeguards built into it, as well as the judicial system, even when their actions don't exactly jibe with what one would like. At times it may take quite a leap of faith to do so, but that trust is essential in keeping any democracy alive.

Which brings to mind the 2000 presidential election, the closest in American history. Al Gore won the popular vote by over 500,000 votes but where it really counts, the Electoral College came down to one state, Florida and its 25 electoral votes. That year the winner of Florida would become the next president. But that state was painfully close as well, separated by only hundreds of votes, and battles over technical errors at the polls, (anyone out there remember the hanging chads?) had to be resolved in the courts. In a controversial 5-4 decision reflecting party lines, the Supreme Court overruled a Florida State Supreme Court mandated recount which turned out to the deciding factor in the election. Gore technically had other opportunities to challenge the result but for the sake of the country, elected not to. As Vice President he even had to face the unenviable task, as Mike Pence did in 2021, of certifying the Electoral College Vote in favor of his opponent. Gore even had to declare his Democratic allies out of order when they refused to accept the slate of Florida electors for George W. Bush.

If any presidential candidate in history had a reason to gripe about the electoral system, it was Al Gore in 2000. For the record, in that election I voted for Ralph Nader teaching me a lifelong lesson on the futility of voting for third-party candidates. 

As I said above, shit happens. True, Al Gore was screwed that year, but managed to move on in a respectful and honorable way which went a long way to help preserve our democracy.

But when members of government fail to live up to their part of the bargain, that is to say governing with ulterior motives such as abusing their position in the quest of disproportionate power or financial gain, or the failure to accept the result of elections just to name three examples, all bets are off.  

Which brings us to you-know-who.

The 2020 election was nowhere near as close as 2000, in fact it wasn't close at all. Yet the loser of that election, the incumbent president at the time, insisted without evidence, "just lots of theories" in the words of his lawyer Rudy Giuliani before a judge, that the election was "stolen" from him. Today nearly four years after the event, that exPOTUS has yet to concede the election to President Biden.

The election denial came as no surprise to anyone paying attention as the same candidate claimed before his successful 2016 election that only two possible outcomes for that election would be possible: victory for him, or a rigged, stolen election. Sound familiar? Although he won the Electoral College and the presidency that year, he still griped about losing the popular vote by about 3 million votes to Hillary Clinton, claiming that was made possible only through fraud. 

His supporters however with a world class case of selective memory, ignored that obvious pattern and chose to believe his lie about a rigged election, casting grave doubts about our election system.

Well he's at it again, this time whining about a "weaponized Biden Justice Department" doing everything in their power to persecute him. 

Once again, he and his sycophants have a boatload of theories but zero evidence to back up that very serious charge.  

It's been a little over a week at this writing since a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to cover up another crime, election interference. Granted, it's not the most glamorous or egregious crime imaginable, remember the Feds got Al Capone, (whom the likely Republican nominee for president this year likes to compare himself to), for tax evasion. 

The crimes for which he was convicted in New York for example, were not as bad as say, absconding with hundreds of boxes of highly sensitive and top-secret government documents from the White House, showing them off to patrons of his country club, then refusing to return them when the government asked for them back. They're not nearly as bad as trying to blackmail the Georgia Secretary of State into "finding" just the right number of votes to put him over the top in that state in 2020, or extorting the president of Ukraine by demanding he dig up dirt on his political opponent, the current POTUS, an act which resulted in his first impeachment. And they're practically nothing compared to his actions surrounding the events of January 6, 2021, in the effort to illegally overturn an election which he lost, an act for which he was impeached a second time.

But a crime is a crime, and one of the most essential parts of democracy is that no one is above the law, not even the president. 

One can only imagine the outrage and moral indignation among Republicans (which would have been justified), had those crimes been committed by a Democrat. Remember the kerfuffle over Hillary's emails?  Remember the constant chant of "lock her up"?

As their dear orange leader rightfully claimed during the 2016 election, he could murder someone in cold blood and not lose any supporters. 

I like to think that by any definition of the term, it is inconceivable that any reasonable person would make a claim like that, especially at an official event during a presidential campaign, even in jest.  

As I don't consider the exPOTUS to be either a reasonable or a rational person, I can't really blame him for every moronic thing he says and does, and there are a lot of them. 

Quite honestly, I don't blame his base either. After all, his life and his countless indiscretions are an open book. If his base wants as their president a whiney, adjudicated rapist baby man narcissist who compares himself and his problems to those of Jesus, talks about retribution incessantly and little else, has a man crush on criminals and brutal dictators, denigrates current American service members and veterans, and led a failed insurrection in an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of the United States, they found their man in Trump. That's their opinion and while this is still a free country, they're entitled to it.

But I DO blame the people who know better, first of all, Republican politicians and members of the right wing, Trump enabling media who have made it abundantly clear countless times in the past that they would gleefully dance on the exPOTUS's political grave were it not for their mortal fear of the folks mentioned in the last paragraph. 

Because of that, knowing full well that a good number of Americans haven't a clue what the difference is between a fact and an opinion, or between evidence and theories, they continue to perpetuate the old lie of a stolen 2020 election and the new lie about a weaponized Justice System, casting doubt on two of the most important safeguards of our democratic republic. 

And if the exPOTUS should win the 2024 presidential election, a distinct possibility, I WILL blame the voters who do know better, but plan to either sit this one out or vote for a third candidate because Joe Biden isn't a worthy enough candidate to earn their vote. Maybe they feel he's too old, they don't like his policy on the war in Gaza, or or that their lives haven't improved sufficiently because he hasn't done enough to curtail inflation.

What these folks fail to take into account is that yes Biden is old and has lost a step or two over the years, as have I. But his opponent is also old and appears to have taken way too many direct shots to the head. Check out this speech from this past Sunday.

If they don't approve of Biden's support of Israel in the war in the Middle East, imagine what a reboot of Trump would bring, the man who instituted a Muslim ban and controversially moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem? 

And they don't understand economic realities enough to realize that a president has little direct control over inflation. The truth is that Biden inherited a precarious economy, a result of the pandemic. I distinctly remember many economists predicting a very high likelihood of a recession or worse in the coming months after the 2020 election. Yet where are the voices singing the praises of the Biden administration for averting a real economic disaster?

My biggest fear is that the true culprits of a possible second term for the exPOTUS will be those voters who know what a disaster he is, yet who in failing to vote for Biden, will be effectively casting a vote for Trump. Yes, the Democrats are going to have to work hard for their votes, which is a good thing, but the voters themselves have some serious soul searching to do.

Bringing this post full circle, in his pre-political career, the exPOTUS was very much involved in two sports industries. His foray into the legitimate sport of American football didn't work out so well as he single-handedly destroyed a professional football league. You can read about that here.

He was much more successful in the world of professional wrestling where he in fact is a member of World Wrestling Entertainment's Hall of Fame. 

He must be very proud of that honor.

Now I'm not quite sure what political system professional wrestling is a metaphor for.

But it sure ain't democracy.

Even if a Trump reboot could possibly flatten out the rising cost of living, (which it can't), for my money, preserving our democracy is sure worth the extra buck for a gallon of gas.

A Quick Post Mortem

In the "I watched it so you won't have to category", here are some quick thoughts on the winners and losers of last night's Republican Presidential Debate:

A winner, sort of: Tim Scott, who sleepwalked through the first debate last month, woke up last night and scored a few points by directly going after some of his rivals on the stage. He took swipes, as did practically everyone else, at Vivek Ramaswamy on his business dealings with China, and at Ron DeSantis on his state's controversial guidelines for history education. That exchange produced the highest moment of gravitas in the evening when Scott who is black said: "there is not a redeeming quality in slavery." He said that because the Florida guidelines put in place by DeSantis suggest there was.

This led to a brief discourse by the junior senator from South Carolina on how despite the injustice and depravity of the institution, black people in this country survived slavery, discrimination, poll taxes and literacy tests "woven into the laws of our country." He went on saying that black people have had a much harder time surviving Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and the welfare system it produced which according to Scott, did much to destroy the black family and create a permanent underclass. This is a classic, traditional conservative argument that will certainly win him some votes as much as bring out the the wrath of the left.

Scott looked downright silly though when he challenged his former mentor Nikki Haley about expensive curtains she supposedly bought for her office at the UN when she became the U.S. Ambassador. Haley correctly pointed out that the curtains preceeded her. "Did you send them back?" was Scott's response.

A loser: I was less than impressed with Mike Pence this time, perhaps because I over-estimated him after his last debate performance. While he thanked the moderators for every question sent his way, more often than not he refused to answer those questions. He is however the surprise winner of my bat-shit crazy idea award, when he proposed as a solution to mass shootings, a fast track to execution for the perps.

Runner up to that award and clear-cut winner of my constitution schmonstitution award is Ramaswamy's plan to eliminate birthright citizenship in the United States, something that is guaranteed in Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment.  

Best line of the evening goes to Nikki Haley for this response to Vivek Ramaswamy: "honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say." Second best line goes to moderator Dana Parino. I don't remember the exact line but after one of Mike Pence's many end runs around one of her questions, she interrupted him saying, "yes that's great Mr. Vice President but what about (then she restated the original question)", which again, he failed to answer.

Biggest lost opportunity of the evening goes to there being not one mention of the exPOTUS's recent comment about executing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Oh, wait a minute, this debate was hosted by FOX News, how silly of me. As if...

OK the biggest lost opportunity goes to Ron DeSantis for once again failing to man up and just, as Tim Scott suggested, drop the line that suggests that people benefited from slavery from his school guidelines. Instead, while intentionally mispronouncing her name, DeSantis claimed the whole issue was dreamed up by Kamala Harris. No, it wasn't Ron, it's right there in black and white, if you'd only bother to read the guidelines you insisted forcing upon the schools in your state.

The lamest attempt at humor goes hands down to Chris Christie for two clunkers. First was his comment that went something like this: "Trump ducks out of these debates so much we're gonna start calling him Donald Duck."  If he had said it like that it may have sounded a little funnier but he added a lot of words between the ducking out part and the punchline so that if you were drifting off like I was, you might have missed the connection. "Oh I get it!"  I  said to myself this morning when I heard it replayed on the radio 10 hours after the fact, once again proving that in comedy, timing is everything. 

The other was his rather cringy line reacting to the problem with education in this country: "Joe Biden is literally in bed with a member of a teachers union" (his wife).

Bad humor plus a real slap in the face to union members including this new union member, makes Christie in my book, the biggest loser of the evening.

The I still can't remember his name without looking it up award goes to, wait a minute...oh yeah, goes to Doug Burgum.  

Once again I have to say the overall winner of this race to second place in the Republican primary goes to Nikki Haley who so far at least, seems able to run circles around the rest of the competition in a debate. In marked contrast to her last appearance where she appeared to be looking ahead to the general election by talking about consensus and reasonable goals, this time she went all in on the issues Republicans want to hear such as border security and energy independence (there is no such thing by the way). She went in lockstep with DeSantis and his idea to send troops into Mexico to stop illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl. She even out-flanked DeSantis to the right when she challenged him on his resistance to fracking and off-shore drilling in his state. In characteristic fashion, rather than reasonably explaining his position, DeSantis huffed, puffed and shrugged it off, claiming Haley was wrong. 

She wasn't.

Many pundits are claiming that these candidates slugging it out against each other in a race they know they can't win are auditioning for vice president. Some of them perhaps are, such as Ramaswamy whom I imagine would be thrilled to be Donald Trump's second fiddle. I'm betting that DeSantis is still going for all the marbles in this go around, and sticking to my call in a previous post that Haley is running for the 2028 nomination. Trump would be wise to pick her as his running mate if he wants to actually win the general election fair and square, but I think he's looking for more of a toady, someone without a shred of integrity like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Goetz to do his bidding and nothing else. 

For her part, being Trump's running mate would be a lose-lose proposition for Nikki Haley. If a Trump/Haley ticket should lose in the general election, that probably would not bode well for her future aspirations. If they win, she would more than likely end up being the next Mike Pence, which would be even worse.  

As for Mike Pence, well I don't think he's looking to be the next Mike Pence either.                                

Nikki Haley certainly understands that things have not worked out well for anyone who has ever gotten close to Donald Trump, and she'd be foolish to accept the offer if it comes her way.

I think she's way too smart for that. 

But I wouldn't bet money on it, I could be wrong, I certainly have been before.

Let the good times roll.

Saving Democracy from Itself?

During the reign of the 45th president of the U.S., I often contemplated who would have made a better chief executive. One of the many candidates was my cat.

"That's ridiculous..." you say, "a cat can't be president." 

 

Really? Well, here's what Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution has to say on the matter:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Notice the restrictions apply only to persons. It says nothing about similar restrictions applying to cats, dogs or any other animal, vegetable or mineral. 

In other words, nowhere in the Constitution does it explicitly stipulate that the President of the United States has to be a human being.

So why can't my cat Ziggy serve as president? And if the logic of many Americans holds true, if I were able to convince a critical mass of my fellow citizens that Ziggy would indeed be a fine president and got her onto the ballot, wouldn't it be considered "election interference" if people sued to get her off the ballot, claiming she was ineligible to run for president due to her catness?

Yes, that is ridiculous, but not a whole lot more ridiculous that a convicted felon serving time in prison being elected president, something the Constitution also doesn't mention. I guess the Founding Fathers must have assumed Americans would be smart enough to not consider voting for pets or incarcerated criminals for president, so they didn't bother with those stipulations. 

A cat being president is also not much more far-fetched than a president who took an oath to support the Constitution, blatantly violating that oath while in office, then expecting to be eligible to be president again. The U.S. Constitution does say something about that:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

If you've been paying attention to the news lately, this text, Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, (here with my added emphasis) should be familiar. 

If you haven't been paying attention, calls from a wide range of folks representing different ideologies and political parties, have brought up that Article Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, also referred to as a "Disqualification Clause", clearly states that because of his actions on January 6th, 2021, Donald Trump is ineligible to be president again, short of two thirds of both chambers of Congress voting to reinstate his eligibility, an unlikely scenario.

As you can imagine, like the four criminal indictments encompassing 91 felony counts of wrongdoing that preceded the calls to declare him ineligible for office, the exPOTUS has dismissed the proposition as nothing more than an act of "election interference." Here's a quote from one of his campaign spokespeople:

The people who are pursuing this absurd conspiracy theory and political attack on President Trump are stretching the law beyond recognition much like the political prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and D.C.

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with a "conspiracy theory" or even a "political attack". Section Three is unequivocal and at least according to my non-legal mind, it is not stretching the law one bit when it comes to applying it to Trump who.... 

• took an oath on January 20, 2017 to preserve. protect and defend the Constitution of the United States then...
• following his reelection loss, took extraordinary measures to remain in power, all the while misleading the American public (those who would listen) by claiming without any evidence that the election was a fraud, then...
• as a last-ditch effort to remain in office, summoned thousands of people who believed his lie to the U.S. Capitol to interfere with the formal certification of his opponent, and petitioned his Vice President to violate his proscribed constitutional duty to officially confirm the results of the election, then... 
• did nothing when many of his supporter/rioters stormed the Capitol, even after they chanted to hang the vice president.

None of these acts are disputed. While the facts of the case could be challenged in a court of law as worthy of constituting criminal incitement of an insurrection, the majority of both chambers of Congress in bi-partisan votes agreed that Donald Trump did in fact, incite an insurrection. 

Regardless of one's take on the matter, there can be no doubt that without the president's lie of a stolen election and his call to fight it in his speech earlier that day, the dreadful events of January 6, 2021 would never have happened. The kicker is this: once the protest got out of hand and the Capitol was attacked and vandalized leaving dozens of Capitol Police officers and others severely injured, some of those injuries resulting in death, despite having the power to stop the violence and bloodshed by a simple tweet telling his supporter/rioters to cease and desist participating in an uprising against the government, he chose to remain silent and enabled the occupation of our Capitol to go on for hours.

If that does not constitute "engaging in an insurrection" I don't know what does.

Now let's see: taking an oath to defend the constitution, then engaging in an insurrection, put the two together and what do you have? According to our Constitution, ineligibility to hold office. So simple, a first grader could understand it. Heck even Ziggy the cat who is not particularly bright, even by feline standards, might understand it.

Donald Trump and his supporters don't or won't understand it.

Of course, the question arises if declaring Trump ineligible is worth pursuing. 

 

Author, staff writer for the Atlantic, and former Republican speechwriter (but no fan of Trump by a longshot), David Frum, argues it is not. In his August 29th article for the publication titled, The Fourteenth Amendment Fallacy: The Constitution won’t disqualify Trump from running. The only real-world way of stopping him is through the ballot box., Frum argues that the move to disqualify the former president is little more than a stunt based upon a heretofore obscure section of the Constitution intended specifically to prevent Confederate politicians from holding office in the post-Civil War South. Because of that, Frum claims that Section Three has little bearing today. Much better he contends, that the issue of Trump be settled at the polls. 

The real problem in Frum's mind are the repercussions that would result if the move to disqualify Trump would succeed. Would his supporters Frum asks, reject the results of a general election where their candidate lost because his name was left off the ballots in select states? *

 

Considering Trump supporters have already rejected the results of the 2020 election, probably the most scrutinized election in American history, the potential 2024 rejection Frum suggests is a forgone conclusion.

Frum goes on:

the use of the section to debar candidates would not stop at Trump. It would become a dangerously convenient tool of partisan politics...

If Section 3 can be reactivated in this way, then reactivated it will be. Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify, and not only for president, but for any race where Democrats present someone who said or did something that can be represented as “aid and comfort” to enemies of the United States.

Well guess what?

 

The Republicans have been hunting for Democrats to disqualify for years.

 

Here are just some recent examples:

• As we speak there is a movement underway in the House of Representatives to impeach Joe Biden. On what grounds you ask? "Don't worry, we'll think of something" is the general response. 
• Trumplicans in Georgia are seeking to impeach Fulton Country District Attorney Fani Willis for doing her job in her role in the prosecution of Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in their attempts to defraud that state's election process.
• There's something even more sinister going on up in Wisconsin where newly elected State Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz is threatened by impeachment by the Republican legislature because she refuses to recuse herself from a gerrymandering case that benefits those same Republicans. Their grounds are that she called the newly Republican drawn legislative map, "rigged" in public during her election, admittedly not wise but certainly not grounds for impeachment, according to precedent in that state. Silencing her, which is a distinct possibility, will allow them to keep their map that has more twists and turns than Chubby Checker in a blender, (sorry, I couldn't resist), thereby ensuring minority rule in the state for at least another decade.

The reality is this: if the "disqualification clause" is invoked, nothing will change, it would only be one more weapon in the Republicans' toolbox to hold on to power by dismantling our democracy. 

 

The other day, Frum was featured in an NPR interview with Kim Whele, a constitutional scholar from the University of Baltimore. Whele is of the opinion that it's worth a shot to attempt to disqualify Trump:

...there's a faith in the electoral process that perhaps has failed us in this moment... the framers of the Constitution did include Section 3... I don't have confidence that it's worth the gamble to see if the process is going to work in the old-fashioned way, in getting people out to vote and having, in this instance, the front-runner with 60% of the Republican voter base... (and) hope at the edge of our seats that democracy is going to prevail and not put someone like (Trump) in office. Because in my view, if that happens, it's over.

I don't quite see eye-to-eye with Whele either, as she appears to be saying here that democracy is great when it yields acceptable results, but we need to shift course when it doesn't. In other words: we need to save democracy from itself.

 

I think she's missing a huge point which is this: democracy is never absolute; it is governed by rules. If the majority of the American people voted to bring back slavery, that would be a non-starter because of the Thirteenth Amendment. 

 

As we saw above, the Constitution, while it doesn't explicitly exclude cats from serving as president, (maybe we'll have to do something about that someday), does restrict the office to people over 35 and naturally born U.S. citizens. Which means that Congressman Maxwell Frost, currently 26 years old, and former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, born in Austria to Austrians, would both be ineligible to serve as president, for now at least in Frost's case. And the Twenty-Second Amendment disqualifies Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama from serving third terms. Are any of those disqualifications, examples of unjust election interference or threats to our democracy? Certainly not, they're just the rules. 

It should not matter in the slightest that Article Three of the Fourteenth Amendment has not been used to date to disqualify someone from the presidency. It is as much a part of the Constitution as any other. It's not a new-fangled strategy to get rid of someone we don't like, but rather a very sensible rule proscribed by the Constitution 155 years ago that keeps elected officials, including presidents, from abusing their power by violating the will of the people and attempting to overthrow the government.     

What a novel idea.

CODA

* Here Frum is assuming the move to disqualify Trump would happen after the Republican nomination, leaving Republican voters out in the cold with a candidate who would ultimately be declared ineligible to serve. I agree that would be unreasonable. However, the Republican Convention is a little less than a year away and Republican voters have a large field of candidates to choose from who are not criminal defendants that engaged in an insurrection to overthrow the government. I'd say at least five of them have as good a chance to win the 2024 general election as Donald Trump, which is to say, not a very good chance. And there is one Republican candidate who in my book at least, has a very good chance to win the general election in 2024. You can read my previous post to see which one. 

I'd say it is incumbent upon those who are of the opinion that Section Three should be invoked, and can do something about it, to act quickly and let the matter be decided by the Supreme Court before the nomination process begins. If the Court agrees that Trump is ineligible to serve as president again, then Republicans will only have themselves to blame if they choose the one candidate of the bunch who cannot serve. 

If the Court does not agree, all we can do then is rely on the wisdom and common sense of the American electorate. 

 

Because without either of those, one day we might end up with this: