OUR DEMOCRACY IMPERILED

Today’s election is the most important of your life.  I know, you’ve heard that scare every two years since you were of voting age.

But this time it’s true.  Democracy as we know it—indeed, as we invented it!—is at the crossroads.  One way returns us to the winding and often difficult path we’ve traveled as a nation for 242 years; the other leads straight to the latest version of Fascism.

What do I know about the subject, you may rightly ask?  Not enough, to be sure.  But I am a political junkie, have studied the subject long and hard, and have lived 86 years in our democracy.  Some of those years were tough: the Great Depression; World War II; the Korean War (tough for me personally); the Cold War; Nine-Eleven; the periodic economic downturns and joblessness.  Not one of them, not all of them taken together, prepared me for our latest and greatest threat: Trumpian Fascism.

Novelist Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, warned us of its danger in 1935; his It Can’t Happen Here was written at the peak of Fascism in Europe, and though some Americans  (William Randolph Hearst, Father Charles Coughlin, Aviator Charles Lindbergh, and Poet Ezra Pound, to name a few) embraced it, the ideology failed to take root here.  Not then.  Quite the contrary.  In World War II the United States went to war against Fascism around the world.  And won.

Now it is back in its new guise bearing the brand of the accidental president, Donald J. Trump; with the skillful assistance of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, they threaten to supplant democracy as we know it with a self-absorbed nation state at war with itself.  No matter that Trump is demonstrably a man of limited intelligence, with a range of mental disorders that, if distributed evenly, would fill all the beds in your average psycho ward.  Yet he has the cunning and manipulative powers of the consummate conman, the gifted grifter, the demonic demagogue able to stir the herd, inflame all those who feel cheated by life, or their neighbor, or “their government.”  His real gift is that he does this remarkably well, able to play savior and victim at the same time, without compunction, without empathy, without even a glimmer of guilt.  

It is time to reverse course.  Bring our democracy back.  And we start that today in the only way we have available to us.  We vote.  And we assist others in getting to the polls to vote.

I don’t know if the much discussed “Blue Wave” is about to break on our soiled nation or not.  While hoping for more, I post here my predictions on how it will likely go in our fight to save the best of what we are.  

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

The Democrats will take control of the House by picking up 36 seats nationwide.  Some final results will probably not be known until early December, given the many close contests in California.  Here are the competitive California Races: the projected winner is in boldface; the incumbent is in italics.

UNITED STATES SENATE

Given that the Democrats risk 23 seats this year compared to only 10 Republican seats in play, I believe the GOP will keep control of the Senate, otherwise known as he Chamber of Cowards.  I predict the make-up will be 51-49, as it is now, or possibly 52-48 in favor of the GOP.  The key races that will determine the actual outcome are listed below, with my prediction of winners in boldface, and again, incumbents in italics.  (If O’Rourke pulls off an upset, and the Dems hold their vulnerable seats (excluding North Dakota, which is likely lost, they still might have a slight chance of taking control of the upper chamber 51-49.)

STATE GOVERNORS

Democrats’ brightest prospects are in the governorships, where the resistance to Trump’s authoritarianism is strongest.  Credit a bottoms-up strategy that the party has been tardy in employing until now.  Due to the great number of states in Republican hands that are up for grabs, the Democrats have a going-in advantage, not unlike the one the GOP has in Senate contests.  I predict a net gain of nine governorships for the Dems—many of them in the larger states.  In the listing below I project what I think will be the outcome in the closer races.  (Winner in boldface, incumbent in italics.)

Vote with the ardor and urgency you’ve never felt before.

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

Did you go with my midseason prediction (7/31/18) and make a bloody fortune?  Are you are now driving your Ryder truck to Vegas to collect?  Good for ye of much faith.  You are among the “haves.”  You remembered my prophetic message at baseball’s midseason:

In the spring I called for a very predictable season.  It still is, with some notable exceptions.  Washington has sputtered, giving both the Braves and Phillies a real shot at the Eastern Division crown.  The Cubs are a good bet to blow it to the talented Brewers in the NL Central, while the Dodgers, strengthened by the trade for Machado, will take the NL west title and go on to win the NL championship.  Unfortunately, they will meet the winner of the two American League super teams, the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox, and lose.  Pick a winner in the AL?  With shaky hands I don my Red Sox.  (The Indians and Yankees are AL runner-ups.)

Wow!  One hundred percent correct!  If you put your money down midseason, then you’re already in first class on a jet to meet and party with the Kardashians and the Koch brothers!  And, once more, you have me to thank.  You’re welcome. 

Unfortunately, as you surely know, at season’s end I second-guessed myself and dropped the Red Sox in favor of the Cleveland Indians over the Dodgers in seven.  That puts you late bettors in the “have not” category.  Sorry.

Why did I switch and make such a crazy choice for the World Series?  Well, I let my heart overrule my head, gave in to emotion over reason.  How could I do such a thing?  Well, I was exposed to the bug early and caught baseball fever, which has been likened to prostate cancer: you usually don’t die of it; you just die with it. 

Back in the summer of 1938 my machinist dad took off from his WPA Depression day duties of leaning on a shovel and took his five-year-old son to League Park in Cleveland for my first Major League game.  It was love at first sight.  I don’t remember whom the Indians played that summer day.  All I know is I came out of the encounter a fan of Roy “Little Thunder” Weatherly, Bruce Campbell and Hal Trosky—names as familiar today as a roll of Nubian queens.  

As my father took me to more games, I soon showed signs of becoming a more discriminating fanatic, idolizing Bob Feller, Bob Lemon and Lou Boudreau, and listening to the grainy radio voice of Jack Graney on those lucky days when I was sick (or faking it) and home in bed from school listening to the Tribe’s feats of daring done. 

I also remember the suspense of waking to the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer where a line drawing of Chief Wahoo would signal the results of the day before.  If the smiling Chief had a scalp in his hand, the Tribe had won; if he had a black eye, we’d lost; if he held a scalp and had a black eye, we’d split a double header; if he had two black eyes, well, you know....

It all came to a glorious climax in 1948 when the Cleveland Indians won the American League Pennant in a one-game playoff with the Boston Red Sox (Lou Boudreau was the hero) and then went on to defeat the Boston Braves four games to two in the World Series.  I was not among the celebrants in Cleveland streets, however, for my father had already moved his family to Southern California, where I rejoiced by myself from afar, my addiction sealed.

The Indians have not won a World Series since 1948, yet I remain a lifer among its fans.  Try as I might, I can’t kick the habit.  Each spring brings hope anew; by most Junes the Indians are struggling; and by August they’re mathematically eliminated.  Have I ever returned to the city of Cleveland proper, you might ask.  No.  Why should I?  No World Series win draws me there to celebrate.  And, as Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, who did some brief time with the Tribe as a first baseman, is reputed to have said, “Cleveland is the only city where it’s better to have a plane crash flying in than taking off.”

Sad.

You see that tear Chief Wahoo is shedding at the top of the page?  It’s not just because we failed to win another World Series this year.  It’s mainly because he has been told he will be “retired” (eliminated) next year, which my daughters say is long overdue, and I, despite my personal nostalgic feelings, must agree.  

Sad.  Bigly sad.

Still, I believe with Monte Python that we should always look on the bright side of life.  That in mind, I’ve made a Faustian bargain with  Thanatos that I not die until the Indians win another World Series.  What does Mr. T get in return?  My complete collection of Cleveland Indian baseball cards.  

The way it’s going, I have at least another 70 years of collecting.

HORSEHIDE HEAVEN!

Welcome back baseball fans to the most exciting time of the year—the playoffs to see who goes to the World Series and wins it all.  Last I engaged you was July 30 with my minor midcourse corrections to my picks in this year’s quest to make you rich!  You will recall that I predicted the finish below.  (I include only the top three finishers in each division...the also rans are of no consequence to us). 

You will also note that these nine teams in the American League finished exactly as I predicted, save for Seattle and Oakland, which are reversed.  As for the National League, I missed a few.  While I pegged the Dodgers as winners in the West, and selected Chicago and Milwaukee 1-2 (they tied) in the Central, in the East I never saw Atlanta coming, and my choice, the Nationals, finished second.  

Now let’s look forward to the hard part.  Picking the winners in the playoffs, when the chips are down, the best meet the best, and the challenge is greatest.  Here goes:

Crazy choice for the World Series?  Probably looks that way.  But I had this visitation from Lady Luck herself last night and she whispered in my skyward ear to bet this month’s whole Social Security check on such a strange outcome; she said I would not regret it.  So I invite you all to join with me in wagering against all wise men and their odds and get rich quick with me...and together we can uplift our middle digits to all those inhabitants of Trumpland as we purchase our one-way tickets to Tahiti.  Bora Bora beckons, mes amis!

SO MANY WITCHES, SO LITTLE TIME

Things happen so fast for a witch-tracker these days that even a dedicated chronicler can’t keep up with Russiagate.  No sooner did the ink dry on my last tally of witches (more than 35 if you count home-grown traitors who have pled guilty, and you include indicted Ruskies) nabbed by Grand Inquisitor Robert S. Mueller III than he surpassed himself, flipping the head necromancer of the Trump Bunch, sending its members scattering like roaches at dawn.  Yep, Paul Manafort, the president’s one-time campaign manager with the key to the coven caved at last; he pled guilty to defrauding the United States and witness tampering—both big-time felonies.   

This sudden revelation of Manafort’s turning turncoat lifts expectations that our national humiliation at the skilled and dirty hands of Vladimir Putin can at last be understood, and perhaps put behind us, even as any and all home-grown traitors get their due.  Expect nation-shaking events to be upon us before we know it.  

Let’s put aside such happy thoughts for the nonce to note another minor catch in Mueller’s successful witch hunt; this one may have escaped your attention.  His name is Sam Patten, an American by nationality, a D.C. blueblood by birth, a lobbyist by trade...as so many entrepreneurial Republicans are in this shady age of influence peddling.

Sam’s crimes include forgetting to register as a foreign agent for a Russian-backed Ukrainian political group and assisting, through a third party, a Russia-favoring oligarch (believed to be Serhiy Lyovochkin) in his secret and illegal purchase for $50,000 four tickets to Donald Trump’s Inauguration.  (The high price was probably justified given the record crowd attending.)  Patten also withheld incriminating documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee.  He pled guilty to the charges, which could mean five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

 Who sold him those prized tickets?  Konstantin V.  Kilimnik  (now there’s a good Irish name for you), Sam’s sometime business associate who has been charged by Mueller with obstruction of justice and has fled Ukraine into the protective arms of Mother Russia.  (Oh, the stories KVK could tell if only he were in our clutches!)  

But the conspiratorial coziness doesn’t end there.  Patten also did work for the notorious (and now defunct) Cambridge Analytica, dirty-trick artists for sale who messed with our 2016 elections, among those of other countries near and far.  And what other unsavory political fixer-for-hire did Patten work with?  None other than Kilimnick’s bosom buddy and former business partner, our own convicted felon, Paul Manafort, who just flipped and agreed to tell Mueller all. 

What a tangled web those witches weave when first they practice to deceive; in Russiagate those webs are so gigantic, erratic, and ensnaring, it would take an army of spiders on speed to weave.  Too tough a task for wizard Mueller and his team of crack investigators to unravel?  I think not.  He and his skilled associates appear to be on the brink of solving most Russiagate mysteries and naming a host of witches...err, traitors.  Or so I hope.

Few of us realize we are living through the greatest conspiracy in human history, with our lives and futures in the balance.  As they say in Hollywood, it’s got a cast of thousands, as many thrills, and takes you all over the world.  

So hang on for the existential ride of your life!  (Which, of course, could be short.)

PROGRESS REPORT ON THE WITCH HUNT FRONT!

Eureka!  I just found an ancient woodcut (Nostradamus’s work?) that prophesied Grand Inquisitor Robert Mueller’s current haul of witches!  To date, that is.  See below for identifications of those demons who have a stake already reserved for the coming bonfire festivities.  Left to right:

*George (“Coffee Boy”) Papadopoulos, the president’s former and sometimes tipsy foreign policy advisor who pled guilty to lying to the FBI about interactions with Russian agents. 

*Rick (“Swinging”) Gates III, a larcenous member of the president’s campaign committee and transition team, who pled guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements; this junior partner to Paul Manafort ratted on his boss and testified against him in the latter’s first criminal trial. 

*The infant being proffered to the central figure by Gates is thought to be Paul (“Croesus Wannabe”) Manafort, the president’s second campaign manager and suspected pipeline to Vladimir Putin by way of Ukraine; he’s been convicted of eight felonies (including bank fraud and tax evasion), and is facing another criminal trial this month.

*Michael (“The Fixer”) Cohen, the president’s former personal attorney and mobster who got religion and spilled all he knew (and that was plenty!) about presidential naughty doings, including paying off known playmates with whom the president was romantically involved.  (What Cohen’s extended hand is offering is not known for sure, but is thought to be a baseborn child fathered by the president, according to a Trump Tower doorman). 

*Michael (“Out-Like”) Flynn, retired Air Force Lieutenant General and briefly National Security Advisor to the president before being caught lying to the FBI; this quondam dining mate of Vladimir Putin turned on his commander-in-chief and blabbed all to Grand Inquisitor Mueller.

And who, you are wondering, is the central figure in this tableau?  Yep.  You guessed it.  None other than Beelezeboob himself, shown here in better times.  And those critters in he sky?Believed to be flying Foxes raining ideas down on his receptive head.

Wait!  There’s more!  Grand Inquisitor Mueller has also identified by name, and indicted, 25 Russians in his witch hunt.  True, they belong to the Saint Petersburg Coven (so like the blasphemers to hide behind a saint’s name!) and will probably never feel the heat of a fire...unless they wander from Russia’s bounds on holiday and get nabbed by Interpol and extradited to you-know-where.  I can hear their lamentations now: “Sheesh!  That means another boring Black Sea vacation.”

Meanwhile, the implacable and unflappable Mueller proceeds in his silent, methodical way to stalk other evildoers, so far unimpeded by their spells and incantations, least of all those cast by that daffy sorcerer’s apprentice Rudy (“Fogbound”) Giuliani.  Yes, our special investigator, Mueller, left free to do his duty, will root them all out.  And there are many more witches fearing and trembling in DC at this very moment.  (Rumor has it that Mueller may next snare one of Beelzeboob’s own sons!)

I sense some skepticism.  Trumpenproles will protest that the “good men” referred to above have not practiced witchcraft as described in such seminal works as Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer’s Malleus Maleficarum (1487), or Francesco Maria Guazzo’s Compendium Maleficarum  (1608); the indicted and confessed folks did not consort with wizards, attend Black Masses, dance wildly and lewdly with unclean spirits; they did not dine on unbaptized babies, kiss Satan’s anus, or faithfully keep the Witches Sabbath.  Where do I come off tarring them with the word witch?

I don’t.  You’ll have to check with Mr. B himself on that.  He’s the one who expanded the definition of witch to include—get ready for the bombshell!—traitor.  He is so smitten with his broadened definition that he complains of “witch hunts” in virtually every public utterance he makes, even as Mueller piles yet another traitor on the pyre-to-be. 

Pray for their unholy souls if you will.  I will not.

So, see y’all sometime between the closing of the polls in November and next spring’s Walpurgisnacht.  Maybe we can celebrate by lifting a brew or two and throwing another witch on the barbie.

HATS OFF TO LAST WEEK’S HERO!

These days heroes are as rare as gelded unicorns...but last week we had one step up and tell the truth to a cowed and sadly confused nation.  Yep, John Brennan, former director of he CIA, got his Irish up and told us all that our Colluder-in-Chief is an existential danger to our republic.

For his act of courage he got his security clearance yanked by Dear Leader and reprimands from those spineless eunuchs who dress up like Republican senators.

Fortunately, Brennan got quick backup from retired Admiral William H. McRaven, former Navy Seal and architect of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden; the retired admiral wrote to Trump asking that his own clearance be withdrawn and telling the president his action had “humiliated” Americans before the world and “divided us as a nation.”

A wave of additional support came in a letter to Trump from 13 former senior intelligence officials of various political persuasions who chastised him for politicizing intelligence work and punishing those who exercised their First Amendment rights of free speech.  

Apparently Mr. Trump was not moved, revealing that he maintains an “enemy’s list” (the spirit of Richard Nixon lives!) of others who can expect to lose their clearances soon.  Their offenses?  All were either critical him or his policies, or were involved somehow in the Mueller Investigation into whether Trump and his cronies colluded with the Russians in fixing the 2016 election.  Lifting their clearances!  What a clever way of barring witnesses from classified materials they might need to defend themselves in court.  

The reason given for Brennan’s punishment?  Depends on who you listen to.   Spokeswomen Sarah Huckabee Sanders read the official line to the press that it was because Brennan had behaved ”erratically” and made a series of “unfounded and outrageous allegations.”  But our elected president and sometime soothsayer, Donald J. Trump himself, leveled with the Wall Street Journal in an interview: “I call it [the Russian investigation] a rigged witch hunt...And these people led it.”

Isn’t he being investigated for obstruction of justice?  Isn’t that an admission of the same?

The noose tightens.

#

MIDCOURSE CORRECTION

Welcome back baseball fans and the just plain greedy who want to get rich quick on my proven powers of predicting.  As all of you true fans know, as the trading deadline approaches its end, I make my modest first-half corrections.   

Why?  Because it’s about half way through the season, and, as every true fan also knows, teams that have played well go into the trading market seeking quality guys to shore up their weakness and enhance their chances of making the prestigious and lucrative playoffs.  Where do they get those players?  From the weaker teams already out of contention and in need of better talent to bank for the future; as you might expect, they seek younger promising talent (performers) on the rise in exchange for older, established players with expensive contracts.

Does my update negate the April picks?  No, merely sharpens them, alters them to current rosters and offers you the chance to hedge any bets made in the spring; for those who have not yet taken the player’s plunge, you have the edge with fresh info.

In the spring I called for a very predictable season.  It still is, with some notable exceptions.  Washington has sputtered, giving both the Braves and Phillies a real shot at the Eastern Division crown.  The Cubs are a good bet to blow it to the talented Brewers in the NL Central, while the Dodgers, strengthened by the trade for Machado, will take the NL west title and go on to win the NL championship.  Unfortunately, they will meet the winner of the two American League super teams, the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox, and lose.  Pick a winner in the AL?

With shaky hands I don my Red Sox.  (The Indians and Yankees are AL runner-ups.)

Note that my long shot picks of spring—the Seattle Mariners in the American League and the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League—are still in the thick of the pennant races and would still fetch a fancy return from the Vegas books.

Below, my picks from the spring, followed by the revised choices of July 30.

So there you have it...your keys to your fortune, free of charge.  Plan now to rent a Ryder or pinch a Penske to pick up your Vegas swag when the World Series ends in October.

Let me just say again in closing, as I did last spring, that in these iron times I find it a comforting distraction watching another outdoor spectacle of chess and ballet played out on a stage of green by the Boys of Summer.

Finally, a reminder that these selections are guaranteed.  If the teams do not finish in the order predicted, I will provide you picks for next year’s season absolutely free of charge!   

SCANDAL BACKTRACK SERIES: CLINTONGATE

We truth-seekers continue with our search to find whether Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s fourteen-month-long investigation into Donald Trump and the president’s possible collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election has gone on too long.  Should it be “wrapped up” as  Rudy and Fox Vox demands?   To discover the answer we return to our method of comparing Treasongate’s duration to another presidential scandal that rocked the nation.  Today we go back to Bill Clinton’s impeachment and the sex circus of the late 1990s.

8.  THE CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

Americans love a good sex scandal, and Bill Clinton, always ready to serve the people, saw that they got a tasty one.  But it didn’t start out that way.  Actually, the big tuna got hooked and cooked in the carnal soup after a lengthy fishing expedition by conservative legal terrier Kenneth Starr.  Starr took over in August 1994 as an independent counsel investigating a corrupt land deal to which the Clintons were a party.  Turns out the Clintons were innocent and lost 40 grand in the so-called Whitewater deal.  But Starr, backed by an angry Congressional Republican majority long frustrated by the skill of “Slick Willie” (as they called him) at finessing them in the give-and-take of politics, shifted his attention to a softer target: Bill’s “women troubles.”  

The president’s eighteen-month affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky didn’t begin until November of 1995, but Starr, even before the Whitewater trial ended in May 18, 1996, was on the new and sordid trail, rife with titillating details.  Lewinsky became a witness in Paula Jones’ civil case (first filed in 1994) of sexual harassment against Bill Clinton.  Before you could say Don Juan, other paramours from the president’s past popped up to add spice to the tabloid stew.  I won’t offend you with a rehash of the salacious details, except to say word of Monica’s fellate-and-tell tales spread like an STD through an Army base.   (No mention of any muff-diving reciprocity.)

The upshot?  Bill denied.  Then lied.  Not prudent.

On October 8, 1998 the House of Representatives voted to begin the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; a week later House Judiciary Committee chair Henry Hyde, a self-appointed general in the eternal war on sin, fixed Congressional focus on two charges: obstruction of justice and lying under oath.  In a predictable act of political piling on, Republicans added campaign finance law violations and abuse of power over the next two months.

On February12, 1999 Clinton, tarnished to be sure, was acquitted of all charges; in the Senate trial 50 (all of them Republicans) voted to expel Clinton from office on obstruction of justice, 45 of them voted “aye” on perjury charges.  All Democrat senators voted against conviction.  For the second time in American history, the impeachment of a president fell short of the two-thirds Senate vote needed for expulsion from office. 

No surprise that the forward-thinking nations of the world expressed open amusement at the salty spectacle and our fixation on the sexual misconduct of a political leader.  An Australian journalist summed it up best: “Thank God we got the criminals and America got the Puritans.”    

In a sense, the humiliation of Clinton proved a Pyrrhic victory for the GOP.  In a spate of lurid revelations and forced admissions that followed, the seedy Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, resigned; his would-be successor as Speaker, Bob Livingstone, declined that powerful position and then resigned from Congress, admitting that he, too, had been unfaithful in his marriage; Henry Hyde, chief prosecutor in Clinton’s trial, likewise had to confirm he had had a young dolly on the side for five years.  One could go on with the roll of the randy...Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth, Congressman Dan Burton...and so on.  But those were the least of GOP losses.  In an off-year election in which they were projected to pick up many seats in the House of Representatives, they actually yielded a total of six to the Democrats—the first time an out-of-president party failed to gain seats in an off-year election since 1934.  Some numbers!

Now it’s time do our own math in pursuit of the truth and in service to history.  Let’s see, the legal hunt of Clinton began with Whitewater in January 1994 and extended to Impeachment acquittal in February of 1999...why, that’s more than five years.  Five plus years!  Write that down.  Show it to Rudy and his skulk of Foxes.  No, Mueller shouldn’t wrap it up.  He’s got promises to keep, and many miles to go before he sleeps.

One must ponder and shudder at what punishment the future may bring the convicted.  If nine White House blowjobs will get you impeached, just imagine what betraying your country to Russia will get you.  Picture being drawn and quartered in a four-way tractor pull on the palm-studded grounds of Mar-a-Lago.

ARE YOU SMARTER THAN DONALD TRUMP?

Try the pop quiz below to see how you stack up against the man Vladimir Putin called a “genius”...or so Trump keeps trumpeting.  A score of eight or more gives you the right to call yourself a “Genius,” proof that you have an IQ of 140* or more.

THE QUIZ

1. WHERE IS NAMBIA?  

2. WHO BURNED DOWN THE U.S. WHITE HOUSE IN THE WAR OF 1812?

3. IN WHAT YEAR WAS IT BURNED DOWN? (Take your time on this one.)

4. HOW MANY TEXANS ENJOYED HURRICANE HARVEY FROM THE COMFORT OF THEIR OFFSHORE BOATS?  

5. HOW MANY CORINTHIANS ARE THERE IN A BALLGAME?

6. WHERE DO YOU GET THE BEST TACO BOWLS?  

7. WHO TWEETED “IT IS BETTER TO LIVE ONE DAY AS A LION THAN 100 YEARS AS A SHEEP?”

8. PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS REPEATEDLY SAID THAT PAUL MANAFORT WAS HIS CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR “A VERY SHORT TIME.”  WAS IT 49 DAYS AS HE CLAIMS OR WAS IT 144 DAYS AS THE FAKE NEWS REPORTS?

9. WHY IS TRUMP SO EAGER TO HOLD A SUMMIT MEETING WITH VLADIMIR PUTIN IN THE NEAR FUTURE?

10. PRESIDENT TRUMP ON HIS RETURN FROM SINGAPORE AND HIS MEETING WITH KIM JONG-UN SAID, “SO MANY PEOPLE ASKED WHEN I WAS ON THE CAMPAIGN [TRAIL]...WHEN YOU CAN, PRESIDENT TRUMP, WE’D LOVE OUR SONS TO BE BROUGHT BACK HOME—YOU KNOW, THE REMAINS.”  HOW MANY PARENTS IS “MANY”?  BEST GUESS WINS.

* You may wonder how Vlad the Impaler arrived at that number of 140, considering that Donald only measured out at a 68 on the Stanford-Binet test.  Well, that was, of course, for the forebrain alone;  Vlad helpfully added in the score of 72 for the cerebellum and the brain stem (the so-called “reptilian brain”) to get to the required 140.

THE ANSWERS

1. You’re right if you said it was in Trump’s brain only.  He was apparently trying to name either Namibia or Zambia in a speech but confused them and created a brand new African “shithole.”

2. Canada, as Trump recently told Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau to his face prior to the G-7 meeting.  That there was no Canada in 1812 is a loose end still to be tied up.  You might try England.

3. Fake history theorizes that it was probably 1812.

4. According to Trump at a recent FEMA meeting, 16,000 of those thoughtless, rubbernecking party people had to rescued by the Coast Guard.  He praised members of the CG for their heroics; they modestly kept their silence, perhaps not aware of what they had done.

5. The answer is two.  Addressing a student audience at conservative Liberty University, the renowned Bible Scholar Trump vowed to protect Christianity, then told the students that “two Corinthians 3:17, that’s the whole ballgame….is that the one you like?”  The students snickered at his botch of Second Corinthians, the school’s favored dictum: “Now the Lord is that spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty.”

6. The Trump Tower Grill.  The president said so.

7. The man who has lived 72 years as a weasel, Donald J. Trump, pilfered the words from Benito Mussolini because he likes to “be associated with interesting quotes.”  Not to mention interesting Fascist dictators.

8. If you are Fox Watcher, it’s 49 days.  If you follow the Fake News, it’s 144 days.  Score accordingly.

9. Because he’s seeking political asylum with dear friend Vlad after Robert Mueller’s report is made public.  Maybe he can share digs with Snowden.

10. As a Korean War vet I should know the answer to this.  But I’m having trouble with the calculation.You see, my mother died in 1972 at age 65; my father passed away in 1983 at age 78.  And I shipped out to the Far East in 1952 at age 19.  Although I’m not too good at sums and take-aways, I think I’m looking for folks at least 116 years old to verify their campaign trail requests to have the remains of their fallen sons brought home.  But what really intrigues me is how those aging centenarians knew in 2016 that Trump would be elected president.  Mighty few of us did.

SHAME!

As a veteran of the Korean War, I find this photo obscene in the extreme.  What madness presides in Washington D. C.?  Explain this our national debasement to the descendants of the 33,741 Americans who died in frozen Chosun!

I suggest that every Democrat running for office in November include a copy of “the salute” in his or her mailer to voters.

SCANDAL BACKTRACK SERIES: THE PLAME AFFAIR

Truth-seekers awake!  Here we continue with our search to find whether Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s year-long investigation into Donald Trump and the president’s possible collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election has gone on too long.  Should it be “wrapped up” as Fox vox demands?  To discover the answer we return to our method of comparing “Treasongate’s” duration to other political scandals that have shaken the nation.  Today we go back to the George W. Bush reign and the Iraq War.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s assistant, took the hit for the Bush Administration’s outing of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame (right), apparently an act of vengeance for her diplomat husband’s failure to find yellow-cake uranium in Africa that would justify the war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq

9.  PLAMEGATE

The Valerie Plame Affair really opened in July 2003 when conservative journalist Robert Novak outed an undercover CIA agent named Valerie Plame.  Why do such a nasty thing?  Because Plame’s husband, diplomat Robert Wilson, had been sent by the George W. Bush administration a year before to Niger, Africa, to confirm that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was trying buy “yellow cake” uranium for its nuclear weapons program; Wilson found nothing of the sort and told the world so in a July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed piece titled “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.”

Apparently, that was unacceptable, because the Bush administration had already launched the Iraq War, partially justified by President Bush’s own words that “Saddam Hussein recently sought quantities of uranium from Africa.”  (Saddam hadn’t.)  Apparent as well, the administration was going to punish Wilson for his “disloyalty.”  A week later it leaked through Novak in his column titled “Mission to Niger” that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was an undercover CIA agent.  That may have been payback.  It was also a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

To investigate the matter, Patrick Fitzgerald was named Special Counsel by DOJ Deputy Attorney General James Comey (of all people!) on December 30, 2003, and a lengthy legal/political drama involving a cast of many ensued.  Several of the prominent Neocons who plunged us into a major war that destabilized the Middle East—including the grandest chickenhawk of them all, Vice President Dick Cheney—emerged from the legal proceedings unscathed.  They had their fall guy, though, in Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s Chief of Staff, who on March 6, 2007 was found guilty of obstruction of justice and four counts of lying under oath, fined $250,000, sentenced to two and a half years in prison and two years of probation.  President Bush commuted Libby’s prison time, but did not pardon him and left the fine in force.

That same year the Wilsons also sought redress separately in a civil suit against Libby, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in Wilson vs. Cheney.  The judgment went against the plaintiffs because “the disclosure of Mrs. Wilson’s status as a covert operative was incidental to the kind of conduct that defendants were employed to perform.”  Huh?

The Wilsons’ appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was denied in a 2-1 decision; a further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was stymied by the Justice Department on May 20, 2009, which upheld the Appeals Court Decision and said “further review is unwarranted.”

Life brightened after that for the Wilsons.  Books and a movie, Fair Game, based on their experiences transformed Valerie Plame from a spy to a writer of spy novels, a career move far more lucrative and far less dangerous.

Time now to do the addition.  Let’s see, Plamegate started in July 2003 and ended in May 2009.  Why that’s five years and eleven months!  Compare that to Mueller’s progress on Treasongate!  If it helps, write that down.

Curiously, the duration of Plamegate might be double that if you take into account President Donald Trump’s official pardoning of “Scooter” Libby of his crime just this April.  Wow!  Most presidents wait until the end of their terms to give out pardons.  Such a compassionate man!  

HOW LONG SHOULD A TREASON PROBE LAST?

Here the promised follow-up rebuttal to the Faux News-Pence-Giuliani shrill scream that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Trump’s Treason has gone on too long.  From them comes the predictable panic-laced cry of  “Wrap it up!”  

I believe their protests should be faced and answered forthrightly, and that I intend to do.  My credentials? Well, as a sometime historian without portfolio, I have published on historical matters before (for example: here, here, here, and here).  Historians, of course, rely on the written record, as do I.  And they deal with real facts, not “alternate facts” or “relative facts,” nor do they ignore precedent.

With that in mind, I submit that the truth-seeker Mueller has not exceeded his “time limit;” indeed, considering all the facts in play, he’s barely begun, with a long, long way to go.  To prove the claim, I’ve researched the last ten major scandals that have rocked our nation, and focused on how long they occupied the civic mind and lasted in legal time.  Moving pastward, we have:

10.  Benghazi. 

This fresh-in-the-mind “scandal” that began in September 2012 when Islamic terrorists attacked and killed the American ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, along with three other diplomatic personnel in the city of Benghazi.  Who was to blame?  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the prime target of Republicans.  After at least eight congressional investigations spanning four-plus years, the final probe, held by the Republican-led House Select Committee on Benghazi and chaired by Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, reluctantly found in its June 2016 report no evidence of her culpability.   Conveniently, the televised eleven-hour questioning of Clinton, marked by angry exchanges, was held during the summer of 2015, as her candidacy for the presidency was just gearing up.  

Well, if she wasn’t to blame for the tragedy, then who was?  That vaguely and thinly spread to lesser officials among the diplomatic corps—and to the U. S. military for not effecting a timely (and impossible) rescue.  Realists and veterans of conflicts know it all falls under the common label, the ”fog of war.”

In my version of the truth, the only real scandal was that House Republicans used a national tragedy to play an obvious and odious game of partisan politics.  Duration of the farce?  Well, Gowdy’s committee actually issued its final report on December 12, 2016 –when the mare was already out of the barn and the reptilian monster was on its way in.  My addition comes up with four years and three months. Compare that with Mueller’s mere year on Treasongate. 

Next to come in a Ten Part Series:  “The Valerie Plame Affair”

FOX FRIENDS CLAMOR FOR CLOSURE

No mas! No mas!  Hear that wail from the Fox folks’ whiners’ chorus?  

No more what, you may ask.

No more investigating President Donald Trump and his amorphous administration for multiple crimes, including conspiracy to collude with Russia in meddling in our 2016 presidential election.  Investigated by?  Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his crack legal team, don’t you know.

Leading the pleading is Vice President Michael Pence, known as Puritanism’s last best hope.  Pence told NBC News’s Andrea Mitchell last week that he thinks “it’s time to wrap it up.  And I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion.”  So gently put by the fawning toad in the oaf’s shadow, who nevertheless is widely reported to be secretly assembling a politically friendly group to help him succeed Trump, come what may.

America’s former mayor Rudy Giuliani, recently hired to replace the disgraced Michael Cohen as the president’s personal lawyer, “respectfully” echoed Pence’s sentiment to Politico: “I think he’s [Mueller] sensitive to the fact that he’s gone on a little bit too long....He’s certainly getting a certain degree of questioning about that.”  So daintily and diplomatically put. 

But that’s where the soft talk ends.  Sean Hannity, Devin Nunes and the masses of Fox-trained “deplorables” are out in force to oust Mueller ASAP.  Pry no more into the dodgy doings of Dear Leader they rant and roar.  When we ask why, we are told that the Special Counsel has been snooping for a year now and found nothing in his “witch hunt.” 

Nothing?  Really?  Then how do we account for Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians: Anna Bovacheva, Maria Bovda, Robert Bovda, Mikhail Burchik, Irena Kaverzina, Alexandra Krylova, Dzheykhun Ogly, Vadim Podkopaev, Sergey Polozov Yevgeny Prigozhin, Gleb Vasilchenko and Vladimir Venkov; repeat those names rapidly to cleanse your palate.  Also indicted was the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company that infiltrated our social media and surreptitiously pimped for Trump during the 2016 presidential election, plus two financial shell companies, Concord Management and Concord Catering, that facilitated it.

Yeah, but we’re never going to try them, the Fox knaves say.  Wrong answer.  The right one?  Your admission that the Special Prosecutor is not on a witch hunt or a goose chase.  As for bringing the Russian culprits to justice, that may never come to be in an American courtroom, but they will not be visiting the Big Apple or Miami’s beaches any time soon.   And before booking a European vacation, they had better check for extradition treaties in force.  (“Drat! Looks like another boring Black Sea summer.”)

But let’s go domestic and look for evil-doers nabbed here at home.  Start by explaining Trump aide George Papadopoulous’s guilty plea to making false statements to the FBI regarding contacts with Russians.  (He’s talking to Mueller, by the way...flipped, as they say.)

Or address the conviction of London attorney Alex Van der Zwaan, son-in-law of a Russian oligarch, for making false statements to the FBI regarding contacts with Russians—first to receive a jail sentence in the probe.

Add the guilty plea of Richard Pinedo to identity fraud charges for selling bank account numbers with stolen identities to the Russians.

On to bigger fish now, starting with General Michael Flynn, Trump’s short-term National Security Advisor who has confessed to lying to the FBI about phone conversations with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; Flynn’s the first of Trump’s men to plead guilty in the Russian investigation.  He has flipped big time.

Moving on to even bigger fish, Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager for five months, hasn’t pleaded guilty to anything yet, but faces charges of money laundering, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign power, and making false and misleading statements...all to be adjudicated in a Washington, D.C. courtroom.  Separately, he’s charged in the state of Virginia with 18 counts, including nine concerning bank fraud and five for filing false tax returns.  Manafort may yet break...or he may prove his loyalty to Trump and do enough prison time to welcome in the 22nd century from his own private cell.

Finally, there’s Rick Gates, former business associate of Paul Manafort and a Trump campaign insider.  He has turned on his former partner, owning up to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States, and is supposed to have told Mueller enough to make Devin Nunes sweat.

Golly!  This sure seems like more than a witch hunt.  Sounds like a traitor hunt to me, what with every day more damaging admissions and revelations getting dragged into the public consciousness by a pesky press against the Fox folks’ wishes.  

But... I am running out of time and space to respond to the Trumpsters’ second concern: why it is taking Mueller so long to “wrap up” his investigation?  I will research that and get back to you all soon with an answer.

P.S.  Observe how many times the words Russia and Russians show up in the blog above.  I count 12.  How about you, Mike?  Rudy?

#

DEAR LEADERS’ DAY OF DECISION: A NOBEL IN THE BALANCE

So Donald Trump has given himself an A+ for his performance as president.  (Talk about grade inflation!)  And, with the backing of his adoring Trumpenproles, including 18 Republican congressmen who have nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, he’s preparing his acceptance tweet as we smirk.  I suppose he’s probably rushing it before Inspector Mueller comes calling with a fistful of subpoenas.  Imagine a Nobel Laureate accepting the Peace Prize from a federal prison cell.    

Of course, that certainly wouldn’t be Trump’s first first in the office he holds.

I’m referring indirectly, of course, to the surprising prospect of peace at last on the Korean Peninsula, and his taking credit for it by waving his huge nuclear stick in Rocketman’s fat face. (We wiser watchers know that South Korea’ President Moon Jae-in was the real prime mover toward any peace settlement.)

An end to the Korean War, though…Wow!…a consummation devoutly to be wished...especially by me.  That was my war, the Korean War, and I remember clearly the July day in 1953 at Komaki Air Force Base when the truce was called; the guys in my outfit went on one mighty beer bust (Kirin preferred), expecting a peace treaty to soon follow.  Not to be.  For the following 65 years the divided Korea has been a place of sporadic violence and constant tension, ever threatening to explode and spread, with the ever more likely use of nuclear weapons.

So we should all rejoice in the good news that North Korea and South Korea are in peace talks, a hopeful sign welcomed by an anxious world.  But don’t set your hopes too high.  The barriers are even higher.  And past attempts to make peace on the Korean Peninsula have been spectacular failures.  Why?  Besides the paranoid mindset of the autocratic North Korean leadership and its habit of stringing the world along, then reneging on promises made?

Any peace in the Northwest Pacific is complicated by the geopolitical fact that the divergent interests of six formidable nations are clustered there.  They are?

1. A militarily strong and newly nuclearized North Korea wants security and an end to its pariah status in the world.

2. An encircled South Korea wants peace to assure its continued economic rise and to satisfy its yearnings for unification of the Korean people.  

3. Prosperous but nervous Japan, in nuclear-armed missile range of two nations it warred upon in the not so distant past, is in desperate need of protection. 

4. Burgeoning China has its own worries about a unified Korea that would pose, if not a threat, then certainly a rival, both economically and geopolitically.

5. Putin’s Russia, looming just north, looks for any mischief it can make to expand its disruptive influence.

6. And lastly, the United States (without an ambassador to South Korea no less), is widely seen as a suddenly waning world power under Trump, whose foreign policies are apt to flip from day to day, depending on the latest Tarot Card turned over in the West Wing.

If that wasn’t hurdle enough, Trump continues with his usual blowhard’s bluster, strut and swagger so reminiscent of Il Duce in his day, bragging about his peace-making prowess while the world’s diplomats shudder.  We’ll soon know the chances for success.  He promises to tell us tomorrow whether he will honor the landmark Iran Nuclear Agreement negotiated by President Barack Obama (a Nobel Peace Prize winner himself) that halted nuclear weapon-making in Iran; signing on to the deal were Russia, China, Germany, France and England—an amazing feat of diplomacy, and a major step toward preserving world peace.

If Trump says “yes,” he will renew, we can all exhale our relief in unison.  If he scraps it, as is expected, we can start restocking our fallout shelters and Trump can kiss what remote chance he had of a Nobel Peace Prize goodbye forever.

Seriously, if you were North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, would you enter into a peace treaty with a country that just bailed on a similar agreement negotiated three years ago?    

So let’s pray that our President does not destroy the Iran agreement and put the world in more nuclear peril.  And let’s be kind and not tell him he doesn’t have a remote shot at the Nobel even if he doesn’t.  We could soften the blow by telling him that he might still be in line for the Stalin Peace Prize...if it is still offered.  We can always check with Vlad on that.

A POET BORN THIS DAY (in 1564)...

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

How appropriate of me to begin an irregular, now-and-again series of reprinted poems from the English language with a sonnet from the Bard himself.  I believe we all deserve brief, uplifting breaks from the tawdry madness of Trump’s reign to breathe fresh air and reassure ourselves that beauty still exists in these iron times...and to remind ourselves of the nobler qualities we as a species still harbor.

So I begin the venture with a selection from the greatest poet of our tongue, Number 30 from Shakespeare’s matchless collection of sonnets, a favorite of mine that addresses the human verities of love and death, regret and friendship.

Sonnet  30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.

Then can I drown an eye unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,

And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,

And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

  All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

*The art above is the most recently discovered of Shakespeare’s few likenesses, and is the subject of some controversy over its authenticity.  I selected it for its relative rarity in use, because it was painted while he was alive (1603), and because it most resembles how I imagine how that great literary genius would look.

A WORD FROM YOUR WORD COP

As you may remember, I began this blog some years ago to guard against misuse and abuse of our beloved language.  As you may also remember, I do so with some modest qualifications, including fifteen years as a magazine editor and twenty as a professor of journalism and literature.  Invoking those credentials, I must alert you to an aspiring cliché that is creeping into our discourse with the aid of our cable news midwives and self-appointed pundits.  

The word is “dodgy.”  It was seldom used until one of our trendsetters recently found it in a dusty corner of the closet where we keep our vast store of neglected English words, pulled it out, sniffed it, liked its current rarity in use, then  dangled it before a jealous herd of colleagues and competitors.  They liked it too, which is to say the use of “dodgy” is now spreading, on its way to becoming a fashionable cliché in good standing.

Let’s smother it in its crib.  Why?  Why pick on little old “dodgy”?  Because it’s simply not a good word.  When I consulted my dictionary I found so many disparate definitions as to make the word downright dangerous.

Dodgy has at least three distinct general meanings, each with it’s own subset of particular shades of meaning.  First is dishonest or unreliable, with a subset of undependable, unreliable, irresponsible, deceitful, dishonest, unreliable, double-dealing, treacherous, two-faced, traitorous, etc.

Now take the second general meaning: potentially dangerous; this includes risky, dicey, chancy, perilous, unsafe, hazardous, insecure, touch-and-go, high-risk, unpredictable, insecure, precarious, exposed, etc.

Finally, its third general  area of  meaning refers to quality, as in low quality, as in low-grade, second-rate, third-rate, cheap, dire, awful, terrible, dreadful, woeful, etc.

Really?  One word can mean everything from unreliable to hazardous to cheap?  What doesn’t this flabby adjective describe?  So don’t ape the growing crowd of mimics.  Avoid using “dodgy”...unless you are using it as a proper noun and referring to the name of a London rock group popular in the Nineties.

Class dismissed.

HOP ON THE BETTING BANDWAGON!

Fresh from enriching you with my pick of Villanova to win the NCAA March Madness tourney, I’m back with my 2018 Major League baseball picks to click.  I’m a few days late because I wanted confirmation that my predictive powers were still intact.  Yep.  The Villanova Wildcats from Philly confirmed just that last night by blowing out the Michigan Wolverines, 79-62.

So get the jump on your fellow winners and reserve your U-Haul truck now to pick up your swag in Vegas come October’s end of the baseball season.  Don’t mention it.

This should prove to be a fairly predictable season with few surprises.  Last year’s powers are back stronger than ever, save for the Chicago Cubs, which I think have lost a little talent.  While the Indians and Red Sox will make a run for it, the Yankees are most improved and should, with their formidable slugging power, give the Houston Astros a major battle for the American League crown.  The Washington Nationals figure to nip the Dodgers at the wire for the National League title, with the Cubs a mild threat.  Houston wins their second World Series (over Washington this time) in a row.   

Those shopping for a price might consider my long-shot choices—the Seattle Mariners in the American League and the Milwaukee Brewers for the National League.  So here they are, your keys to your fortune, free of charge.  Just remember me in your prayers when Trump squeezes the football.

Let me just say in closing, as I did last spring, that in these iron times I especially welcome back the Boys of Summers for another outdoor spectacle of chess and ballet played out on a stage of green grass.

By the way, these selections are guaranteed.  If the teams do not finish in the order predicted, I will provide you picks for the following year free of charge!  (Provided there is such a year, of course.)

With My twin Sons on Their 51st Birthday

Taken yesterday, Karl Zitlau Meyer (left), Founder of Gentle Giant Studios in Burbank and Vice President of DDD Systems; right, Kurt Zitlau Meyer, Professor of English at Irvine Valley College. Betwixt, a proud dad whose spine seems to have shrunk with age.  A happy day nevertheless!

To My Wife, My Love, My Life, My Friend

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIMARIE ANNE LAWRENCE!

Shown here (center) on her wedding day, Sligo, Ireland, August 12, 1985. 

From Sparky to Springtime.

CATCH A PROPHET ON A ROLL

Fresh from my successful prediction that Democrat Conor Lamb would upset Republican Rick Saccone in the special election for a house seat in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, I’m emboldened to reach, for you, that unreachable star:

A perfect bracket on this year’s NCAA  Hoops Tournament.

I know it won’t be easy.  Math profs tell us that the odds for calling all the winners is 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1.  Or, to simplify, 9.2 quintillion to one.  

Yes, I know I probably won’t come close to that lofty number with my selections,  but I thought I’d pass along the results of my considerable research any way, so that, while you idle away your time by the corporate water cooler, you can enter the office pool forearmed.  

Since I advise moderation in all things, I suggest you risk only the amount of chicken-feed you need to feed the vices you need to feed.  No greed, agreed?  Leave some on the table for your fellow featherless bipeds.

OK, here we go with the unveiling.  You’re welcome.