Recently my wife got together with some old friends to play cards. During the game one of them began bemoaning the state of public education and what teachers are being "forced" to teach. Specifically the complaint was the teachings about race that were allegedly to be mandated and how this person's daughter, a young teacher, was balking at all this and might leave the profession.  Supposedly her daughter objected with the statement, "we are not a racist country, Mom".

Wow. Fortunately I was outside on the deck enjoying a beer with a couple of others and was not at the card table indoors when this statement was made. Also fortunately even the players who are not very political immediately objected along the lines of 'how can you even say that?'. I mean slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, come quickly to mind as counter arguments. From what I understand the card game essentially ended right about there.

This incident, and all the recent news stories about school board meetings being interrupted by those protesting the teaching of critical race theory, or objecting to any discussions about race, has got me thinking however of how American history is taught. Perhaps more accurately, how it isn't taught. Instead we receive a sanitized, almost mythical, rendering of our history. I mean I'm all for being a glass half full kind of nation, but there's positive spin, and then there's whitewashing. Next thing you know you end up with people truly believing we are not a racist country, or maybe we were but it is solidly in our past.

I present myself as Exhibit A in this matter. Mostly because it gives me a chance to brag about myself, but also to show what a poor job we have done historically with the teaching of history.

Back in my day, depending on the colleges you were applying to, besides taking the SATs, you were asked to take one or more Achievement Tests. These tests were subject specific. My recollection was I took three of these tests, one being American History. I chose that because American History had always been an interest of mine and I had always done well in that subject.

I aced it. Just as with the verbal and math sections of the SAT, the maximum score available on an Achievement test was 800. I scored an 800 on the American History Achievement test. It led to me being recognized and presented an award at my high school graduation.

The point being, besides bragging how I was smart at one point in my life, is that whatever they were teaching as the American History curriculum, I learned it. Well.

But what I have discovered in recent years as I read more articles and books, and follow historians on social media, is how little of our history I actually learned. Especially with regards to the history of race, race relations, slavery and the experience of African Americans in our country.

The history I learned in that regard can probably be summed up like this:

• America was colonized by European powers
• Somehow slaves ended up being brought here
• So we had slavery, and that was bad, but hey everyone else did too, so cut us some slack
• As the new nation formed and got going there was tension between slave and non-slave states
• We fought a Civil War and got rid of slavery; yay US!
• There was Jim Crow and some other backsliding and that was bad
• But then Martin Luther King Jr wrote and spoke one sentence in his entire life; and while not perfect the US of A makes progress toward that more perfect Union. End scene.

And from what I gather that is about all the discussion of race and race relations most conservatives, Republicans, and probably too many others would want in our classrooms. 

That history omits and downplays so much of our history and explains why so many people can actually believe we do not need to confront or do anything about systemic racism. A few examples come to mind of what we were or were not taught that leave us ignorant of our own history and its continuing impacts.

The Constitution
We all know, I hope, about the 3/5 compromise. You know where this non-racist country allowed 3/5 of every slave to count towards a state's population for the purpose of assigning the number of representatives to the House, and therefore also the number of Electoral College votes.

But what about those other compromises? The ones that gave us the un-democratic institutions that in many ways continue to haunt us today, the Senate and the Electoral College. What brought that about?

It was taught to us as there being conflict at the Constitutional Convention between "large" states and "small" states. The small states were afraid a stronger, central, national government would be dominated by the larger, more populous states and the interests of the small states would be ignored, or maybe even worse. 

The compromises? Besides the House of Representatives, the body initially envisioned as being the entire Congress with membership based on each states population, there would be a Senate with each state getting equal representation regardless of population. And the President would not be elected solely by popular vote, which again would be dominated by larger states. No there would be an Electoral College, so the President would need to win a majority of states, not necessarily the majority of votes. 

The reality is that this depiction of large vs small states was a euphemism. It was really a dispute between slave and non-slave states. It so happened the non-slave states were the more populous northern states with the larger commercial hubs. The slave states were more agrarian and had smaller populations. Their real fear was that a central government based solely on population would be dominated by the non-slave states who would eventually look to curtail and eliminate slavery. As one of the chief architects of the Constitution, James Madison, wrote after the debates and compromises, the real division at the Convention was not between large and small states, but between north and south. 

The Civil War
The Civil War is always taught as a glorious event in our history. We want a pat on the back for having fought it to end slavery. At least it was taught that way in northern public schools where I attended.

What was never mentioned, and I didn't realize until recent readings, is that we are about the only country in the world that had to fight a civil war to end slavery. Other countries passed laws or issued decrees, many of them doing so years or even decades before our Civil War. The US? It took huge armies in the field and killing hundreds of thousands of each other to get rid of slavery. I don't know what that says about us, but I'm guessing it's nothing good.

Jim Crow
Did I mention I scored a perfect 800 on the American History Achievement Test? Just wanted to be sure we don't lose sight of one of the main takeaways here. Anyway that aside what I learned and knew about Jim Crow laws was that they were enacted to restore the old power structure in the South. Impediments were set up to make it all but impossible for black people to register and to vote in the Southern states. And if those didn't work there was always the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate (another euphemism) blacks from voting. Oh yes and there were separate schools and they had to use separate bathrooms and water fountains. 

Again it is only recently as I read more articles about this that I have learned how much of the Jim Crow laws and the Black Codes were actually economic in nature. It wasn't just to deny African Americans political or social power. It was also to deny them any opportunity of gaining economic power and status. What jobs a black person could hold, how much they could be paid, what type of business a black person could own or operate were all defined by these laws. 

As one text put it:
The codes appeared throughout the South as a legal way to put Black citizens into indentured servitude, to take voting rights away, to control where they lived and how they traveled and to seize children for labor purposes...

The voting and separate facilities they taught us. The rest, not so much.

The GI Bill
Now mind you, any history class I took never got to the GI Bill. By the time you studied the European colonization, the Revolution, the Constitution and beginnings of the country, the War  of 1812, and the Civil War, the school year was well past half way finished. The time from 1865 to however far you got by the end of the school year was always a blur. That is in some part why many Americans are so ignorant about the history of race and the history of the Labor movement, etc. Reconstruction, the Labor  movement are raced through. A little more time is spent on the Spanish American War and World War I. Then you just have about enough time to squeeze in a little about the Great Depression and World War II. Then it was summer vacation.

So most Americans don't realize that the GI Bill was off limits for many African American service members after World War II. Not explicitly of course. There was nothing in the bill forbidding benefits for blacks or telling them they couldn't apply. But it's implementation was up to the states and local communities. As a result most black servicemen could not take advantage of the GI Bill to buy a home. 

Besides the strength of union membership after World War II probably nothing did more to lift more people out of poverty or the working class and into the middle class in America than the GI Bill. People who would not have been able to buy a home and build up the equity and family wealth that home ownership can generate were now able to. But again, due to redlining and other discriminatory housing practices that avenue was shut off to African Americans. 

This was not the only way that African Americans continued to be denied economic advancement but it is a prime example.
​
War on Drugs
Finally in the 1960s, after much agitation and protest, we passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. The discriminatory and unfair practices for voting, education, separate facilities, housing discrimination, all were swept away and made illegal. Progress was finally here.

So how did America react? With the War on Drugs. One of Richard Nixon's chief domestic policy advisors, John Ehrlichman, later admitted that one of the main goals of the war on drugs was to disrupt the black community. It was a wink and a nod, especially to white southerners, not to fear all those rights acts, we'll keep "them" in their place.

The statistics are well known. Drug use and addiction rates among blacks and white is roughly equal. There are five times more whites than blacks in the USA. But blacks disproportionately are arrested, charged, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for relatively minor drug offenses compared to whites. It disrupts their families, their communities and removes many young black men from society, and not coincidentally, the voting rolls. 

There could be endless more examples of where our history curriculum fails us. All the race riots that have taken place for example. Now there is a euphemism and a half. Every race riot is mobs of white people looting, burning and killing blacks - and we call it a "race riot". Until recently who had ever heard of the Tulsa Massacre? And now that we have, how many know it was just one of many such atrocities?

The fact is that slavery and race were very central concepts to the birth of our nation, to coin a phrase. And to put blinders on and ignore that solves nothing. We will never move to that dream where people are judged solely by the content of their character until we as a nation learn and face our entire history, namely that for too long and too many instances, it was the color of the skin that was more important. That doesn't require self-flagellation from whites, but it does require honesty and learning and facing facts. Admit where we fell, and continue to fall, short and desire and work to be better. 

And that 800 i received on the American History Achievement Test (in case you forgot)? It should have been a 400 at best.


​

Welcome to Texas. The modern conservative's wet dream.

Yep, Texas is the poster child for what conservatives want for the rest of America. Deregulation to the max. Smell the freedom. The free market will take care of us if we just get government out of the way and let corporations weave their magic.

In the words of one recent right wing intellect, "how's that workin' out for ya?"

As many have pointed out what is happening now in Texas was totally predictable. They wanted their own power grid free from those terrible federal regulations. Regulations like making sure the companies would invest in safety measures. Regulations ensuring the supply lines and equipment would be protected from severe weather. Regulations like making sure the emphasis was on providing service to the residents of Texas as opposed to maximizing profits.  

So here we are. Texas devised a system where there is no incentive for the utility companies to invest in safety or protect their infrastructure from unusual weather events that unfortunately will become increasingly "usual", what with that other reality the leaders of Texas deny - climate change.  

There is also no incentive for them to build additional capacity into their system. No profit in that. And since they wanted to be so free, the Texas grid truly stands alone, isolated from the rest of the country. So they are unable to bring in any excess capacity any other regional grid might be able to send their way in times like now. But again this is by design. As their former governor, Rick Perry, opined, the people of Texas prefer being free of federal regulations. Who needs running water or heat when you are warmed by the glow of such freedom?

What's worse we are now learning the Texas leadership knew of all these shortcomings and potential disasters years ago. And did nothing. 

So caught with their thermostats around their ankles what did the leaders of Texas do? Lie. Well lie and fly to warm weather in Cancun. But mostly lie.

They blamed everyone but themselves and their disaster-waiting-to-happen power grid system. First it was the wind turbines. Surprisingly a lot of the power used in Texas is generated by wind turbines. Because it's cheaper than gas and coal. The Governor, Senators and others were quick to point the finger at wind power stating it showed how dangerous it is to rely on alternate, renewable energy sources rather than good old reliable fossil fuels.

They have continued to tell this lie even after acknowledging that the wind production was at near full capacity and it was the freezing of natural gas pipelines and other components that was the main culprit. But even after that they went on national television and identified wind and solar as the problem. Fox News and others in the right wing media world have been more than happy to pick up that lie and broadcast it non-stop.
 
Building on that lie they continued on to one of their favorite boogey-men - AOC and the Green New Deal. This is a cautionary tale they warned of what awaits us all if we implement the Green New Deal. Wait, what? 

Did those radical socialists in Texas like Governor Abbott, Lt. Governor Patrick and Attorney General Paxton (Republicans all of course) implement the Green New Deal when nobody was looking? Did the Green New Deal get passed out of Congress and signed into law? Of course not. The Green New Deal is not law or policy in Texas or anywhere else. But it makes for a great rant for the right wing. Do they even teach critical thinking skills anymore? 

So the culprit isn't wind power. It's not AOC. It's not the Green New Deal. It is everything that the Texas legislature had already identified back in 2012 as the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of the Texas power system. As other have pointed out, it is working in this disaster exactly as designed.

So much for the GOP being the party of personal responsibility. Because they never seem to take any for their actions or lack thereof. 

This is just another example of how modern American conservatives are lousy at is governing. They don't believe in it. So the last thing they are interested in is having government show it can make life better for its citizens. It's difficult to be good at something you don't believe in. So call your incompetence and lack of delivering for your people "freedom" and hope that works on enough voters. 

Quick question though, can I use freedom to thaw out grandpa?

So apparently Private Citizen Trump's lawyers are bemoaning that this impeachment and trial amount to "Constitutional cancel culture".

To which I respond, "well, duh".

Isn't that the whole point of impeachment and conviction in the Senate? To remove someone from office, or determine they should no longer be allowed to hold public office? You know, in other words, using a Constitutional remedy to cancel someone from public life?

I guess the modern GOP believes they just need to trot out the phrase "cancel culture" in some accusatory tone and they've won the argument. Or at the least invoking the magic words will satisfy their base. Hearing the words "cancel culture" the GOP members and their followers can simply nod knowingly and suspend any further thought or analysis.

​Case, and minds, closed.

 I hesitate to write this since the most recent election is not even behind us yet. Between the petulance of Dear Leader and the Georgia Senate run offs, this is unfortunately not yet in our rear view mirror yet.

But assuming the obvious results are allowed to stand and a new administration takes office next January, it feels like this is at best a momentary reprieve. Storm clouds have been gathering for quite some time now showing American democracy under siege and hanging by a thread. I feel like we are entering a period, if not already there, where there will be a tyranny of the minority, where the will of the clear majority of people will be undermined and thwarted.

There are a number of factors leading to this and below are some thoughts on steps we should be taking to strengthen and preserve American democracy.

Electoral College

It should be abolished. The history of why we have it in the first place is wrapped up with one of our original sins - slavery. That, and the elites who were the Founding Fathers not really trusting the voting public with the decision of choosing a President. It has outlived any usefulness it may have ever had.

And now it serves as a destabilizing presence that undermines the faith of people in our system of government. We seem to be entering a period where one party can win the popular vote by millions and still "lose" the election. I fear this will become the norm rather than the exception. When it comes to the Electoral College - let it go.

But that requires a Constitutional amendment and will take time. Further in today's divisive political landscape where the current system so favors one party, it won't happen any time soon.

So in the mean time there may be some steps we can take to at least lessen the grip of the Electoral College. One idea would be to eliminate the "winner take all" system where the candidate who gets the most votes in a state is awarded all of the electoral votes. It might be better to award them proportionately based on the percentage of votes received by a candidate in that state.

Maine and Nebraska have something similar in that electoral votes are awarded by Congressional district with the person who took the most votes statewide getting the 2 votes associated with the Senate representation. However since so many state legislatures (looking at you GOP) have gerrymandered Congressional districts to their advantage, that would be a system ripe for abuse.

I think the best thing that can be done short term for the Electoral College can be found under Congressional reforms - namely expanding the House of Representatives.

Congress

Short term - expand the House of Representatives. The number of representatives was capped at 435 in 1929. Up to that point in American history the number of representatives had steadily increased as new states were admitted and as the population grew. Every ten years, following the census, the increase in the country's population was handled by adding more seats to the House.

Capping the House at 435 has meant that now, nearly a hundred years later, the number of people represented per district has nearly tripled in size. It also has meant that when it comes to Presidential elections the voters in rural states with low populations have a much greater influence per vote than voters in the larger, more urban states. Expanding the number of seats in the House would equalize the influence of small and large states.

Long-term - eliminate the Senate. Again this takes a Constitutional amendment. And it will likely never happen. But again the Senate is becoming a source of never ending friction threatening to tear the country apart. Not too long from now it is estimated that at least half the population will live in 8 states. This means in the Senate half the population will have 16 votes. The other half will have 84 votes. Again the Constitution is giving small, rural states an outsized influence over our politics and the government. 

There is no rational reason for the Senate to exist. Again its origins are in the compromises needed so that "small" states would feel comfortable joining a national, Federal government without feeling they would be overwhelmed by "large" states. And of course if we go back to the Constitutional Convention we realize that "small" and "large" were just the euphemisms they used in History class  for "slave-holding" and "non slave-holding" states. 

At best the Senate acts as a brake on the popular sentiment of the day. But at its worse, and with the demographic trends in this country related to geography, it is a prescription for gridlock and thwarting the will of the majority of American citizens. If we have to have a Senate, then let it be a largely ceremonial body akin to the House of Lords in Britain.

Courts

Expand them. At all levels of the Federal Judiciary, but including the Supreme Court for sure.

When the Supreme Court size was expanded from 7 to 9 members in 1869 it was because the number of Circuit Courts had expanded from 7 to 9. One Justice per Circuit seemed to be the formula. Currently we have 13 Circuit Courts. So at a minimum it would appear the Supreme Court should have 13 members.

This would correct a couple of things. Thanks to the Electoral College we have a Supreme Court whose members are way outside the mainstream of the majority of Americans.

Democrats have won 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections when looking at the popular vote. No party in American history has ever put together a streak like that before. Yet only 3 of the 9 current Justices were appointed by Democrats. Of the 6 Republican appointed Justices, 5 were appointed by Presidents who ascended to office while losing the popular vote. Expanding the Court would give an opportunity to have a Court that more closely resembles the American people, including in ideology.

The other positive asset of expanding the Court is that it makes each single seat less important. With the country and the Court so divided (until last month when now we have a clear 6-3 far right majority) any opening on the Court takes on heated significance. Presumably if a seat represented 1/13th of the Court rather than 1/9th each vacancy might not be so traumatic and divisive an event.

Voting and Elections

Let's face it, for a country that has been holding democratic elections for well over 200 years, we suck at it. For national elections we have a haphazard chaotic system. Mostly because we don't really have a national election. We have 51 of them. Each state and the District of Columbia has their own rules and timelines - when can you register to vote and how, when can you vote, how can you vote. No wonder people get confused and think something nefarious is going on. 

There is a definite need for some standardization and modernization of our electoral process. 

Some suggestions:

• Universal automatic voter registration
• Universal vote by mail allowed
• Election Day is a national holiday, or election day is spread out over a weekend
• Early voting allowed
• Paper ballots, or voting methods that require an audit trail and people being able to see the votes being registered for them
• Uniformity in the handling of mail in ballots and the compilation and certification of results

Finally, some standards as to redistricting of Congressional and state legislative seats to eliminate the extensive gerrymandering we have in so many states today is in order. In some states the gerrymandering is such that Republicans can hold on to power, sometimes by large margins, while receiving fewer votes than the Democratic candidates in the state over all.

None of the items above are magic bullets. They won't solve everything. And some will be easier to achieve than others. But if we want democracy to survive and thrive in this country, if we want to increase voter participation and trust in our elections and their results, then we have to make every effort to move forward on reforms of our government and our elections.

​

First an admission - I'm not on Facebook. Which most of the time I believe is a good thing. You see, my wife is on Facebook. Mostly it's to keep up with friends and family and see what they're up to.

But of course occasionally people in her feed post political items. And depending on the message it can send her over the edge. She has even responded, sometimes with my help, especially if she feels the statements being posted are based on ignorance or false premises.

Such was the case the other day. She was scrolling through her feed when she came across something one of her Facebook friends had posted. I purposely state "Facebook friend" because this person is definitely in the acquaintance category, not a close friend or someone we are in regular contact with. We are more like in friend of a friend of a friend territory here. 

Anyway the post was forwarding a statement that read "If you put any color in front of the phrase 'Lives Matter', you are a racist". As is often the case with these posts the initial item is not the worst part. No, the worst part usually comes in the comments that follow.

My wife spared herself looking through the comments. She muttered something about 'needing to stay off Facebook' and got out of the app.

​Obviously the post was a criticism directed at Black Lives Matter, and likely at those marching and protesting across the country for racial and social equality. It is a corollary to those who use "All Lives Matter" as a rejoinder, and nothing beyond that.

This did get me thinking however as to the mindset behind such posts. If I was on Facebook and inclined to respond to that post it would be something like what follows:

"I have to disagree. It would be wonderful if we lived in a country where we truly practiced 'Lives Matter', or 'All Lives Matter'. Unfortunately that is not the reality. It is not our current reality and in fact is contradicted by 400 years of American history. Instead our history too often has appeared to proclaim that 'Black Lives Don't Matter'.

 First there was slavery. Yes, eventually it was abolished, but we were one of the last countries to do that and one of the few, if not the only one, that had to fight a bloody war to get rid of slavery. 

This was followed by Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, sharecropping, etc. New ways had been found to keep black people 'in their place'. Those Jim Crow laws didn't just prevent black people from voting, or mandate separate rest rooms and water fountains. Those laws restricted the jobs that blacks could hold, the types of businesses they could own. The laws were intended to keep the blacks in the South under white control in all respects. If the laws themselves didn't keep them in line there was intimidation and violence to do the job.

When large number of blacks migrated to the North to escape Jim Crow laws they were greeted with more subtle ways to deprive them of equality. Redlining and other practices were put in place. This restricted blacks to certain neighborhoods and also prevented them in large part from home ownership and the creation of equity and wealth. Even the GI Bill provisions that were instrumental in lifting so many returning American servicemen and their families to the middle class were largely unavailable to blacks, even those who had served, fought and bled fighting fascism.

When the civil rights movement began to chip away at all of this and provide voting rights and protections to blacks throughout the country, there was still push back. Next up was the War on Drugs. The goals of the program may have been admirable. But the implementation of the policy was done in a way to disproportionately hit black Americans. Even though drug use among blacks and whites is roughly equal on a percentage basis, black Americans are much more likely to be arrested for a drug offense, more likely to be prosecuted, more likely to receive jail time. And if a white person and a black person are both imprisoned for the same drug offense, on average the black person will receive a longer sentence.

The result is we incarcerate more people per capita than any other country. And again we have found a way to keep black Americans in their place.

Then of course there is the apprehension and deaths of blacks at the hands of authorities for what for you and me would be minor offenses and minor episodes in our day. If we are pulled over for a broken tail light our biggest worry is whether we get off with a warning, or will we get a ticket? For a black person they need to worry if they will end up dragged out of the car, searched, arrested, or worse. 

So against this history, this backdrop, Black Lives Matter has risen. It is not to say 'Only Black Lives Matter', or 'Black Lives Matter More'. No rather it is a call to the founding of our country and the lofty ideals expressed in its cherished documents, to finally fulfill and extend that promise, and proclaim at long last 'Black Lives Matter Too'. 

Admittedly it can be difficult to find reasons for optimism these days. If, as Dear Leader has said, the fight against the coronavirus is a war, then we are getting our asses kicked. Of course it doesn't help that the commander in chief has completely surrendered the battlefield. Cases and deaths are on the rise, but Trump has already declared victory and moved on to the real problem facing America, defending memorials to treason and racism.

Against that backdrop my wife, elder son and I traveled from Connecticut to return him to his home in Cambridge. He had spent some of his accumulated vacation time to stay with us over the Fourth of July holiday. We have all tried to be diligent during the pandemic, wearing masks when going out, social distancing, only seeing other people we know have been careful. So we were hoping to make it from our home in the northwest corner of CT to Cambridge without stopping.

However we had left early in the morning. This meant everyone had their share of coffee and tea to help stay alert for the ride. So not stopping was never an option.

We pulled into the first rest stop we came to once we were on the Mass Turnpike. Our masks were at the ready, but we didn't know what to expect. Our son was more anxious. His roommate has some compromising issues so he has been especially careful.

We were pleasantly surprised at what we saw. There were some families seated outside at picnic tables who were eating and so obviously not wearing masks. But everyone else we saw, in the parking lot, in the rest stop, in the rest rooms, was wearing a mask and practicing social distancing.

Well, almost everyone. There was one exception. As we walked towards the entrance an older couple was leaving and heading to the parking lot. I'd say they were probably in their mid to late 70s. She was removing her mask and putting it away. He was not wearing one. However, he was wearing a red Trump 2020 hat. As we passed by my wife turned to our son and exclaimed loud enough for them to hear, "well that about says it all, doesn't it?"

Later on our way out of Cambridge we were waiting to cross a bridge as people walked or rode past on bicycles. As we looked at the mix of people we noticed a couple who were going through the crosswalk on their bicycles. They looked to be 80ish, riding their bikes wearing their helmets and yes, their masks. As my wife remarked, with all the nastiness and craziness going on now, she will choose to hold on to those images of the day. The near universal mask wearing at the rest stop and the cute elderly couple still out there riding their bicycles, masks and all. 

And yes we were in Massachusetts. And yes we have friends who have been to Florida and North Carolina who have told us that in those states wearing masks is  the exception not the rule. But for now we're holding on to the positive. 

​ 

It is amazing to me how quickly the media, and therefore the public, moves on from statements or actions of Donald Trump that would have been major scandals dominating the news for weeks in any previous time of American history.

Yes, I know some of the reason for this is that there are often multiple occurrence of such items in a single day. Certainly there is a fresh outrage by the next day. In that environment it is difficult for any one controversy taking root in the media and the public.

Still it seems that when issues resurface or new items tangential to past matters come up, the media seems unable to draw any parallels or refer back to the earlier incident. Basic obvious questions go unasked. Now I realize since we no longer have daily press briefings as we transition from a functioning democracy towards an authoritarian dictatorship there may be some excuse for this. But in those little "walk by" press opportunities as the President walks to his helicopter on his way to yet another round of golf you would think someone would manage to work in one of these questions. 

So as a public service here is a preliminary list of inquiries I wish our press would use. Someone should ask them, just saying.

• Mr President, during the campaign you stated you had no dealings with Russia, no business interests. Yet people in your campaign have admitted, and it came out in the Mueller report, that during the 2016 campaign you were actively pursuing building a hotel in Moscow, a project requiring Putin's permission. Why did you lie about having no business interests in Russia?

• Mr. President, you stood on Air Force One and told the reporters you had no knowledge of any hush payments to Stormy Daniels the porn star. Yet there are tapes showing you discussing the payments with your then attorney. And now recently we have learned that the day after the Access Hollywood tapes came out you were involved in a series of conversations with your attorney and your communications director discussing those payments. Why did you lie to the reporters on Air Force One and therefore the American people?

• Mr. President, you keep saying that if you successfully strike down Obamacare in the courts it won't matter because you can quickly and easily protect people with pre-existing conditions who are protected currently under Obamacare. However every replacement proposal offered by Republicans and supported by you to replace Obamacare would allow insurance companies to either charge people with pre-existing conditions dramatically higher rates than they pay under Obamacare, or would allow the insurance companies to exclude the pre-existing condition from their coverage. How is this taking care of people with pre-existing conditions?

​

• Mr. President, you have stated repeatedly that the four Congresswomen you have been attacking have talked about "evil Jews". Nobody has been able to find any video or any writing where that has occurred. Can you tell us when or where any of the four spoke about "evil Jews"?

This is a very preliminary list based on news items from recent weeks. I'm sure there are many and will be many more. Hell, this could be an ongoing series. What questions do you believe the media should be asking Dear Leader?

 So there I was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper (so now you know I'm really old), when something caught my eye in the pile of the day's mail. I noticed a fairly drab large white envelope. It was addressed to me. But what really caught my eye was the name in the upper left where the return address would normally be. 

George Soros.

My heart skipped a beat. At last, it was finally here. This must be my check from George Soros.

After all my wife and I had earned it. We went to the Hartford, CT Women's March in January of 2017. We attended one of the local March for Our Lives events against gun violence in the wake of the Parkland, FL shootings.

And those events were in January and March respectively. Not the warmest time of year in New England. We had done on our part.

I knew from reading the internet sites of true Patriots and listening to the voices of real Americans that all the millions of people who showed up to protest Trump and the NRA were not sincere. Well at the least they were not marching out of purely altruistic motivations.

No, we were being paid to be there. Paid to embarrass Dear Leader. 

I don't know what the payout was for the Women's March, but I had read that the going rate for the March for Our Lives was $300. Sure the killjoy realists at snopes had debunked that claim, but a guy can dream can't he?

​ So I eagerly tore into the envelope to get my prize for all my sacrifice and good work. I tried to anticipate what the amount might be. If the March for Our Lives rate was $300 then I figured the Women's March was likely to be around $231 as a Women's March would probably only earn 77% of a real march.

But then I wondered if there was a sliding scale depending on which venue of the marches you attended. Maybe the $300 for the March for Our Lives was for the DC rally. Or other major cities. What would you get if you attended a rally in a small town like Kent, CT? $50? Gas money? A food allowance?

Same for the Women's March. Maybe top dollar was only for people at the big rallies - the main one in DC. The other large rallies in New York, Boston, LA, etc. Sure the rally in Hartford, CT attracted 10,000 people, not too shabby for the area. But would Soros pay the full going price for the smaller sites? I was about to find out.

Imagine my shock and dismay when I discovered no check inside. Not even a thank you note for getting off my ass in the dead of winter to protest on behalf of the causes Mr. Soros supposedly holds so dear. It wasn't quite as bad as being enrolled in the Jelly of the Month club as a Christmas bonus. Hold it, yes it was; at least Clark Griswold was getting something!

Rather there was a letter from Soros which began "Dear Friend..." Friend? Where's the money, pal?

This was a questionnaire and fund drive for a group called Drug Policy Alliance. It decried the evil and waste that has been our country's War on Drugs. Just fill out the questionnaire and send along a donation to help their efforts to change drug laws and stop the senseless war on drugs. Hey as worthy as that goal might be, didn't Soros owe me something first for my past efforts before I should be doing more of his bidding?

No $300 for March for Our Lives. No $231 for the Women's March. Not even a sliding scale amount for participating in smaller, local marches.

​I felt betrayed. I marched. I showed up. What was in it for me? Apparently I had done it all for nothing.

Or maybe, and you'll find this hard to believe, I know I did when the thought first crossed my mind. Maybe Trump and all those other right wingers had lied all along. Maybe all the millions of people taking to the street hadn't been paid after all. Maybe like me they were concerned citizens marching out of a sense of duty and expecting nothing material in return.

Maybe our only wish was for a better, brighter country. And maybe we don't need to be paid by George Soros or anyone else to believe in that goal and take action to achieve it.

​Just a thought. 

​

Okay, given results from the 2018 midterms, albeit with a few close races still potentially not decided at this moment, here are my predictions of what to expect over the next 2 years.

• GOP members of the House of Representatives will rediscover suddenly that deficits are bad
• Beltway pundits will warn House Democrats not to "overplay their hand" in holding hearings and investigations, or otherwise providing what used to be considered Constitutional check and balances and oversight of arguably the most corrupt Administration in American history
• Addendum to above: media will focus on optics and who is being helped or hurt by Democratic oversight and largely ignore the scandals or issues that are the subject of the oversight; Hint: they will always opine it's hurting the Democrats; bonus points if they can use the word "disarray"; I'd turn this into a drinking game but it would put people into a coma
• The media will begin focusing largely on 2020 politics and ignore issues
• The sorry state of American democracy - gerrymandering, voter suppression, long lines in largely minority areas, malfunctioning machines, machines vulnerable to manipulation and hacking, will be ignored by the media, or will only be viewed within the framework of tactics, not of what it means to a functioning democracy, or I know, a "representative republic"
• Paul Ryan will make more Sunday morning news show appearances than Nancy Pelosi
• Mitt Romney and Bernie Sanders will be regulars on said Sunday morning shows, bashing of Democrats encouraged
• Whenever Hillary Clinton speaks out on an issue, people, especially pundits, will wonder why she doesn't just go away
• People we will seldom, if ever, see on Sunday morning news shows: Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Maxine Waters
• Nancy Pelosi will be lectured and chastised for not doing more to "reach across the aisle" and work with Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump to "get something done"; this criticism will be unidirectional
• The Beltway media will not take Trump to task for threatening to investigate House Dems for, you know, doing their jobs
• There will be several more caravans of desperate asylum seekers from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who will make their way towards the United States; we will not hear about them, or even the current one, ever again until the final months of the 2020 election; at that time the media will use the word "crisis" to describe the situation
• Water will continue to invade Florida's coast and streets; in response Marco Rubio will tweet Bible verses and Rick Scott will ask "What climate change? We've always had high tides and water"
• Indictments will be handed down against even more people from Trump's campaign and administration; in response crowds at his rallies will chant "lock her up" at the mention of the following names: Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters, because you know, something or other;  all while holding signs that read "Drain the Swamp"
• Crimes against synagogues, mosques, Muslims and Jews will increase; the media will suggest House Dems cool it with the rhetoric and return to civility
• Nobody, except the media and Fox News, will pretend Donald Trump even has a day job

Feel free to add your own predictions.

Random thoughts about yet another example of how awful the state of the union currently is.

Re: the FBI "investigation" and the issue of it somehow clearing Judge Kavanaugh: it's easy to not find what you don't look for.

So the FBI talked to something like 5 or 7 additional people as a response to the testimony the previous week from Dr. Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh. They did not interview Dr. Blasey Ford. They did not re-interview Judge Kavanaugh about these allegations which were not known nor part of the initial background check.

They did interview the second woman who accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, Deborah Ramirez. However they did not contact nor interview the people whose names were provided to them by Ms. Ramirez as being able to corroborate parts of her account. They did not contact nor interview the people whose names were supplied by Dr. Blasey Ford as corroborating witnesses. Even when people on those lists contacted the FBI directly or wrote in an attempt to provide their testimony, they were never contacted, never interviewed and their accounts are not part of the report.

Former classmates of Judge Kavanaugh who attempted to contact the FBI to describe how Judge Kavanaugh perjured himself, or was at best very misleading, in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee were likewise ignored. There was no investigation into Judge Kavanaugh's assertion, made under oath, that the first he heard about the Ramirez allegation was when it was published in The New Yorker in late September, even though records show he and members of his team were texting friends and acquaintances to try to get them to coordinate stories to discredit her account as early as July. None of that was investigated or included in the report.

Yet conservative news outlets and Republicans are proclaiming loudly that the report exonerates Judge Kavanaugh. The "concerned" Senators such as Jeff Flake of Arizona or Susan Collins of Maine have been given just a big enough fig leaf to cover themselves publicly and state they are satisfied with the thoroughness of the investigation. And since (surprise and shock!) there is no corroborating evidence to be found in the report, it's on to the voting on the nomination.

In normal times the red flags and issues around Judge Kavanaugh would have caused the nomination to be pulled no matter which party was in the White House and which party controlled the Senate. Even before the sexual assault allegations there have been questions and evidence around Judge Kavanaugh's temperament, hyper partisanship, potential perjury before Congress in 2006 when nominated for the appellate court seat he currently holds, and questions around his personal finances and how he quickly paid off staggering debt on a Judge's salary that also went uninvestigated. 

​But these aren't normal times. 

After all, it's not like this is the only conservative judge out there who would largely vote with the other conservative members of the Court to overturn or weaken Roe v Wade, to enhance corporate power and weaken unions and the government or anything that might possibly check or restrain corporate power.

But I think they stuck with Judge Kavanaugh for two reasons. One, he was Trump's guy, presumably because of his conversion to the opinion that not only can a sitting President not be indicted for a crime, he or she can't even be investigated for a crime while in office. Judge Kavanaugh came to that opinion later in life since he worked in the special counsel office under Ken Starr and certainly believed President Clinton could be investigated and subpoenaed for all sorts of activities. But hey, people grow, you know?

And I think the second reason is just power. Trump likes to win. And the GOP wants to get his nominee in whether they feel privately it was a good choice or not. To them at this point I don't think it matters. They want to get Kavanaugh confirmed because he is "their" nominee. The impact on the integrity of the Court crosses very few minds.

And so here we are. Mocking women who come forward with reports of sexual assault, putting on a sham investigation to show "we listened, we tried" for those still pretending to have standards for the Court, and locking in a far right partisan majority on the Court that will not have the trust or confidence of a vast majority of Americans. 

Meanwhile an article hit the news just a couple of days ago showing the President has been committing major tax fraud, etc for decades, and it has already disappeared from the news cycles.

And the media, such as Chuck Todd, continue to blame both sides for the tribalism of our politics.

​America 2018.