2018, the year the sky turned green

When I was in law school, we were presented a series of lectures by Prof. Irving Younger on trial technique.  In one of the lectures, Prof. Younger emphasized that you could get a jury to believe just about anything, as long as you kept repeating it, and repeating it more and more forcefully.  To paraphrase, you should look the jury straight in the eye and announce the sky is green.  After they all laugh at you, look them straight in the eye, pound your fist on the lectern and yell that the sky is green.  Half will still be laughing, but half will now be looking out the window.  At this point, bulge out your eyes if you can, while you jump up and down, pound both fists on the lectern and scream as loud as you can that the sky is green.  From this point on, you will never again be able to convince the members of that jury that the sky is blue.

As 2018 comes to an end, I just looked out the window.

For much of America, the sky is green.

We have lived through yet another series of mindless shootings where our friends and neighbors were killed while worshiping, relaxing at a nightclub or simply were gunned down attending school, and our so called leaders tell us that the only way to stop this carnage is to put more guns on the streets, rather than keep them out of the hands of those who mean us harm.

We are told that social security and medicaid are going bankrupt.  Rather than solve the problems by returning funds plundered from the social security trust fund or by raising the threshold on social security payments throughout the year so that the super rich pay the same percentage of their income as the rest of us, we are told by those same so called leaders that the only way to save the solvency of social security and medicaid is by cutting the benefits paid to recipients after a lifetime of contributions made under the promise of payments in our golden years.

We are told that there is no right to clean water, clean air, clean energy, all so that a few corporations can make a few more bucks than they already do.

We are also told that there is no right to medical care, but there is a right to go bankrupt if one has the misfortune of getting sick.  Do not tell me it is the fault of ones who do not have medical coverage.  I know plenty of people who have medical coverage who now owe plenty of money to medical care providers simply because their medical insurance decided not to pay the bills their contract certainly seemed to imply were covered under their policy.  Do not tell me this is the fault of the prior administration.  The present administration and their enablers in Congress, once again, our so called leaders, have now spent the better part of two years trying desperately to tear down what protections were available under Obamacare without offering anything in its place, but repeated statements that they had a much better plan, a plan they never bothered to let us in on the specifics.

The sky is green.

We are told that trade wars are our best friend and are easy to win.  So the price of consumer products go up and our farmers are starving because they now have no market for their crops.  And our so called leader's solution is to spend billions of our dollars to bail out the farmers who would not have needed any government largess if not for the decision of our so called leader to impose tariffs unilaterally, not just against our international rivals and competitors, but against our friends as well.

Our so called leaders tell us that they are the party of family values.  At the same time, they separate children, including toddlers and infants, from their parents as those parents try to enter this country in search of the same thing our parents and grandparents came here for -- a better life for their family.  They separate these innocent children from their parents with no plan on how or where to reunite them in the future.  Then they make conditions the children -- and their parents for that matter -- are kept under that are so barbaric that simply calling the conditions barbaric actually manages to soft sell and cheapen the term.  And then these so called leaders tell us the families deserved this because they did not come here legally, ignoring the fact that the right to seek asylum has been ingrained in the laws and the very fabric of this country and humanity -- at least until the last year or so.

We are pulling out of alliances that have protected the world from mass conflagration for over seventy years.  Our European allies say they can no longer count on us to be the protector of the free world.  Our so called leader gets laughed at out loud while speaking at the General Assembly of the United Nations.  We make excuses for foreign terrorist countries murdering our own in an embassy.  We abandon an entire region just to fulfill a misguided campaign promise.  And our so called leaders tell us we have never been respected as much by foreign countries than we are now.

The sky is deep green.

When the stock market goes up, we are told it is entirely his doing.  When it then tanks, it is entirely the fault of career bankers and captains of industry who do not understand economics the way he does.

I did not sleep with any of those women.  They were all lying.  They were not paid for their silence.  I did not pay them for their silence.  If they were paid off, it was not by me and I knew nothing about it.  Well maybe I knew a little about it.  Okay, I paid them off, but it was not to influence an election.  Besides, it was a private transaction that should be none of anyone else's business.

I will nominate only the best and brightest.  Or at least the best and brightest that are willing to kiss my ass, fall on their swords so I don't have to and have the resources to downplay their corruption, their sexual misconduct, their frauds, their illegal and unethical business practices and their morals.

Deep, deep green.

And now we are faced with a shutdown of government functions all to fund a wall that is unnecessary and immoral.  Our so called leaders tell us it is better to shut down basic, vital government functions, while forcing the rank and file government workers to show up and work anyway while not getting paid.  He publicly states that he will be the one to impose a shutdown and he will be the one to take all the blame.  And once the shutdown he singlehandedly started and said he would take on all responsibility for actually commences, he blames everybody else.

I just looked out the window again.  We are closing in on the end of 2018 and the beginning of the new year.  I am searching for blue in the sky.

I am not sure I will see it.

vote

There is no perfect candidate.

There is no perfect cause.

If you are waiting for either before you head to the polls, you will never vote.

And that is why he is president today.

Two years ago, we were given an imperfect choice.  After a bruising primary, too many were left feeling left out by a system that they believed was rigged to coronate Hilary Clinton as the nominee on the left.  Bernie supporters, mortified by Hilary, and perhaps simply not ready to support anyone but Bernie, stayed home.  Hilary was too much like Bill.  Bill represented an old order they no longer believed in.  Hilary represented a sense of self-entitlement.  Hilary was in the eyes of many, a throw back to the back rooms of yore and corrupt beyond redemption. 

I did not believe this.  I did not believe she was a good candidate either, and would have preferred another nominee from the left. But Hilary is what we got.  And Hilary is who I voted for.

But many told me they could not in good conscience vote for her, regardless of him.

To be sure, they could not vote for him either.  They saw in him what we all see in him to this day.

But they could not vote for her.

While they campaigned against him and everything he stood for and stands for to this day, they still could not pull the lever for her.

So they voted for Johnson.  Or wrote in Biden.  Or Bernie.  Or Mickey Mouse.

Or worse, they stayed home.

And every one of those votes was a vote for him, because they were not a vote against him.

Even the ones who stayed home.

All because she was not the perfect candidate.

There is no perfect candidate.

On Tuesday, there is no perfect candidate.

But there is a way to make sure we do not make the same mistake.

By not voting in 2016, by voting a symbolic gesture of defiance, we were, in effect, voting for him, and we ended up with him.

And as a result, we ended up with:

A government that cares more for billionaires and multinational corporations than for the rest of us, and so they "reformed" the tax system on the backs of the rest of us to the big boys' benefit.

A government in which the ends justify the means, in which winning, whatever that means, takes precedence over doing what is right.

A government that does not believe in climate change, and will let us all die rather than address it, even those billionaires, just so that they do not have to make the hard choices to save the planet.

A government that thinks nothing of separating children from their families just because they don't look like us, and they don't sound like us.

A government that does not believe that health care is a fundamental right of all people.

A government that does not believe that voting is a fundamental right of all people, especially if they think some of those people are going to vote against them.

A government that thinks it can define away the very existence of a chunk of society that is larger than they think simply due to an outmoded form of bigotry and a colossal show of ignorance.

A government that thinks they have the right to tell you what to do with your own body if you are a woman.

A government that thinks they have the right to tell you who you are entitled to fall in love with and marry.

A government in which it is okay to assault women because it's just boys being boys.

A government in which people who seek to stand up for their rights and the rights of others are arrested, threatened with arrest or vilified in terms we used to send children to detention for if they dared say in school.

A government in which science and intellectual reasoning are either ignored or considered a weakness.

A government in which autocrats, fascists, madmen and tyrants are held in higher esteem than our oldest and most trusted allies.

A government that thinks there are many fine people among nazis or members of the ku klux klan.

A government that believes that a free press, the very bedrock of our Constitution, is the enemy of the people.

A government that allows people to be shot while attending a music festival, children to be shot over and over again while attending school, people to be shot while praying, all so gun manufacturers can make more money.

Look at this list.  This is what you voted for last time, or what you might vote for again, all because there is no perfect candidate.

Look at the list.

There is no perfect candidate.

There is no perfect cause.

There is what you believe in, and what direction you believe the country should take.  If you vote, you can influence in your way, the only way the Constitution gives you, the direction we go in.  If you do not vote because there is no perfect candidate or perfect cause, you will have once again voted for him, and you will have gotten what you deserve.

Look at that list and think of other items that could also be on that list.

There is no perfect candidate.

But each of us can be that perfect citizen.

VOTE.  VOTE. VOTE.

Top Ten Worst Persons in the World -- U.S. Political Version

Top Ten Worst Persons in the World -- U.S. Political Version

I used the watch the Keith Olberman show on MSNBC, primarily because he would end each day with a bit listing of the three worst persons in the world for that day.  As we head into midterm election day, inspired by Mr. Olberman, I offer my top ten worst people in the world, U.S. political version, although you may believe these are the bottom ten in a world of bottom feeders.

I note that others will obviously have their own list.  You will note there are no democrats on this list.  There are certainly any number of awful people in the world and in this country who are liberal/democrats in nature and who under ordinary circumstances would certainly merit a mention on this list.  I am sure you would include any number of them on your own list; however, this is my list, and this year, the political right has emerged as the dominant horror.  Given their never ending thirst for victory over anything else, I imagine the GOP will be proud to have achieved a shut out on this list.  

Honorable mentions herein include Paul Ryan, who appears to have at least some instincts for decency, which may explain why he is giving up his post as Speaker of the House without trying to get re-elected.  Mr. Ryan was originally on this list due to his constantly bowing to the worst instincts of this administration simply to get "conservative" legislation, judges, etc. he wanted, but was kicked off at the last moment upon sober reflection, to the extent that anything I may do is sober.  He may yet find his way here in the future.

Kelly Anne Conway is also not on this list.  Ms. Conway certainly merits some attention as the person who first explained some of cadet bone spurs whoppers by calling them "alternative facts".  She was also a last minute deletion; however, due to the fact that even though she appears before the public often on behalf of this administration, and lies about every fifteen seconds when she does, she has been supplanted by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is the one sent out there for cover most often, and she does so willingly and must know that she is covering whoppers with bigger whoppers.  There are only so many public spokespersons/press secretaries you can include herein.

Also not included is Brett Kavanaugh.  While his performance at his confirmation hearing was truly awful, and I personally believe he lied right and left about just about everything, including the allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford, at the moment, he has not yet authored or joined in on any truly awful decision at the Supreme Court.  Yes, I personally believe Dr. Ford, and even though what was alleged occurred more than thirty-six years ago, the judge should have expressed at least a morsel of sympathy for Dr. Ford instead of sneering at everyone to the left of him and swearing revenge on them.  Give him time.  I do believe he will graduate to this list next year.

Finally, not on this list is cadet bone spurs himself, whose inclusion would otherwise instantly retire lists of this type all over the world.  I had to be fair to everybody else; therefore, he is not on this list.  Neither is any member of his family or vice-president bone spurs, who apparently needs to be reminded that in the search for a rabbi to give an invocation at a memorial for murdered Jews, it would be nice to find somebody who has not been defrocked and is actually, well... Jewish.

The preliminaries out of the way, in reverse order, the ten worst persons in the world, U. S. political version are:

10.  SUSAN COLLINS -- From the moment she announced along with Jeff Flake and Joe Manchin that she wanted an investigation into Brett Kavanaugh before voting to confirm, it was obvious to anyone who has ever followed her career that Senator Collins was simply using the "investigation" for cover.  We all knew she was going to vote to confirm, just as we all knew she was going to vote for the disaster of a tax reform bill that is now sinking the future for our children.  Senator Collins pretends to be a moderate; however, time after time after time she votes right alongside the worst of the worst for the worst of the worst.  Nobody should ever look to her for moderation about anything again.

9.  RYAN ZINCKE -- You may as well call this the cadet bone spurs cabinet representative on the list.  If Scott Pruitt were still around, he would win this one hands down.  Mr. Zincke, however, is the present subject of more investigations than a Sherlock Holmes novel.  From a Mediterranean holiday at tax payer expense, to pay for play with his cronies, to opening up the national parks to oil and mineral drilling, to subverting the resources of this country for personal and political gain.  This list goes on.  Congrats Ryan. 

8.  DUNCAN HUNTER --  This one falls under the category of politicians under indictment or criminal investigation who are running for re-election.  We could not include them all.  To do so would fill up volumes of White Fluffy Duckies, which I am sure chills everyone to the bone.  So here we are with Duncan Hunter.  We are all used to seeing politicians get into trouble when they look out for number one before serving their constituency; however, this guy takes the cake.  Using campaign funds, for among other items, to buy an airline seat for a pet rabbit gets him into the idiots' hall of fame, and then blaming it all on his wife is enough in and of itself to get Mr. Hunter on his list.  We won't even get into the fact that the funds were also used to fund affairs with multiple mistresses.  Amazingly, he appears to have a real good chance of being re-elected, primarily based upon the emphasis of his campaign upon the fact that his opponent is part Hispanic, part Arabic; therefore, he is obviously a terrorist in the caravan struggling to reach our southern border, if they ever do.

7.  SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS --  As noted above, this could have been any one of the minions trotted out by cadet bone spurs to defend the indefensible.  Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as press secretary, however, is the face of the administration above and beyond his orangeness.  Sooooo...  Largest crowd size ever....  We won!  We won!...  E-mails!  Benghazi!...  Fake media...  Words matter, well, except for his...  You get the point.

6.  TED CRUZ --  He had to be on this list somewhere.  His personality is odious.  He may be the most disliked person in the country, even among his colleagues and his constituents.  His most recent piece of brilliance was to suggest that his opponent in the present election funded the Honduran caravan.  How he keeps getting re-elected and how he is leading in the polls in the current campaign is beyond my comprehension.  Perhaps we should pause for a moment in looking at what may be in the water in Flint, Michigan and see what the good folks in Texas -- and there are truly great people in Texas -- have been ingesting.  I will say this much, however.  The fact that Mr. Cruz was the last one considered to be the reasonable alternative to cadet bone spurs in the 2016 republican primary tells you just how awful the G.O.P. candidates were.

5.  BRIAN KEMP -- He is the Secretary of State of Georgia and is running for governor.  He is badly behind in legitimate polling, so he is doing what any right minded losing candidate who happens to be the secretary of state would be doing -- purging voters from the rolls who are likely to vote against him.  He is the one who is in charge of ensuring the integrity of the election in Georgia, but does not seem to think that his being a candidate for governor creates at least an appearance of a conflict of interest, all while he merrily rids himself of voters who will oppose him.  On top of everything else, he has walked out on the final scheduled debate with his opponent so that he can appear instead at a campaign rally with cadet bone spurs, showing the world he is Making America Great Again..

4.  LINDSAY GRAHAM -- This is the saddest of the persons on the list as far as I am concerned.  Were it not for the outright awfulness of the next three, this year he may have been the winner.  I used to believe that Senator Graham had a reasonably good sense of integrity that would prevent him from sinking into the muck along with everybody else.  He appeared to be willing to actually govern rather than participate in the perpetual campaign.  No more.  His sneering performance at the Kavanaugh hearing dispelled that notion forever.  During the 2016 presidential campaign, he correctly noted that a cadet bone spurs presidency would be an unmitigated disaster.  Now, he kisses the ass of the idiot in chief at every opportunity.  Just this week, when cadet bone spurs announced he was going to do away with birthright citizenship by executive order, something we all, including Senator Graham, know is unconstitutional, he immediately announced that he would introduce legislation to outlaw birthright citizenship, which he also knows is unconstitutional.  One wonders if cadet bone spurs has incriminating photographs of Senator Graham.

3.  SEAN HANNITY -- Clearly, the Fox Cheerleading Network had to be represented on this list.  Clearly, they are mostly non-journalists, which allows them to be on a list of the worst politicians.  I had to pick one, however, and while there was close competition from the likes of Jeannine Pirro and Lou Dobbs, in this instance, I will go with the guy who argued that even though he hosts a prime time show on a network that claims to be a news network, he has no obligation to tell the truth or be fair and balanced, as the network claims to be because his show is not a newscast or is even attempting to report the news.  It apparently is entertainment, at least to somebody out there.  In the long run, Mr. Hannity gets the honor here, as there apparently is nothing that cadet bone spurs can do that Mr. Hannity does not believe is pure genius, regardless of how blatantly wrong or even illegal it may be, and there is nothing anyone can say in response to his master that Mr. Hannity cannot attack in vile terms.  He appears to be the go to guy to figure out excuses for his excesses.  I am, however, impressed that he somehow managed to be one of only two other persons on the entire planet who hired Michael Cohen to represent him, although after Mr. Cohen was flipped by the feds, he apparently only hired him for about ten minutes on a very minor matter.

2.  STEVEN KING -- Were it not for the next guy on the list, this genius would be the hands down winner.  I will never watch reruns of "The Love Boat" again.  From fraternizing with Nazis to fear mongering Hispanics, gays, and anyone else who is not lily white, to savaging Native Americans, many of whom happen to be his constituents, and then blaming it all, as he did recently, upon the "fake media", well....  do we need to go any further?

1.  MITCH McCONNELL --  It takes a whole lot of chutzpah to spend eight years outright telling everybody in sight that your job is, first, to make sure President Obama did not get re-elected, then when that failed, blocking every proposal made by the Obama administration, and then turning around and complaining that the democrats were not interested in governing.  Senator McConnell spent eight years doing everything he could to bring down an administration short of calling a sitting president "Boy".  I will hand this much to this guy.  He certainly knows how to game the system just so that his side can "win", whatever that means.  Don't have enough votes to pass your tax plans?  No problem.  Change the rules so you need less votes to win.  Don't have enough votes to confirm a thoroughly awful judicial candidate or cabinet nominee?  No problem.  Change the rules so you need less votes to win.  Hearings?  Investigations?  Huh?  Well, maybe if you are investigating a guy who has not been president for twenty years and his wife, who is not running for anything at the moment.  Perhaps the worst part of this is the fact that this guy knew what was coming, had the power to stop or at least reign in the worst impulses of cadet bone spurs, but chose not to either in the name of "winning" or due to the fact that his wife is a member of the cabinet.

Clearly, I have left some gems out.  As noted at the outset, cadet bone spurs is not on this list, as he is in a class by himself.  I will brook dissent and additional names for consideration.  Feel free to include me on the list as well.  I may not be a politician; however, I am certainly one of the worst persons in the world.

thoughts on judge kavanaugh

I have been having a great deal of difficulty figuring out whether or not to say something here about  Brett Kavanaugh.  I actually wrote a post about a week ago on the subject, but then did not publish it.  It is being written over and deleted while I type this.

I have come at this from a number of angles, not the least of which is I was not there.  I did not see anything.  I did not hear anything.  Nobody who was there at the time has told me anything about the incident over the past thirty-six years.  I have no basis for any kind of a belief about this one particular incident whatsoever.

Then I saw portions of the hearing this past Thursday.  Based upon the testimony, while I suspect Dr. Blasey is telling the truth, I have come to another realization, or rather had it confirmed for me by watching Judge Kavanaugh's performance.  This realization is based upon the fact that for the past thirty-six years I have made a living as a trial attorney.  While the decisions of judges effect people every day, even if they do not realize it directly, as a trial attorney, not only am I affected by a decision that corporations are people, that maybe I do not have as much of a right to privacy as I thought the constitution granted me, or that friends and members of my family may not be fully protected by that constitution and the laws of this country because of who they choose to love, but I am directly effected by the person sitting at the bench every time I go into court to practice my profession.

There are thousands of Judge Kavanaughs sitting on the bench all over the country.  Those of us practicing know any number of them.  They are the ones that we roll our eyes over each time they are assigned to our cases.  They include:

1.  The judge who sat in Manhattan for several years on the trial bench in spite of the fact that the judge's ability to speak or understand English was so very tenuous that an interpreter was in the courtroom or in chambers for all conferences so the judge could understand what was being said in the court's presence.  Frankly, even a translator did not help getting decisions that made sense.

2.  The judge who sat in Queens who took the bench and asked how I was doing that day, and then kicked me out of the courtroom when I said I was leaving for vacation the next day, so how bad could it be?  Before kicking me out, I was subjected to a long diatribe about how he did not get to take a vacation.

3.  Another judge who sat in Queens years ago who would let you know that you were about to have an adverse ruling during oral argument by sticking pencils up his nostrils and staring at you with the pencils hanging there while you finished making your point.

4.  The judge who sat in the Bronx and then in Brooklyn, who refused to help settle a case on trial in front of him, telling us to work it out ourselves, and then who on motion days seemed more intent on berating every single attorney in front of him over anything he could think of, rather than discuss the merits of any given application in front of him.

There are any number of other judges out there, but you get the point.  Some people may be brilliant, but they are not cut out to be judges.  They are in turn, condescending, rude, smug, know it all or just plain nasty.  Those of us who have practiced for a while and who have risen to a certain level in the profession and within the firms we have worked at have figured out how to send young associates to court in our place on days when we are supposed to be in court in front of one of those judges.  There were any number of ways to get round the nasty or just downright incompetent judges.

But we cannot get around a justice on the United States Supreme Court.

And putting aside how he is going to rule on any particular issue before him, I ask my fellow attorneys:

After watching his sneering performance before the Judiciary Committee, his blaming everyone in sight and few who were not, basically everyone except himself, his blatant disdain for anyone even an inch politically to his left, the downright anger, the hedging answers on simple questions we all knew the answers to, and finally, the completely bald statement that he is going to take this out on anyone he thinks is his enemy once he is on the bench, as if the bench in any court, let alone SCOTUS, is a place to exact revenge, is this the kind of person you want to practice law in front of?  Is this the person you would trust to render a fair and impartial decision?  I am, as those who know me well, an unashamed liberal.  I have no confidence at all if I were to be in front of a Justice Kavanaugh that I, and more importantly, my client would be treated fairly by him if he even suspected I am a liberal.

And while it is highly unlikely that I would ever appear before a Justice Kavanaugh, especially considering that I am now semi-retired, and about to be completely retired shortly, and it is further unlikely that Justice Kavanaugh would know my political leanings were I in front of him, consider this:

He certainly is going to know that a litigant in front of him is a woman seeking justice after having been subjected to sexual harassment or abuse.

He certainly is going to know if a litigant is a person seeking protection afforded under the Constitution fleeing the certainty of persecution and perhaps death in his/her homeland and asylum in this country.  He certainly is going to know at least something about that litigant if they have an Hispanic or Arabic sounding name.

He certainly is going to know that a litigant before him is not a "traditional" heterosexual if the case before him seeks the right of that person to marry a person of the same sex.

By the same token, he certainly is likely to know from looking at the record before him that a litigant before him is a rich male child from old money who has led a sheltered and pampered life, going to all the finest schools, and having just about everything handed to him in life -- you know, just like him.

So I ask this further question of my fellow attorneys, and now everybody else:

Consider the above and any number of examples you can come up with as well.  Look at the expression on his face in any number of photographs from the hearing.  Listen to his tone of voice and his chosen words themselves in response to questions he did not want to answer.  Consider the temperament he displayed at the hearing, and then ask yourself:

Would you want this guy on the bench of the United States Supreme Court deciding any of these cases if you were the attorney or one of the litigants?

greatness

Andrew Cuomo recently got into a kerfuffle with the president over Mr. Cuomo's speech noting that America was never all that great in that women were treated and have been treated as second class to males throughout our history.  Of course, cadet bone spurs got into a lather over the perceived stupidity of any statement that America can be anything but great at all times and in all things.

I am not a fan of Andrew Cuomo's especially considering his treatment of teachers in New York, which led me to vote for somebody else in the last gubernatorial election there.  I know he is considering running for president, and while I am not sure I would vote for him based upon his treatment of teachers, such as my wife and many other friends and family, I would certainly vote for him if he was running against the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Then again, I would probably vote for just about anyone or anything against that guy, including Zippy the Chimp, whom I remain proud to say I once actually represented in court during my illustrious legal career.  In the mean time, Mr. Cuomo has given fodder to the far right for the upcoming election cycle, should he actually run.  I can already see the attack ads touting Cuomo as saying America was never really all that great, and leaving out the context of the statement.

Which brought me to thinking...

Is this country great, and has it ever really been all that great?

As with many things, the answer is complicated.

Certainly, there have been many instances in the course of our still relatively brief history when this country was not all that great.  While there are still a few pockets here and there around the country that may disagree, I think we can generally agree upon the fact that slavery was not all that great.  Internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two was not all that great, as was the turning away of the MS St. Louis with hundreds of Jews seeking refuge from the Nazis, only to be sent back to Germany where many of them were killed in the Holocaust.  We continue this lack of greatness today in turning a blind eye to refugees fleeing oppressive regimes in Syria and Iran, as well as gang violence in Central America, primarily it seems because they don't look or talk like us.  Finally, our treatment of the LBGTQ community is shameful and certainly detracts from any thoughts that this is a perfectly great nation.

But this is a great nation.

I would daresay that just about everyone reading this agrees that America is a great nation, and may very well be the greatest nation on earth.

We just aren't great all the time.  Why?  I think the answer to that may is something that is simple, but difficult.

To be great, you cannot just beat your chest, say you are great and leave it at that.

Greatness takes work.  Lots of work.  Lots of diligence.  You cannot take greatness for granted.  You must constantly look inward to see how you can improve things to maintain greatness.

And that means greatness for everybody, not just those at the top.

For a country to be great, there must be a way to ensure that all citizens are properly educated.  Not everyone has to go to college and beyond.  I am not sure a plumber or a carpenter needs a college degree; however, they certainly are just as vital to the fabric of this country as a doctor, lawyer or engineer.  This country needs to ensure that everyone is properly prepared for what they are going to contribute to society, so that they can go forth and contribute -- without going so far into debt in the process that they can never fully recover.  It is not a sign of greatness when young couples decide they cannot buy a home and raise a family because they have a lifetime of student debt.

For a country to be great, there must be a system for taking care of the sick.  No country can be great if it allows their citizens to go bankrupt because they became ill or had an accident that required extensive medical treatment.  My family avoided bankruptcy several years ago when one of us suffered a life threatening condition that ended up costing around a half a million dollars in medical bills.  We avoided the problem because we have sufficient medical insurance.  Many of us do not.  That they have to go bankrupt because they are ill, or that many die because they cannot afford medical care is not only not greatness, but is outright obscene.

For a country to be great, it must keep up with its infrastructure.  You cannot let every bridge, tunnel and roadway deteriorate and crumble simply so you can say you kept taxes down.  Everything costs something.  A country in which bridges collapse from lack of care or that fails to maintain proper public transportation is not living up to greatness.  Money must be spent and the effort constantly maintained to maintain infrastructure.  You cannot simply say you will introduce a plan that everyone is going to love, and then sit back and soak up the adulation of your admirers without actually proposing, let alone implementing anything.

For a country to be great, it must be a custodian of the future for its children and those who are yet to come.  This means that we must be stewards of the environment.  It is not job killing to force polluters to clean themselves up at their own expense.  It is not job killing to ensure that our open spaces and national parks remain clean, open to the public, and closed to those who simply want to exploit it for their own profit.  It is not job killing to maintain standards that ensure we can breathe clean air or drink clean water or eat breakfast cereal that does not contain carcinogens.  On the other hand, if we do not maintain standards or even acknowledge climate change, in the long run, we will not have to worry about jobs.  We may have to worry about survival of our species.  Ignoring all of that is not great.  Properly addressing it takes work.

For a country to be great, it must keep its citizens safe at home.  Safety does not mean we have police patrolling all over the place, overseeing everything we do.  The police have a difficult enough time as it is.  Safety means there is a respect for all citizens of all colors, shapes, sizes and beliefs.  And that respect must be reciprocated.  It must be reciprocated among ourselves and among ourselves and law enforcement.  A law abiding black person should not fear for his life by some random racist or a bad cop simply because he happens to be in a mostly white neighborhood.  Once there is a proper level of respect, the community and the police can work together and raise the level of safety in all our communities, urban, suburban and rural.

For a country to be great, it must recognize that in order to keep its citizens safe at home, it must adapt to the times.  In the eighteenth century, a well organized militia was indeed necessary to protect the citizenry from  tyrannical forces of government,both at home and abroad.  It seems to me we now have a fairly well organized militia, at least that's what our leaders keep saying, when they refer to our armed forces regularly as the greatest on earth.  This being the case, we need to stand up to the gun lobby and those who really only want to profit from the sale of guns and weapons that have no legitimate purpose in civilian hands, and keep weapons out of the hands of those who should not have them.  It is not greatness to perpetuate ownership of massive amounts of weaponry in the hands of violent felons, terrorists, sociopaths, abusers and just plain crazy people in the name of a document written over two hundred years ago when times were completely different.  I may be greedy, but I believe my right to live is greater than your second amendment right to own a weapon you cannot carry around in public or reasonably use to hunt or protect yourself, your family or your home.  Placing the rights of the gun lobby over the rights of citizens is not greatness.

For a country to be great, it must keep its citizens safe abroad.  It must also respect the safety of citizens of other countries, especially within their own countries.  This means respecting the laws and culture of other countries, not beating your chest and threatening everybody who is different from you.  The size of your army does not determine the extent of your greatness.  Armies are, of course, necessary; however, they are a last resort to those who threaten us.  Disagreeing with your personal beliefs or your system of governance or ethics is not necessarily a threat to us.

For a country to be great, it must respect the rights of non-citizens both here and abroad.  We cannot turn away refugees who look to us as their last best chance to escape oppression and violence simply because they do not speak our language or they do not look like us, whatever that means.  Humanity calls for moments of grace.  Grace in turn calls out for compassion.  You cannot turn away a mother from Guatemala fleeing gang violence simply because she is Hispanic and has not gone through "proper channels".  You cannot separate that mother from her child and have no real way of reuniting them once you have sent her back to Guatemala -- and then compound the problem by telling the child he/she can never become a citizen because they did not come here "the right way".  It is the very antithesis of greatness to separate families and then try to rationalize that they somehow deserved it.

So yes, this country is great.  This is my country, where I was born and raised, and where I live.  I do not want to live anywhere else.

And I love this country.

This is not to say, however, that everything about this country is great at all times.  Sometimes love for country manifests itself in recognizing what we do wrong as well as what we do right, and then setting about correcting those problems, and getting others to help correct those problems.  And when enough of us recognize what is wrong and collectively go about resolving what is wrong, it is then that we truly do become the greatest country on earth.

what he did on his summer vacation

So, let's see how his trip went...

He went to Brussels, and while there, he dissed our allies, showed up late for meetings and left early, and then set the stage for a potential United States withdrawal from NATO, our most important and strategic alliance since the end of the Second World War, the alliance that more than any other alliance has held the Soviet Union and Russia in check for more than seventy years.  His performance there was so disrespectful that the leaders of Germany and France, among others are openly talking about the United States no longer being a reliable ally.

He then held an impromptu press conference before rushing off to his next disaster where he crowed about reaching a new agreement with our allies, all of his own doing, forcing them all to accelerate their time schedule for meeting funding requirements imposed years ago for all NATO members.  All was wine and roses, until the rest of the NATO leaders led by France came forward to say there was no such agreement reached.  In other words, he lied.

He then went to England, and told the prime minister how to run her country.  At least she did not publicly tell him to get lost.  He then entertained the press by calling them fake and not worthy of anyone's belief, throwing aside any notion of freedom of speech and freedom of the press as guaranteed under the Constitution.  The only reporter -- from Fox News -- who had any gumption to say anything did so out of the arena, well after the presser had ended.  From there, he went to visit the Queen and broke protocol by buffoonishly walking ahead of her, seemingly ignoring her entirely.  At least he moved to the side, or maybe the photographers did, so that we could all get a "he was there and with her -- well, sort of" photo.

While in Great Britain, he took the time for a side trip to Scotland, where he played golf rather than prepare for the potentially single most significant meeting of the presidency thus far, with Vladimir Putin.  He did take the time, however, to pitch his golf course in violation of the emoluments clause and a few other laws.

From there, he announced that the European Union, made up of our closest allies with the possible exception of Israel and Canada, was our greatest foe.  Not one to want to leave Canada feeling left out, his administration filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over Canada imposing tariffs on American goods, an act that was solely in retaliation for his imposing tariffs on American goods.  So, he has started a trade war with our closest allies over... what?  We will ignore for the moment that he has done the very same thing to China, not an ally by any means, but also for no particular reason other than to show the world he could do it.  China has now filed a complaint against the USA with the WTO.  There is no doubt whatsoever that when we lose both complaints, or even just one of them, if he is still in office, we will be withdrawing from the WTO.

Just before going into the Putin meeting, he announced that all of the NATO leaders had called him to tell him the deal he had brokered in Brussels was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and that the meeting could not have gone better...

Except that none of the NATO leaders have thus far admitted to making any such telephone calls, and, in fact, their public words to date clearly indicate that they feel just the opposite.  In other words, he lied again.

Then came the meeting and the press conference.  He threw our allies under the bus.  He threw our law enforcement and national security apparatus under the bus.  He fawned over Putin, perhaps our most dangerous adversary.  Putin admitted he worked to have him elected over Hilary.  As Fox News later said, he just about admitted every allegation made against the Russians about the election, and he just stood there.

And then Cadet Bone Spurs said he believed the Russian and did not believe his own national security experts.

But e-mails!!  DNC servers!!!  Witch hunt!!!

On foreign soil, he endangered nearly all vital strategic alliances that have kept this country safe for over seventy years.

On foreign soil, he announced he does not believe our own national security experts, but believes a murderous despot.

On foreign soil, he openly courted our most dangerous adversary.

On foreign soil, he called our press liars.

On foreign soil, he spent time pitching his private businesses, you know, the ones he supposedly divested himself from.

I will make this short and simple.

Our president has given aid and comfort to the enemy while systematically working to destroy our foreign and domestic security and partnerships, thereby placing us all in grave danger.  All the while openly disparaging the press so that his supporters will not believe a word they say to warn us.

Forget impeachment.

This man, and I use the term extremely loosely, is a traitor to this country and everything it stands for.  He should be out of office tomorrow and arrested for treason the next day, if we can afford to wait that long.

good-bye cruel world...

The cat has apparently been let out of the bag, because I am now hearing from friends and colleagues asking me to confirm one way or another, sooooo....

Yes, it is true.

As of August 1, 2018, I will no longer maintain an active private law practice.  I guess it could be said that I will be retired at that time, other than coming back in either September or October to try one last case I have promised a client I would handle rather than hand the case off to somebody who would spend a week or two reviewing and getting up to speed on, not to mention billing the heck out of just to figure out what I already know.  Other than that and some EBTs (depositions for those who do not practice in New York) that I will cover here and there on a per diem basis, July 31 will be my last day.  The last day I have anything scheduled in court is July 30.  Things are going to seem a bit weird for a little while after that.

Why now?

Well, why not now. 

I am old enough so that I have been doing this for thirty-six years.  Christine has been retired for more than a year now.  Why let her have all the fun?  But why now, especially when my clients still trust me and I think I still have what it takes to be successful in court and in the practice of law?

To make short of it, I am tired. 

I am tired of a lot of things associated with the practice of law, which at least in the area that I specialize in does not, and never has seemed to have much of anything to do with good lawyering in the pursuit of justice, but more to do with winning at all costs.  It burns you out, and fast.  For a while, I thought about writing this essay and talking about what has gone wrong in the practice of law around here, but maybe that one is for another time, probably when I have had some separation from the profession for a bit, which would enable me to write with some clarity of thought and not say something I really do not mean.  I did have a great working title, however, which has been retained above. 

In the mean time, I knew I was done a few months ago when we were on vacation overseas with friends for about two weeks.  It was a great time with great people, great food, great wine and Irish pubs to be found, so how bad could it be?  It should have rejuvenated me to get back to it when we got home; however, less than a day back, sitting at my desk I felt like I had not been away at all.  I could feel the embers of a burnout smoldering within.  If you can be away relaxing for two weeks in Spain and Portugal and come back to immediate burnout, it's time.  Nothing that has happened in the last few months has changed my mind.

It is time, soooooo...

While I still have the energy, some relative youth left, or at least what you can have in relative youth once you hit your sixties, while I still have my health, while I still have the love and companionship of a wife I absolutely love and adore, and while I have at least some means to do so, I want to travel.  I want to see things.  I want to be inspired, something the practice of law, especially in New York has not done for me.

I will spend some time decompressing from the past thirty-six years or so.  During that time, maybe lightning will strike and I will figure out what to do for the next thirty-six years.  Don't laugh.  My grandmother made it thirty-six years beyond how old I am now, and when she died, she still had all her marbles.

Maybe I will copy my brother and do some painting.  Maybe I will buy a kiln and try pottery.  Somewhere deep inside, and I mean really deep inside, there has to be at least an inkling of artistic creativity hidden for the past sixty plus years just dying to get out.

Maybe I will fool the world and show you all I really can cook, and cook something that does not always end up tasting like chili.

Maybe I will keep writing down my thoughts here, but perhaps a bit more frequently now that I will have more time to do so.  Maybe a book.  "White Fluffy Duckies -- The Novel".  One man's quest to be as longwinded and obscure as....  well, as an attorney can be.

Maybe I will spend a lot of time sitting on the porch and staring at that gorgeous Wyoming sky, the mountains and the horses in the pasture out back.

And Maybe I will end up putting on a colorful smock and stupid looking hat, and spend my days asking that time honored question, "fries with that?"...

But what I will definitely do is try to make up the time being a practicing attorney, even one who has practiced out of his house has taken from my wife and my sons.  I will be with them, and not just as a body that happens to be under the same roof.  They will get to see the person I wanted to be, for them and for myself, but foolishly did not have the time for thinking that I needed to get something done for somebody else who in the long run did not really care about what I was doing as long as I won.  I owe that to my family, even if Jeremy and Jon are now grown and live in other states.

And maybe that will be the inspiration I have been looking for.

I am sure I will see or hear from many of you in the next few weeks and well beyond.  In the mean time, I wish you all the peace, happiness and inspiration you seek.

a requiem for the first amendment

"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the fee exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"...

 -- founding fathers,  First Amendment to the United States Constitution 1789

"...  unless you disagree with me".

-- addendum to the First Amendment apparently added some time since then when we were not looking.

.............................................................................

We apparently are now allowing speech of all kind to exist, as long as we agree with it, or as long as it achieves something that we agree with, or are at least lead to believe we agree with, the hell with the real intent of the founding fathers and the Constitution.  To this end, we now have established:

1.  Corporations donating piles of money to influence the outcome of elections is protected free speech.

Last time I looked, a corporation was a piece of paper, or more accurately, a binder or collection of paper put together, signed, notarized and filed with the office of the Secretary of State in the state where it was organized.  So according to the Supreme Court, pieces of paper have the right of freedom of speech and the right, due to inordinate sums of money amassed in the name of those pieces of paper, to influence the outcome of elections.

Corporations are people?  Well, maybe the life of a corporation does not exist without people, but corporate personhood?  All you need to do to figure out whether or not a corporation is a person is to use your own common sense and the thoughts in your own mind in how you refer to a corporation.  When you think of your brother, and refer to him in the third person, you generally refer to "him".  When you think of your sister, and refer to her in the third person, you generally refer to "her".  When you think of Monsanto, G.E., Koch Brothers Industries, etc., if you are referring to the corporation in the singular, third "person", you generally refer to "It".  Aside from the Addams Family, have you ever seriously referred to anyone as "It"?

Soooooo....   no.  Corporations are not people.  We do not refer to people as "It".

If that does not grab you, how about --

Corporations have people who work under a corporate banner or who actually own the corporation, and yes, people do own corporations.  People do not own other people, at least supposedly not anymore in this country since the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, notwithstanding some questioning of this principle by some people to the contrary.

There is no question that the actual people who own or who work for corporations are people and have rights.  Nobody questions that these people have the right to speak out and to donate to causes they believe in.  They just need to do it in their own names and not hide behind the piece of paper they have created which now allows them to do so.

By declaring corporations are people and have the rights of people, they have cheapened the rights of real people, because most of us do not have the resources to fight the resources amassed by those who own the corporations.

And in this respect, they have managed to kill off one of the protections of the First Amendment.

2.  It is now possible, in the name of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, to outwardly discriminate against another group of people as long as you can claim a sincerely held religious belief against those people.

If nothing else, this one shows that the white supremacists of Mississippi, Alabama, etc in the 1960's had really lousy lawyers.  All they needed to do to perpetuate Jim Crow and the KKK was to claim they were all doing it in the name of their god and their "sincerely held religious conviction" that everyone of them was better than the best colored person.  Who knew?

Nowhere else has existence of the addendum to the First Amendment become more crystal clear than here, where it is now possible for a baker in Colorado to violate every conceivable right a gay person has, and more than likely the Commerce Clause of the Constitution as well (you lawyers out there will know what I am talking about.  Just think in terms of Ollie's Barbeque in Alabama and their sincerely held beliefs that they should not have to serve black folks in the 1960s and where that argument got them  See the 1964 Supreme Court case of Katzenbach v. McClung for non-lawyers and those lawyers like me who got bored in class and were not paying attention).  This is also known as outright and unashamed bigotry in the name of "sincerely held religious belief", and cheered on by a large segment of the population, most of whom are not of the same exact religion, but do hold the same exact sincerely held bigoted beliefs.

...and the addendum to the First Amendment comes shining through when a few weeks later, a restaurant in Virginia, exercising the same argument as the baker in Colorado, refuses to serve a presidential press secretary, whose political speech they sincerely disagree with, and those who whooped and hollered in celebration with the baker now scream in indignation against the restaurant.

And then there is this...

I have seen memes on line over the past day or two, with folks on the right posting the phone number and the address of the restaurant that refused to serve the presidential press secretary, which frankly, is no more responsible than posting the phone number and address of the baker in Colorado.  I am assuming these folks are not looking to encourage people to make a reservation.  I am assuming they are hoping people will go there and picket or try to close the restaurant down.  I am also assuming that some of the people who go there will try to take matters into their own hands by bringing their second amendment protected products with them, just as that idiot did by bringing his weapon to Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria to free the child slaves being held there by the Clintons.

Because they, or in the case of the pizzeria, some unknown somebody, disagreed with them.  So, apparently, it now okay to yell "fire" in a crowded theater, as long as the theater is owned by somebody you disagree with, and as long as you have a sincerely held religious belief.

So, in this respect, this part of the First Amendment has also now been killed off.

3.  You can deny basic health benefits to your employees due to that same sincerely held religious belief.

There is no need to repeat all of the above.  I would note, however, that the good folks who fought Obamacare to the United States Supreme Court and won the right not to offer contraceptive care to their employees have continued to fight against the remainder of Obamacare, provisions that have nothing to do with contraceptive care or abortion.  So one is left to wonder if they are simply opposing Obamacare because they do not want to spend the money on healthcare for their employees at all.

So once again, the freedom of religion aspect of the First Amendment has been made a mockery of, and for all practical purposes is dead.

4.  You can do whatever you want to whomever you want, as long as you have a bully pulpit, the willing assistance of at least one media outlet, and the willingness of half the government to look the other way in order to convince those who want to be convinced that all the news reported about what you do is fake. 

You can re-establish internment camps.  Internment camps?  Why stop there?  We need a good concentration camp or two.  We have not had the equivalent of them around here in ages.  Building them would be a snap, probably easier than building the wall Mexico is going to pay for.  Heck, Heart Mountain in Wyoming still has a couple of structures standing, and is surrounded by the same empty fields that were there when the place was first built.  There are even a couple of good lumber yards right down the road, and the railroad that ran past the entrance in the good old days is still there.  They even built a museum there I am sure can be converted into office space to run the place.  The good folks around the area have already proved they can get by just fine with a bunch of Japanese people confined there.  I cannot imagine they could not extend the same hospitality and generosity of spirit to a few (thousand) Hispanic kids or, in the alternative, to their parents.

And those of us who protest the return of internment or concentration camps and the rise of this true American Carnage?  How un-American!  How dare we speak out against fearless leader!!  WE ought to be locked up!!!

So... a requiem for the first amendment and, in kind, for ourselves:

Multem dignitatis.
Adeo acta pro hominibus.
Tam pro honestate possit obtinere.
Vivat rex.

Translation:

So much for dignity.
So much for humanity.
So much for decency.
Long live the king.

kneeling on beans

Early in our marriage, we lived in New Orleans, and my wife taught at a parochial school run by the local archdiocese.  One day, she came home shaking her head over a discussion she had with the parents of one of her students.  I believe his name was Abad.  Abad was one of those kids who had difficulty keeping focus and sometimes behaving appropriately in class.  Then again, we are talking about seven and eight year olds, so keeping focus and behaving inappropriately is occasionally part of the package.

Anyway, during the course of a routine parent-teacher conference with Abad's parents, the subject of some of Abad's behavioral misadventures came up.  Abad's parents were appalled.  His mother promised to speak to him as soon as they got home.  His father promised to make him kneel on beans.

Whether or not the promise to make Abad kneel on beans was real or metaphorical is not clear at this point; however, in a moronic attempt to find humor in the situation, I asked if the beans were going to be cooked first.  With the passage of time, I suppose I could now ask if Abad's father was going to require his son to kneel on my son's cat (whose name is Beans -- get it?).

I know, just as lame.

Which somehow brings me to chapter two of the president, the NFL and football players who opt to protest racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem.

I thought I was done with this topic, and had disposed of whatever I may have to say about it by reposting my September 25, 2017 thoughts; however, you have to hand it to certain people who have a way of bringing things such as bad pennies back.

First cadet bone spurs announced that the players who do not stand respectfully for the national anthem should be tossed out of the country.

Then a nationally known sports talk host opined on the air about how awful it was that a few bad apple football players were ruining a football game by kneeling during the anthem.  I am not entirely sure of how a football game gets effected to the point of ruination by somebody not standing on the sideline before the game starts during the playing of the national anthem, but I suppose the radio sports jock can explain it to me next time I tune in.  After all, he knows more about sports than I do.  This was right after he had proclaimed that there is no institutional racism among the police, but conceded that there are a few bad apple officers here and there.

Then after the owner of the New York Jets announced that he would pay any fine levied by the NFL against any of his players that may kneel during the anthem, our local congressman announced that the Jets are a disgrace, that the protests of the players were based on lies and that we should all "say goodbye to the Jets".

Let's get a few things out of the way right off the bat.

First, each one of the above examples, cadet bone spurs, the radio sports jock and the congressman are white guys who have never had to deal with racism from the perspective of not being a rich white guy in their lives.  While they may profess to have all the knowledge and experience in the world, they may have gone to the best colleges, they may have the best experience, they may use the best words, and only they can solve this problem, none of them are anything other than middle aged to old rich white guys.  They all live in nice gated or secret service protected homes/mansions in nice neighborhoods where things like that do not happen.

They don't get to tell us what is racist and what is not.

And by "us", I mean the people who are peacefully protesting.  I do not include myself.  I am an upper middle class white guy who had a relatively privileged upbringing and has never had to personally deal with institutional racism aimed at me in my entire life.

Predictably, their minions cheered each announcement.  I am willing to bet their minions are not all rich and do not all live in gated communities.  I am willing to bet that somewhere between ninety-five and ninety-nine percent of the minions who cheered each announcement are white.

Secondly, I will concede right off the bat the argument made by some that in private employment, you cannot simply protest if your employer does not allow it.  This would then bring up a debate as to whether or not the NFL is a private employer, especially on this issue in which since 2009, the owners have been accepting federal government funds to put on a grand extravaganza for the national anthem before each game.  Before then, the anthem was usually played while the teams were in the locker room.  So if the NFL is being subsidized to the tune of millions of dollars by the federal government to put on the show during the anthem, there is a legitimate question as to whether or not there is a right to protest during the anthem, even if your employer tells you not to.  As I have noted before, it was only when the owners were given millions of our tax dollars to trot the players out and stand on the sidelines while giant flags were unfurled and patriots like Roseanne Barr were trotted out to sing the anthem that the rich white guys -- and they are all rich white guys -- had their patriotism stirred.

Okay, Roseanne Barr murdered the national anthem before a baseball game in 1990, but you get the point.

We could also have a grand debate about whether the owners can unilaterally impose the anthem requirements they just did in a collective bargaining environment, but that is a debate for another day, and is more a labor law issue than a civil rights one.  It is worth noting, however, that the issue is probably not dead, as the players union appears ready to challenge any discipline imposed by the league if any players kneel during the anthem.  So we may yet get to witness and/or participate in that debate.

But all of this ignores the important issues raised herein in favor of the usual jingoistic nonsense about peaceful civil protest, a bedrock of our society, indeed something that our nation was founded upon -- i seem to remember something about the founding fathers protesting certain taxes and imposition of royal decrees upon them by the British crown, leading to you know what -- somehow insults the flag, the anthem, the police, the troops, motherhood, apple pie and a football game.

The first amendment guarantees freedom of speech, which includes the right to redress the government over their grievances, but cadet bone spurs, the congressman and the sports radio jock would have those who protest fined, stripped of their employment, possibly stripped of ownership of their franchise and deported to who knows where.

Lets think about this for a moment.

I do not know where the sports radio jock stands on this, but cadet bone spurs and the congressman will not allow a single common sense regulation to be passed that would serve to keep military assault weapons out of the hands of terrorists and crazy people for fear of violating their second amendment rights, but they would eagerly strip away the first amendment rights for a handful of people who knelt on the sideline during the national anthem.  Last time I looked, nobody was killed, maimed or psychologically scarred for life by the forty-niners' quarterback taking a knee.

Is it so awful to see some players kneeling and some standing during the national anthem?  Who got insulted by this?  The guy at the stadium who took the opportunity during the anthem to go to the bathroom, or buy a hot dog and a beer?  Please note that the owners, who are imposing the "respect" for the anthem are not suspending sales of hot dogs and beer during the anthem.  The good folks at home watching the games are not standing for the anthem, and in most cases they do not have to, because the anthem is generally not shown on television, except for play off games and the Super Bowl when they trot out Charlie Pride (1974), Cheryl Ladd (1980) and Lady Gaga (2016) to do the anthem.  Hell, they even had the Dixie Chicks do it once (2003), which surprisingly, did not lead to a boycott of the Super Bowl by every country music station in America.  They even have a person performing the anthem in sign language, as if anyone is watching that.  But all this ignores the fact that nobody is standing at attention in their living rooms, their hands over their hearts, during the playing of the national anthem.

And cadet bone spurs, the congressman and the radio sports jock are not calling for the heads of the good folks at home, because they are not standing with their hands over their hearts in their living rooms singing along with the anthem.  We know cadet bone spurs is not, because he has demonstrated that he apparently does not know the words.  They each claim this constitutionally protected form of speech insults the troops.  You know, the military.  That portion of the country that puts their lives on the line to protect those freedoms of speech.  That collection of brave and honorable people that cadet bone spurs, the congressman and the radio sports jock never bothered to enlist and serve with.

So what in the long run is more important, standing or kneeling during the national anthem or ensuring the civil rights of all our citizens.

Is it more a matter of national importance if the cornerback of the Kansas City Chiefs is not singing along with the national anthem or perhaps that a few miles away in Ferguson, Missouri, the police are shooting an unarmed man in the street because he happens to be black.

Is it more a matter of national importance that the linebacker of the New York Jets is not standing there with his hand over his heart or perhaps that a few miles away on Staten Island a black man is choked to death by a white police officer for selling cigarettes on the sidewalk.

Is it more a matter of national importance that the left tackle of the Minnesota Vikings is kneeling on the sideline or perhaps a few miles away a white police officer has shot a black man in his car who is reaching for his i.d.

And even if you think that the white officers were right in doing what they did in each case, or that the victim in each case somehow asked for it, had it coming, or was somehow to blame for being killed, isn't it more important to address the issues that each case raises rather than worry about who is standing there on the sideline of a football game, hand over heart, bleating out the words to a song they do not care about and just want to get over with.

You would think that cadet bone spurs and the congressman would want to hold hearings and work on legislation, education and initiatives to better understand each other to ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect and gets the opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that the constitution guarantees, rather than pay homage to a battle that virtually nobody would remember if Francis Scott Key had not written a poem that other than having been set to the tune of a British drinking song would have been long forgotten today (it was not made the National Anthem until 1931) and a piece of cloth.  You would think the congressman would be hard at work at this; however, the only work of his I recall are hearings he held to find out why we are allowing Muslims into this country.

So until we see something -- anything -- from these folks to advance true and fair civil rights for all, they have no right to tell us what is or is not disgraceful about kneeling on the sideline at a football game during the National Anthem.

Until then, they can all go kneel on beans.

michael, mommy and me

I have a couple of announcements to make today, and if you believe any of them, I have a bridge in Brooklyn, or maybe some condos in Manhattan, Florida and Dubai I want to sell you...

1.  I have hired Michael Cohen, and placed him on retainer.  To outdo you know who, the guy who only paid him thirty-five thousand ($35,000.00) dollars a month, apparently because he is more of a cheap bastard than I am, I have decided to pay Mr. Cohen, whom I have not known and never met for more than a dozen or so years, fifty thousand ($50,000.00) dollars a month.  Why?  Well, somewhere out there are dozens of women.  Some of them are porn stars.  Some of them are high fashion models.  All of them are going to claim at some time in the future that they have had sexual affairs with me in the past. 

I absolutely and categorically deny that I have ever had sex with any of these ladies, who are all obviously lying about sleeping with me for reasons I cannot figure out.  Well, on the other hand, look at me.  Imagine me in a speedo.  And nothing else.  Yeah?  I mean, hell yeah!?!  What woman would not want a piece of this, or at least would not want to make people think they would want a piece of this? 

But I digress...

I need to keep this quiet, lest my wife, who will pick up a tree and hit me over the head with it, finds out.

I have been very careful about setting this up.  After all, Mr. Cohen appears to have plenty of time on his hands these days.  He only has three other clients, and two of them have gone on television the past few weeks to announce that they give him very little work, and that the work they do give him is not that significant.  Mr. Cohen will therefore have plenty of time to devote to my....  um.... issues, and I will have satisfied my inner need to render charity unto a fellow struggling attorney while saving my own outer hide.

I have contacted the finest newspapers, journals and periodicals in the country.  I mean, I have have had Mr. Cohen contact the finest newspapers, journals and periodicals in the country.  They have assured me...  I mean, Mr. Cohen, that this story will never hit the news.  The editor of the National Enquirer in particular has let Mr. Cohen know that the photos of me in a speedo, voluptuous mostly naked fawning women wrapped in both of my arms, in the hot tub in the master bedroom of the presidential suite at the Plaza Hotel, where I never was, at least not with these particular women, will never see the light of day.

In order to pay for all of this, I am going to funnel the money through a family trust account.  Alright, I do not have a family trust account, but my mother does, and I have direct online access to the funds as they are linked to my meager retirement account.  Mom won't mind, because I'm not going to tell her I am doing this.  Besides, if it ever comes out that I am paying Michael Cohen $50,000.00 a month to shut up a bunch of porn stars and high fashion models from publishing tell alls about my you know what prowess, I can always plausibly argue that Mom paid him without my knowledge for specific reasons I am not aware of, but generally because she loves me.  Right Mommy dearest, thou whom I adore above all other mothers, both living and dead? 

Right? 

Mom?

Hello?

By funneling the shut up money through Mom's family trust account, the real source and reasons for the payoffs will never become public, and cannot be traced back to me, even if my tax returns are subpoenaed by Robert Mueller.  Not that I would ever release the tax returns to Mr. Mueller, as fine a left wing biased prosecutor leading a vast far left liberal conspiracy witch hunt as there ever was.  If Mr. Mueller goes after Mom, I know plenty of recently out of work attorneys who would be happy to assist.  Michael Dowd.  Ty Cobb.  Maybe Rod Rosenstein, Rudy Giuliani and even Robert Mueller himself in the near future, just to name a few.  So we need not worry about Mom going to jail for me.  Besides, if she does, I bake a mean, and I mean a really mean devil's food cake, complete with twelve inch metal file with replaceable blades in the middle. 

Errr...  I mean, my wife bakes a really great cake.  You ever tried to taste anything I baked?

And finally...

2.  I hereby announce my candidacy for the office of president of the United States of America...

more likely...

Sooooo.....

Today Cadet Bone Spurs looked right into the camera and with a straight face told us all that he would have run into Stoneman Douglas High School to confront, disarm and possibly kill the shooter, even if he was not armed.  

He said it with a straight face.

Which got me to thinking.

There have to be at least a million and one things that might happen on the planet, and/or are at least are likely for me to do before he storms the p. s. 70 lunch room.  I hereby present a brief list of things that are more likely to happen or that I might do before Cadet Bone Spurs comes to the rescue....

1.  The Jamaican bobsled team wins gold!!!

2.  The American Ballet Theatre asks me to dance the lead in in Swan Lake.

3.  I accept the invitation of the American Ballet Theatre to dance the lead in Swan Lake.

4.  I actually dance the lead in Swan Lake.  

5.  In Times Square.  

By the way, I have a great feather boa/costume just waiting...

6.  Queen Elizabeth hosts the Pope at Buckingham Palace and personally cooks him a seven course dinner featuring the finest in Ethiopean cuisine.

7.  I visit the planet Remulak and consume mass quantities with Dan Ackroyd.  By the way, in case you were wondering, the planet Remulak is actually located about ten minutes north of Philadelphia.

8.  Vincente Fox shows up with a crew of bricklayers along the Rio Grande and starts personally building a wall.

9.  A herd of cows wearing bikinis recites the entire works of Shakespeare for discerning diners in Tavern on the Green.  Among the diners that evening is Steven Spielberg, who immediately begins filming a remake of E.T. on the spot featuring the cows coming home.

10.  I stand in front of one of the exhibits at the Tate Modern, and actually understand it.

11.  I then realize that I understand this mishmosh on display at the Tate Modern, because I am the one who painted it.

12.  Using peanut butter.  

13.  Creamy style.  After all, who can paint with crunchy peanut butter?

14.  The Nobel Prize for literature is awarded to Dr. Suess.

15.  The Nobel Prize for medicine is awarded to Dr. Suess.  Hey.  It could happen.  I mean, he's a doctor.  Right?

16.  On my way driving to San Jose with my wife, I get lost, and actually stop at a bar and ask for directions.

17.  After all, who wouldn't want to stop at a bar that has an old Victrola playing in the background and ask the first person you see "Do you know the way to San Jose"...

18.  It would be as much fun as pulling alongside a limo at a red light and asking the snob inside if he has any grey poupon...

19.  Wayne LaPierre registers as a conscientous objector.  Well, I actually debated between this one and Wayne runs up, pulls the trigger and a flag with the word "Bang!" pops out of the barrel.  I like the visual on that one.

20.  One thousand glock toting public school teachers arrive at school tomorrow morning and are told by Betsy DeVos to put the guns away and accept instead bonuses allowing them to buy all the supplies their classes will need for the rest of the year.

and finally....

21.  I run into a school building unarmed and stop a shooter by singing "Kumbaya" to him.

I invite all suggestions to add to the list, which is not authoritative or exhaustive...

guns and priorities, chapter three

Do you want to know what the chances of something sensible happening in Washington in response to today's shooting in Parkland, Florida might be?  Think of this.

In January, 2013, Senator Diane Feinstein introduced a bill in the senate that would have made it illegal for people on the national terrorist watch list from buying a gun.  Think about that for a second.  There is a reason people end up on the terrorist watch list.  I think it has something to do with the fact that they are considered a real and reasonable threat to actually kill not just somebody, but a lot of somebodies.

And who is it that thought those people were enough of a threat to end up on the terrorist watch list?  How about the people who run law enforcement.  You know, the folks we think may know something about this and who we entrust to know these sorts of things to keep us safe.

The bill did not come up for a vote until December, 2015, nearly three years later and only because two days earlier we were all San Bernadino Strong after another fourteen people were killed by two people who had pledged fealty to ISIS.  And even in the face of that horror, the predictable happened.

The bill went down with fifty-four senators voting no.

Every single republican, with the exception of Mark Kirk of Illinois, voted no.  For the record, Mark Kirk was voted out of office in the election of 2016.  Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota was the only democrat to vote no.  She is still a sitting senator, more than likely due to the fact that she has not been up for reelection since this vote.  North Dakota, I am watching you.

Think about this for another moment.

If Osama bin Ladin were to walk into a gun show today, he could walk out of that show with a bushel full of AR-15s, once again, the weapon of choice used to mow down our precious and innocent children, a weapon which has absolutely no use other than to kill people, and kill them in mass quantities in a brief burst of hell.

According to Senator John Cornyn of Texas, Senator Feinstein's bill to keep Osama bin Ladin from walking into a gun show and buying up every AR-15 for sale there had to be voted down because we cannot allow the federal government to infringe upon our rights given to us under the second amendment.  So we have no problem with Osama bin Ladin arming himself with enough automatic weaponry to wipe out half of Florida, but we do have a problem with allowing a respected chemistry professor at the University of Kansas from staying here because his original student visa expired, in spite of the fact that he is loved in his community, has never committed a crime, is married and has three children, each American citizens, who he will be ripped apart from when he is deported.  So there are your priorities in congress.

It is okay for Osama bin Ladin to walk into a gun show and arm himself, because he gets the right to do so under the second amendment.

It is not okay for Syed Ahmed Jamal, that Kansas chemistry professor, to simply stay in this country and continue teaching chemistry, being a husband, a father and a loved and respected member of his community because, well... you know... America First!!

I ended a post here on October 4, 2017 saying that I could care less about thoughts and prayers.  They will do nothing to end the gun epidemic.  In the absence of action, the only thing we knew was something like Las Vegas, where fifty-nine people enjoying a country music festival were mowed down, was going to happen again.  The only question was when and where.  On November 5, 2017, after we knew when and where, I ended a post about Sutherland, Texas where another twenty-seven, this time while praying in their local church, were killed while congress dithered by saying that somewhere soon we were going to be Any Town USA Strong in response to the next atrocity if congress did not act.

They did not act.

So today, we are Parkland, Florida Strong, and we send our thoughts and prayers to the families of this time, seventeen victims.  I am sure their families are comforted right now by our thoughts, our prayers and our useless slogans.

And on television, I see senators and congressmen offering those thoughts and prayers, and telling us now is not the time to politicize this event by calling for gun control, even the meager nonsense that legislation about background checks with a million and one loopholes would amount to.  I see talk about mental health legislation, which the good folks on the right recently voted to cut savagely, and in any event, will not eliminate guns from our society.

You know what I do not see?

Legislation outlawing guns that have no business in civilian hands.

Legislation outlawing gun ownership by those who have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with guns, like violent felons, domestic abusers, the mentally ill and Osama bin Ladin.

Legislation that would repeal the Dickey Amendment and allow us to study and discuss the health effects of the avalanche of guns flowing down upon us.

Legislation that would impose liability upon manufacturers and distributors of guns who put dangerous and even defective weapons in the hands of those they have every reason to know should not have them.

And until we vote these complicit with the NRA sons of bitches out of office and put somebody in there who will introduce and implement this common sense legislation, we can all continue to furrow our brows, to weep, wail and moan, to rehearse our thoughts and prayers, and to come up with the next catchy feel good, Somewhere Sometime Soon Strong slogan, because it's going to happen again.

And we are all complicit.

our only solution

By now, it should be obvious to anyone who even just pretends to have a brain that there is no intention whatsoever on the right, not just to reign in what is going on at the White House, but also to actively take part in the cover up.  In the name of "transparency", they have released the Nunes Memo, which is, at best, an essay that would fail the average high school social studies quiz.  There is nothing new in the memo.  As I have said elsewhere, it may just as well have been written by the idiot in chief, as it simply works off his worn out talking points just short of "biggest crowd ever".

Clearly transparency has nothing to do with this.  If it did, the Schiff Memo in response would have been released at the same time.

If transparency had anything to do with it, Devin Nunes would have actually read the FISA warrant he trashed in the Memo.  I suppose many did not see that gem.  He brought forth this nonsense over a warrant he himself has not read.  Instead, he outsourced this to Trey Gowdy.

Yes, that Trey Gowdy.  

As in Benghazi!!!  E-mails!!!  Lock her up!!!

Don't believe me???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Js4TMKutCo&t=88s

Apparently, Mr. Gowdy went and read the FISA application in private with his unnamed "team", took notes, and then brought them back to Nunes, who wrote this "memo" without ever actually having seen the FISA application upon which it is based.  Apparently, the notes were not taken all that well, as there is nothing in the memo about a FISA warrant only being good for ninety days, and upon renewal each time, new independent facts are required to be shown to the Court, which would mean there was something other than the Steele Dossier upon which the judge found to be good cause to renew the warrant. 

Please note we have yet to hear from Mr. Gowdy, other than his announcement that he is now not running for reelection.

This is what we have come to in government, one that Paul Ryan, Trey Gowdy and Devin Nunes all say requires transparency.

He is running around, possibly having committed treason in his dealings with the Russians.

He has not yet released his tax returns.

He has refused to release the White House visitor's log.

He has blocked any and all requests to see what foreign dignitaries, foreign businessman, foreign criminals or foreign objects are staying at his properties around the world, but especially in Washington, where he is profiting, and what they are saying to him, and what they are giving him in return for his actions as our president.

He has used Mar-A-Lago for his personal profit center, billing the government for hosting public events there, where he pockets the proceeds.

And to the right, all of this is ok.

There is no need for transparency here.  This does not rise to the level of anything Clinton.

We can investigate the Clinton Foundation for all its foreign dealings, but the Trump Foundation?  Nothing to see here.

We can e-mail!!! and Benghazi!!! our way to who knows where -- it certainly did not lead to anything in the end -- but we cannot dare look at anything he did.

We can wail and scream over leaks of his self-dealings and possible treason, but cannot look to see about the veracity of the acts themselves.

And we can wail and scream over the leaks of classified information, only to declassify that information in the name of political expediency.

So with all of the hullabaloo over the release of the Nunes Memo, what can we expect from here?  I would offer the following:

1.  He will fire Rod Rosenstein and cite the Memo as proof that Rosenstein has abused his office.  Rosenstein is the only person who has he authority at this point to fire Robert Mueller.  Guess what happens next.

2.  The Democrats will go ballistic.

3.  The Republicans will shrug.

Impeachment?  Article 25?

Do not hold your breath.  It's not going to happen.  If they ever did have a soul, the right has sacrificed it for the sake of having a president, no matter how ignorant, who will sign legislation they have always wanted, even if they have to alter the rules for getting it passed in the first place just so they can bring it to his desk.  As long as that is happening, what the rest of us want is not going to happen.

He will be our president, at least in name, at least until January 20, 2021 at noon.  For those of you counting, that is two years, eleven months and seventeen days from now.  For those of you who are watching me as I write this, that is two years, eleven months, seventeen days, four hours and twelve minutes from now -- Sorry, my digital watch does not have a second hand.

There is, however, something we can do.  It may be too late, but it is the only thing we can do, and unfortunately, we have to wait another nine months and three days before we do it.  On November 6, 2018 -- VOTE.

VOTE LIKE YOUR LIVES DEPEND UPON IT.  IT JUST MIGHT.  If you think it does not, keep in mind that the New York Times is reporting this morning that the most recent polling shows an uptick for republicans, giving them hope that they will not lose their majority.

And for those who need a little guidance on how to vote, here is a list of those on the House Intelligence Committee who voted to release the Nunes Memo.  Note, they are all republican.  Every single one of them.  Note further, some have already said they are not running for reelection:

Devin Nunes -- 22nd District, California

Mike Conaway -- 11th District, Texas

Peter King -- 2nd District, New York

Frank LoBiondo -- 2nd Distrct, New Jersey

Tom Rooney -- 17th District, Florida

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- 27th District Florida

Michael Turner -- 10th District, Ohio

Brad Weinstrup -- 2nd District, Ohio

Chris Stewart -- 2nd District, Utah

Rick Crawford -- 1st District, Arkansas

Trey Gowdy -- 4th District, South Carolina

Elise Stefanik -- 21st District, New York

Will Hurd -- 23rd District, Texas

In the present environment, the only weapon we the citizens of the United States are left with is at the ballot box, assuming they don't pass legislation that prevents anyone except their own supporters from voting, or that the Supreme Court does not issue a ruling allowing them to put all democrats in one single district in each state, leaving all other districts to the whims of the right.  So, as I said above, on November 6, 2018...

VOTE AS IF YOU LIFE DEPENDED ON IT.

shitholes

Forgive me.  I am once again angry as hell.  The following may not be as coherent as I would like.

I do not know what a shithole country is.

I do know what a shithole politician is.

I take that back.  As ridiculously easy as it is to lump all politicians together and call them shitholes, it does a great disservice to those who are there for honorable reasons and are trying their best to do right, rather than simply paying off a debt or trying to get reelected.  You know, the two or three of them that are left.

Well, maybe I don't take it back.

While the media is screaming about the statement, there is a group that is not.  You guessed it.  The shithole politicians who were at the meeting, and presumably heard every word of it.  So, sorry to the two or three honorable ones left.  You're in it with the rest of them.

For those of you keeping score at home...

There are some really fine but misunderstood nazi types out there.

All Nigerians live in huts.

All Haitians have AIDS.

Mexicans are mostly murderers and rapists.

He probably has a really good relationship with Kin Jung Un, whom he has apparently never spoken with, but whose nuclear button is not quite as big.

Puerto Ricans are fine as long as they keep their mouths shut, live in the dark and subsist upon paper towels thrown at them.

Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and most African countries are shitholes.

And on.

And on.

And on.

And silence rings from the right.

Nobody is denying the statement was made, but then again, the White House official statement in response to this news only goes as far as to say, this president will always put Americans first.  I've got news for you big boy.

WHEN YOU MAKE A STATEMENT LIKE THAT, YOU ARE NOT PUTTING THIS COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE FIRST.  IF ANYTHING, YOU ARE TREATING THEM AS POORLY AS THE HONORABLE COUNTRIES YOU TRASH WITH YOUR INFANTILE WORDS AND BEHAVIOR.

We elected this moron.

We continue to put up with him.

We reap the deserved scorn of the rest of the world, especially at this particular time Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and most African countries.

We look the other way, and simply hope we can make it to 2020, when we pray somebody with half a brain and who does not care if the schmuck in chief comes up with yet another idiotic nickname he can run with comes out of the woodwork and beats his sorry ass into the electoral college ground.  Of course, this assumes that once he is beaten, he will concede defeat and leave the White House.  We know it won't be honorably.

So maybe I do not know what a shithole country is, or what a shithole politician looks like one hundred percent of the time.

But I sure as hell do know there is a shithole living in the White House.