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.