What Went Wrong?

For starters, we need to agree that Democrats can’t blame the winners for winning.  Trump, his advisers and his MAGA voters got what they wanted.  Democrats can’t fault them for Democratic failures.  Then, the only reason to ask this question is: Democrats don’t want to repeat the mistakes that caused them to lose this time.

The most obvious and agreed upon reasons why Harris lost are: a) she only had a few months to campaign, b) Biden was a very unpopular president (history will judge him very kindly, the American people – polls – not so much), c) Harris was

The Morning After

I left my Watch Party at 9:30pm, it felt too much like 2016 over again.  And I don’t like to cry in public (fact is, I don’t cry, I get angry at my own team’s fecklessness).

John F Kennedy took responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco, lo these many decades.  Since then, what person in the public eye, especially among politicians, has taken responsibility for any screw-up?  You have a week to come up with one name!

An Israeli Perspective

This piece was written with the express and sole purpose of changing minds, specifically the minds of those who support the Palestinian side of the current (2025) Israeli Palestinian conflict.  I am quite aware that most people belong to the camp of “don’t confuse me with facts, as my mind is already made up” (this is called “confirmation bias,” and it is very common among humans).  For those of you who belong to that camp, you can stop reading now as what lies ahead will only upset you.  For those of you who believe that you are open minded and are responsive to verifiable facts, history and logic, please read on.

Americans have no problem offering their opinions when they have no facts.  Antisemitism is a perfect case in point.  Antisemitism is so old there must be some truth to it.  There are so few Jews and they don't fight back.  Worst case scenario, you say something and he takes offense and you didn't even know he was Jewish.  Good people everywhere hurled the charge of "war crimes" at the state of Israel before she even declared statehood.

Herewith, my (biased but factual) responses to (recent) charges made against the state of Israel.

A Brief for Israel

It is April 5th, 2024.  But this needs to go upfront.  As an American who numbers Jews among my very best friends, as an American who is a sincere friend of the state of Israel, I am nonetheless deeply disturbed and horrified at the number of civilian deaths – even as "collateral damage" in wartime – in Gaza at the hands of the IDF under PM Benjamin Netanyahu.  But for 75 years, the policy and practice of Palestinians  – whether under Hamas, the Palestinian Authority or the Palestine Liberation Organization – has been the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians.  Where was the outrage?

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While many of us bemoan the ascendancy of Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel's Donald Trump?) and his supporters, you have to wonder: if you were an Israeli Jew, would you still be patient with the daily threats of bloodshed posed by Palestinians?  Yes, perhaps Israel has over-reacted to Palestinian violence, but what would you have done?

It is my conviction that a lot of anti-Israel sentiment in these United States, especially among young people, is due to a lack of historical perspective.

On Being Trans

Miss Netherlands, a trans woman

How long did it take Dick Cheney, vice president under George W Bush and a real “conservative” Republican, to change his thinking about gay rights when his own daughter came out?  What do you think?  A minute?  20 seconds?  Somewhere between 5% and 10% of us are not straight.  That is, 20 million of us are not straight.  Which means that most extended families have a gay member or two.  And when that person came out, the family got behind him or her.  Without blinking an eye.  The person who didn’t was probably ostracized by the rest of the family.  The huge number of families with gay members explains why gay rights is no longer an issue among presidents, senators, House members, and even most SCOTUS justices.

Stupidity: A Rant

Stupidity is a Choice.  There, I’ve said it!

But, before I get into the meat (sic) of this essay, let me clarify the literal (dictionary) distinction between ignorant and stupid.  An ignorant person does not know stuff, a stupid person has a sub-par brain.  Both words are insults, stupid is much worse. Partly because stupid can’t be fixed.  At least, that is how wordsmiths think of these words.

Before writing this post, I figured that I should discover if anyone else had said something similar.  So, Googling “stupidity is a choice,” here is what I found (in author order):

The 2022 Mid-Term Election

What a guy!  This says it all!

It’s 48 hours before the polls in Honolulu, Hawaii close for the 2022 mid-term election (this was true when I began to write this post, it’s Election Eve as I put it to sleep, the polls are still open all over).  All we know so far is that we don’t know much.  The polls are predicting a Republican House of Representatives and a Senate that could go either way, Republicans favored by a slim margin.

But we do know some things.  One, after the polls close and the networks begin to show real-time results, Republicans nationwide will be in the lead, because day-of votes are counted first, and Republican voters prefer day-of voting.  Two, Republicans will be calling for an early end to vote counting, as many more Democrats vote early than Republicans.  Trump called for this in 2016, he called for it in 2020, and his minions will have learned his lesson: when you are ahead, declare victory and call for the early end of counting votes.  Indeed, Republicans have already filed suits against counting early voting ballots in some battleground states.

The Right to an Abortion

I don’t recall which Republican talking heads (many) have argued that the right to an abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution.  It seems like a compelling argument, but it is really a very poor argument against the right to an abortion, and here is why.

The U.S. Constitution consists of two main parts, plus the accumulated decisions of the Supreme Court.  The first part is the Constitution proper, and the second part is the 27 amendments to the Constitution proper.

The Leak

It’s Monday, May 2nd, early evening.  Politico publishes this on its website: Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows.  And here is the leaked draft opinion, unabridged: Justice Alito's initial draft abortion opinion which would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Roe v Wade has been overturned!  No, not so fast!  This document is only a draft opinion of Associate Justice Samuel Alito, probably written in February; the Court’s final ruling won’t come down until late June or early July.  But already, Justice Alito has become the hero of the Right and the villain of the Left.  Same for the leaker.  Indeed, the leak itself has taken on a life of its own.

Putin ... Zelenskyy

I confess, I have no special knowledge to say anything about a foreign war.   But I have a need to express what I think.  This essay assumes that Putin and Russia are the bad guys and that Zelenskyy and Ukraine are the good guys.  Putin and much of Russia would disagree.

Putin and Mother Russia are waging a war of destruction on Ukraine, a sovereign nation.  It is lovely how united the rest of the world has become with economic sanctions.  But, even putting war casualties aside, Putin’s actions have already cost tens if not hundreds of trillions of dollars of physical damage in Ukraine that will not be paid back even if Putin comes to his senses and ends his war of aggression.  And what reason have we to assume that Ukraine is all that Putin wants?  Agreed that NATO may be a threat to Russia, even if NATO has shown no aggressive intentions on Russia, it is understandable that Russia may feel more threatened with Ukraine joining NATO.  But “we can destroy you and your country; and the rest of the world had better not help out or we will unleash what you cannot imagine on you” cannot lead anywhere good.  And maybe economic sanctions are only chips in a high-stakes poker game.

Insurrection

click to view APNEWS Photo Essay

As only the Left calls January 6^th, 2021, in Washington, DC an Insurrection or Sedition, I will refrain from using either of those words, I will not begin my essay with a partisan conclusion.

I want to talk facts – incontrovertible facts, facts that we all agree on – not conclusions.  Only if the facts demand a specific conclusion will I travel that road.

So, here goes.

Joe Manchin, Democrat

Democrats – moderates and Progressive alike – have been cursing the evil heart of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia for not giving them what they want, a YES vote on H.R 5376, the Build Back Better Act.  

But Democrats ought to be kissing the back of Joe Manchin’s right hand for being a Democrat.  Senate Democrats, rank and file Democrats and especially President Joe Biden ought to be embracing him for partying with Democrats.

The Perils of Democracy

Republicans are 100% correct: our revered Founding Fathers did not intend that America should be a democracy (where “the people” rule).  Most of the so-called evidence that our Founding Fathers did not favor a democracy can be found on conservative websites with an anti-democratic agenda (it is only recently that Republicans or conservatives seem to be drifting away from the ideal of democracy).  But consider – from the gitgo, from the ratification of the U.S. Constitution – who had the right to vote was up to individual states.  Most states had a land-owning requirement, only one state allowed women or African Americans to vote, and only a few gave the vote to Catholics or Jews (atheists were not even a “thing” back then).  Everyone who sat in on the Constitutional Convention were white men of means, the aristocrats of their day.  And they did not intend that the “people” (as we see the word today) should rule themselves.  So, partisan Republicans are quite right.

However, …

Ranked Choice Voting

While the biggest problem in our democracy is the undue influence of big money in elections and in legislation, the second biggest problem is the two-party system.  This electoral reality is nowhere forced upon us, it is not mentioned in the Constitution; it is just there.

“I don’t like my choices; I like neither the Republican nor the Democrat, but I do like the Libertarian / Green party candidate.  But if I vote for him, I will be wasting my vote as he has no chance to win.”

When we go to choose a candidate for a particular elected office, we are often faced with three or four or even five choices.  But we know that we are “wasting our vote” if we vote for a candidate of a minor party, not a Republican or a Democrat.  Even worse than that is our sense that our third-party vote may contribute to the loss of the major party candidate whom we dislike less than the other major party candidate.  So, we reluctantly vote for the major party candidate (“the lesser of two evils”) who is not our first choice, as we dare not help elect the other major party candidate.

Reparations

The first thing that may come to mind when you hear the word “reparations,” “is this an idea whose time has come?”  “No” gets you back to your can of beer and your TV remote, while “Yes” is a much heavier lift.

The next thing that will likely pop into your mind is the obvious question, “should we pay reparations? Yes or No?”  Once again, a “No” is an easy way to dodge the hazards of this question.

This post is NOT about whether we should pay reparations; this post is about the difficulties involved in answering Yes to the question.  Be clear, the fact that a Yes demands thoughtful time and energy is NOT an argument against Reparations.

#2A

This essay concerns the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, not mass shootings and not gun violence (for which, please see 2016  and 2015).

Here is the Second Amendment, in all her 27 words of naked splendor:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

That is the whole thing.

Unfit

Disclaimer: I was raised in the NYC area around the time that Donald Trump was growing up in Queens and later promoting himself in Manhattan.  No one (NO ONE!) had more press coverage than he did.  Mostly what club he partied at that evening, and who he left the party with.  I am NOT "prejudiced" against Donald Trump, but I am "biased" against him, a HUGE difference.  Why am I biased against him?  Read on for a taste of why.

The Value of Civic Literacy

In May and June of 1959, the Supreme Court heard and decided Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Elections. Louise Lassiter, a Black citizen of North Carolina, argued that the law that denied her the right to vote was unconstitutional.  That law required that the prospective voter "be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of North Carolina in the English language.”  The Court that heard her case was the Warren Court, arguably the most liberal Supreme Court in American history.  This Court had ruled 9-0, just a few years before, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in favor of Brown.  One might have expected Lassiter to prevail.  But the Supreme Court ruled that the law was constitutional and not discriminatory, because it tested everyone regardless of race (laws that did discriminate, and were thereby unconstitutional, had grandfather clauses that exempted those <whites> who already had a voting history).  Justice William O. Douglas, arguably the most liberal justice ever to serve on the Court, wrote the majority opinion.  That majority was 9-0.  Congress subsequently prohibited literacy tests as part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Such civic literacy laws were constitutional – but they were rendered illegal by Congress.

Qualifications

It was back in early 2015 and early 2016 that I wrote about the responsibilities of suffrage – that voting is not just a right, it is a privilege, it must be a responsibility too, you should earn it.  You need to be literate – able to read – and politically literate too – able to pass the same Citizenship Test that an immigrant must pass to become a (voting) citizen.  I expanded on that idea by suggesting that persons who know lots and lots about our history, our laws and institutions, and our founding documents ought to have their vote count as two or three average (ignorant) American citizen’s single votes.  Honestly, do you really believe that you should have an equal say in choosing our leaders as an American History professor, or someone who knows as much as he does about our history, etc.?  Yes, I surely believe in “one person, one vote.”  But, perhaps we should give some extra credit to those who devote their lives to being exemplary American citizens.  I stand by both notions today.

UFO’s

This article (here is his TED talk if you prefer videos to reading) prompted me to think about UFO’s.  And it’s a small leap from thinking to writing.

I have been fascinated by the idea of superior alien intelligences since as long as I can remember, most probably for the same psychological reasons as everyone else who has ever been obsessed by them.  I recall the name of Donald Keyhoe as an author whose books I consumed; his writings go way back to 1950.