Art is 80

Robert Reich wrote an interesting column recently about when he was in elementary school (or maybe middle school) and was bullied continually. As you may know, Reich, the former Secretary of the Labor under Bill Clinton, is only 4′ 11″ tall. So, it isn’t surprising that he was a regular target of bullies while he was growing up (so to speak).

He did not go into detail as to how he was bullied, but he said something very interesting in that he did have defenders and protectors. One of them, he said, was a young man named Michael Schwerner.

Reich went on to write that in 1964, as we all may recall, Schwerner was killed (along with two other young men) in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where he had gone as a representative of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to help register Blacks to vote. Reich says that Schwerner’s death, because he had memories of his selflessness in helping to protecct him, changed his entire outlook on life, and set him on the path that he is still on today at age 79.

Let me digress a minute: Robert Reich was born in 1946. Schwerner was 7 years older, born in 1939. In reading Reich’s essay, I had assumed that Schwerner was a classmate of Reich’s, which he clearly was not. So, it must have been Schwerner, as a teenager, protecting Reich, not Schwerner as a contemporary. Not that this changes the moral of the story. It just gives it a slightly different slant.

Reich went on and talked about bullying today, and about Donald Trump, as the world’s biggest bully, saying that everything he does as president (and most of the things he did before he became a politician) were based on bullying, on threatening people with dire consequences, and demonstrating that he had both the ability and willingness to bring about these dire consequences, unless they did his bidding. Trump does this with his actions, and he does it with his speech, and so far he has been successful with both.

The concern goes beyond what Trump is doing to the United States by his politics. It goes to what he is doing to the upcoming generations of Americans by making bullying (verbal and otherwise) mainstream and acceptable.

Reich is, of course, 100% correct. And the only way counter Trump’s success, in my opinion, is to crush him with a resounding defeat. The “crime doesn’t pay” argument. And it is not clear that we will, or that we can, do this.

Two examples of Trump’s bullying are just now entering the news. One is the Christmas Day strikes on northern Nigeria (WWJD? was not apparently a question he asked himself). We don’t yet know the actual results of these strikes, which were apparently against ISIS members or “camps” and allegedly (and maybe factually) because of ISIS’ treatment of Christians in Nigeria. In addition, our government has stated that these attacks were made with the approval of, and with the support of, the Nigerian government.

Well, Trump has talked about the treatment of Christians in Nigeria for some time now. Nigeria, believe it or not, about the size of Montana, has almost 250,000,000, making it the 6th most populated country in the world. Its population is split among Muslims and Christians, with the northern part of the country (where ISIS apparently operates) is primarily Muslim. The victims of violence in the north include Christians, for sure, but also Muslims who are not supportive of ISIS. The government of Nigeria, which Trump has for some time accused of being anti-Christian, does not appear to be. Nigeria’s current president is Muslim, but the presidency has had members of both religions over the years. It is officially secular.

A few months ago, Trump threatened to attack Nigeria and threatened to end all financial and other relationships with the country. Now, he has stopped talking about cutting off economic relationships with the country, and claimed that the Nigerian government is supportive of American war planes and drones bombing their country. I can’t believe that Nigerian government would welcome this American intrusion unless it was bullied to do so, and I am sure this is what was done.

Leaving Nigeria aside, another example of Trump’s bullying is in his treatment of those who have migrated to or immigrated to this country (and who are not White, by the way). His direction of and blessing of ICE’s extraordinarily rude and violent ways is a prime example of bullying in action. And his current proposal to purchase a number of large warehouses around the country and turn them into indoor concentration camps for those whom ICE rounds up, is again an example of Trump the bully.

They say that, in order to stop a bully, you must stand up to him. We clearly need more Americans who are willing to do this. The political concentration now seems focused on the economy. The shared wisdom is that if the Trump economy is bad, MAGA is dead, but if the Trump economy turns out to be good, MAGA will be around for some time. This may be true, but economic strength ebbs and flows. If the economy is bad today, it might be good tomorrow.

The moral composition of American citizens is a different story. If it is lowered to the level of Donald Trump, whether or not our economy is strong, we will have failed as a country. To me, our view of the world and of the United States’ place in that world, are more important than the daily condition of the economy.

Now, you can say, I guess: Art, you are retired, you had a successful career; if you had to worry about your rent money or your next meal, you would feel differently.

Maybe so. But, if so, I would be looking at things in a very short sighted manner. We, as a country, cannot afford to do that.

Not sure why I am posting this picture to start my Christmas message, but this is our meal at Ethiopios last Saturday evening. And to let you know that Ethiopian Orthodox Christians use the Julian calendar, which means they aren’t going to celebrate Christmas until January 7. Same with Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians. And it used to be the same with Ukrainian Orthodox Christians but, if I remember correctly, they adopted the Gregorian calendar a few years ago, so today is Christmas in Kiev. They changed the date of their Christmas to show how “western” they are. Am I right about that? I am not going to look that one up.

But that would show that, at least in Ukraine, politics trump (sic and sick) religious doctrine. Of course, it also seems clear both to religious scholars and historians that Jesus was not born on either December 25 or January 7, but rather some time in the spring, and that the winter date was adopted by the Roman empire in the 4th century  to supplant what had been a winter solstice holiday, and the date stuck and spread. What does all this mean? It may mean that “Jesus is the reason for the season” is, historically speaking, fake news. Whatever. Not really important. But interesting.

As for my Christmas, I don’t celebrate it religiously, of course. This makes me a real American, I think, aligning with our true forefathers the Puritans who did not allow it to be celebrated in Massachusetts. And with groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses today.

As I keep reading that Jews often celebrate Christmas with Chinese food, and I don’t do that, I am not mainstream with my own religious community, either. Although, come to think of it, I may get Chinese food on January 7. Do you  think that is what Jews in Ethiopia and Russia do?

I do expect every year to get presents from Santa, of course, and every year I am disappointed. Santa, from what I am told, expects to get cookies and milk from me, and he is equally disappointed. Such is life.

Speaking of disappointment, we were supposed to have lunch at daughter Michelle’s today, but Santa brought 14 year old Ian a temperature of 102, so plans were canceled. We are going for supper to friends Dick and Irene’s this evening for their annual party. How many decades has this been going on? And still no Chinese food!

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and those who don’t. Do I include Donald Trump in that group? The answer is “no”. His Christmas spirit is limited to offering free flights for immigrants who had come to America so they can spend the holiday and thereafter with friends and family in the countries from which they escaped. Humbug.

I asked Santa Claus if he had made his list of naughty and nice people, and he told me had and that he had checked it twice. I asked him if would mind naming a few of the folks on his naughty list (promising I would not circulate them, but would keep them to myself) and he agreed. This is who he told me had been bad:

Dennis, Nell, Edna, Leon, Nedra, Anita, Rolf, Nora, Alice, Carol, Leo, Jane, Reed, Dena, Dale, Basil, Rae, Penny, Lana, Dave, Denny, Lena, Ida, Bernadette, Ben, Ray, Lila, Nina, Jo, Ira, Mara, Sara, Mario, Jan, Ina, Lily, Arne, Bette, Dan, Reba, Diane, Lynn, Ed, Eva, Dana, Lynne, Pearl, Isabel, Ada, Ned, Dee, Rena, Joel, Lora, Cecil, Aaron, Flora, Tina, Arden, Noel and Ellen sinned.

A PALINDROME, A PALINDROME, A MOST INGENIOUS PALINDROME!! (Apologies to W. S. Gilbert)

If you watch MSNOW, you would conclude that any news that doesn’t involve Jeffrey Epstein has either vanished from the planet, or is so unimportant that it is hardly worth mentioning. I am trying to understand why this is so.

Is it because of the sensationalism of the case? Is it because of his relationship with Donald Trump? Is it because of the perseverance of so many of the survivors? Is it because support for the investigation is somewhat bipartisan, and some look at it as a way to break up GOP support for the president? Or maybe a combination of all of these and more.

The ambiguity of Trump regarding disclosure and the consequent ambiguity of his DOJ complicates the situation by throwing into question whether all documents required to be disclosed are being disclosed, and the reason for the many redactions on documents without, to date, the required explanations for the redactions.

Redactions are authorized to protect the identity of victims and so as not to compromise ongoing investigations. Maybe there are more reasons for redacting, but I don’t know what they are.

We are talking about events that happened 20 to 30 years ago. Most crimes and most civil claims are subject to statutes of limitations long passed. Crimes involving rape, sex trafficking and related matters are not subject to statutes of limitations and may be brought at any time. That means the events involving Epstein are not dead although he is, because there may be others still alive who may be appropriately charged. But, if there is a determination to charge anyone, an exception to disclosure arises and could cut off public dissemination of documentation.

I think the only other crimes could relate to recent incidents of perjury or obstruction of justice. These would also bring up potential limitations on disclosure.

Both Trump and I have brought up the probability that men, innocent of any crime, but somehow involved with Epstein in their past, would wind up named, blamed and unable to cure their tarred reputations, causing pain and expense to them and their families.

And then there are the survivors. Hard as it is to contemplate, there were apparently between 1000 and 1200 girls and women involved. How many were sexually abused, I don’t know. The number of these women who have outed themselves and gone public is a small proportion of these large numbers. Survivors are supposed to be protected and their names redacted from disclosed documents. But apparently in many cases (all by accident?) they were not, and names previously undisclosed are now public.

I obviously can not put myself in the shoes of a survivor. I can not begin to understand how they might feel. Those who had gone public say they are looking for perpetrators to be punished and for “closure”. But my concern is that they will wind up with the opposite of closure, with continuing entanglement, with loss of time and money, with criticism thrown at them, and so forth. All that in addition to exposing those who were not previously publicly identified.

Attention is also being given to the “ten co-conspirators”, all unidentified, yet many identifiable. One (the one I am most interested in) is 88 year old Les Wexner, the “Ohio businessman” (you can Google him). Businessman, philanthropist, and close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. My guess is that you will hear more about him, and that his final years will not be particularly pleasant. We shall see.

In the mean time, I wish a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate (with one notable exception).

I have said many times before that I view left wing antisemitism and right wing antisemitism as two different, if related, phenomena. Left wing antisemitism (if you call it that), in my opinion is largely anti-Israel sentiment based on Israeli policies (which can expand to anti-Zionism if one believes that current Israeli policies are inevitable, either because of the neighborhood in which Israel is located, or because Zionism itself believes in geographic expansion within that neighborhood). Right wing antisemitism, on the other hand, has been more typical antisemitism (whether it has a religious base, or from a belief that Jews want to or actually do control everything or whatever) and has existed along with right wing support of Israel as necessary for the fulfillment of what so many believe to be God’s promise, or God’s map of the future.

I think I have been correct when I have said that, but today, I am going to modify what I have been saying, largely (but not exclusively) because of what happened at last week’s Turning Point conference, the annual meeting of the members and supporters of the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point movement. The conference, in Phoenix, attracted about 30,000 (that’s right, 30,000) attendees. The conservative movement in general, whether it is MAGA, or Turning Point, or some other branch, has long maintained that it is not antisemitic because of its support for Israel. If particular conservatives were themselves antisemitic (as many were), that was their business. It just never came up in the meetings or pronouncements of the various conservative movements.

That has now changed. Prominent antisemitic conservatives apparently no longer feel the need to hide, or ignore, their antisemitism. Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and others are now telling it like they see it. At the same time, the conservative movement as a whole seems to be moving back from its universal, no questions asked, support for Israel and the Netanyahu policies. They are criticizing Israel more openly, they are describing Jews using various old time-worn antisemitic tropes, and they are conflating their views of Jews and of Israel, using criticism of one to bolster or evidence criticism of the other.

This obviously does not sit well with all of the members of the conservative movements, and did not sit well with all of the attendees at the Turning Point conference. The most prominent of these is Ben Shapiro, who has become very prominent over a period of years, wearing his black kippah, and blending his strong conservative positions with a strong and unquestioning support of Israel. Ben Shapiro is not happy with the falling support of Israel within his movement, and certainly is not happy with the broader evidences of anti-Jewish feelings. He felt it was time to attack these changes to make sure they did not continue and deepen, and he seems to have felt that some of the more prominent activists who seemed to be wavering in their support for Israel needed to be silenced within the conservative movement.

And he said so in his speech at Turning Point. He not only said so, but he said so in fighting terms. He said there was no place for either antisemitic or anti-Israel sentiments in the conservative movement, and no place for Israel related conspiracy theories about the death of Charlie Kirk, and he called out people by name, people really important in the movement, like Carlson and Steve Bannon and Megan Kelly.

I don’t know what Shapiro was expecting, but I know he didn’t get it. His speech led to a number of speakers,  like the Vice President, saying everyone was welcome in the movement, and there should be no “purity” tests. To many, these were talks supporting unity, to others they were talks supporting antisemites. What was clear from audience reactions is that Shapiro’s position had little support. It will be interesting to watch his next moves.

In the meantime, a group called Stop Antisemitism, about which I know nothing, but has been around for decades, has named Tucker Carlson as Antisemite of the Year 2025. This “honor” has been reported all over the Internet, it appears. I saw it first in a Facebook posting of the New York Post, as you know a very conservative newspaper. There were several thousand comments on the post, and I scrolled through the first hundred or so. Every one of them seemed to be supportive of Carlson and felt his new title really was an honor, something to be proud of.

So the conservative movement does have a problem. It is filled with antisemites. And Ben Shapiro didn’t help, at least in the short run. Nor does the apparent break between Israel (over Gaza and the West Bank) and so many conservatives help.

Vance wants a big tent. Of course he does. But big tents do lead to big problems..

Jeff Landry, a middle aged man, is the Governor of Louisiana. Does that sound like a full time job? It does to me, but apparently not to Jeff Landry. He has just taken a second “volunteer” job. Jeff Landry has just been appointed United States Special Envoy for Greenland.

Jeff Landry, if you read his Wikipedia bio, looks like he may never have left Louisiana before. He was born there, was raised there, went to college and law school there, spent a decade in the Louisiana National Guard, and has always worked there. (Oh, yes he was a Congressman for two years, but I sure never saw him here.)

And can you imagine two places as different from each other as Greenland and Louisiana? No? Well, not so fast. Try to answer this question:

What do Louisiana, Venezuela, and Greenland have in common? Want a hint? The answer has three letters, the first one is “o” and the third is “l”.

Now what is the goal of the United States Special Envoy to Greenland? Jeff Landry has given us the answer. He is going to work hard “to make Greenland part of the United States”.

Now, that may sound like a big job to you. But either it doesn’t to Jeff Landry, who says it will “in no way affect” his duties as Louisiana’s chief executive, or the job of governing Louisiana is easier than I assumed. He treats it like  “Hey, Art, how can you have time to write a daily blog? Are you still going to be able to pick up the mail and take out the trash?”

Of course, Trump promised this from the beginning and we all hoped he had forgotten about it. You may remember how essential he said it was. He said he may even use military means, if necessary.

We now see a pattern. Greenland becomes an Inuit speaking Puerto Rico, Venezuela gives us back “our oil”. What could be left?

You got it. The last leg of this three legged stool is left. The Panama Canal. Keep your eyes on this space.

By the way, the Danish government and the Danish people, and the Greenlanders are not the only ones apoplectic about this. All of NATO is. NATO’s Article 5 never contemplated a NATO power invading land belonging to another NATO power.

One person who does understand this is Trump’s buddy, Vladimir Putin. He knows that invading another country to take their land is no problem and often should be praised. And now we see why Trump can’t really criticize Putin. Brothers from different mothers. Putin from Mother Russia, and Trump from Mother Trump, the one and only woman that her son Donald never mentions.

Another understanding friend is Bibi Netanyahu. Of course, Bibi is moving east to the West Bank (yes, a conundrum).

Three years and one month to go. To answer the question once posed by William Yeats: No, the center will not hold.

The road will be rough. Buckle your seat belts before the Trump administration bans them as an effete luxury and a way to cut down on imports from China.

And by the way, if Trump can by fiat rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and shun anyone who uses its other name, can’t he by fiat rename Greenland Trumpland and force everyone to call it by that name?

My morning routine is pretty simple. Wordle. NYT crossword puzzle. Put up a blog post. Get on with my life.

Wordle takes no time at all. Crossword – depends on the day and the puzzle. Blog post – varies, dependent on whether I started (or finished) it the night before, and whether I have any idea what I am going to write about.

This morning, Wordle was easy. But I couldn’t finish the Times puzzle. At all. Why? Because I like a crossword puzzle that has clues and squares and each square gets one letter, and your job is figure out which one letter goes into each square. But some puzzles are not like that. They are more “tricky”. There was a puzzle last week, for example, where the “trick” was that a bunch of words needed to have “qq” written into them in consecutive squares. Now, I don’t know of any words containing two consecutive “qs”, and there were none in the puzzle. The second “q” was the sound “q”. An example? Okay, not in the puzzle, but imagine the definition is “Baghdad beauty”. The answer would be “Iraqqtie”. See what I mean?

Today’s NYT Sunday puzzle was that way. You work and work on it like it’s a normal puzzle and then, after almost an hour, you say “I give up” and then you go and look at the answer. And you are just disgusted. Okay, so maybe you should have figured out sooner that this was not a normal puzzle and either stopped then (cause you don’t like the other kind), or really tried to figure out the trick (which I still don’t understand).

Examples from today: Clue: sailor’s patron. Okay, you know that is St. Elmo, but you only have four letters. So you assume it is Elmo. But, no. It is S T [Elm] O. The famous lawyer in the Scopes trial is C L A R E N [ced] A R R O W. Lemonade and iced tea is A R N O L D [Palm] E R. When you are wet, you say I A M S [oak] E D. And so forth.

All of these crunched squares are trees (or in the [ced] case, part of the name of a tree). And you are supposed to figure this out because 69-down is “Where to find six presents in this puzzle” and the answer is “Under the tree”.

I just don’t get it. And, by the way, there was a lot else in this puzzle I didn’t get. How many of you can name the “2015 chart topping hit for the Weeknd”? It was Can’t Feel My Face! But that would be too easy, so in the puzzle it was C A N T F E [Elm] Y F A C E.

The author of the puzzle is a fellow named David Kwong and he is apparently a professional magician. My guess is that David Kwong and I have never had one common thought.

Enough of that…..

Here’s another mistake (sort of). For the last two weeks, we have gone out to dinner at out of the way restaurants. No reason. Small, hole-in-the-wall places, not near us (maybe 10 miles away) that I might have passed on an excursion and looked up on Yelp and saw that they got good ratings and said, “let’s give it a try”. Last week, it was the Filo Cafe, a Philippine restaurant, and last night we went to Ethiopios, and you can guess what kind of a restaurant that was.

We went to Ethiopios, which is located in small strip center in Rockville, because I had eaten lunch earlier this week at a Yunnan Rice Noodle shop in the same strip, and found it a unique and interesting experience, not like any other Chinese restaurant I had been in, and I saw there was a Jamaican restaurant and an Ethiopian restaurant in the same strip and thought we should give at least one of them a try.

Ethiopios has about a dozen tables, and there was only one other occupied (by a family of four) while we were there, but they were doing a good carry out business. There were six or seven people (mainly Uber Eats types) who came in to pick up orders. The restaurant itself is very plainly decorated. Its menu like most other Ethiopian restaurants (there are many, many in the DC area) and we ordered our usual vegetarian plate. There were seven vegetable concoctions spread out on a large injera. They were all pretty good (if not the best we have ever had). There were two cold dishes, one from beets and one from lentils, two warm bean dishes (one spicy, one not), a cabbage/potato combination, a string bean/carrot combination, and a serving of greens, maybe collards. For the two of us, it was only $20 plus tax and tip.

But, it’s a very informal place. The woman who serves you must also work in the kitchen, because she is never visible unless she is taking an order, serving, etc. To get her, you have to ring the bell on the counter. There was quite a bit of bell ringing last night. When the bell is rung, her standard answer was “Just a minute”, and she would generally come out after the second ringing.

The other interesting facet of the restaurant was that the heating didn’t seem to be working. The thermostat on the wall said that the temperature was 61 degrees. I asked her if she could up the heat and she said something in a combination of Amharic and English that meant “No, I can’t, it’s broken”, or “The thermostat is on the wall. Move it where you want.” One or the other, or maybe something else. I couldn’t tell. And I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t understand her, so I didn’t ring the bell again for that. I pushed up and down buttons, and something called menu and lo and behold I set the temperature at 78, which I knew was too warm, but I couldn’t move it back down for some reason. There was then a message on the thermostat that said “Temperature set at 78 degrees” and another that said “Temporarily on hold” that I couldn’t eliminate.

At any rate, the temperature stayed at 61/62, and we kept our coats on, and that turned out to be okay.

We had gone fairly early, and got home in time to see the last three episodes of Season 3 of The Diplomat. Waiting for Season 4 next September. Hope the country lasts that long (both on The Diplomat and in the Trumposphere).

How did I do? Only mentioned him once today. Pretty good, huh?

As I understand it, the Epstein grand jury transcripts have been permitted to be made public by a federal judge, and ordered to be made public by the law recently passed by Congress and signed by the President. With this in mind, one wonders how the government yesterday could have released a 100 page grand jury document with redactions that included everything single word of the document. In other words, the government released 100 blank pages in this one document alone.

This partial document release is just one other example of how the Trump administration ignores the law. They are bolstered by two beliefs, both of which are well founded. The first is that the President bears no legal responsibility for what he does, as long as what he does is part of his job as President as he sees it. That was the result of that unfortunate Supreme Court case, Trump v. the United States, decided last year before Trump came into office for his second term.

The second belief is that the Supreme Court will support Trump in whatever he does in the future, not in the sense that Trump v. the United States allows him to avoid personal liability, but in the sense that the Court will agree with the administration on it power to set the various administration policies that are challenged by Democrats or others. Although we don’t yet know how the Court will view Trump’s tariffs, for instance, this belief is legitimately based on the reality that most of the administration’s positions have been upheld, usually by 6-3 votes, even though this typically requires the Court to overturn decisions made by lower courts. In other words, the Supreme Court is consistent ignoring precedent and creating what in effect are new legal realities.

For those of us who oppose everything that Trump does (usually because we disagree with his policies or lack of policies, but sometimes simply because he is just a despicable human being), Trump v. the United States was a horrific opinion. But there is a lingering question, which is rarely asked. With this decision in place, if we had a President whom we could respect, who had positions that we generally agreed with, and who had no problem using the power the Court had given him as freely as Trump does, would we object the way we are objecting today? I am not trying to answer that question; I have no idea what the answer really is. My guess is that we would be split in our opinions.

But we know that there has always been a debate between the authority of the President, as executive, and Congress, as the legislative branch of government. This debate, now that Congress has once again proven itself paralytic, and the current President proven himself boundary-less, has moved to new levels. An example of this centers around questions of independent agencies, from the Federal Reserve to the FCC. If we have a constitution which divides legislative and executive functions, can the legislature create institutions, like these two, which do not answer to the executive? Although these independent agencies have functioned in that way for decades and decades, is time to pull them all under the control of the executive, who should have the right to control both personnel and policies of these heretofore “independent” agencies? None of us may want Trump to get control of these agencies, but if the executive was not Trump but anti-Trump, would we feel the same?

And this goes to the even bigger question, that we tend not to discuss, which is whether or not the American form of government works in the 21st century. Our government is based on checks and balances, and on public discussions of policies and potential policy changes, and all tha takes time, and that just may not be sufficient for a major power in our world with its continual technological changes. I read this morning that China is working hard on nuclear fusion – if you look at the front page New York Times articles, you will see what they are doing. We cannot compete with China with that kind of intensity.

We even see in our space policy that NASA no longer is in complete control; our space future is going to wind up in the hands of Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or both. The rich get richer; our government becomes more and more dependent on, and under the control of, billionaires, either because they control our industrial production, or because they control the funding that allows our political parties to flourish.

In other words, the Trump phenomenon may not be solely the result of a demented Donald Trump. Whoever winds up as President will face the same problems – need to control all aspects of the government to allow it to function in a competitive manner, yet held back by an unworkable Congress, and beholden to a group of billionaires who, through their control of both industry and the size of their political contributions, wind up as powerful as, or perhaps more powerful than, our elected leaders.

In 2028, Trump is done. Clearly, that does not mean our troubles are over.

I think Bill Kristol has it right. Why waste energy on renaming minor spots like the Kennedy Center? Let’s rename the moon!

I was in fact thinking about what He can do with respect to the nations’s capital, where we live. Why can’t He rename the city Trump? I asked that of one friend, who suggested that not only could He change the name of the city from Washington to Trump, but He could possibly change the name of George Washington himself to Donald Trump, the Father of our Country.

If He did that, He wouldn’t have to make piecemeal changes. The State of Washington would automatically become the State of Trump, the George Washington Bridge the Donald Trump Bridge, and so forth. Once He renamed the City of Washington for himself, he could do the same for the District of Columbia. We would then live in Trump, DT.

And then, of course, there is the country itself. Why not call it the United States of Trump? That’s ridiculous, you say, it’s in North America. One signed Executive Order, though, and North America becomes North Trump, just as South America becomes South Trump, separated by the Gulf of Trump and the Trump Sea.

Now, Art, you say, you are being a little silly, aren’t you? The answer is in fact not that clear. Trump, it appears, can rename anything He wants to rename, and, it further appears, that He wants to rename everything.

Merriam-Webster really missed the boat this year. They selected as their word of the year “slop”, a very sloppy choice, if you ask me. The OED selected “rage bait”, which as I look at it are two words, and also pretty inane. It seems to me that both of these organizations should have selected “trump” or perhaps “Trump” or maybe “He” with a capital “H”.

But, then again, as I look at it more closely, I realize that maybe M-W and the OED were just more clever than I am. Take “slop”, for example. “Slop” could just be a code word for “Trump”, couldn’t it? “Garbage”, “slop”, “detritus”, etc., all synonyms for “Trump”. And then “rage bait”. Yes, those are two words, but so are “Donald Trump”, and what incites more rage than He does? In fact, that’s what He wants to do, because He believes that the way to get the support of 51% of the country is to act as bait to the other 49%, because the rage of the 49% is what excites the 51%.

Trump’s polling seems to keep falling in every category. Yet, this week’s Quinnipiac poll shows that the approval level for Democrats in Congress is at the lowest ever, 18 or 19 percent. And that voters favor a Congress controlled by Republicans, albeit by a very slim majority, 49 to 48 percent. Of course, that is fairly close to where Congress is today, and approval of Congress over the course of 2025 has been in the 20 percents. These inconsistent statistics are hard to grasp.

If there were an election today, would Trump win? There is only one correct answer to that question, and that is “Who will be His opponent?”

And so my question of the day is: Who will be his opponent? And if you think you know the answer to that question…..

Nobody is going to be pleased by this post. My guess is many will tell me it is a mistake to publish it. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t know where it is going to wind up, but here goes.

Trump, at the White House Hanukkah party, said he will always stand up for the Jewish people and that he loves Israel. Okay, he may be serious, he may just saying what he thinks is politically best, he may change his mind tomorow. But that isn’t my focus. My focus is the general reaction to that statement, as set out in comments to various conservative media outlets’ reporting of his remarks in various Facebook posts. I have scrolled through three of the lengthy lists of comments.

Relatively few of these comments are completely antisemitic or anti-Israel rants. There are some, but not a lot. There are about the same number that say “We love Jews and Israel.” What are most common are comments that discuss religion. “Jesus is King.” “We believe in Christ.” And so forth, in many forms.

To me, this shows a more subtle form of antisemitism. We really don’t like the Jews, they should convert, but we support Israel because it is a necessary part of God’s plan, leading to the Second Coming. What surprises me (and I know my sample is too small to even call it a sample) is the number of people who have what to me are very simplistic and literal views of Christian belief. The kind of simplicity that I would hesitate to put my name to on a public forum.

Okay, that is Part One. Part Two is the more controversial part of what I am going to say. Here goes: I really know a lot of Jews. Almost all of my relatives. The majority of my friends, I think from kindergarten to today. Members of synagogues I have belonged to, organizations I have worked with, and so forth. And here is what I am going to say about them: I really do like 95% of them, each of whom I would put in a “good person” category.

I also read books written by and about Jews, I see Jewish actors and performers, Jewish politicians, and so forth, and while I wouldn’t call 95% of them “good people”, I would probably put, say, 75% in that category. And I would bet that none of these people ever cause a breakout of antisemitism. I don’t think anyone looks at any of these people and says to themselves, “No wonder I hate Jews”.

But then I look at the 25% (my % is arbitrary and maybe way off) that I don’t like and regret (and sometimes can not believe) they are Jewish, as their values and mine are so different. People such as Netanyahu and so many members of his governing coalition in Israel for starters. So many high ranking religious leaders of some Orthodox communities are another group. People in Trump’s government (Steven Miller, Les Zeldin, Howard Lutnick, among others). Right wing billionaire donors to political causes for another. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Even Nick Reiner. Right wing purveyors of false news. And more.

What really got to me the other day took plave at the same White House Hanukkah party.  Miriam Adelson, Israeli born American, widow of Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and  the most widely read newspaper in Israel, Israel HaYom, with a net worth of about $35 billion, announced that she was going to give Donald Trump $250 million to finance a run for a third term.

Now, she can do what she wants with her money, I guess. But what upsets me most about this and about what so many of the prominent members of the 25% who are not “good people” do, is that they do it wearing their Judaism so prominently, they do what they do because they say or maybe think it is “good for the Jews”, and therefore, in effect, they do it in my name.

I believe that what they do, because of their wealth and/or their prominence, overshadows the good deeds of 95% of my friends and relatives, and 75% or so of the other Jews of the world, and I would just like them to stop!

I never do this, but this time I did. Not sure why.

I like my eye doctor. It’s too bad I only see him once a year. Of course, seeing him is not easy. His office is in the Barlow Building in Friendship Heights, and you locals know what that means. It means having nine cars backed up on the street waiting to get into the garage with its “valet only” parking system, an ordeal equivalent to a cardiologist’s stress test. And then, when you get to his suite, a branch of a hydra-like ophthamology group, you have to go through their robotic check in system, which asks you many questions (checking your cognitive abilities) and to scan a bevy of documents (checking your coordination). I was called back pretty quickly by a new tech, who introduced himself as “Kelvin, just like the temperature scale”. He then asked me if I was familiar with the Kelvin scale. I lied, “Yes”. Now, that would not have been a lie if he had asked if I ever heard of it. But familiar? I made its acquaintance after my exam, and I think I may use it from now on. It is about 275 degrees outside now. That makes it much more comfortable than if it were either Centigrade or Fahrenheit for sure.

I passed the exam by following all the instructions. Sit straight. Lean back. Blink. Look right. Look down. Open wide. Put your chin here.

You know the drill. I followed each of those instructions without blinking. Except “Blink”. I didn’t get a certificate of merit, but I got another appointment. On December 22, 2026. Luckily my schedule that day still had a few openings.

I drove home with sun glasses on. Luckily, I didn’t hit anybody or anything. That included the trash truck that blocked Livingston Street and made me drive through alleys, and included the workman holding a sign telling me that I couldn’t cross Nebraska on Nevada, and had to drive around and about just to get home.

I don’t normally talk about our used book business on this blog, but I will today because we sold two books I liked to have on our overburdened shelves- a signed copy of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock and a signed copy of M. Gessen’s The Future is History. I took them to the Post Office on Northhampton, forgetting the Christmas is acoming, I faced a line oof about a dozen people, each probably mailing a hundred gifts. So I turned around, went back to the car, and went to the small Chevy Chase MD post office, with only three in front of me.

On the way home, I stopped at CVS to pick up a subscription. The pharmacy clerk (who, by the way, is the world’s beat) said to me when he looked at the price of my medicine “Did you drop your insurance?” Huh? It turns out that the cost was more than ever before. Okay, that can happen. But he told me that the cost charged through mu insurance was $12 more than if I bought it without insurance. So I bought it without insurance and will worry about it again in 90 days.

I came home and decided to get on the stationary bike. I drove a little over 8 miles in about 40 minutes, while I watched a documentary on YouTube about current conditions in Kabul under the Taliban. I was surprised the British journalists could film and release as much as they did. Life in Kabul seems just awful and I was thankful I don’t live there. But then I thought about it and realized that for many these days, life in the United States bears some  similarities: people who are afraid to go outside, peoplevwho may be detained because of how they look, uniformed and armed individuals walking the streets and socforth. Obviously, not the same, but….

I also saw a video reel someone put on Facebook where a number (6, 7, 8?) Brits were aaked if they would want to live in Europe or in the U.S. Obviously, the clips were selected to give a message, so all answered “Europe:” and gave their reasons. The thing is that they were all correct. Today, there is no reason to pick the U.S. over Europe aa a place to live and raise a family. Too bad, for sure, but true.

The evening was devoted to more reading about the fate or Gorbachev and the USSR, and watching MSNOW about the extraordinary Susie Wiles interview in Vanity Fair, the looming Venezuelan War, and the tributes that (almost) everyone gave to Rob and Michele Reiner. Trump is speaking to the nation tonight, I understand. Maybe he will charm us all, right? I give him about a 2 percent chance to do that. Yes, I know, I am a generous guy.

There are many things I know very little about. Among those are the history of indigenous Australians and the history of indigenous Australian art. But it is also true that I know a little more about both than I did when I woke up this morning. That’s because Edie and I went to the National Gallery to see the exhibit titled The Star We Do Not See, an exhibit of about 200 works of indigenois Australian art from the National Gallery of Art of Victoria in Melbourne. It will be at the National Gallery until early March, when it travels on.

After it opened a few weeks ago, Washington Post art critic Sebastian Smee wrote a highly critical review of the exhibit, saying it contained some masterpieces, to be sure, but largely contained mediocrities, and that the National Gallery should not have brought in a prepackaged show from one museum, but hired a curator to search out only masterpieces and tell a more coherent story. He also said the exhibit is too inclusive, wanting to exhibit works by artists around the continent, sacrificing quality to do so.

Now Smee is a bit more qualified than I am to review this exhibit. For one thing, he is an artist and art critic. For another, he is Australian. But I won’t let that stop me.

You should see this exhibit. Why? Because the mediocre works are as good as the masterpieces. In fact, I have no idea which are which. I don’t think it is possible to tell.

A few things I did not know:  Human history in Australia goes back 65,000 years. When the British came in the 1800s, there were indigenous communities all over the continen, with people speaking over 200 distinct languages. Each area had its own artistic traditions.

More: These communities suffered under the British. Poverty, disease, displacement.

More: the current trends in indigenous art only stems from the second half of the twentieth century, when the country began passing laws to protect it indigenous population. It was after this that the types of painting done on rocks, for example, were moved to more mobile surfaces. And, that modern paints could be used as well as natural dyes. And canvases became available, rathercthan only bark.

The art on display includes work on canvas and on bark, and includes three dimensional work. Here are some examples. These were some of my favorites. Whether they are masterpieces or mediocrities, I don’t know.

In addition, the names of the artists, their specific homelands, or what they are interpreting mean little to me. So I am going to post them with no explanations. If you see the show in person, or see what you can on line, you will undoubtedly learn more. Each piece, each artist, each locale is described.

The oldest art in the show was in fact in a small book from 1875, put together by an indigenous artist for a British settler. Here are two pages from that book.

The last room of the exhibition shows more modern, less traditional works. I am only posting one, which actually contains only text. But each square is profound. I suggest you enlarge and read each of square.

And I repeat: Go see the show. Read his review and absorb what he says, but otherwise pay no attention to Sebastian Smee.

What could be worse than when a child kills his parents? And when the parents are more than just names in a newspaper, even if you had no personal connection with them, the horror of the situation is haunting. The news about Rob Reiner, a familiar face since All in the Family, and whose career as both actor and director, along with his seemingly perfect political activism, made him a model of a successful American citizen. Yet, there was obviously an underside to his success, a son with apparently untreatable addiction and mental illness problems.

Ten or fifteen years ago, I was on the board of a national non-profit with an individual with whom I really did not get along, although our contact was limited. I later learned that, when he was away at college, his parents were murdered in their home by a man hired by his two older brothers. It made me look at him with different eyes, and gave me so much sympathy for him, wondering how he could live with that in his past, and excusing his traits which kept us from being friends.

I won’t identify him, but the Reiner killings brought me right back to these earlier ones. And to stoies like that of the Menendez brothers, which 35 years after the crime continue to make the news now and again.

I said yesterday that I was going to write about slavery today, but I will postpone that once again. I am thinking about families and murder.

I guess it explains why the bible starts as it does. There is creation, there is the discovery that all will not be paradise, and immediately there is one brother murdering another. To quote (in a different context) Rabbi Hillel……”All the rest is commentary.”

Patricide has a long history, of course, through royal families throughout the world, where in a sense, for a long time, it was normalized. Maybe we should not be shocked when it happens today, but rather be shocked that it doesn’t happen more often.

So, patricide and fratricide and whatever you call murder of a spouse, are more common than we would like them to be. And often, while they are crimes that show families which have been torn apart, they also show family binding. The Menendez brothers, the two brothers of my former associate, men not working alone, but in tandem. I am often reminded of Jules Feiffer’s play, Little Murders. I should really look at it again, because I don’t remember the plot at all. I know it was abput family dysfunction and that, at the end, the warring father and son find reconciliation, with the mother/wife remarking how nice it is to have the family together again, as her son and husband sit at adjoining windows in their New York City apartment having the time of their lives shooting at random passers-by below. And it appears that, just yesterday, the horrific murders in Sydney were carried out by a father and son working in tandem.

Finally, my appreciation to William Shakespeare for giving me today’s title. It comes from Hamlet of course. I forget, but maybe you remember. Any intra-family murders in that play?

It is hard to avoid talking about the two horrific events of yesterday. The attack at Brown University in Providence and the attack on Bondi Beach at the Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. It is interesting that both of these places have very tough gun laws, and that both have had very low numbers of gun homicides. It just shows you that you can’t protect against everything, no matter how hard you try to.

Hopefully, they have captured the right guy in Providence; he is unidentified as I write this. And, it appears that they have killed one and injured the other of two shooters (hopefully, the only two) in Sydney. We have no idea of the motive behind the shootings in the physics building at Brown while final exams were going on, but in Sydney it would appear that the attacks were Israel related.

Why do I say that? I say that because I read earlier that the Hanukkah candle lighting at Bondi Beach, sponsored by a local Chabad center, was billed as a celebration for Israelis living in Sydney. Not that others, Jew or Gentile, weren’t invited, but the Israelis were the target of the organizers and turned out to be, I would assume, the target of the attackers. Of course, even so, this event so far has been billed as antisemitic, not anti-Israel (at least from what I have seen) and it again brings up the relationship between the two. While it would probably be impossible to say that the shooters hated Israel but were indifferent to Jews, it is possible to think that, but for the Israeli actions in Gaza, this attack would not have occurred.

It will take a long time, as we know, for the strong feelings against Israel (for many, you can’t separate Israel from “Israel’s current government”) to subside. It will take even longer than it otherwise might if Israel continues on the course it is on – attacks on Hamas members in Gaza where collateral killings and damage is inevitable, delays in letting needed aid or needed rebuilding material into the area, attacks in Syria and Lebanon on Hezbollah targets,  increasing attacks by settlers, sometimes aided by IDF or security troops, in the West Bank and increased Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

As I have suggested before, all of this may, on the part of Israeli leadership or Israelis in general, be well thought out: Now is the time they can succeed because they have overwhelmingly superior force, and public opinion be damned, now is the time that they are going to take steps that might be very unpopular but, if successful, may create an Israel with truly secure boundaries once and for all. If they fail, Israel as an independent state may fail. If they succeed, irrespective of how they are seen or judged today, the current crop of Israeli leaders will, by future generations, be deemed heroes.

But all of this turmoil is not without spillover effects. And those spillover effects will include an increasing amount of anti-Israel feeling and anti-Israel actions around the world among many individuals, some or most of whom will not be able to parse the difference between Israelis and Jews. And there will be continuing random attacks on synagogues and Jewish events with killing and maiming, along with property damage, occurring each time.

While it is impossible to stop this, and difficult to figure out where it might appear next, it is worth noting that the State of Israel’s insistence that it be recognized as a “Jewish State” and maintaining that it is the State of the Jews, wherever they live and whether or not they have ever even traveled to Israel, along with the existence of a large Israeli diaspora around the world, adds to the problem. So does the position taken by many Jewish organizations which, regardless of their basic raison d’etre, have taken on the defense of Israel and Israelis as central to their mission, and the continuing displaying of Israeli flags inside synagogue sanctuaries and “we stand with Israel” signs on synagogue lawns. It may be impossible to change any of this, but it should all come with the recognition that it does increase the dangers that Jews find themselves in wherever they may be.

In the meantime, our thoughts, prayers and sympathies go out to the families of those killed, injured, or otherwise affected by all of these sad events, whether they be related to Israel and Jews, as is the case in Sydney, or not, as presumably is the case in Providence.

With regard to attacks on universities, like Brown, or other types of schools, better security is probably the best answer we have. It is my understanding that the building at Brown where the attacks occurred was unlocked. When I was going to universities, no one thought that buildings should be locked. But it appears that today, they need to be, just as there need to be more cameras and recording devices, more metal detectors, and more personnel trained in security.

As you might guess, this is not what I was planning to write about this morning. I was going to write about slavery. Maybe tomorrow. I have some thoughts about that (broad thoughts), too.

1. Donald Trump’s bone spurs were diagnosed in 1968 by Dr. Larry Braunstein. Dr. Braunstein rented his office space from Fred Trump, Donald’s father. Braunstein’s two daughters recently have said, according to an article in the Irish Times, that their father wrote up the diagnosis as a favor to Fred, and one of them went on to say that she doesn’t know that he ever even examined the future president’s feet.
2. After celebrating his eighth personally ended war, this one between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and holding a signing ceremony at the non-functioning Donald Trump Institute of Peace, it has been reported that the fighting has continued and an important Congo town taken by Rwanda. My question is: if Trump convinces the parties to come for another truce signing party, will he call this his 9th?
3. Trump called ABC reporter Rachel Scott stupid and “the most obnoxious” reporter when she accurately reported what he said earlier about the attack on a Venezuelan boat. “I didn’t say that! You said that.!” He either forgot he said it or just didn’t want to respond. The incident has been widely shown on media and the usual Trump critics have talked about. But again, I ask, why do the other journalists tolerate this? Irrespective of their politics, why don’t they walk out, send letters to the White House, state their positions publicly? Why don’t they do anything as this assault on female journalists continues?
4. I am not sure what American sanctions on the International Criminal Court would even mean, but Trump has threatened them unless the Court does him a favor. Unless the Court gives Trump and his advisors a free pass on anything they do. Why isn’t everyone outraged at this?
5. Trump wants to personally decide who buys Warner Brothers Discovery, which means, among other things, who will control CNN. One of the two contestants is about 25% owned by his son-in-law and Saudi and UAE funds. Anybody care?
6. Trump insists that Admiral Rachel Levine be identified as Admiral Richard Levine. Her legal name is Rachel. He can get away with this?
7. Trump wants Dulles Airport to be renamed for him, and maybe the Kennedy Center. And what will DC’s Union Station be called after the federal government redo? Welcome to the U. S.of T.

I did sit through the entire Congressional hearing on Homeland Security yesterday morning, and I must say….I never ceased to be amazed. There were three witnesses, Secretary Kristi Noem, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, and the head of the FBI national security branch, Michael Glasheen. I felt sorry for Glasheen, who seems to be unable to speak well (or sometimes at all), a necessity for someone testifying before Congress and on television. As to Kent, for some reason, just looking at him scares me. I shouldn’t hold that against him, I know. But I do.

Now, it is true that everyone was yelling at everyone else and doing their best to insult each other, that no questioner was really interested in answers to their questions, and that the biggest game in town seemed to be to see who would stop speaking first when the questioner and answerer were speaking over each other as if the other wasn’t really there. I will put that all aside for now, although it obviously set the tone of, and controlled the information flow within, the session.

What I want to discuss are some real conflicts between Democrats and Republicans that should (but can’t be) narrowed or resolved, by parties sitting down, laying out facts and bases for the facts, and trying to reach a workable compromise that, in fact, may not satisfy anyone but will move several steps in the right direction. Of course, that doesn’t happen. Instead, the parties just double down on their positions.

For example, to a question about why ICE arrests and confines American citizens or people here on  legitimate work permits, Kristi Noem can’t give an honest answer, I guess. She responds by saying: We don’t do that; we don’t confine citizens or those authorized to be in the country.  Well, that just isn’t true. So why does she say it?

When given examples of people arrested without apparent cause, such as the California landscaper who has been in the U.S. for 30 years, raised three sons each of whom were U.S. Marines, and never was in any legal trouble, and asked for an explanation, she responds: We are enforcing all the laws; we make no exceptions. Say, what? What does that even mean? How does it fit into the mother of Trump’s silly spokeslady Katherine Leavitt’s niece, who was arrested and now was released. I guess it pays who you know.

And then, of course, there is the standard Republican answer to every single question: It was Joe Biden’s fault. I, for one, am a bit tired of that one. Maybe others are as well. But for the Republicans in the room yesterday? Maybe they have to put a quarter in the penalty jar if they answer a question without using Biden’s name.

One thing that did surprise me was that two Republican Congressmen (they will remain nameless because I don’t remember their names) talked about Muslim criminality, each of them saying that Muslims were much more likely to commit crimes than the restroom us. One of them mentioned the Somali-led COVID fraud scheme now unfolding in Minnesota, and both of them gave horrific statistics on Muslim crime. All of those statistics (whether they are accurate or not, I have no idea) came from various European sources and dealt with crime in particular European locations. I went back to my friends at Google AI to see about Muslim crime in the United States, and was told that not only is there no evidence that Muslims in the U.S. commit more crimes than others, but there is some evidence that they commit fewer crimes. This is similar, of course, to the oft heard Republican chant that immigrants commit more crimes, when statistics show the opposite.

But yesterday’s rants by these two nameless-to-me Congressmen went beyond typical showings of GOP bias. One of them showed a video, a compilation of man-in-the-street questions to (I assume) Muslims, who were asked either “What law do you follow, American or sharia?” or “Would you rather live under American or sharia law?” And, lo and behold, it was 100% opted for sharia. 0% for American. Just wait. Someone will soon show that each of the responders was paid for their answers.

To end this charade, one of the two Congressmen proudly said of Muslims: “I want to deport each and every one of them!!”. As usual, that’s a paraphrase, but this is “what he said”.

One more thing for today: I see that 95,000 photos turned over to Congress by the Epstein estate are now ready for public viewing. If I look at 100 per day, I will have seen them all by Thanksgiving 2028. I already saw about a half dozen this morning on Morning Joe.

My favorite? The one showing Woody Allen and Steve Bannon engaged in a friendly conversation. What could be better than this? In second place is Alan Dershowitz and Jeffrey Epstein talking – with Epstein wearing a Harvard sweat shirt. Of course, Epstein never went to Harvard, but Dershowitz spent his entire career teaching there. So, can we assume that the sweat shirt was a gift from Alan to his buddy Jeffrey? Or do we think that Jeffrey wore that sweatshirt whenever he was visited by any of his Harvard friends, not only Dershowitz, but maybe Larry Summers when he was advising Summers how to pick up girls at a bar (or wherever): You have to be assertive, Larry, don’t hold back, exude confidence.

Sigh.

We watched a film on Netflix last night called “The Abandoned”.  You might or might not give it a passing grade as entertainment, but you would give it a fairly high grade for social commentary, and an absolutely top grade for weirdness. The movie was filmed in Taipei, and makes Taiwan look like a place to stay away from. It looks like such an awful place that if I were Xi Jinping and I saw that movie, I would call my generals together and say, “Let forget that island.”

As for social commentary, the film focuses on the lives of undocumented female workers from places like Thailand and Indonesia who lose their lives, and undocumented males who work in the places that, if discovered, will be raided by authorities. Deportation is the fear, but the situation is different from the current situation here. Families are not targeted, people with work permits are not targeted, children feel safe going to school.

It shows that undocumented immigrants are not only an American problem, but one worldwide. I was surprised it would be a problem on an island like Taiwan, where border control seems comparatively easy. But I have learned there are almost 100,000 undocumented workers on Taiwan, most of whom entered legally and stayed after their initial work visas have expired. They then enter a dangerous black market job market operated by dangerous individuals and organizations, with dangerous jobs, inadequate housing, and strong financial pressures.

I have no idea why I am writing about this movie at all. I am not even talking about how weird it is.

Is there nothing interesting going on for me to mention? There must be something. After all, the US military has captured a tanker filled with Venezuelan oil. Why did they seize the ship? The only reason I can think of is that it was too big to sink.

The talk now is that the goal of all of this Venezuelan nonsense is to take control of the oil fields and give them back to Chevron. Do I remember correctly that the Bush neocons were planning on controlling Iraqi oil after that horrendous invasion, and that profits from oil sales would pay for the war, and not the American taxpayer? How did that turn out?

This morning, after a presentation on what was called the Department of Injustice at my breakfast group, I have started to watch Congressional hearings on the Department of Homeland Security. I was amused (I think that is the right word) when Bennie Thompson suggested to Kristi Noem that she resign before Trump fires her. He then asked the FBI counterterrorism chief what the biggest threat to American security is. His answer was “Antifa”, so Thompson asked him some specifics about Antifa. The witness was totally tongue tied.

Nothing will come from these hearings, as the Republicans, both those asking the questions and those answering them, are simply blaming Biden for everything. In fact, Biden will probably be mentioned more this morning in this hearing than Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files.

And he wasn’t blameless. I blame Biden, too, for taking the border approach that he did. From the first year of his term, I was suggesting that he was setting the stage for what would be the return of Donald Trump. For both of these things, or I guess it is the same thing, I do blame Biden.

So there you have it.

For decades now, when young people go out on first dates and want to learn about each other, they might ask: “What is your sign?” But starting today, there is a new question: “What is your font?”

It seems clear that if someone whose font is Calibri (meaning they are a “left wing lunatic”, as our President might describe them) learns that their date is New Times Roman (a true American font, regardless of the name), they might as well take the next Uber home. They are totally incompatible.

It turns out that Calibri is a DEIA font, easier to read than New Times Roman, and therefore makes immigrants from countries where English is not widely used more comfortable, as well as persons with certain disabilities . For this reason, Secretary Rubio is insisting that all official communications from the State Department be written in New Times Roman. Take that, Anthony Blinken!!

Now, I have never been font conscious until today, but I will be more careful from now on. For example, I now have learned, if I can believe what I read, that this blog is being brought to you in Samsung One font, and that when you Google something, your response comes in Roboto font. There is just so much to learn.

Did you know, for example, that Substack let’s you select your own font out of several they offer? Fascinating, no? No?

A tired looking, but persistent, Donald Trump rallied at the Mt. Airy Casino in the Poconos last night. He did about as well as he has historically done in casinos, I thought.

While I haven’t seen the fact checkers yet, and only watched some of his talk, there did not seem to be many new lies, only ones he has told multiple times in the past. One that I did focus on had to do with wind farms, which of course he hates. His claim was the almost all of the products that are used to make windmills come from China, but that China has no wind farms itself because the Chinese are too smart.

I thought that was worth a Google. Here is a map which shows where you can find wind farms in China.

I also was interested in how much he loves miners. You know what a miner is? According to Trump, it is someone who goes to work every day 10,000 feet underground. That was worth another Google. Yes, there is a 10,000 foot deep gold mine in South Africa. But in the US, most coal mines seem to be fewer than 2000 feet deep, and certainly none approaches 10,000 feet. But what is a little exaggerating among friends?

By the way, Trump also said that our miners love mining, and love burrowing 10,000 feet. I paraphrase slightly: “I could offer them a beautiful penthouse in midtown Manhattan, but they would turn it down because they love their mines.”

While Rubio was reporting, and Trump was mining his own business at the casino, Miami was electing its first Democratic mayor in 30 years, and electing her by 20 points. And the Democrats flipped a seat in the Georgia state legislature in a district that Trump won by over 10 points.

November 2026 is still 11 months away and much could happen, but…..

Signing off in Samsung One.

What am I thinking about right now? I am thinking how sorry I am that President Trump does not have a nose that grows every time he tells a lie. Because, as you know, if he did, his nose would now extend from the White House all the way to Mar-a-Lago. Why, you ask, would I want him to have a nose like that? I guess I could give you a number of reasons, but today I am thinking about this one:

I have noticed that Trump, in making the decisions he makes, seems remarkably short sighted. You tell him you have a problem and he wants your vote, he will immediately tell you what he is going to do to fix your problem (often one that he himself has caused), without thinking of the long term (or even mid-term) effects of his cure. And you ask why this is? It’s because Trump obviously can’t see beyond the tip of his nose. So, if the tip of his nose extended all the way to Palm Beach, he would, I assume, be able to make decisions based on much longer range thinking.

I am working my way through William Taubman’s lengthy Gorbachev. I am half way through. Gorbachev is now in charge and is finding that glasnost, or openness, is not always helpful to leadership, and that his perestroika, or reform, movement faces strong opposition from conservatives on the right (okay, in political terms, I guess they are leftists, but in sociological or psychological terms, they are conservatives and the equivalent of right wingers in America) led by Ligachev and Gromyko, and by those who want more reform on the left, led by the charismatic, but already unstable Yeltsin. These leftist reformers are those who, again, in political terms are on the right, wanting a system even more akin to our capitalism, but psychologically are leftists. I know that is confusing, but….think about it.

Continuing on this line, think of Gorbachev as a typical artis80 reader. Moderately liberal, politically cautious, seemingly pragmatic and so forth. If that is you and you lived in the USSR in the 1980s, you would think that Gorbachev was on the right path and you would wish him luck. And eventually, you would be disappointed. The political class in your country just wasn’t with you sufficiently, and Gorbachev was over ambitious and self confident.

So we have three points to make. First, Gorbachev had the right ideas. Second, the ship was too big to turn around so quickly. Third, he was so ambitious and self confident that he did not recognize this until it was too late. The result? Utter chaos and Vladimir Putin.

Now, move to the United States.  We have our own Gorbachev in Donald Trump. Their political thinking is totally different, but Trump, like Gorbachev, wants to change the political system of his country, and tear down existing institutions to do it. He is also facing opposition from all sides. And the ship he is attempting to turn is also very large. But his ambition and self confidence, like his Soviet counterpart, are equally large.

Trump will most likely fail. We know that. But what then? Will we be able to return to those wonderful days of yesteryear, or will that will that prove too difficult? Is it possible that we too will be caught up in our own chaos, a chaos we can not today know how to end, because we don’t know what it will contain?

Donald Trump is not the only one who cannot see beyond the tip of his nose. You don’t see American politicians or political thinkers or political journalists or pundits talking much about the post-Trump reconstruction that must take place. About the America of the post-Trump future. And by the time they do, we may be in our own Time of Troubles (to use another phrase from Russian history) and may discover that the strongest, not the best, man will come out on top.

If you go to the Jewish Museum of Florida, in the part of Miami Beach that I call (not knowing any better) South of South Beach, which is housed in an old synagogue, you see large stained glass windows which honor families and individuals who gave substantial amounts of money to the synagogue. One of the most prominent of these congregants was a man named Meyer Lansky.

Meyer Lansky, I assume, must have virtually commuted (not “virtually” as we think of it today) between Miami Beach and Havana as he acted as the financial brain (we would today call him the CFO, I guess) of the Mafia. But everything he did was not bad.

I mention this, because I recently was talking about this museum with a friend who winters in South Beach and knows the museum well. She told me another story about Lansky. I don’t remember all of the details, but the details are unimportant. So if you want to retell this story, feel free to alter it any way you want, as long as the main point remains. Here goes: My friend has a friend whose grandmother had a friend who rented an apartment in South Beach back when South Beach was not yet South Beach and the museum was still a synagogue. Lansky had an apartment in the same building. After her husband passed away, she found herself in financial difficulties. She had known Lansky from her building or  from the synagogue, although I don’t know if they were besties or only nodded to each other on the High Holidays (this detail may be important to a biographer, but not to us, and this is a detail about which, I am sorry to say, you are not free to speculate). But the point of the story is that Lansky took pity on her and helped her financially for the rest of her life. Not only that, but whenever he went grocery shopping, he would knock on her door and ask her what she needed. That Meyer Lansky! What a great guy!

Here is Meyer:

Now don’t think this is just a Jewish thing. Think of Alphonse Capone, an Italian Midwesterner with whom Lansky closely worked. Capone, it has been said again and again, was really good to his mother. But, it’s more than that. Capone established a large network of free soup kitchens throughout Chicago during the Depression. And (here is something you don’t know): It was Capone who pressed for expiration dates on milk bottles, after one of his relatives took ill. Don’t believe me? Google it.

Who else? Mussolini? He made the trains run on time. And this was no small feat. He did it in Italy, for God’s sake. Hitler? He built the autobahns, created national parks, and made sure the Wagner festivals at Bayreuth continued doing the darkest of times. And he gave Aryan women money when they had children. Okay, so his bad stuff massively eclipsed this and brought ruin to everything he touched, but still…..

This, of course, leads me to Donald Trump. Like all the other bad players throughout history, Donald Trump, you may be sure, has also done some good things. But the fact is…..I just can’t think of any.

Yesterday morning, we attended Shabbat services not at the synagogue we belong to, but at a different Conservative synagogue several miles from our house. We went to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of cousins and ran into a number of people we knew.

I told one of them that every time I am in their sanctuary, I am reminded of the most frightening experience I ever had in a synagogue, and that it happened in that very room, about 45 years ago.

The occasion was the bar mitzvah of the son of a first cousin of Edie. We went to the service, but the service was unlike anyone I had ever been to.

How could that be, you ask. Well, it was a Conservative service, and for the first almost 40 years of my life, I had only been to Reform Jewish services. St. Louis, where I grew up, had a greater percentage of Reform Jews and a lesser percentage of Conservative Jews than any other major American city. While there were a few Conservative Jews in my high school (I would bet were are talking about no more than 10 at most out of the 80 or so Jews in my class), none were close friends and I never was at their synagogues. When I was in college and high school, my Jewish life was pretty much limited to high holiday services, and I always chose Reform services. And when I moved to Washington and for the first several years after we married, we belonged to a Reform synagogue.

I remember, by the way, being very surprised, in college and law school, at the large number of my classmates who identified as Conservative or even Orthodox. The same was true of the people I met when I moved to Washington.

Edie’s father, born in Europe, went to an Orthodox synagogue, and her other relatives all seemed to belong to Conservative congregations. In those days, much more so than now, Reform and Conservative services were quite different, and you could be comfortable in one and lost in the other.

I was lost at Edie’s cousin’s bar mitzvah. The entire service was pretty foreign to me and the fact that everyone else at the service knew what was going on and seemingly could fully participate made me feel quite inadequate.

At some point, as I was trying to pay attention and get my bearings, someone (maybe Edie’s cousin, I don’t remember) came up to me and said something like “Go up to the bima. We have an honor for you.”

WHAT???? What could they possibly want me to do that I could possibly do? Read something in Hebrew? Chant a prayer? That seemed to be what others were doing. I was going to make a fool of myself.

But I gamely went up front. It was time to take the Torah, which had been read a bit earlier in the service, and carry it around the congregation and then bring it back up in the bima and place it in the ark. That is what they wanted me to do. No vocalizing required.

Well, that may sound easy, but I had never seen a Torah carried around a sanctuary in this manner. And I certainly didn’t know where, in this room which I had never been in before, I was to carry it. Right, left, back, front? No idea. And no GPS. I also didn’t know the cantor and the congregation would be chanting a prayer while I carried, that I would be leading a small parade, that people wanted to touch the Torah as I walked and I was to let them, or that the prayer would end while I still had a fairly long way to go and this didn’t mean I should have walked faster.

Somehow it all worked out, although I remember that I certainly did not feel a sense of accomplishment.

Well, that was then and this is now. What do I mean that it worked out? Not too long after that, we joined a Conservative synagogue, I became more than comfortable with the service, and I became an active congregant, a member of the board of directors and an officer. The synagogue we joined was not the one where I had been so petrified, but one closer to our home. And the bar mitzvah boy? He did all right, too. He is now the president of Hamilton College.

I wrote the title to this post before I had any idea what I was going to write about. The title seems to fit every possible topic.

The latest news about the drug boats in the Caribbean is being touted this morning by the media as if it is the latest news, but I remember it being discussed from the very beginning, although I did see a nuanced discussion yesterday. That is the apparently clear fact that none of the boats that we have attacked were coming to the United States. They were all going to much closer ports in other countries. So, it’s not like it is simply an alternative to the Coast Guard boarding a vessel in our territorial waters, capturing drugs and sending the boatmen back to where they came from. It is much different, and the difference is not only in the obvious different treatment of those men on the boats.

The focus has been on the one boat where the two “survivors” were de-survived. My assumption has been that this boat was on its way to Trinidad, where its cargo would be unloaded and somehow put on another boat, or maybe a plane, and brought to the United States, although how this would be accomplished was never explained. But I think it was clear that the boat(s) in question could not have gone far beyond Trinidad. It did not have the fuel to go that much further.

It was a mystery to me that, if the cargo was going to be unloaded in Trinidad, why Trinidad was not equally a target of ours as Venezuela was. But clearly, it has not been. But it looked like somewhere in Venezuela (not made public), there were folks packaging cocaine and putting it on small fishing boats, and sending the cocaine to Trinidad, where it was unloaded and, maybe, further processed, and then put on other vessels to come to the United States. Of course, we didn’t seem to be looking for those vessels making the second leg of the trip, which only made sense if we had zapped every one of the boats heading from Venezuela to Trinidad.

But then I heard two more things. I heard that most cocaine comes not from Venezuela but from Columbia. This might explain why we have also been shooting at boats in the Pacific, but does not explain why all of the Caribbean targets have apparently been Venezuelan. But there has been very little said about the boats attacked in the Pacific. Are they Colombian? Do they have anything to do with Venezuela (which obviously has no Pacific coast)? But Colombia has Caribbean as well as Pacific ports. Why aren’t we attacking Colombian boats in the Caribbean?

That was the first new thing I heard was that Venezuela is not the most significant source of cocaine by a long shot. The second is that cocaine which is trafficked across the Caribbean is usually not headed for the United States at all – that cocaine that comes here by boat in fact comes largely from the Pacific. The cocaine that goes to, say, Trinidad for processing is primarily then shipped across the Atlantic to Europe. If this is the case, then the idea that we are saving American children by sinking Venezuelan boats and killing Venezuelan crew members becomes even more absurd. And of course, the administration’s trying to tie this in with fentanyl is even sillier

To cap this off, yesterday I read that the boat that was “two-tapped” (or maybe “four-tapped”) was not even heading from Venezuela to Trinidad. I heard that it was going to Suriname, a somewhat longer trip than the short one to Trinidad, but one which hugs the shore and forms a standard stop on the way to Europe. This would mean that everything we had been told about the route of this boat before was false, and that if this boat (and maybe all the boats we have hit in the Caribbean) was heading east to Suriname and not north to Trinidad, it would (a) explain why we haven’t been hitting sites in Trinidad or boats leaving Trinidad, and (b) make it even more clear that this cocaine (assuming the boats had cocaine) was in fact destined for Europe, and not the United States.

So, what to make of all of this? First, that we really aren’t trying to save American children, who are not the prime cocaine customers anyway, but that for some reason we are tracking these Venezuelan ships rather than going after ships heading for the United States. Secondly and especially as we are building up our forces in the Caribbean, all this really is is a diversion for the American public while we prepare for war against the Maduro regime in Venezuela, with the Nobel-winning, Trump-supporting Venezuelan opposition leader waiting in Colombia for her opportunity to take over the country. The poor Venezuelan boatmen are just unfortunate and completely unimportant collateral damage.

Of course, attacking Venezuela to bring about regime change might just wind up to be another Bay of Pigs. And it just may cause our Peace President his Nobel Prize.

Worser and worser.

(Gotta run, late for our morning activities. No time to proof. Sorry.)

I will start with an admission: I have never played a video game. But millions, maybe billions, of people have and do, and some apparently have made it a centerpiece of their waking lives. Most play it, I assume, for entertainment, or maybe out of boredom, but others play video games as a part of their jobs, either as training exercises, or in their day to day work.

Job training through the use of video games can apparently have a lot of benefit. Games can teach concentration, strategic thinking, quick decision making, and so on. It can also teach skills that are specific to certain occupations. Take, for example, piloting an airplane, or sending a rocket into space. Job skills can be refined using these tools and, equally as important, they can allow one to meet a real life situation with the reaction: “I can do this. I have been here before.” That can be invaluable in the technological world in which we live.

In an era of drone warfare, or rocket warfare, or even some fighter plane warfare, video game training (also known, of course, as simulation training) can be invaluable. In the wars we now experience, such as the Russo-Ukraine war, military personnel sit in comfortable (or not so comfortable) locations and, looking at screens far from the actual battlefields, call in drone strikes or air strikes and see, in real time, the effects of their efforts. Many of these people, highly trained as they do their jobs, are using the same skills they used growing up, playing their video games.

There is a mirror-like effect in play here. The ability to successfully accomplish their goals has been greatly increased by their video gaming in the past. And their real life work, to them, is comfortable because, after all, it is simply an extension of playing these games.

This brings me to the Caribbean and our shooting boats out of the water with drones, one of the best examples of video games coming to life. Clearly, video game-like training was essential to creating the ability of our military to be able to attack these small boats moving through a vast body of water. I think all of this is obvious.

But now, let’s look not at the military personnel directing the individual strikes. Let’s look at the members of Congress or the administration, or members of the American public, looking at videos of the strikes, or even simply imagining what videos of the strikes would look like. They look like video games. And because they look like video games, the strikes seem normal, not extraordinary events. In video games, people get blown out of the water all the time on screens; that’s the purpose of the games. In the real attacks on boats on the Caribbean, it’s the same. Nothing unusual.

Not surprisingly, there is partisan difference in the way these attacks are discussed. Right wingers generally love them; people in the center and the left generally abhor them. To me, that brings up two things (at least). First, it raises the question: do people who are to the right politically play more video games than those who are more to the left? I haven’t seen (or looked for) much on this topic – but I did recently see a study that said that 48% of conservatives (I don’t know the age or gender of the people surveyed) and 38% of liberals played video games. This may be indicative of what I believe might be true.

And the second question is: who is more pro-life, liberals or conservatives? If you take away the question of abortion (which involves the definition of life, which is a separate question), and look at who is more pro-life with regard to humans who have been born, I would bet that people whose politics tend to the left are much more pro-life than those on the right. Again, a guess, but it seems to me one with experiential bases. Think death penalty, social services, etc.

If I am (more or less) right on all the above, it is no surprise that conservatives don’t care that we are killing people whom we really know nothing about (or may actually really like it), and liberals find our actions unconscionable.

You could expand this conversation, I think, also to questions of purpose. What are we really trying to do in the Caribbean and close-by Pacific? What is our goal regarding the Maduro regime in Venezuela? Are we keeping drugs from America (remember, none of these boats are heading directly here)? Are we setting the stage for a ground operation to accomplish regime change in Caracas? Are we just showing power? Are we just having a little sport? Are we just playing a video game (which by chance happens to go beyond simulation)?

If our problem is fentanyl, our actions in the Caribbean are irrelevant. If we are going after cocaine smugglers, how do you explain the pardon of former Honduras president Hernandez? Nothing makes any real sense here with regard to purpose.

But, and apparently this is important, many of us are enjoying the game. Not because we think we are engaged in anything that will lead us to a stated goal. But just because the game itself is fun.

And that’s the thing about President Trump and his merry players, isn’t it? It is all fun and games. If you look at his administration any other way, you will just go crazy.

The Good. We stumbled upon a Netflix series that I think is one of the best we have watched over the past few years: The Survivors. I hadn’t seen much publicity about it, but it looked interesting in part because it was filmed in Tasmania, a place I have never been, undoubtedly will never go, and did not have a mental picture of. It turns out that the part of Tasmania where the story is set, on the upper eastern coast, is very attractive, even if the small towns located there seem to have the most plebeian forms of small town architecture and design. The coast is rugged, but with broad beaches, providing very attractive views.

The story is based on events taking place 15 years earlier, when a teenage boy has wandered into off-limit coastal caves that flood at high tide. An unexpected and very strong storm arises, and he is feared lost, but his older brother and a friend venture out in their boat to rescue him. He does, in fact, survive, but the rescuers’ boat capsizes, and the two rescuers are lost. On the same night, in the same storm, a 14 year old girl from the town also disappears; her back pack washes up on shore, but her body is never found.

Fifteen years later, a young female student from “the mainland” comes to spend the summer in Tasmania, just to chill, learns of the tragedy, and also learns that the death of the two young men is remembered, but the death of the young girl ignored, and decides to make it her mission to rectify that, to tell the story of the 14 year old, and to discover, if she can, what happened to her. That is where all the trouble begins.

The Survivors has eight episodes, each between 45 and 55 minutes long. I found the story line interesting, and the acting and cinematography superb. I think you would like it.

The Bad. Pete Hegseth. My assumption is that Hegseth will be out of a job soon. Of course, until that happens, you can’t be sure, because Trump will support him until that happens. But I bet Trump is now having an internal debate: Should I (a) cut him off at the knees, or should I (b) throw him under the bus? Once he decides, we will all find out Pete’s fate. Or perhaps we won’t find out his ultimate fate until 2029, when the Department of Justice comes again into being, and the Department of Injustice is no more.

The Somewhere in the Middle. I really am not sure what to think about the special election held in Tennessee on Tuesday for the vacant House of Representatives seat. The Republican won by 9 points in a District that Trump carried by 22. Both sides claim victory.

I hadn’t paid any attention to the details of this campaign. I know nothing about either of the candidates, except for their party affiliation, so I don’t know how much the results depended on the particular qualities of the candidates, and how much was a referendum on Donald Trump’s second term performance.

But two things are clear. One is that a 9 percent spread is still a healthy spread. The second is that a performance by the Democrats 13 points better than their performance a year ago is quite significant.

We will have to see what happens, but apparently if the Democrats do 13 points better nationwide in 2026 than in 2024, they will flip about 35 House seats.

See you tomorrow. I may know more. And it may be snowing.