"Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America", by Ethan Bronner

With the confirmation battles for the Trump Cabinet nominations looming on the horizon, this seemed a good time to reread this book. The book is an incredibly detailed, nearly day-by-day account of the great battle over Reagan's 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to replace retiring Associate Justice Lewis Powell on the Supreme Court.

When President Reagan announced the nomination of Bork on July 1, 1987, liberal groups around the country were ready, knowing that Bork had been Reagan's second choice the year before when Antonin Scalia was nominated instead. Within 45 minutes of the announcement, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor and delivered a hard-hitting speech, saying:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, school children could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is--and is often the only--protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

"America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court, his rigid ideology will tilt the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be.

"The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination if it is not rejected by the Senate could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term....he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme court and the next generation of Americans."

But Kennedy did far more than just give a speech. He worked night and day for the two and a half months from the nomination to the start of the Senate hearings to whip up a groundswell of grass-roots opposition to the Bork nomination. Kennedy masterfully coordinated the efforts of the hundreds of groups around the country who were opposed--women's groups, civil rights groups, labor groups, et al. There were strict guidelines to be followed, like do not talk about abortion or affirmative action; rather, focus instead on how Bork's opposition to any right of privacy puts him "out of the mainstream" of judicial thought.

This was the first Supreme Court nomination fight in which ideology played the major role. And there was a good reason for this. Conservative groups had made it clear that they were out to gain control of the federal judiciary. Bruce Fein, a Justice Dept. attorney in charge of screening nominees, said, in 1985, that "It became evident after the first term that there was no way to make legislative gains in many areas of social and civil rights. The president has to do it by changing the jurisprudence." Part of this strategy involved appointing young judges who would be around for a long time, given the life tenure of federal judges. Thus, 11.4% of Reagan's first term appointees were under 40, a record for modern presidents.

Facing this concerted Republican effort to politicize the judiciary, it was quite natural for the Democrats to push back against it. So, instead of focusing on personal integrity and legal ability, as was customary in the past, and which Bork had high marks on, political ideology now took center stage. Added to the need for this was the fact that Bork would replace the justice, Lewis Powell, who had represented the swing vote during his time on the Court. So, were Bork to be confirmed, the conservatives would be in charge.

Bronner says that ultimately "some three hundred organizations" joined the anti-Bork movement, all adhering to the message that Bork was "out of the mainstream". By contrast, the White House efforts in support of Bork were haphazard and disjointed. The use of "murder boards", where the nominee was subjected to hostile questioning as practice for the actual hearings, was proposed but rejected by Bork. The suggestion that he shave off his beard was also rejected. It was urged that he and his wife be interviewed by Barbara Walters in an attempt to humanize him, but Bork also vetoed this suggestion.

A White House briefing book on Bork tried hard to refute the idea that Bork was out of the mainstream, and would therefore tip the balance of the court to the right. To that the Justice Dept. lawyer, John Bolton, in charge of relations with Congress, threw up his hands in disgust and said, "If he wouldn't change the balance of the Court, then why the hell are we nominating him?" The White House was unable to enlist the cooperation of the strongest conservative lobbying group, the National Rifle Association, due to the NRA's concern over what it saw as Bork's restrictive view of the Fourth Amendment.

Finally, on September 15th, the hearings began, which Bronner doesn't get to until page 208 of his 352-page book. Polls at the time showed the nation evenly divided on Bork's confirmation, so the hearings were vitally important.

The hearings got off to a rocky start for the White House when the first witness, Gerald Ford, gave a statement in support of Bork and was then unexpectedly asked by Senator DeConcini whether he had read any of Bork's opinions or law review articles. A flustered Ford had to admit that he had not. Bronner states that "Ford hadn't the slightest idea about Bork's record. He was there as a showpiece..."

Next came a record five days of testimonay by the nominee himself. Bork came across as overly aloof and professorial, avoiding clear and direct answers to many questions. He gave undecided Senators no reason at all to support him.

Senator Kennedy absolutely destroyed Bork's credibility with his skillful questioning on various constitutional issues. For example, Kennedy asked Bork whether his view would lead him to uphold a statute requirng mandatory abortion. Bork could not give an intelligent answer; Bronmnmer states that "His only argument regarding compulsory abortion was that no state would pass such a law, and if it did, the state would not enforce it. To suggest otherwise, he said, was to exhibit little faith in the people." This exchange illustrates well the fundamental constitutional issue being confonted. The conservatives thought legislative majorities should decide matters, while liberals had a concern for the rights of individuals. The Bork supporters had no concern for the minorities who can, and often do, have their rights infringed upon by legislative majorities.

The White House efforts to rehabilitate Bork failed miserably. OPne GOP Sentaor after another would lob up softball questions to Bork giving him a chance to explain his views, and Bork would consistently fail to take the bait. (This is quite similar to efforts during the recent presidential campaign when FOX commentators would lob softball questons to Trump, and Trump would fail to rise to the challenge. For example, Sean Hannity asked, "You wouldn't operate as a dictator as president, would you?", and Trump responded "Only on day one." Or, Trump was asked, "You didn't intentionally take classified documenets to Mar-a-Lago, did you?", and Trump's response was "I have every right to do that.") Bork would be asked simple questions about basic Bill of Rights provisions, and his answers would be "I'm not an expert on criminal law", or I've never given that much thought".

The Iran-Contra heaarings had taken place in the same hearing room only two months eariler. Oliver North had given a spectacular performance, in which he came acorss as an earnesdt and loyal pastriot, while the Seantors questioning him came across as dul and plodding. The Democratic Senators in the Bork hearing were detemriend to reverse these roles, and they were successful. The Senators came across as eloquent and well-informed in their questions and statements, while Bork came across as dull and plodding, and evasive. My memory of him is that after being asked a question, he would grimace, look up at the ceiling, and then offer a non-answer about how he had no opinion or hadn't reflected enough on the issue. Often he would disavow his prior views and claim that his views had changed, which only disappointed his supporters and showed that he was trying to demonstrate a "confirmation conversion", which called into question the validity and sincerity of his beliefs.

The committee consisted of eight Democrats and six Republicans, the Democrats having gained Senate control in the 1986 election. The one undecided GOP Senator was Pennsylvania's Arlen Spector, and Bork spent seven hours being questioned by Specter, both in the hearing room and in private. In the end, Specter voted against Bork, making the Judiciary Committee vote 9-5 against Bork. At this point it was obvious that his nomination was doomed, and it was expected that he would withdraw rather than facing a vote of the full Senate. At the last minute he chose to go forward, supported by his wife and kids, and the Senate vote went 58-42 against him.

After the vote Bork resigned his post as a Court of Appeals justice, and decided to devote himself to lecturing and writing. He wrote a book "The Tempting of America", which I read after finishing the Bronner book.

In his book Bork rejects all criticisms of him as lies. To Kennedy's initial speech opposing his nomination, Bork says, "not one line of that tirade was true." To an ad from the People for the American Way which criticized Bork's writings on the poll tax, equal accomodations for blacks, and the principle of one man-one vote, Bork says "None of these charges was true". To an AFL-CIO press release stating that "He has never shown the least concern for working people, minorities, the poor or for individuals seeking the protection of the law to vindicate their political and civil rights", Bork says "My public record demonstrates that there was not a word of truth in this litany". He says that a document known as the Biden Report "so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility."

My question to Mr. Bork would be this: If the allegations against you are so clearly and provably false, as you claim, then why weren't you able to convince undecided Senators of this? Are you so lacking in the kind of persuasive skills which good lawyers have that you couldn't articulate your views adequately?

Bork's unwillingness to say that a law mandating abortion would be unconstitutional illustrates his problem. He wants in every instance to defer to legislative majorities. To say that no legislature would ever enact such a law is no answer at all. Legislatures run roughshod over the rights of minorities all the time. Just consider the current problem of gerrymandering. What is gerrymandering but an attempt by a majority to dilute the votes of a minority group? Take Wisconsin; in 2022 Wisconisn voters elected Democrats in the three statewide races--governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. And yet, because of Republican gerrymandering of legislative istricts, Republicans gained majorites of 64-35 in the state Assembly, and 21-11 in the state Senate.

Bork seeks to interpret constitutional provisions strictly, as a judge would interpret a statute. but constitutional provisons are different from statutes. The Constitution contains general provisions, more of an outline compared to the the specific requirements typical of a state statute. The details of constitutional provisions are left to be filled in by the courts, a task which Bork is unwilling to undertake. Our Founders took great care to craft a system which protects minorities against the tyranny of the majority. It is the Supreme Court's job to provide this protection, and Bork would deny the Court this role.

The Neely Subway Chokehold Case

Daniel Penny has been found not guilty by a jury in the New York subway case. Neely was causing a disturbance in the subway, terrifying people in his car. Penny, a Marine veteran, used a chokehold procedure he had learned in his military training to subdue the guy. When the guy died, Penny was charegd with manslaughter. The jury did a conscientious job, asking for clarification from the judge on the meanings of reasonable person, recklessness, and negligence.

The case is reminiscent of the famous 1984 case of Bernhard Goetz, who shot four thugs who were trying to rob him in the subway. Goetz was found not guilty of all charges but a minor gun possession charge. Just as I applauded that verdict, so I applaud the Penny verdict. We are constantly exhorted to get off the sidelines and get involved. We are told, "If you see something, say something". We are told, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that good people do nothing". Then Monday morning quarterbcks get involved after-the-fact and criticize those who choose to get involved.

The Killing of Brian Thompson

Brian Thompson, a health insurance company CEO, was shot in the back and killed the other day in New York. Since then there has been a huge response from people who have been denied coverage by his company. While my personal moral sensibilities don't allow me to rejoice in the cold-blooded murder of another human being, I can certainly sympathize with the sentiments of those who are celebrating his demise. The idea that someone can make himself a multi-millionaire by denying help to needy people is abhorrent.

We know that the lack of health insurance is responsible for 45,000 deaths a year, but we don't know how many deaths are caused by health insurance companies denying coverage. I have seen a figure of 68.000 a year, but I cannot verify this figure, though it sounds plausible.

It seems insurance companies are more and more in the habit of denying claims. In the health insurance field, Thompson's company, UnitedHealthcare, leads with a 32% rate of denying claims. The next highest company, Medica, comes in at 27%. I know a guy who says that every time his family has a medical bill, he has to fight with his insurance company to get it paid.

The inefficiencies of the private insurance system are well-known and well documented. If Thompson's death serves as the catalyst for the development of a more humane health care system in this country, then his death will not have been in vain. The unfortunate reality is that it usually takes some sort of tragedy for meaningful change to occur in the U.S.

Michael Smerconilsh, in his daily poll today, asked the question this way: "Will the tasteless reaction of some to the murder of Brian Thompson nevertheless lead to positive change in the health insurance industry?" I thought the answer would come back a clear "yes". The fact that it was a "no" by a huge majority of 78%-22% demonstrates the pessimism that Americans feel about any improvements occurring in our broken health care system.

The Mask of Dimitrios, (Dir: Jean Negulesco, 1944)

It seems there is no end to the entertaining film noirs from the 1940s. This one is the fifth movie, out of nine total, featuring Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, a wonderful collaboration which began with "The Maltese Falcon" in 1941.

Lorre plays a mystery writer who learns of the death of an enigmatic career criminal named Dimitrios, whose body was found in Istanbul washed up on the shore of the Bosphorus Strait. The writer becomes intrigued with the story of the dead man, and he undertakes a quest to unravel the story of the life of Dimitrios. His efforts take him to other European cities, including Athens, Sofia, Geneva, Belgrade and Paris. Along the way he runs into the Greenstreet character, and the last part of the movie is mostly about the two of them.

The use of flashbacks in this film is quite effective. Along the way we meet many compelling characters. This is good, old-fashioned storytelling, a movie well worth your time.

"Jefferson's Vendetta: The Pursuit of Aaron Burr and the Judiciary", by Joseph Wheelan

This book tells the story of Thomas Jefferson's relentless (and ultimately futile) pursuit of treason charges against his former Vice-President, Aaron Burr. And it is indeed a fascinating story.

After losing the 1796 presidential electoral vote to John Adams 71-68, with Adams winning the northern states and Jefferson winning the southern states, Jefferson recognized that the key to victory over Adams in 1800 would be to win the swing state of New York. This he accomplished brilliantly by choosing Aaron Burr as his running mate, Burr being the most influential New York politician. With Burr delivering all 12 of NY's electoral votes, Jefferson prevailed 73-65.

But this set up an electoral college tie between Jefferson and Burr, since the Constitution at that time provided tht electors vote for two candidates, without distinguishing between president and vice-president. This threw the election into the House, with each state casting one vote. The Federalists voted for Burr, feeling that he was less of a rabid anti-Federalist compared to Jefferson. After 35 rounds of balloting over five days, the vote remained unchanged: eight states for Jefferson, six for Burr, and two deadlocked. Burr steadfastly refused to bargain for votes, while Jefferson gave the following assurances, according to Wheelan: "To maintain the federal financial system, to preserve the Navy, and not to conduct a wholesale housecleaning of Federalist appointees, other than Cabinet members". After receiving these assurances, a number of Federalist Congressmen abstained, resuting in a vote of ten states for Jefferson, four for Burr, and two deadlocked. Wheelan is quite clear that he believes that Burr handled this whole mess with more integrity than did Jefferson.

Jefferson did not trust Burr with any significant duties during his first term. Burr presided over the Senate with a high degree of professionalism, making procedural improvements which survive to this day.

Near the end of his VP term Burr was tasked with presiding over the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, a significant proceeding which remains to this day the only impeachment of a Supreme Court justice. Chase was impeached for actions undertaken while serving as a trial judge in lower cuircuit courts. After a year-long inquiry, eight Articles of Impeachment were voted out by the House on December 4, 1804. The political nature of this impeachment is obvious from the voting; all 33 of the Federalist House members voted against impeachment on every article, while the votes against impeachment by the 85 anti-Federalists (or Democratic-Republicans, as they were now called) ranged from only one to a high of thirteen.

The trial took place in the Senate in early 1805, expertly and even-handedly presided over by VP Burr. The Democratic-Republicans in the Senate outnumbered the Federalists 25-9. so the former could lose two votes and still reach the required 2/3 needed for conviction. However, at least six Democratic-Republicans voted with all of the Federalists for acquittal, and Chase was acquitted on all eight counts.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the Chase acquittal. This case esablished the principle that a successful impeachment must involve serious wrongdoing, and not just mere political differences of opinion. Also, the case went a long way, in conjunction with the 1803 Marbury v. Madison opinion, to establish the independence of the federal judiciary.

This impeachment principle was applied in the 1868 impeachment of Andrew Johnson, which also involved mere political differences. As in the Chase case, the Johnson case involved a Congress heaviy controlled by the impeaching party. With ten southern states still not represented, The Republicans had a lopsided 45-9 majority in the Senate, meaning that the Republicans could tolerate nine defections and still achieve the 36 votes needed for conviction. Leading up to the final vote, nine Republicans were known to be opposed to conviction, leading to Kansas Senator Edmund Ross tipping the scales to acquittal with a last-minute decision to acquit. This courageous decision was one of the "Profiles in Courage" which John F. Kennedy wrote about in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book in the 1950s. The title of the Ross chapter was "I looked down into my open grave", which was how Ross described his decision to vote for acquittal.

The 1999 impeachment of Bill Clinton was another misguided poitical vendetta by the Republicans. With the GOP holding only a 55-45 majority in the Senate, there was no chance for conviction. In the end, five Republicans joined all 45 Democrats to acquit on one of the counts, and ten Republicans defected on the other count.

What these three impeachments all have in common is that in each case some members of the majority party were willing to buck the party line in order to do the right thing and oppose conviction. And how do we know what is the "right thing"? The answer lies in an exchange which occurred during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. When a delegate proposed "maladministration" as a basis for impeachment, James Madison replied that that would be equivalent to a president serving "at the pleasure of the Senate". This ended the discussion, and the higher standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors" was adopted.

The two impeachments of Donald Trump differed from the cases just discussed, in that the Trump impeachments were legitimate impeachments which did involve serious wrongdoing. Consequently, the defections here went the other way; one Republican (Romney) voted for conviction in the first impeachment, and seven Republicans (Burr, Cassidy, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Sasse and Toomey) voted for conviction on the second impeachment, which was based on the January 6th insurrection.

Returning to our main narrative, Jefferson never did like or respect Aaron Burr, and Burr's patronage suggestions fell on deaf ears. By January of 1804, it had become obvious that Jefferson was not going to choose Burr as his running mate for a second term. Consequently, Burr decided to run for Governor of New York. This race was doomed from the start, as Burr was opposed by Jefferson and the Virginians on one side, and Akexander Hamilton and the radical Federalists on the other side, and Burr lost badly in the April election.

A few weeks before the election, Hamilton made some derogatory comments about Burr at a dinner party, and word of this leaked back to Burr. Wheelan says that "Burr's cordial requests to Hamilton for an explanaton of his remarks indicated that he was willing to resolve the matter peacefully; he gave Hamilton ample latitude to either retract his words, disavow them, or apologize". Hamilton refused these overtures and adopted a defiant tone, resulting in the infamous duel on July 11th, in which he was killed.

Burr stayed in Washington to serve out his VP term, but then he had to figure out what to do next. He couldn't go to New Jersey, where he faced murder charges for the duel, and he couldn't resume his New York law practice, for fear of extradition to New Jersey.

Seeing no future for himself in the East, Burr decided to head West, "where Hamilton had never been popular and where dueling bore no stigma". He bought a 60-foot-long houseboat in Pittsburgh and headed down the Ohio River.

At Marietta, Ohio, Burr learned of a wealthy Irish immigrant and his family who lived on a lush island in the middle of the Ohio River. He was given a microscope to deliver to the man, Harman Blennerhassett. Burr reached the island on May 6, 1805, and was warmly welcomed by Harman and his wife Margaret. They spent a pleasant evening together and Burr continued on his journey downstream the next morning.

In late June Burr reached New Orleans, finding a fascinating mixtue of French, Spanish, Creoles, and Americans. The city was simmering with discontent. From New Orleans Burr headed east through Mississippi and Alabama and then north into Tennessee.

By September Burr was back in St. Louis meeting with General James Wilkinson, who Jefferson had appointed to be governor of the newly-acquired Louisiana Territory. They pored over maps, planning for a joint venture of making war on Mexico. Burr returnd to Washington in November, finding a city buzzing with rumors about his strange journey. The stories were that Burr planned not only the war against Mexico, but also a scheme whereby the western states would secede from the United States.

By March of 1807 Burr had been arrested and was charged with treason in Richmond, Virginia, with Chief Justice John Marshall presiding (in those days the Supreme Court justices "rode circuit"). Interest in the case was so intense that Justice Marshall moved the proceedings from the courtroom to the Virginia House of Delegates, the largest venue available.

Right at the start Justice Marshall was presented with a monumental issue, when Burr and his legal team moved to subpoena documents from President Jefferson. Two days of bitter argument ensued. On the third day the U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case announced that he had heard from Jefferson, and that the president was willing to turn over the documents, after deleting portions that he (Jefferson) felt were not relevant or that contained state secrets. Marshall ruled that the documents must be turned over intact, and the court would decide what could be releaed to the public. Marshall made clear that the president was not above the law, that he could be subpoenaed like any other citizen. However, the president would not have to appear in person, provided he turned over the requested documents. This was the first time that the issue of Executive Privilege came up in the U.S. court system, although that particular term was not used in this instance.

On June 13th General Wilkinson appeared to testify before the grand jury, which was the body considering the case at this point. Wilkinson was universally disliked for the brutal way he had been administering the city of New Orleans, imprisonng his enemies and denying basic human rights at every turn. Wilinson provded a letter from Burr which supposedly supprted the claim of treason. The letter was written in code, but Wilkinson had mistranslated the code to omit evidence of his own involvement in the plot. Unfortunately for Wilkinson, the grand jury broke the code and discovered the translation errors.

On June 24th the grand jury announced indictments of Burr and Harman Blennerhassett for treason, punishable by death. Wilkinson was not indicted, to the consternation of the grand jury foreman, John Randolph, who wrote to a friend that "Wilkinson is the only man that I ever saw who was from the bark to the very core a villain". Randolph was able to get only seven of the sixteen jurors to vote to indict Wilkinson.

The grand jury indictment of Burr and Blennerhassett was for a December 10th gathering on Blennerhassett Island, in which thirty armed men allegedly made plans to capture New Orkleans and then invade Mexico. This took place months after Burr's visit to the island.

Between the indictment and the start of the trial on August 17th, Marshall wrestled with the issue of what evidence would be needed to prove Burr guilty of treason, which the constitution defines as "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court." The issue was whether planning for a treasonous act is sufficient to constitute treason; or, to put it another way, is there such a thing as "constructive treason". In Britain there was, which is to say that merely wishing the King dead was enough to be guilty of treason. As Marshall pondered this, it became obvious to him that our Founders deliberately adopted a stricter standard by requiring an overt act, testified to by two witnesses.

After two weeks of testimony, Marshall spent the weekend crafting a long opinion on how the treason law applied to the facts of the case. His 44-page opinion was delivered on Monday, August 31st. His opinion stated that the required overt act "is not proved by a single witness". The mere assembly of a group did not qualify as "levying war" against the United States, no matter what the motivations of the group were for assembling. The jury was sent out to deliberate with this guidance, and within minutes returned a not guilty verdict.

My main takeaway fronm this whole sorry episode is that my opinion of Jefferson has taken quite a tumble. I used to think he was one of our two or three best presidents, but his vendetta againt Burr shows him to be of much lower character than I had previously thought. For the Burr treason trial the government brought in 140 witnesses, at great expense as most came from great distances. Jefferson monitored the trial daily, showing an inordinate interest in the case. Burr and Blennerhassett were left impoverished by the whole ordeal.

General Wilkinson was long thought to be a Spanish spy, and was paid vast sums by Spain for his information. His spying activity was verified beyond a doubt by documents discovered ninety years later in Cuba after the Spanish-American War. And this is the nefarious character whose information Jefferson relied on to pursue charges against Burr. Jefferson never did have Wilkinson charged, although in 1807 he did remove him as governor of the Louisiana Territory and replaced him with Meriwether Lewis.

Jefferson spent the remainder of his time in office unsuccessfully seeking ways to limit the power of the federal judiciary. Wheelan's summary says that "By any measure, Jefferson's crusade againt Aaron Burr, John Marshall, and the Judiciary was a debacle...Jefferson's actions during 1807 marred an otherwise superlative presidential record.

Further Thoughts on Renata Adler's "Reckless Disregard"

I previously wrote about this book on 12/29/17. Now, seven years later, I have reread the book, which explores the defamation cases filed by William Westmoreland and Ariel Sharon, two generals, one American and one Israeli, who filed suit against CBS and Time magazine, respectively, and whose cases were tried at the same time in two different courtrooms in a federal courthouse in New York City. After rereading the book, I find I have some additional thoughts not included in my original post.

It strikes me that Adler has much hostility toward New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 case which requires defamation plaintiffs who are public officials to prove that the defendant acted with actual malice. She says, with obvious disdain, that this burden imposed on libel plaintiffs is "by far the heaviest imposed by any judicial system in the world". The actual malice standard includes "knowledge of falisty" of a defaming statement, or "reckless disregard" as to whether the statement was true or false. In turn, a later Supreme Court case defined reckless disregard to include a "serious doubt" as to whether it was true.

Adler strenuously objects to this serious doubt standard, saying that serious doubt is "a sign not of reckless disregard but of its opposite". Her objection to what she calls this "virtually unintelligible formulation" is that any good journalist will normally entertain a "serious doubt" about a story before publishing it.

My own view is that Adler needs to spend some time contemplating the imoprtant roles that freedom of speech and freedom of the press play in our democratic system. Our system relies heavily on the free press to bring us the news. Journlists are our representatives in this repsect. From the time of the groundbreaking 1735 case of John Peter Zenger, a newspaper editor who a jury acquitted of criminal libel charges after only ten minutes of deliberation, the press has been deemed to have a special place in our country. The Founders recognized this by enshrining the press and speech freedoms in the First Amendment to the constitution.

Another thing which jumps out at me upon rereading is that both of these plaintiffs were represented by lawyers working for free. Westmoreland had a 39-year-old attorney who had never tried a jury case before, and Sharon had a lawyer in his mid-70s. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong about a lawyer reprsenting a client for free, and it is an admirable thng if done for the right reasons. But here, all it accomoplished was to tie up the court system for many months, at tremendous expense to the public and to the defendants who had to pay for their legal defense. I am reminded of the infamous Paula Jones suit against Bill Clinton, which went forward only because a conservative law firm offered to represent Jones for free because they hated Bill Clinton. This led to impeachment charges, as the Jones' lawyers colluded with the special counsel, Ken Starr, to trap Clinton into giving false statements.

Every lawyer who Westmoreland and Sharon consulted strenuously urged them not to pursue a defamation case. It was only when the offer for a free attorney came in that they decided to go ahead. The result was that the truth or falsity of the allegedly libelous statements were litigated in federal court for months, when these issues could and should have been argued out in the court of public opinion. In the end, it was obvious that there were untruths contained in the statements, but the statements were not motivated by malice, so the suits failed.

In light of the current state of journalism in 2024, these cases now look like much sound and fury, signifying nothing. Today, in an era of "fake news" and "alternative truths", the statements compained about in these two cases seem innocuous by comparison. And if we take a step back and look at the big picture, the larger underlying truths behind the two alleged libels have emerged. In the Westmoreland case, the underlying truth is that there were many lies told to the American pubic about the Vietnam War, and whether falsifying estimates of enemy troop sizes in 1967 was one of them seems of little relevance. And in the Sharon case, the fact of Israeli killing of innocent civilians has been made obvious in the current war in Gaza, making the allegations against Sharon seem equally innocuous. Neither plaintiff had much of a reputation to protect anyway, making the lawsuits even more pointless than they already were.

Adler demonstrates in her book extreme hostility toward her fellow members of the press. She states that "it was evident that witnesses with a claim to any sort of journalistic affiliation considered themselves a class apart, by turns lofty, combative, sullen, lame, condescending, speciously pedantic, but, above all, socially, and, as it were, Constitutionally arrogant...What was true and false also seemed, at times, to be a matter of almost complete indifference to them. Above all, the journalists, as witnesses, looked like people whose mind it had never crossed to be ashamed.”

Her greatest contempt was reserved for David Halevy, Time magazine's Jerusalem correspondent who was responsible for the story that Israeli Defense Minister Sharon had encouraged the massacre of innocent civilians. She writes that “These were the earmarks of Halevy’s testimony on the stand and at his deposition: a virtual incapacity to give a straight answer to a simple factual question, coupled with an almost complete indifference to what is conventionally understood by 'facts' and to consistency between his own factual accounts or versions from one moment to the next; remarkably frequent use of the words 'clear' or 'very clear', almost invariably in the course of unintelligible, unresponsive or plain absolutely implausible answers...and a kind of bizarre, self-confident, but utterly misguided pedantry.”

Today, sixty years after the Sullivan decision, and forty years after the Westmoreland and Sharon trials, defamation law in the U.S. is alive and well, functioning like it should. FOX News had to pay a $787 million settlement for its clear defamation of a U.S. company, and Rudy Guiliani is being pursued for a $148M judgment against him for defaming two Georgia election workers. And meritless lawsuits are being dismissed before trial, which is also as it should be.

The Great Lawsuit Lottery

An obscure news item this week reported that one Tony Bobulinski had his $30 million defamation suit agiant a FOX News anchor thrown out as meritless. What Bobulinski was complaining about was that the anchor, Jessica Tarlov, said on the air that Bobulinski’s legal fees to retain lawyer Stefan Passantino had been “paid by a Trump Super PAC". After hearing from Bobulinski’s lawyers, Tarlov issued a clarification the next day.

In dismissing the case, the judge found that Bobulinkski hadn’t shown Tarlov’s statements had damaged his reputation. He went on to say that “Connecting Bobulinski to the former—and future—democratically elected President of the United States simply cannot be grounds for an average American’s hatred, distrust, or ridicule." And. most importantly, the judge required the plaintiff to pay the defendant's legal fees, a rare step taken only in cases where the plainitff has been patently frivolous.

I wish the news media would give cases like this as much publicity as they give to high-profile cases involving huge verdicts. The media's failure to do so gives the average person the idea that people are getting rich over filing lawsuits. Even in the rare case where a huge verdict is obtained, collecting is quite another problem, as we have been seeing recently by the futile attempts to collect a defamation judgment from Rudy Guiliani.

Why Democrats Lost

“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

This statement by Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, who has always been a strong supporter of LBGTQ rights, illustrates the sorry state of today's Democratic party. The rection to it proves the truth of his comments, as Democrats dumped on him with calls to resign, and protests outside his Congressional office.

Democrats have succumbed to a pitiful embrace of elitism, virtue-signaling, identity politics, and "politically correct" nonsense. People like to be talked to in their own language. People like to be listened to, not preached at. Until the Democrats learn to do this, they will continue to be on the outside looking in.

Evaluating the Biden Presidency

The Biden presidency got off to a good start with good Cabinet appointments, followed by some impressive legislative achievements.

But his presidency self-destructed on April 25, 2023, when he announced he was running for re-election to a second term. This contradicted his 2020 campaign promise that he would be a "transitional": president, a bridge from the older generation to a younger generation. Biden's announcement came at a time when his aproval rating was a paltry 37%, with a disapproval rating of 59%. No president had ever been re-elected with an apprioval rating of under 50%, so Biden's announcement showed that he had become completely delusional. The idea that the American electorate would choose an unpopular 82-year-old man for a four-year presidential term showed Biden to be totally out of touch with reality.

This hubris-fueled error was compounded when Biden waited until July 21, 2024 to exit the race, giving the eventual Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, insufficient time to introduce herself to the electorate and win them over. The result was to give a second term to the worst president in U.S. history.

One could argue that this was not the first Democratic presidential electin loss that Biden was responsilbe for. When Biden was running for the 1988 presidential nomination he was forced to leave the race in disgrace after it was revealed that he plagiarized a personal life story from Bitish Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. The unfortunate fallout from this is that the Dukakis Campaign Manager, John Sasso, was forced to resign after it came to light that he had anonymously sent the tape to the news media. Dukakis replaced him with Susan Estrich, a feminist lawyer who had no prior experience running a campaign, and has had no further experience since. As a result, Dukakis went from up by double digits to down by double digits. Dukakis finally brought Sasso back as a campaign adviser with two months left till the election, but he left the incompetent Estrich as campaign manager, and Sasso was unable to turn things around.

After the Kinnock plagiarism came out, other Biden problems started coming to light. Further plagiarisms from JFK, RFK, and Hubert Humphrey were revealed. A tape from a New Hampshire campaign stop was circulated, in which Biden claimed he had graduated in the top half of his law school class, that he had a full academic scholarship, and that he had three college degrees. None of these claims was true. In fact, Biden was 76th out of a law school class of 85. He also made a false claim that he had marched in the civil rights movement.

During his presidency Biden added more black marks to his name with his mismanagement of both of the wars which occurred on his watch. He refused to stand up to Netanyahu, and refused to stand up to Putin, so he screwed up both wars by his spinelessness, as befits someone who finished tenth from the bottom of his class at a mediocre law school.

Crossfire (Dir: Edward Dmytryk, 1947)

I learned of this movie this morning from a mention in the Facebook "Film Noir" group. I watched it online and it is quite good.

What sets this film apart from other film noirs of its era is the subject of anti-Semitism. When a stranger encounters a group of servicemen in a bar shortly after the end of World War Two and then winds up dead, the detective on the case, masterfully played by Robert Young, is initially puzzled by the apparent lack of any motive for the stranger's killing. Gradually it dawns on him that the motive is pure hatred and bigotry; he explains: "The motive had to be inside the killer himself. Something he brought with him. Something he'd been nursing, for a long time. Something that had been waiting. The killer had to be someone who could hate Samuels without knowing him. Who could hate him enough to kill him, under the right circumstances, not for any real reason, but mistakenly and ignorantly."

In trying to enlist the cooperation of a reluctant soldier who is a friend of the villain, the detective explains what happened to his grandfather for being Irish Catholic: "When he left the bar, two men followed him with empty whisky bottles. They didn't mean to kill him. They were just going to rough him up a little. They didn't start out to kill, they just started out hating. The way Monty started out. But 20 minutes later, my grandfather was dead. That's history, Leroy. They don't teach it in school, but it's real American history just the same. Thomas Finlay was killed in 1848 just because he was an Irishman and a Catholic. It happened many times. Maybe that's hard for you to believe, Leroy, but it's true. And last night, Joseph Samuels was killed just because he was a Jew."

"Crossfire" was nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture, but it lost out for best picture to another anti-Semitism film, "Gentlemen's Agreement". Many critics think "Crossfire" was more deserving.

Grove Destroys the Pirates

All Fall I was anxiously awaiting the dramatic finish to the 2024 fooball season for the Bluffton Pirates against rival Columbus Grove. The Pirates had narrowly lost to Grove twice in 2023, once in the last game of the regular season, and then again in the playoffs, so it was time for a little revenge.

This year, it seemed that the tables would be turned. Although both teams came in at 9-0, the Pirates had the best defense and offense in the league all season long. They had better scores compared to Grove against common opponents. The average win for the Pirates was 47-7, compared to 42-12 for Grove.

When Grove took the opening kickoff and methodically drove down the field for a TD, I started to get a sinking feeling. And it just got worse and worse. I left midway through the second quarter with Grove up 28-0. The final ended with Grove winning 42-0. Grove was just bigger and stronger and faster; it looked like the Pirates were playing a college team.

"Cracking the Show", by Thomas Boswell

Thomas Boswell is quite simply the best baseball writer of his era. By "his era", I mean the period in which his seven books weere published, which is 1982-1996.

His books are collections of the columns he wrote for "The Washington Post" and various magazines. Since he didn't retire untl 2021, it remains a mystery, at least to me, why he's put out no books since 1996.

"Cracking the Show" covers the time period of 1989-1993. I enjoyed reliving the great World Series of that time period. The 1989 earthquake series, swept by the A's, was followed by the 1990 series, in which the A's were swept by the Reds. Boswell explains how the Reds simply overwhelmed the A's with their fundamentally sound baseball: "Once the game began, everyone saw how the Reds' speed and base stealing, their hit-and-runs and bunts, their pursuit of the extra base, and their mighty bullpen both unnerved and unmanned the A's". Boswell mocks the haughty A's: "Unfortunately, even in defeat, the dominant tone of the A's was that of the disbelieving, excuse-seeking blowhard." Boswell makes an apt comparison of the 1988-1990 A's to the 1969-1971 Orioles, in that both of these were dominant teams which went to the World Series three years in a row as favorites, but only won one of them.

Boswell gives much-deserved criticism of the 1991 series, in which the Twins won because of their home-field advantage. (The Metrodome was a monstrosity, and thank goodness Target Field has since replaced it.) Boswell says: "So this is what America's pastoral summer game has become--a sport played in a large, loud tin drum." With four extra-innning games, this series was "the closest, most drama-filled, but surely not best-played or best-managed Classic of all time".

And then we had the Toronto Blue Jays reigning supreme in 1992 and 1993. Boswell says that "if a team ever won with presence, with an aura of utter confidence, it was these '93 Jays...Maybe nothing beats a sense of entitlement."

The most significant off-the-field story durng the five-year period which this book covers was the lifetime ban Pete Rose received for betting on baseball. Boswell starts the book with a collection of seven columns he wrote about this sad episode.

Boswell echoes the mixed freelings most of us feel about Rose. In a column entitled "Arrested Adolescent", Boswell writes: "For thirty years, America has cheered Rose for remaining a child. He was selfish but charming. Vain but joyous. Shallow but shrewd. Crude but funny. Greedy for all the candy but generous once he got it. Prone to the vices but honest about it. Oblivious to society's conventions but also mythically large. Given no gift, save his obsession for baseball, he made himself a hero." Boswell's conclusion: "Rose deserves our empathy, though maybe not too much sympathy."

The Rose saga can be seen as a three-act drama. While Boswell agrees with the first act (the lifetime ban), he has harsh criticism for the final two acts. The second act was the prosecution of Rose for income tax evasion, for which he received a five-month prison sentence. Boswell points out that this prosecution was "for neglecting to report about three percent of his income. How does that compare to the national average?" I can answer this question. The IRS tells us that only about 87% of income is reported. This thirteen percent of unreported income is four times the perentage that Rose failed to report. The usual approach in this type of situation woud be to allow the taxpayer to pay the back taxes, plus interest and penalties, with no criminal consequences. But because Rose was prominent, he was treated overly harshly, just as Hunter Biden is being treated today.

The fact that both presidential candidates are calling for removing the income tax on tips illustrates the general antipathy we have towards taxing cash income. Certainly many Americans have earned money they failed to report to the IRS. Why Rose was so severly persecuted by the government remains a mysstery to me.

But the greatest injustice Rose suffered came in the third act, with the vote ruling him ineligble for the Hall of Fame. By a 12-0 vote, the Hall of Fame board voted to "exclude players on the permanently ineligible list from the ballot". The only living person on this list was Pete Rose.

Boswell's feeling about this is summed up by the title of his 2/5/91 column: "White-Collar Lynching". The sensible approach would have been to keep Rose on the ballot and allow the baseball writers to decide whether he should be enshrined or not. This is what the board has done with the steroid cheaters, who damaged the game far more than Rose ever did by his betting. The writers have responded admirably by keeping out players like Bonds and McGwire who otherwise would have made it easily.

Bill James expresses a different view of the Rose saga in his book on the Hall of Fame, "The Politics of Glory". James argues that anybody on the permanent ineligible list should not be eligible for the Hall of Fame, but he strenuously disagrees with the decision putting Rose on the ineligible list. He says that investigator John Dowd "leapt to the conclusion that Rose was guilty, and twisted and bent the facts to support that conclusion." He says that Rose "waa banned from baseball on the basis of rumor, hearsay, slander, gossip, and irrelevant information." He concludes that "If Pete Rose ever sues baseball seeking to nullify the agreement he made with Giamatti, under which he agreed to accept a lifetime ban, he absolutely will win."

James is no lawyer, and he has an exaggerated sense of the extent to which the legal system can intervene to solve disputes between private entities. There is no government action involved here, so constitutional due process protections do not apply.

George Will writes about the Rose saga in his book "Bunts", a collection of his baseball columns from 1974 through 1998. Will sees Rose's gambling problem as part of a pattern of norms-ignoring recklessness which characterized Rose's whole life. Will points to the collision at home plate in the 1970 All-Star game, in which Rose barreled into catcher Ray Fosse, ruining Fosse's career. He says that this "was within the rules. It also was unnecessary, disproportionate and slightly crazy". Will writes that "Rose's slide broke rules no less real for being unwritten. In time, he would shred written rules, of baseball and society".

Will discusses Rose's "slide into gambling, debts, drugs, incessant adultery and the company of muscle-bound dimwits...His retinue included drug dealers and other hangers-on, who greased his slide into criminality. By 1987 he was losing $30,000 a week to bookies."

Will says that the Dowd Report made the facts of Rose's betting "entirely clear". The evidence included "the testimony of eight eyewitnesses, Rose's handwriting on betting slips, and telephone records showing that during a ninety-day period, thirty minutes before every game--home or away, night or day--Rose placed calls to people who placed bets."

So how did Bill James get this so wrong? My own theory is that he just didn't give the Rose issue much serious attention. His chapter on Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson is only five pages long. By contrast, a chapter discussing whether Don Drysdale is a Hall of Famer runs to 34 pages.

The 2024 MLB Division Round

The Division round began last Saturday with all eight teams playing. The Mets continued their late-inning heroics. They had been blanked for seven inings by the Phillies superstar, Zach Wheeler, who allowed only one hit in the seven innings, and had enticed an incredible total of 30 swings and misses in his 111 pitches. The Mets' pitchers were almost as good, allowing only a leadoff homer to Kyle Schwarber. Then the Mets exploded for five runs in the 8th against the Phillies' relievers, and ended up with a 6-2 victory.

In the other games, the Padres lost to the Dodgers, the Royals lost to the Yankees, in a topsy-turvy game which saw the most lead changes (five) ever in a post-season game, and the Guardians shut out the Tigers.

Sunday saw the NL teams playing, wih the AL teams resting. The Padres evened their series by smashing the Dodgers 10-2, hitting six homers, two by Tatis.

The real drama on Sunday was again with the Mets-Phillies game, a game which Kyle Schwarber called "one of the greatest games I've ever played in". The Mets were up 3-0 in the 6th inning, but the Phillies tied it up on back-to-back homers from Harper and Castellanos, lending credence to the modern theory that a starter should not be allowed to go through a lineup a third time. The Mets responded with a go-ahead homer in the top of the 7th to make it 4-3. The Phillies went ahead with three runs in the 8th, but then the Mets tied it at 6 in the top of the 9th, setting it up for a walk-off hit by Nick Castellanos in the bottom of the 9th. Wow, what a game!

On Monday the Royals beat the Yankees and the Tigers beat the Guardians, leaving all three series tied at 1-1.

The four series played themselves out with the Yankees and Mets prevailing in four games, and the Dodgers and Guardians winning in five.

Why Hillary Lost (and Saddled Us with Trump)

An article in the October 7th issue of "The New Yorker" describes how Hillary Clinton, when she ran for president in 2016, didn't visit a single union hall in Michigan or Wisconsin. To make matters worse, she dismissed all Trump supporters as "a basket of deplorables", further alienating all the workers who supported Trump, while Trump held rallies all across the Rust Belt, promising to bring back factory jobs.

The incident which defined the atrociousness of her campaign for me was after a town hall meeting, when a voter came up to her and complained about the draconian Clinton crime bill. Instead of responding intelligently, she gave one of her stupid little laughs, and said she'd never thought about this. Huh?? You mean to tell me that you spent two years planning to run for president, and couldn't find a few hours out of all that time to study the draconian effects of the crime bill, which provided for 100 times the penalties for the crack-based cocaine favored by blacks, compared to the powdered cocaine favored by middle class whites. This is gross poitical malpractice!

Hillary was simply unable to connect with voters. When I pointed out this shortcoming at the time, I was condemned as a misogynist. Eight yeers later, I am still waiting for an apology from my nemesis and her man-hating allies. All I got was a bunch of nonsense about how women aren't allowed to show passion. Pure baloney!

The 2024 MLB Wild Card Round

The Wild Card round is now history, and the Division Series starts later today. A recap is in order.

The week started out on a really odd note on Monday. Two games of the Braves-Mets season-ending series had been postponed due to Hurricane Helene. Consequently, the Braves and Mets had to play a makeup doubleheader on Monday. The makeup games would not have been necessary if both teams had been out of the running for playoff spots. But, amazingly, the teams were tied for the second and third NL wild card spots. This set up the odd situation in which whoever won the first game was in, but the other team could still get in by winning the second game. If one team won both games, then the Arizona Diamondbacks would claim the third wild card spot in the NL.

The first game of the doubleheader was one of the greatest games in recent memory. The Mets trailed 3-0 going into the 8th inning, but came alive in the 8th to score six runs. Not to be denied, the Braves rallied back in the bottom of the 8th to go back ahead 7-6, aided by the failure of the Mets pitcher to cover first on a ground ball. But in the 9th, Francisco Lindor hit a two-run homer to win it for the never-say-die Mets. Lindor had also been a key part of the 8th-inning rally with a hit to keep the rally going, and then a daring dash home to score the go-ahead run from third on a shallow sac fy to centerfield.

The Braves came back to win the second game of the doubleheader, leaving the Diamondbacks out of the playoffs, and resulting in the strange sight of simultaneous celebrations in each clubhouse for making the playoffs!

So now the question was whether the Braves and Mets would be too worn out to do any good in the Wild Card series, as both had to travel and be ready to play the next day. The question of whether extra rest benefits the resting team is an open question. On the surface it seems it should be a benefit, as the resting team can line up its pitching for maximum advantage, while their opponent is playing hard-fought playoff games. However, last year the number one and two seeds in each league did not benefit from getting to rest during the wild card round. Only the Astros won their division series, while the other three teams all lost, the Orioles falling three games to none to the Rangers, the Phillies falling 3-1 to the Braves, and the Dodgers getting swept by the Diamondbacks.

The Mets came through with a two games to one win over the Brewers, taking to heart the Tim Walz saying that "we can sleep when we're dead". The third and deciding game featured another late-inning comeback by the amazing Mets. Trailing 2-0 going into the ninth, Lindor led off with a walk (a huge blunder by the Brewers pitcher, given the two-run lead), followed by a hit and a 3-run home run from Pete Alonso. The TV announcer had pointed out that this could be the last at bat as a Met for Alonso, who will be a free agent after the season. But Pete was not ready for his season to end, and he came through with an opposite-field blast. The Mets added an insurance run, and won 4-2.

As for the Braves, they had to travel overnight to San Diego to meet the Padres. I was rooting heaviily for the Padres, who have become my favorite team, for a number of reasons. Their owner has committed to putting a winning team on the field by spending hewvily on free agents. But after a disappointing 2023 season, payroll was drastically cut for this season; and yet, the Padres made the playoffs, after missing out in 2023. This is reminiscent of the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who had a record 116-win season after getting rid of their three superstars--Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez. The oxymoronic phrase "addition by subtraction" was coined to describe this phenomenon.

The San Diego climate is another big plus for me. It has a mild, year-round Mediterraneran climate, ideal for bseball. And it has had only four rainouts in the last twenty years!

A third plus is that it has become, after the loss of the Chargers, a baseball-only town. And the fans have responded, supporting the team with the fourth-highest average per-game attendance in 2024. The three higher teams (Phillies, Yankees and Dodgers) all won their divisions, so the Padres had the highest attendance of all non-division winners.

As for the Braves, I have been lukewarm about them ever since their blase fans refused to fill the seats during the first round of the playoffs during the 1990s.

The Padres responded by sweeping the Braves, two games to none. In the AL, The Tigers and Royals prevailed in sweeps over the Astros and Orioles, respectively. My working theory explaining these results is that a team's performance late in the season is more significant than its overall season record. The three best teams in September were the Tigers (17-8), Mets (16-8), and Padres (16-8), all three of which won their Wild Card series.

"All in the Family". by Fred Trump

This is a timely book, having come out just this year. I found out about it from seeing the author interviewed on TV, and I was able to obtain a copy through an inter-library loan.

Comparisons with his sister Mary's 2020 book, "Too Much and not Enough", are inevitable. I read Fred's book right after reading Mary's (first) book. While Fred presents an interesting narrative account of his life as a member of the Trump extended family (he is the son of Freddy, Fred Trump Sr.'s oldest son, who died of alcoholism at age 42), Mary's book is an unrelentingly dark portrait of a dysfunctional family. There is no story arc to Mary's book, just bleakness on page after page; it was a challenge just getting through it. (And from what I hear, her two more recent books are more of the same.) By contrast, Fred presents a very readable and personal account of his interactions with family members over the years.

As a retired lawyer, what I found most interesting about the two books was the account of Fred and Mary's legal battle over their grandfather's will. After Fred Trump, Sr. died in 1999, Fred and Maary discoverd that they would not be sharing in their deceased father's one-fifth share of the estate, as would have been the case under Fred Sr.'s original will. The will had been changed to give Fred and Mary "only" the same $200,000 that the other grandchildren were to receive.

Fred and Mary challenged the will on the basis that it was obtained through fraud and undue influence. Donald had been in serious financial trouble during the '90s, and had pressured his father to change the will to give Donald complete control over the whole estate, in an effort to shield these assets from his creditors and his ex-wife, Ivana. In the process, Fred and Mary were cut out. Fred Sr. had serious dementia during the '90s, raising the issue of whether he was competent to make out a will at the time his revised will was executed.

A bitter fight ensued, causing a serious rift in the family which lasted for several years. Eventually the case was settled. Fred had a severely disabled son, born at about the same time as his grandfather died, and he was anxious to put the whole family squabble behind him so he could focus on taking care of his wife and kids. Mary, on the other hand, wanted to fight to the bitter end, bus she eventually gave in to the pressure to settle.

The details of the settlement are confidential, but my best guess based on the info available is the following. Studies have put Fred Sr.'s total wealth at the time of his death at a billion dollars. Now, how much of this was included in the estate itslef cannot be determined. There were many corporations. trusts. and LLC's invovled, so how much was in Fred Sr.'s name is unclear. But, roughly speaking, each of Fred Sr.s five children stood to receive abouit $200 million dollars, either through the will or though stock ownershiop that had been already been transferred to them. My best guess is that Fred and Mary probably received about two million dollars each under the settlement, a far cry from the $100 million that each would have received as one-half of their father's share of the inheritance, but still more than the $200,000 under the will. But of course much of that $2M would have gone for attorney's fees.

In the last several chapters of "All in the Family", Fred describes his attempts to repair his broken relationships with his aunts and uncles and cousins following the court fight. He was fairly successful, and was even invited to Donald's inauguration in 2017, and had good seats there. Mary, by contrast, has been content to remain estranged from her extended family.

In his last chapter, Fred writes of his decision to retire from his sucessful career in real estate, and focus on advocating for the rights of the disbled. A conversation with his Uncle Donald stuck with him; Donald said, talking about Fred's disbled son, "He doesn't recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida." It is this troubling quote that has been the biggst topic of discussion when Fred has been interviewed by journalists on his book tour. Although Fred doesn't mention this in his book, on his book tour he has criticized Donald for never having even met his disabled nephew.

The Harris-Trump Debate

In Tuesday night's presidential debate, Kamala Harris established her dominance from the moment she walked onto the stage. While Trump was slowly, almost aimlessly, meandering onto the stage, Harris stode purposefully across the stage and extended her hand to Trump, whom she had never met face-to-face. Trump seemed taken aback and reluctantly, almost sheepishly, shook her hand. This dominance prevailed throughout the debate. Indeed, had we watched the debate with the sound off, it would have been obvious that Harris won. She was expressive and looked at Trump frequently, while Trump refused to look at her, instead looking straight ahead with a scowling, strained expression on his face. His face looked like a prision mug shot.

With the sound on, we saw Harris articulately and eloquently destroying her opponent. She exposed him as an old, decrepit, uninformed fool, while she came across as presidential. Her stated pre-debate strategy was to get under his skin, and she accomplished this brilliantly. He took the bait every time, looking more and more ignorant and out of touch with reality as the debate went on. Harris came across as thoughtful and serious, while Trump appeared increasingly deranged.

I had maintained that Harris's courtroom experience was more signifcant than Trump's prior experience with presidential debates. There was a school of thought that downplayed the significance of Harris's courtroom experience, but my viewpoint proved to be the correct one. In a courtroom you are trying to communicate and tailor the facts so as to convince a judge or jury of the rightness of your position. In the debate you are doing the same thing, except that the "jury" consists of the millions who make up the voting public.

A fact-check of Trump's many misstatements reveals a total of 33 lies. It would be pointless to cover all of these, but I will highlight a few of Trump's lies and outrageous claims which stood out for me.

Abortion. Trmp repeatedly said that "everybody" wanted Roe overturned. This is laughably false. The fact is that most Americans, including most legal scholars, are in favor of some sort of middle road betwween an abortion ban and no restrictions, which is the Roe approach.

Trump claimed to be in favor of leaving the issue of abortion up to the states, and yet he refused to say that he would veto a national abortion ban.

Trump repeated the false claim that Democrats are in favor of full-term abortions, which are illegal in every state. Further, he gave this as the reason for voting against the Florida abortion referendum, which would revoke the six-week ban. Trump claims that he thinks six weeks is not enough, yet he refuses to support revoking this horrible Florida law, which prohibits abortion before many women even know they are pregnant..

Immigration. Trump repeated the debunked claim that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. When the moderator corrected him, he interrupted him and said he saw it on TV.

Trump claimed that Democrats favored illegal immigration because the illegals will vote Democratic.

Trump repeatedly claimed that the crime rates in other countries are going down, because those countries are sending their criminals to the U.S. This is an absurd claim that Trump has been making ever since he came down the golden escalator in 2015 and announced his candidacy.

Trump repeated the lie that Harris was "the border czar".

But the big lie at the heart of Trump's xenophobic anti-immigrant rants is that immigration is ruining this country. Quite the opposite is true; immigrants add economic strength to our country with their hard work and entrepreneurial spirit, and they commit crimes at half the rate of citizens. And they are absolutely necessasry to saving the social security system, as we need more young workers to finance benefits for our aging population.

Crime. Trump said that “crime in this country is through the roof.” This is false, as FBI stats show that both violent crime and property crime rates have gone down under Biden.

Harris's prior run. Trump stated, as he often has on the campaign trail, that Harris was the first person to drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. This is false. A check reveals that all of these candidates dropped out before Harris: Richard Ojeda, Eric Swalwell, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Seth Moulton, Kirsten Gillebrand, Bill de Blasio, Tim Ryan, Beto O'Rourke, Mark Sanford, Wayne Messam, Joe Sestak, and Steve Bullock.

Inflation. Trump repeated the falsehood that inflation was the highest ever under Biden. The facts are that inflation was considerably higher during the Carter years of 1979 and 1980 than it ever was under Biden.

Implicit in all of the inflation talk is that the Biden administration is responsible for inflation. The factually correct answer to this is that inflation is a world-wide phenomenon, and the U.S. actually has had less inflation than other developed countries, which is to say that Biden has been doing a good job in combatting inflation. But the Democrats never mention this, apparently feeling that this explanation will not resonate with the ignorant U.S. voters.

Obamacare. Trump now claims that he wants to improve Obamacare, not end it. What this means is not clear. The moderator got Trump to admit that he still, after nine years, does not have a plan to replace Obamacare. Trump lamely claimed that he had the "concepts" of a plan.

Israel. Trump falsely claimed that "Harris hates Isael", and said Israel would cease to exist in two years under a Harris presidency. A similar lie was the accusation that Harris is a Marxist.

Crowd sizes. Trump's latest lie about Harris's crowd sizes is that she is busing people in and paying them to attend her rallies. Previous lies are that she has crowds only because of the entertainers, and that she is using AI to create false pictures of her crowds.

Tariffs. Trump repeated his long-time lie that tariffs are paid by the exporting countries. This is totally false; the facts are that tariffs are paid by U.S. importers, and ultimately by the U.S. consumers. Harris is correct in saying that Trump's proposed tariff increases would be equivalent to a national sales tax on U.S. consumers, a "tax" which analysts say would cost the average family about $4,000 a year.

The Ukraine war. Trump refused to say that he wanted Ukraine to win the war. He repeated his absurd claim that he would end the war within 24 hours. When pressed for details, he said he would talk one-on-one with Putin, and then with Zelensky.

The 2020 election. Trump repeated his frequent claim that the last election was stolen. When the moderator brought up that Trump had seemed to admit he lost with his recent statement that he "lost by a whisker", Trump claimed he was being "sarcastic", even though there was no hint of sarcasm in his prior statement.

Trump's inheritance. When Harris referred to Trump's $400 million inheritance, he claimed his actual inheritance was only a "fraction" of this. As documented by investigative reporters, Trump did in fact receive over this amount, much of which was in the form of gifts from his father disguised as "loans". His six bankruptcies are stark evidence of Trump's total incompetence as an entrepreneur.

The 1/6 insurrection. Trump refused to admit he had done anything wrong on January 6th, and instead insisted that Nancy Pelosi was in charge of Capitol Hill security, and that she had turned down an offer of 10,000 National Guard trooops. Both of these are complete lies.

Harris had many highlight moments during the debate. Here are a few of them.

She said that Trump was "fired by 81,000,000 voters, and he's obviously having a hard time processing that."

Harris said that both she and her running mate were gun owners. I think this went a long way toward debunking the notion that Democrats are anti-gun. The idea here is that you can be in favor of sensible gun safety legislation, without being against the second amendment.

The NRA fanatics who insist otherwise should consider the free speech provision in the first amendment. Even though that amendment says the government shall make no laws infringing on free speech, there are in fact hundreds of laws limiting free speech.

One of Harris's best lines was that there are 800,000 Polish-Americans in Pennsylvania who have reason to be concerned about Trump's attitude of letting Putin do whatever he wants in Eastern Europe. This was effective in several respects. First, it dramatized the real world danger of letting Putin run wild in Eastern Europe. Second, it brought the issue home to the state the debate was happening in. And third, that state just happens to be what most analysts say is the most important state for each candidate to win in November.

But the best reaction from Harris was totally nonverbal. This was when she was seen laughing hilariously at Trump's nonsensical claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets. Her reaction was perfect, and no words were needed.

Conclusion: Trump was so thoroughly trounced that now, like Roberto Duran in 1980, he is crying "no mas".

BHS football season is underway

Friday marked the first home game for the Pirates. Their opponent was Ayersville, a school I'd never heard of. Turns out Ayersville is a small school located in the Defiance area. I imagine there is an interesting back story about how Ayersville came to appear on the Bluffton schedule as a non-conference opponent, but I don't know what it is. Enrollment at Ayersville is only 346, but Bluffton's is only 353, so quite similar numbers of students to draw from.

The Pirates are coming off of an awesome year in 2023, when they went 12-2, the only losses coming to nearby rival Columbus Grove. They started out the season 9-0, shutting out seven of their first nine oppenents, before losing to Grove 14-7. In the post-season playoffs, they defeated their first three opponents by a combined score of 135-6, before again falling to Grove 17-10, in a game I was able to watch on the big screen at the local bowling alley.

The weather Friday was rainy, cloudy, and blustery, putting my plans to attend the game in doubt. But it cleared up somewhat by the 7:00 P.M. game time, and the weather waqs almost ideal for football. A few random drops of rain were felt, but no real drizzle. And the sun even peaked through for awhile toward the end of the first half. In the first half Bluffton scored every time it had the ball (I think), and the halftime score was 49-0. I left and went home, finding out later that the final was 63-7, with the second string (presumably) playing the second half.

So the season is off to a great start. The Pirates have defeated their first three oponents by a combined score of 155-10, beating each opponent by a greater margin than last year. The future looks bright!

The Killers (1946; dir: Robert Siodmak)

I run across a new film noir almost daily on Facebook. Someone in the film noir group will write a post about a particular film noir, and then seomeone else in the comments will post a link to the film. Consequently, I watch a new film noir quite often these days. I love watching these shows. The black-and-white, the light and shoadows, the urban scenes, the femme fatales, they all make for a delightful viewing experience.

Yesterday I watched "The Killers", starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. An ex-boxer gets murdered execution-style, and an insurance investigator sets out to find the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. He continues to follow the trail and attempt to unravel the mystery behind the execution. As he talks with each witness, there is a flashback showing what the witness is describing. (Similar to the excellent TV series, "Cold Case", which is occasionally on TNT at night.)

What sets this movie apart from other film noirs is the very clever surprise ending. There is quite a nice twist at the end.

Why Harris Will Win in a Landslide

By "landslide" I mean that Harris will win all of the swing states--Nevada, Arizona, Wiconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina.

I don't include Indiana, which went for Trump by 16 and 19 points in the past two elections. The polls putting Trump's lead at only 4% have to be off.

Harris doesn't need Georgia, and shouldn't waste her time there, as she is about to do this week with her bus tour.

I base this assessment on the temendous enthusiasm for her campaign. Record numbers of donations are coming in, many of them first-time donors; new voters are being registerd at a record pace, and new volunteers are signing up at a record pace.

Trump continues to embarrass himself with deranged comments on the campaign trail and on social media. He is fairly likely to become unhinged and self-destruct in the upcoming debate, as he detests Harris and has no impulse control sufficient to hide his hatred.

I continue to believe that there is a strong parallel between Trump and General MacArthur in 1952. MacArthur came back from Asia extremely popular, but that popularity waned as he spent his speeches nursing his personal grievances against Truman for being fired, instead of talking about the issues in the 1952 election.

Does the VP Pick Matter?

I ran across an article today discussing the approval ratings of various VP candidates, and this got me to thinking about whether VP picks matter. I think they do matter, but in a different way than usually contemplated.

The way they matter is that they show the judgment, or lack thereof, of the presidential candidate, because it is the first major decision which a presidential candidate has to make.

Donald Trump bungled the choice, as shown by the fact that surveys have Vance's net disapproval rating at -9%, the worst ever for a VP candidate. Worse even than Tim Kaine's -4%, and Sarah Palin's -2%.

A review of past choices over the years reveals some interesting blunders. Goldwater's choice of obscure Congressman Bill Miller in 1964 certainly did his campaign no good. Nixon's choice of Spiro Agnew in 1968 and 1972 was a bad choice, but he could have won those elections running with Mickey Mouse.

Moving on to 1972, we have the biggest blunder ever made, when George McGovern failed to properly vet his choice and had to remove him from the ticket after the convention. The excuse given by his campaign manager was totally lame. He said that they were too busy trying to hold their coalition together at the convention to pay any attention to the VP choice. He ludicrously claimed that the gay rights caucus was threatening to bolt. Huh? Where were they going to go?

Jimmy Carter in 1976 demonstrated the right way to pick a VP. Prior to the convention, he had the top three candidates fly down to Plains, Gerogia and he met with each of them one-on-one. His pick, Walter Mondale, was a good pick.

However, Mondale in 1984 made a poor pick, when he chose an obscure Congresswoman, making the same mistake Goldwater did in 1964. Moving ahead to 2000, Al Gore blundered by choosing Joe Lieberman. The moralistic Leiberman had made hiimself infamous by roundly denouncing President Clinton's personal shortcomings in a strident speech on the Senate floor. The choice of Lieberman represented a faulty campaign strategy of running away from Clinton, who left the presidency with one of the highest approval ratings in modern history for a retiring president.

John McCain made the infamous blunder in 2008 of picking Sarah Palin, but this was not actually his mistake. Hwe wanted to run with Joe Lieberman, who was willing to switch paarties and run with McCain, but the party bosses vetoed the idea. Hillary Clinton's pick in 2016 was weak, as Tim Kaine added nothing to he ticket and nothing to the campaign.

And now we have the fascinating race shaping up in 2024. Trump flunked his test by picking Vance, and Harris passed her test with flying colors with her inspired pick of Wulz. The final result seems preordained.

Biden Bungles Both Wars

The success of the Ukrainian army in its incursion into Russia just exacerbates my anger at Joe Biden for his refusal to tolerate any Ukraine action inside Russia for so long. I think about how the war could have gone so much better for Ukraine if its hands hadn't been tied by Biden.

And then we have Israel's war against Gaza, where Biden's blunder has been just the opposite. Biden still refuses to rein in Israel, choosing instead to allow the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Gaza women and children.

Biden's war blunders were foreshadowed by his ill-conceived vote on 10/11/02 to authorize Bush to go to war against Iraq. Twenty-two of his Senate Democratic colleagues were astute enough to vote against it, but Biden supported it and thereby demonstrated his incompetence when it comes to war matters.

Harris Surges Ahead

The polls as of today have Harris aheaqd 281-241 in the Electoral vote, with 16 (North Carolina) tied. The surge in the few weeks since Biden dropped out has been incredible. The crowds she and Wulz have been getting have been among the most enthusiastic I have ever seen at a political rally. Many tens of thousands are volunteering and registering to vote for the first time.

A focus group I saw this morning of former Trump voters was instructive in that they are all now anti-Trump. Most mentioned Trump's negativity and meanness, but, surprisingly, several mentioned that Vance "scares" them. Trump is reportedly disappointed with Vance, but he can't switch now without seeeming weak and ineffective.

The line of the day, from the journalist who conducted the focus group: "Harris reminds men of their first wife; Trump reminds women of their first husband's divorce lawyer."

"The Next Civil War", by Stephen Marche

Blending actual events with imagined future events, the author paints a picture of how the next civil war could come about.

But the most interesting thing to me was the topic of secession as an alternative to a civil war. This is an area I have long been interested in. Marche discusses the active secession movements in Texas and California. I was disappointed that he didn't mention the long-time secession movement in Vermont, a movement known as The Second Republic, which is a reference to the period of 1787-1791, when Vermont functioned as an independent republic.

Secession certainly wouldn't solve all of the grievance problems, because the divisions in our country are not strictly defined by geography. Even in the reddest of states, 35% or more of the residents vote blue, and 35% or more of blue state residents vote red.

Marche envisions four different countries which could arise from a beak-up. When I wrote about this subject in my post of 9/19/08, I envisioned as many as six or seven. But the principle is the same. The idea is to create countries which have more cohesiveness than the U.S. does now. More cohesiveness would bring less strife, less crime, less hate, and a greater sense of community, which is badly needed these days.

Some Assassination Issues

The attempted assassination of Trump this past Saturday raises a number of vexing issues. I will explore some of them.

Secret Service failures. Information continues to leak out daily about the extent of the failures of the Secret Service. It turns out that the shooter was known as a suspicious person a full hour before the shooting, when he attmepted to enter the "inner perimeter" with a rangefinder. And yet he was not tracked. Why?

Another failure was that the SS did not have the roof under surveillance, given that it was within easy rifle range of the rally site. It was a flat roof, easily identifiable as a danger point.

The feckless comments of the head of the SS are cringeworthy. First she said that is was the responsibility of local law enforcement to monitor the "outer perimeter". Now she says it in fact WAS the responsibility of the SS, but she is obviously only mouthing words she doesn't believe. It is obvious she neeeds to be fired, but I'm not holding my breath on this.

Another SS failure being talked about in recent days is the SS allowing Trump to stand back up after they had him down on the ground. Commentators say that at this point it was unknown whether there was a second shooter, and the SS agents should have insisted that he stay down for his own protection.

Will this experience humanize Trump? It was well-known that Trump was rewriting his accpetance speech to make it less polemic and more unifying, and at this point there seemed to be some possibility that Trump actually had become more human. Indeed, his speech started out in this vein, but then he went off-script and rambled on with his standard stump speech about the 2020 election being stolen, immigrants ruining the nation, Biden being the worst president ever, and so forth. He is obviously the same old Trump, and the 92-minute speech, the longest in convention history, did his candidacy no good. His base ate it up, but the job of an acceptance speech is to appeal to the nationa as a whole, not just your most rabid supporters.

Historians have been talking about the past experince of politicians following failed assassination attmept. After getting shot in 1912, Teddy Roosevelt had a change of heart and apologized for his past racism. Same with George Wallace in 1972. When he later ran for governor, Wallace actively courted the Black vote, admitting his past advocacy for segregation had been wrong, asnd after the election he went into the black community and thanked them for their support (he got 90% of the black vote). And Reagan is said to have become more sympathetic to others' shortcomings and hardships following his 1981 assassinaton attempt.

Did God save Trump? Trump has mentioned "God" more often in the past week than he has in his entire life before last Saturday. The idea that God intervened to save Trump is, to me, a repugnant idea based on totally false theology. To believe this you would have to believe that everything that happens is happening in accordance with God's will. (Hence the statement from a Senatorial candidate some years ago that if a rape victim gets pregnant, it must be God's will that she have the baby.) I think a better theology is that God does not intervene to prevent bad things from happening to us, but that God will be with us as we navigate our way through the tough times, and this is what we should pray for.

"The Day Huey Long Was Shot", by David Zinman

This book was first published in 1963, casting serious doubt on the official version of how Huey Long was assassinated back in 1935. Then, in the early '90s, the author re-opened his investigation. and in 1993 re-published his book with much additional material.

The official version is that a young doctor, Carl Weiss, came up to Long in the state capital building and shot him, and was himself then riddled with dozens of shots from Long's bodyguards. Why Weiss, a young doctor who was devoted to his family and his church and his medical practice, would suddenly do something so out of character has never been satisfactorily explained.

To make a long story short, what probably happened was that Weiss approached Long, Long uttered a racial slur at him, Weiss responded by punching Long, and Long's six bodyguards then unloaed a flurry of bullets, with Long being hit in the crossfire. This version is supported by the fact that Long had a cut on his mouth which was never satisfactorily explained, and by the fact that, when a nurse asked Long in the hospital about the cut, Long told her that "That's where he hit me". That the actions of the bodyguards caused Long's death is supported by the fact that his bodyguards refused to cooperate with the Coroner's Inquest. Weiss could not very well have first hit Long and then shot him, given that Long was surrounded by bodyguards.

There is a wealth of detail presented. This detail includes the result of a forensic examination of Weiss's body when it was exhumed in 1992. The forensic scientists concluded that there were serious doubts that the doctor had fired the fatal shot which killed Long.

Can We Learn from the Brits?

Joe Biden and his supporters have been saying that he had a "bad night" at the debate. But look at what George Clooney wrote in the NY Times: “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate." This refutes the idea that it was just a bad night. The unfortunate truth is that Biden has deteriorated badly.

I envy the British for their ability to replace Prime Ministers who have worn out their welcome. Just look at the Tories during their 14-year run, which ended just a week ago. There was David Cameron for six years, then Theresa May for three years, followed by Boris Johnson for three years, Liz Truss for seven weeks, and finally, Rishi Sunak for 20 months. In each case it was not the general electorate which made the change, but the Tory party itself, showing an openness to change which the U.S. Democratic party needs now.

Review of "Your Honor"

This is a 20-episode series that aired on Showtime, and is now available on Netflix. I watched it recently in only two days, so I'd have to say it is fairly captivating.

Bryan Cranston stars as a respected judge who falls on hard times, goes to prison, and then comes out of prison early to cooperate with the feds to clean up New Orleans crime. The mob family in the series is headed by a guy who is totally unbelievable as a mob boss, and isn't even Italian. His dull, mousy, hateful wife is just totally disgusting. In the second season this is explained, when the wife's father comes into the picture, and it turns out he is an old-time Italian mob boss, and the wife's husband basically was set up in the mob by his father-in-law.

By the end of the second season, the wife's husband has been shot dead by his father-in-law, and the wife succeeds to the position of new boss which she has always coveted. I suppose this leaves it open for a third season, but having this woman in the lead would render the series totally uninteresting.

The other women in the series are quite good. The young teacher who is the teacher of the judge's son is quite endearing. And the mob couple's daughter who the judge's son rejects the teacher for is also awesome. And the mother of the judge's deceased wife is a really compelling character, reminiscent of the Kathy Bates character in "A Family Affair".

The atmosphere of post-Katrina New Orleans is heavily featured in the series. The interplay between the white mob family and the black family of drug dealers (headed by a strong woman) is interesting.

This doesn't rise to the level of "Breaking Bad" or "Ozark" or "Outer Banks", but it is worth a watch.

Should Biden Bow Out?

In considering this question, I have looked at it from a number of directions.

A. Is a second term the norm? By all measures Biden has done a decent job as president. Is it the norm that such presidents are granted a second term? To examine this, I reviewed all past presidencies. There are sixteen examples of two-term presidents. However, there are also seventeen examples of presidents who were elected but served only one term. The reasons for this fall into three categories.

Rejected by the voters in the general election. There are nine in this catogory: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Van Buren, Cleveland, Benjamin Harriswon, Taft, Hoover, Bush Sr., and Trump.

Denied renomination by their party: Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, and Hayes.

Volntarily withdrew from consideraton for a second term: Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, and LBJ.

So, we can see that the second term for a president is far from being the norm. Hardly encouraging for Biden's re-election chances.

B. Is Biden a fit candidate? This question has to do with whether Biden can handle himself away from the teleprompter. His miserable debate performance suggests otherwise. It is up to Biden to disprove the narrative which has arisen folowing the debate.

I have looked at how many unsscripted news conferences he has held, compared to other presidents, and the results are not encouraging for Biden. Biden has held an average of only 11 news conferences a year, the third-lowest since the 1920s, after only Reagan (6) and Nixon (7). Even George W. Bush, who was similar to Biden in his propensity for verbal gaffes, held 26 news conferences a year, well more than double Biden's number.

In an attempt to re-establish himaself as a viable candidate, Biden held a much-ballyhooed 22-minute interview on July 5th, eight days after the debate, with ABC newsman George Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos asked no questions about policy, instead asking essentially the same question over and over for the whole interview, that being whether he is going to get out of the race. For the most part Biden dealt with these questions OK, but one answer really stands out as reeking of cognitive decline. George asked him whether he had watched the debate, and Biden answered, "I don't think I did." Huh? It's a yes-no question, either you watched it or you didn't. How can you answer that question so inarticulately?

C. What are the experts saying? The two most astute analysts in the Democratic camp are James Carville, who successfully managed Clinton's two races, and David Axelrod, who successfully managed Obama's two races. Both of them say emphatically that Biden needs to drop out.

Change is always hard, but the Democratic party needs to realize that it is time to pass the torch to a new generation. The Republican party is in the process of self-destructing, and the issue now is whether the Democratic party will follow the GOP into oblivion.

Review of "A Family Affair"

I was in the mood for a lighthearted movie recently, and I came across an article on this movie in "People" magazine, so I decided to give it a try, despite its abysmally low 5.4 IMDB rating.

I ended up watching the whole thing, and I found it to be an entertaining romantic comedy. Even though I have never liked Nicole Kidman, she was endearing in this movie and I liked her character. Her daughter was also played very well, by the delightful Joey King. And Kathy Bates, as Joey's grandmother, was awesome. The love interest, Zac Efron, was less interesting, but not dull enough to spoil the movie for me.

Trump's path to victory

Trump has an easy, simple-minded path to victory in November, which is good for him as he is a simple-minded man.

There are two messages he should stress: first, we had no wars under his leadership, and two wars under Biden's leadership. And beyond that, Biden has arguably screwed up both wars. He has failed to cut off aid to Israel when it became obvious that Israel was using our aid to commit genocide against Palestinian civilians. And he refused, for a long time, to provde needed aid to Ukraine if that aid could be used to wage attacks inside Russia. Both approaches were dead wrong.

His second message should be that there was virtually no inflation during his term, and now there has been continuing inflation under Biden. Biden should try to counter this by pointing out that our inflation is the lowest in the world, emphasizing that this is a world-wide phenomenon, but this will not resonate with the average voter.

What Biden Has To Do

The things Biden needs to do to win re-election seem so simple to me, and yet Democratic candidates in the past have been so oblivious to the obvious. Here is a list.

1. Use Clinton and Obama as surrogates. Thse two ex-presidents both have awesome oratorical skills, skills which Biden lacks. As documented in Michael Cohen's book "Disloyal", Trump has a visceral hatred of Obama, so it is especially important to use Obama, as he can easily get under Trump's skin and induce outlandish comments from him.

2. Use lay people as surrogates. Robert de Niro has proven to be a strong surrogate, and he should be used. Also, the lady in Texas who was denied an abortion which was necessary to preserve her ability to have chidren in the future.

3. Pound the airwaves with hard-hitting ads showing Trump making outlandish claims. Use his own words against him.

4. Stress the theme that the Trump agenda is designed to "take away your rights". This includes the right to make your own reproductive decisions, the right to have your vote counted, the right to read books of your own choosing, the right to be free from gun viiolence, and many others. Pound this message to the voters.

5. Counter the question about "Are you better off than you were four years ago" with correct info that we are indeed way better off. Unemployment at a 50-year low, stock market at an all-time high, inflation the lowest in the world.

Presidential Election History, Part Five, How Parties Pick Their Candidates

This post will examine the three primary ways political parties have used to pick their candidates, and end with some speculation about the future.

I. The Congressional Caucus System (1792-1828). After George Washington took office in 1789, there quickly arose two parties, the Federalists, led by Hamilton, and the anti-Federalists, or Democratic-Republicans, led by Jefferson and Madison. Washington unanimously won re-election in 1792, but the two parties did field VP candidates, chosen by Congressional caususes in each of the parties. This system continued until 1828, although 1816 was the last election in which the Federalist Party fielded a presidential candidate. The caucuses would decide on the party's candidate, and the electors from each state would then choose between the candidates.

II. The Convention System (1832-1968). By 1824 the Federalist Party had died out, and in 1824 and 1828 the groups were known as either "Adams men" or Jackson men". After the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, he proved to be such a polarizing figure that his opponents coalesced into a new party, called the Whig Party, and the name of Jackson's party was shortened to the Democratic Party. The election of 1832 saw the start of national political conventions as the means by which parties nominated their candidates. Not only did both the Whig and Democratic Parties have conventions that year, but the Anti-Masonic Party also had one.

Despite all its obvious drawbacks, the convention system schlepped along for 120 years, until in 1952 television came into the picture and revealed just how dysfunctional it was. As Eugene Roseboom states:

"The noisy inattention of delegates, the artificial demonstrations, the banal oratory, the parliamentary tangles and public quarreling, the mysterious deals and shiftings of votes behind the camera's eye, the "show-off" delegates who demanded polls of their delegations just to give themselves a brief television appearance, the hectic carnival atmosphere--all were disillusioning to citizens who, before the television era, had thought of a convention as a kind of deliberative assembly. Radio had revealed unlovely aspects, but the camera was devastating."

The 1952 Democratic Convention, when Stevenson was nominated on the third ballot, was the last time it took more than one ballot to nominate a candidate. Conventions since then have been largely devoid of suspense and interest, and today the proceedings are totally scripted.

If 1952 marked the beginning of the end for the convention system, 1968 marked the actual end, when Hubert Humphrey got the Democratic nomination without having entered a single primary. The whole Democratic Convention was a complete disaster, with police brutality reigning supreme both inside and outside the convention hall.

III. The Partisan Primary System (1972-2024). After the 1968 debacle, changes were obviously needed, and the Democrats formed a commission to suggest changes. This ushered in the partisan primary system.

The problems with the partisan primary system immediately became evident, as an extreme candidate, George McGovern, took advantage of the new rules and became the Democratic nominee in 1972, only to be trounced by Richard Nixon in the general election. The problem with the partisan primary system is that it has tended to produce ideologically extreme candidates who did not appeal to more moderate, general election voters.

The drawbacks with the partisan primary system came into focus in 2012, when we were subjected to the spectacle of Mitt Romney trying his best to falsely portray himself as an extreme conservative, in order to win the GOP nomination. After painting himself into this corner, he had no chance in the general election against Barack Obama.

But the complete breakdown of the partisan primary system occurred in 2016, when both of the two main parties nominated candidates with negative approval ratings. In the final Gallup Poll before the election, the candidates had the two worst disapproval ratings since Gallup began polling for this in 1956. Donald Trump had a 61% disapproval rating, and Hillary Clinton 52%. This disaster of an election was illustrated by the fact that there were ten faithless electors, who voted for a different candidate than they were pledged to, the most in history to defect from presidential candidates who were still alive.

And now, in 2024, we have this same situation, with the two presumptive candidates, Trump and Biden, both having disapproval ratings of over 50%. Latest ratings have Trump at 52% disapproval, and Biden at 54%. It has now become clear that the partisan primary system has run its course and should be discarded.

IV. The Nonpartisan Primary System. This section is totally aspirational. It is clear that changes are needed, but enacting those changes will be a heavy lift.

I have always found it odd that the government is involved in the process the two main parties have of choosing their candidates. It is basically welfare for the parties, in that the government pays for the primaries which the parties have used to pick their candidates.

Primaries should be nonpartisan and open to all candidates. The top two then could go on to the general election. This would discourage the blatant partisanship which has infected our politics. And it would give a chance for third-party candidates to have their voices heard.