Outside of a Punch in the Mouth, We Need A Gavel

Well, wasn't that special?

But, I would say, necessary. One more time, we needed to see the president on display as the bullying lout he has always been. 

He had to do that, of course. Even beyond being who he is at all times, no pretenses--or, if you will, nothing but pretense--he needed to blow up the entire format to emerge dominant, at least in his mind, so he can now belittle Joe Biden on Twitter as being too weak to be president. He's trailing, so he needs to disrupt the entire process and re-establish control. In his mind, he did really well last night.

He's even utilizing, using in fact though they don't realize it, Medal of Honor winners to do his bidding for him. They don't get it, either. Going on TV and describing what you did to win the medal exposes you as exactly the opposite of what such winners should be: Humble servants.

But I digress. The next debate is supposed to be a town hall setting. This is a recipe for disaster, already set up and established. We now know what's going to happen.

Interruptions will take place naturally now. 45 will ignore any attempts to re-establish formalities. It's what he wants when he wants it.

It's the M.O. of both him and his major assistants. Remember Stephen Miller getting thrown out of the studio by Jake Tapper (who should be the moderator from hereon out)? That attempted interview should be replayed. He tries exactly the same thing. So did Kellyanne Conway. So did Scaramucci in the short time he was communications director.

Tapper kept talking through Miller, and then noted that he refused to answer the questions posed. Finding things to be a waste of time, he dismissed Miller from the studio. 

Of course you can't do that to the president, can you? But it would be entirely appropriate. He has broken the rules, so the format is now compromised. Town hall? It will be a near riot.

The Presidential Election Commission would do well to re-meet and consider new rules. Both sides agreed to this format, which plays right into 45's hands. He had no greater desire to follow the rules than a snake poised in a tree to attack.

We keep forgetting that this president doesn't deserve the respect his office would normally have. He uses it to get his way, to say the first thing that comes to his mind. It's a fundamental abuse of power. I can't believe that after all this time, people still don't see it, anticipate it, and take strides to head it off.

Steven Scully, of C-SPAN,  who is supposed to somehow preside over the "discussion," has no idea what he's in for at the next debate. Chris Wallace of Fox News tried hard, albeit too late, to rescue a smidgeon of decorum from last night's debacle. He at least established that 45 was the perpetrator.

Next time, outside of a punch in the mouth--which 45 has always needed very badly but which we know now will never happen because he gets Secret Service protection for the rest of his life, an injustice that will be everlasting--we need some kind of interruptive device to intercede when 45 goes off the rails.

An air horn would be untoward, though effective. But a gavel would do the trick, if applied appropriately.

Ever been at a meeting where a gavel has been used, outside of court? It's quite loud. It also has the veneer of officialness and impatience, as in you're-out-of-order. There's a formality to it that can't be denied.

And--not to be ignored--it's really, really loud if wielded well. Consistent banging upon whatever solid surface is nearby is annoying and gets people to stop what they're doing pretty quickly.

It also gets in the way of hearing what the offender has to say. It defeats their wish to get advantages that are undeserved. The moderator just needs to keep pounding away to restore order.

45 needs to be gaveled endlessly when he lips off, which is all the time; when he tries to get an aside in, which is normal for him; when he interrupts, which is a violation of the rules of decorum. It's why a gavel exists: to prevent improprieties from taking over the process.

We will see if he gained votes from this descent into chaos, lying his way through his interruptions. I think the jury's out. After all, he managed to win last time on an Electoral College technicality. It's pretty much all he can hope for this time, too.

This is either an exercise in political suicide, or a prelude to much deeper trouble starting on Election Day. He can't and won't let go. We need to understand all the implications of that.

But in the meantime, get a gavel from some president of some local chamber of commerce. Either that, or order one on EBay. There's still time.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

A Distinguished Jurist Draws A Different Line on Roe v. Wade--You Might Be Surprised

The passing of a distringuished jurist like Ruth Bader Ginsberg brings, at least momentarily, into focus her work and the direction of her jurisprudence. There, already, lies the difference between myth and reality.

Ginsberg is known, widely and properly, as someone who advanced women's rights through legal rulings. She sometimes did that through defending the rights of men as well as women to bring the status of the latter into ironic, but glaringly accurate, repose. It was not just women's rights she was advancing, but the very idea of inequality, which she resented and tirelessly worked to reduce.

But she also expressed herself on Roe v. Wade, and in a way that might bring women's rights advocates up a bit short. To wit: In one sense, she didn't like the sweeping effects of the original decision.

Hang on now. She appreciated the effect on women's bodies, as in: Yes, they should have the right to determine what should happen within them. And I have never seen her deviate from the general guidelines put forth by Justice Harry Blackmun in the 1973 ruling, dividing pregnancy into thirds and creating a rule of treatment within. That, it looks to me, is still a solid determination and still makes the most sense, regardless of the efforts of some states to reduce the window of pregnancy determination time to an indecipherable blip.

She thought, though, that to make one rule for the whole country on such a sensitive topic was not in its best interests. Linda Greenhouse quoted her in an expanded obituary in the New York Times two Sundays ago: (which I have read in The New Yorker) She warned against the Supreme Court "taking giant strides and thereby risking a backlash too forceful to contain." She pointed out that the Constitution's framers "allowed to rest in the court's hands large authority trouble on the Constitution's meaning," but "armed the court with no swords to carry out its pronouncements."

So perhaps the best gift the notorious RBG leaves us is the reminder that democracy takes cooperation among the branches, and a recognition that the rule of law has to be dominant. I think, in fact, that Roe v. Wade will go the direction that RBG suggested: That it be left to the states to determine the status of a woman's right to choose within that state. I can disagree with that, and I do, but it might also settle arguments momentarily. It might quell the backlash that RBG already noted.

But that means, too, that gerrymandering must be reversed. The table is already set in several states, precluding any debate or discussion on the topic. Republicans have managed to seize power in ironclad boundaries that present rulings can't undo. The Supreme Court needs to revisit them, because the determination of the right of women to control their bodies within a jurisdiction--a right with few peers--depends upon them and, if it isn't guaranteed, a decent exchange of ideas with both sides at risk will mean that a better discussion will take place. Otherwise, if I'm going to win anyhow, all I need to do is make token comments.

The majority of the country still believes that Roe v. Wade is no worse than a necessary evil, and even Brett Kavanaugh suggested, in his flawed Senate confirmation hearing, that it is settled law. (I can personally doubt that he meant that; Citizens United reversed a previous ruling on campaign spending that wasn't as old as Roe now is--approaching half a century, in fact.).

But opposing forces begin to chip away at such rulings, reducing their effects. Such happened to Brown v. Board, as soon as two years after it was decided. I'm reading a book entitled Democracy In Chains, which says that the voucher movement was specifically designed to fight school desegregation and began in Virginia in 1956. It has taken quite a while to reverse its effects, but societal changes, as well as a well-directed financial effort by conservative elites, has reduced Brown to a shell of its former self--just as the same kind of elites have done to Roe.

It seems that we are too big of a society to settle on any one rule, not even the Constitution, whose meaning we constantly quibble over (Second Amendment, anyone?). We do not care about each other nearly enough to settle upon anything that will supposedly compromise our independence, whether real or imaginary (as in mask-wearing), even including that which risks lives--just as true concerning building houses inside forests to ensure solitude and exposing then to fires that will wipe them out, trapping the inhabitants.

I think RBG's comment on Roe was reflective of that reality. She is now gone, and we must pick up where she left off. It is a precarious place, to be sure. 

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

"A Very Stable Genius": No Way to Summarize It

With the election coming up, I decided to finally read "A Very Stable Genius," by Phillip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. I've had it for a while, but kept from reading it until now.

That's because, as the Wall Street Journal said ironically the other day, that 45's performance as president should be taken as a whole (in response to his awful comments to Bob Woodward, as if somehow pasting over it would work--a surprisingly supportive comment). Granted, this account does not because of the sheer amount of abuse and miscreance that 45 has committed from his inauguration through July of 2019, the time expanse of the book.

But reading it now serves to remind us of the totality of 45 improprieties and illegalities, and our misfortune at the naïveté many of us have expressed about his limitations. To summarize, he has none. Only now do we realize that this monster will do anything to hold on to power--and as we speak, his sycophants are now making frenzied plans to help him.

Yet, going back over everything allows memories to freshen. To convince the otherwise rational people to vote for him--I'm not sure how many are left--45 must make them live in the moment, to create a misleading reality about a country about to go into the tank, and make it be someone else's fault. 

I'm here to warn not to do that. People really should take a step back and remember what he has done to us. This is not a game of 'got-cha.' This is the real deal. We have the worst possible person in the worst possible office at the worst possible moment. We have one, exactly one, chance left to do something about it. 

Bob Mueller passed on his chance because of his obsessiveness with form and protocol. As thorough as his Office of Special Counsel staff was, he avoided admitting the emergency and facing it, and with that went any hope of removing 45 from office. He was a gentleman dealing with others who were clearly not. He thought he could trust Bill Barr, but we now know that Barr entered the Attorney General's office with an already twisted view of what he could do for 45 to help his seizure of power--instead of clear-headedly seeing that this seizure did not have the best interests of the country in mind. But then, 45 would probably have found someone with Barr's thought process to replace him. He wanted not the lawyer to represent the country, which is what was supposed to be true of an Attorney General, but someone to represent him.

There were other places in which Mueller did not pursue issues with sufficient intensity, writes Andrew Weissmann, Mueller's front man of the OSC, in a new book about to be published. 45's pardon powers and the ever-looming threat of Mueller being potentially fired, writes Weissmann, led Mueller to take a more measured approach.

There's no real way to summarize all of the abuses, and Rucker and Leonnig avoid that in their work. It is masterful reporting and sourcing of those who desperately needed to tell their parts of a story that, as opposed to someone who keeps telling us that he'll make America great again, contribute strongly to America's demise in serving the interests of him alone.

So I thought I'd just go through a small part of the ground that Rucker and Leonnig turn up again, to get you to remember what he's done to offend many of us and undermine just about all of us, whether we realize it or not, and/or act with incredible cluelessness. All I will do is write incidents in a way that, as I read them myself, afforded me the opportunity to say to myself, "Ohhhh--that's right! I remember that!"

(Get ready. This will take a while.)

From Chapter 1: "Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who had endorsed Trump and was the chairman of the presidential transition, was flabbergasted when the president-elect told him he would name (Michael) Flynn his national security adviser.

"You can't do that," said Christie. "First, you have to have a chief of staff in place and let your chief of staff have input on that because the security adviser's going to be reporting to the chief of staff. And Flynn's just the wrong choice. He's just a horrific choice."

"You just don't like him," (45) replied.

"Well you're right," Christie said, "I don't like him. Do you want to know why?"

"Yeah," (45) said.

"Because he's going to get you in trouble," Christie said. "Take my word for it."

Chapter 2: "On January 27 (2017), without consulting his Justice Department or fully briefing his homeland security secretary, (45) issued a travel ban barring citizens and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States. Chaos reigned at large international airports, and immigration lawyers filed emergency petitions asking federal courts to intervene to half enforcement of the ban, arguing that it was unconstitutional.

"The ban was drafted in secret by (Steve) Bannon and Stephen Miller, (45)'s....policy adviser and a hard-line opponent of illegal immigration. They didn't consult (White House counsel Don) McGahn or (acting Attorney General Sally) Yates about its legal framework. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, whose department had to enforce the ban, never got to see the final version until after (45) issued his executive order."

Chapter 3: 45 is asked to contribute to a documentary called 'The Words That Built America,' ironically directed by Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of Nancy, for HBO...."With LED lights on stilts in front of him, (45) took his seat. "You're lucky you got the easy part," Pelosi told him cheerfully. "It gets complicated after this." But the president stumbled, trying to get out the words in the arcane, stilted form the Founding Fathers had written. (45) grew irritated. "It's very hard to do because of the language here," (45) told the crew. "it's very hard to get through that whole thing without a stumble." He added, "It's like a different language, right?"

Chapter 4: "News of (FBI Director James) Comey's firing broke at about 5:48 p.m., and all bedlam broke out....at this moment Rosenstein was floored. It had never occurred to him that Comey would be executed in so haphazard a way.

(45), meanwhile, sat in front of the television...He was getting crushed rather than cheered....Exasperated, (45) called on Chris Christie.

"What the hell is going on? I'm getting my ass kicked on this," (45) told his friend.

"You've created a shit storm," Christie told him. "And what about the worst staff work ever? You didn't fucking know (Comey) was in Los Angeles? You sent Keith Schiller with a letter for a guy who was twenty-nine hundred miles away?"

...."I've got your solution," Christie said. "Get (Deputy Attorney General Rod) Rosenstein out oj TV now. If this is Rosenstein's memo [which Rosenstein never intended would be used to fire Comey; he thought of it as a position paper], have fucking Rosenstein go out and do it."

"That's brilliant. I'm going to call Rod right now...."

Sarah Isgur Flores, the Justice Department's communications chief, received a call from the White Hosue passing along (45)'s instructions for Rosenstein. "They need you to hold a press conference and say the Comey firing is your idea," Flores told Resenstein.

"I can't do that," Rosenstein said. "I can't lie."

"....There would be no Rosenstein TV appearance.....Among his many peers at the Justice Department, there was deep concern that Rosenstein had crossed a dangerous line. (One department veteran said,) 'Either he knowingly helped the president fire the FBI director to try to rid himself of this investigation or Rod was an unwitting tool who got used by the president. Both of them are terrible.'"

And that's only getting to page 61 of over 400. The book is filled, page after page, with horribly embarrassing ethical problems created by a president who doesn't recognize them. The lure of power is intense; Yours Truly knows this, and nobody in power for any appreciable amount of time can remain ethically pure. But most people in power try to adhere to some compass, to some North Star, so they can return to it as soon as possible. 

In the meantime, they try to explain the unexplainable in terms of what they used to--temporarily putting it on hold--believe in (Republicans, especially in the Senate, are trying to do that now, but too much time has gone by and too many decisions have had to be made for me, at least, to disregard what they do as anything more than kow-towing to him. Their dignity has been lost long ago.). 45 can't, and doesn't care to. There's no consistency, no guide, no attempt to send a particular message except the most repressive and reactive one.

There are a few, very few, examples of people standing up to 45. When he was Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson was one; he could not, and did not, tolerate 45's trashing of the military in front of it and him. But most people are putting their heads down and hoping that 45 will be ejected this November so they can go on with their careers with some veneer of legitimacy. More publications than this book have recorded that.

One more time: this is the absolutely worst person in the absolutely worst position at the absolutely worst time. It will be a long road back from this, even if Biden hangs on to win. He has ruined so much.

"A Very Stable Genius" is a book well worth reading right now. I'm glad I read it. It reminds us of this president's awfulness. It ends just as Congress considers impeachment, and we know how that turned out. But an accurate recollection of what's gone on still allows us to dominate conversations about it, if we ever get into them, and advance our case. Good journalism still lets us do that, and this is some of the best.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

H.R. McMaster: Nothing More Than A Naive Court Jester

In an excerpt from last Sunday's "60 Minutes," Scott Pelley interviewed H.R. McMaster, largely because he has written yet another memoir about his days in the White House as national security advisor. McMaster, ever the patriot, was careful not to deride his former boss, 45, too harshly, cloaking his responses more in terms of policy than in personal matters.

But in another work, "A Very Stable Genius," Phillip Rucker and Carol Leonnig make it quite clear that 45 treated McMaster, a three-star general, like dirt, cruelly and inappropriately. He went out of his way to humiliate him for being nothing more than himself.

McMaster knew early on that 45 had no time for the details of national security. He thinks what he thinks and that's pretty much the end of it. It is exactly the wrong position for someone of the most possible power in the history of the world to take. "I don't want to talk to anyone," he says in the book when even the suggestion of a subject briefing is made. "I know more than they do. I know better than anybody else."

Nonetheless, McMaster, putting his country's security first ahead of himself and his boss' ego, tried hard to get 45 to see the bigger picture. That caused 45 to feel lectured, as if there was someone (in fact, pretty much everybody around him; the rest understood the alternative) who knew more than he did. 45 reduced McMaster, who deserved far better, to nothing more than a court jester.

I'm not going to summarize what Rucker and Leonnig said. I'm going to simply retype it here. You can draw your own conclusions at how terrible our president is--or, if you really think so, how McMaster got what he deserved:

In March [2017], McMaster was in the Oval Office briefing [45] on the visit of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, a favorite foil for the president. [45] got so impatient that he stood up and walked into a adjoining bathroom, left the door ajar, and instructed McMaster to raise his voice and keep talking. It was unclear if the strange scene was a reflection of [45]'s feelings about McMaster or Merkel or both. 

McMaster felt it was his duty to speak truth to his commander, to notify the president of critically important issues, and even to highlight bad news and the cons of a particular strategy [45] was considering. That's how McMaster had always spoken to his wartime commanders when he was reporting from the battlefield: "Things have gone to hell, sir. Here's how bad it is." But [45]'s intelligence briefers downplayed or withheld new developments regarding Russia's election interference or cyber intrusions, so as not to agitate the commander in chief. When they left a key piece of information out of the verbal President's Daily Brief, McMaster would later raise it directly with [45], only to become a punching bag for the president when he inevitably blew up. The routine frustrated McMaster.

Part of McMaster's process entailed providing [45] with written briefing documents on each big decision, with detailed descriptions of the risks and possible rewards. He had tried to be concise from the get-go, boiling the material down to three pages, but McMaster and his team almost immediately realized the president wasn't reading any of the briefing book, or even the concise three-page version.....

"Everyone agreed we needed to stop giving the president paper to read," one former National Security Council staffer recalled. "H.R. was uncomfortable with this. McMaster kept saying, 'How are we not going to give the president any papers?'"....

By the time of the November trip to Asia, [45] was openly mocking McMaster. When McMaster arrived in his office for a briefing, [45] would puff up his chest, sit up straight in his chair, and fake shout like a boot camp drill sergeant. In his play, he pretended to be McMaster. "I'm your national security adviser, General McMaster, sir!" [45] would say, trying to amuse the others in the room. "I'm here to give you your briefing, sir!"

Then [45] would ridicule McMaster further by describing the topic of the day and deploying a series of large, complex phrases to indicate how boring McMaster's briefing was going to be. The National Security Council staff were deeply disturbed by [45]'s treatment of their boss. "The president doesn't fire people," said one of McMaster's aides "He just tortures them until they're willing to quit."

This time, though, 45 fired McMaster by tweet, a horrible way to treat such a distinguished general and patriot. But, after all, he had already indicated his lack of respect for anyone who didn't act the way he wanted him to act in front of him, so no one should have been surprised.

Small wonder that anyone would enjoy working for or with him for any extended period of time. McMaster was replaced by John Bolton, who also quit and wrote a disparaging memoir of his time with 45, disingenuously dodging an important addition to the impeachment inquiry. Now he's being investigated for revealing state secrets, an act he describes as politically-charged harassment. Probably so.

It wouldn't have mattered. Republican Senators had decided long before that to eschew their loyalty to the country and cave to the frenzied attitudes of 45's twisted, badly guided faithful, As we have seen, they withdrew with their tails between their legs, doing the politically expedient thing rather than the clearly right thing.

(More on his book later, when I'm done reading it. Rex Tillerson, though not a particularly effective Secretary of State, comes off a little better in terms of general respect.)

I'm not sure there's a better example of why this is, as Bob Woodward keeps saying after his new book, "the wrong man for the job." Scott Pelley didn't ask McMaster about this--or at least that part of the tape didn't run--perhaps to save him from embarrassment, perhaps because he hasn't read this excerpt. I thought I'd include it as another light to shine on this terrible president's incompetence.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

The Long Game. We Have to Play It and Be Dissatisfied, Like They Were. Part One Starts Now.

It is sad, very, very sad, that I won't live to see the eventual victory of liberalism in America. That, now, is evident. The conservatives doubled down on their nonsense, favoring disinformation and lies, and won. It took them about six decades. Truth has mattered, but no longer does.

We will go backwards faster than we already have, making America stupid and stodgy again. Not only will Roe v. Wade be rewritten, but perhaps the Affordable Care Act as well, pandering to the corporate interests that are already drowning in new money. 

The RAND Corporation, no liberals they, just came out with a report about that (h/t Steve Herzog). They are aghast at what dozens of writers have already said the last few years: The inequality of income is devastatingly unfair. Expect more of that. Expect those interests, like those of right-wing crazies, to be more and more obvious and brazen.

Voting rights will be shredded, and gerrymandering will be an accepted part of our culture. The Republicans have concocted an iron cage into which, for at least a decade, we will be trapped.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg's death guaranteed that. 45 will now nominate a proven right-wing radical to the Supreme Court, who will live for thirty years or so. But others will not, and therein lies hope.

The first need is to elect Joe Biden. He will nominate a safe justice to replace Stephen Breyer, who is over 80 and probably will choose to leave the Court for reasons of futility (Think he hasn't thought about it?). But Biden might be able to convince someone else to hang on for a decade or two while this group of grouches holds sway.

Time stands against the radical right-wingers, too. They can't hold onto power forever, even with lifetime terms. But Biden, and a Democratic Senate, must re-start the moderate-to-liberal engine immediately. We cannot continue down this road of absolutist, crusty backwardness any longer. We must stop the damage. 

If he's smart, McConnell will wait until after the election, until the time of lame duck, to put the new Supreme Court justice in. He is in a tough race. It would be his, and 45's, final snub at liberals to leave them hanging with little legal backing for their new agenda, even if they should both lose the essences of their power.

Against the backdrop of a challenged election, the nomination and approval might turn the public against Biden's victory. It might also solidify it. Either way, Biden must win, and Democratic lawyers can't take the passive-aggressive stance that David Boies did in Bush v. Gore in 2000. They have to get into the trenches and fight like hell. So must we.

But at least, with a Biden presidency, the Cabinet departments wouldn't operate against themselves, with their leaders working to undermine their very existence. Don't forget that enormous fact. Something akin to normality would be a relief to everyone. Something close to a proven, functioning national government would make many exhale for the first time in four years.

That is as crucial a factor in the future of our country than what can be salvaged of a woman's right to choose, sad though it may be to say. People genuinely serving the public cannot base their judgment on loyalty to an individual, which the Cabinet members did from the moment 45 held that sycophantic, open meeting back in 2017, when each member needed to declare their fawning fealty, whether they actually meant to do so at the time, whether they thought they could get away with a fake comment and then operate as if they could ignore it.

This awful person won't let you do that. He demands absolute adherence. That's what the Republican Senators don't get. They had a chance to declare the independence of their branch of government by ejecting him a year ago, but shambled through legalistic or practical excuses to let him slide, when they knew it was the wrong thing to do. 

Now they, too, are caught (except Mitt Romney, who has buckled this time, so he's out from under), and can ignore anything they said four years ago approximating an effort to ameliorate concerns that they had sold out. They have reduced their prestige to nearly nothing back then, and it will now be on display.

Women of independence will pay the price. They will pay it secretly, with money they may have to borrow, to get abortions they should have had by right. They will pay it by the humiliation of hiding a process they shouldn't have to because someone feels better that such rulings exist. They will pay it in their reluctant, but necessary, participation in subterfuge and "criminal" behavior that will obey state lines and a hypocritical need for "morality." They will pay with doctor--and, worse, pseudo-doctors--who must now linger in the shadows to allow women the ability to control their bodies. 

They will pay it because the president doesn't care about them one single bit, nor does anyone reasonably calling themselves Republican--except it if happens within their own household, or to someone they happen to know or have impregnated. Then they will move heaven and earth to "get things fixed."

The Republican Senators don't get this, either, but it's a long way back from the moment we are about to experience. Absolutism doesn't budge. We have been drifting toward two different countries, pretending that it's not really happening or that it really doesn't matter. Now we will have it, in a different but clearly palpable sense for the first time since 1861. Some will try to smooth it over with consoling words that will come out as unavoidably condescending. They will be inadequately temporary and insincere, and they know it.

Moderation, and the domestic peace that comes with it, will disappear because it's been allowed to. You can't unleash people's attitudes like this without a blowback. Bullying has hit its peak, and there will be retribution that no one can now measure.

The Resistance will have to form up again. It will have to get even more serious than it has been. It will have to make Black Lives Matter, and all that has happened, look like it's in the minor leagues. It will have to get out on the streets and stay there, making Portland, Oregon look not like the exception but a forerunner. Either that, or we will dissipate into a dystopia that no one could have predicted even ten years ago. We will truly go farther backwards than we could ever imagined.

Either that, or I have been wrong about women accepting their subservient fate. Some still can, but too many can no longer do so. Too much has been declared, by the late RBG and others.

Political repression is coming. Intolerance will have license. This will not be pretty. It will not be the nation we used to have. Part One of this tragedy is about to begin.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Just An Innocent Student--Now An Enemy of Mankind?

I don't know. I just wanted a degree.

And now I'm an "enemy of mankind." Who knew?

I originally wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to go to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and major in it.

But I couldn't. My Dad wouldn't let me. It was 1969, and the campus was rife with protests. A film was made about it, in fact: The War at Home. I went to see in in the pre-Covid days to view what I had missed.

I pleaded with Dad to let me go there. "I don't want to get tear-gassed," I said, "I just want to write about the people that do."

But it stuck with me. I kept writing and found myself a sports columnist for a local newspaper in Cedarburg, the community where I taught. 'After a speed bump where I goofed but survived, I found myself with a little weekly niche.

Now was the time to add a degree to my portfolio, I figured. After all, my contract encouraged me to get a master's degree in something, although the rules about connecting it directly to what I was teaching (history and government, mostly) were vague and largely unenforced.

And who knows? Maybe it could expand my horizons. My teaching career was already eight years old, so it would have to take something big for me to change it. I was married at the time, and I had to bring home a consistent income. The health insurance didn't hurt, either. 

At the time, before the present days of Act 10, where collective bargaining has been hollowed out to mean practically nothing, it was a pretty good insurance that once in, a teacher wouldn't be likely to get out of the profession. Besides, a master's degree would increase my salary.  It encouraged people to keep learning. That, I thought, was the idea.

So I got into the graduate school at Marquette University and started taking courses in 1981. I had good teachers, such as Bruce Garrison, who is now at the University of Miami; Bob Griffin, big-time Brewers fan, who somehow managed to make statistics exciting; and Jim Scotton, Dean of the Journalism School, who encouraged me to teach a course in Journalism Writing.

And for any teacher to go back to the classroom and become a student again is, in essence, a re-education with the chance to find a new perspective. New teaching styles, or the realization that yours isn't working the way you thought it would (or maybe even better), help your career no matter what subject you take. The experience of educating oneself in the truest sense, too, helps one mature in the profession.

My thesis was on baseball writers, many of whom I interviewed when on their ways through Milwaukee, then in the American League (I still have the tapes of those discussions). I hypothesized that they were unhappy with what they did. I was wrong. They had their individual gripes, but in all, most of them wouldn't trade it for anything, and those that did still applied themselves to it deeply because the job itself demanded it (and drove them out of it). It was a fun, on-the-ground study of job satisfaction, when newspapers were still something people turned to every day. I got my degree and my raise.

While doing that, I contacted the then sports editor of the Milwaukee Journal, which has turned into the Journal Sentinel, just probing about potential jobs. He wrote back to advise me to stay in my chosen profession for the sake of stability and a guaranteed salary. I kept teaching and kept writing the column well into the next decade.

The history of journalism impacts this country deeply, though, because the way things were reported shaped, and of course still shapes, the public's perception of it. At least three of our wars were created by media compliance or advocacy far beyond any rational discussion of them: The Spanish-American War in 1898, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which mire us down today. I utilized that knowledge in some of my history classes, thus justifying, at least in my mind, the trouble I'd gone to. Journalism is written the first day after it has happened, if even that late, and time clarifies and expands meaning, making history its mature offspring. To me, the connection is clear.

No greater dichotomy exists today between the so-called 'mainstream media'' with its ethos and ethics, and Fox News and other conservative media and blogs. They were created as grudges, to poke a finger in the eyes of mainstream media--read anything about Roger Ailes--give conservatives a framework from which to justify practically anything that's been offered, and has provided 45 with the exact forum he has needed to keep his lies going, with that very mainstream media being an unwitting cat's-paw and taking over for him. He says he hates it, but in fact he loves it because it gives him the attention he craves and can utilize as a demagogue. That's a regrettable legacy.

So the study of journalism couldn't be more relevant right this very minute; the new, expansive effects of tweets and blogs, for instance, and the amateurism it has unfortunately spawned. The effect that information, presented in a particular way, has on us has much to do with the predicament we're presently in, where lies and nonsense somehow get top billing. 

The First Amendment doesn't guarantee perfect journalism; it only guarantees a sufficient forum. It trusts the public to sort it all out. But the sheer volume, the abject noise, of exaggerations and diversions have reached a level that has become genuinely disturbing. It tends to make one tune it all out--and that's a dangerous trend. We don't discuss it enough. We should.

So the other day, when commentator Glenn Beck said that people like me, those with journalism degrees, were "enemies of mankind," I sadly have to give him the right to say such baloney. But here is my response--first, that he couldn't be more wrong if he tried; and second, to kindly go back under the rock from which he was hiding, because for at least the last ten years, he's done enough damage to this country. The message probably won't get to him, but I defend all those who studied those doing the studying, and postulate that we need more of it.

As we go down the stretch toward a presidential election that will be as confusing and confounding as any have ever been, please keep that in mind. If shocking news arrives, even more shocking than some of the stuff we've had, try to wait a day or two for clarification and expansion, leading to some perspective and additional information which explains a bit more sufficiently.

Don't make any lasting conclusions until people have had a chance to absorb and react. Some of the purpose of news reporting is to do it first, so people stay with that particular source. But they'd better get it right, because people also have many other sources they can solicit. There will be some information that will be very helpful to know immediately, but some more that needs a minute to create conversation about it. Unfortunately, we won't know which is which until they happen.

Just the other day, the communications director of the Health and Human Services Department said--paraphrasing here--that left-wing militias would be trying to thwart the results of the presidential election, assuming that 45 would win it. That caused quite a stir, with no minor reason. But the next day, he apologized and announced he was going on leave. That, to me at least, said two things: There were still people in the administration with a conscience who are no more but no less human than the rest of us; and that the internal pressures of the election build-up had found an unfortunate, but telling release, and that we had better get prepared for more of it.

But more information is better than less. It is essential to democracy, as is a study of the way it gets to us. I'm glad I earned that degree. It's going to help me pass along meaningful information and attitudes right here. Thank you, once again, for reading it. I gain no other, and no better, benefit than your attention.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

The Big Ten Has Just Opened A Window for 45

The Big Ten chickened out. It acted according to science. It succumbed to money.

And because it has done so, it has opened up possibilities for 45 to win the election. Indeed, 45 is already taking credit for it. (Except a Big Ten official denies that he had anything to do with it--typical.)

The Midwest remains the key for his victory. The Big Ten schools' capitulation to moneyed interests take away any specter of principled action. There will be football this fall, by golly, and it'll all start just before the election, on October 23.

Makes sense, of course. The other 'Big Five' conferences never really hesitated. Football is America, and in America, we celebrate ourselves with jerseys and colors and music and warfare. We pit ourselves against each other.

All perfectly renewed, now, in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Iowa--states 45 carried in 2016, states in battle now, and states now satisfied that all will be normal. You can't Make America Great Again without football. You can't do it with football, either, but pitting ourselves against each other is what this president is all about--fake and phony conflict that can be exploited.

Count on it in campaign ads. Count on it in his next campaign speech. Nothing is so clean and pure as football--except nothing except basketball is as demonstrably exploitative, especially of black school kids, most of whom will never realize their dreams of the NFL.

But it doesn't matter, at least not to many of us. We'll go through the latest supply of black talent--much like slavery--coming out of the high schools, which will absorb great pressure, now, to renew their own seasons and keep the football factories in operation. Those schools aren't supposed to care, either.

There will be pre- and post-game parties, now that the sport has been renewed, spreading the virus where it wouldn't have, and shouldn't have, gone. Like bringing weapons to the statehouse in Michigan, it's their right, right?

The economy will recover, 45 says. In the meantime, they will say, divert your attention to this by returning to television, where you weren't going to do anything else anyhow but sit there on fall Saturdays, wear your school colors, even if you didn't go there, and cheer on the Badgers or Buckeyes or Nittany Lions or whomever. 

It'll all be normal now. Normal is the Republicans' greatest weapon. The normalization of everything, including a terrible president's lies, inoculates enough people to keep the madness going.

The point is that finally, things have settled in, you're finally comfortable, and all will be well. It won't, of course--the virus is due to gain new momentum as people come indoors again--but the election will be over by that time. Any notion to the contrary is absurd.

The operative seasons will be suspended, says the conference, if the virus hits more than 5 percent of the players. But it has to know first, and there are already stories emanating from other conferences of coaches telling players not to tell them if they get sick. Think that still won't happen? Think a player with symptoms won't wait until they're undeniable, in which case others will be infected?

But that's why Power Five conferences recruit so many kids: One goes down, another steps up. Don't worry: The factories won't break down. They haven't for meat and chicken, although thousands of workers have gotten sick and some have died. Nobody can see the shortages yet. But we expect casualties, don't we?

That's what former college football coach and celebrated grouch Lou Holtz said, comparing all this to D-Day, about as inappropriate as anything I've ever heard, as if sports, particularly football, really are war. You can say that in the locker room before a game, but outside of it, that's just dangerous nonsense.

Nothing that absurd needs to be said about the possible political effects of this decision. As people get more comfortable, they get to delude themselves that soon, all will be well. Not gonna happen, but the approximation of the feeling often obscures what else people have been feeling for the past four years--aghast at the crudeness, the cruelty, of this president. 

At this particular moment, anything that makes people feel better, however phony, can twist results. That's why we have to focus on the big picture, to judge by the whole record, says The Wall Street Journal in an editorial last Friday. But they're convinced that by doing so, people will want to return 45 to office. I hold them responsible if they do; they're smarter than that. At least I thought they were. 

But Michael Cohen says Republicans are stupid and gullible, easily taken to cultism. Millions will still vote for 45, despite what's in plain sight. This is a mentality that's not easily broken. And playing football again merely feeds it.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Did You Really Think All That Much Would Change?

Calm down, everybody. Think about it a minute.

Did you really think it would have made that much of a difference?

Did you really think that, had Bob Woodward released the tapes of his 18 conversations with 45, he could have sufficiently alarmed a huge majority of the public?

Did you think that those who objected to mask-wearing or distance-respecting would have changed their minds?

Did you think that 45 would have taken the helm of responsibility and not directed the state governments that they were on their own to deal with the overflowing hospitals and shortages of equipment, the second wave of which may very well take place within weeks?

Really? Then you're giving him a whole lot more credit than I can. You're making a mistake. You're continuing to think normally, that this ridiculous excuse for a human being would care enough to respond in a way that would directly save lives.

You're continuing to think that he wouldn't hide behind a curtain of ambivalence, so that none of those incredible tragedy could possibly be traced to him. It's beyond that now.

Remember, his first and probably only thought was that maybe Woodward would try to write a positive book about him. He thought a positive book would include portraying him as someone who avoided panic with what he told the public--not by specific actions he could possibly have taken, like shutting down the country for a month, providing a conduit for supplies, or a plan for testing.

We should have known by now. We should have known he would resort to this. He knows, deep inside, that he should have done something. But it's the same mentality that has allowed him to somehow stay afloat while going bankrupt six times--make failure someone else's problem--that gives him a chance to sail through.

Except this time we get a chance to say something about it. And the latest polling shows that his exaggerations, his lies, his innuendoes can't quite cover for him. They're sowing that while some people who left his flock are returning, but there aren't enough of them.

There is still time left, of course. It is still possible for him to pull off an even bigger upset--re-election despite four years of utter selfishness and incompetence, demonstrated in real time. And it's revealing that enough people don't think that what he's already done isn't sufficient to cause enough concern. (The country is too big for that many people to be personally affected.)

He managed to buffalo enough of us with his lies four years ago. He's trusting enough of us--maybe 45 or 45 percent of us, because that's what he still needs, appropriately and neatly distributed--to slide by once again. Enough people desperately cling to changes in policy, so they hold their noses and go along.

That's what he 's ways done, of course--slide by to bluster again, as if he always comes out on top. But bottom feeders stay near the bottom--near, but never quite settling there. THat's his magic, at least to this point: How to sink without being sunk.

That's all he needs. That's what he calls "winning," because in his mind, he's never lost. His rape case will go to the Justice Department, inappropriately, where it will get tied in knots with legal maneuverings. His affairs have been paid into silence. His various gropings have either failed or expired legally. His suspicious financial excursions are waiting to collapse, but not without extending the recently acquired prestige of the presidency to extend and/or complete them.

See? He's got it all over us. We just don't know it yet. Neither does he, but he lives in possibility and endless ability to do others horrible damage while getting out from under.

Bob Woodward can't stop that. Only we can. He needs to go to jail, and we can send him there by denying him the position he's least qualified for. 

Woodward's details are only icing on the cake. We have turned into the wrong kind of country. Only we can stop that trend. If you don't know that by now, you incredibly haven't been paying attention or don't think that governing involves anything more than policy.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Democracy Is Threatening to Republicans

Republicans must not like democracy. It scares them.

Tell me how that isn't so, when it appears to be true that:

• They work hard to limit the number of people voting;
• They call information that they don't like 'fake news'; and
• They scream at history education, calling it 'divisive'.

The latter has recently emerged since California has chosen to require students to study the New York Times' "1619 Project," which involves an intensive study of slavery in America. 45 has called it 'divisive.'

Typically, he has threatened to cut off funding for it. He has given Education Secretary Betsy DuVos, a deep intellectual, the assignment to see if she could somehow keep California schools from introducing it into their curricula.

I have news for them. As a former history teacher myself, here's what I would do without telling a soul: Acquire the 1619 Project on my own, regardless of cost, and then go over it with a fine-tuned comb. I would pluck out the most interesting information from it without anybody knowing it. I wouldn't have to use websites. I wouldn't have to copy anything within it. I could develop my own curriculum in summary. Just like I did throughout my career, after having read books and periodicals.

So. Research would improve my teaching. It's like free speech: You can't stop it no matter how hard you try. Does 45 have a problem with that? Does DuVos? It boggles the mind what kind of person would strive to prevent further learning about something that really did happen within our shores.

What's he afraid of--more statues being torn down? Or better explanations to do so?

The 'fake news' bit is, or should be, getting pretty tired now. He is the walking, talking epitome of 'fake news.' He deserves as little attention as possible. His commentary has, in fact, little effect on anybody.

Limiting the number of people voting, though--that's a potential problem. The firewalling of some mailboxes is a rolling crime. Typically, nobody there is thinking about the other things people rely on the mail for--prescription drugs, for instance--that are absolutely essential. They're not just ruining democracy: They're ruining people's lives.

But then, we now know that he lied to cover up his nonchalance about the virus, allowing the vast majority of more than six million people to get sick, and coming up on 200,000 to die--just so nobody yells at him. But he ran out of time: Bob Woodward has the goods, and the book with his damning phone calls--generated by 45--is going to hit the shelves with plenty of time left before people go to vote.

Plenty will vote for him, anyhow. They don't care, as long as they're alive. They have adapted his complete lack of empathy. It says here that they never had it anyhow. And it isn't completely a socio-economic phenomenon, either. I said it from his election, coming in the backdoor on a technicality, and I will say it again: You could see this coming from people who have no right for self-pity, who had all the advantages anyone else could have wanted--but adapted racist, low-class attitudes nonetheless. That, above all, is what threatens our democracy.

That will be explored in a few days. Meanwhile, be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

This Is How You Deliver A Message People May Not Like

It was the NEA-RA of 2005, meeting in Los Angeles. The California Teachers Association had a bee in its bonnet about the state governor, Arnold Schwartzenegger. It decided to take maximum advantage of the situation and lead a march on his Los Angeles office.

So they marched across town. The line was long, and I was in it as a member of the NEA Executive Committee. I had been assigned to accompany the CTA for moral support. I would have another task down the road.

While the CTA leadership went inside, the faithful gathered. The building had a number of wide pillars to it, and the group was gathered in that general area. There were police there. I'm sure the CTA had told them they were coming. We're educators, which means that we're interested, most of the time, in doing things orderly.

But there was no guarantee of that. CTA members were very, very unhappy. They believed that the governor had said a number of things that were disrespectful. Educators will tolerate a lot of things--it comes with the territory--but being disrespected is a place they draw the line.

But CTA members, more than a thousand of them, weren't the only ones there. That was the idea: To pick up support from members of other states. So I have no idea how many NEA members were there, but it was well over a thousand.

While they waited, someone had to give them instructions as to what constituted appropriate borders of activity. Like anyone else who had been agitated, people will take advantage of whatever they're given, and will at times test the limits.

It was up to me to instruct them. As the member of the Executive Committee with the least experience (by a month, but an important distinction until it wasn't), I was low person on the totem pole of respect. I had no idea whether anyone would listen to me. But I took it upon myself to bring the group together. 

I didn't even know I had the authority, or even the respect, but the moment spoke to me: Someone had to issue instructions. Otherwise nobody would know what to do, never a comfortable situation. It's how things get out of control. Nobody else could take the reins. I was the only member of the Executive Committee there. It was left to me.

Failure to do so would result in a formless mass who might cause trouble they didn't even know they wanted. The police might not be patient. Arrests might start. We'd get a blot on our collective reputation that would play well in conservative circles. 

We were already being investigated, in a classic example of overreach, by the George W. Bush-led IRS, because they were quite convinced we had taken members' money and illegally spent it on political activities, choosing to believe right-wing nonsense due to its sheer repetition. We never did that and still don't. We raise that money separately. 

After months of opening up our books to them and literally opening our offices--the IRS folks eventually became apologetic--they came up with a few dozen minor issues, some of which we adjusted, some of which we chose not to, knowing they wouldn't go to the trouble of coming after us in court. But something like this, if allowed to get out of control, would cause a buzz, so we had to be careful.

Or, to be more precise, I had to be careful. I had to speak loudly but project calm at the same time, which is a trick if you've never tried it. So I paused for a second and decided what to say. The message had to be brief, as precise as possible, and something of a warning because that's what the moment required. 

I said, at the absolute top of my voice (which can be very loud, and paraphrasing here) because the members were spread out quite far: Thanks for being here. You've very important to the CTA and NEA. We love that you're here.

You should think of the inside parts of these pillars as a line. The police has assured us that, if you stay behind that line, there will be no trouble. Stay there and you'll be just fine. Just hang tight until the CTA leadership comes out of the governor's office. Thanks again.

I tried to smile. There was no trouble. Nobody lurched past the pillars. I had no idea if people would respect my position in giving the instructions--it was the first time in two years I'd been in that spot, so deep inside, you wonder--but it held. Eventually, the CTA leadership came out--disappointed, in fact, because they'd been told that Schwartzenegger would be there, and he wasn't. They were greeted by a friendly staffer who'd received their message. It was time to go back to the RA.

I had done my job. Trouble was avoided. And that's how you do it: When you have to deliver a message not everybody will like, you step up and do so.

Nobody ever said a thing to me afterwards. The NEA president didn't. No state affiliate president who was there did, no NEA Board member who was there did. Nobody from Wisconsin did. The only person who acknowledged it was the CTA president, Barbara Kerr, who called me a 'trouper.' 

But that's what leadership requires: You step up and do what has to be done not because you seek credit or praise, but because that's what people need. Did I resent that? Of course not. And it's fifteen years later. I've brought it up only for a reason.

Leadership is, at times, thankless, and when you fail, all hell sometimes breaks loose. But that's what you take on. It can feel bottomless and it sometimes is. Nothing changes about that except for those who don't understand that. If they don't, they fail. And an important part of that is telling people things they don't want to hear. You have to say it in a way that's understood--and followed, because it's for the good of the group. They aren't just words. They are instructions. They are ways to act. They are attitudes to take.

So it has happened with 45. If a leader is all about himself, he seeks to make himself feel good first. He has no empathy and doesn't think he needs it. So he told Bob Woodward that he played down the oncoming pandemic in the U.S. because he didn't want to cause a panic. He deliberately misled the public about how his administration was handling it, knowing the damage it could do. It's all on tape.

It's not like leaders haven't ever been faced with the same situation: Announce bad news but try to avoid panic. Lots and lots of them have pulled that off, whether it's to announce oncoming storms or invasions of another sort. It's challenging, yes, but if you step up properly, your popularity goes up, not down. You say, and rightfully so, that the situation calls for a certain behavior, and there's not much anybody can do about it. If you don't know what to say and you have help, you ask for it. No need to do it alone if you don't have to.

45 had that chance in February. He took the easy way out. Effective leadership never does that. Effective leadership sees the situation and steps up to take the responsibility. That, after all, is why people get elected.

He knew the dangers, and he told Bob Woodward he knew them. But the answers he did have were all about him and nobody else. Instead of stepping up and facing the pandemic, he tried to hide and ride it out. This is the wrong leader of a great power. Because of it, that great power has failed in so many ways.

I certainly wasn't perfect at what I did as a member of the Executive Committee; no one ever is. But I was quietly proud of myself for the way I handled the situation. There was no textbook for it. It had to be done by feel. But when the moment arrived, I didn't hide and try to avoid it; I didn't mill around and wait for the moment to end. I faced it. People appreciated that. Once given decent direction, most people comply.

Did I save the day? Who knows for sure? What I know is that I didn't ruin it for the CTA. Sometimes that's enough.

45 has ruined us for months that have passed and months to come. It wasn't necessary. He could have delivered the bad news but didn't know how. And he was too small, not big, of a person to ask for help. We now project not respect, but pity. How terrible.

Just another reason why he must go. I hope the country sees it that way.

Be well, Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

A Happening on the East Side--Echoes of Sturgis

Back in the sixties, they called it a happening: Something supposedly unadvertised that attracts people in a clandestine but friendly way. The effect is a nice surprise and a way to spend moments otherwise wasted.

I was confronted with one on my daily walk Monday. I get my steps in on a street that's quiet and stately, without much foot traffic. There are lots of homes with front porches. On one of them were a trio of a violinist, a guitarist, and a singer. They were middle-aged or older, they were unobtrusive, and they were good.

The porch was off the street a distance, so it became something of a bandshell. The sound projected nicely. It felt comfortable, the kind of thing a neighborhood would scare up just because it was fun.

The day was excellent. By the time it had started--something before 5--the temperature had fallen below 70. There wasn't much of a breeze. It was a day for conversing on someone's porch or someone's front stoop, which families had spent plenty of time doing throughout the summer (as I saw whenever I walked).

News must have spread fast. There were easily more than a hundred people seated, mostly on lawn chairs, relatively near that porch. They were on both sides of Hackett Avenue, not far down from the business district of Downer Avenue. They sat lazily on both sidewalks, some actually in the street, almost daring anybody in a car to scoot through them. Many had masks, but since it was outside, many did not. Such is the confusion of the day.

We are starving for such entertainment, for such an opportunity to enjoy leisure time instead of huddling on our own porches or backyards. It's the safest thing to do, of course, but it's also drudgery. Yes, we can still just gather within ourselves one more time, one more day, until this scourge has passed. But it's still a challenge, still a haunting reminder of the danger that's out there. "A pandemic upends everything," writes Jill Lepore in The New Yorker, "including the relationship between the private and the public, the rich and the poor, the city and the country, and the outdoors and the indoors."

But this was such a nice day, such a nice opportunity, that it didn't surprise me that so many of the neighborhood patrons, free of charge, free from fast-talking vendors, decided to hedge the hazard, take a calculated risk, and feel like a community again, if only temporarily and artificially.

The music was folksy, easy to take. The group was the kind you'd see in coffee shops and during dinner time at open-air restaurants--not particularly slick and professional, but practiced and the kind of advanced amateurs that create a following. It was nice to see that they were still around, still wheeling out their wares, still playing for the sheer enjoyment of doing so.

It didn't have the same obnoxious, uber-independent feel as a bunch of bikers spending an entire weekend in Sturgis, South Dakota over the Fourth, and thus, apparently, giving each other an ongoing supply of 209 cases of Covid-19, from which one has died. But you could see it from there. You could see where a bunch of people could pretend that nothing was going to happen to them, that they would not only survive an entire weekend of exposure, why, the exposure was baloney, anyhow. Wasn't it?

I stopped for a song, being careful not to obscure any views or get too close to anyone. Everyone else seemed to be doing the same. Nobody coughed or, because there were no electric guitars, did they have to  talk loudly. It's a shame, though. Whenever things like this happen, I sometimes take a minute and chat up someone who looks like they could stand a conversation. I knew better. So, it looked, did we all. Nothing personal, but I can't completely trust you. We lose the casual closeness in these situations. It was a limitation, But for the moment, acceptable, since something like this was so rare.

It continues to annoy me. This is yet another result of Covid-19, which could have, and should have, been under control by now. 45 and his vice are just breezing past it, promising better days ahead, while taking not the slightest bit of responsibility for it, making sure not to mention the massive numbers of dead and sick. It makes the Democrats look negative, when in fact they're the ones who, if allowed to take over, have a much better chance of improving livelihood for millions.

It's like the Republicans have burned down your house and now that the damage has been done, promise that they'll help you rebuild it better than ever. Give us a minute, we'll get there. Let's think about what happens after this, not about being in the middle of it. That's no fun. But in Congress, they're the ones who are halting the latest monetary outlay. 

After driving the country into incredible debt again and again far before the virus hit, they're the ones who say they're so worried about being a debtor nation. The hypocrisy is incredible. Another way they've caved to the 45 mentality: When you're caught saying something outrageous, why, just hop on that wagon and keep right on going. Every so often, someone shows up on Fox News and, with something approximating a conscience, confirms what we all know. But that's rare.

Beyond that, I think I know why, on the East Side where the education level is high and there are far more Biden signs than those backing 45, there were some with masks and some without. People are getting tired. They're tired of being wary. They're tired of wearing masks. I have caught myself going outside maskless more often now, doh, running back in to get one. 

In a way it makes sense, because first, science has caught up with some of this and the paranoia surrounding it has subsided; and second, the time of maximum, collective infection has been put farther and farther into the past, without much change about its status. We are kind of grudgingly and almost mindlessly slogging through all this. It's achieved a kind of consistency that dulls the mind. I wonder if prisoners of war have ever felt that way, that you can get used to anything so awful if it lasts long enough.

Many more of us than we prefer to admit want this thing to be over right now so badly that we want to wish it to be so, suspend reality and act as if it is so. People on Hackett Avenue sat, in places, in little conclaves of two and three. I'm sure they figured that if none of them had the virus, then they couldn't get it, could they? Well, if they remained in those closed-up little fortresses, then I guess they couldn't. I guess. If, in fact, nobody coughed, sneezed or talked loudly amongst each other, masks or no masks. It's kind of daring, but not too daring.

That's dangerous, of course, since the total number of infections and/or deaths hasn't really slowed down much, and continues to bounce up and down depending on what state you happen to be in. Though the endless alertness people have had to adapt to this has worn people out, it's still all-Covid, all the time. If wishful thinking takes over, it will be a long and awful winter ahead. You can still get very sick from this, and you can still die. Many of those people looked old enough to be in the most volatile group.

Winter is coming to Wisconsin, but shuttering ourselves up for another few months feels more daunting now. We have wandered outward, testing the limits of freedom; reopening, once it's happened, is far more difficult to reverse. But you can still get others sick no less than you could back in March. The numbers are still there. The numbers are still growing. Nobody's indestructible.

45 has taken to promise that a vaccine will be available by the last week in October. Why he would be so stupid to tell people that, when it's still a good bet there won't be one, is beyond me besides trying to fool them just long enough to borrow their loyalty just long enough. It wouldn't be beyond him to announce that he's managed to buy tens of millions of doses from the Russians, since Putin claims to have found a vaccine (except funny, reports of that have fallen away). See, I told you it made sense to make friends with him.

I hope people remember all the dead--which will surpass 200,000 by the election--and all the sick, which has passed 6,000,000 and will probably hit seven. That's been done on his watch. Absolutely the worst president we've ever had, under the worst circumstances.

Maybe this time we can get rid of him, at least get him out of the most dangerous place for an irresponsible, lying lout to be. That would be quite a happening, too, wouldn't it? I could really get into something like that, as we used to say.

In the meantime, be well. Stay healthy, Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Joe Biden's Defiance

Joe Biden's speech at what constituted the Democratic National Convention, delivered with some relief among the Democratic faithful--we were all waiting for him to say something obtuse but he never did--was in fact several gestures of defiance that were good for the soul.

The speech got up in 45's face in three distinct ways:

• The kid who stuttered. That was Brayden Harrington of New Hampshire. We cringed, and then cheered, as he finished his little speech. We thought about the physically challenged reporter for the New York Times who 45 had mocked in one of his speeches four years ago. We remembered how we reeled with shock. We remember that it never mattered to millions. We remembered, too, that Joe Biden has a stuttering issue that he has taken years to overcome, and how his parents rallied to his side after he was made fun of in school. It was Joe Biden saying, Okay, you want to make fun of this? This is what it really is. This kid is being given a chance to overcome it, and he will. Just like I did. And here I am. Come and get it.
• His son, Hunter. In anticipation of another lurch from Rudy Giuliani, Biden allowed his two remaining children to introduce him. That put Hunter, who has been implicated in shady dealings with Ukraine--largely to take attention away from 45's impeachment charges--in front of the media attention for the duration of the trial. Funny how that went way, right? Funny how Republicans paid zero attention to him after he had fulfilled their purposes. It was Joe Biden saying, I remember what you did. We're ready for you. I'm not going to hide him. Come and get it.
• No more Sleepy Joe. The Joe Biden that gave that speech, and that has emerged during the latter part of the campaign, is energetic, empathetic, and fully capable of governing, like so many of us know him. The speech stopped just short of fierce, but when it was over, there was no doubt about Biden's willingness to step up and be counted. Notice that 45 has not mentioned the moniker "Sleepy Joe" since. The bully has been scared off. It doesn't mean he won't in the future, but the extended silence on the matter can now be called back into attention as well. Your debate will go differently this time. You can't intimidate me. Come and get it.

In more than one place here, I have said that Biden wouldn't be the best Democratic candidate. I had, in fact, settled on Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar. I still think so: Quick-witted, experienced in taking on Republicans in Congress, and not too far left on anything, they could have given fresh energy to Democrats to campaign on something other than just getting rid of 45 (which is enough for me, but I fear not so with others). That Biden chose Harris as his running mate shows first, that he can keep secrets, because no media leaked anything until he announced his choice; second, that race and gender really do matter to him; and third, that he can, has, and does, thread needles to please the most people most of the time. He is anything but divisive.

Knowledgeable people say they can't wait to see Harris take on Mike Pence, but Republicans are good at looking like they don't know what they're doing until a showdown takes place. Harris' skills as a prosecutor may look really good from here, but Pence has a bearing that, despite a pedantic speaking style, appears regal. He'll get in his necessary talking points, regardless of the questions. That's what spokespeople are taught to do regardless of what they're selling. If you've ever been through any training, you know.

It will also indicate two very different narratives, not necessarily one that Republicans are afraid of or apologetic for. In the 2014 debate in the race for governor of Texas, I watched Democrat Wendy Davis, at least on paper, destroy Republican Greg Abbott, who did the aw-shucks act as well as I've ever seen. She didn't cut into his lead, though, losing by 20 points. She attacked him, she pilloried him, she almost made fun of him. It didn't matter. Abbott would defend 'Texas values' regardless of the facts. 

But that was six years ago, and the momentum has swung quite differently. Abbott's approval rating on handling the pandemic has dropped sharply. Too. 

At last check, with regard to the presidential race, Texas was in play (though it was rumored to be that, too, four years ago, and Clinton was buried). Texas Democrats gained 13 seats in the state House in 2018. Democracy responds slowly, but it responds.

Expect 45 to also be defiant, regardless of the facts. But this time, his defiance will be met by someone who's had a long time to observe, as have we, the damage that a clueless presidency can bring. If Biden can hold his ground, keep from being defensive, and call out 45 for the lying con-man that he is, he will do enough to ride out any counterattack. That should look sufficiently defiant, but a tall order against an ultimate showman. Still, the only problem should be where to start in on pointing out bad behavior and broken promises.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Not the NBA or MLB, but the NFL

It was a stunning act, to be sure: Athletes would refuse to play in recognition of one more police shooting, that of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake was shot in the back some seven times the other day, retreating from police who had tried to taser him into compliance.

Amazingly, Blake survived. But he's paralyzed for life. The police said he had a knife on the driver's seat floor. How much of a threat that created is for speculation, since the police had vastly superior weapons and three children were in the car he tried to re-enter.

NBA players, most specifically the Milwaukee Bucks, about forty miles up the road, made a stand. They would not play their playoff game under these circumstances. They would protest yet another shooting of a black person by white police. Other teams followed suit.

It left the league in a difficult spot. Do they fine the players and take away part of their salaries? Do they penalize the Bucks a loss in the playoffs, where every game counts hugely? The Bucks, for their purposes, bravely did not care. They wanted the world to know that, with a team of mostly black players, they needed to show solidarity.

The games would be rescheduled. But what happens when this takes place again? Yet another postponement? Anything less would reduce the notoriety of the person at the other end of the police weapons. But the league will be ready the next time, you can be sure of that.

Jared Kushner, feckless son-in-law to 45, muttered something about taking the night off. You can interpret that racially or otherwise, since much of the league is made up of black players. He makes as much, if not more, than even the best paid of those players do, so he couldn't have been speaking for himself and his own work ethic.

But it was the follow-up that gained even more attention. The Milwaukee Brewers acted similarly. They, too, took the night off in solidarity and sympathy to Blake. That game, too, has been rescheduled. That league isn't as black as the NBA; but it has plenty of Hispanic players, too.

The impact of both stands wasn't as widespread and deep as it might have been. That's because those sports are important to some people, but not as vital, not as tribal, as football. Note that 45 did not complain all that much when baseball players took a knee at the start of their seasons. That's partly because so many of them did so. Bullies who can't single out the ones they pick on usually move on.

We will see, now, how the NFL reacts to the demonstrations that have taken place. It didn't support Colin Kaepernick when he took the kind of stand that turned out to be a forseer of present-day issues. Now that much has been made of it outside the sport, the NFL players are likely to demonstrate their own solidarity when that season begins soon. 

Note that the owners aren't spouting off. Note that the commissioner isn't, either. Note that the Washington football team has had to change its name or lose a lot of money from the stadium management. The league is backing away from its hard-edged position. It says here that that's because the general support for 45 has diminished there, too. They, too, are beginning to see that there's nothing beyond the rhetoric and posturing. There's no there, there.

With white middle class support strewn throughout the NFL, the protest against Kaepernick reached an absurd peak. We will see first, if more players take a knee--I would be stunned if they didn't--and if there will be a chorus of boos or simply silence. I'm guessing the latter, since the publicity surrounding George Floyd and now other fatalities has reached an undeniable peak.

Because in a situation like this, it isn't the sports that have predominantly minority support that will gain the most significant attention. It's the ones with white following. Hockey would be another, perhaps more so because it has so few black players. When the NFL and NHL take a knee and do not get pushback, it means that culturally, it has come to be acceptable and more often repeated. If they choose not to play a particular weekend, that may finally get the attention of the powers that be.

A lot of this could have gone away three years ago, when Kaepernick first demonstrated. Very few NFL players joined him. When 45 got involved and few saw or accepted his shallowness at the time, it became a cause celebre, rather than an itch that had to be scratched. But two things kept going: the clear and obvious blackballing of Kaepernick when he became a free agent, and the repeated deaths of black people at the hands of white police.

So the NFL doubled down and proved Kaepernick right: The league has a racist tinge in its top, very white ownership. I seriously doubt that it will want to continue to scream bloody murder because someone wants to post a short, temporary protest that will make its mark but disturb none of the playing.

Pandemic aside, we will see what kind of impact all of this will cause. It may become moot, because I don't see the NFL lasting longer than about three weeks anyhow. All those twenty-something guys, many of whom are unmarried, with all that money, just sitting around in a bubble? Some will try to sneak out. Some is bound to bring the virus back in. 

If I'm wrong, so much the better. The public is dying for something consistent, something it can count on. There is impatience in particular with the NFL; note that CBS, running new shows past us, very quickly flashes "Football Is Back."

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark