Opinion
However you spin it, Trump — this was a loss of devastating proportions
Donald Trump spent the last 40 days bombing Iran, threatening to wipe out “a whole civilization,” and turning the world’s most critical oil chokepoint into a war zone - going from the world’s worst tyrant to its biggest idiot.
What he got in return was a two-week pause, brokered not by American military strength or his bravado, but by Pakistan, built on Iran’s 10-point proposal, which Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council is already calling a victory. Iran isn’t wrong. Trump has just screwed everything up, ushering in a foreboding future.
He blew it all up, and will blow it all up again.
Iran’s leaders are openly touting this ceasefire as a triumph, declaring that “nearly all the objectives of the war have been achieved.” And that’s an accurate read of the terms. Iran’s 10-point proposal demands the lifting of all sanctions and UN resolutions, the release of Iranian assets held overseas, withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from regional bases, reparations for damages, and Iran’s explicit right to continue nuclear enrichment. And Trump agreed to a ceasefire based on this?
Does anyone - anyone - believe Donald Trump is going to pay Iran reparations for the bombs he dropped? That he’ll pull U.S. forces from the region? That he’ll sanction Iran’s right to enrich uranium? This agreement isn’t a deal. It’s a wish list for Tehran and a jab at Trump’s infamous bulbous gut of acidic instinct.
Oh, and let’s not forget the single most consequential blunder of this entire catastrophe: the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which one-fifth of the world’s oil typically passes, now comes under Iranian military management, with passage permitted only under coordination with Iran’s armed forces. Seriously?
Gallingly, that wasn’t the arrangement before Trump launched this abjectly nonsensical war of choice on February 28. Iran now controls the most strategically vital waterway on the planet in a way it never did before.
That’s not a win by anyone’s measure. In fact, it might be Trump’s biggest mess yet.
Meanwhile, while Trump was huffing and puffing on Truth Social, who stepped in to shield Iran’s position on the world stage? Russia and China, naturally. A UN Security Council resolution aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz failed after both countries vetoed it. China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong said adopting such a draft while the U.S. was “threatening the survival of a civilization” would have sent the wrong message.
There it is. Beijing and Moscow used Trump’s own genocide rhetoric against him, blocked
international action, and elevated their status as Iran’s indispensable protectors - all while Trump was busy posting threats in ALL CAPS.
Russia and China know full well the fool Trump is. They didn’t just veto a resolution. They swept in under Trump’s bloated, ego-driven rotting bulging gut and established themselves as the reliable partners in the region.
The obtuseness of Trump to think they’d sit on the sidelines is shocking.
The Gulf states that hosted U.S. forces and absorbed Iranian missile strikes throughout this conflict are watching all of this with horror and fury. Iran targeted hotels, airports, residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in more than 10 countries.
The UAE, Dubai, Bahrain, America’s regional partners, the allies who were supposed to benefit from a demonstration of U.S. power, watched their territory get smashed while Trump looked on and did nothing.
Frankly, he only cares about taking their money for his family business ventures and could give a damn if they’re bombed to smithereens.
Will these countries ever fully trust the U.S. again? About anything? That question now hangs over every diplomatic relationship in the region. To them, the United States looks like a bunch of backwater hillbillies who don't know their ass from their elbow.
Then there’s Israel. Warmonger Benjamin Netanyahu’s office immediately said the ceasefire doesn’t include Lebanon, contradicting the Pakistani prime minister’s statement that it covered “Lebanon and elsewhere.” Israel has no interest in stopping. Netanyahu wanted this war badly, pushed Trump into it, and now intends to keep bombing Hezbollah regardless of what any ceasefire document says.
The contradictions embedded in this so-called deal are glaring. It is held together by toothpicks, tape, and a desperate Trump hunting for an off-ramp.
The bombing campaign that was supposed to liberate the Iranian people from a repressive theocracy has instead made that government stronger. Iranian nationalism is surging. The religious fundamentalists who run Tehran have successfully reframed 40 days of destruction as a national victory.
The population isn’t revolting against its leaders the way Trump promised at the start of the war. It’s rallying around them. This war achieved the precise opposite of its stated objectives.
And now Trump wants us to believe he’s going to negotiate a permanent settlement with JD and neophyte Jared possibly leading the way. OMG! Two fools cut from the same clown-cloth as their foolish boss. Iran is angrier than it has ever been, more resolved than ever to enrich uranium, and emboldened by the knowledge that it survived everything the United States could throw at it.
Remember this - extremist regimes have long memories and longer patience. The architects of September 11 spent years in the planning. Iran does not forget. Iran does not forgive. The idea that this pause holds because Trump is going to bluster his way to a permanent peace deal is a sick joke.
The biggest question Trump has never answered - besides why the war started - is how it ends. If the regime holds, and it has held, and a negotiated deal falls short, and it will with Trump in charge, what comes next? So far, the only answer has been to extend the deadline again.
TACO Trump’s specialty!
Think about this. If British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had launched a war against Iran, threatened daily to annihilate its civilization, then claimed a two-week ceasefire as victory, the world would call him a tyrant.
The American people elected Trump — twice, mind you — and the world is drawing exactly that conclusion about us. We are no longer the arsenal of democracy. We are the arsenal of chaos and tyranny.
And this ceasefire will not survive contact with the man who made it, because Trump has never succeeded at anything. Ever. He’s a perennial loser. And the future of the world is in his hands right now, and he will find a way to mes this up for sure.
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Iran has shown the world how to defeat Trump
Friends,
Last night, 90 minutes before Trump said he’d cause the death of a “whole civilization” if Iran didn’t open the Strait of Hormuz, an Iranian official said the shipping channel would be reopened for two weeks if the United States stopped bombing Iran. The U.S. has now stopped bombing Iran.
So we’re back to the status quo before Trump began his war. Only now, Iran can credibly threaten to close the strait if it doesn’t get what it wants from Trump — thereby causing havoc to the U.S. (and world) economies. Trump’s only remaining bargaining leverage is the threat of committing war crimes.
In other words, last night’s showdown was a clear victory for Iran and a clear defeat for Trump (although he’ll frame it as a victory).
The Iran fiasco is only the latest in a host of examples revealing how to defeat Trump.
In addition to Iran, similar strategies have been used by China, Russia, Canada, Mexico, and Greenland. Inside the United States, the people of Minneapolis have used them, as have Harvard University, comedian Jimmy Kimmel, writer E. Jean Carroll, and the law firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, and WilmerHale.
What’s the strategy that connects them all?
All refused to cave to Trump, despite his superior military or economic power. Instead, they’ve engaged in a kind of jujitsu in which they use Trump’s power against him, while allowing Trump to save face by claiming he’s won. Consider:
Iran knew it was no match for the superior might of the U.S. (and Israel). So it used cheap drones and missiles to close the Strait of Hormuz and incapacitate other Gulf oil installations, thereby driving up the prices of oil and gas at the pump in the U.S., which has put growing political pressure on Trump, months before a midterm election. Hence, Trump has been forced stop his war.
China knew what to do when Trump imposed a giant tariff on Chinese exports to the U.S.: It put restrictions on seven types of heavy rare earth metals and magnets, crucial to U.S. defense and tech industries. Beijing continues to use these rare earth restrictions as tactical levers in ongoing negotiations over trade, rather than demand complete surrender by Trump on his trade policies.
Russia has leveraged its vast deposits of oil and natural gas with U.S. allies. It has also demonstrated its power to intrude into U.S. elections (the Mueller Report detailed a “sweeping and systematic” campaign by Russia to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, primarily favoring Trump).
Canada and Mexico have won every tariff showdown with Trump by leveraging America’s substantial economic dependence on them for components and raw materials, but without crowing about their victories.
Greenland has leveraged public opinion globally and in the United States — overwhelmingly against an American invasion or occupation — to curb Trump’s ambitions there.
The citizens of Minneapolis and St. Paul have leveraged their asymmetric power against Trump’s ICE and Border Patrol agents by carefully organizing themselves into a force of nonviolent resistance to protect immigrants there. Their strategy showed itself to be especially effective, tragically, after Trump’s agents murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the public outcry forced the agents to leave the Twin Cities.
Harvard University’s strategy for resisting Trump’s interference in Harvard’s academic freedom has been to leverage its influence with the federal courts in Boston and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, to get rulings that stopped Trump (although he’s still trying).
Comedian Jimmy Kimmel turned a political crisis into a ratings victory by using the public backlash against his suspension from ABC/Disney (after ABC/Disney initially caved to Trump’s demands that he be taken off the air). Since ABC/Disney reinstated him, Kimmel has continued to target Trump, and secured his contract through 2027.
Writer E. Jean Carroll defeated Donald Trump in two civil cases by leveraging New York’s Adult Survivors Act to prove that Trump sexually abused and defamed her, ultimately securing over $88 million in damages from him — verdicts that have been upheld by federal appeals courts. Carroll’s lawyers used a civil lawsuit, requiring a lower burden of proof (”preponderance of evidence”) than criminal cases. They presented the jury with Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape and testimony from other Trump accusers. The real jujitsu was that Trump’s continued public statements about Carroll, which the court deemed defamatory, led to her second lawsuit. His depositions, where he called her a “whack job,” were played for the jury.
The law firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, and WilmerHale refused to follow Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms that had represented causes or clients that Trump opposed. The orders threatened to revoke the firms’ security clearances, access to federal buildings and officials, and government contracts tied to firm clients. But the firms didn’t back down. They leveraged constitutional arguments with the federal courts — arguing that the orders infringed on their First Amendment rights to advocate whatever causes they wished, violated the Constitution’s separation of powers because the orders would prevent the judiciary from considering challenges to executive authority, and violated their clients’ rights under the Constitution to be represented.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with the firms and blocked these orders with permanent injunctions. The Justice Department ultimately dropped its fight against these firms in March 2026 after federal appellate judges also found Trump’s orders unconstitutional.
What’s happened to the countries and organizations that have caved to Trump?
All have strengthened Trump’s leverage over them. Europe seems incapacitated, fearing Trump will leave NATO (despite a U.S. law prohibiting it) but unable to decide where to draw the line with him.
ABC continues to lose viewers and while being subject to Trump’s whims. CBS was purchased by Trump allies Larry Ellison and his son, David, and is hemorrhaging talent.
Columbia University has been wracked by dissent from both students and faculty. The Trump regime continues to make demands of it.
The National Museum of American History has lost credibility and talent.
The law firms that caved in to Trump’s executive orders have seen lawyers exit who felt the deals betrayed the firms’ values and principles. Microsoft dropped Simpson Thacher to work with Jenner & Block — a firm that fought Trump — due to Microsoft’s concerns over Simpson’s commitment to the rule of law. Students at elite law schools have also reportedly begun to shun firms that struck deals with the Trump regime.
Bottom line: There’s now a clear blueprint for how to defeat Trump, available to any country, organization, or person on which he seeks to impose his will: Reject his demands and then use your own asymmetric power — a form of jujitsu — to turn Trump’s power against him.
Which is what Iran did last night.
- Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org
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Doctors said her brother died after a surgery. Then a miracle happened.
After reading the message in our long-running WhatsApp family chat, I dropped my iPhone in the bed, covered my face and sobbed: “Dear family, there is very sad news. Our dear brother, Guillermo, has died.”
It was 10:45 p.m. in London, where I recently moved from Houston, and six hours earlier back home in Quito, Ecuador.
All the hope and happiness I had experienced only a few hours ago, when my 63-year-old brother Guillermo Ordóñez urgently flew from Quito to the coastal city of Guayaquil to receive a long-awaited liver transplant, was instantly crushed that February evening earlier this year.
It was the type of message every immigrant dreads when you are thousands of miles away from family. No matter how much success we have in a different country, every expatriate knows there is no way to escape this: being unable to hug loved ones back home during life's darkest moments.
This dread is all too real for so many in the Houston region, where 1 in 4 people are immigrants.
In the face of death, I was wracked with grief. I begged for it to just be a dream. There must be a way out of the horror; some way to reverse time. I just wanted to hug my beloved oldest brother again.
I was accustomed to seeing Guillermo at least once, sometimes twice a year, when I would fly from Houston to Ecuador. It was always a big deal to return and join everyone for holidays. And as the youngest of eight children who are now parents or even grandparents, our gatherings were always large.
I broke our family’s tradition by being the first to immigrate to the United States. I was a competitive track and field athlete in my youth and went on to become a sports journalist. I later won a fellowship to work in the U.S. where I earned a master’s degree and went on to writing about business before joining the corporate ranks, where I am now based in London for a U.S. energy company.
Guillermo became a father figure after we lost our dad many years ago. As a public health doctor, he led a nonprofit that creates homes for street children in the poorest, most dangerous shanty towns across Ecuador. He is guided by the philosophy that unconditional love provides hope to even the most abandoned and neglected youth.
He dedicated his life to helping those who had the least. He lived with them.
Guillermo set an example of selflessness and giving to others, but he has flaws as we all do. His health had its ups and downs over the years but liver problems had finally caught up with him and the vital organ simply could not go on much longer.
After almost five hours of surgery, doctors transplanted the liver of a young man who died a few hours earlier in a car accident to Guillermo’s exhausted body.
When they pumped blood through the new organ, which was so much stronger and flexible than my brother’s hard-like-a-rock damaged liver, blood flowed without obstacles. It overwhelmed his heart. It halted his beat.
After crying for about half an hour, I found the strength to grab my iPhone. I scrolled through the chat, usually lengthy with the reactions of eight siblings and dozens of nephews and nieces, and now raw with so much grief splayed open.
As I progressed, what I soon found, instead, was what many would call a miracle.
“He is still alive,” a follow-up message exclaimed. “But the doctors said we shouldn’t have a lot of hope because he was clinically dead for a long time.”
The main surgeons, Cristian Arias, 41, and Carlos Bermello, 41, and two assistant surgeons would not let their patient go so easily. Not without a heroic, physical fight.
When Guillermo’s heart stopped, the four doctors took turns compressing his heart for about 30 minutes to resuscitate him. But there was no heartbeat.
Dr. Arias then grabbed a scalpel and enlarged the incision they were using for the transplant by 4 inches, to use his full fist to grab my brother’s heart in his own hand and pump it. He and Dr. Bermello took turns massaging his heart for 15 more minutes. They finally stopped because too much time had passed. Guillermo’s heart didn’t respond.
Exhausted, the doctors walked to the waiting room and asked to talk to our family. Dr. Arias told my sister-in-law, Rocio, that the surgery had been going well, but that Guillermo’s heart didn’t respond, and there was nothing else they could do. “We are very sorry, but he has passed away,” Dr. Arias told her.
Rocio wailed with pain. Other family members at her side began making calls and sending messages. Arrangements were being made to return Guillermo’s body to Quito, where he was born and spent his entire life.
At the same time, the anesthesiologist who was disconnecting my brother from the respirator and the nurses preparing his body, which still had the open incision, saw that the heart monitor had begun beeping again. At first, they thought the machine was malfunctioning, but soon realized his heart was beating again by itself.
They called Dr. Arias. He and his team rushed back into action. They closed him up and again fought to keep him alive. They finished the surgery in an hour.
I was stunned when I learned he was still alive. My emotions were swirling as I wondered how it is possible he is alive when I was just told he was dead?
As the news of his resurrection spread among family and friends, there was joy, but also uncertainty.
What shape would he be in after being technically dead, including the last 15 minutes when he stopped receiving the heart massage?
Thinking of the worst-case scenario, I could not imagine a man so full of life, a leader of our family, and the selfless guardian of so many others reduced to a vegetative state.
Guillermo was moved to intensive care. When his wife was allowed to visit him for a few minutes the next day, she reported he was opening his eyes, identifying her with a thumbs up. Then, when his daughter visited in a few days, and he was not intubated anymore, he quietly proclaimed with a raspy voice: “I’m OK.”
Though doctors initially said Guillermo Ordóñez had died after surgery, he miraculously survived and is now recovering. (Photo courtesy of Isabel Ordóñez)
He left intensive care after two weeks, weighing 125 pounds, 40 pounds less than his normal weight, and unable to stand due to his weakened muscles. He stayed in the hospital until early September, going through numerous ups and downs, including scares about transplant rejections.
But he was finally released from the hospital and allowed to return to Quito in September. His brain and body are intact. He can walk, talk, drive, tell jokes. More importantly, he can share his story. He is starting on the unfinished projects of his life, like writing a book about the power of love to change the lives of children in the most dire circumstances. He values every moment.
When I visited Guillermo at the hospital in June, I found him with an enormous appreciation for the outpouring of love and support of friends, family and even strangers, many who donated to help with living expenses. But he was particularly thankful to God for his second chance at life. For decades he was an atheist, but in the last few years had slowly become a person of a strong faith. What happened that night of Feb. 7, only strengthened his faith.
He told me that at some point during the surgery he saw himself out of his body and observed the team working on him. He then saw a bright image with a shiny hood, like a scarf or hoodie pulled over one’s head. He saw a light projecting moving images of many people, including our father who died 30 years ago. He felt warm, he said. Then, the bright figure started walking away. He began following him, but then the image turned and asked him to stop and go back. After that, he only remembers nightmares and deliriousness from being in intensive care. He became fully conscious weeks later.
“I’m happy and immensely grateful I’m alive,” Guillermo said. “But I’m no longer afraid of dying. I felt peaceful and happy when I was dying that night.”
What happened that night also touched Dr. Arias.
“I have done more than 50 surgeries of these in my more than 20 years of practice, and I have never seen anything like this. I’m not a strong believer, but this is what people call a miracle,” Dr. Arias said.
“Your brother is able to describe things that were happening in the operating room that are physically impossible to know when you are under general anesthesia,” Dr. Arias said.
For me, it also changed many of my beliefs, many at the very practical level, including the assumption that the best medical care is always in the developed world.
After living for 15 years in Houston, I would have expected this miracle only to happen in the Texas Medical Center but not in the operating room of a public hospital tucked away in my tiny underdog Andean country, where tragedy and tough times fueled by difficulty are a part of daily life.
I also would not have expected our family’s heroes to be Dr. Arias and Dr. Bermello, two doctors operating in a severely underfunded government hospital, whose entire medical education was done in Ecuador, with specialization in Argentina and Spain, respectively.
Dr. Arias and Dr. Bermello’s professional lives are likely as demanding as any surgeon in Houston, but their lifestyle is different. They have a middle-class income, working for a government-funded hospital, and they don’t need much more to love their jobs and to fight for their patients.
I have also been amazed that the hospital and transplant costs were zero to my brother, that the liver became available in less than six months because he was qualified to receive the transplant thanks to a law in Ecuador that makes it a default for people to be organ donors. In other words, everyone is a potential donor unless they opt out.
“I will forever be grateful to the anonymous young organ donor and the medical professionals who saved my life,” Guillermo said while tearing up.
What happened Feb. 7 made me wonder what gives us the power of life and what takes it away? What are life’s biggest mysteries and how much we really know about life and death?
The surging love I felt when I was able to hug Guillermo during my visit in June while I listened to his story, that is all I need to know for now.
Contact Isabel Ordóñez at isabelord@yahoo.es.
This article first appeared on Houston Landing and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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This is the most dangerous crisis facing America right now — and it's not Iran
Trump is tearing America apart with his threats against Iran and comment that domestically, “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.” He’s also succeeded in intentionally pitting Americans of different races, religions, and across the rural/urban divide against each other.
“There was a time when Americans expected political leadership to involve sobriety, judgment, and at least a passing acquaintance with reality. That time now feels like one of those lost civilizations historians whisper about, somewhere between Atlantis and the Republican Party of 1956.”
While it’s worked to the advantage of the GOP, the fossil fuel and private prison industries, and the billionaire class for four decades or more, it’s extraordinarily dangerous to our nation and our children’s future.
That’s because a society can’t function when its people don’t have faith in its institutions, and it’s even more of a challenge for a democracy, a form of government which only exists “by the consent of the governed.” When people lose faith in their nation’s institutions, the result is both social and political chaos much like America is experiencing right now.
I saw this over and over again when doing international relief work back in the 1980s and 1990s: in failed and failing states, people not only distrusted their governments, but were openly disdainful of them and their elected and bureaucratic officials.
Out of that distrust grew a plethora of conspiracy theories that tried to explain why things got so bad, and those often led to political violence (I saw this in Haiti and Colombia), authoritarian takeover (I witnessed this working in Russia) and, in two cases where I worked (Sudan and Uganda), actual civil wars.
America is now going through something similar. For example, prior to Reagan’s presidency, 73% of Americans said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing “just about always” or “most of the time.” Pew found in 2024 that 85% of Americans said most elected officials “don’t care” what people like them think, and only 4% said the political system is working “extremely” or “very” well.
That’s absolutely unsustainable without radical change.
We’re also experiencing a crisis of confidence in America internationally, as nations that were formerly allies across the planet are now openly questioning whether they can ever again trust us after all the betrayals, trash-talking, and Putin-fluffing coming from Trump and his lickspittles.
Tariffs, destroying USAID, and silencing The Voice of America have devastated our soft power and credibility around the world, moving dozens of countries away from us and toward mostly China and Russia.
All of which raises the question: How did we get here and how do we get out of this mess?
Three factors that burst onto the scene in a big way in the 1960s led us to the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, which brought us to today’s crisis.
— The first was the invention of neoliberalism in the 1940s, as I lay out in my book The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America.
— This was followed by the creation of the Libertarian Party a few decades later as a lobbying vehicle against rent control by the real estate lobby.
— And, finally, in the 1980s a handful of fossil fuel billionaires jumping into politics to fund think tanks, media, and politicians who’d preach the doctrine that, as Reagan famously said, ”Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Prior to these interventions, the New Deal consensus had brought Americans together around the idea that the purpose of government was, to quote the Constitution’s Preamble:
“[T]o form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Neoliberals, Libertarians, and rightwing petrobillionaires like David Koch (who ran for VP in 1980 on a ticket of shutting down pretty much all domestic spending, presaging Trump’s recent rant that the only legitimate function of government is to run the military) all began the refrain that government is essentially evil, because they all objected to paying taxes to “promote the general Welfare,” or losing profits to regulations that prevented harms to workers and average Americans.
An army of sycophants and spokesmen was mobilized from William F. Buckley to Rush Limbaugh to the “stars” of Fox “News” and its imitators. Soon, the word spread. As Limbaugh used to joke, social programs were actually evil because:
“What do you do for a man when he’s down? You kick him! Otherwise, he’ll never get up!”
Men with wealth beyond the imaginings of Midas were telling average white working Americans that it wasn’t the GOP’s tax cuts and Republicans’ destruction of unions that crushed them, but brown-skinned immigrants, women, and Black people who wanted to “steal” their jobs, invade their homes, and rape their daughters.
The foundation of Trump’s 2024 campaign was the ad repeated on loop asserting that Kamala Harris wanted government to pay for trans surgery for people in prison. Don’t think about being robbed by billionaires; there are queer people out there who just want to live their own lives!
By the end of the George W. Bush presidency (and his and Cheney’s lies that led us into bloody quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq), most Americans had decided they couldn’t believe or trust our government. Then Trump came along and, presumably on Putin’s orders, told the world that we couldn’t be trusted internationally, either.
Just like with domestic politics, our nation can’t effectively function internationally if other nations also don’t have faith in our institutions. The Reagan Revolution, Donald Trump, and the Republican Party have destroyed both our faith and the world’s faith in the institutions of America and thus put our democracy at serious peril.
Part of that peril is that Donald Trump is now threatening to turn America into an “illiberal democracy” police state with rigged elections like Russia and Hungary. And it’s Americans’ cynicism that is his main weapon.
As John Mac Ghlionn wrote this week for The Hill about how hard a serious recession could hit Americans:
“The cultural confidence that once carried societies through genuine hardship – the belief that sacrifice was worth something, that tomorrow warranted patience – has faded into a nihilism that is difficult to condemn in people who arrived at it honestly.
“A society that still believes in endurance can survive contraction. A society built entirely on consumption faces a harder test.”
The solution is straightforward, and it appears we’re moving quickly in that direction, just like we did in 1932 as we woke up and chose to move out of the Republican Great Depression.
First, Americans must realize that these nihilistic ideologies promoted by billionaires and massive, monopolistic corporations are grounded in lies. We’re not a society of selfish individual consumers driven primarily by greed; we’ve historically been here for each other, and that’s why our government was first formed. It worked best during the 1933-1981 New Deal era, when the Middle Class went from around 10% of us up to around two-thirds of us. And it was crippled by the Reagan Revolution, which has cut it down to around 43% of us.
Second, the Democratic Party needs to re-embrace the social and economic goals of the New Deal and Great Society that brought us Social Security, the minimum wage, Medicare, Medicaid, free and cheap college, etc., etc. Put “we, the people” first and again restrain the toxic impulses of billionaires and corporations through appropriate taxation and regulation.
And third, we must repudiated the GOP’s corrupt ideology at the polls this fall and bring into office a new generation of FDR-style progressives who are committed to undoing Reagan’s, Bush’s, Musk’s and Trump’s damage and rebuilding American institutions so they’ll once again work for the average family.
It may seem like a big lift, but more and more Americans are waking up to the Great Grift billionaires and their Republican toadies have been running on us for the past half-century. A new America is possible!
Pass it along.
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This is what happens when pro-life Republicans play God
I would suggest that, by overwhelmingly passing a measure Thursday to protect in vitro fertilization providers and patients from criminal and civil liability, Alabama legislators are doing more than covering their asses. They are discovering what happens when you play God.
Alabama’s supreme court ruled recently that frozen embryos are “children” under state law, and that providers and patients can be prosecuted or sued for wrongful death of those “children.” In response, clinics across the state suspended services and procedures, sending not only hopeful parents into a panic, but Republican leaders as well.
The ruling was a logical extension of the conservative Christian belief that life begins at conception. If that’s true, an embryo is a person and abortion is murder. It stands to reason, furthermore, that frozen embryos are children who are equally deserving of the same legal protections that born children have. The disposal of unused embryos, a common practice, is now “a death.” While that may make sense as a matter of theology, it makes very little sense as a matter of politics.
READ: 'That's a crime!' HBO's Bill Maher corners Trump defender over criminal indictments
In the wake of the ruling, there have been scores and scores of stories on nationwide media outlets about women in Alabama being denied motherhood. “One woman who appeared before a House committee Wednesday testified that she had spent nearly $400,000 on IVF, which would be wasted if programs were not restored soon,” the Post said.
Seeing a disaster of their own making on the horizon, national “pro-life” Republican leaders, including the party’s presumptive nominee Donald Trump, demanded the Alabama legislature respond swiftly. On Thursday, it passed a measure, by veto-proof margins, that protects parents and providers if embryos are damaged or destroyed.
They are covering their asses, to be sure, but as I said, they’re doing more than that. They are discovering what happens when you deny your humanity, refuse to accept human limitations and play God.
What most call “conservative politics” I often call anti-political politics. The greater point of conservative laws, values and rhetoric is getting critics and opponents of conservative laws, values and rhetoric to stop behaving politically. This is why conservative politics is inherently regressive. It does not make room for solving problems that inevitably rise. Problems wouldn’t be problems if people would just shut up.
The goal of the Republican (and sometimes Democratic) practitioners of anti-political politics is neutralizing democratic politics. They do this most successfully by enacting laws and policies seeming to have come not from human beings who are making human choices while existing in a human context, but instead straight from the Almighty.
Such is “life begins at conception.” To them, it’s not a conservative Christian belief. Alabama legislators did not choose to enshrine it in the state constitution. It’s a commandment. God ordained it. They had no choice. As a consequence, Alabamans can dispense with debate over the complexities of the human condition, especially arguments over life. This is how democratic politics becomes an affront to God.
The obvious problem with absolutes is they rarely accommodate for complexity – like in vitro being the only way some people can have babies. Absolutes are a desire for simplicity where there is little. At the same time, they can create more complexity where there might be less had the people involved embraced, rather than denied, their humanity.
In ruling that frozen embryos are children deserving equal protection, the Alabama Supreme Court obeyed a state constitutional amendment requiring it to “construe ambiguous statutes in a way that ‘protect[s] … the rights of the unborn child’ equally with the rights of born children.” If killing an already-born child is murder, killing an embryo is, too.
But in avoiding a political disaster, Alabama legislators created conditions for a legal disaster, which could become an even bigger political disaster. The new legislation protects parents and providers from criminal and civil liability in the case of damaged or destroyed embryos. However, they are still legally “children”. In doing so, legislators created a two-tiered system of justice through which I’d be prosecuted for killing a born child but not for killing an unborn child.
You see where this is going. If I am protected from criminal and civil liability after “murdering” an unborn child (as someone who disposes of embryos at an in vitro clinic or as a parent who decided to dispose of unused embryos), what’s the continued point of Alabama’s complete ban on abortion? If these “children” are not equally protected, what’s the continued point of possible future “fetal personhood” laws? What’s the continued point even of believing that “life begins at conception”?
Such are the questions at the heart of what could be a political disaster for pro-life Republicans across the country. Not only did they spend half a century claiming the unborn were the same as the born. They organized around the idea of life beginning at conception. They believed the pro-life movement had the biggest civil rights agenda since the age of Martin Luther King, Jr. Their efforts led to the fall of Roe and it could lead to a national ban on abortion under Trump.
Yet by carving out exceptions to an absolute in order to accommodate for the complexities of in vitro fertilization, pro-life Republicans, so far in Alabama but potentially everywhere, are undermining their own position, because they are undermining a commandment from God. In doing so, they are exposing pretty clearly the greater objective of conservative politics – or what I often call anti-political politics. It isn’t conserving things, not even life. It’s neutralizing democratic politics.
This could have been avoided had they accepted their humanity.
But they had to play God.
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Why America’s happiness ranking is irrelevant
LaGRANGE, Ga. — Earlier this month, the news media was flooded with articles showing that America’s happiness ranking had declined, pushing the United States down to 23rd in the world. Reports showed that younger people are behind their elders when it comes to measures of happiness.
While reading these articles, I was invited by my college students to a “Dance Marathon.” These students spent their morning and afternoon having the time of their lives, fundraising thousands of dollars for the Children’s Miracle Network while perfecting a dance routine. There were athletic teams, Greek organizations, student government and theater students. They even worked with those who weren’t part of a student organization, making them feel welcome.
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Don’t think I was invited for my moves on the floor. I was there to sit atop the dunk tank. And yes, these students had a blast pitching balls to soak me thoroughly, all in good fun.
Oh, did I mention that it was the first Saturday of Spring Break for the college? They all postponed their travels home and vacations for this event, an annual tradition of fun for Children’s Healthcare Of Atlanta.
Had these college students tapped into something that pundits scrutinizing the survey results might have missed? What made these kids so … lively?
Author Emily Esfahani Smith knows their secret.
In a pre-pandemic TED Talk, she began by saying, “I used to think the whole purpose of life was pursuing happiness. Everyone said the path to happiness was success, so I searched for that ideal job, that perfect boyfriend, that beautiful apartment. But instead of ever feeling fulfilled, I felt anxious and adrift. And I wasn’t alone; my friends — they struggled with this, too. Eventually, I decided to go to graduate school for positive psychology to learn what truly makes people happy. But what I discovered there changed my life. The data showed that chasing happiness can make people unhappy.”
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What should we focus on? Esfahani Smith goes on to add, “Psychologist Martin Seligman says meaning comes from belonging to and serving something beyond yourself and from developing the best within you. Our culture is obsessed with happiness, but I came to see that seeking meaning is the more fulfilling path. And the studies show that people who have meaning in life, they’re more resilient, they do better in school and at work, and they even live longer.”
And it’s not just one day of the year of volunteering for these service-oriented students. I’ve been with several on natural disaster cleanups, donated to their lunchtime fundraisers and read about their activities in helping the community. Many have a family member or friend affected, and they simply want to help. And for those worried about the role of religion in America, you’ll find these college kids at events organized by our chaplain and church, too.
So instead of pumping up some “happiness” ranking, we should be boosting our country’s record on volunteering. The good news from the U.S. Census Bureau is that America is doing all right at volunteering. Women volunteer more than men. Veterans are the best at volunteering, helping neighbors. Those with higher education, and parents of kids, are among the best at volunteering. Generation X is the best at formal volunteering, while baby boomers lead in informal volunteering. And Americans do OK on rankings of donations to charity.
We could be doing better. More than 10 percent of charities closed during the pandemic, never to reopen.
But if you want joyful Americans, don’t look for artificial ways to make people happier. Give them some real service opportunities, a chance to make a tangible difference. You just might find this country will become a lot more cheerful, while tackling some real needs in our communities.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His X account is @JohnTures2.
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'Ugly' Noem’s dog killing was bad — but to really understand her, consider her billy goat
Since Gov. Kristi Noem’s disclosure of her farmyard killing spree, everybody’s been focused on Cricket.
That’s understandable. Cricket was a 14-month-old dog. It’s easy to imagine her head jutting out of a pickup window, hair and tongue blowing in the wind. Like many dogs, Cricket probably had a personality and other human-like qualities that we so often attribute to canine companions.
Noem shot and killed Cricket on some undisclosed date years ago for being bad at pheasant hunting and good at chicken hunting. The moral, Noem wrote, is that leaders deal with problems immediately. That makes her a “doer,” she claimed, not an “avoider.”
That’s pure bunk, as millions of people have pointed out in an avalanche of criticism since The Guardian obtained an early copy and revealed some of the contents of Noem’s ironically named memoir, “No Going Back.” The relevant pages have since been shared with South Dakota Searchlight, which requested an advance copy but was ignored; the book’s official publication date is next Tuesday.
Again, the focus on Cricket makes sense, because we can all see that Noem could’ve taken the dog to a shelter and given it another chance at life.
But if you’ll hear me out, I want to tell you why Cricket’s fate is the wrong place to focus your attention.
If you really want to understand Kristi Noem, you need to consider the goat.
‘I spotted our billy goat’
After Noem made the death march to her farm’s gravel pit, where she shot Cricket, she was apparently still in an uncontrollable rage.
“Walking back up to the yard, I spotted our billy goat,” Noem wrote.
The nameless goat’s only sin in that moment was being in Noem’s field of view.
Noem blames ‘fake news’ for backlash against her killing a dog and goat
In the book, Noem tried to justify her snap decision to kill the goat by writing that it “loved to chase” her children and would “knock them down and butt them,” leaving them “terrified.” The animal also had a “wretched smell.”
But apparently none of that had been a big enough problem to do anything about it. Not until Noem got angry enough to kill a dog and decided she needed to kill again.
Noem says she “dragged” the goat to the gravel pit, “tied him to a post,” and shot at him. But the goat jumped when she shot.
“My shot was off and I needed one more shell to finish the job,” she wrote.
She studiously avoided saying she wounded the goat with the first shot, but that’s the implication.
“Not wanting him to suffer,” she added — apparently experiencing her first twinge of feeling, after saying that killing the dog was not “pleasant” — “I hustled back across the pasture to the pickup, grabbed another shell, hurried back to the gravel pit, and put him down.”
The goat story not only reflects a disturbing lack of self-control, but also raises a question of law.
The crime of animal cruelty
Noem has defended her shooting of the dog, citing legal justification for her actions. She’s likely referencing a state law that exempts from the definition of animal cruelty “any reasonable action taken by a person for the destruction or control of an animal known to be dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property.”
Cricket killed a neighbor’s chickens and “whipped around to bite” Noem when she intervened; therefore, by Noem’s logic, her killing of Cricket was legally defensible. She’s probably right, legally speaking.
What Noem’s shot heard around the world says about her approach to problems
But what about the goat?
Sure, it chased children, butted them, and smelled bad. “So, a goat,” Stephen Colbert deadpanned during his Monday monologue on “The Late Show,” speaking for everybody who’s ever been around goats. If those traits meet the legal definition of “dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property,” killing any goat would always be legally justified.
In reality, what Noem did to the goat — dragging it to a gravel pit, tying it to a post, shooting at it once, leaving to get another shell, and shooting it again — sounds an awful lot like the legal definition of animal cruelty. That definition in South Dakota law is “to intentionally, willfully, and maliciously inflict gross physical abuse on an animal that causes prolonged pain, that causes serious physical injury, or that results in the death of the animal.”
Alas, cruelty to animals is a Class 6 felony, and lower-class felonies like that carry a seven-year statute of limitations in South Dakota. We don’t know exactly what year it was when Noem shot her dog and goat. She gave a clue in the book when she wrote that her children came home on the school bus the day of the killings and one of them asked, “Where’s Cricket?” Noem didn’t say how she responded, and all of her children are now grown.
If that was more than seven years ago, the goat killing is probably not prosecutable. But no prosecution could do more damage to Noem’s reputation and career than she’s already done to herself by writing about her animal bloodthirst.
As Noem wrapped up her bloody tale in the book, she wrote that being a leader is often “messy” and “ugly.”
In her case, it certainly is.
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com. Follow South Dakota Searchlight on Facebook and Twitter.
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Hush money isn’t a crime. Slush money is
Editor’s Note: The following first appeared in Political Junkie, Claire’s newsletter. –JS
Thursday, Michael Cohen, former president Donald Trump’s former attorney and fixer, completed his third day on the stand in People v. Donald J. Trump. The prosecution is expected to rest its case. So far, we have been reminded of all kinds of delicious facts about Cohen, a man from central casting if there ever was one. For example, that after Trump abandoned him, he said things like: “You better believe I want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to me and my family.”
You can never tell how something like that might land with a New York jury. Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead defense attorney, hopes that it will plant the idea that Cohen would say or do anything to hurt Trump.
But it may backfire and add to Cohen’s authenticity, making him more believable to the jury. Why? Because most New Yorkers would feel the same way. There are undoubtedly people sitting in that jury box thinking, “Yeah. I can see that. I’m surprised he didn’t go after Trump with a crowbar. No offense meant.”
If you are a New Yorker, you know this is true. If you are not a New Yorker, and you need supporting evidence, take a look at Jacob Bernstein’s piece in the Times about how and why Rosie O’Donnell became Michael Cohen’s friend after Cohen participated in Trump’s vicious smear campaign against her.
The quick answer is that after he went to jail, O’Donnell felt sorry for him. “Mr. Cohen, with his heavy Nassau County accent, reminded her of the boys she knew growing up in Commack, on Long Island,” Bernstein writes. “'He was every guy I went to high school with,' she said.”
Friday was a day off in Criminal Court (although sadly, not for the other criminals), during which Trump attended the graduation of Barron Trump (otherwise known by his father as “Melania’s son”) from Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump then skipped the rest of the festivities and flew to Minnesota for a campaign fundraiser, a normal Dad way of saying “I love you” when your youngest kid is at a turning point in his life.
Since the defense will not begin its case until Monday, this is a good time to take a breath and remind everyone what this trial is about, since it will be the defense’s job next week to make that very confusing.
The sensational testimony, much of which we have heard before, also makes the trial confusing, even though the prosecution is knitting it together in a story that is not about sex, tabloids or payoffs. Prosecutors are telling that story because it establishes meaning, motivation and a chain of verifiable facts for the real crime: that Donald Trump used his company as a slush fund and an arm of his 2016 campaign; and that under his direction, fake bookkeeping enabled this felony.
The charging document lists 34 counts of falsified business records, all of which pertain to a payment of $130,000 made to adult film star Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) to buy her silence about a one-night stand in 2006. Each payment occurred in 2017, and they are identical, but for two things.
They have different check, voucher or invoice numbers; and they were authorized or paid on different dates: on or about February 14, 2017 (4), March 16 (1), 2017, March 17 (1); April 13 (1), June 19 (2), May 22 (2), (May 23 (1), June 16 (1), June 19 (2), July 11 (3), August 1 (3), September 11 (2), September 12 (1), October 18 (3), November 20 (2), November 21 (1), December 1 (2), and December 5 (1).
Every check has Donald Trump’s signature on it.
But let’s talk about what this case is really about: whether these acts pertained to fees for legitimate legal and personal services provided by Michael Cohen; or, as the prosecution alleges, whether Cohen (as he claims) fronted a payment of $130,000 to Clifford, at Trump’s direction, and was repaid over time via invoices for legal fees, invoices that were padded to conceal the reimbursement.
These payments exceeded the original sum by about $50,000 to account for Cohen’s total expenses (wiring and transfer fees, interest paid on the home loan and taxes on the “income”), a sum that represented less than half of what Trump paid Cohen that year.
Although this is commonly referred to as a “hush money” trial, none of these charges are about hush money: it’s where the hush money came from, how it got to where it was intended to go, and why it needed to be paid.
So it would be more accurate to say this is a slush money case, because Trump is alleged to have used his corporate, rather than his personal, accounts as a slush fund for making problems go away. Had he used his own funds, and concealed the payments, it is likely these charges would never have been filed.
But he’s a cheapskate, and he did, and they were.
So here is the thing to hold in your head as the defense goes to work next week.
Trump is being prosecuted because of crimes he has not yet been charged with. The crimes are: committing a fraud on the American public by conspiring to hide a sexual encounter that might have influenced voters; by failing to disclose this payment in his 2017 annual financial disclosure; and by making an unreported contribution to his own political campaign. These are felonies, and under New York State law, misdemeanors in pursuit of a larger crime or crimes are felonies. This, Alvin Bragg’s theory of the case, transforms each of the 34 misdemeanors into felonies.
This is obviously complicated. So let’s look at how Trump, Trump supporters, and the broader extreme right are trying to use this complexity to insist on the Former Guy’s innocence. I have framed what follows around four common, but false, assertions that deliberately misread what has happened in this trial so far.
The 34 actions cited in the indictment were minor mistakes that are common in corporate life, and obviously, this trial was concocted to interfere with Trump’s presidential campaign.
Here’s an example of this falsehood. As recently as mid-April, in an appearance on Sean Hannity’s evening show, Lara Trump (who is Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee) characterized the 34 actions under scrutiny as "bookkeeping errors." According to Newsweek, she then said that:
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg "refused to prosecute this case until ... Donald Trump decided he was running for president."
"Everyone can see what this is about," she said. "They have, and are forcing, Donald Trump to sit in a courtroom — this is a former president of the United States, the current nominee for the Republican side of the aisle for president — for weeks on end. For what, Sean? They claim a bookkeeping error. Really?"
First, this case has been in the works since 2020 when Cy Vance was Manhattan DA. Second, while it is not uncommon to conceal payoffs for sexual misbehaviors and crimes by passing the money through someone else, the bookkeeping actually is crucial. Harvey Weinstein used his brother Bob for this purpose, and it was vile — but legal.
Yet even if it was a series of bookkeeping errors — perhaps Lara means that the invoices were not properly itemized? — it would still be, as the IRS says, “inadvisable,” to make a personal pay off with corporate money. Why? Because it is almost impossible to stay on the right side of the law if you do.
Notably, if the jury convicts, it will establish two facts that can be referred to the Southern District: that Trump took extra, unreported income from his company, used that money for his campaign, and took the payoff to Clifford as a corporate deduction.
Stephanie Clifford tried to extort Donald Trump and should be charged with blackmail.
This is false: Clifford never approached Trump for money. Nor did Karen MacDougal, the Playmate and preschool teacher who also allegedly shtupped Trump, and who was paid $150,000 via National Enquirer publisher David Pecker in August 2016. Instead, like McDougal, Clifford began to shop her story about a sexual encounter with Trump in early October, 2016, around the time Trump was under fire for the "Access Hollywood" tape.
But Pecker balked: Trump had not yet paid him back for the McDougal story, and this is why the payment to Clifford had to go through Cohen. Allegedly, Trump believed that he would lose the presidency if the story about Clifford came out, compounding the damage done by having publicly admitted that he sexually assaulted women.
It’s also important to emphasize that the damage from such revelations was entirely reputational. While adultery is illegal in 16 states, Nevada, where the alleged sexual encounter took place, is not one of them; and Pecker’s “catch and kill” operation — paying someone money for the rights to a story you will never publish — is also perfectly legal, and a longstanding tabloid technique
The Biden administration is using the courts to persecute its political enemies.
The New York case is not a federal case, and the Manhattan District Attorney is not a federal employee. If Trump were convicted, no president could pardon him. But as I said above, there could be federal referrals.
Trump just needs one juror to not convict. Just one.
That’s true. There is a meme on the right about how to force the judicial system to heel, and it is called “jury nullification” or “jury independence.” This means that a juror or jurors break the oath they take at the beginning of the trial, not just to be honest about their views and decide the case impartially, but to decide it according to the law. A juror who “nullifies” makes a statement that the law itself is unjust, and/or ignores the judge’s instructions about how the law applies to the evidence they have heard.
Jury nullification has been associated with both progressive and rightwing causes. But excitement about the practice has accelerated on the right under Trumpism, because MAGA-world is anti-institutionalist. This excitement seemed to have been vindicated in 2022 when Timothy Shea, charged (along with Steve Bannon) in the Build the Wall fraud, received a mistrial because of a juror who refused to convict.
The juror did not object to the law, however. He objected to people he liked being tried under it, and this is commonly how jury nullification plays out on the right. According to Ben Feuerherd at Politico, “during the deliberations in Shea’s case, in US district court in Manhattan,
the holdout juror spoke about a “government witch hunt” and accused the other members of the jury of being “liberals,” the New York Times reported at the time.
“Tim Shea is a good man. He doesn’t beat his wife,” the man reportedly said during deliberations. “You just can’t vote to lynch someone.”
The juror also accused the government of bringing the case in a blue state like New York to secure a conviction.
But jury nullification enthusiasts often forget that the practice, when successful, generally conceals the fact that the prosecution has made a very strong case for conviction. Shea, for example, simply got a new trial and, according to Feuerherd, “was later convicted for his role in the scheme and sentenced to more than five years in prison in July 2023. Two of his co-defendants in the case were also sentenced to prison for the fraud.” And Shea’s alleged co-conspirator, Steve Bannon, although convicted and then pardoned by Donald Trump, will be retried for Build the Wall in New York State.
And let’s remember: Trump has lost every case that has come to trial so far, and one involved a jury. I would put money on it (from my private bank account, of course) that he will lose this slush money case too.
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How The Onion’s founding editor finds humor in the dismal age of Trump
Sometimes this election seems a lot more dangerous and existential than just a scary Joe Biden-Donald Trump debate, as parodied by The Onion.
As the presidential rematch bounces between an edgy legal thriller and a Stephen King horror story, a good laugh is perhaps the best medicine.
That’s what Scott Dikkers, the founding editor of humor publication The Onion, told me during an interview at the monthly meeting of the Atlanta Writers Club.
“Humor can’t exist in a state of fear, so we need it,” Dikkers told me. “If you’re too scared, you can’t do humor, so we need it. When people say ‘too soon,’ comedians say ‘It’s never too soon.’”
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The long-serving editor of The Onion added: “Humor is a coping mechanism, an underrated method for dealing with life’s tragedies. All who do comedy professionally know this, which is why they do it.”
He agreed with me when I related stories of being in Russia during its painful transition from Soviet communism to something resembling capitalism. I heard a lot of Russian jokes about the economy. For example, “What did Russians use for light before they had candles? Answer: Electricity!”
Now with Vladimir Putin in charge, jokes, and even laughter in Russia, may be illegal, as Russians are increasingly finding out.
“How do you create a balance with joking about Democrats and Republicans?” I asked.
“We don’t think of the divide as between Democrats and Republicans,” Dikkers replied. “We see the divide as between the haves and have-nots. It used to be [that] both parties would appeal to a different 50 percent. Now it’s one percent versus 99 percent as both parties appeal to the elites. And comedians want to appeal to the 99 percent. One party used to appeal to the 99 percent, but now it’s all muddied. Democrats used to appeal to labor, and the Republicans used to appeal to the rich establishment, but nobody seems to represent the have-nots anymore. So we can poke fun at both parties.”
For many Americans, nothing seems funny about the present moment. It’s a sobering summer. Civic tension is palpable. Laughter is scarce.
“How do you find humor in unfunny subjects?” I just had to know.
Dikkers answered my question with a question.
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“I mean, how do you make fun of nuclear weapons, the arms race, the Cold War?” he began while harkening back to one of The Onion’s historical publications, which poked fun at famous news events of yore.
He explained how The Onion got an idea from an old Bob Hope joke about the nuclear weapons test at Bikini Atoll: “Army finds the one place in the world untouched by war and blows it up.”
As “Uncle Ben” keeps reminding us in countless Spiderman movie remakes: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
With that in mind, the humor newspaper has had its share of newsmaking outside of its own humor headlines, such as it sale by G/O Media to something called “Global Tetrahedron” (which really sounds like a spoof from The Onion). Global Tetrahedron is actually a Chicago-based group of self-described digital media fans of The Onion who named their real company after a fake one created by the humor paper.
The Onion has also had to weather criticism from some purists that argue the newspaper’s humor just isn’t the same as before (like duh!).
Meanwhile, the humor newspaper waded into a Supreme Court debate over free speech rights.
After satirist Anthony Novak was arrested and charged with designing a fake website for the City of Parma, Ohio, police department, Novak sued Parma following his acquittal in court. The Onion wrote what has to be the funniest “friend of the court brief” (amicus curae for non-Latin dorks) on behalf of Novak v. The City of Parma (2022) to challenge the 6th Circut’s Court of Appeals move to dismiss the lawsuit.
The 23-page “brief “is replete with such gems as “Rising from its humble beginnings as a print newspaper in 1756, The Onion now enjoys a daily readership of 4.3 trillion and has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human history” to “The Onion regularly pokes its finger in the eyes of repressive and authoritarian regimes, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, and domestic presidential administrations. So The Onion’s professional parodists were less than enthralled to be confronted with a legal ruling that fails to hold government actors accountable for jailing and prosecuting a would-be humorist simply for making fun of them.”
Despite being the best brief in American legal jurisprudence (or at least the favorite one in my students’ law classes), the Supreme Court refused to grant Novak’s case a writ of certiorari in 2023, upholding the lawsuit’s dismissal, which was a chilling outcome for free speech in the United States.
Additionally, Dikkers noted several times in his talk about The Onion’s history where the publication faced lawsuits and “cease and desist orders,” showing that not all public officials can take a joke.
Thankfully, the comedic writing of The Onion team may be just enough to help us through the 2024 election — a battle to see whether our democracy will be sponsored by Facebook or Tesla.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.
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‘Wildly irresponsible’: NY Times blasted over debunked Parkinson’s doctor ‘innuendo’
The New York Times is under fire after publishing a report Monday critics call "wildly irresponsible" and "not journalism," which – at least in its headlines – implies President Biden has Parkinson's, or might have Parkinson's, despite the White House and the White House Physician point-blank stating he does not.
"Parkinson’s Expert Visited the White House Eight Times in Eight Months," was The Times' headline. The print edition, The Times noted, ran this headline: "Parkinson’s Expert Visited White House 8 Times in 8 Months, but Why Is Unclear."
The context is important -- The Times has published over two hundred stories on President Biden's debate performance – now nearly two weeks ago – and published an editorial from the Editorial Board calling on President Biden to drop out of the race. On Tuesday The Times' Editorial Board for a second time called on the President to end his re-election campaign.
Media critic Dan Froomkin noted Monday night that The Times was "still front-paging a story on Biden and Parkinson’s based solely on innuendo and now thoroughly debunked by the White House." He added that the print edition headline ran after the White House denied President Biden has Parkinson's.
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The Times, which has a habit of re-working stories without noting changes, early on Monday had published this sub-head: "The White House has said that President Biden has no signs of the disease and that there has been no reason to update the most recent testing, conducted in February."
But later, changed it to read: "The White House said President Biden had met with a neurologist only three times in more than three years in office, and implied that the doctor’s visits were related to treating other people."
And later still: "The White House said President Biden had met with a neurologist only three times in more than three years in office. But it would not say whether the visiting expert was consulting with the president’s physician about his health."
What The Times did not include in its report, as many critics have noted, is that last week President Biden signed major legislation in a public ceremony, the "National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act."
Today I signed the National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act – a law that will help prevent, treat, and cure Parkinson’s disease and similar disorders.
This law is about dignity. It gives people hope that we can end this cruel disease and that we can still do big things. pic.twitter.com/Vac4gZFEym — President Biden (@POTUS) July 3, 2024
"An expert on Parkinson’s disease from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center visited the White House eight times in eight months from last summer through this spring, including at least once for a meeting with President Biden’s physician, according to official visitor logs," The Times report reads. "The expert, Dr. Kevin Cannard, is a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders and recently published a paper on Parkinson’s. The logs, released by the White House, document visits from July 2023 through March of this year."
In the middle of The Times report, it acknowledges: "Records from the Obama administration, when Mr. Biden was vice president, show that Dr. Cannard made at least 10 visits in 2012 plus a family tour; four in 2013; one in 2014; four in 2015; and eight in 2016. Mr. Trump rescinded Mr. Obama’s voluntary White House visitors disclosure policy, so records are not available for his four years in office."
As many have noted, The Times appears to have based the bulk of its report on visitor logs.
David Ryan Miller, an Assistant Professor of Government at American University, wrote: "The mistake journalists made yesterday was speculating about the *purpose* of these visits based on their *existence.*"
"COULD they have been to treat Biden? Yes. But without knowing more than their existence, reporting like this from @nytimes was wildly irresponsible."
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During Monday's White House daily press briefing reporters attacked Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, causing tumult to a degree rarely seen in that room.
.@PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre to @edokeefe: "It doesn't matter how hard you push me. It doesn't matter how angry you get with me. I'm not going to confirm a name...What I can say share with you is that the president has seen a neurologist for his physical three times." pic.twitter.com/oZQjMiIOPv
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 8, 2024
Late Monday night the White House was forced to release a two-page statement from the Physician to the President, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, stating, "Dr. Cannard has been the Neurology Consultant to the White House Medical Unit since 2012," and, "President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical."
He made clear, President Biden does not have Parkinson's, or any "other central neurological disorder."
"The results of this year’s exam were detailed in my February 28th letter," Dr. O'Connor added, citing those findings: “An extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy. This exam did again support a finding of peripheral neuropathy in both feet. No motor weakness was detected. He exhibits no tremor, either at rest or with activity. He demonstrates excellent fine motor dexterity."
On CNN Monday night, attorney and political commentator Baraki Sellers, a Democratic former U.S. Congressman from South Carolina, blasted the media's coverage and suggestions President Biden has Parkinson's.
"I think it's patently absurd that we're having this discussion, to be completely honest with you," Sellers told his CNN colleagues Monday night (video below). "I think we're chasing this rabbit of The New York Times saying that I believe a Parkinson's expert visited the White House eight times without even corroborating that, with whether or not the President was there or who that doctor actually saw."
"It's extremely clear now that he did not see the President of the United States. And to use visitor logs to simply say or deduce that someone has Parkinson's is not journalism, it is beyond the pale," Sellers said.
"We spend more time talking about Joe Biden's age, then we have Project 25, than we have the Chevron ruling, than we have what the Supreme Court did about presidential immunity. And I think that's an utter disservice to the, it's a disservice to voters in this country."
He added, "President Joe Biden is old, he is old. But there is an argument about policy and what he has done and the question that people have to ask themselves, and the question that the mainstream media is not asking themselves, and journalists are not asking themselves about is his ability to lead. Has he not led us from COVID? Has he not led us to a bipartisan infrastructure bill? Has he not led us to a bipartisan infrastructure Reduction Act? Has he not selected a Black woman as Vice President, has he not put a Black woman on the Supreme Court? I mean, let's talk tangibly about the things that he has done, because he's old. And you know, the question is, do you want someone old or do you want a sociopath? That is legitimately the question."
"But we still we are harping on this mainly because there are a lot of journalists within the beltway who feel as if somehow they've been lied to or betrayed, or emotional, and that emotionalism is not journalism."
Sellers: I think it's patently absurd that we're having this discussion to be completely honest with you. I think we're chasing this rabbit of The New York Times saying that a Parkinson's expert visited The White House eight times without even corroborating that with whether or… pic.twitter.com/YTdCmKJetG
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 9, 2024
Communications expert Susan Bordson on Monday blasted the media's response to the Parkinson's speculation: "The way our collective political press and our dumb American culture is acting and responding right now, how a person's feet perform is ranked as greater in importance for executive governance than one's critical thinking, principles, experience, wisdom, character, etc."
Media critic Jennifer Schulze observed, "This @nytimes set off a feeding frenzy with this speculative story about a 'Parkinson's doctor.' We now know the doctor saw Biden 3 times & other patients the other times. The main headline & story should be crystal clear about that right at the top."
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell added more details Monday night.
Cutting through the bullshit on today’s absolute circus of press-briefing with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and setting the record straight on President Biden’s physical and neurological exam with physician Dr. Kevin Cannard.
The @nytimes got it wrong — AGAIN! 🚨 SPOILER… pic.twitter.com/Q9KFWFrzg3 — Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) July 9, 2024
Watch the videos above or at this link.
READ MORE: ‘You Keep Talking About Donald Trump’: Exasperated Fox Host Tries to Turn Dem Against Biden
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Why not Whitmer?
Although Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy is just a week old, the conventional wisdom congealed almost instantly that the vice president will pick a male running mate.
And if some reports from over the weekend are correct, Harris has indeed narrowed the field to three men: U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — who President Joe Biden considered for VP four years ago — has reportedly been on Harris’ list, but says she’s not interested (although, come on, who’s going to turn that offer down?) But Whitmer has been considered a longshot because of the perceived risks of an all-female ticket.
That calculation shows a lack of imagination, however, and misreads both the political moment and Whitmer’s unique strengths that I’ve seen up close and personal in the 20 years I’ve been covering her since her days in the Michigan House
Just after Whitmer’s first inauguration in 2019, I wrote a column that was mocked by some Republicans and leftists alike: “Gretchen Whitmer will be a national star, whether you like it or not.” (In the years since, I’ve had folks hailing from both groups admit to me, however grudgingly, that I called it right).
Over the years, I’ve reported on a lot of memorable moments involving Whitmer.
There was the time that she, as Senate minority leader, organized a performance of “The Vagina Monologues” on the state Capitol lawn in 2012 — which was attended by the playwright, V — after two female lawmakers were silenced during an abortion bill debate for saying the words “vagina” and “vasectomy.” (The male GOP House speaker found it unladylike).
Later that year, Whitmer helped lead the unsuccessful fight against Right to Work and spoke during a protest that drew more than 10,000 people. (Last year, as governor, things came full circle when she signed the bills repealing the anti-union policy).
Then in 2013, Whitmer gave an emotional speech on the Senate floor disclosing for the first time that she was a rape survivor during a debate on a bill that barred insurance companies from covering abortion without a special rider, which she called “rape insurance.” (Whitmer signed legislation in 2023 repealing that measure, too).
When she ran for governor in 2018, a lot of Democratic poobahs whispered she couldn’t win after Hillary Clinton was bested by Donald Trump two years earlier and they desperately tried to find someone (i.e. a white guy) to run against her. At the same time, Bernie Sanders loyalists and national podcasters were swooning over one of her opponents, political novice Abdul El-Sayed, while basically dismissing Whitmer as the mom jeans candidate. And a third contender, now-U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, was busy shelling out more than $10 million of his personal fortune.
But after serving 14 years in the Legislature — and never losing a race — Whitmer knew how to outwork them. She went on to win an outright majority in the Democratic primary, as well as every Michigan county, before wiping the floor with her GOP opponent that fall.
I knew from reporting on all those stories — and many more — that Whitmer was a political talent, but here’s the moment that I knew she’d be on the national stage.
It was a frigid Saturday in January 2019, a few weeks after Whitmer took office. She had scheduled a meet-and-greet at the Grand Rapids Public Museum and 2,500 people turned out to see her, something I’d never seen in Michigan outside of late campaign events. And at an earlier event in Flint, the governor actually canceled her speech because people just wanted to talk and snap selfies with her.
It’s hard to define exactly what true star power is in politics, but you know it when you see it. And Gretchen Whitmer has it in spades.
Since then, she’s only become more well-known.
She landed on Biden’s VP shortlist, became Trump’s top target during the pandemic, made the international news for being the subject of a foiled, far-right assassination plot, became the Democrats’ leading voice on abortion rights, won reelection by double digits, marshaled a progressive agenda through a Legislature with the slimmest of Democratic majorities and hit the national talk show circuit for her new book. (And that’s just the highlights).
There’s a reason why Whitmer topped many pundits’ lists for 2028 contenders — and why more than a few longed for her to step in for Biden before he withdrew (although that analysis lacked an understanding of Democratic Party dynamics and campaign finance law).
Whitmer knows policy, delivers a fiery stump speech, gives an entertaining interview and is a quick-witted debater — all good qualities for a running mate.
She’s also a very good listener, which is one reason why she’s still mobbed at public events to this day. It doesn’t hurt that she seems approachable — and fun. That’s why her opponents have a hard time making attacks stick. While Republicans have tried to paint her as some sort of socialist antichrist, Whitmer still comes off as a mom you could crack jokes with during a long PTA meeting.
Of course, no politician is perfect. She lacks foreign policy experience, having spent her entire career in state government. She also can bend too much to public opinion, like when she ended state COVID policies in 2021 and left mitigation efforts up to locals governments and schools (who also got the blame).
Whitmer also genuinely hates going negative on her adversaries. During the 2022 election, her GOP opponent was a former right-wing talk show host who accused her of “ terrorizing” the state during the pandemic, ridiculed her over the assassination plot against her and blamed her for a school shooting. Whitmer declined to break out the hatchet (that’s what ads are for), instead unloading a quip or two before pivoting back to her agenda.
While Whitmer might not relish going for the jugular, that’s the traditional role of a running mate. And Harris is running a much more aggressive campaign than Biden (a press release last week on Trump described him as “a 78-year-old convicted felon” and “old and quite weird?”) So she may be looking for a brawler in her No. 2, especially during a debate with the endlessly mockable U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) (if you don’t know what I mean, just Google his name with couches or dolphins).
Of course, the biggest negative most political observers point to is Whitmer’s gender. The United States has never elected a woman president, unlike most of the developed world. And after Clinton’s unexpected loss eight years ago, why would Democrats push it by running an unheard-of all-female ticket?
The golden rule of picking a VP is first do no harm. But ideally, that person provides a boost with key voting blocs or states. With Whitmer on the ticket, the “Blue Wall” states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — should be in the bag. She’s popular at home and has a real track record of results over the last six years, even during divided government.
Plus, she has a killer Michigan accent (seriously, it sounds like a Bell’s Two-Hearted IPA wrapped inside a pasty) that can make even the driest policy sound folksy. And her homespun delivery would be a sharp contrast to Vance’s Yale-bred condescension.
It's been more than two years since the right-wing Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which has been an earthquake in electoral politics. Who better than to protect our basic rights and freedoms than two women who intimately understand what the stakes are?
– Susan J. Demas
As for the woman question, too many people are busy fighting the last political war and miss what’s right in front of them.
This is not the world of 2016. Women now know what a Donald Trump presidency is truly like with its near-endless misogyny.
It’s also been more than two years since the right-wing Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which has been an earthquake in electoral politics. Who better than to protect our basic rights and freedoms than two women who intimately understand what the stakes are?
And by the way, back in 2018, Democrats heard all about the perils of an all-female ticket with Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist was added later). That turned out pretty well for the party. The positive working relationship of “those women from Michigan” (a nickname they gave themselves after Trump blasted them all on Twitter) is also a nice counterpoint to outdated, catfighty stereotypes that are still splashed over reality TV.
Seeing that dynamic on a presidential ticket could be a game-changer.
In 1992, Bill Clinton and Al Gore tossing the football around in between campaign stops looked a lot more enjoyable than President George H.W. Bush’s stiff events. I don’t know if we’d see Harris and Whitmer share some laughs over a pitcher of margaritas, but that sounds like it would be a pretty good time.
Harris’ irreverent, brat-inspired campaign has managed to shift the vibes of the race overnight, bringing in $200 million in less than a week and 170,000 new volunteers. I think that speaks to the fact that after nearly a decade of Trump’s tirades and a long pandemic, people are tired of politics feeling like drudgery. They want it to be fun; they want to be part of something uplifting, like Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Look, I don’t know who Harris will pick as her VP and I can’t tell you who the best choice is. But I do think ruling out an all-female ticket would be a mistake.
On the day of the 2020 Michigan primary, Whitmer and I talked about Biden’s last rally in Detroit, where she looked exhilarated while trotting into the gym, making the rounds through the crowd and doling out high-fives. I remember her telling me that people need more joy and excitement in campaigns.
I think that’s even truer today.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan J. Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and X.
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Trump's greatest heist
For once, the Chief Thief’s told the truth —
His tone as usual uncouth.
“If you vote me in in 'Twenty-four!
“Your need to vote will be no more!
“Cause then we’ll get the whole thing fixed.”
Democracy forever nixed!
“Dear Christians,” is whom he implored
To show democracy the door.
The Chief Thief’s stolen things before.
Top Secret documents and more ...
Scams are magic to the Don —
The seedy master of the con!
The theft he and his thugs now plan
Is more extensive — truly grand!
For Donald and his mob have plans
To wrest the country from our hands.
They’ve laid it out in great detail —
Just how they’ll make our country fail.
Democracy will not survive
The Chief Thief’s Project Twenty-five!
There’s added gall in this planned heist,
Cause Don invoked the name of Christ.
Surely heretic’ly bad!
Oh Don — you narcissistic cad!
Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl is the former deputy inspector general for inspections at the Central Intelligence Agency and co-author of “The Wars of Eduard Shevardnadze.”
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