Category Archives: Politics

The Great Religious President

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President Trump spoke at one of the two national prayer breakfasts held in Washington a few days ago and showed once again what a great Christian he is.

Except for the great Christian trait of modesty.  He’s never been very good about that.  “I’ve done more for religion than any other President,” he proclaimed.

I agree.  Wholeheartedly.

No other President has been able to have as many people shout the name of The Savior with more exclamation points than Donald Trump has.

No other President has said or done things that have had more people say, “Oh, My God!

No other President has ever had so many people praying.  For our country.

He displayed his high regard for prayer by telling of Speaker Mike Johnson saying when they’re having lunch, “Sir, may we pray?” to which our reverent President reported his answer was, “Excuse me? We’re having lunch.”

In his speech he showed Christian respect for others by calling a Congressman “a moron” and pondered how Christians could vote for Democrats.  The answer, as he might learn this fall, is: “very easily.”

He remarked that 2025 was a record year for Bible sales although he modestly didn’t proclaim that sales of the Trump Bible made anything more than a tiny drop in the sales bucket. The remark, however, was a rare stroke of truth in his long verbal ramble.*

This is the great Christian who told a group of religious leaders ten years ago or so, “I think if I do something wrong, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”

At least at the prayer breakfast he didn’t repeat something the man who worships the putter on Sunday mornings told at an earlier Turning Point USA meeting, “I love you Christians.”

Is he categorizing Christians the same way he has categorized immigrants in a 2024 speech: “The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals. They’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re not humans, they’re animals.”

This is the same guy who washed his hands of any responsibility for the weekend portrayal on social media of the Obamas as apes. The buck never stops at HIS desk. He blamed a White House staff member and professed ignorance of the portrayal. He didn’t say if the staff member still has a job.

He spoke for 75 or 85 minutes, depending on who was holding the clock. He made no references to any inspiring words from his “favorite book” and in fact has dodged citing any favorite verses—because he doesn’t know one that fits his religion (I differentiate religion from faith and as you’ve seen previously in this space have remarked that “nothing screws up faith more than religion.”)*

I wonder if he can pronounce “Beatitudes.” The fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew says Jesus pronounced certain people as “blessed. Let’s see how many blessings our president qualifies for.

“Poor in spirit,” as in humble.  Can’t check that one.

“they who mourn, for they will be comforted.”  He’s done a lot of thoughting and praying but that probably isn’t what Jesus was talking about.

“the meek.”  Meek, he is not.

“those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.’  His hungers and his thirsts have nothing to do with righteousness as far as we can tell.

“the merciful.”  Ask the people in Minneapolis about that one.

“clean in heart.”  Don’t get me started on that one.

“the peacemakers.”  I’ll stand with the Nobel Committee.

“those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.”  Again, the people of Minneapolis in particular among all of the occupied cities and cities to come most likely have a far different view of who is persecuted and who is righteous. But not Donald Trump.

Even if we give him the last one that makes him only one for eight. Somebody who does one for eight doesn’t last long in the major leagues of baseball, football, basketball or carpentry, where hitting the nail on the head once in eight tries won’t build much.

You remember, don’t you, who was a carpenter?  The one whose name Donald Trump prompts so many to say with such emphasis.

*To impress you with how important the Bible is to Donald Trump, go to the official Trump merchandise page where you will find, among other things, about sixteen versions of the Trump Bible. “The Day that God Intervened July 13, 2024” edition is sold out but there’s one on eBay for $129.99). Other editions range from $64.99 to $99.99 although one with a hand-signed (no autopen for him, remember?) for a thousand dollars. Don’t forget to read “Two Corinthians,” his favorite book.

(picture credit: Trump merch store)

Tiananmen Square in Minnesota

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When will President Trump send in the tanks?   He has 1500 soldiers trained in Arctic warfare on alert in Alaska, ready to make an increasingly tragic confrontation in Minneapolis even worse. He’s obsessed with the Insurrection Act and is ready to pull the string on it at almost any moment—probably with an overnight eruption on his unsocial media site.

(Missouri is safe from anything like this. We have insurance.  We have a Republican Governor.)

But a little soul-searching might be good for us here in safe Missouri. Suppose the ICE goons showed up in St. Louis or Kansas City and started “maintaining order” and cleansing those cities of immigrant populations—a lot of Bosnians in St. Louis and Kansas Cityhas its own Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The situation in Minneapolis shows no signs of easing, even as to-us intolerable weather conditions prevail. When people are angry enough to take to the streets in these conditions, it is easy to fear the confrontations will become more likely.  A Kent State waiting to happen, perhaps.  Or perhaps an American Tiananmen Square.

Is Minneapolis going to be America’s Tiananmen Square, a place where courageous people stand up to blunt force authority?

Thirty-seven years ago this June, more than two months of protests took place in Beijing, China. Negotiations between protestors and the Chinese government to reach a peaceful solution broke down, leading the government to send troops to occupy the square. The occupation turned into a massacre that is reported to have taken hundreds of lives.

The next day one man refused to get out of the way of the tanks. Who he was or what happened to him is buried in the secret government files.

Courage can be one man in front of a tank and it can be many citizens in front of an American agency unmatched in modern memory for its recklessness, cruelty, and lack of respect for freedom. From day one it seems to have gone far beyond our President’s announcement that it would seek out only the “worst of the worst.”  What is happening among the protestors in Minneapolis is part of the American character.  What is happening with ICE in Minneapolis is contrary to every principle of our founders that has guided us, albeit imperfectly at times, for 250 years.

We are likely to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our free country strikingly less free as a whole than at any time in our lifetimes. The thought that we would celebrate this significant anniversary under these continuing circumstances is beyond depressing.

There are only losers in America’s Tiananmen Square in frigid Minnesota today. But this is the United States of America.  The people will win.

We turn to the words of the great author, William Faulkner and his Nobel Laureate address in 1950 in which he spoke of the lasting power of the writer, of the poet. I believe what he said, not only about poets, but about the lasting power of a free people.

“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures but because he has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”

The defiance of the people of Minneapolis should remind all of us of “the courage, and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of (our) past.”  I believe the people of Minneapolis, and the people of this nation, will prevail against those who ignore all of those basic values that have sustained us as a nation.

A New Phase Has Begun

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We haven’t heard anything like this since the Vietnam era protest songs.  Bruce Springsteen wrote a powerful protest song last weekend, recorded it at the start of this week, and it might be taking the Minnesota experience into a new socio-political realm.  It is hard for provocateurs to regain control when the public mood becomes part of a nation’s popular music culture, for music can be one of the greatest indicators of a generational shift in national attitude.

The song has the feel of the 60s because the momentum of the public mood in an increasing number of places is starting to be reminiscent of the early days of the Vietnam protests and the Civil Rights movement, a volatile combination that rewrote our country’s self-image. Will this song be the first of many protests songs of this generation?

Those who lived through those days can recognize that possibility. Today’s demonstrators are the children and the grandchildren of those who in the 1960s opposed military interventionism and advocated civil rights.

April will be the 61st anniversary of the first major antiwar rally, in Washington. It was there that Judy Collins sang a Bob Dylan song, “The Times They are A-Changin,’” followed by Joan Baez’s rendition of “We Shall Overcome,” the song considered the civil rights movement’s anthem.

English poet William Congreve wrote in 1697 that “Music can soothe the soul of the savage beast.”  It can. it also can motivate those standing against a savage beast.

For those who think Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” no longer fits the times, listen to Bruce Springsteen and “Streets of Minneapolis” the first major protest song or our times.

Bruce Springsteen – Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

If you want to sing along, here are the lyrics. We apologize if they do not translate from our edit page to the post in proper verse order; our computer does odd things we don’t understand.  But you will be able to follow the lyrics as you sing along

[Verse 1]
Through the winter’s ice and cold  Down Nicolett Avenue A city aflame fought fire and ice ‘Neath an occupier’s boots  King Trump’s private army from the DHS Guns belted to their coats  Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law Or so their story goes

[Verse 2]
Against smoke and rubber bullets  In the dawn’s early light  Citizens stood for Justice Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets  Alex Pretti and Renee Good

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land  And the stranger in our midst  Here in our home, they killed and roamed In the winter of ’26    We’ll remember the names of those who died  On the Streets of Minneapolis

[Verse 3]
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest Then we heard the gunshots   And Alex Pretti lay in the snow dead. Their claim was self-defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes  It’s our blood and bones   And these whistles and phones  Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

[Bridge]
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown, my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In our chants of “ICE out now”    Our city’s heart and soul persists  Through broken glass and bloody tears On the Streets of Minneapolis.

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26    We’ll take our stand for this land   And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

[Outro]
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out

(llyrics from genius.com)

From the Front Lines in Minneapolis—III

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Our friends in Minneapolis who are among the thousands who are not on the streets, but who are deeply involved in resisting Trump’s war on the city, have shared a letter being circulated in their neighborhood from David McNally, an internationally known motivational speaker and author of six books. He’s Australian although he was bornin east end London.

This is the life we don’t see on television:

Dear Friends,

I am compelled to write to you after listening to the president of Risen Christ School, Michael Rogers, speak at the 9am mass this morning at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in South Minneapolis. The purpose of Michael being invited was to bring parishioners up to date with the impact of the unrest in Minneapolis specifically related to the behavior of federal agents. I bring this information to you fully aware that our politics may differ, but what we do have in common for many on this list, is our support over the years of Risen Christ both financially and through volunteering. On that note, if you ever attended a Risen Christ fundraiser you will never forget people paying thousands of dollars to have the inimitable Father Forliti host them for one of his famous Italian dinners.

As you know, and for those who don’t know, the school caters mostly to the poorer members of the Latino community.  96% of the student tuition is subsidized. Yet Risen Christ is an amazing success story. Historically, the school has 92% daily attendance, a100% high school graduation rate, 100% of the students speak both English and Spanish, and 81% enroll in college.

Here then are the current “conditions on the ground” if I may use that term.

  1. The approximately 300 students now live in fear. This is not an exaggeration. Let us be clear-we are talking about innocent children who are afraid.
  2. For this reason, an average of 50 students a day are now not turning up for class. This has never happened before in the history of Risen Christ.
  3. Several students have had a parent disappear with no knowledge of where they are and no resource to find out.
  4. Families are not leaving their homes even to buy food. The fear is real.
  5. Risen Christ teachers who come from Spanish speaking countries are living in fear even though their documents are in order. They do not trust the federal agents because of what they have witnessed.  They are being picked up at their homes and taken to work by their white colleagues. The statement that if you are in the United States legally you have nothing to fear is being proven wrong every day.
  6. St Joan of Arc parishioners are picking up children and taking them to Risen Christ so that they can continue their studies. They are then picked up and taken home.
  7. St Joan of Arc parishioners are also delivering food to those families who are afraid to leave their homes. This ministry is one for which I have now volunteered.

When I became an American citizen in 2019, it was with significant pride. I gave a brief speech following the ceremony in which I stated that the United States was the most amazing human experiment in history. That so many people from so many cultures could live in relative harmony was incredible. I proudly pled my allegiance. I still believe what I said. The situation at Risen Christ, however, clearly demonstrates that something is radically wrong. A child or adult who is doing no harm should not live in fear. Dignity for all is a value with which we should all be aligned.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
— Matthew 25:40 (NIV)

David McNally

E-mail: david@davidmcnally.com
http://www.davidmcnally.com

In sending me this letter from David, our friend Denny added: Most of our friends are ferrying food and supplies to our brown friends and neighbors. My cleaning team, a Mexican family of 5 (I have degenerative spinal disease), who help me once/month, will be here Wed. I’ve asked for a list of needs, especially feminine products, of which is a seriously underrated international need in times of crisis. That was first on her list…3 of her workers are teen girls…all are women. Last month when she was here she informed them they are not allowed to leave their apartments except for work.

Jeff stayed late at his church yesterday to take training guided by the Handbook for Constitutional Observers produced by the Immigrant Defense Network (www.copalm.org). His church sponsors a Latino school across their street and sits in the eye of this storm.

This is how we now roll…please tell your world.

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To conclude, and in response to those who think these entries represent Trump Derangement Syndrome, we wonder—-as we ponder David’s Bible verse—which side do you think the Disciple Matthew would be on in Minneapolis today—the followers, or tools, of Trump or those serving and protecting his potential victims?

To which we add one our favorite verses and one that a dear friend lived by until his last day a few months ago, from the Old Testament book of Micah:

And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly[a] with your God.

If being on the side of Matthew and Micah, and the Dennys and Davids and Jeffs of Minneapolis is Trump Derangement Syndrome, I joyously plead guilty.

(We’ll have a bonus entry Friday)

What’s the Matter With Missouri? 

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A century ago, Emporia Kansas newspaper editor William Allen White wrote an editorial called “What’s the Matter With Kansas,” a scathing column reacting to a populist takeover of Kansas government.

Here in Missouri, the pending loss of a third NFL team and the uncertainty about retention of one of our major league baseball teams, coupled with memories of other pro sports teams we’ve lost (two major league baseball teams and two NBA teams) have sparked some to think, “What’s the Matter with Missouri?

Let’s be clear at the outset of this discussion that there’s a lot that’s RIGHT about Missouri. There’s always something wrong about Missouri politically, depending on where you stand. But let’s not forget what is right as we look at what’s the matter with our state today.

One of Missouri’s biggest problem is that it’s too proud of our cheapness. Expecting the promotion that we are a low-tax state will produce steady economic development significant enough to make a major impact on our economy does not seem to be borne out by the realities.

If all of the tax cuts or eliminations we have seen in the past several years really worked, our metro areas would be economic giants in the Midwest. Our smaller cities would be centers for mid-corporate expansion and our even smallest communities might not be withering. Missouri would not be in danger of losing another seat in the U. S. House of Representatives, not because we are losing population (as is easy to say) but because other states are growing faster.

One of our biggest problems is that we are satisfied to be mediocre. But it can be argued that thinking economic growth springs from being a low tax state is questionable if low taxes are consistent with being the progressive state that excites potential investors.

US News’ most recent ranking of the states puts us 31st out of 50 in many categories. Our highest rankings are in fiscal stability and “opportunity,” where we are 11th (more on that in a minute).  We’re 18th in natural environment. Our economy ranks 25th.   After that—well…..

33rd in education

37th in infrastructure

43rd in health care

43rd in crime and corrections.

39th in teacher salaries, according to the MNEA.

World Health Review says we are among the states with the highest rates of homelessness—one dismaying factor that describes our economy, the numbers increasing 22% in the last five years, 39% more than in 2013 and 78% more than in 2018. People don’t flock to Missouri to become homeless.  This is a home-grown problem that includes many people with mental health issues. Speaking of which—

Mental Health America uses seventeen criteria to rank us 36th  in mental health and well-being—40th among adults.

Digging deeper into “opportunity,” US News ranks us 14th in equality and in affordability. But we are only 34th in economic opportunity.  And what does that mean? “It takes into account a state’s poverty rate, prevalence of food insecurity, and median household income as wellas he level of income inequality among residents… These four comprehensive metrics are indicators of more than just economic opportunity in a given state; they intersect with employment, stability and health – affecting the quality of life of a state’s population,” says the survey.

In health care, we are 28th in low obesity rate, 34th in low suicide rate, 39th in public health, 39th in low infant mortality rate and overall mortality rate and 44th in low smoking rate.

We don’t want to drag this out so we’ll let you read the 50 states report by US News and you can explore why its surveys do not rank us better.  Best States | U.S. News State Rankings and Analysis

States are far more than their sports teams. Once we look beyond the glitz and glamour of the coliseum and look at what should make us a great place to live, we find a grittier and less attractive view. To think that the things that drag us down will be improved by reducing the financial ability to lift them up seems to this layman’s eyes false economy.

We cannot escape the shortcomings that short-change ourselves if our big selling point is that we have low taxes. The exciting visuals of sports teams quickly fade when people look at the quality of real life and that quality is not improved by continued diminution of resources to improve it.

This is a campaign year and, of course, a tax cut is a favorite way of pleasing voters. Candidates, however, might want to focus on how income tax elimination will make Missouri better than 31st and how it will elevate our low standing in personal categories and whether paying sales taxes on a plumber’s visit makes us a place to which significant numbers of people and businesses want to move. Sooner or later, it will become clear that our drive to be a state known for its tight-fistedness won’t perform much economic magic.

Useless arguments about “tax and spend liberals” versus “don’t tax and can’t spend conservatives” won’t solve what’s wrong with Missouri, and as great as our state is in float streams and tourist attractions, there’s plenty the matter with it that we can overcome if all of us recognize that WE are responsible for being 31st or 43rd or—-pick a number as long as it’s in the 30s or 40s.

The first gubernatorial inauguration I covered was that of Warren Hearnes when he became the first Missouri governor elected to two consecutive four-year terms. He said on that clear but chilly January day, “To do and be better is a goal few achieve. To do it, we are required to make sacrifices—not in the sense of shedding our blood or giving our lives or the lives of those we love,  but sacrifice in the sense of giving of a part of those material things which we enjoy in abundance. A great people will sacrifice part of that with which they have been blessed in order that their children might be better educated, their less fortunate more fortunate, their health better health, their state a better state.”

What’s the matter with Missouri?  When have any of our recent leaders laid down this kind of challenge to all of us?  Would we accept it if they did?

Failure to issue that challenge….and a failure to respond to it is what’s the matter with Missouri.

Who’s the S—hole Country Now? 

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It’s good to see ourselves through other eyes sometimes.

Newsweek reported a few days ago about a Norwegian’s response to President Trump’s plea for more immigrants from Scandinavia instead of so many from “s—hole countries” such as Somalia, his country of choice for his latest profanity-laced bowl of white supremacist sludge.

The response from Chris Lund, a Norwegian vocalist, has gone viral. We think he has some interesting points, namely that the Scandinavian countries are far superior to ours, especially Trump’s version of ours that Lund finds crude, cruel, and lacking civilized values.

One of the many puzzling things about Trump’s plea for more Scandinavians is that they come from a system he loves to pummel as socialism. But to hear Lund describe it, there are many things there more attractive there than here.

—once you get beyond the cold, dark winters.

Trump spoke last month (December 9) at Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania where he brought out his tired whine that the best people are not coming to the United States (the best people have NEVER flocked to the United States; they had and have good lives in the Old County). He appears to think his musings are humorous: “Why it is we only take people from s***hole countries…Why can’t we have some people form Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let’s have a few from Denmark…Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people. Do you mind? But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting,”

Lund told Newsweek he spoke out because of the “recurring irony of being told America is the ‘land of opportunity’ by someone who doesn’t seem to realize that, for Norwegians, moving there is a massive downgrade….When you compare five weeks of vacation and a year of maternity leave to the American system, the offer is a joke. I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just looking at the benefits package.”

On December 12, Lund took to his Threads account, @chrislundartist, where he wrote in a now-viral post: “Trump said he wants more immigrants from Norway. I have reviewed the offer, and I have to decline. The benefits package is terrible. You offer two weeks of vacation if we are lucky; we get five. Your maternity leave is ‘good luck,’ while we get a year. Your healthcare plan is GoFundMe, while ours is free. And your safety plan is just ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Moving to the US right now feels like leaving a spa to go work in a burning hot dog stand. Thanks, but we will stay in the snow.”

The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority says all employees are entitled to at least 25 working days of holiday each year, and employers are duty-bound to make sure each employee uses all of their holiday allowance. The maternal leave policy there entitles new parents to a total of twelve months—or as much as three years if the parents go back part-time. The Commonwealth Fund says the country offers universal health coverage that is paid for by automatic taxes and payroll contributions.

Lund told Newsweek he has visited the States, and once thought of moving here. here. But now?

“The U.S. looks less like a dream destination and more like a cautionary tale. I’ve realized I much prefer free healthcare and a life that doesn’t revolve entirely around surviving the latest political crisis.”

Some accuse him of being “obsessed” with the United States. Not obsessed, he says, just observant. “The truth is, what happens in America affects everyone. A lot of Americans don’t seem to understand the impact their country has on the rest of the world. Your economy and your politics vibrate across the globe, so we have to pay attention.”

He suggests President Trump should be worried about what would happen if people from Norway moved here in big numbers. “If we actually moved to the U.S. and started voting, we most certainly wouldn’t be voting for him. We’d be voting for the very things he calls ‘socialism.’”

Photo Credit: Lund–//www.viberate.com/

Notes from the Minnesota War Zone II

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A warning—do not rise to the bait. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t get the memo.  They sent their own message.

This memo was sent to at least some state employees and people at the University of Minnesota last Thursday.

The Cedar Riverside area of Minneapolis is described as a historic “point of entry for immigrants since Swedes, Germans, and Bohemians began arriving in large numbers during the late 19th century.” Today it is sometimes called “Little Mogadishu” because it has become the largest concentration of Somali-born residents in the twin cities.

A key figure in the anti-Muslim protest was Jake Lang, a January 6th participant who served four years in prison before President Trump pardoned him. Some of his rally colleagues dragged him away from the scene at Minneapolis City Hall, bleeding from the back of his head.

Reports indicate he was leading the Americans Against Islamification’s “Crusader March on ‘Little Somalia.’” One report says he intended to burn a copy of the Quran during the rally. Lang was dragged away to safety by one of his group after about ninety minutes of yelling back and forth and when the chaos that he sought to stoke went after him.

Another report says a member of the group was chased into a parking garage and struck with a flagpole. During the chaos, one of those protesting the presence of Lang’s group noticed the man was bleeding from a head wound and was heard shouting into a megaphone, “This guy needs medical help. He needs mental help. The bleeding is natural for Nazis, but he needs mental help.” When another woman, a protestor, asked the man if he needed help, he replied, “No, I’m good. Thank you, though. I appreciate you.”

It’s not clear if the two reports are referring to Lang or if there was a second man. Later, Lang texted on X from a hospital that he “was just literally LYNCHED by anti-white mob of liberal and illegal immigrants…PRESIDENT TRUMP SEND IN THE NATIONAL GUARD They are lynching White Christian Americans!!!!!”

Some will say he asked for what he got. Some who have studied contemporary accounts of lynchings will say that what happened to him is nowhere near a lynching.  And some will question whether there is anything at all Christian in his words and actions and President Trump’s roundup up of Somalis there.   .

On one hand, the worst thing that can happen is for people to give the Langs of our country the attention and reaction they provoke. On the other hand, what happened at that rally is a clear statement that good people will not stand for Trump’s ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign.

We aren’t in Minneapolis but we all should wonder how we would react if it was OUR city and OUR state being put through these experiences because they didn’t vote for Trump and don’t kiss his political ring.

Sometime the best protest is a silent, glowering presence, bristling with danger for the provocateurs but not giving them the violence they want.

But it’s easy to say that when it’s not your city and it’s not your people, your neighbors, who are endangered by someone who is really, just a petty, pitiful vengeful little man who misguidedly believes he is more than just a President of the United States.

—when he is, in fact, so much less a President and a man, and a disgrace to the office.

Obituary for a Politician

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In 1968, Nancy and I were in Sacramento, California where our friend from college, Tracy Wood, was a United Press Reporter in the Capitol.  We went with her to a news conference with Governor Ronald Reagan.  No credentials. No security checks. We just walked with her into the room.

She took us on a tour of the Capitol which, though big with a genuine gold dome, was not nearly as impressive as ours. We went into the House of Representatives that recently had been redecorated and told us House Speaker Jesse Unruh’s first impression if it was, “It looks like a French whorehouse.”

Jesse Unruh already was something of a political legend in California, the kind of political figure I wish we had today here and in Washington. Compared to Unruh, we live in a political world where genuine almost-larger-than-life figures are replaced by bland, small and often self-important individuals who tell us they will fight for us but instead are just throwers of sand in the political sandbox.

I was looking up Unruh’s most famous quotation about lobbyists a few days ago and I came across the Washington Post’s obituary for Unruh that made us wish for an era we are old enough to remember—when politics was properly passionate in the proper places, where it seems heavyweights fought over issues in the chambers and laughed over dinner at a restaurant.

It is discourteous, it is said, to speak ill of the dead but in this era there are a number of candidates for whom we might not speak well. His is the kind of obituary for a politician we are not likely to see when the final gavel falls for too many of this generation:

Washington Post

JESSE UNRUH A ‘BIG DADDY’ WHO GAVE POLITICS AND POWER A BEAR HUG

By Lou Cannon, Washington Post  August 5, 1987

When Jesse Unruh arrived in Sacramento 32 years ago as an overweight, underpaid state assemblyman, he became part of a legislature that was largely of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists and for the lobbyists.

The history books will say that Unruh, who died of cancer Tuesday in his California home at the age of 64, took money from these lobbyists and used it to elect legislators who made him, as speaker of the Assembly, the most powerful politician in California. The historians will also say that Unruh used this power to transform a supine and dependent legislative body into one that had a decent respect for the people and sufficient resources to represent them. They will say that the Unruh era was a time when the legislature initiated action to help the needy, protect consumers, advance civil rights and save some of California’s magnificent parklands before developers could destroy them.

During the Unruh years, these achievements were overshadowed by the forceful personality and gargantuan appetites of “Big Daddy,” a nickname given him by his friends and hurled back in his face by his enemies.

He was called “Big Daddy” because of his supposed resemblance to the domineering southern father played by Burl Ives in the film version of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” But Unruh really was more Broderick Crawford than Ives, the Crawford who portrays a thinly disguised Huey Long in “All the King’s Men” and rallies the rural dispossessed to his banner by calling them “hicks” and promising them a taste of the power they have never had.

When Unruh went to the legislature, he was a real hick from the cotton fields of Swenson, Tex., by way of the Navy and a GI Bill of Rights education at the University of Southern California. He had been dirt poor, and he once said that he never wore socks before he was 12 but that no one could tell because his feet were so dirty.

” . . . They live in a steady shame and insult of discomforts, insecurities and, inferiorities, piecing these together into whatever semblance of comfortable living they can,” James Agee wrote of similar sharecroppers. This is what Unruh’s life was like as a boy and, in some inner recess, what it must always have been like. After he became, at 39, the youngest speaker of the Assembly in California’s history, he told a friend, “I’m still not sure I’m not going to wake up some day and be on a small farm out there in Texas.”

Perhaps because he knew what it was like to be truly powerless, Unruh had a keener appreciation of power than more sheltered politicians. “He was the premier politician in the state because he knew the issues and understood the uses of power,” said Stuart K. Spencer, a longtime Republican adversary and friend. “He used power to advance the causes he believed in. He was very honest and didn’t go sneaking around when he wanted money like some politicians do. But the key was that he was willing to use the power once he acquired it.”

Unruh’s Democratic candidates and Spencer’s Republican candidates competed for the legislature in campaigns of brutal intensity and misrepresentation. Afterward, they would drink together and tell stories about what they had done to each other. Unruh did not avoid his adversaries, and he valued most those who shared his understanding that politics was both a noble calling and a dirty business.

Unruh was not afraid to get his hands dirty. He despised those who disdained political detail or soared above the petty and sometimes ugly struggles by which he remade the State Assembly. Unruh boasted too much and ate too much and, for a long time, drank too much. But he did not shrink from the reality of his faults or his virtues.

Instructing freshman assemblymen on how legislators were supposed to behave in lobby-ridden Sacramento, Unruh would say, “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them, you have no business being up here.” This doctrine formed the core of Unruh’s political theology. He knew that the lobbyists were an eternal fact of life. He believed that the way to deal with them was to accept this fact and use their resources to advance his own agenda.

He did not deal as successfully with Ronald Reagan as he had with the lobbyists. Unruh was too proud of his political skills to appreciate the contempt which many Americans hold for politicians as a class. Gov. Reagan, who did not know the contents of his own legislative program, understood and shared this prejudice and exploited it at Unruh’s expense.

But it is also true that Unruh, who was at bottom an unrelenting, populist Democrat with a personal understanding of poverty, gave Reagan a tougher political race than any other Democrat has before or since. You can look it up, as Casey Stengel would have said. Without money or organization or an attractive television personality, Unruh nonetheless came much closer to defeating Reagan at the polls than did Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, President Jimmy Carter or Vice President Walter F. Mondale.

After Unruh lost to Reagan in 1970, his political life went downhill. He was strong enough to accept defeat, but he was unable to deal with powerlessness and being out of the legislature. As an elder statesman, he was a bust.

Unruh subsequently was elected state treasurer, a job whose requirements he mastered within minutes and which gave him time and freedom. But his home was no longer in the future, and he spent the rest of his life recalling the glory days when he had been “Big Daddy,” the powerful speaker of the Assembly.

He had a right to do that, a right to feel pride in his accomplishments. He did something that no else has ever done. He went to California as a Texas hick and remade its corrupt and backward-looking legislature into a modern instrument of democracy. This is not a small thing.

Oh, how I would like to see those words about eating, drinking, etc., and voting against them on the wall of every legislative office in our Capitol.  I’ll bet a craftsman in Jefferson City could sell of lot of ‘em.  Maybe they would provoke some cultural change.

 

On the Minneapolis Front Lines

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Minnesota—a state of Lutherans, loons, lutefisk, and Lake Wobegon—is suddenly a war zone.  To hear the Trump administration describe it, it is filled with dangerous Somali fraudsters, and as HHS Secretary Kristi Noem put it, a “domestic terrorist” got what she deserved, a woman that Vice-President Vance claimed was influenced by a vaporous “left wing network,” and that President Trump accused of “violently, willfully, and viciously” running over ICE agent Jonathan Ross—characterizations all quickly issued with absolutely no knowledge of what happened to Renee Nicole Good, a recent Kansas City resident who had moved to Minneapolis about a year ago. Her wife, Rebecca, said in a statement, “We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness.”

A recent editorial by the Wall Street Journal disputed the fulminations from Trump, Noem, Nance and their associates: “Minnesota’s Fraud Problem Isn’t Immigrants: It’s the vast size of the welfare state that corrupts them,” suggesting that generous benefits and numerous programs so large that comprehensive oversight is rendered impossible create opportunities for fraudsters. The Journal blamed both political parties for the situation.

When we were organizing the Missourinet in 1974, the first person I wanted on the my news staff was Jeff Smith who had worked with me at the now defunct KLIK radio station in Jefferson City right after he left Indiana University. Jeff was a terrific reporter whose career path took him into marketing and management. He and his wife Denny remain among our most cherished friends.

Jeff retired as a VP with Northwest Airlines and now is heavily engaged in non-profit work in Minneapolis. Among his colleagues are Somalis. Last week, just as the significance of the killing of Renee Good was starting to sink in, I asked Jeff and Denny to share some of their thoughts. Denny in particular has an interesting perspective on the immigrant situation, which became the focus of their comments.

Here is what they sent:

ICE Storm in Minnesota –

from Jeff and Denise (Denny) Smith

Four days ago, as we write this, Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Depending on which account you believe, she was either a hero or a domestic terrorist. There’s no doubt that the event sparked a storm of outrage on our cold, wet streets.

Unfortunately, we may never get a neutral account of what happened. The Federal government is acting as the sole investigator following its role as executioner. It’s the latest trauma our community has endured in the last seven months, including a fatal school shooting and the assassination of a State Representative.

Renee Good’s death is an outcome of the Trump administration’s decision to send more than 2,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota. Trump is clearly ratcheting up his determination to punish Minnesota for being blue.

As a white woman, born in the U.S., Renee Good wasn’t the chief target of these agents’ attention. Those would be people who are brown or black.

Minnesota has been home to us for forty years, since we migrated from Missouri for a career opportunity. Thank God we didn’t move from Mogadishu. If we had migrated from Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, we now would be labeled “garbage” by President Trump. If we wore a hijab or had brown skin, we would likely be afraid to leave our home, fearing an ICE agent’s impulsive imprisonment.

Somalis in Minnesota are neighbors and co-workers. They comprise the largest population outside of Mogadishu and our communities depend on them every day. Somali Americans have become integral parts of all aspects of a diverse Minnesota that ranks in the top ten states for health, education, our business environment and other measures.

Quoting the Sahan Journal, a local newspaper serving Somalis, “The vast majority of Somalis here and across the United States are U.S. citizens, and most who are not have legal permanent residency.” Among many professions, they provide needed services for people at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. They care for older adults living in our communities for seniors. They work in our food processing plants. But, according to Trump, they’re not “legitimate” Americans.

By that definition, most likely, neither are you.

Only indigenous Americans have non-immigrant roots. The Twin Cities are home to more than 8,000 tribal members. But that population also does not feel safe. Last week, ICE detained four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe because they could not provide proof of citizenship. They were unhoused and living under a bridge.

And they are not white.

Unless you are a Native American, you too are connected to an immigrant. Did your forebearers come from Poland, or Ireland, or Italy or, involuntarily, from Africa? If so, your ancestors knew what it’s like to be labeled “garbage,” or worse.

As a second-generation Sicilian, Denny’s grandparents and their families were vilified by white Americans as the new “Niggers” and were recruited to replace black cotton field workers during the great migration north by southern former slaves.

There’s always the “other” and they usually have dark skin.

We acknowledge that a few Somali Americans are at the center of the documented fraud in some Minnesota social service agencies. However, we trust that the fraudsters will receive swift justice and that the bureaucrats who allowed it will be held responsible.

We are alarmed by the Trump administration’s broad-brush judgements, especially of non-white Americans. We should not be so quick to judge entire populations. We should not be so quick to judge, period.

Our move introduced us to a region shaped by both harsh winters and remarkable cultural diversity.  Over the decades, we’ve witnessed how new waves of immigrants, from all corners of the globe, have been welcomed to the fabric of Minnesota, bringing fresh perspectives, food, traditions, and resilience. This blend of backgrounds has enriched our state and broadened our understanding of the world.

We’re glad we migrated to Minnesota and we pray for our city.

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For the record: Native Americans were not recognized as general citizens of this country, not even by the Fourteenth Amendment,  until June 2, 1924 but were not guaranteed the right to vote in every state until 1948.

It’s important to hear from people such as you and me in America’s occupied areas—-because ICE is among us, too. And so are immigrants.

The death of Renee Good is a case filled with complications and Minnesota authorities are not ceding the investigation and prosecution of the case to Trump’s FBI or any other federal agency whose trustworthiness is as limited as our President’s honesty.

But the basic point to remember is this:  The “domestic terrorists” in Minneapolis are the ones sent there by President Trump to punish a state that is not in his political column. His justification that people from those places he calls a “sh—hole countries” are committing massive fraud is a blatant slander of thousands of good people and a craven excuse for his abuse of power.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board disputes Trump’s singling out of Minnesota and its Somali immigrants: “Minnesota’s Fraud Problem Isn’t Immigrants: It’s the vast size of the welfare state that corrupts them—not immigrants or a particular culture.” Others have noted the billions of dollars poured into Pandemic relief programs have led to massive systemic nationwide fraud, suggesting that Trump’s singling out Minnesota and its Somali residents for military intervention is far beyond the limits of reality.

None of us deserves what is happening in Minneapolis and in too many other places in our country today. As Renee Good put it, “No matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness.”

Compassion and kindness are two of the many things grievously missing in our national dialogue and particularly from our national leadership.

Maybe we’ll ask Jeff and Denny to report from the front lines of our president’s war on his own country again as the ICE campaign and the killing of a 37-year old poet simmer in this frigid time.

Donnie and Nico

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“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” said Chairman Mao as he led his armed struggle/revolution in the 1930s.

Today we have an impulsive, petulant short-attention span child with a pistol who has invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president and his wife and brought them to our country to face American criminal charges.  As is usually the case with Trump, there is little indication that any kind of long-term thinking went into this scheme. He says the United States is going to “run” Venezuela but it is clear there is no plan in place to do so.  There are no planeloads of diplomats in Caracas developing a transition plan, no one sent in to calm an uncertain and certainly angry population.

Secretary of State Rubio tried to clarify to a minor degree that we do not plan to “govern” Venezuela only to have Trump double down that we are going to “run” the country. The Washington Post, citing two White House Sources say a personal grudge might be a factor in Trump’s actions. Suggestions had been made that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado should be put in charge of the country. Trump showed no interest in the idea?  Why?  Because Machado accepted the Nobel Peace Price last year. And we all know that Trump for reasons that only he cannot understand stood no chance anyway.

The Prize Committee cited her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.”  She had her detractors including a faction that disagreed with her support of Trump’s oil embargo.

So who IS in charge now?

Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez Gomez has been sworn in as acting president. She has declared the country deserves peace and dialogue, not war and is offering cooperation with the United States.  On Saturday however, after the kidnapping, she had a different tone, calling the kidnapping “barbaric” and saying she still considered Maduro the leader of the county.  Time and circumstances, however, bring a reality to things. She’s a lawyer and a diplomat who has been Vice President since 2018.

She seems to have put forth somc contradictory messages. On her social media channels Sunday, she said Venezuela wants to develop ‘balanced and respectful international relations…based on sovereign equality and non-interference. She called on Washington to agree with a program “oriented toward shared development, within the framework of international law.”

At the same time, she ordered police “to immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support for the armed attack” by the United States.”

President Trump’s gunboat diplomacy leaves so many questions unanswered.

What does that look like, his plan to run Venezuela, apparently with no interest in “balanced and respectful international relations” and shared development within the framework of international law?” Unfortunately those are not things Trump respects.  Will our miliary take the place of the police and other security forces?  How long will it take them to become as well-versed as the existing Maduro loyal miliary, police, and security establishment?  And how much blood will be shed in gaining military control of the country?

(For that matter we have not heard the human cost of the arrests of the Maduros, or the building damages caused by the raid and whether this county will rebuild the damaged properties.)

Who will the United States install as it military governor, or whatever the title might be?

One would think that a true leader would have these things decided and in place within hours after turning a country upside down.  But not our impulsive child-president with a pistol.

There is precedent for this kind of thing but we haven’t heard Trump justify the Maduro arrest by citing the arrest Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega exactly 36 years earlier, to the day.  Noriega’s dictatorship had been supported by the U.S. government that had paid him large sums to fight drug trafficking, and to keep an eye on Cuba. He fell out of favor by pushing for Panamanian Independence. There also were suggestions he was taking bribes to let drugs reach our country. President George H. W. Busch sent in American troops to topple the regime. He spent 20 years in an American prison for drug trafficking, and seven years in France for money-laundering. He was returned to Panama with a 60-year term for murder, corruption, and embezzlement.  He was 83 when he died in 2017.

The trial arguments will be fascinating. Whether they are similar to the Noriega is something we want to see.  The idea of snatching the president of another country, and putting him on trial for violating the laws in a another nation will be an interesting discussion point and one that the United States Supreme Court will have to parse.

If we can arrest Maduro, can we enforce our speed limits on British roads?  Can a French person who shoplifts an American product in Paris be prosecuted here?  Can the president of a foreign country be charged under American law for exporting a product that is legal in his county to meet a growing demand that product in the United States?

By the way—-what happened to the Fentanyl excuse?  Now all of the talk from Trump is about Venezuelan oil.

Associated with that question is this: Can a President of the United States be prosecuted here or anywhere, for failing to reduce the demand for Maduro’s product, in effect sanctioning by inaction its use?

When did Venezuela’s drug captains become more important than the Columbian Drug Cartels that dominated our drug concerns for so long?  Trump has indicated Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, Iran, and Mexico are potential targets of someone who agrees that power comes from the barrel of the gun.  He drools over Greenland, especially, which has never been a threat of any kind to us.

I probably could cook up more questions but I’ll leave that to you.  But here is another one?

If we’re going to run Venezuela, why not make it a 51st state?  If we want Greenland for its rare earths, why would not Venezuela and its oil be the new star on our flag?

Our cynical self has peeled around my shoulder and suggested we would rather have Greenland and Canada because Venezuela has brown people in it, and Canada and Greenland people are white.  But, “We’ll worry about Greenland in about two months,” the child with a gun said on Air Force One.

In the meantime, the spotlight is off the Epstein papers for a while.  That’s okay. When it swings back, there will be a huge volume of material sifted from the most recently studied papers.

Finally, this note on this topic—Maduro is a bad guy.  But is violating international law and other standards the answer to the problems he caused?

And how should NATO respond when his guerillas hit Greenland

Have at it folks.  The box below would welcome you comment and concerns.  We are, after all, in this world box together.