Category Archives: Uncategorized

As tragic events in Jerusalem play out, Biden’s stance, and what he is willing to do about the situation remain unclear.  America has done little to keep the Netanyahu government from eroding Israeli democracy.  It is understandable that Biden might reach the point of just not wanting to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  A solution to this problem has evaded generations of American and world leaders.  But America has a unique relationship with Jews all over the world. There is a moral imperative.  For one, the terrible loss of life; but also it is wrong for a place with so much significance to so many to not be a place of peace.  The seat of the three Abrahamic faiths should not be a place of violence and bloodshed, but a place where all can worship. 

       There is room for condemnation on both sides.  What is needed is clearer heads and a willingness to do what is needed to end the conflict, rather than constant back and forth blame laying.  It is never permissible, under any circumstance, to target innocent civilians with rocket attacks.  However, Israel has a powerful but small minority controlling the fate of their nation and the direction of the peace process.  Of course, Ultra-Orthodox Jews have a real and very deep connection to a sacred land. However, the global community cannot automatically place their attachment to this land above that of their neighbors.  The issue at stake is how to remove from the process a group of people who are unwilling or incapable of reaching peace.  If the Ultra-Orthodox were to be forced to back down, the power of Hamas might become very much diminished, bringing a solution to a seemingly impossible conflict.

This is where the US and the world community can and should step in.  Biden faces a terrible problem, but also has a tremendous opportunity.  It is an excellent moment to turn to the Ultra-Orthodox, who are provocative and responsible for the human rights violations of Palestians, and make it clear that if they are unwilling to change the way they approach the conflict, they cannot remain part of the process.  They cannot be allowed to be part of an administration.  And they cannot be allowed to gain political advantage by empowering people with religious beliefs so radical they cannot accept a world where everyone has equal rights.

         For instance, the legal arguments being used to evict Palestinians from their homes are not only discriminatory, they are senseless, and go against everything Torah stands for.  There is an imperative in Judaism for respecting the right of people to remain in their homes.  Jews can maintain a connection to the land that does not disregard the shared humanity of their Palestinian neighbors. 

There is no place in any faith for simply disregarding the faith of another.  There is no just cause to cater to one small minority who cannot put peace above a connection to a land sacred to many.

When I was a kid, I was taught that one of the principles of good governance is that if you want to complain about a problem, you had better have a solution in mind to present about how to fix it.  Apparently, Ron DeSantis never learned this principle.  We all know the immigration system is broken.  I, too, am still very disappointed at the Biden administration’s handling of the crisis overall, despite his finally taking steps in the right direction.  Yes, obviously, immigration needs to be fixed.  No, denying people health care is not an answer.  Heartlessness toward people who have come to America seeking a better way of life does nothing but make circumstances worse.  The problem is not the undocumented people living in this country trying to eke out a living while being exploited.  Nor does the problem lie with people who extend a helping hand and offer care and compassion.  The immigration system itself is responsible, not the people caught up in it.

We have made it next to impossible for people to come here legally.  Over the years the process has become more and more of a bureaucratic nightmare–the time that it takes to have a hearing, the amount of paperwork and documentation, the arbitrary standards–the overall unwillingness to give asylum to people who need it. 

Meanwhile, we need immigrants.  Many businesses are opposed to DeSantis’ crackdown because they are reliant on labor from undocumented workers.  DeSantis’ crackdown threatens industries in his state from agriculture to tourism.  It makes sense to allow an essential labor force to get permission to work legally.  Do something to make it easier for the people who need to be here to come here; and for those who are essential who are here to stay here.  Don’t spurn the people our national economy needs.  DeSantis and his allies imagine that the country is being overrun by immigrants.  If it is, it is being overrun by essential workers.    

The border is a mess.  More must be done.  But at the end of the day, the issues are logistical, not fundamental.  America does have room for immigrants.  It is a matter of finding a way to integrate them into our society; of having a fair, equitable system that will make  common sense decisions about who should or should not stay.  Unfortunately, that system doesn’t exist.  This, not an inherent threat from those who come here seeking a better life, is where the problem lies.

Ultimately, America can’t say there is solely an economic imperative.  There is a moral imperative.  Consider what people are going through to get here.  Also consider what they go through once they get here.  Acknowledge how desperate someone would have to be in order to make that journey.  It is so disheartening to see someone gain traction in the Republican primary by simultaneously waving the flag and withdrawing into nativism.  DeSantis forgets that America is a nation built by immigrants.  DeSantis has lost touch with American values.

It’s good to hear he is finally being treated as the criminal he is.  It was a good day–the day that Donald Trump was finally hauled in front of a judge and called into account for one of the numerous wrongs he has committed in the name of gaining and holding onto power.  And, for the record, I do not think that hush money payments are in any way a trifling matter.  However unlikely, it might have changed the direction of the campaign. Even if it wouldn’t have, there is a principle at stake.  Trump succeeded in doing something that helped him lie his way into the White House.  But as soon as I say that, I have to say that illegal record keeping about an affair with a pron star is not enough.  God help us, let this be the beginning not the end.  

I admire Alvin Bragg for sticking to his guns in the face of all the pressure he is receiving.  I think that there is little more he could be doing under the circumstances.  If no other good comes out of his investigation, maybe the Republicans will show their true colors when they try to grill him.  Maybe it will become apparent how little respect they have for the fact that it isn’t their place to interfere.  But Bragg doesn’t have enough evidence to really make a dent in the movement Trump spawned.  Even if he does take Trump down, “MAGA” Republicans remain.  

Bragg can change the political calculus surrounding Trump.  But that doesn’t do much good for those of us who care about democracy.  What we need is a way to get at Trumpism, and that is going to take something more than improper bookkeeping and an adult film star.  What is needed is a way to go after Trumpism, and the way to get to Trumpism is through the Big Lie.  That means all roads lead to Georgia or the Justice Department.  The best possible outcome for the hush money investigation is that it creates a momentum which propels other investigations forward.

It is important to not get lost in hating Trump and not see the big picture.  Trump is a man.  But he represents a movement, and it is that movement that is truly dangerous; that movement is the real threat that the nation and the world faces.  It will not go away when Trump does.  It will change form; it will find a new person.  In many ways, Ron DeSantis is far more dangerous to American democracy than is Trump, because he represents the same movement with the same dangerous ideas without the baggage of hush money and porn stars and the absolutely politically idiotic mishandling of classified documents.  Trump’s indictment may indeed be welcome, but it says little about what will be needed for the fight ahead against his movement and ideas.  Those who care about democracy must not rest.  This indictment is the beginning of the struggle, not the end.

The recent ceremony between Russia and China reaffirming their military and diplomatic bond was disturbing but not surprising.   Putin now has, in Xi Jinping, another dictator at his side, one that might be willing and able to defy Western sanctions.  If anything, the unintended consequences of sanctions have the possibility of making circumstances worse instead of better over the long haul.  The West now runs the risk of igniting a new Cold War.  Already some in the global south are lined up on two sides– China vs. America and NATO.  Already, some like India and Brazil are finding it politically impossible to remain neutral.  And for a long time now, China has been the chink in the armor of Western sanctions.

 China is giving Putin the thing he needs most–more than money or arms–time.  Putin now has the advantage of being able to sit on his hands and hope that the rest of the world will tire of a conflict of attrition.  If the world community fails to act more aggressively now, we risk Ukraine becoming yet another forever war; decisive Ukrainian victories are needed soon.  Ukraine will have to make some headway or we risk the conflict becoming a quagmire.  Putin is waiting out the world community.  And the world community is letting him do it.

In the meantime, most concerning are calls from many Republicans, including a potential frontrunner for the Republican primary, for America to pull out of a “territorial dispute” with absolutely no understanding of the broader implications of a Russian victory.  

If anything, the world community still doesn’t understand how much is at stake.  The situation is much more dire than people are now recognizing.  We risk both Russia and China learning that if they test the West hard enough, they will win.  In the name of not being escalatory, America and the West are actually increasing the possibility that there will be a nuclear threat in the future, because China is learning that nuclear saber rattling is effective as a deterrent.  Now China is upping the ante in the Taiwan Strait, and investing in more nuclear technology.  In the name of not provoking Putin, we risk a broader conflict with an emboldened China in the not too distant future. 

Ukraine needs a lot more help, and they need it now.  The biggest problems we have now stem from not having given Ukraine the things they wanted and needed in the first place.   Much has been lost by delaying sending things like tanks; further delay could cost us the war.  Give Ukraine what it needs.  And prepare for a scenario where China gives Putin what he needs.  We told ourselves Putin wouldn’t really invade.  Let’s not fool ourselves into believing he won’t really get help from China.  Give Ukraine everything it needs to prevail, even if it does mean doing things that are “escalatory.”  If it means sending troops; send troops.  Bring the conflict to an end.  Further delay will only strengthen the Russia-China relationship.

 If America claims to be rich enough to afford to not have the rich pay their fair share, rich enough to create a financial crisis purely for political reasons–then it stands to reason that it ought to be able to deal with the closing of one small bank.  But the situation is again being mishandled with negative consequences for the American taxpayer.  I am incredulous that over the long term no taxpayer money will be spent in an attempt to deal with this crisis.  Eventually, in some way, the American people end up paying, even if it is indirectly.  The only real way to shield taxpayers from this kind of fallout is to not let things like this happen in the first place.  Once they do, there is little that can be done to avert a catastrophe without government money, which inevitably has to come from somewhere.

One can blame the Trump administration, but one should be careful to remember that the deregulation that was at least part of how we got ourselves into this mess had bipartisan support.  The easy money and the bowing to Wall Street have spanned multiple administrations.  Now is a moment to stop and ask people who were involved, and ourselves, what we were thinking.   

No one doubts that the Fed is well intentioned.  Jerome Powell, in his mind, was attempting to put people back to work after the most serious economic crisis that the nation, and the world, has ever faced.  But good intentions are not enough.  It has been clear for a decade that the Fed is unable to maintain its independence from the markets.  Instead of stepping up and encouraging better regulation of these banks, it has simply gotten into the habit of bailing them out.  America has got to find a better way,  because the current path of bailouts every time a bank takes unnecessary and unwise risks cannot continue. There were warning signs after warning signs that something was going wrong at SVB, and that the failure of this bank would lead to contagion.  The Fed cannot afford to continue to drop the ball.  Eventually, a financial melt-down will occur that no amount of bailouts and “quantitative easing” (i.e. giving Wall Street everything it wants) will be able to resolve.

America needs fiscal policy truly directed at common and low-income people who are trying to make ends meet and put food on the table, not fiscal policy that cow-tows to Wall Street every time it throws a temper tantrum.  We need a policy that acknowledges that Wall Street isn’t the end all and be all of the American economy and finds a way to decouple the rest of the economy and Main Street from the banking sector so that banks that make financially unsound, and excessively risky investments are allowed to fail.  For years progressives have heard that we shouldn’t invest in the most vulnerable because it is contrary to principles of capitalism.  Allowing bad banks to fail–isn’t that capitalism?

Sometimes the most important budget proposals are DOA.  For whatever criticism I have had of Biden, (and it has been quite a lot) one has to admire him for sticking to his guns and “picking a fight,” as the New York Times recently put it, with house Republicans.  Sometimes the most important bills are the ones that aren’t going to pass.  More than anything else, they make a statement about principles.  As the Republicans gear up to disinvest in America’s future–it’s children, Biden is taking a stand in the face of some very senseless dislogic from the other side of the aisle.  It remains to be seen whether he will be able to protect America’s children from going hungry or slipping into poverty.  The Republicans are poised to create an economic crisis surrounding the debt ceiling in the name of not wanting the ultra-rich to pay their fair share.  It also remains to be seen if congress will be able to come together to pass some kind of sensible reform.  

The Republicans are right about one thing–we cannot go on as we are.  Change in the way America finances itself must come.  But even as they complain vociferously about deficits and the debt, the Republicans ignore the one thing that is absolutely essential for getting America out of the fiscal hole it has dug itself into–raising taxes on the rich.  We know trickle down doesn’t work.  We have proved that taxes on the very wealthy can be levied in such a way that it will not slow economic growth.  In reality, the rest of the developed world redistributes wealth in this way and provides for the basic needs of its people so that they have a much better quality of life overall.

It’s called investment.  If you think about it, what does it mean to pay less in taxes if it means you will be more likely to become a victim of violent crime when your government refuses to reduce poverty or invest in crime prevention initiatives.  How much are you willing to pay for safer streets?  Fighting climate change is expensive and necessitates raising taxes. But tell the people affected by catastrophic and repeated flooding in Northern California that it isn’t worth a few extra hundred dollars at the end of the year.  We pay for the things we don’t fund.  We pay for hungry children who turn their back on society.  We pay for floods caused by global warming.  Our children will pay if the debt keeps rising.  If Republicans really do want answers, they will have to face financial reality–there is no way to deal with the debt without raising taxes on the rich.  It simply cannot be done.  The math just doesn’t add up.  It is ridiculous to think that having more kids hungry and in poverty will save America money.  The consequences of this critical disinvestment will be felt for generations to come. It will create a financial ticking time bomb left for America’s future.  

The recent onslaught on bills directed at transgender youth coming from the Iowa legislature (and many other Republican legislatures) is downright disturbing.  It isn’t that Republicans don’t have a point.  There are risks associated with puberty blockers and other forms of gender affirming care for young people seeking to transition.  But for a party that is supposed to believe in small government, it is hard to fathom how and why they would propose government step in and make a decision both so complex and so personal. If the governor doesn’t believe in puberty blockers no one is forcing her child to take them.  It is equally wrong to tell the family of a young person they cannot have access to them.  These decisions are being made with doctors who understand risks and benefits.  Nowhere in the Republicans arguments is there room for the benefits of gender affirming care.  Nor is there any mention of the risks of doing nothing when a young person is struggling with their gender identity.  

What the Republicans argue is essentially that the adults in the life of this young person should sit on their hands and wait.  For depression and suicide?  For social isolation?  Do we want to return to the days when transgender people had to lie and hide who they were for fear of the repercussions?  

I am not old enough to remember the Stonewall uprising.  I have been blessed to live in a time where I could watch the transgender rights movement flourish.  I have personally benefited from the struggles of those who came before me.  But I am also old enough to remember how different it was to be young and transgender a generation ago.  We cannot roll back progress.  These backward laws will mean that once again transgender people will have to live in fear of their own government, and perhaps even their own families.

Republicans are free to believe transgender people are obscene.  They are not free to make an intimate, personal decision for someone else because they hold onto antiquated, backward ideas that have no place in a modern society.  What gender someone is is a decision that cannot be made by any other person, much less a government, even when someone is still young.  Simply not reaching out to transgender youth is not an option.  They need support if they are to successfully navigate a most difficult transition.  They do not need their personal decisions politicized, or controversy surrounding them.  

Rather than making sure people know about some young person’s gender dysphoria, what these bills really do is force transgender young people and their allies into the closet and onto the fringes of society.  And that is what this all comes down to–a question of individual liberty.  Lost in the debate is the right of an individual, even a young individual, to choose for themselves what they believe about their gender identity.  In the final analysis, it is not a decision anyone can make for them.

It should just be said outright for all the world to hear.  Joe Biden is a decent guy that would make an excellent candidate if he was 10 years younger.  It isn’t just an issue of electability; it is an issue of capability.  It isn’t just the gaffs.  One can visibly see that Biden is slowing down.  The demands of the world’s toughest job are already beginning to show in him. We will see what plays out over the next few weeks as Biden faces the grueling schedule that campaigning always is.  I am not hopeful.  Granted, Biden seemed vigorous enough at his State of the Union address, but who knows where he will be in 2 years, much less 6 if he wins reelection and completes his term.   

  The greatest problem is the specter of a constitutional crisis.  Whatever Joe Biden’s mental state now, it could change a lot and quickly.  We risk having him at the helm when he experiences a sudden decline.  This could spell disaster.  Republicans are already lining up to find a pretext to impeach Biden.  Even a small decline would give them ammunition.  This might not only spell the end of his presidency, his ability to advance his agenda would grind to a halt and the government would become distracted from the business at hand.  This isn’t a far-off prospect.  If Biden cannot withstand the pressures of campaigning this could become a problem in the immediate future.  And many may come to feel they are potentially voting for Biden’s vice-president, and that could be disastrous for the campaign–not because Kamala Harris is not an able leader, but because people need to know who they are voting for or they won’t vote at all.

All of this leaves the Democratic party wide open to potential contenders who represent a new generation of the up-and-coming alt right.   2024 will be won by the party that can get out the vote, that can fire up the base.  There are a host of Republican contenders who have shown they can do just that–all of whom are a potential threat to American democracy.   I am afraid that if Biden runs people will do negative voting.

In light of all of this it is difficult to see why Biden’s age is now the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room.  Surely, if a concerted effort was made he could be persuaded not to run, for the benefit of the broader progressive movement.  Progressives have other alternatives.  Progressives need a young, forward-looking face that represents the future of the party.

That doesn’t mean Biden needs to disappear from the scene or that we should disrespect him.  But let him take up his proper place within the progressive movement as elder statesman spending the last years of his life as a respected and able advisor.  Joe Biden is a decent man and an excellent politician, but he needs to step aside and allow a new generation to claim the presidency.

It is a moment to defend “woke.”  If Ron DeSantis wants to use the term derisively, he is free to do so.  He, and others like him, (who are far more dangerous than Trump at the moment) should not be free to bully the Advanced Placement committee into weakening past recognition a curriculum that is vital to the youth of the entire nation. However, neither do the people charged with preparing our young people for college have the right to let themselves be bullied.  As much as I abhor the way that DeSantis thinks, the blame for this failed curriculum falls squarely on the shoulders of the people who created it.  I am not willing to believe that they were not allowing themselves to be pressured by DeSantis and the like.  Even if it is true, as they say, that changes to the curriculum were completed before the Florida Department of Education refused to offer the course; it is clear that the changes were made to appease the movement that DeSantis represents.

And that movement is one of the most dangerous that America has ever faced.  DeSanis had the gall to ask if the African American studies course taught, “Black Panther ideology”.  This is a blatant insult to African-Americans.  DeSantis seems to think that members of the African American community who want students of all colors to understand African-American history better are instead a “woke mob” out to brainwash white children into self-shame.  His conspiracy theories border on the delusional; he has fear-mongered his way to political power.  

Meanwhile, in reality, many Americans of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds simply want high school students to have an opportunity to really delve into the history of how African Americans have shaped this country.  And to learn about the good and the bad.  If we don’t teach this history, we risk back-tracking on the gains the civil rights movement of my father’s generation made.  If an instructor believes studying Black history means understanding the role of Black power in the political developments of the civil rights era, that instructor should be supported.  

Nobody is attempting to brainwash Florida’s children.  We, the “woke mob,” want them to understand their history so as not to repeat it, and African-American history is their nation’s history no matter what color they are.  It says a lot that one of the items removed from the curriculum was Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow.  The premise of this book is that history is repeating itself.  That, in part because we do not take seriously enough our understanding of Black history, we are now making the same mistakes that were made at the end of Reconstruction–that now, as then, a huge step forward is becoming progress rolled back.  Anything that we can do as a society to stop the erosion of progress from happening is a worthy endeavor.  This curriculum is a missed opportunity to help in that worthy endeavor.

The appalling conduct of the officers in the tragic death of Tyre Nichols should give us pause and cause us to re-evaluate what it is actually going to take to get a handle on rising violent crime.  One thing we have learned, the hard way, is that specialized units designed to be “tough on crime” can end up killing the people they are supposed to be protecting.  Where did Scorpion go wrong?  For one thing, nobody listened.  There were warnings.  The people who didn’t heed those warnings, whatever their good intentions, then or now, are responsible. It will be impossible to move forward without accountability.  

But there is an even deeper problem.  The design and concept of Scorpion was dangerous.   The stigma that comes from setting aside one particular place and scapegoating it as the source of crime, instead of seeing crime as a community wide problem, does something to the human psyche, something that just isn’t good.  It sends the message that crime is the responsibility of a handful of people who are somehow less than the rest of us because of their zip code.  Instead, we need to be sending our cops the message that crime is the responsibility of the entire community.

America seems to be enamored of the approach to crime exemplified by Scorpion.  Let’s “get tough,” let’s focus on “troubled areas,” let’s have highly specialized, highly trained, and highly militarized cops.   America as a whole needs to come to grips with what it is teaching its police officers by fighting crime the way it does.  They learn to see crime as a Black problem, a problem of the ghetto, a problem confined to a few “bad neighborhoods.”   It leads to a dehumanizing criminalization, and a powder keg that only needs a spark to set it off.  

This should be a moment of reckoning.  Let’s hope that Davis will think hard and reconsider the entire approach to crime that led her to create Scorpion in the first place, because it is inherently flawed.  The nation does not need anymore specialized tactical elements that target and scapegoat only particular neighborhoods.   It needs cops who are listening to the communities they serve.  If Memphis wanted to set aside a particular area as a source of high crime, it should have invested in wrap-around schools, community centers, and after school programs.  Davis should have told her community, and most importantly her cops, to focus on why that neighborhood has so much violent crime and what the police force could do to partner with the community to find lasting solutions to the problems that community faced.

Memphis needs to take a hard look at itself.  It needs to ask itself what the real root causes of crime are.  Scorpion was designed to shut down this process.  Instead of looking at the reasons certain areas had such high rates of crime, the police facilitated the scapegoating of Black communities, to disastrous effect.  The concept was wrong; the results were heinous.