The robbery/murder of a Barnard College freshman student a few weeks ago in Morningside Park near Columbia University hit Mr. Gripes hard. I’m a graduate of Columbia College, who lives a subway ride away; for decades, I’ve participated in all kinds of Columbia functions, i.e., attending football and basketball games; sitting in on university lectures, Class Day and Graduation Day events. Just like many of my classmates, I am a member of the extended Columbia family, and proud of it. The senseless killing of a ‘family’ member was horrific. I’m incensed that it could have occurred.
I blame partially the city politicians for the crime; New York City, as anyone who lives here knows, is not a ‘safe’ place, yet over and over we hear from our leaders that New York ‘is the safest city in the country.’ That assertion, often proclaimed by Mayor de Blasio, was and is irresponsible; any reasonably intelligent New Yorker knows the city is often a dangerous place, especially now with all the homeless and mentally disturbed hassling us on the streets and in the subways. Mr. de Blasio was contending for President -- running his mouth with the manifest lie that the city is the ‘safest’ might have impressed voters in Iowa [although I doubt it] but no New Yorker believes that the city is virtually crime-free for a moment. The Barnard student, new to New York, may have been lulled into a false sense of safety, and that could have contributed to her death.
And here’s something else I’d like my readers to ponder: a few months ago, a law went into effect banning ‘stop and frisk’ actions by the NYC police; the argument was that stop and frisk searches in the hands of some cops were abused, with minorities disproportionally targeted. Of course, there may have been abuses; some cops unaccountable for their activities will certainly take advantage. But, let’s remember that there’s no free lunch in police law enforcement. The police banning of stop and frisk means there are going to be some future crimes committed by young men that could have been thwarted by police action. This is a fact: the Barnard student was stabbed by a 14-year-old, looking to rob someone, and carrying a six-inch knife, at night in a city park, an activity that police on the ground could have prevented. An unspeakable loss.
Iraq Tells Us to Leave….In the immediate aftermath of the Suleiman killing, the Iraq leadership has demanded that the United States, in theory its ally, evacuate American military bases throughout Iraq, and leave immediately. Huh?
That’s what they want us to do? The American response should be obvious: ‘Hasta La Vista, Baby. We’re out of this hellhole. Give us six months and we’ll be completely gone. And we are never coming back EVER.’
What a strange situation: here we have the Iraqis, who certainly can use our assistance to combat terrorist forces in the county, and who are supposed to be our allies, telling us to leave. What the hell’s going on? For one thing, we got rid of your homicidal monster Hussein, didn’t we?
So, let’s take them at their word, and get the hell out as fast as we can. Enough already with the ceaseless bloodbath that is the Middle East: we’ve given up enough American blood, and things aren’t getting any better over there, so let’s end it once and for all. If the nut-job, would-be martyrs who run these countries want to continue with all the killing, and after all the billions of dollars in assistance we’ve poured into Iraq [and the rest of the Middle East], our soldiers should pile on planes and ships and come home quickly.
Oh, by the way, let’s make sure to retrieve and ship home every piece of military hardware, including guns, tanks, computers, hammers, and every nail, everything, that’s over there. Otherwise, as certain as the sun will rise tomorrow in the East, down the road, all that material and armaments left will be blown back to kill us by future enemies, the same countries that claim they are our ‘friends’ at the moment.
Donald Trump never ceases to amaze me: just when I’m convinced he’s reached the absolute bottom in terms of his crudeness and cruelty towards human beings, he always surprises me as to the depth of his meanness and venality. The other day, he posts a doctored photograph of Nancy Pelosi clad in Muslim garb, including an hajji covering on her head. This happened after Ms. Pelosi had the temerity to ask questions regarding the decision to kill Iran’s General Suleiman. Mr. Trump, in his inimitable meathead fashion, was insinuating Ms. Pelosi was backing Iran. What a jerk our President is.
The gesture by Mr. Trump reminded me of a historic event in 1953 featuring Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and a subcommittee hearing he was heading.** Mr. McCarthy’s committee was searching for Communists amidst the federal government in televised proceedings. A couple of months into the hearings, Joe McCarthy accused the opposing Army attorney of harboring a young Communist in his legal firm. The opposing attorney, Joseph Welsh, listened to Mr. McCarthy for a minute or two, as the senator railed against the young man. Then, in beautifully understated, quiet language, Mr. Welsh replied, ‘Let us not assassinate this lad any further, Senator. Have you no sense of decency?’
At that moment, the career of Joseph McCarthy was finished. Public approval vanished, as President Dwight Eisenhower decided after the hearings to abandon Mr. McCarthy. His heavy drinking increased, and he was dead three years later.
Thankfully, Mr. Welsh’s words still reverberate today, almost 70 years later. Readers, I leave you with this: ‘Mr. Trump, have you no sense of decency?’
** ‘Point of Order’, a documentary on the McCarthy-Army hearings, by Emilio de Antonio, 1964, is available on DVD. It’s very good.
Mr. Gripes
By Jim Israel
January 15, 2020
‘You poor, tired huddled masses’…. Next time you take a domestic commercial flight, and suffer the usual rash of indignities – a seat with dimensions more suited for a 9-year-old, corrosive coffee, scraps of food bits fit for chickens, nickel-and-dime fees for everything, delays and cancellations galore, screaming kids, implacable airport attendants who never have any information, an hour-and-a-half on the tarmac – just keep in mind that this collection of humiliations has been in the works for years.
Mr. Gripes naturally asks, ‘How the Hell did this happen?’
Simple answer: years ago, the federal government essentially surrendered its statutory obligations to regulate the aviation industry and protect the flying public. Ever since the Ronald Reagan administration, there’s been an outcry for ‘less regulation’ – get rid of the ‘red tape’, and unshackle business by eliminating unnecessary statutes that stifle capitalism. Regulations are onerous, the politicians claimed. From that moment on, passengers have been royally screwed.
When the government eased up on the gas pedal, and created a more laissez-faire atmosphere for the largest industries, that translated into a surrender of any supervision of the cartels and an abandonment of safeguards for paying customers. In fact, the Federal Aviation Administration, responsible for overseeing the aviation industry, is now packed with members plucked from the very airlines it is supposed to regulate. So, naturally, whatever is good for the industry’s bottom line has become the mandate of the FAA. Profits rule, and the passenger be damned. And it’s been my experience that things are only getting worse.
American Airlines earned $2.8 billion last year. Yet, all the airlines do is whine how threadbare their revenue streams are. What a load of horse manure. They can’t give us another couple of inches in seat room, which, God forbid, might reduce their stock price by a penny or two? Forget it – the greedy corporations will continue to squeeze us, and the FAA will still not lift a finger for the passenger. The agency takes their marching orders from their ex-employers, the airlines. The poor slobs in the back of the plane who must fly? ‘Shut up, you know we only answer to our stockholders – and, oh, by the way, that’ll be $4.00 for that crummy pillow.’
Kill the Messenger, and the Bad News, Too – At this moment in the history of our once-great Republic, Mr. Gripes has come to this dispiriting conclusion: The President of the United States is a crybaby. I’m talking about Mr. Trump: Twenty-four hours a day, Donald Trump is complaining that the diabolical New York Times and Washington Post are trying to destroy him. Not only do these newspapers publish lies [he calls it ‘fake news’], he says, but he’s the victim of a ‘deep state’ treachery, which is out to get him.
Yet the real facts, which the President assiduously avoids as he slanders and humiliates anyone who might criticize him, are actually the converse: Mr. Trump, for years, has delivered nothing but lies. He’s the king of fake news.
After all, the act of lying is at the heart of ‘fake news,’ and that’s the cesspool Mr. Trump swims in gleefully; it’s been his modus operandi long before he was elected President. Remember when he, some time ago, created a fictitious Trump public relations employee, masking his own voice on the phone, [using the pseudonym, ‘John Barron’] as he spoke to media types, while extolling the great virtues of one Donald Trump?; or how about his made-up falsehood claiming Barack Obama was born overseas, and was not an American citizen? A total lie, it turned out, but Mr. Trump sure got a lot of mileage out of that tale. What about the multiple charges regarding his molestation and mistreatment of women? Not me, Mr. Trump insisted, as women en masse came forward with accusations [and continue to]. In virtually every case, Mr. Trump retorted, ‘I never met that woman.’
The denials look foolish when a few days later photographs appear of Mr. Trump, appearing quite happy standing next to the same beautiful women whom he ‘never met’.
And now the President has banned the New York Times and Washington Post from federal agencies. No longer will paid subscriptions of either be permitted in the White House as well.
I repeat: Mr. Trump is a big, big baby. He just can’t take the heat: any story – and I mean any story, no matter how insignificant – that portrays him poorly is immediately attacked by our President. He has no concept that a vigorous, independent press is the bulwark against tyranny in any democracy. Without a ‘free’ press, we’re doomed. If he could get away with it [and who knows one day he may], he’d have the DC police march into the offices of the Washington Post and destroy their presses with axes. The American Constitution is anathema to Donald Trump.
Mr. Gripes loves newspapers, and all he asks is that they provide a fair, factual account of a news event. I insist on that credo. As long as I’m presented with facts, even if an accurate article disagrees with my political beliefs, I’m fine with it. I’m a big boy, and can make up my own mind. The opinion pages in the back of the paper? The newspaper can publish anything it wishes to in that section – I don’t care. In fact, I prefer variety and differences of opinion. As long as the news stories in the front of the paper are factual and accurate.
The Wall Street Journal is a perfect example: Mr. Gripes has read one nut-job, right-wing op-ed article after another in the back of the ‘Journal’. Not a problem. Since its subscribers are often highly educated, highly functioning, and important business types, the Wall Street Journal editors act judiciously where it counts: they know the news content in the front of the paper has to be independent, objective and truthful. Its readers depend on useful and relevant information. Otherwise, its subscribers will bail out quickly from the paper. So, if some idiot writer wants to rant about, say, the ‘dangerous’ Nancy Pelosi in the op-ed section, so be it. That’s what free expression means. Donald Trump doesn’t understand what a free press is all about – he’s clueless.
Mr. Gripes smells a rat… And the offending rodent may be Donald Trump. Right off the bat, I have no proof of what I’m now going to postulate, but my antennae are quivering, and when that happens, down the road, I’m usually right.
The huge swings in the stock market, up 200 one day, down 350 the next, have been occurring repeatedly over the past year or so. And, on most of those turbulent days, they’re set off by a comment or tweet from President Trump – he’s issued an opinion about the state of trade talks with China over tariffs. Will the tariffs be called off, or is it full speed imposing them going forward?
One day, it’s Mr. Trump or one of his subordinates asserting it ‘looks good’ for an agreement. The markets zoom up, ending 200 or 300 points to the positive. Everyone’s feeling fine. The next day or so, Mr. Trump throws cold water on any ‘imminent’ deal possibility, and the markets tank. For God’s sake, what’s going on? The roller coaster ride has been repeated many times.
Let’s look at this scenario a little more closely, starting with some givens:
An American President can affect markets all over the world with virtually any words he utters. That’s the way it’s been, since the end of World War II when the United States became, by far, the most powerful economy on earth.
In particular, President Trump absolutely knows this, and is not shy about wielding his clout to affect markets. After all, a thriving stock market is a lynchpin that Mr. Trump will rely on for a victory next year, and he’s capable of manipulating the stock market very easily.
For us small investors with a little bit of money tied up in the markets, it’s palpitation time amid all the fluctuations. It’s scary at times. For the big boys, though, the huge swings are opportunities to make a lot of money. Ask any trader – they’ll tell you volatility is good for their business.
Another given: the Securities Exchange Commission, the federal agency charged with overseeing the markets and enforcing securities laws as needed, is now loaded with Trump appointees, with a Trump supporter in place as chairman. There’s zero chance the SEC would ever initiate an investigation of anyone close to Trump. As for Trump himself, he’s completely insulated from any criminal probe that might come under the auspices of the SEC.
Third given: President Trump is one greedy human being, who will stop at nothing to make more money, legally or illegally. That’s just how he’s operated all his life. [He learned at the feet of his father] The financial markets, with all the gyrations going on now, become a golden opportunity to grab a great deal of cash, especially if an individual knows beforehand about its direction. And, remember, Trump can create any scenario, true or false, he’d like, regarding the ups and downs of the market.
Ergo, for the reasons I just noted, and with the caveat that I do not have a shred of proof, I think President Trump has secret surrogates [perhaps a lot of them] buying on dips initiated by pessimistic comments the President makes about the tariff negotiations, and selling on the ‘highs’ when another statement is forthcoming, asserting talks are going smoothly, with a truce about to be consummated.
Do any of us really know what’s going on with the ‘talks?’ Of course not. That’s why the situation is perfect for a flim-flam man like the President to take full advantage of. And I suspect he’s doing just that.
Mr. Gripes
By Jim Israel
November 24, 2019
Is It Dementia?…Joe Biden, for sure, has some pressing issues that he is going to have to deal with: in his latest imbroglio, he seemed to have ‘fudged’ the truth regarding an Obama-era ceremony at which he ‘pinned’ a Congressional Medal of Honor on a soldier. I won’t go into specific details, but Mr. Biden either unintentionally exaggerated his part in that event, indicative of a faulty memory, or he deliberately lied to enhance his role in the proceedings.
One thing is clear: the facts of the event as described by Mr. Biden didn’t square up with what actually occurred. What’s particularly troubling for the former vice president is the fumbling over the truth: The former vice president has grappled with exaggeration and misrepresentation before – so naturally one is compelled to ask: is he just another phony politician puffing out his chest, or is it something much more serious, say, his mental acumen?
The media, of course, has jumped all over Mr. Biden, bringing up his earlier missteps; the criticism and analysis have been quite harsh. The subtext hinted at by the media is that perhaps Joe Biden is damaged goods, not fit at his age [74], to fulfill the immense responsibilities as a President, if elected.
If Mr. Biden has a couple more of these incidents in which his truthfulness and his corpus mentis are called into question, he’s a goner, I believe. Biden support will collapse very quickly among Democrat primary voters – they’ve endured for two-and-a-half years of a thoroughly incapacitated President, thank you, and absolutely will not stand for another one. Biden loyalties will quickly shift to another more ‘stable’ candidate.
There’s a much bigger issue on the table than Mr. Biden’s proclivity, on occasion, of altering reality, and the attendant suggestion that he’s no longer working with a full deck, as the saying goes.
Almost lost in the Biden saga is the far larger question of President Trump’s mental capacities. By a factor of 1,000, the Trump issues overwhelm the Biden troubles; his dementia symptoms are absolutely too numerous to ignore. Yet, in that odd, time-honored fashion that the national press must protect the hallowed office of the Presidency at all times, there’s been minimal attention drawn to the strong possibility that Mr. Trump is suffering from some form of dementia.
In my family, in the case of both parents, I’ve observed dementia, and the destructive path of the disease, very closely: regarding my father, one day he was practicing medicine at a very skilled level, and six months later, was unable to even dress himself. An amateur boxing career as a young man very likely caused the dementia 50 years later [mercifully he suffered for only a couple of years, before his death]. Mr. Trump exhibits a lot of the same behaviors that my dad had displayed: incoherence, pervasive memory loss, some sort of focus disorder, confusion, rage, excessive obstinacy, a refusal to take counsel, megalomania, a distorted self-regard, and restlessness.
And Mr. Trump’s particular symptoms -- his rage and incoherence, for instance – appear much more evident now than just a couple of years ago. To this observer, it’s no longer whether he has Alzheimer’s – it sure looks like he in the throes of the disease.
Whether the President indeed suffers from increasing dementia, or not, as some Gripes readers may certainly believe, it could be a very grave problem going forward [especially if he wins a second term]. The country as a whole is going to have to come to grips with the existential issue of a President’s continuing mental decline, and ultimately even a decision on a forced removal from office.
Cognizant of the country’s present political paralysis, I’m not optimistic that we’ll be up to the challenge. Regardless, our democracy may hang in the balance.
Impeachment and Removal? Not So Fast…How about we cool our jets just for a little bit, OK? Donald Trump’s going nowhere. Yes, he may indeed be impeached eventually, but so what? All an impeachment means is that the show moves over to the Senate, which ultimately holds all the cards as far as his removal goes. Besides, with a significant Republican majority in place in the Senate, and the fact that it takes a formidable 67 votes to convict, President Trump will be staying put for a long while.
The Republicans are going to stonewall, that’s a certainty. Their game plan is the same as they implemented in the Mueller investigation: deflect, attack, make a lot of noise, sling mud on everyone, create chaos, and delay, delay, delay. And they’re very good at this. Look at the forthcoming issue of subpoenas: they’ll be issued by the House Democrats, and the Republicans will simply ignore them, asserting the committees are illegitimate and therefore the subpoenas are null and void. And, if a Judge asserts a subpoena is valid, and its target is in contempt of court, who’s going to enforce any penalty? Guess who? None other than the Department of Justice, whose boss, William Barr, is a stone-cold patsy for Mr. Trump. Consequently, there’ll be no enforcement at all, making the threat of a subpoena essentially toothless. No one will be going to jail for contempt.
It looks like only a ‘smoking gun’ will depose Mr. Trump. And that means an ‘implicit’ quid pro quo will not be enough – just like Watergate, evidence to convict the President will have to be quite tangible and substantial – a taped conversation or something in writing would appear to be the most viable and feasible means to actually convict President Trump and throw him out of office. Could that happen? Sure, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. The Republicans are masters at this game.
Quid pro quo! – Mr. Gripes took years of Latin in school, a waste of time I realized later on. Better to have learned to speak, say, French than agonize over the interminable, insufferable orations of Cicero.
There was one aspect, though, of that dead-as-a-doornail language that I did appreciate: those expressions ‘copied’ straight out of Latin and interjected into the English lexicon.
And, lo and behold, currently there’s one recognized by any semi-literate American: ‘Quid pro quo’ , the ‘go-to’ phrase for anyone cognizant of the ongoing impeachment process. I love how it rolls off the lips, and its realpolitik essence. To translate, in American vernacular, it means ‘I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine.’ Whether in good faith or bad, it’s a deal between two parties.
Donald Trump, I surmise, has spent his whole life doing nothing but quid pro quo’s and not necessarily fairly. [Example: vendors work erecting and furnishing his properties [the quid]; he screws them by stiffing them on payments [no quo.] Mr. Trump has lived a transactional life – I would wager he’s done nothing in his life that wasn’t part of a deal.
[I digress for a moment: Here’s one ‘deal’ that I have often pondered: how did he ever graduate from a rigorous academic institution like the Ivy League’s University of Pennsylvania? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he hardly ever opened a book there; his time at school was probably nothing but a series of transactions: term papers were purchased; surrogates attended and were noted as ‘present’ during classes; exam questions were somehow furnished to him beforehand; or, perhaps the largest transaction: a large ‘donation’ to the university from Dad around the time of graduation.]
Politics, as practiced forever, is all about quid pro quo. Any politician who’s successful utilizes the principle….every one of them, even the saintly Barack Obama, who must have been very good at it indeed, winning two Presidential elections. Politics on any level doesn’t work without quid pro quo.
So, as I read that President Trump asserted, when he broached the subject of investigating Joe Biden with the Ukrainian President, dangling the piñata prize of military assistance to that country, he was only making a suggestion, not a quid pro quo demand, I knew he was lying through his teeth. Yes, he didn’t explicitly threaten to withhold that aid, but just look at the outcome: there was no investigation of the Bidens, and ergo the military aid was not forthcoming [until Mr. Trump was forced to relent later.] No Quid, no Quo.
One last point: the nasty quid pro quo’s are non-partisan – both parties roll around in muck like this all the time. Hunter Biden, son of Joe, is paid $50,000 salary ‘working’ for a natural gas conglomerate in Ukraine, and is on the company’s board as well. Could access to Vice President Joe Biden have anything to do with these jobs? Of course. I doubt Hunter knows one damn thing about the gas business, except, maybe, how to use a pump to fill up. Hunter’s largesse was simply an attempt to get close to Daddy Joe’s ear.
Mr. Gripes
By Jim Israel
October 21, 2019
