In the midst of a national disaster Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had to take a shot at the news media when he told Florida’s Voice, “You have national regime media, that they wanted to see Tampa [get hit], because they thought that would be worse for Florida.”

First off the word “they” is almost always vague and all encompassing. It can be specific in the sense of pointing out a certain group. What “they” does, is takes the individuality out of the group and assumes that all of “they” or them think the same. Or, have the same agenda. But a red flag should always be waved when anybody uses the word “they,” particularly in what follows. 

The group identity can be variously based–on skin color, on religion, on ethnic origin. But it is always contrasted with a perceived other against whom the nation is to be defined. Fascist nationalism creates a dangerous “them” to guard against…”

Jason Stanley “How Fascism Works The Politics of Us and Them”

Pronouns are useful little words but they can be dangerous little mines in today’s grammar. For instance Seventeen.com says beware of third person pronouns. “These words carry meaning and impact, and are a crucial marker of one’s identity, especially for nonbinary, gender non-conforming, and transgender folks.” 

Having a vague idea of nonbinary political affairs in Florida, I doubt seriously if that was where DeSantis was going with “they.” According to Newsweek, DeSantis continued by professing his deeper understanding of the national media, and not their sexual identification, by saying, “That’s how these (again they) people think. I mean, they don’t care about the people of this state. They don’t care about the people of this community. They want to use storms and destruction from storms as a way to advance their agenda.”

This says a lot, particularly about DeSantis and his perception of a national news media agenda concerning an impending national disaster. What is interesting is how DeSantis takes the national media, as “they,” a group, which is really a mass media conglomeration of individual news organizations. He then boils them down into a singular group with a single agenda, sort of groupthink.

Groupthink refers to the tendency for certain types of groups to reach decisions that are extreme and which tend to be unwise or unrealistic. Groupthink occurs when individuals in cohesive groups fail to consider alternative perspectives because they are motivated to reach a consensus which typically results in making less than desirable decisions.

By Derek Schaedig, SimplyPsychology.org published March 25, 2022

DeSantis is making the assumption that the “national regime media” is a monolithic block. It could be argued, within any industry, news gathers included, that there are best business practices to be followed. Individual political ideology may be different, though. Let’s get realistic newspapers and politicians are symbiotic creatures that always have had an agenda. From the very beginning the two have swam in the same ink barrel. Some newspapers may have been started to push a particular political agenda, politician or business. One of the first real political papers with an agenda was the Gazette of the United States. Talk about regime media. The name drips with all inclusiveness and one-sidedness. John Fenno founded the Alexander Hamilton backed-paper in April of 1789 with a motto: “he that is not for us, is against us.” 

Of course the main target of this gazette was Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic Republican Party, which clashed with the Hamilton backed Federalists–on the agenda for the new country. As the political animosity between Hamilton and Jefferson grew, Jefferson felt the need to respond in like. He oversaw the founding of a rival paper in October of 1791. And not to be outdone he named it The National Gazette.

Before long, Jefferson’s affair with, and fathering children, with Sally Hemings was exposed. Hamilton’s political-career ending affair with Maria Reynolds came under public scrutiny, too.  The whole Hamilton/Jefferson print war is an agenda onto itself.

Caught in the cross hairs of these agendas was the thin-skinned President John Adams. Adams found himself in clashing foreign affairs agendas between France and Britain, which ended up with the United States in a Quasi War with France. This time there was no Washington around to keep America out of the foreign fray and tamp down domestic differences.

Federalist took a pro British position while the Democratic Republicans backed France. In fact, Hamilton wrote in the Gazette of the United States that Jeffersonians were “more ‘Frenchman than American’ and claimed that they were prepared ‘to immolate the independence and welfare of their country at the shrine of France.’” Today we hear the same sort of claims concerning the U.S. being rolled over with socialism, fascism, critical race theory and wokeism.

But a lot has happened since those founding days. The evening news paper is a thing of the past and many local newspapers have folded–an agenda just to stay in business. The press, like a lot of industries, has gone from private ownership to corporate control through the decades. Just look at the airline industry. It has gone through all sorts of mergers. American Airlines has merged with Eastern Airlines, Trans World Airlines and US Airways–which operated Trump Shuttle. Banking and investments companies have gone through several iterations of bankruptcies and mergers to where the corner bank has had multiple signs coming down and going up. Take the recent 2008 real estate meltdown, I am sure most every real estate, construction and finance company prior to the bubble bursting had an agenda: cash in now while the market is hot. Some were able to get in and get out. Others, not so quick, it has given us the economic concept of “too big to fail.” 

The news gathering industry, like all other businesses, is not immune from economic downturns, corporate buyouts and consolidations. Take the media company Comcast for instance. According to Investopidia, Comcast is a $200 billion dollar company that owns NBC and “controls the news media outlets NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, and UK’s Sky News.”

Then there is News Corp, a $10 billion market company which includes famous brands such as “The Times, Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, The Sun, Herald Sun, and HarperCollins Publishers. News Corp formerly owned FOX News properties before they were spun off.” 

The list goes on with Disney owning ABC; Paramount owning CBS; and IAC/Interactive Corp which owns The Daily Beast. IAC/Interactive Corp owns “online news and information providers such as People Magazine, The Balance, Entertainment Weekly, Better Homes & Gardens, Food + Wine,” –and Investopdia.

And then there are companies, like Sinclair Broadcasting which operates in multiple markets. As of December 31, 2019 Sinclair “operated and/or provided services to 191 stations in 89 markets.”

Governor DeSantis should be a little more specific in “they.” If the national regime media has an agenda against Florida and DeSantis, it has to be a corporate agenda. And that agenda, like all businesses, is to make a profit. Take Air America, the progressive talk radio network launched in March of 2004. Its agenda was to counter conservative talking heads like Rush Limbaugh. It went through several bouts of economic upheaval before it finally crashed and burned. What seemed as a winning format (agenda) was a financial bust, going off the air in January of 2010. An agenda is great but if there is no bucks there is no agenda.

If anything can be true about “they” or “them” it can be said about politicians. “They,” politicians, all have an agenda. And if it is one thing they know, it is how easily they can spread their agenda through the “national regime media.” Framed in an “us versus them agenda” it can merge right into any event or news cycle. Best of all, it’s the “free” press. There is no economic cost to spouting off an agenda. Just a political cost.

https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/021815/worlds-top-ten-news-companies-nws-gci-trco-nyt.aspx

Gazette of the United States and Daily Evening Advertiser (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1794-1795 | Library of Congress

https://nypost.com/2020/07/03/alexander-hamilton-founded-americas-oldest-daily-newspaper/

https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/alien-and-sedition-acts

By Delbert Tran. Yale Law School, Media Freedom Access Clinic

_{by Beau Jukka Reality News Network International}

Russia has denied allegations from the US State Department that they have covertly spent more than $300 million influencing United States elections since 2014. The Russian denial was issued from an Iranian source with close connections to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The Iranian source said that there is no truth that Russia is trying to influence infidels, politicians, government officials or even Saudi-backed golf course moguls in an effort to destabilize Western democracies and the PGA Tour. He said Southern governors need little urging in undermining elections and are capable of doing it with very little foreign aid. He did say that he had it on good authority from information garnered from recently leaked (semi)classified US government documents that Russia was using the money to assist Special Counsel John Durham’s dying FBI Russian hoax investigation. Durham’s investigation is looking into the FBI and “Deep State” efforts to harass, subvert and upend conservative actions to make America great again, and to ensure fair elections from clandestine but legal foreign input and influence.

An oligarch, who wished to remain anonymous because of his close ties to Putin was asked about Russian meddling in and funding US elections. Speaking from the comfort of his Gulfstream G650 jet parked at Palm Beach International Airport, he said that the Soviet Union has not funded Communist candidates or any candidates in foreign elections since the closing of the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) during the De-Stalinization era under Nikita Khrushchev. When asked if such funding could have come from the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance he said, “No, I doubt it. Maybe Gus Hall a couple of times. We did fund a Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013 that had promising results. Besides, there are many Russian banks more than capable of funding foreign aid projects in America than a defunct inept Soviet era organization.”

When asked about Russian efforts to hack into political party computers to disrupt elections he said the use of “intense advanced technical information gathering is more of an economic investment than disruption. There is no such thing as a free election.” He said, “It is similar to no free lunch. You get what you pay for and we did not pay for Joe Biden. Therefore there was no Russian interference.”

He vehemently denied any close ties to any former presidents. And he specifically pointed out that reports of his Fincantieri yacht being boarded and seized by FBI agents while docked at the Town of Palm Beach Marina because it was believed to be a floating archive for pilfered US government documents is totally fake news. He added any such documents would be declassified. Although he has not met Hunter Biden, he did say he once was at a party with Hunter Biden in Kiev. At first he thought he was a Russian saying, “Man, that guy can drink. If he is not careful somebody is going to spike his Vodka with polonium-210.”

During the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit meeting in Uzbekistan this month, Vladimir Putin refused to comment on what he called the wildly absurd accusations that the Russian government was actively involved in American or European elections. Individual Russians are free to spend their money and computer time any way they choose. If they wish to invest in overseas elections there is no Russian law to stop them. He did say that Russia would resist all forms of Clinton Fascism and extreme Nazism where ever it existed and that that NATO represented the war mongering spirit of Western Democracies that threatens the legitimate rule of legitimate autocratic rule throughout the world.

Xi Jinping, agreed saying that China would cut the head off of American hegemony and Japanese aggression in their efforts to recreate the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. This aggression in the Pacific Rim is just a continuation of Japan’s efforts prior to World War II control Asian resources. It is now under the domination of the imperialistic stooge Joe Biden and his Taiwanese lackeys.

Both leaders expressed regrets that former President Donald Trump could not join them in their plans to create economic stability that could not only make America great again but could be the backbone of peace and progress around the world. A trimunative for the future is how one spokesman for Xi described the possibilities.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-spent-300-million-to-influence-world-politics-us-state-department-says/

https://www.csmonitor.com/Daily/2022/20220920?cmpid=ema:bundle:20220920:1150071:toc&sfmc_sub=171038101#1150071

https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/15/russia-talks-a-great-risk-for-china-as-xi-and-putin-meet-in-samarkand

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/09/15/xi-putin-meeting-russia-china-relations-ukraine-war/

The news the last couple of months of what I am going to call “The Trump Papers” is moving from reality TV to a comedy show being playing out in the News and Social Media. The dilemma is the News is playing it out as a crime story. This is what makes it so confusing. It is a political/dramatic comedy that falls into being a farce at times. The News and Social Media should turn it over to Warner Bros, the Coen Brothers or Netflix as an episodic show that streams weekly.

The problem is there needs to be a comic hero. I am not sure in this political dramedy, who the comic hero is. A comic hero is a prerequisite for a dramatic comedy. The obvious choice is Donald Trump. However, I do not see him experiencing any sort of change. A catharsis in character is not in his disposition to make current matters better, a condition required in a dramedy. It can’t be Joe Biden–there is just no drama there and very little humor. Robert De Niro already did War with Grandpa.

Although I have never been involved in any sort of theatrical production–I did see Oliver! at a community theater–I am going to take a stab at pitching a series. It is a series that writes itself but with a team of good writers and literary license this could be a Game of Thrones without dragons. The new show begins at the end of January, the last days of the Trump Administration. Boxed up documents are being loaded up for Trump’s Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago. For dramatic effect the first episode, A Box Full of Docs, opens with boxes being carted out the back door of the White House onto a UHaul under the watchful eyes of two Russians guards. Meanwhile, in the Rose Garden, staffers are burning documents in 50 gallon drums, as if the Red Army was descending on gates of Berlin in 1945. The fire lights up the night sending embers out over the National Mall and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Insided, others are flushing documents down toilets as quickly as they can unclog the drains. The episode ends with the credits rolling over water swirling down the drain.

Episode Two follows the activities of the National Archives and Records Administration. The NARA is tipped off to 15 missing boxes stashed in the basement of Mar-a-Lago. A possible mole in the Trump Organization? (A teaser for future episodes.) J.K. Simmons plays the role of the chief of the NARA, a role similar to the one he played in the Coen Brothers’ movie Burn After Reading. His lead inspector on the case is Tom Hanks channeling Detective Columbo. When given the assignment to check out the basement of Mar-a-Lago he tells the chief he is not sure there is a basement. Most houses in South Florida do not have basements because of a high water table. Plus Mar-a-Lago sits between the Lake Worth Lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean. Digging deep is not really an option. But for theatrical effect, picture a damp dungeon with wet-glazed walls oozing with the moldy smell of damp underwear. A place where heretics were tortured during the Inquisition.

The dedicated men and women of the NARA are not Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible or Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry. But they are just as tenacious when it comes to government documents. They may have the appearances of mild mannered librarians and archivists but deep down they are like terriers, Jack Russells or Rat Terriers. Small but fierce. They will track down, and go underground if need be to hunt down vermin. Soon, they have their nose on Trump’s stashed cache of documents. Episode Three is, as Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson: The Game is Afoot.

By Episode Four however, the NARA terriers are getting frisky. They send Detective Columbo to Florida in Fishing for the Great White. Columbo knocks on the gilded gates of Mar-a-Lago and is stiff-armed by security guards who hustle him from one supervisor to another. But the terrier he is, despite being told several times to vacate the premises, is undaunted. Columbo is telling them, “I know. That’s what the other three guards told me, but I’d like to look around.”

Finally, Trump, played by John Malkovich, comes down. He gives Columbo a brief tour of the grounds as they make their way to the room where the documents are stored. The light flicks on and cockroaches race around the room like kids playing musical chairs. A rat scurries into crevice to god knows where. Columbo inspects the room.

When they are finished Trump escorts Columbo to the Gate and the conversation turns away from the documents to the estate itself. “This is a lovely place my wife would love to spend a day at that spa I saw.” To which Trump replies, “That is no problem. It is $2,000 a night. But for you detective I’ll wave the $200,000 initiation fee and the $15,000 annual dues.” Columbo stops and rubs his forehead. “Whew. And I thought the $260 we spent at the Grand Hotel Ocean City using Bookings. com last year was expensive. With what you charge here I think you can afford a dehumidifier for the storage room. Oh, and a couple boxes of Roach Motels. And another thing. I couldn’t help but notice those boxes are marked Top Secret.”

But Trump is not your ordinary suspect. His disposition is like a Great White needing a root canal. So prying the boxes away from him is like taking a pair of pliers to a highly agitated Carcharodon Carcharias–Carcharodon from the Greek word karcharos which means sharp, and odous which means tooth. And like in the movie Jaws, the NARA needs a bigger boat.

The NARA calls for the big dogs to get off the front porch and help in the hunt. Enter the Justice Department and Episode Five: “Got a tip they’re gonna kick the door in again…But if you got a warrant, I guess you’re gonna come in.” The dazed and somewhat confused looking Attorney General, Merrick Garland played by David Strathairn (League of the Own, We are Marsharshall) sends in the FBI. Under the command of Denzel Washington. Agents force their way through the front gate while the Rock leads a group of agents landing by helicopter on the croquet court. To cut off any possible removal of the documents via the Lake Worth Lagoon, Chris Pratt storms ashore in Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats with more agents.

Finally, the NARA gets the boxes. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the stressed-out overworked archivist in charge of the team going through the boxes. The Justice Department is breathing down her neck. This is when the subpoenas started flying around like blood sucking mosquitoes on a hot, humid Florida night. News organizations the MAGA universe want to know what is in those boxes. Rumors have it that there is definitive proof that the Moon landings were faked and that aliens abducted Jimmy Hoffa.

Episode 6: The Feeding Frenzy. There is blood in the water and the sharks begin to circle. Soon the water is a froth. Christopher Lloyd makes a brief appearance as the totally befuddled Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. At a press conference with Senator Ron Johnson, played by Chevy Chase they describe how the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was similar to the US Navy Seal Team 6 assault on Bin Laden’s Pakistani compound. All that was lacking where the stealth, black-painted Blackhawk helicopters.

The media chimes in. Pundits and experts are pouring out of cars like clowns to give their expert opinons at FOX News, MSNBC and CNN. Steve Carell as Hannity forcefully proclaims the President has a legal right to the documents–as well as all of NASA’s electronic communications with Aliens outside our galaxy. Amy Schumer is the frustrated and unbelieving Lora Ingram on how stupid the President’s lawyers are. Did they go to the same law school as Saul Goodman? Jack Black is the unbelieving confused Tucker Carlson expressing the belief that these documents could be anything, maybe documents from 1917 declassified 10 years ago. Bill Burr, goes on a Morning Joe rant about the lies–how many? A dozen already. But tune in because the count is going up and so are the ratings.

Because this is a TV show we have literary license to skew the story line a bit. The season’s finale is Tina Fey totally immersed portraying Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. She interviews Lewis Black, Bill O’Reilly, who says that Trump needs the documents for a new book. Together, with the former president, they are writing a book: Killing NATO. The interview quickly turns sour. O’Reilly has had enough of Terry’s badgering questions and lunges for her. Mike Tyson, the show’s floor manager, steps in to restrain the enraged O’Reilly.

Season Two: Is Forty-Five being fitted for an orange jumpsuit or does the defunded FBI fall under the control of the Fifth Service, Russia’s FSB? Stay tuned to the never ending Trump Saga. The show that writes itself and cannot be canceled.

Meanwhile, from the Arconia in New York, Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez are broadcasting their new podcast: Only Documents in the Basement.

“Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”

Walter Sobchak from the movie “The Big Lebowski“

I think anytime anyone starts to use the words Nazis and Hitler as some sort of reference point in any situation they should stop. Disengage mouth. Whatever you where about to say, make as some sort of observation or association to, compare and contrast to, or make a general opinion, or bloviate on about the Naizs and Hitler it should be swallowed and properly evacuated from your mind and body. Do not regurgitate or cogitate on it or even think about mentioning it because it is going to get you in trouble. Particularly, if you are about to make some sort of comparison and contrasting about Nazis to the present day. It will never work. There tenets or ethos do not fit anything. Nazis do not have a place in the modern world any more than a buggy whip has a use in rush hour traffic.

There is this huge fascination with Hitler and Nazis. Walter Sobchak is probably right that the Nazis had an ethos. American Heritage Dictionary says that an ethos is “the disposition, character, or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person, people, culture, or movement.” By that definition Hitler and his fellow fascists have created continual character-cultural upheaval in historical interpretation.

It is always perplexing, but not surprising, how easily people fall into the Nazi abyss. Numerous politicians and celebrities have jumped into this historical black hole. It is a place where intellect and understanding go to die. That is as far as I am going to go in my Nazi comparing and contrasting. It is way too easy to get sucked into the void. And there never is a good explanation as to why you decided to go there. In most cases it ends up as half-witted apology for being historically challenged and somewhat ignorant.

A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying.

Because no light can get out, people can’t see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars.

NASA.com

We are fortunate not to have to deal with black holes at this time in our human existence. It is, unfortunate however, that we still have to deal with Nazi ideology and its ability to squeeze intelligence into a tiny space. A good example is former President Trump’s take on Hitler and his relations with his officers. In their book, The Divider, published online by The New Yorker, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser recount how, Trump brought up a comparison to Hitler and his generals. According to The New York Times, “The excerpt depicts Mr. Trump as deeply frustrated by his top military officials, whom he saw as insufficiently loyal or obedient to him.”

The Times of Israel reported that the “Former US president Donald Trump clashed repeatedly with his generals over his desire to hold a huge military parade in Washington, DC, lamenting that they weren’t showing the same devotion that he claimed Hitler enjoyed.”

“I swear to God this holy oath
that I shall render unconditional obedience
to the Leader of the German Reich and people,
Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces,
and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared
to give my life for this oath.”

Wehrmacht Oath of Loyalty to Adolf Hitler

Trump was after a Fourth of July grand spectacle on the lines of Roman Triumph that would make France’s Bastille Day look like a Little League opening-day parade. According to excerpts, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Paul Selva suggested it was not such a good idea to have a grand military review: “it’s what dictators do.”

According to The Israel Times, “Trump grew “frustrated.” He felt “the generals were not exhibiting blind loyalty to him.” He asked his Chief of Staff, retired Marine Corps general John Kelly: You fucking generals why can’t you be like the German generals?” A reference to Hitler’s Wehrmacht generals of World War II.

Trump should have stopped his comparison and stepped back from the abyss. It was too late. The Nazi black hole was now sucking all of the light, intelligence out of the room, and in particularly Trump’s brain. Nobody is immune. It does not matter if you are an Ivy League graduate or a plumber’s helper, there is no vaccine for this sort of absurdity. Kelly’s response reveals just how little Trump knew about the Nazis when, Kelly told Trump, “You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?”

This sort of imbecility is not constrained to one party or even one continent. Politicians from both parties have said stupid stuff interpreting current events and then comparing them with Nazi ethos and imagery. Politicians have compared border detention facilities to concentration camps, vaccines to the identifying yellow star worn by German Jews. Others have said “while I don’t agree with Hitler, you have to admit what he accomplished in his lifetime is impressive.” There is so much wrong with that statement I cannot begin to comment except: the black hole. One Tennessee state politician saw Hitler as a rags to riches success story of true inspiration. Hitler, rising from homelessness to greatness. The brainless politician did not stop there but continued on saying that living on the street “it’s not a dead end.” That homeless people can draw inspiration from the life-and-times of an Austrian vagabond. “They can come out of these homeless camps and have a productive life.” I am not sure how productive Hitler’s life was but then I guess it is how you view a productive life and “impressive” accomplishments.

And then there are people who have handlers like the British monarchy. For instance in 2005 The Sun reported, along with a photo, that Prince Harry was at a party dressed in a Nazi “uniform… under the headline ‘Harry the Nazi.'”

“The Duke was later photographed wearing the uniform at a party causing public outrage, according to royal biographer Robert Lacey.” You think?

“Many observers, however, missed the point: obviously the 20-year-old Harry wasn’t really a neo-Nazi, as one Labour MP alleged….The lad was naughty, not a Nazi.” There is no point to be made. Stupid is a better description. I do not think it was gravity that squeezed the gray matter between his ears to a point of “what was I thinking?” He wasn’t. And I do not think anybody, even the Brits, considers the House of Windsor a citadel of intellect.

What people tend to forget is the death struggle taking place between Britain and the Nazis in World War II. Winston Churchill spurred on the his country telling them that they would fight on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields, streets and hills:. To paraphrase Churchill we shall never surrender…into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule.

There really is no comparison or contrasting National Socialism ethos. It’s a warped understanding of Social Darwinism: racial superiority, ethnic cleansing and biologically improving the human race with selective beliefs on human existence. It has a complete contempt for democratic principles based on the rule of law.

National Socialism and Hitler stand alone in history. And, yes, they need to be studied and understood not compared to. Unless it is to Stalinism.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-trump-demanded-his-generals-be-loyal-like-german-generals-were-to-hitler/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/inside-the-war-between-trump-and-his-generals

Whenever a big issue comes before The Supreme Court, the phrase “original intent” gets smacked around like an air hockey puck in an arcade. I am always perplexed as to what that actually means. There were 70 men appointed to revise the Articles of Confederation in 1787. Of those 70, 55 really showed up–most of the time– and of the 55 only 39 actually signed onto the new Constitution. Of the 55, none were whisked into the future or clairvoyant enough to say, “what a minute guys I think we may have to rethink this privacy issue. And while we are at it we might want to rethink the gun thing.”

My guess is we would be lucky if most Americans could name more than five or six men from 12 states that gathered to amend the Articles of Confederation for a new Constitution. I would guess that most Americans would be able to name James Madison. He is a no brainer. Most of us learned in history class he was the father of the Constitution. Then there was the 81 year-old Ben Franklin. Most people probably associate him with flying a kite in a lightning storm but he was there. George Washington was the president of the convention as was one of his surrogate sons, Alexander Hamilton.

After that I would say most Americans are going to start guessing. If you were to guess two of the more prominent men of the times: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams you would be wrong. Jefferson was ambassador to France and Adams was in England. Patrick Henry of “give me liberty or give me death” fame was a no show. He stayed in Virginia, saying he smelled a rat.

For those that really paid attention in their history classes they might be able come up with Roger Sherman or William Patterson. Both of these men proposed plans to counter Madison and George Mason’s idea on representation called the Virginia Plan. Sherman from Connecticut, proposed the bicameral compromise we see today in Congress. According to the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Library Services Sherman’s compromise “prevented a stalemate between states during the creation of the United States Constitution.” The stalemate was between the more populous state and the less populated states on how to determine representation in the new Congress. In the unicameral Congress of the Articles of Confederation each state had one vote. Interestingly today, people are questioning how two states like North and South Dakota have four Senators while California has just two. Go ask Roger Sherman. It was his idea.

But what do we really about the other members of the convention. What was the intent of William Few of Georgia or Luther Martin of Maryland? Few signed off on the Constitution while Martin left Philadelphia and went back to Baltimore distressed with the proposed governments powers over “states’ rights.” Several other delegates left over the same concerns. Others because there was no bill of rights.

A shallow dive into the internet on the Constitution will lead us to the premise that there were plenty of rats in the walls–and disagreements from the beginning, particularly how to determine representation in the Congress. It took a long hot summer but those who roughed it out came up with a bunch of compromises some call “original intent.”

One thing the Framers could agree upon was the financial shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation. Government spending and revenues is an issue for any government and the states struggled individually and collectively to fund a central government. Plus, private business and commercial transactions suffered under 13 different interests, particularly those commercial dealings between states and foreign trade. The states didn’t need an Articles of Confederation upgrade 2.0. What was needed was a complete new application. Basically, the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution was to come up with workable form of government that they all could agree on–something that we lack today–to replace a cumbersome confederation. It would be safe to say that not all of them got all of what they wanted. Hence, compromise all the way up and down the process.

What is interesting about “original intent” is that it took less than 20 years after the Constitution was approved before men like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson separated the country into factions–or what we would call political parties. George Washington was not even in his grave before these two, and their followers, began feuding over original intent of the Constitution, and what the new government was to be. Hamilton wanted a bank and Jefferson wanted to buy the Louisiana Territory from France. Neither desire was a power expressly delineated in the 4,543 word Constitution. Both used original intent to get what they wanted.

We can surmise that the framers intended the Congress to be the real seat of power in the new government. The first Article in the Constitution deals with the legislature–Congress. Afterall it was the King’s unchecked executive power that got them all up in arms in 1776. And remember, The Articles of Confederation was a government that had no executive authority (Article II of the Constitution).

The one place that original intent gets thrown around the most concerns Supreme Court decisions, and rightly so. Take the recent overturning of Roe v Wade and repealing of a half century old the New York gun control law. The Framers did not put a whole lot of intent into Article III (the Judicial Branch) except to say “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”

Although the Constitution provided important details for the legislative and executive branches, it did not flesh out the judicial branch of the new national government. For example, no one knew whether there would be any federal courts other than the “one Supreme Court” mandated by the Constitution, or how many judges would sit on the Supreme Court, or what sorts of jurisdiction any lower federal court might have. So, one of the First Congress’s first and most important duties was to establish the federal judiciary.

Encyclopedia.Com

Article III is about 500 or so words. When it came to dealing with the courts, the Framers either took a knee or punted the ball to the future Congress. In 1789 Congress approved the Bill of Rights and passed the Judiciary Act of 1789. It created the position of Attorney General and the beginnings of a court structure. From the time the first Congress met, there have been at least 10 Judiciary Acts passed and one in 1802 which repealed some provisions of the act passed in 1801.

The Judiciary Act of 1801 makes Senator Mitch McConnell’s yo-yo approval of justices during an election year look minor league. It was a last gasp grasp to hold onto judicial power. The Federalists could see which way the power was flowing on the Potomac. Thomas Jefferson’s presidential victory over John Adams was the beginning of the end of the Federalist Party. However, in their dying days, just before Jefferson was sworn in, they passed an act that was referred to as the Midnight Judges’ Act. It reduced the number of Supreme Court justices from six to five. It also increased the number of federal judgeships to 16, all filled by Federalists. Original intent or power politics?

Currently there is a proposal in Congress that would expand the Supreme Court from nine judges to 13. So what is “original intent” but the ever shifting political winds. In this case the political winds coming from the Senate in deciding when to approve Supreme Court justices to control the political aims of a particular party. Is this advice and consent?

It becomes difficult to determine what the Framers intended. The Constitution is a broadly written document. For instance Article II, Sec. 2 gives the president power to appoint government officials, like judges with “the advice and consent of the Senate.” That’s it. The Second Amendment is another example of broad reading with the first phrase of “a well regulated Militia” getting read out of the equation. Modern warfare, like so many other aspects of our lives today, has changed drastically since 1700 that men forming up with arms on the town’s Common Green is as anachronistic as a Knight of the realm defending a damsel in distress. Under the auspices of the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms” original protects a 17 year-old boy to cross state lines with an automatic weapon to participate in a civil disturbance. A far cry from those who mustered on Lexington to meet the British in 1776.

Which brings us to the Fourth Amendment which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…” Let’s keep this context of the time. The Constitution was written in the time of hand press printing machines. It was not until 1843 when newspapers could print out a million pages using the steam-powered rotary press. We now have satellite technology, digital mail and instant electronic communications. We have witnessed the extinction of the evening newspaper; the disappearance of local newspapers and the slow disintegration of the Postal Service. These are 19th, 20th and 21st Century difficulties, events and advancements unforseen by the 18th Century Framers.

“All printing was still done on hand presses, the output of which remained 200-250 copies per hour, a rate essentially unchanged since the invention of printing in the second half of the 15th century.”

HistoryofInformation.com

The genius in the Framers’ original intent were the compromises, being specific enough to establish a workable government but yet vague enough to allow Hamilton to establish the Bank of United States and for Jefferson to double the size of the United States and kick off Manifest Destiny. What makes the Constitution one of the greatest documents written is its flexibility to adapt to the times the Framers could not have intended or foreseen.

https://www.jud.ct.gov/lawlib/History/Sherman.htm

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11887&context=journal_articles

Click to access R45129.pdf

There is something fundamentally wrong in this country when a school, or a place of worship, a hospital, or a grocery store becomes the hill to die on. These are not the places in which we should make our last stand as if we were manning the parapets of the Alamo. The children in the Uvalde, Texas elementary school did not volunteer to be on the front lines of a mass shooting. 

There is something fundamentally wrong when we even think about hardening schools and other places to protect ourselves from assaults that should never happen. It seems as if our right to assemble is being infringed upon by the a belief in a right to bear arms anywhere one please. 

Our government is based upon a social contract between the people and its government. Congress is failing to uphold its end of our social contract. Its do nothing attitude only exacerbates the situation. 

In order to protect ourselves and our property, we may not know it but we agree to a social contract. It is not the sort of contract one would sign in a business deal or for a home mortgage loan. And probably for the most part, this contract can be as fuzzy as the terms and conditions every time we click agree to download an app—we have a vague idea of what we are agreeing to, despite it being written down.

A social contract is something handed down. As long as humans have huddled together going as far back as hunters and gatherers; or associated in more formal settings in villages. We agree to some sort of social structure that holds the community, and eventually a country together. At first it was understood. Later it was a formally written social contract. 

Our Declaration Of Independence is based on the Enlightenment reasoning of a social contract between, in this case, a king and his colonies. The Declaration of Independence presents many ideas from the Enlightenment, particularly the concept that the founding principle of a government shall be to effect the “safety and happiness” of the people. And the people, have a natural right to life, liberty and property.

For those that have forgotten their middle school civics, a social contract is pact between the government and the governed. It is a concept developed from Enlightenment thinkers. The individual gives up some of their personal freedoms to the government so that the government can protect and maintain social order. This concept, when you think about it, was contentious and dubious to those in power. Look at how King George the III balked at being told how to run his empire, particularly by a bunch of upstart colonials. 

It ancient times it was probably very hard to establish an equitable social contract when pharaohs were considered gods; and kings, who may not have been gods, were authorized to rule in a belief of some sort heavenly “divine right” of kings. Crossing the king, after all, could lead to earthly vengeance, which was nothing compared to eternal damnation from a god and a king. A lethal combination in the hands of a tyrant.

The establishing of some sort of rule of law began around 1750 BCE. Babylonian King Hammurabi chiseled 282 laws into a stele column known as Hammurabi’s code. The code began to establish a rule of law over business, family, property and commercial activities. The dos and don’ts of the civilized man were starting to be cast in stone. The Old Testament tells of Moses coming down Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments binding the Israelites to a religious/social code. 

Around 450 BCE the Romans would codify the beginnings of Western law with the Twelve Tables. According to World History Encyclopedia “the Twelve Tables was a first step which would allow the protection of the rights of all citizens and permit wrongs to be redressed through precisely-worded written laws known to everybody.” 

At times it appears as if our social contract is vague with ever changing attitudes and opinions shifting like the sands of a desert. These brings new meaning to old beliefs.  What is unique about our social contract is that it can be examined with reason forcing us to critically evaluate simple phrases and beliefs like: “separate but equal.” It is also flexible enough to move with the times and can be amended for those times.

For example, in June of 1215, in the midst of a civil war, English barons wanted the king to shift his attitudes in respect to certain rights and privileges the barons felt needed addressing. Without knowing it these barons expanded the concept of a social contract. The barons, tired of King John’s divine rule, forced him to accept the idea that fealty needs to run both ways. King John signed the Articles of the Barons later known as the Magna Carta. 

According to history.com, “Of its 63 clauses, many concerned the various property rights of barons and other powerful citizens, suggesting the limited intentions of the framers. The benefits of the charter were for centuries reserved for only the elite classes, while the majority of English citizens still lacked a voice in government.” For the “lower classes” of English society the concept was most of us are so far “under the law” it does not even apply to us. Pity the poor farmer who killed a baron’s stag for dinner. 

Beginning in the 1600s a period of  Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, an era of reason took hold in Western Europe. Old beliefs like the solar system revolving around the earth were spiked through observation, moving thinkers of the time away from religious and Medieval mysticism. From this reasoning came a belief that man had natural rights that could not be taken from him. This reasoning developed new ideas on economics that helped to stimulate trade and industry. It birthed new ideas on the relationship between the governed and those doing the governing.

History.com says,  “There was no single, unified Enlightenment. Instead, it is possible to speak of the French Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment and the English, German, Swiss or American Enlightenment. Individual Enlightenment thinkers often had very different approaches. John Locke differed from David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau from Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson from Fredrick the Great. Their differences and disagreements, though, emerged out of the common Enlightenment themes of rational questioning and belief in progress through dialogue.” 

Today we lack that type of dialogue where rational reasoned thought can create an environment of accomplishment. Instead, we look at winning and losing as the only acceptable dialogue. And then, we still dispute the results. Fox News commentators spew their comments and opinions out during the day to be taken up later on by late night talk show hosts, who then roast these comments over the open pit of comedy. This is not reasoned dialogue. It does not promote “the general welfare or secures the blessings of liberty to ourselves” or anybody else. 

Politicians and pundits from the left and the right throw out all sorts of reasons —and conspiracies theories, modern mysticism—for the cause of what is going on in our governments, communities and generally our day-to-day lives. Social Media then reenforces and puts everything on hyperdrive. These opinions and jokes become facts. Most of these opinions are unsubstantiated beliefs and go beyond jokes to the ridiculous. Some pontificate and dream about the way things use to be (but never really were).  And how they should be now. These opinionated misconceptions have shaken the social contract that holds our country together. 

Our social contract is our Constitution. It established a system of government that enacts laws and enables that government to operate with the consent of the people. But as of late we have too many elected officials, urged on by the lunatic fringe, reevaluating how to use the Constitution to twist what the social contract means to their specific beliefs. It is about winning and owning the other side that reenforce their beliefs and what our social contract means. Winning allows them to control who should be judges and how election results are counted. Our social contract is not a belief to the victors go the spoils.

When is reasonable behavior, logical and justifiable for an 18 year-old boy to cross state lines with an assault weapon to confront demonstrators. We get bogged down in what one or two clauses in an Amendment. We pull it, play with it and stretch it around like a ball of Silly Putty as to what we want it to mean. We completely disregard the Preamble of the Constitution, our country’s mission statement. 

 …establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,…

Preamble to the Constitution

The recent mass shootings is probably the most obvious breach in the social contract. Today people cannot go out in public without the possibility of being in the middle of a shoot out that makes the O.K. Corral gun fight look like a tea party. The social contract works best when a majority of the people agree to the contract and the government responds to that agreement. 

To often the contract is tacitly understood. But in reality we know what is right and what to expect.  This is a mark of civilized country when people have a basic understanding of what is right for the majority. When we refuse to surrender a small portion of our individual freedoms for the greater good, and believe it is more important of have political victory instead of reasoned thought we subvert the concepts espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution. When we feel that “the right to bear arms”—assault weapons— is a Constitutional and natural right, and non-negotiable we refuse to look at the greater good of “promoting the general welfare” of our nation, and the social contract that allows our government to ensure that welfare. Nothing is cast in stone.

Our Constitution’s Second Amendment “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” was penned more than 230 years ago. A time before metallic cartridges and breech loading rifles let alone machine guns and assault rifles. Killing 20 people with a muzzle loading rifle took the work of more than one man. An 18th Century musket cold be reloaded in about 15 seconds. A trained soldier could accomplish the task in five-to-eight seconds. This was the reality of constitutional original intent.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Second Amendment

Logic and reason would tell us that individuals do not need assault weapons for security any more than one would need a flamethrower or Claymore mines to protect their home. The Second Amendment becomes a black hole of debate that pulls in states’ rights, militia, National Guard, deep state paranoia and what Congress can and cannot “infringe” upon.

It is interesting that we do not have any debate about the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment”clause. Our social contract forced the Bush Administration to stop using what was called “enhanced interrogation techniques” on suspected terrorists. There was some debate as to what was “cruel and unusual.” But eventually there was a consensus.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Eighth Amendment

Our government regulates and outlaws a variety of activities, products and goods. We do not have a Constitutional right to get stoned. The federal government, however, has made first-time possession of small amounts of marijuana a misdemeanor that can land you in jail for up to a year with a $1,000 fine. Attitudes and beliefs about marijuana have changed drastically. The same may be said about guns.  Most Americans would agree that we have the right to own guns.  The social contract looks to the government to protect that right.  However, the social contract also protects our right to assemble safely. Therefore reason would dictate it is also a part of the social contract to control what kinds of arms the citizenry should have; who can own them; and where those guns can be carried. 

It was in May of 1859 in Chicago that the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln, a one-term Congressman to be their presidential candidate. He was just the second Republican to run for president, the first was John C. Fremont. Lincoln snagged the nomination from several more promanitanely known candidates like New York governor William Seward. As a dark horse candidate, he ended up beating his long-time Illinois Democrat adversary, Stephen Douglas and a host of other presidential contenders to become the 16th president.

Back in August of 2018 I wrote: It’s 20/20 Trump in 2020. Now that he is a Floridian it adds a whole new dimension to the headline: “Florida Man…” I have never been one to make predictions, particular political outcomes involving the intelligence or intent of the voting American. But with Trump and Governor Ron DeSantis as possible candidates we have just added another joker into the presidential political deck. It was only a matter of time. Florida is too large a state for its lunacy to be contained to a peninsula dangling off the southeast coast.

I am not the gambling type to run out and place a bet on any sort of game of chance. The reason I would never go beyond speculation, particularly on a political outcome, is because there are so many unsuspecting people ready to hit on any colorful looking bait put in front of them. Particularly with DeSantis starting to chum up the social waters with one-sided issues. Baseless conspiracy theories have always been around but they are now the creed of the day. As P.T. Barnum said so “many people are gullible, and we can expect this to continue.” DeSantis is like Orson Welles in War of the Worlds. Only he is creating a “woke” Armageddon invasion instead of Martians from outer space. DeSantis is spewing social frenzy instead of some alien death ray. He has produced political panic and has both sides running from the end of the world as they perceive it. It is like two dogs chasing the same tail in different directions.

“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions.”

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

Although I did not wager any money on the 2020 election, it did appear to many that Trump was the odds on favorite against Joe Biden. Unlike, Trump who looked like he would go from wire-to-wire, Kentucky Derby winner, Rich Strike, came from way in the back as an 80-1 odds on favorite to win. It was an amazing race. Watching Rich Strike move up through the pack, a dark horse running down the leaders. Unfortunately for the country, Trump and his followers could not invision “45” being run down. To many, it was obvious that the only way Old Slow Joe could win was if the election was rigged–or just outright stolen.

I don’t think the election was stolen. The reason has more to do with the theory of large numbers, which in my non-mathematical mind explains several events. The theory, according to learning-theories.com, “states that the greater number of times an event is carried out in real life (in this case people going to the polls to vote) the closer the real-life results will compare to the statistical or mathematically proven results.” Simply put, when 150 million plus people vote, we realize that there are more Democrats or non-Republicans voters than there are Republicans. The GOP comes up short. Hence, the great unequalizer: The Electoral College to the GOP rescue.

The 2020 election was a real wake up call for the GOP. Since 2000 they have lost all but one of the popular vote in Presidential elections. They do however, manage to squeak out Electoral College victories. When nearly 67 percent of eligible voters vote, we realize that the theory of large numbers dooms them. Hence, the cry of stolen election: the need to control the judiciary branch, Gerrymandering, and enacting voting laws to control and restrict voter turn out to around 45 percent. This evens out supposedly left-leaning the playing field.

When scientists complete research studies, they make decisions about how many people will be in the study. This is an important decision because small sample sizes can greatly skew results due to the presence of anomalies. The larger the sample size, the more the results will reflect the true nature of the population that is being studied.

learning-theories.com

But every now and then a dark horse, a candidate, like Derby winner Rich Strike comes a long, a horse that runs the field to win it all. It is strange how in sports we can accept the “Cinderella” team the underdog, the dark horse that comes in and takes it all. In the 1980 Winter Olympics America, and the world, watched as a group of college kids and amatures beat a professional Soviet Union hockey team in a game that was later called “The Miracle on Ice.” The Soviet hockey team had won four Olympic Gold Medals beginning in 1964. The last time this team lost an Olympic hockey game was in 1968. To many it was a miracle; but sometimes the longshot pays off big. Despite the game being played in America, nobody claimed the USA’s 4-3 victory was rigged.

We always have had long-shot presidential candidates, too. Every election has at least one or two. Most never make it out of the primaries and past the clubhouse turn. However, there have been several dark horse candidates that won the presidency. The first was James K. Polk who upset The Great Compromiser, Henry Clay, in the 1844 election. There have been others.

Dark Horse Presidents

• James K. Polk 1844
• Franklin Pierce 1852
• Abraham Lincoln 1860
• Rutherford B Hayes 1876
• James Garfield 1880
• Warren G. Harding 1920
• Harry S Truman 1948
• Jimmy Carter 1976
• Barack Obama 2008
• Donald Trump. 2016

A side note to the list, and not a real pleasant one is that two of the dark horses were assassinated: Lincoln and Garfield and a third, Harding, died in office from a heart attack. Another was impeached–twice. And as of now, Polk, Pierce, Hayes, Carter and Trump were all one-term presidents.

It would seem to me that it is even money that both Trump and Biden will both be one-term presidents simply because of their ages. Trump is 75 and Biden is 79. Both of these old over-the-hill Plugs are way past their prime racing years. Granted, the issue of either of them running is not settled. It could become, literally and figuratively, a question of them simply making the walk to the starting gate let alone actually run in a race.

In 2016 there were crowded fields in both parties primaries. According to an ESPN article from August 2016, Hillary Clinton was coming off at 1-1, Jeb Bush 7-2, Bernie Sanders at 12-1 and Ben Carson as the long shot at 100-1. At the time Joe Biden was a 14-1 odds on favorite to win the 2016 election. Trump was considered a long shot. However, some may argue Donald Trump is never a long shot despite coming in at 14-1, like Old Slow Joe in the 2016 election.

There is a possibility that the 2024 election could be a repeat of the 2016 primary elections–a crowded field loaded with dark horses. And it could be a messy, muddy race. The 2016 primaries, particularly the Republican party’s looked more like some sort televised professional wrestling match with candidates smashing each other over the head with folding chairs and then being tossed over the top rope like somebody emptying a garbage can over their fence and into their neighbor’s backyard: in broad daylight.

A real GOP donnybrook primary could pit, Trump ensconced in his Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago citadel against two other Floridians: Governor Ron DeSantis and a real dark horse, one who is so dark he is dark matter, Senator Rick Scott.

If we look to P.T. Barnum for wit and wisdom we can find some possible descriptions for their campaigns. Trump’s could be that “More persons, on the whole are humbugged (that is bombarded with deception, deceived for the advantage of others) by believing nothing than by believing too much.”

Trump is all about the humbug. Trump has a lot to say. But what he says is like drinking a Diet Coke with a bag of Doritos and a Snickers bar for breakfast. It tastes good and will fill you up–with empty calories. There is plenty there but nothing of any nutritional value. It certainly is not the “Breakfast of Champions.” As long as Trump is around our intake of empty rhetoric will just bloat our minds with empty ideas: sweet to the brain but void of substance. The more he dishes out the more America wants. Trump’s rhetoric keeps America on some sort of sweet and sour sugar high. He fogs the brain. It is like when Moe of The Three Stooges asked Curly what was the matter and Curly replies, “I am trying to think but nothing is happening.”

There’s no way to sugarcoat the truth–Americans are eating more sugar than ever before. Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill determined that, on average, Americans are consuming 83 more calories per day from caloric sweeteners than they did in 1977. And those extra 83 calories a day turn into a whopping 2,490 calories per month.

NorishWebMD.com

DeSantis on the other hand is more like “without promotion something terrible happens, nothing.” For the longest time the GOP was the party of limited government. It took Thoreau’s concept “that government is best which governs least.” DeSantis legislative self-promotion style proves that a lot of ideas go from debatable to terrible. He is in some sort of pre-presidential race with the master self-promoter, Trump and Governor Greg Abbott of Texas. DeSantis’ is in a right-wing downwind race with Abbott. It is a promotional campaign gone goony. They both seem to be at their best pushing vindictive policies. One clogs the border crossing with trucks backed up for miles causing Texas, businesses and the country billions of dollars. DeSantis meanwhile is chasing Tinkerbell around the Magic Kingdom. Both states probably would be better off if their governors just did nothing. Basically they prove what Thoreau said that “it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse.”

Then there is Rick Scott. He is the real Flori-duh man. A dark horse. He falls into the category: “You know, I had rather be laughed at than not noticed at all.” Somehow he keeps getting re-elected in Florida. He is a curious political phenomenon and proves what Barnum said that “Nobody ever lost a dollar (or an election) by underestimating the taste of the American public.” In this case the Florida voter.

Scott is like dark matter. Scientist really do not know what it is. And I am not sure Florida voters know what Scott really is either. According to spaceplace.nasa.gov, “Dark matter is stuff in space that has gravity, but it is unlike anything scientists have ever seen before.” That sort of explains Scott’s rise to power in Florida. He is an unknowing political game of 20 Questions: Is he corporate billionaire; a possible CEO Medicare fraudster; a sentient being; or leader of the growing lunatic fringe?

Astronomy.com says that “most astronomers say the majority of the cosmos consists of dark matter and dark energy… Dark matter works like an attractive force.” This may explain how Scott keeps getting re-elected. The dark energy of the universe pulls in unsuspecting voters. Conversely, Scott, like dark matter, “doesn’t reflect, absorb or emit light” so it might be tough to notice him. Until he becomes president.

Forget about a dark horse winning the next presidential election. Without a doubt we will probably elect somebody who is more dark matter than dark hours. Especially if we have two, possibly three, Floridia men running for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2024. We will then learn that there is a deeper meaning to the headline: Florida man…

https://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/13386269/donald-trump-odds-improve-12-1-win-us-presidential-race-2016-chalk

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-hockey-team-makes-miracle-on-ice

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/sen-rick-scotts-agenda-seen-challenge-mcconnell-gop-rcna17435

https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/beware-empty-calories

Not too long after the Russian army attacked Ukraine, in its special operation, Russian troops entered the nuclear exclusion zone and then seized control of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It was 36 years ago this month that the Unit Four Reactor took a major nuclear dump. I am not sure what an armored unit would want with the plant. One could only hope it was some sort of weird dark ecotourist excursion to observe wildlife. Some believe that they may have gone into Chernobyl to retrieve or destroy data stored at the site. Or maybe just to see what happens when a tank column drives over radioactive ground. Or maybe they were just plain stupid. In any case, they stayed long enough to expose troops to one of the most toxic places on earth before they left.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant basically melted down and then blew its top on April 26, 1986 sending clouds of radiation debris 30,000 feet into the sky across Europe. About 650 miles away, at Sweden’s Forsmark Nuclear Power PLant, alarms went off. When no radiation leak was detected the Swedes looked southeast to the prevailing winds. The Swedes caught the Russians hanging out their radioactive laundry in the breeze, creating what is possibly the worst nuclear disaster on the books. Today we are seeing a different kind of Russian-made disaster in Ukraine. And so far, it is not nuclear.

At the time of the Chernobyl meltdown, Ukraine was just one of 15 republics that comprised the Union of Soviet Republics, or simply the USSR. When the Berlin Wall fell in December of 1989, the USSR as we knew it started to crumble–but did it. In August of 1991 Ukraine declared its independence. By December the other 14 former republics followed.

Russia’s is once again hanging out its dirty laundry. Its military meltdown in Ukraine begs the question: has Russia learned anything from history in the past 40-to-50 years. It seems they forgot about their Afghanistan debacle to add another defacto communist republic to their empire. Their efforts failed miserably on indoctrinating the tribal people of the Hindu Kush to the Soviet/Marxist brand of worker solidarity and socialism. But probably one reason they failed in Afghanistan was the lack of urban centers they could disintegrate.

And to further prove a point, they did not garner anything from our 20 years of failed nation building in Afghanistan. Twenty years of running down the Taliban and we are almost at the same place we started. And lest not forget our eight year attempt in Iraq to make the world safe for democracy–and from terror. But it could be possible that Russians did learn something from our adventures of in trying to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq. Russian battle doctrine appears to be all out death and destruction. Of course all of this is open for future historical debate.

I cannot help but think that the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine is their Chernobyl of military disasters. You would have to go back to the Russian-Japanese War in 1904 to see a real Russian beat down. Czar Nicholas II picked a fight with the Japan and their newly Westernized navy. The Japanese sunk both Russia’s Pacific Fleet and its Baltic Fleet. The Baltic Fleet had to travel 20,000 miles to join the Pacific Fleet at the bottom of the ocean. Nicki-two, like Putin, was looking to expand Russia’s empire. Both leaders were convinced that their adversary would roll over and beg for terms. Putin’s court eunuchs do not appear to be anymore clairvoyant than Nicholas’s when it comes to picking fights with palookas.

Ukraine is a Russian created humanitarian crisis just shy of Biblical proportions. All the while, a disbelieving world watches and wonders: how could this be. Targeting and destroying civilian infrastructure may have been a winning strategy in World War II, Chechnya and Syria; but pounding away at urban areas and cities with rockets and artillery is not winning over the hearts and minds of anybody. It has created a women and children exodus. According to the UN refugee agency more than 4.6 million Ukrainians have left Ukraine. That’s around 10 percent of the population escaping a Russian created hell. For Putin, I would say he is somewhere in Dante’s Seventh Ring of Hell, violence, working his way to down the to center of hell to join the ultimate sinners like Judas Iscariot.

Speaking of Biblical proportion, when you look to the past it is not hard to see why the Ukrainians do not want anything to do with the Russians. Joseph Stalin’s famines of 1932-33 ranks up their as a Category Five disaster. According to History.com: “The Ukrainian famine—known as the Holodomor, a combination of the Ukrainian words for “starvation” and “to inflict death”—by one estimate claimed the lives of 3.9 million people, about 13 percent of the population. And, unlike other famines in history caused by blight or drought, this was caused when a dictator wanted both to replace Ukraine’s small farms with state-run collectives and punish independence-minded Ukrainians who posed a threat to his totalitarian authority.” This is what passes for a comprehensive Five-Year Russian agricultural plan–kill anybody that wants something to eat.

And then there is Chernobyl. I have recently started reading Adam Higginbotham’s book: Midnight in Chernobyl, The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster. I did not get far into the book when I realized that some things have changed in Russia, but a lot of things have stayed the same. Higginbotham writes that: “Advancement in many political, economic and scientific careers was granted only to those who repressed their personal opinions, avoided conflict and displayed unquestioning obedience to those above them…blind conformism had smothered individual decision making at all levels of the state and Party machine, infecting not just the bureaucracy but technical and economic disciplines.” This is the Soviet Union in the 1970s and ’80s. But could very well be Czarist Imperial Russia of the past or Putin’s Russia federation of today; and Uncle Joe Stalin’s Soviet Union in-between.

There is a general belief that in a closed autocratic government there is no free flow of ideas moving up and down the chain of command. As Higginbotham writes about the USSR in the 1970s: “Party leaders and the heads of large enterprises–collective farms and tank factories, power stations–governed their staff by bullying and intimidation.”

Higginbotham also writes that: “Lies and deception were endemic to the system, trafficked in both directions along the chain of management: those lower down passed up reports to their superiors packed with falsified statistics and inflated estimates, of unmet goals triumphantly reached, unfulfilled quotas heroically exceeded. To protect his own position, at every stage, each manager relayed the lies upward or compounded them.” The question has to be asked: Are these the guys you want designing, building and operating the nuclear power plant down the street; or in the next country over.

When Unit Four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant blew its top at least two people died in the explosion and another 30-50 died soon after. According to the World Nuclear Association, world-nuclear.org, “The plant operators’ town of Pripyat was evacuated on 27 April (45,000 residents). By 14 May, some 116,000 people that had been living within a 30-kilometre radius had been evacuated and later relocated.” Within a month, less than 90 miles from Chernobyl, more than 360,000 children and pregnant woman began evacuating Kiev. Ukrainians have had practice in trying to outrun Russian mistakes and aggression.

_{“Soviet physicist had been so confident of the safety of their own reactors that they had never bother indulging in heretical theorizing of beyond design-basis accidents*.“}

Midnight in Chernobyl

With Chernobly there was lingering health problems from the radioactive contamination. It is believed that it took 600,000 “liquidators” to clean up the nuclear debris caused by the meltdown. It is possible that at least 6,000 of those liquidators died from the clean-up effort.

Today in Ukraine, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that there have been at least 4,232 civilian casualties: 1,793 killed and 2,439 injured so far in the so-called Russian denazification of Ukraine. However, some Ukrainian leaders in besieged town of eastern and southern Ukraine believe that number to be much higher, particularly after the discovery of massed graves in the city of Bucha. Some Ukrainian officials believe Russian troops have killed close to 400 civilians there.

All of this makes you wonder if Putin and his generals bothered to indulge in heretical war games as to possible outcomes in developing their special operations that bears more like an apocalyptic science fiction alien invasion . And if war itself is not brutal enough it looks to get worse, Putin’s new Ukrainian general, Alexander Dvornikov, known as the “Butcher of Syria” for his penchant at targeting civilians is now in command in Ukraine. Retired US Navy Adm. James Stavridis, a former Nato commander, told NBC News: “He is the goon called in by Vladimir Putin to flatten cities like Aleppo in Syria,” Stavridis said. “He has used tools of terrorism throughout that period, including working with the Syrian forces, torture centers, systematic rape, nerve agents. He is the worst of the worst.” A comedian once joked that we should never challenge worse by saying it can’t get worse.

The question that needs to be asked: Is there anything in Ukraine that the Russians have made better?

_{*Design-basis accident is “a postulated accident that a nuclear facility must be designed and built to withstand without loss to the systems, structures, and components necessary to ensure public health and safety.” United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission}

https://www.history.com/topics/japan/russo-japanese-war

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190725-will-we-ever-know-chernobyls-true-death-toll

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx