By Bob Gaydos  

Cassidy Hutchinson

      Thank you, Cassidy Hutchinson. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your sense of right and wrong. Thank you for your patriotism. Thank you for demonstrating that not every Republican in government service is either a coward or a bagman for Donald Trump. Thank you for the truth.

      America needed it. And, honestly, I really needed it.

      Hutchinson is the former White House aide who testified publicly before the Jan. 6 Congressional Committee about Trump’s unsuccessful struggle with Secret Service agents to join the protesters on the Capitol steps during that fateful day.

       But Hutchinson also testified privately before the committee three times and the committee’s recently released final report details a story of blatant witness tampering with Hutchinson as the target.

      As executive assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, Hutchinson also carried the title of special assistant to the president. That means she heard a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff Trump didn’t want the committee or anyone else to hear about. For example, that he knew he had lost the 2020 presidential election, but wasn’t accepting that outcome.

       Knowing she would be called to testify before the committee, the White House insisted on providing her with a lawyer, Stefan Passantino, who refused to tell her who was paying him (Trump’s PAC). Passantino counseled Hutchinson to testify that she couldn’t recall anything that was discussed concerning January 6.

      Her problem was that she recalled very well everything that had been said, but she also knew that in “Trump World,” as she referred to the White House, loyalty is demanded and those who buck the boss are often made to pay dearly. They could destroy her career.

       So in her first private interview with the committee, she followed her lawyer’s suggestion. She couldn’t recall much. But she also had a conscience. She knew right from wrong. She knew what she had heard and she knew what she had told the committee was a lie. A lie for which she could be arrested.

   The 26-year-old former intern to Senator Ted Cruz decided to get herself another lawyer, made a back channel connection to let the committee know she wanted to come back and testify again, and subsequently told the truth: They had told her to lie, that it would be OK, that she would be taken care of. Don’t worry.

    What Passantino told her, in her own words: “Look, the goal with you is to get you in and out. Keep your answers short, sweet, and simple, seven words or less. The less the committee thinks you know, the better, the quicker it’s going to go. It’s going to be painless. And then you’re going to be taken care of.

     “We just want to focus on protecting the President. We’re gonna get you a really good job in Trump world. You don’t need to apply to other places. We’re gonna get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family.”

      Hutchinson told the committee that family member Meadows also sent her a message telling her “the boss” knew she was testifying and knew that she was “loyal.” Straight out of the “Godfather“ playbook.

      Despite her fear and intimate knowledge of how “Trump World” dealt with what it saw as disloyalty, Hutchinson was true to her beliefs. She told the committee: “I did feel like it was my obligation and my duty to share (what she knew), because I think that if you’re given a position of public power, it’s also your job, your civic responsibility, to allow the people to make decisions for themselves. And if no one’s going to do that, like, somebody has to do it.”

      Indeed. Thank you, Cassidy Hutchinson, for being that somebody.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

     Now it’s NFTs?

Trump NFTs

 Having just publicly confessed my bewilderment at the willingness, even eagerness, of many people to invest in cryptocurrency — a form of digital “money“ that is complicated to own and even more complicated to spend — I now learn there are such things as NFTs.

    Non-Fungible Tokens. 

    Who knew?

    Well, Donald Trump, of course. If it involves money and it’s hard to figure out exactly what is going on, you can be sure Trump is around. And so we have Trump Digital Trading Cards, which has introduced me to the world of non-fungible tokens.

      “Art” for crypto lovers.

      Having made a rather subdued announcement that he’s running for president again, Trump followed up with a “major” announcement: He is issuing limited edition digital trading cards containing his image in various heroic poses. No one is quite sure how many different poses there are. Supposedly there won’t be more than 20 copies of any one pose and other poses will have far fewer copies. To make them more valuable. They are yours to collect, “just like baseball cards.” Only $99 each. But you can only buy one hundred at a time.

       If memory serves me right, I used to get bubblegum and five baseball trading cards for a quarter. But that’s another story.

     NFTs are theoretically unique. That is, you cannot replace one of them with another one of the same and equal value. If you could, that would make them fungible.

     Now, right away, we have the issue of confusion. I’m pretty sure that “fungible“ is not a word with which many people are familiar. Ask the next five people you meet and see if I’m right.

    Something that is fungible is replaceable by another tangible object of similar value. You can exchange a wrinkled dollar bill for another dollar bill and it’s a fair trade, for example.

     What supposedly makes NFTs unique is that, like cryptocurrency, each has its own digital identity. In this case, a stamp. So, even though anybody can buy one of these trading cards for $99 in actual cash or the equivalent in ether cryptocurrency, and the image is exactly the same on all of them, each is supposedly a unique item.

     People have apparently paid thousands of dollars for a digital image — a non-fungible token — of some “unique” tweet or meme or other Internet creation, which they can then apparently proudly say they own. Like a Picasso.

     It’s an investment, I’m told. Aha. Here’s where I would attempt to explain how NFT’s work and why someone would want one, but I have read more than half a dozen columns from technical websites “explaining” how NFTS work and I am more confused than ever, which goes to my original point.

     If it’s too complicated and confusing for the average person to understand and if even those who do understand how it works call it “risky” as an investment, why would anyone want to get involved?

     For some, like Trump, it’s simple — to try to make some quick cash off people by playing on their emotions. It’s his go-to strategy. The images of Trump on his trading cards are amateurish, even clownish, for a reason. MAGAs have been conditioned to distrust the talented, the educated and to revel in the coarse. Stick it to the elite, the socialist leftists. Hence, the “Let’s go Brandon” signs in my neighborhood. So clever.

    The more the Trump cards are ridiculed by people with even average artistic sensibilities, the more the MAGAs will scoop them up. At least that’s what Trump is betting on. He’s betting on a feeling. He’s also throwing in an opportunity to have dinner with him at Mar-a-Lago as an enticement if you buy 45 cards in one shot. That’s $4,455.

   What any of these “cards” will be worth years from now is anyone’s guess. You can’t frame them and put them on the wall, although anyone is free to print out a copy of one of these cards and display it. They may turn into ether like the currency used to buy them.

   Still, as of now, it appears that Trump may have played his cards right and is laughing all the way to the offshore bank. The website announced that all 44,000 minted cards sold out in the first day. 

     Whether that’s real news or not and whether more cards will be minted remains to be seen. There is also the question of whether this was all a money-laundering scam for a down-on-his-luck ex-president and phony billionaire about to be indicted for sedition.

      Bottom line: If there’s money involved, there is no place that is too low for Trump to go. A wink and a nod and give me your dollar. 

     The same goes for power, as he demonstrated in the White House. He is beyond embarrassment.

      The embarrassment, sadly, belongs to us as a nation. We invested in a non-fungible fraud. We got our money’s worth.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

Addiction and Recovery

By Bob Gaydos
  I’ve written a column on addiction and recovery for more than a dozen years. A staple of this column has been a sort of  “word to the wise” on how to survive the holidays for those in recovery. It also serves as a guide to party hosts who may not be in recovery.

The past couple of years gave new meaning to “surviving the holidays,” but having moved into a new phase of dealing with Covid, parties are back in fashion. Still,  health precautions remain advisable. Covid, the flu and other viruses are a real threat.

The point of this column is that, whatever else is going on, this is always a treacherous time of year for people in early recovery from addiction. People who have found their way to recovery, be it via a 12-step program or otherwise, have been given suggestions on how to survive the season of temptation without relapse. If they use these tools, with practice, they can even enjoy the season.

It’s the rest of you I’m mainly talking to here. You hosts, family members, well-meaning friends who want to be supportive and do the right thing, but aren’t sure what that is. And yes, to those who don’t get the concept of addiction at all, but can still avoid harming a relationship by following a few basic suggestions.

So, some coping tools for the non-addicted host, if you will: “No thank you” is a complete sentence and perfectly acceptable answer. It should not require any further explanation. “One drink won’t hurt you” is a dangerously ill-informed reply. The same goes for, “A few butter cookies won’t hurt. C’mon, it’s Christmas.” Or, “Get the dress, Put it on your credit card. You’ll feel better.” Not really.

By the way, “No thank you” is an acceptable answer even for people not in recovery. Not everyone who turns down a second helping of stuffing or a piece of pumpkin pie is a member of Overeaters Anonymous. Not everyone who prefers a ginger ale rather than a beer is a member of AA. Not everyone who won’t go into hock for an expensive New Year’s Eve party is a compulsive debtor. But some of them may be.

If you’re hosting a party to which people in recovery have been invited, have some non-alcoholic beverages available. Not just water. Don’t make a big deal about having them, just let your guests know they are available. The same goes for food. Have some appetizing low-calorie dishes and healthful desserts on hand. Don’t point out that they’re there because so-and-so is watching his weight. Just serve them. You’ll be surprised how many guests enjoy them and comment on what a good host you are.

If you’re honestly concerned about how the person in recovery is doing, approach him or her privately. He or she might not feel comfortable discussing it in front of other guests. If you’re just curious, keep it to yourself.

Honoring a guest’s wishes is a sign of respect. Anticipating them in advance is even better. Encouraging someone to eat, drink or spend money when they don’t want to is, at the very least, not gracious. Pressuring someone to partake of something when you know he or she is trying hard to avoid it is a good way to lose a friend. Addictions are not trivial matters. “No, thank you,” is a perfectly good answer. Members of AA, OA and DA will be especially appreciative if you remember that.

And for those in recovery, remember to bring a phone with plenty of numbers and have a way to leave the party if you become too uncomfortable. There will be other parties, but there may not be another recovery.

Be smart and enjoy. Have a mask handy if need be. Enjoy your sobriety.

Happy holidays.

rjgaydos@gmail.com
Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

The original cryptocurrency.

   I admit it. I’m a crypto cynic. I didn’t get it from the start. Still don’t.

       Who created it? Why? What was the point? What was the need? I could already spend money in a flash on my phone. My bank and various other accounts were always urging me to access my money electronically. Cash was still cash, whether I folded it or used PayPal.

        Then there was the obvious question: How do I get some Bitcoin (the original cryptocurrency) and how do I know what it’s worth? There was all this “mining” of currency, basically some computer geeks spending thousands of hours on computers typing in digital codes to create algorithms that other geeks accepted as currency to conduct a transaction. To play a video game maybe or buy some cool electronic stuff.

      If you didn’t have the patience or skill to create your own currency and protect the codes, you could, eventually, “buy” some crypto. From a “bank” or “exchange” with, you know, hard cash. Money.

        Crypto turned into a major commodity, something to invest in, rather than an alternative monetary system.

         Why? Greed apparently. Having “invented” some kind of cool, alternative “money,” the geniuses behind crypto apparently figured that convincing people with a lot of real money that owning a lot of too-complicated and shakily supported “crypto” money was too good an investment to pass up.

      In other words, it was something to have, not to spend. The IRS, of course, had figured that out quickly, taxing crypto as a commodity, not income.

      Anyway, a lot of not-so-rich people have also been victimized by the current crypto meltdown and it all turns around trust, an important thing when you’re talking about money. Can you trust the bank that your money is there and available when you want it? Pretty much, yes. No real problems of late. The government keeps a watch.

       But who was watching crypto? And, more to the point, if it was supposed to be a one-to-one point of sale exchange program, as created, how did all the other people get involved?

      Again, greed.

      Cryptocurrency grew as an investment with no one really watching over it and, dare I say, with most people never really understanding it. It was “money” that was, in a practical sense, not really good for anything but having. Gold at least has some intrinsic recognized value.

      Perhaps not surprisingly, like a magic trick, as mysteriously as it was created, crypto started disappearing, along with the real cash money people had invested in it. But it wasn’t through some modern computer wizardry. Rather, apparently through some good, old-fashioned larceny.

        The folks who created one of the unregulated exchanges to buy and sell crypto apparently just stole their customers’ real cash (reportedly billions) to invest in some other stuff. Apparently they couldn’t use crypto to do it. You know, to get around the banks and all those annoying regulations. They’ve filed for bankruptcy. So the real money is gone, the astronomical price of cryptocurrency has fallen and no one apparently knows whom to trust in a field that relies entirely on trust.

       What’s the message here? I don’t know. Maybe to make sure there’s a need for something before inventing it. Maybe to make sure what you invent isn’t too complicated for most people to use. Maybe to make sure you can trust someone to whom you are giving lots of your money to invest and you understand what you’re investing in. Maybe, that greed finds its way into pretty much any enterprise that involves money, real or imaginary. Or just maybe that was the idea all along.

     Whatever, I still don’t get it.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

 Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.