By Bob Gaydos

The invitation

     Sometimes, it’s the mundane, easy to overlook things that give a week it’s meaning.

      For example, I recently bought two medium coffees at a drive-through window for a popular coffee chain. After the male voice inside the screen repeated the order back to us, he said, “That will be 6 oh 3, please drive around.”

      We looked at each other in surprise. $6.03? As I scrambled for three pennies to go with the 10-dollar bill, I thought it seemed like just a short while ago that same order was under $4. More recently, a bit more than $5. My friend, a regular customer of the franchise, agreed.

       Inflation? Supply chain issues with Latin America? I think a bit of profit-taking is the more likely explanation. By the way, the coffee chain in question was not Starbucks.

        Not long after this encounter with corporate America, I had occasion to stop by another local establishment for some suet and birdseed. It’s been a good year for cardinals, blue jays, finches, doves, sparrows, red-winged blackbirds, starlings, woodpeckers, wrens, squirrels and other hungry feeders.  As I approached the front door, a small sign, recently posted, caught my attention: “Lawful concealed carry permitted on these premises.”

Again, I paused. Hmm. Good to know, I thought, should I ever feel threatened wandering around the bird seed and chicken feed. Although I must admit, I am puzzled at the sudden need for this notice in the first place.

     Back home, while routinely scrolling through my daily emails, I was surprised to find a message that was the highlight of the week: An invitation to dinner with a former president of the United States of America. Wow, I thought, that doesn’t happen a lot. In fact, it’s never happened to me.

    Then I read a little further. It seems I was being invited to take a chance on being invited to dinner with a former president of the United States of America. All I had to do was donate some money to be placed on the list from which one “lucky“ winner, and a guest, would be chosen to have dinner with, of course, Donald Trump, at one of his golf courses.

    That’s not all. The invitation also said, “That’s right – I’lI cover your flight, your accommodations, and your terrific dinner.

And we’ll take a picture together so that you can keep a photograph of this incredible memory forever.”

     Donate now!

     How could I refuse this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? This was a chance to rub elbows, shake hands, drink coffee and have a photo taken with a man just convicted by a jury of sexually abusing a woman nearly 30 years ago in a dressing room of a Fifth Avenue Manhattan department store and publicly calling her a liar and saying all sorts of vile things about her when she accused him of rape, a man that jury said owed the woman $5 million for the harm he caused to her reputation.

      A man, coincidentally, also recently indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for campaign finance fraud in a case involving paying hush money to a porn star he cheated with shortly after his third wife, Melania, had given birth to their son, Baron.

       In fact, this was a man also facing possible indictment in Georgia for trying to convince officials to change the results of that state’s vote in the 2020 presidential election, which he lost.

       And, come to think of it, this was a man under investigation for taking hundreds of classified government documents with him when he left office and refusing to return them until the FBI served him with a warrant. Sonofagun if he didn’t even brag about taking those documents on TV the day after the Manhattan jury found him guilty of sexual abuse. Why, he even took that opportunity to insult his victim again.

      Yes, that ex-president. The same one who refused to do anything to stop the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when the results of the 2020 election were being certified. The one who placed his own vice president’s life in jeopardy with remarks he made on that day, never mind the lives of all members of Congress, police and those working in the Capitol.

     This was the former president who, for good measure, on that same misbegotten TV presentation, would not say who he wanted to win the war between Russia and Ukraine. Coincidentally, while he was president, he said he admired Russian President Vladimir Putin and was impeached (for the second time) for threatening to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless their president came up with some dirt on Joe Biden’s family. Biden, of course, was his opponent in the presidential election in 2020, an election Biden won.

      Well, that very busy ex-president was now offering me the opportunity to have dinner with him. All I had to do was kick in a few bucks for a chance at winning the raffle. I mean, they didn’t say why this supposed billionaire needed the money, although he did say he’s running for president again. So …

      Donate now! Time is running out. I got the same urgent message about three or four days in a row. I guess they wanted to make sure that every loyal American — even registered independent voters — had an opportunity to win this once-in-a-lifetime event.

   I hesitated. I mean, it was quite an opportunity, after all. A chance to maybe speak to a former president of the United States of America. But then I thought, what would I, a mere retired journalist of 40-plus years’ experience, have to say at dinner to this man? Pass the ketchup?

     I decided not to send in a donation and, the cost of coffee being what it is, ordered sushi for dinner. I deleted the email. A new invitation came the next day, but I figured we’d be needing birdseed again soon.

rjgaydos@gmail.com   

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

By Bob Gaydos

Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. … challenging Joe Biden

  Be careful what you wish for, they say. They were on to something.

     A while back, I wrote a column expressing my desire (hope, wish) that the 2024 presidential election not be a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. America needs to move on, I said.

      Trump is a totally incompetent, lying fascist who has seriously damaged American democracy, I said, and Biden is a competent, concerned, experienced public servant, who saved America from four more years of Trump. I still stand by all that.

      But I also noted that Biden would be 82 should he decide to run for president again in 2024, which he has now said he plans to do. That would make him 86 in the last year of his term. America’s oldest president.

        Seeing no relief from the Republican Party save for younger, nouveau fascist versions of Trump (no spring chicken either, he will be 77 next month), I said Democrats needed some new, younger, more vibrant candidates for president. Thanks, Joe, but America needs it, I said.

       I meant maybe an experienced governor or senator or a re-energized version of Vice President Kamala Harris.

       I did not mean Marianne Williamson or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. So far, that’s what we’ve got.

       Yes, both are younger than Biden, but both do qualify for Social Security benefits. Williamson, although she is 70, possesses considerable energy and appeals to a segment of younger voters. They know her on TikTok. An author, she also is not shy about challenging more mainstream Democrats, like Biden, about what she sees as their lack of urgent commitment to progressive goals.

    She has a point. She also has zero chance of winning the Democratic nomination, never mind the presidency.

     Kennedy, 69, is a different matter. His strongest weapon is his family name and history. But RFK Jr. does not stir the masses the way RFK Sr. did and he’s definitely no JFK. Time has also dimmed some of the vote-getting power of the Kennedy name.

     Son of the assassinated New York senator and U.S. attorney general and nephew of the assassinated president, this Kennedy is basing his campaign for the Democratic nomination primarily on the reputation he has gained as the most aggressive, best-known, anti-vaxxer in the country.

    That sounds like a terrific issue for a Republican. In fact, it probably will be. Fortunately for the country, but unfortunately for Kennedy, most Americans do not share his vigorous, scientifically discredited opposition to vaccines.

    Still, some recent polls put Kennedy drawing almost 20 percent among Democrats and Williamson up to 9 percent. While a bit surprising, since neither can be considered a mainstream candidate, that support is not a serious threat to Biden. And some Democratic voters may not know much about Kennedy beyond his lineage. Time will tell.

    Significantly, those same polls also show a solid majority of Democrats saying they would prefer that Biden not run again (too old), but that runs up against the overwhelming sentiment among Democrats (and many independents) that, if Trump is again the Republican presidential candidate (too scary), they would run barefoot over hot coals to vote for Biden again if he’s the Democratic candidate.

     That’s apparently what he’s banking on.  Vote for steady, experienced, moderate, sensible Joe over erratic, clueless, power-hungry, dangerous Trump — or any other Republican promoting fascism. The Biden campaign message is that he will save democracy now for the younger, more energetic Democrats who follow him to improve on a little later. Be patient.

     In certain context, it makes a lot of sense. Like it did in 2020. It’s Yogi Berra’s “deja vu all over again.”

     Such is the unfortunate state of politics in this democratic republic three years shy of its 250th birthday.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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

By Bob Gaydos

Stormy’s tawdry Trump story.

   Perfect. Poetic. The dotard was hoist on his own, uh, petard.

   With all the many sins and crimes alleged about Donald Trump, ranging from attempting to steal an election, stealing classified documents, actually stealing an election, obstruction of justice, attempted extortion of a foreign leader, inciting a riot and attempting a coup, the one that finally gets him fingerprinted involves paying a porn star hush money so she wouldn’t spill the beans about his having sex with her just four months after his third wife, Melania, had given birth to their son, Barron, and seeing the porn star several more times.

    That one. The tawdry one. The basic, dumb Donald Trump one.

   Perfect.

   Don’t get me wrong, the other stuff is serious. But Trump appears to be constitutionally oblivious to the magnitude of those other crimes. He has displayed no concept of loyalty, patriotism, honor, duty or responsibility, except as others apply those moral concepts towards him. Honesty is a foreign concept.

    But getting arrested because a porn star tried to shake him down and he had his lawyer pay her off to keep her mouth shut so he could steal an election and get to live in the White House? That’s a made-for-TV movie. That, Trump gets. It’s his entire life in a mini-series. Sex. Betrayal. Borrowed money. Lies. It suits him like a tabloid headline.

   Even the, umm, adult film star, Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford), recognizes the difference between her case and the handful of other investigations involving Trump.

    “It’s vindication,” she said in a recent interview. “But it’s bittersweet. He’s done so much worse that he should have been taken down [for] before.”

     The vindication she claims may refer to her allegation that Trump promised to get her a spot on his hit TV show, “The Apprentice,” because she was “amazing,” and, in true Trump fashion, never delivered. 

      Also to the fact that Trump’s buddy, David Pecker, publisher of The National Enquirer, paid her for her story on Trump and then killed it as a favor to Trump. And that Trump also denies the affair.

     The squashed story and the payoff to Daniels by then Trump lawyer Michael Cohen were intended to keep the story from hurting Trump’s campaign for president in 2016, and are the basis for the case against Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. A campaign finance violation.

   Cohen served a term in the Federal Correctional Facility in Otisville after pleading guilty for his part in the payoff. He’s a key witness against Trump in this case.

    The other grand jury investigations into more serious allegations against Trump, ironically, seem to have more direct lines to proving his guilt than Bragg’s, which is considered to be a difficult case to prove in court.

    But Bragg’s is the first and that makes it important as well as historic. It may well motivate other prosecutors who now don’t need to worry about being the first to bring charges against a former president.

    And it may help Americans pitted against each other get used to seeing the man who promoted and profited from the rift for what he has always been: A cheating, lying, self-serving, hypocrite who always looks for someone else to pay for his crimes.

      Daniels, who could be considered an expert witness, says that at their first sexual encounter in his hotel room in Nevada, she felt compelled to say to Trump, “Please, don’t offer to pay me.”

      She knew tawdry when she saw it.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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

By Bob Gaydos

Former hostages pass through Highland Mills on their way to West Point via motorcade. They had just landed at Stewart Airport in New Windsor, N.Y., their first foot on American soil after 444 days held hostage in Iran.
Times Herald-Record photo

Catching up with other news while on Trump indictment watch. And with a deep bow to the late, great Jimmy Cannon.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I have no trouble believing reports that supporters of Ronald Reagan met secretly with officials of the Iranian regime before the 1980 presidential election to convince them not to agree to a deal with President Jimmy Carter on releasing 52 American hostages because his opponent — Reagan — would give them a better deal. It’s tradition for the GOP. Richard Nixon had a team of “dirty tricks” specialists working when he was in the White House. The treachery worked. Reagan won. A sad footnote to a legacy of service as Carter, 96, spends his final days in hospice. He deserved better.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I can’t let Nikki Haley skate by without noting that she has added ageism to the Republican political dialogue to go along with racism, anti-Semitism, anti-LGBTQ and anti-education language. Haley, in announcing her candidacy for the GOP nomination for president, called for mental competency tests for federal officials more than 75 years old. Of course, President Biden (80), who would easily pass such a test, and Donald Trump (76), who would surely fail one, are both over 75. So are 16 senators and 36 members of the House of Representatives. Haley backed off on the top job, obviously not wanting to anger Trump, but said: “I think you look at Congress. Look at all the members of Congress. You have to start doing this for our elected officials. When people send someone to Washington, they need to know they’re at the top of their game.”    Here are some current Republican members of Congress, all under 75 years of age: Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Jim Jordan, Ronny Jackson (the ex-Navy doctor who said Trump was in great physical shape) and Paul Gosar. Former members include Louie Gohmert and Devin Nunes. The top of their game? They couldn’t find “competency “in a dictionary.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: Every time I start to think maybe we’re not approaching the end of civilization as we’ve known it, someone comes up with a TV show to prove me wrong. This one is called “Power Slap.” Calling itself “the world’s premier slap fighting organization,” it is actually licensed and sanctioned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Not surprising. In Power Slap, competitors stand on opposite sides of a lectern and, yes, take turns slapping the snot out of each other, one slap at a time, until someone “wins.” That’s it. That’s entertainment. Or maybe it’s a 21st Century version of Darwin’s survival of the fittest.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: Let’s call it The End of the World Part II.  A Tallahassee, Florida charter school principal was forced to resign after a parent complained that sixth graders were exposed to “pornography” during a Renaissance art lesson that included Michelangelo’s “David” sculpture. Yes, the masterpiece that was originally commissioned to be placed in the Cathedral of Florence, is porn in a school in Florida, where any working brain cells apparently go to die, courtesy Ron DeSantis, governor.

   — Back to Trump indictment watch.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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

By Bob Gaydos

Rupert Murdoch

  I used to work for Rupert Murdoch. Briefly. Not by choice and not directly. It was an accident of capitalism, but not the serendipitous kind I prefer.

   Fortunately for me, it was uneventful. He left me alone, and I left him alone. That is to say, he didn’t tell me what to write in editorials for The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., and I didn’t tell him how to run his international News Corp. media empire that at the time included The Sun and The Times in the United Kingdom, the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, and The Australian in Australia, and, in the United States, Fox News, 20th Century. Fox, the New York Post and the Dow Jones Co., which included Barron’s, the Wall Street Journal and Ottaway Newspapers, a group of small to medium-sized community newspapers. That’s where Murdoch and I crossed paths, so to speak.

     Or rather, as I said, not to speak. The Record was a good-sized community paper (100,000 circulation on Sundays at the time), but small potatoes in Murdoch’s frame of reference for influencing the way people think and vote. Although Murdoch was well-known for his conservative views, I could write all the liberal-leaning editorials I liked, following in the tradition of David Bernstein, a partner in creating The Record, and Al Romm, a longtime editorial page editor who preceded me.

     In fact, that’s the way things were when James Ottaway Sr. swapped the Endicott Bulletin with Bernstein for The Record and when Ottaway, having created a profitable chain of community papers around the country, eventually sold them to Dow Jones Co. and retired to enjoy his Arabian horses in Campbell Hall, not far from Middletown. Murdoch eventually bought Dow Jones.

   In my experience, owners, whether down the road, or somewhere in downtown Manhattan didn’t usually mess with editorials unless, like Bernstein, they wrote them themselves.

    I’m taking this trip down memory lane because the Murdoch assault on democracy, decency and the journalistic dedication to truth once taken for granted in this country has finally cut me to the raw.

     How dare he? How dare he set up a news franchise to (1) deliberately falsify the news to advance his political views and financial interests then (2) throw his employees under the bus by acknowledging the Fox News fiction when someone with money and the facts on their side decided to sue him for damages to their reputation and (3) act as if he had nothing to do with it?

     The lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems accuses Fox News of letting its “news” anchors regularly repeat as fact the Donald Trump lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, with Dominion’s participation, even though, as internal Fox emails showed, everyone there knew Trump had lost legitimately. That there was no fraud.

   In a deposition in the Dominion case, Murdoch said that any Fox executives who knew that anchors who reported that election fraud had cost Trump the election, while knowing otherwise, “be reprimanded, maybe got rid of.”

  This, even though Fox had gone from initially reporting the truth of the election, that Joe Biden had won, to pushing Trump’s election fraud lies, both at Murdoch’s direction. And all because many Fox viewers weren’t buying the truth and were defecting to other conservative media to hear pro-Trump propaganda.

     Money.

     In sum, Rupert Murdoch displays a cynical disregard for the truth or the gullibility of his audience except when it suits his purpose. For example, having known Trump for years and wearied of his many faults, Murdoch reportedly took an active hand in crafting an editorial in one of his other mouthpieces, the New York Post, basically urging Trump to fade off into the sunset  after losing legitimately in 2020. Murdoch felt Trump would actually read and heed the Post editorial, rather than one in the more buttoned-down Wall Street Journal.

      Didn’t happen, thanks in great extent to the cult aura that Murdoch’s empire had helped form around Trump.

       No individual, in my opinion, has been more responsible for the spread of disinformation and the spreading loss of trust in mainstream media — print and television — in America than Rupert Murdoch. Now, at 92, he’s trying to act like an innocent. It won’t wash. 

       Whether the Dominion lawsuit changes anything at Fox remains to be seen. After all, money talks in Murdoch’s world. But thus far, the apple doesn’t seem to have strayed far from the tree. Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s son and chief executive officer of Fox Corporation, in a defense of his organization, said: “A news organization has an obligation – and it is an obligation — to report news fulsomely, wholesomely and without fear or favor, and that’s what Fox News has always done, and that’s what Fox News will always do.”

      Forget the fear or favor baloney, Lachlan clearly doesn’t know the meaning of the word fulsome. Cambridge English Dictionary: “Fulsomely: In a way that expresses a lot of admiration or praise for someone, often too much, in a way that does not sound sincere.”

     Maybe Lachlan should forget about calling in editorial suggestions. And notice that he never said honestly and accurately.      

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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

By Bob Gaydos

           Glenn Kirschner, one of the legion of former Justice Department lawyers enjoying a side gig as media experts explaining the legal ins and outs and many perils facing Donald Trump in several cases in several jurisdictions around the country, recently said that actions by federal prosecutors suggest they may think one of Trump’s many lawyers might have been in Cahoots* with the ex-president on matters regarding the many missing classified government documents.

     To all of which I say, where the heck is Cahoots? And were they hiding documents there, too?

     I first encountered the Cahoots Conundrum a dozen years ago when stories spread about members of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies being in Cahoots with Al-Qaeda on hiding Osama bin Laden.

     “It is disingenuous for anyone to blame Pakistan or state institutions of Pakistan, including the ISI and the armed forces, for being in Cahoots with Al Qaeda,” said Yousuf Raza Gilani, then prime minister of Pakistan.

       There were questions at the time about how the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, the most-sought fugitive in the world, could have been living comfortably with his family in a walled compound within walking distance of Pakistan’s version of West Point. Somehow, Cahoots was involved. Maybe that’s where the deal was made to hide Bin Laden.

    My research at the time supported that possibility, with Cahoots being mentioned in questionable dealings in Mexico involving the Catholic Church, the police, and drug cartels. Also in Afghanistan, involving the Afghan military and the Taliban. It seemed to be an ideal place to go to make shady deals because no one apparently knew where Cahoots was. Still don’t, apparently.

    The current Cahoots conundrum mentioned by Kirschner involves one M. Evan Corcoran, Trump and classified documents. Corcoran, a lawyer, wrote a statement for Trump stating that he was in possession of no more classified documents. This followed an FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home that uncovered hundreds of such items.

    Trump had another lawyer sign the statement written by Corcoran and give it to the FBI. No more documents. Case closed. But the National Archives disagreed. They suggested the FBI look again. Of course, Trump being Trump, a subsequent search uncovered dozens more documents.

      So Trump and or his lawyer(s) lied to the FBI. Did Corcoran know there were more documents? Did the other lawyer? Did Trump? Was Trump in Cahoots with one or both of them cooking something up?

        Corcoran is claiming attorney-client privilege to avoid testifying before a grand jury investigating Trump’s documents stash. The other lawyer has testified to the grand jury. Prosecutors have reportedly asked a federal judge to deny the attorney-client privilege claim because they believe Corcoran’s legal services were used in furtherance of a crime. That nullifies attorney-client privilege.

     So many questions:

# Did Corcoran know there were more documents when he wrote the statement?

# Did Trump lie to him?

# Did the other lawyer know about the documents?

# Will Trump ever be indicted? On anything?

# Was Robert Mueller ever in Cahoots with Trump?

# Is Nikki Haley seriously running for president?

# Is she in Cahoots plotting with Trump to be his Vice President?

# How does Rudy Giuliani, who in the past has been suspected of being in Cahoots with Trump and others, feel about his political and legal careers now being in Limbo*?

# Does anyone know where Limbo or Cahoots is?

    It just seems to me that we ought to know more about a place where the likes of Donald Trump, Mexican drug cartels and Osama bin Laden have reportedly hung out. Also, I like Glenn Kirschner.

                                  ***

PS: Asterisks on Cahoots and Limbo are mine.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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

By Bob Gaydos

With a tip of the hat to the late, great Jimmy Cannon. …

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I’m happy to report that, after an exhaustive search of my file cabinets, mini-safe, closets, boxes that never got unpacked from the last move, junk drawer and basement, I have no classified government documents in my possession. I think.

I’d say I was 100% certain, but recent news stories suggest that such documents are turning up where people least expected them to be. Like in the homes and offices of former vice presidents, including one who is now president. I did my own search after the National Archives asked all living former presidents except Jimmy Carter to check their home files. Even though I never worked for the federal government, I just wanted to be sure because, you know, I’m a patriot. Plus I wanted to make sure no one planted any of those sneaky little documents only because I used to work for newspapers. Can’t be too safe these days.

Having said all that, I’m willing to chalk up the recent discovery of a few classified documents in the home offices of Joe Biden and Mike Pence to sloppy packing up by staff when both men left office. Nothing nefarious going on, especially since lawyers for both men apparently reported the presence of the documents as soon as they were found. No one even knew they were missing.

That’s completely different from the Trump document story. Not only did he deny having any documents at his Mar-a-Lago golf course/home, he ignored requests from the National Archives to return them, ignored a subpoena, accused the FBI of planting classified documents, had his lawyers sign papers saying there weren’t any more documents left on the premises after the FBI raid (there were), and even asked to have them returned. He also claimed to have “declassified” them. Plus, he had boxes upon boxes full of hundreds of sensitive documents at a golf resort frequented by foreign nationals, not a quiet, private office.

So, no, cry and try as Republicans might to make the Trump document story equivalent to Biden’s, it won’t fly.

Obviously, the National Archives, which must be at least slightly embarrassed by all these reappearing “missing documents” they didn’t know about, needs to review its record-keeping practices, and the whole matter of what gets “classified” should also be reviewed. By the way, Carter got a pass because the law about not taking these documents home took effect after he left office. But I’m guessing he probably had a couple gathering dust in Plains, Ga., too.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: Despite all the jokes being made, I find the George Santos story sad on several levels. Sad that an individual (Santos) could be so mentally and emotionally messed up that lying is as natural to him as breathing. Sad that the state of politics in America today is such that someone like Santos could be elected to Congress. Sad that House Speaker Keven McCarthy is so devoid of moral principles and courage that he won’t demand that Santos resign. On the other hand, I am encouraged that Republicans in Nassau County on Long Island, where Santos was elected, are angry and embarrassed and are not only urging him to resign, but actually investigating some of his lies. A glimmer of hope for a party mired in cynicism.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: Philadelphia versus Kansas City is a legitimate championship game for the National Football League, even though KC got a break on that last call on the push out of bounds and Philly got a big break when the Forty-Niners lost their starting quarterback right at the start. Two legit survivors for the crown.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: When a six-year-old brings a gun to school and shoots a teacher, it’s not only school staff that has some explaining to do on how it happened, but really, where were the parents in all this? A six-year-old, apparently an angry one, goes off to school with a handgun in addition to his homework? Some serious explaining and accountability is due.

—  Maybe it’s just me, but: Ran across this brief item wandering through YouTube: “Cardi B says, ‘Don’t do butt shots.’” Umm, I’m a child of the ‘50s. Do I really need to know who Cardi B is? And what in the TikTok world is a “butt shot”?

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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

By Bob Gaydos

Kevin McCarthy (right) asks Matt Gaetz what else he can give him to get his vote after the 14th ballot late Thursday night. He never got it.

If only Kevin McCarthy were smart enough to understand irony.

If only Kevin McCarthy had a backbone.

If only Mitch McConnell had one, too.

If only there were still a mainstream, conservative Republican establishment.

If only Republicans understood the real meaning of these words from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Then, Americans would have been spared the worldwide embarrassment of the “people’s house” of Congress being unable to execute the basic task of choosing a leader after four days and 14 votes, even though one party, the Republicans, held a slim, but clear, majority.

The brass ring was eventually awarded to McCarthy shortly after midnight Saturday, January 7, on the 15th vote, when one more member of the wack job fringe of the House GOP agreed to vote for him and others agreed to vote “present,” lowering the number of votes needed for a majority. That agreement followed some tense discussions and avoided a vote to adjourn and a weekend of embarrassing stories about the shameless McCarthy and the rudderless GOP.

Politics often requires a bit of arm-twisting to gain a desired goal when there are differences of opinion. Usually, the leader does the arm-twisting and others make concessions. McCarthy turned this tradition on its head, making countless concessions as the likes of Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert kept twisting McCarthy’s arms while still refusing to vote for him. This does not bode well for a successful two years of McCarthy leadership in the House.

But here’s the thing, while McCarthy’s utter humiliation has come at the hands of a small group of Republicans who have no agenda other than to gain power so as to disrupt normal government routine and prevent all men and women from enjoying those self-evident rights Thomas Jefferson wrote about, the Californian has no one to blame but himself.

Here’s where the irony comes in. The fringe, the so-called Freedom Caucus, refuses to recognize McCarthy as its leader because of the one moment of rational thinking he displayed during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He actually called then-President Donald Trump and urged him to  do something to quell the riot.

McCarthy later said on the House floor: “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.”

McCarthy also said, “Some say the riots were caused by antifa. There is absolutely no evidence of that, Conservatives should be the first to say so. …  Let’s be clear, Joe Biden will be sworn in as president of the United States in one week because he won the election.”

For one shining moment, McCarthy, as minority leader of the House of Representatives, spoke the truth. He couldn’t handle it. The rank-and-file Trumpers dominating the Republican Party weren’t buying it. They bought the Big Lie. A couple of weeks later, McCarthy was in Mar-a-Lago, kissing Trump’s ring and anything else to get back in his good graces and retain the support of his troops. Most, fearing Trump’s wrath and loss of his support, followed McCarthy. (Mitch McConnell followed the same playbook in the Senate.)

Not the Freedom Caucus. They remembered when McCarthy spoke the truth about Trump, the election, the insurrection and taking responsibility. When it came time to choose a leader, they chose to embarrass McCarthy and twist him for all they could get. He eventually celebrated his election as speaker, a leader held hostage to the whims of those who have no interest in governing. Truth has no purchase in today’s Republican Party. The rabble rule and “leaders” seek their approval out of sheer ego and cowardice.

Not all is lost, thankfully. While McCarthy was being humiliated in The Capitol on the second anniversary of the Insurrection, a more compelling drama was playing out in The White House. President Biden, in an often moving ceremony, awarded Presidential Citizens Medals to Capitol police officers and others who defended democracy on that day and to state election officials who withstood intense pressure and threats of violence from Trump supporters to ratify the results of the 2020 election. The best of America was on display. Courage, honor, respect, empathy, honesty and, yes, patriotism.

If only some of that were evident in today’s Republican Party.

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.