(While scrolling through my Facebook feed the other day I spotted a column I had written a year ago. Apparently, a friend had spotted it in his feed in the memories category and had reposted it. Well, how nice I thought. Always good to feel appreciated. I read the column to see what I had written and, wouldn’t you know, since it had to deal with Trump, etc., it still applies, although Susan Collins is now on the fence. Anyway, here it is again. And thanks, Patrick.)

By Bob Gaydos

     Had breakfast with a friend the other day, trying out a new coffee shop in town. Nice addition.

      The conversation touched on the usual stuff. Too much rain. What’s planted in the garden, the hummingbird count, the challenges in living in a house with another person. Living on a planet with certain other people.

      That last proved provocative. With regard to those certain other people, my friend offered that, if he were a praying man, he would pray for The Rapture.

      I got his intent, but I suggested that I thought he had it backwards. Having read “Left Behind,“ I knew it was the good, caring, kind, faithful humans who were transported off the planet to Heaven, I believe, leaving their clothing and loved ones behind.

      The others, the nasty ones, the ones my friend wanted to be rid of, stayed and, through a series of books, fended for and against themselves and other non-believers. So I suggested that, assuming we wanted to remain in whatever state this is for a while longer, what we needed was a Reverse Rapture.

   We needed someplace we could pray for all those You Know Whats to be sent to, without any get-out-of-jail card in the form of an Orpheus, if I may be allowed to mix my miracles.

     Hades. Yes, Hades. The Underworld would do.

     So, who would we want to go? Personally, I’d start with Trump and his immediate family. The whole crew. Every member of his Cabinet and White House staff. Every lawyer who ever worked for him, except for Michael Cohen. Elon Musk. J.D.Vance. Every current Republican member of Congress, except for Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. The authors of Project 2025. Anyone who wears a Maga T-shirt or hat. Anyone who identifies as a journalist but works and lies for Fox News. Putin. Kim. Hamas and all the other terrorists. The pushers of fentanyl. Laura Loomer. (Speaking of Loomer and Kristi Noem and the Barbi press contact and the attorney general and all the other Trumpettes, Hades will come with no cosmetic amenities, including plastic surgeons. Zero. Just saying.)

    Also, all those mask-wearing ICE employees who’ve been enjoying grabbing people off the street, out of their homes, wherever, with no warrants or concern for the people or the law. And Clarence Thomas, to fulfill Hades’ DEI requirements.

     And, really, anyone who voted for Trump three times. What were they thinking? They get a special wing in Hades where The Apprentice plays on big screens constantly. In Spanish. And they have to use their bitcoin to buy English subtitles, but they already gave it all to Trump, who gave it all to the Saudi royal family (they’re there, too), who promised to build a Hades Trump Tower using white South African immigrants for labor. It could take a while, but who really cares?

     Now, all that cosmic deportation would obviously leave behind a whole lot of room, especially in this big, beautiful country, and a lot of available work for good, caring, reliable, nice, talented, decent, tolerant human beings, maybe from Venezuela or Mexico or Greenland or Panama or El Salvador.

      Too much to ask for, you say? Especially over breakfast? Hell, if you’re going to pray for anything, especially a Reverse Rapture, I say why not go all in?

       Besides, checks and balances seems to be broken.

                                     ***

Additions to the prayer chain are welcome.

(This is a revised version of a column I wrote seven years ago. I’m recognizing my birthday companions.)

By Bob Gaydos

    As a news story, Donald Trump pretending to be president got old for me very fast. Same story, different details every day. For 10 years now.

    A few years back, I wondered how people who still got paid to have opinions dealt with it. Maureen Dowd answered my question. I read her column in The New York Times that carried the headline, “Crazy Is As Crazy Does.” Yes, it was about Trump. It was still in his first term. 

     She began by describing her waking thoughts as another morning arrived. About the talents of an actress and an actor she admired and their TV shows. About a book she had apparently just read or was reading. And then, abruptly, reality set in: “Once I’m completely awake, a gravitational pull takes hold and I am once more bedeviled by our preposterous president,” she wrote.

         “I flip on the TV and gird for the endless stream of vitriol coming from the White House, bracing for another day of overflowing, overlapping, overwrought news stories about Trump. I’m sapped before I arise. …

        “My head hurts, puzzling over whether Trump is just a big blowhard … or a sinister genius …”

         Me too, I sighed. Glad to know I’m not alone. 

         I’m also not alone in my belief in synchronicity.

         Coincidence? I’m with Carl Jung on that. The Swiss psychologist who gave us the word defined synchronicity as “a meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved.”

     As in, what are the chances that, after setting aside Dowd’s column and being shamed into participating in a decluttering exercise at home, I would “stumble upon” a slim book I’d never heard of that instantly uncluttered my mind on how to explain what in the world was going on in Donald Trump’s mind.

     It’s “Bullshit.”

     Literally.

     Some explanation is necessary.

     The house decluttering was precipitated by a prevailing notion that I had collected too much stuff (an occupational hazard, I believe) and some of it had to go, but we would find a safe resting place for the stuff that was worth keeping. One of the safe places was a lovely, old cabinet in which other stuff was resting. Old tapes, photos and books. Among the books was the aforementioned slim volume.

      I read the title: “On Bullshit.”

      The decluttering came to a momentary halt. Was this a joke? As it turns out, no. Oh, there is humor in this 67-page essay, but the author, Harry G. Frankfurt, it also turns out, was a distinguished philosopher, professor emeritus at Princeton University, which published the book. This was serious. In fact, the book was a New York Times best-seller in 2005 and Frankfurt discussed it on YouTube, which tells you something about my attention to literary news.

       But the point, and I’m finally getting to it, is that after months of trying to out-pundit everyone else writing about Trump and continuing to wonder why he does what he does, Frankfurt laid it out in a way that anyone, except maybe Trump, can understand — the man is a bullshit artist.

       It dawned on me as I read Frankfurt’s explanation of the difference between liars — which Trump has been crowned champion of all time by those who keep score — and bullshitters. (If the language offends you, I apologize, but Frankfurt says “humbug” is not the same. Also, the times have changed and I’ve been labeled an enemy of the people for treating the truth with respect.)

      As Frankfurt explains, the difference between liars and bullshitters is that liars are acquainted with the truth. They have to be to maintain their lies. There is a discipline involved. Bullshitters don’t care. They make stuff up as they go along, saying whatever seems necessary to them at the time to appear to know what’s going on. It isn’t a matter so much of bullshit being false, Frankfort says, as of it being phony. It’s meant to convey an impression. It’s like bluffing. And too much of it can carry over into a general laxity about how things really are.

        As Frankfurt writes, “The bullshitter is faking things.” It’s not a matter of concealing the truth, because sometimes the bullshitter will speak the truth. It is a matter of concealing “what he is up to.” And, Frankfort says, those who are good at it seem to have no trouble attracting gullible believers. Boy isn’t that the truth. 

       Frankfurt mentions patriotic politicians who, on the Fourth of July, give grand speeches extolling all the wonderful things this country represents, not that those things are false or lies or B.S., but because the speaker wants others to believe he believes in them and is a true patriot. Again, sadly, history has shown this to be true. We can expect more of this on Flag Day, June 14, which happens to be Trump’s birthday. He’s celebrating with a UFC boxing exhibition on the White House lawn because what could be more American. Same old story, different details.

       One last word on synchronicity. Professor Frankfurt, who died in 2023, just happened to share the same birth date with me: May 29. His book, an unexpected gift, rests in a drawer in my bed stand, lest I forget.

(The following is an update of a column I wrote 13 years ago. I am re-posting it today on the birthday of President John F. Kennedy because of its significance in my life and because of the times we live in. Would things have been different if Kennedy had lived to continue serving? I have no way of knowing. I’d like to think the answer is yes. Joe Biden was the oldest elected president this country has ever had. Kennedy was the youngest. They shared the same dedication to protecting our democracy. I continue to celebrate Kennedy on May 29, the birth date I share with him — synchronicity — and I also honor his memory on the anniversary of the day he was taken from us, a day history was altered forever.)

By Bob Gaydos

John F. Kennedy

The first editorial I wrote for the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., appeared on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I wrote the headline, too: “The measure of the man.”
Trying to “measure” the meaning of the life of a man who was literally loved and idolized by millions of people is no easy task, especially for a rookie editorial writer’s debut effort. But that’s what newspapers do and, in truth, I took it as a good omen that remembering JFK was my first assignment. He was a hero to me as to many young men my age when he was elected president. It was a combination of things: his youth, his wit, his easy-going style, his intelligence, his words, his sense of justice. Plus, we shared the same birthdate: May 29.
     As fate would have it, JFK would come to be remembered, not on his birthday, but on the anniversary of his death. And not so much for what Americans received for having him as president for 1,000 days, but rather for what we lost by not having him much longer.
     That first editorial said, in essence, that it would take more than 20 years to measure the meaning of the man. It acknowledged the things we had learned about JFK in the years since the shooting in Dallas — the flaws that made him human — as well as what I felt were his positive contributions. Thirty years later, no longer a rookie editorial writer — indeed, retired after 23 years of writing editorials — with Nov. 22 approaching, I realized I had to write about JFK 50 years after his death (because that’s what old newspaper guys do). Before I started, I asked one of my reliable sounding boards, my son, Zack, what he knew about JFK. Zack was 19 at the time and better informed than a lot of young people his age, so I figured his answer would provide me with a fair sense of what our education system had been telling kids about Kennedy.

“He was the first Catholic president,” Zack said. Correct. “He had an affair with Marilyn Monroe.” Uh, correct. “There’s still some theories that there was more than one shooter.” Right. “Do you think the Kevin Costner movie (“JFK,” directed by Oliver Stone) was true?” Well, the people portrayed were real. “The Bay of Pigs didn’t go too well.” No, it didn’t. I took the opportunity to point out that Cuba was the site, not only of Kennedy’s biggest failure in global affairs, but also his biggest success.

I was 22 years  old when the world stood at the brink of a nuclear war over the presence of Soviet missile-launching sites in Cuba, aimed at the United States. I was a senior in college and knew full well, as did all my classmates, that no 2-S deferment was going to exempt me from what might happen if the Soviets did not — as Kennedy demanded — remove their missiles. Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to blockade Cuba to prevent the shipment of Soviet missiles and equipment. Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet president, who had initially denied the existence of the missile sites, sent a naval fleet to Cuba, loaded with supplies and armed for battle. As the world watched and waited and prayed, Kennedy and Khrushchev exchanged messages. Kennedy prevailed. The Soviet fleet stopped short of Cuba and turned around. I lived to write this remembrance. Kennedy was dead not long after.

So here I am 63 years later, still looking to take the measure of the man and still wondering how that is possible. Kennedy had the gift of engagement. He appeared to be comfortable with whomever he was speaking. He had tremendous appeal to young people, being so different from the older, stodgier presidents who preceded him. He created the Peace Corps — a legacy that, like many others, has been erased by the current administration. He made many Americans — and this is not a small thing — truly proud to be Americans. Not in an arrogant, flag-waving, we-know-better-than-you way. Just proud. And he cheated on his wife and kept his serious health problems a secret from us and sometimes needed to be prodded by his brother, Bobby (another tragic loss) to take the proper (courageous) stand on issues.

So the question I still ask myself is, what might JFK have done, what might he have meant to America and the world, if he had lived longer? What did we lose at Dealey Plaza? Certainly, whatever innocence we still possessed. The wind was sucked from our sails as a nation and our domestic politics have slowly and steadily deteriorated into such partisanship that it is virtually impossible for any president to speak to the minds and hearts of a majority of Americans the way Kennedy did. Maybe it would have happened even if Kennedy had lived a longer life and gone on to be an ambassador to the world of what America stands for. Or maybe not.

It dawns on me in writing this that it is an ultimately frustrating task to try to take the measure of another man or woman. I know what JFK meant to me personally. I know a lot of others feel similarly and others do not. I know what history has recorded (he was also the youngest man to be elected president) and what the tabloids have told us. I have a sense of what I would like to think Kennedy would ultimately have meant had he not died so young. But it’s only speculation.

The only man I can truly take the measure of is myself. It is nearly 63 years since that morning when I was waiting at home to go to Fort Dix, N.J., to begin six months of active duty training. How do I measure up today? That’s a question I still work on every day. It wasn’t always thus, but the years have a way of insisting on perspective. Maybe the answer will appear in some other writing. I have neither the space nor the inclination to do so here. I will say that, on balance, I’ll probably give myself a passing grade, but there’s still some stuff I’m learning. That’s a lesson in itself. For now, I’m through trying to take the measure of JFK, as man or president. Let the historians have at it. I’m going to try to take his advice and ask not what life can do for me, but what I can continue to contribute to life. And I’m also going to continue to celebrate him not on the date he died, but on the date we both were born.

By Bob Gaydos

There’s a rooster crowing somewhere and a tree groaning in the wind. I know. It sounds like the opening of a poem. It’s not. I have no rhyme. I have no reason. I have frustration, anger, sadness, impatience, embarrassment, outrage, despair, resentment, and, to some degree, utter disgust.

It’s 95 degrees and I’m sitting by the pond, not feeling poetic. Not really energetic. Sorry for the rhyme. It’s sometimes automatic. Helps to dull the static.

See what I mean?

This is going to be short and not at all sweet. You know the drill. Different day, different insult. No need to repeat. Trump sued himself, in effect, over taxes. His returns were leaked along with thousands of others. His hand puppet attorney general “negotiated” a deal. Trump and his family never have to go through a tax audit ever in their lifetimes. Oh, and the criminals who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2020 will have a $1.7 billion slush fund from which they can try to claim “damages“ for trying to overthrow the government.

Republicans in Congress, of course, think this is all just fine. Cowards toeing the line. (Sorry).

It gives me no great joy to repeat that I wrote a column in 2016 predicting that Trump would be the death of the Republican Party. It’s been proven many times over by now and reinforced on a daily basis with every embarrassing “speech“ he delivers. Each one is testament to his ego and ignorance and increasing mental instability. But the real MAGAS don’t care and the Republican politicians know they’re stuck with it now. No guts, no glory. Same sad story.

I’m coming up on 85 and still glad to be alive. But the America I grew up in and lived through most of my life has been raped and pillaged by Trump and his henchmen and women and, yes, it is depressing. Writing relieves the stressing.

It also nourishes hope. Hope that the Epstein files will soon indict every co-conspirator. That Clarence Thomas will receive the justice due him. That the millions of Americans who don’t bother to vote will realize what their apathy has done. That the mainstream media regains its spine and its voice. That future generations will be able to read the true history of this dark chapter.

There’s more, but you get the drift. Keep fighting. I’ll keep writing. If this were a poem, it would be an elegy, if not a dirge. I will continue to resist the urge.

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand together as they tour the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China,

By Bob Gaydos

   Donald Trump cut his trip to China short, returning to America with his planeload of billionaires, family and sycophants with no obvious “deals” on the war in Iran or commercial trade while also saying he had not made any commitments on Taiwan one way or the other in his private talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which surely worried residents of that independent island who have received guaranteed U.S. military support for more than seven decades, all of which made most Americans wonder what the heck was the purpose of the surprise trip in the first place other than for Trump to marvel at the number of Chinese restaurants in America and be impressed by China’s great hall (See?) which all took place while the Justice Department back home was talking about indicting Castro — Castro!? — no not that one, the brother, Raul, former Cuban leader who is 94 years old, for his supposed role as defense minister at the time in shooting down two civilian U.S. planes carrying a humanitarian group, over Cuba in 1996, the murder indictment to serve as a warning to the communist country (like China, by the way) that the U.S. might just have to take over control of the energy-starved Caribbean island, apparently because Greenland is too big and well-defended and China is really strong and still lusts for Taiwan and the U.S. might consider not stopping all the oil tankers from Venezuela from making deliveries to Cuba, which depends on those shipments to function, or just taking over the island, if Cuba would accept $100 million in humanitarian aid and allow U.S. economic and security investments in the island, a mixed message delivered to Cuban leaders personally by whomever is now head of the CIA, all of which happened as Rudy Giuliani, yes that Rudy Giuliani, was having “a very serious spiritual experience” while in a coma due to pneumonia, in which he said he was in a line leading to a “trial by St. Peter” but was saved when his friend and former deputy NYC mayor Peter Powers intervened, saying some “very significant words,” thereby apparently saving Rudy’s soul, allowing him to survive to talk about his ”miracle” on his broadcast show, which few people knew existed until now, and which apparently is not housed off the parking lot at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping business in Philadelphia, where Giuliani, now 81, previously was in a coma but didn’t know it … all of which happened in a couple of days and is proof positive that the world is totally out of sync.

   I needed the break.

(I had a moment of clarity last year and realized how my mom in her own subtle way had profoundly influenced my life. The column below was the result of that moment and I am happy to share it again this year.)

By Bob Gaydos

Anne Sokol Gaydos

I generally didn’t post something on Facebook on Mothers Day because my mom has been gone a while now and I always have trouble finding old photos. But as I read posts a few years ago, and looked at photos of other mothers, I started thinking about what Anne Sokol Gaydos, a typical, post-war, stay-at-home mom in Bayonne, N.J., gave me that had a significant influence on my life.

As I scrolled, nothing unusual came to mind until, suddenly, there it was, staring me in the face and sitting in a neat pile on the end chair of the kitchen table back in Bayonne. Each and every morning: The Bayonne Times, The Jersey Journal, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Daily News, The Mirror. The routine morning reading.

As I got older, I added to the pile: The Herald Tribune, The New York Post, The Journal-American.

With this constant immersion in the news of the day, I naturally went to college to study electrical engineering. For one semester at Cornell. Then mom’s influence came into play.

A wise counselor suggested that I major in English. At another college. Something about low grades and no attendance.

Me, Max, Mom and Zack. Mid ‘90s.

Long story short, I did. I went to Adelphi College (now a university) and majored in English. Specifically, writing. After college, I got a job at The Bayonne Facts, a weekly, then worked as a journalist for daily newspapers in Binghamton, Annapolis and Middletown for more than 50 years. Obviously, I still write and I still identify as a journalist.

So, in brief, that’s it. Basically, that stay-at-home mom who taught me how to play 500 rummy also gave me my entire career, which I have thoroughly enjoyed and still do.

Thanks, Mom, happy Mothers Day and happy birthday coming up May 17.

Love, Bob

By Bob Gaydos

      “Thanks, man.”

      Maybe he said “chief.” Or “boss.”

       It wasn’t “pal” or “bud” or “dude.” But it might just as well have been for the casual way it was tossed. At least it wasn’t “ace” or “bro.”

        This column will fall in the category of unsolicited advice (from me) and other stuff (from elsewhere).

        Before I get to the advice, let me say that I’m well aware of the pitfalls surrounding that activity. But I’m also creeping up on 85 years old and have been labeled a curmudgeon by my former newspaper colleagues years ago. I choose to look upon it as a recognition of experience and a license to, if not kill, be truthful and possibly helpful because please don’t waste my time and maybe what I have to say will prove useful to you in the future.

       Dude.

       So I took care of some personal stuff the other day that was long overdue in that category. The young man who helped me was maybe 20. Could’ve been older, but looked young and talked a lot about super heroes and video games. I take those as clues.

        He did a nice job but he saved me some money and cheated himself out of a bigger tip by not offering some extra available services which I would have been happy to receive. When it came time to pay, I handed him the cash and signaled to keep the extra as a tip.

     “Thanks, boss.”

     No. (Here comes the advice.) I’m at least 60 years older than you. I was not insulted or offended by what you said. More surprised than anything else. I am not your “man.” Or “boss.” Or pal, dude, ace, bro, chief or bud. Seriously. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase, “Thank you, sir?” Especially since you work in a service job where it literally pays to be polite to older clients? Age has its limits, but it also merits some recognition, unless you’re a serial killer or delusional politician.

     Since it’s more likely that the parents of young men who talk about super heroes movies will be reading this than they will, maybe you can try to pass on some useful advice to your sons (for some reason, I think the daughters get this) on how to interact with clients who are significantly older than they are. I know it can sometimes be challenging, but somebody’s got to do it. 

    And finally, young man, when it comes to accepting the tip, there’s an old newspaper saying that may be useful: When in doubt, leave it out. Drop the “chief” or “man” or “boss.” You can even drop the “sir.”

    “Thank you” is a complete sentence. It always works and it never gets old.

      Alright, getting the ego in check. That’s it for curmudgeoning, bros.

                              ***

     In the other stuff category,:

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I see that the Senate recently had a rare great idea. It has moved to ban participation in so-called prediction markets by all senators and staff members. The House should also approve, on the rare occasion when it’s actually in session.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: The life of a baseball manager may not be as enjoyable as some may think. May had just begun, but the season had already ended for Boston Red Sox manager, Alex Cora. He’d been fired. But barely had he finished packing his bags when he was offered the job as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. They had fired Rob Thomson, the most successful manager in the team’s history, a couple days after Cora got canned. Cora thought the offer over and immediately decided he’d rather spend the summer with his family in Puerto Rico than in Philadelphia. He turned down the job. The Phillies then looked in-house and offered the job to Don Mattingly. The former Yankee great was bench coach for the Philadelphia team. Mattingly took the job on an interim basis, saying he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it full-time because he’s getting a little old and wasn’t sure he had the energy for it. Some endorsement. He also might have been thinking of the problems he might run into as manager since a lot of decisions on who to play, when to play them and how to make up your batting order often come from the front office. The Phillies general manager and Don’s boss is Preston Mattingly, Don’s son. Hmmm. Wonder how long this arrangement will last.

    — Maybe it’s just me, but: I’ve come to think that not everything that comes from the government is the pure truth. You know all those gold coins you’ve been collecting that were produced by the U.S. mint from pure gold mined in America only? Guaranteed? The New York Times recently ran an investigative piece detailing how the mint for decades has been using gold produced in other countries, some in fact mined by drug cartels. The gold is apparently still pure, thankfully, but the rest of the story is pure BS.

By Bob Gaydos  

The pond in which the frog plopped.
RJ Photography

 I took the day off yesterday. Social media told me it was May Day and, in honor of workers, there was a nationwide strike called for to protest against the Trump administration‘s economic policies. Indeed, all of its policies. We were supposed to not work and not spend money on anything.

   Full disclosure: I actually had planned to do very little writing, but I was definitely looking forward to going out for lunch. Lunch got canceled, not by me. It kind of threw my whole planned schedule out of whack.

    Then I remembered something else I had seen in my social media feed – a post from my old Times Herald-Record colleague Brendan Coyne about Maurice Sendak, legendary children’s book author.

   Sendak, at age 83, was watching his partner of 50 years slowly dying and told a reporter, “I did not want to die with him.“ He said that’s why he had written his latest and final book. He said he wasn’t sad about growing old, but rather about the people he missed. In fact, he said it was a blessing to grow old and to be able to enjoy books, music, quiet moments and the trees outside his window. He gave the interviewer this bit of advice: “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.”

    So I took a walk out back. Actually two, one with each dog. I enjoyed the welcome sun and the slight breeze. The dogs ran and a cardinal, blue jay and red-winged blackbird peacefully shared the spilled food together under a bird feeder. Would that humans could do the same, I thought.  A woodpecker hammered away.  A frog plopped back in the pond.

   I came back in the house, gave the dogs and myself some water and sat down to write this. I guess this is what I call taking the day off in retirement. 

   Sendak died a few months after that interview. His book, “Where the Wild Things Are,” was one of my sons’ favorites. They’re in their 30’s now. A friend I miss from long ago used to say, “Isn’t it great to be present in your own life?” Yes, Victor, it is.

  It pays to pay attention. Back to work tomorrow.

  Thanks again, Brendan.

By Bob Gaydos

Southern Poverty Law Center literature.
.

I wrote a check to renew my membership in the Southern Poverty Law Center this morning. Thanks, Trump.

The renewal notice had gotten lost in a pile of bills to be paid. I would’ve eventually gotten to it, but the Justice Department’s surprise notice to go after the respected civil rights/human rights group reminded me that I had been remiss.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the Justice Department’s action either. Their job under Trump is to go after Trump’s perceived enemies and Pam Bondi got fired as attorney general for failing to do so. The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal attorney, is apparently smart enough to try not to repeat this mistake.

And as far as Trump’s enemies go, the non-profit SPLC would be high on that list. Not only does it fight all his illegal actions in court, but it compiles an annual list of hate groups in the country, state by state, county by county. These are Trump’s people. His foot soldiers. His boots on the ground in your hometown.

The 11-count federal indictment returned by a grand jury in Alabama (surprise!) against the SPLC revolves around its now-disbanded program of using paid informants from 2014 to 2023 to provide what the group called “credible intelligence“ about such white supremacist groups as the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and the National Socialist Movement. The SPLC says it shared its information with law-enforcement agencies to contribute to the safety of law-abiding citizens.

But the Justice Department alleges that the SPLC committed fraud because it misled its donors by giving more than $3 million to the leadership of these violent groups and helping to manufacture the extremism it said it was dismantling. It said some of the money was used by members of the extremist groups to carry out other crimes, but no specific examples were listed in the court papers. That’s kind of par for the course with Trump, allegations but no specifics.

I don’t know, the SPLC seemed to do a pretty good job of dismantling the Ku Klux Klan. And the use of paid informants, of course, has been common practice for the FBI and CIA. It’s dangerous work. I think most people who contribute to the SPLC would not be surprised that it used paid informants. In fact, I would have been surprised otherwise. And it’s kind of counterproductive to announce publicly that you’re doing it.

Bryan Fair, interim CEO of the SPLC, said the allegations are “nakedly political“ and just part of Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department against his critics. I agree. I also find it deeply troubling that, instead of going after hate groups, the Justice Department is going after the very people who are fighting to get rid of them.

And just as an aside, I also noticed that Kash Patel, the out of his league FBI director who is facing public criticism for allegedly drinking on the job, not really knowing what he’s doing and flying around the country with his girlfriend on a government jet, stood quietly by Blanche’s side when he announced the indictment. No words. Maybe Kash doesn’t know about using paid informants. Or maybe he just had a hangover.

Anyway, I’m not buying the whole story and I’m still waiting for Blanche to release all the Epstein files.

By Bob Gaydos 

I got a letter from Chuck Schumer. Private no less.

  I got a letter from Chuck Schumer the other day. It was marked “Private” no less. “To Addressee Only.” And in bold red letters on the envelope, to make sure I knew it was important: “PLEASE sit down, OPEN this envelope, and READ IMMEDIATELY!

  Well, now, what a coincidence. I had been thinking of Chuck lately, not having heard from my longtime senator for quite a while.

   (Note: Schumer grew up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in a middle class family. Went to public school. I grew up in Bayonne, N.J. in a middle class family. Went to public school. Senator or not, with those backgrounds, he’ll always be Chuck.)

     So, as I was saying, I was glad to hear from Chuck because I had a couple of things I wanted to talk about. Like where the hell has he been lately while Trump has been starting a war and driving up the price on everything while his family and friends make a killing on the stock market?

     I was anxious to see what Chuck had to say in this important “private” letter he sent to me marked  “addressee only.”

      Well, for starters, I was a little hurt and kind of let down. “Dear fellow American,” is not my idea of introducing a private message of immediate importance. In fact, it kind of sounds like all those other letters of importance I receive asking for donations because, as this letter begins, “our country is at a critical crossroads.“

     And yes, Chuck was asking for money. Not specifically for himself, mind, but for the group that collects and spends money solely for the election of Democrats to the United States Senate — the Senate Majority Pac.

    Chuck isn’t running for reelection this year, but he has a profound interest in electing Democrats to the Senate so he can transition from being the minority leader to the  majority leader and run the show. 

   I get it. I’ve been praying for a Democratic super majority of 60 filibuster-proof votes in the Senate for 15 years, since the party managed to pass Obamacare. But apparently the message this group has been putting out hasn’t been enough to convince enough Americans to vote likewise. It’s kind of why I wanted to talk to Chuck or at least hear from him. 

    I think times have changed and it’s time for a change in what he’s saying and how he’s saying it. Nobody’s listening. Forget trying to work with a couple of Republicans here and there to stymie Trump or win a small political victory here and there. It’s time for something that I’m sure Schumer grew up experiencing in Brooklyn: some moxie.

  What’s moxie? For non-New Yorkers or non-Jerseyites, AI says: “Moxie is an American slang noun referring to a person’s courageous spirit, determination, nerve, and skill. It describes someone with guts, spunk, and the ability to face challenges with energy and pep. It implies a combination of boldness and know-how.”

   Absolutely. In other words, the time for playing nice with Republicans has long passed. They don’t do it. They don’t care. A fellow Brooklynite, also in the Senate, gets it. Bernie Sanders has been telling it like it is as long as he’s been in the Senate. Unfortunately, he’s not a member of the Democratic Party, but rather, is a Democratic Socialist. That means he can’t get any money from SMP. Actually, he’s a Democrat by any other name these days because he can’t possibly coexist with the Republicans in the Senate.

   But Bernie, who grew up in a lower middle class family in Flatbush, has moxie. He doesn’t hesitate to lay the blame for Trump‘s ongoing disaster of a presidency on Senate Republicans who have had the power to stop him at any point and indeed to reject every one of this trash heap of nominees that make up the cabinet.

    Heck, even Hakeem Jeffries, who grew up in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in a working class family, apparently now gets it. The House Minority Leader recently lit into Republicans in the Senate, calling them “spineless enablers” and “helpless sheep” for confirming Trump’s cabinet nominees, from Hegseth to Noem to Kennedy to Bondi to the labor secretary, whatever her name, who just resigned after her staff complained she drank on the job, had no idea what she was doing and had an affair with her assistant. Jeffries specifically targeted the confirmation of the latest uncovered drunk, Kash Patel, as FBI director, calling him “deeply unqualified, deeply unserious, and deeply un-American.”

      Deeply appreciated, Mr. Jeffries.

      Anyway, Chuck, thanks for writing, but I won’t be sending money to the SMP. However, I will continue to support groups like the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center to handle all the legal niceties of dealing with the Trump regime. And I will continue to write in support of Democratic candidates for the Senate. But I think it’s time for you boys from Brooklyn to get together, roll up your sleeves and run those Republican phoneys and their demented leader out of the schoolyard. Show a little Brooklyn moxie.

      Nice talking to you again.