By Bob Gaydos

Champs!

    When there’s really too much news going on (which now is almost every day), I turn to the approach of one of my  favorite sports columnists in my early years. Jimmy Cannon had opinions on more than balls and strikes. So…

     — Maybe it’s just me, but: The devil is in the details. The so-called memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran allows Iran to enrich virtually everything (it gets hundreds of billions of dollars) but uranium, which it had already agreed not to do in a deal brokered by Barack Obama that was torn up by Trump in his first term. It also requires Israel to agree to stop hostilities, notably against Lebanon, a requirement that may prove hard to enforce since Trump started the illegal war against Iran at the prompting of Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu, who shows no signs of wanting to end his military campaigns and face charges of corruption in Israeli courts. Sound familiar? A typical Trump “win.”

      — Maybe it’s just me, but: Kash Patel is pathetic. The make-believe director of the FBI proudly announced the bureau’s avoidance of a potentially deadly attack with the arrest of a group of anti-MAGA young men who planned to attack Trump’s birthday party brawl on the White House lawn. Turns out the suspects were actually disenchanted MAGA creeps who didn’t trust the government (ironically) and thought it was covering up the Epstein files story. It also turns out the suspects were turned in by the parents of one of them and were arrested by the Secret Service before the June 14 event, so no one was in danger.

     — Maybe it’s just me, but: More on Ka$h. He’s so out of his league, he’s reportedly paying his security detail an extra $4,000 a week apiece (unauthorized) not to tell the media that he drinks on the job, often doesn’t wake up for work and really has no clue what he’s doing. Somehow, we’re finding out anyway. If he were a woman, Trump would have fired him by now.

    — Maybe it’s just me, but: Trump continues to display cognitive decline, including at the G7 talks, where he was perpetually out of touch with what was going on. To him, it’s just one continuous con job. The other world leaders present were mostly polite, but could not help but notice Trump’s disconnect. It is a national embarrassment for the U.S. and a potentially dangerous one. I repeat, again: This falls on the Republican Party, which has the power within its hands every day to remove him from office and replace him with someone who is at least mentally capable to deal with the demands of the job. All it needs is the moral fortitude to do it.

      — Maybe it’s just me, but: Jimmy wouldn’t let me finish without congratulating the New York Knicks for winning the NBA championship, despite Trump. Also, congrats to the current champs on rejecting the Trump invitation to have Big Macs in the White House in favor of a ride in the Canyon of Champions in NYC. Well done.

      — Maybe it’s just me, but: Sometimes patience is rewarded. On a personal note, fifty-three years ago, I got to watch the Reed, Bradley, DeBuscherre, Frazier, Monroe, Barnett, Lucas, Meminger, Bibby, Jackson group that won the last team title. Nice seat in the Garden press box during a brief stint as a sports editor. Gotta remember the good times when the other stuff piles up.

                                     — 30 — 

By Bob Gaydos

Crowds did not flock to Donald Trump’s birthday parade in Washington DC on June 14.

  When the “leader“ of the free world is a racist buffoon and you’ve been pretty much calling him that for about 10 years, it can sometimes be challenging to know where to go for the daily report. Same old, same old, you know? Anyway, for me, when in doubt, go to Jimmy Cannon.

   So …

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I don’t want to go to war with Iran because BiBi Netanyahu wants to outdo Trump in the strongman competition. Especially since Trump voided the deal with Iran that prohibited it from developing weapons grade uranium for nuclear weapons. Also, Trump needs to be reminded that only Congress can declare war so he needs to calm down about evacuating Tehran and dreaming of bunker-busting bombs.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: How do they let him out in public without a leash? In Canada for the G7 Meeting, Trump said they should never have kicked Russia out, that it was all Trudeau’s fault. Russia was kicked out in 2014 for seizing Crimea from Ukraine. Trudeau became Canadian prime minister in 2015, but why bother with details? Also, Trump got his alphabet all mixed up, thinking that the UK was part of the EU. Then he gave a speech that rambled on into immigration and other topics not on the G7 agenda until cut off by the host and, having a short attention span, left the conference after one day, saying he was looking for some kind of surrender from Iran or a peace agreement or a cease-fire or something. Plus Zelensky was showing up the next day. Embarrassing.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: when an elected state official and her husband are shot and killed in their home and another elected official and his wife, in the same state and of the same political party, are shot and seriously wounded and the gunman has a hit list of political targets, all of the same political party (Democrats), when the president, a member of the other political party, is asked whether he plans to call the governor of that state (Minnesota), you know, to maybe express sympathy, promise aggressive legal action and decry politically motivated violence of any kind against any party, even though the governor actually ran as the vice presidential candidate on the ticket opposing said president, I do not expect the president to say he “may” call the governor (Tim Walz), then add, “but he’s a terrible governor.” I really do not expect that, but then, see “racist buffoon” reference above.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I’m old school enough to think that when a United States senator (Alex Padilla) is roughed up by federal agents, thrown to the ground and handcuffed just because he tried to ask a question of a cabinet official at a public meeting, the president, when asked about it, expresses concern and maybe even dismay and promises to look into the incident immediately. I don’t expect said president to say, “He’s new. He looks illegal.”

— Maybe it’s just me, but: How about that parade, huh? Creaky old tanks, no dress uniforms, antiwar protest songs, commercial sponsors, nobody watching except for a few people paid to be there and soldiers marching clearly out of step. Do you know how hard it is, when you are drilled from day one in the army to march uniformly in step (Hut, two, three, four! Your left, boom, your left, boom.) to purposely “march” out of step? Yet the troops chosen for the Trump birthday parade on Flag Day managed to do just that. They should get a medal. If he hadn’t nodded off he might’ve noticed. Of course he did find time to sign some souvenir flags, breaking protocol and the law in the process because he has to put his brand on everything. Pete Hegseth looked like he was dying for a drink. Marco Rubio just looked like he was dying. Ivanka didn’t bother to show up for daddy‘s birthday. The rest of America, millions of people, held their own parties in towns, villages and cities to let him know what they thought of him and his crew. Not much.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: When the news is all-Trump all the time, there’s a real temptation to ignore professional training and just go ahead and bury the lead. 

By Bob Gaydos

Pot for a vaccine shot.

  A billion free doses or pot for a shot? These are the days of our lives. 

     Some context. At the same time G7 nations were pledging to donate 1 billion doses of Coronavirus vaccines to less wealthy nations, back in the good old US of A, where everyone desperately wants to reach the 70 percent vaccinated goal so we can “open up” and get back to normal again, reluctant vaccine-getters were being wooed with all sorts of goodies, including a joint for a jolt, pot for a shot. A free dose of THC for an already free dose of a life-saving vaccine. What the heck, if your won’t do it for your own well-being, if you won’t do it for the health of your friends and neighbors, if you won’t do it because it is the easiest way to demonstrate both common sense and patriotism, won’t you please, pretty please, get vaccinated if we give you — free! — a pre-rolled joint of marijuana? What a country. 

      Indeed. What a country.

      The “Joints for Jabs” program in the State of Washington, where recreational marijuana use is legal, lets adults who are 21 or older claim a free marijuana joint after they receive their shot. The promotion supposedly will run through July 12. Presumably those who don’t partake in puffing will have to settle for a bottle of water.

        In the same vein, the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce offered a “Shots for Shots” promotion. Anyone who got vaccinated at the Convention Center was given a coupon for a free drink at local watering holes.

       With President Biden’s stated goal of having 70 percent of Americans vaccinated by July 4, states, cities, corporations, businesses were, well, bribing Americans to do the right thing. Tickets to ball games, Disneyland, Six Flags, the Super Bowl, free Girl Scout cookies, French fries, hotdogs, donuts, Pizza, college scholarships, weekly drawings and lottery tickets that could be worth millions have all been offered to try to convince people to do their part to stop the pandemic that has, by the way, killed more than 600,000 of your fellow Americans.

         Meanwhile, the much-lauded agreement by the G7 nations to provide 1 billion free doses of vaccines to less wealthy nations around the world was welcomed and criticized by the outgoing U.N. aid chief, Mark Lowcock, who said, while the vaccines certainly would be appreciated, the wealthy nations offered no plan for how to distribute them.

         Oops. Since speed of delivery is vital in stemming the pandemic, it certainly would help to have a delivery plan, such as was proposed by the International Monetary Fund. This is especially vital for countries across Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and parts of South America, which desperately need Covid vaccines. For now, they can do without the hotdogs and Girl Scout cookies. Just vaccines, please.

          My point? With more than 177 million Covid cases worldwide and nearly 4 million deaths, I have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that tens of thousands of my fellow Americans need a free joint or a ticket to a baseball game or a shot at a lottery ticket to get them to take a free vaccine that could well save their lives, not to mention the lives of others. A vaccine that could finally stem the pandemic.

        Yeah, I just walked in and got my shots, no problem, thank you, so yeah, I’m more than a little annoyed and disappointed.

         Problem is, I don’t really have a solution. People were livid over being required to wear masks. Imagine requiring them to get vaccinated. January 6 would seem like a backyard barbecue. In some respects, I think pot for shots is just evidence that, in this country, we never really left “normal.“

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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