By Bob Gaydos

Gov. Kathy Hochul (left) and running mate Adrienne Adams. A historic moment.

  Not all the news is coming out of D.C. today. New Yorkers have a chance to make history this year and I’m willing to bet most of them don’t even know it. 

    Kathy Hochul does. In fact, she’s going for the trifecta.

    The first female governor of New York (she moved up from lieutenant governor in August of 2021 when Andrew Cuomo resigned as governor), Hochul also became the first female to be elected governor on Nov. 9, 2022. Now, she is running for re-election with a female lieutenant governor partner — the first all-female top of ticket in state history.

    Hochul’s pick for lieutenant governor is Adrienne Adams, former speaker of the New York City Council. In addition to balancing the ticket geographically with Buffalo native Hochul, Adams would make history herself, being the first black woman to hold the number two spot in state government if elected. Adams was an unsuccessful candidate for city mayor in the Democratic primary.

      The Republican candidate for governor is Bruce Blakeman, a Trump-loving, card-carrying MAGA who is Nassau County executive. His running mate for lieutenant governor is Todd Hood, sheriff of Madison County. Right. Who?

      To refresh your memory, Blakeman only became the Republican choice for governor because Rep. Elise Stefanik, a born-again Trumper, dropped out, thus depriving New Yorkers of making a historic choice between two female candidates for governor.

    Stefanik is a classic example of how Trump treats female allies. A true converted loyalist, she was head of the GOP conference in the House of Representatives. Then Trump said she’d be his United Nations ambassador. A reward. Then he changed his mind because he needed her vote in the House. But she had already resigned her leadership position, so she used her Harvard education and decided to resign from the House and run for governor of New York instead. And then Trump endorsed Blakeman. Thanks for everything, Elise.

     At this point, all the polls say the Democratic women are likely to win. A lot of New Yorkers, not just women, think it’s about time.

    While the lieutenant governor position has always been kind of like a scaled down version of U.S. Vice President, the all-female leadership symbolism is inescapable. Start with the fact that Hochul became governor because Cuomo was under investigation by State Attorney General Letitia James, another strong woman, for several claims of inappropriate sexual advances to women at the State Capitol. Cuomo also tried to run for mayor of New York City, but fared poorly in the Democratic Primary.

     James, of course, took the Trump family to court and won a massive fraud conviction against them. They are banned from doing business in New York. James is running for re-election on a ticket with Hochul and Adams.

    So, in a country with a misogynistic president who hates and fears strong women, is an adjudicated sex offender and is tied to a religion-based group of supporters dedicated to minimizing the role of women in society, it appears that the president’s home state is giving him the proverbial finger.

    Well, it is New York.

(Note: The little red marks on my forearms attracted attention and questions, so I thought it was time to explain, again. An afternoon of weeding and pruning left the garden looking more approachable. Me not so much. The pruning included gooseberry bushes, notorious for thorns. I wrote about the not so common berry a couple of years back and it appears to be the appropriate time for a refresher on tasty gooseberries. Enjoy.)

                                      ***
By Bob Gaydos

Almost ripe gooseberries. RJ Photography

  Change is inevitable, they say, so the best course is to try to learn from it. For example, moving from an urban environment, which I lived in for most of my life, to a rural one required learning some new skills.

     Some are more important than others. Pruning and harvesting gooseberry bushes without getting cut up by thorns is one of the more esoteric ones.

     I’m learning.

    “How’d you get those scratches on your arms?”

     “It’s gooseberry season.”

     “Huh?”

     “Thorns.”

     That was a recent conversation. With temperatures in the high 90’s, I went after the spreading bushes while wearing a T-shirt. Good thing the berries are juicy.

        But not just that. They also have history. I’d never heard of gooseberries before becoming countrified and I imagine a few of you haven’t either. That’s because they were banned in America for decades.

      Early in the 20th century, federal and state governments banned the growing of currants and gooseberries to stop the spread of white pine blister rust. Basically, the fungus was killing white pine trees, which were vital to the construction industry in the country.

     It seems the blister rust fungus completes its life cycle only when gooseberries or currants and pine trees are living in close proximity to each other. Rather than cut down all the pine trees to save the gooseberry bushes, the decision was made to stop growing gooseberries to save the pine trees. Hard to argue with that.

      Yet here we are with seven very healthy gooseberry bushes waiting to be harvested. What happened? Are they illegal? Not anymore.

       Science saved the gooseberries as well as the pine trees. By mid-century, cross-breeding programs had been developed using remaining pine trees to develop varieties resistant to the rust. That meant gooseberries could be living safely in the neighborhood with the pine trees.

    The federal ban was lifted in 1966, although some states still have restrictions on cultivating or shipping gooseberries.

      But not ours. 

     In 2003, New York state passed a law to allow commercial growers and home gardeners to legally grow red currants, gooseberries and immune or resistant cultivars of black currants throughout the state. We’re legal.

     For the record, according to info I gleaned from the Cornell Cooperative Extension, the berries I’ll soon be picking are the “Pixwell” variety developed in North Dakota in 1932. They are “easy to propagate, commonly sold three-foot bushes with small thorns … that bear medium-sized fruit that starts out green and turns purple upon ripening.”

       Right. Funny how they kind of just glided through that “small thorns” item.

                           ***

(Note: “The word ‘gooseberry’ comes from the old German name for the berries, Kräuselbeere, which means ‘curled or crimped berries.’ This name became grossularia in Medieval Latin, then groseille in French, and finally ‘gooseberry’ in English. The ‘r’ may have been dropped at some point during the transition.” 

(This was written five years ago. The words still stand. A lesson sadly not yet learned.)

By Bob Gaydos   

The insurrection.

  I took a walk around the pond  Wednesday afternoon, January 6, a little before 4:30. It was cold, but still light out. The sun had just begun to set. As I walked I thought about how lucky — privileged — I was to be able to enjoy such a quiet moment in such a beautiful place in such a shithole country.

    No, friends and family, I haven’t moved. I still live in America, in a particularly scenic part of it, I think. For new readers, that place is upstate New York. It’s a place where a man can be alone to enjoy nature, if the man turns off his electronic devices.

     Two hours of watching live news reports out of Washington, D.C., had made me feel something I had never felt before — a combination of fear, anger, sadness, shame and profound outrage. The calming words and presence of President-elect Joe Biden had finally broken the spell the scenes of chaos had cast on me. It will end, I told myself. It will not succeed. There aren’t enough of them. They are all fury and delusion, taking selfies as they lay waste to the seat of government of the country they profess to love. Ignorance and arrogance, the Trump formula. In the end, it fails, but oh the harm it does. He doesn’t care. They, the rioters, are too dumb to know. That’s the nicest way I can put it. Or they are racists. Or both.

       Those are the facts. And for several hours on a Wednesday afternoon, as our Congress was attempting to perform its constitutional duty of confirming a new president,  these “Make America Great Again” terrorists made it look like one of those “shithole countries“ their leader once referred to with intent to insult. Yep, that’s what it looked like to me. …

                                                              ***.                                     

        … As I resume writing, it is now a week later. Trump has been impeached, again. Incitement to insurrection. Five people died in the attempted coup on The Capitol, including a police officer who was beaten to death by the rioters. White rterrorists carrying a Blue Lives Matter flag killed a Capitol police officer. They spread feces and urine throughout the building. They ransacked offices and went looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence. The whole time, the rioters took selfies of themselves. Eventually, they went home or some D.C. bar, apparently thinking that would be the end of it. Just a friendly little failed insurrection in the nation’s capital, broadcast live around the world.

           If you stop to think about it – and apparently the rioters did not — the ignorance is astounding. It is surpassed only by the hypocrisy of the Republican members of Congress who encouraged and invited the assault and who voted against seating Biden as the duly elected president, even after the insurrection had been quelled. They stuck to the lies of the election being stolen from Trump, even though every one of them – except for perhaps a couple of conspiracy lunatics — knows that that is a lie. It was Trump’s biggest and most dangerous lie. In truth, a treasonous lie.

         Since that now infamous Wednesday, much more has been revealed about the attack on the Capitol. It wasn’t as innocent as it first appeared. There was a plan. There may have been inside help from some Republican members of Congress. Maybe even from the Capitol police, who were woefully unprepared for a massive event that was announced well in advance. There was a delay in getting National Guard troops to the scene, perhaps caused by someone in the Defense Department.

          There will be investigations. May they go on for as long as necessary and bring to justice all those who we’re involved in this assault on America. Every last one of them. Homegrown terrorists. White supremacists. Members of Congress. Conspiracy nuts. Nazis. Klansmen. Racists. Pick a name. The list includes police and ex-military members as well. The attackers were virtually all white, which is why they are still alive. Lock them all up. People who bring swastikas and Confederate flags to attack the seat of the government of the United States of America deserve no mercy.

           Trump now stands accused by Congress and convicted by the majority of the American people and the rest of the world of inciting an attempted overthrow of a duly elected government. But his accomplices in the Republican Party are also guilty. They have ignored his assault on democratic principles for four years, out of fear or for their own gain or because they agreed with him. They deserve what they’re reaping. The party deserves to die. May it be reborn in some semblance of a responsible political party, perhaps including those Republicans who had the courage to speak out publicly and fight against Trumpism.

            America has been put on notice. There are those among us, appearing publicly as patriotic citizens, but operating out of hate and fear that their dream of a white, Christian nation with everyone else second-class citizens, is about to die. And in their foolhardy effort to avoid that fate, they may have actually hastened it. Republicans who remained silent, evangelicals who remained silent as Trump ravaged democracy, all stand indicted. Those who supported him financially along the way and now seek to distance themselves, all stand indicted. Rupert Murdoch and Fox News stand indicted. 

            In a country Trump would call a “shithole,” those seeking to overthrow the government usually try to get the military on their side if they hope to succeed. When they don’t, they don’t. As I watched with Lester Holt on NBC News as the idiots stormed the Capitol, I kept thinking, well, sooner or later troops with weapons and bullets will arrive. Hopefully, with orders to shoot. I also was dumbfounded that people were posting images of themselves on the Internet as they perpetrated this terrorist attack against this nation and gave no thought to the fact that this would make it easy to track them down and arrest them. Ignorance and arrogance.

              Yes, we have a lot of work to do, but the first thing is not to give into Republican pleas of coming together for the good of the country. They spent four years quietly watching Trump tearing the country apart. They must pay the price. I repeat, there are many more of us than them and what is necessary now is for all who know and love and respect what this nation is about to speak out forcefully in defense of it. Bring to justice those responsible. Convict Trump. Convict him again and again on whatever charges may be filed when he leaves office. Teach young people that actions have accountability. When we get around to it, teach young people about civics and government and history in school again. Clearly a lot of Americans slept through those classes. Evangelical Christians are on their own in this one.

           Joe Biden faces a monumental task when he becomes president on January 20, but he will have full control of the Congress to back him up and, I believe, fervent support of a vast majority of Americans as well. That white mob that assaulted the Capitol was an embarrassment to this nation, but maybe a lesson as well. American exceptionalism was put to the lie.

            No, this is not a “shithole” country, yet. I can still take a quiet walk around the pond every day. But those who would take the right to feel that safe and at home in this country away from anyone whose skin color or nationality or religion or politics they find fault with must know there can be no healing until the wounds are closed, Not until the guilty are prosecuted and those who aided and abetted admit their guilt. Not until journalists are not casually referred to as “enemies of the people.” Not until children are not put in cages. Not until all lives truly matter.                      

            Enough.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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

By Bob Gaydos

Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro (kidnapped)

   Be careful what you wish for.

   After a few days of reminiscing about Christmases past and pondering the year to come, of musing about the choices and chances of survival of once seemingly stalwart Trumpers Elise Stefanik and Susie Wiles, I woke up on your regular Saturday, January 3, 2026, wondering what the man himself, the beneficiary of the first ever FIFA Peace Prize, would give me to write about.

     War.

      I should have known.

      This won’t take long. What you’re going to read here is likely to be pretty much what you read elsewhere because there’s only one way for rational, law-abiding citizens of our system of government with its separation of powers spelled out in a Constitution to look at it: Invading Venezuela and kidnapping its president and his wife/adviser with no legitimate provocation and without consulting Congress is an illegitimate act of war.

     The nonsense about Venezuela being a primary source of Fentanyl coming into this country is just that, nonsense. This is all about oil. Always has been. Gaining control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Wait to see which of Trump’s wealthy backers benefit.

      That Nicolas Maduro was a much-hated dictator does not justify attacking Venezuela and looking to change the government with no request for intervention and the claim that he was in fact a major drug dealer himself for allowing the drug trade to continue is sheer nonsense when one considers the actual major drug dealers Trump has pardoned.

     Trump says we’re going to “run” Venezuela for a while. Why? They have a new president — the former Vice President. Trump says Maduro is going to be charged with drug charges in New York. There are international courts.

      Then there’s the fact that China and Russia both get a lot of oil from Venezuela and our seizing the country to make up for losing control of its oil fields when they were nationalized seems to give China an argument for taking back Taiwan and its wealth and Russia invading Ukraine for its. Same authoritarian playbook.

    Illegal. Dangerous. Foolhardy. Unwanted and unwarranted. If you believe what we tell the world, unAmerican.

   Americans don’t want this. Congress must step in. Republicans must finally find the courage to do their job. He is out of control.

    The Epstein files are still out there. Trump’s name is all over them. War is a powerful distraction. Frightened and unchecked, he will only get worse. It’s only January 3rd.

Footnote: The plane carrying Maduro and his wife apparently landed at Stewart Airport in Orange County, my neighborhood and a short ride to New York City. When the hostages from Iran landed there, it was a much more joyous event,

By Bob Gaydos

Elise Stefanik … leaving politics

(more…)

James Garfield, lower left. Chester A. Arthur, upper right.
From a print by the Temple Publishing Company hanging on my wall.

By Bob Gaydos

“I’m not fit to be president!”

The declaration thundered off the TV screen.

“The beauty of America,” came the reply. Quietly, presciently, yet setting off all sorts of alarm bells in my head.

In that one brief exchange, the creators of the Netflix series “Death by Lightning” rocketed across a century and a half. Of course. The beauty of America. Anyone can be president. Well, unless of course, she is a woman.

In fact, the four-part series offers an enlightening and entertaining account of two men, each of whom had no plan, intention or desire to be president yet both wound up in the office within months of each other.

It took one man’s death for the other to get there, that man being James A. Garfield, one of America’s least-known presidents and, from what the creators of the series tell us, one who could have been one of the best. If not for Charles J. Guiteau, the disgruntled, office-seeking lunatic running around with a gun, and an incompetent White House physician who, in removing the bullet, created the infection which actually killed Garfield.

The other man is the one who cried out about being unfit to be president, Chester A. Arthur. He was right, but it didn’t matter that he was a drunk and a laughable symbol of the spoils system of politics in America. He was the vice president, the next in line.

“The beauty of America,” was summed up succinctly by Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New York, in the Netflix series. I don’t know if Conkling, kingmaker, powerbroker and bitter rival of Garfield, ever uttered those words, but the writer sure grasped the moment.

Arthur was on the ticket in 1880 because New York, Arthur’s home state, had all the people, power and money, while Garfield, a farmer, had the message people wanted to hear. He went to the nominating convention to put someone else’s name up for president and gave such a stirring speech — he was an abolitionist when Republicans were proud to be abolitionists — that he was nominated because nobody else could get enough votes. The political art of the deal in practice.

Arthur, who oversaw the port of New York, including how the money flowed through it, wound up on the ticket as vice president in exchange for New York support of Garfield. Politics impure and simple.

But Arthur’s saving grace, to my mind, was that, when the reality of the moment hit him, he was well aware he had no business being anywhere close to the Oval Office, much less being president. While politics might be fine in that he could get rich, have fun and have power over people through control of who got the jobs and money, when it came to the presidency, he was, he declared, “unfit,” a word that carries a ton of weight considering the prestige and power of the office.

Would that were the case today. Money still controls politics, even more so since the Supreme Court decided to allow corporations to donate as much as they want to candidates who will do their bidding. Citizens United. A terrible ruling

The “beauty” of America today is that anyone can still become president, provided he has enough money behind him. Fitness, as Donald Trump and the hollow shell of what is now the Republican Party have shown, is irrelevant.

Arthur overcame his debauchery enough so that he signed into law the Civil Service system to protect government employees from the spoils system of politics which brought him to the presidency. While not regarded as a great president, neither was he a disaster. In fact, he confounded his critics in his brief term with a remarkably adequate job. A man aware, at least, to be humbled by what fate had bestowed upon him.

And no, while glaringly unfit, Trump, supported by the super rich, is also not humbled by his position, but rather clearly, even proudly, unaware of how unfit he is, not merely for the presidency, but for any office of public trust. He has, accordingly, assembled a cabinet of unfit misfits, liars and cheats incapable of doing even a merely acceptable job: Hegseth, Bondi, Patel, Kennedy, Noem, Zeldin (New York’s sorry contribution to the group), Lutnick, Gabbard, McMahon, Bessent, et al. Even Marco Rubio, who once wanted to be president, has shown himself to be unfit in so many ways.

Chester A. Arthur, for all his faults, knew instinctively what many Americans have forgotten or chosen to ignore. It is an honor and a privilege to be the president of the United States of America. But, so long as money is the route to all power, the beauty of America will also be the curse of America. Yes, absolutely anybody can become president.     Unless she’s a woman.

***

Editors note: For the history buffs out there, to the left of Arthur in the print is Andrew Johnson, who also came to the presidency via assassination. That of Abraham Lincoln. To the right of Garfield in the print are Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. This picture was published in the Baltimore News-American a long time ago.

By Bob Gaydos

     With all the celebrating and hope that welcomed Tuesday’s blue wave election results of Democratic victories, I was rewarded with the best kind of all — a race that was a microcosm of today’s Republican Party approach to governing: Unqualified candidate, lying, deceit. Best of all, it was local. And the Democrat won.

      The Town of Wallkill in Orange County, about an hour’s drive from New York City, has been pretty much a Republican stronghold forever. It’s a bustling town that profits from a highway system and a string of malls that grew up around it. It has one of the state’s busier court systems, providing enough work for three town justices.

       When one of the senior justices retired, Republicans offered as candidate a former councilman who is not a lawyer and has no court experience. For some reason with which I am not familiar, New York State allows this. Democrats offered as a candidate a lawyer with 34 years of experience handling hundreds of cases in Family Court and other courts and who also is a key staff member of the Legal Aid Society. A woman, by the way.

      Hands-down, no contest on qualifications and experience. So Republicans, who control the town board, decided the town didn’t need a third judge after all. Couldn’t afford it, they said. They voted to eliminate the position. This, even though the retiring judge said the town really did need three judges and not filling the position would put an unfair burden on the court staff, never mind the two judges left.

      Republicans didn’t budge. However, the Democratic candidate circulated petitions asking for a special referendum reestablishing the third judge position. It passed. But not before more Republican chicanery. 

      They told the Democratic candidate that the wording of the question on the special election would ask voters whether the town should eliminate the third town justice position. So she paid for lawn signs and printed cards to pass around town urging residents to vote no. Then Republicans decided to change the wording to instead ask whether the town should retain its third judge position, making the Democrat’s election handouts extremely counterproductive.

      She went to State Supreme Court to get it changed back. A sympathetic judge said there was nothing she could do, but hoped that the Republicans would do the “decent” thing. 

     They didn’t. 

      Came Tuesday and, following a few months of intensive campaigning, of all things, the Democrat won. Big.

      That’s not all. Wallkill voters kicked out the Republican town supervisor and a councilman, giving Democrats control of the town board. A veritable local earthquake.

       This story is especially rewarding for me because I lived in the town of Wallkill for about two decades and for nearly three decades worked at the local newspaper that would have reported on this incredible local story, if there was a viable local newspaper left in town.

     But that’s another story for another day. This day belongs to Maria Patrizio, Democrat, newly elected Town Justice, Town of Wallkill, Orange County, New York.

By Bob Gaydos

Just when I thought I had heard every story about what a racist, bigoted, ugly, ignorant, deplorable collection of cowards the Republican Party has become, a new day brings a new low.

The Young Republicans.

A recently leaked trove of hundreds of chat messages on Telegram from January to August of this year among leaders of the group from around the country included those referring to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people.”

Politico, which broke the story, reported that “Chat members joked about putting their political enemies in gas chambers. They joked about rape — one member referred to it as epic.”

And some praised Hitler.

Politico found more than 250 racial, anti-Semitic and other ethnic slurs. All the usual suspects. The chats included messages from leaders of several Young Republican groups, including those in New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont.

Peter Giunta, who was chair of the New York State Young Republicans, was also chief of staff for New York state Assemblymember Mike Reilly. Climbing the ladder. Giunta lost that job and apparently had to return to his parents’ basement to look for some new friends online.

Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, from upstate New York, a strong Trump loyalist until he reneged on her appointment as U.N. ambassador and past recipient of an award from the New York Young Republicans, was critical of the ugly conversations, perhaps aware that they wouldn’t help her upcoming campaign for governor of New York. Just saying.

The ironic part of this whole sleazy mess is that those participating in it were aware that, if their conversations became public, they would be in deep trouble. They even said so. Yet they persisted, perhaps feeling inoculated by the current hateful political climate created by the elders in their party.

While some Republicans have criticized the chats and called for resignation of these Young Republican leaders, a White House spokesperson said it was not fair to try to connect the ugly language to Donald Trump, who, of course, is head of the party and as bigot in charge spews hate and ridicule at those he doesn’t like on a daily basis and has launched a violent campaign against ethnic minorities in America

Number Two, J.D. Vance, described the almost universally horrified reaction to the chats as “pearl clutching.” But that’s J.D. being J.D.

Well, clutch these pearls, Republican officials. These are your party’s future leaders. It’s like a family, folks. The 20 to 40 group. They are simply mimicking the bigotry, ignorance, and hatred they have seen and heard coming from the top because they feel it has been successful. That’s what daddy always says and look at him. He’s a big shot.

No one is telling them otherwise. No one talks about the fear behind the bigotry. Also, apparently no one told them that what’s said in the house, stays in the house. The Young Republican leaders never figured out that if you’re supposed to keep something secret, there might be something wrong with it.

That ignorance, or arrogance, worked until now. Now, the whole world has learned what has been going on behind closed doors and is horrified to learn that it was, in fact, so predictable.

By Bob Gaydos

Donald Trump and wife, Melania, stuck on the escalator at the UN.

  By now, you’ve seen, read or heard about Trump’s humiliating address at the United Nations. Humiliating, that is, if you are an American who is not a member of the MAGA cult. It was an utter embarrassment, of course, except for Trump, who is beyond such feelings.

      If you’ve somehow been spared the details, let me sum it up by saying Trump bragged about stopping seven or eight or nine wars, many of which he made up, some of which are still raging and the rest in which participants said he had nothing to do with. He basically told members of the United Nations, an organization formed to promote peace and liberty throughout the world, that they have failed miserably at their mission. On the other hand, he said he has been right about everything. Everything. Some might consider it to be in especially bad taste for the U.N.’s host nation and, indeed, the host city, to be the scene for such an unhinged performance.

    Perfectly encapsulating the absurdity of the moment, the escalator stopped as Trump was ascending into the U.N. building and his teleprompter stopped as he was about to give his “address.” He blamed Democrats. But his personal mental escalator stopped working years ago and he’s never been able to give any kind of speech without rambling off into fantasy, ignoring the teleprompter. Which is exactly what he did.

    Now, Trump being Trump and embarrassing millions of Americans by saying utterly inane things is not new. But consider having to stand behind and support the things Trump says. It might be challenging, especially if it’s your first day on the job, even if you’re a Green Beret. Which is what it was for Mike Waltz, who, by the way, is the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. 

   Waltz’s nomination was approved by the Senate just five days before the U.N. General Assembly meeting. Until that time, the U.S. had no ambassador to the U.N., just someone acting in that capacity, like the rest of Trump’s cabinet. Waltz, the former national security advisor to Trump, is indeed a Green Beret. Also, an author and former contributor to, yes, Fox News. No background in diplomacy. Nothing surprising here. Except that he probably preferred being the national security advisor, where all the action is, rather than trying to learn diplomacy on the job with the nations of the world after they’ve all been insulted to their faces by his boss. On the other hand, he did volunteer for the mission.

   On the other other hand, consider the plight of Elise Stefanik, congresswoman from upstate New York, who was supposed to be Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. He nominated her soon after he took office. A reward for loyalty. Then, waiting for her confirmation by the Senate, Republicans put their heads together and figured out that, with the slim margin they held in the House of Representatives, putting Stefanik to work at the U.N. would mean a special election in New York for an open congressional seat and apparently they weren’t so sure a Republican would win. At least they weren’t willing to risk making their margin slimmer.

    So Trump said, sorry Elise, thank you for your loyalty and I’m going to ask you to stay where you are. Where she was was having conducted a farewell tour of her district and having lost her leadership position among House Republicans while awaiting confirmation to be U.N. ambassador. So, no ambassadorship and no leadership position. But at least Stefanik was spared having to deal with Trump’s rambling incoherently the other day, you say.

    Yes, but there’s more. The real story is that she has apparently moved on beyond waiting for her Republican masters in both houses to decide her fate. Stefanik recently put her townhouse in Washington, D.C., up for sale at a little over $2 million. You don’t do that if you’re planning on staying in town.

    Indeed, New York Republican State Chairman Ed Cox said recently that Stefanik will formally launch her campaign for governor soon after November’s elections.

   That would probably put her in a race next year against incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is expected to be a favorite to win in usually Democratic New York. But, it will also open Stefanik’s House seat for election of a new member since she can’t run for both offices at the same time. And yes, ironically, with Trump‘s approval rating dropping faster than Disney’s after it clumsily muzzled Jimmy Kimmel, retaining Stefanik‘s House seat, even in conservative upstate New York, will now be even more difficult for nervous Republicans. 

    One could say that’s what you deserve for even getting on the escalator with Donald Trump.

***

PS: The U.N. says  Trump’s White House photographer  stepped on a safety button causing the escalator to stop.  Also, White House staff members were in charge of operating the Teleprompter. But, you know, leftists.

By Bob Gaydos

A typical after-school scene in many cities in the United States.

I took a mental health break from writing about the news for a week because, well, just because. But it does go on, so …

The good news this week is that we’re not yet at war with Venezuela. The bad news is that a lot of Americans aren’t even aware that this could happen because they don’t read or don’t understand what they read and the whole thing is giving me and a lot of people a pain in the neck. Literally.

Let’s try to connect the dots.

As far as we know (because the Trump administration  routinely lies about everything), 19 or more people have been killed in the Caribbean Sea by missiles fired from American military vessels. The Trump “War” Department claims the victims of these attacks were Venezuelan drug smugglers, part of a gang Trump has declared “terrorists.”

Typically, no evidence of anything claimed has been produced, either in advance, to justify arrest and proper legal proceedings, or after the fact, to at least verify there were drugs and get an accurate body count. We do know that some of the victims were fishermen. Also, that such unprovoked, unverifiable attacks on the high seas are generally considered to be war crimes and that Trump likes to play make-believe warlord even though declaring war on a country is a power the Constitution gives to Congress. Republicans, who control Congress, don’t seem to care about this indiscriminate killing on the high seas because they are too scared of Trump to do their job.

Now, the only reason this is even a story is because Trump was elected president for a second term. He was chosen by an electorate that has been systematically dumbed-down by Trump/Republican assaults on the legitimate news media, schools, libraries, universities and any source of reliable written information. (I feel pretty confident saying Kamala Harris as president wouldn’t be attacking Venezuelan fishing boats in the Caribbean just to prove to supporters that she was being tough on drug smugglers.)

This assault on intelligence started in Trump’s first term. “Fake News!” he declared repeatedly about legitimate journalism. Combined with the growth of rightwing media outlets spreading actual fake news and the spread of social media on the Internet, Americans have been bombarded with “information” but no clues on how to sort it out, real from fake, important from trivial. Local newspapers have disappeared. Many people, especially younger people, now get their “news” exclusively from tidbits they see while scrolling on their phones. TikTok is not yet The New York Times.

According to recent studies from the National Literacy Institute and the National Center for Education Statistics, the average reading age of adults in the United States is at a 7th- to 8th-grade level. More than half of adults read below a sixth-grade level. As of 2024, 54 percent of American adults ages 16–74 have literacy skills below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. This is about 130 million Americans. Of those with low literacy skills, an estimated 45 million adults are functionally illiterate, meaning they read below a fifth-grade level.

Data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies shows that the average U.S. adult literacy score declined between 2017, Trump’s first year in office, and 2023, the last year tested. The percentage of adults at the lowest literacy levels increased from 19 percent to 28 percent in that span of Republican assault on literacy and increasing reliance on social media for information.

The connection? Higher literacy levels go hand in hand with greater civic engagement, including voter turnout. Boosting literacy can strengthen democratic participation. And vice versa. Trump once famously boasted: “I love the poorly educated.” And, through lies and fear-mongering language, persuading just enough of them to vote in targeted states with just the right number of electoral votes can steal an election from the majority.

All is not lost. New York State, behind Gov. Kathy Hochul and a Democrat-led state legislature, is trying to, among other things, reverse this illiteracy trend by banning the use of cell phones during school hours. It can only help. Kids might have to look at something other than games. Teens might have to tear themselves away from TikTok and Instagram and who knows what else and maybe even learn how to tell what’s true and what’s BS. And maybe they won’t feel the need to constantly stare at their phones as they walk home from school.

That’s where the pain in the neck comes in. I asked a chiropractor about the effect of constantly walking and viewing cell phones among young people. He said that the neck/shoulder stoop that typically occurs in adults past age 50 is probably going to arrive with this group of teens in their 30s. Well, you read it here first so pass it on to your kids. Maybe give them a book, too.

The other good news during my hiatus was that the chiro did a really good job on the right side of my neck. No more pain. The insanity will continue, but at least I’m trying to cut down on the games and look up more often from my writing tablet.

Oh, and I’m still waiting to see those Epstein files.