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

The meme speaks.

Sometimes, we humans can make things more complicated than they really are. For example, we can drive ourselves nuts trying to figure out why someone does or says the things he says or does.

Yes, obviously I’m talking about Trump.

It has become a daily preoccupation. From declaring war on Venezuelan fishermen or Los Angeles or Portland to windmills and Tylenol and the entire United Nations. One thousand percent tariffs? Buying Greenland? Ignoring the First Amendment? Telling King Charles to adopt the moniker Charles the Conqueror? All in a day’s work for Donald. Why? Why? Why?

For a lot of us, it’s crazy making. But it doesn’t have to be.

Trump gives us clues all the time. In fact there’s a meme (of course) that sums it up nicely. It consists of three quotes from Trump:

“I love the poorly educated.”

-Trump about MAGAs 2/24/16

“I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.”

– Trump to MAGAs 6/9/24

“Smart people don’t like me, you know?”

– Trump 9/14/25

Umm, yes, we know. But why?

Society has a way of coming up with ways to explain the seeming unexplainable. The most famous perhaps is Occam’s Razor. Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is explained as “Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” Popularly, the principle is paraphrased as “of two competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred.”

When applied to everyday life, Occam’s razor encourages choosing the simplest explanation or solution to a problem, especially when multiple options exist with similar explanatory power. Instead of overcomplicating things, it suggests that the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is likely the correct one.

A lot of anonymous recovery groups have an even more basic suggestion to help newer members trying to figure out how things work: The acronym KISS, or “Keep it simple, stupid.”

So, Trump?

His biographer, Michael Wolff, who had considerable access to Trump, says he found himself wondering the same thing: Why does he say the things he says, often oblivious to the situation or actual facts?

Wolff says he asked Sam Nunberg, a close adviser to Trump in his early political career, about the kind of president Trump might be. Wolff thought Trump might be a bit unpredictable.

Wolff says Nunberg replied, ‘‘You don’t get it, do you? He’s an idiot!’’

And at that moment, Occam’s razor and the KISS principle both kicked in for Wolff: “It all came clear to me because Trump is, in very classic terms, an idiot.”

Duh! Of course.

And part of him instinctively knows it. That third quote in the meme: “Smart people don’t like me, you know?” wasn’t said to a meeting of Mensa. It was addressed to his MAGA followers. You know, the ones of which he said,”I love the poorly educated” and “I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.” In some respects, Trump apparently understands the KISS principle.

So, based on the opinions of two men who had much closer contact with him than most people, I’m applying Occam’s Razor to Trump, who today faces a 24-hour deadline for total shutdown of the federal government, even though his party controls the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

He’s in charge of all of it, yet it’s about to shut down. Trump blew off a meeting with congressional leaders last week to try to avoid the shutdown. Now he’s down to the final hours.

Why? Well, obviously, he’s an idiot.

Now that that’s settled, I have to start figuring out how to apply Occam‘s razor to all the people who still love Trump and voted for him, twice.

KISS.

###

PS: Having deduced that Trump is an idiot does not preclude the fact that Trump is also a fascist and a pedophile. Occam’s Razor says all three are possible.

The decades-long peace vigil across from the White House that Trump ordered dismantled.

By Bob Gaydos

“Maybe it’s just me, but: If I’m going to keep doing this, I think I’m going to have to come up with a rating system on the absurdity (an all-inclusive, non-profane word for all the negatives imaginable) of news stories emanating from the White House.”

I wrote that sentence a few weeks back at the end of a column that included stories about Trump firing the commissioner in charge of providing monthly labor statistics because he didn’t like the numbers she reported and appointing Fox News personality and legal nut job Jeanine Pirro as prosecutor for the District of Columbia. On a scale of one to five, I gave them both a five.

I have to readjust my rating system, or just scrap it. I should have known better with Trump. He never misses an opportunity to do the more outrageous, stupid, harmful, arrogant, selfish, petty, cruel, illegal and ultimately absurd thing when given the opportunity. And the Supreme Court, one of his primary enablers, has given him that opportunity carte blanche with its conveyance of immunity for acts committed in accordance with his duties as president.

Last week, Trump ordered the killing by U.S. military of 11 Venezuelan citizens on a boat in the southern Caribbean, justifying it as a blow in the war against illegal drugs. He said the U.S. military had identified the crew as members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the U.S. designated a terrorist group in February and that the gang, not known for illegal drug activity, is controlled by Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.

No warning was given. The boat was attacked, the occupants killed. No drugs were found. Even if there were, proper legal procedure is for proper authorities to arrest the people involved and let the legal system judge them. Not assassinate them with the military. That’s illegal. Some call it a war crime.

The rest is in no particular order since the outrageous keeps coming on a daily basis as Trump, who is clearly sliding to dementia, is also obviously panicked about the growing demand that the Epstein client list be made public.

This has resulted in him threatening war on a United States City — Chicago — not only threatening to send in National Guard troops, but posting a social media fantasy of himself in “Apocalypse Now” declaring, “I love the smell of deportation in the morning.” This also emphasizes the fact that he has given the Department of Defense a new (unofficial) nickname, Department of War. Which would also jibe with that war crime against Venezuela.

He has also tilted his javelin against windmills, stepping up his Don Quixote crusade against safe, clean, inexpensive alternative energy by shutting down a huge, nearly completed clean air project off the coast of Rhode Island, which is designed to serve hundreds of thousands of residents.

Then, after threatening Republican members of Congress who dared to demand full release of the Epstein files by calling them “traitors,” he turned his attention to upstate New York. He showed his absolute pettiness by celebrating the West Point Alumni Group’s decision to cancel the awards ceremony at which Tom Hanks was to receive the prestigious Sylvanus Thayer Award. It is given annually to “an outstanding citizen of the United States whose service and accomplishments in the national interest exemplify personal devotion to the ideals expressed in West Point‘s motto: ‘Duty, Honor, Country.’” Things about which Trump is completely clueless.

Hanks, who has appeared in several notable films portraying members of the armed services as well as the American space program, is also an outspoken critic of Trump. Trump called him “woke.” Horrors! Earlier this year, the Academy eliminated more than a dozen student clubs and organizations for women and minority students, bowing to Trump pressure to eliminate DEI programs. The alumni said Hanks will still get the award, but without the public pomp and ceremony. Maybe the press should show up.

And just to wrap up this mess, the fearless leader apparently looked out the window and didn’t like what he saw in a park across the street — a simple peace vigil that has been there for more than 40 years. Trump ordered Park Police to tear it down as part of his campaign to clear the nation’s capital of homeless people. Unfortunately, the people who maintain it are not homeless. They simply show up every day to sit under the blue tarp. Trump took that blue canvas as a sign it was a homeless encampment. There’s a war on against that, too.

The day after the blue awning, erected to defend against rain, was taken down and signs promoting peace thrown away, one of the founders of the vigil showed up in the usual place to continue the vigil. Without the blue tent awning. Determined to remain. The group found their signs, too.

It may be too much to expect, but it would be nice if one of Trump’s trusted aides could point out to their fearless leader that murdering foreign civilians without providing any evidence or cause, depriving thousands of your own citizens of an inexpensive source of energy, threatening war on an American city, bullying the military into a cowardly retreat on honoring a citizen who had honored them and then (really?) tearing down a simple vigil for peace in the world because some phony MAGA “journalist” called it to his attention are not the kinds of acts that are going to get him that Nobel peace prize he desperately wants.

They’re not likely to get him into heaven either.

By Bob Gaydos

Sunrise at Stonehenge during the summer solstice.

It’s official. Today is the longest day of the year.

AI says so: “The longest day of summer in 2025, also known as the summer solstice, will be Friday, June 20th. This is when the Northern Hemisphere will experience its longest period of daylight and the shortest night of the year. The solstice marks the official start of astronomical summer.”

The Old Farmer’s Almanac and NASA say so: “The 2025 summer solstice falls on Friday, June 20, at 10:42 PM. ET. This marks the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, when the Earth’s tilt positions it closest to the Sun.”

Man, I’m embarrassed to admit this news kind of took me by surprise. I mean, every one of those 151 days since January 20 of this year has felt like the longest day of the year. I know you know what I mean.

Well, it’s late afternoon as I’m writing this and I’ve still got more than six hours for the official entry of summer and if the gods are with me, I may survive the longest day of the year without the USA going to war again.

It seems Taco Don has pulled his usual schtick and backed off from threatening to kill the leader of Iran and give Israel our bunker busting bombers to wipe out Iran’s nuclear facilities for at least “two weeks.”

That gives his staff and any Republican left in Congress with a shred of pride enough time to give our confused leader a little dose of reality to go with his bombast. Also to give delegates from France, the UK and Germany an  opportunity to meet with an Iranian delegate to consider ways to end the war between Iran and Israel without blowing up the world.

It’s similar to Trump backing off threatening 80 percent tariffs on Chinese goods and blowing up the stock market. That little insider-trading maneuver helped Donald and a few close friends make a bundle while backing off also preserved the portfolios of so-called average Americans. Supposedly we’re still talking to the Chinese, although they say we’re not.

Funny, India says Trump had nothing to do with stopping the fighting between it and Pakistan, although he says he did.

And, remember that Salvadoran native Trump’s goon squad deported to El Salvador against the judge’s orders? Trump repeatedly insisted he could not be brought back, despite repeated court orders to do so, because, well that’s a different country.

Remember? Well, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in Tennessee and recently appeared in court to face criminal charges for allegedly transporting migrants within the U. S. One constitutional crisis averted.

Also, the Fed chairman still has a job and we have not, despite various poorly disguised threats, invaded Panama, Greenland or Canada yet. As far as I know. But then, this is the longest day of the year, and Trump, the consummate car salesman, has yet to sell the Tesla that Elon gave him.

So who knows? Maybe I should just count my blessings, enjoy the sunshine, the air conditioning, have a little supper and find a movie to watch.

Wonder if “The Longest Day” is on Netflix.

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

Elise Stefanik … pondering her future

  Poor Elise Stefanik. She just got Trumpified out of the dream job of her young lifetime, the crowning glory if you will of all that scraping, bowing, butt-kissing, lying, conniving, scheming and surrendering of personal dignity required to become the Orange One’s nominee as Ambassador to the United Nations, and no one noticed because the rest of the Trump cabinet shared classified war plans on a private chat line that they are forbidden to use for such purposes and somehow managed to include a bonafide — as in ethical and trained — journalist on the chat, which has the Trump team all in distract, lie and point fingers mode because many average Americans can understand a breach of national security even when their Social Security office is closed and a lot of people want Trump to fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth even though Trump said he was told no classified information was included in the unsecure chat of the bombing of Yemen’s Houthis, which, it being a warlike act, one might expect the chief executive to be in on the action, and the group was caught with their collective pants down when the journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic magazine, followed up his original story on being mysteriously included on the chat by publishing the entire thread since Trump said it wasn’t classified, although having the sense to redact the name of an undercover CIA agent that Tulsi Gabbard, director of intelligence, happened to drop into the chat, although she couldn’t remember much of anything when members of Congress asked her about it, which was reminiscent of Trump’s response when he couldn’t remember signing an order citing an old wartime act to justify shipping a couple of hundred migrants, who may or may not be members of a Venezuelan gang, to a brutal prison in El Salvador, despite the order of a federal judge not to do so, said judge now serendipitously being the one also assigned to a case in which a private watchdog group, American Oversight, is accusing the Trump Administration of breaking the law, because all intergovernmental communications are required to be preserved, while the beauty of the Signal chat app the war group used is that it eventually deletes all conversations, making it hard to be held accountable, which is why, of course, the aforesaid judge has ordered all members of the chat to preserve everything on their phones and as he is already ticked at being given the runaround by Trump’s lawyers on the deportation matter, was in no mood for any more nonsense on a serious national security issue, which is why hardly anybody knows that poor Elise Stefanik of upstate New York, who did a victory tour of the Adirondacks and fired most of her congressional staff to become part of Trump’s cabinet, is now being told to be patient, go back to Congress even though you’ve lost your leadership position, be a good soldier  and run again for Congress in two years, because we are afraid that we can lose your seat, even though you and Trump carried the district easily, if somebody new runs for the Republican Party, and we only have a couple of seats to spare to control the House of Representatives and heck, you understand it’s all politics, and if we lose control in two years, we can’t do any of the neat crap we’ve been doing — firing people, threatening Greenland — and then you’ll probably never get to be UN ambassador anyway, so please and thank you, Elise.

                    ***

PS: You think it’s easy covering these people?

By Bob Gaydos

    Reporting the most significant news of the day is always a combination of judgment and opinion, seasoned by experience. But, within the variables, one thing is certain: War trumps  everything.

      The terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel was so brutally vicious, claiming the lives of more than a thousand innocent civilians, including women and children, the elderly, people dragged out of their homes, young people at a festival, even babies and also resulting in the taking of hostages that it (1.) overshadowed the unprecedented shutting down of the House of Representatives because Republicans, the majority party, had removed their chosen Speaker and could not agree on a new one, putting in peril (2) funding for the government itself, (3) aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia and (4) aid to longtime ally Israel in its declared war against Hamas, which (5.) did not seem to trouble the small group of rightwing radical Republicans holding the government hostage, or their anointed leader, Donald Trump, who (6.) gave his blessing for new Speaker to Jim Jordan, the ineffectual Ohio congressman who aided and abetted Trump in the failed January 6 insurrection and whose only goal seems to be to shut down the government and, in the process, all the investigations and court proceedings against Trump, who (7.) took the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel as an occasion to compliment Hezbollah, another Islamic terrorist group with a target on Israel and (8.) to blame Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for the success of the surprise attack, most likely as payback for the fact that Netanyahu (9.) was the first foreign leader to congratulate Joe Biden on his election as America’s president in 2020, something which Trump, Jordan and the rest of the MAGA crowd are still  (10.) trying to undo even as (11.) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a member of one of America’s most celebrated political families, flip-flopped between conspiracy theories and strategies in his own ego-driven campaign for the 2024 presidential election, having (12.) announced that he is dropping his plan to run as a Democrat to run instead as an independent candidate, probably because he was gaining little traction among Democratic voters since his extreme views more closely resemble those of Trump supporters, (13.) a development which caused confusion among political prognosticators as to whether Kennedy as an independent candidate with a famous Democratic name  would take more voters from Trump or Biden, (14.) something which would be more of a worry for Democrats if RFK Jr. even vaguely resembled his late father politically and personally (he’s no Bobby Kennedy) and had also not recently been accused of anti-Semitism, but, again, was complicated by (15.) Kennedy’s unambiguous reaction to the Hamas attack on Israel: “This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defense. We must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself — now.”

    War trumps everything.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

President Biden shakes hands with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

By Bob Gaydos

    About that Joe Biden is too old to run for re-election column I wrote a little while back … I may have been a bit hasty. 

      The “old” man just took the boldest, most dramatic act by an American president since, well, I can’t remember when.

       Biden’s surprise trip to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, was at once diplomatically and politically brilliant, as well as brave.

        Shaking hands with the Ukrainian president in the middle of a war zone in an area not controlled by American forces immediately sent two messages:

1. To Russian President Vladimir Putin: The United States of America is still the protector of freedom and democracy around the world. The leader of the Free World. Do not mess with us.
2. To Democrats (and Republicans) considering running for president in 2024: Joe Biden is still an astute politician and the leader of the Democratic Party. Don’t mess with him.

         Too old? A special military flight to Poland and then a secret train ride to Kyiv for a “golf” rendezvous, with a courtesy call to the Russians that the American president will be visiting the heart of the country they have so miserably failed at conquering so don’t do anything stupid? That’s a movie script.

        The scenes of Biden shaking hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Biden’s later comments in Poland had to infuriate Putin as much as it heartened Ukrainians and citizens of Poland and other Eastern European countries fearful of Russia’s expansionist tendencies. One year since Russia invaded Ukraine and Biden is in Kyiv, not Putin. The U.S. and NATO stand resolved to help Ukraine defeat the Russian invaders. 

       It also undoubtedly gave pause to any Democrats thinking of challenging Biden in 2024, as he appears to be planning a campaign for reelection. 

    Of course, there is also the fact that there is no obvious, younger, replacement candidate among Democrats. No charismatic leader. Nor is there anyone with the political experience and savvy demonstrated in his first two years by this president who occasionally flubs some words, stutters and walks slowly.

     As for Republican  presidential hopefuls, Donald Trump has already lost to Biden, is under several criminal investigations, any one of which could result in his indictment and, as Nikki Haley not so subtly reminded us of, is in the same age category as Biden. Over 75. Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, announced her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination by calling for competency tests for any candidate for federal office over the age of 75.

      Gee, wonder who she was talking about. Personally, I think one would have to be out of his or her mind  to run for Congress, although these days that doesn’t seem to matter in Republican primaries. But Haley’s statement represents a blatant ageism, assuming that candidates younger than 75 would automatically pass a  competency test. For what it’s worth and based on what we’ve all seen and heard, I think Biden easily passes and Trump flunks any legitimate one.

     Do I wish Biden were maybe at least 10 years younger? Sure. I’m a year older than Biden. I know the actuarial numbers on life expectancy and the daily risks of life in general for older people.

      But presidents get the best of care and it’s hard to dismiss experience and boldness, especially when combined with results.

      Biden has got inflation down to a manageable level, the unemployment rate is the lowest in decades, a wide-ranging infrastructure bill (promised, but never delivered by Trump) will bring jobs and improve bridges, highways, railways across the country, a new chips act will take much of that business away from China and Medicare recipients will get a break on drug prices. He even tricked Republicans into saying they don’t want to cut Social Security and Medicare in giving his State of the Union speech. Not a bad first couple of years, especially for an “old” man.

    An old man, by the way, dealing with a Republican party pledged to oppose anything and everything Democrats propose. In a party with a growing progressive wing, the moderate Biden has demonstrated he knows how to be president and get some things accomplished in spite of sharp differences of opinion. And, in his trip to Kyiv, he has displayed courage and leadership to go with his ability to connect with the average American.

     So, is he too old? Time and fate may ultimately hold the answer. But Biden showed me something I didn’t know was there. For now, I guess I’m hedging my bet.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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

By Bob Gaydos

    The world is in the third year of a deadly pandemic, Russia has started a brutal war in Europe, the United States is still reeling from an attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of white nationalists trying to overturn a presidential election, one of the country’s two major political parties has become a.cult led by a con man with fascist DNA … and there’s no baseball.

     Take it easy. I’m not putting the Major League Baseball lockout in the same category as the grab bag of historic events dominating our lives today (and I’ll add global warming). That’s actually the point.

     When the world goes, well, to hell, a person needs somewhere safe to go for a break. Sports in general and, in the bleak of February especially, baseball has filled that need for me.

     February typically means the Super Bowl ends the football season and pitchers and catchers report to spring training to start the new baseball season. But there was nothing typical with this February. With the contract between players and owners expired and no new agreement ready to be signed, team owners locked the doors to training facilities in Florida and Arizona. No contract, no getting into shape at our digs. Dumb.

       Both sides then toughened their negotiating stances in the contest between billionaires and millionaires on how to share the wealth from TV deals and over-priced tickets. And Rob Manfred, MLB commissioner, started talking about delaying the start of the season or shortening it. Dumber.

     Since my mid-teens, I have followed the practice of the late Chief Justice Earl Warren by turning to the sports pages to start my day. Time enough for the rest of the world. Sports for the most part is safe conflict. No one really gets hurt, except the gamblers.

     But lockouts and shortened seasons are not the headlines baseball fans were looking for. Not safe.

      Nor smart, from a business sense. Think about it. With all the grim news in the world and having already surrendered the national pastime crown to football by focusing on how fast a baseball can get to home plate and how much faster it can leave the park, baseball decision-makers blew a golden opportunity to grab some attention and provide some stress relief with positive, non-confrontational news. New contract! Who’s the talk of training camp? A comeback story? No more starting extra innings with a runner on second base?

       Instead, we got Derek Jeter quitting as boss of the Marlins because they apparently don’t want to win as much as he does, bigger bases to improve the success rate of stolen base attempts, a lockout and Opening Day pushed back two weeks. 

       Oh yeah, and no more shifts because major league hitters apparently can no longer hit it where they ain’t.

      You blew it, baseball. Fans were looking for a hit-and-run. Instead, they got an intentional walk. You picked a really bad time to play moneyball.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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

 By Bob Gaydos

American troops are leaving Afghanistan.

    I was born a little more than six months before Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor. I hope to still be around at the end of August when the United States military engagement in Afghanistan officially ends. That’s 80 years of war, more or less. Mostly more, as it turns out, certainly more than I was aware of.

       President Biden’s decision to finish the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan — begun by Donald Trump supposedly as part of a truce with the Taliban that never materialized — is to me both proper and overdue. It will be 20 years since American troops landed in Afghanistan with the mission of rooting out Al-Qaeda, capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and avenging the attacks of 9/11.

        That mission was accomplished in the Obama administration and Biden then argued, as Vice President, for a U.S. troop withdrawal. However, he was unsuccessful and the mission morphed into establishing a stable government and defeating the Taliban, two objectives apparently not enough Afghans themselves have been eager to see happen. At some point, and with a history of other nations’ failed attempts at “saving Afghanistan” to guide us, it becomes time to say, “Not our country; not our problem.“

         Harsh, perhaps, but realistic, especially with the U.S. facing a threat to its own government from within. It’s time for America to deal with January 6 2021, now that it has settled Sept. 11, 2001.

          And, really, does anyone think Afghanistan is winnable? What would that look like? How many more American lives and how much more investment would it take? Let Pakistan take a shot at it. Keep the CIA and embassy troops in the country.

          Afghanistan has been called the “forever war.” It just seems like it. But the truth is, American troops have been involved in one military conflict or another pretty much forever.

           In my lifetime, starting with World War II, the list of military engagements also includes the Korean War, China (repatriation), Vietnam, Lebanon (twice), Grenada, Panama, Somalia (talk about forever), the Gulf War, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Indian Ocean (pirates!), Libya (twice) Uganda and, still, Syria.

           Much of the 21st Century military engagement involves spinoffs of one sort or another of the war on terror. This is obviously a necessary price of defending freedom and democracy and not only at home. But when it results in longterm involvement in a faroff country with no sign of diplomatic progress or 100 percent commitment from local forces, how long does the Umited States have to stay involved?

          “Let me ask those who want us to stay: How many more?” Biden said. “How many thousands more American daughters and sons are you willing to risk? And how long would you have them stay?” More than 2,300 American troops have died in Afghanistan.

         Biden is right. It would seem that cyberwarfare is a more serious threat to the American way of life than Afghanistan or whomever Iran is funding in Syria today. Let our intelligence agencies find the terrorist threats and plots to destabilize allies. Our troops will always be ready to help in a moment’s notice. But wars need clear missions and expiration dates. 

          Who’s the threat to freedom? Right now, it’s easier to identify them right here at home. They’re the ones screaming all over social media and Fox “News” to forget about the attack on the U.S. Capitol. That’s a war worth fighting.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

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