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It’s certain few were more born and raised with a silver spoon than Harlan Rogers Crow. Sired in 1949 by Texas real estate magnet, Trammel Crow, young Harlan was the heir apparent to the Crow family wealth by the time he “began his career” as an industrial leasing agent in 1974. By 1988 he was CEO of Crow Holdings, by all accounts critical to steering the company through convulsions caused by a crash of market values. The firm emerged from the rubble bruised but intact, a giant in the real estate investment industry. 

At its zenith Crow interests totaled nearly 300,000,000 square feet (28,000,000 m2) of developed real estate, comprising eight thousand properties in more than one hundred cities. “America’s landlord” is how the Wall Street Journal once summed up the company’s massive reach. 

Harlan Crow has never been shy about pressing his financial position through civic intercourse. In 2009 Dallas city officials proposed a publicly-funded hotel to invigorate the city’s underused convention center. Crow, who wanted the initiative pursued within private sector parameters he could dominate and profit from, launched a multi-million dollar campaign to block the project. While Crow refused to be interviewed or make any public comments about the issue, other than his belief “they’re making a big mistake,” nobody doubted who was writing the checks. 

Since then Crow has only become more generous on the down-low when the cause is enhancing his own business prospects… or big picture rightist efforts to influence America’s political and judicial process. Whether it be 501-C4 organizations or public servants, Crow won’t hesitate to turn on the dark money spigot. And apparently, few have personally received more from Crow’s munificence then Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and wife Ginni. 

Thomas is no stranger to the kinds of problems personal character flaws can create. But even back in 1991, before Anita Hill credibly told her sordid recollection of Thomas’ sexual harassment, his response to questions asked by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee abjectly failed to inspire confidence that his feet were anywhere near big enough to fill Thurgood Marshall’s shoes. The irony then that the GOP was never going to rethink its vetting of Mr. Black anti-affirmative action, no matter how flawed a pick he turned out to be, matches the pathetic certainty Republicans won’t blink at their token’s overt corruption now. 

For more than 30 years Thomas has mailed it in at SCOTUS, first as a docile “protege” of Antonin Scalia, and now as a shrill cheerleader for demolishing precedent in favor of Fox/AM culture war extremism. From the start his vote was as predictable as an August afternoon thunderstorm in DC. Now, a slew of revelations concerning the graft he gladly accepted from Crow fill in the missing puzzle pieces. Not just intellectually dormant. Not just a self-loathing rightist zealot. A genuine corrupt toady, in it to skim it. 

Whatever his position on whatever case, it’s bought and paid for. Crow-sponsored Indonesia extravaganzas, complete with private jets and $4000 bottles of wine provide a more than reasonable basis to draw such a conclusion. Add to that actual cash purchases of family real estate, not to mention cushy six-figure salaries for the wife to drone on about the menace progressives pose, and it becomes nearly impossible to label it anything else. 

Of course, it is a harrowing notion that one of America’s major political parties is not only no longer willing to accept the democratic process, but fully enthused to subvert it. That’s a situation worth losing plenty of sleep over. However, most Americans prefer other distractions to disrupt their REM, and “partisan politics” has always been low on our list of daily priorities. 

Thomas, whose wife is a documented seditionist, incessantly texting Mark Meadows on January 6th in a MAGA-crazed frenzy to thwart Biden’s inauguration, provides the most accurate barometer yet for measuring just how subversive the GOP has become. Not only will they ignore any and all discoveries of how compromised he is; they will do whatever it takes to keep his robe on. Nothing new, no matter how much it smells, is going to make a difference; it’s 6-3 and it’s going to stay that way. 

Were one assigned the task of compiling a list of priorities a sworn enemy of America could pursue it would have trouble keeping up with the current House Republican agenda. Force the US to default on its debt? Check. Block any efforts to address climate change, even as it wrecks coast-to-coast havoc? Check. Actually push for permitless concealed carry, and assault weapon accoutrements in the face of daily mass shootings that numb the nation. Check. Terrorize the LGBT community, discredit police brutality victims, relentlessly incite seditious nullification of federal mandates, defund whoever seeks to hold Trump accountable, and on and on.  

What the ugly revelations about Thomas add is clarity about how far back the rot goes, and how inadequate our institutions have always been to police recalcitrant offenders higher up the food chain. Once again we are learning the hard way that reliance on some bare minimum of good faith and a sense of shame no longer cuts it when one of our major political parties is bereft of both and proud of it. Leave it to John Roberts to police his own… uh, yea, sure thing. Thomas is simply what he has always been… as bad as we figured and smug as he can be, protected by enemies of our republic he calls friends. BC

When a jury deadlocked recently over giving a death sentence to Nickolas Cruz, the 2018 mass murderer of 17 people at Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, it sparked widespread outrage. Though Cruz was barely of age when he carried out his atrocity, and suffered significant mental impairment, in large part the result of substantial childhood trauma, nobody, from the victims’ families – whose aggrieved victim statements before his sentencing made clear anything less than death only rubbed salt into their wounds – to MAGA state politicos always on the come to pander to anger, was at all interested in “mitigating circumstances.” Although the judge made clear Cruz would never sniff the possibility of parole, it did little to abate the visceral ire most felt about him cheating the needle.

There are precious few things America seems capable of reaching bipartisan consensus about; sadly, a common lust for conflating revenge with justice is one of those outliers. Indeed, polls confirm, particularly when taken after episodes like the Parkland massacre, a wide cross-section of Americans seem willing to diminish the human element within the process if it guarantees the likes of Nickolas Cruz will get what’s coming to them.

How a country connects crime and punishment speaks volumes about the depth of substance within its civic discussions. A society fixated on making trespassers suffer as the guiding staple of its penal sensibilities betrays more than just a failure to discipline its approach to essential public policy, it also underlines an injurious lack of collective empathy that will surely leach into other important segments of national life.

More than 60 percent of us favor the death penalty for convicted murderers. That majority has remained solid and unwavering throughout the last half-century despite fairly incredible advancement in forensic science, which has produced many irrefutable discoveries when applied to critical pieces of physical evidence that had previously resulted in the conviction of defendants sentenced to death row.

Of course, the death penalty issue is as complex as it is emotional, as nuanced as it is visceral. On the one side are the innocent victims of unspeakable crimes, often children who suffered through their final moments of life at the hands of depraved beasts. In many of the most egregious cases the state presents incontrovertible proof, well beyond a reasonable doubt. Often, the defendant admits freely his guilt and shows little remorse for what happened, actually leading investigators to where bodies are buried.

That such monsters should not be erased from existence and actually fed and housed on the taxpayer dime for the rest of their lives is very difficult to accept when presented within the vacuum of each isolated case. Indeed, in that context, one can argue that the victims’ basic rights are being violated if the perpetrator receives anything other than the maximum sanction. Moreover, from a broader societal perspective, it assaults the senses to think a child molesting killer should be afforded anywhere from 15k to over 60K per year of state-supported sustenance for the rest of his life. If every episode were so open and shut, things would be much simpler.

Alas, that’s not the case. On the other side of the issue is a judicial system we know is, not simply imperfect, but often patently unjust. In fact, with the advancement of criminal science, applied effectively by pro bono organizations such as the Innocence Project in service to death row inmates convicted under questionable circumstances, it’s clear, as men who spent years on death row are freed, a sizable number of innocent convicts currently face execution. Far worse, it is equally certain, as previously closed cases are examined, that a growing list of men the state executed were innocent of the crimes they were condemned for. The cherry on top is the circle-the-wagons mentality many prosecutors and relevant officials exhibit when presented with the truth. Time and again, rather than own up to the grievous injustice it caused, the court system will dig in its heels and refuse to right the wrong.

So the question, absent any demonstration of the national will necessary to create a responsive death penalty appeals process that shields its participants from politics, really boils down to… do the ends justify the means? Is our desire to make the worst of us pay what we believe they owe for their crimes worth the collateral damage of innocent men falling through the cracks? Do you have more trouble sleeping knowing a vile murderer is in a cell instead of the dirt, or that a penniless kid with an IQ of 70 was railroaded by the state he never stood a chance against?

The former sensibility seems far more prevalent, particularly in Florida, which leads the nation in the number of convicts exonerated while on death row. Governor Ron DeSantis, a MAGA prototype most mentioned as the heir apparent to gain the Trump base’s cultish allegiance, just won re-election in a landslide. It’s certain he spends no time considering the specter of innocent men strapped in for lethal injections when coming up with his policy priorities. Couple that with the public disdain for Cruz’s sentence, and it’s a license for the GOP-dominated state legislature to pander. Such ugly synergy promises to provide a torrent of bills designed only to add “mandatory” to as many sentencing guidelines as possible. If a jury can’t be relied on, exclude them from the process.

Almost all of the world’s democracies have distinguished themselves from dictators by banning the death penalty. The US is not one of them. In fact, we are the only western democracy still employing it. Moreover, one of our major political parties appears hellbent to expand its reach. Of course, it’s common knowledge Trump’s death penalty inclinations are of the Saudi Arabian variety, but when his 2024 challengers gather on the debate stage you can bet they will be arguing about who doesn’t love capital punishment enough.

No surprise there. Underneath, the GOP understands its 24/7 gun lobby servitude makes it fully complicit in America’s bloodbath, MAGA zealotry aside. Any distraction that concentrates the blame somewhere else while inviting another issue that actually enjoys popular support is a godsend.

Yet and still, perhaps the most depressing reality is that so many otherwise sensible Americans allow the rage produced by the worst crimes to addle their perspective about what is and isn’t true injustice, not to mention what societal progress should look like. Commuting death sentences has always been more about profiles in courage than good politics. These days we are having way too much trouble recognizing either. Another important civic barometer that’s moving backwards. BC

It was a moment in time that came and went without enough notice, but spoke volumes. Marjorie Taylor Greene actually presided over the House of Representatives Monday. That’s right, the day before she went full Cruella Deville and jeered that the POTUS was a liar as he delivered his State of the Union Address, MTG was granting lawmakers permission to speak. The Saturday Night Live skit practically writes itself. Might as well laugh at the preposterous rather than cry at the tragic. Either way, the Wicked Witch of the South with the gavel should end once and for all any doubt that the normalization of MAGA is complete. Six plus years in and it’s a done deal.

The Koch network, a web of donors established by the billionaire industrialist brothers, provides blank-check sized contributions to Republican candidates it embraces to do its bidding. What that looks like never really changes much. Staunch support for business and upper-bracket tax cuts, a State of Nature regulatory regime that sticks it to women, minorities, unions and the planet in equal measure, and trade policy that fits its definition of a “level playing field” have always been the quid pro quo to receive Koch largesse.

This week the Koch network made news by joining a wide array of other GOP party elements in stating its intention to openly oppose Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination. Slipping comfortably into the role of innocent bystander, the organization issued a statement that rebukes Trump’s influence, charging he has led the GOP to pick “bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core American principles” and “are being rejected by the American people.”

Whatever those core principles may be it is certain that, unless the list includes disdain for democratic governance and the ceaseless nihilist obstruction it demands, the new House majority never got the memo. Like its rising star MTG, now a member in good standing of both the powerful Oversight and Homeland Security committees, the caucus is determined to remain seditious in plain sight, scoffing at any notion that governing should be a meaningful part of its mission statement.

Thus, the mainstream storyline now asserts there is “a civil war brewing” within the GOP between its House majority and establishment money machine. It’s rank and file versus the elite, who happen to be invaluable contributors to the former’s war chests. But is that assessment accurate, or simply more guff to the normalization paradigm? So it’s only House Republicans who still chug the Kool-Aid? The big money is intent on putting Trumpism in the rearview, not just its namesake? If Republicans are successful in ditching their lord of psychopathy and clinical narcissism – still far easier said than done – what exactly will they then be offering the country instead? How much of the devil will actually be exorcized from the details? What of those “good candidates?”

How much do current Republican darling Ron DeSantis’ priorities and talk track essentials differ from the standard Fox/AM fare Trump has trademarked? Vaccines? China? Treatment of immigrants? Reckless disengagement from global leadership? The Big Lie and 1/6? Climate change denial? Transphobia? The right to own a bazooka? Does anyone believe DeSantis wouldn’t shut the government down to enhance his xenophobia bona fides? Exactly where does he veer off significantly from a Stephen Miller-authored stump diatribe? The line of billionaire benefactors prepared to let him fill in the zeroes don’t seem too worried about the answers to such questions.

Mike Pompeo is a Koch creation made good, their gofer from his political origins in Kansas. It is certain if his White House prospects gain any traction at all Koch cash will be squarely behind Pompeo. Is there anyone more tied to Trump’s hip? After all, on his first day in office, during his shocking ramblefest at the CIA, where he attacked his predecessors for not seizing Iraqi oil, Trump made clear “Mike” was his “gem.” From that infamous start through Trump’s 2020 defeat – when a reporter asked Pompeo whether refusing to provide timely transition access to Biden’s incoming State Department team hurt national security and he responded that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump Administration” – nobody carried more Trumpist bilge.

What about the other “contenders”?… Rand Paul? Marco Rubio? Ted Cruz? Josh Hawley? Tom Cotton? Glenn Youngkin (Mr. CRT)? Who among them has uttered anything that Tucker Carlson would take issue with? When has any deviated from Mar A Lago basics? The 2024 primary debate stage is going to sag under the overflow field’s weight, but almost all will be saying the same thing… arguing about who hates migrants more while praying not to endure the ire of the OG boss who will claim to have “made” them all… the entire disloyal lot.

Finally, there are the outliers who actually have demonstrated a desire to serve the public interest and proved capable of genuine leadership. Maryland’s Larry Hogan, New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu or perhaps Arkansas’ Asa Hutchinson, even Liz Chaney face very long odds indeed. This GOP is a panderer’s paradise; good faith governance is not rewarded at the national level, or even in one’s home state. Hogan’s chosen successor for governor was soundly stomped by a devout Trumpie in MD’s GOP primary. Ditto for Sununu’s preferred candidate in the NH Senate nomination contest; the MAGA victor ended up losing the general election by double digits, hardly a portent for winning the base’s allegiance.

Yet and still, given the near certainty that Trump will run a third-party campaign if the GOP does somehow deny him the nomination, a standard bearer who does little more than plagiarize Trumpist toxin will from the outset be fatally redundant, with a general election ceiling of less than 30% of the vote after Trump takes his cut. Meanwhile, a sensible moderate with a constructive platform could poach from both the left and right, offering a much wider path to victory than either Trump or a wannabe successor. An uphill battle to be sure, but far more doable than the alternative.

Trump has become isolated and unintelligible enough to encourage the many eunuchs within the GOP to overcome their cowardice and challenge his power. In addition to his plethora of legal distractions, even the most servile understand Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee will hold the party hostage as never before to his hastening deterioration. While Trump does still control a bloc of zealots who can’t imagine relevance past blind loyalty to him, the larger MAGA political class is unfocused, its bottom feeders bickering among themselves and open to new leadership. Indeed, there is a tangible sense that Republicans are ready to dump Trump. Of course, he will never accept a gold watch and move along; Trump will have no problem at all adding the GOP to his list of enemies and equating ungrateful RINOs with the “radical left.”

However, in terms of what constitutes the party’s platform moving forward, what it means to be a Republican, Trump’s legacy is secure. Whether the party of Trump or a replacement the .01% PACs end up coalescing behind, MAGA is here to stay, now the right side of the binary choice US politics offers us. That’s a continuing civic crisis whoever captains the vessel. BC

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My wife and I have struggled as my son has become a man. Luke is now 22, with the body of an elite athlete. At over 6’ 5” tall without a speck of body fat he can appear imposing. He moves gracefully, often in quick spurts as he responds to the chaotic stimulus his autism ceaselessly provides. Often times, when we are shopping at the grocery store or simply walking down the street, he will suddenly burst forward like a banshee, whooping at top volume. Bystanders are always startled when he does this, momentarily fearful for their safety. Once they comprehend he is supervised and benign enough, he becomes a simple curiosity most will try to avoid if possible.

It’s known in the intellectually disabled community as “falling off the cliff,” that dreaded day when your child ages out of the educational and support network provided since before kindergarten. Suddenly he is an adult, even though he has little more ability to navigate the world on his own than he did in 4th grade. For more than 16 years Luke patterned his existence on a school bus stopping in front of our house. Its absence now leaves more than a void for him, it upends his life, how he fits in the universe.

Such disorder has affected our beautiful boy. Once perpetually happy and hopeful for the future because he could rely on an interchange of scheduled activities, Luke now experiences uncertainty that tomorrow may only offer time he alone must fill. His mother has always been heroic, but now must step her game up another notch to find things he enjoys doing and fashion them into replacement routines… far easier said than done. Jigsaw puzzles, a treasured IPad, Wiggles videos, the piano and some favorite books will only go so far without outings he can look forward to. And while he can still count on a more select group of weekly events, the number continues to dwindle. Time on Luke’s hands is time for him to ponder his confusion, and sometimes now he goes dark, anxiety getting the best of his attention.

“I want to restart!” It’s an urgent proclamation Sue and I now cringe from. Lately, it is barked out more frequently and with more desperation. The idea is Luke’s alone, his solution to uncertainty he’s become prone to obsess about. Make time go backwards to when life offered more predictability. Start over, before “stupid Covid” and “now I’m just too old.” It crushes my soul to hear it, creates the nausea of dread. He knows it’s not possible, but his eyes still plead to somehow make it doable. I can only offer half measure concessions, perhaps a visit to see his old teachers or an upcoming event he can look forward to, anything to lighten his load.

The 22-minute video of Tyre Nichols’ murder can be broken up into several segments, each with its own central takeaway. The initial confrontation conveys near comical ineptness by Nichols’ assailants. Fully unable to effectively subdue their suspect after yanking him violently out of his car, they grow increasingly frustrated as their desire to punish Nichols escalates. While it remains a mystery what exactly Nichols did in the first place to attract their wrath, the answer is never provided on the video as the victim pleads with his tormentors to tell him what he did.

That Nichols decides to flee his captors is understandable given their chaotic malevolence. One of the suspects futilely chases his fleeing prey. He runs perhaps a block at most before giving up, the brief sprint enough to fully exhaust him. When he returns to his vehicle, his partner seems equally put out aerobically while suffering the affects of pepper spray he somehow turned on himself. Both appear woefully out of shape, doubled over with hands on knees and gasping for breath. One can’t find his glasses and neither inspires confidence as protectors of public safety. It’s almost as if they are ride-along amateurs who now are left to commiserate about the perp who got away and what they’d love to do to him given another shot.

The next scene is straight out of hell, something from a nightmare loop. Nichols’ tormentors descend on him like jackals on a wounded antelope. Each criminal has his own agenda that’s only focused on the pain he’s going to inflict. “Give me your hands” must be what they are taught to keep saying for the body cameras when brutalizing a suspect because they hiss it over and over in between kicks and punches as Nichols literally screams for his mother.

As the last act unfolds, a destroyed Tyre Nichols is finally cuffed and dragged over to slump against a patrol car. The killers are fist bumping and bouncing different parts of their alibi off each other. “He’s on something,” hoots one. “He high as a mother,” embellishes another. Indeed, the initial report the assailants submitted about the “arrest,” completely unsupported by the extensive recorded footage, contends Nichols violently resisted and tried to grab one of his murderer’s guns. One killer lights up a cigarette… like he just finished having sex. All are giddy with the rush another’s agony provides sadists, Nichols now ancillary to their male bonding ritual. This is not just police brutality; it’s the murder of a random victim unlucky enough to intersect with a gang of terminators licensed by the state to inflict harm.

The reaction from much of White America to yet another documented police atrocity has been depressingly familiar. Within Fox/AM country many see an opportunity to demonstrate racial tolerance, that skin color is not important to them when it comes to blindly supporting law enforcement. Why did Nichols run?! You cooperate, you live. That’s fair enough… especially in Memphis. Many want to harp on the “double standard” black protesters are bound to adopt because the cops were black this time. Cities only burn when white cops do the beating. But worst of all, the predominant feeling remains a detachment that comes from certainty the problem isn’t one that directly impacts me or mine.

Meanwhile, African-Americans continue to ask the same question they’ve been demanding an answer to all along. Why can’t a black man drive his car without getting killed by the police? It’s also likely most believe this cadre of black torturers would never treat a white person with such barbarity, certain a caucasian life would exact consequences only white cops escape. Maybe so, but the Memphis outrage should convince us all that nobody can take their safety from police brutality for granted. I don’t. How can I?

In my worst fears I see my boy in Tyre Nichols. These days, during his most anxious moments, when my reassurances are inadequate, he can act out. If there are strangers in the vicinity during such drama it qualifies as a public spectacle. Were neither Sue or I on the scene to claim responsibility for Luke, his erratic behavior could surely attract police attention. In such a state he would never answer their questions satisfactorily. And there is little doubt Luke would desperately resist any physical efforts to subdue him. Were he unfortunate enough to encounter a group remotely comparable to the Memphis Scorpion unit, there could very well be fist bumping and alibi swapping with my son slumped against a patrol car, after he cried out for his “mommy” or “dada.” The ruthless inhumanity of our civic indifference. BC

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The list of WWII crimes committed against black American soldiers by white MPs is as long as the military’s intransigence to compensate the widows and families of the victims. Forced to serve almost entirely in segregated units, black GIs often had far more to worry about from their own side than the Germans.

For example, there was the Battle of Bamber Bridge in June of 1943. Black soldiers of the 1511th Quartermaster Truck Regiment stationed in the English Town of Bamber Bridge were prohibited by top brass from patronizing white pubs. So locals, who had taken a shine to the regiment and were incensed by the injustice they were dealt, deemed all three of the town’s watering holes for “black troops only.”

On the evening of June 24th two white MPs, who claimed they were called to the Ye Olde Hob Inn about some trouble, tried to arrest a black soldier for being “out of uniform” because he still wore the field jacket he had on when carrying out his duties earlier that day. Witnesses all agreed the MPs were simply harassing the man, using racist language, and really most focused on the fact that blacks were getting too friendly with white women.

Tensions were already high after news filtered in earlier in the week that 6000 federal troops were needed to restore order in Detroit during a race riot that left 34 dead, 25 of them black. So when sympathetic townies sided with the black soldiers and essentially refused to allow the MPs to detain the GI, they headed back to their HQ but promised to return. Nobody doubted they would.

The MPs did come back with more men and intercepted a group of the 1511th as they were returning to their barracks. Things escalated and the MPs opened fire, killing Private William Crossland, who was shot in the back, and wounding several other black soldiers. This encounter convinced the rank and file of the 1511th that the MPs were intent on killing them, and they armed themselves accordingly. By nightfall the specter of a race war between American troops was real and playing out in front of horrified British townspeople, who openly sided with the black soldiers.

By the time order was fully restored seven men had been wounded. Even though a high-echelon review of the episode blamed vitriolic racism and poor leadership as the principle causes, a court martial convicted 32 black soldiers of mutiny and related offenses with sentences as high as 15 years before they were later reduced as the facts came to light and mostly black newspapers back home publicized the entire story.

Now, who was ever taught of this incident in high school history segments about WWII? Me, neither. Good thing, too, I suppose, lest we have suffered the ravages Critical Race Theory (CRT) can bestow on the fragile self-esteem of youth. Needlessly highlighting such a blemish on America’s otherwise pristine Nazi-pounding exploits… what kid needs that? Wasn’t the fact that the entire US military was segregated in full deference to Southern Jim Crow sensibilities small potatoes when considered within the more essential narrative of selfless America liberating Europe to replace fascism with democracy? Why ruin a good story? What patriot wants our children or grandchildren’s national identity besmirched by peripheral events from 80 years ago?

It was a tale of two inaugurations earlier this month, befitting a country cleaved by militant retrograde grievance toward dealing with its past. Wes Moore, Maryland’s first African-American Governor, took time in Annapolis during his swearing-in festivities to lay a wreath at the docks to commemorate thousands of slaves abducted in Africa and auctioned in the state capital’s public square, now formerly recognized as the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial.

Keynote speaker Sherrilyn Ifill, the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, underscored the importance of tying shameful past to hopeful present: “…we stand here in triumph because the journey from Kunta Kinte to Frederick Douglass was just the beginning of a long line of extraordinary Marylanders who improbably worked to overcome the shackles placed upon them to become great leaders, not only of this state, but of this country and even the world.” Seems reasonable.

In Arkansas, things were quite different. Newly minted Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Donald Trump’s favorite story teller during her days as White House Press Secretary, freshly elected In November as a true MAGA darling, hardly had her hand off the Bible as she got right to doing the people’s business with a flurry of executive orders.

The inaugural parties had yet to commence but Sanders was determined to demonstrate to constituents she had their back on the priorities they cared most about. In her first hour as Governor, Sanders mandated the state education department to vigorously assure that Arkansas schools “educate, not indoctrinate students.” Specifically, she ordered the department to:

“Review the rules, regulations, policies, materials, and communications of the Department of Education to identify any items that may, purposely or otherwise, promote teaching that would indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as CRT…”

Facing even Fox News incredulity about why banning an esoteric higher education paradigm that’s never been taught in her state’s schools was so high on her list of priorities, Sanders stuck to the script:

“It’s incredibly important that we do things to protect the students in our state…We have to make sure that we are not indoctrinating our kids and that these policies and these ideas never see the light of day.”

It takes almost no imagination to envision how that will play out on the ground, what will confront Arkansas public high school teachers who even mention The Battle of Bamber Bridge. Of course, Arkansas doesn’t have to go clear across the big pond to suppress unpleasant memories it wants to “protect” its children from discovering. Plenty of that much closer to home.

Like The Elaine Massacre of 1919 – which the Library of Congress still referred to as a “riot” until last year – where white mobs, aided by federal troops requested by the Governor, lynched as many as 853 blacks after sharecroppers and their families complained once too often about being completely disenfranchised and forced to abide a near slave existence. White authorities, abetted by a fully compliant state and even national press, concocted the lie that the killings were merely a proactive response to plans by blacks to “murder every white they saw.” How many Arkansas kids through the decades, including Sanders herself, were fed that fiction is anybody’s guess, but it’s a certainty the term “massacre” was seldom uttered.

These days it’s a fair question to ask America First stars like Sanders, or her counterpart in Florida, Ron DeSantis, who spends inordinately large chunks of time looking for “Woke Left”academic and public health outrages to prohibit in order to burnish his political brand, what really gets them so irate about looking under the rocks of America’s past. Is it actually teaching kids about the Battle of Bamber Bridge or the Elaine Massacre that is so bad, or conveying the idea that there was really anything so wrong with what happened? Something to ponder while assessing the ruin of MAGA bigots in statehouses. BC

In the end it was typically Republican… confusion, chaos and recrimination. Kevin McCarthy finally got his gavel after five days of abject humiliation, its worth greatly diminished. The ever-despicable Matt Gaetz first got a standing ovation before being descended upon and almost physically attacked once it became clear they had miscalculated the magic number and his “present” vote only insured yet another round of dysfunction. After all, basic math, like all other fact-based disciplines, has never been a GOP strong suit. 

Once Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, following a speech that reminded America how much better things could have been, officially handed McCarthy what he has sold his soul to obtain, the new sheriff quickly made clear big changes had arrived.  The US is a system of checks and balances, declared McCarthy and now there will be plenty of the former. Of course what McCarthy’s nihilists plan to put the brakes on is reality, and the constructive governance it requires. 

Like the certification of electoral votes, raising the debt ceiling used to be merely a pro forma procedural matter. Congress, as the spending authority of the US, would authorize borrowing more money to meet debt obligations it had already undertaken in order to maintain the full faith and credit of America, something vital to the global financial system. Now at a staggering $31 trillion, there is zero doubt defaulting on our debt would unleash economic misery on everybody everywhere. We epitomize “too big too fail.” 

But since the Tea Party, the forefather of MAGA, Republicans see raising the debt ceiling when one of their own isn’t in the White House as a chance to play chicken and enhance their “budget hawk” bona fides for the base back home. Forget that they fell over each other to needlessly add more than $2 trillion in debt passing Trump’s tax cut at full employment; that money went to the job creators, not the welfare queens. 

There is little indication that any in the MAGA House caucus view actually going over the cliff and defaulting on US debt as much of a biggie. In fact, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), he of the pre-Inaugural tweet to Mark Meadows demanding Trump declare martial law, made clear shutting down the government by refusing to raise the debt ceiling was his “non-negotiable” to finally vote for McCarthy in round 12. 

Of course, the nihilists understand they are in the minority, and have learned from the past how RINO traitors will reach across the aisle to prevent global calamity, so they are doing all they can to hamstring the institution and make McCarthy’s life hard should he by some rare chance act responsibly. The summer recess is probably pushing your luck on the over/under for the first “motion to vacate.” Easter may be the safer bet. 

But while economic extortion is the most immediately consequential GOP priority, certainly their “oversight” plans will be ugly and shameless public spectacles. Spitting on the graves of the one million plus US Covid dead Trump directly caused, first through inept negligence toward and then criminal politicization of modern history’s gravest health crisis, Republicans want to revise what we just experienced. Comer of Kentucky’s nomination speech (the 10th?) laid out the narrative to vigorous GOP applause. It was all just lib-driven hype. We damaged our kids overreacting and let China off the hook for causing it. The primary villain? Fauci of course. 

That one of this country’s finest can’t retire after a career of sparkling public service without Fox/AM puppets  preening for unhinged conspiracists by tarnishing his good name ought to be the line in the sand for honor and decency. It would be great if committee Democrats dedicate their 5-minute blocks to reciting the number of Covid dead within each of their counterpart’s districts, wherever that leads. 

But worst of all promises to be a newly created subcommittee to investigate “the weaponization of the federal government.” Translated, this means McCarthy’s crew is coming after the 1/6 Committee. According to Texan Chip Roy, a leader of the speakership insurrection, McCarthy concessions provide the panel with “more resources, more specificity… to go after this recalcitrant Biden Administration.” 

How emboldened are the seditionists after last week’s mutiny? Scott Perry of Pennsylvania was at the very center of The Big Lie’s coup plot. He connected Jeffery Clark with the Trump cabal. Clark was an otherwise nondescript environmental lawyer in the DOJ. Only his rabid willingness to challenge without evidence the Presidential vote got him to the cusp of being appointed Attorney General. Had the Justice Department’s leadership not promised a mass resignation and forced Trump to reconsider, a decision he surely regrets to this day, who knows where we’d be right now. 

Perry refused to cooperate with the 1/6 Committee, and their final report referred him to the House for sanction. No doubt the willingness of McCarthy to get 100% behind the sham subcommittee went far in pushing Perry to finally change his vote last week. Now he sees no reason why he shouldn’t be allowed to participate in efforts to attack and discredit 18 months of 1/6 findings. “Why should I be limited,” Perry responded when asked by George Stephanopoulos whether he should be excluded from a subcommittee with no other purpose than to sully sworn testimony and exhaustively detailed facts that include his role in organized efforts to overthrow the 2020 election. Like the Covid farce, Democrats will spend all of their time countering fiction with established facts, forced to defend reality against newly empowered gibberish. Comity is sure to suffer. 

What America watched play out last week was seditious nihilists successfully force one of our most important institutions to subvert its traditions and established procedures, weakening itself so their future subterfuges will deliver them what their inability to persuade colleagues can’t. They succeeded because critical processes US democracy has in place often depend on at least a modicum of good faith and a minimum of shame; MAGA nihilists possess neither. That all could only watch as they paralyzed their own party from governing clarified yet again that American citizenship requires more than stewing about the price of gas or fear of becoming a crime victim. Now we should understand that, regardless how small the vote differential winds up, if it permits termites to jump from the woodpile onto the foundation, their only purpose will be to gnaw away and destroy as much as they can. In other words… yes, elections do have consequences. BC 

In the spring of 1933, using his position as Chancellor of Germany to intimidate all opposition and secure martial law after his henchmen burned down the Reichstag building, an ascendant but still vulnerable Adolph Hitler decided it was time to put the elbow on the nation’s top industrialists. The Nazis needed money as a national election approached. 

Hitler’s message to the tycoons he assembled was twofold. First, he wanted to assure them their interests would be top Nazi priorities and looked after as only the Brown Shirts could. Unions would be destroyed, regulations ignored, the playbook for riches skewed accordingly, all while returning the German brand back to its rightful glory after decades of decay. That was the carrot. Next, and of greater importance to Hitler, came the stick. They should understand he wasn’t taking no for an answer and intended to gain total power with or without their blessing; they could come along for the ride or be loaded into boxcars later at the station. 

How clear did he make this point? “We are about to hold the last election,” was how he introduced the subject. Hitler preferred the credibility a decisive rout would provide, but meant to achieve his aims regardless of the outcome. There would be “no retreat” either way, he promised. Even if the Nazis were rebuked, he would stay in power “by other means” utilizing “other weapons.” In other words, it was a shakedown they should be willing victims for, because their fortunes “…cannot be maintained in a democracy.”  

And how did the best and brightest of Germany’s private sector respond to the demands of a 43-year old ex-felon, who had failed at virtually every venture he had previously undertook, and who had authored a book about his obsession to destroy the European order and viscously persecute non-Aryans, particularly Jews? They couldn’t get their checkbooks out fast enough. Shark Tank it wasn’t! The Nazis then commenced to carry out the most violent domestic political campaign in European history. Within the year Hitler had no remaining public political opposition, real elections were indeed over, and a facility called Dachau was open for the business of ruining anyone deemed a traitor to the Reich. 

But if Weimar elites displayed shameful greed and cowardice in simpering to Fascist thuggery, England’s leadership would say “hold my pint.” Unless one lived through the critical period of 1932-1940 and paid very close attention to events of the day, or has done a far deeper dive into history than any sort of basic high school and college courses provide, it is difficult to appreciate just how misguided and utterly craven the Appeasement policy was. 

Time and again, at every critical juncture – Austria, the Rhineland, and most famously the Sudetenland and then the remainder of  Czechoslovakia, which would be consumed in full view and in direct violation of the infamous Munich Agreement – Hitler and his sycophants treated British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain et al with the same fait accompli scorn used on German industrialists. When Chamberlain returned from Munich, deal in hand, Sudetenland Czechs stabbed in the back, he was greeted throughout England as a hero. Within a year it was clear to everybody, with the exception of the still deluded Prime Minister, that Der Furher had his own plans all along. 

Totalitarian rule requires the pursuit of conquest and throughout the mid-30s Hitler placed Germany on a hyper-war footing, clear for anyone to see. His promise of a resurgent Germany again striking fear in the hearts of the continent that had vanquished it in WWI was the opioid both German masses, and more importantly, its military imbibed. However, Der Fuhrer’s timetable was at odds with Nazi military preparedness and his diplomacy wrote checks his available resources would not be able to cash if forced to do so.

History is clear that at any critical point had a then militarily superior England and France called Hitler’s bluff as he laid waste to treaty provisions the allies were bound to enforce, neither the German public or military leadership would have tolerated the disgrace of another rout. In fact, a cabal of generals and civilian supporters were prepared to launch a coup should Hitler order them into certain defeat. The Third Reich may well have died in its crib. Tragically, no English or French elected officials, with the most notable exception of Winston Churchill and his small group of back benchers, had any intention of rocking the normalcy boat. Peace was to be kept at all costs… including honor and decency. 

And so the perfect storm symmetry of foreign appeasement reinforcing domestic capitulation was complete. By the fall of 1939, his Wehrmacht now preeminent on the continent, his total authority apparatus fully deployed at home, Hitler launched global calamity that spared few and destroyed millions, eventually leaving his country in ruins. 

The nexus between Germany’s odious history and our own iteration of totalitarianism is now upon us. We sit at the precipice of a Fascist House Majority. Their makeup and playbook are nothing original; we’ve seen it all before. At the top is a mad man, a psychotic narcissist willing to destroy his nation in pursuit of rabid megalomaniacal objectives he expects his followers to perish for. Anyone not 100% in is an enemy to be abased and destroyed. Beneath him is an ascendant political class of cultish sycophants he created, mostly bottom feeders, mediocrities with little to recommend them other than unconditional subservience, fully willing to descend to any depth, endorse and implement any atrocity ordered by their master. And then there are the opportunists and cowards, those who know better but, as Gus McCray said after he hung his old friend Jake Spoon for falling in with a bad bunch “any wind can blow them.” Politicians without the will to oppose what they know is ruinous… go along to get along. This is the Republican Party we are poised to hand over control of our national legislative branch and various state governorships to. 

America endured a sociopath’s nihilist Presidency and the pandemic he first ignored, and then weaponized – leading to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths – by placing routine and normalcy above all else. On January 6th we were forced out of our secure phantasm by violent sedition in our nation’s Capitol, literally imperiling the peaceful transfer of Presidential power our entire national identity is based on. Yet now, incredibly, with not only democracy but functional governance in the balance,  we remain unable to perceive there is anything really to see here. 

To be clear, the GOP is not asking, they are telling us power will be theirs. Somewhere along the line months ago our feckless mainstream horse race prognosticator industry decided MAGA nihilism, and a Republican President directly responsible for a mob who stormed the Capitol looking to hang a Vice President, was not dangerous enough to be deprived of “historical mid-term trends” inevitability. The fact that most GOP candidates parrot Trumpist sedition as a party platform didn’t seem to matter; after all, this is the party out of the White House and it’s the mid-terms… inflation and all that don’t you know. 

While the Biden Administration pursued the thankless task of repairing civic hell left it by a predecessor who refused to allow a transition, making some mistakes along the way to be sure, but attending to its pledge to bring back good faith and institutional allegiance to the Presidency, Fox/AM promoted sedition and disfigured reality on a minute-to-minute basis. Republicans, no longer restrained by any obligation to facts, seized on the apocalyptic propaganda ($8 for a gallon of gas!!) and spewed the prophecy that only a red wave was possible come November. Anything else, like Trump’s near 8 million-vote defeat, wouldn’t add up. Big Lie orthodoxy, or as Chuck Todd or Amy Walters will tell you… GOP confidence. 

The January 6th Committee, whose members will surely face abasing inquisition and sanction should Republicans prevail today, has laid bare the “other weapons” Trump was willing to employ rather than “retreat” after a decisive rebuke. His legacy is a Republican rank and file now enamored with the approach that got him impeached and may get him indicted. Never concede, file one lawsuit after another, make clear only fraud can deny you victory, threaten election officials, and most important… embrace the fanatics ready to do your bidding. Stochastic terrorism is now a primary part of the GOP quiver. Watching the attractive, hyper-polished and utterly sinister Kari Lake “campaign” for governor in Arizona is a chilling experience. She possesses the entire skill set in spades. Cersei Lannister is about to be given the throne of a critical battleground state. 

One of the most effective strategies Hitler employed as he shredded the Treaty of Versailles and gobbled up tracts of real estate without having to fire a shot, was to have local Nazi zealots organized and ready to riot on demand. For example, Nazi thugs in Austria were prepared to cause chaos as Hitler harangued its leadership to accept his terms. Such unrest provided Berlin with a pretext to become “involved in restoring order” to protect citizens of German descent, whom Hitler deemed entitled to his protection. Elon Musk now controls Twitter. Yesterday he urged his millions of followers to vote Republican. There is no question at  all Trump will be back and actively inciting seditious violence before long with a megaphone that Hitler could not have imagined.

On August 8 the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago to seize top secret documents Trump had pilfered from the White House and stored unattended in closets. By all accounts the action was taken as a last resort to prevent catastrophic national security breaches. Not 24 hours had passed when Kevin McCarthy tweeted that he had “seen enough” and notified Attorney General Merrick Garland to “clear your calendar” for a public inquisition come January of 2023. Trump punctuated his eunuch’s intimidation efforts, declaring any attempt to hold him to account would create “problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.” Clear enough? 

To say democracy is on the ballot today is like saying Marjorie Taylor Greene, who seems destined for big things in a GOP House majority, is a “firebrand legislator.” National survival is what this election is about. Today we are faced with two choices: either rebuke the GOP at the ballot box and confront the seditious chaos and unrest their candidates have promised; or capitulate and give them what they have hissed to us is theirs already, whether we like it or not. How many will vote Republican for cheaper gas, or simply to avoid trouble they figure MAGA losers will foment is unclear but probably determinative. America at the edge of an abyss. BC

The blood of children had not yet dried at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas as Governor Greg Abbott briefed reporters “with some of the best information we have at this time.” Yet and still, anyone listening live to the proceeding could be forgiven if they felt trapped in a time warp, perhaps listening to Abbott speaking at some fundraising gala months into the future. 

The 19 precious kids and 2 teachers who perished at the barrel of an assault rifle a previously law-abiding 18-year old sociopath had purchased on the spot without delay were relegated to support roles in the governor’s narrative. “As horrible as what happened, it could have been worse,” intoned Abbott in his campaign voice. “The reason it was not worse is law enforcement officials did what they do. They showed amazing courage by running toward gunfire for the singular purpose of trying to save lives.”

It remains unclear who Abbott relied on for those “facts.” However, it is certain he ignored one group when piecing that picture together… the parents of the victims, who were already relaying an entirely different story.  With every new iteration of how things went down, a common theme was strengthened by now grieving kin, who also happened to be desperate eye witnesses to the atrocity: Uvalde police spared no effort or rationale to avoid directly confronting the shooter. The killer was allowed to take his time, control the pace and destroy children at will. Indeed, subsequent video footage confirms that the cops milling about were above nothing, including cuffing and tasing enraged relatives of the victims, to resist taking immediate action. 

Just as with countless well-documented shootings of unarmed, usually Black men nationwide, Uvalde’s finest have now circled the wagons and are stonewalling investigators, even as each new fact indicts them more. As for Abbott, he told anyone who would listen how outraged he was about being misinformed. “The information I was given turned out, in part, to be inaccurate, and I am absolutely livid about that.” To be sure, aside from constantly offering up he and his wife’s “thoughts and prayers,” the Governor’s main focus since has been separating himself from the deadly incompetence of Uvalde first responders. 

Perhaps when the history of our fall is written, chapters if not books will be devoted to Abbott as the ruinous epitome of government by Rupert Murdoch. For now it is important that all of us still invested in the notion of America as a viable democratic concern focus our gaze at post-Uvalde Texas, as well as the national GOP response to the slaughter of our most innocent, and take stock in our future if something substantial doesn’t happen soon. Make no mistake, on every front that matters, this MAGAican  GOP will only make the bad its nihilism creates just that much worse. Abbott is as good a case in point as any. 

It’s doubtful any were surprised when an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Ill., a well-to-do northern suburb of Chicago, went from heaven to hell in a heartbeat. Listening to yet another round of mindless Fox/AM alternatives to sensible gun control, punctuated by the continuous lie that the 2nd Amendment is in imminent peril,  it’s easier than ever to believe half of our governmental inclinations are geared solely to patronizing sick gun fetishes. Just as American women are now hostage to anti-abortion zealotry, our basic public safety, our freedom from random mass murder, is subservient to the now determinant Travis Bikel wing of the GOP. 

Not hunters, not target shooters, not even alienated flyover survivalists, but sick and obsessed gun fetishists, ticking time bombs with short fuses and overstocked arsenals of murderous hardware they conflate being able to amass at will with the most sacred tenets of basic freedom. In a word, sickos. This is who now calls the er… shots in the Republican Party. You heard that right… the GOP now spares little in service to mass murderers-in-waiting, not to mention the stochastic terrorists who set them off. 

Anyone who thinks that’s over-the-top can circle back to Texas, specifically its recent GOP convention held in Houston. Senior Sen. John Cornyn,  Mitch McConnell’s point man for negotiating whatever legislative response to the Uvalde massacre the Republicans could present the base without creating petition drives for their impeachment, was mercilessly booed off the stage by party rank and file. 

Never enthused about providing leadership, Cornyn attempted to first distract the zealots by attacking Beto O’Rourke, somebody he figured they despised more than him. O’Rourke, cackled Cornyn, as he struggled to be heard above the boos, “has been reduced to using tragedies like Uvalde to grandstand for the media and left-wing Twitter trolls.” Cornyn then played the teammate card by slavishly praising the Trumpist troika of Abbott, Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, assuring the boo birds that their sensibilities always guided his efforts. When that also failed miserably to lessen the din, Cornyn moved on to Biden. How lucky the audience was to have him drawing “my red line in the sand,” intoned Cornyn, to keep the President’s “gun-grabbing wish list off the table”. An assault rifle ban? Mandatory waiting periods? Prohibition of high-capacity magazines? Universal background checks? “I said no, no, a thousand times no,” pleaded Cornyn to the still wholly dissatisfied horde. 

Renewed focus on mental health and “enforcing existing laws” would be more than enough do the trick and stymie daily mass murder. Everything else was confiscation-hungry overreach. Cornyn closed out his remarks on his role in stemming gun violence with the understatement of the century… “Sometimes my job is just to say no.” 

Alas, it was all for naught. No matter what MAGA trope he threw out, no matter how fetid the meat – CRT, the Trans invasion, the border invasion, the green invasion, runaway inflation, energy producers under assault – Cornyn could not beguile constituents into accepting his unforgivable apostasy of even pretending to negotiate about gun control. The crowd had less use for him at the end of his speech than the beginning. As he slinked off the stage, security waiting to guide him safely out of an auditorium filled with his own party members, it’s hard to imagine Cornyn bullish on his future prospects. 

We should be cognizant by now that one of our major political parties is a failed entity, no longer capable of governing. The GOP has  devolved into nothing more than an ugly reflection of the worst inclinations our society can produce. What Republicans offer the nation has come into clear view in Texas during our summer of mayhem.  Cornyn is one side of that coin: he is a coward to be sure, but more benign than seditious jackals like Cruz, who relentlessly work Fox/AM news cycles, accusing any in the GOP even considering constructive activity of being a RINO du jour.  He’s but a hapless senior pol futilely treading water as the MAGA torrent consumes him. Abbott is the tails of the toss.  His brand of “leadership” can never be competent because it is powered by fictions at every turn. Trumpist lies are the beginning, middle and end of his agenda and, as the horror of Uvalde illustrates, the ends have nothing to do with improving past performance by learning from mistakes. Rather, over and over, Abbott only aims to create distance from his accountability, scapegoats for his failures, and the rebranding of hardships his incompetence assures will ensue. 

Texans love to distinguish themselves from the rest of the nation. Indeed the extremist drumbeat for secession within the state’s GOP is louder than ever. Sadly, when it comes to MAGA sensibilities on everything from refusing to protect the public from mass murder to embracing Trump’s sedition and attacking the lifeblood of our entire national identity – the electoral process, Texas is far from a leading outlier of MAGA’s nihilist extremism. What’s happening in Texas is occurring wherever Republicans are dominant because there is no longer any heterogeneity left in the party. It’s equally impossible to agree enough with a Georgia Republican as an Arizona Republican. Fanatics on the march… our children are imperiled.  BC

No term sparks more fear and loathing in Ukraine than Holodomor. It refers to the famine engineered by Josef Stalin in 1932-33 that killed millions. To be clear, this was not just a preventable catastrophe, like say the million American Covid dead. No, this was an orchestrated crime against humanity, a purposeful policy perpetuated under the guise of Communist necessity. Ukraine, once a rich agricultural “breadbasket” of Russia, was decimated to feed Stalin’s madness for the collectivization he dictated would impel Soviet industrialization. More than 3.5 million Ukrainians starved for no other reason than one man’s sick vision his unchallenged power enabled. No citizenry has darker memories of the Soviet menace than the Ukrainians.

From the first hour of America’s Cold War victory it was only a question when Russia would reconstitute itself enough to menace Ukrainians again. The notion centuries of autocracy was going away and those cursed by geography would be permitted the simple dignity of being treated as neighbors rather than peas to be podded by jealously insecure Czars and Party Chairmen was never more than an inevitable flight of fancy the West luxuriated in while the liberated took sledge hammers to the Berlin Wall.

Even as champagne was being poured in the White House, President George Bush Sr. and his national security team headed by close friend Brent Scowcroft understood whatever iteration the collapsing Soviet empire settled into, Russia wasn’t going anywhere and possessed enough weaponry to end everything. Moreover, assuming it was transforming into Eurasia’s largest democracy and bent on constructive engagement with the West was la la land thinking. The bear would lick its wounds and hibernate awhile. In the meantime redrawing Europe’s map, and more importantly NATO, was a task that should only proceed with a mind fixated on future risks new status quo antes could create, particularly in Russia’s backyard.

George Kennan as much as anyone helped create the US Containment Policy that ultimately outlasted the Soviets. As he aged Kennan became far more concerned about modern war’s destructiveness and US militarism than Soviet aggression. After the Eastern Bloc’s collapse, Kennan had no use for inviting its former members into NATO. Such a campaign would only set the stage for future conflict. In 1998, a 94-year old Kennan argued “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake.”

Grievous error or not, post-Cold War NATO moved apace to offer membership to former Eastern Bloc nations. Poland, Hungary, Albania, Romania, the Baltic States, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Bulgaria all were offered and accepted membership in the alliance. Notable is the fact that no former Soviet Socialist Republics were included in that group. It was one thing to bring on board countries that suffered as a result of Stalin’s sinister Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler, or were left with no options when the Red Army “liberated” them from Nazi occupation and stayed on until Stalinist puppets were in place, quite another to consider pre-war Russian republics who declared independence as the Soviet system collapsed. Chief among those held at arm’s length was Ukraine.

Of course Gorbachev gave way to Yeltsin, who would then give way to Putin just in time for the new century. Within a decade of the Soviet collapse any dreams of Russian democracy were over, and full control was back in the hands of a Stalinist with regaining regional hegemony among his top priorities… along with the usual brutal repression of dissidents, personal enrichment and foreign troublemaking. The only thing slowing Putin’s timetable was his lack of capability; but make no mistake, the last thing he was going to tolerate was NATO membership for former SSRs like Georgia and Ukraine.

For Western leaders and NATO the challenge was acute. Ukrainian membership in NATO was hitting close to home as far as historical Russian security interests were concerned, but refusing to consider an independent European democracy for the alliance abetted Russian intimidation of its neighbors. An uneasy geopolitical murkiness ensued, with NATO giving lip service to the “right” of former SSRs to “pursue whatever alliances they saw fit” and Putin denouncing such “intrusions” but otherwise biding his time, while interfering in their domestic politics with an eye toward promoting dependent tyrants like Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. The fact that, for the most part, Ukraine’s leadership reflected Putin’s basic tendencies spared NATO from the pickle of having to ignore a democracy’s desire to receive the benefits of the “an attack on one is an attack on all” security umbrella.

That changed in February of 2014. Following the tumult of what became known as the Revolution of Dignity, Ukrainians decided they’d had enough of Putin lackeys and ousted Viktor Yanukovych. Putin then decided the time was right to push the envelope and moved to annex the Crimea, betting that claiming a small slice of ethnically aligned Ukrainian pie would not be too difficult for the West to digest. He was right. However, while Russian aggression in the Crimea achieved its immediate ends at a cost Putin was willing to pay, the new Ukrainian government moved with purpose to cement a much closer relationship with the EU, leaving little doubt in word and deed that, Crimea be damned, western democracy was the future.

Then in November of 2016 Putin drew a straight flush as a certified, fully kompromat stooge defeated one of his most implacable adversaries for the American Presidency. The windfall was immediate, as Trump made rebranding NATO allies as deadbeat moochers, interested in nothing past taking advantage of Uncle Sam’s goodwill, a top foreign policy priority.

Why get in the way of that? A Russian move on Ukraine was now only counterproductive; needlessly undoing all of Trump’s corrosive attacks on NATO unity. Why force MAGA sedition into the open by creating a situation that could only paint Trump into a box? After all, what more discouraging message could Ukrainian patriots receive than an American President who cared less about their democratic sovereignty than how their newly elected President could aid his own corrupt domestic aims back in the US?

Once Biden defeated Trump, Putin got right back to finishing the business he started in 2014. Any horse player will tell you that following a monster score is always a reckless time because one is playing with house money and is willing to risk more. That’s Putin to a tee. And why not? Trump continues to be an asset Stalin only dreamed of, as the Republican Party dutifully goes full nihilist to keep the MAGA wretched core content that their seditious grievances rule the day. Where America once boasted partisanship “ended at the water’s edge,” the gravest European military crisis since WWII is now processed by the GOP solely as just another prime opportunity to weaken their nation’s President.

Those who equate Putin’s move into Ukraine with Hitler circa 1938 are misguided. He has nothing like the conventional capability the Nazis were ready to launch. Moreover, not only is a resurgent NATO to the west, he has arguably the world’s most powerful nation to his east, and China is more competitor than ally. Assuming Putin is a rational actor, and certainly nothing he has done to date persuades otherwise, his attack on Ukraine really can’t be termed shocking, and it’s reasonable to believe it presages nothing more right now than carving the country up to his liking and making sure everyone understands who is still the boss when it comes to former SSRs. Besides, why does he need to rush things? MAGA House and Senate majorities seem right now to be odds-on propositions, and nobody should bet good money against another MAGA Presidency in 2024… the death knell for NATO, a new dark age. Time is on his side.

And the Ukrainians? They are going to suffer. Except this time, unlike near a century ago, the world will watch in real time and wonder how we can possibly be so powerless in the face of such unjust carnage. President Zelensky will likely become a martyr, a hero for the ages. But like his forefathers, the victims of the Holodomor, he is cursed by geography, doomed by man’s full potential for evil and the apathy that empowers it. Americans would do well to ponder his predicament. BC

Anyone at all interested in the sinister trajectory of MAGA influence during the last five years need only examine the disturbing metamorphosis of JD Vance. Once, not long ago, Vance was a thoughtful intellect and author, whose debut autobiographical story. Hillbilly Elegy, was lauded far and wide – even attracting Hollywood to make it into a movie – as a cogent explanation for the alienation felt throughout the Rust Belt. In recounting his own personal climb from a dysfunctional upbringing saturated in welfare-dependent, self-medicating Appalachian hopelessness to Ivy League triumph, Vance persuasively argued for more empathy toward those who facilitated Trump’s rise and comprised some of MAGA’s most enthusiastic membership.

However, although Vance’s tale seeks to explain self-destructive cycles that inform MAGA sensibilities in dying mid-Atlantic factory towns and Kentucky hillsides, it doesn’t excuse the behavior. In fact, throughout the book, Vance cites one example after another of the exact “learned helplessness” Trump rally attendees and MAGA lawmakers endlessly crow epitomizes immigrants and African-Americans gaming of the social safety net. Alcoholism, drug-addiction, physical abuse and child neglect, or simply a general aversion to work, Vance catalogues it all, while making clear that personal accountability was near completely absent within his family and immediate community.

When Hillbilly Elegy was published in June of 2016, Vance quickly became a crossover darling, charming the full range of America’s political spectrum, the epitome of a thoughtful yet common sense conservative. Everyone from Hewitt to Hannity, Scarborough to Todd, sung his praises. He was the total package. A self-made Yale man with the intellectual credibility to infuse GOP tough love sensibilities with the humanity his up-from-bootstraps experience conveyed. Whatever “the left” wanted to scream about Trump and his MAGA troglodytes, here was a genuine rejoinder who thought first and spoke in complete sentences free of insults and vitriol. He even credited one of his Yale professors for inspiring him to write the book.

To provide context for where Vance and his right wing admirers were back in the fall of 2016 it’s constructive to recall the praise American Conservative contributor and blogger Rod Dreher showered upon the bestseller’s author, gushing he “draws conclusions…that may be hard for some people to take. But Vance has earned the right to make those judgments. This was his life. He speaks with authority that has been extremely hard won.” Indeed, as Trump blathered to his growing faithful that their host of grievances were everybody else’s fault, here existed a conservative counterpoint that held ALL to the same standards of personal responsibility for their decisions.

Of course much can happen over five years, particularly when you elect a psychotic nihilist POTUS and he succeeds in consuming the Republican Party. What was a coming storm is now the devastation it left behind. What was a country on the edge of a catastrophic civic misstep is now a nation in crisis, maybe irretrievably too far gone down the road to ruin. And JD Vance? He no longer exists… at least not in any incarnation that someone who embraced his past refreshing novelty would recognize. Instead there is now an amoral opportunist recasting himself as just another MAGA cultist, and any semblance of thoughtful reflection on any matter is long gone.

Why? What is to blame for this ugly transformation? Turns out Vance wants to replace retiring Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman, who decided the price of avoiding a MAGA primary opponent – joining the Donald’s eunuch stable – was too high. Apparently, Vance has no problem morphing from hillbilly prophet to unhinged Rust Belt reactionary if that’s what is required. He’s grown an angry beard, which old friends say is weird and ominous, and taken to ranting. He’s Steve Bannon with a pristine complexion, a couch potato’s Dan Bongino. As with most all of the wretched core, social media now tells the sorry tale. Indeed, Vance’s Twitter feed goes lower by the day.

Nuanced ideas of economic dislocation have given way to Trumpism’s rabid populist tropes. What’s wrong with America? That’s now an easy question for Vance to scream about… “The biggest threat to democracy is the fact that speech (social media and “journalism”), knowledge formation (universities), and money (Wall Street) are all controlled by the same group of neurotic lunatics. Those who say anything else are lying.” It’s a one-size-fits-all approach.

Six years ago Vance was on Face The Nation having a cerebral discussion about the gulf between Trump promises and reality for the “forgotten people” who made his presidency possible. Moreover, he was touting a partnership with AOL founder Steve Case to bridge the divide between the disaffected and capital that could provide economic opportunity throughout Appalachia and beyond.

Now Steve Bannon’s podcast is Vance’s rage trough, and fostering cooperation is the last thing on his mind. Vaccine tyranny to 1/6 conspiracies, immigrant bashing to competing for the candidate who hates Black Lives Matter the most, Vance is now all in, and of course facts are the casualty. Nobody is happier with the change than the MAGA “intellectuals” who can now confidently call Vance one of their own. Dreher claims he was “appropriately radicalized” by “the left’s” treatment of Trump. Yea, sure.

“The fraudulent J6 Select Committee is the real assault on Democracy. Dems are using it to bully & torture their political opponents. The weak Republicans who can’t see this are part of the problem. A GOP Majority MUST fight fire with fire & investigate BLM’s Summer of riots.“ Marjorie Taylor Greene? Paul Gosar? Jesse Watters? No, just another grifter selling rancid snake oil to those he understands better than most. BC