The 10th Justice

Watching the documentary "Where's My Roy Cohn?" is like watching a martial arts film. Cohn is the Grand Master. Behind his serene mask of a tanned face and pale blue eyes lurks, as the narrator says, a caged animal who, when released, attacks. Trump studied under Cohn. He learned Cohn's moves well but beneath Trump's orange mask lurks nothing. Cohn was a bully who bullied and won; Trump is a bully who gives in and calls it winning, then plays golf. Matt Trynauer's film is a beautiful piece of movie making. He has edited together scenes of Roy Cohn in his very public life as an attorney, a socialite and a political fixer. Cohn was the only child of a wealthy Jewish couple in the Bronx. He went to Columbia Law School and graduated at 20. He was admitted to the New York bar when he turned 21, and went to work as a prosecutor for the US attorney in Manhattan. At age 23 he prosecuted the Rosenbergs for selling information about the atomic bomb to the Russians. Y...

I’ve been pretty much silent about he impeachment process. The refusal of Republicans to admit Trump committed crimes against America is so appalling that it makes me wonder if democracy can survive. This blog is named for Judge Learned Hand. He said that democracy rested on the principle that new facts could change one’s opinion on an issue. He always attempted to make the best decision given the facts available to him So, in respect to his memory, I have not written much about this painful process of impeachment. The Republican Party is not the party of Judge Learned Hand. However, I discovered a book by the sports writer Rick Reilly entitled Commander in Cheat: How Golf explains Trump. My new strategy to win the 2020 election is to recommend this book to anyone who supports Trump and plays golf. Most people who play golf respect the game. Reilly says that 90% of golfers report their scores honestly and self police on the course. Trump is not one of these. In golf as in politics...

At the turn of century I explained the rise of the extreme Right and fundamentalist religion as being caused by having too much information. I felt people were overwhelmed with so much information that they threw up their hands in frustration and fell back on listening to people they had historically trusted to make decisions for them such as their ministers and local politicians. They retreated to a formula that worked for their grandparents in a time when there wasn't enough good information. Simple systems are easy to maneuver in. But now we have not only too much information we have purposefully false information amplified by social media networks. The result is the election of Donald Trump, a simple and distorted result from simple and distorted information. Democracy may not be able to exist in the midst of this kind of noise. The use of the internet to amplify, distort and echo these distorted opinions has caused so much sound in the arena of politics that it is no longe...

Donald Trump is a communist. Here’s why. First, we know that Putin worked to subvert our 2016 election and get Donald Trump elected. Why would he do that? What is in those transcripts of the private, Trump to Putin conversations, locked away in the super-secure computer server in the White House? Where is the quid pro quo for all the time, money, and help Putin has funneled to Trump?  Trump is creating an American communist state under the guidance and assistance of Tsar Putin. Classical Communism, in the form created by Marx and Engels and implemented by Lenin, establishes a state run by and for the proletariat. The class struggle between the bourgeoisie - the propertied, educated class - and the proletariat - the wage earner class - has been going on for centuries. From the beginning of his campaign Trump has held himself up to be the supporter of the poor, out of work wage earners of America's middle and lower class - the proletariat that the Democrats forgot. Trump...

The Chinese Cultural Revolution has come to America in the form of Donald Trump. Rather than forcing the scientists to dig potatoes or encouraging middle schoolers to eat their teachers, the educated and knowledgeable citizens are being forced to be led by an ignorant bozo. In some ways it is kinder than the Chinese version, but in other ways it is more embarrassing and certainly more dangerous internationally. Our allies will no longer negotiate with us because our chief negotiator is unreliable and uninformed. And the Demagogue in Chief is the Commander in Chief of the military with his finger on "the button". What could be more dangerous. Our Demagogue in Chief was elected because of the same problems that spawned the Chinese Cultural revolution - nobody listened or took seriously the culturally disenfranchised in America. The Democratic Party showed interest in immigrants, women, transgender folk, and people of color but they forgot about the small farmers, low income w...

The 2020 presidential election is an election between democracy and authoritarianism, not between Republican and Democrat. We have moved beyond just policy here into a political arena where the heart of America is the prize. Will it be a heart filled with hate, ignorance and greed or will it be a heart filled with tolerance, fairness and information. This is the year to ACT to elect a democratic president - democratic with a small 'd'. If you have 8 hours and want to spend it well, watch David Domke's five part lecture series "How to beat an American Demagogue: Donald Trump and the future of democracy." The links are: Lecture 1 - https://youtu.be/AG0FNyVI-cE Lecture 2 - https://youtu.be/qr0rIHb2FAE   Lecture 3 - https://youtu.be/7WiTcyX8FP0   Lecture 4 - https://youtu.be/PUOv8DNxKgY   Lecture 5 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD2kKSXFPTg But if you don't have time for the whole lecture series read this blog. David Domke is a professor of Communic...

The drama is just beginning. Soon The Whistle-blower will be outed and testify if he or she hasn't been gunned down by angry Trump supporters. The files sequestered away on the ultra-secret-private server in the White House will be subpoened open and many more violations of our nation's laws will be revealed. The Republicans will be forced to vote against Trump and he will be kicked out office into the waiting hands of the District Attorney of New York, like all the other practitioners of organized crime. We will get to see Trump's tax returns finally, and they will only reveal that he isn't as wealthy as he claims. Pence will be President briefly while Mitt Romney prepares his campaign if he hasn't already. The fight between Elizabeth Warren and Mitt Romney will internecine warfare for Massachusetts. The outcome is a toss-up. And what about America? What about all those nice, hardworking, under-educated, white, Christians who once again gave their love and money ...

Today three judges on the North Carolina Supreme court ruled that politically partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional under the North Carolina constitution. What a beautiful sunrise! Perhaps the rays of this bright, clear ruling will light up the dark partisan courtroom of our nation's supreme court. These judges, two Democrats and one Republican, voted unanimously to redo the voting districts of North Carolina. In their ruling they said that the partisan districts that allowed the Republican candidates to win a majority of seats in spite of getting fewer votes. The New York Times said, "The existing maps were so effective that they helped entrench Republican majorities even when Democrats won more votes statewide. In 2018, Republican candidates for North Carolina’s House of Representatives won less than 50 percent of the two-party statewide vote, but walked away with 65 seats to the Democrats’ 55. Republican candidates for the State Senate also won a minority of...

During the last election I voted for Hillary Clinton because I thought she was the most qualified candidate. I liked Bernie Sanders ideas for making America a fairer and more humane country. My heart was with Bernie but my brain said vote Hillary and I did. Look what happened! So what do we do this time? My problem was clarified in the David Brooks column in which he said that Marianne Williamson best understood how to beat Trump because in the debate she said: “This is part of the dark underbelly of American society: the racism, the bigotry and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight. If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.” In the past we voted for the candidate with the ideas and character we admired. Trump has no ideas and his character is revolting. He was elected b...

Shadow , the latest film by Zhang Yimou, won't appeal to American audiences for the same reasons that the Peking (Beijing) Opera has never found an appreciative American audience, except, of course for the comedy and acrobatics. Jackie Chan who started off in the Peking Opera, took those two aspects of Peking Opera and added American themes and did quite well. The high pitched voices and twangy musical instruments are too alien. I suspect, Mr. Yimou, who is getting older, was very pleased with this film. With it he has created a truly classic Chinese film. I suspect the film will be very successful in China and not just to an audience of thrill seeking, martial arts aficionados, but people who appreciate the ancient opera tradition of China much in the way that a lot of American still appreciate Shakespeare. The long Chinese classic novel The Dream of the Red Chamber tells the story of the Chinese social system much as Shakespeare told us about western society. Shadow is a cinemat...

Recently the New York Times published an article titled The Surfer's Secret to Happiness . Nice article that fits well with my last blog post about The Magic Mountain in that it talks about the opportunities that come with acquiring a disability. The writer watches surfers and recognizes how little time they spend shooting down the wave face compared to waiting for a wave, paddling in and out, living their lives off the water and working at their "crap jobs" which they did just to support their real job which was surfing. And that is where in the article that I realized the author hadn't really learned the surfer lesson. Forget surfers for a moment. We'll get back to them. First, there are no "crap jobs". Our human life, especially in cities, is so complex, it requires a huge variety of tasks to maintain our stable existence. Picking up garbage, cleaning sewers, selling insurance, baristaring, responding to the complaint hotline, making robo-calls, ar...

Remember Newton's third law of physics - every action has an equal and opposite reaction? The medical equivalent is - every new chronic disability presents a new opportunity. I have a hard time thinking what opportunity comes with difficult and terminal conditions such as pancreatic cancer and ALS except they usually give the victim time to say good-bye to loved ones and settle one's affairs. But most other, non-rapidly fatal or remitting conditions come with an opportunity. Once we get over the shock at realizing we have an a chronic illness or have lost some function, we have the opportunity to develop a whole new set of skills to compensate for what is lost. Unlike the Newton's law where the equal and opposite reaction always occurs, the new opportunity doesn't always get taken up. We are dealing with human beings here, who have free will, unlike ball bearings who have no free will, thankfully. Some human beings, when faced with the loss of a leg, take to the couch, ...

Trump's racist tweets aimed at members of the House of Representatives may be the most inciteful and accurate thing he has said during his first 2.5 years as president. Trump's comments telling the four women congressional representatives to go back to their countries and fix them because they are broken is correct. And they are doing just that. They have been elected to help a fix a broken government, one broken by the Republican attempt to hold on to the power though illegal and non-democratic methods. The Republican have found in Trump Thomas Mann's perfect representative of the faith based, irrational approach to life. In The Magic Mountain, Naptha, the Jewish convert to Catholicism and a  Jesuit says: Whatever profits man, that is the truth. In him all nature is comprehended, in all nature only he is created, and all nature only for him. He is the measure of all things, and his welfare is the sole and single criterion of truth. Any theoretic science which is wi...

Trump is going to school. Last week he joked with Putin about not interfering in the elections in the United States, essentially asking Putin to keep up the good work. He has learned from Putin how to send messages in public that are clearly illegal and antidemocratic. Conspiracy requires secrecy and intent to do harm. Trumps interaction with Putin was not done in public and the face-value message was legal. No law covers joking as as a way of reversing the meaning of his statement. But never the less, his interaction with Putin was conspiracy in plain sight. This week he is in North Korea visiting Kim Jong Un. His stated reason for going to North Korea is to convince the North Korea to stop making nuclear weapons and get rid of the ones they have. His real reason is to get a first hand look at how to run a country without the intervention of the people. How much easier Trump's job would be if he didn't have to run for election or talk to Nancy Pelosi! Next we'll have McC...

Dear Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, Reading the press coverage of President Trump's visit to your family has embarrassed me enough that I feel compelled to write this open letter of apology for his behavior. Now I realize I am not there, so I can't report first hand on his demeanor, his conversation or his humor but we all know him well - too well - so that having him represent us makes us cringe. Most Americans are not all blowhards and pompous greedy liars. We are mostly people who want to work with other nations of the world to create a safe and fair place for ourselves and children. We don't denigrate people of other races. We don't insult our allies. We don't turn our back on generations of cooperation to keep world war from happening again. And mostly we don't lie. I have seen enough English movies and TV shows to know that the perfect English butler treats even the lowest persons with the same grace that he treats royalty. He learns this from the...

A few days ago the Guardian reported that, according to Michael Wolff author of Fire and Fury the insider exposé of the Trump White Hose, the Mueller Commission had drawn up a three part indictment of Trump for obstruction of justice. Mueller, through a spokesperson, denied such a document existed. I read the article with interest and then did what I always do, check for another source. Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post referred to the article. Perhaps they had been scooped or perhaps they were skeptical. Then I thought of Rudi Giuliani. Rudi Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and now the lawyer for Donald Trump, saw a video of Nancy Pelosi in which she looked mentally impaired, and immediately disseminated it around the internet by retweeting it. When the video was proved to have been altered to make Speaker Pelosi look bad,  Giuliani came under criticism for spreading false information on the internet. His response was, " “I didn’t know it was doctored,” ...

Having a terminal illness is a little like falling in love - with everything. When one falls for another person in that way that country singers sing about, that head-over-heels way, that truly-madly-deeply way, that object of desire gets highlighted with a yellow magic marker. You can pick them out of a crowd at a hundred yards. But getting a terminal illness highlights everything around you, the people  and objects of everyday life. This morning while emptying the dishwasher, I was astounded by the beauty of our stoneware dishes and silver eating utensils. My first thought was perhaps I was manic (I'm not a manic-depressive) but then I looked again and the objects of my appreciation were truly beautiful. I knew it all the time but had gotten used to them. Thinking about never seeing them again enhanced my appreciation of my surroundings; at living a truly curated life. My pro-democracy rants against the current political threat of authoritarianism have been replaced by trying t...

We now have a reason to impeach Trump and remove him from office. Senior officials in the bureau of Homeland Security, which includes cybersecurity, say that Trump's senior advisors refused to allow the director to bring up the issue of protecting the 2020 election from Russian influence, because Trump refused to discuss the issue. Trump does not want any discussion of the "fact" that the Russian's helped get him elected. He does not want to have this "fact" diminish the legitimacy of his election.  The only thing we hear from Trump about the Russians is that he didn't collude or conspire with them. If I were the Russians I wouldn't want anyone as immature and unpredictable as Trump on my team carrying out a secret operation, so they probably actively worked to keep the bozo off the team. We have heard nothing from Trump about how to protect our elections from foreign influence. Is that not conspiring by doing nothing?  In his oath of office he ...

The NBA playoffs are beginning this weekend. Benjamin Hoffman of the New York Times predicts the Oklahoma Thunder will beat the Portland Trailblazers in 6 games, mostly due to the loss of Nurkic and the undeniable abilities of Russell Westbrook, Paul George, and Steven Adams. But I've been watching the Trailblazers and I have a different prediction. I think the Blazers will win in 5 games. Enes Kanter has integrated into the pick and roll system of the Blazers very well. He is a better scorer and offensive rebounder than Nurkic but not as good a defensive player or passer. On balance I think he will do well inside against Adams but in a different way from Nurkic. Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum are in good shape physically and will outplay, and probably outscore the Thunder forecourt. But those things aren't going to win it for the Blazers. What will win it is pure fire power. This week, a 6 man squad of rookies and non-starters beat the first team of Sacramento. It was like s...

A recent Fox News poll that suggests that one in four Americans think God wanted Trump to be president and it is hard to argue with God. The thing I can't understand is why God would want to elect someone who lies continuously, and is such a blowhard, as my father would have labeled Trump. Can't they see the con coming? Or is religion such a long term con that they accept it as normal? Perhaps that is the real answer. Many believers of all religions are returning, in my opinion, to a more fundamentalist belief system. The reason for this is clear - confusion. The internet contains so much information that people can no longer sort it out. So, they throw up their hands in frustration and return to a simpler way of making decisions: let someone else do it. Religious fundamentalism answer tough question by referring to the bible; one book to replace the almost endless, almost infinite, pieces of information on the internet. The bible seems comprehensible. It is finite. You can h...