Julia's Advise!

Some of you remember Julia Child, whose TV cooking show changed the way Americans eat. The health-conscious criticized her for using too much butter. Her acerbic retort was that she was cooking for four people, and a stick of butter wasn’t too much. “Everything in moderation," she told us, "including moderation.” 

I was reminded of Julia recently while reading newspaper accounts of our leader’s tweets. They and those who respond on Twitter and other social media seem to have never met Julia. The insults come like heightened metabolism, the hyperbole races to a rant, and the general tenor of conversations stretch the definition of politeness. We could all tolerate a bit more moderation. They could be civil.

Talking heads on cable TV dull our senses. They say horrible things about our leaders, slant the news to their advantage for one hour each day, and then turn the microphone over to someone else with a rapid heartbeat. These folks are paid to be rude, to support one political party over another. One channel exists to praise Trump, the other to bury him. Yet, we lend them our ears! Civility vanquished?

How did we lose it? The unprincipled commentators are only one ingredient of the messy stew we’ve become. Vast numbers of people don’t watch cable news, millions of others don’t read newspapers, and still more don’t listen to current events on the radio. Those who do watch, listen and follow just abet them, encourage them, and are complicit with them. I do, and I am, I admit it.

Something changed in the last three or four decades. Civility is something you learned at home at an early age. You learned how to speak when spoken to, how to treat people well, how to call your elders Mr. or Mrs. or Miss, or Sir and Ma’am. No parent intentionally raises kids to be uncivil. No school intentionally teaches kids to be uncivil. Yet it happens. Maybe it starts when we don’t correct incivility when we experience it. Everyone is their own snowflake, you know. Let’s not stifle their creativity. Those who haven’t been taught politeness don’t recognize impoliteness when they see it. In the end, we elect national leaders who are on daily marathons of incivility, trying to reach 10,000 steps of crassness. If our leaders and the talking heads speak that way, why should I worry? Some moderation, please.

Everyone has the power to express their opinion on social media, with no need to be polite about it, or factual for that matter. Unimpeded free speech is a great freedom. We can speak our minds without fear of retribution from the government or those we dislike. We can be as uncivil as we want knowing there is no recourse, and we can start most arguments with IMO. But, should we? Can’t we do it in moderation?

If we can assume that 90%[i] or more of us are reasonably civil toward each other, why do we allow the other 10% to drag down our society, to let it wallow in presidential hubris? Two years from now, or six years from now will a new leader be able to turn us back to a nation that treats science with respect, that doesn’t lead by calling people names or calling them the enemy? Perhaps we could convince people, in the meantime, to be uncivil with a bit more moderation. Maybe we can take that first step in the journey back to civility among ourselves, with and from our leaders,

I’ve seen civility, I’ve experienced it, I witness it from time to time in the present, and aspire it for ourselves in times ahead. St. Francis supposedly told his followers to spread the Gospel to all they met and to use words if they must. Can we spread the good news of civil society by being civil ourselves? Think of it as the butter of life; not too much moderation.                                                                                                                                                                              

---

[i] A number I picked out of the air, but which I believe to be true with no data to back it up, and you know where this is going ….

Healthcare for All? Really? (part 1)

Most Americans believe that we have the best healthcare system in the world. It is a myth!

“My doctor said I needed the operation, but he didn’t know if my insurance would approve the payment. He sent in the paperwork last week. We still haven’t heard back.” Sound familiar?

                   

Ten years ago, the notion that healthcare was a human right was novel, if not a revolutionary idea. A recent Reuter’s survey, however, found that 70 percent of Americans now support a universal single-payer health insurance program and a Gallup poll reported that 71 percent believe healthcare is in a state of crisis.[i]

So, what is good healthcare? A person has good healthcare when they can see a doctor of their choice when they are sick, when they can go to the hospital when they need to and get the procedures they need when they need them, when they can get other professional help when they need it. Not everyone has that kind of healthcare today.

Let’s look at the data. America has highly trained doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. Our hospitals are first rate. We do amazing research that discovers cures for diseases and improves lives. Yet, our very expensive healthcare doesn’t deliver world-class outcomes.

The US spends 17.8 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, while other countries spend 9.6-12.4 percent, with better outcomes.[ii] Our life expectancy is the lowest of 11 comparable countries, and going down each year. Our infant mortality rate is among the highest in the developed world. We go to the doctor less often and spend less time in hospitals than those in other industrialized countries. Our prescription drugs cost twice as much as other countries. Our administrative costs are the highest in the industrialized world, 8% vs. 1-3%.[iii] Two-thirds of all ER visits are avoidable, at an average cost of nearly $30 billion per year.[iv] In other words, we pay twice as much as other countries for lesser outcomes. Why?

Our processes or systems for delivering high quality medical outcomes are antiquated and inefficient, including how we pay for it. Nearly half of our doctors are in private practice. How 1850s is that? A medical office with ten doctors is small according to the AMA. Most doctors in private practice don’t know what they will be paid for a patient’s visit because it depends on the type of insurance involved – HMO, PPO or EPO, the age, and gender of the patient, and the way the doctor codes the procedures. Most insurance plans require that we use doctors and hospitals in their network. None of those networks crosses state lines. Patients are at the mercy of the insurance companies, who contract different fees for each procedure, with the hospital and with the doctors.

Medicare, one of the largest customers for drugs, is prohibited from negotiating prices.[v] The US doesn’t regulate drug prices as the rest of the world does. Manufacturers doubled the price of insulin from 2012-2016, with four percent annual increases since. Why? Because they could. The current administration is trying to implement a plan that allows drug stores and hospitals to import drugs from Canada where the price is much lower, but still the second-highest in the world. Would it surprise you to know that Big-pharma is fighting the idea?

In March 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), an attempt to provide better healthcare options for those who had no insurance, and to set new standards for all healthcare practices. People seem to forget what medical insurance was like before ACA: no coverage for pre-existing conditions like high blood pressure, coverage for preventative care, no coverage after a $1million in expenses, no coverage for children after age 19, and it goes on. The bill was a compromise, so it didn’t address all the issues. It was a start.

A key provision of the Act required everyone in the country to have medical insurance. It also required insurance companies to offer comparable policies with roughly the same premiums. So much of the plan’s provisions are burned into our way of thinking about healthcare now, that we would not tolerate them being taken away. One political party has tried, from day one, to eliminate the plan. It was a key provision of their platform in 2016. In the 2018 mid-terms, it lost them the majority in the House.

Large insurance companies, Big-pharma, medical device companies, and hospitals don’t want to change the current system, because it will impact their bottom line. Large trade groups contribute millions of dollars to campaign war chests, $23 million in the first quarter of 2019, large companies, and hospitals that spend millions lobbying Congress As recently as this month a bill passed the California Assembly that would eliminate “surprise bills” resulting from hospital stays. It was pulled before the Senate could vote on it, right after a huge inflow of money from hospitals, anesthesiologist, and other medical groups.[vi] Most of the discussion isn’t about healthcare; it’s about politics and money. So, what are we to do?

Let’s study how other countries provide healthcare to their citizens. They will surely be able to teach us what works and doesn’t, demonstrate advantages and disadvantages to different processes, and help us with the cultural issues. We are different from those other countries, so we shouldn’t implement their plans wholesale. We need plans that meet our cultural needs and our traditions. We also need healthcare we can afford.

This is an election year, so those to the right of moderate will label any proposed change as socialism. It is an effective tactic because so many people don’t know what socialism is and so many older people can remember what it was in the Soviet Union and East Germany. President Trump, in a State of the Union address said that we would not allow socialism to get a foothold in our country. I agree with him. I’m a big fan of capitalism, knowing it has to be reined in from time to time. Harry Truman said, “Socialism is a scareword they hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power (TVA)…social security …farm price support … bank deposit insurance … labor organizations… anything that helps all the people.”[vii] 

While we don’t want a socialistic economic system for our country, we already have many examples of socialized medicine, where the government owns the hospitals and clinics and employs the doctors and nurses. The Veterans Administration is a good example. Many large cities and counties own and operate hospitals and clinics, and employ doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. The government manages many other insurance plans, which are not socialized medicine.

 Forty-four million people already have Medicare, a single-payer insurance program. It pays hospital and doctor bills for nearly everyone over the age of 65.[viii] Medicaid is another single-payer insurance plan for people with low incomes that insures 72 million people, 40% of whom are children.[ix] Fifteen million people have military insurance and about 22 million people have ACA insurance. Put another way, 153 million Americans, 44% of the population, already have a single-payer medical insurance plan managed by the government. Medicare works and it is less expensive than private insurance.

Nearly 155 million people under the age of 65 have insurance plans through their employers or that they purchased themselves. It is very expensive and often limits the care one can receive. Examples abound of insurance companies denying coverage for needed procedures, or Pharmacy Management Companies denying cancer medicines to patients.[x] Most private insurance plans require that members choose doctors and hospitals in their network of contracted providers, with options for deductibles and co-pays.

I’m leaning very much toward the idea of a universal single-payer health plan. Think about it. Everyone in the country is in the same health plan, which is available in every state, not just limited area networks. Everyone keeps their favorite doctor because there is only one insurance plan to which all doctors must belong. Companies that provide insurance for their employees would continue to pay in some form because they can’t afford to lose good workers. One million workers change jobs each month and must hunt for new doctors, and use expensive COBRA plans. Millions more stay in jobs they do not like because they can’t be without insurance.  

“They” say that major cultural changes take upwards of twenty years to take hold. The idea of a universal single-payer insurance plan has been working its way through our national debates for about ten years now. It may take another ten years to implement single-payer in some form, but when seventy percent of the people agree on an issue, the die is cast. Change is in the wind. “The past is over.”[xi] We will cross the Rubicon.

Part #2, Can we pay for it?

---

[i] CNBC article in late 2017, quoting both Reuters and Gallup polls.

[ii] Karen Feldscher – What’s behind high U.S. health care costs – The Harvard Gazette – March 13, 2018

[iii] Ibid

[iv] UnitedHealth Group –  Study of patient costs – Reported by Axios July 22, 2019

[v] Medicare Modernization Act of 2003

[vi] Axios – July 28, 2019

[vii] President Harry S. Truman – October 10, 1952

[viii] Peter Ubel – Forbes Magazine – November 21, 2018

[ix] Medicaid.gov – April 2019

[x] Sacramento Bee – July 10, 2019

[xi] George Bush -2000 Campaign speech

POP, POP, POP, POP

Another mass shooting! No, wait, another one! What, another one? Wait!

Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton had mass shootings in the last few days. We are numb; twenty-nine mass shootings so far this year. It is, as one commentator said, “It’s the new common, but it’s not normal.” I spent last weekend in Yosemite National Park without wifi and spotty reception on the phone. Truth be told, we shouldn’t take phones and tablets to a place so majestic. It was a lesson in how attached we have become to those little computers and how connected we are to the rest of the world.

We only had a hint of what was happening outside the forest. It was uncomfortable not knowing the details. The beauty of nature should be our normal, should be our tranquilizer, and should be our common. But, it isn’t, is it?

Mass shootings, one after another, bring out all usual suspects to cure our ills. We know them by heart: guns don’t kill, people do; we have to get the guns off the street; we need to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill; we need better background checks. This time, we heard some new ones: it’s the video games, it’s the culture of hate, it’s the white supremacists. Sunday news programs showed appropriate amounts of hand wringing, as usual. It will all be for naught, until the next mass shooting, in the next few days, when we will start all over again.

The President called for an end of hate in America, and lots of prayers.

Nothing changes, because we love our guns, for some valid reasons but most not so valid. We have more guns in the US than we have people. Actually, I don’t have a problem with that, if people have guns for the right reason. If someone wants to go hunting, fine, own a hunting gun. If a rancher needs to protect his or her livestock, fine. If a person likes to shoot competitively, skeet shoot whenever. But let’s be honest about it, hunters don’t need AK47’s to kill Bambi’s father. Guns of war have no place except on the battlefield. Automatic and semi-automatic weapons have no place in the home or on the street, and arguing about the precise definition of each is wasted energy. Most countries outlaw handgun ownership. We don’t need them either. Some people want them to protect their home and families, or for self-defense; they buy into a huge myth. There is no valid evidence that guns are effective protection, except as intimidation.

When someone wants to buy a gun, they submit to a not very thorough computerized background check of their criminal history. It only takes a few minutes. In other countries, the background check is a real background check that can take three to six months. It includes an interview with the local police, certifications from doctors, as well as statements from neighbors and friends about the applicant’s behavior and suitability to have a gun. Guns and ammunition are sold only to people who have a license. Some states don’t even require a background check. Most gun shows exempt people from background checks. None of these background checks, it seems to me, fly in the face of the Second Amendment.

There is too much hatred. Leadership at the top cannot escape complicity with the White Nationalist and Nativists when it doesn’t condemn anti-immigrant riots in the streets, saying there are good people on both sides of the argument.

Our President didn’t pull any triggers this weekend, and he said there was no place for hatred. However, a couple of weeks earlier, he basked in the limelight of a crowd of MAGAs shouting, “Send her back,” referring to a duly elected member of Congress. That rally may go down as one of the most racist’s events in the history of our country; it gave permission for every immigrant hater to come out of the woodwork with guns at the ready.

We rely on our leaders to help us find our better angels, not to point us in the opposite direction. We rely on our leaders to look at the facts and understand that there is a culture of hatred; a toxic brew is how one pundit described it, growing across the land and much of Europe. We need them to lead us to be better than we are, to help us curb the hatred that leads to these killings. We need them to get weapons of war off the streets, out of our schools, and out of our stores.

There were nearly one-hundred-thousand people in the seven-mile-long valley this weekend. There was little noise except when the rangers fired beanbags to convince a bear to leave the campground, or the helicopter helping with a search and rescue. The solitude, the politeness of the people, the diversity of the visitors from all over the world, and the opportunity to be free of distractions should be the new normal, the common. If we need to be shocked, one view of any of the domes of Yosemite will give us all the awe we crave.

 Returning to reality will not be an easy transition.

Enough is enough isn't what enough was ...

We have a lot going for us right now. We have one of the best economies ever, unemployment is the lowest that most people can remember, innovations are coming out of the tech-valleys faster than we know how to use them. Things are going along pretty well. If I were President, I would run for re-election with a slogan like “It’s the economy, stupid.” So far, none of the 23 candidates for the Democratic nomination for president has come up with an economic measure that would win the day.

Instead, we are inundated with tweets and sound bites designed, intentionally, to divide the nation along racial lines, along religious lines, and along educational lines. We are and have been for two years, inundated with “no Russia, no collusion, full exoneration, witch hunt, hoax,” none of which is true. In the new norm, it isn’t enough, yet.

In March, the Department of Justice (DOJ) published the report of the two-year Special Counsel investigation. Last week, congressional committees dragged the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, to testify about what was already in the report. The hearings confirmed the report: Russia did try to interfere with our 2016 elections and several people were indicted. There was not sufficient evidence to convict members of the Trump campaign with conspiracy with the Russians. There was overwhelming evidence of obstruction of justice by White House operatives, campaign officials, and the President, who would have been indicted but for a DOJ rule that forbids indictment of a sitting President. Mueller testified that the President could be indicted when he leaves office. Immediately after the hearing, the President tweeted that there was no collusion and no obstruction. Enough isn’t enough yet.

Last week, in Congressional hearings about the crisis at the southern border Chairman Elijah Cummings criticized the leadership of the Border Patrol and HHS for the way they are caring for people in their custody. Then the tweets started: “Cumming’s District is a disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous and filthy place.” (Send him back?) “No human being would want to live there.” That was the start of the war of words. Today, he called Cummings the racist. Enough isn’t enough yet.

A few weeks ago, the President told four liberal members of Congress they should return to the countries from which they came didn’t like everything about America. Three of the four were born in The US and all elected by their constituents. At a rally in Greenville, chants of “send her back” filled the arena where the President was holding a rally. Send-them-back is a rallying cry of the segregationist back the 1950s and 1960s. When he was accused of tolerating one of the most racist events in recent history, he tweeted that the four members of Congress were the real racists. Most of Trump's attacks are against people of color or immigrants. Enough isn’t enough yet.

There was a time when political opponents went after each other over policy issues. Classic stories abound in the history of Washington about political enemies by day and card-playing scotch drinkers by night. It was about policy, not personality.

Today, the daily tweets from the President take up the news cycle, and policy takes a back seat. We need a vigorous debate about issues. The Russians continue to infiltrate our election process, they are into our electric grid, our infrastructure is crumbling, our debt is at an all-time high, and growing, healthcare processes and costs are burdensome. Those issues should fill our evening news programs and our newspapers. Slanderous tweets from an impolite president should not be the stuff of daily discussion. We should expect our White House and the West Wing leaders to exhibit a bit of class, to show that we are a sophisticated nation with serious concerns for world peace, strong alliances aimed at keeping that peace, educated deliberations about issues, encouraging job formation, and concern for the well-being of fellow citizens.

If we support the verbal and written tearing down of people who differ in their views, support the ill-advised degradation of people, and the racist's taunts, we are complicit. We are and should be better than that.

Enough is enough, but I suspect it isn’t.

Is The Crisis At The Border Or Is It In America?

By now, everyone has seen the videos of our detention centers in Arizona, Florida, and elsewhere. If they do not make you ill, what does? The current immigration crisis is overwhelming governmental agencies responsible for border control and immigrant processing and care. The last two to three years have seen increases in people seeking asylum never experienced before. For sure, the Congress and the Administration share the blame.

We are a country that welcomed the refugee, the oppressed yearning to live free. The statue in New York harbor says who we are! We have not always done the best job of welcoming immigrants or treating them well once they arrive. It has been a constant effort to improve who we are and want to be. The Know-Nothing Party gained too much influence in the 1850s with its opposition to immigrants, Catholics, and generally, anyone who wasn't White Anglo Saxon. The Klan terrified Jews and Catholics alike in the 1940s and 1950s, not to mention their consistent hatred and terrorizing of non-whites. Over the years, we passed laws limiting entry to our southern neighbors. In the early twentieth century, most immigrants came from Europe and were White. In the last few years, a large number of immigrants came from Mexico, China, India, Philippines, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. Today, however, seems so different on so many fronts.

The historical assumption has often been that people will come here legally. That is not the case today. People come to visit and overstay their visas. People come to attend our great universities and overstay their visas. People stand in line for years in some countries waiting for their entry visas. Our immigration and border control systems are designed for legal entry.

We know that many people cross our southern borders illegally rather than through a port of entry. Many, if not most, who seek to live in our country cannot meet the guidelines for refugee status. Hundreds of thousands are sent back each year. However, the numbers have decreased in the last two years, partly because the government agencies can’t keep up with the volume.

Whatever resources we normally allocate to border control, immigration, and refugee assimilation is inadequate by a thousand times. The people assigned to handle the situation are not trained for it, so we end up with a mess that is embarrassing to the country. Last week Vice President Pence visited a holding pen in Arizona. He witnessed hundreds of men held in a cage, forced to sleep on the cement floor. He smelled the stench of men forced to go weeks without showers, without being able to brush their teeth, without clean clothes, wearing facemasks to filter the putrid air. The officials who run these camps knew that the VP was going to visit them, but the pictures showed how little they could do to clean up the place. He tweeted that the conditions were not great, but acceptable. There is no way that show-and-tell event can be spun in a positive light. Something is rotten on the border.

Government agencies are not equipped to handle the huge increase in asylum seekers coming across the border, hundreds of thousands each month. Most of the immigrants are from the “northern triangle” of Central America: Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. We know the drug cartels control those countries; power is exercised through murder, kidnapping, and low economic security. People are fleeing for their lives, by whatever means available, whether by bus, walking, or with smugglers, called coyotes.

When they arrive, our overcrowded and overwhelmed systems can’t treat them humanely. Congress just appropriated over $400 million to be used to manage the border and the immigrants. But it refused to allocate money for better living conditions, childcare, medical attention, sanitary goods, or even toothpaste. The fault lies with both political parties in the Senate. One refuses to admit publically that conditions are intolerable and the other refuses to provide funds unless those items are included. Except for party bickering, the funds could have been appropriated a year ago.

Hundreds of thousands come seeking asylum. That requires a court hearing. It can take from four to ten years to set a first court date. The San Francisco Immigration Court alone has a backlog of nearly 50,000 cases waiting to be heard by the 22 judges; 2,200 cases per judge. What do the immigrants do until their case is heard? Normal practice was to let them free in the country until their case was heard. Current practice is to detain them in holding pens for extended periods of time.

On Tuesday, July 16, 2019, new rules went into effect that bars immigrants from claiming asylum if they pass through another country to get to the US. That executive order should be tied up in the courts for a long time because it is a radical change in our way of treating the immigrant.

The border calamity is broader than an exercise in large numbers. Millions of people want to escape the tyranny they experience in their home country. Many Americans do not want immigrants to come to our country in large numbers. There is the fear of how a large number of immigrants will change the culture of the country, how it will affect job opportunity for low skill workers who are already hurting. It is interesting that the percentage of foreign-born people in the US has hardly changed from fifty years ago. The numbers may be relatively steady, but there is something more sinister happening.

 We have reached the point where the President feels comfortable tweeting that members of Congress who disagree with him should leave the country and go back to their native land: “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.” The irony is that only one Congresswoman he targeted is an immigrant. The others were born in the US. They were, however, all women of color. At least two immigrant members of Congress tweeted that they had not been subjected to the President’s racism because they were of White-European descent. Later tweets suggested that if the members of Congress didn’t like the way America was run, they could leave it.

 “Love it or leave it” was the establishment’s cry during the Vietnam War era. During the war on segregation, people of color were urged to return to the countries from which their ancestors were sold into slavery. Racism and Nativism are becoming acceptable at the highest levels of our government; led by a President who based his 2016 campaign on complaints about how the country was run and how he could make it great again. Nobody asked him to leave. The ghosts of our past are walking among us, in the halls of government, and on the propaganda radio and television networks.

Members of Congress in both parties need to tell the President that his behavior is unacceptable and that his treatment of asylum seekers is immoral. He tweets that he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, as he is tweeting racist comments. The House passed a resolution condemning the Presidents racism, but one hundred eighty-seven members voted against the resolution. That made them complicit. The Reuters/Ipsos poll published the next day, July 17, 2019, indicated that because of the racist tweets, the President’s approval ratings increased five percent, to a high of 72% among Republicans. In the same poll, 68% of Americans said they disapproved of the President’s behavior. There is a big divide among the people.

The inhumane treatment of people seeking asylum can be resolved if we put our minds to it and allocate the needed funds. Let’s hire doctors to care for the sick, the pregnant women, and care for those with adverse medical conditions. We can stop taking children away from their parents. We can improve our record-keeping systems so that they can easily find and reunite parents and kids separated in the past. We can hire a couple of hundred immigration lawyers and station them at the border. We can make a massive infusion of money the Northern Triangle countries to develop their economy and take out the drug lords. We can set up immigration centers on our embassy grounds in Central American to eliminate the need to walk nearly 4,000 miles or take caravans of buses to our border. Those would be good first steps.

There is a crisis at the border. We see it on the news every day. We can’t let the videos numb us. We need to let them spur us to action. There also is a crisis in America, when a President calls for the deportation of people of color who criticize his policies. There is a crisis when nearly half of the people in the country support these policies.

The very soul of the nation is at stake!

...We Would So State!

America is a revolutionary idea; people can form their own government and make their own laws, trust one another to do what is right and do what is best for the nation, to create a more perfect union. The founding idea is being tested, perhaps the hardest since 1860.

From time to time, several times really, the experiment hangs threadbare. It happens when power corrupts our leaders. It happens when the corrupt gain power. It happens when we experience massive sea changes in the economy, changes in the distribution of wealth. It happens when long-held belief systems no longer describe the norm. We suffer these changes because we trust our institutions, in the end, to save us. When that trust is broken, the nation divides, people pick sides, and hate grows. When the quest for party power or personal power ignores the rule of law, ignores the norms, or takes pride in telling us untruths, the great experiment is in jeopardy.

The national divide has been brewing for years. It steeped during a long lasting and massive recession: savings drained, jobs lost to overseas manufacturing and robots, expectations of a better life for the next generation shattered, many could not recover, even during the recovery that followed. In the last twenty years, a diaspora moved innovation, technically based manufacturing, skilled jobs, and better-educated population to the seaboards, to some large inland cities and to their exurbs. Trust in our institutions waned: low skilled manufacturing jobs drained from the Heartland. College is no longer affordable, schools are incubators for social change outside the comfort zone of many people. Ubiquitous cameras expose police brutality and political shenanigans. Lack of trust builds exponentially.

The divide is wide and it is deep: believers on either side accuse the other of being evil, of being un-American. Corrupt state legislatures design gerrymandered voting districts visibly unconstitutional; they create roadblocks that prevent citizens from registering to vote or actually voting. Politicians pack the courts with reactionary judges, some proven racially intolerant. Theologically conservative religious pastors publicly support non-biblical government actions. A nation built by immigrants tries to keep immigrants out, cages them when they seek asylum, tears babies from their mothers, and send them into foster care thousands of miles away, perhaps never to be reunited. People lose trust in national leaders who lie, blatantly, on a daily basis, who have no appreciation for the rule of law, who are willing to encourage contempt of Congress. Our institutions are not saving us.

We are in a historic economic recovery. The stock markets are at all-time highs, unemployment at all-time lows, home interest rates dropping and other economic indicators more positive. What’s not to like? Perhaps we don’t demonstrate more trust in our leaders and institutions because economic greatness, strong armies, and full employment aren’t what we are about. We are about trust.

There was some evidence that Russia meddled in our election processes in favor of Candidate Trump and against Candidate Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. There was also speculation that the Trump campaign knew about the meddling and was willing to abet it. Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel to investigate the allegations;  “The order appointing the Special Counsel authorized him to investigate the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.[i] The investigation resulted in several Grand Jury indictments of operatives associated with the Russian government and its special army technology unit. The information included in Volume I of the report leaves no question about the massive interference by Russia. It also states, “…the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”[ii]

Volume II of the Special Counsel’s 480-page report[iii]  outlines the findings of its investigation into whether or not the President had obstructed justice related to the investigation. People closely associated with 2016 Trump campaign are spending time in jail because they lied to the investigators. The Special Counsel identified and explained ten major articles of obstruction by the President and/or his staff during the investigation. The report described the obstruction of justice events, determined if there was a nexus between the obstruction and some executive action, and determined if there was intent to obstruct justice.

Four of the ten charges met all three criteria, five other charges showed substantial evidence of obstruction, meeting one or more criteria, and one had lesser substantial evidence. The irony, of course, is that while the Special Counsel’s investigation found no conspiratorial acts with the Russian hackers, the administration, on several occasions, tried to obstruct the investigators. They didn’t have to. If they had left well enough alone, there might not have been a Volume II. The evidence was conclusive. There was obstruction of justice on the part of the President and or his staff! Why wasn’t he charged, indicted, for those crimes?

The Department of Justice rules prevents charging a sitting president with a crime. While the Special Counsel was not allowed to bring charges against the president because of that rule, he stated “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent present difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred” but “… it does not exonerate him.”[iv]

Mueller noted that the Constitution requires a system other than the Department of Justice to bring charges against a sitting President. The Mueller report is factual, and it is well documented. Since he could not bring charges, he handed the process over to the Congress, which has the power of impeachment.

The Constitution set up a unique system of three equal branches of government. Unlike kings and emperors, our president can be removed from office by other than a revolution.[v] Yet, it did two things to ensure that impeachment is used sparingly. It states that a president could only be impeached for treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors. It also divided congressional power: the House can impeach,  but the Senate must try the case and determine guilt. Very clever! It has, however, been described as a double-edged sword. It nullifies the will of the voters, but it prevents despotism.[vi]

A May2019 Quinnipiac University National Poll finds, that 66 percent of Americans say that Congress should not start the impeachment process yet. What does it take to have successful impeachment? It needs the support of an overwhelming majority of the people. It needs an overwhelming majority in the House, and it needs an overwhelming majority of the Senate. As of now, impeachment doesn’t have the support of the people and it doesn’t have the needed votes in either house of Congress. President Nixon faced impeachment by the House on several counts: obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress. Those charges were enough to force his resignation before House voted on the Articles of Impeachment.

The new and often young idealists on the Democratic side of the aisle in the House want Trump impeached now, even if the Senate will not confirm the charges. The veteran members of the House leadership are reluctant to let that happen. If they vote to impeach the President and the Senate doesn’t even hold a trial, they will look a bit foolish to the general public. They can’t afford that in an election cycle.

Franklin Roosevelt said that the Presidency is “… pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.”[vii]  That kind of leadership is missing from the Oval Office. Politics has become a zero-sum game. Divisiveness is encouraged. Institutions ignored and left to flounder, and policy is made on the fly. Leaders lie to us every day with tweets. Is it any wonder that people don’t trust their Congress, don’t trust the administration, don’t trust their legislative leaders, and don’t trust their institutions?

Our better angels are struggling. The experiment is being tested to the limits. Our leaders show little regard for the institutions we valued for so long, or for the rule of law. Our leaders put party over the more perfect union. Where is the shame? How can we trust them?

High crimes and misdemeanors occurred, yet people don’t want them prosecuted. Why? Is it because we do not trust anyone to tell the truth anymore, so we allow the loud, the bold, and the audacious to rule the day?

And yet …

---

[i] Report on the investigation into Russian Interference in 2016 Presidential Election – Volume I and II – March 2019

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid The report is a carefully written legal document that summarizes all of the known instances of interference by Russian operatives, most of whom were agents of, or members of a branch of the Russian army. The backup data is extensive, even with appropriate redactions. The investigation lead to several Grand-Jury indictments and some trials and prison sentences. Volume II deals with the actions of the President, members of his cabinet, and other hangers-on who obstructed justice with actions to limit or end the investigation into Russian interference. The report is not easy reading.

[iv] Ibid

[v] Alexander Hamilton – The Federalist #9 - 1788

[vi] Alan Hirsch – A Citizens Guide to Impeachment – Essential Books, Inc. The “double-edged sword” is used throughout historical and political books when discussing the impeachment process. Some say that Jefferson was the first to use it, but it is used often without approbation.

[vii] Anne O’Hare - New York Times – September 11, 1932 -

Black Fly Season

At a young age, you learn that there are four seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. That may apply to most of the country. If you were raised in Vermont or other parts of northern New England, you’re more likely to think of Winter, Mud season, Black-fly season, and the Fourth of July.

Most of my friends from the north eastern-provinces escape when the snow flies. It’s tolerable, mind you; the roads are generally plowed, the ski slopes are open, and there is a lot of wood or oil for the furnace. But at our age, people prefer to winter in the South. Florida is a favorite. They only summer in Vermont. That way they will miss Mud season and Black-fly season. Summer and winter are verbs in that part of the country. I’ve never known anyone to spring or fall anywhere.

Mud season comes in two varieties: on the roads and on the mountain trails. One comes earlier than the other. There are 8,600 miles of dirt and gravel roads in Vermont compared to 7,100 miles of paved roads, including the four-lanes. When the January Thaw hits, sometime between the end of January and mid-February, the less well-built gravel roads turn to mud. When they dry out, the ruts are graded, and about the time the roads are back to normal, the springs on the mountains start a heavy flow, pushed along by the snowmelt, turning the hiking trails to mush.

Between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day plus a month or so either way, you just have to stay indoors as much as possible. If you live in the country, work a dairy farm, or go to your summer camp on the lake at that time of year, you will experience Black-Fly season. The bugs get bigger with each story told, just like the trout that got away. But, it’s true. They swarm in the early morning and right around sunset. You can’t put on too much deet.[i] They love blood; they drill down into the soft tissue like the neck or the back of the ears. They are all females and need the blood to lay their eggs. Simple, over-the-counter bug sprays are ineffective. You need the strong stuff.

If you take the rowboat across Bald Pond to the spot where Bean Brook feeds the lake and the rainbows like to feed in early morning or sunset, be ready to spend as much time swatting flies as casting flies. Don’t wear shorts or short-sleeved shirts in Black Fly season; rather wear long sleeves, turn up the collar, and stuff your pants into your socks. Wear a hat.  

After Father’s day, or when you think the black flies have had their fill, the no-see-ums show up. Actually, they don’t show up, otherwise, they would be see-ums. You know when they arrive because your arms start waving automatically; slapping anything on your body that you can reach. There are over 500 varieties of no-see-ums around the world. I’m convinced that at least 400 of them summered at our camp. The closer to the water you got, the more bites you got. DDT was a common chemical for ridding the house or the screened porch of the bugs, but then we found out it wasn’t good for us. If it killed the no-see-ums that quickly, imagine what it was doing to our insides. You can’t buy it anymore.

In truth, the best way to rid yourself of black flies and no-see-ums is not to go where they are. There were fewer in town, fewer still in the big towns away from the water. There are fewer yet in California. We know they are out there somewhere, perhaps closer to the Sierra or the large lakes. But, and this is important, we don’t name a whole season for them. We only have winter, summer and the fire season. The latter, however, is becoming a year-round thing. That can’t be good! On the other hand, we can winter where we summer.

---

[i] Deet – N. N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, also called DEET(/diːt/) or diethyltoluamide is the most common active ingredient in insect repellent