was it a year?

There has been another year, and two deaths are still with me.

My mother passed away June 14, 2019, and my Lynn of 32 years passed away July 13, 2019. The grief is ongoing.
Even before those two deaths were others: an aunt and an uncle, one per year, almost exactly a year apart.
The aunt was in 2017, the uncle in 2018. 
I guess, as you get older and see the succession of deaths, you start to see patterns of occurrence and coincidence of things and dates.
How many passed in July, how many in June, in August, and so forth.
My dad's father passed February 28-March 2, 1976 
My mom's mother passed July 4, 1985
My mom's father passed March 10, 1988
My brother Tim passed June 1995
Lynn's father, Dr. Maurice Friedman in March, 1996
My grandmother, dad's mother passed July, 1998
My dad passed September 2, 1998

In 2003, my uncle (by marriage)f Sam, my aunt Carol's husband, passed
In 2010 were several deaths:
Suzy, my oldest sister, in February
My aunt Carol, my dad's sister, in March
My aunt Gwen, mother of my cousins Martha and Linda, and wife of my uncle Buck, in June
My uncle Henchie, my uncle Buck's older brother, in August. 

My next door neighbor, Elizabeth (I won't give further details) died Dec. 28, 2010.  
In March 2012, Lynn's mother, Sylvia Friedman died
2013 

2014 

June 15, 2015 an old friend, Frank Young passed, although I didn't know for some weeks. 
  





 

Self-defeated police

Racism is probably best described as self-defeat, anyway.
How do we learn to get along? Can we all just get along?
I remember the question, and I remember that heartache.
Now, in 2020, we have the fires of hatred, both in some human hearts, and in the streets of Minneapolis.
This is going to be a night that we must remember-- not in joy, but in despair.
Small business gets caught in the crossfire, every time.
But, then, common sense got caught in the cross-fire, when police officers, who
evidently were never properly trained and seldom disciplined, decided to kill a man
who was clearly cooperating, right on camera.
This kind of thing has happened repeatedly in recent years.
Now law and order seem destroyed, temporarily, due to the abdication of responsibility by
the police department there.
That abdication started when the police stopped being reasonable with a man who was helpless.
They have killed him, but now his sympathizers, in righteous or self-righteous anger, are
destroying a city.
I am, this night, watching those fires raging in Minneapolis.
It is hard to realize: the police have done all the wrong things, first punishing and killing
the innocent, even after their full cooperation; then, not taking action against those actually guilty of civil disruption. 

Now: Compound Grief: Deaths and Two Long, Long Years

Now I am still reeling from a series of deaths of people who loved me, and whom I loved.
Looking back to 2018, and, indeed to August 1 of 2017, I have so many deaths happening in rapid succession.
It wasn't just deaths at a distance anymore, it was both more distant deaths of persons I was normally close to, and the deaths of people with whom I've been very close.
My dearest aunt, my last two and dearest uncles, my dearest mother, and most recently my darling Lynn, the love of my life for close to 32 years.-- these have happened, in rapid and unrelenting procession.
Interspersing them have been deaths of historical personages...John McCain, Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush, (about whom I've researched and written much).
With these latest deaths, my mother, (June 14 through June 21 for her arrangements) running up until July 25 with the final funeral proceeding for my Lynn, the grief and heartache seem insurmountable.
As noted, it might have been different had there been much break, but a lengthy break, after 2017, there just wasn't. First there were the constant medical crises for my little mom, followed by an immediate set of same for Lynn.

The rate of the deaths might have been easier, had there not been so many disappointmenets, and surprise bad developments, leading to younger deaths than I or others had envisioned.

Now, I am dealing with all those quetions that I've finally been able to put to rest, but coulnd't for a time.
Trying, as well, to recover my nerves from all that late night jumping to wakefulness because one or another beloved person was in some new set of throes, sufferings and threats of imminent death.
One, after another, after another, came the calls, either from loved ones tellimg me the news at a distance, or from medical staff with new news of deeper hospitalization.

So now, as I sit in this cluttered apartment, filled with leftover furniture and small items that were dear to them and so to me, I am working through this as best I can.

What Is the REPUBLICAN Party now starting to pick up about Trump?

Mueller today issued a series of new indictments.

In the course of describing how that works, media analysts have noted the history of the NSA investigations involving looking into Trump's ties with Russia.

It's been noted that the investigations of Trump, basically started in 2014.

 In reality, they probably started in late 2013.

That was after the end of the 2012 election and after Trump had returned to the US after the Moscow beauty contest he had sponsored with cooperation of Vladimir Putin.

Here's the thing: the investigation has determined that Trump was engaged in questionable behavior in the months going into that pageant, and, indeed, New York State had an investigation in place as to Trump's New York-based business ties to illegal Russian banks.

The Russians showed, in the material that was turned up by the investigation, to have an interest in helping Trump win the Presidency as a way of getting revenge against Putin's enemies in US politics, shortly after the end of his pageant.

That said, it's interesting that the Russians also saw an opening for Trump--a path in which he could OBTAIN THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION.

The Republican Primary election of 2016 was a massively confused affair.  The field was overly crowded, and some were going to have to go. But it was clear there were some major names out there, that would have to go down before Trump's campaign for the GOP nomination. could win.

Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John Kasich, Marco Rubio. Others, such as Carly Fiorna, seemed unlikely if put up against Hillary or Joe Biden, to win the General.

However, a strong ticket could be put together composed of Kasich and Rubio. Both were from swing states, and a new effort at pulling in moderates and minorities, might have put them over. As a white female candidate, Hillary had a slightly different set of voters than Obama had, and so presented a different kind of threat.

In states in which the Democrats had been hard hit by Republican voter disenfranchisement efforts, minority voters had already dropped dramatically between 2008 and 2012. Obama lost ground in some areas due to that effort, and because of the subsequent drop in minority turnout due to disenfranchisement, lost some Electoral votes.

He lost the district vote in Nebraska, and also lost Indiana and North Carolina. His larger Popular vote figure also dropped.

But the GOP managed to get a new Supreme Court ruling, the Shelby ruling, that greatly enhanced voter disenfranchisement efforts in heavily minority districts and precincts. As a result, Obama's Party took a "shellacking" in 2014, and it was clear minority disenfranchisement would be a threat to any candidate trying to repeat Obama's appeals to minority voters.

But, Hillary's campaign had displayed a strength-- in the aftermath of such efforts-- which the Republicans had been unable to counter as of yet at that point, in that, with white female voters pulling for her in some areas, states Obama had lost might have some prospect of going BACK to Hillary from the GOP's result in 2012.

One key state in that regard, was North Carolina.

While the African-American vote has been severely limited by the new GOP-backed voter repression efforts there, Hillary had a constituency more resistant to being limited by GOP efforts.

It may be that the Russians knew it would take more than just the GOP's vote suppression efforts in NC to turn the state. And, Russia had been wanting to make a movement that would display to America that it could impact on our elections, to counter any military moves we might be making in Eastern Europe. They began to dabble in--and talk about dabbling in--US electrical systems.

On election night 2016, there was a power failure in a key county in NC and it had a suspicious quality.

Media at the time attempted to look into the outcome.  

They tried to ask questions, and tried to follow the actions of election officials in GOP dominated NC as to whether they would look into the causes of the power failures and equipment shutdowns.

No investigation occurred. Media questions went unanswered.

Another state appeared to have unusual election difficulties on election night:

Ohio.

As with NC, last minute events occurred on election night that may have effected the outcome.

Ohio had recently purchased and gotten operational, a brand new, state of the art, election and internet hacking detection system. It was designed to prevent and preclude the very kind of internet hack on election equipment that occurred in November 2016.

Media made this observation. And it was touted as a major step forward in countering any Russian effort to hack key states.

But, on election night, for some mysterious reason, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State TURNED OFF THE NEW HACK PREVENTION EQUIPMENT.

Though it had been expensive, it was turned off before it could do its job.

Meanwhile, three close states were recounted--or, at least, an attempt to recount those states was attempted. But the state governments were largely not cooperative, although Pennsylvania's did its best.

But in the aftermath, it was clear from visual examination of ballots versus computer exam, that Hillary had actually carried WI's 10 Electoral votes by about 8800 votes.

Going on to the next state, MI, we now know key Russian operatives, including some who were indicted by Robert Mueller today, were emailing each other after the election about how they were taking key steps to "cover their tracks" in hacking OH and MI. State government in WI and MI was not cooperative, but there was limited cooperation in PA, although the federal judge appealed to by recounters was hostile to the effort and refused to extend any deadlines for PA's recount.

Meanwhile, in FL, such operatives also sent similar track - covering references in their post-election e-mail.

All in all, Hillary's unique ability to draw white female voters in numbers needed to offset the loss of minority voters to GOP disenfranchisement efforts, was a major problem for the Russians. They had a plan, but they required an insider in America to help cover their tracks with the media and voters in general.

Here's the thing Republicans should be seeing at this point: all the way back in 2014, Russia wanted to ensure Donald Trump was the GOP nominee in 2016. They had already put together that, to beat Hillary, who could overcome the GOP voter suppression effort in key states in her female turnout vote, they needed a candidate who would help cover up their hacking efforts.

That someone was Donald Trump. And so, they set out, BEFORE THE GENERAL ELECTION EVER STARTED, to ensure that Donald Trump would win the GOP nomination.

One by one, each leading Republican candidate against Trump, was made to fail to win their home state, thus destroying their credibility as candidates.

As early as 2014, the Russians started putting this thing together. Their first targets were not Democrats, but Republicans.

Wake up, Republicans! They aren't "coming for you next" as many of you are wont to say right now. THEY'VE ALREADY COME FOR YOU.

 

My "connection" to Bill Clinton

Looking back over the years at all the incidents, allegations and suspicions that ended up surrounding
Bill Clinton, I have to confess that, I never had a connection to him, and always felt an...uneasiness about him. I also felt an uneasiness about the southern wing of the Democratic Party.

In 1988, I had worked for the Dukakis campaign --during the summer of that year. I made a few phone calls at his downtown campaign office. Previous to that, I had worked in the Public Policy Panel as a volunteer, helping organize some brochures. I had met Brownie Ledbetter there, and was happy to work for a progressive for whom I had learned, through media exposure, to have respect. Her husband was a highly regarded Professor at the University of Arkansas.

 I was, at that time, engaged in the early stages of my still incomplete (perhaps of necessity) book "The Great Old Record of the Grand Old Party---Cheating?". One of my goals in that research had been to expose how badly and how often the GOP had cheated since its inception.

The first detailed thing  I'd tried to focus on and track down, which became a focus of my first book Tim, George Bush and Me: the Undercurrents In All Our Lives. (copyrighted June 1996) had been the Bush and Allen Dulles connections during WW2. I had been inspired by my late brother Tim's death, to write about him and my life with him, while my ongoing research into the larger issue of GOP election chicanery had inspired me to include my research about the Bush family before and during WW2. An unusual radio ad for a book I had heard in Houston in the summer of 1980, had first piqued my interest in GHW Bush and put me on the trail of GOP antics in the 1944 election.

 My work for Dukakis that summer was, in fact, the first--and, thus far, the only--time I ever worked for a Presidential candidate or campaign. Lynn had also been for him.  I had met her in October 1987 at the Unitarian Church here in LR. She is Jewish, a member of Temple B'nai Israel here. Unitarians are often a way for people to meet across denominational and religious lines.

I had fallen in love with Lynn during that previous year, and Dukakis's Jewish wife was a favorite issue of mine for my own fantasy--somewhere in the back of my head--of my own possible future with Lynn. I had hoped to marry her, but never has money--or insurance--actually worked out for tha to happen. (People don't realize how insurance can impact on romance).

Even as I was researching earlier possible GOP Presidential election scandals, when I decided to work for awhile for Dukakis and keep up with his campaign, I was appalled to once again have seen another example of dirty tricks by the GOP. Dukakis was slammed by near-constant tv ads by the big corporate funded GHW Bush campaign.  At that time, the Democrats were still holding the line on being funded by big corporations, since the CEOs of those tended to hold views which were antithetical to America's working and middle class.

After his defeat, by that mass advertising built on lies and exaggeration, I realized, as had other Democrats, that a different strategy might be needed. More regions of the nation seemed to have needed attention, was one spin. Carter had won in 1976, (though he had failed of re-election).

However, I was not impressed with the Southern wing, at least, of the Democratic Party. My own father, though I loved him and have since written about him, as well, in my second copyrighted book The Diplomats, Dad and Me: The Blurring of the Lines in Life (copyright Jan 2011), had been a southern Democrat in the classic conservative tradition.

But his views, summed up too often in George Wallace's public--though some claim not private--views on race, were disgusting to me, and we had some pretty tough words at times. Dad had, however, been one of the first JFK conspiracy theorists--and Vietnam war critics--that I was to know. During JFK's funeral, shortly after the Jack Ruby shooting of Oswald, my dad pointed on LBJ when he came on-screen and said "that's the bastard that killed John F. Kennedy". And dad never had a good word to say about him after that.

As LB J continued to escalate the war, Dad continued to be a skeptic and critic of his policies. Though my high school teachers were saying the Johnson Administration believed it was on the "path to success" and the "path to peace" in Vietnam, those next years became more tumultuous, as Johnson wavered between support for Civil Rights at home, and drafting young blacks from impoverished backgrounds to serve on the front lines.

But Dad fell for Wallace's side of the argument, and when 1967 rolled around and the inevitable confrontation between LBJ and RFK began to crop up, the skeptics about the war found a voice and the Democratic Party began to split along the northern-southern lines we have seen almost continuously today.

During those years, while I lived here in AR, I'd never heard much about BILL Clinton. But, just once, in a totally non-political setting, I met Hillary Rodham. She was in our small family furniture and crafts business. It was in 1970 or '71. I was standing at the counter, asked if I could help her locate anything, and she was "just browsing". I had just received my high school ring, and was wearing it pretty religiously. As she moved back to the door, she pointed to my ring and said "That's really beautiful." A young man came in and I don't believe I ever saw his face, but he seemed to say they needed to travel on. It could be it was Bill Clinton.

Since the election, that moment in time has often come up in my mind. Over subsequent years, from 1976-83, I lived in Houston. I would visit up here occasionally, but the only news I usually got was the little on Little Rock tv.

However, by 1984, I had heard a few allegations and attacks on Clinton. Hillary was then the First Lady of Arkansas, and I recognized her face from mom and dad's store. She seemed popular in her own right, and years later, in 1988 while working at the Public Policy Panel, I learned she was popular with our local feminist leaders such as Brownie Ledbetter.

When Dukakis made his run, I was determined to help him win. I had not worked in the Mondale campaign, though I had voted for him. I was an early feminist, having supported the ERA in published letters to Newsweek, Arkansas Gazette and Arkansas Democrat. During Vietnam, I had been part of Women for A Peaceful Christmas in Madison, Wisconsin, and my mom and sisters vociferously joined their effort to weaken corporate influence in America through making the craft items that group sent out directions for.

Johnson let go of the effort at re-election in the face of dropping poll numbers in key states in the primaries. In my own life, dad was there, in the background, constantly the skeptic and conspiracy theorist regarding LBJ.

McCarthy succeeded pretty well in NH, but later conspiracy theorists were to claim Johnson deliberately didn't seek re-election to deflect or defeat suspicion that he'd killed JFK--and perhaps Martin Luther King and RFK.

In any case. the 1968 election brought to a head the "Dixiecrat" problem among Democrats. Gradually, that group drifted more and more into Independent status, and now, is trying to be Republicans. Now, all the ugliness that used to characterize that third party movement, is with us in the GOP.

Over those years, Bill Clinton came and went, first as Governor and then Pres. But his positions were controversial and regarded with some suspicion by liberals. How could a southerner possibly be a progressive? At least, a genuine progressive?  Yet, he did succeed in bringing some sanity to our gun laws, achieving a ban on assault weapons that lasted until Bush's son, George W. Bush, managed to--some would argue, cheat--his way into the White House and undo that ban and start a horrific war in Iraq.

During those years of Clinton as governor, I had said little, but after his Presidency seemed to turn to a parade of allegations of sexual infidelity, I became embarrassed and was glad I had refrained from working in his campaigns.

Though I definitely knew I wouldn't vote for Bush, in 1992, I was more conflicted about Bob Dole by 1996. He had served honorably in WW2--something for which I wasn't quite so sure about Bush--while, meantime, more scandals about, largely, infidelity tormented Clinton. I reluctantly voted for him, based on the hope his policies would be more progressive than those of Dole.

I was disappointed. Clinton's second term, as has been the case with several Presidents, deteriorated badly from his first. His policies drifted way too far Right for my tastes. He buddied up with Larry Summers and other ultra-right economists and supported the disastrous and usurious Gramm-Leach-Bililey Act which allowed corporate banks to to get interest that was previously considered illegal. This was especially disappointing given his earlier history as a state Prosecuting Attorney enforcing Arkansas's famously progressive consumer loan programs, which hold interest rates way down for consumers here.

I felt, like Brownie Ledbetter and others at Public Policy Panel, that Hillary should be in the White House, and saw her as the real "ace in the hole" for Progressives of the Clinton years.

To the extent it helped Progressives and feminists get a woman further along toward the White House, I was for the Clinton campaign.

During the 2016 campaign, I helped a couple of elderly ladies in nursing homes to vote via absentee ballot, and helped arrange for others to help still others. Two of those ladies were my Lynn and my own mom, both of home reside in nursing facilities. My little mom had always told me, all my life, that she wasn't registered to vote but that "if they ever run a woman for President, I want to register and vote."
BOOM. So, I helped mom vote! And, I was glad Lynn got to vote again. (Like me, Lynn had voted for Gore in 2000, managing to hobble in the rain to the polls using a cane.)
We were once again up against the Bush family, and, both times he ostensibly "won", there had been and continue to be, significant doubts as to his win.

Anyway, I never directly worked for Bill Clinton. About the only thing I can say, in his behalf, in the midst of the newest allegations the GOP has revived or magnified recently in light of the disgusting Roy Moore antics in Alabama, is that at the time of his terms of office, no one ever alleged rape and really the charge was not, at that time, harassment or rape, but more just that he'd been cheating on Hillary. Allegations of murder, however, dogged his heels, and I haven't hesitated to investigate and further investigation of, those allegations. Now, a new or repeated allegation of rape by Juanita Broderick, who had at one time claimed a rape, and then recanted her claim, has surfaced.

Once again, we must ask troubling questions about top Democrats on a progressive issue, that of sexual harassment and whether the allegations are true or trumped up for political or sociopathic reasons. 

During my presentation for my Master of Arts degree, one of my professors stated "I can't stand Bill Clinton, Max" seemingly in response to my statements about how "funny looking" George H. W. Bush's WW2 records are. Apparently, he was uncomfortable withe allegations about Bush, because, like many people, he had "bought" Bush. But, aside from that, was the troubling realization he, like some of my classmates, was assuming that, because I was extrapolating negative possibilities about Bush in WW2, I must, therefore, have been supporting Clinton.

But by 1998, when I made my presentation, the 1996 campaign was even over, and Clinton hadn't been opposed by Bush, but by Dole. Nevertheless, some people's thinking required them to tie me to Clinton, though I'd never worked for his campaign as I had for Dukakis, Bush's original opponent.

So, with this climate, the classmates and the late professor, are going back into their usual conspiracy theories about me and Bill Clinton, I suppose. But this time around, they can explain their thinking. I don't think I'm going to have to explain mine.



 

Republican Base--or CONSERVATIVE Base?

Pundits and analysts say the 35 or 37 percent Trump approval crowd is a "Republican base" but its history suggests otherwise. While people in said group are conservative, their voting history is more skittish. Ross Perot, Ron Paul, Dixiecrats, and other Independent candidates have won their votes instead of GOP candidates --and still others have won their votes in state level races.

As far as being reliably conservative, they are; as far as being reliably Republican, not so much.

So a 35% vote becomes more like 17% when you look at reliability of  the conservative base vote as GOP fans.

Such phenomena best  explains "moderate Republicans"--and why the GOP is never going  to give this "base" 100% of what it  wants. Even when GOP has been reliably conservative itself, it has found it self left in the lurch sometimes.

What Grover Cleveland's political history really reveals about Electoral-only victories

I just watched a discussion on "Meet the Press" about the "failed" Clinton campaign of 2016 in which various persons blamed Hillary for the "failure" of the campaign.
With a nearly 3 million Popular vote lead over Trump, it is difficult to call Hillary a "loser" in the campaign.
Yet, corporate talking head shills found a way to rationalize such a fluke as if it were under the control of the politicians involved.
Some of the participants put down Hillary's bringing in anti-woman sentiments as a factor, but, the truth is, even doing that is putting the outcome on a level of discussion it doesn't really deserve.
The political career of President Grover Cleveland is the best illustration of what is really involved when there is a gap between Electoral and  Popular vote.
In 1884, Cleveland was elected President, in both the Popular and the Electoral vote.
In 1888, he was up for re-election, but failed to achieve a lead in the Electoral College, though a modest lead in the Popular vote.
Cleveland came back in 1892 and won election again, in both the Popular and Electoral vote. In each case, historians and journalists found that the whole thing was best explained by FLUKES in the election system--oddball failures of election machines (newfound gadgets) and election clerk errors around the nation, but most especially in one or two states.
The real lesson in 2016, has also been that--as, indeed, errors or manipulations best explained the outcome in the other three Electoral gap elections since our two parties have existed, 1876, 1888 a and 2000.
In 1876, even many Republicans have acknowledged that a fishy "Electoral Commission" which worked in several ways to ensure the election of "Rutherfraud" B. Hayes, by shifting a single Electoral vote to Hayes, a Civil War general opposed to slavery versus Tilden a Democrat who had advocated removal of US troops from the Reconstruction South.
In 1888, flukes and errors explained the Electoral/Popular gap.
In 2000, a complex failure by the news media in "calling" Florida too soon for Gore, caused some w. Florida panhandle voters to leave the poll lines a bit too early, while a computer in s. Florida was videotaped "counting backwards" to favor W. Bush. And the counts got down to as low as 34 votes in later media recounts using each of the four "ballot interpretation" methods in Florida that were forbidden of carrying forward when the Supreme Court, dominated by Republican appointees, shut down any future recounts in Florida and gave the Electoral College--though not the Popular vote--to W. Bush.
Ironically, in 2004, Bush seems by many new and old pieces of evidence to have similarly won a lead in the Popular vote--partly in the wake of 911--but possibly failed to legally win the Electoral College, as Kerry got an apparent lead in Exit polls in Ohio, which, combined with data now about uncounted Provisional ballots and some locked up voting machines in Cuyahoga County there (which resulted in some OH election officials being convicted of violating the Voting Rights Act) strongly suggest Kerry was the first and thus far only Democrat to win the Electoral College but lose the lead in the Popular vote, with Bush playing Gore's role in an even bigger Popular vote lead over Kerry while losing in the Electoral College. (That, in turn, might be a cautionary tale to the GOP as to whether they should support efforts to abolish or amend interpretation of the Electoral versus Popular vote).
Now, in 2016, we see a series of odd looking failures to adequately examine ballots in at least 5 states, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, deprived America of an accurate election outcome.
Was Russia involved? Perhaps, we don't know but it's looking like it. But key here, is understanding that, when one candidate fails to achieve the Popular vote, they have likely failed in the Electoral College and an adequate examination of the outcomes after the fact has repeatedly revealed that.
There is no "failure" by a candidate to explain this, it is a product of flukes and fishiness.