When mulling over what to write about today, I first thought the story that broke about the person in Norway who killed five people with a bow and arrow would provide a good starting point.¹   No doubt the millions of gun enthusiasts in this country will use that as an excuse to enact more laws to allow more people to carry weapons.  You can just hear it now, “If more people in Norway were allowed to carry weapons, they would have shot that archer dead and saved lives.”  Of course, they would have overlooked or failed to mention the other article published yesterday about how more and more weapons are being discovered at TSA checkpoints.  So far this year, TSA has found over 3,000 loaded – repeat ‘loaded’ – weapons that people have tried to carry on to aircraft in this country!!² That thought will be of great comfort when I fly back to New York for Thanksgiving.

However, sometimes I just get tired of writing about all of the insanity going on so I decided to look a little more into a ‘threat’ that is a little closer to home – black bears.  There have been quite a few sightings of black bears around Bozeman this fall and, for the last few days, there has been a large black bear roaming around our neighborhood getting into mischief.   On Sunday, there was fresh bear scat in my back yard near my apple trees.  Yesterday morning there were bear tracks across the front of my lawn and even fresher tracks across my neighbor’s lawn.  I got curious and decided to look into black bears a bit more.

It turns out that Montana has about 15,000 black bears.  Black bears are omnivore’s and tend to be solitary, except when a sow is raising her cubs.  They are very accomplished tree climbers.  They reach maturity at about 3 years of age and can live up to 25 years in the wild.

What we are seeing now with all of these bears around is a phase called hyperphagia in which they are eating just about anything in order to rapidly increase weight to get ready for winter.  We all have used the term ‘hibernation’ when we refer to bears sleeping during the winter but it turns out that term is incorrect.  Bears do not really ‘hibernate’ per se.  They enter a state that most experts have come to call torpor.^3,4

Animals such as chipmunks truly hibernate and when they are in this state, their body temperature drops to close to freezing but they still waken every few days to warm up their body temperature, eat some stored food and eliminate bodily waste.  Bears, on the other hand, do not have such a dramatic drop in body temperature – perhaps 10 degrees, but are able to significantly slow their metabolism.  In addition, and most interesting, is the fact that during this period of torpor, which can last 5 to 7 months, depending upon the winter, the bears do not eat, drink, urinate or defecate!  They may wake up a little from time to time but, by and large, they sleep. [From someone who often has to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, the concept of not peeing for 5 months is astounding!]

Mothers have their cubs in the winter and will wake up occasionally to check on them but she sleeps most of the time.  The cubs do not enter this state of torpor but snuggle up and nurse off of the mother until spring.

There is some speculation that because of the drought this year, the bears are roaming closer to the city because they were having trouble find enough food elsewhere to fatten up for the winter.  In any case, we seem to have a larger than normal population of black bears roaming around the area in search of food.  Presumably they will all get settled in for the winter in the next 3 or 4 weeks we can all get back to ‘normal.’ 

I guess that’s about all for black bears.  Just remember, technically, bears don’t hibernate – but they can sleep for five months without eating, drinking, urinating or defecating!!  I think for us humans that is called death!! 

Since facts seem to be few and far between these days, I thought I would throw out a couple more factoids about Montana wildlife.  First of all, there are no buffalo in North America, except in zoos.  The large furry beasts that once roamed the American plains and occasionally make the news for charging idiotic tourists in Yellowstone Park, are not buffalo, they are bison.  Buffalo are indigenous to Southeast Asia (water buffalo) and Africa (Cape buffalo). 

Also, the cute little pronghorn ‘antelope’ are not antelope at all.  They are simply pronghorns and are not at all related to antelopes in Africa.⁵ Interestingly, they are the fastest land mammal in North America. 

The world is full of so many wonders it’s a shame we continue to squabble over things that, in the overall scheme of things, aren’t really that important after all.

So, the ‘take home lesson’ for today is just a few fun facts:  bears do not hibernate; there are no buffalo in North America (except in zoos); pronghorn are not antelope, nor are they related to antelopes; and Joe Biden did, in fact, win the election!

1. Norway attack: Several killed in suspected bow and arrow attack in Kongsberg – CNN
2. Passengers are bringing a record number of guns to the airport, TSA says – CNNPolitics
3. Do Black Bears Hibernate? – North American Bear CenterNorth American Bear Center
4. Bear Hibernation – Why Do Bears Hibernate & How Do they Do it! (pestshero.com)
5. Pronghorn Antelope | Sagebrush Ecosystem | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (fws.gov)

It is no wonder that young climate activists like Greta Thunberg and others have become so frustrated with the pace of involvement and change by various governments around the world to enact policies to counter our rapidly changing climate.  Here in the US, we continue to watched the circus in Washington, D.C. as some Republicans are intent on burning down the government by refusing to increase the debt ceiling instead of working together to confront one of the biggest existential crisis of our lives. 

Selective amnesia must be at play given that $7.8 billion of that debt was incurred under the Trump administration.  They allowed these debts to be racked up under a Republican administration and they are now refusing to pay the bill.  However, if we continue to refuse to address the serious climate issues facing this country and this planet it could all become a moot point.

Yesterday while I was laying low and taking it easy following my COVID booster shot, I read an article in Scientific American that provided yet another look at the impacts that climate change is having on all of us.  During this past summer, we all saw in the news the myriads of reports about fires across the Western half of the United States.  They were devastating.  In Montana, the air quality was horrific for many, many days – not to mention all of the structures lost.

However, climate change is having a huge impact on a part of our country that most of us don’t think about to often because it is ‘out of sight and thus out of mind.’  The fire season in Alaska is getting longer and more devastating and, although this state is sparsely populated, the impacts go far beyond the loss of structures and the threat to human lives.  According to this article, “The Arctic-boreal region as a whole is heating up 1.5 to four times faster than temperature zones.  Alaska has warmed by four degrees F in the past 50 years, and evidence published in 2021 by David Swanson of the National Park Service Alaska Region suggests that warming has accelerated even more since 2014.”¹

We have all heard about the melting Artic ice sheets and Greenland glaciers but there is another impact caused by this warming trend.   The summers in Alaska are becoming warmer, the snow seasons are becoming shorter which means that the fire season has been increasing.  The net result is that more acres of forest and land are being burned annually in Alaska.

The fact is that trees are being burned but the majority of the biomass that goes up in smoke is something called duff.  Duff is a dense, peaty layer which is an accumulation of each summer’s dead surface moss and litter.  Duff can range in thickness from three to 20 inches and can accumulate for centuries, becoming increasingly compacted and dense with time.  Duff is an insulator of the permafrost and when it burns, that protection is reduced and the permafrost is subject to thawing. 

It is estimated that thick duff layers across the higher latitudes store 30 to 40 percent of all the soil carbon on earth.  “In 2015 severe wildfires in interior Alaska burned 5.1 million acres, releasing about nine million metric tons of carbon from standing vegetation – and 154 million tons from duff, according to Christopher Potter of NASA’s Earth Sciences Division. (That calculation includes carbon lost to decomposition and erosion for two subsequent years.)  The total amount of CO₂ is equal to that emitted by all of California’s cars and trucks in 2017.”¹

Most of the fires in Alaska are caused by lightning but this trend of warmer and longer summers and shorter snow seasons, will also lead to increased amounts of lightning.  And estimate is that lightning will increase 59% by 2050.  That will lead to more wildfires which will lead to the destruction of more duff, thawing of more permafrost and the release of even more carbon into the atmosphere.    If this is not an existential crisis, I don’t know what is.

The Republican party would have you believe that the biggest problems facing this country are unsubstantiated election fraud, illegal immigration, Critical Race Theory (which most of them couldn’t define if they had to), abortion and vaccine/mask mandates.  And at the same time, they are refusing to pay the bills that were run up during the previous administration knowing full well that a default on the US debt would severely impact the US and world economies for years. 

And yet, the real and probably the most pressing issue facing this nation and the world is the ongoing assault on our climate and the refusal to take bold actions to reverse this trend.   As the saying goes, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.”  Rome is on fire and the Republicans are fiddling away! 

I’m running a bit late today.  I had to go get my booster shot first thing this morning.  It’s been an interesting week.  We’ve had a bear wandering around the neighborhood getting into mischief.  My neighbor had his trash can knocked over and ransacked.  I found fresh bear scat in my backyard by my apple trees.  An alert went out a few days ago about a large bear in the neighborhood!  And there are almost daily reports in the police blotter published in the paper about bears in and around Bozeman.  Perhaps the drought has affected them as well.   So, for the first time since I’ve lived here, when I go out to get the paper in the morning before sunrise, which is in a box across the street, I am carrying bear spray.  Hopefully the critters will hibernate soon and that will be that for a while!

And, speaking of threats – I read part of the majority report issued by the Senate Judiciary committee, entitled, “Subverting Justice; How the Former President and His Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election.”  It’s an almost 400-page document that goes into great detail about the actions that Trump and his allies took to pressure the DOJ to intervene and overturn the 2020 election.  I read the 43-page Executive Summary and some of the appendices and supporting documents.  It is a truly frightening read if one cares at all about democracy in the United States, the U.S. Constitution, and the Rule of Law.   This report is also just focused on the events between the White House and the Justice Department.  It is not a report generated by the House Select Committee charged with investigating the events surrounding the January 6^th insurrection.

The committee reported several findings and made several recommendations.  This is also an ongoing investigation which Trump and his Republican allies are trying to subvert and block by asking participants to ignore legal subpoenas, invoking Executive Privilege in cases where it clearly doesn’t apply (Steven Bannon was not even employed by the government during this time!), and mounting a major PR campaign on Fox News and others to continue to perpetuate ‘the Big Lie,’ and revise history with respect to the January 6^th insurrection.  I will just report the findings and recommendations to save you all from plowing through the report – unless of course you want to in which case I’ve included the link below.¹

FINDING 1: President Trump repeatedly asked DOJ leadership to endorse his false claims that the election was stolen and to assist his efforts to overturn the election results

FINDING 2: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows asked Acting Attorney General Rosen to initiate election fraud investigations on multiple occasions, violating longstanding restrictions on White House-DOJ communications about specific law enforcement matters.

FINDING 3: After personally meeting with Trump, Jeffrey Bossert Clark pushed Rosen and Donoghue to assist Trump’s election subversion scheme—and told Rosen he would decline Trump’s potential offer to install him as Acting Attorney General if Rosen agreed to aid that scheme.

FINDING 4: Trump allies with links to the “Stop the Steal” movement and the January 6 insurrection participated in the pressure campaign against DOJ.

FINDING 5: Trump forced the resignation of U.S. Attorney Byung Jin (“BJay”) Pak, whom he believed was not doing enough to address false claims of election fraud in Georgia. Trump then went outside the line of succession when naming an Acting U.S. Attorney, bypassing First Assistant U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine and instead appointing Bobby Christine because he believed Christine would “do something” about his election fraud claims.

FINDING 6: By pursuing false claims of election fraud before votes were certified, DOJ deviated from longstanding practice meant to avoid inserting DOJ itself as an issue in the election.

The recommendations that have been made are:

Recommendation #1: Strengthen DOJ-White House Contacts Policy Through Increased Transparency and Enforcement

Recommendation #2: Strengthen DOJ’s Longstanding Policy of Election NonInterference

Recommendation #3: Further Investigation of Clark’s Conduct by the District of Columbia Bar

Recommendation #4: Cooperation with the House Select Committee to Investigate Ties Between This Episode and the January 6 Attack

Keep in mind that this report is not based upon third hand accounts of these events but are based upon actual transcripts of phone calls, actual documents, and interviews with participants.  The fact that this is descriptive of actions of a former president of the United States and his allies is extremely disturbing.  The fact that so many senior Republican Congressman and Senators refuse to acknowledge and condemn these actions in the strongest possible terms is even more disturbing. 

One of the hallmarks of virtually every authoritarian/totalitarian regime is how they weaponize the judicial systems after they come to power.  Given what Trump and his allies tried to do as outlined in this report, you can be sure that if he is re-elected in 2024, he will most assuredly take over control of the DOJ and that could very well be the end of democracy in America.  If anyone thinks that can’t happen here or that statement is just hyperbole, then I would gently suggest that they are not paying attention.   And to add to that, I have included a link to an opinion piece that sums up why we should all be worried, if after reading the above you’re still not convinced.²

1. Interim Staff Report FINAL.pdf (senate.gov)
2. Here’s why you should be worried about US democracy right now – CNNPolitics

I did, in fact, finish Stephanie Grisham’s book, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House.”  Stephanie Grisham started at the White House when Trump was inaugurated in January 2021.  She served as White House press secretary and communications director from 2019 to 2020.  She also worked as communications director and chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump.  She resigned her position on January 6^th, 2021 after witnessing the insurrection at the Capitol.

I have read a number of books about the Trump administration (including the entire Mueller report) so I have to admit that nothing in this book really surprised me.  Rather than being from the perspective of an investigative reporter whose work is dependent upon both named and unnamed sources, documents and interviews, Grisham’s book is just based upon her observations from having a front row seat to all things Trump during her years of working in the administration.

It just serves to confirm many of the things that have been so widely reported by multiple sources over the years.  First of all, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Trump views himself as the most important person in the entire universe.  And I don’t believe that is a hyperbolic statement.  Everything he does is driven by how it can benefit him and how it is being reported in the press. Good press coverage is disturbingly important to this man.  If anyone believes in any way, shape or form that Donald J. Trump gives one hoot about the United States of America, the Constitution, the Rule of Law or any of the other reasons that people often cite for going into public service, they are very, very mistaken.   His campaign slogan should really be, “Make Trump Great Again.”   

It is very clear in this book that the entire family is of the same mindset.  It is also very clear why nepotism should be outlawed in all forms in the White House.  In typical Trump fashion, even though there are, in fact, laws against nepotism, they got around that by Ivanka and Jared essentially working for ‘free’.   Although I think there was certainly a cost to the United States.  Not to mention the fact that Jared Kushner would not have gotten his clearance had it not been for his father-in-law.  Kushner had virtually unlimited access to highly classified information that he should not have gotten.  That, in and of itself, is a huge violation of security rules that should never have happened. 

Trump always talks about loyalty.  There are many, many examples in this book of how Trump, and essentially all of the Trumps (including son-in-law Jared Kushner), were willing to just cast people aside when they no longer had use for them or they had crossed them in some way.   People are just like paper plates.  Use them until they become so soiled that they can no longer be used and then just toss them into the trash.  Virtually everyone who finds their way into ‘Trump land’ will eventually be tossed aside or thrown under the bus.  It became very apparent in reading this book that no one in the Trump family is willing to accept responsibility for anything bad.  There is always a scapegoat.  If that person is lucky, they will just be kicked out of the Trump orbit and forgotten.  More than likely they will be banished from the Trump orbit and a plan put in place to exact revenge.  Lawsuits, character assassination, and whatever else they can find in the tool bag will be used.  Loyalty is a one-way street in Trump land.

Grisham did provide an interesting look at Melania Trump.  She worked closely with her for a number of years including a stretch as her Chief of Staff.   Melania Trump was certainly one of the more enigmatic First Ladies ever to live in the White House.  In fact, the Secret Service nicknamed her Rapunzel since she so infrequently left the White House.  However, Grisham shows a much more human side of her.   That’s not to say Melania is not, in some respects, like her husband, but she does have a human side and I found that interesting to read since I knew very little about her. 

The weather wasn’t great this weekend.  My motorcycle is put to bed for the winter.  Most of my chores to winterize my house and vehicles are done so it was a good weekend to plow through a book like this.  It was easy reading.  I described it to someone as a cross between a soap opera and ‘Survivor’, with casts of clowns and snake oil salesmen.  The United States deserves so much more.

I also started reading the majority report issued recently by the Senate Judiciary about the events of January 6^th.   This is an interim report since the investigation is still ongoing, but if anyone has any doubts at all about how close we came to an actual coup in this country on January 6^th (and how much peril we are in approaching the 2022 and 2024 elections), I don’t know how you could read this and come away with any other conclusion.  Then again, we now live in the land of ‘facts don’t matter.’  I expect to finish the report today and will write about it tomorrow – I hope.

1. I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw At The Trump White House; Stephanie Grisham, Harper Collins Publishers, 2021

I have to admit that I just received Stephanie Grisham’s book, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House.”  Stephanie Grisham started at the White House when Trump was inaugurated in January 2021.  She served as White House press secretary and communications director from 2019 to 2020.  She also worked as communications director and chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump.  She resigned her position on January 6^th, 2021 after witnessing the insurrection at the Capitol.   I don’t normally read ‘tell all’ books like this but I decided to make an exception in this case just because she was in the midst of everything that was going on at the White House and I thought it might provide an interesting perspective.  It will be a quick read.  I am already about a third of the way through it and am sure I will finish it this weekend.  I will be ready to report out by Monday for sure.

Since Monday is Columbus Day, or Indigenous People Day, depending upon where you are, I thought I would share a fun little, totally non-political, article I came across about Columbus’s voyage that is full of all kinds of interesting factoids.¹ We have all been taught the Christopher Columbus story from grade school – at least the romanticized version of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria and Columbus’s quest to find a western route to Asia. This article provides a more realistic picture of what this adventure must have been like on these tiny ships for the 86 intrepid sailors who made this voyage.  Enjoy – and I certainly hope there aren’t any worms in your biscuits today!  

“Columbus hadn’t found a western route to India, of course, but his success in crossing the Atlantic was due in large part to the ships he chose for the perilous voyage, particularly the diminutive Niña and Pinta, which were a speedy type of ship called a caravel.

When the royal decree went out in 1492 from Queen Isabella of Spain to fund Columbus’s first voyage, it read, “By these presents, we dispatch the noble man Christoforus Colón with three equipped caravels over the Ocean Seas toward the regions of India for certain reasons and purposes.

Though only two of Columbus’s ships ended up being caravels, Isabella’s decree speaks to the popularity of the vessel during the 15th-century “Age of Discovery.” Starting with Portuguese explorations of the African coast in the mid-1400s, caravels were prized for their sleek, lightweight hull and their uncanny ability to sail into the wind.Luis Filipe Viera de Castro, a nautical archeologist at Texas A&M University, says that the earlier Portuguese caravels, known as the caravela latina, were rigged with lateen (triangular) sails that hung at 45-degree angle to the deck.

“Lateen sails are […] almost like wings,” says Castro. “You can point the bow of the caravel with an angle of just 20 degrees off the wind and still get enough lift on the outer edge of the sail to propel forward.”

The lateen-rigged caravels were critical in the Portuguese voyages to sub-Saharan African, where strong coastal winds blow north to south. The versatile caravel could speed south along the coast and easily return to shore against the wind.

For Columbus’s maiden journey, he used a Spanish update to the caravel known as the caravela redonda, a three-masted ship where the first two masts were rigged with conventional square sails for open-ocean speed, and a third was rigged with a lateen sail for coastal maneuverability. That rigging combination made ships like the Niña and the Pinta some of the best sailing vessels of their time.

In addition to their versatile rigging options, 15th-century caravels moved the rudder to the rear center of the ship. In the 14th-century caravels popular in the Mediterranean, the rudder was still on the side, says Castro, like Viking ships. The new position allowed for far greater control.

Small caravels like the Niña and Pinta could only carry between 40 and 50 tons and were crewed by fewer than 30 sailors each. Their lightweight design and rounded bottom meant that they rode high in the water. This proved critical when Columbus needed to navigate the shallow island coastlines near modern-day Cuba.

The bulkier Santa Maria, which was a 110-ton cargo ship called a nau, ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned.

Yet the main advantage of the Spanish caravel, namely its compact size, was also its greatest disadvantage. Life aboard a short ship like the Niña or Pinta would have been absurdly crowded and uncomfortable. https://www.history.com/player/21113327?autoplay=false Unlike the Santa Maria, which at least had tiny cabins where sailors could sleep between eight-hour shifts, the Niña and Pinta had a single small deck at the rear of the ship with only one cramped cabin reserved for the captain.

“If you’re a sailor on a caravel, you’re living on the deck and sleeping on the deck,” says Marc Nucup, public historian at The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. “You’re trying to stay out of the way of the sailors who are working. There’s almost no private space.”

Work was relentless on any 15th-century ship. The 20 sailors on the Niña and the 26 crewing the Pinta would have been constantly engaged with adjusting the rigging, trimming the sails, inspecting for leaks and plugging them with spongy scraps of old rope called oakum.

“Cathedrals, castles and ships—those were the most complicated things that humans had built up until that time,” says Nucup. “There was always something to do.”

The round-the-clock workload meant that even if you were off-duty, good luck trying to sleep on the deck while the other sailors stomped around you. Hammocks weren’t yet in use on ships in the 15th century, says Nucup.

And then there was the food. Columbus stocked a full year’s worth of food for the journey, not knowing how long it would be before they could return to Spain. For food to last at sea, it needed to be dry. Staples included dried and salted anchovies and cod, pickled or salted beef and pork, dried grains like chickpeas, lentils and beans, and, of course, hardtack biscuits.

The word biscuit comes from the Latin bis coctus for “twice-baked.” The hardtack biscuits “enjoyed” by Columbus’s crew would have been prepared by baking a hockey puck of flour and water multiple times, then crushing it into tiny pieces, reconstituting it with water and baking it again. Hardtack biscuits were so rock solid that they could only be eaten if softened with water or dipped in the communal slurry served every meal in a large wooden trough.

Yet tooth-breaking, dry biscuits were still preferable to those that had been spoiled by exposure to water in their storage barrel. Ferdinand Columbus, the explorer’s 14-year-old son, reported on the conditions on Columbus’s fourth voyage to the Americas.

“What with the heat and dampness, our ship biscuit had become so wormy that, God help me, I saw many who waited for darkness to eat porridge made of it, that they might not see the maggots,” wrote young Ferdinand, “and others were so used to eating them that they didn’t even trouble to pick them out because they might lose their supper had they been so fastidious.” 

BY

 DAVE ROOS

Dave Roos is a freelance writer based in the United States and Mexico. A longtime contributor to HowStuffWorks, Dave has also been published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. 

1. The Ships of Christopher Columbus Were Sleek, Fast—and Cramped – HISTORY

It was reported yesterday that Trump is no longer on Forbes’ ‘400 Richest People’ list which must anger him to no end.  I’m sure we all remember how much he relished telling all of us how rich he was.  Too bad, Donald.   Even though he is not as rich as he claims, he reportedly still has a net worth north of $2 billion.  That’s not peanuts.  Most of us could live nicely off of that.

Given that, one might wonder why Trump doesn’t just ride off into the sunset like other former presidents, plan a library, write a book, play some golf, do some public speaking and maybe get involved in some philanthropic activities.  In my opinion, there are three major reasons why he is unable to do this and why he is hell bent on running again in 2024, which will once again put this country in serious peril if he is re-elected.

There is the most obvious reason.  Trump loves to be loved.  He is addicted to the adulation.  He really, really cares what people think about him and his image.  He has spent a lifetime cultivating an image that is, in many ways, a façade.  He is not as rich as he has claimed all of his life.  He is not a successful businessman by most metrics.  He is not a self-made man and would not be where he is had it not been for his father (and an army of lawyers and toadies).   He is very insecure which is why image means so much to him.  The adulation and being the center of attention is like a drug to him.  He needs it to survive.  Campaigning for the presidency and being re-elected would work for him just like snorting coke.

Secondly, and perhaps not the most obvious, I firmly believe that Trump is very concerned about his mounting legal troubles and views being re-elected as president as the best shield for him, his family and others close to him who are also in legal jeopardy.  A judge recently ruled that Trump will have to sit for a deposition in the defamation case against him brought by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on ‘The Apprentice’.  This will be the first time that Trump will have to sit for a deposition under oath since he took office in 2017.  The deadline for Trump submitting this deposition is Dec. 23, however, in typical Trump fashion he plans to counter sue.  [I wonder how much money Trump has spent on attorney’s during his lifetime?  I’ll bet it’s a staggering figure!]  It will be most interesting to see how this plays out.  Trump under oath – what a concept!

The CFO of the Trump organization, Alan Weisselberg, is under indictment and more indictments are expected for other people connected to the Trump organization.   Trump is certainly very aware that if any of these people ‘flip’ and begin cooperating with the government, Trump’s exposure and that of his family members increases exponentially.

And then there is the Congressional committee investigating the January 6^th insurrection which has subpoenaed several people very close to Trump.  There is no doubt the vice is tightening.   If Trump were to be re-elected, the legal shield of being president would be back up and he would, once again, have the power of the pardon at the stroke of a pen.  He could protect himself and everyone around him.  And he would most certainly, purge the government of anyone who is even suspected of not having sufficient fealty to him.  That would virtually ensure that he could act with impunity.

Lastly, Trump has always been one to seek revenge.  We saw some of that during his last tenure in the White House, but what happened then would pale in comparison to what would happen in a new Trump administration.  He would install people in the DOJ that are Trump loyalists and try to commandeer the DOJ to do his bidding up to and including figuring out a way to prosecute anyone who crossed him.   I’m sure it would be a very long list.  I would offer that the United States has never seen anything like what will transpire.   Many, many authoritarian leaders and dictators, were legally elected and then began using the courts and the justice systems available to them to secure their own power while going after all of their rivals.  It is an age-old tactic.  If Trump is re-elected, I suspect we will all get a front row seat.

I originally thought that Trump was pushing the ‘Big Lie’ in order to continue to raise money to cover his legal bills.  However, I realized that having a pile of money will only protect him so much.  As long as he is an ordinary citizen, he is still very vulnerable given all of the investigations going on.  The only way he can truly protect himself is to once again sit in the White House.  He knows that, and I believe that is why he is so desperate to return to Washington D. C. in 2024. 

Trump is not interested in ‘Making America Great’.  Trump is interested in keeping himself and his family from being indicted, convicted of crimes and/or having to pay huge fines or settlements.   I think that was behind his desperate efforts to retain the presidency which led up to the January 6^th insurrection.  Of course, he doesn’t like to lose.  That is no secret.  But he knows that he has zero protection from the legal system now that he is just an ordinary American.  The fact is, the emperor has no clothes right now – and my apologies for that visual!

My apologies, but my writing brain doesn’t seem to be getting in gear this morning.  I also have to save a few brain cells to write up something for our attorney regarding the ongoing Homeowners Association lawsuit that we are involved in. [Note: Think carefully before agreeing to join an HOA board].  However, I came across this opinion piece from Joe Lockhart, a CNN political analyst and former press secretary to President Clinton between 1998 and 2000, which nicely sums up the current budget mess.  (And it also has a quick mention of how Montana’s Governor Gianforte is working hard on Montana’s critical problems!) I’ll be back tomorrow.

“At one time, raising the debt ceiling for the US Treasury was one of the least debated or even noticed acts of Congress. In the 20th century alone, the ceiling was raised or temporarily lifted approximately 90 times without much fanfare.

The debt ceiling was established in 1917 simply to limit how much the Treasury Department could borrow to pay the US government’s debts without specific authorization from Congress. Until 1995, raising that limit was generally routine and backed by a bipartisan consensus, with a few exceptions.

Failure to raise the debt ceiling is a little bit like reaching your limit on a credit card. You can’t buy anything else until you’ve paid some of that debt down. In this case it’s the federal government that can’t borrow to pay for things that Congress has already agreed to, like sending out Social Security payments. It has always been hard to imagine anyone taking up this fight and thinking it’s a winner.

But then along came Newt Gingrich and a Republican “revolution.” Breaking with precedent, then-Speaker Gingrich opposed raising the debt ceiling, which eventually led to the partial shutdown of the federal government. As a political maneuver, it was a disaster. Republicans were widely blamed for shutting the government down, and it led to a resurgence in popularity for President Bill Clinton that helped him easily win reelection one year later.

You might think Republicans would have learned a lesson there, but not so fast. There have been more debt ceiling crisis moments since Gingrich first tried to make it a political weapon. In 2011, Republicans refused to support an increase in the debt limit until they obtained spending cuts. In the process, one credit rating agency downgraded US debt for the first time and the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged.

In 2013, Republicans again brought us to the brink when they demanded Obamacare be defunded before they would continue to authorize spending by the government and allow a rise in the debt limit. Once again, they failed, but in the process damaged the US government’s standing in the capital markets.

Now, they are at it again. This time they didn’t even bother to give a real reason. They are boldly saying they want only Democrats to vote for raising the limit so every Republican can say they voted against it.

Senators Tom Tillis and Josh Hawley, among others, made clear Wednesday that this is all about blaming the Democrats, not about paying our bills. Another potential credit downgrade, a stock market plunge or a worldwide financial crisis are all worth it if it inflicts political damage on President Joe Biden and the Democrats.

One other interesting yet predictable note, when it comes to taking our economy to the brink, is that the only years in which Republicans play this card is when there is a Democrat in the White House.

The movement that Gingrich started doesn’t end with playing with the debt limit. In fact, the real philosophy of the current Republican party is to do anything it can to undermine the President. Just today, Senator Ted Cruz said thoughts and prayers are needed for the victims of the Texas school shooting, but then proceeded to say the real reason for his speaking at the Capitol was to blame Biden for the border crisis.

Not to be outdone, Republican governors went to the southern border Wednesday to lambaste the President on the flood of immigrants at the border. Joining Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas were the governors of South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, states which are a lot closer to the northern border than the southern one. I’m not sure that Canadians pose much of a threat at our border, but if it means criticizing the President, everything is fair game.

You see the same political nonsense in the House debate over infrastructure. A bipartisan bill to invest $1.2 trillion in rebuilding our infrastructure is being opposed by House Republican leaders. Now, they were all for spending on infrastructure when Donald Trump was president. And this year, under Biden, nearly half the Republicans in the Senate voted for the current bill. The reality is that House Republicans are opposed to this much-needed legislation only because they think killing it would hurt Biden.

This sort of zero-sum politics defines today’s Republican party. No one should forget that in 2009, Mitch McConnell said the priority for his party over the next four years was to make sure Barack Obama was a one-term president.

It’s more than likely Republicans in the end will make some sort of deal that keeps us from falling off the fiscal cliff. But the relevance of this debate is that it makes plain what Republican leaders are all about: not making the country stronger or more prosperous, but simply inflicting as much damage as they can on the current President — whatever the consequences for the rest of us.”

Almost 60 years ago in 1962, between October 16^th to November 20^th the United States was involved in the Cuban missile crisis.  I am certainly old enough to remember this although I’m sure, at the ripe old age of 11, I was not fully aware of the magnitude of the issue at the time.  I do, however, remember the drills we had to crawl under our desks in the case of a nuclear attack.

The United States had tried to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba which led to the infamous Bay of Pigs disaster.  Subsequent to that, and to thwart any future invasions, Nikita Krushev, in a secret agreement with Fidel Castro, agreed to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.  U.S. intelligence discovered the Soviet military buildup and on October 14^th, a US U-2 aircraft (a program I worked on for years!) took pictures that showed missile sites under construction in Cuba.  After discussing various options with his advisors, President Kennedy authorized a naval blockade of Cuba.  Nikita Krushev vowed that the Soviet ships would push through the blockade and thus began a very, high-stakes game of chicken being played with nuclear weapons.  In the end, the Soviet ships turned back from the blockade and due to significant backchannel communications, an agreement was finally reached to preclude the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles to Cuba.¹

Why do I bring that up now?  Because we are once again involved in a high stakes game of chicken, except this time, in the famous words of the comic strip character ‘Pogo’, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”  The Republicans and Democrats are involved in a game of chicken that is almost every bit as dangerous as the nuclear standoff in the Cuban missile crisis.  The threat during the Cold War game of chicken was for the physical annihilation of both the United States and the Soviet Union whereas the threat now is for a major economic disruption to the United States and the world economies.  The consequences of both would be devastating.

One would hope that politicians are elected and sent to Washington to try to solve problems rather than use their positions to create problems but, given the radicalization of the political environment over the last few years, nothing could be further from the truth.  The current crisis is a self-inflicted wound because words like ‘compromise’ have lost their meaning in the hallowed halls of our Capitol. 

The national debt increased $7 trillion under the Trump administration due in large part to the tax cuts that were pushed through by the Republicans on a partisan basis.  And during the Trump administration, the Democrats helped the Republicans raise the debt ceiling three times.  Now that Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues have lost their majorities in both the Senate and House, they have all of a sudden rediscovered fiscal responsibility and are refusing to cooperate at all with the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling or getting anything accomplished.  This is the same strategy McConnell employed when Obama was president.  He is on the record saying that he was basically going to block anything Obama tried to do so that he would become a one term president. 

McConnell wants to force the Democrats to use the process of reconciliation to raise the debt ceiling because they will not be able to then use it to pass the infrastructure bill.  The Republicans will then filibuster the infrastructure bill to death.  Meanwhile, the rest of us, are just pawns in this game.  The American people deserve much better than this.

One of the things that averted a war between the United States and the Soviet Union was a lot of backchannel communications between the White House and the Kremlin.  We can only hope that there is a similar level of backchannel communications between the Democratic and Republican leadership that will avoid this economic catastrophe.  Although given the polarization and extremism that permeates today’s political environment, it is not much of a stretch to believe that there are those who would be willing to watch the US default on its debts in spite of the negative global ramifications that would follow.

Don’t forget that the same group of Republicans that are playing brinksmanship with our economy are the same group that are continuing to propagate ‘the Big Lie’, refused to support a bipartisan effort to look into the events leading up to the insurrection of Jan. 6^th, and have become a major impediment to getting this insidious pandemic under control by undermining and blocking basic public health care measures. 

Given all that, anything is possible, in today’s environment.  So, just like during the Cuban missile crisis when we were on the verge of nuclear war, I guess we should all start practicing crawling under our desks and hope that we survive this self-inflicted insanity.

1. Milestones: 1961–1968 – Office of the Historian (state.gov)

Most of us remember the Pentagon Papers.  It was a top-secret document commissioned by then U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, to examine the US involvement in Vietnam from the end of World War II until the ‘present day’, which at that time was 1968.  Daniel Ellsberg, who was a strategic analyst for the Rand Corporation and worked with the Department of Defense on this effort, became disillusioned with what the public was being told about the war, copied large portions of the document and eventually leaked this document to The New York Times in 1971 when he was a senior researcher at MIT.   There were all kinds of ramifications and it eventually led to a major Supreme Court case where the court ruled in favor of the New York Times and allowed them and others to publish the Pentagon Papers.  Daniel Ellsberg was portrayed as both a hero and a villain.  He and an accomplice were indicted by the US government but the charges were dismissed when the infamous Watergate ‘plumbers’ broke into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist to get dirt on him. 

Why is this relevant today?  This past Sunday an organization called the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published something they are calling the ‘Pandora Papers’.  This consists of almost 12 million financial documents that exposed the secret offshore accounts of 35 world leaders, including current and former presidents, prime ministers and heads of state as well as more than 100 billionaires, celebrities, rock stars and business leaders.  Publishing this document is just the tip of this particular ice berg.  There will be a lot of fallout.

I have been following this organization, ICIJ, for some time.  They first came to prominence when they published the Panama Papers in 2016.  Those papers exposed a huge network of offshore companies created by Panamanian law firm Monssack Fonseca, for very wealthy and well-known clients from numerous countries.  Some of those shell companies were used for money laundering and tax evasion.  The scandal around the publication of these documents led to the dissolution of Monssack Fonseca and launched a number of investigations.

More recently, ICIJ published the Luganda Leaks which exposed the corruption that made Isabel dos Santos Africa’s wealthiest woman and left oil – and diamond – rich Angola as one of the world’s poorest countries.  A number of investigations have been launched and many of her assets have been frozen pending these investigations. 

And now we have the Pandora Papers.  One of the most interesting things brought to light in the Pandora Papers is the fact that our very own South Dakota is ranking right up there with some of the most notorious offshore tax havens in the world because of its banking and trust secrecy laws.  You always read about how the United States is trying to crack down on US citizens being able to use offshore tax havens to shelter income and avoid taxes and we have one of the most notorious right in our own back yard.  I’m sure that’s a fact that Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, is very aware of and very proud of.  (And she wants to run for president – think about that!)

“The state of South Dakota has joined the likes of familiar offshore tax havens, including the British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Hong Kong and Belize with South Dakota trusts quadrupling in size in the space of ten years to $360 billion.”¹

So, why should you care?  A few days ago, I talked about how the United States is already an ‘entitlement state’, it’s just that the entitlements are for the rich and not the average American.  This publication of the Pandora Papers just confirms that.  Remember, every dollar in tax that wealthy individuals don’t pay, all of the rest of us pay. 

The IRS chief said that there is an estimated $1 trillion of uncollected taxed every year.  A lot of that money lives in places like trusts and shell companies constructed in places like South Dakota.  I don’t begrudge anyone being rich and successful.  However, I get really angry when these same people talk about an ‘entitlement state’ at the same time they are able to avoid paying their fair share of taxes through both legal loopholes they have available and by shadier means such as using offshore (or South Dakota) tax havens, shell companies and secret trusts.

A robust democracy is dependent upon transparency.  It is important for these journalists to continue this work until there is no longer anywhere for wealthy people around the world to hide huge sums of money and avoid paying their fair share of taxes.  When these issues are brought to light, it is incumbent upon the involved governments to launch investigations, pass laws to end these practices and prosecute those involved in illegal activities.  Failure to do so undermines the whole concept of a government ‘for the people’ – not that the uber wealthy really care.  The bottom line is that if ‘we the people’ want a robust democracy, we will have to work for it.

When Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart issued an opinion on the ruling in the case of the Pentagon Papers, he summed it up nicely:

“In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry—in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government.”²

1. Financial secrecy laws South Dakota THE spot for foreigners who want to conceal millions – The Washington Time
2. Pentagon Papers – HISTORY

In the last election here in Montana, the Republicans made pretty much a clean sweep.  They won the governorship, the race for our one Congressional representative, the one US Senate seat that was up for re-election, and most statewide offices.  Trump won in Montana by 16 percentage points – 56.9% to 40.5%.  And, yet, the Montana legislature saw fit to pass several laws affecting voting in Montana during their most recent session earlier this year.

These news laws do away with same day voter registration and enact new voter ID requirements.  Voters must now register by noon the day before the election.  Keep in mind, the Montana electorate voted to enact same day registration in 2004 and the Republican legislature, by enacting this law, just thumbed their collective noses at the Montana voting public.  In addition, when voters now go to the polls, they must have either a government issued ID or (I love this) a Montana concealed carry permit!  Otherwise, they are required to show two forms of identification.

There has been no wide spread fraud in Montana elections and, as I stated, the Republicans ran the slate in the last election.  Montana is certifiably ‘red’.  One might wonder, why these laws were necessary.  It turns out, that this is part of a larger nation-wide scheme to ensure that Montana and other states stay ‘red’, Republican-controlled states for the foreseeable future. 

The current state legislative session has ended, but there are now a group of Republican state legislatures who are “urging their leadership in the state House and Senate to appoint a special committee to investigate the security of the state’s election system, an effort spearheaded by Republican legislators who are pushing theories of widespread voting fraud.”¹  Just to emphasize, there has been zero evidence of widespread voter fraud in Montana (or anywhere else for that matter) and, oh by the way, the Republicans swept the table by wide margins in the last election cycle.

The letter requesting this committee, which was signed by a majority of Republican state legislators, stated, “Many of our constituents have reached out to us with questions about Montana election security…”.  I would like to know just how many constituents have asked that question.  My guess is that is a very small fraction of the Montana electorate.  The letter goes on to say, “the Select Committee would conduct hearings about the process and security of Montana elections and propose future changes if needed; including legislation.”

That last line is the kicker – “propose future changes if needed; including legislation.”  Given that this is being pushed by Republicans, it is a one hundred percent probability that any future changes or legislation will be aimed at tightening their grip on control of Montana.  It will be done under the guise of ‘election security’ but the purpose will be to essentially rig the election process so it will be almost impossible for a Democratic candidate to win any office of consequence in Montana in the future.

Given what has transpired in some other states, I fully expect this ‘Select Committee’ to recommend changes and enact legislation that will essentially put control of future elections in the hands of the State Legislature.  It is being done in other states. “Republican-held state legislatures have passed bills that give lawmakers more power over the vote by stripping secretaries of state of their power, asserting control over election boards and creating easier methods to overturn election results, according to the New York Times.”²  “Republican state lawmakers have introduced at least 216 bills in 41 states to give legislatures more power over election systems, according to the States United Democracy Center, a bipartisan organization created to protect democratic norms.”²

That is really the end game here.  This push for the Select Committee is not about election security rather it is about securing the hold that the Republican party has on Montana.  There is no other rational explanation.  Trump won the state overwhelming.  The Republicans swept state wide offices.  There has been zero evidence of voter fraud.  And yet, here we are.

If Montana, with its two U.S. Senators and soon to be two U.S. Representatives, were an outlier in the electoral landscape of America, it would be one thing.  But this is happening across the country on a huge scale.  Had these laws been in place in Montana and across the country in 2020, it is quite likely that Trump would be president today and the election would have been overturned by these partisan legislatures regardless of what the actual vote count indicated.

If democracy dies in this country, it will likely not be because of a onetime traumatic wound, rather it will be death by a thousand cuts.  Each of these laws that are passed under the guise of election security is, in reality, just another razor blade making a small cut into the body of democracy. 

1. Page A1 | E-Edition | bozemandailychronicle.com
2. https://www.axios.com/republican-state-legislatures-election-systems-10025115-62ee-4a72-b0dd-bc0573e01b8b.html