A Tale Of Two Cities

 

At last week’s Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris’ and Tim Walz’s speeches were far from the characterizations that followed from Trump and Trumpists (socialist! communist!). Her statements on foreign policy and military support were mainstream Republican until Trump. Healthcare for all? More affordable housing? Only communist ideas? She’s a mainstream liberal, is what she is. Thankfully, America has always had them.

Most of the country is ready to leave behind the grievance-fueled, insult-driven, truth-avoidance of Trump and his eponymous ism. The RNC was a festival of those things. And Trump. Sent from God Trump. Lying Trump. Weirdly-bandaged-ear Trump. Yes, Democratic delegates cheered their speakers, too; but less for who they are than for what they said.

The RNC was insular. The DNC was outsular. It was about love of country, positivity, freedom. And football. Welcoming everyone. It voiced concern even for Trump voters while encouraging them to reconsider their support. As Reverend/Senator Raphael Warnock said, a vote is a kind of prayer. For true conservatives, it ought to be for an end to the cult of Trump; for America, a plea to raise from the dead the Republican Party of old. Kamala Harris won’t end the rule of law. Trump tried once and has promised to again.

In Chicago, the DNC showcased its current and past leaders. In Milwaukee, the RNC purposefully turned to division, disparagement of all things not-Trump, and avoided mention of its former heroes. Which makes sense: the party of Trump has no respect for any of them. In part, that explains why of 44 members of Trump’s inner circle, 40 refused to attend and most are stating he should never be president again. At the DNC, we heard some of the reasons why.

Fox “news” refused to show the speech of Republican Adam Kinzinger, who urged fellow conservatives to vote for Kamala Harris; not, he said, in agreement with her policies but as an act of true conservatism: preservation of the Republic, bringing their party back to the party. Most people reading this will have seen it, but for those who haven’t and would allow themselves to think outside the Fox, here’s a link. 

If Kinzinger had become a party outsider, former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham was as inside as it gets; considered the Trumps family, spent holidays at Mar-a-Lago. Carefully taught to reject truths that threaten their cultish adoration, Trumpists will dismiss her as a liar, including her revelation that Trump refers to his supporters as “basement dwellers.” But his disrespect for them, evident from the confidence he has in their believing his lies, has been obvious for years, at least since his Obama birth certificate con. I’ve sent operatives to Hawaii, he asserted, and they’re finding “amazing” things. The first was a lie. The second never happened. But it took hold and, for many MAGAs, lives on. That’s Trumpism.

In his DNC speech, Pete Buttigieg succinctly characterized the contrast between Vice-President Kamala Harris and Trump, in what might be the most telling words heard at the convention: leaders matter, he said, “because they bring out the good or the bad.” MAGA’s intentionally cruel responses to Tim Walz’s son Gus’ tearful delight while watching his father speak made clear which leader does what. And it wasn’t only the odious Ann Coulter. As if we hadn’t already known who’s who, watching Trump’s rallies and seeing his sociopathic nastiness get the biggest cheers. MAGA cruelty comes from the top and feeds the bottom.

The Harris/Walz ticket may well win, but Trump won’t lose. He and his family have made millions from his “presidency,” and the grift continues. His latest is a video not unlike those late-night “but wait, there’s more” commercials, though delivered with decidedly less energy; selling his weird superhero “digital cards,” for the low, low price of $99. It’s an easy laugh, but it’ll collect containers of cash from the corruptly conned. Hawking goods like a carnival barker, by a person who once held the job considered the world’s most prestigious, till him. How can anyone consider that presidential? An embarrassment is what it is.

But wait: there IS more. Faker than flag-hugging, he made a look-at-me trip to Arlington Cemetery to pretend he honors the fallen. Forcing his way into an off-limits area, he got himself photographed behind a tombstone with an inappropriate, thumbs-up, s-e grin. Convinced?

Even more: Conservative Juleanna Glover, who worked for several honorable Republican politicians when there were some, spent months tracking down shady, Trump-created shell corporations to which his campaign has sent untraceable and unaccountable millions.

After seeing the two conventions, it ought to be obvious what to do. Unlike overlooking Trump’s dangers and deceptions, a vote for Vice President Harris doesn’t threaten America’s rule of law and its place in the world. If they don’t like what they see in four years, and if one shows up after the end of Trumpism, Republicans can vote for a real conservative next time.

I, Noogerer

 

Sometimes, pointing out Trump’s mental decline and undeniable unfitness for office begins to feel like piling on. With his outrageous lies, insults to those who serve, and transparently impossible promises, he confirms it without need for comment. So, for a strategic break, during which he’ll undoubtedly keep doing it, here’s an off-topic column, from eight years ago:

I think it might be about 12,000. Somewhere I've seen the number of new words people learn in medical school, and whatever the correct amount, it's impressive. Here and there on my surgery blog (surgeonsblog.blogspot.com), I've mentioned some words I enjoy just for the saying: inspissated. Neovascularization. Tachyarrhythmia. Intussusception. Radiculopathy. (Switch one letter, it applies to Trump. Oops. I did it again.) Bezoar.

It's pronounced BEE-zore. I say it like the taunting "air-ball" at a basketball game. (Digression: It's been shown that at every venue, whenever that chant is chunt, it's always in the same notes on the musical scale. F - D, matter of fact.)

In addition to the daunting medical vocabulary we learn, there’s a more esoteric lexicon: unofficial terminology that bubbled into the vernacular and have become universal within certain sub-cultures: gomer; O-sign; Q-sign; lipstick sign; flail. One such has it all: nice sound, excellent meaning, and, in my case, a connection to one of my favorite people. The word is NOOGER.

In the memoir I wrote about surgical training, I described learning to dissect through distorted, inflamed, difficult anatomy. I called the method "delicate brutality." (Too late, it occurred to me that that would have been a better title.) Central to the technique is the ability to nooger; namely, to ootz a finger into a sticky place and wiggle it, pinch it, until you find a way through without poking a hole where you don’t want it. Improper noogering can lead to death, or something similar. In certain circumstances, though, it’s safer than sharp dissection.

Noogering can be done with instruments, too: a sucker, a blunt clamp, closed scissors, often along with the finger. Indeed it requires a combination of delicacy and brutality, plus a sense of touch; of tissue turgor (another good word: turgor) and confidence of anatomy. If you can't tell exactly where a thing is, anatomically, you need to be fairly sure where it isn't.

Not all surgeons need to nooger. Orthopods and neurosurgeons don't. Bone isn't noogerable, and brain, well, God help us... But a general surgeon unfamiliar with noogering is bound for trouble. Important as it is, I can't say how I learned it, or how properly to teach it. But I did, both.

Among my favorite characters from training was the chief cardiac resident, a gangly, soft-spoken but fast-thinking Southern boy, Joe (full name: Joe) Utley. In contrast to the others populating that department, who were various combinations of volatile, egomaniacal, nasty, or, in one case, all at once, Joe was laid-back, engaging, and highly talented. He told dumb jokes, quoted lines from movies (Patton, mostly), played the flugelhorn while wearing a sombrero, and treated me -- his over-worked intern and, later, junior resident -- with respect (although, it could be argued, having an intern and his girlfriend [now wife] over and subjecting them to the horn and the hat was anything but respectful).

I loved the guy. He died recently. I sent a copy of my book, in which he played a prominent role, to his wife; she wrote back that she knew he'd have loved it, and she could imagine him laughing out loud while reading it. That felt good.

When connecting a person to the heart-lung machine, it's necessary to control blood returning to the heart via the vena cava. That requires (did then, anyway) slinging the veins with ties; to do so necessitates dissecting behind those thin-walled, delicate structures, completely encircling them, within the tight confines of the pericardium. Joe had a favorite instrument for the job, a huge clamp with a curved, rounded tip. This he referred to as the "Giant Noogerer."

In those early days in its development, open-heart surgery could be tense and, often, very lengthy. As an intern on the service, because there was always work waiting to be done, stretching into sleeplessness, time in the cardiac room was -- depending on who was in charge -- often unpleasant. With no opportunity to do anything but stand there and answer gotcha questions, the hours dragged on, pushing the day's work further into the night.

With Joe, though, it was fun. Among other reasons, I looked forward each time, as the moment approached, to hearing him ask for the tool. "Giant noogerer," he'd say, hand out, and it always arrived with no need for clarification. With his gentle accent, it sounded like "jahnt nurgrer." If I ever knew, I’ve forgotten what the real name is. In my practice, I never used one. But I noogered, more times than I’d like to count.

Who Loves Ya, Baby?

 

Raise your hand if you love America. For what it is; for what it can be. Nope, sorry, MAGA folk. You lost that claim when you gave yourselves over to Donald Trump.

The last weeks have seen what some might call a role reversal. More accurately, because the truth has always been out there, it’s a perception reversal: Democrats and liberals, it turns out, are the ones who love the real America. MAGA Republicans don’t. They resent what it is and fear what they’re told to believe its future will be if not for Trump. They resent its strength-deriving diversity. And, like Trump, they reject its laws, especially those protecting fair elections and equal rights.

Compare the Harris/Walz rallies to Trump’s and Vance’s. Who presents a positive vision of America and its potential? Whose audience is chanting, enthusiastically, “USA! USA!”? Which candidate said to a huge, happy crowd, “We trust the people, we see the people, we know the people. You know one of the things I love about our country? We are a nation of people who believe in those ideals that were foundational to what made us so special as a nation. … We love our country.” (Okay, MAGA nation doesn’t believe, but still...)

Which candidate, speaking from the darkness of Mar-a-Lago, said the US is “a very, very sick country right now”? Which voters marinate in the carefully crafted animus they feel on hearing that? “We’re not going back” is the opposite of “Make America Great Again.” It’s “Again” that says it all. MAGA is about going back to the time of straight, white, native-born, male-dominant, Christian majority, where everyone else knew their place: silent and submissive.

“Not going back” is about liberation from the oppressive heaviness of Trumpism’s doom, gloom, and dishonesty; its rejection of America’s founding ideals, the nastiness (and craziness) of a Trump rally. “Not going back” is a joyous expression of relief, hope for democracy, an end to Trump’s autocratic fantasies.

When his crowds chanted “Lock her up,” Trump stood silent, basking in the wave of fawning lawlessness. When some in a Harris/Walz crowd started shouting “Lock him up,” both Kamala and Tim shut them down. Let the courts take care of it, they said. Our job is to defeat Trump at the polls. That difference is everything.

Echoing creepy JD Vance’s desperation in facing heartland’s Tim Walz, Trumpists have sunk to attacking his military record. After 24 years in the National Guard, he retired to run for Congress, a year after which his unit was deployed to Iraq. Had the Guard thought his retirement affected mission readiness, they could have disallowed it, which they didn’t. Like the Swiftboating of John Kerry, it’s what Republicans, footstepping the invective of Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich, do to people demonstrating the decency their leadership lacks. (We pause to recall five-times-deferred Trump’s fake bone spurs and saying avoiding STDs was his “personal Vietnam.”)

JD has more: claiming the Harris/Walz campaign is resorting to name-calling and bullying, he ignores Crooked Hillary, Crazy Nancy, Birdbrain Nikki Haley, Lyin’ Ted, Ron DeSanctimonious, Sleepy Joe, whatever Kamabla is, and more. When Trump and Trumpists accuse someone of something, it’s they who are doing it. Psychiatrists call it projection.

Unless applied to Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or Fukushima, “meltdown” is an overused cliché. But what better describes Trump descending ever deeper into madness as Harris/Walz surge past him in polls, their massive crowds outnumbering his? Last weekend he claimed their Arizona crowd was faked; that there was no one there; that it was all AI. Robbed by Foxotrumpification of the ability to recognize lies, believers believed.

From a favorite troll, I received the Trump-referenced “proof-positive” picture. Since I sent him video proof of her overflow crowd and technological debunkery of Trump’s confabulation, I haven’t heard back. Distinguishing fakery requires intellectual effort that MAGAs have been taught to eschew.

On loop, Trump is also claiming the polls are fake. The only way he loses, he bleats, is by Democrats cheating, deliberately prepping the soil for another, more deadly insurrection, in which he’ll revel as before. Despite repeatedly experiencing it, he’s incapable of graceful acceptance of defeat. Nor are those who, hearing his lies and seeing his incoherence, believe him still. Even when he says (wishes) Joe Biden will retake the nomination.

So desperate are the Project 2025 masterminds to implement their power-cementing, democracy-ending agenda that they’ll continue to prop up a man whose increasingly obvious deterioration makes him unfit to preside over dinner, much less our country. Likely, they see that as a plus, making him all the more easy to convince he’s in charge, while they call the shots. Think about it.

[Edit: originally this had a paragraph about Trump not being able to land in Bozeman because of owing money. It was evidently false info, so I deleted it. Sorry.]

Tim 'n Stuff

 

Tim Walz is a good choice. So would have been any of the others from among whom VP Harris chose. Walz is a likable guy. With a shiv. It was he who started the “weird” moniker. Like Kamala, he’ll bring the fun. And dead seriousness. Appropriate as “weird” is, it applies better to R “Cubby” FK, Jr. The word for Trump and Trumpists is “creepy.” Let’s go with that from now on.

Also creepy are those who accuse Democrats of “Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS)” for speaking truth. The real TDS is exemplified by this satirical but accurate video. It’s believing his lies and loving them. It’s being expected to swallow them without chewing, as confirmed by Trump’s appearance at the NABJ, delayed by his demand that there would be no real-time fact-checking. 

The difference is stark: Lying is how Trump appeals to his base. Kamala Harris appeals to hers, and to everyone, by telling the truth. While many of the Trump/Vance lies are laughable, others are dangerously inciteful, deliberately. Examples of the former: she wants to take away your gas stoves and cars. And cows. Wants to change your kids’ gender. The latter: “they” tried to kill him. Because he’s smarter, that shameful lie makes JD Vance more deplorable than Trump.

As Trump contemplates the possibility of losing to a Black (and, yes, Indian) woman, his bitter negativity contrasts ever more with her joyful positivity. Having an unpopular and negative agenda, he can only lie, which, coincidentally, is something he’s perfected over a lifetime. Having policies approved by a majority of Americans, Kamala Harris has only to be truthful.

So he and his mouthers look for distractions: despicable Laura Ingraham stooped to deriding Kamala for hugging people. The human touch is foreign to Fox “news.” Now it’s Doug Emhoff’s affair while married to his former wife. Really? They want to go there? Three words: Trump. And Trump.

Also, Trump.

If ever there were an issue from which Trump and his apologists would like to distract, it’s last week’s revelation of ten million dollars, in cash, weighing two hundred pounds, withdrawn from an Egyptian bank, mysteriously ending up amongst Trump’s campaign funds. Accepting bribes? Unsurprising. It appears he’d already promised oil executives anything they wanted in return for a billion. 

But it’s worse: Attorney General Barr, Trump’s handyman in his weaponized DOJ, quashed investigations into the affair, as he’d done in firing US Attorneys looking into Trump’s pre-presidential crimes. The story is so important that this gifted link is useable for non-WaPo subscribers.

Having excoriated Trump as unsuitable to be president, Barr says he’ll still vote for him. Such spineless and sycophantic amorality makes him perfect to appear regularly on Fox “news” and its imitators. So he does.

Spines are similarly scarce southward. After Trump went on a Cobb salad of a rant in Georgia, about its governor Brian Kemp’s “disloyalty” for not lying for him, Kemp responded: “My focus is on ... saving our country from Kamala Harris ... not engaging in petty personal insults.” He’ll vote for him, in other words, leaving us to wonder: from what dangers of Kamala Harris does the country need saving that outweigh the clear and present ones of Trump? Not to mention his bottomless indecency, which shames us all.

It’s a question for all Republicans disliking but still planning to vote for Trump: Why? What vision of America under Kamala Harris threatens your way of life? How awful would it be for you and your families if she were able, like Governor Walz was in Minnesota, to see that hungry children are fed and homeless are housed? What do you expect from Trump that justifies overlooking his lawlessness, childish pettiness, and promises of governance by dictatorship? Tax breaks? Deregulation? You won’t get those unless you’re a billionaire or polluter. Is it rounding up undocumented aliens?

If you consider yourself conservative, how do you excuse his congratulating Putin for the deal that freed Americans imprisoned in Russia, issuing not a word to the captives or praise for the countries involved? And lying that he never gave anything for his deals? Other than, you know, releasing five hundred Taliban prisoners held by Afghanistan. And these.

Are you distracted from his promise not to “spend a penny” on schools that require vaccines, which is all of them? “For cheers at a rally,” he may as well have said, “I’ll trade children crippled or dying from polio, suffering deadly measles pneumonia, or becoming sterile from mumps.” And cheer they do. You, too? When he says he doesn’t need your votes, does it make you think he expects his certification-deniers to overturn state elections?

If you were to place country over Trump, you wouldn’t be alone. Could this help you decide?

Kamala Harris will win the popular vote massively. The undemocratic, outdated Electoral College, though? Who knows?

Also, Tim Walz is younger than Brad Pitt.

Weirdly Hopeful

 

I’m trying to measure this feeling of hope and enthusiasm against the reality that it’s an uphill battle for a woman to become president; especially one who’s not white. But there’s no denying the excitement among voters who’d been feeling a heavy sense of – can I say it, Jimmy? – malaise.

Joe Biden’s presidential accomplishments are legion. Freed now from having to promote himself, he’s diving into needed reforms of our out-of-control, Constitution-rewriting Supreme Court. But it had become clear that if he remained in the race he was likely to lose to an increasingly deranged, dangerous, and – let’s say it together -- weird man, demonstrably the greatest threat to democracy of any former or potential “president” in our history. Stepping aside only magnified President Biden’s greatness.

Contrary to Trump’s flop-sweaty attacks on Kamala Harris’ laugh, I find it refreshing. She’s having fun! After years of Trumpic nastiness and gloom, peddling fear and hate, lying, tearing down our country despite its thriving economy, record employment, burgeoning small businesses, she’s making America fun again.

Has anyone ever seen Trump do it? A full-throated, joyous laugh? Derisive sneers and mockery don’t count. How embittered must one be never to laugh? How hollowed-out, how devoid of feeling for fellow human beings; how unsuited to hold the reins of a government for the people. He doesn’t like her dancing, either. 

Observing Trump flailing for a foothold proofs the pudding. “I’m running against a low-IQ individual,” he told agreeable rally attendees. We don’t need Alan Turing to crack that code. He’s used it before, on at least one other Black woman. 

People who love his inhumanity won’t change, any more than the coming attacks on VP Harris will change minds on her side. But MAGA Republicans don’t represent all previous Trump voters, nor the re-energized young voters and marginalized communities who’d begun to despair of voting. Social media are full of former Trumpers announcing their intent to vote for Kamala Harris, including the mayor of a very red Arizona city. Have there ever been so many appointees and family members raising the alarm about reelecting a “president”? As tides rise and turn, a win by Kamala Harris begins to feel possible.

Promises of vengeance and retribution appeal to Trump’s weird cult. For some, that may suffice to distract from the lack of a positive agenda. We know what he’s against: equal access to voting, taxes on the wealthy, environmental regulations, addressing climate change, immigration. But what is he for? Banning abortion and lying about Democrats’ position on it. Gifting Putin with a weakened NATO, handing him Ukraine. Detention camps. Replacing competent government employees with unqualified, compliant loyalists. Enacting Project 2025, of which he pretends ignorance. He and the Christo-fascists behind the Project are denying they have anything to do with each other, but we know the Project is an instruction manual for constructing the autocracy Trump craves. 

It’s looking likely that Donald Ducks debating VP Harris. If he ever faces actual journalists (of which there aren’t many remaining) as opposed to Fox “news” sycophants and other mouthpiece media, someone should ask him to specify, as he’s claimed, which parts of Project 2025 he finds objectionable. And not let him quack his way out of answering.

Gaslighting, he and MAGA Republicans say theirs is the “party of freedom.” To which Pete Buttigieg recently had this to say: “If you’re talking about military tribunals for political opponents, you have no business talking about freedom. If you’re into banning books, you have no business letting a word like liberty escape your lips.” Not to mention taking away women’s healthcare autonomy or granting full immunity to a lawbreaking “president.” In his SCOTUS reform proposals, Joe Biden made it clear he’d not avail himself of that power. But Trump? Or JD Vance, his clone?

Secretary Pete is brilliant. Regularly, with razor-sharp gentleness, leaving Fox “news” hosts babbling, he’s the most gifted spokesperson for the Biden/Harris agenda and now for Harris. He speaks seven languages, including those of nearly all our allies. He’s ex-military. He has government experience at high levels. He would, in other words, be a perfect choice for Vice President. Except for... you know. Is America ready for a twofer?

Increasingly worried about facing Kamala Harris, Trump is prepping for another coup attempt. “If they don’t cheat,” he says, “We win.” Yet, around the country it’s Republicans who are readying the cheating. In swing states, they’ve installed officials who’ll refuse to certify elections if Kamala wins. Georgia’s honorable-for-a-minute Secretary of State just launched a website for voters to deregister. It’s easy to imagine malicious hacking. 

As MAGA evangelicals see Biden-endorsed Olympic Satanism or Trump promises so much electricity you’ll beg him to stop (the link is NSFW), the newly-hatched “weird” meme is accurate and fun. Indeed, they are very weird people. Thing is, they’re also horrifying. No joke.

Afterthoughts

Dang. I’d been planning to begin this week’s column with a riff on that laughably large ear bandage Trump sported at his coronation, and, having seen his cult fashioning similar ones, to note the similarity to farmers tagging the ears of their sheep. Probably, I’d have puzzled that, next day, he wore a small Band-Aid appropriate to the injury he incurred.

Maybe he realized, despite seeing his flock lower to the occasion, how ridiculous it looked to everyone else. As a former trauma surgeon, I’d never have applied that honker to such a minimally injured ear. Nevertheless, he was very lucky and that’s a good thing. I don’t minimize the seriousness of the close call; just the crazy that came after.

So I’d also have reflected on miracles. If defined as evidence of divine intervention, and if God saved Trump from death, then it’s no less miraculous that He made Mr. Comperatore die. Same for late-discovered survivors of earthquakes that kill hundreds. You can’t see saves as godly and not the killings. So, maybe there are no miracles. Were I reckless enough, I’d have proposed that to think He would choose an amoral man like Trump to lead us is disrespectful of God. Blasphemous, even.

I’m sure I’d have mentioned the similarities between Kim Jong Il’s ceremonial appearances and Trump, when he wasn’t nodding off, smiling beneficently as sycophants like Tucker Carlson and Hulk Hogan (!) praised him, deified him, one after another. Likely, I couldn’t have avoided noting that, halfway through Trump’s endless, rally-repetitive acceptance speech, the faithful were scrolling their phones or walking out.

President Joe Biden’s magnanimous decision to withdraw from contention is the reason I’d have said none of that. MAGA Republicans won’t, but present company and future historians will agree that President Joe Biden is one of the most, if not THE most effective president since FDR.

Assuming the reins of a devastated economy while a mishandled pandemic was requiring refrigerated morgue trucks outside overwhelmed hospitals, as unemployment was soaring and businesses were closing, he turned it all around, creating millions of jobs, lowering Covid-rebound inflation – never as high in the US as in other developed countries – to a third of its maximum.

Record numbers of small businesses have been created. Decaying infrastructure is being rebuilt. And, had Trump not shepherded his sheep into blocking it, President Joe Biden’s negotiated, bipartisan deal would have made significant progress on border issues.

It’s a remarkable, proud legacy, with a terribly sad ending. Compared to Trump’s venality, President Biden’s decency, placing country above self, couldn’t be more obvious.

Concerned he might not be the one to beat Trump, who, notwithstanding MAGA credulity, historians will agree was one of the if not THE worst president ever, President Biden’s decision to withdraw speaks of patriotism and selflessness. I hope he makes a barnburner of a speech at the Democratic convention.

While we await whatever mess Democrats and pundits will make of their nominating process before selecting Kamala Harris, we know for sure their convention won’t be the festival of falsehoods foisted by Trump’s fraudulent fluffers.

After Speaker-of-Sorts Mike Johnson testified that theirs is the party of law and order, and before his party nominated a convicted criminal, adjudicated rapist, defrauder of New York State of millions of dollars, and recidivist scammer, they welcomed, to delirious cheers, a convict caravan: Manafort, Stone, Navarro, J6 insurrectionists. If he weren’t still serving time, Bannon would have been similarly received.

Came then the strategic lies: Crime rates; energy production; EVs; gas prices; rampant “migrant crime,” the fakest of fakes.  And the one Trump hopes to ride to the White House: election fraud. To which he, the oldest presidential nominee ever, has added another, nearly as pernicious: that he knows nothing of Project 2025.

He knows. Praising the world’s worst dictators, to replicate whose regimes the Project aims, he knows. If elected, he’d follow its marching orders toward a government by and for its billionaire advocates, himself as figurehead, secured by permanently diluted elections.

Continuing its election interference, Russia is praising Trump and, now, his V.P. pick. The former Republican Party would have been appalled to see their nominees praised by America’s enemies and lauded at home despite – or because of -- their disqualifications. In the graves of the respectable old guard, rotations must be continuous.

Money and endorsements are flooding in for Kamala Harris, breaking records. Trump might hide from debating her, but he and his surrogates aren’t hiding their awful, desperate misogyny and racism when attacking her, with worse to come. To which I say, bring it!

Something reminiscent of optimism is nibbling at worry for our country. Too soon to say; but Trump is still Trump, an aged, diminished, fourth-grade name-caller, repeater of lies and incomprehensible digressions. If cultists can’t see it, it’s true nevertheless: he’s become even more unfit for office than he was eight years ago. 

It Changes Nothing

 

The assassination attempt and reactions to it are deeply depressing, foretelling a grim future. The most disgusting responses from politicians and media have come from the MAGA-aligned. Rep. Mike Collins, R-GA, for example, said Biden ordered it. (Which, according to the Supreme Court, would be perfectly legal.) J.D. Vance, R-OH, who once called Trump America’s Hitler among other now-inoperative truths, VP pick unimaginable as president, election denier, pro-Russia, anti-abortion and anti-LGBT zealot, Alex Jones proponent, blamed it on left-wing rhetoric.

That’s the inverse of Republican outrage when Democrats accuse rightwing incitement prior to attacks on mosques and synagogues. Remember Trump saying “Second Amendment people” could solve the Hillary Clinton problem? “Stand back and stand by”? Mocking the attack on Paul Pelosi? And Republican ads like these. If words are to blame, which ones?

But the T-shirts are ready. And sneakers. “God protected him,” say MAGAs. By killing a fifty-year-old firefighter, evidently; father of two. President Biden called the man’s wife. Trump didn't.

On social media, both sides are awful. A few liberals can be just as conspiratorial and nasty as most MAGAs.

Before it happened, I'd been recalling a lecture in 2012, in Seattle, by Stephen Hawking, the genius cosmologist, who lived for decades with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”). When we saw him he was whole-body locked, contorted in a motorized wheelchair which he operated with a single finger, the only body part over which he retained control. He spoke by laborious one-finger tapping on a keyboard attached to a speech generator. As the lecture played, he sat motionless on the stage. 

He took questions. We waited at a microphone for a turn, after which he’d tap for several minutes while attendees talked among themselves. Finally we’d hear, “I will answer,” and then his precise, responsive, type-to-speech reply.

Here’s the relevance: inability to speak or doing so with imperfect fluency or rhetorical lapses doesn’t necessarily mean impaired cognition. Professor Hawking wrote “A Brief History of Time” with that single finger. In the case of President Biden, age has made worse his struggles with public speaking. Much is made of his misstatements and confusion of names; dire conclusions drawn from members of both parties. Trump’s surfeit of similar stumbles pass on the right without mention. As did the gusher of lies he hosed forth at that fateful “debate.” 

President Biden recently met with NATO leaders. Later, they reported how in command of details he is. We don’t know how his public persona comports with his private presidential abilities; but, considering his ongoing record of historic accomplishments, there’s no certainty that he’s lost it. If, in his public appearances he misspeaks frequently, he doesn’t drift off into confounding confabulations about electric boats and sharks and windmills, or praise fictional cannibals, or inject his acolytes, like bleach, with fear and hate.

Less and less do I know what to wish for regarding President Biden staying in or dropping out. Like anyone who considers our form of government worth preserving and climate change real, though, I’ll vote without hesitation for him, or, if Ds choose another, that person.

While pliable politicians like J.D. Vance blame President Biden and truth-telling liberals for the assassination attempt, this needs to be said from now till November: Calling out the terrifying trifecta of Trump, Project 2025, and their Constitution-rewriting Supreme Court is not hate speech; neither is it sub-rosa advocacy for violence. It’s pleading to voters’ best selves; a warning, confirmed by his and their own words, of theocratic authoritarianism. It’s democracy. Attempting to shut it down by describing it otherwise is Project Trump.

Because I know all I need to about black holes, watching last week’s interview with Secretary of State Antony Blinken was more relevant than seeing Stephen Hawking. Speaking with historian Heather Cox Richardson, he made clear why inclusive foreign policy is vital to US interests; why international partnerships, including NATO, are essential. For anyone concerned about the future and the US role in it, it’s worth watching. Part one. Part two.

Though we don’t know who Trump would choose for his Secretary of State, it’s certain to be the opposite of Antony Blinken. Trump and the Project He’s Never Heard Of have made clear their intention to weaken or abandon NATO. Their “America First” policies will do the same to other cooperative relationships, leaving America isolated and, as Blinken so convincingly explains, vulnerable and weaker. Given Trump’s professed love of our enemies’ dictators, perhaps deliberately.

So, no: Whatever the motive, the attempt on his life mustn’t quiet the voices speaking out against the consequences of another Trump “presidency.” Quite the opposite: since it’ll redouble the uncritical, besotted enthusiasm of his idolizers, it should spur even more commitment amongst the open-eyed to vote against him.

Maybe, though, it’ll inspire Republicans finally to agree on banning military-style weapons. 

Trump 2025

Trump, who lies, denies knowledge of Project 2025, the conservative plan to Make America Bleak. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” he avowed. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal...”

If he stops speaking only to his mouthpiece media, he should be asked to specify with which abysmal parts he disagrees. And how he can disagree but "know nothing." But “journalists” are too busy ignoring the issues and calling for President Biden to withdraw, when, given his status as a convicted criminal, liar, star of the Epstein tapes, and day-one dictator, it’s Trump who should.

He can’t be unaware; attempting to distance himself from it proves the point. Several members of his inner circle are behind the Project. He and his policies are mentioned in it numerous times. Incurious, unwilling to work hard, he’ll do whatever they tell him. Because it’s over 900 pages, dense, and irreducible to cartoons, we’ll accept that he hasn’t read it.

I have. Some is anodyne proposals for streamlining government agencies. But even those are littered with Trumpic references to “Marxism,” and “wokeism.” Enormous defense spending is called for: more ships, nukes, planes, drones, missiles. No mention of paying for it. Fire transgender troops; reinstate, with back pay, those discharged for refusing vaccinations. “Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs...” Religious indoctrination, though: Yankee-Doodle-dandy.

“Require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Department of Defense —the military entrance examination—by all students in schools that receive federal funding.” It’s reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s “Young Pioneer” schoolchildren, whom I saw during language study there.

Student loans would be privatized; forgiveness would be disallowed. The Department of Education would be dispersed and eliminated. All departments would be filled with political appointees answering directly to “the next conservative president.” To deploy the agenda quickly, Senate approval for high-level appointees would be delayed by naming “acting” leaders.

Particularly the State Department, where “large swaths of [its] workforce are left-wing... The next Administration ... should both accept the resignations of all political ambassadors and quickly reassess all career ambassadors... No one in a leadership position on the morning of January 20 should hold that position at the end of the day.” Sweep away experience. Uncritical fealty to the president is the prime directive.

NPR and PBS would be defunded, because incurious MAGAs don’t tune in. “... [E]ducation is publicly funded but education decisions are made by families.” Monies should go directly to states, with tax dollars spent on private and charter schools, “Empowering families to choose among a diverse set of education options...” Goodbye fact- and history-based public education.

At all levels, “gender” will refer only to that assigned at birth. References to “sexual orientation and gender identity,” along with equity rules, should be expunged. “The next Administration,” it says, should note “how radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on school-aged children today—especially young girls.” How, they don’t say. Documentation, they don’t provide. “Ideology.”

As to children of low-income families, “Over a 10-year period, federal spending should be phased out and states should assume decision-making control over how to provide a quality education to [them].” Also, eliminate Head Start. Good luck, poor kids in poor red states.

The next president should “stop the war on oil and natural gas,” which isn’t a war. As with the majority of their proposals, many of which are akin to “clean air is nice,” specifics are lacking. Per its main spokesperson, that’s deliberate. Hide the darkest details before the election.

Many related regulations are to be abolished. Gone, too, are energy efficiency standards. Electric grid improvements are defunded. Climate- and energy-related initiatives are called “partisan” and “political.” Enabling red state efforts to disenfranchise Democratic constituencies, the FEC’s power would be diluted. Likewise, the EPA’s. The CDC is “the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government,” it says, and the FBI is a “bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization.” Also, it must stop fighting the spread of disinformation and lies. Arrogant! That there’s some ironical irony.

P2025 would gut labor protections overseen by the DOL, other than, because “God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest,” requiring time-and-a-half pay for working on that day. (Which one?) Christianity would be prioritized everywhere. Accreditation requirements for religious colleges would be removed. “Abortion is not healthcare.” No Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood. Ban abortifacient drugs.

The surface here is barely skimmed. There’s plenty more. The best summary of Project 2025 comes from its prime mover, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who’d previously said its purpose is to institutionalize Trumpism. "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Trump’s America: Submit or bleed. Voting against it is incalculably important, no matter the Democrats’ nominee.

Debatable

 

Nothing can be said about last week’s presidential debate (debacle, more like) that hasn’t already been. So I will.

Trump lied with every word, avoided questions, made weird faces and no sense. Had President Biden performed as in years past, that would have been fatal for Trump. But he didn’t and it wasn’t. I wish the “moderators” had called out Trump’s lies and diversions; more, I wish President Biden had. But they didn’t and he didn’t.

I wish President Biden had announced, a year ago, that he wouldn’t run again. He didn’t and, so far, he is. I wish Trump had been asked about Project 2025 and said how he’d implement it. He wasn’t, so he didn’t. Because it’s the blueprint for enshrining the clear threat to democracy about which Democrats have been warning since Trump promised, “I am your retribution,” not asking was journalistic dereliction. By dismantling government, protective regulations, public education, separation of church and state, minority protections and making voting harder for them, and curtailing social programs, it’s an authoritarian manifesto that serves only the wealthy.

I wish I knew who has the best chance against Trumpism’s multifaceted threats. Whether the Democrats’ nominee will be President Biden or someone else, I’ll vote for that person without reservation. So should everyone who values democracy and competent, Constitutional governance, who’d rather not live in a far-right theocracy, who thinks science and quality public education are vital to our future. Who prefers safe water, food and consumer goods, breathable air, and a livable climate.

The deba-whatever-it-was didn’t change the stakes. Instead, it confirmed that Trump should never again be within wrecking distance of the Oval Office. No matter President Joe Biden’s acuity, we know he would continue to surround himself with the kinds of experts who helped him end the pandemic, create millions of jobs, begin rebuilding infrastructure, and lots more. And we know he’d respect the law.

Based on what he’s promised, openly, and on Projectile 2025, Trump would do the opposite. First time around he chose incompetents who ended up indicted. The few competents he let slip through ended up leaving and now warn against voting for him. This time he’d replace qualified government employees with people whose only qualification is willingness to help punish the people and entities he resents.

No matter his opponent, assuring Trump’s defeat is a patriotic duty. Don’t believe me? Listen to former MAGA, current conservative Joe Walsh’s NSFW declamation. Nothing is as important. Nothing. Dead people have won elections. We could do worse.

But Trump isn’t the only threat. SCOTUS’ decision about government agencies’ regulatory authority can be summarized in Chief Justice Roberts’ own words: “... [A]gencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.” Unless Congress spells out every regulation and future need in precise, specific detail, he ruled, experts in government agencies can’t be allowed to define them. Only judges can. They’ll decide which chemicals are dangerous, what medications you can take, whether pollution is bad or climate change is real. Time was, conservatives eschewed that kind of judicial legislating.

Another SCOTUS judgment enshrines government corruption. A bribe, they said, is an illegal gift given before the giftee takes action. The same transaction, completed after gifters get what they want, is a permitted gratuity; a tip. “I’ll do what you want. Just don’t hand me the cash until after.” By no coincidence, Trump has promised to end taxing tips. In the presidential immunity ruling, Alito and Thomas expressed their gratitude.

With no basis in the Constitution, the Roberts Court invented rules saying anything a president does is above the law if defined as an “official act.” Compare and contrast: in my surgical practice, if I made a correct diagnosis, chose the appropriate operation, and carried it out properly, if the patient had complications it’s not, to me, anyway, malpractice. If, however, I chose the wrong operation and did it carelessly, causing harm, it is, no matter how “official.”

If Trump were to accept a “gratuity” in exchange for a pardon, or one from Putin for outing embedded agents, is he “officially” immune from prosecution? Trying to overturn a legitimate, fraud-free election? Stealing critical documents and lying about it? Yes, say John Roberts and his accomplices, arrogating to themselves the power to distinguish official from non-official acts. “Total immunity,” brayed Donald the First, regally.

Could Biden have SCOTUS’ Slaughterous Six arrested now? Guess so. But they understood that’s not who he is, so, casting their gaze upon a man who’s promised dictatorial abuse of power, they told him, “Go forth and subtract.”

The only, and likely the last chance to thwart this double-team attack on democracy is to vote for every Democratic candidate everywhere, sweep both houses of Congress, and then, enlarge the Court with four honest and ethical people.

Paraphrasing Pogo, we have met the remedy and it is us.

He Is Risible

 

Obsessively pondering the mystery of Trump supporters overlooking his abject amorality and monumental mendacity while claiming to be Christian has, finally, ignited an epiphany: They ignore Jesus’ lessons for life but still need to believe they believe. In Trump, they’ve found a way.

Among the thousands of deities available for selection, the most popular is Jesus. With good reason, His promise of life eternal and absolution of sins into which we were born because of Adam and Eve and a snake, have put Christianity on top. Aside from the occasional pogrom, holocaust, crusade, inquisition, suppression of science, and burning of witches, it’s served humanity well.

Now, however, a great discomfort – unspoken and unrecognized by them, but real -- has arisen within the so-called Christians who’ve thrown in with Trump. Jesus, they’ve realized, was a liberal. Liberalism, God forbid, is the political embodiment of His teachings, the Sermon on the Mount put into practice. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, love thy neighbor (which, since He never preached otherwise, includes LGBTQ people.) But the Foxotrumpified have been convinced to hate liberals. What are they to do?

Donald Trump, lifelong breaker of each of the Ten Commandments, is Jesus’ antithesis. In lifestyle and policy, some would say the anti-Christ. So, how can MAGA Christians reconcile their professed love of both? Therein is the epiphany: by claiming that Jesus sent Trump to save us, that Trump is Jesus’ chosen one, making the two all but indistinguishable, ignoring His teachings and revering Trump becomes a manifestation of faith.

In their equilateral genuflection, not living according to Jesus’ teachings is living according to His teachings. Gone is the uncomfortable dissonance: if Jesus chose Trump, it’s all okay. It’s like vegans idolizing Jeffrey Dahmer, but if it works it works.

Trump makes it easy to see. Avoiding churches except for photo-ops and AI-generated fakes, and though the last one he’d ever join would be a megachurch where he’d be a tiny presence in a huge crowd, he’s taken megachurch ministers’ methods as his own. Other than the fact that those ministers preach in complete sentences and stay on topic, Trump rallies are profane duplicates of megachurches.

Humans need worship. If the word of Jesus is problematic for the MAGA-selfish, they meld Him with Trump who, like megachurch millionaires, gives them what they need. America is a hellhole, he tells them, promising salvation. “God bless the USA” plays as the congregants sing along, tearfully. I alone can save you, he intones, often speaking in tongues. Follow me or die. Send me your money, buy my merch, and be rewarded. I’ll rid you of the vermin/demons who’d do you harm, cleanse the land of your enemies, salve your fears, and make you great.

If you notice that I spend your money on private planes and lavish homes, that I sock away most for my own purposes, reneging on promises to use it charitably, you won’t care. Unless you’re a faithless infidel.

The analogy fits even better with faith healers, whose debunked fakery compares perfectly to Trump’s regularly disproved lies. Rigged healing brings the crowds and the money, and they keep on coming, eager to believe. It’s the same with Trump’s comforting lies, even as they get increasingly bizarre: people are pitching tents in airports, he claims, waiting four days for their flights. Who cares if it’s lies or delusions of a disassembling mind? It’s Trump! Throw away the crutches and send him money!

The J6 Committee destroyed all its records, he repeats. They didn’t: it’s all available online. Crime is rising, he preaches: under Biden, it’s falling. The election was stolen: no evidence says so; in fact, it proves the opposite. But, like faith-healing, his lies trick the mind, powerful enough to convince the willingly deceived.

Trump’s dishonesty has become so egregious that honest media are finally reporting without both-siding it. By contrast, Trumpophilic media have taken to cutting away from rally coverage as he descends into incoherence, lest their viewers become heretics. To the loyalists, it wouldn’t matter. So strong is their faith that they believe what Eric Trump gaslightingly calls his daddy’s “unvarnished honesty.”MAGA is a misnomer. It’s MEGA.

Like the remarkable number of Trump’s inner circle convicted of crimes, along with Trump himself, so it is that we keep hearing of pastors – especially youth pastors – abusing those in their charge. In the latest example, Trump’s one-time “spiritual adviser” (what sort of people need one, and what do they do?) resigned from leading his megachurch after admitting to sexual abuse of a thirteen-year-old girl.

So now we understand the Trump/Jesus thing. What we may never unravel is why Trumpists, loving his plans to ruin the lives of the people they hate, can’t see that theirs will suffer the same. 

Let's Go Big

Until last week, I was agnostic about enlarging the US Supreme Court, even after they’d handed down several outrageous decisions. I can’t, for example, understand how so-called “originalists” were able to derive from our Constitution that corporations are people and money is speech; decisions that have given “dark money” enormous political power, most of it to Republican benefactors.

Nor could I agree, as Justice Roberts glibly implied when gutting the Voting Rights Act, that racism no longer exists in America. And, of course, ignoring precedent to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Those decisions were based on personal opinion, not interpretations of the law. Judicial activism, in other words. Legislating from the bench. Something conservatives once decried. Nevertheless, though those decisions baselessly furthered a far-right political agenda, and though they strayed far from the law’s letter, the idea of growing the Court to thirteen Justices still felt questionable.

No longer. Now, we have two justices, Alito and Thomas, injecting their black-robed political prejudices to achieve premeditated ends, not even pretending to care how they’re received. Relishing, no doubt, law-abiding liberals’ outrage. The public’s trust in SCOTUS is at an all-time low? Who cares? Chief Justice Roberts, some say. If so, he hides it well. And why should he? Like the rest, he’s untouchable. In fact, in theory, public opinion ought not matter at all in judicial decisions. Assuming they were based in law, that is; an arcane concept that, because of Mitch McConnell’s hypocrisy and the Federalist Society’s unaccountable power, withered years ago.

The 6-3 decision on bump stocks did it for me. Written by Clarence Thomas and agreed to by all the Court’s “conservatives,” it was cynical parsing of words to achieve a desired outcome, ignoring the clear intent of 1934 legislation outlawing machine guns. Their decision negated a rare, helpful action that happened under Trump: declaring that rifles so equipped fall under that legislation, after a shooter in Las Vegas, using bump-stock-outfitted AR-15s, killed 58 people and wounded 500 almost instantly.

The 1934 law prohibited citizens from owning machine guns, which it defined as weapons that can fire “automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” A semi-automatic rifle, like the AR15, requires pulling the trigger for each shot. But when the standard stock (the part that’s held to the shoulder) is replaced by a bump stock, it can fire over 500 rounds per minute, with a single, continuous pull of the trigger.

So, how did Thomas exclude such weapons from the unambiguous 1934 definition? “Single function,” is how. His published opinion contained several diagrams showing how internal trigger mechanisms move during firing. Therefore, they opined, not a single function. Because, though the trigger remains stable during its rapid, deadly firing, inside it doesn’t. That’s a Plastic-Man-level stretch.

Also not single: the non-trigger hand has to push the front of the stock forward; two things are happening. Oh, c’mon: the trigger is pulled, once, by the finger and held in place. That’s as single as Melania probably wishes she were. It’s like saying you violated a “don’t move” order because your heart was beating.

Bringing up those other motions suggests the “originalist” majority, ignoring the unmistakable original intent of the law, had to want killing machines back in the hands of citizens. Why? For the next January Sixth? Remember when John Roberts says the Court’s job is to “call balls and strikes,” not make law? Good times. Soon, we’ll be told that left hands are people and mass murder is speech.

With typical condescension, Alito wrote, in concurrence, that Congress can simply rewrite the ban. Right. Republicans just quashed an attempt to do exactly that. He knew that as surely as he knows flags. Such tendentious reasoning is what convinced me of the necessity to enlarge the Court with honest people. Which could happen only if Democrats control Congress and the White House after November 5.

Originally, there were six justices. Since then the number has gone up and down. Briefly, there were ten. And five, and seven. It’s been nine since 1869, despite the number of judicial districts they oversee, along with the US population, having increased exponentially since then. Adding justices makes mathematical as well as common, non-ideological sense. Given the extra-legal intransigence of Alito and Thomas, plus their refusal to recuse from cases in which they have conflicts of interest, including wives’ activities and expensive gifts from people having business before them, the political need is clear, too.

It’s more proof that democracy is truly, no exaggeration, seriously, absolutely on the ballot this year. As are the countless lives that will be lost by handing definitional machine guns back to mass murderers. I’m not suggesting the SCOTUS majority approve of mass murderers. But right-wing militias in support of MAGA Trumpism and Christian Nationalism? No comment.

Oldtime Doc

 

Let’s take a break from worrying that, aided by the most corrupt and hyper-partisan Supreme Court in history and a non-stop disinformation campaign from all parts of the rightwingosphere, The World's Greatest Democracy™ might elect a convicted felon and lifelong liar who pledges to end it and to purge experts and opponents, Stalin-like. Hunter Biden’s rigged trial must wait for another time, too.

So here’s an essay I wrote for a now-defunct writers’ website. The first offering I submitted (not this one) got thirty-thousand views, so they kept asking for more. Which explains why they failed.

When I applied to medical school I imagined myself one day making house calls, good ol' Doc Schwab, paid in chickens and pies, smiles, tears, and blackberry jam. There I'd be, delivering babies in bedrooms, patchin' up Farmer Jones's leg on the sofa, shaking out thermometers and feeling foreheads.

I became a surgeon.

Early in my practice, when I had time on my hands, and to some degree throughout my career, I made house calls, the old-time doc I’d imagined. As I got busier I had to triage my time: people with a simple problem for whom a trip to my office was especially difficult, living not too far away. But as a youngster there were occasions when I went quite out of the way, and spent a lot of time.

For example: "The Phone Call." A woman awaits the news of a breast biopsy I’d done; I call her and note the stoppage of breath at the other end of the conversation. To say she should come in for the results is to let her know but provide no support. To give the news over the phone feels cold and impersonal. So I'd split the difference by breaking the news as gently as I could, and inviting her in for an immediate consultation.

Sometimes, early on, I reversed the equation and said, "How about if I come over and we can talk about it?" One time, in my pre-gray, abundant-hair days, after I'd spent at least an hour at their home, my patient and her husband gushed their appreciation for the visit and my care to that point, but announced they'd be going to Seattle for treatment. Probably thought I looked too young. Gray hair: a welcome advantage for ripening doctors.

Most of the time, my house calls were to a post-op patient, usually older, having a hard time getting around: check a wound, a little debridement, change a bandage, remove or unclog a drain. I'd load up with a few tools, some tape and gauze and ointments stuffed into my classic doctor bag, a name-embossed med-school graduation gift from my grandmother. Walking to the door, I’d imagine what the neighbors thought, figuring they'd be jealous: Miss Jones has a heck of a doctor there.

Always the visit was appreciated; frequently met with amazement. Sometimes it was my own, finding out how my patients lived, in a trailer, in an unkempt crumbling home, in a fancy joint with all the options. And I'd learn how they were able, or not, to carry out the post-op instructions I'd given them. Which led to a much more practical and pragmatic approach to what I'd tell people about after-care at home.

Once, I got a call from a feisty old lady for whom I'd recently done a mastectomy: she was worried about her wound, or a drain, or something. To her obvious delight I'd said, "Well, I'm almost done here, how 'bout I swing by your place and have a look?" She answered the door buck naked from the waist up, her unoperated side of the voluminous variety; responding to my surprise she said, "Hell, I figured you'd want to see it anyway, so why get dressed?" Her home was right on a main street. No screeching tires, far as I recall.

Making house calls always made me feel good, and the benefits were invariably mutual. In my medical school, each first-year student was matched with a family in which the wife was pregnant. We followed her through pregnancy and delivery, which I did with supervision, and were involved in the care of the baby. At least one home visit was a requirement, and we’d meet in groups afterward to discuss how it went. The real import was in learning how patients' conditions are part of an entire life and not just the little slice of it in which we see them.

All doctors -- especially surgeons, who typically send people home significantly altered, if only temporarily, hopefully -- would learn from seeing patients in their homes. It is, of course, completely impractical and nearly impossible nowadays, time and compensation (and liability) being among the reasons why it rarely happens.

Not to mention the possibility of seeing an old lady nearly naked at her front door.

Right Verdict, Wrong Case

Second in line to the presidency per the Constitution he and his constituents reject, House Speaker Mike Johnson called last week’s election interference verdict “a shameful day in American history ... a purely political exercise, not a legal one." Godly Mr. Johnson doesn’t seem stupid, so peddling those disingenuous assertions is MAGA-typical political hackery. Unless he was referring, retroactively, to the impeachment of DHS Secretary Mayorkas.

Every elected Republican said the same; most parroting Trump’s exact language. They may as well be ventriloquist dummies with Trump’s hand up their access. Several Republican senators performatively pledged never again to cooperate with Democrats’ legislation. (As with the infrastructure act, they will, of course, take credit for whatever passes without them.) Acting to benefit the American people, or MAGAphilic vengeance: they made their choice.

Such orchestrated unanimity reveals their not-so-hidden agenda. Having successfully destroyed their voters’ confidence in elections, all that remained was doing the same to our Constitution. On the hypo-informed, hyper-Foxified, angry in the streets, it’s working.

Unanimously finding him guilty on all counts, the jury, one of whom said his main source of news is Trump’s Truth Social, considered the evidence, including handwritten notes detailing the precise plans to falsify records. To argue his defense, Trump had lawyers none of us could afford and any witnesses they chose to call. He lost. In America, a jury of citizens empaneled by both sides decides what’s true. That’s anathema to MAGA Republicans, for whom truth is execration.

Praising and excusing Trump, lifelongingly dishonest and now a convicted felon, today’s Republican Party -- dba "the party of law" -- has given itself over to authoritarianism. What if they win? Ask yourself: what legislation do Republicans propose and who benefits? Tax cuts for the wealthy. Ignoring climate change. Deregulating pollutants. Weakening public education. Banning honest history lessons. And books. Even vaccines. Removing protection of minorities. Ending the Affordable Care Act, squeezing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; banning abortion and birth control while leaving the government-required born on their own.

When Republicans propose funding needed legislation it’s at the expense of programs that help the vulnerable: SNAP, the aforementioned healthcare programs, early childhood education, childcare for working moms... Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have been enriching the rich and ignoring the not.

Now they’re scheming to make it permanent: Elect Felonious Trump, who’ll facilitate his flock of favorite fellow felons in weaponizing the DOJ, FBI, IRS, and Congress itself against dissent and dissenters, embedding forever their pipe-dream plutocracy. It’s why they’ll never abandon him. Conservatism is dead to them. Lust for unrestrained power killed it.

Voters, then, must decide whether they’re more worried about Democrats forcing their kids to switch genders, and about immigration, bipartisan plans to address which Trump sabotaged; or about losing the benefits of Constitutional governance that have made America great. That’s the choice. It’s not hyperbole. It’s the inescapable inference from the obvious.

When godly Mike Johnson lies without shame about the Trump trial; when Lara Trump, head of the RNC, smirks, “What will happen to the jurors” and when a Newsmax host orders people to “search them out,” there can be no doubt about what’s afoot. 

No matter how much one believes Joe Biden is both senile and the mastermind behind prosecuting Trump’s crimes, this isn’t difficult. One party produces legislation that makes lives better and the future healthier; the other caters to wealthy, white, Christians (only those who reject the teachings of Jesus) and promises totalitarian rule. Trump, who’s never taken responsibility for his failures, who’s used the American legal system he decries to enrich himself and intimidate others, bombasted his way through this case, hurling conspiracies and truthless accusations while raising tons of money.

With no evidence, a convicted felon has convinced millions of people that American jurisprudence is corrupt; that this trial, the election, the sexual assault verdict, the Georgia charges, the documents case are all “rigged.” How? We await details.

Immediately after the verdict, a host of the self-described “most patriotic channel” in Russia, said, “They wronged our Donald Trump!” “OUR.” Dictators love dictators. Trumpublicans are okay with it. 

Far more damaging to the US and even more clearcut, the stolen documents case would have gone first, if not for Trump’s accessory judge, Aileen Cannon. Notwithstanding his lies, the Presidential Records Act gave him no right to the documents. He refused requests to return them, hid them, ignored a legally binding subpoena, lied about returning them all. Reportedly, he showed them to people unauthorized to see them.

It ought to take a jury five minutes to convict; and, because it borders on treason, it could well lead to incarceration, which the current conviction won’t. That’s why Trump, convicted felon, is desperate to finagle his way back into office by whatever means. From there, as he had A.G. Bill Barr do last time, he’d fire all the prosecutors charging him. And skate.