​For 600 years, Prague in the Czech Republic was the epicenter of defenestration, i.e., murder by being flung out a window. The first such episode occurred in 1419 when seven town councilors met their demise, the indirect consequence of their protesting the burning at the stake of Jan Hus, the Czech religious reformer, during the Council of Constance four years earlier. Prague continued as the capital of defenestration well into the mid-twentieth century, when the Communists who came to power after World War II threw Czech Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk out a window in 1948.
 
Now, however, the current focal point of this particular form of disposing of one’s critics has migrated east to Russia. Vladimir Putin has a peculiar penchant for defenestrating Russians who oppose him. His latest such victim is Marina Yankina, a senior Russian defense official who got the heave-ho from the 16th floor of a St. Petersburg tower on February 15. Her crime? Gently criticizing the Kremlin for its Ukraine misadventure.
 
It’s not only Russian government officials who have plummeted from on high during Putin’s dictatorship. Opposition leaders, journalists and even Putin-friendly oligarchs who have gone only slightly astray have suffered the same fate. And a Putin faultfinder does not even have to reside in Russia to risk a plunge to the concrete. One of the more recent Putin victims, a sausage company executive, whose “crime” was waxing less than enthusiastic about Vlad’s effort to impale Ukraine, found himself involuntarily airborne during a visit to India. This happened only two days after his traveling companion did his own deep dive from the same hotel. The lesson should have been clear: demand rooms on the first floor.
 
Putin’s impunity even extends as far away as Washington, DC and encompasses non-Russians as well. Last August, a Latvian Putin critic tumbled out the window of his DC apartment a mile from the White House.
 
And, if a window is unavailable, a flight of stairs does just as well. Not long ago, a Russian real estate mogul met his end this way in France.
 
So, when the world gets around to bringing Vladimir Putin to account for his illegal war with its thousands of human rights atrocities committed against Ukrainian citizens, it would be a good idea to throw in the many murders for which he is responsible. This is assuming that prosecutors can find enough paper to contain their bill of particulars.
 
This is the man that Comrade Donald J. Trump persists in praising because this is what Russian assets do. Trump is at least correct in one respect: If he were still president, Putin would never have attacked Ukraine. Trump would have led the way to Kyiv strewing flowers all along Putin’s path.
 
Moreover, the man who absolved Saudi Prince Mohamed bin Salman of responsibility for the death and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi would be first in line to proclaim Putin’s innocence in the defenestrations and other assorted slaughters of innocents. That is what aspiring autocrats do.
 
Had Trump succeeded in erecting a Trump Tower Moscow, one can only imagine the number of bodies that would have taken flight from its upper-floor windows.
 
Dick Hermann
February 24, 2023

​There is not space enough to itemize the reasons why Donald Trump should never, ever return as President: his incompetence, narcissism, impulsiveness, sociopathic personality, laziness, inability to focus, etc., etc. The list of disqualifying traits is endless. Not to mention that, by trying to overturn a valid election and remain in power illegally, he is a traitor to this country.  Each one of these reasons is justification enough to keep him as far away from the White House as possible, preferably behind bars.
 
However, one reason overrides all of the ones listed above: There is overwhelming evidence that Trump is essentially a Russian asset. He underscored his fealty to Vladimir Putin and Russia any number of times during his first go-round as president. Given a second chance, there is little doubt that he would reverse our policy of supporting Ukraine in its heroic attempt to ward off Russian aggression, pull the U.S. out of NATO, once again bail out of international climate change accords, and do irreparable damage to the nation’s foreign and domestic affairs.
 
The Soviet Union, via the KGB, identified Trump as a potential asset more than 40 years ago when he began doing business with Russian front organizations in New York City and followed that up by selling condos to Russian oligarchs and officials seeking ways to launder money they plundered from the dying Soviet state. While they did not tab him as an active asset or sleeper agent, they accurately assessed his personality deficiencies that rendered him, in their words, a “useful idiot.” Never in their wildest dreams did they anticipate that, by identifying him as an asset, they would realize the greatest intelligence coup in history when he became president.
 
Both while he campaigned for and subsequently served as president, Trump never said a critical or harsh word about Vladimir Putin. He was the only world leader for whom Trump consistently expressed fulsome praise. Virtually everyone else–our closest allies included–was the object of the vilest verbiage and withering criticism he could summon.
 
Perhaps the most shocking instance of his servility to Putin and Russia occurred at their Helsinki summit in July, 2018. Asked at the press conference following their meeting if he would finally acknowledge that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, he professed belief in Putin’s denial of Russian interference (with the intent of skewing the election in Trump’s favor) over the unanimous conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia had interfered.
 
That was just one of many occasions when Trump manifested being a Russian asset during his four misbegotten years in the Oval Office. The only plausible conclusion we can reach from his behavior toward Russia is that he is beholden to the former KGB station chief.
 
While the Kremlin broke out the champagne on election night, 2016, they were disappointed not to achieve all of their goals during Trump’s tenure in office. This failure was due in large part to Trump’s ineptitude: a useful idiot is nevertheless an idiot. As we speak, Russia is preparing to reprise its 2016 electoral success, and make sure that this time around, it will do whatever is necessary to make sure Trump accomplishes the objectives it has for him.
 
It is foolhardy for our justice system to ignore the danger. If he is indicted, tried and convicted as soon as possible, Russia’s prime asset will be neutralized.
 
Dick Hermann
February 17, 2023

Presidential State of the Union (SOTU) speeches are usually about as memorable as graduation addresses. If we remember what was said at all, it’s almost always about some antic that happened before, during or after the oration itself. For example, the uncouth congressman who shouted out “You lie!” during President Obama’s 2009 speech. Or Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up her copy of President Trump’s 2020 harangue. Or Supreme Court Justice Alito saying “not true” and sneering at Obama, an embarrassment so shameful that it could be the reason he has stayed away from SOTUs ever since.
 
This time, however, there was a lot to remember about President Biden’s second SOTU, both the bad behavior of members of Congress and the speech itself. Antics first:

• Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Representative George Santos (sic?)(R-NY or Brazil or wherever) got into it in the aisle before the speech, with Romney telling the prince of prevaricators that he had no business being there.
• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) gallivanting around the House chamber with a white helium balloon to remind viewers of the Chinese inflatable that just traversed the U.S. and was shot down once it reached the Atlantic. It was fitting that someone so full of hot air herself would pull a stunt like this. If the viewing public didn’t get the message, she reinforced it by dressing in a weird white costume that made her look like a cross between a Chinese spy balloon and an albino musk ox.
• MTG’s multiple interruptions of Biden with shouts of “liar” when he cunningly accused Republicans of doing exactly what some of them really did—calling for the “sunsetting” of Social Security and Medicare.
• Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), a.k.a., “the gift that keeps on giving,” the father of this “third-rail” proposal to jettison Social Security and Medicare, looked very much in need of a powerful laxative when Biden brought this up.
• Kevin McCarthy futilely attempting to shush his raucous caucus when they rudely tried to shout Biden down. He did this sitting down because standing erect is not easy absent a spine.

 
The speech itself was a pretty good one and a fine presentation. Biden only had to meet a very low bar given the media and Republican efforts to portray him as a doddering octogenarian barely able to function. The most important takeaway was its normality, a breath of fresh air after the Trump Era lunacy. Moreover, Biden looked like he was having fun.
 
However, It was disappointing that, in an entirely too long speech, he gave little attention to climate change and a somewhat desultory sign of support for Ukraine, perhaps the two most challenging issues facing us.

It was also an optimistic speech, focusing on both his bipartisan legislative accomplishments and his hopes for future cooperation between the parties. That made him look big in contrast to the Republicans in the chamber, who looked small.
 
The contrast with Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders Republican response was stark. Responding to a SOTU is a tough task for anyone (see, e.g., the Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio fiascos), but Sanders did herself no favors. Her speech was both dark and dreary, littered with the kinds of untruths, grievances and rage reminiscent of her prickly time as Trump’s press secretary. The most head-scratching cut of all was her reference to Democrats as “crazy” in contrast to “normal” Republicans. Uh-huh.
 
Pundits are calling Biden’s SOTU the opening foray of his re-election campaign. If so, I hope he thinks twice about running in 2024. Unlike 2020, when he made a plausible argument that he was the only Democrat who could beat Trump, that’s no longer the case. Mindful that we have almost two years to go until the election, I think any Democrat could now beat the flailing, fading and increasingly insane Trump. Democrats have a strong bench (Governors Whitmer, Shapiro, Moore, Healey, Kotek, Polis, Grisham; Cabinet Secretaries Raimondo, Buttigieg; Senators Bennet, Booker, Duckworth, Kelly, Klobuchar, Warnock; and several effective mayors).
 
The real concern is Biden’s age. The presidency is an incredibly demanding job for anyone of any age, but someone who would be 86 at the end of a second term may be pushing it. Moreover, the visual contrast with a 40- or 50-something Republican opponent is likely to draw votes away from Biden.
 
It would be best for him and the country if he followed Nancy Pelosi’s lead. She was arguably the most successful Speaker in the nation’s history, yet she turned power over to the next generation even though she had a strong chance of the gavel returning to her in two years. Biden could take well-deserved satisfaction in a very effective one-term presidency.
 
Dick Hermann
February 11, 2023

Rewind to 1979 and President Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” (a word he never actually uttered) speech after he came down from Camp David and informed Americans that we suffered from an overabundance of angst.
 
Whatever anxiety we felt in 1979 was nothing compared to what we feel today. In contrast, 1979’s rampaging inflation and Iran hostage situation look like the halcyon days of yore compared to 2023.
 
Today we have much to be anxious about:

• Russian aggression against Ukraine, led by an increasingly isolated and paranoid thug who threatens to use nuclear weapons.
• A new Cold War with China that may prove difficult to keep from morphing into a hot war.
• Extremists taking over the U.S. House of Representatives, threatening to blow up both the U.S. and global economy while focusing on bogus investigations instead of the nation’s problems.
• Lowering of the congressional ethics bar to depths that make even limbo dancing impossible.
• Social media encouraging wild conspiracy theories and virulent hate.
• A gun culture gone so crazy that it makes Jules Feiffer’s Little Murders (google it) look like a Zen convention.
• Advances in Artificial Intelligence that threaten the livelihoods of millions of people and encourage students to cheat.
• Virulent diseases against which we have no warning and less protection, exacerbated by anti-vaxxers and a major political party hostile to science.
• Politics so polarized that the extremist wings of each faction want to see the other party wiped from the planet.
• A climate gone bonkers, accompanied by escalating climate denial on social media.
• A former president who is an existential threat to the underpinnings of this country while skittish prosecutors hesitate to bring him to account.
• Confirmation of the increasingly strongly held suspicion that there are, in fact, individuals who are above the law.
• A lopsided tax regime that favors the super-wealthy at the expense of everyone else and fuels obscene income and wealth inequality.
• A broken healthcare system.
• More than 100,000 people dying of opioid addiction every year amidst a prohibitively expensive “War on Drugs” that we have been losing for 50 years.
• A chaotic immigration regime that congressional Republicans resist fixing because repairing it would deprive them of an issue they believe wins them votes.
• Rising racism and anti-Semitism encouraged by irresponsible political leaders and generating an epidemic of hate crimes.
• Democracy under siege here and around the world.
• Millions of homeless Americans.
• A party that intrudes into the most intimate decisions a woman must make while violently objecting to salutary public health measures such as vaccination.
• Librarians who must resort to hiding books.

 
Appalled by what we face, people increasingly retreat into their own cocoons, thus allowing the perpetrators of these ills to continue to damage our lives, our livelihoods and our institutions without electoral or legal consequences for the evils they inflict.
 
Congressional Republicans do not appear to have much interest in tackling our many problems. Responsible conservatism has lost out to performance art.
 
Meanwhile, the downbeat goes on. We can only hope it does not beat us to death.
 
Dick Hermann
February 5, 2023
​