​Buried in the daily assault on our overburdened capacity to process condemnatory information about Donald Trump is a recent House of Representatives report revealing that numerous countries spent, “often lavishly,” on properties—hotels and apartments—owned by Trump while he was President. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a report documenting in detail at least $7.8 million in foreign government payments Trump’s businesses received while he was in the White House. The House Report says that the real number of payoffs (bribes?) by foreign interests was likely much higher. This is information that should automatically disqualify anyone who aspires to high office, but has not in the case of “Honest Don,” as he recently anointed himself.
 
These payments are unconstitutional, immoral and illegal.
 
There are actually two Emoluments Clauses in the Constitution. The Foreign Emoluments Clause, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8, prohibits the President and every other person holding a position of trust with the United States government from accepting gifts or “emoluments (profits and benefits) of any kind whatsoever” from foreign governments without first obtaining “Consent of the Congress.” Also banned are any payments from corporations and other entities controlled by foreign governments.
 
The Domestic Emoluments Clause, Article II, Section 1, Clause 7, is a blanket prohibition against the President receiving any sort of advantage from any state government, or from the federal government.
 
Trump in office violated both Emoluments Clauses with impunity numerous times. Also, as he refused to put his businesses in a blind trust, his misconduct began at noon on January 20, 2017 and continued until he stole out of office four years later. Once again, he crossed red lines that none of his predecessors dared traverse. And, once again, he has escaped accountability for his wrongdoing.
 
The House report cites illegal gifts from leaders or government officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, India, China and Afghanistan. The Chinese alone paid more than $5.5 million to Trump-owned properties.
 
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, wrote in the foreword to the report that “Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent.”
 
The Emoluments Clauses made it into the Constitution because the framers were concerned about the potential for foreign governments to corrupt American officials. Until Donald Trump came along, this was a non-issue.
 
There have only been three cases in our history that sought to enforce the Emoluments Clauses. All three were brought against Trump and all three, once they made it to the Supreme Court, were dismissed without addressing the merits. The Court’s refusal to rule one way or another had the practical effect of approving Trump’s illegality and encouraging him to profit from the presidency again should he be elected in November.
 
The Court having bailed on the issue, it is up to Congress to legislate in order to clarify who can enforce these constitutional provisions if we are to curb future abuses and concerns over foreign financial entanglements that could jeopardize national security. Trump previously disregarded the Constitution and now openly disdains it, having announced that he prefers that it be “suspended” should he return to power.
 
This is scary stuff and a clear and present danger that must be avoided.
 
Dick Hermann
March 30, 2024

​With the possible exception of the breakaway Republican Progressive (“Bull-Moose”) Party in 1912, third parties have never come remotely close to electing a U.S. President.  Even then, the Roosevelt insurgency, which finished second, only garnered 27 percent of the popular vote and a meager 88 electoral votes to over 400 for Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Nevertheless, the Republican split ensured a Democratic victory.
 
A distant second among third-party efforts was Ross Perot’s 19 percent (along with zero electoral votes) in 1992. However, Perot’s presence took enough votes away from incumbent President George H.W. Bush to gift the presidency to Bill Clinton.
 
What is happening today among the pie-in-the-sky crowd should strike terror in the hearts of Joe Biden and Democrats. There is no question that the third-party candidacies of Cornel West, Jill Stein and especially Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are going to take votes away from Biden and make Donald Trump’s path to the presidency much easier. While RFK, Jr. may also pull away some Trump voters, they won’t be enough to give Biden much of a boost. Add the whackadoodle “No Labels” irritant to the mix (to date they have not named a candidate, having been turned down by Joe Manchin, Larry Hogan and Kyrsten Sinema) and the Biden folks must be near panic.
 
Several years ago, I met a woman who had spent much of her career working directly for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She extolled his virtues and dismissed what I said about his outré views about vaccines, which I opined were incredibly dangerous coming from someone whose last name was still revered by millions of Americans. And therein lies the Democrats’ biggest problem. Despite his alarming anti-vaccine nonsense along with the barrage of additional disinformation and garbage science he vomits at his rallies, the Kennedy name is enough for millions of Americans who don’t know much about his crazy conspiracy utterances or the fact that he has been disavowed by virtually the entire Kennedy family. RFK, Jr. is even fundraising via sales of his 10-year old book that, among other false claims, maintains that polio isn't caused by a virus and that the polio vaccine "doesn't work." In fact, Kennedy’s co-author said in a recent interview that “there are no worthwhile vaccines, not even smallpox or tetanus, and certainly not the polio vaccine." Yikes!
 
Unfortunately, the public has a short memory concerning the devastation and anguish wrought by diseases that have largely been eradicated by vaccines. They have forgotten what life was like when polio ran rampant and parents felt helpless and kept their kids away from swimming pools, public libraries, Good Humor vendors and sometimes even schools. Then, when someone with the name “Kennedy” comes along and vilifies vaccines, his celebrity overcomes his madness. This differs little from the MAGA crowd that still believes that Trump is a huge business success because he played a titan on TV, despite his innumerable real-world business failures.
 
The truth, of course, is that vaccines have saved hundreds of millions of lives since the 1950s, and that some of the virulent diseases that they have prevented have all but disappeared thanks to them.
 
When third parties do make a difference as to which major party candidate prevails, it is often due to public inattention and ignorance. In 2016, the Green Party’s Jill Stein and the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson received over 5 million votes and more than enough votes in the “battleground” states to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency. In Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Stein alone drew enough votes from Clinton to assure Trump the presidency.
 
This kind of perverted result can happen again this year. A vote for one of these minor candidates with no hope of winning is a vote for Donald Trump. These nonentities are a serious threat, not only to Joe Biden, but also to the survival of America as we know and value it. Democrats cannot only focus their attention and ad spending on Trump. They must also do all in their power to dissuade voters from pulling the lever for Kennedy, Stein et al.
 
Dick Hermann
March 23, 2024

​Among his many horrific policy proposals for a second term, Donald Trump recently vowed not to “give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate." He then repeated his “defund the schools” call later that day. So we know that, to the extent the addled Republican nominee can keep anything straight in his muddled brain, he means it.
 
This plunge into MAGA dystopia should raise alarm bells for every American. Experts say that Trump's school vaccine plan will spark a "public health catastrophe." While there are countless reasons why this catastrophe of a candidate should never come close to power again, this may be the most compelling reason to keep him as far away as possible from the Oval Office.
 
Every state, the District of Columbia and the territories have vaccination requirements for children attending childcare facilities and schools. These have been highly effective in preventing the spread of numerous serious diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, polio, etc.  Millions of lives have been saved. Vaccine mandates have been perhaps the greatest public health initiative in history.
 
Leave it to Trump, wallowing in his colossal ignorance and, as always, thinking only of himself and his own political prospects, to suggest that keeping Americans safe from virulent disease is somehow an affront to personal freedom. I suppose in the upside-down MAGA world, the freedom to become ill, make others sick and risk unnecessary death is a positive.
 
There was a time in America when the development of breakthrough vaccines was hailed as an incredible triumph. The story of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines is illustrative.
 
Polio, a.k.a. infantile paralysis, was a devastating disease that invoked alarm in post-World War II parents. So much so that millions kept their children inside, away from swimming pools and other activities where they might encounter the polio virus. Twenty-five percent of children who contracted polio died. Thousands of others were condemned to living in the prison of an iron lung. Photos of these suffering kids struck terror in American families.
 
Then, in the mid-1950s, along came Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine. Virtually every school child in the nation was inoculated. The nationwide sigh of relief was palpable.
 
There were no lunatic anti-vaxxers like Trump or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., or quacks like Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo around to throw a wet blanket on the country’s elation. People eagerly and enthusiastically lined their kids up to be protected against the polio scourge. Life for countless Americans went back to normal.
 
A vote for Trump and any of the other crazies who rail against vaccines is a vote in favor of risking death for children and their parents. This is apparently acceptable to Trump who continues his know-nothing harangues against vaccination. A logical follow-up for someone whose botched maladministration of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the avoidable death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
 
The anti-vaccine message is getting through. Measles, for which a vaccine has been available since 1963 and which was believed to be eradicated, is making a comeback. The latest COVID booster vaccination rate is below 20 percent. In Florida, the poster state for anti-vaxxers, it is 7.7 percent. As many as 200,000 Americans may have died unvaccinated against COVID since vaccines were approved three years ago.
 
Trump’s fatwas against school vaccine mandates drew raucous applause from his audiences. Herd stupidity is alive and well in America. If the MAGAts practice what he preaches, the herd will diminish significantly.
 
Why is it that Trump’s and the GOP’s policies appear to invariably promote death? In addition to opposing vaccination, they are: anti-mask; pro-assault weapons; against Obamacare; against dealing with climate change; wanting Americans to work until they die (a favorite mantra of Ben Shapiro, the right-wing mouthpiece who is the GOP’s most desperate Josef Goebbels wannabe); and favor fascist thug gangster dictators like Vladimir Putin who delight in killing people. Oh, and lest we forget, last week Trump once again ventured onto the “third rail of American politics,” espousing cuts to Social Security and Medicare.*
 
*His reason? His $2 Trillion tax cut for the wealthy expires next year. He wants to extend it with a $3.3 Trillion tax cut for himself and his billionaire buddies, slashing entitlement programs to pay for it.
 
To say that Donald Trump is bad for your health is the understatement of the century. Should he win in November, my best advice is (1) stay inside, (2) home-school your kids, and (3) invest in iron lung manufacturers.
 
Dick Hermann
March 15, 2024

​There’s still time for Democrats to field a stronger presidential candidate than Joe Biden. Lyndon Johnson bowed out on March 31, 1968. However, to quote SNL’s Dana Carvey playing George H.W. Bush: “Not gonna happen.”
 
So, as it appears inevitable that their presidential nominee will be Joe Biden, Democrats must strategize how they are going to climb the steep electoral hill in front of them. Biden’s fiery State of the Union speech was a good beginning. Several suggestions for continuing the positive momentum follow:
 
Adopt a Team Approach
 
When we elect a President, we not only choose one person to lead the nation; we choose an entire team. Biden’s perceived weaknesses—age, visible lack of vigor, inexplicably getting zero credit for his achievements—must be compensated for by demonstrating one obvious and very powerful contrast with his opponent: his formidable team of advisors.
 
Compare and contrast the Biden and Trump teams—both past and future—and its no contest. Biden’s is young, stable, scandal-free and highly competent. In contrast, Trump’s former team of mostly quacks and hacks brought us chaos, corruption and a level of ineptitude not seen since Warren Harding’s untidy presidency a hundred years ago. Should Trump be re-elected, however, his former team will look like Nobel laureates and rocket scientists in comparison to the wrecking crew of toadies and losers with whom he will surround himself. He has already told us that the sole qualification for cabinet office will be their servile loyalty to him. Anyone with a spine, decency and dignity won’t go near him.
 
The turnover of cabinet members and White House (WH) officials during Trump’s term was unprecedented. His turnover rate of senior advisors exceeded that of his five predecessors combined.  Here is just a small sampling: 4 Attorneys-General; 4 Secretaries of Defense; 4 Homeland Security Secretaries; 4 WH Chiefs of Staff; 5 Deputy WH Chiefs of Staff; 5 WH Communications Directors; 4 WH Press Secretaries; 4 National Security Advisors; 6 Deputy National Security Advisors. In contrast, Biden’s administration has experienced one of the lowest turnover rates in history.
 
Another glaring difference is the number of Trump cabinet and White House officials who left under a legal or ethical cloud: Remember Michael Flynn? Tom Price? Ryan Zinke? Steve Bannon? Rob Porter?  David Shulkin?...to name just a few. Biden’s unblemished record in this respect is a stark contrast.
 
In a second Trump administration, you can also forget the handful of ostensible “guardrail” types that occasionally cropped up in his first term: James Mattis at Defense; Dan Coats as Director of National Intelligence; White House Chief of Staff John Kelly; Henry McMaster, the National Security Advisor. They did not last long and they proved inadequate guardrails indeed. Trump II won’t have even shaky guardrails to protect us from his depredations.
 
The great strength represented by the Biden team will go unrecognized by voters unless they get out there as surrogates and campaign vigorously on behalf of their boss. They should be everywhere, all the time, all at once touting both the administration’s achievements and its plans for a second term designed to improve Americans’ lives. An added benefit of this strategy would be the obvious manifestation of their youth and energy.
 
Flip the Coattail Effect
 
This means actively involving down-ballot candidates. Democrats have a quality field of aspirants for the Senate, House and governorships. They need to get out there and explain why it is not only important, but critical that the country vote “blue” up and down the ticket if voters want anything constructive to get done. A Republican President, Senate or House will only be an obstruction to improving American lives unless one happens to be a billionaire or is more interested in performance art than governing.
 
Enlist the Bench
 
The Democrats have a deep and impressive bench in state houses, mayoral offices and on Capitol Hill. People like Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, Gavin Newsom, Roy Cooper, Maura Healy, Katie Hobbs, Laura Kelly, Michelle Lujan Grisham, Wes Moore, Jared Polis and Tim Walz among the Governors; Mayors like Kate Gallego (Phoenix), Ron Nirenberg (San Antonio), Paige Cognetti (Scranton), Todd Gloria (San Diego), Karen Bass (Los Angeles), Donna Deegan (Jacksonville) and Michelle Wu (Boston); Senators like Michael Bennet, Mark Kelly, Chris Murphy, Raphael Warnock, John Ossoff, Tammy Duckworth, Chris Van Hollen, Amy Klobuchar, Catherine Cortez Masto and Cory Booker, and a slew of articulate and dynamic House members such as Jamie Raskin, Elissa Slotkin, Debbie Dingell, Mary Peltola, Rho Khanna, Doris Matsui, Pete Aguilar, Ted Lieu, Josh Gottheimer and many, many others.
 
All of the aforementioned Democratic politicians are accomplished and should be out on the hustings reminding voters that Democrats are laser-focused on governing and making lives better, as opposed to their Republican counterparts, power-hungry culture warriors in it for themselves, period.
 
Compare and Contrast
 
There is an ocean of video of Trump saying evil and unintelligible things that the Biden campaign should hammer both the airwaves and social media with for the next eight months. Let him demonstrate how uninformed, ignorant and dangerous he would be as President. These could be packaged so as to contrast them with what Biden said/says on the same topic.
 
Voters have very short memories. They need constant reminders of the perils of a Trump return to power.
 
Do a Harry Truman
 
Biden needs to harp on the theme of the “Do Nothing” Congress, the least productive in memory, and tie its inaction and House Republican anarchy to Trump’s malevolent influence. In fact, incorporating a Truman-esque “whistle stop” campaign might not be a bad idea.
 
Educate the Public About What’s At Stake
 
We see and hear tons of moaning about the threat to democracy. Polls, however, indicate that large numbers of Americans do not understand what democracy is and why it is so far superior to the dictatorship Trump has in mind. Biden and his surrogates need to compensate for that educational void.
 
Another component of the Biden education effort needs to be devoted to why NATO is essential and what will happen if Putin is allowed to defeat Ukraine.
 
Repeat: Putin, Putin, Putin
 
There needs to be constant messaging about Putin’s U.S. agents and Trump’s adulation of butchering tyrants like Putin, Kim, Xi and the Iranian Ayatollahs.
 
Don’t Ignore the Middle East
 
Biden is now on the right track criticizing Israel for the manner in which it is conducting the Gaza War, demanding a cease-fire, providing aid to Gazans and re-orienting American policy toward a two-state solution. This must be coupled with security guarantees for the only Middle East democracy.
 
Foreign policy does not usually swing voters, but this time may be different.
 
Don’t Hide the President
 
Biden needs to be much more visible. I sense that his campaign staff wants to keep him away from the media and public because they believe that visibility only emphasizes his age and physical affect. However, those are a given. Keeping him locked up only bakes in that impression in voters’ minds. Letting him loose to respond to reporters’ and voters’ questions is the best way to demonstrate both his stamina and mental acuity. Not to mention the contrast it draws with his severely cognitively challenged opponent who does not know who is President (Biden? Obama?) or who was Speaker of the House on January 6, 2021 (Nancy Pelosi? Nikki Haley?).
 
These are only some of the suggested tactics that Biden needs to implement if he is to sway enough voters to turn out and pull the lever for him and Democrats in general. There are others, of course, assuming that his campaign can walk and chew gum at the same time.
 
At this juncture, it appears that Biden needs to embark on a pro-active, multi-pronged strategy. Time is getting short.
 
Dick Hermann
March 9, 2024

​The current debate about which of the two presumptive presidential nominees is showing his age and diminished cognition more is both (a) ridiculous and (b) a reminder of past errors of judgment by voters. Trump’s bombast, fury, tone of voice and yes, even unconstrained cruelty somehow give the misimpression that he is more vigorous than Joe Biden. Biden, in contrast, comes across as normal, calm and somewhat subdued. While these are low-key qualities that contributed to his election after Trump’s four years of wild, screeching bedlam, voters’ memories are short and when the electorate is angry, tranquility may not be viewed as a positive trait. This is aside from their respective diminished capacity problems where, while both garble speeches and mix up foreign (and in Trump’s case, also domestic) leaders’ names and nations, it is clear that Biden’s occasional gaffes and the remaining vestiges of his childhood stutter don’t come close to Trump’s daily bewilderment, garbled vocalizations and increasing inability to express coherent thoughts.
 
The age issue is absurd because both men are old by any objective standard. In fact, they were already the oldest-ever candidates four years ago, and neither has pulled off a Benjamin Button age reversal since then. That our choice is between two men who are giving Methusaleh a run is yet another indication that we have arrived at a presidential selection inflection point. More on that in a future Rant.
 
Considering physical health, it is apparent that Biden has lost a step. He walks stiffly and moves more slowly than heretofore. However, he works out, stays slim and, if his doctors’ reports following his annual physicals can be believed, likely does not harbor any age-associated problems such as a propensity to heart attacks or strokes. Trump, in contrast, is obese. He claims to carry around 215 lbs on a 6’3” frame. Actually, he is a blimp, lugging around 265 lbs on a 6’1” body. What we know of his dietary habits—McDonald’s, Diet Cokes and multiple desserts—make him a poster child for risky eating behavior. The odds of either surviving a full term in office are chancy. Even so, Biden’s fundamental good health positions him better to do so despite his greater age.
 
American voters have a history of being easily gulled by the superficial behavior of their presidential candidates. In 1972, Richard Nixon was viewed as significantly more robust than George McGovern. He talked tough, bolstered by a gruff demeanor where a scowl was his natural affect. McGovern, in contrast, came across as mild-mannered, somewhat cerebral and not always certain that his proposals were absolutely the right ones. The irony was that while Nixon spent World War II playing poker and sunning himself far out of harm’s way on South Pacific beaches, McGovern was piloting B-24 Liberators in 35 combat missions over Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. Nixon received no medals for his poker prowess. McGovern earned the Distinguished Flying Cross among a slew of other medals for heroism and valor. Who do you think was the real macho man?
 
In 1980, Ronald Reagan, possibly already at the beginning stages of early-onset Alzheimer’s, was viewed as much the more manly man than Jimmy Carter. He was taller and read his lines with an actor’s certainty. Confused by his war movie canon, he was under the delusion that he had participated in liberating concentration camps in Europe at the end of the war. What he was actually doing was making war movies on Hollywood sets. Carter was part of the nuclear Navy, an incredibly difficult job calling for both a prodigious intellect and steely physical toughness. Once again, voters were duped into pinning labels on candidates that were undeserved and deviated from reality.
 
Despite having been the youngest Naval aviator in World War II, flying 58 combat missions and being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals and a Presidential Unit Citation, George H.W. Bush was pinned with the undeserved label of being a “wimp.” It was not a good look when Margaret Thatcher admonished him not to go all “wobbly” on her. Bill Clinton, his 1992 opponent and a draft-dodger, suffered little at the ballot box for having avoided military service.
 
Donald Trump is a unique presidential candidate in that myths about him run rampant. These myths are taken by his supporters to be gospel truths. They are not only limited to misperceptions of his non-existent “tough guy” qualities. Remember, this is the tough guy whose supposed bone spurs did not prevent him from running away from serving his country and who often demonstrates his insecurities about his escape by ridiculing soldiers and their sacrifice.
 
With Trump, fallacies pervade every aspect of his being. He first ran for president steeped in the chimera of great business success, premised primarily on an unreal reality television show in which he played something he decidedly was not—a successful business tycoon. In real life, he was a colossal business failure, marked by six bankruptcies including four casinos during a time when most other casinos were swimming in money and overflowing with success. He also had to shut down numerous failed businesses that he had wildly misjudged and/or mismanaged. A partial list follows: the United States Football League; the Trump University mega-con; Trump Vodka; the Trump Shuttle; Trump Mortgage LLC; GoTrump.com, a travel business; Trump Steaks; the Trump Foundation scam; Trump-the Game; Trump’s American Pale Ale; Trump Magazine; Trumpnet; Trump Fragrances; and Trump Mattresses. Absent the almost half-a-billion dollars he inherited, he would likely have gone through life sleeping on a heating grate because no one could possibly tolerate him sharing a warming center.
 
Add to the Trump mix that he has been found by juries to be a defrauder, a sexual predator, a defamer, and soon likely a major criminal, and the image of him as a macho man appears even more laughable.
 
Dick Hermann
March 2, 2024