George Santos, the newly elected representative from New York’s Third Congressional District, has admitted that he fabricated virtually all of the information on his resumé: education, work experience, finances, family background. The only truthful statement on this bogus document might be his name, but I wouldn’t necessarily take even that to the bank. Oh, did I mention that he also does not live in the Third District?
 
In interviews, after he duped voters into electing him under false pretenses, he admitted that he “embellished his resumé.” Embellished??? The resumé claims--

• he graduated from two institutions of higher learning that have no record of him ever being a student;
• he worked at two high-powered Wall Street firms that have no record of such employment;
• he and his family own 13 rental properties (which they don’t);
• and so much more.

 
Santos, however, did not stop inventing with just his resumé. His financial disclosure forms also appear to be direct from fantasyland.
 
The capstone on the fictional character he created was an appeal to the large Jewish population of his district based on his being a member of the tribe and his grandparents being Holocaust survivors (they somehow did this while never leaving Brazil). This is deeply offensive to those of us who really did lose family in the Holocaust.
 
It would be interesting to know what his constituents are saying now that they know they elected a fraud. But wait, this is nothing new. Didn’t Americans elect as president the biggest fraud of all time? Not to mention the hundreds of Republican members of Congress who even today continue to parrot Trump’s lies about a stolen election? Santos only lies when his lips and pen move. He will, however, really have to exert himself to approach the 30,573 lies Trump told while president.
 
Being a pathological liar like Trump is not exactly a deviation from the current Republican norm. On the contrary, Santos is a perfect fit for the GOP. This is the party cult, after all, that is all in with QAnon delusions about Democratic child sex traffickers, deep state pipedreams and attempts to pin the January 6 insurrection on either (a) leftists masquerading as Trumpites, or (b) Capitol “tourists” who did nothing wrong.
 
No organization tolerates lying on a resume. If federal employees do it, they can lose their jobs and also be tried for and convicted of perjury. Not, however, elected officials. There are no penalties for uncontrolled lying to win public office.
 
One has to wonder how a pathological liar could become a serious candidate for high office. Surely, the Republican establishment knew Santos was a scam artist long before the election. Apparently they didn’t care. All that counted was the pursuit of power, integrity be damned. See, for example, the many other GOP liars who ran for office in the recent mid-term elections.
 
But we must also wonder about the efficacy of Democratic opposition research, a component of every federal campaign. Uncovering the truth about George Santos’ litany of lies should have been easy pickings. The North Shore Leader, a tiny weekly Long Island newspaper, raised enough suspicions about Santos’ fabrications to alert both larger media outlets and his Democratic opponent.
 
Kevin McCarthy, of course, has not commented on Santos’ lies. He desperately needs his vote to be elected Speaker. Silently or even overtly condoning, and even applauding, lies and fraud is what Republican office holders now do. George Santos fits the mold perfectly.
 
Dick Hermann
December 30, 2022

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered his Churchillian address to Congress on December 21st, he was denied a full house. The 127 empty seats were all on the Republican side of the House chamber. Of those Republicans who did attend, seven—all charter members of the oxymoronic “Freedom Caucus”—Representatives Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Andrew Clyde, Diana Harshbarger, Warren Davidson, Michael Cloud and Jim Jordan, remained seated during the many standing ovations Zelenskyy received. They doubled down on their disrespect by not participating when applause was warranted. Three Republican Senators also did not attend Zelenskyy’s speech--Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), he of the January 6th fist-pump, and a few hours later, his cockroach-like scurry out of harm’s way when the insurrectionists got close.
 
I can think of four possible reasons these petty people insulted a foreign leader whose budding democracy is under an existential threat from a brutal, thug-dictator:

1. Lingering anger that Zelenskyy foiled disgraced President Trump’s 2019 attempt to coerce the Ukrainian president into digging up dirt on Joe Biden, whom Trump correctly feared would be his most formidable opponent in the 2020 election. Trump threatened to illegally withhold (and for a time did) much-needed military assistance from Ukraine despite its having been approved by Congress, unless Zelenskyy did his bidding. This led to Trump’s first impeachment.
2. Belief in Trump’s lie that it was Ukraine that meddled in the 2016 election in order to help Hillary Clinton, as opposed to Russia, whose intervention helped push Trump to victory. There is, of course, zero evidence that Ukraine had any involvement in the election, whereas there is a mountain of evidence that Russia went all-out to assist Trump (see, e.g., the Mueller Report).
3. Admiration for Vladimir Putin in line with Trump’s adulation of the Russian autocrat and envy at his ability to reign over his country unfettered by annoying restraints like the Constitution and the rule of law.
4. Anti-Semitism. After all, President Zelenskyy is Jewish (a stunning development given Ukraine’s dark, anti-Semitic past), and a significant chunk of the MAGAverse, including its most zealous acolytes such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Jewish space laser renown (she claimed they caused California forest fires), who share Trump’s anti-Semitic views. These folks are doubly aggravated that Ukraine’s Prime Minister is also a Jew.

 
Further Ukraine aid is in for a rough ride. Regardless of their reasons, the Ukraine-hating, Russia-loving Republican caucus is bound to make it difficult to continue to support Ukraine with arms and dollars once the calendar changes and they control the House of Representatives. Kevin McCarthy, who has sold what little remains of his soul to the extreme demands of the Freedom Caucus in his obsessive quest to become the first invertebrate Speaker, has already said that Ukraine will no longer receive a blank check once he is in command.
 
Fortunately, Senate Republicans, with the exception of the likes of Paul, Hawley, Lee and a handful of others, firmly support aiding Ukraine. For assistance to this heroic democracy to continue, it will take at least five House Republicans to break with their radical, pro-Russia colleagues and do the right thing.
 
Eighty-one years ago, almost to the day, Winston Churchill braved packs of German U-boats to come to the U.S. to thank us for assisting Great Britain in its existential battle against the forces of evil and to seal the wartime alliance between our two nations. When he spoke to a joint session of Congress, every member was present and mightily respectful of the Prime Minister. History did not repeat itself this time, thanks in large part to the nastiness of the Republican minnows who could not rise to the occasion, fueled once again by right-wing media hacks like Tucker Carlson, who raged against aiding Ukraine and mocked Zelenskyy’s wardrobe while running a chyron proclaiming another blatant lie: "ZELENSKY HAS DECLARED WAR ON CHRISTIANITY."
 
Dick Hermann
December 24, 2022

​After two years, 950,000+ documents reviewed, 42 hearings and public briefings, 37 staff reports and numerous interviews, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis just issued its Final Report--PREPARING FOR AND PREVENTING THE NEXT PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY: Lessons Learned from the Coronavirus Crisis. Almost no one ever reads government reports, including most members of Congress. However, this one should be a must-read for every member of Congress and every administration official with public health and related responsibilities. Sadly, it has received almost no attention from the mainstream print and broadcast media. My guess is that they consider the pandemic to be ancient history, an unpleasantness the public just wants to forget. In any event, the latest foolishness to spew forth from Donald Trump or the congressional Republicans’ “Kook and Clown” Caucus is much more entertaining to talk about than something really serious and complicated.
 
The Report is a superb piece of work. It lays out a detailed blueprint for future pandemic preparation. For that reason alone, it is a valuable contribution to U.S. public health planning.
 
But that is hardly the only item of interest in the Report. It also itemizes in painful detail the lies, misinformation, failings and shortcomings that comprised Donald Trump’s mishandling of the crisis and the resulting life-altering tragedies caused thereby. In addition to the extraordinary loss of life resulting from Trump’s deceit and incompetence, his administration’s botched oversight of the multi-billion dollar relief programs encouraged predatory actions by private actors, massive economic suffering disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable individuals and businesses, and colossal waste, fraud and abuse. This was the biggest failure of leadership in American history. Trump’s actions and inactions during the crisis amounted to nothing less than extreme criminal negligence.
 
Given its fatal repercussions, his Covid-19 criminality far exceeds even his theft of highly classified documents and his treasonous fomenting of the January 6 rebellion that attempted to overthrow the government. While five people died as a consequence of the storming of the Capitol by Trump’s revolutionary militia, hundreds of thousands perished due to his abysmal performance during the coronavirus crisis. Spurred on by the lies and misinformation he peddled during his daily chaotic television appearances in the early months of the crisis, millions of Americans refused to take the rational, life-saving measures healthcare professionals advised—mask-wearing, social distancing, frequent hand-washing, and most importantly, getting vaccinated. Instead, they responded defiantly to Trump’s politicization of these reasonable actions.
 
Trump’s Covid criminal negligence cries out to be added to the litany of criminal investigations of his despicable conduct in other areas. He and his enablers must not be allowed to avoid accountability for the suffering they imposed on the nation they were charged with protecting.
 
Dick Hermann
December 16, 2022

​The nation’s newest unaffordable bauble and flagrant waste of money, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, is already dead in the water. The Pentagon’s latest expensive toy cost taxpayers $13 billion, which turns out to be money down one of the Defense Department’s $10,000 toilets. Another name for this needless boondoggle might be USS Easy Target.
 
Both China and Russia possess hypersonic missiles that can travel at 10 times the speed of sound, or 7,670 miles per hour. Currently, the United States has no defense against them. A frantic move is afoot to develop laser weapons that could arguably intercept hypersonic missiles. However, deployment of lasers that could manage this is not going to happen tomorrow. It’s a long-term proposition, with no guarantee of success. Unlike anti-intercontinental ballistic missile systems, hypersonic weapons do not necessarily fly in a predictable parabolic path. Their unpredictable, zig-zag flight paths and maneuverability makes them more difficult to detect, track and intercept. Northrup Grumman hopes to have a testable laser defense weapon ready in 2027 at the earliest.
 
Picture the Ford patrolling the South China Sea in the Taiwan Strait. If China launched a hypersonic missile from its coastal battery, the carrier would have less than 45 seconds to detect the missile and fire a laser weapon if it actually had one. At three-and-a-half football fields in length, the Gerald R. Ford is the largest aircraft carrier afloat. Its size means that the folks firing hypersonic missiles at it would not have to worry much about precision targeting. It would be like hitting the broad side of a barn from inside the barn.
 
U.S. intelligence has known for years that Russia and China were developing hypersonic weapons. Nevertheless, the Navy with congressional encouragement continued to go ahead with the carrier project. The existing 10-carrier fleet, accounting for more than 20 percent of the world’s carriers and more than 50 percent of all carrier deck space, was apparently not enough to provide easy pickings for our hypersonic missile-armed adversaries.
 
Having learned nothing from innumerable prior defense debacles, and demonstrating little concern for the good of the nation, Congress is in the process of approving an $858 billion defense authorization bill. This obscene amount of taxpayer largesse thrown at the Pentagon is larger than the defense budgets of the next nine big defense spender countries. It is the poster child for government waste, fraud, abuse and monumental mismanagement. The bill is full of goodies intended to satisfy every state and congressional district and thus secure the votes of virtually every member of Congress without hesitation or even bothering to read the bill.  Moreover, we have become so numbed to grossly inflated defense budgets that one approaching a trillion dollars warrants almost no attention from the media and elicits no outrage from a public which is being fleeced annually.
 
My best advice: Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be sailors on the Ford.
 
Dick Hermann
December 16, 2022

​“Peak Oil” is the term that describes the point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production will be reached, after which production will begin its long decline to exhaustion of the resource. Right now we may be witnessing something similar happening to the global authoritarian movement that, until very recently, appeared to be on its way to conquering the world.
 
What looked like the steady and inevitable advance of dictatorial regimes around the globe suddenly doesn’t seem so inexorable anymore. Four of the “Big Five” planetary despots—China’s Xi Jinping, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and America’s wannabe despot, Donald Trump (the fifth is North Korea’s Kim Jong Un)—are suddenly on the defensive. Each one of these autocrats has recently been stunned by a triggering event, the eventual outcome of which is uncertain but nevertheless revealing of their inherent weaknesses and threatening their long-term survivability.
 
Xi’s mishandling of Covid-19 has suddenly come back to bite him. What began as protests against his draconian Covid lockdown policy, now into its third year, has spread from factory to university and from Shanghai in the east to Urumqi in the far west. Because ideas spread like wildfire in the social media age, the idea of freedom and democracy has emerged from what began as a protest against a specific government policy to questioning the very legitimacy of the Chinese Communist dictatorship and Xi’s presidency. The inevitable brutal crackdown by Xi’s thugs may stifle the protests, but the resistance germ is not likely to be forgotten. Xi is in a tough spot. If he relaxes the lockdown policy, many more people will contract Covid in a country where the domestically-produced vaccines are not very effective and where the vaccination rate is low. Anger is spreading faster than Covid, and Xi has no vaccine for that.
 
What began almost three months ago as an anti-government protest by Iran’s Kurdish minority against the death of young Mahsa Amini for not adequately covering her hair with a hijab quickly morphed into a demand for regime change prompted by women who could no longer tolerate their second-class status. Government suppression has been ruthless, but the protesters remain undeterred. The deaths of more than 500 protesters, including 40 children, have only incited more protests and greater demands for freedom and democracy.
 
Vladimir Putin’s horrific aggression against Ukraine and Russia’s numerous war crimes against the civilian population have thus far ignited only sporadic protests inside Russia. However, the more body bags that are returned to families who have lost loved ones to Putin’s butchery, the more likely it is that the Russian people will clamor for not only an end to his Ukrainian adventure, but also for an end to Putin. Moreover, the example of Ukraine’s heroic resistance to a dictator is inspiring people in China and Iran to question their own despotic regimes.
 
It is a sad commentary on the state of the Republican Party and the evangelical movement that the only reason they appear to be moving away, albeit ever so meekly, from Donald Trump is because his most ardent MAGA candidate/election deniers got stomped in the midterm elections. Neither his cruelty, his incompetence, his lack of a moral core, nor his reprehensible behavior was sufficient to warrant his denunciation by his adherents. Nevertheless, we should applaud any reason for his loss of support. It is ironic that while the American MAGAverse yearns for autocracy, the Chinese, Iranians and a growing number of Russians yearn for democracy.
 
This all may be premature, but my sense is that something is happening now that is encouraging for the forces of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. In an age when controlling people-to-people communication is increasingly difficult for repressive regimes (China cut off World Cup broadcasts because people could see tens of thousands of mask-less spectators crammed into stadiums), the days of tyrants may be limited. The center of gravity appears to be moving toward democracy.   
 
Dick Hermann
December 2, 2022