The International Order of Saint Hubertus

Just when all of the outlandish conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia seemed to be fading away, revelations worthy of a conspiracy theory surfaced today. The fact that the 79-year old Scalia died suddenly in his bed really should not strike anyone as terribly suspicious, considering his age and health problems, but that certainly didn't stop the rumor mill. His doctor released a letter saying in part that "...Scalia had been suffering from coronary artery disease, obesity, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and high blood pressure - alongside being a smoker." He also suffered from sleep apnea and a breathing machine was at his bedside, but he wasn't hooked up to it when he was found dead. In short, he was a prime candidate to suffer a catastrophic cardiac/pulmonary event that would result in death. And that appears to be exactly what happened on the evening of February 13th. His family did not want an autopsy, and the cause of death was listed as being of natural causes. And I have to believe that the conspiracy theories floating around would have themselves died a natural death in fairly short order.

But now we have to contend with the fascinating fact that Scalia spent his final hours of life in the company of the members of a "secret" society of hunters. I used the quote marks because it seems to me that any organization with a website can't be all that concerned with secrecy, and this description is from that website: "The international, male-only order was founded in Bohemia in 1695 by Count Franz Anton von Sporck, an avid hunter and patron of the arts, and carries the motto "Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes," Latin for "Honoring God by honoring His creatures." Members wear dark green robes with that motto and a cross. The Order of St. Hubertus counts among its past members many members of the Hapsburg family and other Holy Roman Empire nobility, including Emperor Charles VI, and its current Grand Master is His Imperial and Royal Highness Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary."

The U.S. branch of the Order was inaugurated in 1966 at San Francisco's Bohemian Club, and that fact alone will surely cause the hearts of the conspiracy minded to beat a bit faster. And that, of course, is because the Bohemian Club happens to be the owner of the Bohemian Grove. So far, I haven't seen any evidence that Justice Scalia was a member of the Order of Saint Hubertus, but we know for certain that John Poindexter is a member. And Poindexter, of course, is both the owner of the Texas ranch where Scalia died and the man who discovered his body. He is also identified as being one of the men in the photograph at the top of the page. The occasion was the induction of four Houstonians into the Order of Saint Hubertus, and John Poindexter is described as the leader of the Southwest Priory. 

They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind

A rather revealing admission by the winner of the Nevada GOP caucus. At first glance, Trump appears to be denigrating the very people who are propelling him to victory, and that is how a number of news outlets are spinning his words today. This would seem to reinforce an already existing narrative about Trump, one that is best illustrated by an internet meme that has been floating around for months:

As much as Trump's opponents would love to believe that he actually called Republican voters the "dumbest group of voters in the country", there is absolutely no evidence that he ever said it. The quote has been thoroughly debunked by now, but continues making the rounds on social media. But even if it were an accurate quote, I seriously doubt that it would make the slightest difference to the people who are supporting Donald Trump. They appear to be completely impervious to any of the arguments being made against their candidate. In fact, I suspect that they will embrace the status of having been "poorly educated" as a badge of honor. And why shouldn't they? After all, they have clearly backed a winner in Donald Trump.

The Republican Party has been courting a disaster like this for decades now, and it has finally come to fruition. I don't know if Trump actually holds his supporters in contempt, because of their ignorance, but I know for damn sure that the GOP establishment certainly does. They have courted those poorly educated voters by appealing to their emotions, rather than their intellect. GOP candidates play to their anger and fear by invoking things like abortion, gay rights, and immigration. They get them all fired up, and collect their votes on election day, but then proceed to do absolutely nothing about any of the issues they campaigned on. What they do instead is pass regressive legislation that disproportionately impacts the very people who voted them into office. The author Thomas Frank did an excellent job of explaining this dynamic in his book titled What's the Matter with Kansas. I read it 10 years ago, when it was first published, and suspect that it only become more relevant with the passing of a decade.

English Only

I came across an interesting bit of presidential trivia earlier this evening. If Donald J. Trump becomes our next president, his wife will have the distinction of being only the second First Lady that was born outside of the United States. Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, wife of President John Quincy Adams, was born in London on February 12, 1775. She was the daughter of an Englishwoman and an American merchant. John Quincy's father, John Adams, was the American consul general in London during the 1790s, and that is how his son made the acquaintance of Louisa Catherine. Interestingly enough, John Adams initially objected to his son marrying a woman born outside the United States but eventually relented and welcomed her into the family.

Melania Knauss Trump was born on April 26, 1970 in the town of Sevnica in what was then Yugoslavia. At the age of 16, Melania began working as a model and would move to the United States in 1997 to continue pursuing what was already a very successful career. She met Donald Trump in 1998, and the couple would marry on January 22, 2005. They have a 10-year old son named Barron William Trump. Melania Trump is fluent in no fewer than five languages: English, French, Slovenian, Serbian, and German. And Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Secretary of State John Kerry, can also boast of fluency in five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian.

However, I highly doubt that Trump will be trumpeting his wife's remarkable linguistic abilities on the campaign trail. His presidential campaign contains very distinct strains of both nativism and xenophobia, and Trump has loudly championed an "English only" policy for this country. He actually scolded rival Jeb Bush for having the temerity to answer a reporter's question in Spanish. And I distinctly recall Teresa Heinz Kerry being viewed with suspicion, rather than admired, for her very exotic background. She was born in Mozambique, in 1938, when the country was still a Portuguese colony. During the 2004 presidential general election, President George W. Bush, and his wife Laura, were presented as the "true Americans" by virtue of the fact that they rarely traveled abroad and only spoke English. Bush's rival John Kerry spoke French, and was widely mocked because of it. A commonly heard joke among Bush supporters was that Kerry even "looked French". But, so far as I'm aware, Donald Trump is himself untainted by any contamination with other languages. And you can be damn sure that the only language we will hear coming out of Melania's lovely mouth will be her heavily accented English.

Biden Rules

“I sadly predict, Mr. President that this is going to be one of the bitterest, dirtiest presidential campaigns we will have seen in modern times,” he said. “I’m sure Mr. President, after having uttered these words some, some will criticize such a decisions and say it was nothing more than an attempt to save a seat on the court in hopes that a Democrat will be permitted to fill it.”

Say it ain't so, Joe. On June 25, 1992 then-Senator Joe Biden delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor during which he made almost exactly the same arguments we have hearing from Republicans on the question of replacing a Supreme Court justice in a presidential election year. In 1992, Biden was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he was addressing a hypothetical situation. There was no vacancy on the Supreme Court, at the time he made the speech, and Biden is now arguing that his views are being misinterpreted. Still, this will provide plenty of ammunition for Republicans, and the current Judiciary Committee chairman Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa immediately pounced on the opportunity to turn the tables:

“These are the Biden rules. The Biden Rules recognize that under these circumstances, quote, ‘The president should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not name a nominee until after the November election is completed'."

If Joe Biden weren't the sitting vice president this wouldn't be quite as troublesome for President Obama. But Biden just sat down with Rachel Maddow this past week, and flatly dismissed the Republican argument for delaying the nomination until after the next president is inaugurated. And I can't help but wonder if Biden had been sweating bullets these past days wondering if this speech was going to surface. His prediction about the 1992 election was a bit hyperbolic, and it would fall short of his dire warnings, but what he said could certainly be applied to the 2016 presidential election.

The Debateful Eight

Blabbermouth

Back to the Future

This is the latest edition of Poland's wSieci (The Network) magazine, and it is provoking no small amount of controversy. The headline reads "Islamic Rape of Europe", but I question whether a translation is even necessary. The girl is obviously supposed to represent white Christian Europe, and those swarthy hands groping her are presumably attached to Muslim men. There is nothing even remotely subtle about this imagery, and the accompanying articles are titled "Does Europe Want to Commit Suicide" and "The Hell of Europe". In the opening article, Aleksandra Rybinska writes, “The people of old Europe after the events of New Year’s Eve in Cologne painfully realised the problems arising from the massive influx of immigrants. The first signs that things were going wrong, however, were there a lot earlier. They were still ignored or were minimised in significance in the name of tolerance and political correctness.”

The European far right, which this magazine represents, is sounding the alarm. They argue that Europe is being overrun by hordes of Muslim migrants who are responsible for a rape epidemic, as evidenced by the multiple sexual assaults that took place in Cologne, Germany on New Year's Eve. Obviously, a potentially severe backlash is shaping up in Europe. A number of commentators are putting this sort of imagery in historic context by comparing it to similar images created by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. And a quick google search quickly yielded a number of relevant examples, such as this one:

Jeb Zimmerman

Jeb Bush might have grown up in Texas, and served as the governor of the gun-crazy State of Florida, but he is never going to convince anyone that he is an authentic gun guy. Earlier today, he tweeted out the word "America" with this photograph of a semi-automatic handgun. The social media response has been brutal, and it is by no means only coming from the left. The first thing that came to my mind was that world famous varmint hunter, Willard Mitt Romney, who at least had the good sense not to attempt anything this pathetic and desperate. Any residual respect that I had for Jeb Bush evaporated the moment I saw the tweet. His campaign is long on dollars, and short on just about everything else. The people managing this train wreck are getting rewarded handsomely for running what will surely stand as one of the very worst presidential campaigns in American political history. They just better make sure that gun isn't anywhere within Jeb's reach when the South Carolina primary returns come in. Because, at this point, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he comes in behind Ben Carson, and maybe a few candidate who aren't even in the race anymore.

Patriarch Kirill Killin It In Cuba

via GIPHY

The Pope's Dream Team

Prior to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, over the weekend, six out of the nine members of the Supreme Court were Roman Catholics. The other three are Jewish. On the face of it, one could charitably view that makeup as being evidence of our nation's religious tolerance. Because, after all, there is a long history of discrimination against both Catholics and Jews in this country. In fact, to this day, we have only elected one Catholic to the office of president of the United States and no Jew has ever been president.

So, if a religious test exists for the highest office in the land, it clearly doesn't exist for the Supreme Court. All of the tributes being paid to Justice Scalia, in the wake of his unexpected death, talk about how strongly he was influenced by his Catholic faith. And of course that aspect of his life is always presented as a positive good, at least by the mainstream media commentators. But, when I did a google search posing the question Why are so many members of the Supreme Court Catholic? some interesting things came up. And what particularly struck me is how perfectly the rightward tilt of the court, over the past several decades, mirrors the steadily increasing percentage of Catholic members. I don't think that is a coincidence. 

The Roman Catholic Church is a deeply, and fundamentally, conservative institution that stands firmly opposed to many, if not most, elements of contemporary American society and culture. And I am hardly being hyperbolic. What I just wrote about the Catholic Church is an unimpeachable statement of fact. The Vatican cannot even bring itself to approve the use of contraceptives, let alone recognize things like gay marriage or abortion rights. And both of those issues have been fiercely contested issues in the cultural wars that have roiled our politics for at least the past quarter-century. It stands to reason that, in the eyes of conservative American politicians, a practicing and devout Roman Catholic promises to be a safe bet on those issues. And their instincts have been proven correct time and again. Antonin Scalia is a perfect case in point. He consistently, and forcefully, opposed both gay rights and abortion rights arguing that because neither thing is mentioned in the Constitution, neither is entitled to constitutional protection.

Scalia was, as we have been told countless times over the weekend, a strong adherent of originalism which is a principle of interpretation that views the Constitution's meaning as fixed as of the time of enactment. To that end, he would spend hours poring over 18th century dictionaries looking up words to try and divine the precise meaning that they would have held for the Founders. Nearly all of the many tributes to Scalia I have heard over the past couple of days claim that it is through the principle of originalism that he arrived at his almost reactionary positions. The possibility that Scalia's religion might have been  influencing his decisions is almost never mentioned. Are we supposed to believe that this intensely religious man never allowed his personal faith to intrude into his judicial reasoning? That requires an enormous leap of faith. You simply cannot separate Antonin Scalia from his religion. Which is not to say that he was always 100% consistent. For example, Scalia managed to find a way to reconcile his support for the death penalty with the teachings of his church. And he clearly didn't approve of the perceived liberalism of Pope Francis, as evidenced by his childish decision to boycott Francis' historic speech to Congress this past September. I don't recall hearing any mention of that in any of the maudlin tributes to Scalia.

¡Ay, caramba!

For me anyway, this remarkable exchange between Cruz and Rubio was one of the most revealing moments of last night's debate. But, in order to fully appreciate just how meaningful this was, it helps to know the background. Both men are the sons of Cuban immigrants, and presumably know how to speak Spanish, but neither one really identifies with being Hispanic at least not in the context of this presidential contest they are both competing in. Cruz was born Rafael Edward Cruz, but dropped the Rafael in favor of Ted when he was a teenager. He married an Anglo woman named Heidi Suzanne Nelson, and the couple's two daughters are named Caroline and Catherine respectively. Unlike Cruz, Rubio saw no need to change his first name to something less overtly ethnic. His wife Jeanette is the daughter of Colombian immigrants. She also worked as a Miami Dolphins cheerleader, which is something I wasn't previously aware of. The couple have four children: Daniella, Amanda, Dominick, and Anthony. And, like the name Marco, those names all have a distinctly Italian flavor.

None of the first three states in the GOP primary process have significant number of Hispanic voters, but that will not be the case moving forward. So it stands to reason that all of the campaigns, with the likely exception of the Trump campaign, will be trying to appeal to Hispanics in states where they are heavily represented. Jeb Bush is married to a Mexican-American woman, and is fluent in her native language. And when he launched his campaign, Bush did so in English and Spanish, and seemed poised to make his command of the language a centerpiece of his campaign. Only to find himself mocked by front-runner Donald Trump, someone who has relentlessly demonized Hispanics in his own campaign. Jeb got the message loud and clear. Both Cruz and Rubio would seem to be uniquely qualified to appeal to Hispanic voters, given that they can communicate in Spanish, but it isn't quite that simple.

Ted Cruz has been quoted as saying that his Spanish is "lousy", and when a Spanish-speaking opponent challenged him to a debate in Spanish during the 2012 Texas Senate race, Cruz wouldn't take the bait. And last night was probably the first time that Cruz has spoken Spanish during this campaign. Without a doubt, Rubio was attacking his rival's credentials as a legitimate Latino and Cruz got so rattled that he actually started speaking Spanish. And, as you watch the video, you can almost see the wheels turning in Rubio's head as Cruz accuses him of speaking Spanish on Univision. A wide smile spreads across his face as Marco realizes that his opponent has just handed him an early Valentine's Day gift.

Hillary is Palling around with War Criminals

“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.” - Henry Kissinger

“I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time." - Hillary Clinton

"I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger" - Bernie Sanders

Who would have guessed that the 92-year old Kissinger would suddenly become a hot topic of debate in the Democratic primary contest? I certainly didn't see it coming, and I doubt Hillary Clinton did either. She wouldn't have invoked Henry Kissinger, during the fifth Democratic debate, if she weren't confident in the belief that it would be a safe position for her to stake out. After all, Kissinger is a respected elder statesman today, basking in the glory of such accomplishments as the role he played in opening up relations with the People's Republic of China, and the Nobel Peace Prize he won in 1973 for "ending" the Vietnam War. The inconvenient fact that the war didn't actually end until 1975 doesn't seem to have troubled Kissinger in the least, but it did inspire this classic SNL skit.

Since leaving office in January of 1977, the former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State has written books, served on a number of boards, and founded Kissinger Associates. He has continued to advise presidents on foreign policy, and briefly served as the chair of the 9/11 Commission, until stepping down in December of 2002 rather than release his client list. His appointment by President George W. Bush had stirred up no small amount of controversy, and Kissinger gladly took the opportunity to bow out gracefully. No one is more aware than Henry Kissinger of just how vulnerable his carefully-crafted public image is to attacks, such as the one Sanders launched during the last Democratic debate, and I have to believe he is "feeling the Bern" right now.

Southern Discomfort

I must confess that the very last GOP presidential candidate that I expected to be linked to a sex scandal would be Ted Cruz. This doesn't really qualify as one, but it will suffice in a pinch. When the Cruz campaign discovered that an actress that they had cast to appear in one of their ads had done some porn, they immediately pulled it down. The actress, Amy Lindsay, could hardly be described as a hardcore porn star. In fact, she has a fairly respectable career history, one that includes a few television appearances.

Lindsay graduated from the University of Texas Austin with a degree in journalism and a minor in Drama. After working in public relations and marketing, she moved to LA to pursue an acting career. And, along with the conventional work, Lindsay also starred in films with titles such as “Kinky Sex Club,” “Milf,” “Carnal Wishes” and “Sex Sent Me to the ER”. The films are all described as being softcore porn, which presumably means that they aren't much more graphic than what you see in the typical movie carrying an "R" rating. 

I was unable to find either a current age, or date-of-birth, for Lindsay which is hardly surprising when you consider that she is an actress. But, considering that she graduated from college in 1995, it is probably safe to assume that she is somewhere north of thirty-five and her days of working in porn are over. And she does claim to be a pro-gun and pro-life Republican, albeit one who supports gay marriage. What is it with these retired porn stars who support Republican presidential candidates anyway? In 2012, Jenna Jameson publicly endorsed Mitt Romney saying that "When you're rich, you want a Republican in office." Here is the pulled campaign ad starring Lindsay:

Requiem for a Heavyweight

I come to bury Christie, not to praise him.

He could have been a serious contender in the 2016 race, but Chris Christie couldn't quite manage to transcend the grubby politics of his home state. The Fort Lee lane closure scandal, or Bridgegate, was as tawdry as it was unnecessary. There was never any doubt that Christie would win his reelection bid in November of 2013, and he did in fact defeat his Democratic opponent by a large margin on election day. The decision to plunge the town of Fort Lee into traffic chaos, by closing two of the three lanes normally open to access the George Washington Bridge, was made out of political spite, pure and simple. And whether Christie ordered it, or even knew about it in advance, is basically irrelevant. It defies logic to believe that his aides would have done something like that without believing that their boss would have approved of it. Which can only mean that Christie fostered a ruthless, and borderline criminal, political culture within his administration.

Many of the postmortems being written for the failed Christie campaign lay a lot of the blame on that infamous hug, that really wasn't a hug. In the immediate aftermath of the devastating Superstorm Sandy that ravaged the Northeast, President Barack Obama flew into New Jersey and was warmly greeted by Governor Christie. A number of pictures were taken of the two men together viewing the destruction that was wrought by the hurricane. One in particular shows the two men shaking hands, and the president has his hand on Christie's shoulder. All of that unfolded right before the 2012 presidential election, and the conventional wisdom is that Christie gave Obama a huge boost by appearing with him. And, by the same token, Christie badly hurt Republican Mitt Romney's chances of defeating the incumbent president. Personally, I'm not all that sure what else Christie could have done at that point and his approval ratings shot-up after those photos began circulating. In fact, one could plausibly argue that his handling of Hurricane Sandy was the high point of Christ Christie's tenure as New Jersey governor.

True to form, Christie went down swinging in New Hampshire, the state on which he had staked everything. His hard work in the Granite State had appeared to be paying off, but then a barrage of attack ads paid for by Super Pacs supporting Bush, Rubio, and Kasich started hitting the airwaves in New Hampshire. Christie's poll numbers nosedived, and he became increasingly bitter towards Marco Rubio who was coming off a strong third-place finish in Iowa. That bitterness culminated in the almost savage take-down of Rubio by Christie that we saw during the last GOP debate. He wounded Rubio deeply, maybe even fatally, but it turns out to have been a murder-suicide. He finished a distant sixth in the primary, and the writing was on the wall. Chris Christie's presidential aspirations are shattered, and all that is left for him is to slink back home and finish out his term as governor. And I don't expect that the homecoming is going to be a very warm one.

None of my best friends are Jews

From what I have been able to gather, Nugent's supporters are about evenly divided between those who profess not to see anything anti-Semitic here, and those who love the fact that the graphic is wildly anti-Semitic. Not surprisingly, the latter category includes former Klan leader David Duke. The graphic originally was posted on the web site Stormfront, which is described as a "white nationalist, white supremacist, and neo-Nazi Internet forum" on the Wiki page. Stormfront began life in 1990 as an online bulletin board for Duke's campaign for U.S. Senator from Louisiana, and eventually grew into the web's significant first racist hate site. Duke had previously endorsed Donald Trump for president saying that "He's the best of the lot". And Nugent also weighed in with his support for Trump, in an earlier Facebook post, calling him "the hellraiser America has needed for a very longtime".

Whether this latest outrage prompts Republican politicians, or the NRA, to reconsider their ties with Nugent remains to be seen. The man has a very long history of saying some incredibly vile and offensive things ranging from calling Hillary Clinton a "toxic cunt" to calling presidential candidate Barack Obama a "piece of shit" who "should suck on my machine gun". But those revelations didn't effect his standing as an NRA board member and unofficial spokesman, nor did they keep Texas Republican Greg Abbott from embracing Nugent during his campaign for Texas governor. Nugent joined Abbott on the campaign trail until reports surfaced that the rocker had called President Obama a "subhuman mongrel". Under fire from both sides, Nugent offered a tepid apology of sorts and Abbott distanced himself from him.

One of the things that I find particularly striking about all of this is the fact that Donald Trump is talking like Ted Nugent, and he is getting away with it. The Republican front runner has been freely mouthing vulgarities during his speeches to the rapturous delight of the crowds. Just yesterday, he called Ted Cruz a "pussy" during a speech in New Hampshire. Trump's supporters say they love the fact that he is unfiltered, and that he is willing to say things like that. And, in contrast to his rivals, Trump does indeed come off as refreshingly honest. We are so accustomed to political speech that is vapid, insipid, mendacious and robotic (think Marco Rubio) that Donald Trump almost seems like a breath of fresh air. And that is a damning indictment of our contemporary political culture.

Pussy Riot

Indelible Image

The Forty-Four Million Dollar Man

I just finished reading an excellent study, of the man seen above, in the New York Times Magazine. Commissioner Roger Goodell might be universally scorned, and perhaps even hated, but no one can argue with the results of his tenure at the helm of the fabulously successful National Football League. This is from the article: The N.F.L.’s total revenue in 2015 ($12.4 billion) is nearly double that of a decade earlier ($6.6 billion). The price of television ads during the Super Bowl has increased by more than 75 percent over the last decade. This year’s conference championship games set yet another viewership record for the league: 53.3 million people watched the A.F.C. game on CBS; 45.7 million watched the N.F.C. game on Fox.

In short, professional football is more popular and profitable than ever before, even as the League's problems seem to be multiplying. But you would never know anything was amiss from listening to Goodell. He is relentlessly aggressive when it comes to defending the NFL which is hardly surprising when you realize that the man has never worked anywhere else. His entire working life has been spent with the NFL. Just yesterday, the commissioner strongly asserted that if he had a son he would "love to have him play the game of football" despite the overwhelming scientific evidence showing that the game poses serious long-term health risks for the players. Unkind observers have compared Goodell to the tobacco executives who continued defending their product even in the face of overwhelming medical evidence that the product sickened, and killed, its users. I'd give Goodell the benefit of the doubt on this one though. I do think he is sincere when he says that he'd let his son play football.

Goodell has been far less straightforward when questioned about things like daily fantasy football and medical marijuana. Here is his tortured explanation of why those daily games aren't considered to be a from of gambling by the NFL: “It’s hard to see the influence that it could have on the outcome of a game because individual players are picking different players from different teams, mashing them up, you might call it. It’s not based on the outcome of a game, which is what our biggest concern is with sports betting". This is a variation of the familiar argument which holds that daily fantasy games can't be gambling because there is a level of skill involved in assembling a fantasy team. Congress helpfully reached that conclusion back in 2006 and thus opened the door to the unchecked, and unregulated, proliferation of daily fantasy sports that we see today. And even though these daily games are a very different animal from traditional fantasy sports, the NFL didn't hesitate to get in bed with the industry. Only to wind up looking more than a bit stupid when states started filing lawsuits against DraftKings and FanDuel charging that what they do is indeed a form of gambling. As Rick Perry surely would have put it, OOPS!

As far as the issue of medical marijuana, I dealt with that in my last post and won't bother rehashing it at length here. Suffice to say, the NFL's position on medical marijuana positively reeks of hypocrisy. The fact that it is now legal in a number of states means absolutely nothing to the League which, according to Goodell, has no plans on revisiting their policy. As it stands now, any player who tests positive for marijuana will be fined and suspended. The League's thinking on this issue is at least two decades behind the rest of American society which is increasingly in favor of decriminalizing marijuana, and allowing it for both medical and recreational use. One could be forgiven for assuming that the NFL would be embracing medical marijuana as a far less dangerous alternative to the opioid-based painkillers that their players frequently become addicted to. After all, don't we always hear Goodell himself solemnly intoning that the health and welfare of the players is the NFL's number one priority? I won't give him the benefit of the doubt here. There is no good argument to be found that would support the NFL's idiotic stance on the issue of medical marijuana.

Drug Wars

Last night was the premiere of the much-anticipated ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about the 1985 Chicago Bears, and it certainly did not disappoint. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, and only started thinking critically about the program this morning. That Bears championship team is unique in that they only won a single championship, yet they are always in the conversation when the subject turns to the best football team ever. Generally speaking, a team needs to be a dynasty with multiple championships to their credit in order to earn that degree of respect. But the combination of football dominance, and larger-than-life personalities, that was the '85 Bears sets them apart. They really are in a "league of their own", so to speak.

I was 23-years old at the time of their Superbowl victory over the hapless New England Patriots, which means most of the players are of my generation. That fact made it easy for me to relate to them as they looked back 30 years, and reflected on what was surely the greatest moment in all of their lives. The producers of the documentary were able to assemble a half-dozen of so of the most prominent members of the team to tell the story including quarterback Jim McMahon seen above lighting a marijuana cigarette. And that is not a still image from the documentary, which made no mention at all of the fact that McMahon openly admits to using the drug to treat a number of health issues stemming from his playing days.

Obviously, the producers realized that they couldn't avoid the elephant in the room and had to dedicate at least some of the show to the health challenges faced by retired football players. And by including McMahon in the documentary, they were forced to confront the issue of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) because McMahon is suffering from the consequences of having experienced repeated concussions as a football player. The list of symptoms he ticks off include pain, depression, memory loss, early onset dementia and issues with his vision and speech. But, having introduced the issue, the producers then disposed of it by doing a segment on chiropractic treatments that McMahon claims has greatly diminished the severity of his symptoms. Problem solved.

But what they didn't address was the equally troubling issue having to do with the chronic pain that football players experience, both during their playing days, and long after they retire. One of the incidents recounted in the show nicely highlights the unbelievable hypocrisy that permeates our society when it comes to drugs. Head coach Mike Ditka had a rule in place that held that if a player didn't practice during the week, then he wouldn't be allowed to play on Sunday. McMahon had spent part of that week in the hospital, in traction, and did not start the game. However, by his own admission and that of his teammates, McMahon had taken a number of painkillers on game day and felt that he could play. And, with the Bears losing, he badgered Ditka to put him into the game. The coach finally relented, Jim McMahon took over at quarterback, and led the team to a comeback victory. But, on the very first play from scrimmage, McMahon stumbled backwards and nearly fell down because of the effects of the drugs he was on. Only to recover his balance and throw a touchdown pass. His teammates laughed about it.

What isn't very funny though would be the fact that McMahon, and hundreds of other players, rely upon prescription painkillers to deal with the often unbearable physical pain they live with every day. Many of them will become addicted to the pills and end up in rehab, jail, or worse. McMahon states that he took roughly 100 Percocet pills a month to cope with the chronic pain, and was only able to get off the painkillers through the use of marijuana. He calls medical marijuana a "Godsend", and advocates for the use of medical marijuana to treat current, and former, NFL players. Now, I understand why the producers of the 30 for 30 documentary about the Bears decided not to tread there. Marijuana is still deemed to be a dangerous drug with no medicinal properties by the federal government, and remains illegal in many parts of the country. They would have gotten serious flack if they had asked McMahon about it. But, they evidently had no qualms about lightheartedly recounting a story about that time Jim McMahon staged a comeback victory with a powerful assist from some opioid-based painkillers.

Field of Schemes

Orwell was referring to the game of soccer of course, but one could easily be forgiven for assuming that he was actually anticipating the gladiatorial spectacle that is today's American football. After all, the quote is from Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 that predicted a future of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation, all of which have come to pass. And, speaking of public manipulation, the three-headed hydra of NFL executives, lawyers, and team owners have no peer in that department. Politicians are woefully ill-equipped to negotiate deals with the NFL, as evidenced by the incredibly stupid stadium deals municipalities routinely enter into with teams.

The League is now a mere five days away from playing the greatest single game on the American sports landscape, which is of course the Superbowl. The buildup to the big game began weeks ago, and with the announcement yesterday that pop star Lady Gaga will sing the National Anthem, all of the pieces are in place. A few discordant notes are floating around, but nothing that will detract from the shock and awe of Superbowl Sunday.

Even as the playoffs that would determine the two teams that would face off in the Superbowl were still unfolding, the St. Louis Rams announced that they would be breaking their lease and moving back to Los Angeles, the city that they abandoned two decades ago. The lease that the Rams signed with the city of St. Louis contains something called a state-of-the-art clause. What that essentially means is that the team can break their lease if the stadium in which they play is not maintained to insure that it remains in the "first tier" of NFL stadiums. In practical terms, that would have required the city of St. Louis to spend $700 million to upgrade a stadium that only cost $280 million to build 17 years ago.

The city of St. Louis is struggling economically, and could surely find better uses for the money it would have cost to keep the Rams. Still, they scrambled to come up with plan that would have satisfied the ownership in the form of a new $1.1 billion stadium proposal. The Rams' dismissed it out of hand, while giving the distinct impression that nothing St. Louis did would be enough to convince them to stay. The decision to move the team back to LA had very likely already been arrived at, and all that remained was to get the NFL to bless the relocation. And it was foregone conclusion that they would indeed receive that blessing.

Fall with Paul

As I was reading the various postmortems being written for Rand Paul's 2016 presidential campaign, there was a mention of a Time magazine cover that touted Paul as the "most interesting man in politics". I was curious to learn what the issue date was and did a search for it. The editors at Time made that declaration in October of 2014, more than six months before Paul announced his White House bid. The article is only accessible to Time subscribers, so I was unable to read it, but would guess the writers were already assuming that he would be running for president in 2016. As far as what prompted them to label Paul as such, your guess is as good as mine.

For me at least, the most striking thing about Rand Paul's failed candidacy would be the fact that he didn't even manage to draw as much support as his father did during his two presidential runs. Rand's strategy seemed clear enough going into the campaign. He needed to retain the small but passionate libertarian following that his father had built, while simultaneously appealing to a wider swath of voters. Ron Paul proved unable to draw support from either mainstream Republican voters, or the party establishment, for the simple reason that he refused to compromise on his principles. And it was that quality that endeared Ron Paul to his loyal followers.

As it turned out, Rand Paul ended up with the worst of both possible worlds. His abandonment of what his supporters assumed were deeply-held principles infuriated them, without offering Paul any corresponding gains to offset the defections. All politicians are guilty of the old "my position has evolved" dodge, but Paul's positions sometimes seemed to be evolving from hour-to-hour. His father was widely derided as being an isolationist crackpot, but at least Ron Paul had a coherent worldview that he didn't deviate from. His son ended up all over the map, and never really offered a compelling reason to support his candidacy. Even so, like his father before him, Rand Paul was frequently the only participant in those debates that made even a damn bit of sense.

Out of the mouths of babes

If the children of Iowa were allowed to caucus, Trump would surely have won in a landslide last night. They seem to instinctively like Donald Trump, and I don't think that can be entirely attributed to his celebrity. Ted Cruz, on the other hand, has a history of terrifying little girls with his apocalyptic language. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that we should be picking our leaders based upon how kids react to them, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to factor that into the equation. After all, they are the ones who will be inheriting the world that we entrust to these political leaders. I'd also like to see how dogs react to them as well. Because if kids and dogs don't like someone, that tells me all I need to know about them.

Clavar un tenedor en él

When Jeb Bush launched his ill-fated presidential bid in June of last year, he made the announcement in both English and Spanish. Bush would also sit down for at least one interview in which the language spoken was Spanish, and I believe that his campaign rolled out some Spanish language ads as well. He is married to a Mexican-American woman, and Bush is fluent in her native tongue. Clearly, the Bush campaign felt that their candidate was uniquely positioned to appeal to Hispanic voters and proceeded accordingly. And if Donald Trump had decided to do another season of The Celebrity Apprentice, instead of running for president, the strategy might have paid off for Bush.

 Bush isn't the only Republican 2016 candidate who is fluent in Spanish. Both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are the sons of Cuban immigrants, and presumably speak the language at least as fluently as Bush. But I can't recall having heard either of them speaking Spanish on the campaign trail. In fact, both men go to considerable lengths to downplay their heritage, and they make no special attempt to appeal to Hispanic voters. As a teenager Cruz changed his first name from Rafael to Ted, and never looked back. Just as relevant is the fact that the immigrant experience for white Cubans, like Cruz and Rubio, is altogether different than what most Hispanic immigrants to this country experience.

All of which means that Jeb Bush would have had a decent enough shot at attracting Hispanic voters, that is if he hadn't abruptly ended his outreach after a couple of months. Because while Bush celebrated Mexican heritage in his announcement speech, Trump actually attacked Mexican immigrants when he delivered his own announcement speech. And he would follow that up by brutally attacking Bush for having the audacity to speak Spanish during his own campaign events. Trump told him pointblank during one of the debates that he should speak English in this country, and we haven't heard Jeb utter a word in Spanish since that night. He pretty much left his cojones behind when he walked off that stage. 

Bush might hang on after tonight's results in Iowa, but he would only be prolonging the inevitable. He is expected to finish far back in the pack and his prospects don't look any brighter moving forward. His presidential bid never got off the ground, and the fact that he has been on the main stage for every debate is nothing short of a travesty. If that process were above board, Bush would have been relegated to the undercard long ago. But the combination of his family name, and the seemingly limitless amount of money his campaign was willing to burn through, was enough to buy him a free pass to the main stage each time. 

Trump Über Alles

We New Yorkers have long since become accustomed to seeing the name TRUMP all around us, because the man emblazons it on everything he touches, and typically in 10-foot tall gold letters. It is the Trump Brand, and he attaches an inordinate value to it as evidenced by this remarkable deposition he was once forced to give. But, for New Yorkers, the sight of a giant airplane with TRUMP plastered on the side only makes us think of his failed plunge into the airline business back in 1988. However, the grounding of the short-lived Trump Shuttle would be small potatoes compared to the beating he would later take in Atlantic City. In the span of little over a decade, Donald J. Trump would go from being the poster boy for a decade marked by greed and excess, to being a bankrupt tabloid curiosity. By the early 2000s, Trump had fallen so low that he actually lent his name to a scam get-rich-quick scheme called Trump University.

But redemption was soon at hand in the form of a crass reality television game show that turned out to be the perfect vehicle for Trump's comeback. Not so much in the monetary sense, although I suspect the money did come in handy for the perpetually cash-starved Trump. No, the real value of his long tenure on The Apprentice came from the priceless exposure it provided him with. Every week Donald Trump had an hour of prime-time television that he shrewdly used to promote himself ahead of the inevitable presidential run. And not only did he introduce himself to the American public, Trump also worked his family members into the mix. The happy result for Trump is that millions of potential voters already feel that they know, and like, Donald J. Trump. He was a celebrity before he became a politician, and it would be impossible to overstate how valuable that is to his presidential prospects.