I start my mornings, before getting out of bed, with a quick glance a Google News. That’s where I first read the name Gabby Petito. Something about her disappearing. I didn’t read the details. I was more interested in other news, including the then-pending “J6 Justice” protest, hurricanes, Congress, migrants in Texas, and a few other things.

But Petito’s name kept showing up. That prompted me to read more. I now know that the story includes her disappearance while on a cross-country tour with her fiancé, domestic violence, some kind of mental health call to arms, a disappearing fiancé, and discovery of her body  The story is still developing, but it appears Petito was murdered by a violent fiancé, who is now a “person of interest” who could face murder charges and is claimed to be somewhere on some massive Florida nature preserve. We know Petito died tragically, but just don’t know the details, yet. 

Petito’s apparent murder is tragic, but why so much coverage?  To me, at least, there are several answers, not all of them reflecting well on our society.

First, Petito was a young white woman. I wonder if we would be reading dozens of stories about her if she had been poor and a person of color.  Dare I say that that the media is demonstrating racism by focusing on Petito’s disappearance while effectively ignoring murders and disappearances of dozens of other people?

Second, the Petito story reads like a murder mystery The media has focused on it because it is easy to understand.  If the fiancé is the “bad guy,” he is easy to hate. He was witnessed slapping Petito and has since disappeared. Stories like Petito’s get people’s attention much easier than things like the debate over the Biden infrastructure bill or the huge crowd of migrants living under a bridge in Texas.

Third, is domestic violence.  As a society, we are becoming less tolerant of it. The fact that the finance physically abused Petito gets our attention. Some of us relate more to domestic violence victims than to murder victims.  That has heightened interest in the story.  

None of the above makes light of the fact that a woman was apparently murdered. That alone should heighten our awareness of the problem of domestic violence. Did you know that 500,000 woman are physically assaulted or raped by an intimate partner in the U.S. each year?  A 2018 UN report found that worldwide 50,000 woman are killed each year by intimate partners.  

Do you recall seeing similar news coverage of any other domestic abuse/murder case this year?  I don’t.

So, what to make of the Gabby Petito case? First, we should all be saddened by her murder but should remember that she is but one of thousands of domestic violence victims. We need to take the problem of domestic violence more seriously and press government to do more to combat it.

Second, we should be angry that the press does not publicize all crimes equally.  Bias should not be tolerated. If Black lives matter, it should be reflected in what news we see.

Finally, the press must enhance coverage of “boring news” like politics and government.  One of the reasons things are not going well in Washington is because too few of us understand the nuances of current events. The media must step up its efforts to inform an educated citizenry with “just the facts”.  

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

Did you enjoy Monday’s and Tuesday’s weather?  Aren’t we lucky to have temperatures in the middle 90s, accompanied by high humidity, in mid-September?

My answers are “no” and “no.”  I’m ready for cooler temperatures that are not accompanied by thunderstorms or remnants of one of this year’s many hurricanes. Eventually, I’ll get my wish, but that doesn’t mean I should stop thinking about why there is so much violent and extreme weather. My answer to the “why” is “climate change.”

If you ask friends and colleagues what the biggest problem facing the U.S. today is, some will say climate change, but they will be in the minority. I conducted my own informal, unscientific poll earlier this week. Among the answers I got were the pandemic, China, racism, greed, Republicans, Biden, and Trump.

Regular readers of my columns will be pleased to know that I don’t think Donald Trump is the biggest problem facing the U.S.  He’s done and will continue to do a lot of bad things, but I don’t think he will ever put the Eastern Shore underwater. He may be a climate change denier, but that’s as bad as it gets.

I’m worried about climate change. Polls show that most Americans agree with me. A 2020 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 24 percent of us believe that climate change is affecting our local communities “a great deal.”  Another 39 percent answered “some.”  A full 65 percent told Pew that the federal government is not doing enough about climate change. 

With these levels of concern about climate change Congress should be rushing to pass legislation addressing the problem. Of course, it isn’t. The Republicans are blocking passage of bills that include billions to address various aspects of climate change. Democrats condemn them for doing so, but haven’t proposed a bill reflecting climate change as our greatest problem. The Democrats’ bills address climate change, but also all kinds of other problems.

At the risk of angering my Democratic friends, I think it’s unfortunate that the sense of crisis over climate change isn’t great enough to convince both parties to put together and pass a bill exclusively focused on that problem. The opportunity for a bipartisan climate change bill has been squandered.

Here on the Eastern Shore, worry over climate change should be greater than it is nationally. Temperatures might rise in most of the country, but we must worry about rising water and progressively more dangerous weather. Do our elected representatives agree?

Our two Senators are solid Democrats with good records on addressing climate change, but neither is recognized as the loudest voice on the subject in Congress. The Maryland House delegation also has strong ratings on supporting environmental legislation, with one exception. Anyone want to guess who the outlier is?  

One poll I recently read gave Bethesda’s Representative Jamie Raskin a 100 percent rating on environmental legislation. Andy Harris got a zero. Yes, a zero.  

Is Andy Harris a climate change denier?  Judge for yourself—here’s what he says on his website about his support for “the environment.”  Also note that Harris doesn’t even discuss climate change directly.

It appears that Harris avoids open admissions of his doubts about climate change, especially in the last few years, but believes any solution must be developed with “all stakeholders” at the table. That means balancing the interests of watermen, business, hunters, and others in crafting solutions rather than recognizing climate change as a crisis that demands immediate emergency action.  That may mean not negotiating with “all the stakeholders.”  FDR did not negotiate with stakeholders before asking Congress to declare war on Japan in 1941.

Do you agree that climate change is a crisis?  Should the Eastern Shore’s representative in the House of Representatives have a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters?  If you answer “yes” to the first question and “no” to the second, you have a problem.  

Getting Andy Harris to take climate change seriously or getting him out of Congress is not the solution, but it would be part of one. 

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

The House of Representatives is in session this week now that the August recess is over. Up first on its agenda is action on a budget reconciliation bill intended to permit the passage of the Biden “Human Infrastructure” bill.  Congressman Harris is expected to continue his opposition to this and most other Biden administration legislation.

We already know that Andy “Handgun” Harris doesn’t like spending, Joe Biden, all other Democrats, and a host of other things he dismisses as “left-wing.” But what most of us don’t know is what he’s been up to during the August Congressional recess. I checked his official website and other news sources in the hopes of finding reports that he was doing what we all expect our Congressional representatives do—represent us. I came up empty.

Here’s what I found:

On August 24, one of the few days the House was in session in August, Harris cast a vote against the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.”  The vote will help Harris maintain his stellar record with the right-wing “Heritage Act for America” group, which offers this description of the legislation Harris opposed:

H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, is yet another blatant effort by liberals to give left-wing activists new powers to undermine the integrity of our election laws. With H.R. 4, liberals will use the power of the federal government to overturn voter ID laws and prevent states from ensuring the integrity of their own elections. Essentially, the proposal hijacks the Voting Rights Act (VRA) by replacing the worthwhile goal of ending racial discrimination with the completely partisan goal of advancing liberal political candidates.

On August 27, Harris joined with fellow Republican Ralph Norman (SC) in introduce a resolution to impeach Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Harris tells us:

The Biden Administration’s handling of Afghanistan has been an unmitigated catastrophe. This preventable tragedy rests solely on the shoulders of President Biden and his Administration, and in particular the Secretary of State. We are the most powerful nation on the planet, and we must make clear to the Taliban that we will stay to get our people out as long as that takes. Secretary Blinken’s complete and utter failure of managing this avoidable catastrophe makes him unfit for leadership, and I hope my colleagues will join me in pushing for his removal.

Harris has called for President Biden to resign as well. I suspect he would have also called for the vice president to resign but may have been reluctant to issue a press release reading, “Harris calls for Harris to resign.” 

On August 19, Harris attended the Dorchester County Board of Education Meeting to express his concerns with Critical Race Theory or CRT. According to the Star-Democrat, Harris called CRT a “Marxist Idea that divides the nation.” Harris told the meeting that “instead of teaching young students to be colorblind to others’ race and treating everyone similarly, critical race theory is emphasizing and basing everything on race.”  Harris’ bottom line is that CRT “teaches students to hate America because it’s systemically racist.”

Earlier in the month, Harris spoke at a fundraiser for gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox, a Republican described by Governor Hogan as a “QAnon conspiracy theorist.” Mr. Cox is a Trump loyalist, a champion of the Second Amendment, and an opponent of CRT. Harris said Cox was “a person who reminds me of myself.”

I don’t doubt Harris’ veracity on this last point. From everything known about Cox, he is out of sync with Maryland values and, in my view, human values.

Unfortunately for those of us on the Eastern Shore, Harris remains favored for reelection. The campaigns of Dave Harden and Heather Mizeur are underway. Either candidate would be a significant improvement over Andy “Handgun” Harris.  

Although election day is still over a year away, the retirement of Harris, a man who broke his term limits promise, is long overdue. All should be embarrassed by a representative more loyal to Donald Trump than to his constituents, who opposes voting rights, and who spends more time fighting Critical Race Theory than climate change. 

The Spy has done excellent introductory video interviews with both candidates Harden and Mizeur. You can access them by clicking on their names, above.

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

 

 

 

 

Easton is on the cusp of change, but it is not entirely clear what that change is. The town is becoming more sophisticated, but at what cost?  As world-class restaurants, stores, and the arts begin to flourish, will Easton become just another resort town?  More simply put, should Easton become a Hamptons or Nantucket wanna-be? If so, is that a bad thing?

I am writing this column in Nantucket while looking out at Nantucket harbor. I have been taking daily walks through the historic town center. The streets are paved with cobblestones. The stores are a mixture of high-end clothing and middle-tier souvenir shops. Nantucket sweatshirts can be had for $60.  Hundreds of choices for Nantucket refrigerator magnets are available.

Frankly, the downtown is more reminiscent of an historic town than an actual historic town. Dozens of old buildings, some dating to the 18th century remain standing, but now house real estate offices, restaurants, or boutique shops. The whaling museum reminds me of one of the attractions included in a mega-shopping mall to give people something to do other than shop. It’s interesting and worth a visit, but it competes with opportunities to look at multi-million-dollar yachts in the harbor.

Mind you, I’m not complaining about Nantucket, but don’t go there for the history. If you enjoy shopping and mingling with rich people, Nantucket should be on your list. The restaurants are plentiful and high quality. 

The question for those of us in Talbot County, and, for that matter, the entire Eastern Shore, is whether we want to imitate the best-known east coast premier resort destinations.  Easton already has started down that path. Bluepoint Hospitality has converted old, sometimes vacant storefronts into establishments that are beautiful, well-run, and expensive. 

I confess to patronizing the “New Easton” and enjoying it. I am thrilled by the Prager Center for the Arts. And I’m glad that the Chesapeake Music Festival now has a home. I believe that these new establishments are good for Easton despite their representing change. They are part of a revitalization of Easton that, in my view, is good for everyone here, including those of us who are unlikely to buy anything from one of the new, premium-priced, businesses.

The remaking of Easton is part of a larger evolution of the Eastern Shore, which should be more than agriculture and beach towns. If Easton thrives because of this evolution, it means more and better jobs. It is also likely to result in better schools, improved healthcare facilities, and opportunities for growth in things like the Waterfowl Festival and other community activities to better engage us with each other.

Should there be limits on the degree to which Easton and other parts of the Eastern Shore “gentrify?”  I would say yes, but I’m not sure how these limits are set. Do we want to discourage new investments and job creation?  

Should Talbot County hold a special series of forums on what our future should look like?  Many forums on the county’s future, of course, already happen, but perhaps something focused on the rapid changes occurring in the town of Easton might be a good idea. Among many things, such a discussion should ensure that if a future other than the current “gradual gentrification” of Easton is to be chosen, the alternative future needs to be fully understood.

I also worry about what happens to Easton if the Bluepoint Hospitality investments don’t work out. If the high-end businesses now being established fail, what will Federal Street and the rest of Easton look like?  Will there be other entrepreneurs anxious to take over these businesses?  I’m not sure.  

What do you think?  Are you worried or excited about Easton’s future?  

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

Talking to a friend last week about the twin crises of Afghanistan and the delta variant, I attempted something of a joke. “Biden’s honeymoon is over,” I said.  My friend responded, “That’s the understatement of the year.”  Then he added, “This sh*t has got to end.”

The “sh*t” referenced is not likely to go away anytime soon. It’s like the “heat cap” that gripped the Northwest. In our case it’s not heat. Rather it’s a blanket of doubts. America is losing confidence in President Biden; in our ability to conquer the coronavirus; and in America’s role in the world. We are also undergoing a valuable but painful national self-reexamination of our history that is shaking our foundation as we attempt to reconcile ourselves to centuries of racism and injustice.

Our blanket of doubt is giving us a dose of humility–perhaps punishment for hubris and stupidity. 

The botched Afghanistan exit continues to get headlines. Over the weekend, a firefight broke out at the Kabul airport. Questions remain on how many more people can be evacuated before August 31, the deadline originally announced by Biden, and one the Taliban refuses to renegotiate.

And then there is the chorus of naysayers, most, but not all, Republicans who appear to welcome an opportunity to kick Biden while he’s down. I’ve heard him called senile, incompetent, a puppet, and stupid. Disturbingly, some who want to defend him indicate he is not senile but only suffers from bad judgment.

Many Democrats hope that the most troubling images of the Kabul evacuation—a man falling off the landing gear of a C-17 transport plane in mid air is the most vivid example—will fade with time. I’m not so sure. That image will remind me for a long time that the logistics could and should have been handled better. An NBC poll released Tuesday shows that only 25 percent of Americans believe Biden handled the situation appropriately. 

Then there is the issue of what happens after the Americans are completely gone from Afghanistan. Will there be a horror show of women being stoned to death for not wearing burqas, schools closing, and “collaborators” being executed?  Is it possible that America will be blamed for letting these things happen?  If so, it will contribute to our national self-doubt, as well as to Biden’s woes.

We also are in the midst of a resurgence of the pandemic. More than 42,000 people have now died in Florida alone, and hospitals throughout the South are unable to handle more patients. Why did this happen?  Who is to blame for so many Americans refusing to get vaccinated?  Is there another variant of the virus waiting to emerge, perhaps one worse than the delta variant?

All those things challenge the image of an all-powerful America, a nation that never encountered a problem or an enemy that it couldn’t overcome. That belief, for some of us, is also being tested because of “Critical Race Theory,” sometimes referred to as “CRT.”  Simply put, CRT is a fresh, more accurate way to look at U.S. History, as well as how our laws were written and enforced.

Through the lens of CRT, America as a nation is re-examining our history and accepting that slavery and racism played much larger roles in getting us to where we are today than we might be ready to accept. That perception is progress. We should applaud it if it moves the country forward in terms of racial, social, and economic justice. But the process of getting there is difficult. CRT involves admitting that some of our national heroes weren’t so heroic. It also serves as yet another contributor to our blanket of doubt.

Other situations are also lowering our spirits. Evidence of climate change, as well as a realization of how hard it will be to address it, has prompted some of us to worry about whether we have the national will to do what is necessary to stop it. As my friend commented to me last week, “How many hurricanes, fires, and floods will it take?”

Lest anyone conclude that I view our national situation as hopeless, remember that the economy is improving; the FDA just approved the Pfizer vaccine (which should encourage more people to get vaccinated); and that the worst is hopefully behind us in Afghanistan. If all this is so, we can hope that the Biden presidency gets back on track; that Democrats and Republicans find a way to pass an infrastructure bill; and that this week’s heat wave is a short one.

With God’s help and with each of us making an honest effort to address these pressing issues, better days are ahead. 

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles

 

The scenes were depressingly reminiscent of April 1975 when Saigon fell. American transport helicopters flew above a city descending into chaos as the enemy invaded, largely unopposed. Terrified nationals feared death from insurgents drunk with the excitement of victory. Smoke rose from the American embassy as documents and computers were burned.

It looked like Vietnam 2.0, a repeat of the embarrassing defeat for a country that once bragged that it had never lost a war. It looked like Vietnam because, in large measure, our assessment of what would happen when U.S. troops left was wrong. Depending on your perspective, the U.S. should never have left or should have figured out a way to evacuate without suffering humiliation, embarrassment and, more importantly, the loss of nationals who had aided in the now-abandoned U.S. mission.

The Kabul evacuation will be complete in a week or so, if not sooner. What will persist is something else that will take us back to the 1970s—self-doubt, finger pointing, and political accountability.  All those things in the 1970s, arguably made the U.S. stronger. Our national arrogance was blunted, and those responsible for expanding the war and lying about it were held accountable. Will the 2020s be similar?

Since President Biden’s announcement in May that he would withdraw all troops by September 11, many observers have suggested that the timetable was unrealistic. Reports also suggest that when the President accelerated the timetable, he did so against the advice of senior military advisors. That report appears to be accurate and, with time, will likely be verified.

So, is the story of the end of the 20-year war the story of a presidential mistake?  It’s not that simple.  Although, with the benefit of hindsight, Biden appears to have miscalculated the logistics of the evacuation, it is less clear that he deserves to be blamed for the whole debacle. Biden’s two predecessors, after all, also called for an end to American military involvement in the country, concluding, as Biden did, that the human and financial cost no longer justified staying.

Biden’s decision appears to reflect the need to move on from a war that, some would argue, was impossible to “win” from the day it started. History tells us that foreign invasions of Afghanistan have always failed. Ironically, America had the example of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan that began Christmas Eve 1979 and lasted a decade. The engagement was a disaster for the Soviets, who lost more than 15,000 soldiers.

In announcing the August 31 target for completing withdrawal, Biden offered his rationale:

After 20 years — a trillion dollars spent training and equipping hundreds of thousands of Afghan National Security and Defense Forces, 2,448 Americans killed, 20,722 more wounded, and untold thousands coming home with unseen trauma to their mental health — I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome.

This rationale appears sound. I have yet to hear anyone present a credible alternative course of action. Republicans suggest the evacuation was “botched” and premature, but we haven’t heard how staying longer in Afghanistan would result in a complete defeat of the Taliban. As Biden explained on August 14:

One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.

We now know that another year, or five years, of engagement in Afghanistan would not have changed the outcome. In this sense, Biden was right to decide to withdraw.

The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and that government’s ultimate defeat are now history. Who deserves the most blame?  Biden? Trump, who negotiated a “settlement” with the Taliban that strengthened their position in the country and pledged a complete U.S. withdrawal by May 2021; Obama, who kicked the can down the road; or George W. Bush, who started the war without thinking about how it would end?

The embarrassment America suffered this week will be less painful than the future that appears likely for many Afghan citizens. That future includes death and torture for Afghans who supported the U.S. mission and will now suffer retaliation. Inevitably, many will not make it successfully out of the country. 

Then there is the question of what type of regime will govern the country. Fears are rampant that girls and women will be banned from education and stripped of most civil liberties. A medieval system of justice may also return. Another final fear is that Afghanistan will become a haven and operating base for terrorism against the U.S. and western civilization.

The worst of the Afghanistan story may be yet to come.  

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles. 

 

Did you skip most of the Olympic games over the last two weeks? Or were you even aware the games were taking place?

The Olympics are in trouble. The decline in interest in the Tokyo games can be explained by the one-year delay in the games because of the pandemic, but is more involved? Are the Olympics too expensive to hold?  In a world moving away from nationalism, are they an anachronism?  Can the games still be described as “a gathering of the world’s athletes?”

Is it time to rethink the Olympics to save them?

This year’s Olympics proved to be a financial disaster for Japan, the holder of the Olympic broadcast rights, NBC, and others. Japan spent $28 billion to host the games. First, the games were delayed a year. Then, because of the delta variant, fans were banned from attending events. Competitions were held in empty arenas. The final tally of financial losses is now being calculated and is likely to exceed $10 billion. 

Japan, of course, is not the first country to suffer massive economic losses from hosting these games. The problem is that the venues and housing for athletes are outrageously expensive. Venues have to be constructed for sports with no following in the host country. Other venues are close to impossible to “repurpose” after the games are over.

One “solution” that Japan and other recent hosts adopted is to create “temporary venues,” meaning that after the games (and after the Paralympic Games, which begin August 24), these venues will be torn down. Other venues are likely to become white elephants, much like the “bird’s nest” constructed for the Beijing games a few years back. Since the 2008 games, the venue has been largely unused. It costs $9 million annually to maintain. What a waste!

It would be nice if the only thing wrong with the games was the cost of holding them. That’s not the primary problem. The cost issue could be addressed through a variety of means, including, as some have suggested, by choosing a permanent site for the Olympics. Athens is most often mentioned.

But what about nationalism? Isn’t it great that the U.S. whipped China’s behind and won 25 more medals than the Reds did? And doesn’t our “winning” the games prove that the U.S. is the greatest nation on earth?

Sentiments such as these are nonsense. Did anyone expect the U.S. not to “win” the games?  The U.S. sends more well-trained and supported athletes to the Olympics than any other country. The U.S. also participates in dozens of sports where there is little or no competition. 

From some perspectives, you might say that the U.S. is cheating. America loves the Olympic Games because they usually “win” them. Our only real competition is China and Russia, a country that got itself banned because of state-sponsored use of performance-enhancing drugs but nonetheless came in third in this year’s games as it participated as the “Russian Olympic Committee.” 

Somewhere along the line, common sense and the “Olympic Spirit” parted company. The games still are about celebrating the achievements of individual athletes, but that is secondary to the competition among nations. That’s why the opening ceremony features the “parade of nations” and why winners are honored by having their national anthems played when they receive their medals.

The “wins” at the Olympics, if you tell the truth, are not true victories. Almost all potential competition from other countries doesn’t show up. Support for training is next to nonexistent in most countries. These countries are more focused on getting people fed, fighting disease, and a lot of other things. If there are potential Olympic champions living there, they never have a chance to compete.

If even a fraction of the potentially gifted athletes in these countries received the same training and support of athletes in the U.S., China, Russia, and a few other places, the list of winners would be much more diverse. Champions would be truer Olympic champions. 

These are just a few of the most serious problems with the Olympics. There are others. 

More than a few pundits have been thinking about how to reform the Olympics. I have not reviewed all suggestions, but here are a few of my ideas, prompted by this year’s Olympic disaster. I readily acknowledge that some of them are not original and that some of them would and perhaps should be condemned in some quarters as “destroying” the Olympics as we know them today.

The goal of reform should be to revive the true Olympic spirit by making the games a true competition among athletes rather than nations and making the games truly global by enabling as many athletes as possible from all nations to participate. 

First, unless the games are played at a single permanent site (or two single permanent sites–one for the summer games and the other for the winter games), the games themselves should be awarded to between four and eight nations. This would allow smaller countries to be awarded competitions and share in the games’ economic benefits. 

What if an African country could be awarded boxing, martial arts, weightlifting, and a few other sports while an Asian country was awarded tennis and gymnastics, and a European country was awarded golf, track and field, and a few others? You get the idea — bring the thrill of the games to locations that will never get to host under the current system.

Second, radically revise the Olympic business model. NBC paid $12 billion for the rights to broadcast the Olympics through 2032. Where does that money go? The International Olympic Committee says 90 percent of its revenues are spent on “promoting sports,” but that includes staging the over-produced summer and winter games. A full 10 percent of the revenues, over $100 million dollars, goes to support the Committee’s activities. 

What if there were a requirement to use most of the money to support athletes more directly –radically increasing funding for the development of sports programs in countries where support is nonexistent or inadequately supported? If this happened, you would likely see fiercer competition in many sports in as few as four years.

Third, start celebrating athletes rather than supporting nationalism. Do away with the antiquated emphasis on nations and replace it with the concept of a world at peace where athletes compete to be the world’s best. Obviously, U.S. fans would still follow U.S. athletes, but enthusiasm for athletic excellence would increase over time. Americans would feel comfortable celebrating the victory of a Japanese athlete because their focus would be on performance, rather than country.

Fourth, rethink the proliferation of sports. Did I really see a rock wall climbing contest this year?  Do surfing, air pistol shooting, and “BMX freestyle” belong in the same Olympic games as track and field? In my mind, the answer is no. Why not eliminate some of these sports? That would make it less costly to stage the games, make it easier for athletes from all countries to become more competitive, and save some of us time in front of the TV.

Those are just a few ideas. To be considered properly, any proposal for major changes to the Olympics requires careful study. Would financial support for less nationalistic Olympics decline? Is the establishment of quality sports training programs in “underserved” countries possible? And, most importantly, is the world ready to start thinking globally?

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles

 

It’s time to stop whining about the complete absence of bipartisanship in Washington. Soon the Senate will pass a trillion dollar infrastructure bill that 17 Republicans support.  If eventually enacted into law, the  Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act  will be the “most significant investment in our infrastructure since the construction of the interstate highway system,” according to Senator Susan Collins (R-ME).  And, thanks to the Republicans involved in negotiating the bill, there are no new taxes. 

What’s not to like?

A lot, but the bill still should be passed. The bill includes $110 billion for bridges and roads, $66 billion for trains, $39 billion for public transportation, and $25 billion for airports and aviation. It also would extend broadband to rural areas and provide $55 billion to improve water quality. 

Of special interest to the Eastern Shore is roughly $12 billion for flood mitigation, $238 million for the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, and even $1.25 billion to support ferries. (It may be a stretch to hope that the federal government would provide Oxford with a new electric-powered ferry to replace Talbot, but stranger things have happened in massive pieces of legislation.)

 A summary of the major provisions may be found here. 

Much of the spending in the bill is urgently needed. It will help keep America competitive and improve life for all of us. The rest of the bill cannot be described as “urgently needed.”  That is no surprise.  Lobbyists from a myriad of interests have been busy for months proposing amendments. Dozens of them made it into the bill.

Anyone who has worked on Capitol Hill, regardless of party, will tell you that the making of legislation, like sausage, isn’t pretty. Large bills become magnets for hundreds of amendments, some improving bills and others simply authorizing yet more spending, sometimes for dubious or questionable purposes.

The infrastructure bill is no exception. It did not grow to 2,702 pages without including amendments like Senator Klobuchar’s proposal for a “Senior Corps Distance Volunteering Act” authorizing $5 million in spending. What is “distance volunteering?” Read the bill to find out. In fairness to Senator Klobuchar (D-MN), her amendment may create a great program. I just don’t know what it is and question what it is doing in an infrastructure bill. 

The bill also includes section 23015, entitled “Limousine Research.” I enjoy riding in limos but question the urgency of this research. Section 23015 calls for research on how to make limousines safer and authorizes the government to issue new regulations based on the findings. 

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the bill is the absence of new taxes. That sounds great, but where will the trillion dollars to pay for the new spending come from?  The answer is found in the nuances of Congressional budget accounting, described by some as “smoke and mirrors.”

The details are discouraging. The bill “repurposes” $205 billion in unspent COVID-19 relief funds. Wait—aren’t infections and deaths again on the rise due to the delta variant and the stubborn refusal of too many to get vaccinated or adopt safe practices?  It is easy to imagine a new COVID-19 relief bill, most likely including far more than $205 billion in new spending, being enacted later this year.

Other funding for the new spending comes from unspent unemployment benefits, extending various fees, selling oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and more. The Wall Street Journal describes the bill as “relying on savings and revenues already baked into the fisc or that are unlikely to happen.”

Interested in more detail? The full bill can be found here.  

If the Senate passes the bill, its enactment into law is far from guaranteed.  House progressives have tied action on it to a proposed $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” bill that Republicans universally oppose. House Speaker Pelosi has indicated the House won’t pass the $1 trillion infrastructure bill unless the $3.5 trillion bill is passed.   

That’s how Washington works. That’s why the entire kabuki dance taking place this week may result in nothing happening. That’s why any conclusion that the partisan impasse in Washington has been broken is premature.

I don’t plan to read the whole Senate bipartisan bill. Anyone want to speculate on how many Senators will read it before voting on it?

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles. 

 

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The House Select Committee hearings to investigate the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol began yesterday.  I watched testimony from four police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, and I will watch future hearings even though I am weary of reading and hearing about why an angry army of Trump supporters marched to Capitol Hill to disrupt the House of Representatives and possibly kill Speaker of the House Pelosi and Vice President Pence. 

Although parts of the hearings could be tedious, watching them is a civic duty. All of us have an obligation to understand what happened on January 6, why it happened, and to support actions to prevent anything like the insurrection from happening again. 

Tuesday’s testimony from Capitol police officers was riveting.  The officers described how the rioters threw things at them, sprayed them with bear repellent, and kicked them. We already know that but hearing directly from the officers provided new perspectives on the terror at the Capitol during the insurrection.  Any thought that the rioters were “loving people” was blown-away.  Many of the rioters were ready to kill for their cause.  The officers saw this first hand.   

Future hearings will get to the questions that are not definitively resolved for a substantial part of the American public. These questions include:  Who came up with the idea of storming the Capitol?  Was it Trump?  Was it one of the militia groups?  

All of us should want to know the answers to these questions. Even staunch supporters of President Trump should be interested in the answers, especially if they believe that leftist groups were involved.  Wouldn’t you want hard proof of that to surface?

I also am interested in learning who financially supported transportation and housing for rioters, many of whom travelled long distances for the opportunity to participate. Did these donors know that they were supporting an armed insurrection against the government?  Or were they simply responding to yet another Trump fundraising campaign? 

Knowing the details of why and how the insurrection happened is important to the future of America. It is not healthy for some of us to dismiss the evidence that I consider clear as “fake.”  It is dangerous for some groups to believe that the rioters were right, that the election was “stolen” and that later this summer the facts will emerge resulting in Trump being reinstated in the White House.

All those thoughts bring us to the question of whether the Select Committee is up to the task. The answer to that isn’t clear. Republicans, in my view, tried to blow up the Committee by appointing two of Trump’s fiercest defenders to the panel:  Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jim Banks (R-IN).  Both are on record to agreeing with Trump that the 2020 election was stolen, leading one to wonder whether they might also agree with Trump that the rioters were “beautiful, loving people” and that attacking police and smashing windows on January 6 was a patriotic act.

Speaker Pelosi was right to exclude these two members from the panel. With good reason, she believed that they would not approach the committee’s work in good faith. She expected them to attempt to disrupt the hearings by insisting that its scope be broadened to include last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, relitigate allegations of election fraud, and continually interrupt sessions. Jim Jordan’s skills as a disruptive, no-holds-barred partisan are well documented.

Much to the frustration of Trump Republicans, Pelosi appointed two GOP members to the panel:  Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-PA).  Both voted to impeach Donald Trump in January (his second impeachment) and have been vocal critics of President Trump.  Both also proved themselves to be good choices to serve on the Select Committee during its first hearing yesterday. 

As has been widely reported, after Speaker Pelosi’s  rejections of Jordan and Banks, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that Republicans would not participate on the Committee. Unfortunately for him, given that Cheney and Kinzinger are on the committee, that is not true. 

Thanks to McCarthy’s decision, which I will call wrong-headed, the committee may now produce a bipartisan, unanimous report. It will be a good thing if it does. 

McCarthy squandered his opportunity to appoint calmer, more rational members to the committee who could have asked many questions that Americans with open minds want answered. I expect Cheney and Kinzinger to ask some of these questions, but their well-known belief that Trump was at least partially responsible for January 6 will undermine their credibility. That’s unfortunate.

There are several interesting possibilities for the hearings. First, it has been reported that Representative Jordan spoke to President Trump during the riots. As a result, he may be subpoenaed to testify. What might Trump and Jordan have talked about?  Golf?  I wonder if Jordan expressed support for the riot or even encouraged Trump to “let it play out.” Hopefully, Jordan did nothing of the sort. It would be nice to think that he was as horrified by the events taking place around him as the rest of us.

I’m also interested in hearing from Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO). He was captured pumping a fist to acknowledge rioters as he walked in front of the Capitol. What was going on there?  Was Hawley somehow confused or did he have advanced knowledge of the attack?

Finally, I’m wondering if subpoenas might be issued to Trump himself, to his sinister aide, Stephen Miller, and to various White House and military officials who were aware that an insurrection was going on at the Capitol and are said to have been unable to get the President to do anything to stop it.

As an American, I need to know the answers to these and many other questions. It’s not because I need more information to conclude that Trump was a bad president. It’s because I never want to see our system of constitutional government come as close to collapse again as it did on January 6. 

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles

 

I am angry with some of you.  I mean those of you who have not yet gotten the COVID-19 vaccine.  You are putting the health of all of us, including children, at risk. You also are risking our economic recovery by restarting the pandemic.

Your decision to forego the vaccine is not a personal one, however you want to rationalize your thought process. If you get sick, you may get medical care from the government via Medicaid or Medicare, which my taxes help pay for. Some of you also will require emergency care that insurance won’t cover. If you get the care—and I hope you do—the hospital will absorb the cost of your unpaid bills. This undermines its ability to offer health services to the rest of us.

Some of you may wonder why I get so worked-up. The answer is the Delta Variant. Call it COVID-19 Version Two if you want. I call it the biggest threat to our country since Version One showed up a year and a half ago. 

The Delta Variant is a new strain of the coronavirus that is now dominant in the U.S. It is more contagious and more likely to infect children. Proof of its potential to restart the pandemic may be found in the rising infection and hospitalization rates in the states with the lowest vaccination rates.

I am very afraid of the Delta variant. I am joined in my fear by the CDC, the mayor of Los Angeles and a lot of Wall Street investors. You may ask why we should care about them?  The answer is reflected in the 900-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday. It appears that sophisticated investors have concluded that there is sufficient risk of the Delta variant crashing the recovering economy to justify selling stocks.

When Wall Street talks, it is worth listening. When the Street shouts, as it did on Monday, we need to listen. The Street tells us that we could again have massive unemployment, lockdowns, and closed schools. What the Street didn’t say directly yesterday, is that the new crisis is, or should I say, was, avoidable. Had everyone had access to the vaccine gotten it, you would not be reading this column. You also would not have to start worrying about reliving 2020.  

I got my vaccine in March after trying several weeks to get one. When I finally got an appointment, I showed up an hour early.  I wasn’t going to risk a screw-up. My primary motivation was self-preservation, but I also did not want to infect anyone else.   

In the last 10 days, we have learned that Los Angeles has reimposed a mask-mandate. We are watching the sad circus of the 2020 already-postponed Tokyo Olympics. We see baseball games postponed because players have contracted the virus. And we see many small business owners getting nervous again just as the crowds start to return.

Earlier this week I went to Lowe’s to pick up a few items. Having just listened to an NPR story about the Delta variant, I decided to wear a mask when I entered the store. Once inside, I noticed that few people were masked. Ironically, most of the masked customers, like me, were older. Most of them, I suspect, have been vaccinated.  What about the younger people in the store, the ones without masks?  Are they vaccinated?  I don’t know.  That worries me. 

How is Maryland doing?  The CDC tells us that 76.2 percent of those of us 18 or older have received at least one shot. Approximately 56.4 percent have had both shots. That is good, but not great. We need to do better, don’t you think?

For more information:

Dorchester County:   https://dorchesterhealth.org/covid-19/

Kent County:   https://www.accesskent.com/Health/coronavirus.htm

Talbot County:   https://talbotcovid19.org/

State of Maryland:  https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles