George Washington turned an army of ragtag troops into an unstoppable force that defeated the British & secured America’s independence. As President, he oversaw the creation of our Constitution & showed the world what it looks like to govern by the people and for the people. Nikki Haley @NikkiHaley Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN. 116th Governor of South Carolina. @ClemsonUniv Tiger. Proud American.

It’s President’s Day and, this year, it seems like a big deal. Every day, the yardage that Trump takes up in our National Psyches shrinks a little, but the sense of the character of the President does matter is not going to go away for a while. When I saw the above obligatory Presidential Day Tweet, above, by Nikki Haley, my first thought was I don’t think Washington really won any battles, certainly not any head-to-head pitched battles, but he had a sterling character.

Britain was the empire and we were the insurgents, the only way to win, in that situation, is to NOT go head-to-head in battle. We ambushed them, we struck at their back from behind trees, and we did a lot of running away. The famous painting above, Washington Crossing the Deleware, shows Washington crossing the Deleware River to sneak up on British contractors on Christmas Eve. Attacking the Hessian mercenaries while they were in their beds on Christmas Eve is not something we would consider honorable if the Taliban did it in Afghanistan. While Washington was far from the first guerilla warrior – although he was probably the first to go into battle in powder blue breaches – he perfected it and brought it into the modern, Western, world. The British, of course, thought it was barbaric – just like we think the Taliban is barbaric – and refused to stoop to their level.

As an aside, both Generals Grant and Sherman worried that the Confederate secessionists would turn to guerilla warfare because that would be the only way they could beat the much stronger Union Army, I suspect that the Southern Aristocracy, like their British forefathers, thought they were above such barbaric killing and preferred to continue to wage a conventional war they couldn’t win. End aside.

I think it is wonderfully ironic that General George Washington, The Father of Our Country, was also the Father of Modern Guerilla Warfare. This President’s Day it is good to remember that George Washington is not great because he built an unstoppable force, he is great because of his groundbreaking act of walking away from the Presidency after two terms. Nobody had ever done that before.

A Belated Happy President’s Day to you.

“This case is much worse than someone who falsely shouts fire in a crowded theater. It’s more like a case where the town fire chief, who’s paid to put out fires, sends a mob not to yell fire in a crowded theater, but to actually set the theater on fire.” lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D-MD)

When a coup attempt goes unpunished it becomes a training exercise. 𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕖 𝔾𝕦𝕣𝕝 @Sundae_Gurl 𝕊𝕠𝕗𝕥 𝕥𝕨𝕖𝕖𝕥𝕤 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕒 𝕟𝕚𝕔𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕡𝕦𝕟𝕤. 𝕀 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕔𝕠𝕠𝕜 𝕞𝕪 𝕗𝕒𝕞𝕚𝕝𝕪 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕡𝕖𝕥𝕤. 𝕎𝕒𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕠𝕟, 𝔻ℂ

“I told the Members of the Senate who were in the Democratic caucus that I was a free man first, an American second, a Senator third, and a Democrat fourth, in that order”; President Lyndon Johnson at a Fundraising Dinner in New Orleans October 09, 1964.

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Presidential campaigner Donald Trump in Iowa on Sunday, January 24, 2016.

I started writing about the Super Bowl, but I’m already bored with it. I didn’t really have a dog in the fight, although I am an AFC guy, and I was, at first, mildly rooting for Kansas City. Still, another win by Tom Brady is not a very big story anymore, anywhere (except Tampa Bay). I do want to say that, between the flyover, the plethora of flags, football in general, and the famously pro-Trump Tom Brady, I expected the ads to be more to the Right but the guys hawking stuff are politically neutral and they seem to think the sweet spot is very much to the left of Nationalism and Racism.

Watching the Impeachment, I’m not sure that optimism reflects reality. It is hard to watch the Impeachment and not be scared, for me, at least. Scared that the Insurrectionist mob is going to win next time – and there will be a next time unless a lot of people are put in prison – scared that we are seeing the beginning of the end of American Democracy, scared that, as obvious as Trump’s involvement is to me, he is going to waltz free, scared that the Republican Senators, all of who took an oath to protect the Constitution, don’t really give a shit about the Constitution or the country. As an aside, the fact that I care so much, somewhat surprises me. End aside.

I think that there is a lot of anger in the land and very little willingness to admit the other side even has any opinions worth considering. I know that I’ve already taken a side, I think like everybody else, and, of course, I like to think that my side is right. I like to think that my side is the long arc bending towards a moral universe, even if that journey is somewhat haphazard and wobbly. But, I suspect, we all feel that way, even Josh Hawley, and that is why most Republican Senators will vote for acquittal.

While I hope that they don’t, while I hope that the Republican Senators were close enough to the action and becoming politically distant enough to go after Trump, I don’t think the Senate is the primary target here. The primary target is the electorate, especially the moderate Republican electorate, and there is an expectation that proving Trump instigated his followers to take over the government in order to “stop the steal” is and will alienate more people than it will convert. Part of the reason for that is because the Democrats, and Congressman Jamie Raskin in particular, put on a good case – to my eyes, anyway – and part of it is that the nationalistic, populous, side of the Party is becoming more emboldened, going after conventional conservatives like Representative Liz Chaney – in a sort of Reign of Terror phase of the Revolution – because they are not faithful enough to Trump. Hopefully, that will drive the moderates from the Republican Party. If so, the Impeachment will be a success.

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Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple. Barry Switzer, University of Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys coach, as quoted in the Chicago Tribune in 1986.

Reading about some of the reactions to the Donald Trump instigated insurrection I was struck by how different it was for people of color than it was for the White Representatives. It brought home how privileged my life has been. I was born on third base and for most of my life, I thought I had gotten there on my own. As a teenager and into my twenties, I had a series of summer jobs as a Union Carpenter. In those days, you could become a Union member if you had a job offer and there were no Union carpenters available to fill the position. The job I was offered was grunt work, nailing off plywood floors in a large apartment complex. This was before the days of nail guns and the job only paid apprentice wages but it was a good job for a seventeen-year-old.

I went to the local and applied for a Union card, they told me to come back on a Thursday night membership meeting. At the meeting, three of us were voted in. I don’t remember saying anything, we just stood in front of the assembled members, facing away from them so we couldn’t see the voting, and got voted in. There were no Black applicants or members, there were no Mexicans or Asians, just three White guys trying to get in an all-white guy Union club (which we all three did).

Now, thinking back on that initiation, I suspect – more than suspect, really – the process was designed to keep Black and other minority guys out of what we called “The Trades” although Black guys could become Laborers. It never occurred to me that I was able to get in because I am White. In the Army, when I ended up in the Command and Control Platoon in Korea while the Black soldiers were in the Generator or the Launcher Platoons, I thought it was because of my brains and my outstanding work. I thought it was just a coincidence that there were no Black soldiers in Command and Control (but there were a couple of stupid White guys).

When Sam Berland and I started our own business, we took the numbers for our first project to a banker we knew from our days of being in management at Shapell Industries. The banker was White and we talked about the deal over lunch. A lunch between a couple of friends, with much in common, having a friendly discussion over a couple of drinks.

Looking back on it, none of these successes would have happened if I had been Black. I want to add, probably defensily, that I am a Liberal, I’ve been a Liberal for as long as I can remember being anything, and I grew up believing that everybody should have equal rights and I have tried to act that way. Still, I didn’t see the sea of privilege I was swimming in. I thought my breaks were because of me as an outstanding individual not because I am an average White Male.

The opposite of being an average White Male, like me, is being an extraordinary Woman of Color like Rashida Tlaib. Where I can fit in, they always stand out. I have never thought somebody was trying to kill me for what I am. Although, as an aside, I once thought somebody was going to kill me for something I had done. The threat lasted about three days and was very scary. I was distracted from everything else going on in my life. End aside. I can not imagine what it must be like for the women of the Squad who are threatened almost every day. Let me leave you with an example.

My plan was to be the very last person to recommend “Ted Lasso” to you all and I do believe I’ve succeeded. I wish I could have been in the pitch meeting… “So, he’s… a saint? How is that funny?” “Trust us.” Tweet by Peter Sagal @petersagal Host of @WaitWait on @NPR. Author of “The Incomplete Book of Running,” from Simon and Schuster, now available at independent bookstores or via link below. Chicago simonandschuster.com/books/The-Inco…

Michele and I just binge-watched Ted Lasso on Apple. Looking at the previews, I didn’t really expect to enjoy it, but we were both captivated. Ted is an American football coach – and a very minor one at that – who is hired to coach a English Premier League football club (and we all know, including Ted, that a football team in England plays soccer). The premise is that Ted is a decent, optimistic, human being and, somehow, during this toxic time, that is enough to make it comforting.

It is a comedy, although it is often more touching than funny, I know that it is a comedy because each episode is only about thirty minutes. Ted Lasso is the kind of program that somehow makes us feel good. I’m not sure why or how, but I do know I went to bed smiling and feeling better and more generally optimistic than I have in weeks.

The forces arrayed against conservation in southern Utah were deeply rooted. County commissioners, state elected officials, the entire Utah congressional delegation — all were against the monument from the moment of its creation in 1996. They considered it a usurpation of local power, and they had acted at every chance to attack its legitimacy. A 2016 pro-Bears Ears & Grand Staircase National Monuments article in The High Country News.  

Here it is in full: Restoring Monuments Bears Ears & Grand Staircase Nat’l Monuments + more. This beautiful restorative news. A Tweet by Terry Tempest Williams @TempestWilliams edges; words; and birds

The depth so far is what’s so powerful. We’re suddenly a very long ways from ‘do you believe in climate change? A Tweet from Bill McKibben @billmckibben Author, Educator, Environmentalist and Founder of http://350.org Opinions emphatically my own Vermont billmckibben.com

President Biden has come out jabbing and I love it. With a cascade of Executive Orders, President Biden has undone much of what President Trump did over the last four years. Of course, much of what Trump did was undoing what Obama had done several years earlier so now the undoing will be undone. In Executive Order 13990, Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis, Biden halted the Keystone pipeline which made the front pages of most newspapers, of more direct interest to me, he also essentially restored three National Monuments that Trump had downsized. Two of them, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, established by President Obama, are in Southeastern Utah and are among the beautiful places on earth.

When President Trump reduced both Monuments, I was disappointed but I thought it made some sense since all the local politicians representing the local counties and towns were against the Monuments. But, it turns out, the local governmental agencies were composed of old white guys elected and re-elected without much opposition and, just four years later, their composition has changed and now better reflects the real local attitude. Both of the affected counties, Grand and San Juan, and several of the local towns have written to the Biden Administration asking for the Monuments to be restored. As best I can tell – without spending the entire of next week reading the local papers – the change is for two reasons. The local economy has become more reliant on tourism rather than running cattle and the governing boards, themselves, because of new state laws, have changed from three-person executive/legislative governing boards to larger part-time legislative boards with full-time executive managers. In Grand and San Juan Counties, the new legislative boards are more ethnically diverse because the board members now have to represent different geographic areas. This has resulted in several Native American county board members who are pro-Monument. (The two biggest cities – Monticello at 1,972 souls and Blanding at 3,375 souls – in San Juan County still support getting rid of the Monument but the tide still seems to have turned.)

President Biden is making no secret that he is going directly after President Trump’s anti-environmental Executive Orders with Biden’s Executive Order 13990 saying: The heads of all agencies shall immediately review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions (agency actions) promulgated, issued, or adopted between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021, that are or may be inconsistent with, or present obstacles to, the policy set forth in section 1 of this order. 

BTW, Executive Order 13990 also stops oil drilling in the Arctic which, as an aside, I don’t think I quite understand. Why would anybody spend the money to look for oil in the Artic when the biggest collection of oil fields ever found in the United States, the Permian Basin in West Texas, has barely been touched? It’s not like we are going ahead and continue to use oil – or any fossil fuel, really – no matter what the cost, and getting oil from above the Arctic Circle is going to be non-competitive in a diminishing market. End aside.

The most striking and probably the most important section in Executive Order 13990 is Sec. 5 which says It is essential that agencies capture the full costs of greenhouse gas emissions as accurately as possible, including by taking global damages into account.  Doing so facilitates sound decision-making, recognizes the breadth of climate impacts, and supports the international leadership of the United States on climate issues. Acknowledging the damage we are causing to Earth by burning fossil fuels in making decisions is groundbreaking and even after reading the section three or four times, I find it hard to believe it is actually there. Biden must have thought about this and he must know how disruptive it is going to be and it shocks and thrills me that It is essential that agencies capture the full costs of greenhouse gas emissions made it all the way through a process that, at least in part, was set up to eliminate changes to the status quo. It will be very interesting to see if this actually plays out. I hope so.