On this day in 1962, the very first shipment of advanced Soviet military communications equipment arrived in Cuba. It was the prelude to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Within six weeks, much of mankind would face an existential threat to its very existence.

It is the closest the United States and Russia (former Soviet Union) have come to nuclear war. The likelihood of war breaking out was breathtakingly real. General Thomas Power of the US Strategic Air Command authorized the US military to immediately initiate DEFCON 2, a major step toward nuclear war in which forces are ready to deploy in a matter of hours. The tension was palpable.

This is how events unfolded:

30 August 1962: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev initiates the first delivery of Soviet war supplies to Cuba.

14 October 1962: A US U-2 spy plane photographs secret Soviet nuclear missile sites under construction in Cuba.

October 15–16 1962: President John F. Kennedy is briefed and forms the Executive Committee (EXCOM) to consider the American response.

22 October 1962: Kennedy addresses the American public on television, announces a naval “quarantine” (blockade) of Cuba, and demands the removal of the missiles.

October 23 and 24, 1962: Soviet freighters carrying missiles approaching the quarantine zone slow down and begin to turn back, averting an immediate surface collision wth the United States.

25 October 1962: US Ambassador Adlai Stevenson confronts Soviet diplomats at the United Nations.

26 October 1962: Premier Nikita Khrushchev sends a conciliatory letter to Kennedy.

27 October 1962: A US U-2 spy plane is shot down over Cuba by Soviet ground forces firing a ground-launched missile against explicit orders from Moscow. The U-2 pilot is killed.

To Fidel Castro’s dismay, the United States and the Soviet Union decide to de-escalate, ending the crisis in just under two weeks. A year later, President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev establish a direct “Hotline” for emergency communications. Before the Hotline, encrypted messages had to be relayed by telegraph or radio between the Kremlin and the Pentagon.

The New York Times reports how the new Hotline will work: President Kennedy would phone a message to the Pentagon, which would then be typed by Pentagon personnel, encrypted, and fed into a transmitter, reaching the Kremlin several minutes later.

Today, secure cell phones and email make communication almost instantaneous. They are more reliable and less prone to interception than a trans-Atlantic phone call routed between several countries before reaching the Kremlin.

During the Six-Day War between Israel and her neighboring states, President Johnson used the Hotline to notify Soviet Premier Kosygin that he was considering sending Air Force planes into the Mediterranean. Following the Six-Day War, Premier Kosygin and President Lyndon Johnson met in Glassboro, New Jersey, on 23-25 June 1967.

Since then, the Hotline has improved, increasing its value in alleviating a variety of potentially tense situations. In 1971, satellites replaced the more vulnerable telegraph cables. In 1984, the facility to send graphic images was added, and more recently, email, chat, and video transmission capabilities were added.

Today, the Hotline far exceeds its role in international emergencies. It allows leaders to discuss their differences in private. The direct involvement of principal decision-makers helps eliminate bureaucratic red tape. A written teletype link was chosen over the originally proposed telephone connection. The latter could increase, rather than decrease, the risk of war through hasty message preparation and voice delivery.

The value of the Hotline was evident when Israel attacked the USS Liberty in the Mediterranean. Premier Kosygin first learned of the incident when President Johnson initiated Hotline communication for the first time. The Soviets were impressed and reciprocated American goodwill by voluntarily transmitting the information they received through the Hotline to Egypt.

Ironically, the pop fiction novel Red Alert, based on the film “Dr. Strangelove,” is credited with providing impetus for the need for Hotline technology to avoid dangerous misunderstandings that could be catastrophic if misunderstood or misinterpreted.

In May 1983, President Reagan proposed upgrading the hotline by adding high-speed facsimile capability, which the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to the following year. The facsimile terminals were operational by 1986. The teletype circuits were terminated in 1988 after several years of testing proved the fax links to be more reliable.

In 1988, the US side of the hotline system was located in the Pentagon. Each MOLINK (Moscow Link) team worked an eight-hour shift: a commissioned officer, fluent in Russian and well briefed on world affairs, served as the translator. The hotline was tested hourly. MOLINK staffers took special care not to include innuendo or literary imagery that could be misinterpreted.

In 2007, the Moscow–Washington hotline was upgraded; a dedicated computer network links Moscow and Washington. The upgraded system began operations on January 1, 2008.

The link was accidentally cut several times. Once near Copenhagen, by a Danish bulldozer operator, and once by a Finnish farmer, who plowed it up. Both the primary and backup links were tested daily. During the even hours, the US sent test messages to the Soviet Union. In the odd hours, the Soviet Union sent test messages to the US.

The Hot Line has been used several times over the years, including:

1963: Assassination of President Kennedy

1967: Six-Day War

1968: Apollo 8 mission progress

1971: War between India and Pakistan

1973: Yom Kippur War

1974: Turkish Invasion of Cyprus

1979: Soviet–Afghan War

1981: Threat of Soviet Invasion of Poland

1982: Israeli Invasion of Lebanon

1991: Gulf War

2001: The 9/11 attacks

2003: The Iraq War

On October 31, 2016, the Moscow–Washington hotline was used to reinforce Barack Obama’s September warning that the US would consider any interference on Election Day a grave matter.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

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Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s book, “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author,

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center,

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation,

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway,

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon,

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite,

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels,

Former Senator Barbara Boxer,

Former Senator Joe Lieberman,

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Well, we’re about to learn how good a player (with debt) President Trump really is. I, for one, hope he’s really good at it. We all should hope he’s good at it, because the United States just reached the historic milestone of barreling through $40 trillion of debt, a level of indebtedness unsurpassed by any other nation in the history of the world.

We’ve added a trillion to our debt since March of this year, when we reached $39 trillion, after barreling through $38 trillion last October. We are, of course, in somewhat of a vicious cycle. Surging interest costs reflect the increased debt the country is taking on as federal spending increases on Social Security and Medicare, which, of course, reflects our aging population. And yes, of course, there’s that war over in the Middle East.

And, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, hold on to your hat, the gross national debt is projected to rise to $63 trillion over the next ten years. This is serious stuff because our deficit spending largely drives the national debt. This fiscal year we are projected to spend about $2.1 trillion more than we take in, and that deficit is expected to grow to about $3.1 trillion over the next decade.

The debt held by the public now exceeds the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). This is the first time since the end of the Second World War that the nation’s public debt has exceeded the size of the United States' entire economy. Worse yet, US debt is projected to blow through the 1946 record of 106% of GDP, climbing to 120% of GDP by 2036. The size of the nation’s debt has doubled in less than ten years.

While the nation’s debt may seem like an abstraction, it imposes real costs on real American families. Families ultimately bear the costs of proliferating government spending. That cost filters down to every family as a higher cost of living. We feel it in the costs of all manner of things, including home mortgages, car loans, credit card bills, visits to the doctor, food…everything.

While the cost of living rises, wages come under pressure. It’s an insidious problem. Government spending increases the national debt, the cost of living rises, and people pay the price as wage growth fails to keep up.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) notes that the debt held by the public is projected to grow faster than the nation’s GDP in the years ahead. This would typically slow economic growth, which in turn would reduce private investment, while interest costs would rise.

The CBO has warned that slower growth and reduced demand for treasuries could result in a fiscal crisis. That would, of course, reduce the confidence that investors have in the value of the government’s debt. That, in turn, would negatively impact demand for US debt and cause interest rates to rise to offset the cost of reduced demand for our debt.

All of this would further influence how the investing public views the stability of the market for our debt, which would, of course, then influence investor decisions to invest in American debt.

So, investor concern regarding the skill with which we are managing our debt is, of course, impacted as it always is when the Treasury is shelling out more than it is receiving from those who invest in our debt.

No one should be surprised if investors are showing concern. They express their concern by requiring a greater return on their investment. Last year, Congress extended the 2017 tax cuts. As a result, revenue to the Treasury is growing much more slowly, which could affect the return investors demand.

President Trump, who once liked to call himself Tariff Man, assumed he could offset revenue shortfalls with tariff revenue. That, however, has proven to be more difficult than he expected. The Supreme Court disagreed and struck down much of the tariff revenue the administration had counted on. In the end, the government was forced to refund more than $100 billion it had raked in from tariffs the Court objected to.

If the government is going to run deficits, it also has to have contingency plans for unanticipated negative developments or real crises that pop up and require substantial, unplanned investments or expenses.

War, civil unrest, natural disasters, and recessions are facts of life, often unanticipated, and, invariably, very costly. What is the contingency plan when the unanticipated occurs, and to what extent have we planned for it and provided for funding such unanticipated costs? For example, we have recently experienced an unanticipated pandemic. Have we planned for the next one? We are currently managing a potentially destabilizing situation regarding the Strait of Hormuz. We are never far from an international crisis or war, whether it involves a natural disaster or a regional conflagration. We have the manpower and technology to deal with almost any crisis. Still, we don’t have unlimited capacity to handle crises that might require taking on substantially more debt than anticipated.

Now, the US was fortunate during previous crises that it could borrow a lot of money at relatively low cost, but we can’t take it for granted that will always be the case.

Kent Smetters, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business who formerly worked at the Congressional Budget Office, warned during a recent panel discussion that higher debt, sooner or later, leads to higher interest rates.

Last year, the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan fiscal policy analysis affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, predicted that the average US wage would end up 3.4% lower over the next 30 years as a result of President Donald Trump’s signature “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the spending measure he signed into law last month.

As the government has piled on debt, demand for US Treasury bonds has remained robust, largely because of the country’s unique position as the world’s top economy and the issuer of the global reserve currency. That strong demand has kept interest rates relatively low.

Analysts acknowledge the difficulty in predicting when the most severe effects of the ballooning debt may materialize. However, they warn that regardless of the answer, the current trajectory is unsustainable. Americans’ finances are already feeling the pinch, they believe.

“The debt is already affecting people’s cost of living today and their ability to afford their necessities. That’s the impact that deserves the most attention,” said Shai Akabas, Vice President of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “That’s the impact that deserves the most attention now.”

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s book, “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author,

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center,

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation,

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway,

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon,

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite,

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels,

Former Senator Barbara Boxer,

Former Senator Joe Lieberman,

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Ah, the magic of the Cloud; that, at your fingertips, source of everything we need to know. The uninformed might picture billowy white cumulus clouds floating effortlessly above us, providing humanity with the world’s total accumulated information whenever and wherever we have questions that need answers.

But, of course, the Cloud is anything but billowy white puffs floating above us. The Cloud is really an amalgam of nearly 4,000 huge data centers spread across the country, representing nearly 40% of the world’s total inventory of these somewhat little-understood facilities.

The Cloud, a euphemism if ever there was one, is the internet's physical infrastructure. And like all euphemisms, the Cloud is a pleasant-sounding noun describing something that, while unquestionably beneficial to mankind, comes with significant baggage for the communities that host Cloud facilities.

Think of huge facilities hosting massive computer servers, networking equipment, and support systems. Think cooling systems, power backup, fire suppression, and the security that keep the digital services we all use running reliably.

Virginia has become the data center capital of the world, hosting the most data centers, followed by Texas and California. About 60% of all the data centers in America are concentrated in just ten states.

The surge in data centers around the country is impacting energy grids, land use, and even water systems. It is happening quickly, and often with limited information about both the long-term benefits and the impact on communities these new data centers represent. Think possible (or probable) increases in power bills, and substantial demand on water resources for system cooling.

Data center construction will increase and bring substantial benefits to communities throughout the country. These data centers will also place demands on community infrastructure and resources.

Yes, data centers will bring both investment and jobs to communities throughout the country, and that’s a good thing. But, as the saying goes, there’s no free lunch. Communities that host these new facilities will need to establish protocols and rules for energy procurement, water use, land use, community input, and returns on the investments these so-called cloud computing centers may require.

As with any major new projects designed to serve communities, serious thought has to be given to who the risk takers will be. Will the industries that provide these systems be responsible for mitigating unforeseen costs or risks to the community, or will unforeseen risks fall to the communities hosting these facilities?

Data centers are not a new phenomenon. We’ve been building them since the middle of the twentieth century, and they have proliferated with the rise of the internet. They are, however, expanding quicker and larger than ever before, with billions in private investment, tax incentives and fast-track permitting. This is all good and should strengthen America’s competitiveness. But, again, there is no free lunch.

As an old expression teaches, all that glitters isn’t gold. Modern data centers come with some challenging issues. For example, they come with a huge appetite for energy. A single, state-of-the-art data center can consume the energy equivalent of about 100,000 homes, and it is estimated that new data centers coming online soon will consume as much as 20 times that amount of energy.

And then there is the matter of artificial intelligence, which is all the rage these days. Again, there is no free lunch. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that data centers in the United States could use between 6.7% and 12% of the nation’s total electricity supply within two years. Just three years ago, data centers in the United States consumed just 4.4% of our total energy, according to the folks at the Berkeley Lab. This rapidly increasing energy demand reflects the incremental cost that artificial intelligence computing centers and their cooling systems (think water) will require.

Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm, says that up to 90 gigawatts worth of data centers could be online by 2030. That would represent about nine times New York City’s peak summer demand in about three years.

So, concern about rising energy costs across the United States is well founded. For example, rate increases in the United States totaled over $60 billion last year. Americans ended up paying almost 10% more for electricity on average than in 2024.

The reasons for these rate hikes are complex and vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Some industry observers contend that the need to invest in new energy infrastructure for data centers contributed to price increases across the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

Many states and utilities are exploring ways to ensure that data centers can come online without shifting costs to ratepayers. Last year, AEP Ohio, which serves about 1.5 million residential, commercial, and industrial customers across central, southern, and eastern Ohio, introduced a new rate schedule for data centers requiring them to pay for at least 85% of the energy they are subscribed for, regardless of how much energy they actually use.

Some states, such as Oregon, Minnesota, and Missouri, now require utilities to create new billing classes and rate structures for large energy users so that their costs aren’t imposed on households and businesses.

And then there is the issue of the large amount of water these data centers require to keep servers cool enough to function. Mid-sized facilities can use up to 300,000 gallons of water a day, while large data centers can consume as much as 5 million gallons a day. Some analysts estimate that by 2028, these data centers may require up to 32 billion gallons of water annually, or roughly the equivalent of what it takes to meet the in-house water needs of about 360,000 households.

It’s a problem that isn’t going away for those communities where drought or depleting water supplies is already an issue. Consider this: Two-thirds of all data centers built or in development since 2022 are located in states like southern Arizona, the Colorado River Basin, and Texas, where water resources are already stressed.

The Cloud is a wonder. It provides great service, along with some significant baggage.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s book, “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author,

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center,

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation,

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway,

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon,

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite,

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels,

Former Senator Barbara Boxer,

Former Senator Joe Lieberman,

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

See you next week

Well, quite a lot. The enrichment technology the United States will be providing to Saudi Arabia, albeit for peaceful purposes, can also be used, with some further enrichment, to produce nuclear weapons. That’s why we haven’t provided this technology to any other nation. Let that sink in.

While Saudi Arabia is a trusted ally of the United States, the kingdom resides in a neighborhood in which nations with considerable antipathy toward our country also reside. Iran, Syria and Yemen immediately come to mind. These countries may well demand parity from their arms suppliers. Think Russia and China.

Furthermore, relationships sometimes change. Today’s friend may be tomorrow’s antagonist. We’ve been down this road before. Remember the “Atoms for Peace” program of the 1950s when we transferred nuclear technology to our then-friend, Iran.

Providing Saudi Arabia with nuclear enrichment technology for peaceful purposes, but with serious military potential, is certain to influence other nations in the region to prioritize their own nuclear enrichment capability.

Iran already possesses serious enrichment technology, and the Mullahs who rule Iran make no bones about their intention to join the nuclear arms club. That is why the United States and Israel have been at war with Iran.

Introducing additional nuclear enrichment technology into this volatile region is fraught with worrisome ramifications. A nuclear arms race on the Arabian Peninsula is the last thing the region needs, and it would be naïve in the extreme not to be concerned about introducing nuclear enrichment technology and know-how into this turbulent area.

President Trump may be naïve or unconcerned about the danger of nuclear proliferation in the region. However, Israel, which is believed to have developed nuclear arms generations ago, is neither naïve nor unconcerned.

While Israel may well possess nuclear weapons, it has chosen thus far not to use them even though it has seen war again and again since its birth nearly 80 years ago. We know that Iran has nuclear enrichment technology and that the United States has attacked the sites where it is believed Iran is enriching uranium.

While President Trump has announced that Iran’s nuclear capability has been “obliterated” by US missile and air attacks, no one who has studied the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps really believes Iran is now out of the nuclear enrichment business. Nor does anyone who has followed the Iranian mullahs’ obsession with nuclear weapon development harbor any illusions about the purpose or the targets of that obsession. The United States may, for the time being, be out of range. Israel isn’t.

Iran has been in a hot war with Israel and the United States over control of the Straits of Hormuz, and, thus far, Iran has acquitted itself surprisingly well in this armed confrontation.

Iran has labeled the United States as the Big Satan, and Israel as the Little Satan. This is not simply crude name-calling. The crude exhortations of the Mullahs provide important insight into what motivates those who rule Iran.

When Iran exhorts mobs with “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” the fanatical theocrats are not merely rabble-rousing. They are pronouncing a declaration of intent. They are serious, and they need to be taken seriously.

Iran is structured for mischief. The center of power in Iran is not its civil government, though it does have one. The center of power is Iran’s theocratic power structure, which controls the country. Iran is run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC was created after the mullahs came to power following the Shah's overthrow in 1979.

While modern-day Iran was organized as a constitutional monarchy, the country was really just another dictatorship. It was, however, a dictatorship friendly to the United States. The country’s 1906 Constitution vested all power in the Shah, granting him the authority to appoint and dismiss prime ministers at will.

The last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ascended to power in 1941, and reigned until 1979 when he was overthrown during the so-called “students’ revolution.” While Mohammad Reza Pahlavi initially shared power in Iran’s parliamentary system, that changed with the 1953 overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, following a coup instigated by the United States and Great Britain.

Today, Iran is run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on behalf of Iran’s Supreme Leader, a theocratic dictator. The IRGC protects the clerical government, manages internal security, and controls the economy. It answers directly to the Supreme Leader and is totally separate from Iran’s regular army.

Iran’s Quds Force is the special overseas unit that oversees Iran’s paramilitary groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran’s Aerospace Force controls the country’s ballistic missiles, drones, and space program. Iran’s ground force and navy are responsible for domestic defense and maritime warfare operations in the Persian Gulf.

Basij is the volunteer paramilitary militia used for internal control and domestic suppression. It was founded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.

It is hard to imagine anything good coming from the further introduction of nuclear enrichment technology into the region. There is no compelling, logical, or, frankly, sensible reason to provide nuclear enrichment technology to Saudi Arabia or any other country on the face of the earth.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has made it clear that if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia will feel compelled to acquire one to checkmate the Iranian mullahs. The Saudis will not tolerate taking a back seat to Iranian nuclear progress.

The Saudis may say their nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful, but their nuclear fuel strategy most certainly has dual potential for nuclear arms as well as nuclear energy. The Saudis will want the capability to reconfigure U.S.-supplied centrifuges, thereby making the technical path to a bomb readily available.

The Trump Administration’s assurances that its plans to provide nuclear enrichment technology to Saudi Arabia are solely for peaceful purposes may be true. Nonetheless, events in this turbulent region can render those assurances null and void at lightning speed.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s book, “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author,

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center,

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation,

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway,

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon,

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite,

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels,

Former Senator Barbara Boxer,

Former Senator Joe Lieberman,

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Frankly, I don’t know what to make of President Trump’s dinner speech before the White House Correspondents’ Association this week at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Washington. It was just plain strange, and not very funny.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner has traditionally featured some good-natured ribbing between the press corps, which tolerates a few minutes of presidential jokes at its expense, and the President who demonstrates that he too can take a joke.

But this year it was eerily different.

President Trump’s attempt at humor at the expense of guests fell astronomically far off the mark. The obvious animosity toward some of the guests canceled out any semblance of humor. Listen to him:

“But I can exclusively reveal to you this evening that for the heaviest of the heavyweights, we will have sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings you’ll ever meet, fighting, uh, I would say, I could mention the governor of Chicago (Trump is referring here to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker), but I’m gonna mention instead Jerry Nadler. And they’re fighting for a big piece of cheesecake. Big, fat piece of cheesecake.”

“…And then you have a Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez plus three. That’s her three friends, right? (Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley)…Remember, you cannot have a 19-second wait time to answer a question. I watched her give that answer when she was over in Europe. It was not a good answer. If I ever gave that answer, I would be out of politics (Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez identified Venezuela as being below the Equator. Venezuela is above the equator).

“…And Lawrence O’Donnell, never liked him, never thought he had any talent, but he’s still making a living, so I can’t knock it. But we had a, uh, contest for who had the lowest ratings and the lowest IQ on television…And that was actually Don Lemon, I think. You know, when I said that he’s the dumbest man on television, I said, ‘You know, when you say some things, you never make a comeback. It’s not like, Oh gee, hey, Don, let’s have dinner some night.’ But I know what I’m saying. And then you have Bette Midler and Jane Fonda who actually held a concert to protest the first UFC fight.”

“…And what about Bruce Springsteen? What the hell happened to that guy? He looks like hell. I don’t care what anyone says I’m not supposed to say. I’m sure he doesn’t like the way I look, but I don’t look so bad. But at a recent concert, Bruce did nothing but talk politics. He ought to run for office. That’d be interesting. But all he talked about was making four political speeches in his three-hour show. The tour has been renamed ‘Bored in the USA’.”

“And his new song was so bad that Chris Christie, who’s like a fan, you know, he goes out and tells everybody how he hates Chris Christie, “Keep that guy out of my -- and I see Chris Christie there again, high-fiving Bruce Springsteen in the aisle. And Bruce Springsteen saw him and didn’t even lift his hand up. And I just wanted…because I used to be friendly with Chris, Chris, when somebody doesn’t like you, write them off.”

“…And there’s one time in particular when Barack Hussein Obama was the featured speaker at the correspondents’ dinner. And he hit me hard. But actually, he hit me with respect. I was sitting with Melania at a table, and you had Brooklyn Decker, supermodel, at a table right next to her. And she, I, I really always will like her. She’s married to a great tennis player, Andy. And she was at the table, not at my table. And I have watched this clip thousands of times. They keep playing it because they think that was the evening I decided to run for President. It was not. In fact, I loved the evening. I looked at my wife, and I said, “Can you believe it? All these people, that’s all they’re doing is talking about me. I love this dinner.”

“…And Obama was nice. He, you know, it’s amazing how things work out. He actually showed a picture of the White House with a big TRUMP on top, like I put a sign. And you know, I’m sort of doing that when you think about it, right? I mean, think, he wasn’t really wrong. But no, he was respectful. He was good.”

“I don’t know. But we’re gonna be back next year. And Jackie will treat me very badly. But this year, the association decided not to have a comedian, so they considered using Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Fallon. These guys, they, they’re terrible. They’re terrible. Stephen Colbert, these are people without talent.”

“And so, they thought about going with a professional clown for entertainment, but Adam Shifty Schiff was not available. You know, he’s known. I called him, I, I hate some people, you know? I shouldn’t say this. I’m President. I’m not supposed to hate. I’m supposed to love everybody… But he is a terrible person. He’s a liar. And, uh, I called him watermelon head because he has the largest head I’ve ever seen with the smallest neck, pencil neck. How does that White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, listen without telegraphing any expression of approval or disapproval?”

“She’s a young, attractive woman. She never smiles.” I said, ‘Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile. You have a nice position, you’re at CNN fake news, you should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan, just smile.”

Trump attempted to deliver a roast-style joke comparing her to trans actress Dylan Mulvaney that was met with silence from the crowd. He continued, “I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I informed her that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney.”

“And then I was told that even Rosie O’Donnell reached out from Ireland. She really wanted to be here in order to honor me. She loves me very much, and she was desperate to come back to the United States and pay her respects to Donald J. Trump. But that didn’t work out, unfortunately, because, uh, nobody wanted her to come back. She’s actually one of the greatest sufferers of Trump derangement syndrome.”

And so it went. For sixty-four minutes President Trump lumbered on, drawing very few laughs while, I suppose, settling a few scores along the way. From time to time the television camera scanned the audience of correspondents to gauge their attentiveness or their interest in what the President was saying. Bored is the word that comes to mind.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s book, “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author,

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center,

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation,

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway,

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon,

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite,

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels,

Former Senator Barbara Boxer,

Former Senator Joe Lieberman,

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

.

President Trump, hyping the speech he was about to deliver last Thursday night on alleged voting irregularities in America, warned that America “has to shape up.”

I expected an exposé about voting irregularities or some new allegation about elections in America. After all, this was going to be a major speech for which the President of the United States was demanding prime network time. Trump was insisting on live network coverage. He was about to question the validity of our national elections.

The speech turned out to be much ado about nothing specific. The President offered no proof, nor even a valid indication, that our elections were being tampered with. Empty accusations…All hat and no cattle, as they say out west.

Voters in America are entitled to have a high degree of confidence in the sanctity of our elections, and voters should have no tolerance for election hijinks. The 1960 presidential election, the first in which I was eligible to vote, was marred by allegations of vote rigging in Chicago to secure John F. Kennedy’s victory over Richard Nixon. But I digress.

This week, President Trump tried to convince Americans, in a primetime address, that our elections are vulnerable to fraud and need immediate attention. We can all agree that America cannot tolerate election skullduggery. We can also agree that politicians who accuse their opponents of election rigging in the absence of any indication of such cheating are bush-leaguers unworthy of the offices they seek or hold.

Realistically, election cheating is not easy in America. Poll watchers and vote-counting observers are generally present whenever voting takes place in America. These are generally citizen activists, and often volunteers who are quick to call out any suspected irregularity. Given how vast our network of polling places is in America, how decentralized voting facilities are, and how quick poll watchers are to call out any irregularities they see, the likelihood of significant cheating going undetected is far lower than most voters realize.

There are observers from both parties watching each step of the voting process, and the likelihood of significant cheating really is minimized. These observers are generally partial to one political party or the other, but they are invariably motivated to ensure a fair and legitimate election process. Because representatives of both parties are typically involved at every step of the voting and vote-counting process, cheating is rare and very hard to get away with.

When I was involved in political campaigns many years ago, I was always impressed with the dedication of volunteer citizen observers who watched the voting and vote-counting process during our elections. Cheating on a meaningful scale without being detected is highly unlikely.

Often, official observers are volunteers who may be neighbors or friends of fellow observers from the opposing Party. They generally are public-spirited citizens who simply want to see that elections are conducted fairly. They may be highly partisan, but they are there to ensure there are no irregularities and to report any cheating they suspect.

They are typically committed to fair play and prepared to see that winners prevail at election time, even when the winner may not be their preferred candidate. Cheating is much harder than most people might assume. That’s because the fairness of our elections does not rely on blind trust. Our elections rely, to a great extent, on verification at almost every step of the voting process. There are observers from both parties at every polling place and wherever votes are counted and entered. Cheating is very difficult, and the penalties are severe. Fraud at a polling place or at the location where votes are officially tabulated is a federal crime.

Voting in American elections is a grand citizen enterprise, and, to many, an exhilarating process. On election day, real determinative power is vested in the country’s citizenry. While pre-election polls may have already determined who the victors will be, surprises frequently lurk. There are often upsets and unanticipated outcomes.

It is not unusual to find poll watchers from opposing parties at a precinct who also happen to be neighbors and friends. They may want to see their candidates win, but they mostly want their candidates to get a fair shake. Mostly, they are just there to be helpful, and, in my experience, poll workers want to do their part to see that elections are fair and honest.

Because we often see our neighbors working at the precincts, we generally trust what is happening on election day. We are not asked on election day to unquestioningly trust the politicians who have campaigned for our vote. We are asked to trust a system in which our neighbors and friends, and often our family members, have volunteered their time to ensure fair and honest elections. We don’t simply place our trust in the candidates but also in those we know and trust, giving us confidence that the elections are fair.

It has been many years since I worked precincts on election day. Still, the confidence in the process that comes from participating in the work of an American election can be both exhilarating and reassuring.

This week, President Trump told America that it has to shape up. Our President would be well served to heed his own advice.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s book, “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author,

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center,

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation,

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway,

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon,

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite,

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels,

Former Senator Barbara Boxer,

Former Senator Joe Lieberman,

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Red baiting has a long and repugnant pedigree in American politics. The late and noxious Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and his henchman, Roy Cohn, ushered in one of the most divisive and dark chapters in American history by recklessly hurling the “card-carrying communist” epithet at his political opponents to great effect in the early 1950s.

Now, three-quarters of a century later, President Trump has dusted off Joe McCarthy’s communist-fear-mongering playbook in an attempt to scare voters into supporting his candidates in the upcoming midterm elections, which are barely 100 days away. The only catch is that the old communists and their regimes have largely faded into the dustbin of history. President Trump and his sycophants seem determined to resurrect the McCarthy red-scare tactics of the 1950s and serve them up to the American electorate in 2026. It’s an odious campaign strategy.

While modern-day dictators may represent new iterations of old regimes, they pretty much understand that free-market economies perform far better than those that are centrally planned. Communism has little appeal in today’s world.

Nonetheless, it seems that President Trump is going to try to resurrect a red scare even if there are very few “reds” lurking in the halls of government in America or, for that matter, anywhere else that really matters. Even Russia and China, while run by dictators, have long ago moved toward market-based economies.

It is doubtful that President Trump came up with this hairbrained scheme to resurrect a new “red scare” to underpin his attacks against democrats. It seems more like something sycophant Steve Miller or perhaps Steve Bannon would concoct. They know President Trump would take to red-baiting like a duck takes to water. It seems the nation is, once again, about to experience a politically motivated red scare. As the French like to say, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” (The more things change, the more they remain the same).

Listen to President Trump.

“Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty,” he said at Mount Rushmore last week. Okay, fair enough.

But then he continued: “It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11.” Imagine that. According to Trump, it’s the commies we need to fear… they're worse than the Nazis and even the terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center.

Trump’s red scare strategy clearly seems to have been communicated to his spear carriers, who will beat the “red scare” drums until the mid-term elections. They have their marching orders.

Listen to House Speaker Mike Johnson: “It’s communism, socialism…those are deviations of Marxism.” This is communism, and it has led to the murder of innocent people, tens of millions of them in the 20th century alone. We have to fight this.”

Listen to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “This is not your granddaddy’s Democrat Party. “These are communists.”

Leavitt is, with a straight face, saying that today’s Democrats are communists. And the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, is saying the same thing. And the Republican Party (my former Party for over sixty years) will line up many more Republicans to repeat the same canard. It is shameful, and it will come back to haunt the Party.

Red-baiting has frequently been Trump’s fallback tactic when he is backed into a corner. After his federal arraignment three years ago for trying to overturn the 2020 election, Trump said Marxists and communists were persecuting him.

Listen to him speaking of President Biden.

“He (Biden) together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists, tried to destroy American democracy…If the communists get away with this, it won’t stop me.” He went on to say that Biden’s America could soon become “a third-world Marxist regime, or a tyrannical Marxist nation.” But he has assured the country that under Trump, “America will never be a communist country.”

Nor will America become a communist country under any Democratic candidate who secures the nomination, or, realistically, under any third-party candidate who aspires to the presidency. Trump apparently believes that fomenting a red scare is a winning tactic. And if that is what he believes, we can expect a tirade of accusations that democratic candidates are simply communists in disguise.

Realistically, no President could turn America into a communist country. Full Stop. That would take an armed coup or a long, cumbersome, drawn-out process to amend the Constitution and have those amendments ratified. To suggest otherwise is simply ridiculous. We have a strict system of checks and balances in America that places real limits on executive authority. An American President cannot rewrite or suspend the Constitution of the United States. Nor can a President abolish private property or suspend our free-market economy. Trump is foolishly and irresponsibly creating a red herring, apparently believing the American electorate might buy the nonsense he is selling.

An American President does not write or pass laws; that’s the role of Congress, and approval of both houses of Congress would be required to overhaul how our government operates.

The Supreme Court holds the power to evaluate and strike down any executive orders or legislation that violate the Constitution.

Transitioning to a communist system, as Trump suggests the Democrats will do, would require a complete overhaul of the US government. That would entail amending the Constitution, which requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

While presidents possess significant powers, transitioning to communism is literally impossible without the approval of Congress, the courts, and the American public.

“I want to get the word out because what’s forming is communism,” Trump said following the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, this week.

Trump told those in attendance that communism is the biggest threat America has faced since its founding.

“Communism is easy to sell,” Trump said. “I would be the greatest communist in history. I’d be right up there with former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin.”

Of course, Trump plays the communist fear card whenever it suits him. Remember when he called Kamala Harris Comrade Kamala during the last presidential election, and shared a fake photo of Harris speaking to a made-up crowd under red lights while she waved communist flags.

“I think we’re hitting a nerve,” Trump said. “It’s a different kind of race. All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody who is going to destroy our country.”

Roy Cohn and Joe McCarthy would be proud.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

That reality is worth pondering on this 250^th birthday of our country.

My parents were the first in our family to have been born in America. They were natural-born American citizens, and they, in turn, automatically passed American citizenship to my brother and me when we were born.

My mother spent many of her adolescent and teen years in an orphanage following my maternal grandmother’s untimely death in the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic, and my grandfather’s crippling grief at the loss of his wife.

My teenage mother fled from the orphanage when she eloped with my father. That was a miraculous course correction in our family's history. They went on to have two sons, my brother and me.

The extraordinary yet simple reality of being born on these shores was a miracle because it made my parents, my brother, and me American citizens. My father, born in 1911 into an immigrant family in Baltimore, Maryland, once bragged to me that he was never out of work during America’s Great Depression, even though he earned only pitiful pennies an hour. While he was never out of work, it was, nonetheless, a hardscrabble life.

By the realities of human history on this earth, we Americans are among history’s most privileged souls. We Americans, regardless of circumstance, possess nothing as valuable as our American citizenship. Let us pause to reflect on that.

While July 4th is celebrated as America’s birthday, July 2nd is really the day America officially came into existence, because it is the day the Second Continental Congress voted to approve the formal Declaration of Independence. July 2nd is the date on which John Adams believed future generations would celebrate America’s independence. It is the day the signers of that historic declaration put their lives on the line by declaring, in writing, that the United States of America was an independent nation and no longer a colony of England.

However, the final editing of that draft of the formal declaration, when the t’s were crossed and the i’s were dotted, was not finished until July 4th. Nonetheless, as far as the founders were concerned, they had pledged their sacred honor by approving the declaration separating the thirteen colonies from England on July 2nd and not July 4th.

I write “as far as the founders were concerned” because, as we know, not all of the colonists were founders or Patriots, nor did all of the colonists want anything to do with the founders. An estimated 15% to 20% of the colonists were Loyalists, or Tories, who pledged their allegiance to the crown. And, to be sure, many colonists were neutral on the subject of independence. They were either loyal to the crown or simply against the destruction they were certain war would bring.

From an historical perspective, American independence from the British crown was cataclysmic to the old-world order. It brought an end to the First British Empire and signaled the birth of the world’s first republic in which governance was by the consent of the governed.

For the first time in history, the center of global power began its century-long shift across the Atlantic, from Europe to America. America, astoundingly rich in natural resources, would no longer see its wealth transferred to Europe to support European industry and European tastes, but would instead become an economic powerhouse in its own right.

America, during its early history, was an East Coast bastion. Still, as the new country began to look westward, American industry focused on America’s vast natural resources, economic growth, manufacturing capability, and markets. America was quickly emerging as the greatest economic powerhouse the world had ever known.

During the twentieth century, Europe was largely enfeebled by two world wars separated in time by only a quarter century. And while America fought in both of these wars, the nation was unscathed by the destruction that was visited upon the other belligerents. America also supplied material of every description to feed the war machines of the Allied powers in both wars.

And so, America, at the dawn of the 20^th century, emerged as the greatest economic power the world had ever known, and, as quantified by the National Bureau of Economic Research, that economic might has grown dramatically over the past century.

Take a look at these approximations of American economic power over the last century as measured by America’s Nominal Gross Domestic Product.

1929: $0.1 trillion

1950: $0.32 trillion

1975: $1.68 trillion

2000: $14.2 trillion

2024: $28.7 trillion

2025: $30.7 trillion

2026: $31.866 trillion

America’s rapid rise resulted from abundant natural resources, a stable legal framework that protected commerce, and immense geographic isolation from global conflicts. Two World Wars devastated European infrastructure while leaving the US mainland untouched, allowing it to emerge as the dominant military, financial, and industrial Superpower.

So, what has driven this dramatic growth in the US economy:

The United States is protected geographically by two oceans and enjoys an enormous network of navigable rivers, vast quantities of coal and oil, and arable land.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, America also enjoyed a large immigrant labor force.

While World War I and World War II shattered European and Asian economies, the US mainland remained untouched and secure as America became the “arsenal of democracy,” producing massive amounts of war materiel and was the only major power whose infrastructure remained untouched by these global wars.

Following 1945, the US spearheaded the creation of international institutions such as the World Bank and the Marshall Plan, as well as global alliances such as NATO, which collectively produced long-term geopolitical dominance.

Nothing in world-power dynamics was ever to be quite the same. The speed at which that geographical shift in world power occurred is breathtaking. And it all began, more or less, 250 years ago on July fourth. And, really, given the wide^, expansive sweep of history, not that long ago.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney's “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children's Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

Events that would change world history and catapult the United States into world-power status unfolded 112 years ago, on 28 June 1914, when an armed Bosnian Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, found himself in the right place, (or the wrong place if one’s loyalty was to the Austro-Hungarian throne) to assassinate both the Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, and his wife Sophie.

With the snap of a finger, or more to the point, the crack of a Belgian-made, Fabrique Nationale model 1910 semi-automatic handgun, the world was plunged into World War I.

The conflagration ended five years later (to the day) when Germany and the Allied powers signed the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 2019. All in all, by the time it was over, nine million soldiers lay dead, along with another five million civilians.

The grizzly blood-letting dramatically altered the global balance of power. Four major centers of power: Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires lay in various stages of ruin. The United States emerged as the dominant global power. Almost overnight, America went from a debtor nation to a major creditor nation. The world order changed dramatically with the Treaty of Versailles.

America was suddenly a superpower.

More than four million American troops were mobilized by the time the war ended, with two million of them, all part of the American Expeditionary Forces, deployed to Europe. American troops, commanded by General John J. Pershing, fought in major engagements, including the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which broke a lingering and bloody stalemate and forced Germany to seek an armistice in November 1918.

While American troops provided a critical workforce, the American industrial machine was a game-changer in the war, providing an economic lifeline to British and French allies. We provided everything that was in demand. Troops, raw material, munitions, food, and funding all flowed from America’s shores to Europe.

American logistical support and an influx of fresh manpower boosted the morale of the exhausted Allies. They overwhelmed a German military that was both physically exhausted and short of all manner of ordnance and supplies.

The war created a new America on the world stage. The United States became a leading global economic and political superpower on which the old world would increasingly depend. The experience and expertise developed through America’s role in the First World War would prove indispensable when we were later cast into World War II.

The First World War left the old dominant European powers severely weakened. The European victors of the First World War, principally Great Britain and France, faced enormous debt and depended, more than ever before, on American manufacturing and economic support.

America, while a major factor on the battlefield, was literally shielded from any physical warfare destruction at home. American industry boomed and expanded, almost exponentially, supplying its Allies.

Within a year or two of America’s entering the war, American output surpassed that of the British Empire. New York was, almost overnight, the new center of global finance. Before the war, Europe was heavily invested in America. By the end of the conflict, European nations owed the United States billions of dollars.

America, which had been essentially isolationist prior to the war, became a major international factor by the time it ended. President Woodrow Wilson, with his Fourteen Point Peace Plan, turned America from an isolationist country into a giant in world affairs.

While the US superpower status was certainly solidified during World War I, we emerged as the undisputed global power following World War II and the subsequent rebuilding of Europe.

Most historians recognize Japan’s surrender aboard the USS Missouri as the day the United States achieved the status of the world’s premier economic and military power. America had produced the lion’s share of the Allied equipment that serviced the greatest fighting machine the world had ever known. And, of course, the United States was the world’s only nuclear power.

There is, of course, no single day on which America became a superpower. Many view 8 December 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, as the day the US began its climb to superpower status.

Some historians argue that the United States achieved great-power status—a precursor to superpower status—on August 12, 1898, with the cease-fire in the Spanish-American War, during which America gained overseas territories.

Other historians believe the United States achieved Super Power status when it became the sole Superpower following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991.

While the US was the largest economy as early as 1871, 1945 marked the point in time when America took its place as the worldwide-recognized global Superpower, with the collapse of the Axis powers.

Looking ahead, America’s status as the global Superpower seems safely assured.

Here’s why:

The United States spends more, much more, than any other nation in the world for defense. America’s military strength is unrivaled in the world, and no other nation has the economic strength to challenge that reality.

The United States economy is the strongest financial engine in the world today. Our economy is the largest of any nation, and the United States dollar remains the undisputed chief global reserve currency. The United States dollar accounts for approximately 58% of global foreign exchange reserves and is used in 90% of all foreign exchange transactions.

The United States dollar should remain the world’s most trusted reserve currency because of the enormous size of the American economy, which accounts for about 26% of global GDP. As the World’s Reserve Currency, the dollar is what governments around the world hold in large quantities to conduct international business and to back up their own economies.

The United States also leads in digital, biotech, and scientific development. That’s why the world’s top technology and artificial intelligence companies are headquartered in the United States.

The United States is nestled between the two largest oceans in the world, and we share borders with peaceful, allied nations.

We enjoy secure borders, a treasure trove of natural resources, a fully integrated rail system, and navigable internal waterways.

The United States is the primary host of many major global alliances, such as NATO, and international institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) calls Washington home, as does the Organization of American States, the Pan American Health Organization, UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee, Action Against Hunger, and Doctors Without Borders.

These examples barely scratch the surface of international organizations that are headquartered in the United States.

These realities are why the United States holds such a commanding position in international relations and international trade. It represents a level of confidence in America that is unparalleled in the world today. That confidence is an enormously valuable asset that we must guard jealously. It is the envy of the world.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

The United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve is in the news almost daily…but what is it, and where is it, and do other nations maintain strategic petroleum reserves?

Simply put, America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the strategic oil reserves of other nations are stockpiles of crude oil that we and other nations “warehouse” for use during supply disruptions. The United States is the world’s largest consumer of oil. We consume about 20% of the world's oil today.

China, the United States, and Japan are the three largest crude oil consumers in the world and, as would be expected, maintain the largest strategic oil reserves. Once the President of the United States gives the order to tap into the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, it takes about thirteen days to provide petroleum from the Reserve.

Oil is in production and in transit every day, all over the world, but, as current events testify, production can be curtailed or halted by domestic and international conflicts, as well as by severe natural disasters or labor strikes. Think of petroleum reserves as a temporary but vital bridge to get nations through temporary supply shocks. For example, last March, the 32-member nations of the International Energy Agency agreed to the largest release of oil from their emergency reserves in response to disruptions caused by the war with Iran.

Strategic oil reserves are not the same as proved oil reserves. Proved oil reserves are simply estimates of crude oil that is still in the ground. Strategic oil reserves are inventories of oil that have already been extracted and can be quickly brought to market.

As of last month, the United States held approximately 357.1 million barrels of petroleum in Reserve out of an authorized capacity of 714 million barrels. We have the capacity to double what we currently hold in Reserve. This represents only 22% of our total petroleum inventory. We consume about 20.6 million barrels of petroleum each day, with the rest of the petroleum not held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve stored in refineries and bulk terminals, in pipelines, on rail and ships, or in storage where it is produced before being sold and transported.

Ironically, even though the United States is the world’s largest oil producer, accounting for about 13 million barrels a day (out-producing Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Canada), we still import oil because we produce mostly “light, sweet” crude. Our refineries are built to run on “heavy sour” crude from Canada and Mexico. Light, sweet crude is well-suited to producing transportation gasoline, while heavier crude oils, which are generally cheaper, are more efficient for producing diesel, jet fuel, and petrochemicals.

Much of America’s oil production is consumed domestically, while other major producers, such as Saudi Arabia, are major exporters. These countries depend heavily on OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) to manage the price that importers will pay for their oil. In America, we call that price fixing, but I digress.

Remember, our strategic petroleum reserves are stored for use in emergencies. These inventories are held in storage primarily to support economic activity in the event of a supply interruption caused by a temporary but severe international crisis, such as a war.

Given that the U.S., China, and Japan are the world’s leading crude oil consumers, they maintain the largest strategic reserves. Petroleum drawn from strategic reserves is intended as a one-time supply infusion and is not meant to address ongoing scarcity.

Once the President of the United States gives the order, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve needs about 13 days to supply inventory at a maximum rate of 4.4 million barrels per day.

The Strategic Oil Reserves of the United States provide vital but limited assistance to the country in the event of disruptions in petroleum markets. Oil in storage can only provide temporary help in an ongoing crisis, but maintaining supply for weeks or several months can make an enormous difference during a supply crisis caused by natural disasters or armed conflict.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserves of the United States are stored in huge salt dome caverns along the Gulf Coast. The United States created the Strategic Petroleum Reserves following the 1973-1974 OPEC oil embargo. The United States drew from these reserves for the first time in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina. Then, we drew upon the Strategic Petroleum Reserves again in 2008 following Hurricane Gustav. More recently, we drew upon inventory from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in response to high inflation and again when the world experienced high gasoline prices due to market disruptions following Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the result of decades of discussions, studies, and proposals. The process that ultimately resulted in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve dates back to 1944, when Interior Secretary Harold Ickes first called for an emergency petroleum stockpile.

But it was the catastrophic 1973 OPEC oil embargo and the quadrupling of energy costs that prompted the United States and others to coordinate emergency energy policies. Ultimately, the Reserve came into existence when President Gerald Ford signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act into law.

China boasts the world’s largest strategic crude oil reserve, with an inventory of approximately 1.4 billion barrels at the end of last year.

Japan holds the third-largest strategic petroleum reserve with an inventory of 263 million barrels.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Read or listen to Novels by Hal Gershowitz

All available at Amazon.com and Audible.com

President Donald Trump has a long record of attacking the legitimacy of any election in which he or his supporters do not win. This unrelenting pattern of calling elections rigged when they do not go his way is troubling and dangerous, and categorically un-American.

President Trump is an abominably poor loser. He has demonstrated, quite literally, that he is prepared to burn the proverbial house down when an election does not go his way.

Joe Biden defeated President Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Trump lost that election, receiving 46.8% of the popular vote to Biden’s 51.3%. Biden collected 306 Electoral votes to Trump’s 232 Electoral votes. This was an impossibly bitter pill for Trump to swallow. So, he trashed the election, and to this day, he refuses to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. There has probably been no American presidential election more thoroughly investigated than the 2020 Biden-Trump election, in which Trump lost decisively.

No doubt, Trump would have cried foul regardless of who had defeated him, but losing to Biden was a pill too bitter for Trump to swallow. To make matters worse, Trump was the first President to lose re-election in 34 years. While he failed to overturn the election, he certainly demonstrated the lengths to which he would go to avoid facing the fact that he had simply lost. Donald Trump cannot tolerate the public repudiation of losing…not an argument, nor a debate, and certainly not an election.

We are barely four months away from our forthcoming mid-term elections. While President Trump is not on the ballot, his party is. And to the extent he is the undisputed leader of his party, the election will reflect the nation’s view of him as well. He will see a repudiation of his party as a repudiation of his presidency.

The peaceful transition of power is the sine qua non, the absolutely essential condition, of our democracy. For more than two centuries (except the Civil War), the United States has enjoyed a consensus that elections are the means of changing the country's leadership. The 2020-2021 transition of Presidential power marked an exception to that consensus. President Trump, who was elected with a minority of votes in 2016 (but with a majority in the electoral college), refused to accept the reality of his 2020 defeat at the polls, even though Joe Biden won over 7 million more votes than Trump, and won the electoral college by a vote of 306 to 232.

We have a tradition in America that the loser of a presidential election concedes defeat, congratulates the winner, and affirms the results of the democratic process.

Never in our history has a President who lost an election attempted to stay in office by undermining the electoral process after the election. Yet, during the 2020-2021 transition of the presidency, Trump attacked the legitimacy of the election and incited a violent mob to attack a Joint Session of Congress in the Capitol, doing serious damage to the American tradition of peacefully transferring power. In the entire history of our republic, only Donald Trump refused to acknowledge a lost presidential election.

In an effort to stay in office after losing an election, President Trump took the following actions, all of which are unprecedented in American history:

1. He alone, among American Presidents, refused to concede when he lost his re-election bid.

2. He refused to attend his successor’s inaugural.

3. He demands that every Republican who desires to work in his administration, refuse to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election.

4. To this day, he belittles his successor in the 2020 election.

Sadly, very few Republicans spoke up as Trump savaged the very idea of the peaceful transfer of presidential power. A month after the 2020 election, only 26 of the 252 Republican members of Congress were willing to publicly acknowledge that Trump had lost the election.

Even after the violent riot at the Capitol, 147 Representatives and eight Senators voted against counting the electoral votes that provided Biden’s win. The 2020 election put the US constitutional system under extreme pressure. Though many norms of the political system were shattered, the constitutional framework survived: State and local officials of both parties fulfilled their duties. Some Republicans spoke out against Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. State and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, rejected bogus fraud claims. Electoral ballots were cast in state capitals. Voting outcomes were certified by the states.

After the violent attack on the Capitol, the electoral votes were duly counted, and Biden was declared president-elect. President Trump, however, refused to admit his electoral defeat. He rejected the customary civility of defeated candidates in dealing with his successor. Most importantly, most of the members of his party in Congress refused to recognize the outcome of the election and supported Trump’s specious claims. Consequently, the broad base of the Republican Party believed their leaders and denied the legitimacy of the election. These fervent beliefs, along with Trump’s incitement, led to the violent occupation of the Capitol by the mob and continued threats of violence in 2021.

The Constitution was not designed for chief executives like Donald Trump. It was designed for statesmen and citizens who would perpetuate what the founders bequeathed to us. The Framers of the Constitution feared the concentration of power and especially the prospect of a chief executive becoming a tyrant. Yet they knew America would need an independent executive to checkmate a Congress that might abuse its power. While the founders allotted most of the authority to Congress in the new Constitution, political power has largely shifted to the President and the executive branch, which he largely controls. The Framers feared, in Alexander Hamilton’s words, when a man unprincipled in private…despotic in his ordinary demeanor—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty— when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

Hamilton knew a scoundrel would, sooner or later, come along. Listen to him again: “It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

Trump’s sycophants were willing to do Trump’s bidding, even though it meant savaging American Democracy. But the words of Alexandra Hamilton hung over the proceedings that cold inauguration day five years ago, “that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind”…Hamilton knew.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

US Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz

It is, to me, miraculous that our American founders, an assortment of highly motivated lawyers, merchants, and plantation owners, were all alive and present at the same time, and at the same place, and were all focused on the same task-- building a new experiment in nationhood.

Anyone who signed any of the nation’s founding documents, that is, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, or the Constitution of the United States, is generally considered to be a founder.

The essential founders, those whom history recognizes for their long involvement in and skill at statecraft, would certainly include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison.

John Jay was another towering figure among the founders. He wrote five of the 85 essays comprising the Federalist Papers. Alexander Hamilton authored 51 of the Federalist Papers and James Madison contributed 29 essays to the Papers. The Federalist Papers are a masterpiece of persuasive political literature.

The authors chose to remain anonymous at the time to avoid criticism of the Federalist Papers for any issues people may have had with the three authors. They wanted readers to focus on the content and the ideas encapsulated in the Papers rather than on the personalities who authored them. So, to the colonists (and the monarchy with whom they were severing ties), the remarkable Federalist Papers were simply the work of “Publius.”

It was an interesting nom de plume. Publius was chosen in honor of Publius Valerius Publicola, who is credited with helping to overthrow the last Roman monarchy. Alexander Hamilton is credited with choosing the name. Just as Publius was a sign of a new age for the Roman people, so would it represent a new day for America.

This was much more than wordsmithing on the part of the drafters. They were laying down a marker…taking a strong, unambiguous position that the American experiment would, in no way, emulate European royalty. America was embracing a new paradigm in governance.

A written constitution would govern America, the world’s first, and this new constitution would be supreme, standing taller and more authoritative than any one individual. Every citizen under this new paradigm would have certain inalienable rights. And while it took more than another half century for these inalienable rights to be extended to all who would call America home, the die had been cast. Human Rights would not be gifts parceled out by rulers, but rather inalienable freedoms that belonged to every citizen of the land.

These were radical deviations from the norms that governed most of the Western world. America simply rejected the notion of hereditary privilege, not to mention divinely ordained governance. In America, a written constitution, rather than a divinely ordained monarchy, would inform the people of the rights they enjoyed and the protections they had against encroachments on their freedom by either the government or an entrenched religious establishment. This was radical stuff. It was uniquely American, and it largely produced a fiercely independent populace.

America was achieving a unique identity for its people, which really set Americans apart from most of the known world. There evolved in America a fiercely independent populace unconstrained by the habits and practices of the old world. Americans, simply stated, were free to choose how they lived and organized their lives to an extent rarely seen elsewhere in the world. That freedom supercharged an American spirit that was also rare and transformative.

Then there was the reality of America’s separation and relative isolation from the old world. This provided, indeed imposed, a circumstance that existed nowhere else. Americans could seriously contemplate changing and improving their station in life. They were, to an extent unknown in much of the rest of the world, simply free to choose, as Milton Friedman was to write more than a century-and-a-half later. We take that for granted today.

Americans were different. They knew it, and so did their European cousins, who chose not to make the journey to the New World. These Americans evolved their own distinct identity. They enjoyed a far more democratic way of life. There was no ancient aristocracy that dictated how they would live and what they could realistically contemplate for themselves and their progeny. They could embrace the religion of their forbears, or try one of the many new faiths that were proliferating in this new world, or they could forego religious practice altogether.

They were citizens of a new frontier nation that fostered a degree of individualism that had largely vanished from the old world they had escaped. This new world provided an abundance of elbow room, a remarkable variety of newcomers, and the latitude to find one’s way as one chose. This divergence was rooted in the abundance of land, the mixing of diverse immigrant groups, and the need to build societies from scratch.

Key differences emerged across several major areas:

Social Mobility and Class: Unlike Europe’s rigid class systems based on birthright, American society was more fluid. Land was plentiful and cheap, allowing many colonists and immigrants to own property and rise in social status—a near impossibility for European peasants.

Americans developed a political culture heavily influenced by the Enlightenment. They favored republicanism, emphasizing civic duty, decentralized power, and the radical notion that governments derive their legitimacy from the “consent of the governed.”

After all, there was no national religion. One might walk down the street in Philadelphia and find Quakers, Puritans, and Baptists going about the business of building a life for themselves and their families. That they were dissenting sects really didn’t matter that much. The American colonies became a haven for various Protestant sects whose congregants had no interest in state-sanctioned churches, unlike those in European cities. The level of religious toleration was, to many, an oasis and a departure from the strict observances of Europe.

Many of the most revered founders would count themselves as Deists. They believed that a supreme being or force created the universe and natural laws governing the cosmos, but were less drawn to strict religious doctrine.

Out of this amalgam of souls and beliefs, America emerged. The new nation was, and is, the melting pot about which Emma Lazarus wrote. The America she described did not draw its great strength from the bluebloods and the aristocracy, but rather from the common populace and the huddled masses.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz

No one should accuse President Trump of hiding his authoritarian instincts or, more importantly, his authoritarian intent. He exudes it and, more importantly, he has been remarkably candid about it.

“He who saves his country does not violate any laws.” So, said President Donald Trump a year ago, echoing Napoleon Bonaparte. And from whom is he saving the country, one might ask. From his political opposition, as well as the people who embrace our constitutional form of government, one might reply.

This is very serious stuff. This wasn’t (isn’t) President Trump speaking without thinking. This was Trump luxuriating in his thinking about power, which he believes is his to wield. He is a president who has a corporate sense of government in which there are not three equal branches of government, but rather one dominant branch to which the other branches are subservient or inferior.

This maximalist concept of the executive branch of government holds that the President is the only official who holds a nationally elected office and, therefore, cannot be constrained or even overseen by other officeholders who are either unelected by the people or belong to other branches of government. This line of reasoning, which has no basis in our Constitution, is not unique to President Trump. Other American presidents have flirted with this line of reasoning.

Joe Biden moved to implement a massive student loan forgiveness program by executive order after Congress repeatedly declined to pass legislation funding the measure. This policy was subsequently struck down by the Supreme Court’s.

Barack Obama bypassed the Senate’s advice-and-consent role for executive appointments by making controversial “recess appointments”. At the same time, the Senate was not in official recess, a move challenged in the courts and later rejected by the Supreme Court.

Richard Nixon claimed the President was above the law via absolute executive privilege, expanding the imperial presidency through undeclared, secret bombings in Cambodia and Laos without congressional approval.

Harry S. Truman seized the nation’s steel mills via executive order during the Korean War to avert a strike. The Supreme Court’s later ruled this unconstitutional in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, determining that Truman had usurped legislative lawmaking authority.

Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War in defiance of Chief Justice Roger Taney’s ruling in Ex parte Merryman, which maintained that only Congress held that power.

Andrew Jackson was somewhat of an exception when he defied the Supreme Court’s’s ruling in Worcester v. Georgia, which protected Cherokee sovereignty. Jackson famously remarked, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” This directly led to the Trail of Tears, which was the forced displacement (think ethnic cleansing) of 60,000 Native Americans.

It is to the nation’s credit that presidential actions have, by and large, been abandoned when they were deemed unconstitutional by the nation’s highest courts. From the very beginning of the republic, our nation’s leaders were generally steadfast in respecting the authority of the three branches of government in America. Indeed, it was James Madison who, in 1788, wrote in Federalist 47 that, “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” Consider just how forward-thinking, yet radical, Madison’s writing was 238 years ago.

Which brings us to the present and President Trump’s latest authoritarian gambit to disperse $1.8 billion from the federal fisk to pay those loyalists who claim they were unfairly persecuted for participating in the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

It is a conundrum. On one hand, thousands marched on the Capitol and rioted (some violently) to protest in response to President Trump’s exhortation to (on one hand) “march peacefully and patriotically to make your voices heard” and (on the other hand) “you’ll never take our country back with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong,” and, “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

So, is it an authoritarian power play for the Trump Administration to move $1.8 billion from the US treasury to Trump supporters who were prosecuted for trying to stop the constitutionally mandated transfer of power on January 6, 2021? The question answers itself. Of course, it is an authoritarian power play for President Trump to try to use federal dollars to compensate those who were convicted of interfering with the peaceful transfer of power in the United States on that infamous day five years ago. If President Trump feels those he sent to the Capitol to “stop the steal” should be compensated, he needs only look in the mirror to see who should be doing the compensating. President Trump, and only President Trump, was responsible for the events of that shameful day. He should not be looking to the American taxpayer to pay the rioters for the riot he perpetrated. One needn’t fault the convicted rioters for what happened that day. They believed the President, and they believed they were patriots on that day five years ago. It boggles the mind that President Trump is promoting that taxpayers should be footing the bill to compensate those who were convicted for responding to his call to riot. One might recall the lament of Joseph Welch during the Army-McCarthy hearings fifty-four years ago.

“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Have you no sense of decency?”

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz

When a voting map looks like a Rorschach test, you can bet the gerrymandering mischief-makers have been hard at work screwing over the voters so that the maps produce the outcomes partisan politicians want rather than what the voters may want.

It’s a really old grift created in 1812 when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a voting map that made no sense other than to corral Federalist voters into a few districts so that they would win, while spreading (think thinning) Democrat Federalist voters across many districts, causing them to lose. Actually, Gerry found the map offensive, but politics being politics, he approved the nonsensical, shapeless voting map nonetheless.

His approval of the monstrosity of a voting map is pretty much what he is remembered for today, even though he was an American Founding Father, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, as well as the fifth Vice President of the United States under President James Madison. It’s a pretty good reminder that chicanery often marks one’s place in history more than accomplishment.

Traditionally, we redraw voting maps every 10 years to account for population shifts. But there is no law requiring the ten-year redraw of voting maps. So, last year, at the behest of President Trump, the Texas state legislature redrew its congressional districts. That is, they redrew the voting map.

Now, politicians are free to redraw the voting maps whenever they think they can gain an advantage. However, they know what is good for the goose is good for the gander, so for the most part, politicians have, in the past, refrained from mid-census map tinkering. Redrawing voting maps willy-nilly is a rather crass, self-serving practice that weakens our democratic process.

We can thank (or blame) a recent Supreme Court decision for the current redistricting embarrassment. Last month, the Supremes (well, a majority of them), in a case known as Louisiana versus Callais, gave the states broad latitude to redraw congressional voting maps without the restrictions on racial gerrymandering, and Republicans are having a field day doing just that.

Here’s how Republican map manipulators are impacting 2026 midterm election strategies. States like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina are considering special sessions to redraw maps. It is estimated that as many as 19 congressional districts could be eliminated. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Court’s decision in Callais will make it harder for Democrats to win the House by allowing GOP-controlled states to shift maps, altering the landscape for the 2026 midterms. Callais allows partisan gerrymandering to act as a defense against claims of racial discrimination. The ruling represents a major shift in election law by compromising the federal judiciary’s role in policing discriminatory election maps.

As a result of Callais, the potential for mischief is huge. Callais unleashed what some are calling a “race to the bottom.” Other states, seeing what Texas is doing, have decided that they, too, should redraw their maps mid-decade. It’s a mess we can thank President Trump for.

California retaliated to the election map mischief in Texas by redrawing the state’s map, adding Democratic seats to offset the redrawing of the Texas election map.

As might be expected, other states are jumping into the fray. Virginia and Florida have followed suit. Even though Florida is a Republican state, there were still eight Democratic seats under the old map. Under a new map, four of those seats will be eliminated.

The current voting-map wars threaten to turn our democracy on its head. For example, a newly drawn map in Virginia seemed designed to eliminate all but one Republican seat in the state. Not so fast, says Virginia’s top Court as we go to press, striking down the congressional map drawn by the Democrats, and approved by Virginia’s voters. The Court struck down four newly drawn Democratic-leaning House districts in the Old Dominion State, giving the GOP an advantage as midterm elections approach.

The effect of Callais is to eliminate race as a factor in the drawing of election maps, thereby weaponizing the 14th Amendment against the Voting Rights Act. By requiring plaintiffs to prove intentional racial discrimination, the Supremes have essentially neutralized the Act, which was designed to assure that minority groups were fairly represented. Now, laws that prohibit racial gerrymanders will be much harder to enforce.

Gerrymandering for partisan advantage is now pretty much acceptable. States can and will make the case that an election map was drawn to gain a political advantage because that’s apparently a legitimate thing to do. States arguing that they redistricted to gain political power will probably prevail, even though, in practice, they diminish minority representation.

For example, in Louisiana, one seat held by a minority representative will be redrawn following Callais and will, almost assuredly, become a Republican seat.

We can expect litigation throughout the South as maps are redrawn, even though primary voting for the 2026 midterm election is already underway. Already, states are calling special sessions to redraw maps to eliminate minority-majority districts. Think Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi, as well as Georgia.

Daniel J. Hopkins, Professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, summed up the current redistricting efforts in a piece at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “Ultimately, I think it will net out to be a several-seat advantage for Republicans. So the question is: in 2026, how close will the election be? There’s a longstanding pattern in which the president's party tends to lose seats in midterm elections.”

We’re probably on track for some shift towards Democrats in 2026. The question is just how big that swing is going to be.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz

Ordinarily, demand for any product or commodity in the absence of adequate supply makes that product or commodity more expensive. OPEC, the Organization of Oil-Producing Nations, has, for most of its existence, functioned to artificially manage petroleum supply to maintain higher prices for the commodity.

Today, OPEC is largely focused on maintaining price stability rather than on managing oil prices day-to-day. While OPEC was once considered a price-fixing cartel, today it focuses on member-nation policies to encourage stable markets, rather than on setting prices.

Now, it is perfectly legal for a company (or a country) that produces a product to control the quantity of that product it will bring to market. However, when a group of companies (or countries) conspires to limit supply, that’s simply market manipulation to drive up prices, and, in most Western countries, that’s illegal.

A key player in the oil industry and central to producer-consumer relations, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was formed by major oil exporters to stabilize prices and sustain development among its member states. It pursues its goal of price stability through quotas set by the bloc that limit total production.

The oil-producing countries that comprise OPEC include Algeria, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Collectively, they account for approximately 30% of all the oil extracted every year.

For the past decade, OPEC has worked in tandem with other oil-producing nations, commonly referred to as OPEC+, and together this group accounts for approximately 41% of all the oil produced. These non-OPEC cooperating nations include Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Bahrain, Brunei, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, South Sudan, and Sudan.

​The OPEC+ consortium sees its mission as balancing oil supply with demand. While the organization could once set the price of oil, the emergence of new oil sources, especially from fracking, has made it more difficult for OPEC or OPEC+ to control the price. To further complicate OPEC’s mission to coordinate oil production, the consortium has faced significant difficulty maintaining peace among its members.

For example, Indonesia quit the bloc in 2016, followed by Qatar leaving in 2019. Then Ecuador quit in 2020, followed by Angola. Gabon departed in 1995 (rejoining in 2016), and Ecuador left in 2020

Other developments have also rattled OPEC’s influence, if not control, over oil production and pricing. For example, the extraction of oil from shale meant oil could be harvested from fields that were once considered unrealistic for oil production. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking technology have revitalized oil production in the United States. For example, U.S. production rose from 6.8 million barrels a day in 2007 to 13.1 million barrels a day by 2017. Almost overnight, the United States turned into a net oil exporter.

In recent years, oil demand has slowed somewhat, and that decline will probably continue and increase. Renewable energy is having a dramatic impact on the world’s appetite for oil, which could seriously affect countries whose economic stability and health are tied to oil demand. The continued development of renewable energy and the rapid shift to electrically powered transportation will reduce reliance on oil to power the world's economies.

While the exact timeline may be hard to determine, there is no doubt that a decline in demand for petroleum will wreak havoc on the OPEC+ group of nations, whose economies are so strongly tied to oil.

While Saudi Arabia and other oil-dependent nations see the writing on the wall and are diversifying their economies, oil will remain vital to their growth and stability. Already, Saudi Arabia has seen oil's share of exports drop to roughly 73%, down from 93% thirty-five years ago.

Which brings us back to the UAE. The Emiratis have consistently overproduced relative to OPEC quotas. They have a use-it-or-lose-it mentality. They understand that oil could well be on the way to becoming a stranded asset. As alternatives to oil increase, the very underpinning of their economy, as well as the economies of the other Gulf countries that are so strongly tied to oil, is jeopardized.

OPEC really has no way of sanctioning the UAE or any other OPEC country that ignores production quotas. While OPEC was once able to enforce adherence to quotas, the cartel has no way to do that today. OPEC was once a powerful factor in controlling oil production and pricing. However, that power is diminishing due to the rise of non-OPEC competition—think the United States, Brazil, and even Guyana. Internal discipline is declining within the cartel. The UAE’s departure this month is a good example. OPEC’s share of worldwide production has gone from 50% in the heyday of the 70’s, to an estimated 30% today.

If OPEC members continue to ignore their quotas, the cartel’s influence over markets will weaken, putting OPEC's viability at risk. OPEC enjoyed great power for a generation or two, but times change. Arabian oil was king. However, looking to the future, not so much.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

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Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz

It was 40 years ago, today, that Chernobyl was thrust onto the world’s consciousness. Human error and faulty design combined to create a near-nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.

During a safety test, a massive power surge caused the reactor’s cooling water to boil into steam, which in turn meant less available cooling water. This caused even more heat, creating more steam and setting off a vicious cycle. The core quickly overheated, causing even more steam, which led to a steam explosion. The cycle that caused the steam buildup and the resulting explosion took place over two to three seconds.

The radiation caused by the explosion at Chernobyl caused increases in the incidence of certain cancers. However, deaths within the surrounding population that can be absolutely attributed to the disaster (other than the deaths of the workers at the plant who were killed by the initial explosion) have been difficult to quantify.

Which brings us to Iran. Given the various nuclear facilities Iran operates and the Iranian regime’s long-standing commitment to wiping Israel from the face of the earth, war has been an inescapable eventuality within Iran’s view of the world. Iran, since the theocratic zealots took over, has been committed to Israel’s complete and utter destruction. Nuclear reactors in near proximity to war is, needless to say, less than ideal.

Iran built an enormous war-making capability that has targeted Israel as the regime’s number one enemy. With Iran proclaiming Israel as little Satan and America as Big Satan, there is little that should be surprising about the war Iran brought on itself.

The danger of calamitous war in the Middle East is real, and Iran has made no secret of its desire to annihilate Israel and foment violence against the United States. That Israel and the United States finally acted to quash Iran’s plans should be a surprise to no one.

Presumably, we can take comfort that Secretary of Defense (or War) Pete Hegseth, as well as President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, all had a shared sense of purpose when attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. President Trump has made his intention clear. Iran will not be allowed to add nuclear weapons to its arsenal.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions, however, cannot be dismissed, and those ambitions have probably not diminished. Iran still operates nuclear facilities, supposedly for energy production at Bushehr, and several sites for uranium enrichment and research at Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan, and Arak. These sites all possess dual-use capabilities for weapons development and production. President Trump has stated that Israeli and U.S. strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities “obliterated” any program for nuclear weapons production. Well, perhaps, but neither Israel nor the United States appears to be done dealing with Iran’s ability to wage war.

While neither the United States nor Israel has presented intelligence proving that Iran has decided to weaponize its nuclear program, debate has been reported in Iran about the continued value of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

According to President Trump, the United States conducted “very successful attacks” on the Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan Iranian nuclear sites last June. The United States apparently dropped the largest bomb in its non-nuclear arsenal, the so-called ordinance penetrator, to target the deeply buried Fordow uranium enrichment facility. We also employed Tomahawk cruise missiles against the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the facility at Esfahan, south of Tehran. Esfahan is where Iran supposedly engaged in uranium weaponization research and stockpiled some of its highly enriched uranium.

President Trump insists that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Iran is equally insistent that the nation will have the capability to become a nuclear power. Given the intractable position both nations have adopted, it is not surprising that Iran’s nuclear ambitions would, sooner or later, trigger a war in the region.

A nuclear-armed Iran is a hard-and-fast existential threat to Israel. And, to erase any ambiguity, Iran also sees itself as the country destined to wipe Israel from the map of the world. Iran sees itself as a nation with a score to settle. The nation’s supreme leadership was killed, as were most of Iran’s senior commanders.

So, how is the conflict likely to evolve from this point on? All-out war with Israel by any Arab country is no longer likely. What is likely will be a continued transition to increased trade and social contact between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Israel will, no doubt, continue to be prepared to strike Iranian nuclear assets as it deems necessary, and there will probably be hot, armed flare-ups from time to time to impede Iran’s ability to organize and initiate war against the Jewish state.

Israel, a country of approximately 10 million people, has survived and thrived in a sometimes-hostile region more than 40 times its size in population. Over time, Israel has developed a sort of détente and even cordial relations with some of its once hostile neighbors. Other than Iran, countries in the general neighborhood have accepted Israel’s presence in the region, and some have developed strong diplomatic and trade relations with Israel.

Persian Iran is truly friendly with very few Middle Eastern Arab countries, although diplomatic relations are generally maintained.

While Saudi Arabia and Iran re-established diplomatic relations following a seven-year rupture, it is, and will probably always be, a fragile relationship.

Israel and some of its Arab neighbors have entered an era of increased contact and positive and even cordial relationships that serve the interests of both peoples. Countries with which Israel has established formal diplomatic relations and somewhat cordial ties include Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Morocco.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz

It is mind-boggling that Iran should have ever been free to continue enriching uranium to weapons grade while, simultaneously, building missiles capable of delivering those weapons throughout the Middle East and, in time, to America.

President Trump’s decision to put an end to such an eventuality was correct, and history will acknowledge that reality sooner than many of the President’s critics think. The clerical regime that controls Iran is inimical to the interests of a sane world. An authoritarian regime that murdered between 30,000 and 40,000 of its own people over a period of two days because they took to the streets to protest the mullah’s barbarity is a blight on the civilized world.

It is not far-fetched to assume that the religious zealots who control Iran would unleash a nuclear holocaust against Israel and the Arab states in the region who have made, and who will make, peace with Israel. The action President Trump has initiated to end Iran’s nuclear adventure has been bold and warranted. Whether it ultimately succeeds remains to be seen.

It is far from clear just how the current confrontation will play out. On one side, we have the United States, Israel, and those nations that depend on the unimpeded movement of oil. On the opposing side, the Iranian mullahs, who, at least temporarily, are controlling the shipping that must traverse through the geographical bottleneck of the Strait of Hormuz.

The standoff at the Strait of Hormuz has escalated sharply as we go to press. Iran is attempting to shut down the crucial waterway and has fired on ships attempting to pass through the Strait. The seriousness of the standoff at the Strait cannot be overstated. The United States has sent troops and an armada to confront Iran. War is possible and, more than likely, sooner or later, probable.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations organization, which the British Navy administers, said yesterday that it had received a report that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps had fired at a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. This is the stuff that triggers wars.

TankerTrackers.com, which tracks global oil shipments, said that Iranian forces had forced two tankers sailing through the Strait to turn back.

Simultaneously, an extremely tense and dangerous situation exists between Israel and Lebanon, where Hezbollah still has the capacity to cause serious mischief. As this report is being prepared a U.N. peacekeeper has been killed and three others were wounded in an attack by “non-state” forces in the region, which has become a euphemism for Hezbollah.

The danger that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz or the tense standoff in Lebanon could escalate into a broad armed conflict cannot be overstated. There are too many simultaneous conflicts taking place, any one of which can initiate a shooting war. So-called warning shots have already been fired in the Strait of Hormuz, and deadly fire is always a risk at the border between Israel and Lebanon.

A firefight igniting the region is a very serious and ever-present risk. World War I, which ultimately took the lives of between 15 and 22 million souls, was the result of two pistol shots fired by an aggrieved 19-year-old loner, Gavrilo Princip, which resulted in the deaths of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie. Things have a way of getting out of hand in tense standoffs between belligerents. The standoff between Iran and the rest of the world has the makings of the grand-daddy of unintended consequences.

Iran announced that it was closing the Strait of Hormuz, contradicting President Trump’s assurance that the Strait was open. As I write this column, two ships have reported being fired upon as they were crossing the Strait. Asked about the conflicting reports regarding whether the Strait was open or closed, President Trump replied, “They can’t blackmail us.”

Well, that is exactly what Iran has been doing. Iranian gunboats fired on a tanker northeast of Oman to let the United States know the mullahs were prepared to fight rather than relinquish the geographic leverage they believe they have. Keep in mind, twenty percent of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies traverse through the Strait of Hormuz. That’s why oil prices have soared during the current conflict. Iran believes that its ability to block the Strait of Hormuz is its Trump card (no pun intended).

President Trump has drawn a line in the sand. The United States has decided to keep the Strait of Hormuz open while blocking Iran from shipping its oil to market. In effect, President Trump is checkmating Iran’s ability to squeeze the Gulf states’ oil sales by choking off Iran’s oil revenue. The United States is blockading the Iranian blockader.

Iran has chosen to play a deadly, high-stakes poker game at sea. The United States has just upped the ante.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz

I was 23 years old and sitting about 30 feet directly in front of the young, newly elected President of the United States when he delivered his historic and eloquent inaugural address six and a half decades ago at the East Portico of the nation’s Capitol.

My press credentials at the time, and my willingness to arrive ridiculously early, afforded me just about the best seat in Washington to watch and listen to one of the most memorable inaugural speeches. It was sunny, but bone-chilling, teeth-chattering cold that day in the nation’s capital following a nor’easter that dropped 8 inches of snow on the city the night before.

President Kennedy warned the newly independent nations of the world that embracing rule by authoritarian regimes would lead to the oppression of their people and the eventual destruction of their own nations. Now, all these years later, authoritarianism still looms large in the world, and we here in America would be foolish not to be chastened by Kennedy’s warning.

We needn’t gaze to Europe, the Middle East, South America, or Asia to observe the gathering signs of authoritarianism in America.

When politicians compile lists of political enemies to be criminally prosecuted, they are not just flirting with authoritarianism; they are practicing it down dirty and hard. Even when judges throw out these prosecutions or when juries find no wrongdoing on the part of the accused, having to defend oneself against malicious charges can be financially and emotionally ruinous.

Former President Richard Nixon had an enemies list, and that outrage ultimately drove him from office. President Trump also has an enemies list, and he is insistent that his appointed sycophants act on it. He is outraged that those he has appointed to high office within the halls of justice have, so far, failed to secure retribution.

He is a vindictive man and outraged that those whom he believes are his political enemies roam free throughout the land. To his followers, he promised, “I am your justice…I am your retribution.” He has demanded the investigation of former President Joe Biden, who defeated him in the 2020 presidential election.

Reuters has found at least 470 targets of retribution under Trump’s get even campaign. He has fired prosecutors who investigated his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and has penalized law firms that have represented his opponents. He wants Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell canned for raising interest rates, and he has threatened to charge several members of Congress with sedition, which is punishable by death, because the congressmen publicly stated that military personnel can refuse to obey illegal orders.

Intelligence agencies found that Moscow had worked to tilt the 2020 election to Trump, which a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report affirmed. On September 25, 2020, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted by the Trump Justice Department. The indictment was quickly dismissed by a federal judge who ruled that the prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed.

Reuters has documented 112 security clearances that have been revoked. They include revocations of clearances for former U.S. and state officials, as well as law firms that represent (or represented) individuals deemed unfavorable to Trump. Last August, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced the revocation of 37 security clearances. Even former CIA director Leon Panetta had his security clearance revoked.

Panetta said he had already surrendered his security clearance after leaving government almost ten years ago. “Trump’s retribution campaign is hurting CIA morale and wrecking the bipartisan trust that allows Washington to function,” Panetta said. “What I worry about is that our adversaries will look at what’s happening and sense weakness. This kind of political retribution leads to a loss of trust, which ultimately leads to a failure of governing.”

Last summer, hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency staff members complained in an open letter about deep cuts to pollution control and cleanup programs. More than 100 signers were immediately placed on paid leave. Another 15 senior staff members and probationary employees were told they were being fired. The rest were informed they were under investigation for misconduct, leading to at least 69 suspensions without pay. Many remained out of work for weeks.

Twenty or so staff members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were put on leave and threatened with misconduct investigations after signing a letter criticizing the agency’s decision to scrap bipartisan reforms intended to speed disaster relief. Cameron Hamilton, a Republican who served briefly as acting head of FEMA, was fired last May, a day after telling Congress he didn’t believe the agency should be shut down, contradicting the Administration.

Hamilton says he believes too many senior officials are firing people in retaliation for signing that letter. They are trying to impress the White House, Hamilton believes. “They want to find ways to really launch themselves to prominence and be movers and shakers, to kick ass and take names,” Hamilton said. “They’re trying to show the president, ‘look at what I am doing for you.”

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, considers her firing to be a warning shot. She says the Administration’s purge of dissenting health officials is breeding “anticipatory obedience” – a reflex to comply before being asked. “People know if they push back … this is what happens,” she said. “The effect is an ecosystem of fear: those who stay in government self-censor; those who speak out are branded radioactive, too hot to handle,” she said.

Many officials who are deemed to be out of step with Trump’s agenda, such as employees involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and those working on transgender issues, are no longer welcome at the National Institutes of Health.

FBI Director Kash Patel has overseen the dismissal of at least 50 FBI personnel. Reuters reports that at least 17 of the 60 people on Patel’s list have faced some retribution, including firings and stripping of security clearances.

At least two dozen law firms have faced investigation or restrictions on federal contracting, for either employing or representing people tied to past cases against President Trump.

Harvard University successfully sued to block a freeze on $2.2 billion in federal aid, which the Trump Administration said was being used for “pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired” dogma.

I could, of course, continue for many more pages writing about President Trump’s my way or the highway political philosophy. President Trump doesn’t relate to the American political concept of a loyal opposition. He isn’t secure enough to tolerate an opposing point of view. That isn’t a strength. It is a profound weakness.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s “Oath of Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

and my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston;

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Former Senator Barbara Boxer;

Former Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz