Enter the new guys on the block: the Democratic Socialists of America, founded in 1982 by Michael Harrington (www.dsausa.org). History dictates that understanding (and resisting) DSA, as with any political movement, requires learning what they are saying. You have to read their positions on what they want for America.

In opposing this movement the simple, but essential, act of mastering information widely circulated by DSA about itself is terrifying. DSA is open about what they want to do. In short, Karl Marx way be listed as their “of counsel.” Example: DSA wants to get rid of the Senate and put the Congress in control of everything thus doing away with three co-equal branches of government and checks and balances. They are communists. Read it folks!

DSA is at this juncture because its members or adherents have won Democratic primaries and are official candidates of the Democratic Party in November. True, their candidacies are in districts that always go Democratic anyway, so considering them when in office is appropriate.

In New York, DSA has supported three congressional candidates, one of whom denies that he adheres to DSA and is not a member. They won their primaries through the support of our charming and politically powerful Mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

I confess that when it became clear that Mamdani was going to be our new Mayor, I wrote in these blogs that New Yorkers should accept the fact of his victory even though his views were anathema.

I was wrong.

We should have resisted then and we must resist now. While there is no Democratic or Republican way to clean the streets and it appears that city services are being furnished, the Mayor is also a symbol.

His dumb stunt of announcing the arrest of Bibi Netanyahu when Bibi comes to New York for the U.N. General Assembly this Fall pursuant to a warrant of the International Criminal Court ( which the United States does not recognize) was the classical knee-jerk action of a jerk. The threat was quickly withdrawn. (Mamdani better watch his tush with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a superb public servant, when he invokes the use of NYPD without her buy-in. He needs her as we all do.)

Will DSA threaten Democratic election victory because of its repugnant positions. As wisely said by my friend TZ, “it won’t be enough” to stop the wave.

Our journalists and editorial writers, together with TV cable news assignment editors, should avoid Mamdani unless the Brooklyn Bridge falls into the East River when his relevance is manifest.

Here are some varieties of bad sex:

coercive: Never ok. Coercing someone to have sex ought to land you in Rikers Island if you are in New York.

with an employee you supervise: Impermissible. This is just a step below coercion. The ordinary assumption is that the answer would be no but for the liaison occurring with your boss.

outside a marriage: Here we get into nuance. Marriages take different forms. There are marriages referred to as “open” marriages where the parties hate each other or at least have lost interest but stick together usually “for the sake of the children.” This excuse loses sight of the fact that the children can be hurt when their parents are perceived by the children as being the cause of unhappy parents. Also, for this excuse to work each participants in bad sex has to have a nonmarriage marriage where sex outside the marriage is approved.

both participants are unmarried. If neither person supervises the other this would be ok except for company rules forbidding “fraternization” in the workplace. The anti fraternization rules go against human nature. Where is he or she going to meet someone? On the subway? In the liquor store? On the corner waiting for the light to change? You like the Xerox guy on the fifth floor and you work as a server in the lunchroom. What’s wrong with you two having a date or taking French lessons together at the Lycee Francais? (An extraordinary model I know was approached by a well-dressed gentleman while waiting for a light. The gentleman said, “I’d do you in Macy’s window!” The model replied, “Thank you.”)

at an orgy. Are you kidding? That’s what they are there for!

at the suggestion of a therapist. It seems that anyone can hang out a therapist shingle these days even though state law requires more. This reminds me of the patient who says to the psychiatrist, “Kiss me Doctor!!” whereupon the psychiatrist says, “Kiss you? I shouldn't even be on the couch with you!”

contravening scripture. For religious folks this can be dispositive. After a sermon, the pastor greeted a congregant. The pastor said, “While I was delivering my sermon you appeared quizzical until at one point you lit up as though a switch went on.” “Yes,” said the parishioner. “I forgot where I left my umbrella and was trying to remember. When you said ‘thou shalt not commit adultery,’ I remembered.”

I don’t think that having bad sex should be a hanging offense.

Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone and androgen in males. It affects male reproductive tissues such as testicles and prostate as well as promoting secondary sexual characteristics such as increased muscle, bone density, and the growth of body hair. It does not affect behavior.

Those with levels of testosterone deemed unsatisfactory by Dr. Hegseth will be offered testosterone to bring their levels up where the Doc thinks they should be but it’s voluntary. The Dr. Secretary believes increased testosterone will promote “lethality” in the troops even though it does not affect behavior. But what the hell.

Secretary Hegseth does seem to know that modern warfare is influenced by computers and mechanized attacks from modern equipment with all the lethality we need. The days of warfare being the province of marauding soldiers with lots of muscle mass and bone density are over.

These mechanized attacks can be managed by a skinny Bronx Science senior with no muscle mass or body hair but plenty of computer smarts.

I now support Hegseth’s order requiring journalists covering the Pentagon to move about with guides. Reporters need protection from Pentagon personnel flying out of an office wielding syringes loaded with testosterone and jabbing the nearest person!

After my service as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York I began my private law practice as a single practitioner. Fortunately I soon acquired a client who controlled a Fortune 500 company.

As a one-person shop, I had to hire a number of large New York law firms to service the client. I became a private attorney general, assigning tasks to these firms.

One firm I hired was Cleary Gottlieb. Bill was a senior associate there doing estates and trust work so he didn’t work on my Fortune 500 client.

Lawyers from the firms I hired, all of whom were senior associates on the partnership track, approached me to start a small full-service firm. The associates from Cleary Gottlieb who worked with me wanted Bill to join the new firm.

I met Bill and we hit it off. He joined the new firm which was then called Baer & McGoldrick. (One client insisted on calling it “Tommy Baer & McGoldrick.”)

Thereafter, I came to know the extraordinary Bill Zabel.

Bill was from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, graduated from Princeton and then Harvard Law School.

The Sioux Falls origin was highly significant in Bill’s practice. While a genius in his legal specialty, the folksiness and hand-holding that he used so effectively to represent numerous very rich clients came from Sioux Falls. He knew it and so did they.

Bill’s practice was, at heart, a family law practice. The disposition of enormous wealth during lifetime and after death, so dictated by tax considerations, requires a first-rate intellect, encyclopedic knowledge of the law in the field, and counseling for often indecisive clients who want help in leaving how much, to whom, in their respective lifetimes or after death.

The typical conundrum Bill faced was a parent-testator or putative trustee who was angry at one offspring and excessively solicitous to another. Family members can be manipulative especially when billions are involved. Seeking advice on what to do is typical in Bill’s field.

Significantly, in counseling clients, Bill never told clients “what to do.” Rather, he pointed to the path to rational decision making and let the client decide.

Bill was consulted in most contentious estates and trust matters throughout the country.

But there was a whole other side to Bill: his dedication to civil right and human rights. Early in his career he wrote the main Supreme Court brief in Loving v. Virginia convincing the Supreme Court to permanently end the ban on interracial marriage. Similarly, Bill was involved in numerous cases upholding rights that governments or companies sought to restrict.

I count myself lucky and blessed to have known Bill Zabel.

I will miss him.

In fact, AI is a technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy. Moreover, it is clear that AI will take over the sum total of human endeavor and activity if uncontrolled.

A solution is governmental control of AI. This is opposed by the big money behind the development of AI. We are about to have a primary in New York in which a strong opponent of uncontrolled AI is running to be a Democratic member of Congress. Assembly member Alex Bores has successfully sponsored New York State legislation curbing AI. His bid for the Democratic nomination is being heavily opposed by moneyed interests behind AI.

I am fortunate that I won’t be around to be bitten by AI’s takeover because it will take longer than I have.

But today’s kids and grandkids are in grave danger. That is why should all support government controls of this master technology that threatens to become a new “master race.”

Those who argue that maligning a.i. is like condemning technologies we all use like television, streaming, radio, and, by extension, electricity itself, are missing the point. Those technologies perform services that we can elect to use if we want them. You can watch the CBS Evening News ( in a sad minority) but if you do CBS is not going to take over your kitchen.

Purveyors of the job-killing AI are claiming that those seeking controls are opponents of “progress.” Your unemployment at the hands of AI is not “progress.”

I had friends who joined the Program. All went on to distinguished careers.

The Program is still in existence but the standards of the Department have been debased. Now the Department is known for lawyers who have been fired or quit. Candidly, the Department has become a cesspool of retribution against the president’s perceived enemies including Department lawyers employed by the previous administration to investigate Trump, his supporters or people he likes.

The legal and factual validity of cases under investigation by the Department during the previous administration plays virtually no role in the current Department management’s condemnation of virtually all of them.

The selection by presidents-elect of an Attorney General has run the gamut from highly substantive to crassly political. And neither party has a monopoly on either kind of appointment.

President Ford appointed former dean of University of Chicago law school and president of the University Edward H. Levi. No finer person has led the Department. and he was appointed by a Republican. President Nixon’s appointment of John Mitchell, his former campaign manager, led to Mitchell’s criminal conviction for Watergate crimes and a jail term of nineteen months.

The curious and historical gavotte between the White House and the Department is caused by the fact that the Department is supposed to be independent and not controlled by the White House. Even so, Presidents of both parties detested the Department’s independence and they showed it. President Clinton couldn’t stand Attorney General Janet Reno. In his first term Trump detested Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

All that distance between the White House and the Department is dead and buried under Trump 2. Trump has solved the problem by assuring that the Department is essentially part of the White House. The current acting Attorney General represented the president in his New York hush-money criminal case.

This foul stew is what young lawyers entering the Attorney General’s Honors Program will be fed. Stay away!

In 1964, the Republican candidate for president was Barry Goldwater, a United States Senator from Arizona. Allegations that Goldwater was tetched began to crop up. Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals began to go public with mental health diagnoses.

These unwarranted diagnoses led to the “Goldwater rule,” enacted by both the American Psychiatric and American Psychological associations.

Under this rule mental health professionals may publicize psychiatric or psychological opinions only after a personal examination and consent of the putative patient.

So no Trump cuckoo conclusions from professionals are ethical. And there are plenty of such conclusions out there. In 2024 more than 230 mental health professionals signed an open letter declaring Trump to be too mentally unstable to be president. In a paid ad in the New York Times, the signers said that Trump’s “symptoms of severe, untreatable personality disorder-malignant narcissism” have rendered him “deceitful, destructive, deluded, and dangerous” as well as “grossly unfit for leadership.” Although the mental health professional signatories didn’t say so, their action was prohibited by the ethics of their profession.

Assuming that you don’t like Trump and disapprove of him and that you wisely avoid medicalizing his behavior, how to describe him and how to think of him?

Literature and theater give us an answer. You think Trump is just a bad guy. Just no good. While criminal defense lawyers try to avoid the fact, there are people who are just plain bad. (A judge I know told me that he was trying a murder case. When I asked what happened, the judge told me that the defendant threw the victim off the roof. “Why,” I asked. “Because he didn’t like him,” the judge said. Just plain bad.)

So the word to describe Trump is “villain.” Significantly, the antonym of “villain” is “hero,” just the way Trump sees himself. Millions of Americans prefer that antonym!

I don’t. I prefer “villain.”

In a musical lust for war and victory, the chorus cries out “Guerra! Guerra! Guerra!”, war in Italian.

With Israel, we are currently in a war of choice against the vile government of Iran. (I do not address Israel in this blog.) But there is no general citizen approval of the war, no lust for war. In fact the war is opposed by the majority of Americans as is its initiator, the President. The problem with the war is that it makes no sense for most Americans. For Americans the chorus would change to “no guerra.”

Several justifications for the war have come from the White House including (i) its creation of an opportunity for the people of Iran to “take back” their government; (ii) payback for murders of Americans by Iran or its proxies; (iii) avoidance of an allegedly “imminent” nuclear attack by Iran; and (iv) the removal of enriched uranium held by Iran.

All of these justifications are without merit.

The people of Iran are afraid to go into the streets and “take back” their government because they are rightly certain that they will be murdered by the authorities. Murders of Americans do not justify war because more Iranian innocent civilians will be and are being killed by the U.S.A. than Americans who succumbed; simply stated, violence begets violence. The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that nothing is “imminent.” The removal of enriched uranium from Iran cannot be accomplished by air power, the current warfare the military is employing. Woe unto any administration that sends the storied “boots” to Iran though it’s being threatened.

The war is said to represent an opportunity for Democrats in the November election because of its unpopularity. I do not think that the war will continue that long. Among many problems Democrats will face then is that the Democratic Party is disrespected and disliked.

If the war represents an opportunity for Democrats in the 35-50 House seats that will be seriously contested (all the other results are baked-in) it is because it is deterring the President from arguing that he is helping Americans to pay less at the supermarket than the high prices that they are now experiencing. Of course, he is lying about lowered prices, citing eggs and avoiding the biggies like expensive beef.

But fewer and fewer Americans like the Democratic Party. So anyone who tells you that the Fall election will result in victories for Democrats to take back the House is making a “likely” prediction but one that is far from certain and may not happen.

Let’s hope that the war ends soon.

Like all of you, I know that negotiations were going forward between the United States and Iran to limit or abolish Iran’s nuclear enrichment that could lead to Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon. It has long been the policy of all previous United States governments of both parties that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Our European partners, sharing that policy, have made it clear that they do not support this war.

The notion of regime change in Iran as a result of this attack is against the policy of the ill-named MAGA and its leader.

To be clear, the adventurism of the Iran attack is nothing like Trump’s war on Venezuela. Iran is a heavily armed nation, skilled on the war hardware and software it has.

Perhaps the attack was based on the lie that Iran is “a week away” from having a nuclear weapon.

The continuing ugly events started today have nothing to do with the interests of Americans. Those supporting this dumb action are not the folks preparing breakfast this morning in Peoria. The supporters are folks like Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump sidekick who perorates in Trump’s favor when he is not officiating at supermarket openings. (Graham’s middle name should be “Available.”)

Other supporters are those who want to make a financial fortune from oil price gyration.

The “rise up” notion of the Iranian people “taking back” their government from the ground up is all well and good. But who will take over? There is every chance that any new leaders will be worse than the ones they replaced. A rumored new leader is Ali Larijani, a buddy of the now-deceased Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Larijani was the mastermind of the January 2026 crackdown against the Iranian people that led to the deaths of 32,000 Iranians.

Many of my military friends are commenting about the brilliance and effectiveness of our attack. If brilliant, in aid of what interests of the American people? Since Trump claimed that his previous war against Iran “obliterated” its nuclear capabilities, what magic potion caused those capabilities to return thus necessitating re-obliteration ?

In the back of my mind I fear that this war may play a role in Trump trying to steal the 2026 election. Claiming a cooked-up “emergency” related to Iran, he might try to wrest control of elections from the states whose control is mandated by the Constitution.

Perilous times!

I have been a lawyer, a federal prosecutor, a movie producer, a businessman, a classical music company executive, a political campaign organizer, a member of several charitable boards. I am blessed with a very good memory.

But write a book? Who would publish it? And, crucially, who would read it?

If I did write a book, here is a list of what I might cover.

1. “Die Geschiste von Amerika” [The Story of America} is the name my father gave to the odyssey from Germany to New York via London and Surrey. He was very careful to never refer to the reason for the emigration! The story he told emphasized my behavior at various locations, i.e., in Southampton “very bad,” on the ship “very good.”

   While in England, I was evacuated to Mrs. Sibley’s boarding house with my mother and sister for fear of bombings in London. Mrs Sibley scared the crap out of me when I had my little elbows on the dining table: “all joints on the table must be carved,”she said.

2. PS 173, Humboldt Junior High and Bronx Science. The Board of Education made me do three years in two resulting in my graduating college at 16 when I looked like a young 13.

3. College. Mostly a blank. Too young, too immature, smart and funny but socially inept. I don’t think anybody really liked me and I know I didn’t like them.

4. Yale L:aw School. I was miserable until a summer stint as a student assistant in the United States Attorney’s office in Manhattan when Steve Kaufman told me that my work was “outstanding.” I realized that I could be a lawyer and a good one, something that never happened at Yale.

5. Law clerk and thereafter assistant United Staes attorney, Southern District of New York. Bob Morgenthau! My fellow assistants became close, life-long friends. My good memory really helped on cross examination and I did spot-on imitations of most of the judges.

6. Law practice. A mixed bag. Some wonderful, some gruesome. Big success.

7. Hollywood. Convinced to go there to finance and produce movies by a famous lawyer and founder of United Artists and not wishing to die at my desk as a lawyer, I went. One word description of my time in tinsel town: MISTAKE!!! I made nine movies. Many producers think of their movies as their children. I hate them all.

   Humorist Fred Allen said that all the sincerity in Hollywood could fit in a flea’s navel and still leave room for an agent’s heart! Nightmares: the loaded Peter

   O’Toole!! Joy: Carl Reiner.

8. Politics and campaigns. National Conventions. Produced two inaugurals for television on behalf of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. The inaugural is the Super Bowl of politics. It has platoons of “producers.”

   Very few understand who runs it and why. I do.

9. Ed Koch! A book in itself.

10. East Hampton and Aspen. I ate them up when I was there. I don’t miss them at all.

I am enjoying my work now. It’s largely entrepreneurial. But there are some old clients (and some new clients) who think of me as a lawyer and seek my advice and judgment. I like representing them so long as they know the mission statement of the lawyer: to perform legal services for the PROMPT payment of a fee. I enjoy my colleagues and see them regularly at the office.

Retire? Never!

In New York, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia announced that I am an American Day would be held in Central Park and that it would include an uplifting program. Naturalized New Yorkers received invitations by mail.

My father, recently naturalized, took me, then a little boy, to Central Park to attend the event. On the subway ride to Central Park he asked me questions about the United States, knowing the answers he proudly learned through his successful completion of the citizenship exam.

“What form of government do we have?” Dr. Baer asked. “A democracy,” I answered. “Wrong. We are a republic.”

We arrived at Central Park early (he was a German) and got good seats. I stood to recite the pledge of allegiance and sang the National Anthem. I don’t remember much about the program except for the appearance of Fiorello, the most entertaining politician of my lifetime.. All I remember is how proud I was to be an American.

AsI grew older, my pride at being an American was enhanced by my knowledge that coming to America saved my life. From the date of my birth in Frankfurt I was marked for death because of my religion.

I think of this now as America is descending into the depths of authoritarianism, to the end of many civil liberties, to hatred and division, to the inaction of our elected federal legislators to stem this foul tide.

I do not attribute this deterioration to one person. He has had a lot of help.

And yet, I retain an optimistic outlook. An election this year may prove to be the beginning of the end of what we are now experiencing.

I think of I am an American Day because without America I would not exist.

The pride I felt that day in Central Park is with me still.

May it always be so.

According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DJ Trump at a news conference in Palm Beach on the same day, the Trump administration did not inform the Congress in advance for fear of “leaks,” although congressional leaders were informed while the extraction was taking place. They didn’t trust Republican leader John Thune?

At that news conference the president announced, “We’re going to run the country,” indicating secretaries Rubio and Hegseth and joint chiefs chair John Daniel “Razin” Caine. Vice President JD Vance was not in attendance.

Those at the news conference emphasized that no U.S. military personnel were injured during the two-hour extraction and that no materiel was lost.

Remaining at their posts in Caracas despite DJ’s promise to “run the country” are Delcy Rodriguez, formerly vice president, and now president; interior minister Diosdado Cabello; and military head Vladimir Padrino Lopez. Apparently DJ told us but did not tell them. All owe their jobs to the extracted president Maduro.

At the news conference DJ said that he spoke to president Rodriguez and that she agreed to cooperate with the United States, according to him. He did not mention the serving interior and military ministers.

(A previous extraction of a disputed head of state took place in 1989-1990 when the U.S. military entered Panama after Panama had declared war on the United States. The object of that attack was unelected military dictator Manuel Noriega [he had lost an election that he annulled] formerly one of the CIA’s most valued intelligence sources. He was tried and sentenced to 40 years.)

Much of the January 3 news conference involved discussion of Venezuelan oil. DJ said that U.S. oil companies would modernize oil wells and enhance oil production for the benefit of the people of Venezuela and the oil companies. Some of the proceeds would go to the United States to defray its costs, he said. Sixty percent of Venezuela’s current oil production goes to China.

The news conference was a load of crap.

-Venezuela is run by entrenched Venezuelans

-the invasion was wholly illegal under international law and will be widely condemned

-the action in Venezuela tramples on DJ’s assurances of “America first,” and will distress MAGA adherents

The question is whether President Petro of Colombia is next on the DJ agenda. Followed by President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez of Cuba.

These international misadventures are insane in the face of domestic mayhem as health care goes out the window. Work on America, Mr. Trump, make it just and fair!

In my case, I feel a little like Oskar in Guenther Grass’s “The Tin Drum.” Oskar does not speak but drums to communicate. The drum and Oskar’s provocative drumming accumulate meaning as the novel’s themes develop.

Off this blog, I drum big time. In my thinking and in my conversations with friends and colleagues, I express profound disgust with all that is happening in this country, starting with the orange man at the top. My disgust is accompanied by my frustration that nothing can happen until November 2026 when, IMHO, elections will result in Democratic control of the House and perhaps the Senate.

The president’s outrageous behavior squarely placing the United States as an outlier among the western democracies that have been our allies for decades, is the leading evil. But I count his adherents as villains for spineless support of Trump.

Although there appear to be some cracks in the wall of solid support, they are not enough. The four House republicans who announced their support for extension of ACA enhanced subsidies are to be commended for their independence and willingness to be primaried even though the hack Speaker would not permit a vote on the floor.

And republican senators questioning attacks on boats in the Caribbean, supposed carriers of drugs destined for the United States, attacks undertaken without evidence and in violation of international law, are showing some spine.

But these are exceptions, not the rule.

In fact, every public display of appointed or elected republicans is an exercise in bowing and scraping to the Leader, sometimes with comic effect. The so-called Cabinet meetings, televised from beginning to end, are no more than each cabinet secretary affirming obeisance to the Leader and employing florid compliments on his brilliance and magnificence. How do these people survive when they go off the reservation and are back home?

The Supreme Court majority has also played lackey to DJ. They wouldn’t let the military do law enforcement in Chicago because the 1908 statute the president used as authority does not apply, a slight give in their support. The Insurrection Act next?

The Susie Wiles eleven interview sessions with Chris Whipple, all recorded and on the record, look to me like a road to her exit. Wiles and DJ expressed mutual support after the publication of the interviews in Vanity Fair, but I don’t buy it. Another bow and scrape!

I remain disgusted.

What I did not predict is the extent of these victories. All won with landslides that I did not expect, except for Mamdani whose landslide I anticipated. I was especially surprised by New Jersey’s results. I thought it would be close.

BUT (once again) “one swallow doth not a summer make.” The arrival of a single bird does not necessarily indicate a trend.

While no one knows why a voter acted as she did, affordability was Mamdani’s watchword. New York is too expensive. High prices (especially for electricity) also played a major role in Sherrill’s pitch to voters.

Turning to Mamdani, the winner whose victory affects me the most because I am a New Yorker, I have been impressed by two post-election statements by people of influence.

Sending a signal to others similarly situated, Jamie Dimon, president of America’s biggest bank, said that he would work with the Mayor-elect. And James Blair, Deputy Chief of Staff to Trump and political director of Trump’s 2024 campaign, turning to 2026, told Politico Playbook, “I don’t think we’re going to be running against Mamdani.” Elaborating, Blair said that Trump and Republican 2026 candidates will emphasize affordability and an economic message.

In other words, if Republicans are talking about social issues like abortion in 2026 they will be missing the boat because voters want to lower super market prices and are not listening to candidates who have no path to do so.

Prior to Blair’s comments it had been thought that Mamdani would be the Democratic Party poster boy and would produce the argument that all Democrats are “like him.” All races are local. It may be that some Republican candidates will flog Mamdani. So too in Democratic primary races where moderates may charge their opponents with being Mamdani-like.

Mamdani is our next Mayor. I oppose most of his policies. Under a very restrictive home rule, he can’t do what he has proposed without Albany. Gov. Hochul is up for reelection in 2026. She endorsed Mamdani but his lefties can still make trouble for Hochul in a primary.

In one of the Inner Circle shows (the annual roast of politicians by New York reporters), Abe Beame was the Mayor seeking reelection and Gov. Hugh Carey was up the following year. The Beame actor sang, “This year I’m running and next year you’re up, don’t fool around with this yiddisha kop!”

The gavotte between New York City’s mayor and the governor can be a beautiful dance or a crazed disaster!

As a young man, I was befriended by a childless couple who sought my company at concerts and the Metropolitan Opera. They were thoughtful, successful and kind.

The couple had a business manufacturing insecticides with a plant in Brooklyn. They named their insecticide Certox, a shortened version of what their product would achieve: certain toxicity.

As we approach the elections in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and California, the Democratic Party is toxic nationwide, engaged in a losing struggle to find acceptance as a national emblem of liberal policies. While many Democrats are elected throughout the country, disputes between left-leaning Democrats and moderate Democrats have left the national party in disarray, much as the Republican Party would be if it did not control both houses of Congress and the White House.

The Republican Party of today is Donald J. Trump and Donald J.Trump is the Republican Party. Any Republican who crosses DJ is done for. DJ’s control is total due to well-placed fear of him and what he will do if he or his minions (think Laura Loomer) believe that a party member is not MAGA-faithful.

Thus, the Democratic Party is in a state of certain toxicity.

BUT, tomorrow’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia and the Proposition 50 election in California suspending non-partisan district changes as prescribed by California law, thus enabling gerrymandered redistricting that will add five Democrats to the state’s Congressional delegation, could make the Democratic Party less toxic.

California Governor Gavin Newsom justifies this departure from goo-goo elections by claiming that he has caught the torch flung by Texas’s gerrymander to add five Republican seats there.

In the race for New York City Mayor where socialist Zohran Mamdani is the likely winner over “independent” Andrew Cuomo, his victory will enhance party toxicity because Republicans will make it so.

A day out, I will make some predictions.

New Jersey: Cong. Mikie Sherrill will defeat Jack Ciattarelli, but not by much. In the 2024 presidential race Democrat Kamala Harris beat DJ in the state by only six points. Early voting suggests that Sherrill is ahead.

Virginia: Former Cong. Abigail Spanberger will win. She has a weak opponent. A big question is whether Democrats will have success in the legislative races.

California: Prop. 50 will win.

New York City: Mamdani will win. (You try to find “independent” Cuomo on the ballot. He’s down there somewhere.) The question is the dimensions of a Mamdani victory. If it’s big he will have a “mamdate.” (Caution to Republicans salivating at the thought of Mamdani as the poster boy for their 2026 effort: he will have been in office for 11 months before the November 2026 election. His performance as mayor may not be that bad and could be pretty good.)

Out on a limb I go! Will it be sawed off on Election Day?

Recently, much was made of discolored spots on the back of DJ’s hands that he covered with concealer. In fact this is a benign condition with a name DJ surely hates: purpura senilis or senile purpura. This is a common skin condition characterized by reddish-brown bruises that typically appear on the back of the hands and other sun-exposed parts of the body due to age-related thinning of the skin and sun exposure. They go away.

Senile purpura is a natural condition unlike DJ’s skin color, a color Barack Obama observed is a “color that does not appear in nature.”

My learned description of DJ’s hands raises the question of why I profess to know so much about dermatology.

My grandfather was a founder of modern dermatology, a specialty arising in physicians who treated syphilis, a disease characterized by skin symptoms in the early and late stages. My father was a dermatologist.

Many members of my family, excluding me, are skin doctors. It’s a great and sought-after specialty where there are no emergencies and nobody is cured. And they work three days a week. I heard my cousin Rudolf L.Baer M.D. , a distinguished and soft-spoken German, laugh uproariously when a lady told him that her husband was “cured” of psoriasis. (Remission is not a cure of this incurable disease.) Rudy was a great clinician, a great scientist, a great administrator (NYU Skin and Cancer Institute) and a mensch.

And yet. With all this exposure to medicine from early childhood, I have been a subscriber to the New England Journal of Medicine since I was eighteen. I understand a lot of the articles and figure out the rest with the help of a medical dictionary (fyi semaglutide pills are as effective as the injections according to original research in the NEJM).

I have decided that I am an amateur dermatologist. I don’t treat patients. My “speciality” is a field I created: psychodermatology. This specialty treats psychiatric skin condition such as manic-depressive warts and paranoid psoriasis.

Since I have a lot of the lingo, my friends sometimes ask me about their latest malady. I do my best to satisfy their curiosity.

While many trace their family origins to such businesses as retailing, real estate, or manufacturing. I always tell them that my background is syphilis.

In so doing, DJT condemned the name he is changing as “woke.”

Actually, in 1947 President Harry S. Truman changed the department’s name, then a legal act. At that time the passion for peace replaced the fervor for war in World War 2. The winning nations of that war believed that world peace, fostered by an international body, ultimately the United Nations, was a necessity. The new department included the Army, Navy and Air Force departments. Unfortunately for leathernecks, the Marines were then a part of the Navy.

So far as is known, President Truman considered “woke” a condition following sleep.

What has not been reported is the fact that Truman also ordered the face of the eagle depicted in the seal of the United States turned to the right, towards the talon holding the olive branch symbol of peace and away from the left talon holding the arrows of war.

One of my most memorable mornings at Yale was the day I took a walk with then-former President Truman.

Truman was a visiting fellow at Timothy Dwight College and was staying in the master’s house. I knew that Truman took very early morning walks. I decided to get up early and to wait for Truman and to join him on his walk.

When I got there two New Haven police officers, another student and a New York Times photographer were waiting. Truman promptly appeared and we began our walk with Truman commenting along the way. Headed to the New Haven Green, the police officers attempted to cross College Street against the light.

For once in my life I kept my mouth shut and listened!

“Hold it fellas. We wait for green and do not cross on red!” Truman said.

Approaching the Green, Truman saw the American flag there. He said, “There’s the American flag. When you come home from abroad and you see that flag it makes you feel good.”

Just then, outside the Post Office, a postman carrying a sack of mail stopped Truman. “Mr. President, I have some mail for you,” handing Truman a couple of letters.

Truman said, “You know I have been a United States Senator, the Vice President of the United States and President of the United States and this is the first time my mail has been delivered on the street. Thanks!”

Soon we walked back to Timothy Dwight with Truman holding forth all the way. After shaking hands with us and asking our names, Truman mounted the steps to the master’s house and disappeared.

The following morning I appeared in a picture on page one of the New York Times standing next to Truman. Above the fold!

My father’s favorite uncle and aunt, Dr. Max Cramer, his mother’s brother, and his wife Jenny and their three children emigrated from Germany to Palestine in 1935. A successful ophthalmologist with clinics throughout Germany, Max and Jenny decided to make the change because they wanted to substitute an agricultural life for the hectic professional lives they had been experiencing.

They sold the clinics and moved to the Geman enclave Nahariya, thirty kilometers north of Haifa, a seaside city founded by German Jews in 1934, and began farming there on a piece of land they purchased. The practice of medicine was no longer in the picture.

Not long after their arrival, Dr. Cramer was approached by the Arab neighbors who asked him to help them. He was adept at the use of argyrol, a drug known to prevent gonorrheal blindness and other pathogenic bacterial and viral infections in the eyes of newborn infants.

Dr. Cramer agreed to help. The Cramers cleaned out the chicken coop and turned it into a medical office where Dr. Cramer treated his neighbors every Wednesday, at no charge.

Suddenly, in 1948, the Cramers noticed Arabs streaming north to Lebanon. Thereafter, after beating Hitler, they lost their only son serving as a soldier in the war of independence.

Thus, I yield to no one in my regard for Israel. My relatives helped to build that nation and I am proud of them.

Now I see an Israel bearing no relation to the country I grew up with and that my relatives helped to found. In the West Bank, racist settlers practice hatred towards Palestinians. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has thrown in with racist, Jewish supremacist partners to form a government at war in Gaza.

Despite the fact that over seventy percent of Israelis oppose the war, Netanyahu continues it and plans to occupy Gaza. Who continues a war when seventy percent of the population doesn’t want it? I here repeat my disgust with the October 7 massacres and kidnappings with hostages still being held. These are evils perpetrated by the terrorists of Hamas.

I have no doubt that Netanyahu continues the war because his racist government will fall if he doesn’t. Nor do I doubt that the war continues and the hostages remain imprisoned because Netanyahu fears a conviction in his ongoing criminal case, ending his political career and remitting him to an Israeli prison.

Fortunately, the supply of weapons to Israel by the United States no longer has the overwhelming support in Congress that it used to have.

I recoil at Netanyahu’s lies. His denial of starvation in Gaza (the preposterous “plenty of food” statement) and his claim that a U. N. report confirming the hunger and suffering of Gazans is antisemitic are just two examples of his mendacity.

Netanyahu must go.

There is a paranoid tinge to the notion of homosexual and lesbian edibles. As an observer of paranoid behavior in everyday life, such as the phrase “I’ll tell the world!” and the famous paranoid finger symptom, ascribing a sexual identity to foods is similar to the paranoid avoidance of inanimate objects. For example, “that fire hydrant is after me!” or “I don’t walk on the cracks in the sidewalk cement.” The idea of a perceived gay potato comes to mind.

The books point out that there were gay restaurants (Pfaff’s Saloon, where Walt Whitman was a regular, opened in Greenwich Village in 1856!) Some developed gay clientele even though they weren’t established as gay. An example of surreptitious gayness was the Automat where rapid turnover, communal seating and anonymity “created inconspicuous venues to meet and cruise” according to the Times review.

While the authors are on strong ground in identifying queer venues, not so in announcing queer food. (Whatever the venue “drag brunch” has never been about the food.)

Finally one of the authors hits on a major queer food, quiche lorraine, inaccurately called just “quiche” in the books. This savory French tart (hello!) has been a staple of gay brunch menus (and of straight ones too although the books’ authors don’t admit it).

During the period of overt homophobia (there’s plenty now but not so overt) quiche lorraine was a symbol of queerness and Bruce Fierstein’s humorous 1982 look at masculinity made it clear that “real men” don’t eat it.”

But today, as queers are so much under the gun and in real danger from deranged bigots, is an inopportune time to blast out the dubious notion of the existence of queer food.