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.

As Jonathan Martin writes, this bill was “never about those tax rates or Medicaid or the deficit.” He writes, “The underlying legislation was no bill at all, but a referendum on Trump. And that left congressional Republicans a binary choice that also had nothing to do with the policy therein: they could salute the president and vote yes or vote no and risk their careers in a primary.”

This is a one-man deal: Trump. John Thune, Republican Senate majority leader and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson are merely the Charlie McCarthy or Mortimer Snerd (the slow-witted one) ventriloquist dummies to ventriloquist Trump. Simply put, neither one could persuade reluctant members but for the Trump assault to which each was subjected.

All the talk of the “holdouts” in each chamber was just blabber. Trump met them or spoke to them to give them the map to their political ruination unless….

In this regard, the House Freedom Caucus is over. These professed fiscal conservatives have driven previous legislative leaders and presidents nuts with loud threats that were believed. This time all its members voted aye in the face of a $ 3.3 trillion estimated addition to the national debt over ten years by the nonpartisan Congressional Budge Office (using dynamic scoring.) Cong. Thomas Massie (R.Ky) did vote nay but he had quit the HFC.

Ok, it’s over $600 billion in just ONE year. (Who really knows what happens in years 2 to 10?)

Those who Ed Koch called the “Richies” will love that their 2017 tax cuts are now permanent.

On the flip side, the cuts to Medicaid falsely described by the Trumpies as “waste, fraud and abuse,” that all-purpose subriquet, will kill sick children, cause hunger for the poor, cause 11.8 million to lose health insurance, and result in the closing of hospitals serving Medicaid recipients. On this July 4, “we the people” are incensed!

Polling on the statute is just what you would expect. It’s all in the framing of the poll questions. Objective questions yield opposition by a majority. Questions that characterize the “big” bill as the second coming of Magna Carta yield high approval!

Congressional Democrats are being instructed on how to characterize the bill to constituents this Summer. Likewise Republicans.

Even if 2026 is a wave election and Democrats win the House and Senate, this “ big” statute cannot be undone. Trump will veto it. For that we have to wait for the 2028 presidential and legislative elections. If the Democrats control Congress and the White House this nightmare ends.

Happy July 4 indeed!

*******

My last blog predicting Zohran Mamdani’s election as Mayor of New York was misinterpreted by some as an endorsement. I oppose Mamdani and will not vote for him. In my prediction and in my characterization of Mamdani’s appeal I was being descriptive, not judgmental.

No one likes him except the voters. While he faces Randy Andy Cuomo and Mayor Eric (“Seat 1A please”) Adams, effectively two has-beens in this context or maybe two never-weres, he will win and will be the next Mayor of New York.

In Adams’ formal announcement of his independent campaign he dumped on Mamdani, eloquently arguing that the coming general election is a “choice between dirty fingernails (his?) and manicured nails.” This guy has a way with words!

The rap on Mamdani is that the city will be ruined because he is a democratic socialist. Passing the fact that city is virtually ruined already, thanks to that genius capitalist Eric Adams, Mamdani deserves the right to explain and amplify his proposals.

Here are some of the things he is explaining.

Rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments. This will be done by the Rent Guidelines Board, the nine members of which are appointed by the Mayor. This has happened before. It is not a cash item.

City-owned supermarkets. He only wants one in each borough.

Pre-k for all. He says it costs $ 79 million.

Police. “Police have a critical role to play." He would not defund the police while seeking to increase the number of social workers so that NYPD can focus on more serious crimes. (It is my understanding that this is the position of Commissioner Jessica Tisch, the celebrated current Commissioner.)

I would venture that the reasons Mamdani has the support of the voters is that he has emphasized the financial woes of living in New York and that he has the warm, engaging manner and smile of a person you’d like to know.

Compare that with Randy Andy Cuomo and Seat 1A Eric Adams, two blowhards overcome with ego who pronounce everything with exclamation points even “I’m going to the bathroom!!” They wouldn’t know how to lighten upon even if they tried.

Mamdani will likely face Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa (does he remove the beret when he bathes?), the Republican, and independents Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo. Bill Ackman, the hedge fund honcho, has announced that he is putting together a fund to convince someone in the business community to run (fat chance).

Aside from his charm and his brilliance as a campaigner, Mamdani will win because he has the Democratic line and is the official candidate of the Democrats, by far the majority party in New York.

Even though no one likes him except for the voters!

My mother had a German word to describe the physical appearance of people whose appearance she didn’t like: “unappetitlich.” The literal translation its “unappetizing.”The imaginary unappetizing person was a character she made up named Ignatius Greenspetch. That name was code for “yecch.”

While it’s ok to complain about what people say or do, that’s it in polite society.

Here goes, in no particular order:

Nicole Scherzinger. This lady who just won the Tony as best actress in a musical, brings the idea of thinness to a new level. There’s nothing but skin and bones. She needs a good meal.

Cynthia Erivo. The whole look, bald head, nose ring and extensive ear hardware makes you afraid lest she get near a powerful magnet. Also, her chest shines with the addition of what looks like chicken fat but may be a greasy moisturizer.

Elon Musk. This gentleman, highest on the list of people Ed Koch called “richies,” looks like he needs a bath that ought to include shampoo after a professional haircut. A selection of snappy Hawaiian shirts would be an improvement over his wrinkled black schmatta that must have been on sale at J.C. Penny. The black baseball cap could be replaced by a seasonal fedora worn at a rakish angle.

Yannick Nezet-Seguin. This gifted Canadian conductor is the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He appears to have multiple looks syndrome. Some days he’s a blonde wearing a sport shirt. Others he has brown hair and a black tunic. One tends to ask “who is that?” when he appears.

Eleanor Roosevelt. This towering figure in the history of American government and politics got short-changed in the looks department. She proved that the British have no monopoly on bad teeth.

Manuel Antonio Noriega. This Panamanian dictator and drug dealer looked the part.

****

“Judge a book by the cover” is something we have all been taught not to do. Still…

The presidential oath of office is set out in in haec verba in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” [Maybe DJT got the habit of excessive capitalization from the founding fathers.]

The president is the only one who takes this oath. The vice-president and every federal employee takes another and different oath as prescribed by the Congress.

I became familiar with the presidential oath as the producer of the 1993 and 1997 inaugurals on behalf of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. In fact, a famous journalist accused me and Harry Thomason, the co-chair of the 1993 inaugural, of trying to change the constitutional oath by changing the order of words to “defend, preserve and protect” to achieve some theatrical improvement (since we were both out of Hollywood.)

That distinguished lady is no longer with us but Harry and I are still around. We denied it but it became folkloric, Hollywood on the Potomac so to speak.

Coming on the heels of the AI depiction of DJT as the Pope, complete with mitre, approved by DJT, thus insulting Roman Catholics after the death of Pope Francis and the imminent conclave to select his successor, DJT seems to be on a dummy spree unusual even for him.

The context of DJT’s failure to remember his oath of office on NBC is the constitution’s applicability to all persons in the United States, whether citizens or not. That’s something he will not concede while migrants are denied due process and shipped off to foreign dudgeons even as Secretary Noem is photographed with hubba-hubba hair and outfit while standing in front of imprisoned men crowding at the prison bars behind her.

There are a lot of bad people wrongly in the United States who should be deported. But who knows if the ones jailed in those foreign dungeons are they?

Our country can and should do better in the preservation, protection and defense of the Constitution.

The business of politics likes words and phrases that push the desired narrative forward. These words and phrases arise after ersatz-scientific “testing” in focus groups and polling. If it “polls well,” it’s a winner.

Today’s selection, pushed by democrats, is “chaos.” DJT is presiding over “chaos,” sowing “chaos” nationwide, and has made the republicans soldiers of “chaos” as they march behind their great leader. For example, The Economist says that “Donald Trump is creating chaos at the IRS…”; The Hill headlines “ [ National Security Adviser Mike] Waltz exit adds to ‘chaos’ in Trump’s national security team.”

Reports today have the Democratic National Committee exhorting democrats to use the word everywhere and always to knock republicans off their respective perches.

Word and phrase anointment as election winners is not a new idea. In the 1992 Clinton campaign it was “hope.” (It helped that Clinton came from Hope, Arkansas! “The Man from Hope.”) In 1996 the theme was that reelection created a “bridge to the 21st century.” Clinton won both times.

The problem with the “chaos” allegation is that the democrats are in worse chaos than the republicans. The Democratic Party’s favorability rating hovers at 29% or less.

Cong. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (with non-democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders) has huge crowds, even in Utah, railing against American “oligarchs,” a Russian designation for individuals who benefitted from the privatization of state- run industries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So defined, we don’t have any oligarchs in the USA. (Remember folks, words have meaning.)

AOC’s massive rallies do not hide the fact that if she is a candidate for president or vice-president in 2028, the democrats lose big. Frontline democrats in the house and senate shudder in fear at the mention of her name.

Then there’s the split between those democratic electeds who want their leaders to fight hard and those who favor cooperation when possible. Democratic house leader Cong. Hakeem Jeffries is said by activist democrats to fail to fight. (Sitting on the steps outside the House for a few hours is not enough, they say.)

At least the DJT chaos has the full support of his party, fueled by fear of primaries and the chief executive’s wrath.

Chaos indeed. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Not so with Trump’s White House meetings.

On at least two occasions last week, the spray lasted for most (if not all) of the meetings. The meetings were the first Cabinet meeting and the meeting with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.

At the Cabinet meeting (plus Musk) the press and TV crowded into the Cabinet room and just stayed. This resulted in Musk (clothed in black leisure clothes and a black cap) holding forth and Trump warning Cabinet members not to disagree with him.

At the Zelenskyy meeting in the Oval Office, the press and tv once again crowded in for the spray and stayed to record a fracas among JD Vance, Trump and Zelenskyy. Vance at first, then joined by Tump, excoriated Zelenskyy for ingratitude and refusal to end the war on pro-Putin terms to be sponsored by Trump. (Vance opposed aid to Ukraine in his successful Ohio run for the Senate.) I suggest that this Pin The Tale on Zelenskyy show would never have happened sans press.

At the top Trump cynically commented on Zelenskyy’s wartime-leader black outfit, a criticism not leveled at Musk earlier in the week for the black-and-cap outfit he wore for the Cabinet meeting. Unlike Zelenskyy, Musk looked like he needed a shower at that meeting.

Zelenskyy was thrown out of the White House after the verbal assault he experienced. It is true that Senators with whom Zelenskyy met prior to the Oval meeting advised him to avoid confrontation and remain cooperative during the meeting. It appears that he did not follow that advice.

Bringing the press into the Oval so much for so long is doubtless going to ruin the carpet where they stand.

More to the point, high-level and sensitive interchanges at White House meetings are transformed by press presence. The conversations and comments become performative political poses and nothing substantive gets done.

That was certainly the case with the Zelenskyy disaster. Ukraine is at war with the invading Russians. Both sides want to end the war but with very different aims. Russia wants a land grab and wants to invade again in Putin’s dream of resurrecting the Soviet Union. Zelenskyy is willing to cede certain territory to the Russians but needs security guarantees to inhibit their return.

As background to the Zelenskyy Oval debacle, there is bad blood between Trump and Zelenskyy. Trump made a 2019 call to Zelenskyy asking for dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden, a call that led to Trump’s impeachment.

Much is being made of a “minerals agreement” under which the United States would partner with Ukraine for valuable minerals in Ukraine. The last time the location of these minerals was mapped was sixty years ago by the Soviet Union. Nobody knows where they really are. Mining them will take a minimum of ten years.

The distorted spray is making it impossible to get anything done at the White House by discouraging the thoughtful exchanges of views that privacy is likely to encourage.

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