Columns

The 100 Millionaires Who Make Mitch Rich

Minority Lynchpin Mitch McConnell likes to snort that his fondness for the Jim Crow-era filibuster is rooted in his concern for "protecting the rights of the minority." Of course, Mitch is not talking about any impoverished racial minority here. No, he's talking about a much smaller cohort — the very-very-very tiny minority that controls the political levers of this country.

Public Citizen President Robert Weissman recently exposed how small Mitch's Minority really is. As Weissman noted: "Just 100 donors are responsible for 70 percent of Super PAC contributions" that power the Republican Party. Call them the .00000001 Percenters.

Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday, You Twos

Thanks to the political fund-raising gambit of asking citizens to "surprise" elected political representatives by "signing a birthday card" addressed to the lucky individual, I was surprised to discover and am pleased to report that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) both share the same birth date—June 22.

Warren's emailed response read: "It was a busy day in the Senate, and we ran headfirst into a Republican filibuster, but reading notes like yours always gives me just the fire I need to stay in the fight…. PS: My best present yesterday? Going out to a birthday dinner with my sweetie." 

Word Weirdities  

Isn't it odd that an employee can resign from a job permanently but an athlete can re-sign for another year? 

Edits on the Run 

The June 23 Chronicle ran a local front-page story with the headline: "Grand jury finds Peralta trustee are misbehaving." The article included an excerpt from a grand jury investigation that reported "a board member 'screamed and yelled' at an administrator (who was) doing their job…." 

What's In a Name? 

I came across a great name recently when I discovered a photographer named "Gaff Skidmore." Sounds like a two-word resume for an accident-prone skateboarder. Odd name for a photographer: worse name for a taxi driver. 

Watt's In a Name! 

There aren't too many TV reporters filing critical stories on the dogged, trouble-logged "roll-out" of the hulking 5G transmitters needed to power "The Internet of Things." But there is one award-winning investigative consumer-beat journalist (KCBS, KPIX, CBS News) who continues to share first-person encounters with the downsides of having a microwave antenna mounted on a power pole ten yards from your kitchen sink. 

And it pleases me no end that this seven-times Emmy Award-winning critic of joules and watts and high-energy hype is named … Julie Watts. 

Women Set to Face Off with George Washington 

Starting next year, George Washington's profile is due to disappear from US quarters to be replaced by the faces of some outstanding US women. This woke redesign is part of Rep. Barbara Lee's American Women Quarters Program. Lee's bill calls for stamping five female faces onto US Treasury coins each year through 2025. The first Fem Five to appear are: Berkeley writer and activist Maya Angelou, Astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, Native American women’s rights pioneer Wilma Mankiller, suffrage movement leader Adelina Otero-Warren, and Chinese-American film star Anna May Wong. 

Meanwhile, Joe Biden has not been able to deliver on Barack Obama's promise to put Harriet Tubman's face on the $20. The US Mint—claiming that it's easier to redesign a coin than to revamp a bill—has put the new $20 on hold until 2030. 

The first bill to get a gender make-over will be the $10, now set to debut in 2026. Back in 2015, the Treasury Department announced plans to replace Hamilton's familiar visage with a portrait of an unnamed "notable woman" in 2020—to mark the 100^th anniversary of the 19^th Amendment, which guaranteed a woman's right to vote. Why didn't that happen? According to Wikipedia: "this decision was reversed in 2016 due to the surging popularity of Hamilton, a hit Broadway musical based on Hamilton's life." 

The Berkeley Link to Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" 

The Berkeley vets who oversee the Free Speech Movement Archives are frequently compelled to correct misleading references to the FSM. Recently an article in The Oxford Student surfaced that alleged a link between the Free Speech rebellion and Marvin Gaye's mega-hit "What's Going On." (The song is famous for its refrain: 'Mother, mother/ There's too many of you crying. Brother, brother, brother/ There's far too many of you dying.') 

The article asserted that: "The song was inspired by an incident of police brutality during protests in Berkeley, California as part of the Free Speech Movement and protests of the Vietnam War." 

FSM vet Anita Medal took a deep dive into the history of the sixties and discovered that there was, in fact, a Berkeley link to Gaye's "Anthem for the Ages." But is didn't have anything to do with the FSM or the anti-war movement.  

Medal doubted the alleged FSM-link from the get-go. "We weren't dying or heavily black. It was black sons, brothers and fathers who were being disproportionately conscripted and senselessly dying in Vietnam," she initially reported. "I doubt it's a quote from Gaye." 

Medal doubled down researching the source of the idea and finally announced the surprising news: "It's neither the FSM nor the Vietnam War. It was People's Park!" 

According to Wikipedia, the song's inspiration came from Motown singer Renaldo "Obie" Benson, a member of The Four Tops, whose tour bus brought the quartet to Berkeley on May 15, 1969. It was the day of the People's Park protests and Benson was an eyewitness to the police brutality that lead to the deadly event that became known as "Bloody Thursday." 

Police shot dozens of unarmed demonstrators and James Rector was felled by a fatal blast of buckshot. Disturbed by the violence, Benson asked his friend Ben Edmonds, "'What is happening here?' One question led to another. "Why are they sending kids so far away from their families overseas? Why are they attacking their own children in the streets?" 

The Story Behind "What's Going On" 

Google provides additional background: 

"What's Going On" was originally inspired by a police brutality incident witnessed by Renaldo "Obie" Benson .… Benson wanted the Four Tops to record his song, but they refused on the grounds that it was a protest song. He approached Joan Baez to record the song …, but was unsuccessful. Finally, he approached Marvin Gaye, who liked the song but wanted The Originals to cut a version of it. 

Benson eventually persuaded Gaye to record the song by offering him a cut of the royalties. Gaye definitely earned the credit by adding lyrics and other touches to the song. The song was recorded in June 1970, but Motown refused to release it at first, claiming it was 'uncommercial.'  

Finally the song was released and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart, while topping the R&B chart. "What's Going On" is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest rock or R&B songs of all time, reaching the top 5 of the "500 Greatest Songs"… and as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. 

The song went on to sell more than two million copies, becoming Gaye's second-most successful recording. And almost no one knows about the song's genesis in Berkeley's dark day of tear-gas-and-blood. 

Trump as Speaker of the House? 

The Daily Kos recently posted a bizarre warning: "Republicans are so desperate to keep [Trump] front and center in the electoral debate, that they’re now talking about making him speaker of the House." 

It gets worse. According in a little-known quirk of the House’s rules, The Orange Lobster of Mar-a-Lago wouldn’t even need to be elected to anything to make that happen. In a major flub on the part of the Founding Fathers, the Constitution's Article 1, Section 2, states, “The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers...” A simple choice: no election required. There are no prerequisites for holding the position—not age, not skills, not even being elected to anything.  

Down through American history, the House speaker has always been a member of the House. But that's no hindrance to the Trump-troopers of the GOP plotting to make Trump the next speaker. 

The only thing that stands in the way of Trump's return to Washington in 2022 is Democratic control of the House. Otherwise, flipping a handful of seats from blue to red could open Washington's backdoor to the Orange Menace.  

Media Under Fire—in Hong Kong and Iran
The news can be appalling these days but readers around the world still cringed at reports that Hon Kong's Chinese-government-backed authorities had shut down the Apple Daily, a publication The New York Times called "rebellious and pro-democracy." 

The paper's bank accounts were seized and armed police stormed the Daily's headquarters to arrest the paper's three senior editors and two executives. The remaining staff (whose salaries were frozen by the authorities) stayed at their desks and worked without pay to produce the last issue of "one of Hong Kong's largest and most radical media organizations." 

The New York Times had less to say about the crackdown against the media inside Iran. In this case, however, the media wasn't attacked by government hard-liners. The villain in this case was not in Teheran but in Washington. 

On June 22, the US Justice Department boasted that its cyberwarriors had taken down Iran's state-owned Press TV and seized 36 Iranian websites. As commentator Caitlin Johnstone noted, this attack was undertaken by the same government that "paid for the weapons used to destroy more than 20 Palestinian media outlets in Gaza last month." (And the same government that kvetches about Russia's "meddling" in US media.) 

And yes, that was US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who tweeted on World Press Freedom Day that the US "continues to advocate for press freedom, the safety of journalists worldwide, and access to information on and offline." Note to Tony: You might want to retweet that message to the head of the Justice Department, US Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

A Breath-taking Performance 

Take the plunge and enjoy an in-depth immersion in a spectacular bit of water ballet called "Dance of the River Goddess Fei Tian." This video was broadcast on China's Henan TV recently as part of the annual Dragon Boat Festival Special. 

The dance is based on the story of Luo, the daughter of Fu Xi, the creator of humanity. Luo drowned in a river but was resurrected as a water goddess. 

The dancer's name is He Haohao. Leading to the question: "How she?" Some details, thanks to the South China Morning Post: The dance only lasts two minutes on screen but it took 26 hours to film. No information on how long it took to edit. 

Biden's Navy Sec Says NO to Nukes! 

During a June 4 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mike Milley testified they had not been in the loop when acting Navy Secretary Thomas Harker circulated a memo that ordered the defunding of a sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N) planned for 2023. 

As Harker's three-page memo noted: "The Navy cannot afford to own, operate, and maintain its current infrastructure and must prioritize demolition to achieve long-term sustainment." 

The Pentagon's 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, issued by the Trump administration, identified the SLCM-N as a requirement but during the presidential campaign, candidate Joe Biden called the SLCM-N "a bad idea" 

Also in agreement: Sen. Chris Van Hollen, (D-MD), and House Seapower Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Joe Courtney, (D-CN). Both have announced plans to defund the sea-and-sub-based atomic weapon. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is under mounting pressure to cut appropriations for new nuclear weapons. The Congressional Budget Office estimates eliminating the SLCM-N would free $9 billion that could be used to fund human services. 

Spend the Money on Health Care 

Navy Sec. Harker said another priority will be improved sailor mental health. Harker’s focus on mental health follows the Pentagon's August 2021 annual report to Congress, which cited an increase in suicide rates. A Defense Department inspector general report concluded that access to mental health services is inadequate—53% of active duty soldiers and their families lack access to mental healthcare. Harker revealed that every commander he has ever met knows of a member of their command who has committed suicide. 

For Every Soldier Killed in Combat, Four Veterans Commit Suicide 

More troubling news. While suicide rates in the general population have been on the rise in recent years, Pentagon suicides (for both active service members and veterans) have been rising even faster. A June 21 study by the Costs of War Project reported that 7,057 soldiers have lost their lives in the Global War on Terror but 30,177 veterans have died from suicide—a more-than four-fold difference. 

Among the contributing causes: "forever wars" involving extended terms of service and multiple deployments; the increased use of improvised explosive devices; the corrosive prolonged separation from families and, surprisingly; "the prevalence of sexual trauma." Although post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries are two key risk-factors for suicide, Pentagon data uncovered the surprising fact that most active-duty suicides were committed by service members who never served in combat. The spread of COVID-19 was also accompanied by a 20% rise in military suicides and spikes in "incidents of violent behavior." 

These shocking statistics, prompted a thought: Has anyone proposed honoring all the "unknown soldiers" who served in combat only to succumb to suicide? Has anyone — veterans organizations or anti-war organizations, perhaps — proposed commissioning a statue to commemorate their sacrifice? Perhaps a statue of a soldier kneeling in despair and staring at a pistol in his/her hand?  

Barbara Lee Vindicated

Rep. Lee was pilloried by members of her own party and became the target of op-eds, insults, and death threats. But she persisted in her principled insistence that Congress should never grant a president a blank check to wage war. 

Lee’s brave stance was vindicated this month when the 2002 AUMF was repealed by the House in a bipartisan vote. Now, it’s headed to the Senate. 

In the campaign to end "forever wars" and redirect wasteful and unaudited defense spending to serve human needs, Barbara Lee still takes the lead. 

More work remains to restrain presidential powers, end to forever wars, abolish nuclear weapons, and put an end to the billion dollar defense budgets that fuel the Military-Industrial Complex. Or, as former CIA officer Ray McGovern calls it, the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex, aka MICIMATT). 

(Note: Thank-you notes—and/or bank notes—can be sent to: Barbara Lee for Congress, 333 Hegenberger Road, Suite 369, Oakland, CA 94621.) 

Lay the Guns Down 

The Founders Sing