Author Archives: Mark M. Meinero

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THE WOMEN WHO REPORT

The 21st century is just about one-quarter over. And, in my mind, it’s a slam dunk as to what’s the most consequential piece of journalism of the last 25 years.

It’s the 2018 “Pervasion of Justice” series in the Miami Herald. The reporter was Julie K. Brown, and what she detailed – and detailed should be underlined and bolded there – was the sex trafficking ring maintained for the wealthy and powerful by financier Jeffrey Epstein.

In the series, Brown interviewed about 80 victims of Epstein, some who were as young as 13 when they were exploited. Those victims never knew the terms of Epstein’s two state charge convictions or that he made a deal that canceled federal charges. 

The stories also detailed how Epstein’s “incarceration” included frequent home visits and trips to New York and his Caribbean retreat.

Brown’s work led to new charges against Epstein in 2019 – charges that were pending when Epstein died in his New York jail cell, supposedly by his own hand.

Here it is, 2025, and we’re still amidst the reprecussions of Brown’s reporting. Largely because one of Epstein’s most prominent associates, Donald Trump, was president at the time of the publication and somehow managed to get elected again last year.

Brown is the Woodward and Bernstein of this generation. She should have a Pulitzer Prize to show for the incredible work she did.

That she doesn’t is possibly due to the machinations of attorney Alan Dershowitz, who knew Epstein and was implicated in Brown’s reporting. He complained loudly and publicly, and lobbied the Pulitzer committee against awarding Brown for her work.

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When I started my career, there were few women in newsrooms. When I retired, more than half the people in my newsroom were female.

That is a remarkable change and there’s only one reason for it. And it’s not because of affirmative action, DEI, wokeness or anything else detractors conjure.

The reason is that the women who go into journalism are very good at journalism.

It has been my privilege to work with, work for and to mentor women of exceptional talent. They put in the time, they put up with the frustrations, they deal with the vagaries of corporate capriciousness. Like all journalists, they don’t get paid as well as other professionals – and too many of them still don’t get paid as much as their male counterparts.

They also have to contend with a lot of crap. Which brings us to this week.

I once aspired to be a White House correspondent – that what’s I thought was the ultimate job in journalism. That viewpoint changed as I saw other uses for my abilities – and I saw the way people who cover the president never seem to stop working.

So when two women covering the mishegas known as Trump dared to ask questions that he didn’t want to answer, he lashed out in a way you kind of expect from a low-life grifter.

When a reporter for Bloomberg News asked why he didn’t just release the Epstein files instead of having Congress vote to subpoena them, he told her “Quiet, quiet piggy.” Implying that a woman looking for a simple answer was less than human.

When a reporter for ABC News confronted Trump about welcoming Mohammed bin Salman – the Saudi leader who allegedly masterminded the murder of a Washington Post journalist – he went into a diatribe against her and urged the FCC to take away the network’s broadcast license.

Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey and ABC’s Mary Bruce stood firm against an abusive old fart. Hopefully, their employers will have their back. They join a long line of female journalists – April Ryan and Abby Phillips, among others – who’ve had their professionalism and integrity challenged by someone with none of either.

What a lot of people are wondering is why other White House reporters, particularly male counterparts, didn’t come to the defense of Lucey and Bruce.

One reason is that a president’s feeble attempt to humiliate a reporter is not in the J-school playbook. If you want to know how far Trump is from what considered acceptable behavior from anyone in public life, think of any other president in our lifetime who would talk to a female reporter in that manner. Not even Richard Nixon – the standard for miserable presidents until now – would do that.

But there’s also the problem of fear. Other journalists aren’t brave enough to risk Trump’s wrath.

And there’s also the problem of sycophancy. This White House has brought more of those who suck up to Trump into the ranks of supposedly objective journalists

— 

So to Julie Brown and Catherine Lucey and Mary Bruce and all the American women working in newsrooms around the world, thanks for making journalism so much better. 

When you think about what makes America great, they should be among the first thoughts.

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FAST AND FREE BUSES

When Zohran Mamdani claimed victory Tuesday in New York City’s mayoral race, he led the crowd in a chant of three of his relentless campaign taglines.

One was for freezing the monthly rate in rent-stabilized apartments.

The second was for providing free universal childcare. 

Both of those promises addressed his overall theme of making one of the nation’s most expensive cities more affordable for people who work there. 

The third might surprise people who don’t live in or near a big city. 

Making buses fast and free.

When people worry about making ends meet, of course they think of where they’re going to live. Then come eating and healthcare, two things that are much more in the jurisdiction of federal and state governments. And childcare is a worrisome essential for any family with or thinking about raising children.

But transportation is often an afterthought. If I have a job, or a doctor’s appointment, or a family get-together, I’ll figure out a way to get there.

The problem is that it’s no so easy. 

The assumption in America is that everybody has a car. In suburbia, every household averages two cars – if there are teens or young adults living at home, it could be as many as four or five vehicles clogging the driveway and the garage.

But in cities, cars are a nuisance. Their main purpose is for getting large amounts of groceries or taking a weekend trip out of town.

So the idea of improving bus service in New York City – and even creating lines that don’t charge the $2.90 (make that $3 on the day Mamdani takes office) one-way fare – resonates with   city residents.

It goes to a larger issue that doesn’t just apply to New York. 

For too long, we’ve relied on automobiles as our main source of transport. We’ve been sold on the idea that they are about our freedom to travel in the style we want – in a capsule that’s heated or cooled to our specs, with our music or our talking heads, eating whatever we want.

But is it freedom?

When I think about what time in my life I would love to get back now that it’s becoming a more precious commodity, it is not the hours I’ve spent playing video games or watching the Mets lose. 

It’s the ridiculous amount of time I’ve spent sitting in traffic. Moving 10 feet at a time. Swearing at people cutting into my lane. Not knowing why this is happening – is it construction, is it an accident. One time, I swear, it was people watching a very attractive woman riding a horse on a bridle path adjacent to the road.

So the idea of making buses fast and free has quite the appeal. If you can get from your house to where your need to go quickly – without worrying about congestion, gas, mechanical issues and finding a parking space – you might sign up for that. 

In the process, you’d be saving yourself some money and – as a nice fringe benefit – help combat climate change.

—

One issue I harp on is that there is often a lack of imagination in considering new public transportation. As I’ve said before, innovation in transportation has come at nowhere near the speed of innovation in telecommunications.

It doesn’t even have to be some new form of transport – like a maglev train or a vacuum tube. 

In Los Angeles, there’s a proposal to put up a gondola service from downtown to Dodger Stadium more than a mile away. It seems like the kind of imaginative idea that would help L.A., especially given it’s troubled relationship with auto.

The problem is that there are environmental concerns, particularly among residents of the city’s Chinatown. I’m not sure how a gondola would be worse than the exhaust from hundreds of cars on Alameda Street, but that’s something better suited for the folks in the community to sort out.

The important thing is that people are starting to think about this problem – particularly areas that have been bypassed in previous projects.

In New York, there’s a proposal to use abandoned freight tracks to connect neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn via light rail. It seems like the line won’t take forever to build and could give people a way to get places without going through the mishegas that is Manhattan Island.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Seattle are extending rail services further into their outskirts and suburbs. Austin, Atlanta and Madison, Wisconsin, are working on major bus rapid transit projects.

A lot of these projects derive their funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that President Joe Biden – you know, the guy your TV talking head thinks didn’t do anything worthwhile – signed into law in 2021. That act also is responsible for the traffic congestion around construction zones around the country – which isn’t fun but still somewhat better than a chunk of interstate highway collapsing in the middle of the night. 

New ideas should be encouraged – and it’s great that some of the new projects will be here before 2028. But old ways of getting from here to there can and should be modernized, made more efficient, expanded and cost a lot less.

Zohran Mamdani understands that, when it comes to creating an affordability agenda for one of the most improbable political runs in American history, boiling it down to “fast and free buses” works nicely. 

It’s not so much that New Yorkers should hold him – and the rest of us hold our elected officials – to it. It’s that we need to put the car in the garage and help them get these plans in motion.

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YES, IT’S A BIG DEAL

I was jealous of my New York City friends and family who are able to vote for Zohran Mamdani for mayor.

I’ll get back to that point in a bit. But first, let’s discuss Election Day 2025.

It doesn’t garner near the attention that Election Day 2024 did or even Election Day 2026 will. That’s understandable to an extent. The people on the ballot in a presidential, gubernatorial or congressional race get lots of attention on TV or online.

But this year’s elections – if there is, in fact, an election where you live – are generally local. You might know the town supervisor as the guy who lives a couple of blocks away or the woman whose kid goes to the same school as yours. But they’re not generally prominent figures – people who show up on a screen in your home.

Until they are. Local governments are like farm teams in baseball. Most of the people involved never make it to the big leagues – but generally you become a national or state political figure after winning some smaller race in a community.

For example, I just saw a social media post from U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate Cory Booker. His first election was to a municipal council in Newark, New Jersey, in 1997. Mitch McConnell, the venerable Kentucky senator and former party leader, first won a county executive race in 1977.

And even if these people up for election next week don’t become national names, they potentially affect your life in many ways. 

Councils appropriate money and help determine who gets taxed and by how much. Judges preside over criminal and civil cases or even that speeding ticket you want to fight. Town clerks collect your property tax money and send you the receipts that you need for your IRS filing. The highway superintendent makes assignments for clearing your street after a storm.

So the people who say something like “Well, nobody’s up this year, why do I need to vote?” don’t really understand how our system works. That what happens at the local level is just as important as what happens nationally.

The most prominent races this year are for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. Incumbents are term-limited in both states – a Democrat in New Jersey, a Republican in Virginia. 

The Democratic candidates in both states – Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger – are ahead in pre-election polls, but are hardly shoo-ins. And even if they were, it’s important to send a message to Trump and his ilk that their conduct is unacceptable.

We should be trying to beat him bigly.

There are also mayoral races in many of the nation’s big cities. Including, of course, New York – the race which has dominated political coverage for months.

The leading candidate, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, may be running the best campaign I have seen in my lifetime – and I’ve been a political junkie since I was 5 years old. It is not, as fear-mongering detractors argue, that he is converting gullible millennials into socialist zombies.

What Mamdani does so well is listen. He spent the first part of his campaign figuring out what New Yorkers want – to afford living within in the five boroughs. His proposals, which are more detailed than any I’ve seen in a campaign, get at how he will address costs. Nobody is complaining that he is not specific.

Friends outside New York ask if Mamdani translates to their part of the nation. The answer is not that Georgia or Illinois or Virginia need necessarily embrace his democratic socialism. The answer is that Democrats need to hear what their potential constituents are saying about their problems, then propose solutions that people believe could work.  

It’s a trial-and-error process, not a Mount Olympus process. Making people feel as though they’re invested in their community’s success is how Democrats will re-emerge as the dominant political party – and, in the process, save the United States from the Republican-spearheaded drive toward totalitarianism.

Where I live, northwest of the city in Rockland County, politics are a little bleaker – and very weird.

Rank-and-file Democrats can’t stand the county executive, a former New York City cop named Ed Day. He always seems to run on fear of the city, that we in Rockland don’t ‘share the values” of the Gotham menace.

Which is shorthand for “we don’t have a lot of people of color up here” and we don’t want any more.

For example, Day’s campaign literature – a waste of money, as you’ll see in a bit – talks about how he managed to fight New York City’s effort to ship 400 undocumented immigrants to hotels in the county.

What Day doesn’t say is that those immigrants were shipped to Manhattan by Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas, used as political pawns to make some stupid point. If those clucks wanted to maybe help alleviate a problem of getting overwhelmed by migrants, maybe they would have worked with neighboring areas to relocate the, you know, human beings. 

But expecting DeSantis or Abbott to act in a way consistent with the Christian teachings they boast of heeding is folly. And you can count Ed Day with them.

The biggest problem with Rockland, as I alluded to last week in my post on the No King’s Day event in Nanuet, is that there are few young people here. Young professionals do not want to live in a place where people are looking to ban books in schools and where the only jobs being created are low-wage ones in warehouses.

But the Republicans in Rockland, who attained dominance only within the last decade or so, have figured out how to maintain power. They’ve basically co-opted the Democratic party organization – so much so that there is no Democrat running against Day. (Which makes you wonder why he wasted any money on campaign literature). There is an independent who qualified for the ballot.

I voted for him when I cast my early vote this week. I voted for whatever Democrats were on the ballot for town and county offices – unless they were cross-endorsed by Republicans.

There were three other races in which no Democrat was on the ballot. For highway commissioner, I wrote in my son, who at least has some experience working for the town. For a judgeship, I wrote in a friend who lives in the county (and usually reads this blog). 

When it came to a town judgeship, I was hard pressed to come up with anyone else to write in.

And that’s when I remembered how jealous I was that New York City folk have Mamdani to rally around.

So I wrote him in. 

There are those of you who think that I wasted my vote. You’re entitled to that opinion – let’s face it, he’s not going to beat the Republican woman running unopposed.

But, first, she ain’t going to be elected unanimously. I took care of that.

And, second, I wanted to send a message that I want to see candidates like Mamdani in Rockland who are more receptive to the real needs of the community and less interested in scaring us with New York City bogeymen.

So, back to the first sentence of this: I was jealous. I’m not any more.

Make yourself feel better and do good by your community. Vote in this election and make your voice heard. Even if you write-in Zohran Mamdani.

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DO KIDS WANTS KINGS?

If it accomplished nothing else, last Saturday’s No Kings Day of protests felt good.

An estimated 7 million Americans took time from their Saturday routines to march or gather. There were events in every state, about 2,700 of them in all, and they all seemed peaceful and boisterous.

That’s great. You know it had to put a bug up Trump’s ample rear. And the caterwauling that’s followed – that’s precious: We all got paid by George Soros. We’re all Hamas sympathizers. We hate America. We’re all antifa.

Actually, the antifa part is correct. The millions who marched are unapologetically, uninhibitedly, undeniably anti-fascist. That’s why the hell we were there. People railing against antifa should be taken to the nearest national cemetery – or one where someone in their family is buried – and see the OG. The guys who stormed Normandy and Iwo Jima are the Babe Ruths of antifa.

But one criticism that actually bothers me is that the people protesting are a bunch of aging hippies out of touch with the real America.

Because, at least at the protest I attended in Nanuet, New York, most of the 4,500 people standing alongside New York Route 59 were about my age, 71. Many were older. And there were very few people – other than the organizers – younger than 45.

Now, one reason that might be is that Rockland County, the suburban area where I live, is pretty devoid of younger people. Most of my neighbors are around my age. Most of the people I see in the supermarket or the post office are around my age.

In fact, I’m always a little startled when I go someplace – either in Manhattan or on our recent trip to Seattle – where there are so many people in their 20s and 30s. Other than having to accept that “Too Shy Shy” by Kajagoogoo was an actual song from when I was their age, I find hanging around younger people gives me a lift.

What I worry about is that I didn’t see high school students or young adults in the crowd. The people for whom the battle against totalitarianism is being waged.

Maybe they were busy. Saturday is a day for football games. It’s the day when many young people are working at the Shake Shack or the Panera Bread behind the rally in order to earn money for higher education. Apple picking. Pumpkin carving. Shopping at the outlets.

Or maybe they feel as though this doesn’t affect them. Younger people have a harder time seeing the stakes. They’re not used to this.


We were told by our parents about the Depression and World War II. Our not being able to talk about that first-hand makes the idea of Nazis and fascists abstract or curious to our kids – I can’t explain why so many younger people seem enamored with swastika tattoos. Either that or there’s been another periodic outbreak of one of the world’s oldest diseases, antisemitism.

There are indications that more younger people were drawn to Trump’s 2024 campaign than his past garbage spewing. They were bothered by the high cost of living over the past few years, triggered in large part by the supply chain problems resulting from the pandemic. 

Many were also bothered by the two wars that dragged on last year: Russia vs, Ukraine, Israel vs. Hamas. Death and destruction that the United States seemed powerless to stop.

And there’s this issue with gerontocracy. Everybody’s over 70 – hell, some of the leaders in this country are over 80. When are they going to give up power to another generation that has stopped waiting patiently?

For whatever reason, young people stayed away from Nanuet. And we could have used them.

What I hope younger people are finding out is that Trump is not their friend. He doesn’t even comprehend who they are or what they need. He’s joyless, artless and money-mad. He could care less about anyone other than himself and the toadies who suck up to him.

Trump is never going to be a real king, set upon putting one of his worthless offspring on the American throne. But unless there’s some hidden desire to not go through the rigamarole of elections, he’s looking for something a little more permanent for the rest of his miserable life.

I might be dead wrong about this. The kids might have marched in the cities where they feel at home. Where they can feel free to wear funny costumes and devise clever signs. Where this is all fast becoming a matter of quality of life – and even life-and-death for some of the people they care about.

And the younger people who are hip to Trump’s jive seem to be doing the best job fighting the tyranny of Trump’s slow-moving coup.

They instinctively know when to pull out the iPhone or Galaxy to record atrocities in neighborhoods and on city streets. They’re better equipped to throw their bodies in front of masked secret police in Chinatown and on State Street.

It would be nice to have millennials, Gen-Z and Gen Alpha on our side. This fight needs the generations that love Taylor Swift as much as it needs the generations that love James Taylor.

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SAY “AAAH!”

This government shutdown droning on for most of the past month focuses on healthcare.

Democrats say the budget outline bill passed by Republicans earlier this year supercharges price increases for insurance. The Republicans say they are cutting waste and showing that the Affordable Care Act – what everyone knows as Obamacare – is a failure.

Many of us have already received the proposed monthly rates for 2026 coverage. They aren’t pretty. I’m on Medicare, with much lower costs than people below age 65, and my rates are doubling – with less overall coverage. 

If I’m a younger person paying multiples of what I do, I imagine being terrified by what I’m looking at. To the extent that it might cross my mind to forego coverage – a disaster in the making if something terrible happens, as it does too often.

What makes the Republican stance particularly intriguing is that, by all indications, the clamoring for repealing Obamacare that immediately followed its enactment has just about vanished. It was unpopular at first due largely to a mistake Obama made in selling the program – that nothing about your healthcare would change and that you could keep the doctors you wanted.

But there were doctors and insurers who didn’t want to go along. And a lot of people did – and continue to need to – change doctors, dentists and other healthcare professionals.

We’ve gotten used to that. In the end, being able to afford being well supersedes whether or not you can talk to your doctor about how the Mets did this year.

In the process, millions of people who didn’t have healthcare got it. Obamacare’s popularity has soared in the 15 years it has been in existence. So much so that John McCain might have been trying to save his own party when he did his famous thumbs-down that stymied one of umpteen Republican efforts to kill the ACA.

One funny thing about Obamacare is that its origin story is Republican. It’s fairly similar to the healthcare program in Massachusetts shepherded by Mitt Romney when he was governor. The ideas of using the existing insurance market and mandating coverage came from him.

But here’s where this all gets weird if you look at it from a less-partisan point of view. Did Republicans turn vehemently against Obamacare because they seriously don’t believe in providing protection against rising healthcare costs, or did they do so because Obama adopted their idea?

What they’ve said is that they want to “repeal and replace” the ACA. They have never, in 15 years, told us what they would replace it with, only that “repeal” would come before “replace.”

It’s reached the point of laughable – in the debate with Kamala Harris, Trump said he had “concepts” of a plan.

You would think, after 15 years, if Obamacare was so godawful terrible, that plan would be beautifully fine turned, with input from conservative thinktanks that would address the supposed flaws.

And then, if Democrats were true to their mission of providing quality healthcare at lower costs, they would seriously consider the GOP plan and adopt those parts that they believe would work.

It’s just that the Republicans don’t have that plan. They haven’t told us what Trump’s “concepts” are.

Instead, they’ve blamed all the problems facing America’s middle and working classes on desperate people fleeing economic and/or political terror in countries throughout the world. Also known as: They’re coming here to take our jobs and get stuff for nothing.

In a way, I hope these premium hikes people are getting in the mail or online might help put this problem into real perspective. The government shutdown is already bringing pain to the nation and its economy – and that’s only going to get worse as it drags on.

But, as Jon Stewart pointed out on his show last week, fighting to keep healthcare affordable is the very least an out-of-power Democratic Party can do for its constituents – actually, given how Trump voters will be disproportionately hurt by this, what it can do for the whole country.

It would be nice if the United States had a political system that worked to solve real problems, not manufactured ones. 

But instead, we fight viciously over what is actually a problem – and that’s a disaster in the making. And we get caught up in nonsense – did Katie Porter yell at an interviewer in California, is Bad Bunny really an American, will Zohran Mamdani impose Sharia law on Brooklyn?

When the healthcare debates started, I was on board with a single-payer system. I would be willing to pay more in taxes if it meant I never had to worry about getting sick and going into deep debt. Obamacare was a way to get some of what I wanted and, as its namesake likes to say, good is not the enemy of perfect. 

If some principled conservative has a way to make healthcare more available and cheaper, I’m ready to listen.

Otherwise, leave what’s working alone, rescind the tax cuts that wipe out healthcare subsidies, and get this country open again.

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KETCHUP WILL FLY

Donald J. Trump and his sycophants believe that he somehow warrants a Nobel Peace Prize.

(I’ll give you two minutes to roll on the floor laughing.)

Tomorrow, he finds out if that fantasy – about as far-fetched as the Yankees asking me to pinch-hit for Aaron Judge – becomes reality.

The announcement will be made before most of us in the USA get up, although I imagine Trump will be wide awake – breathless, partly in anticipation and partly because people of his girth get winded easily. Unlike the other Nobels, which are announced in Sweden, the peace prize is announced by Norway’s parliament, which votes for the winner shortly before the announcement.

It is possible that there is no winner. The last time that happened was 1972, which wasn’t a particularly good year for peace as I remember.

But that seems unlikely. The Nobel committee says there are 338 candidates for this year’s award, 52 more than last year. I didn’t notice the world becoming more peaceful in the past year, but maybe I missed something. There are 244 individuals and 94 organizations.

Last year, it went to an organization, Nihon Hidankyo, which calls attention to the devastation of nuclear weapons such as the ones used on its home country of Japan in 1945.

We will not know for sure who the winner beat. Let me rephrase that – I won’t ever know who the nominees were unless I somehow live to be 121 years old. That’s because the nominee list isn’t released for 50 years. So if you’re here in 2075 – if, given the state of the world, we survive to 2075 – you’ll find out who the winner beat and who else lost besides Trump.

Assuming he’s a nominee.

I know, there are people who have said they nominated Trump. Leaders of Pakistan and Cambodia say they’ve nominated him. So has U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, a Georgia Republican.

Which gets to the question: Can anybody nominate someone for the Nobel Peace Prize?

The answer is: almost.

World leaders and their ministers can nominate. Recognized international aid organizations can nominate. So can elected members of national legislative bodies – hence the Buddy Carter thing.

Also, college professors specializing in social sciences can nominate candidates. Which means I missed my chance when I taught journalism at William Paterson University in New Jersey before the pandemic. So, my apologies to Justin Trudeau, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Jon Stewart.

One other person has said they’ve nominated Trump for the Nobel: Benjamin Netanyahu. He said it in February, something about Trump having deserved it four times. Netanyahu’s chances of winning the Nobel himself are as far-fetched as my pinch-hitting for Judge and hitting a Mason Miller fastball all the way to Citi Field.

The thing is, we can’t be sure Bibi wasn’t blowing smoke up Trump’s oversized rear end. 

First, the two of them won’t be alive when the nominees are announced. Second, if Netanyahu nominated Trump just before the meeting, he won’t be eligible until 2026 – the nominations for this year’s prize had to be in by January 31.

Which isn’t much of a year, frankly.

But assuming there’s going to be a winner, and expecting that the Norwegians haven’t lost their minds, there are some potential laureates who would leave Trump not only disappointed but also apoplectic.

–PLANNED PARENTHOOD: Imagine giving the award to an organization vilified by Trump and MAGA. I would nominate the organization for its efforts to protect the health and freedom of American women in the wake of long-standing suppression and occasional terrorism.

–BLACK LIVES MATTER: This has become a global movement to recognize that Black people are not identity-less zombies – they are individuals with dreams, quirks, loved ones, enterprise, culture and, most important, worth. That will be quite the fit Trump throws if BLM wins.

— ROSIE O’DONNELL: There’s not much chance that she’d win, although her philanthropic work makes her far more eligible for it thanTrump is. But the Truth Social rants would flow like diarrhea for hours.

— JOE BIDEN: Oh, that would be too much. There are probably lots of things Biden has done in his illustrious career to warrant consideration. But making Trump crazy would be enough reason for me.

— GRETA THUNBERG: Now we’re getting a little closer to reality. In fact, I would think she’s the betting favorite if there is one. This young woman has been sounding the alarm about climate change and environmental disaster since she was 15. Her effort to feed Gazans in the midst of Netanyahu’s starvation campaign would qualify her for next year’s prize. 

If she wins, you get a 2-for-1, pissing off both Trump and Netanyahu. Probably Putin, too, since Thunberg supports Ukraine. The idea of Trump in a straitjacket yelling Thunberg needs “anger management” is funny.

— JOSE ANDRES: The Spanish-born chef and noted Trump bête noire deserves this award for what he does when the world goes wrong. War, manmade or natural disaster and pestilence don’t seem to stop Andres and his World Central Kitchen team from feeding desperate people in need. Some cook getting his Nobel Peace Prize would drive Trump to eat an extra Big Mac on Friday morning.

— BARACK OBAMA: Yeah, I know he’s won it. Nobody has won the Nobel Peace Prize twice (although there are people who have won two Nobels in either the same or different categories). All the more reason to give it to him.

Let’s face it, Obama winning the prize is the reason Trump wants it. His Obama envy runs strong – it’s almost paralyzing. He’s on a rampage against democracy and civil order now. Yeah, maybe he’ll try harder, or maybe Obama’s win would crush his spirit and make him mutter his way into resignation.

It will at least spur a full-fledged ketchup attack on the gold-plated Oval Office walls. A guy can dream.

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IN SERVICE

If I had wanted to make a ton of money is this life, I would have a different career than journalism.

But journalism was, to my mind, the best way to make change in the world and serve people. An informed public is who we’re supposed to trust to make decisions in a democracy – my goal was to do that in a fair way to enable the best outcome.

I write this because today seems like a banner day for the “greed is good” mantra that Michael Douglas’ character preached in “Wall Street.”

Because there are people who don’t do what they do strictly to enrich themselves. They do it to serve their community. To advance humanity. Out of love for their country.

I’m talking, in particular, who sign up to work for the federal government or who choose to join our armed forces.

Yes, these people are trying to make a living. But if they wanted wealth, they picked the wrong “Let’s Make a Deal” curtain. And, until 2025, they probably were OK with that.

So let’s start with the thousands of federal employees who knew they were spending their final day on the job Tuesday.

They voluntarily resigned or retired in order to salvage some compensation after the Elon Musk barbarians ransacked the government in the first weeks of Trump’s second term.

Government work always seems to be diminished by popular culture – and especially by politicians, mostly (but not always) on the right.

They’re pointy-headed bureaucrats. Pencil pushers. Bean counters. Meddling. Power mad. Self-important. Job seekers. The scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

Did I miss anything?

In the face of that, in the face of hearing how the work is unnecessary and a nuisance to society, these people choose to do it anyway. Fine tune weather forecasts. Inspect alfalfa sprouts. Monitor car emissions. Negotiate aid for countries trying to develop an economy. Clean out the portapotties at Yellowstone.

Prosecute insurrectionists.

They do it because they love America, even if way too much of America doesn’t love them. They do it because the Constitution that they’ve sworn an oath to uphold is what actually makes America great – not high-powered weapons or inflated stock prices or some egomaniac with orange makeup.

The government’s carrot to getting the best workers possible, people who need to pass a test to get their job, was job security and structured pay tiers. None of this Six Sigma crap that requires layoffs every so often to cull perceived inadequacy, People did difficult work without commissars whipping them into some task.

With experience comes expertise. The kind of people who stay calm in a crisis. The kind of people who lead younger workers by example.

The cranks who want a government so small they can drown it in a bathtub have the money to pay for what they need, or lawyers who can get them what they need. Greed is good for them. The less government infringes on greed, the better.

They – and people they’ve misled through their control of exploitive media – are thrilled to see this exodus of competence. The more government doesn’t work, the more they can say government doesn’t work. It feeds itself. The greedy get more. The targets get hurt. The people they mislead get angrier.

—

Then there are the people who still had a job until the stroke of midnight Tuesday (Reminder: Midnight is the last moment of the prior day. 12:00:01 is the next day).

That’s when the government shut down because the Republican president and Congress couldn’t pass a budget.

If you think the Democrats are shutting down the government, you’re an idiot. There’s a simple formula for this – let’s see if even MAGA types can figure it out.

The Republicans need Democratic votes to pass a budget because they don’t have enough votes in the Senate to do so. In a democracy, if you don’t have the votes, you negotiate. Republicans believe negotiating means you accede to our demands and then we demand more.

That might not work this time.

Whatever the situation, the people paying the price aren’t the independently wealthy members of Congress. No, no, no.

It’s the people still in the employ of the federal government. And they either get furloughed – sent home without pay – or have to work even though they don’t get paid, which last I looked is something akin to slavery.

Either way, people who want to help their fellow Americans are helpless in a Republican shutdown. The people who campaign complaining about government doesn’t want make sure they’re right.

—

Finally, we have the spectacle of Tuesday’s gathering of generals and commanders in Virginia at the behest of Hegseth and Trump, two walking and talking arguments for birth control.

Hegseth, the noted ubriacone, talked about violating rules of engagement and creating a warrior class that looks like his manifestation of those little green soldiers in “Toy Story.” Trump basically told them that they’re going to be fighting a war in such battlegrounds as Times Square, the Loop, Fisherman’s Wharf and Beverly Hills – against people who might very well be their parents, their siblings, their best friends from high school.

Stereotypes depict military leaders as excited by the prospect of battle. The truth is much different.

Talk to your friends or acquaintances who have chosen to serve their country instead of scramble for a buck. Who have led men and women into battle and seen them die on a battlefield. Who have made hard decisions and pledged an oath to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic.

Those generals didn’t tough it out in a military career to satisfy their urge to yell, or to wear uncomfortable outfits weighed down with medals and ribbons – what they call “fruit salad.”

The only light of that farce in Virginia was in the silence. The complete non-response of the military leaders to what Hegseth and Trump thought was going to be their red meat. The pained and angered expressions of people who take their oath seriously and understand that American people are never our enemies.

—

Because they, like the government workers, pledged themselves to serve and protect us. There’s something incredibly noble about people who believe in this country’s governmental institutions and traditions, and who think that making them work is their duty.

People like Trump and Hegseth don’t get that. People who believe this country’s CEOs and financiers are the real heroes of society don’t get that. They think greed drives this country.

There are times when it has. This may be one of them. But that is not the hallmark of a great nation. It’s the hallmark of tinpot dictators and weak cowards.

Thank goodness for those generals. Thank goodness for the people who work in what some people deride as the bureaucracy. Thank goodness for the diplomats and inspectors and park rangers and, in a personal tribute, the lawyers who forsook riches because they have scruples.

We need to make this country safe for real patriots again. Until then, best wishes – and stay strong.

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TRUE ORANGE AND BLUE

I’ll post my usual assemblage of thoughts about the state of the world on Thursday.

But as a devoted fan of the New York Mets, I feel compelled to write a few words about being a devoted fan of the New York Mets.

I haven’t always been a devoted fan of the New York Mets (OK, I’ll stop with the ‘devoted’ stuff). My parents bonded over their love of the other team in town, the one with all the prominent Italian-Americans such as Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto. 

So I had that team’s swag when I was 7, long before anyone knew about team swag.

My mother’s father was a fan of the other New York team. But he and, because I admired my grandfather so much, I dumped them in late 1964 when they fired Berra as manager after losing the World Series in seven games.

The Mets built their new home, Shea Stadium, less than two miles from my childhood home. They weren’t an easy team to adopt, since they were bad. Notoriously, comically bad.

But Grandpa and I stuck with the Mets. We were rewarded five years later when they shocked the world and went from godawful to World Series champions. 

I stuck with them until 1977, when they unceremoniously dumped their greatest-ever player, Tom Seaver. Back to Brand X I went, watching them win two Series.

Then, in 1985, Berra – in his second time around as their manager – got fired again by the team’s impetuous, boorish owner. 

It was back to the Mets again. And because I feared that I showed signs of being one of the things I hate most – a front-runner – I vowed to stay true to the Orange and Blue.

That has not been the easiest thing to do.

After proving me right in 1986 with their second Series win, they have failed to achieve another one.

They had great chances several times, including a World Series against that other team in 2000. The closest they’ve come is avoiding a sweep, twice.

In the process of staying true to the Mets and cheering them all the damn time, I did a godawful, terrible thing:

I helped turn my kids into Mets fans, too.

For the more than 30 years of both their lives, they have never had the opportunity to see the Mets be the last team standing. To see them ride through New York’s Canyon of Heroes with the city’s denizens hurling garbage at them, because there’s no such thing as ticker tape in the 21st century.

My son actually works for them. He spent about 55 of his days or nights this season helping a pretty full Citi Field cheer for players who carry their hopes of glory for the franchise.

That faith was not rewarded yesterday. After compiling the best record in baseball through early June and holding a playoff spot until the 160th game of the 162-game season, the Mets ended 2025 failing to make the postseason.

It’s not the first time they faltered on the last day of the regular season. It’s not even the second. Three times this century, they’ve been on the outside of glory after failing miserably in the final game. This despite having a payroll something around $340 million, including more than $50 million for outfielder Juan Soto in the first of a 15-year contract.

It might be all right if I suffered these defeats by myself.

But I don’t.

When they were in elementary school, they heard the taunts of the other team’s fans. When the Mets lost the World Series to the other team, the school held a parade to celebrate. I was incensed – but somehow not surprised – that the principal could be that insensitive.

But like me, they’ve stuck with the Mets. We go to games together, drag their Mom to the ballpark on occasion, have converted my daughter’s wife and are working on my son’s girlfriend.

I want so very badly for the Mets to win a World Series before I pass from this life, so I can celebrate with my family and revel in the reflected glory. I would even just like not to have to listen to fans of other teams – and THAT other team – make snide remarks about they’re cheering for active teams in October and we’re not.

But I’m not as despondent as I thought I’d be when this collapse appeared imminent. I got to see 25 Mets games in 2025 and created memories with the people I love. We got to cheer and enjoy some special moments. 

It’s nice to win – and it hurts a lot to lose. But baseball has meant joy, excitement and – most importantly – family for 71 years.

I’ll be back. We’ll get ‘em next year. 

And if your team is in the postseason, congratulations. Enjoy this moment.

Even if you root for that other team.

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THE BEAUTIFUL

This is a quick rumination after spending a day at one of this nation’s greatest attributes – its national parks.

In 1872, President Ulysses Grant established the world’s first national park – Yellowstone, mostly in Wyoming, but with small portions in Montana and Idaho. It was designed to preserve some of the beauty of this nation while there was still the chance – stopping overwrought from tapping these lands purely for profit.

I haven’t been to a lot of U.S. national parks. But I have been to Yellowstone and Grand Teton in Wyoming, Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon in Arizona, Joshua Tree in California, Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, Shenandoah in Virginia and Haleakala in Hawaii.

There are all treasures. They are also an example of the wonders creative thinking can perform when it comes to making a better place to live.

The proponents of Yellowstone feared that the area of the Rockies would suffer the fate of Niagara Falls, which had already become a seedy tourist trap obscuring the magnificence of the waterfalls. Designating Yellowstone a national park not only protected Old Faithful and the grizzly bears from unscrupulous profit-seekers, but it gave a boost to tourism as an American industry.

The park I went to today was clean and beautiful. It left me – a city boy – in awe of what natutre can create. And it made me grateful that someone in the 1870s thought enough to preserve our natural heritage so that Americans they’d never meet would marvel at these wonders.

Would that we approached all our problems in the same way – getting ahead of them and protecting them from the unscrupulous and exploitive.

I’ll write more about this in the future. But for now, consider packing your loved one(s) into the car and exploring the most beautiful array of parks in the world.

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¿DÓNDE ESTÁ MI HERMANO?

When I was in the fourth grade, our teacher tried to teach us Spanish.

It was unusual then to teach elementary school students a foreign language. But that might be the best time to do it.

That’s because I still remember the sentence atop this piece, more than 60 years later. And I cannot tell you what Italian word I supposedly learned this morning on Duolingo.

Hispanic language, culture and overall presence weren’t quite as noticeable in my world in 1963 as they are today. I don’t remember tacos, much less taco trucks. Bad Bunny would have been some malevolent cartoon character, not a singer. Signs weren’t in two languages, just English.

Not that there wasn’t any Hispanic influence. “West Side Story” – the musical and the movie – remained fresh on people’s minds, in part because of the incredible music and storytelling.

But when my class got its Spanish lessons, I thought the only place it might come in handy was if I went to Spain one day.

I bring this up because we have entered Hispanic Heritage Month. It seems strange to start a month-long celebration in the middle of September, but that’s because it’s timed to commence with Mexico’s independence celebrations and include those of other countries in our hemisphere.

This must be – at best – a bittersweet celebration. Thousands of Hispanics have been swept off the streets of our country by the new Gestapo, the agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They’ve been sicced on people based pretty much on the fact that they kinda look Hispanic – it seems that whether these folks have documentation or not is inconsequential. 

These agents have been empowered by a miserable president trying to distract the nation from his multiple failings as a leader and human being. And they’ve been given license by a Supreme Court that puts privilege over justice and expedience over process – the Constitution they’re sworn to interpret fairly reduced to an annoying memo.

In the “again” part of MAGA, a lot of the inference you can draw is that America was a better country when your supermarket cashier didn’t have a Spanish accent, when congas weren’t the drums of street musicians, when the guy who cut your grass was sunburned red instead of brown.

But that’s not how America works. Period. Pizza and hot dogs came from adapting to immigrants from Europe. Jazz came from working in the rhythms of Africa. Our military and public service heroes trace their  origins to every corner of the globe.

I have no Hispanic blood or members of my extended family. It doesn’t matter. These are my people – just as everyone on Team America who abides by the principles of our freedom are my people.

They work in our communities. Their kids go to our schools. They pay their taxes – which is a damn sight more than what too many of these so-called patriots empowering the Republican Party do.

Their culture makes ours more radiant. Their food makes ours taste better. Their bravery and dedication keep us safe. Their happiness reflects well on us.

And that includes those who have come from Central America fleeing authoritarian regimes, gang warfare and crushing poverty – those who couldn’t wait for a documentation system that’s broken and corrupt, geared to let in white South Africans and nobody else.

We should not let spoiled brats like Trump, Homan, Noem and Miller dictate how these people are treated. They have no clue.

I didn’t learn much Spanish. Other than that one sentence in fourth grade, and the Spanish version of the warning on subway cars about not going on the tracks.

But.

¿Dondê esta mi hermano?

Mi hermano estâ aquî. Gracias a dios..

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