Leonard Zwelling

Readers of this blog know that this writer has been struggling with the issue of Black Lives Matter, Black lives in America and the solution to the claims of systemic racism in America. So has Joe Biden.

Daniel Henninger makes the precise point that I have been mulling over for the past few weeks when he writes in The Wall Street Journal on December 17. I have been thinking about this actually for many, many years. It has all kinds of names—diversity, multiculturalism and affirmative action, but what it is in essence is the political battle among factions divided along ethnic and racial lines when it comes to gaining access to high-powered jobs in government, business or academia.

Happy New Year.

In a special column on Sunday, December 27 in The New York Times, Frank Bruni opines on whether or not “normalcy is obsolete.” The answer is, it depends. If normalcy is America before the pandemic, my guess is that we will not go back to that world.

It is everything. Trust.

In the first of the two attached opinion pieces, the 100-year old former Republican Cabinet member George Shultz lists ten instances from his life where important trust was established between him and others—from his parents to President Nixon to President Reagan—that led to successful relationships and progress at times of difficulty.

It has recently been made public that there has been a huge breach in cyber security and many parts of the federal government have had their secrets exposed, supposedly to the Russians. Let’s say for a minute that all this media hype is true and the confidential information of federal agencies and private companies have been made available to our foreign adversaries in the Kremlin through the actions of those adversaries. Why isn’t this an act of war?

I have always viewed Christmas as an outsider. Since my earliest memories of being one of the only Jewish children in a public school in Stratford, Connecticut, Christmas has been a holiday for others. My mother indoctrinated us about Christmas not being our holiday.

Let’s ignore for a moment the rants of the current occupant of the Oval Office that somehow he was cheated out of an election victory despite the fact that he lost the popular vote (again) by 7 million ballots (this time, 3 million last time). At this point in time, some 28 days from the end of the Trump Presidency, I really don’t care what he says or does.

This New York Times article from December 11 is about forgiveness by the federal government for the debt acquired by millions to pay for their college educational expenses. It could be about any program in the federal government that transfers funds from the government (acquired through taxes on Americans and companies) to individual other Americans.

That’s pretty lame for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that the GOP had a great night on November 3. Republicans will probably hold the Senate. They have made inroads in the House. They were very successful on the state level. The only real loss was for president. This time they had the bad candidate—or at least the worse one.

Donald Trump loves the full-throated autocracy of his pardon power. He has used it before and will undoubtedly use it again. However, it is one thing to pardon Michael Flynn for crimes he has admitted to committing. It is quite another to pre-emptively pardon his friends, his family and himself. Here’s the risk to him.