Giving Back

 

So everyone knows, I’ve briefed my lawyers, given my wife the extra set of car keys, and made sure my dress shirts are crisply ironed. You see, one wants to have your affairs in order before the FBI starts knocking down your front door. As the world will soon find out, I have in my possession three (3) Sharpie markers that were once Federal government property. As these markers were given to me by the White House Communications Office, which is run by the military, there could be added charges of, literally, stealing classified ink.

I’m not sure what the statute of limitations is for possession of unreturned disposable writing instruments (and for the record, they aren’t even the Sharpie brand, but just generics as Uncle Sam is too cheap to spring for the good stuff). Maybe I can cop a plea for time served—I did live in New York City during Covid lockdowns. FBI Director Chris Wray was two years behind me at elementary school, so perhaps he could put in a good word at my sentencing. Of course it could be worse, as President Trump found out yesterday. I could have forgotten to give back some obscure document to the National Archives.

Yes, the National Archives is now sending the FBI around to raid homes. You would forgive the public for thinking that President Trump had swiped the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence on his way out of Washington. That would give Nicholas Cage his only way to produce National Treasure 4¸along with free footage to use from CNN’s salivating coverage of Hollywood fiction turned reality. As it turns out, one of the egregious mistakes President Trump made was to keep the letter President Obama left for him on inauguration day; our republic is now safe and secure that this correspondence is out any Florida file cabinets

If the previous few paragraphs seem silly, they are. But it is the only balm to soothe the pain of how our national law enforcement has devolved into Keystone cops pursing petty agendas that would make the late J. Edgar Hoover, the 20^th century’s master abuser of power, blush with envy.

With screaming headlines of classified and top-secret materials potentially at stake, you would think that President Trump had the list of every CIA foreign operative lying around the Mar-a-Lago swimming pool, pages upon pages of paper blowing into the Florida breeze and betraying our top spies. The reality is that almost everything in Washington gets some kind of designation. How else, then, could the official bureaucracy function? If some Deputy Secretary from the Department of Labor goes to visit a widget factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, it barely stirs the dust on Pennsylvania Avenue. But slap a classified sticker on the itinerary and send it to the White House as an FYI, a low-level scheduling functionary becomes the next James Bond.

The irony is that the “old guard” Republicans, the Lincoln Project warriors, have unleashed the very forces they say drove them against Donald Trump—rashness, abuse of power, and gross negligence of duty. They just never expected it from the Democrats. But when the Republicans win the House and possibly the Senate this fall, Trump-like vengeance will reign down from Capitol Hill next year. These Republican leaders now realize that the Democrats are in it to destroy, and this time the Republicans are going to go all-in for revenge knowing that Joe Biden is barely lucid, much less able to counter-punch.

50 years ago, bungling burglars began a series of events that brought down the Nixon White House. From the ensuing hearings and legislative change, we, as a nation, clarified how the executive, and the executive branch, could use governmental power. Besides preventing the FBI and CIA collaborating, which proved catastrophic leading up to 9/11, it also set up the record-keeping requirements that led to yesterday’s raid.

This could, and should, be our Watergate moment for the FBI and Department of Justice. It’s a fetid mess, but cleaning it up will help restore faith in our national law enforcement. I wish I could see it all as a free man, but jotting down some notes with my scofflaw marker I realized the notepad came from one of the official trips on which I worked.

See you in 20-to-life.

 

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

The Starting Nine

 

Last week marked the 80^th anniversary of the Doolittle raids over Tokyo. While more of a psychological victory than military turning point, the heroes of that campaign are now gone. A mere 20 years before that another battle was fought, one with consequences still felt today. Yes 2022 marks a century since the Supreme Court granted baseball certain immunities from anti-trust restrictions.

At the time the justices provided a narrow, if not nuanced, view of how they carved out this great legal exception. Their reasoning included, in part, “The business is giving exhibitions of baseball, which are purely state affairs. It is true that, in order to attain for these exhibitions the great popularity that they have achieved, competitions must be arranged between clubs from different cities and states. But the fact that, in order to give the exhibitions, the Leagues must induce free persons to cross state lines and must arrange and pay for their doing so is not enough to change the character of the business.” Jurisprudence may dictate that free persons were not adversely affected by all of this. However, I’m sure the court might look at this differently if they, like me, had to shell out the not-so-free 140 bucks for a season of games on MLB.com.

With Easter and The Masters comfortably behind us, many, especially Knicks fans, now look forward to the daily ritual of following baseball. The beginning of the season brings hope (everyone, even the Mets, are in first place for one day!) and naysayers—the game takes too long, the universal designated hitter weakens the game, etc. But the New York Times managed, and who knew they could, to go completely overboard by publishing an opinion piece entitled “Baseball is dying. The government should take it over.”

Laying out any number of reasons why baseball is now culturally irrelevant, the author suggested a federal buyout and takeover of the game. Social equity would be achieved by lowering the highest salaries and, of course, raising the lowest salaries. Various parts of management would become elected officials. Baseball would become what so much of the classical arts world now is—just a government-subsidized exhibition.

I guess the whole thing was supposed to be funny. Had it at least been snarky I would have known to laugh a little, even admire the attempt at humor. But when the logic of it all maps directly AOC's socialist platform, it becomes a creepy way to envision the future, especially with a stated end goal of “A strict salary cap could be imposed to help ensure competitive parity between teams.” Maybe it was supposed to be funny after all—ask the Knicks, Jets, and Giants how much parity there has been with their strict salary caps.

Yet on opening day, with my Amex angry over its latest assault, and against a blur of new and incomprehensible statistics ("expected batting average from the exit velocity and angle of the ball off the bat" anyone?), I turned on the TV, booted up the MLB app, and watched the hated Red Sox play at Yankee Stadium (unless, of course, my boss is reading this—in which case I was hard at work). It was a very capitalistic exhibition—the very rich watching millionaires play in a billionaire’s palace. Befitting the usual manner of both teams, the game crawled through four hours and even extra innings. But in the bottom of the 11^th the Yanks won on a walk-off single driving in a runner from second. Sure that runner was there because of a change in the rules “to speed up the game,” but euphoria erupted nonetheless. And that anti-trust exempted $140 I had to spend? Worth every penny.

 

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

Untested

The last panning shot of “Raiders of the Last Ark” shows the wooden box containing the lost ark of the covenant slowly making its way across seemingly endless rows and shelves of identical boxes. With the voiceover assuring us that the ark is very safe, the implication is that this divine source of power was secure from anybody finding it amongst the enormity of the warehouse. Given that it was a government operation, it could have just as easily been lost through bad paperwork and other ineptitude even the Nazis couldn’t break through. In the real America of today, there’s an example of government ineptitude not seen since the customer panning of New Coke. Somewhere across this country sit over 220 million rapid Covid tests gracefully gathering dust, no doubt safe in unimaginably large warehouses.

Covid testing has been a hot topic this week, and for all the wrong reasons. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff all tested positive despite their double-vaxxed, boosted status. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki tested positive just before this week’s Presidential European visit. This marks the second time she’s tested positive before a foreign trip, which may reflect a) defective testing, b) yet more confirming evidence that the Covid vaccine has very little ability to stop the spread of Covid, or c) she has found the perfect out from following around an incoherent old man and trying to make sense of what he says for the benefit of the rest of the world. I don’t know the woman personally, but I would bank on d) all of the above.

But of course you are still trying to figure out why there are 220 million rapid Covid tests sitting around. In the New Coke of pandemic ideas, the administration this year happily purchased some 500 million Covid rapid tests to distribute for free to every American by having them order them online and delivered to their doorstep by the Post Office. Much like New Coke, there was a flurry of initial activity followed by dismissal of the entire idea. In other words, America gave a failing grade to the great test plan. And it’s the focus on testing that says everything about desperation of this administration.

In general, Democrats hate testing. It doesn’t follow their narrative of everyone getting a participation trophy. It divides people up into categories that show different levels of ability and aptitude, the top layers of which generally don’t need the government handouts that Democrats espouse. But a “free” medical test shows both caring and action, even if it doesn’t accomplish anything. And even better, now new CDC guidelines make the testing and its results irrelevant to designations of chronic concern. A few weeks ago the CDC changed the criteria from focusing on positive test results to hospital capacity. Overnight, 90% of America went from living in an area suffering from a pandemic to 90% of America living in an area where nary a mask was needed. To say the least, it’s a test that nearly everyone can pass.

Fortunately for the Administration, there’s hope. Buried behind news of inflation, record-high gas prices, and that pesky war in Ukraine, the desperate strain of BA.2 bubbles up. No, BA.2 isn’t British Airways flight 002, non-stop service from New York JFK to London Heathrow, but the latest Covid strain. Actually it’s a variant of the Omicron variant— the journeyman minor league infielder of viruses. And given the utter failure of the administration to address inflation, record-high gas prices, and that pesky war in Ukraine, it gives Joe and his crew something they can’t screw up—always suggesting more Covid testing. Like baseball’s spring training, it’s ever hopeful but has nothing to do with the reality of the regular season. Besides, we need the warehouse space back; the modern-day Indiana Jones of technology, Jeff Bezos, needs to get our Prime deliveries to us with something more useful than Covid tests.

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

The Last Boy Of Summer

 

While rock ‘n roll has an endless supply of ballads about lost love, “The Boys of Summer” still stands out decades after its release. The tale is one of a young man reflecting on a former girlfriend. She has moved on to a series of summertime flings with those eponymous boys. The question for him is, does he wait out the long game and try again with her? But a verse warns, “Don't look back, you can never look back.” The meaning is clear—move on with your life.

I sympathize. It’s how I feel about New York City.

A friend compared my (and my wife’s) leaving New York City on par with moving the Empire State Building out of town. While amusingly dramatic, there was always an assumption that I would live in the city. Out-of-town friends simply dropped me a line when they were visiting to iron out the details, not wonder if I were around. There’s a couple that lives two blocks from us, each of them lifelong New Yorkers and now parents to an adorable toddler. We see each other so often that our respective doormen don’t even bother to call and announce us when we visit. The couple joked that since we were leaving, they had no reason to stay in town. The punch line is that they are closing on a house in Connecticut in two weeks.

My fervent wish is to declare that leaving New York is the toughest thing I have ever done. The fact that it isn’t is what hurts the most. Even worse, none of our friends in town seemed to try to talk us out of it. They’ve been beaten down into envy for those fleeing.

The story of New York’s urban decay starts in the late ‘60s and explodes after the ’77 blackout. And while the ‘80s Wall Street boom brought in plenty of money, crack, crime, and the lack of any governmental action drove the city to the brink of destruction. Not until Rudy Giuliani took over in ’94 was there even hope. That’s a span of 17 years, which means things might be looking up in 2039 when I will be a spry 75.

At the end of the day, New York just isn’t New York anymore. Sure, there’s the old joke that New York would be great if they ever finished building it; and sure, change is a constant in the city. The city needs new blood, new ideas, and new buildings, otherwise the city just languishes. It’s what has made it the magnet for people around the world to come and try to make their mark. Learning to navigate the chaos and confusion is what makes living in the city so great.

But now the city is just a static, immovable object. A crime-ridden, public urinal of concrete immovable object. This manifests itself across the street, as a block-long parcel, owned by one of the city’s smartest and most respected developers, lies fallow—a mix of demolition and empty walkups caught up in the stifling bureaucracy of tax incentives, building codes, and zoning regulations. Eight blocks south another demolished block-long lot, owned by the same developer, sits in its own purgatory. This has been going on for nearly four years. When you are worried about trying to make money building apartments on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, you worry about the whole city.

Of course with new state and city leadership should come hope. But in this case hope is not a strategy. The governor continues to pound away at businesses with yet more Covid restrictions, while the city, breathing freer from the wrath of De Blasio, is pummeled by the same imperial attitude from its new Mayor. The fact the two have pledged to work together is a warning akin to firing flares from the Titanic. Their view is to repeat the doomed policy of government being the solution. Government “letting” businesses be open at their whim and fancy, and under the most onerous of regulations.

Try going to a Broadway show. No really, try. You can’t because a cast member tested positive for Covid and they shut whole the production down. Of course you could try the one or two open shows, that is if you have been vaccinated, can prove it, and then wear a mask. This soul-crushing plan for economic revival didn’t work before, yet somehow these so-called leaders think it will magically work now. If you want outdoor entertainment, the hookers, shakedown artist cartoon characters, and drug dealers have returned in full force to Times Square. 2039 might be a generous target for a recovery.

Last Thursday our flight taxied onto LaGuardia’s runway 13, engines revving to full power and lifting us into the late afternoon sky. The flight path takes you over Citi Field, just slightly higher than a Mets popup. After a sharp turn south, you can crane your neck back and see the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Except I couldn’t look back. I could never look back. I let go of that love, looking to move on with my life.

 

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

The Brandon Game

 

They say fortune favors the prepared, but in some cases merely proximate suffices. Never did I feel that MetLife stadium in the “Meadowlands” of New Jersey was some kind of windfall, especially with the play over the past decade of its residents, the football Jets and Giants. But fortune looked kindly last weekend when Army and Navy pulled in and played their annual battle royale, and my wife and I jumped at the chance to finally attend this great game.

A normally unremarkable train ride to the game was highlighted by, of all things, the marketing folks at the commuter rail line, New Jersey Transit. Hardly the model of military precision, they managed to hand out some seriously high-quality fabric face masks with the game logo for use on the journey. I’m not much of a believer in masks outside of the operating room or on Halloween, but if I had to wear one, it was something I could do with pride. It was, for lack of anything else, a uniform for the day.

The modern spectacle of today’s sports industry requires an entire army (pardon the pun) of entertainment before you even get to your seat. “Fan Festivals” of music, community demonstrations, and quasi-athletic demonstrations are de rigueur for any pro event (or Alabama football), begging the question of why you need to even watch the actual game. Army/Navy is no different, but with a very, very special set of skills. No Chevy dealer here selling a lucky raffle ticket for a used Camaro. Right after the metal detectors you come to an armored Humvee with a .50 caliber mounted gun. Alas, the good Army folks wouldn’t let me take it back to Manhattan to help clear the human detritus of drunken SantaCon revelers. I mean I am a taxpayer, so why can’t I take it for a spin? Befitting the military medical corps, there was a first aid demonstration nearby. But this wasn’t anything with your high school health class CPR dummies. The mannequins had battle injuries; one with a foot missing and another with his liver falling out from a stomach wound. Small patrol boats, helicopters, and plenty of other Defense Department goodies were strategically arranged like stocking stuffers at Macy’s during Christmastime.

By the time we made it to our seats, we were in full patriotic mode. Cadets and midshipmen were scattered across the field and military brass were walking around engaging in prodigious inter-service back slapping. Then again, that is Pentagon signaling that the latest weapons system is now another billion dollar over budget. But heck, everyone was in too good a mood to care.

Even half time wasn’t like any other game I’ve been to. Of course they played Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” Except they had Lee Greenwood on the field singing the song. With a 50-yard-long American flag. And coordinated fireworks. They even had some DOD suit swear in a recruit class that had just finished basic training. It must have been a head trip for some recent high school grads getting cheered by 82,000 people after being called, well whatever they call you in basic training, for the last two months.

But what I was really looking forward to was the President walking in just before the coin toss. You see it every year on the news. Except he wasn’t there. Perhaps Madame VP would take his place—I mean there’s no law the President has to be there, and maybe he was busy jetting around the world making our planet a safer place.

Nothing.

Maybe there would be a video message encouraging a good game and thanking the players and assembled military personnel for their service.

Still nothing.

In the big picture there was nothing wrong until the periodic “U-S-A” chants started. The problem popped up with another chorus that accompanied this cheer, “Let’s Go Brandon.” It was then clear that the administration knew that this was going to be a PR nightmare. The typical video from this event is of the strong Commander-in-Chief (or VP) striding confidently onto the field, waving to the crowd and saluting servicemen. But what was going to happen this time? Joe shuffling along, looking lost and fiddling with his mask? Kamala in heels, pantsuit, and mask, addressing the crowd with that weird, giggling screech of hers? It was a reminder of the recent Afghanistan disaster waiting to happen.

After what was a few hours of spirited, if not somewhat mediocre, football play, we returned home, emerging from the desperate bowels of Penn Station in search of a cab. Unbeknownst to us, there was championship boxing starting in an hour at Madison Square Garden, and the ticket scalpers were circling in force. “Tickets, who has tickets to sell/who needs tickets” was the constant refrain. While attempting to exit the obit this hellish gravitational pull, I still had my mask on, probably subconsciously trying to protect myself from the sidewalk smell of human excrement and even more belligerent SantaCon revelers.

As one scalper passed us, he interrupted his rap to yell at us, “Who won the game?”, as he must have seen the imprint on my mask. “Navy, 17-13” I yelled back, thus fulfilling my civic duty and providing critical information about spread.

And then the one truly sad thought of the day hit me. A sad thought about our country. Did anyone at the White House even know the score? Did they even care?

 

© 2021 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

A View On The View

 

The past 20 years has been a golden age for what is known as “reality TV.” Starting off with CBS’s Survivor, the format now has more variants than COVID, with the Real Housewives franchise an inexplicable powerhouse. While not my thing, the market is the ultimate arbiter of what is popular, and I could care less who spends their time viewing these less-than-real lives. But when our highest elected officials are either party to, or victim of, such antics, we need to start asking a lot of questions.

Even if, like me, you don’t watch daytime TV, you probably have heard of, and may have seen some of the histrionics from, ABC’s The View. This otherwise insufferable gabfest, inexplicably aligned under the network’s news division, grabbed headlines on Friday when two of their hosts had to leave the show mid-airing because they tested positive for COVID just before Vice President Harris was to come on the show. The video led the news for the entire day, playing out as if a national crisis had been averted.

Except nothing, absolutely nothing, about what happened was true.

While it turns out that the show’s hosts are regularly tested for COVID, the requirement for a rapid test came from the VP’s office. Why, you might ask? Good question. The hosts are all vaccinated. The VP is vaccinated with the vaccine that she famously said she wouldn’t-trust-because-Donald-Trump’s-administration-developed-it but now everyone must have the jab. So if the vaccine works so well, and everyone has been vaccinated, why does anyone who comes within six feet of the VP need to be tested? Never mind.

And as to that national crisis of potential infection? Oh, it was a false positive. For both tests. If a false positive led to the tirade of some overhyped actor, none of this would matter. A real-world concern would be for international travelers, as a false positive would send you to quarantine in a foreign country because you have to test negative, even if you are citizen and have been vaccinated, to get back into the US. But the greatest concern is that this false positive involves the executive leadership of the government, and its utter failure here reflects a national inability to move forward from COVID.

We see the trickle down of this ineptitude everywhere. In New York City, you have to have proof of vaccination and wear a mask to see a movie. To sit down in a restaurant, you need to show proof of vaccination, but you don’t need to wear a mask, which is odd because when there was no vaccine all you had to do was wear a mask and take it off when you sat down at the table. Of course elsewhere in the state, or other states entirely, none of this applies.

And while the internal policies of one city may not be important, when the President gets it all wrong, then it just adds fuel to the political fire. Imagine a President who gives out off-the-cuff medical advice on vaccination based on no discernable medical research. When it was Donald Trump, everyone pilloried him; when it was Joe Biden telling everyone to get a booster shot, it was merely “a premature suggestion awaiting further confirmation.” When that confirmation was, at best, limited and tepid, there was a White House victory dance affirming that the most seriously immuno-compromised should get a booster. This was hardly the triumph of great science.

To take it a step further, does the White House really want a COVID triumph? With each new variant there seems to be another reason not to move forward, just ominous mentioning of “not wanting to return to lockdowns.” The only reason I can even keep track of the mutations is that I had to memorize the Greek alphabet as a fraternity pledge, but that was nearly 40 years ago, which seems to be as long as the COVID crisis has been going on. But we are at a point where we face a stark choice: how much can the government control the most basic elements of our life, like walking into a restaurant. As only a political scientist can appreciate, you know the world is upside down when free-market Republican governors have to use the most draconian instrument, authoritarian executive orders, just to keep businesses open.

Each side from The View COVID drama seems to be very quiet, just sending out little feelers in the press to cover themselves. Conspiracy theorist might say the whole thing was a setup for ratings; more innocently it may have been a bunch of underlings who screwed up the works. Who knows? But I do know there are hard-core anti-vaxxers who won’t believe a word the government says. I’m not part of that crowd, but when this administration runs our country’s COVID policy as a reality show, do you blame them?

© 2021 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

This Is Our Responsibility

 

It was described as a humanitarian crisis. Frantic travelers trying to escape on the next available way out. Scores of men, and the occasional woman, lying on the ground—disoriented, unkempt, hopeless. It may have sounded like the evacuation of Kabul airport, but in reality it was how one particular political candidate accurately called New York City’s Pennsylvania Station.

Those who walk through, see, and more importantly, smell Penn Station could only take solace that their commutes don’t include the inner-most circle of Hell, the Port Authority bus station that sits a mile or so away. Absent that lowest level of salvation, any observer could easily confuse Penn Station as some overflow outlet for a homeless shelter. And so last week while Afghanistan was descending into its own conflagration, mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa showed up for a press conference to decry the wretched state of affairs at the busiest train station in America.

As if on cue, a homeless man walked right in front of Sliwa’s podium and interrupted the remarks. In a nod to our surreal times, the man was shirtless yet managed to have a clean-looking mask looped around both of his ears. A cop offered to take the man away, but Sliwa demurred and engaged in conversation. We found out that the man came from Guyana six years ago; had been hospitalized at Bellevue numerous times; was supposed to be on medication—an all-too-familiar litany of despair. Almost casually, Sliwa asked an innocuous, almost obvious, question, “Would you rather be somewhere else but Penn Station?”

It utterly destroyed the man.

The man’s body started to curl inward and his lips lost the battle against quivering. And then the tears started to flow. Crying of a man who was utterly broken; crying at the realization that all his life meant was a few square feet on Penn Station’s filthy floor; crying that he had nothing, absolutely nothing, in life.

Sliwa calmly consoled the man, telling him, “That’s all right, we’ll take care of you. This is our responsibility.” This wasn’t some war cry for government spending on social programs or even a jab at the current the current Mayor (although a crystallization of all his failures). No, it was a declaration of what our leaders should do—that is, take responsibility. Sliwa doesn’t run a homeless shelter, can’t give him medication, and certainly can’t undo this man’s awful circumstances. But here he showed how a vast, taxpayer-funded bureaucracy had abandoned any accountability and how we, as a city, cannot accept the current state.

Sliwa’s display reminded me of the phrase “compassionate conservative” that George W. Bush used to throw around. The left snickered at him for it and I feel it was mostly because he never had the chance to show what it really meant. But in this brief campaign interaction, Sliwa showed exactly what it meant. It means acting on the root Judeo-Christian values of helping our fellow man. It means holding those in power, those who are stewards of tax dollars, accountable for their failures. It means that one man or woman can change not only one other person’s life, but also the lives of many others, if they are willing to stand on their principals.

There are, as they say in the business world, many, many problems to unpack for this unfortunate man from Guyana. I’m not sure medications and a shelter cot are even a start to any kind of a solution, but it’s a start that has to happen. And Sliwa’s winning the mayor’s race is such a long shot that I doubt any Vegas bookie would lay odds on it. But one thing is for sure—for a few seconds on a hot summer’s afternoon, Curtis Sliwa made New York City a better place. For that we should thankful and follow in his footsteps.

© 2021 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.