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OPINIONOPINION

 Mountain Views NewsSaturday, December 7, 2024

RICH JOHNSON 

NOW THAT’S RICH

STUART TOLCHIN

MOUNTAIN 
VIEWS

NEWS

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Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
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Dean Lee 

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CONTRIBUTORS

Michele Kidd

Stuart Tolchin 

Harvey Hyde

Audrey Swanson

Meghan Malooley

Mary Lou Caldwell

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Dinah Chong Watkins

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

Lori Ann Harris

Rev. James Snyder

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee

PUT THE LIGHTS ON


WHAT MUST WE ACCEPT?

Don’t get me wrong. Politics 
is a serious topic. And the 
decisions you and I arrive 
at should be the result of 
doing our homework.

I consider myself right-leaning and many 
of my friends are left-leaning. And many of 
those left leaning friends say they are right, 
and I am…wrong. Such is life.

Winston Churchill, in a speech said, “…it has 
been said that democracy is the worst form 
of government except all those other forms 
that have been tried from time to time.” 

I believe it time to reflect on our political 
process from someone I trust most… 
William Penn Adair Rogers. Born in 
Oklahoma the lifelong Democrat was better 
known as Will Rogers. He said:

“I don’t make jokes. I just watch the 
government and report the facts.”

“The more you read and observe about this 
politics thing, the more you’ve got to admit 
that each party is worse than the other.”

Rather than quote serious pontifications, I’d 
much rather share the unintended missteps 
of our politicians in power. Possibly we can 
gain new insight from their stumbling’s: 

Al Gore: “A zebra does not change its spots.”

Dan Quayle: “If we don’t succeed, we run the 
risk of failure.”

More Dan Quayle: “I stand by all the 
misstatements that I’ve made.”

Still more Dan Quayle: “The President is 
going to lead us out of this recovery.”

George H. W. Bush: “It’s no exaggeration to 
say that the undecided could go one way or 
another.”

George W. Bush: “It’s clearly a budget. It’s got 
a lot of numbers in it.”

Talk show host Chris Matthews wrote a 
book about the special relationship between 
President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the 
House “Tip” O’Neill entitled “Tip and the 
Gipper: When Politics Worked”. 

What worked with these two Irishmen, 
according to Matthews was not that they 
always found common ground, it’s that 
each other got something out of every deal. 
Matthews shares insight into their friendship: 
If President Reagan got a call from O’Neill, 
Reagan would answer, “Tip, is it after 6pm?” 
They often fought during work hours but 
enjoyed each other’s company after hours. 
And it occasionally meant hoisting a few at 
the local pub (After all, they were both Irish.)

Speaking of oddity, you might be surprised 
at a few other odd pairings of friends:

Groucho Marx and poet T.S. Eliot became 
friends after Eliot wrote Marx a fan letter. 

Groucho later wrote he and Eliot shared 
three things in common: “(1) an affection for 
good cigars and (2) cats; and (3) a weakness 
for making puns.” (I share two of those 
affections: cats and puns.)

There’s more. Mario Cuomo and Rudy 
Giuliani, George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy, 
Ted Kennedy and John McCain, Supreme 
Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth 
Bader Ginsburg.

Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush shared a 
friendship. Barbara Bush kiddingly referred 
to Bill Clinton as “the black sheep of their 
family” and George W. Bush called Bill 
Clinton “a brother from another mother.”

Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were 
friends for many years. Edison contributed 
technology to the automobile and was active 
in Ford’s business until Edison’s death.

Muhammad Ali and Prince became friends. 
They met in 1997 when Ali’s people asked for 
a meeting looking for Prince to help support 
Ali’s World Healing Project. When Ali’s team 
invited Prince, saying “Muhammad wants 
you to…” Prince interrupted the person and 
said, “He could ask me to come mow the 
lawn and I would have been down with it. 
Muhammad’s my hero. He has been since I 
was a child.” 

Finally, Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe 
forged a friendship back in a time when 
segregation was still rampant. Ella had 
been popular in small venues and had an 
opportunity to play in a major New York 
nightclub. The year was 1955 and the club 
didn’t want her because of her race. Marilyn 
read about that incident in the paper and 
called the manager of the nightclub and 
said, “Hi, this is Marilyn Monroe, and if you 
rebook Ella Fitgerald, I will come every night 
to hear her sing.” And now we all get to enjoy 
Ella and her music.

The last part of this political season requires 
the coming together of friends who might 
have created distance due to political 
differences.

PHEW PHEW PHOOEY...POLITICS AND 
PHRIENDSHIP

It was 1968 or 
the beginning of 
1969 and I was 
foot-loose and 
fancy free. Well, 
not exactly “free” 
because I was 
frightened that I 
would be drafted into the army at any 
moment. Today I am a big Lyndon 
Johnson fan as I recognize him for 
ensuring the passage of the of the 
Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil 
Rights Act of 1968, and starting the 
War on Poverty. Back then though 
I thought of LBJ as someone who 
was personally trying to kill me. His 
expansion of the Viet Nam War was 
one of my major motivations to enroll 
in Law School in 1965 because I knew 
that attendance in Law School would 
guarantee deferments which would 
keep me safe until I graduated. 

Prior to Law School enrollment I had 
never met a lawyer but to my mind 
lawyers seemed like “good guys” who 
fought evil “bad guys” as opposed to 
accountants who had to keep track 
of bunches of papers which I knew I 
could never keep straight. The only 
other alternative was to try to become 
a professor of some sort which seemed 
pretty vague and still does. 

So, I went to Law School and passed 
the Bar and in 3 ½ years, presto I was 
a lawyer but alas I was only 23 years 
old and was draft-eligible until I was 
26. I cannot emphasize how unsuited 
for the draft I felt myself to be. To 
this day I cannot make a bed and 
tying my shoes presents a problem. 
When I started as an undergraduate at 
UCLA in 1961 ROTC was a required 
class. I was a failure at marching and 
shoe- shining and whatever else was 
required. Maybe, it was also a kind of 
a political statement by a 17-year-old, 
but in any case, lawyer or not, I had 3 
more years of draft eligibility breathing 
down my neck.

 After graduating from Law 
School, I was more conscientious and 
diligent than I had ever been in my 
life in my attempt to learn ways to 
avoid the draft. I worked voluntarily 
with the Lawyers Guild attempting to 
assist other young men in obtaining 
deferments. (In retrospect I realized 
that all the clients were young White 
Men, but I never thought about it at the 
time.) I had applied for a deferment 
based on being a conscientious 
objector and the sole support of my 
parents’ family but was refused. I 
was and am a sincere opponent of 
war but in order to be entitled to 
conscientious objector status it was 
necessary to prove long-standing 
religious affiliation, whatever that 
means. That left me out and as to being 
the sole support of family eligibility, all 
I can say is, notwithstanding the fact 
that my father had lost his sight, I had 
never supported the family.

Anyway, it was now after the disastrous 
Democratic convention of 1968 which 
was accompanied by violence in the 
streets and the Chicago Mayor Richard 
Daley ordering the police to brutally 
accost peaceful demonstrators. 
(Does that sound familiar?) Bobby 
Kennedy (RFK not RFK Jr.) had been 
assassinated right here in Los Angeles 
while I was studying for the Bar. A few 
months earlier Martin Luther King 
had been assassinated in Memphis and 
most frightening of all the arch-demon 
Richard Nixon was elected President 
on November 5, 1968. 

Things are frightening now but they 
were also very frightening then and 
I was still subject to the draft for two 
more years.

I learned about all the loopholes. It 
was possible to delay induction by 
changing draft boards and I dutifully 
hitch-hiked to San Francisco and later 
to Albuquerque to change my draft 
boards which bought me more but not 
enough time. Eventually I was called 
in for my pre-induction physical but 
by then I was a fully educated draft-
avoider, and I knew what to do. Now 
it is 2024 and although I have not been 
subject to the draft for 54 years, given 
the recent Presidential election results 
and ongoing conflicts and devastation 
throughout the world I and everyone 
else faces a possibly terrifying future. 
What must we do to protect ourselves? 
The answer is the same as it always 
was. We must conscientiously and 
diligently educate ourselves, weigh 
alternatives, and responsibly do what 
we must do, and I optimistically 
believe things will turn out okay.

We should not accept what is 
unacceptable!

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HOWARD Hays As I See It


TWO GUYS IN A BAR DISCUSSING POLITICS

“I had acted as though I were 
having a conversation with 
someone completely normal.” 
– Former German Chancellor 
Angela Merkel, on her 
first Oval Office meeting 
with then-President Donald 
Trump

 

In her recent memoir, the former 
chancellor also tells how Trump couldn’t 
accept the concept of negotiations where everyone 
comes out ahead. For him, there couldn’t 
be winners unless there were losers. The opening 
quote refers to an incident at the end of their 
meeting, with media calling for a shot of them 
shaking hands. Merkel reached out; Trump refused. 
It had been a discussion between allies, 
but Trump had to show who’s boss.

 

This brings to mind a photo from that time of 
Angela Merkel and Donald Trump together at 
a conference of Western leaders in Europe. The 
caption read: “The Leader of the Free World – 
with President Trump”.

 

The embarrassment of first-term Trump on the 
world stage, from declaring his trust in Putin 
over our own intelligence agencies to those 
“love letters” with Kim Jong Un, is still fresh in 
memory. A recent exchange with our southern 
neighbor shows that this time, world leaders 
know what to expect and are prepared to act 
accordingly.

 

Polling showed three big issues in the last election; 
the economy, crime and immigration – 
not immigration as it was, but the apocalyptic 
fiction spread by the Trump campaign.

 

As immigration levels rose post-Covid, the 
Biden-Harris Administration spent months 
working out a comprehensive, bipartisan bill 
with Congress to increase enforcement and 
streamline processing, along with combatting 
fentanyl and human trafficking. It was supported 
by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the 
Wall Street Journal and the union representing 
18,000 border patrol agents. But Trump was 
concerned how passage might affect his campaign, 
so Republicans killed it. Trump showed 
who’s boss.

 

President Biden then took executive actions; 
limiting asylum eligibility, tightening enforcement 
and speeding deportations. There was increased 
cooperation with Mexico. Encounters 
at our border dropped to their lowest level since 
the height of Covid under Trump.

 

Now Trump posts, “Mexico will stop people 
from going to our Southern Border, effective 
immediately”. “Just had a wonderful (phone) 
conversation with the new President of Mexico, 
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. She has agreed to 
stop Migration through Mexico, and into the 
United States, effectively closing our Southern 
Border.” Problem solved, “effective immediately” 
– though Trump was nearly two months 
out from his inauguration and President Sheinbaum 
had only been in office for two months 
herself. 

 

Trump had days earlier announced 25% tariffs 
as a threat should Mexico not close its northern 
border. According to the narrative, this new 
Mexican president caved to the threat as Trump 
showed her who’s boss.

 

But something else happened between Trump’s 
tariff announcement and that call with President 
Sheinbaum. She’d held a news conference 
with her Economy Minister on a study 
of potential effects of that tariff, in particular 
on three companies with manufacturing in 
Mexico – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. 
Those effects would be price hikes of $3,000 per 
car sold in the U.S. and the loss of 400,000 jobs 
– in the U.S.

 

Trump’s financial backers know his tariff-talk is 
nuts. They themselves are personally invested 
in our economy and don’t want to put that investment 
at risk. They probably had him just 
say he solved whatever immigration problem 
and then drop that tariff nonsense altogether – 
while claiming he showed who’s boss.

 

President Sheinbaum of Mexico had a different 
take on their phone call, posting - “I explained 
to him the comprehensive strategy that Mexico 
has followed to address the migration phenomenon, 
respecting human rights. Thanks to this, 
migrants and caravans are assisted before they 
reach the border. We reiterate that Mexico's position 
is not to close borders but to build bridges 
between governments and between peoples.”

 

In a follow-up letter to our incoming president, 
President Sheinbaum laid it out:

 

“According to data from your country’s Customs 
and Border Protection (CBP), encounters 
at the Mexico–United States border have 
decreased by 75% between December 2023 
and November 2024. Moreover, half of those 
who arrive do so through a legally scheduled 
appointment . . . migrant caravans no longer 
arrive at the border. . . .”

 

“Mexico has consistently expressed its willingness 
to help prevent the fentanyl epidemic in 
the United States from continuing. This is, after 
all, a public health and consumption problem 
within your society. . . .”

 

“Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized 
from criminals in Mexico come from your 
country. We do not produce these weapons, 
nor do we consume synthetic drugs. Tragically, 
it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence 
resulting from meeting the drug demand 
in yours. . . .”

 

“President Trump, migration and drug consumption 
in the United States cannot be addressed 
through threats or tariffs. What is 
needed is cooperation and mutual understanding 
to tackle these significant challenges. . . .”

 

“For every tariff, there will be a response in 
kind, until we put at risk our shared enterprises. 
Yes, shared. . . .”

 

“I believe that dialogue is the best path to understanding, 
peace, and prosperity for our nations. 
I hope our teams can meet soon to continue 
building joint solutions. . . .”

 

Everyone should read her letter (google “Sheinbaum 
letter to Trump”). Between the lines, it’s 
clear President Sheinbaum is aware she’s not 
dealing with someone “completely normal”. 
She also makes clear who’s boss. 


Mountain Views News

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