Trump's Going To Lose In 2020-- Badly

Democratic Hopefuls by Nancy Ohanian

Tomorrow the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on whether or not to subpoena the Mueller report. Despite the House having voted 420-0 to urge Barr to release the report-- and despite the fact that polls consistently show that something like 75% of American voters want to see the full report, I can predict the exact vote tomorrow. All 24 Democrats-- like Ted Lieu, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal, Karen Bass and David Cicilline-- will vote yes and all 17 of the Republicans-- like Gym Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Steve Chabot and Tom McClintock-- will vote no. If everyone is there voting it will be a simple 24 to 17 win for justice. The Committee had set today as a deadline for Barr to send over the report voluntarily.

The new national poll of registered voters from PPP shows Trump with a 54-42% unfavorable rating and just 37% believing him to be honest. 56% don't think he's honest but just 51% will go as far as to call him a liar. When it came to healthcare, 49% of respondents said they trust Democrats on the issue and 38% said they trust Republicans. Only 20% of respondents said they support Trump's $1.8 trillion cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. 67% oppose them.

The Putin-Gate issues are less important to most voters than healthcare (by an 80% to 8% margin) but 57% of respondents want Trump to release his tax returns, 68% think the full Mueller report should be released to the public (19% don't) and by 49-40%, more Americans think Trump committed obstruction of justice while by 44-43% Americans think Trump and his team "worked in association with Russia to help Trump win the election."

When asked who they trust more, respondents showed how much they distrust Trump. On the media in general, 50% picked the media and only 39% picked Trump. When asked about specific sources of news, Trump lost out to every single one:

• CNN- 49%, Trump- 39%
• Fox News- 32%, Trump- 27% (most people don't trust either)
• NBC- 52%, Trump 38%
• ABC- 51%, Trump- 38%
• CBS- 52%, Trump- 38%
• NY Times- 51%, Trump- 38%
• Washington Post- 49%, Trump- 38%

Bonus Questions "Who would you rather see as president today?"
• Obama- 56%, Trump- 40%
• Hillary- 48%, Trump- 42%

And yet, there are people who still think Trump could win in 2020. That poll shows ever plausible Democratic contender (+ JohnMcCain's corpse) beating him:

• Biden- 53%- 40%
• Bernie- 49%- 41%
• Kamala Harris- 48%- 41%
• Elizabeth Warren- 48%- 42%
• Cory Booker- 48%- 41%
• Beto- 47%- 41%
• Mayor Pete- 45%- 41%

Writing for New York Magazine on Monday morning, Jonathan Chait delved into one of the characteristics that endure Trump to about a third of the population and repulse normal people: his adolescent bullying, something I expect to add to a jaw-dropping electoral defeat in 2020. "Trump’s use of bullying tactics against his rivals for the Republican nomination in 2015–2016," wrote Chait, "played a critical role in endearing him to the Republican base. Trump’s rollouts of new terms of abuse for his rivals have become mini-events celebrated by his fans. The Trump campaign capitalized on the new insult [Adam Schiff has a pencil neck] by hawking celebratory T-shirts. His continued use of these methods, and the delight it gives his supporters reveals something important about what binds them together."

Bullying is most closely associated with adolescence, because teenagers are most naturally prone to it. Children that age tend to lack empathy or well-developed moral worldviews, and they often gravitate toward peers who engage in displays of dominance and cruelty. It is also the age when people are most prone to judge themselves and others by their appearance, and when social relations tend to be the most hierarchical.

Like a teenage bully, Trump fixates on a superficial characteristic in his target. He mocks male targets (Marco Rubio, Schiff, Bob Corker) as short, and a variety of women as fat or ugly. When reporter Serge Kovaleski challenged one of his lies, Trump mimicked his disability. He mocked Senator Charles Schumer for tearing up over Trump’s Muslim ban, either disgusted or unable to comprehend that somebody would empathize with the plight of immigrants.

Trump’s innovation of winning the election through adolescent-style bullying has carried over to his presidency. Presidents traditionally inculcate the virtues of decency, gentleness, and generosity as part of their role as ceremonial head of state. One little-noticed feature of Trump’s presidency is how little time and attention he devotes to what used to be the banal presidential work of celebrating charitable good works and public service. Speeches and photo ops with volunteers, do-gooder business leaders, hospital visits and the like, once the barely noticed daily bread of presidential messaging, has all but disappeared.

Trump does heap praise on the police and military, but in a very different fashion than his predecessors. The qualities of service he highlights are not selflessness and sacrifice but toughness. He is especially fascinated with the appearance of toughness. Trump has praised “his” generals as looking like they come out of “central casting.” He has praised his ICE director, “He looks very nasty, he looks very mean … that’s what I’m looking for.” He has famously urged police officers to treat suspects in their custody with more brutality. Of course, abusing a person who’s in handcuffs does not take courage.

Actual courage is a virtue Trump regards with indifference sometimes bordering on hostility. He has spent years mocking John McCain for having been captured in the Vietnam War, completely disregarding his perseverance under torture and refusal to give his captors a propaganda victory by accepting their offer to be sent home ahead of his order of capture. This is not simply Trump’s habit of automatically flaying anybody who attacks him. “He was captured. Does being captured make you a hero? I don’t know. I’m not sure,” Trump said in 1999, long before McCain had crossed him in any way.

Trump of course avoided military service by having his father arrange to have a friendly doctor diagnose him with bone spurs. Trump has performed his own machismo by flaunting his series of trophy wives and girlfriends (both real and imagined). He has also rather oddly associated his prowess with golf. Trump is a legitimately skilled golfer, though also a massive cheater, and seems to see his talent at this game as a proxy for physical dominance. In a recent closed-door rant to Republican allies, Trump said that Pencil-Neck Schiff “would be a horrible golfer who could drive the ball only 50 yards.” Aspiring sidekicks like Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul have grasped the role of golf in Trump’s mind as a symbol of prowess. Both have publicly shared sycophantic stories of the boss man defeating them on the links as a way of easing their way into his inner circle.

The explanation-- or to put it more sharply-- rationalization for Trump’s effect on the national discourse is that his white working-class supporters have suffered economic and social injuries. The wounds of their closed factories, or the disdain of the coastal snobs, have driven them into the arms of a man who will strike back at the elite on their behalf.

It’s telling, however, that Trump is unable to stick to the populist script that is written for him. One of his favorite riffs is to complain about the fact that his opponents are called elite, to declare that he is more elite than they are, and his supporters are elite as well. He recited it again Thursday night:

“They say the elite they’re, the elite… I have a better education than them, I’m smarter than them. I went to the best schools. [I have a] much more beautiful house, much more beautiful apartment, much more beautiful everything and I’m president and they’re not right, and then they say the elite. The elite they’re, not elite, you’re the elite, we’re the elite.”

The message of any bully is that he is a winner-- as are, to a pointedly lesser degree, his flunkies-- and his targets are the losers. What is so remarkable about Trump is that he has no interest or need to conceal his cruelty. Trump is a highly familiar social type: the leader of a gang, taunting his targets while his flunkies guffaw. Before he came along, it was never possible to imagine such a person occupying the Presidency of the United States.

I thought you'd enjoy playing with this graphic, which shows the number of Google searches for the 22 Democratic hopefuls. As of today this is how they ranked according to Google Trends:

• Biden (people search for him big this weekend because of his breaking #MeToo Scandals)
• Mayor Pete (tons of media coverage last week; HUGE spike)
• Bernie
• Beto
• Kamala
• Elizabeth Warren
• Andy Yang
• Cory Booker
• Tulsi
• Amy Klobuchar
• Kirsten Gillibrand
• Frackenlooper
• Marianne Williamson (despite a virtual Beltway media blackout)
• Seth Moulton (big upswing after media said he may run on Monday)
• Julian Castro
• Jay Inslee
• Eric Swalwell/Bill De Blasio (tied)
• John Delaney
• Tim Ryan
• Terry McAuliffe
• Steve Bukllock

AOC by Nancy Ohanian

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Oh poor you, Melania. So abused. So picked upon. Fuck you! The last First Lady got repeatedly subjected to typically Republican racial diatribes calling her an ape and a man, complete with idiotic YouTube videos offered as so-called evidence. Fuck you to the heavens and all the way down to the hell where you belong.

Melania, you signed up for any abuse you get when you married what you married. You won the Slovenian Whore Championship and snuck into America as a mail order blow up doll for your orange Jabba the Hutt. You even got your relatives here via chain migration, no irony there, eh? What more do you want? You want Borat to come from Kazakhstahn hand you a trophy?

Melania, do you think you're bullied? Is this you playing the victim card? If so, I'm surprised there are any of those cards left at the White House. Or, is this your way of trolling us and claiming that Cheeto the Hutt bullies you and maybe even hits you? Put up the evidence. Please, just do it. It'll be a joy to watch Kellyanne Conartist and Sarah Huckabee Sanders trying to explain it all away. They need another challenge. It's been hours, no minutes, since the last one.

You want to know what it's really like to be bullied, Melania? Then walk out on Cheeto Jabba and walk the streets of Washington or New York where millions of us will tell you "No. We really don't care. Fuck off."

Trump Is Making No Friends On Capitol Hill-- And That Could Hurt In An Impeachment Trial

It's widely acknowledged that McConnell and the Trump Regime bribed Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) to change her vote on the motion to proceed with TrumpCare, after all her self-congratulatory comments to West Virginia voters about how she would protect them-- even if she had to be the deciding vote to thwart the plan to kick tens of millions of Americans off healthcare. Instead she was the deciding vote in the opposite direction. Somehow, though, the same tactics didn't work on Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. She stuck to her guns. And now Trump is in full attack mode against her-- and Alaska!

Keep in mind, Murkowski isn't up for reelection until 2022, when Trump is likely to be out of office, possibly in prison, certainly in disgrace. He can't threaten her electorally the way he's been able to threatening three GOP cowards, Dean Heller (R-NV), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Jeff Flake (R-NV) each of whom is up for reelection in 2018... and vulnerable. Erica Martinson's story today for Alaska Dispatch News, Trump administration threatens retribution against Alaska over Murkowski health votes, set the tone for national coverage. Trump is booking for revenge and he "isn't going to just let go of Sen. Lisa Murkowski's no vote on Tuesday's health care. Early Wednesday, Trump took to Twitter to express displeasure with Murkowski's vote. By that afternoon, each of Alaska's two Republican senators had received a phone call from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke letting them know the vote had put Alaska's future with the administration in jeopardy. The response follows Trump's no-holds-barred style of governing, even when it comes to his own party. It is his first strike of retaliation against Murkowski, however, despite her tendency to stray from the party line and the president's priorities."

That's typical of the mobster mentality that governs the thuggish, anti-democratic Trumpanzee Regime that Zinke chose to be part of and ruin his own reputation. Alaska's other senator, Dan Sullivan "said the call from Zinke heralded a 'troubling message. I'm not going to go into the details, but I fear that the strong economic growth, pro-energy, pro-mining, pro-jobs and personnel from Alaska who are part of those policies are going to stop,' Sullivan said. I tried to push back on behalf of all Alaskans… We're facing some difficult times and there's a lot of enthusiasm for the policies that Secretary Zinke and the president have been talking about with regard to our economy. But the message was pretty clear,' Sullivan said. The Interior secretary also contacted Murkowski, he said."

Sullivan said the Interior secretary was clear that his message was in response to the no vote Murkowski cast Tuesday on the motion to proceed with debate on the House-passed health care legislation.

Efforts and issues on the line include nominations of Alaskans to Interior posts, an effort to build a road out of King Cove through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, and future opportunities to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and expand drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, among other regulatory issues that are a priority for Murkowski and Sullivan.

Sullivan said he had discussed the calls with Murkowski, and his concerns remain.

...Much remains unknown-- how far the White House will go to punish or pressure Murkowski, what exactly the impact will be for Alaska, and just how it will play out.

Murkowski chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and has used the position to drive home Alaska priorities, particularly with Interior nominees. She oversees the confirmation process for the Interior Department.

On Wednesday, a committee hearing on nominations to the Interior and Energy departments was postponed indefinitely. A reason was not posted.

For her part, Murkowski said Tuesday that she was not deeply concerned about pushback from Alaska Republicans about her vote.

"I base my votes on what I believe is in Alaska's best interest," she said. "So I know that there are those who wish that I would be more in line with following the party platform, but I don't think it should come as any surprise that there have been occasions that I have not followed the lead of the party."

Trump has shown a willingness to go after members of his own party when they go against his preferred agenda-- an unusual presidential tactic.

...Murkowski told an MSNBC reporter that future elections did not weigh into her decision on health care.

"We're here to govern. We're here to legislate. We're here to represent the people who sent us here. And so every day shouldn't be about campaigning. Every day shouldn't be about winning elections. How about just doing a little bit of governing around here? That's what I'm here for," she said.

Murkowski has been at odds with Trump at times-- occasionally refuting his more controversial statements. She took a stronger approach toward the end of the presidential campaign, saying she could not support his candidacy and would write in a vote for someone else.

But Trump hasn't struck back at Murkowski in the past. She has been invited to the White House numerous times, and as a potential "swing vote" has repeatedly been seated next to or near the president during negotiations and meetings.

It is not clear whether the president offered Murkowski any deal on health care-- or any threats prior to her vote.

This morning Carl Hulse, writing for the NY Times, noted that Trump's been unable to bully Murkowski the way he has Senate weaklings like Heller, Cruz and Flake. When he pushed her in person "to fall in line behind a repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the interest of party loyalty and protecting the Republican brand, she felt compelled to speak up. 'With all due respect, Mr. President,' she said, according to some of the people at the private White House lunch, 'I didn’t come here to represent the Republican Party. I am representing my constituents and the state of Alaska.' [The moronic and repulsive orangutan Puton installed in the White House] did not appreciate the pushback. Ms. Murkowski was one of just two members of her party to vote against a critical procedural step on Tuesday. Afterward, Mr. Trump voiced his displeasure on Twitter: 'Senator @lisamurkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday,' he wrote Wednesday morning. 'Too bad!'"

But it may be that it’s too bad for Mr. Trump, because he picked on someone unlikely to be rattled by his attack or by accusations that she deserted her fellow Republicans. Ms. Murkowski already survived a political near-death experience in 2010 when she lost a primary race to a Tea Party challenger and was essentially abandoned by the Republican Party.

She won a stunning victory in a rare write-in campaign-- and “Murkowski” is not all that easy to write in-- returning to Washington still a Republican, but one with a well-defined independent streak and a reputation of fierce advocacy for her remote and sometimes overlooked state.

“She is unshakable when it comes to her constituents,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, the other Republican who opposed Tuesday’s procedural vote. “She has a spine of steel.”

Given the narrow 52-48 party divide in the Senate and the shrinking ranks of more moderate congressional Republicans, Ms. Murkowski has emerged as a key swing vote, giving her new influence. Nowhere has that been on display as much as in the health care fight.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, shaped his health care proposal with an eye toward Alaska, adding billions of dollars to help hold down insurance premium costs in a state where health care choices are very limited, as well as extra money for the care of native populations. Those provisions were added not only to woo Ms. Murkowski, but also to secure the vote of Dan Sullivan, the other senator from Alaska and a fellow Republican.

Ms. Murkowski remained leery of the health care proposal, expressing concern about its potential effects on the many Alaskans who rely on Medicaid, as well as the partisan manner in which it was being assembled behind closed doors by Republican leaders. Before the vote on Tuesday, she informed her colleagues she would break ranks.

“I’m very comfortable with the decision I made yesterday in working to advance Alaska’s interests,” Ms. Murkowski told reporters on Wednesday, adding that she doesn’t “really follow Twitter.”

Mr. Trump wasn’t the only irritated Republican. Representative Blake Farenthold, Republican of Texas, suggested that he might challenge the Senate Republican women opposing repeal to a duel, and a second House Republican, Representative Earl L. Carter of Georgia, on Wednesday issued a vulgar but incomprehensible insult.

Ms. Murkowski has already challenged Mr. Trump this year. She and Ms. Collins were the only two Republicans to oppose Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s choice for education secretary, with Ms. Murkowski citing the nominee’s lack of experience in public education.

Ms. Collins said that as she and Ms. Murkowski, whose Senate desks are adjoining, prepared to turn their thumbs down on Tuesday, they discussed the possibility that the leadership might want to change their seating arrangement to keep them from being bad influences on each other.

Despite her position on the health care bill and her support for abortion rights, Ms. Murkowski remains a reliably Republican vote on most issues. An avid outdoorswoman, she draws regular criticism from Democrats and environmental activists for her support of the oil and gas industry-- mainstays in her state-- and the conservative stance she takes on other issues involving public lands and wildlife.

But in this case, Democrats credit her for a position they acknowledge must be difficult to maintain.

So this just part of why The Hill's Alexander Bolton wrote today that Trump's management style isn’t making him many friends in Congress. The way he bullies his allies isn't going over well with Republicans and he's "sown seeds of doubt about whether any political sacrifice by a GOP lawmaker will be rewarded-- or even remembered-- by the president." They really have turned against him more because of how he's been treating the detestable Jeff Sessions than for any of his other crap. Lindsey Graham had a hissy fit, whimpering to the media that "Trump 'belittling and humiliating the attorney general' was 'unseemly' and 'inappropriate.'" As opposed to anything else-- anything at all-- that Trump has done since Putin got him his new job? The public shots are 'a sign of great weakness on the part of President Trump,' hissed Graham and "what bothers lawmakers the most," asserts Bolton, "is that Trump seems to want to embarrass his targets." God forbid!

Graham was one of several GOP lawmakers who voiced concern over Trump’s attacks on fellow Republicans. Others, however, asked for anonymity to avoid becoming Trump’s next target.

One Republican senator said Trump should have raised his concerns with Sessions and Murkowski in private, instead of pillorying them in front of the entire world.

“He should have handled it one-on-one, and he shouldn’t have done it publicly,” said the lawmaker.

Another senator said Republicans on Capitol Hill know there’s no guarantee that taking a political risk to do the president a favor will be remembered or rewarded in the future.

“That’s self-evident,” said the lawmaker.

That fear makes it less likely that Republicans will be willing to risk their political futures to pass healthcare reform, one of Trump’s major priorities.

“What happens when someone punches you in the nose?” asked a third Republican lawmaker in response to Trump’s attacks on current and former GOP colleagues.

The senator said he would never get away with some of the audacious moves the president has made.

“I couldn’t get away with that. People who do those things aren’t usually successful, but he’s been very successful,” the lawmaker added.

GOP lawmakers, by and large, try to ignore Trump’s barbs but admit sometimes they can’t help talk about the latest uproar he’s causing on Twitter or cable television.

Trump complained about Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who was not present, at a private dinner with a handful of Republican senators at the White House last week.

Paul found out about it soon after when the New York Times reported on the intimate dinner. The story revealed that Trump was annoyed with the Kentucky senator for going on television to complain about the GOP plan, which he viewed as sabotaging the legislative effort.

Paul brushed off Trump’s jab when asked about it Wednesday.

“In my case, it was mostly in good nature,” he said.

But Trump’s habit of popping off on fellow Republicans makes them uneasy when he jokes about their political futures.

During a meeting at the White House, Trump sat next to Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), who was a holdout on the pending healthcare bill, and joked, “He wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?”

Heller laughed, but Trump’s track record of attacking allies who diverge from him left other senators wondering if it was entirely a joke.

A fourth GOP senator compared Trump to George Steinbrenner, the late owner of the New York Yankees, who had famously contentious relationships with his team’s managers and stars.

But he said that doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t an effective management style.

“It’s like George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin, they won a few World Series together,” the lawmaker said, referring to the former Yankees manager whom Steinbrenner fired multiple times before rehiring him.

Even Paul, who has butted heads with Trump, admitted that his style has helped shape the healthcare debate.

If the Democrats take back the House, dump Pelosi and impeach Trump, he's going to need every Republican senator to keep him from being convicted. How do you think that's working out for him so far?

Painter Nancy Ohanian seems to have low expectations for Señor Trumpanzee

Hey Republicans! It’s On You. Period. (Part 2)

-by Noah

On Wednesday morning, when I wrote my post entitled, If You Voted For The Orange Fascist, It’s On You. Period, I wrote that how eerily quiet New York City was that morning. New York is not alone in its reaction to the stunning and appalling victory of Herr Trumpf and what evil it could visit on America. As with all tragedies, people have now entered a period of working through their grieving into a mood of not resignation but resolve and meeting the challenges. If Trump holds to the type of politician indicated by his campaign rhetoric and promises, his administration is a clear a present danger to the great American experiment as outlined in our Constitution. He is appealing to the basest instincts of humanity. He and his most fervent followers are an assault on American values.

Not surprisingly, the damage to the fabric that makes America great is already showing itself. Even before, election day, the poor example of and for humanity that the Republican Party was offering our society was manifesting itself not just among the alleged adults in Trump crowds who gave nazi salutes and expressed racial and religious animus, but among our children in schoolyards across the country. Bullying is up, way up. The children of Trump supporters are singling out the children of immigrants, roughing them up, and yelling that they are about to be deported. This is juvenile KKK stuff. It would be all too easy to say that they are just kids and they don’t know any better but they are acting just like their supposedly adult parents.

This will not be good when schoolyards are as polarized as the voting electorate. Gang recruiting will go up in proportion to the hateful spew coming from our new, so-called leaders. The time for Trump and other Republican leaders to set an example and publicly and loudly say that such behavior is reprehensible has already passed. We are left with the damage and the knowledge that what we are starting to see is exactly what Republicans want. The leadership void has been exposed. They are already failing not just those who didn’t support them but those who did as well. If their kids come home from school bruised and battered, it will be due to the forces they voted to unleash.

Trump is the man at the top. The man at the top, whether it’s in a company, on a ship, on a football team, or, in this case, our country, sets the tone. Trump’s tone is the worst tone. It will make your head spin. He has the worst words. Believe me.

One of my neighbors here in NYC teaches elementary school children in a New York public school. On Wednesday and Thursday, the teachers at her school had to forgo the usual lessons in math and grammar and try to calm down their classes full of panic-filled students who, if not immigrants themselves, were old enough to know that their mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles were. The teachers rallied and gave basic lessons in the Constitution, civics, and protective structures created by the founding fathers. That’s all well and good. It’s hopeful; until you acknowledge that the President and both houses of Congress, not to mention the Supreme Court will soon all be in republican hands.

Even as I write this, the disgusting Newt Gingrich, a man who belongs in another time, is re-upping his recent call for a new House Un-American Activities committee in Congress.

It doesn’t get any more un-American than that. Some of us learned nothing from the 1950s when questions were asked about who one associated with or knew. People were blacklisted from jobs if there was even a hint of having associated with Russians. Now, we have a President-Elect who has. What irony? But, to republicans, Joe McCarthy, the man who stoked the fires of “a commie under every bed” paranoia and, in the end, proved to have not even a shred of decency, is an iconic role model. I can see people like Rep. Darrell Issa or Rep. Trey Gowdy asking people if they shop at stores owned by Muslims and making all sorts of insinuations. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. Again, this is down to leadership, or, lack there of.

What I described about a local school is not only happening in elementary schools across the country. A friend who teaches music at a university in Connecticut tells me that she came to work on Wednesday and faced crying, very nervous students; students who have come to this country to learn. They’re learning alright. They are learning that the American Dream is not what they thought it was when their parents saved and sent them to a good American college to get a leg up on a better life. LGBTQ, students, naturally have similar fears. Likewise, the college where my wife works has had to bring extra counselors to deal with the stress and fear that large numbers of their students are going through since election day. They have 20 year olds crying in fear in the library. This is all due to 21st Century Republicanism.

At Southern Illinois University, some white students celebrated the Trump election by putting on blackface and posing in front of a Confederate flag. This is just one of more and more instances of this evil being reported Republican students like this feel they have permission now. It’s akin to yelling fire in a crowded theater. There’s no telling who will get crushed in the stampede.

On several Texas college campuses, students are protesting what Trump and his party have encouraged with their fascist hate speech directed towards minority groups of all kinds. The most egregious example may be a flier circulated by a groups of open-carry Texans who call themselves “Texas State Vigilantes” on a Texas State campus. Their flier says-

Now that our man TRUMP is elected and Republicans own both the Senate and the House-- time to organize tar & feather VIGILANTE SQUADS and go arrest & torture those deviant University leaders spouting off all this Diversity Garbage.

That flyer could have been written by any one of the people we see regularly whining on FOX “News.” It defines Trumpism.

Given all of this, is it any wonder that masses of students in cities around the country are taking to the streets and protesting? And, it’s not just the would be victims of Republicanism, it is also their friends and fellow students who have nothing to personally fear except that they don’t want to live in the world that the Republican Party has in mind for them. They don’t want any part of a society that won’t let their gay friends get married. They don’t want to live in an America that promotes the horrific torture of Gay Conversion Therapy for their friends. They don’t want to live in a society where birth control is outlawed. They don’t want to live in a society where all abortion is forbidden. They don’t want to live in an America where autoworker jobs pay like sneaker factory jobs in Indonesia do.

What is our sniffing, snorting, Chinese tie wearing, conspiracy pushing psychopathic President-Elect offering in the way of leadership? He whines and says, in another of his endless examples of projection, that the protesters are being “unfair.” They are being unfair? If he can’t stand a little heat, he should get out now. He’s in over his comb-over. Just wait ‘til his egg-encrusted inauguration day parade.

Tuesday’s result was a surprise to even many high profile Republican Party and Republican media people, but, they supported him. In the end, 59,000,000 people, bamboozled by a jive-ass conman who has shown zero regard for the American Constitution voted against their own interests. Were they thinking that an orange haired Mr. Montgomery Burns would be in their corner? How much of what he promised them will he even attempt to delver. Already, he’s backing away from destroying Obamacare and taking insurance away from 20,000,000 Americans. Already, he’s changing his tune about the insane Republican wet dream of sending Hillary Clinton to prison. Afterall, he may have to pardon his wife for her little visa issue first. He may even have to look into pardoning himself after he spends the next couple of months going to court on the charges facing him. What were his supporters smoking? Just how much meth is out there anyway? Oh well, soon they won’t be able to afford it. They’ll be getting much more edgy then. Of all Americans, they will feel the most betrayed. Their heads will spin. Herr Trump offers the biggest, tallest betrayal. Believe me.

Is He From Mars? Pence Will Have To Try To Make This Sound Normal Tonight

The other day, Keith Olbermann recorded a telling little segment about dogs and Trump. To anyone who's ever been a friend of a dog-- and who, besides Trump, hasn't been?-- it's bad enough on it's own. But when you look at it in a broader context, Trump's psychological unfitness for leadership, it becomes even more interesting. Monday morning, NY Times columnist Charles Blow took a turn psychoanalyzing Trump, dubbing him a terroristic man-toddler.

Donald Trump is a domestic terrorist; only his form of terror doesn’t boil down to blowing things up. He’s the 70-year-old toddler who knows nearly nothing, hurls insults, has simplistic solutions for complex problems and is quick to throw a tantrum. Also, in case you didn’t know it, this toddler is mean to girls and is a bit of a bigot... devoid of fixed principles, willing to do anything and everything to gain fame, fortune and power. He has an endless, consuming need for perpetual affirmation. This is a bully who just wants to be liked, a man-boy nursing a nagging internal emptiness.

He’s fickle and spoiled and rotten.

So, when he loses at something, anything, he lashes out. When someone chastises him for bad behavior, he chafes. This is the kind of silver-spoon scion quick to yell at those he views as less privileged, and therefore less-than, “Do you know who I am?”

We do now, sir.

...This man is a brat whose money has stunted his maturation.

He shouldn’t be ushered into the White House; he should be laughed into hiding. His querulous nature shouldn’t be coddled; it should be crushed.

America is in need of a leader, not a puerile, sophomoric sniveler who is too easily baited and grossly ill-behaved.

Go to your gilded room, Donald. The adults need to pick a president.

Down the coast a ways, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne was having many of the same thoughts at the same time, explain that "he is far too nasty, immature and frighteningly undisciplined to be president" and has now "unleashed the ugly inner Donald-- the man whom the candidate and his handlers have been trying to hide."

This should be a wake-up call to political analysts who have gone out of their way since Trump announced his candidacy to pretend that he was the ingenious creator of a political special sauce who deserved our respect for “speaking his mind.” No, Trump all along has been a clinically self-involved con man who never took the issues, the presidency or the future of our country seriously. Can there be any doubt that his campaign is a branding exercise gone, quite literally, mad?

...Every time Trump has shown us how outlandishly ill-suited he is for the presidency, his outrages have been allowed to fade. Again and again he has been given opportunities to normalize his candidacy. Many can’t believe that a major party nominated someone like him. Their solution is to pretend he’s someone else.

If an onslaught against a Gold Star family didn’t stop him, why should his wee-hours-of-the-morning storm of vicious invective be any different?

The answer is that this episode should finally force everyone to say: enough. Trump is neither normal nor stable. He is manifestly dangerous to our country and erratic in everything except his unrestrained meanness. He should not be given fifth, sixth and seventh chances. He has shown us who he is. We should believe what we see.

These two columns bring up, once again, the mental health of a candidate for president. Is Trump psychologically stable? Fit to serve as president? The American Psychiatric Association told it's members to refrain from diagnosing Trump from afar. (DWT's resident school psychologist, Helen Klein took a swing at it back in early August, asking, pointedly, What is narcissistic personality? What is a sociopath? Take away the bizarre personality traits that Trump can't control and how different, really is Mike Pence from Trump. Sure, Pence is a more doctrinaire and extreme right-winger but on actual policy... they could be the same horrible person-- horrible for America, horrible for working families, horrible for human decency.



And for the moron deplorables who cleave to him-- or them-- they might want to think about their responsibilities as parents and grandparents and what kind of an example Trump is for impressionable children. America's biggest teachers' union, the National Education Association, is kicking off a campaign this week about the example Trump sets as a bully.

Citing a growing number of reports by its membership of Trump-like bullying in classrooms across the country, the National Education Association is planning to make the issue a centerpiece of its argument against Trump in ads and mailings in battleground states.

“We are going to do everything humanly possible to make sure that we have a president who will be a good role model for children,” NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said. “Donald Trump is not on that list, but Hillary Clinton is.”

Beginning on Monday, the union will hold conference calls and press conferences with teachers, principals and psychologists who link Trump’s comments on the national stage to a rise in bullying in the classroom. The union's outreach will also contrast Trump and Clinton's plans for education.

According to Eskelsen García, their members are reporting children threatening classmates that they might be deported by Trump or calling other classmates terrorists.

“Kids feel like they have been given permission, and they are invoking the name of Donald Trump,” she said.

...The push coincides with National Bullying Prevention Month in October, an effort that is normally part of NEA’s annual activities. But with Trump, the issue has gathered more steam.

Eskelsen García said that their concern about Trump’s impact on the younger generation extends beyond the election. “What we’re seeing is not something that will go away after Election Day," she said. “We’re seeing millions of people who seem attracted to this message, and those folks are still going to be here.”

...And NEA’s membership isn’t predominantly Democratic. A third identify as independent and another roughly one-third of its membership identifies as Republican. Critically for Clinton, the union’s membership is composed of about 75 percent women, voters with whom Trump has struggled.

Donald Trump, Bullying & the Very Very Rich

by Gaius Publius

This is a tale of three videos.

As you know, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote an op-ed recently in which he discussed Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Here's part of what he said (my occasional emphasis):

Ernest Hemingway once said that courage was “grace under pressure.” Two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, have recently tested this proposition. And how each man responded revealed the type of person he is and the type of president he would make: Trump authored his own doom, and Sanders opened immense new possibilities as a compassionate person and serious candidate for president.

Here’s where it went fatally wrong for Trump. During the GOP debate on Fox, when Megyn Kelly famously queried him about his attitude toward women (whom he has called “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs” and “animals”) he hit back by threatening the questioner: “I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.”

Bad enough to alienate women in this way, but there’s even more insidious political crime here: attacking the First Amendment’s protection of a free press by menacing journalists. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said coyly. If you wouldn’t do it, why bring up that you could? For no other reason than to stifle other journalists who might want to ask tough but reasonable questions. If Americans learned that a leader in another country was threatening reporters, we would be outraged. Yet here it is. Right here. Right now.

Later, after Trump had blamed her attitude on her menstrual cycle, Kelly went on what Fox says was a planned vacation. Nevertheless, Trump suggested he may have been the cause. What kind of candidate takes credit for bullying the media? And last week, Trump allowed Univision reporter Jorge Ramos to be ejected from a press conference for asking questions about immigration without being called upon. Ramos was later readmitted and permitted to ask about immigration, during which he said Trump could still deport immigrants compassionately. “I have a bigger heart than you do,” Trump replied. Trump’s non-specific answer to the question ended with a personal insult directed at the reporter.

And:

Trump’s vendetta against the press extended to the Des Moines Register. When the paper issued an editorial calling for Trump to withdraw from the campaign, he refused to give the paper’s reporters credentials to attend his campaign event in Iowa in July. He also called the paper “failing” and “very dishonest.” Other journalists he thinks have treated him harshly he refers to as “losers” or unintelligent, as if the definition of lack of intelligence is to not agree with him.

Attempting to bully the press to silence criticism of him is anti-American.

Unlike Howie, who discussed this op-ed earlier, the part I want to focus on isn't the First Amendment, nor the press, nor Bernie Sanders, nor even Donald Trump as a person. It's the bullying.

Bullying in the World of the Wealthy

Play the clip at the top again (it's just over 40 seconds), and notice the sneering, the arrogance, the presumption of power. Notice also, at the 0:17 mark, how he uses just his lips to signal his — what, bodyguard? — to act like a goon squad and physically force Ramos out of the room. Trump sneers, smacks his lips to summon the goon, and the goon lays hands on the reporter.

This is exercise of power, presumption of power, and comfort with the presumption of power — all three — on Trump's part. It's a way of saying and showing, "I'm at the top, I deserve to be at the top, and I'm going to use all of the power that being at the top provides me."

At the tip of the pyramid, the very top of the U.S. (and international) food chain, this kind of sneering, bullying, and presumption of the right to bully, is almost the norm. This is really the way a surprising number of people in that position regularly act. The fact that we rarely see it, and therefore rarely associate them with this extreme arrogance, isn't a function of their not doing it. It's a function of their invisibility. Until Donald Trump.

The Hidden World of "Our Betters" ...

I wrote elsewhere, in a piece on Deep State and how the U.S. is controlled, that "You can vote for the puppets, but not the puppeteers."

That's obviously true, once you think about it. You can't vote for David Koch, just Scott Walker. You can't vote for Sheldon Adelson, just Marco Rubio. And so on.

It's also true that we almost never see the puppeteers, or their world. We don't see their homes (their gold, crystal and mahogany palaces really), their jets, their yachts, their servants, their private schools, their privileges. We imagine that they have estates. We don't imagine that they have dozens of them, each.

For example, Jeff Greene is a New York billionaire — literally billionaire — who made his money in real estate. This is how he lives, via New York magazine:

It’s incredible, right?” shouts Jeff Greene over the roar of the two-seater dune buggy’s motor. “It’s 55 acres!” Still in his whites from this morning’s tennis match, he’s giving a personal tour of his Sag Harbor estate, barreling at 30 miles per hour through the vast forest of scrubby pines and soft moss of its gated grounds. “Beautiful nature here!” A blur of deer goes by, and the trees break to reveal the summer sun glinting off a grassy lagoon. Greene slows by its shore. “This is our swan pond, and this is our private beach,” he says, gesturing toward a slip of white sand encircling the edge of the North Haven Peninsula. “It goes all the way to the ferry. Three thousand feet of beach,” he adds, a smile spreading across his tanned face.

The punch line?

[2009 is] when he picked up this property for around $40 million (half the 2007 listing price), which he and his wife have christened “Greene Haven.” “I wish we could spend more time here,” he says. “Honestly, we have so many great homes.”

When you imagine great wealth, do you imagine it on that scale? Likely not, because that world is invisible. Until Donald Trump.

... Is Being Revealed by Donald Trump

What's different about Donald Trump? He's not just the puppet, meaning the candidate — he's his own puppeteer. This means that for the second time in modern electoral history, a puppeteer has put himself on center stage. The first was Mitt Romney, he of the "47%" speech. Before him we've had just puppets, financed solely by others.

If it's true that you can't vote for Sheldon Adelson, say, only his puppet Mario Rubio, it's even more true that you can't even see Sheldon Adelson most of the time, or David Koch, or Jamie Dimon. (Do you know what any of their voices sound like, for example?  Do you know if Jamie Dimon is tall or short?)

But occasionally one of them makes an unwanted public appearance, and then we see who they are. This is Sheldon Adelson, courtesy of a must-read 2012 piece by Rick Perlstein in Rolling Stone:

Why GOP Mega-Donor Sheldon Adelson Is Mad, Bad and a Danger to the Republic

... Adelson's company Las Vegas Sands (LVS) spends more on security for him and his family than any other publicly held corporation, $2.5 million – two and a half times more than Dell, Oracle, and Amazon spend on their CEOs. He usually ambles around with an armed former agent of the Mossad, Israel's spy agency – for instance, into a deposition for a lawsuit filed by employees (including security guards!) claiming they hadn't been paid overtime. It was quite a scene – and one that you can see for yourself, because once Adelson tried to have the plaintiffs' lawyers cited for contempt after a TV station received and aired a videotape of the deposition, the publication Vegas Inc. ran the video as part of their coverage of this latest Adelson legal action. It reveals a creepy sourpuss who is a blatant liar: Adelson said he brought in the muscle because he felt threatened when the plaintiff lawyer "attempted to throw books at" him. See for yourself (at 2:40) if such a thing ever happened, then his astonishing petulance when a lawyer objects to continuing a legal proceeding with an armed janissary staring him down.

And here's that video. Feel free to focus on the fact that Adelson brought "muscle," armed muscle, into a deposition. But also focus just on his manner. How like Donald Trump is Sheldon Adelson?

If the above video does not appear or play in your browser, go here, or play this link in a media player. But please do watch; it's a doozy. It's also the second video in this three-video piece.

My point? Donald Trump is peeling the mask off the world of the mega-rich, the very very rich. And far too many of them are like what you see here. Bullies and proud of it.

Conan the Politician

It's almost like they've taken lessons from this man, isn't it?

And that's your third video. If you want the single reason your descendants may be hunter-gatherers, to take one consequence, you're looking at it.

GP
 

Guest Post: Coach Randy Explains How The New Jersey Anti-Bullying Bill Of Rights Failed His Son

Coach Randy is Randy Nathan, president of Project NextGen and author of Bullying In Sports: A Guide To Identifying The Injuries We Don't See. Randy agreed to write a guest post for us today that gets right down into the roots of what bullying is all about. And he doesn't stop there.

The “Garden” State of New Jersey is known for many wonderful things. Whether it’s the famous beach communities, an exceptional public educational system, or the home to famous athletes, entertainers, business leaders, and politicians, New Jersey has something for every walk of life. However, a little unknown fact is that New Jersey also boasts the most comprehensive anti-bullying legislation in the country-- the New Jersey Anti-Bullying Student Bill of Rights Act (NJSA 18A:37-13). It is also commonly referred to as HIB (Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying) Both the NJ House and Senate passed the law (Assembly 71-1, with 5 abstentions and the Senate 30-0) in November 2010 and Governor Christie singed the bill on January 5, 2011. It was implemented on September 1, 2011. As an anti-bullying expert, I take tremendous pride in this piece of legislation. It was certainly needed and provided a necessary framework for the public educational systems to address important bullying situations, in and out of school.

As an anti-bullying expert in New Jersey, I have travelled throughout the state training and educating faculty, administrators, boards of education, parents and students on this law. I have presented in small school districts, large state conferences, school boards of education, and parent workshops. What most individuals do not know is that this Act was really an extension of legislation originally enacted in 2002 (NJSA 18A:37-13). In recent news, the State of Montana became the fiftieth and final state within the country with anti-bullying legislation. Most of the original laws throughout the country were implemented following the tragedy of Columbine High School in April 1999. In anti-bullying education, this shooting is often referred to as a pivotal moment of a tragic paradigm shift of how bullying was perceived within schools. Prior to Columbine, bullying was something that was simply commonplace and part of life. The target of bullying had limited protection. However, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, both perceived targets of bullying behavior, changed that perception when they dressed in trench coats and began shooting fellow students and teachers, looking for the “jocks” within the school. It was the first time victims took matters into their own hands and devastated hundreds of lives, including their own, and forever changed the landscape of Littleton, Colorado. Although this fact has since been challenged, this incident created zero-tolerance policies throughout the country, eventually leading to state laws.

The 2011 NJ Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights was also the result of another national tragedy. Although a task force was in place evaluating the current law, legislation heated up when Tyler Clementi, an eighteen year-old freshman student at Rutgers University jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September 2010. His roommate, Dharun Ravi, and fellow hall mate, Molly Wei used a webcam on Ravi’s computer in Wei’s dorm room to view Climenti being intimate with another man. Two days later, Ravi told his friends and Twitter followers to watch the intimacy once again. Even though the viewing never occurred, Climenti took his own life and in doing so brought national attention to the raising seriousness and quickest growing form of bullying-- cyberbullying and the increased targeting of LGBT youth.

When the law was signed, supporters cheered, advocates highlighted the courage taken by legislatures, and families with personal experiences celebrated a new sense of accountability. The timeline to get everything into place was a measly nine months that required school districts to implement new staff responsibilities (in some situations new staff), mandated procedures to be followed for the reporting, investigating and follow through of information. Schools were required to establish their own policies and practices that fulfilled the new mandate. Faculty required training, students had to be informed and strategies needed to be created. Schools scrambled to fulfill the necessary elements of the law. Oh, and by the way, this law was being introduced during the time following a billion dollar deduction of state funded dollars to the schools. In addition, no money was being funded to implement these expectations. Schools were required to make significant changes in the functions and responsibilities around this law, while letting teachers and other school professionals go, cutting services, and reducing already needed programs. This was a state mandated, unfunded program.

Over the next nine months, schools scrambled along with their attorneys to understand the new law and develop their own policies for their schools. Shrinking faculties were told they needed to take on additional responsibilities, while still maintaining their expected job load. Selected school administrators were forced to attend lengthy state sponsored trainings to become Anti-Bullying Coordinators, and then return to their schools to inform and train their staff on the new legislation. Other school professionals, primarily those in counseling, social work, and guidance attended shorter trainings to prepare them for their new roles as Anti-Bullying Specialists. Additionally, forms had to be created, a process for reporting alleged HIB incidents needed to be developed and implemented, and programs for students had to be created. All while these school professionals had to continue the current operation of a school day. Amazingly, these outstanding individuals fulfilled those expected roles. However, it was an unreasonable hope for them to be expected to become experts in HIB, while maintaining their job responsibilities. To this day, the professionals assigned in these roles do so through often in their personal time to ensure compliance with the law.

The legislation is sixteen pages in length and is extremely far-reaching. It covers findings relative to school bullying, requires training on suicide prevention for teaching staff, how schools will be graded, training program requirements, reporting of all elements of the law, creating of new job responsibilities, consequences for student behaviors, a new definition of HIB, policies to be implemented, making retaliation and retribution prohibited, establishment of bullying prevention programs, training courses for school professionals, inclusion of off-school grounds incidents, appointment of specific staff positions, development of school safety teams, teacher certification expectations, development of guidance document, establishment of formal protocol for investigating a complaint, needed in-service workshops and trainings, and compliance of non-public schools. As anyone can see this is a thorough, well thought out law that seems to cover every inch possible with harassment, intimidation and bullying. These legislatures did an exceptional job to ensure the safety of our students. However, as Assemblyman John McKeon shared with me last week, legislatures are only responsible for creating the law. It’s up to every school district within New Jersey to implement its mandate. There are over 2500 schools within 604 school districts in New Jersey (http://www.state.nj.us/education/data/fact.htm). Although the law dictates the necessary steps and measures needed to observe the law, it allows for individual interpretations of alleged HIB investigations. That means, a bullying situation in one school may be perceived as HIB, while an identical situation in another school may not. The law also does not dictate the necessary consequences when an investigation uncovers harassment, intimidation and/or bullying. Again, that means one school may treat the situation with more leniency than another. However, the law is very clear in terms of the expected steps schools need to take when an alleged HIB incident is reported.

One of the most innovative aspects of the law is the compliance needed of any school professional, board member, or vendor when HIB is either directly witnessed or reported. The law demands that the school principal be notified by the end of the school day in order to initiate a formal investigation. The uniqueness of this law requires any individual the obligation to report the alleged situation. The law is very simple, you hear/see something, you say something. There is no room for individual interpretation or ability to provide any type of advice or guidance. Once the principal is notified, a formal report is required to be submitted with notification going to the appropriate parties (generally parents) within 24-48 hours. Following the notification to the parent(s), the school has no more than ten days to complete an investigation. There law is very clear in this expectation and the legislatures were brilliant in their understanding of the importance of an investigation with HIB. Furthermore, the law also clearly states that the alleged HIB does not have to be several occurrences. It only requires a one-time action to initiate an HIB report and investigation. There are numerous ways an alleged HIB case can be reported-- either verbally to a school professional, download a form from the school website, or anonymously. Regardless how the incident is provided, the school must initiate an investigation.

I have always questioned whether school professionals were trained in appropriate investigative skills. Most school staff involved in these roles is social workers, school counselors, nurses, etc. Their skill set is significantly different than that required to do authentic investigations. These professionals are often involved engaged with students in a much different fashion. Their responsibilities require trust from students in order to fulfill their primary roles. For instance, social workers are in the empowerment and relationship building business. They often serve a therapeutic role for students with an element of confidentiality and trust. Their question skill set is significantly different than those needed for an investigation. They often ask open-ended questions that lead a student into a particular direction. When leading an investigation, the old adage is “just the facts, ‘mam.” Their primary function is often in direct competition with these added responsibilities. In addition, since this an unfunded mandate, schools often choose to cut corners because of budgets and only provide the least expensive training that covers the lowest expectation. This means that the investigation process is going to compromised when the person doing the investigation is not appropriately trained.

In July of last summer (2014) I was approached by a number of families regarding their concerns with the Varsity baseball coach from Columbia High School in the South Orange-Maplewood School District. As a national author and speaker on “Bullying in Sports” they came to me for my guidance and direction. My son was a player on the team and I was all too familiar with their concerns. They shared with me their plans to approach the school and get them to investigate the bullying by the coaches their sons (players) experienced. Some of the players graduated that previous year, while a couple players were presently on the team. They knew my son was still on the team, but asked me anyway to consider helping them out. In my book, I spend a lot of time talking about the importance of being a “Game Changer and Being and Upstander.” Following a conversation with my son, we agreed that my assistance was important, but I would not be at the forefront of this group. I would provide the necessary expertise regarding the law and offer them the support needed to get the school to take action.

I personally witnessed the coach screaming, yelling and demeaning players regularly. I saw a player stand up to the coach while going on a tirade against another player to simply provide some “positivity.” However, the coached benched the player for “talking out of line and challenging authority.” In another situation, a parent sent an anonymous letter requesting the coach to minimize the screaming and foul language constantly directed at the players. Instead of owning up to his remarks, his comment back to the team was “if you don’t like my screaming, then don’t play for me.” In other situations, the coach called players inappropriate words referring to the female sex organ. I heard about numerous times players were called out in front of their teammates being blamed for losing a game. In addition, the coach often complained over a lack of talent, screamed at umpires and openly challenged parents that the support for the baseball program. This behavior made a number of players to stop playing baseball leaving the team. The reason why there was limited talent was because he was harassing, intimidating and bullying them to leave the team. In one very serious situation, the coach spoke publically about a player’s alleged injury without permission hurting his college recruiting efforts.

On August 13, 2014 I met with Ms. Elizabeth Aaron (school principal), Mr. Phil Stern (school attorney and anti-bullying coordinator), and Ms. Cheryline Hewitt (assistant principal) to discuss the parents’ concerns about the harassment, intimidation and bullying behavior by the school’s varsity baseball coaches. I expressed my concern about possible retribution towards my son since he was currently on the team. They thanked me for coming in to meet with them and promised me that he will be fine. I urge them to take the parents’ request and complaints seriously and mentioned the HIB law, bullying in sports, and the importance of doing their due diligence in providing a proper investigation. At that moment, since I mentioned the words harassment, intimidation and bullying the principal was required to initiate the protocols required by the NJ Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights. According to the law, they had ten days to complete an investigation-- August 23. However, since it was the summer, the law didn’t require the report to be finished until the tenth day of school-- September 15. The principal even took a copy of my book and didn’t even offer to pay. Go figure.

A side note, on September 18 a teacher from Columbia High School was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting three students, with two more coming forward the following day. The story hit the press hard and became a huge distraction for the beginning of school. Given the seriousness of these allegations, it made sense to provide the school more time to fulfill the needed report from my meeting in August. Then on October 9 the ACLU filed a complaint against the South Orange Maplewood School District under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This case was also as serious and accused the school district of alleged racial disparities throughout the district. However, since my meeting was held during the summer I figured the end of October would be reasonable to receive the report. It wasn’t within the ten day time period, but certainly could be provided by then. By mid-November the school still had not provided any type of report. The only response we got was that they were taking the allegations seriously and were on top of it and that the report was forthcoming. Yet, the school year was moving along and things were being put into place for the following spring. During a mandatory meeting held by the coach, players were told about their participation in conditioning and winter workouts. At that time the coach acknowledge the rumors going on around his job, but that “whether you like it or not, I will be the coach for next season.” Three separate players validated the comments and I called Ms. Aaron the following day to notify her of his comments and intimidation towards the players. I reminded her about the length of the time its taken her to complete the report and that it was well beyond the state mandated ten days. She assured me once again she was working on it and to expect it before the end of the year. I also brought up my concern about my son and possible retaliation from the coach and was taken aback that I could actually believe something like that would happen with another adult. I told her that was nice, but if anything happened I would come directly to her.

On January 22 a letter finally arrived, but not one that would please anyone interested in a thorough investigation. The letter stated that through their thorough investigation they were pleased to share that there was no “corroborative” evidence supporting the HIB reported the previous summer. It took them five months to tell us they found nothing and then to say they were “pleased” was overly offending. We later found out that the neither the schools Anti-Bullying Specialist or Anti-Bullying Coordinator did the investigation, but rather the Athletic Director did. That’s right, the Athletic Director is the one that did the so-called investigation. This Athletic Director was the previous head baseball coach, hired the current coach three years ago, and guess what, was a close personal friend. How any administrator thought this was a good idea is beyond me. But wait, there’s more to the story.

On February 11, the group of parents meets with the school attorney/anti-bullying coordinator instead of their right to meet with the Board. He convinces the group that a meeting with him will be more effective and the group could still visit with the board if they’d like. I purposely do not go to the meeting since I continue my role as outside support. He tells the group the investigation is still open and that he was now personally leading it. Later in the month, on February 23, the Board of Education approves the coach to the position. Several parents of this group speak up during the public session, expressing their concerns and all asking for one thing-- to authorize and independent investigation. There were parents who spoke on behalf of the coach as well as alumni players. Those players graduated in 2010 and had the coach when they were freshman, since at that time that was his position in 2007 (eight years ago). However, what was really astonishing was the absence of any current player from the current season or recent past. Not one player currently playing varsity for this coach came to speak on his behalf…not one. Most were together at a house watching the meeting on TV since it was being broadcasted live. A Board member did make a comment about it would be nice to hear from a current player, then a player who was watching the meeting on TV rushed over to offer his thoughts. This young man demonstrated incredible courage and he was also a target of the unacceptable bullying behavior from this coach. He was a senior and was a constant target the season before and already made the decision to not play the coming season. Since his desire to speak was last minute, his comments were unprepared, but he reiterated everything the parents said, most importantly the need for an outside independent investigation. I was also not present at the meeting. I was in Arizona speaking to high school student athletes about bullying in sports and the importance of being a positive leader. When I returned from my trip my son and I spoke and he was relieved that I was not at the meeting. He felt my presence would have harmed his chances on the team. Later that evening the Board unanimously approved the coach.

On March 6, since there was so much snow outside, spring baseball began with tryouts inside the school’s gym. Apparently the timeframe for the tryouts went from March 7-10. On March 11 the roster for the Varsity and JV teams were posted outside the Athletic Director’s door. (Before the results are shared, it’s important to note that my son as a Freshman started on the Freshman team, as a Sophomore he started on the JV team, and as a junior was the starting centerfield for the Varsity team. Inasmuch the coach publically praised him at the end-of-season banquet for being the best outfielder on the team.) At 10am he went to the AD’s office to look for his name on the roster. However, it was not there. He looked over it again and thought it was an oversight. He texted the coach about his name not being on the list asking if he was cut. The coach responded, “yes” and that he could meet with him the following day at 3:15pm. Then my son texted back, “What I didn’t improve? I didn’t tryout well?” The coach simply responded, “if you want to talk about it meet us at 3:15pm tomorrow.” It was 10am on Wednesday morning and he was instructed to sit with this until 3:15pm the following day. He immediately left school, called me and went home. It was the beginning of the biggest disappointment in his life. All he cared about was playing ball with his closest friends in his senior year. I immediately called the school, demanded a meeting with the principal and attorney, and filed a verbal HIB incident report for retaliation and retribution against my son. I drove to the school expecting to speak with someone from the administration, but no one was willing to meet with me. I was agitated, extremely upset and an emotional wreck. I promised that I expected to be heard and someone would be held accountable. I also contacted an attorney who I knew did work on HIB and she took my call.

Anti-bullying educators know the most effective form of intervention and deterrence to bullying is adult involvement. Trust is huge in this area, even more difficult for high school students. We also know that you never but a bully and a target in the same room together, ever. The challenge here is that the bully is the adult coach and the target was my son. As Alex prepared those two days to meet with the coach, I was busy behind the scenes doing everything I could to stop that meeting to ensure it never took place. Furthermore, given the retaliation and retribution, my attorney got right on that and met with Mr. Stern directly. Not only was my son a target of retribution, another senior (also a player who played for the program all three years) was also cut from the team. However, the retaliation he received was directly at him as he spoke out in a confidential meeting with the principal. He shared a letter he wrote about his experiences with this bully coach.

By Friday, March 13 Ms. Aaron and Mr. Stern forced the coaches to put both players back on the team. The meeting lasted a couple of hours and apparently they fought this “kicking and screaming.” However, they principal and school attorney did not waver in their expectations. I received a call from the attorney in the afternoon about the news. The only reason I fought to get my son back on the team was because he wanted to be with his friends and finish his baseball career with his closest friends. He made a decision the year before that he was not going to pursue college baseball and was looking forward to playing ball for the last time.

On Monday, March 16 Ms. Aaron, in her office with Mr. Stern, the coaches, the Athletic Director, Alex and his parents, led a meeting. It lasted approximately 30 minutes. I was greeted nicely by Mr. Stern, but Ms. Aaron didn’t make eye contact with me and barely shook my hand hello. She started the meeting by saying she attended the parents meeting the previous evening. If there was one thing she heard loud and clearly was that parents were not allowed to talk about playing time. She kept focusing on that over and over. Then she started the meeting by asking if Alex had any questions. He had two-- the first was about where he needed to improve and whether or not they would be fair. The first question was dismissive as the answer had nothing to do with Alex’s skill set as a player. Two were hearsay from another person present conditioning and Sunday trainings, the other had to do with tryouts and Alex not being with his group. As Alex heard his comments, he became tense, agitated and frustrated-- rightfully so. The first comment about conditioning was answered by the fact that he had gained 10 pounds through conditioning. He attended conditioning four times a week and if missed one he worked out at the local gym. The other was about his comment from a coach about his hitting. He answered that comment by saying that he just wanted to start this year off on his own and allow himself to clear his head of everyone “giving their coaching” at first. The third was answered by saying the reason why he wasn’t with his group was because he was looking for a bat because he was on-deck. When the question about being fair was answered, the coaches promised they would be. Alex was dismissed, then Ms. Aaron focused the meeting on me. When I came to school looking for Ms. Aaron on that previous Wednesday I was overly emotional. I did my best to remain calm, but given the history of what had not happened with the original report, the so-called investigation of January, etc I was very upset. I honestly don’t remember what I said, but I’m sure it involved inappropriate language and comments. (FYI-- I sent packages to two secretaries who witnessed and received my emotional comments apologizing to them. I also called them directly to offer my regrets. I also apologized to Ms. Aaron the moment I heard about my behavior following a phone call that she made to my ex-wife.) Then she went about talking about my comments and inappropriateness as a parent. I spoke up, accepted responsibility and mentioned that I made apologies to the people that deserved it. It seemed excessive and basically like a forum for her to demonstrate that she had her coaches back. I also made it clear that I expected these coaches to treat Alex fairly and that time would tell if they did that or not. In addition, it was made clear to everyone in that room that it was very unlikely that Alex would ever approach them for help. He’s not that type of kid and that they would have to be proactive with that. The promised they would.

By March 25th it was the beginning of the end for my son. He texted me that evening that he wanted to stop playing baseball because it was not longer fun anymore. He became quick to anger, emotional and was always agitated. I asked him to please reconsider because at that time I thought the best thing for him to do was to stay strong, not quit and finish the season. I didn’t want these coaches to get the best of him and take away something he had worked so hard to achieve. On the evening of March 31, Mr. Stern holds a meeting with ten parents. This is the follow-up meeting from February 11. I attend this meeting since the retaliation behavior from the coaches towards by son. At this meeting Mr. Stern apologizes for how the entire HIB investigation was handled from the beginning. He admits it was much bigger than he anticipated and should have taken it off of Ms. Aaron’s “plate” since she was doing so much. He also shared with us that through his own investigation he has discovered HIB on the baseball team and was going to share it with the Board at the April 27 meeting. He then started on about the points he wants to address at the meeting and get our feedback. However, the group of parents wanted accountability, to understand why the delay, and discuss why the current coaches are still coaching. He tells us his approach is to reform the coaches and train them to do better. We all adamantly disagree. He tells us he meets with these coaches regularly and they will change because of that. I do acknowledge from my professional hat his desire, but explain that bully coaches are not able to change through simple training he was going to provide. I plead with Mr. Stern to share his findings sooner since it was very unlikely that Alex would be able to hold on much longer. He offered to have Alex meet with him directly to encourage him not to quit and let him know that change was imminent. In addition, he promised the parents that we will receive an updated letter prior to spring break (April 17) informing us that the original letter we received on Januayr 22 was incorrect and that his investigation discovered elements of HIB. There are 17 games scheduled between this date and April 27.

The season begins on April 1 and Alex sits the bench. However, his demeanor and attitude are great. He even comes home after the game excited about the team’s chances and how they were going to win state. He also shared with me that he thought he was going to get in the following day, since one of the players seemed to struggle a lot during the game. Deep inside I know that’s not going to happen, but it was so nice to see him happy again about baseball I didn’t want to interfere with that moment. I arrive at this game, knowing Alex was going to sit the bench. Even though he shared his excitement the previous evening. CHS takes and early 4-0 lead. The opponents make three errors in the first inning. It is clearly a team CHS can beat. Alex sits the bench again. Two other seniors get into the game, the same right fielder is in right field. Towards the end of the game, Alex starts texting me that he wants to quit. It’s not fun anymore. The coaches are not going to give him a chance. I text everyone I know who loves Alex to encourage him to stay on the team. I call Phil Stern’s cell phone immediately and tell him what is going on. Mr. Stern tells me that he cannot believe it asks to meet Alex Monday morning, April 6. Alex and I visit him that morning where Alex tells him everything he was experiencing – being ignored, isolated without any communication from the coaches. There’s a saying in sports about coaches who yell. It’s actually a good thing when coaches yell because it’s a sign that they care. However, when they stop yelling it’s time for concern. Not only were the coaches not yelling at Alex, they weren’t even saying hello. Mr. Stern thanks Alex for coming in and meeting, extends his gratitude for his courage and promises that he will see an immediate change during the game later that afternoon.

I arrive at the game with it already in progress. Alex is again on the bench. Alex ends up being the only player to not play in the game. CHS wins 8-0. Alex looks at me during the game and is visibly upset and mouths to me that he wants to quit again. I shake my head and understand why. Following the game, everyone on the team knows Alex is upset. It was clearly obvious. However, the bus is late and they have to wait around on the field until the bus gets there. The team is together standing by the end of the dugout, yet Alex is all alone sitting on the bench. The players know they can’t go over to console Alex because if they do they will be yelled at, or worse benched. We find out later that evening, that the coach was speaking to a team captain (a close friend of Alex) that Alex is not playing because he is pouting and giving off negative vibes. And that he’s not going to play someone like that. He also told this captain to not let Alex interfere with what they have started. I take a picture showing the loneliness and isolation of Alex and text it to Mr. Stern. He can’t believe what is going on with this. As a matter of fact, that’s always his initial comment when anything was ever shared with him about this. There were three coaches at that game, not one took the time to sit with Alex. We later found out that Mr. Stern called the coach earlier that day and instructed him to put Alex in the game. The coach said he would, but didn’t. He ended up using that conversation as another form or retaliation for Alex meeting with Mr. Stern.

The morning of April 7 I download an HIB incident complaint form and fill out another one for retribution and retaliation. That day Alex was a mess. He wanted to quit and wanted nothing to do with the coaches. His mom and I convinced him to write a letter and that I would get Mr. Stern and Ms. Aaron to set up a meeting with everyone that was present at that meeting on March 16. Alex wrote a gut wrenching letter that was quoted in a subsequent news article in the NJ Star Ledger online newspaper NJ.com. The only request we have of him is that he must meet with Ms. Aaron to let her know what has gone on since she made it clear in the meeting that her “name is on top of the school letterhead.” He meets with her Wednesday morning with the intention to leave the team that afternoon. She asks him to return later in the day, which he does. I get a call from him following the afternoon meeting and Ms. Aaron wants to have Alex meet with the coach with her presence. She was aware of the trash talking by the coach to the players, aware of everything that had transpired, and my concern over Alex spending anytime alone with that coach. We agree that as long as he is with Ms. Aaron they can meet. A game is schedule for that afternoon and they would hold the meeting before it started. I wait to hear from him and eventually get a text that he suited up and playing in the game. There’s an unbelievable sense of relief thinking that she was able to actually do something for my son. I arrive at the game. His demeanor is positive and he’s smiling. But he sits the entire game once again. They lost 6-0 and the coach couldn’t even offer my son a little bit of faith that things would change.

The following morning, April 9 Alex texts me first thing in the morning that he wants to talk. I spoke with his mom the night before and she shared with me the conversation she had with him at that time. He came to terms that the coach was not going to change his bullying ways and simply did not love baseball anymore. They took that from him through their bullying tactics, isolation and trash talking. I meet with Alex for lunch to discuss his conversation about quitting. He told me he shared the news with Ms. Aaron before leaving for lunch. I apologize again numerous times, do my best to keep my emotions in tact during the meal as I explain everything that has transpired and my deep concern over the possible long term effect this will have on him, and our relationship. He leaves to go speak to the coaches. His conversation with them went something like this. It was a team practice and he pulled the coaches off to the side. He first thank Mr. F for the meeting the previous day. The basically told them he had given a lot of thought about playing baseball and that he didn’t want to play anymore. He reached out and shook both of their hands and wished them luck. All they said was thanks for coming to us. I was told that after Alex left the team, they didn’t even acknowledge what he did. They just continued on like nothing happened.

I wait for the updated latter to arrive by April 17, when Spring Break begins, but no letter arrives. I am also waiting for the HIB report from the incident of March 11. Again, the ten days were not honored. Mr. Stern invites me to meet with me during spring break on April 22. I visit with him for an hour where he again promises a letter would be forthcoming and that he would also share his comments he plans to provide to the board on April 27. I am privy to other bullying situations still taking place with the other player that was cut, but do not led on to him that I am aware of them. I ask him what he needs to take action-- harassment is harassment. But, alas nothing was going to change. He was committed to the retraining process even though the coaches continued to defy his calls about putting these two players into a game.

On April 27 I attend the BOE meeting that is scheduled to begin at 7:30pm with the expectation of hearing his comments about his update about the January 22 letter. I finally get a letter by 6pm that evening. But it basically placates the parents, but does acknowledge that our efforts have helped raise their awareness of behavior taking place on the baseball team. The public session begins around 11:00pm. Alex’s mom speaks and reads the letter he wrote to the coaches. I offer comments about how the original HIB letter was incorrect and they will be notified later in the evening about that. They hired the coaches without having the correct information. We stay to hear Mr. Sterns remarks. He starts around 1:00am. He promises to be brief and starts going through a power point. He shows a Venn diagram with the HIB and all other laws designed to protect students. Then shows a slide with a number of words on it, with the word COURAGE in big bold letter. Then he talks about how through the past couple of months he has learned that there are many people who have demonstrated courage. That courage needs to be noted and realized in these situations. That’s it, nothing of what he promised us in terms of notifying the board that he found elements of HIB on the baseball team.

A reporter from the Star Ledger is present and decides to write a story about our situation. I reach out to the state about a formal inquiry about the school’s unwillingness to follow the law all throughout this process dating back to the summer of 2014. They are now investigating the school district and will be meeting with them this coming week. However, the damage has been done. My son will never get his senior year back. Of course the team is have a successful season which makes this all that more difficult. It’s difficult because within the culture of sports, winning is everything and it makes coaching a heck of a lot easier. It’s difficult because my son is constantly online look at the game summaries knowing he should have been on that time. It’s difficult because I am an expert on this and I cannot even help protect him from any of this.

I do realize that Alex will move past this and move on with his life. He is attending the University of Arizona in the fall and this will be nothing but a bad memory for him. However, now that I have personally experienced what so many other parents and players have gone through with bully coaches, my convictions are even stronger than before. Sadly though, I have reached out to a number of the state legislatures that co-sponsored and wrote the law. But they either do not respond at all, or simply write a quick email to let me know they will be in touch if they deem necessary. The anti-bullying law that is supposed to be the most effective in the country is nothing when individuals required to follow the law chose not to. A professor of mine from undergrad once said that a law is only as powerful as the individuals responsible to implement it. In this case, this law and those individuals failed my son.