April 5, 2017--25th Amendment

Monday on Morning Joe, Joe and Mika reviewed the storm of tweets that poured forth on Saturday and Sunday from Donald Trump.

They were clearly dismayed.

Usually, Trump's weekend tweets appear only on Saturday mornings when his family handlers, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, practicing Jews, are observing Shabbas. On that day orthodox Jews are forbidden to work and this even includes turning on electrial devices such as stoves, TVs, and smart phones.

Knowing this, it is during this window when he is not under surveillance that Trump as the bad boy he is is at his most uncensored and outrageous. But he goes silent when Ivanka and Jared are again wired up or, if he does tweet any more, knowing they are monitoring him, he is more restrained.

But last weekend, perhaps in part because Jared as quasi Secretary of State was secretly flying off for a visit to Iraq, he published perhaps a dozen tweets. As Joe and Mika reviewed them on air, their dismay turned to horror.

"Who is this person?" Joe asked rhetorically, "I thought we knew him." Mika shrugged and smiled. They thought they knew him from more than a year of having him as a constant presence on their program. He would call in most mornings and they would keep him talking often for up to a commercial-free hour. They rode his wave of popularity as he rode theirs. His poll numbers rose as did their ratings. More viewers tuned into Morning Joe than all other cable shows other than the preposterous and inane Fox & Friends.

An early Saturday morning tweet asked--

When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and @NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russian story?

Not exactly a haiku. And, as Joe and Mika noted, the more things capitalized the more agitated the Commander in Chief.

Then they pointed out, "Sleepy Eyes" is not one of Trump's best sobriquets. It doesn't compare with "Crooked Hillary," "Little Marco," "Lyin' Ted," or for Elisabeth Warren, "Pocahontas."

Another email, a non sequitur asked--

It is the same Fake News Media that said there is "no path to victory for Trump" that is now pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!

And, still obsessed with Hillary (he can't get over the fact that she beat him by almost 3.0 million popular votes)--

Did Hillary Clinton ever apologize for receiving answers to the debate? Just asking!

For the uninitiated, the "answers" he referred to are actually questions that CNN reporters prepared to pose to Clinton during one of her debates with Bernie Sanders. They were passed along to her campaign by Donna Brazil who was vice president of the Democratic National Committee and a CNN contributor. She subsequently lost both jobs.

At that point, Mika Brzezinski, in visible pain, as if to herself, mumbled, "24th Amendment."

Joe corrected her, "You mean the 25th."

"You think it's time . . . ?"

"I'm beginning to think maybe . . ."

Having depressed themselves they stared blankly into the camera for what felt like an endless five minutes.

To review--the 25th Amendment, which was ratified in 1967, spells out presidential succession. The amendment was needed since the original Constitution was ambiguous about who would become president if the chief executive died or was otherwise incapacitated. In the original document it was not clear if the Vice President was to be the successor. So that needed straightening out.

Also, there was insufficient guidance about what would happen if the president were alive but disabled by, say, a stroke or mental breakdown and how that would be determined. They took great care about this as the amenders did not want to encourage coup d'etats based on false diagnoses.

It is this latter circumstance that is addressed in Section 4 and was alluded to by Mika and Joe.

In its entirety, it reads--

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments [Cabinet members] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

This has never happened, but if the amendment had existed during Woodrow Wilson's presidency, it would not have been possible, when he had a massive stroke early in his second term, for his wife, hiding the extent of his disabilities, for all intents and purposes, to serve as acting president for his remaining three years. Section 4 would have been invoked and the VP would have assumed the presidency.

And during Richard Nixon's final days in office, with the 25th Amendment in place, with the president substantially incapacitated because of the drip, drip, drip of Watergate, because he was so out of rational control, a number of his senior advisers thought seriously about enforcing Section 4.

Though they did not do that, he thankfully resigned, but before he did so, among themselves they agreed to tell the Joint Chiefs of Staff that if Nixon late one night, while reeling and raging from too much alcohol, transmitted the nuclear codes that would send nuclear missiles and bombers on a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union, that they should risk treason and not comply.

We are currently not at that point, perhaps, hopefully, far from it; but Joe and Mika spoke the words of deep concern and none of their guests demurred.

But then, a day or two later, from this current scandal that keeps on giving, we learned about Susan Rice's alleged role in "unmasking" Trump aides and secret meetings with the Russians in the Seychelles prior to the new administration taking office to establish a "back channel" connection between Trump and Putin.

Myself, I prefer Claire Danes and Homeland.

It's only an hour an episode and it's fiction. Though by the day it is feeling more and more like reality.

Claire Danes

December 18, 2014--Shame On SONY

If a North Korean filmmaker (an oxymoron) were to make a satirical film about a plot to assassinate Barack Obama, it wouldn't make us feel very good, would it. But would we be making threats to blow up movie theaters where it was being shown? And would we put pressure on the film company that made the movie to pull it from distribution? Though we would hate the film's premise and would not rush to see it if it were available here, we so revere human rights that we would resist the temptation to ban it from public display. In fact, if there was the temptation to do so, there are many organizations in America that would defend the filmmaker's right to free speech, no matter how offensive.

A version of that just happened in the United States.

SONY pictures for some oblivious reason agreed to make The Interview, a silly film about how a celebrity journalist and his producer land an interview with North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un and subsequently are recruited by the CIA to kill him.

Presumably someone in North Korea, an individual or more likely a state-supported operative, outraged about the film, hacked into SONY's computer network and has been selectively releasing to the press gossipy e-mails between top executives that reveal them to be mean-spirited (attacking one of their own most successful stars--Angelina Jolie) and full of racist feelings about President Obama (wondering which movie about African Americans would most appeal to him).

Further, the hacker or his handlers are also making threats against movie distributers, saying that if they show the The Interview they will bring down upon them wrath equal to that of 9/11.

In turn, owners of movie chains (Regal and others) asked SONY not to release the film. SONY, feeling they had no good options, agreed to do so, and as I write this are saying that though they regret "having" to pull the film do not want to put moviegoers at risk.

No one yet is talking about how this will encourage hackers to act more audaciously. Including, I assume, threatening mayhem about any movie or TV show they find to be objectionable or upsetting. Or, any book or TV show or public event that deals with controversial or, to them, disturbing issues.

Homeland, the Showtime series that depicts many Muslims to be violent terrorists could easily be a hacker's next target.  American Sniper, a film by Clint Eastwood about to be released will undoubtedly upset some in Iraq because the main character, Chris Kyle, an actual person, was a Navy SEAL who as a sniper killed more Iraqis than anyone else--between 160 confirmed "kills" and nearly another 100 "likelies."

Or other disgruntled groups could threaten to blow up the New York Times building because it published a series of articles critical of the C.I.A. and the corruption of top Chinese leaders.

On Christmas Day, when The Interview was to open, though its plot sounded totally sophomoric, I was planning to hold my nose and go as a way of symbolically saying that I do not believe in preemptive-capitulation and that our Constitution is stronger than unattributed or unverified threats and more important than what SONY executives said about Angelina Jolie.

We can't submit to threats and live in a world of fear, especially when our basic rights and freedoms are attacked.

Instead, via Showtime On Demand, on Christmas Day I will tune into the last two episodes of Homeland, unless by then they too are withdrawn. If they are, I'll just get drunk.

May 6, 2014--Law & Order

We have a problem.

With considerable effort and tenacity, via Netflix streaming, we worked our way through nearly five seasons of The Good Wife (112 episodes!) and are, like the rest of America, waiting for the final two episodes to air.

Questions await resolution--

Will Alicia Florrick quit her firm and return to Lockhart & Gardner, to join Diane as co-senior partner? What will Kalinda be up to next and who will she take to bed? And what about the Michael J. Fox character, Louis (the Devil) Canning? With the remaining year of his life, will he work to rebuild LG or finally, from within, succeed in bringing it down? And then what about Alicia's husband Peter, the governor? Will he be able to fend off accusations of voter fraud, stay out of jail, and keep the bimbos at bay?

So you see, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

But, very soon, we will be done with The Good Wife, as we are with the 26 episodes of House of Cards, until at least next fall.

Thus our problem--what to do between now and then?

For decades we avoided watching TV series. Claiming this was because we wanted to reserve ourselves for "higher things" such as reading. OK, also to compulsively watch news on TV. But we avoided all series, in truth worried we'd like them, get drawn in, and even addicted.

What happened to so dramatically change our viewing habits?

Last summer, over lobster rolls with our friend Ann, she told us that via streaming she was watching for a second time all episodes of West Wing.

Now, Ann is a very accomplished person. She has been a dean and vice president at a number of major universities and and we were surprised to hear that she was so involved with TV shows of this kind. If anything, one would take her for a PBS/C-SPAN type.

"You've never seen it?" she was incredulous to learn, "I would have thought . . ."

"I know a couple of people who were involved," I said, "Gene Sperling, who wrote a few episodes and I think was a story consultant, and Anna Deavere Smith who . . ."

"Played Nancy McNally," Ann said, "the president's national security advisor. You should give it a try. I think you'll love it."

And indeed we did. We watched all 154 episodes over two months and loved them all. Some days, actually nights, watching four or five, staying up as late as 2:00 a.m.

But now . . .

We couldn't make ourselves watch more that the first 15 minutes of the first episode of Game of Thrones. Too much gratuitous violence. And we didn't do much better with Breaking Bad, touted by a number of fiends to whom we confessed we had become fully addicted to entertainment programming. We watched the first two episodes but didn't get hooked. Again, too violent, too grimy, and not about a subject we care about--a professor making and dealing methamphetamine. Really?

The Wire sounds good--also recommended, especially by a cousin who grew up in Baltimore where it was set. But it doesn't appear to be available vis streaming, only DVD discs and we don't have a VCR up in Maine and have no intention of getting one. We're even thinking about leaving our Roku device in New York to keep Maine as media-free as we can handle.

Another friend, who is a confessed TV addict and has great taste in books, movies, theater, and food, has been talking about Law & Order for years. It's her favorite show and stars Jerry Orbach. Good enough for me. So while waiting for the return of House of Cards, Good Wife, and, I almost forgot, Homeland, we'll check it out.

Netflix does stream it so maybe we will take Roku with us, and since it ran on TV for 20, yes, 20 years, there are 456, yes, 456 episodes. I calculate that if we limit ourselves to just one a day, it will take 14 months to get through all of them. All right, if it grabs us we'll watch two a day over only seven months.

But if our experience with West Wing is a guide, we'll get high on five a day, staying up to at least midnight, and this means we'll be done in about three months. That could work.

But, then again, after that, what will we watch? Maybe West Wing all over again? Like Ann.

I'll let you know how we do. As they say, stay tuned.