It isn’t all that often you see 217 allegedly intelligent men and women paint targets on their backs, put a noose around their respective necks, and then go the White House Rose Garden to celebrate having inflicted the greatest risk of their political lives upon themselves.

          It isn’t all that often, but it does happen, and it happened last Thursday, as the victors gathered to nervously reassure themselves they had not just signed their own political death warrants.

          The Twittermeister-in-chief, whose day job is president of these United States, gave a ringing endorsement to the passage out of the House of the American Health Care Act of 2017 (HR1628), by an overwhelming majority of one vote, demonstrating once again the depth of his knowledge of the legislative process. The vote is only the first step. Essentially, all those 217 Republicans had done was pass a hot potato along to a Senate that wasn’t all that enthused about receiving the potato, hot or otherwise, in the first place.

          And who can blame them?

          The original version of this bill had an approval rating of around 17 percent. The legislation it was intended to “repeal and replace,” the Affordable Care Act, according the Gallup polling folks, currently has the approval of a majority of Americans. When the original version of the bill was scored by the Congressional Budget Office, that independent organization opined that, should it be enacted into law, 24 million Americans would lose their health insurance over the next decade. The proposal stripped out most of the revenue-enhancing content in the ACA necessary to fund its operations. It failed to adequately safeguard some of the more popular features of the so-called “Obamacare,” doing away with lifetime caps on coverage and prohibiting denial of coverage on the basis of “pre-existing conditions.”

          Not to beat a horse that should be long since dead, the original version could not attract enough votes to pass, and so was withdrawn from consideration.

          Rather than allow this abomination to quietly molder away, Republican leadership in the House, aided and abetted by the incumbent tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in desperate need of a “win,” decided to double down and resurrect the AHCA for one more try.

          This time, they went, hat in hand, to the so-called Republican Freedom Caucus to cut a deal. The Freedom Caucus has little to do with freedom, other than the freedom to obstinately obstruct with predictable, and often mind-blowing, regularity. These ultra-conservative commandoes had opposed the original version for not being draconian enough. The price of their support was to turn a bad bill into something even more twisted – a transfer of wealth from older Americans, middle- and low-income Americans, and Americans with pre-existing conditions, to insurance companies, the already wealthy, and 21-year-old non-smoking hard bodies on a Mediterranean diet eligible to form a risk pool acceptable to the health insurance industry.

          Let’s be clear. Very little about any of this has to do with the future physical health of the American people. It has a whole lot to do with current Republican politics and the dystopian view of the world currently espoused by its leadership.

          Most of those folks whistling past the graveyard on the White House lawn last Thursday have been running since 2010 on the promise that, once in power, they would do away with the Affordable Care Act on Day One, or Day 105, or whatever day Thursday was on the presidential bulletin board.

          The Affordable Care Act is not perfect. It needs significant revision. It can be made better. But that’s not what is of concern to the folks in the Rose Garden. The fact the ACA is increasingly acceptable to more and more Americans is, likewise, irrelevant, even though it means the facts on the ground have materially changed since the ACA’s less than perfect launch.

           The real concern to these 217 lemmings is that they can now point to their vote last Thursday as a fig leaf to avoid being attacked in the 2018 primaries by challengers even further to the right than they are themselves.

          It may work. It may not.

          All in all, their vote has more to do with selfish self-interest than it does with the well-being of average Americans.

          This should not be forgotten in the months ahead.

I’ve been gone for a while, but as they say, “all good things must come to an end.”

It has been an eventful few weeks.

Tops on mother-in-law’s bucket list was a trip to the Panama Canal and points south, the furthest of which was Cartagena, Columbia. I’m a bit of a history buff, and Cartagena, linchpin of the Spanish empire in the New World, boasts the most massive fortifications in the Americas, parts of which date back to the 16th century. I was really looking forward to seeing the citadel, which I did, briefly, through the windows of the tour bus, as we sped to a stop of the tour guide’s choosing, which consisted of watching a fisherman (who I suspect was the tour guide’s cousin three times removed on his mother’s side) repairing his net, and then casting his net into the surf. For the record, he caught a crab. Of the 10-legged variety. One.

After lunch at a seaside café, most likely owned by one of the tour guide’s relatives, we were whisked away to the “old city,” where we were given a leisurely 45 minutes to explore in depth more than six centuries of habitation, and be assailed by who I assume were the balance of the tour guide’s family selling all manner of one-of-a-kind handicrafts, some of which might actually have been made in Columbia in great numbers by crafty hands.

I’d like to go back to Cartagena, but next time I will skip the ship tour and grab a taxicab. Of course, with my luck, the cabbie will be related to the tour guide.

The canal itself is impressive. We approached the initial Atlantic-side lock in the pre-dawn darkness. When its turn came, the city block masquerading as a ship that we were on inched its way into the lock with no more than a few inches to spare on either side. Once through the lock, the ship anchored in man-made Gatun Lake. There we, and several hundred fellow passengers who were able to tear themselves away from the buffet, disembarked and transferred to busses that eventually took us to a ferry that completed the canal transit to the Port of Balboa on the Pacific side.

All the while, I am taking picture after picture with my trusty Canon. See the boat at the top of the lock. See the boat at the bottom of the lock. See the ship ahead. See the ships behind. If I do say so myself, many of these were once-in-a-lifetime works of art. Which is exactly how often I got to see them. Once. In the camera’s lens. Because somewhere along the line, I lost the camera.

Happily, the missus was also taking pictures with her trusty smartphone. See the boat at the top of the lock. See the boat at the bottom of the lock. See the ship ahead. See the ships behind. Yes, she was taking pretty much the same pictures I had been taking with my trusty Canon before it went AWOL, so we really didn’t lose much at all.

After the canal, we hopscotched up the Central American coast – Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Belize, Mexico, then back to Miami.

There were a couple of things that impressed me, and have impressed me on prior forays into the Caribbean.

We sometimes disparagingly refer to these relatively small patches of sovereignty as “banana republics,” sunk in abject poverty, filled with hollow-eyed urchins seeking an American sponsor for only $1.75 a day.

The poverty is certainly there, just as there is poverty here. The gleaming white towers on the beachfront promenades are also there, just as they are in Miami or Fort Lauderdale.

From the ones I’ve met, I’d say we should never make the mistake of thinking these folks see themselves as citizens under a lesser flag. What hits me is the seemingly universal pride they take in their countries. There are certainly those who, for economic reasons, are willing try their luck north of the Rio Grande, but taking them out of their country does not take their country out of them. We should have as much pride in our own as they have in theirs.

And finally, most of these so-called “banana republics” have somehow managed to fund national health care for their citizens. Something we are told the United States cannot afford. Apparently, if there is the will, there is a way.

Of course, neither do they have private mega health insurance and pharmaceutical cartels pumping millions of dollars into funding opposition to significant change in health care delivery.

Just saying.

Matthew 25:35: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.”

Move along. Not in this budget, buddy.

The current tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has sent his initial budget proposal to the Congress. There is much to talk about, but one example epitomizes the callousness that permeates the whole.

Meals on Wheels is not a federal program. It is funded from several sources, with one of the contributors being the federal government, in some cases through block grants to individual states.

Nationwide, Meals on Wheels, a non-profit group relying primarily on volunteers, serves hot meals each year to 2.4 million senior citizens between the ages of 60 to over 100 years. According to the organization, the recipients “are primarily older than 60, and because of physical limitations, or financial reasons, have difficulty shopping for or preparing meals for themselves.”

This didn’t cut any mustard with Mick Mulvaney, #45’s budget chief, who recently defended cuts to the Community Development Block Grant program, where some of the Meals on Wheels funding comes from, on the grounds that the program is “just not showing any results.”

Disregard for the moment that while Mr. Mulvaney carries the title “budget chief,” he was apparently laboring under the misapprehension that major federal funding for the Meals on Wheels program comes from CDBG sources. Actually, the major federal funding source is through the Administration for Community Living, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Service, which has a $227 million line item for “home-delivered nutrition services,” according to published reports in USA Today.

Regardless of the funding source, a literal reading of Mr. Mulvaney’s remarks indicate his assertion remains the same. Meals on Wheels is “just not showing any results.”

As is happening all too often with this new administration, inconvenient facts have a way of contradicting the official narrative – at least on Meals on Wheels.

As reported in the Washington Post, a 2013 study concluded that home-delivered meals for seniors “significantly improves diet quality, increases nutrient intakes, and reduces food insecurity and nutritional risk among participants.” Moreover, for many homebound seniors, daily contact with Meals on Wheels volunteers is the main contact recipients have with the society beyond their front doors.

Beyond the touchy-feely nonsense, in this new dawn of non-military spending austerity, what’s the business case for continuing to mollycoddle these non-contributing parasites who have not yet had the decency to die?

How about this, again from the study, as reported in the Post article?

“These programs are also aligned with the federal cost-containment policy to rebalance long-term care away from nursing homes to home and community-based services by helping older adults maintain independence and remain in their homes and communities as their health and functioning decline.”

For me, this is personal. For several years my mother delivered for Meals on Wheels. I know it was good for her. It made her feel she was being useful. From her anecdotes about the folks to whom she delivered those packages of food, I know the contact was important to them as well.

In her last years, she lived in an assisted living center. She would be the first to admit that it was a safer place to be. But until the day she passed away peacefully in her room, with me sitting beside her, she always had the hope that she would return “home” one day. I experienced firsthand how important it was to be independent and be at “home.”

Enough for emotion. Want to put a dollar yardstick to this?

“The average cost of a one-month nursing home stay is equivalent to providing home-delivered meals five days a week for approximately seven years.”

When seniors exhaust their personal assets, guess who picks up the tab for their care? Because Medicaid picks up the tab, the taxpayer does.

In terms of cost avoidance, the longer seniors can stay in their own homes, the principle benefit is lowered Medicaid costs for nursing home care.

According to a more recent study funded by the AARP, and as reported in the Post, a comparison was made between three groups of seniors – one group receiving daily meal deliveries, a second group receiving weekly bulk frozen food deliveries, and a third group receiving no assistance at all.

“What we found is that there were statistically significant differences in health benefits among the three groups with the highest gains recognized among participants living alone who had face-to-face contact via daily deliveries.”

And, by the way, “those receiving daily meals also experienced fewer falls and hospitalization, the study found.”

Ca-ching!

“Meals on Wheels sounds great …,” Mulvaney said, “but to take that federal money and give it to the states and say, ‘Look, we want to give you money for programs that don’t work’ – I can’t defend that anymore.”

The dismissive treatment of Meals on Wheels in #45’s budget proposal is symptomatic of the treatment accorded to many of the programs directly affecting ordinary Americans. Needless to say, it is, of course, a different story for those on top.

As for Mr. Mulvaney’s assessment of this particular program, there are only two words that seem appropriate in a family newspaper.

Bull hockey.

One of the many memorable lines in the movie “The American President” goes like this: “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man who makes your blood boil, and who’s standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.”

I found myself repeating this line to myself several times as I read a recent local column strongly supporting the present occupant of the White House, and excoriating any and all who were seen as standing in the way of the presidential agenda.

It didn’t bother me that support of the president was so strong. After all, the author of the column is only one of 63,000,000 Americans who feel just as strongly, based on the results of last November’s election.

The implied support of the president’s initiatives was perfectly acceptable. Heck, much of it sounds very attractive, even alluring – lower taxes; more affordable health care with benefits equal to, or exceeding, those currently available; bringing manufacturing jobs back from overseas; resuscitating the coal industry; securing our borders; prioritizing the wants and needs of those “left behind” as our country barrels into the 21^st Century; renegotiating unfair trade deals; rebuilding our deteriorating infrastructure; so on and so forth.

The president’s supporters believe he can deliver on his many promises without bankrupting the country. There are those of us who think it highly unlikely. This is called a difference of opinion, and differences of opinion are part and parcel of a working democracy.

I didn’t find it offensive for the author to reel off a list of folks who were seen as obstructing the president, although I admit I chuckled a bit when I saw Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan included among the damned.

Once upon a time, folks on such a list would make up what was called the “loyal opposition.” An active opposition serves a critical function in a representative democracy. It provides counterbalance. It forces debate, and from that debate comes a better final result. It prevents too much power from gravitating into too few sets of hands. It is part of the checks and balances permeating our Constitution by its framers.

No. What was troubling was the insinuation that one could not be in opposition and be loyal at the same time.

In order to champion the president, is it absolutely necessary to descend into Breitbart-News cloud cuckoo land and bring into question the motivation, not to mention the patriotism, of those who find themselves at odds with the current tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

President Obama and Michele Obama as occupants of a “Sedition House?” Really? Wiretapping? Harassment? Intimidation? Moles? Lies? Paid “protesters”?

An accusation that those in opposition are guilty of sedition, that is, “incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority?”

These are very serious charges. Outside of selected alt right sources, where is the evidence, or to be really quaint in this era of alternate facts, what are the facts supporting the allegations made?

To disagree with those who hold different views is acceptable. To viciously denigrate others for being in disagreement is not helpful. It is not civilized political discourse. It is divisive. It is counterproductive. It is incendiary. It is infantile.  It should be avoided.

If there is a need to use such tactics to present a position, there must be significant weakness in the position itself.

While I defend the right of a columnist to say whatever it is they have to say, however warm my blood becomes, I reserve the right to label some of the particulars “indefensible.”

Because they are.

Could we please have “The Investigation” sooner, rather than later, so we can get on with our lives?

This is being written on the 45^th day of the term of the 45^th president of these United States, and things are, as seems to be the new normal, all a’ twitter.

Over the last weekend, the communicator-in-chief took cell phone in hand and accused his predecessor of having ordered that #45’s crystal tower in New York City be “tapped,” as in wiretapped.

Not one scintilla of evidence was offered in support of the allegation, nor was the source of #45’s information identified. His beleaguered surrogates were left with the task of trying to walk back their boss’ accusation. Their gallant efforts were less than convincing, along the lines of “the president may have sources of information beyond those available to ordinary citizens, and if such sources exist, and if there is convincing evidence in support of the charge based on those sources, then it really could possibly be the most damaging story to hit the Beltway since Watergate.”

This is kind of like saying “if pigs could fly, there could possibly, maybe, be a whole bunch of pigs flying around, and if that happened, it could really be a bigly story.”

Well, as far as we know, pigs are still incapable of obtaining a pilot’s license, and those “sources available solely to the president” remain ominously anonymous.

If such classified information exists, then #45 breached security protocols by disclosing classified information. In common parlance, this is called a “leak.” If such information does not exist, then someone made it up, and #45 has swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker.

Either way, with these tweets, the current tenant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has accused the prior tenant of committing a felony, since United States presidents do not legally have the power to order wiretaps of private citizens on their own authority.

Actually, the charge, should it remain unproven, fits within the definition of “slander per se,” which refers to “certain language that is actionable as slander in and of itself without proof of special damages, such as the case in which a person is falsely accused of committing a crime.”

Most folks, when they find themselves in manure, assuming they recognize that’s where they are, would plead they had consumed some bad borscht the night before, and quietly walk away from their faux pas, hoping no one had noticed.

Walking away is not the way #45 rolls. Instead, he has doubled down and demanded an investigation to follow up on his (so far unsubstantiated) charges.

Meanwhile, the opposition has been looking into Russian involvement in the last presidential election. The 16 or 17 federal agencies charged with protecting our national security are on record that such involvement occurred, and that the intent was to damage one presidential candidate while aiding the other.

Such interference is scandal enough, but what would really blow the lid off the pot is if proof of contact, collusion, or coordination between the favored candidate’s campaign operatives or surrogates and their Russian comrades were proven.

The opposition has been busily trying to connect the dots, and while there are some interesting lines being drawn, nothing definitive has come to light.

So they too are demanding an investigation.

Here are two sides that agree on nothing other than a demand for a full-blown investigation into their respective charges.

Why not give it to them?

Have Congress appoint special counsel and/or an independent bi-partisan committee outside of Congress, confer subpoena powers, and let the chips fall where they may.

In short, bring it on!

Such an approach worked after Watergate. It worked after 9/11.

Why not now?

There will be winners and losers, but if the decks were cleared to allow our government to govern as was intended under our Constitution, the biggest winner would be the American people.

And in the meantime, would some patriot surreptitiously disable you-know-who’s twitter machine?

Please?

I was filling up my beloved beast of a van the other day (13 mpg, downhill, with a strong tail wind!) when an old acquaintance pulled up at the next pump.

“How’s it going?” he asks. “I read your stuff in the newspaper.” “Well that’s nice,” I think to myself, “why, the readership could be rocketing into the dozens!” (Hey, even progressives have egos.)

Then he chuckled, “Do you have any Republican friends left?”

I hadn’t thought about that in a while, and it occurred to me that maybe I should.

I’ve long had friends of the other political persuasion. A couple of nights before, at (yet another) retirement gathering, I spent significant time fencing with a Republican state legislator I’ve known for the better part of 30 years. There wasn’t much we agreed upon, but I count him as a friend. I believe the feeling is reciprocated.

I’ve mentioned one of my best friends in my columns before – my hulking Republican retired farmer. When I am feeling too full of myself, he has the uncanny ability to deflate my balloon with a few well-chosen words, or even just a glance that telegraphs “what kind of loco weed have you been smoking?”

For over 40 years, many of my most invigorating political conversations have been with a local GOP activist who is ex-military and conservative, and damned proud of it. Years ago, the candidate he was supporting died unexpectedly. I was on the telephone immediately to offer condolences, not just to be polite, but because I knew how much that candidate meant to him. I sympathized with his loss – even if, had his candidate survived, I would have worked to see him defeated in the general election.

Friendships such as these have always been important; they provide channels of communication that cross party lines and transcend ideological differences. They are even more important today, because there are forces at work that would consign such relationships to the scrapheap of history.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not some kind of political St. Francis of Assisi, all humble and forgiving, with bunny rabbits at my feet and songbirds twittering around my head. I take my politics seriously, and when something sticks in my throat, it doesn’t go down quietly without comment.

At the same time, I try to resist the temptation to assume that everyone on the other side is headed for the ninth circle of Hell.

I try to keep in mind that the only way this republic is going to survive is the same way it was born – with people of significantly differing political views, strongly held, keeping channels of communication open, and utilizing those channels to reach some kind of accommodation with folks, equally committed, on the other side of the political divide.

I said “I try.” Not that I have always succeeded in the past, nor will I in the future.

While there is little about the current administration that I find attractive, or even consistent with American values, I try to keep in mind that almost 63 million of my fellow Americans voted in favor of it and, I assume, believe it is doing a hugely good job. Certainly, their opinion counts for something.

In return, it would be nice if the administration’s partisans recognized that, according to Ballotpedia, over 73 million of their fellow citizens voted for someone else, including third-party candidates and “others.” So toning down the “landslide” rhetoric would not be out of order.

And it should probably be sobering to all those who voted to note that over 92 million registered voters didn’t vote at all – by far the single largest segment of the overall eligible voting public.

So, to my friend at the gas pump, yes, I believe I still have Republican friends and I value them greatly – now more than ever – even though some of my more snarky comments probably drive them bonkers.

We need each other to keep communications open, even if such communication is hotly political in nature.

The greatest danger facing our republic, I believe, is from those who would isolate us one from the other, in separate echo chambers, to strengthen their own political position. Such a strategy only makes those in charge of the echo chamber stronger, and the occupants of the chamber less empowered to play a constructive role in moving this country, this grand experiment, closer to reaching its full potential.

To the degree that such movement is obstructed, the chances of achieving our national potential is delayed.

If not lost forever.

It can be surreal.

A president fires a national security advisor and blames the “fake news” media for the firing. Excuse me? The president is the one who did the firing, not the media. Mr. President, are you really saying that if the media hadn’t reported the fact (real fact, not an alternate fact) that the gentleman in question had misled your loyal vice president, and possibly you as well, you could have swept the whole thing under the rug and kept the guy on despite having an “eroding level of trust” in him? Really? Try taking responsibility for an unpleasant, but nevertheless necessary, executive action.

You, and your allies in the Congress, have nothing good to say about the previous administration, whose actions allegedly lie at the root of most of our current problems. Yet when you have to defend your decisions, for example, deporting undocumented individuals, or putting together a list of countries suitable for a travel ban, the need is felt to justify the action on some precedent supposedly set by said prior administration. Mr. President, take ownership of your own initiatives, and let history ascribe ownership to what has gone before.

The president and his Republican fellow travelers in Congress, whine about Democrat obstructionism. This is very difficult for Democrats to swallow, given the fact Republicans tried, and were largely successful, in obstructing virtually everything the prior president presented during his eight-year tenure – including a middle-of-the-road Supreme Court nominee to whom Republicans would not even give a hearing, much less an up or down vote. Now these hypocrites are demanding that the Democrats do exactly what they refused to do? The appropriate Yiddish term is, I believe, “chutzpah.”

And besides, Mr. President, if you had your new Secretary of Education tally up Republican and Democrat membership in the House and Senate, you would find that Republicans control both chambers. While the Democrats can huff and puff and delay, in the end, congressional Republicans can push through pretty much whatever they want.

To be on the safe side, have someone double-check the secretary’s math.

Of course, the problem with listing grievances is that both sides have them, and compiling lists of grievances contributes nothing to getting the people’s business done.

It is time for someone in the room to act like an adult. With respect, it remains to be seen if the president can play that role, and a Republican caucus fixated on fighting the ideological wars looks even less promising.

This leaves it to the battered remnants of the Democrat caucus.

It’s not as implausible as it sounds. While their Republican colleagues obsess about putting together the plan they said they had completed several months ago to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Democrats might introduce legislation on other issues that could attract bipartisan support.

It may be a long shot, but here are a couple of modest suggestions.

Under current tax regulations, a company that decides to move offshore can deduct from its tax liability the costs associated with making that move. In effect, not only does the country lose the jobs, America’s taxpayers end up subsidizing the costs incurred in the move.

Think we might find some common ground in repealing this insanity?

Recently, a dam in California threatened to fail, resulting in the forced evacuation of over 200,000 downstream residents.

We have known for years that America’s infrastructure is overdue for major reinvestment. The president has said he is in favor of a sweeping infrastructure bill. Democrats would find the middle class jobs created an attractive inducement. The problem has always been how to pay for it.

Rather than wait for all of the factions in the Republican majority to come to agreement on the funding at some time in the indeterminate future, why not take the initiative and introduce a bill with a funding mechanism? Let the bean counters and the ideology wonks argue over the funding details – but let them do it in full view, and under the gun of a president and public demanding that action be taken.

Congress has been in gridlock so long its esteemed members have forgotten how to legislate. The Democratic caucus would do their country a service by taking the lead on legislation that can draw in some GOP support.

If the legislation attracts such support, they just might break the current logjam. Hooray! If it fails to attract bipartisan support just because the legislation didn’t come out of the Republican caucus, the possibility exists there are those in the majority who put party over country.

And if the country really wants to drain the swamp, those folks might be a good place to start in the 2018 mid-term elections.

Tick tock.

So there we were, the missus and I, at a local eatery, chowing down on a late breakfast. At the next table there were some gentlemen talking about current events. I was not eavesdropping, but neither am I deaf, so I overheard one gentleman asking a question that seems to be on a lot of minds: “Where do these federal judges get the power to question the actions of the president of the United States?” The implication was that some new variety of skullduggery was being perpetrated on the republic by the folks in the Harry Potter gowns.

Well, as you might notice in the editor’s note following this column, in my other life I am an adjunct professor at the local Ivy Tech facility. As fate would have it, what I (try to) teach is government.

So when I heard the question, I was like a fifth grader jumping up and down in my seat, pumping my hand into the air, and chirping “I know! I know!!” in an attempt to attract the teacher’s attention.

I saw it as a teachable moment. One look at the missus was enough to send a message that she saw it as more likely to become a confrontational moment. I am not very bright, but neither am I stupid. To ensure continued domestic tranquility, I curbed my exuberance, and concentrated on my hash browns.

Nevertheless, the question is one deserving of an answer. So, sir, if you’re out there, here’s the answer. A bit dry, perhaps, but an answer.

The legal principle that federal judges have the ability to review the actions of the other federal branches of government, including the executive branch, is known as “judicial review.” It traces its origins to the 1803 decision in a case called Marbury vs. Madison.

Reduced to the bare bones, in Marbury, an act of the United States Congress gave the Supreme Court to power to issue, without restriction, something called a “Writ of Mandamus,” which is essentially an order from a court to a public official requiring them to do their duty. In this instance, the order was to require the Secretary of State (Madison) to deliver a valid judicial warrant to the complaining party (Marbury).

Clearly, the act of Congress authorized the Supreme Court to issue the writ.

However, Chief Justice John Marshall, writing for a unanimous court, pointed out that the Constitution also addresses the power of the Supreme Court to issue writs of mandamus, and restricted that power specifically to cases involving ambassadors, foreign ministers, or cases in which a state is a party. Marbury’s case did not fall into any of those limited categories. The statute granted more power to the Supreme Court than was granted to the court by the Constitution itself.

The ultimate question got down to this: If there is a conflict between an act of one of the branches of the federal government, and the Constitution, which prevails? Which is the supreme law of the land? The Constitution, or the act of a branch of the national government? Since the government derives its powers from the Constitution, the answer was obvious to Marshall: The Constitution prevails.

If the Congress, or an act of the executive, violates the Constitution, or grants powers in excess of those granted in the Constitution, can that action be enforced through the courts? Marshall’s answer was no.

Since the Constitution assigns to the judicial branch the power to determine what the law is, it is the courts that have the ultimate power to determine what is constitutional, and what is not.

The principle of judicial review was not immediately recognized, or accepted. America’s first “populist” president, Andrew Jackson, signed an order to remove the Cherokee nation from their land and move them, by force if necessary, to reservations further west. The Indians challenged Jackson’s order in court and won. The president’s order was unconstitutional. Jackson famously, or infamously, reportedly remarked: “John Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

Jackson ignored the judge’s decision and deported the Cherokee anyway. That deportation became known as the “Trail of Tears.”

(Perhaps it’s not coincidental that a portrait recently added to a wall in the Oval Office is that of Andrew Jackson.)

Despite such exceptions, over time, the principle of judicial review became so accepted in American jurisprudence that when the court ordered Richard Nixon to release the Watergate Tapes, he felt he had no option other than to do so – even if it meant the end of his presidency, which ultimately it did.

Who knows where this is all going to go from here, but if you’re out there, sir, this is essentially how we got to here.

It should be remembered that we have only seen the opening moves in this potential confrontation between the federal bench and the White House. The case is far from being heard on the merits – if it ever is.

I can’t resist adding my two cents. If this case ever goes to trial, and the travel ban is found to be only that, a ban on travel from specified countries, I suspect the administration will prevail on the basis of the power granted in the federal legislation.

On the other hand, if the travel ban is found to be a poorly disguised Muslim ban, as motor-mouthed Rudy Giuliani gleefully took credit for a couple of weeks ago, then I suspect there may be a conflict with the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, which bans discrimination on the basis of religious belief and association.

Which brings us back to the original question. If a presidential action violates the Constitution, even if authorized by an act of Congress, which prevails? The Constitution, or the unconstitutional executive action taken pursuant to the act of Congress? The answer – the Constitution – has been there since 1803.

Unless, of course, the executive chooses to pull a Jackson and ignores the court.

Watch this space.

All of the current angst over immigration and immigrants in general has hit close to home.

Because I happen to be an immigrant.

Dad served in the British merchant marine during World War II. He was primarily stationed on troopships, and not infrequently his ship would ferry American GI’s from the States to the war zones.

He told me how impressed he was with those GI’s. They were cocky and self-assured.  They were brash. They were optimistic. They were independent-minded. They were going to kick Herr Hitler’s butt, and, most importantly, they were going to make it home.

Not all of them would. They knew that, but they didn’t dwell on it.

It could take weeks, and sometimes even months, for his ship to be assigned to a convoy, and during those layovers, he got to see America for himself. He liked what he saw. Ultimately, nothing would do except taking a chance on America if America was willing to take a chance on him.

In the winter of 1950, with a steamer trunk, a couple of hundred hoarded dollars, a wife and 2-year-old kid in tow, he made it to New York.

The family ended up here in Kokomo. Now in his mid-thirties, he went into factory work for the first time in his life. He lost one job thanks to Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy. The factory had defense contracts, and he was let go because he was not a citizen.

He found work in another local factory, and would stay there for the rest of his working life.

He became a citizen – as soon as he could, was assimilated into American culture, and was just like any other Hoosier – until he opened his mouth. He never lost his broad Scottish brogue, and what he was saying was an ongoing mystery to most folks until the day he died.

He worked hard. Paid his taxes. Sent a son through college, and then law school. He was a contributing member of society, and society was better for this immigrant being here.

For a country made up of immigrants, America has a checkered history with immigrants. It has always had a strong nativist streak starting with the Know Nothings of the mid-19^th Century down to the present day.

In their turn, it was the Catholics, or the Italians, or the Jews, or the Irish, or the Germans, or the Japanese, or the Chinese who were seen as a clear and present threat to the United States and the good people who live here.

And each of these threats, in their turn, were used to gin up bogeymen who had to be protected against. Protected against by whom? Typically, politicians with agendas that had little to do with immigration, and much to do with exploiting the public fear they themselves had engendered in the first place for political gain.

Today it’s the Hispanics and the Moslems.

We are told the Hispanics are murderers and rapists. There might be few good ones, but you can’t be sure. Every Moslem is a potential radical Islamic jihadist who, even if only a 5-year-old child, might kill us in our beds.

Look, it’s a dangerous world out there. There are those who would do us harm. We should have secure borders. We should be able to assure ourselves that those coming to these shores do not pose a threat.

But let’s call a spade a spade.

What is motivating this frenzy is not a desire to protect Americans, but rather a cynical political calculation that a population fearful of its own shadow is more amenable to being led anywhere with few questions asked by someone who promises they will make the fear go away.

It is a strategy that has been used elsewhere throughout history. It rarely, if ever, ends well.

As for my Dad, I’m glad he’s not around to see the progeny of those cocky and confident GI’s running around like chickens minus their heads, or being afraid of things that go bump in the night.

It would sadden him greatly.

A few years ago I was standing in a parking lot in the town of Falkirk in Scotland. Along the edge of the parking lot was a low nondescript earthen embankment not unlike what you would see on the edges of a river to control flood waters.

I didn’t think much of it until I saw the historical marker announcing that these were the remains of the Antonine Wall, which marked the extreme northern boundary of the Roman Empire in Britain.

As a Scot, I am pleased to report that my blue-painted ancestors chased their little Latin derrieres back south forthwith, and forsooth.

Back to where?

Well, back south to the better-known Hadrian’s Wall, which lies roughly on the border between modern-day Scotland and England.

Been there too.

While you can follow the path of Hadrian’s Wall for much of its 84-mile length, if you want to see and touch the actual stones laid down by the legionnaires, you need to haunt the medieval churches, castles, and farms in the area. That’s where most of the Wall ended up after being filched, stone by stone, for “adaptive reuse.”

The missus’s employer sent her on a business trip to China. She stood on the Great Wall. She advises that the restored sections of that 5,500-mile Wonder of the World are largely tourist destinations for foreign visitors to what used to be called the Middle Kingdom.

Passing through Fulton, Mo., we stopped by Westminster College. In a speech delivered on its campus in 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described another kind of wall: “From Stettin on the Baltic, to Trieste on the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent …”

A hint of how that worked out is provided on the same campus by an 11-foot-high by 32-foot-long chunk of heavily graffitied concrete. It used to be located near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, as part of an historical obscenity called the Berlin Wall.

Is anyone out there starting to sense a theme here?

Walls are not a permanent answer to anything – no matter who builds them and no matter who pays for them.

During the recent presidential campaign, progressives were chided for taking Donald Trump literally, but not seriously. Trump whisperers insisted Trump should be taken seriously, but not literally. Sure, he kept talking about building a wall and making Mexico pay for it; that’s what he meant seriously but that’s not what he meant literally, they said. The rhetoric, we were assured, was solely a sop for the Trump base. The reality was that he was talking about secure borders, and the wall was only a figurative symbol of that concern.

Only days into his presidency, it appears President Trump should be taken both seriously – and literally – because he’s still talking about the wall and making Mexico pay for it.

Look, if you want to build a 2,000-mile-long edifice that can be seen from space as some kind of public works project to put folks to work, that’s one thing. There are probably projects where the money could be better spent but, hey, creating jobs is a good thing – and the jobs would fulfill a campaign promise.

If, however, you seriously expect a wall to secure our southern boundary, well, based on historical precedent, and I wish there was a more elegant way to say this, that’s just plain stupid. If you don’t mind looking foolish, that’s none of my business. If you make my country look foolish among the nations of the earth – and threaten diplomatic relations with one of our two neighbors, then it becomes my business.

By all means, take your bows when you have reason to do so. As this is written, the Dow Jones average exceeds 20,000. Most, if not all, of your cabinet nominees (and their collectively HUGE IQ) will be confirmed. You had a great first meeting with the leading CEOs of the corporate world who are salivating over the thought of lower corporate taxes and the trashing of reams of regulations.

Who knows how all of that will play out, but not knowing is no reason not to try a different approach. After all, you are the president, and you are entitled to try riding your own trick ponies.

But the outcome of building a physical wall is known. They aren’t worth the time and treasure invested.

For pity’s sake, Mr. President, drop it and move on.

On the trail of Hadrian’s Wall