Jon Stewart Undone by Kathleen Hicks: When Our Heroes Crash and Burn

 

When Mad Dog scrolls through youtube from his basement treadmill, he often stops on anything with Jon Stewart, who Mad Dog has learned is a source of great satisfaction and sanity.

But today, he stumbled upon a disturbing interview Stewart attempted with a lady who is capable of rigorous thinking and drawing important distinctions, and Stewart, realizing he was been demolished in his own element, resorted to reaching for applause lines and pitching his remarks to safe shibboleths of popular indignation, like the mistreatment of the average soldier and veteran. Stewart was trying to do was to establish himself as a crusading journalist, intent on exposing corruption in a self satisfied bureaucracy, which wields enormous power and a staggering budget. 

He was doing this in an interview with an under secretary of Defense, Kathleen Holland Hicks, apparently on the heels of a story about the Department of Defense being unable to pass an audit about the spending of a billion dollars.

This audit, Stewart insisted must reveal "waste, fraud and abuse."

The problem was, he did not really understand what an audit is or how it's used in the same deep way Hicks does, and she was able to unmask his superficial misapprehension by simply turning the tables and asking him the questions, each of which sequentially unhinged him, and left him more and more untethered. 

So Stewart resorts to poster slogan: "I'm may not understand the ins and outs, but I live on Earth, and I can't understand how an organization can get $850 billion dollars, and its people, its soldiers, still have to be on food stamps. To me, that's corruption. I'm sorry."

So, what he was really saying, is the same sort of things Trumpies say: I may not have command of the details or the facts, but I know what I believe!

He gets the applause he was looking for to rescue him, but it did not rescue him.

Hicks kept trying to unpack Stewart's complaints, which he was directing at her department, the Department of Defense:

They came down to these:

1/ Soldiers' families on food stamps:

For all the increased spending on defense, so little of it filters down to the working stiffs, the soldiers, sailors and airmen, their families are on food stamps 

On my treadmill, puffing along, I could plainly see that soldiers on food stamps has nothing to do with failure of an audit, or that our soldiers are impoverished. In fact, Hicks responds with figures supporting the idea military pay has gone up twice in the past few years, no matter what you say about food stamps.

I remember when rich medical students in my own medical school class somehow managed to get food stamps for their meals. Being on food stamps does not mean the military is corrupt. 

Hicks replied, okay, if we are done with waste, fraud and abuse, which plays no part in food insecurity for soldiers, let's talk about what "food insecurity"  really means in the military:  it has to do with whether there is a good meal awaiting the servicemen when they get off the boat and back to their home base.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50MusF365U0

2/ After the war in Afghanistan ended Stewart expected the budget for the Defense Department, the defense budget would decrease, but instead it increased by some billions of dollars:

But, of course, increase in the Defense Department budget does not mean officials in the Defense Department are committing fraud or abuse.

Defense spending increases for reasons not entirely in the control of the Defense Department. Congressmen, wanting to keep dollars flowing to their districts, keep appropriating funds for things Defense does not even want. Jim Jordan keeps sending money to build tanks in his district. Tanks!  The Ukrainians may need tanks, but does the US military really need more tanks? That is likely real waste, but not the fault of Ms. Hicks and her Department. 

3/ The spending by the Department of Defense went to a trillion dollar program for new aircraft and these aircraft do not even work.

Hicks, of course cannot defend a trillion dollar plane (she may not have even wanted) which cannot fly, but this is not an example of fraud, although it may be wasteful and an abuse by some Congressmen who want that airplane built in their districts. But it's not the fault of the Defense Department, which is all she can talk about. She is undersecretary of Defense, not the chairman of the House Committee on defense appropriations.  

"Audits cannot reveal waste, fraud and abuse," Hicks says. "It tells you if what was paid for gets delivered."

"Oh," Stewart says, "That's all just institutional speak."

In their entry on Hicks, Wikipedia says Hicks came off looking "defensive" which is the classic remark when someone responds effectively to a half baked argument by blowing it out of the water. Of course, she is being defensive. Yes, she is defensive like those missiles which blow incoming rockets out of the air. And she is doing her job, which is to defend the Defense Department.

It is a sad thing to watch Stewart disintegrate, as the great muckraker looks, rather plainly, like someone intent on posing as the high priest of investigative journalism, as he starts meandering into accusations that trillion dollar airplanes don't work and that the defense budget actually got increased after the end of the war in Afghanistan, as if there is only one reason why the defense budget could increase ("waste/fraud/abuse) rather than the politics of Congressmen who want dollars flowing to their districts, or increased costs of high tech missiles, or a myriad of other possible reasons--while his foil undoes him by asking him questions, which unmask his own ignorance of the system she knows so much better than he does.

To Be "Hur'ed" As in Slurred: The Arrogance of Small Minds

 

So, he went to Harvard School, a private secondary school in LA, not to be confused with Harvard College, where he eventually matriculated and then Harvard Law with the requisite stint at Cambridge, England,  just to buff his resume further. 

And he's the son of immigrants.

And what did all of that mean to the man in question? 

Let me hazard a guess:

"I am so superior, and of such intellectual power, I can judge, not only questions of law, but also things like the stages of dementia, or perhaps the microvascular degeneration of cerebral vasculature, and whether or not there might be some amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in an elderly man of diminishing capacities. Why not? Am I not brilliant? Am I not a genius?" 

When Mad Dog first heard Joe Biden speak in a small space in New Hampshire, he was struck by Biden's meandering, his failure to answer the question--if he even remembered the question--and how he would start to speak about an issue of tariffs, but wound up speaking about a new war on cancer. 

But, despite all of that, the man, as President, has shown, if anything, maybe some level of dementia is no impediment, perhaps even an asset, to being an effective President--he saved us from the next  Great Depression, got the Ukrainians the help they needed (at least until the Republicans seized control of the House.) Biden e actually got an infrastructure law passed, and he spent money when he had to, when it did the most good to keep people out of poverty (without adding more to the deficit than Trump's tax giveaways to the rich did.) Biden guided us through COVID by actually respecting Dr. Fauci and the scientists, and generally made every call correctly. In general, his instincts have been right and the economy is now so good that Trump is trying to take credit for it, claiming the only reason things are going so well is everyone is anticipating he'll be re-elected. (You've got to marvel at Trump's chutzpah, which is defined by the man who murders both his parents, then pleads for leniency because he is now an orphan.)

Now we have the special counsel, Mr. Hur, a 50 something with all-the-Harvard-one-can-get, but who isn't smart enough to know that what you might think the President is, or how he might come across to a jury, is not relevant to a report on whether or not he's a felon. 

Ye gads! Don't they teach these young hot shots anything at Harvard? 

Mad Dog is not even a lawyer, but he can read and think (on good days) and that swipe at the President seemed to come out of nowhere.

This has got to be the Oxford Book of English Idiomatic Expressions entry for, "What was he thinking?" 

Or, maybe not from nowhere. Maybe it's one of those: If Trump wins, he might remember me for that open seat on the Supreme Court. After all he appointed me U.S. Attorney for Maryland once; so we are already tight.

After seven years at Harvard, was Mr. Hur not capable of imagining that his descriptions of Mr. Biden as a, "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," who is a man of "diminished faculties in advancing age," would not find their way into the national news coverage?

Or maybe, that was the point. Where's my MAGA hat?

But you would think this Harvard guy would be smart enough not to stick this slur into an official state document. He could have held that back for the FOX microphone at the inevitable press conference after the report was released. 

If that SCOTUS seat is unavailable, at the very least, there's got to be a spot a for Mr. Hur at FOXNEWS.  

Rising to the Moment: Missing the Perfect Riposte

 

Haven't we all had an argument and later thought, "Oh, why didn't I say that? That's what I really should have said!"

Following the Deliberative Session about the Hampton warrant article granting public funds to a religious school, Mad Dog upbraided himself for what he failed to say.

In his defense, he had been so conditioned by the "three minute rule" that he was trying to limit the time he spoke, only to be told by the session moderator (after the session)  that no such limit applies during Deliberative Sessions. 

Here is the youtube of the Deliberative Session. The real business begins at 8 minutes in and continues for an hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CClNXNeYBIw&t=23s

But that's what blogs are for--even blogs which are nearly invisible and read by only three people on a regular basis. (Actually, the blog gets a thousand hits weekly, but most of those are from Asia and Europe.)

So here's how Mad Dog would have ended his oration, had he been quick of mind and prepared for his opportunity at the Deliberative Session.

"And finally, tonight, I would like to point out that neither the principal nor the chairperson have used those five words, 'Separation of Church and State' in a sentence, even tonight when they've been directly challenged to do so. We can draw our own conclusions about why that is.

In fact, the only person, aside from me, to use those words was the lawyer, and she did so to say that this warrant article does not violate Church/State because of a court advisory from 1969, which she claims locks into settled law the practice of granting public funds to religious schools, when, in fact, when you look at it, that 1969 advisory said just the opposite. 

So the settled law she claims is no such thing.  

And she cited "Everson," a case she also claimed makes this article permissible, which, again, is wrong. Everson said if you are going to provide a service to all the kids in town, like busing them to school, you cannot say, "well you get a bus to school, unless you go to the Catholic school." A service to all kids must be to all kids, and you cannot deny that service because a kid goes to a religious school.

But, of course, this is not what is happening in Hampton, where we are not talking about providing a simple service to all kids in town, but we are providing a special slush fund, to a special group of kids at one religious school.

There is one aspect of Everson which might apply to Hampton: The town wants to provide for a school nurse for every Hampton child and it funds that nurse using the slush fund of the warrant article. But last year, when a group tried to amend the article to say that nurse's position was the only thing to be funded, that was defeated.

 The attorney did not mention that in the decision was the famous dissent by Justice Robert Jackson, (who represented America at the Nuremberg Trials) who noted you cannot separate a church school from the church, because without the school, the church goes extinct and so they are inseparable, inextricably linked. Jackson noted the Church would give up everything, anything, before it would ever give up its school, because without the school, the church disappears within a generation. Nobody has ever denied that.

And that is why opponents of the article have no problem with state funds for Catholic charities like soup kitchens, because those activities are not inherently religious, whereas a church school has an inherently religious feature, no matter how many non sectarian roles it may fill. 

The attorney did not mention the case in Maine, where the US Supreme Court said if there were no public school in a remote area of a state, the state could fund a religious school--an execrable decision which will surely be reversed once the composition of today's SCOTUS changes.  

But even that case is not as extreme as what we do every year in Hampton. There is no town in America which simply establishes its own town church, in defiance of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. 

Not even in Utah, the one state in the union dominated by a single church: even in Utah, the kids file out of the public schools at lunch, and go next do to the church school, where they do church things before going back to the public school for their secular education.

How do you establish a church for a state? Either you state as much: "The Anglican Church is the church of England," or you simply fund a church. That is route Hampton has taken.

No other town in America, at least of which I am aware, simply sets up a slush fund for a church and writes checks to cover its expenses. 

Hampton is unique.

And yet, those people who have made a living defending the First Amendment and Separation of church and state have refused to join this fight for  church/state separation: The American Civil Liberties Union and the Americans for Separation of Church and State have cowered and wailed: "It's all a losing cause." They have shown themselves to be empty suits. As Martin Luther King once said, "In the end, it is not the voices and arguments of those who oppose you you will remember, but the silence of your friends."

Dudley Dudley Kept Fighting

Mad Dog began by saying he would convince nobody at the meeting, and he was right. Those who came to vote for the article would do so against all argument; had the skies parted and twelve angels with horns arrived, the parishioners would still have done what they came to do, vote for the article.

As Upton Sinclair observed so long ago: 'It is difficult to bring a man to understanding when his income depends on his not understanding.'"

One thing Mad Dog did not say, one thing he edited out, and he is glad he did: When Mad Dog was in college  Martin Luther King delivered a speech on campus, which he likely had given in front of a hundred audiences, and his theme was that it is possible to gain the world and yet lose your soul. He elaborated on all the wealth America had gained, but how despite all these wonderful accomplishments, it might yet lose its soul because it turned a blind eye to injustices within its own lands and injustices it wrought abroad. And Mad Dog thought: This article is about $52,000 and this parish is in the same danger Martin Luther King warned about. 

PS:

Watching the youtube, Mad Dog notes the blonde woman, sitting in the audience, behind  the speakers, who came to support the opposition to the warrant article, and he is reminded even if they are few in number, there are still people who stand up against the prevailing crowd and are counted. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WewRMOImNH4&t=1839s

The Authoritarian Cudgel In the Live Free or Die State

 

February 5th, 2024 is the day where small town democracy is scheduled to be on display in Hampton, New Hampshire. 

The town, now grown to a population of 20,000 no longer holds the old "town hall meetings"--the numbers simply would not permit it--and these have been replaced by two "Deliberative Sessions," held in public school buildings in town, where "warrant articles" are presented and discussed. 

These warrant articles range from whether or not Mrs. Jones can plant her petunias on that strip of grass which belongs not to Mrs. Jones but to the town, on the far side of the sidewalk crossing her front yard, to questions of whether or not to spend money on repaving High Street or whether or not to use taxpayer funds to pay for computers, office supplies or, possibly, crucifixes at the town's Catholic church school, Sacred Heart (SHS).

These warrant article ballots run to 20 pages and each runs from a single paragraph to several paragraphs and most, if not all, are followed by two boxes below the article and directly above the boxes where you check off "Yes" or "No." In the box is a statement: "Recommended (or not recommended) by the School Board" and in the box below that, "Recommended (or not)" by the Budget Committee." 

Last year's Ballot looked like this:

4. Shall the School District vote to raise and appropriate funds in the amount of $57,503 to provide child benefit services, in accordance with RSA 189:49, for students who are residents of the Hampton School District and attend Sacred Heart School located in Hampton, New Hampshire? 

BY PETITION. (Majority vote required.) 

Recommended by the School Board 4-1-0. 

Recommended by the Municipal Budget Committee 8-0-1. 

YES                   NO

Voting on these articles is preceded by meetings of the relevant committees--in the case of the SHS by a meeting of the School Board and another of the Budget Committee.

One might ask what Americans would say if they saw a ballot for the election of President Putin with a "Recommended by the Politbureau and Recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff," just over the voting space. Well, comrades, you know so little, just follow the recommendations of those officials who have really studied the choices and who are wiser and more intelligent than you.

It's All About 

We are told, these "Recommendations" must be provided and printed on the ballots because of "state law" and the reasons the state requires these may have to do with the sheer volume of warrant articles and the practical reality that most voters may have little idea about the impact of these proposals on their taxes or other factors. So the voters are told, virtually, "You don't know about this, but trust just us, just vote 'yes.'"

The Kids

This, of course, raises the whole issue of whether as a society we should be encouraging people who have not followed relevant issues to show up and vote for stuff they really know nothing about, as a sort of sham participation in a sham democracy.

When you are told you can vote on something, but here is the recommended way to vote, does anyone not think you are being manipulated?

It's All About the Kids

But the other feature of the nuts and bolts of "democracy" in Hampton is what happens at the meetings of the committees which make these recommendations.

The rules there are no citizen, "member of the public" (proletarian) may speak for more than 3 minutes, even if there are only 3 or 4 speakers, and no citizen may question any elected official on the stage or attempt a "back and forth" (i.e. a question and answer or a dialogue) with said officials, who are seated on the state above the audience. "Any back and forth should happen at the Deliberative Sessions," we are told. Of course, by the time the Deliberative Sessions occur, it's all over but the shouting as the committees have already voted their recommendations.

It's All About the Kids

Even during the School Board meeting this year, speakers with whom the chairperson of the school board disagreed were not allowed to speak freely: she cut off any detractor with a booming, "Okay, wind it up, now!"  

This happened just after one speaker had pointed out a fact  embarrassing to the chairperson, namely that the chairperson had voted in favor of granting $52,000 to the SHS on the grounds that this money supported town children, Hampton residents, who chose to attend the Catholic school) but only 25% of the children in the school receiving these public funds reside in Hampton--the vast majority coming from surrounding towns. And what made it particularly embarrassing to the chairperson was she had never mentioned that demographic fact. It was "all about the kids." 

Note also, NB: the way the warrant article is worded it sounds as if the town funds are only given to the children at the school who come from Hampton, but, of course, if the computer is set up in the classroom to show the Christmas mass from St. Patrick's cathedral, all the kids in the school (75% of whom do not live in Hampton) are benefited from the town's largesse, the town's purchase for the entire school that computer. So there's a lot of winking and nodding going on here.

It's All About the Kids

Others who spoke against the article were similarly cut off and shouted down from the stage by the chairperson. 

We have all heard about the "bully pulpit" but this was the bully from the pulpit.

On February 5, there will be a "moderator" putatively in charge to be sure speakers remain civil and do not talk too long--presumably the 3 minute rule will be in place again. The School Board Chairperson will, once again, be on the stage, her glowering presence and her microphone looming large.

Always done it that way...

Oddly, at the school board meeting, because speakers were cut short at 3 minutes, the full 30 minutes for discussion--which the superintendent of the SAU schools noted is required by state law--had never been met. There was 15 minutes left for "discussion." Somebody had to talk. 

So the speaker who the chairperson of the school board had cut off was asked if he had anything more to add. He stood at the microphone and asked: "I don't understand. First, I am cut off during my remarks, presumably for speaking too long. Now, I am asked to speak longer. How much time am I going to be allowed now?"

Three minutes, he was told.

"Will that fulfill the 30 minute requirement?"

"If there are other speakers, maybe."

But then a member of the School Board asked the speaker a question and so his question, which took some time to ask, put the session well toward the goal of the sacred 30 minutes. 

"Why, after all these years, during which we have always voted Sacred Heart this money, are you only now objecting? When did you move here anyway? And what's the problem. We have always done it this way and nobody's ever objected before."

The speaker replied, "Well, as I said before, there is a principle which has apparently been ignored or thought to be unimportant: Separation of church and state, but perhaps that sounded too abstract to you. Maybe you could not really believe I would rise on principle when there is $50,000 at stake. 

But, to your next point, I grew up in the South, and when I caught my bus to school, waiting across the street from me was a Black boy, about my age, maybe 7 or 8, and he waited for another bus to come to take him to the Black school, while I went off to the White school. I asked why he went to a different school and I was told, 'We've always done it that way. Nobody's ever objected.' And so, I think, sometimes we have to think anew. 

Did I take more than three minutes?"

Is Separation of Church and State Unconstitutional in New Hampshire?

 

At every Deliberative Session, School Board meeting and Budget Committee meeting where the warrant article granting public funds to the Sacred Heart School is discussed an attorney rises to say this is all settled law now, and there is no question about the constitutionality of this warrant article because the New Hampshire State Supreme Court has spoken about this. 

This question arises because the New Hampshire state constitution is so explicit about the separation of church and state: 

"No money raised by taxation shall ever be granted or applied for the use of the schools of institutions of any religious sect or denomination." 

This woman, who always identifies herself as "Attorney" says that in 1969 the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled on this issue. 

Now, Mad Dog is not an attorney; he is just a humble citizen with a Google account, but he has searched the internet looking for a decision in a case about public funds to religious schools in New Hampshire, and found none. 

What he did find was a state Supreme Court "advisory" which was apparently requested by the legislature to see if bills they were considering would be inevitably found unconstitutional by the Court.  So there is no case law, which depends of the details of a particular case, only a general statement of principles, which the Court clearly stated it was loathe to make, but it went ahead and made the statements anyway.

When you read through the justices' statements they first make it clear that if the Supreme Court of the United States rules it is unconstitutional, then it is unconstitutional in the State of New Hampshire (14th amendment.)

Then it goes through each of the bills proposed, each with its own circumstances:

1. Can distributions of money from sweepstakes be given to religious schools?: No. The justices said there was no way to know if this money would be used for religious purposes in those schools.

2. Can public schools be made to give or sell textbooks to the religious schools, textbooks (presumably of math or biology)? And the justices said, yes, as forbidding this might deprive the town's students at religious schools from education in those areas

Then they get to the nub: "It is our opinion that since secular [religious] schools serves a public purpose, it may be supported by tax money, if sufficient safeguards are provided to prevent more than incidental and indirect benefit to a religious sect or denomination. We are also of the opinion as expressed in the Opinion of the Justices 99N.H. 519, that members of the public are not prohibited from receiving public benefits because of their religious beliefs or because they happen to be attending a parochial school."

It is not entirely clear what "public purpose" the justices think religious schools served, although they do mention these schools served two purposes: general education (math, science) and religious education, and maybe they mean that one purpose served is enough for a public purpose. But what they do make clear is "adequate safeguards" must be in place to protect separation of church and state, i.e. to prevent public funds from pay for religious purposes.

So in the case of the Hampton warrant article, it is a matter of public record no such safeguards exist. Although the Treasure of SAU 90, who writes the checks paying for the Sacred Heart School's computers, talks about all the "audits" involved in those payments, she has been repeatedly and clearly and directly asked if those computers are used to stream religious services from St. Patrick's Cathedral and she has said, "I have no idea." On the public record. So there are  no safeguards in Hampton.

Of course, there are two arguments against Separation of Church and State:  

Gorsuch

1/ "Separation of Church and State"-- those 5 words strung together--appear nowhere in the US Constitution. This has prompted Justice Gorsuch to refer to "the so called Separation of Church and State." During arguments in Shruteleff v Boston, Justice Gorsuch remarked:

"As I understand it, Mr. Rooney said that he thought it was concern about the so-called separation of state, church and state, or the Constitution's Establishment Clause."

2/ Separation of Church and state discriminates against religion and religious institutions.

To take the first point first:

1/ Nowhere in the Constitution: 

Yes, this is quite true, you will not find those 5 words strung together anywhere in the Constitution, and for a very good reason. When the founding fathers wrote the Constitution in the 18th century, they did not want to write a document for lawyers with their "windy phrases;" they wanted to write a layman's document which any citizen could read and understand. So instead of that phrases they simply laid down a working definition of Separation of Church and State: Congress [government] shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.

Now, you may say that leaves the matter open to interpretation: What constitutes establishment of religion? Well, in 1789 it was much the same as 2024: You can establish religion only in two ways--A/ You can state "The Anglican Church is the official state church of England"  or B/ You can simply pay the priests, pay for the upkeep of the church buildings and schools etc. 

You might, conceivably, argue if the government cannot make a law regarding the establishment of religion then it might be forbidden from making a law forbidding the establishment of religion, but you'd have to be a lawyer to believe that, not a citizen.

It is curious that both Lauren Boebert, the Congresswoman who has said Separation of Church and State is nowhere in the Constitution, and so is not really a and  Justice Gorsuch are both from Colorado. Could it be all that thin air is insufficient for cerebral function? Is this the true meaning of "Rocky Mountain High?"

2/ Separation discriminates against religion:

Alito

So, here we have the "establishment clause"--no law establishing religion--coming into conflict with the "free expression" clause, "nor the free exercise thereof."

Here, we have Justice Alito finding that if the State of Maine refuses to pay an evangelical Christian school for the education of 15 students in a remote Maine town where there is no public school, on the grounds that to pay that church and its school would violate the separation, then we are discriminating against religion because it is religion.

To which Mad Dog has to reply: Absolutely!

Suppose that one school out in remotest Maine had been a Madrassa, a school which taught that, on the basis of their deeply held religious beliefs, young men ought to fly airplanes into tall buildings to get into Heaven and have at all those waiting virgins? Suppose you had a school in the South, where the Christians there believed the races should not mix, that Blacks should not be allowed in the same hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, busses as whites? Would we discriminate against those schools?

You betcha!

We would say: You can harbor all those odious beliefs, and you can meet on your holy Sabbath days and preach those beliefs, but you cannot use taxpayer, public funds to do all that.

That is discrimination Mad Dog can embrace.

So, the Attorney who sites a New Hampshire Supreme Court endorsing public funds for religious schools, the Supreme Court of the United States which harbors a justice who snidely dismisses Separation as "so called" and another justice who uses his own prejudice in favor of churches to destroy Separation, these are all wrong minded, small minded people.

Roger Taney, the Supreme Court Justice who ruled that Dred Scott, the slave, had no right to sue for his freedom in the Supreme Court of the United States because Scott is not a human being, but a slave, with no rights and no standing before the Court--that justice's name became a sort of sick joke, an emblem of how far out a Justice can go when he is not elected, when he is appointed for life and when the only law he respects is the little tune playing in his own mind.

Gorsuch, Alito and Justice Thomas (who is even more of a right wing nut) will be footnotes in the history of the Court--either that, or the Court itself will become a footnote.