Dark Humor is the Best Medicine

Laughter is the best medicine goes the old saw. That’s right, one that’s too dull to cut, but when you try to cut a board with it, it’s likely to slip off and cut you. I’m not sure if the howl I let out when I heard the news that President-elect Trump plans to nominate Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as U.S. Attorney General of the U.S., the top law enforcement officer of the nation, was a howl of laughter or howl of pain. My wife rushed into the kitchen where I was cooking dinner to see if I was okay. I’m not. It was laughter, but this laughter is painful and I don’t know if it’s going to make me better. 

For the next four years, if I laugh at the antics of the clown car that Trump is installing, it will be a mixture of outrage and pain. Behind the shock, the insanity, the fundamental cruelty that underlies the story of the day, the actual results will be anything but funny for the people being maligned, prosecuted, rounded up to be detained or forced out of the country, going hungry, dying or being maimed for lack of necessary healthcare, losing their savings, losing their jobs, or any of the other possible harms we will face under an incompetent, malevolent federal leadership. 

Take everything that follows as an attempt at the blackest humor (according to dictionary.com: a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic).

Congressman Gaetz is such an amazing pick for that job because, of course, he’s been accused of sex-trafficking of a 17 year old girl and illicit drug use, and was subject to a Congressional Ethics Investigation for that and for accepting possibly illegal gifts. The report was set to be released Friday, and may have resulted in his expulsion from Congress, so Trump’s lifeline announcement allowed him to safely resign from his seat before the possible consequences could be enforced. Hilarious! Trump really stuck it to the libs! 

If only Jeffrey Epstein were still alive. He could have been pardoned and installed as special advisor to the President on women and children. Can you imagine the howls from the lame stream media on that? That would have been so awesome!

Speaking of awesome. How about Robert F. Kennedy for health czar? Finally someone who understands that the only thing better than being safe from deadly diseases is to experience those diseases for yourself and conquer them with your natural human vigor and strength instead of so-called lifesaving vaccines and medications. Think Darwin’s survival of the fittest. The problem with our modern world is that we allow too many weak individuals to survive. Disease should be given a fair shot at thinning the herd. In the words of one great thinker of the 20th century, “The state has the responsibility of declaring as unfit for reproductive purposes anyone who is obviously ill or genetically unsound ... and must carry through with this responsibility ruthlessly without respect to understanding or lack of understanding on the part of anyone”—Adolph Hitler, in “Mein Kampf,” 1925. See, he had a plan, kind of like the brilliant, forward thinking document “Project 2025.” 

What are the qualities of a great leader? If you’re thinking integrity, competence, character, honesty, collaboration and such, you are SO OLD SCHOOL (speaking of which, who needs school when you have AI and who needs money when you have Crypto!). 

A truly great leader must come across knowledgeable and suave on television. Central casting. Only the best looking (and the richest) qualify in the Trump administration because they are the ones most able to deliver the TRUTH to the American people. Oh, did I point out the meaning of truth? Yeah, words aren’t what they seem. As George Orwell points out in 1984, “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength….It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” Such beautiful words to live by!

I could go on. And I will, some other day. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll build a bunker stocked for at least four years. Maybe I’d better make it 20, surely he won’t live longer than that.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston 

published in the 11/16/24 weekend edition of the Charleston Gazette-Mail

West Virginia's Economy/Politics Similar to Rural Germany's says Krugman

Generally, when West Virginia gets mentioned in a national news outlet, we grit our teeth and wait to see how negative the portrayal is. Then we shake our heads at how, once again, we’re not understood by the elites.

Many West Virginians probably feel that way about Paul Krugman’s opinion column in the New York Times entitled, “The Political Rage of Left-Behind Regions”, Sept 3, 2024. Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist, so agree or not, his opinions regarding the economy are worth considering.

He begins with recent local elections in Germany, in which a right-wing party, Alliance for Germany (AfD) did better than any right wing party in Germany since WWII, especially in Thuringia, a German state, which Krugman says resembles West Virginia economically. Politics are similar in that most voters support Donald Trump’s MAGA right wing politics. Krugman focuses his analysis on West Virginia, because it “epitomizes both the economic and political problems of left-behind regions.”

The stand out economic statistic Krugman highlights is the percentage of men not working. Lack of employment is also high for women, but jobs, Krugman contends, are for men a source of dignity; lacking a job when they feel they should be working can make them feel shame, which can then turn into “anger, a desire to blame someone else and lash out.”

Krugman, comparing WV to New Jersey, points out that a Trump/Vance talking point that immigrants are taking jobs from white men is not true. In West Virginia, the immigrant population is under 2% while in NJ it is almost 25% and lack of jobs among white men is far higher in WV than in NJ.

How does Krugman describe the causes? Simply put, the majority of good jobs are in high tech industries “that flourish in metropolitan areas with highly educated work forces.” Young people from WV and around the country who are qualified often leave here for those jobs or to work the service and construction jobs available in those places. 

What about those left behind who can’t find work here? The social safety net, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, SNAP (food stamps) and other federal programs bring far more money into the state than is going out in federal taxes. These programs actually create some jobs. In addition to the federal government providing money for people to spend on food and services, “West Virginia may think of itself as a coal-mining state, but by the numbers it has long been more accurately described as a health care state, with much of its employment ultimately driven by those federal dollars.”

Trump and Republican claims that they support working people are belied by their failure to support legislation the Biden-Harris administration and Democrats passed to bring manufacturing and high-speed Internet to underserved communities like those in WV. The tariffs Trump is calling for (Kamala Harris calls them ‘the Trump sales tax’), would raise prices on goods, but most economists don’t believe they will bring manufacturing back to the USA. They didn’t during Trump’s first term. 

The irony is that, “the politicians (that) angry heartland voters support (Trump received twice as many votes in West Virginia in 2020)  oppose the very programs that aid these depressed areas….they channel this anger into support for politicians who will make their plight worse.”

Take it from a Nobel Prize winning economist, or from me, a retired public school teacher. If Donald Trump is elected president, his promises will not result in what Jim Justice falsely promised when he was elected Governor. West Virginia’s economy will not take off like a rocket ship.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston 

Democracy isn't Professional Wrestling

Poor Donald Trump. He had President Biden on the ropes and saw certain victory ahead until Kamala Harris jumped in the ring, and along with her buddy, Coach Walz of Minnesota, they’re in the process of taking him down as the crowd cheers with delight!

Sounds a lot like one of Donald Trump’s favorite fake sports, professional wrestling, in which the outcome is pre-determined and tag team partners can turn the tide in a theatrical last minute save.

But this is not a fake sport, it’s life and death for democracy in America. While Trump and Vance fit the image of the trash talking personification of evil portrayed by some professional wrestlers and Harris and Walz seem to represent the joyful warriors on the side of everything good, the results are not pre-determined and it remains to be seen who will prevail in the public arena after the votes are cast and accurately counted.

And though the referees, aka the Supreme Court, have demonstrated favoritism for the former president by clearing the way for him to avoid further criminal trials before the election for his alleged, but well documented criminal behavior in and since office, they will likely have no role to play in the final outcome if enough Americans cast their votes for the forces of light over darkness.

Novelists, comic book artists, movie makers, playwrights could not manufacture such stereotypical characters or situations as we have in this election ripe for the melodrama of the ages, and no doubt this period in American history will be the subject of fact and fiction for centuries, at least if Trump doesn’t become the dictator his allies who designed “Project 2025” sketch out should he win. 

In that America, as in autocracies around the world, over time the media will cease to be free to report the truth, schools will be banned from accurately teaching history, health care, child care, and labor rights will be trashed, books will be banned, internment camps will be created to round up immigrants for deportation, the Justice Department will become a weapon to be wielded by a vindictive dictator, our foreign policy will become a cash machine for the president and his cronies.


While professional wrestling is an entertaining fantasy, there is nothing entertaining about this contest. The stakes are real and the outcome is life and death, not for the contestants, but for many of us, the audience. We the people have the power to determine the outcome through our dedication to preserving Freedom and the American Way as did Superman during World War II (oh, wait, that was a fantasy). 

Seriously, here in West Virginia, it may be impossible to affect the national election results, but by donating and volunteering we may have an effect on the outcome in the swing states that will determine the final results. And who knows, the current enthusiasm may filter down to our state and local races. If enough of us organize and exercise the singular most powerful force in America, the power of the people to vote, we may be able to turn out deadbeats like Jim Justice and others who work to benefit corporations and the rich over the rest of us. When we vote, we win!

published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail Aug 14, 2024

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

No, Lindsey, Israel Shouldn't Drop "the Bomb"

 

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC), speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press May 12th, forcefully defended Israel’s right to defend itself, even to the point of annihilating virtually the entire of population of Gaza. “When we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by the bombing [of] Hiroshima [and] Nagasaki with nuclear weapons. That was the right decision.” Graham added, “Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war. They can’t afford to lose.” If this is the accepted Republican position, it is not one that will make America great in the eyes of the world now or in the future.

The only thing I can agree with Graham on in that statement is that Israel can’t afford to lose, but they are in no danger of “losing” to Hamas at this point, or even on October 7th, when Hamas was at its strongest and perpetrating atrocities on Jews and anyone else they encountered during their rampage in the south of Israel. 

I was raised in a Jewish family, have a brother with four children and four grandchildren living in Israel, and was in Israel the week before October 7 attending his youngest child’s wedding. I don’t expect anyone to believe I can have an objective viewpoint, so will just say what I think and hope that anyone reading this will hear other viewpoints and make up their own minds about what is true and morally defensible in this fraught situation.

My wife and I have visited the Harry Truman Presidential Library and Museum and while there learned that many scholars who’ve studied the documents and historical records about the decision to use the atomic bomb to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki argue it was not necessary to achieve victory. Germany had already surrendered and Japan knew they had lost the war and were fighting on as a matter of pride or willingness to sacrifice their soldiers. It was certainly not the case, as Graham argues above, of risking the destruction of our nation if we didn’t destroy those two cities, indiscriminately killing at least 200,000 men, women, and children. 

Today, there is absolutely no doubt that such an act would be considered a war crime or crime against humanity, if not genocide. We should not be encouraging Israel to follow our example in their war against Hamas.

I support the existence of the country of Israel as a majority Jewish nation, which was first established by UN Resolution 181 in 1947. I also support the right of the Palestinians (who fled or were displaced by the war declared on the new country by all the surrounding Arab nations) to establish an independent state in what is usually referred to as a two state solution on terms and territories to be designated by negotiation.

Yet I, like many American and Israeli Jews, am upset by the policies of the government of Israel in recent years that are clearly not moving Israel any closer to that two state solution and in the meantime are treating the Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza in ways that are often discriminatory, violent, and at times, inhumane.

That does not justify Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7, and Israel has the right, in my opinion, to attempt to destroy their military capabilities and try to rescue the hostages, which include some Americans. They also have the responsibility of minimizing the injury and death of civilians despite Hamas’s tactics of hiding in tunnels under civilian infrastructure including schools and hospitals. 

Israel is also responsible for ensuring that food, medicine, and shelter are supplied to Gazans. They have obviously not done this adequately, and those responsible for any war crimes that may have been committed (on both sides) must be brought to justice.

I fully support President Biden’s efforts to both assist the Israelis in their defense and to try to influence Netanyahu’s often intransigent government to act within the currently recognized “rules of war.” That includes efforts to supply direct humanitarian aid to the Gazans through the construction of the floating dock to bring in supplies by sea and Biden’s withholding of bombs too big for use in urban environments or other offensive weapons he designates to pressure Netanyahu to keep humanitarian aid flowing and protect civilians. I can’t agree with Senator Bernie Sanders call to completely cut off military aid to Israel just as I can’t agree with Senator Graham.

I hope that most Americans can tell the difference between a country that is defending itself from terrorists and a country that is intentionally killing civilians, and I hope that Israel is focused on the former and punishes anyone in its ranks engaged in the latter. My brother, who has served in the Israeli reserves and works to bring together Jerusalem’s Arabs and Jews to build healthy communities says, “Most Israelis now recognize that Netanyahu’s coalition mush be voted out of office as soon as possible. The question is, will it be in time?” 

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

Trump the Cheat

While running for president in 2016, Donald Trump made campaign promises, many of which he kept, unfortunately.

For instance, he promised to ban Muslims from entering the United States. This also applied to Afghans who had helped our military. They were cheated out of their promised right to seek safety in the United States when Trump proclaimed an end to immigration from various Muslim-majority nations. That was overturned because it was a clearly discriminatory executive action, but his lawyers’ revisions made it acceptable to the increasingly conservative Supreme Court.

He also promised to tax the rich and that his tax policies wouldn’t be good for him, personally. That turned out to be a lie. The only major legislation he and the Republican Congress passed in his four years as president was a $17 trillion tax cut that almost entirely benefited corporations and the wealthy, including him, his business and his family. It cheated the rest of us, who are stuck with paying the debt from even larger deficits.

Even so, Republicans have chosen Trump, again, to be their leader and candidate for president, despite the fact that, in a word, he is a cheat. He has many character flaws, in my view, but many of them flow from the fact that he wants to “win” so badly that he is not only willing, but seems compelled, to cheat.

He has been proven to be a cheater in courts and by highly respected news organizations that diligently research allegations to determine the truth. Trump cheats on his wives, his taxes, in his businesses, even at golf. He cheated people who donated to his charitable foundation by using the money for his campaign in 2016 and for personal expenses. He was fined $2 million and the so-called charity was dissolved.

He cheats his customers, for instance at Trump “University,” which cheated people out of thousands of dollars promising to make them rich real estate dealers like him. He eventually paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits from fleeced individuals. As a builder, he cheated contractors, many of whom lost their businesses after his refusal to pay his bills and his ability to endlessly litigate their lawsuits that tried to force payment.

Most importantly, Donald J. Trump cheated to win the presidential election in 2016 and cheated to try to stay in office after he lost the presidential election in 2020 to Joe Biden.

He is in court four days a week now, facing felony charges for reportedly cheating during the 2016 election by paying to suppress damaging stories to keep them from voters, and falsifying business records to avoid disclosing the payments as campaign expenses. The payoffs were made right after the “Access Hollywood” tape was made public. That was the one that caught him boasting he could kiss and fondle women at will. He feared, if allegations of affairs by two adult film actresses got out, he would lose even more votes. Court documents reveal that he suggested delaying the payments to Stormy Daniels until after the election, so he could allegedly cheat her of the promised money.

Eventually, unless the Supreme Court agrees with his contention that presidents can’t be charged with having broken the law while they were president, he’ll be tried in federal criminal court for cheating in a multitude of ways in his unsuccessful effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump stacked the Supreme Court with right-wing extremists, with help from Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who cheated Democratic presidents of the right to appoint two justices by refusing to consider a replacement for Antonin Scalia after he died in February 2016, claiming nine months was too close to the next presidential election. Then, in a complete reversal, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died only two months before the 2020 election, he rushed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.

It’s worth noting that, even if they rule against Trump, conservatives on the court, including his three appointments, have already delayed this decision long enough to make it doubtful that Trump can be tried on those charges before the election.

Most people accused of a crime who say they aren’t guilty want a quick trial to clear their name. Trump’s strategy is to cheat the voters of the crucial answer to the question of his guilt by delaying his trials until after the election, when, if he should win, he might try to order them dismissed.

“Cheaters never prosper” turns out not to be true. But “nobody likes a cheater” is a belief almost all of us share. Before you vote for Donald Trump, or when speaking to anyone who intends to vote for him, remember this adage: “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” 

(this essay appeared in the April 23rd edition of the Charleston Gazette-Mail (WV)

Why Trump?

Now that it seems clear that Republicans will choose Donald Trump as their candidate for president in the 2024 election and that West Virginians who vote Republican will likely support him in overwhelming numbers, many of us are asking, “Why?”

Why support a man who has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women, who had open affairs during and between his three marriages, and who has been found by a jury in the civil trial to have sexually assaulted E. Jean Carrol and continues to defame her by claiming he never met her (there’s a picture of them together), calling her a liar and worse?

Why support a man whose father built a fortune in real estate, and with him, was charged by the government for discriminating against African Americans in apartment rentals? A man who lived the life of a rich playboy and tried to build a casino empire on borrowed money, declared bankruptcy, only to be propped up by banks forced to try to recover their money by using his name. A man who created a fake university that defrauded students, One who constantly refused to pay small contractors and fought them in court with his wealth to force them to give up and settle for underpayment or loss, and whose company has already been found guilty of fraud in the state of New York and is awaiting judgement on how much they must pay and whether they will ever be allowed to do business there again?

Why support a man who narrowly won an election for president of the United States with millions fewer votes than his opponent in 2016 by claiming that he would build a big beautiful wall to keep out the supposed rapists and murderers who were swarming into our country from Mexico? Who managed to build many miles of wall on our southern border, though that wall has not stopped immigrants who climb it or cut holes in it and walk through.

Why support a man, who, during a pandemic caused by a new kind of virus that was sickening and killing Americans, denied that it was serious, called it no worse than flu, and encouraged people not to take precautions like wearing masks or gathering in groups? He succeeded with the help of Congress in creating a program to quickly create vaccines, but then did not get them out to the public quickly or even promote their use, instead promoting quack remedies like horse medicine or bleach. The result was needless deaths of millions of American, which continues today as people refuse life saving vaccines and treatments.

Why support a man who refused to agree to our basic democratic principle of a peaceful transition of power, instead, knowing he was likely to lose the upcoming election, claimed that the only way he could lose was if it were “rigged,” and made that claim starting on election night and continues to make it to this day despite losing cases claiming fraud in some 60 federal courts, many presided over by judges he appointed. 

A man who, after asking violent groups like the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a presidential debate, called them to come to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 after failing to overturn the election results in various ways and then, despite knowing many were angry, armed, and dangerous, asked them to “fight like hell” to somehow force his Vice President and the Congress to change the results of the election to keep him as their president.

Why support a man facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases for his behavior during and after his presidency for allegedly paying a porn star to cover up an affair, trying to overturn a lawful election, and mishandling classified documents after leaving office, refusing to return them, and obstructing the investigation into the matter.

Many who support this man are devout Christians and some are saying that God chose Donald Trump to lead our nation. Doesn’t religion warn to beware of false prophets? Doesn’t it warn of the possibility of an anti-Christ? I know that the people who support Trump probably won’t read this, because they follow news sources or people who believe as they do. 

So I’m asking those of you who know Trump supporters, who are in their families and go to their churches, to try to reason with them. Raise the questions, though they likely will not believe facts. Do your best to wake them up. Maybe they can be convinced not to vote for Trump even if they can’t support President Biden. Our democracy depends on it.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

Kercheval: Fossil fuels must be protected. Seriously?

If you’re still not sure the planet is warming and contributing to worsening wild fires, droughts, catastrophic storms, flooding, warming oceans, dying species, and more; or if you acknowledge climate change, but don’t believe we can or should do anything to try to slow or stop the warming, then it must be because you live in a bunker with 50 years of food stored up or are convinced the rapture is imminent and there’s no sense in messing with God’s will. I would pray for you to change, but I have to acknowledge that I don’t believe in the power of prayer to change other people, though it might help me have more empathy for your misguided beliefs.

Hoppy Kercheval writes many columns for the Charleston G-M, and I agree with some of them because he usually makes good arguments and utilizes facts and logic. For instance, on October 5 he wrote about the obesity problem in the US. WV has a 40% obesity rate and the highest incidence of diabetes of any state. His proposed solution focuses on individual choices and on SNAP (food stamps), suggesting that their use should exclude unhealthy, sugary drinks and foods. I can’t really disagree with that. But does he remember the vitriol aimed at Michelle Obama when she tried to get school cafeterias to serve healthier lunches? He weighed in on this issue on 11/26/2011 in the Daily Mail writing, “How did the American people wind up with faceless bureaucrats and elected officials in Washington setting school menus from Maine to Hawaii? Increasingly, what should be local decisions are being made by a supersized federal government that cannot even control its own spending.” I guess the faceless bureaucrats are okay as long as they make decisions you agree with.

This Sept 13, he wrote about economic development primarily in Green Energy in a piece entitled, “Is the Glass Half Full?” The essay quotes Mitch Carmichael, Cabinet Secretary for the WV Department of Economic Development, crowing about the pace of new industrial projects increasing dramatically in 2022. Hoppy opines, “These largely green energy projects, if they reach fruition, will be like rays of sunshine casting a promising light on communities.” “If” carries a heavy load in that sentence, as he does not mention that some of these projects seem designed to utilize as much fossil fuel as possible while proposing to capture the carbon—a dubious proposition. 

He also doesn’t mention that as a Republican delegate in the statehouse and later WV Senate President, Carmichael and his Republican counterparts continually passed legislation to promote fossil fuels and prevent growth in alternative energy until it was demanded by companies that refused to come to WV without access to green energy. He allows Carmichael to claim credit for the new industry in WV, when he should credit Joe Biden, Joe Manchin, and Democrats as well for writing and passing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), containing incentives for green energy development, with no support from Republicans.

Hoppy contributed an egregious column on 9/27/2023 in this newspaper titled, “Fossil Fuels Must be Protected.” He focuses his ire on Michael Bloomberg’s “Beyond Carbon” initiative. He decries a billionaire contributing money to “bypass Congress, which determines energy policy for the country, and instead (let it) flow to local and state governments, as well as anti-fossil fuel organizations to…finish off the fossil fuel industry.” 

Let’s parse that. Yes, he proposes to bypass Congress, which has barely responded to the crisis for 50 years until Democrats passed the IRA. Most all Republicans and a few Democrats from coal, oil and natural gas producing states have been stopping any action on climate change for decades, and you can’t act on climate without stopping the burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gasses, primarily carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere with current technology.

And since when don’t economically conservative Republicans like Kercheval celebrate moving decision making to the state and local level and taking power from what they reflexively, and in this case accurately call a “swamp” in Washington, awash with lobbyist money from the fossil fuel industry? Organizations like the Sierra Club work tirelessly to protect the planet from further harm, to solve the myriad problems caused by burning fossil fuels and to promote green energy solutions. His claim they are “anti-fossil fuel” is disingenuous because even Hoppy acknowledges that the transition is already taking place, but then he makes the “War on Coal” argument that efforts to speed the transition are an attack on fossil fuel workers and coal communities. 

It’s time to put that negative thinking behind us. Green energy creates and sustains far more jobs than fossil fuels and former coal communities will benefit from the green energy transition as communities are finally free of the devastating effects of poisoned water, polluted air, danger from sludge impoundments and more. WV needs to stop trying to hold back the transition to clean energy and start welcoming it.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

 published by Charleston Gazetter-Mail, Tuesday, October 10, 2023