Shelley Moore Capito Bears Responsibility in the Killing of Renee Nicole Good

 

We are in a slow rolling Kent State Massacre moment. Since Donald Trump took office for the 2nd time there have been sixteen shootings by immigration agents (CBP and ICE) causing 4 deaths and 7 injuries. As Chair of the Republican Policy Committee, the 4th most powerful position in Senate leadership, Shelley Moore Capito bears some responsibility for these shootings and has the power to change the trajectory of future policy regarding ICE and Customs and Border Patrol.

In a press briefing on Thursday, January 8, the day after Minnesotan Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE officer, Senator Capito said, as reported by West Virginia Watch, “First of all, I think it’s tough being an ICE agent, it’s tough carrying out our immigration laws, particularly in communities…where there’s a large immigrant community and broad pushback…Any loss of life is a tragedy. I think we see from the video there’s questions as to how all this happened and why it happened.”

 “I look forward to the investigation that I believe President Trump has called for,” Capito said, “and I think that we’ll find the answers here. So I think that it’s tough to watch. It’s tough to watch.”

It’s even tougher for many of us West Virginians to read her words. Perhaps in another time, from a different politician, Senator Capito’s words would sound measured, balanced, reasonable. Not in 2026. Not from the senior Senator from our state who holds a coveted position in Republican Senate leadership. Not from someone who did not vote against one single Cabinet appointment made by Trump despite the clear inexperience, incompetence, and anti-government stances of sycophants like Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel, who control the investigation she “believes” Trump has called for, one which has already cut out Minnesota state law enforcement from participation.

Where does one start? How about with where Senator Capito starts, with her sympathy for the ICE officer who shot a young mother three times as she apparently tried to drive away from him, and then walked away calling her words describing a female dog in a sexual act. It’s a hard job, especially when you’re working in a community where there’s “pushback” against masked officers in unmarked cars making stops and arrests of people based on their skin color and accents or command of the English language. It’s hard when there are citizen observers and protestors documenting your brutality and trying to warn mostly fellow U.S. citizens to stay in their homes for safety from a police force that acts more like an invading army. 

Some people might want to praise Capito for not rushing to judgement as Trump, Vance, Noem and other administration officials have, calling Renee Good a domestic terrorist and claiming she tried to run over the ICE officer who shot her. But Capito, as a leader in her party, has a responsibility to criticize members of her party who make such unsupported and dishonest statements to the public. 

She shows herself to be weak and morally deficient when she puts her trust in an investigation which is already tainted by statements made by the leader of her party and our nation — an investigation that will be carried out by officials she voted to confirm for their positions despite their clear loyalty to the would be dictator over the Constitution which they swore an oath to protect and defend.

Regardless how you’ve voted in the past, please call her office and urge her to firmly call for an open and fair investigation and to push for measures to rein in the brutality that immigration agents are bringing to the homes, streets, businesses, and even schools around the country.

It is time for us to rise up and demand that our elected leaders stand up to this lawless administration. The stakes have been raised and no one can deny that President Trump was not joking when he said he would be “a dictator on day one.” 

In 1970, four students were killed and several wounded by Ohio National Guard troops on the campus of Kent State University while protesting the expanding Vietnam War, which President Nixon had campaigned on ending. Protests erupted around the nation in outrage. Protests are again taking place around the nation, and in West Virginia a few dedicated people have been protesting regularly at the WV State Capitol on Kanawha Boulevard every Saturday from 12-2 pm. Around the state others protest regularly and many responded to national calls to action such as the “No Kings” rallies. Please make your voice heard in any way you can as often as you can.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston. He serves as treasurer of United West Virginia, a nonprofit group promoting democracy and advocating for marginalized communities: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581167152510

People are not Garbage: Trump goes full on racist!

 

Garbage. What kind of person would use that word to describe a human being? We all know the meaning of garbage: waste or spoiled food; anything considered worthless. We all know what to do with garbage: throw it away, sweep it up, put it in the trash to go to the dump. We know what happens if we don’t get it removed: it starts to stink, it rots, it draws flies that lay eggs and create maggots. When we encounter maggots, they make us instinctively want to vomit.

What kind of person would describe people as garbage? The same kind of person who might describe people as vermin, as disease carriers, as people who need to be gotten rid of, rounded up and put in jails or camps, separated from the rest of us. In the last century, people like Hitler and Mussolini used words like that and rounded up and deported or killed Jews, homosexuals, and Roma (often called gypsies, which to some is considered a slur).  Stalin referred to his political enemies as enemies of the people, vermin, or trash before banishing them to Siberia or having them killed. 

In 1994, some Tutsi leaders and media personalities called Houthis cockroaches, which encouraged Rwandans to rise up and murder their neighbors in a modern genocide. After all, how does one deal with cockroaches? Exterminate them. A clear example of words leading to hatred, violence, murder.

Though he says something almost every day that disturbs me, the following words President Trump spewed during a Cabinet Meeting press conference on Tuesday, Dec 2, almost made me gag: "Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country….We're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage.” Congresswoman Omar was born in Somalia, and represents a district in Minnesota where many Somalian immigrants live, most of them now American citizens.

Have we abandoned our pride in being a country of immigrants? The country France gifted with the Statue of Liberty engraved with the words, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Trump wants to keep the golden door and disavow the rest. This nation has not heard such racist words from political leaders in public discourse in decades, and not from a president, at least not since the 1800’s. And in a time when access to guns, even assault rifles, is practically unhindered and political violence so frequent as to be common. And only five years since his words inspired a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol, resulting in the injuries of 174 police officers.

But what can we do about it besides shake our heads in disbelief? We can go out of our way to tell our families, our friends, our neighbors, and yes, even mere acquaintances in the checkout line that we find this kind of speech disgusting and dangerous. Unfortunately, if necessary we must repeat these words, so no one in this country is ignorant of the racism spewed by the man who represents us to the world. Every American should be given the opportunity to condemn this hate speech or endorse it and be exposed as racist.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

Should we "Celebrate" Thanksgiving?

In recent months, I’ve worked with a group of Millennials and Gen-Xers. As a 70+ Boomer, these could by my kids or grandkids, and often find myself surprised and impressed by their passion, their energy, and their ideas. 

I also find myself suggesting they temper some of their ambitions and emotional responses to current events.

A recent discussion I observed regarded whether and how to celebrate Thanksgiving. Some had planned to meet at a local restaurant since they are either estranged from family, living too far from them or perhaps unable to afford travel. Some simply wanted to make sure that anyone in the group who didn’t have other friends or family to spend time with could be around other like minded people (this group shares a basic political point of view in resistance to the current administration).

One of the members expressed extreme discomfort with the idea of even getting together on Thanksgiving let alone “celebrating” it. This person expressed the argument that Thanksgiving is an aspect of colonialism, a celebration of the genocide of indigenous Americans and the capitalist theft of the lands we now call America. 

Early in the discussion they suggested that even sharing food and company would be a political statement in support of colonialism, the glorification of Western Civilization or even White nationalism over other cultures. The others didn’t disagree, but started brainstorming ways that the day could be re-purposed to express these values, such as to make a public announcement in the restaurant about the plight of Native Americans or maybe to have a candlelight vigil and proclaim it a “Day of Mourning,” rather than a day of giving thanks. 

As a Jewish American, although not one who has practiced the religion since my childhood, I thought  about all the holidays that my family either “celebrated” or “observed” that are Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter. My parents had decided that these holidays, though rooted in religious traditions our religion rejected, were so widespread that not participating would deprive their children of important lifetime experiences that would set us farther apart from our peers, which in the area I grew up and most of America, was overwhelmingly Christian. 

We ignored or tolerated the religious aspects of the holidays while enjoying the aspects most important to kids: giving and receiving presents, dyeing eggs, enjoying candy. It occurs to me that many Christian families similarly have decided that Halloween, though rooted in pagan rituals, mostly put those values and beliefs aside to allow their children to dress up and go Trick-or-Treating, an American tradition.

There is value, I believe, in not protesting every historical injustice, in not challenging everyone’s cultural point of view all the time, but there is also value in identifying and naming those injustices to educate people and inform those who may never have questioned them. 

President Donald Trump has signed executive orders that require the guardians and interpreters of our national history to highlight what he considers the accomplishments of the European immigrants who have made up the majority of the population since its founding as a nation and to downplay, or “erase” in the words of my younger friends, the suffering and discrimination of other groups the majority has caused. 

This Thanksgiving season (as for many, my Thanksgiving often involves gatherings with different groups of family and friends over the course of a week or more), I will give thanks for the health and good lives my family and I enjoy and also for the recent election, which showed that Americans are waking up and angered by the policies of this administration and are ready to elect new leaders when given the opportunity.

I will also be mindful that my family's successes and our health are (to a not insignificant degree) owed to the privileged middle class upbringing we enjoyed, our educational opportunities, and the racial privileges we benefit from in the United States due our "Whiteness". Injustice that has been visited on groups of Americans who fled to America because of injustice they experienced elsewhere, as the Pilgrims did, is the story of America. Their escape and immigration story should be told around American dinner tables at Thanksgiving, much as Jewish families tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt at their tables during the Jewish holiday of Passover. 

But the decimation and ongoing discrimination of indigenous populations due to disease, wars, and genocide (a common expression of those times “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” clearly shows the  intent) should also be a part of Thanksgiving conversation.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston 

published with minor edits in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, 11/25/2025

Are We Losing Our Free Speech Rights?

Our Constitutional rights are being threatened, if not revoked, by the Trump administration. His goals, articulated before the 2024 election in a document called Project 2025, are filtering down to state and local Republican leaders including in West Virginia.

Watch what they do, not what they say is a common warning made about autocratic leaders and those seeking to become autocrats. They make grandiose claims and threats, but don’t always act on them, knowing that some of them are illegal and some are fantasy. For instance, on the first day of his 2nd term, Trump ignored the Constitutional guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States, signing an executive order declaring exceptions. Thankfully, the courts have stepped in to halt implementation until it can be fully argued in court.

Trump has threatened and in many cases revoked Congressional funding ending grants and contracts from universities, health systems, and law firms, and questioned mergers by media companies and their licenses over criticism of him or his complaints that they unfairly support partisan causes or cultural issues he opposes. He and his administration have sought the arrest and deportation of individuals opposing Israel’s war in Gaza, which the UN has now deemed a genocide. These actions impinge on free speech and other rights guaranteed in our Constitution. 

Both Trump’s administration and Governor Morrisey’s have taken action to loosen or restrict vaccine regulations for religious or health reasons claimed by conspiracy theorists, which puts healthy people at risk of infections by diseases long considered controlled or virtually eliminated. This impinges on the right of the people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness promised in the Declaration of Independence.

I thought it highly unlikely I would ever feel the direct effect of these actions. On Thursday, September 18, Governor Morrisey held a memorial open to the public at the WV Capitol for right wing activist Charlie Kirk who was murdered while speaking publicly at a college campus in Utah. While I know little about Kirk and am shocked that he became a victim of gun violence, most likely for a political reason, one thing I have learned about him is that he was a fierce advocate of free speech and held public dialogues with people he disagreed with. In fact, during Thursday’s event, Governor Morrisey reportedly urged West Virginians to follow Kirk’s example by “celebrating free speech…even among people we disagree with.” But apparently he did not let the Capitol Police know that that was his wish. Watch what they do, not what they say.

I tried to attend that event where I intended to hold a sign saying, “Free Speech, Strict Gun Laws.” As I walked toward the gathering, at the corner of Greenbrier and Kanawha Boulevard, two Capitol Police officers stopped me and told me I could go no farther or would be arrested for disrupting a solemn event. I said I was going to stand across the street from the gathering and silently hold my sign, and yet they repeated the threat. 

I’m ashamed to say, I capitulated and stood on the opposite corner and held my sign to show passersby. 

West Virginia is one of only a few states where Trump maintains a positive approval rating as his popularity drops due to his failure to improve the economy and cost of living and his flagrant attacks against beloved institutions like public broadcasting, public education, universities, comedians, and the Constitution. 

I hope West Virginians will watch what Trump and Morrisey and their party’s representatives do in the coming months and years and elect people who will protect our precious rights and freedoms with their actions, not just their words.

Israel-Iran Conflict: Can it End Well?

The blank page I face contains a hidden minefield. Any misstep and I will lose a limb and possibly my life; that’s a hyperbolic metaphor. As a Jewish person intending to write about the Middle East, though, that’s how I feel. When I describe myself as Jewish, I acknowledge the trope I’ve heard since childhood (not dissimilar to “the talk” black parents have with their children about how to behave with police): “It doesn’t matter that you call yourself American, that you don’t go to synagogue, even if you’re an atheist. When they knock on your door, you’re Jewish.” They mean the Gestapo or the KKK, or an anti-Semite toting a gun.

Before even mentioning the atrocities committed by Hamas on Israelis on October 7, 2023, I must condemn Israel for their treatment of Palestinians both before October 7 and since. While Palestinians affiliated with Hamas and other terrorist groups committed war crimes that day, Israelis have committed war crimes on a far greater scale since then. 

I won’t discuss or assign where most of the blame may lie on either side in this conflict that has been going on since long before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. There are many books that do that, some biased toward one side, some the other, and some perhaps objective. You should seek out all three kinds to understand “where people are coming from” and why they have never been able to come to a permanent solution to how to live together in peace.

Today, I write to comment on Israel’s current battle with Iran. But first, caveats and disclosures.

For most, my last name already identifies me as Jewish. I was raised in a “Reform” (liberal) Jewish family, parents 2nd generation Americans whose parents, my grandparents, had all immigrated from Eastern Europe in the late 1800’s. I’m the only one of 4 siblings who does not practice the Jewish religion and am married to someone raised Christian. I have an older brother who lives in Jerusalem and has children and grandchildren all over Israel (where he works on joint Jewish/Arab community projects). Another brother’s wife has relatives in Israel. I have visited Israel a few times.

I am disgusted with the Israeli government because of the corruption of its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who in order to hold on to power as Prime Minister, has allied himself to the most odious right-wing warmongers who promote the view that Israel has the right to occupy, if not annex, all the disputed lands “between the river and the sea,” a phrase that refers to all the land that Palestinians nominally control in the West Bank, plus Gaza and the territorial boundaries of Israel. I am disgusted with the behavior of the Israeli army. I thought they went out of their way to act humanely in battle in the past. Now they seem to kill indiscriminately, only give lip service to investigations, withhold food or make it too dangerous to get the aid. In the West Bank, soldiers act as a protection force for Israeli squatters (settlers) and watch passively when settlers bully, harass and try to drive out local Arabs. 

But one must also acknowledge the role of Iran in bringing us to this point today. There would probably not have been an October 7 without Iran’s support for Hamas (with complicity from Qatar and Netanyahu, who let Qatar funnel millions to Gaza, to prevent the Palestinian Authority, which recognizes Israel, from getting stronger it has been reported). Much as I despise Netanyahu, I understand his goal to neutralize Iran’s nuclear threat and weaken or destroy its other proxy militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. 

Don’t get me started on Trump. He is such a wild card and loose cannon who acts impulsively and chaotically, that I find it nearly impossible to imagine there can be a positive outcome to any global undertaking he is involved in. There was a perhaps imperfect program to monitor and stifle any Iranian nuclear ambitions when Trump took office in 2017 that he pulled out of. Since then, Iran enriched enough uranium to levels approaching what’s needed for up to eight bombs according to experts, despite continuing to claim they have no ambition to build one. 

Trump started negotiations to reinstitute an agreement with Iran on the nuclear issue recently, but he demands that Iran depend on other countries to provide enriched uranium for power plant and medical uses. Iran says the ability to enrich for peaceful means is a country’s right. As it became clear to Trump at the end of a 60 day time limit he’d previously set for Iran to agree to his terms, in my opinion, he green lighted this attack on Iran by Netanyahu in the indirect way he does, to paraphrase, “seems like they don’t want to give up their enrichment program. It would be a shame if someone attacked and destroyed most of it.” Plausible deniability. Just a coincidence that he pulled diplomats out of Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries just before the attack. It’s been reported he nixed the targeting of Supreme Leader Khamenei. If that’s true, he obviously knew about the attack and had some control beforehand. The latest news as I write, is that he’s saying “We have complete control of the skies over Tehran,” the words of a man who is “in the fight.”

Israel’s attacks will not end Iran’s nuclear program without American “bunker buster” bombs or a ground operation to destroy an underground enrichment facility. Even if Trump would provide the 30,000 lb. bombs, what is to stop Iran from starting from scratch and be close to having a bomb in a few years? After being humbled in these attacks, lacking the backing of Hamas and Hezbollah, who have been seriously weakened by recent Israeli military actions, and having had their air defenses destroyed, will Iran sit down to negotiate a permanent solution to get out from under international sanctions? Essentially, will they stop calling for and working toward the total destruction of Israel?

If the answer is yes, much as I hate to admit it, I would have to credit Netanyahu and Trump. If the answer is no, will this become another grinding war? Will Russia, China, and/or North Korea come to Iran’s aid and bring us to the brink of another World War? Contemplate that.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston. 

Reclaiming Patriotism

I came of age in the 1960’s, a time of turmoil in the United States (looking back at age 73, I wonder if we are always in turmoil). Civil Rights protests gave way to protests against the Vietnam War. No one questioned the righteousness of our role in WWII, when we helped rid the world of murderous fascist regimes in Germany, Italy, and Japan intent on using their militaries to dominate the rest of the world and enforce their authoritarian regimes on the rest of us. The Korean War had been fought to a standstill leaving an uneasy truce with a North Korea supported by a nuclear armed China. The Soviet Union, our ally in WWII with Russia at its heart, had ambitions to expand its authoritarian Communist principles into the rest of the world and was countered by NATO in a “Cold War” to protect young European democracies and encourage countries in the “third world” to align with democratic values and international rules to prevent another World War, one which might possibly end human domination through the use of nuclear weapons.

But South Vietnam seemed a small, inconsequential country with corrupt leadership and perhaps not worth defending with the full might of our military against a determined anti-colonialist guerrilla army fighting a war for independence, intent on expelling foreign control. President Johnson, who had finally been convinced to support voting rights and integrated schools throughout the South, lost his credibility over his escalations of bombing campaigns and an increasingly unpopular draft that excluded those who could afford to stay in college and maintain a deferral, leading to increasing numbers of deaths and loss of limbs to African American and poorer white recruits from places like West Virginia.

In this climate, many in the WWII generation saw the young protesters and “free love” generation experimenting with drugs and questioning war and inequality as “unpatriotic,” and proclaimed, “America: Love it or Leave It!” 

We did love America, but not what our government was doing to the most vulnerable of us at home and in the rest of the world. And this is one way the Republican Party eventually stole the mantle of patriotism from Democrats. 

Manipulating language is an authoritarian method of manipulating minds. Dictators and their enablers take control of media and try to convince the people that “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” “Ignorance is Strength,” in the words of dystopian author George Orwell in the book, “1984.” Donald Trump grew up in this same world, but growing up in wealth and privilege he took the other side. And he has become a propagandist intent on making the language of equality, justice, and opportunity, in effect, democracy, the enemy.

He and the enablers he has installed following the plan in Project 2025 have made democratic ideals like diversity, equity, inclusion, due process, liberal democracy, environmentalism, worker safety, immigration and asylum, scientific and medical research, etc. into “dirty words.” 

It is time that we reclaimed our democratic ideals and our language. The courts are questioning the war against these words and insisting that the Trump administration produce facts and evidence to justify their actions, not hollow accusations. Authoritarian regimes attempt to make people fear standing up for what is good and right and true. It is time we did. I often wear a t-shirt saying “Woke and Proud” that explains that woke basically means to behave with empathy and respect to defend ALL people’s rights. Strangers come up to me to tell me they appreciate the sentiment. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are American values that describe ideals that make our country great. Our government was created to be of the people, by the people, and for the people, not ruled by billionaires for the benefit of billionaires, yet that is what we currently have.

Our government should be working for the greatest number of us, it should be working to make our lives better, to meet those needs that despite our hard work and our best efforts, we cannot secure on our own. We must demand these things in courts, in the media, in elections, and in the streets if necessary. It is time for us to take back our language and our government so that our government and our language work for us. This is patriotism and what makes America great: insisting that our country be the best it can be.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

 

Now is the Time for Action!

 Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. People who grew up, as I did, in an age of typewriters (google a video if you need to), will remember that phrase as the most common practice sentence for ‘touch typing.’ Of course, an updated version would replace ‘men’ with ‘people’.

There are many ways we can step up to make a difference between now and the next election, and I encourage you not to limit yourself to the easiest ones. I will mention a few that come to mind, most of which I have done in the past, recently, or will do my best to dedicate some time to. As I come out of a near depression following Trump’s election in November exacerbated by the sheer incompetence and overreach of his governing. which are resulting in quickly sinking public approval, I have remembered how good it can make me feel to take action. Here are some of the ways you can make a difference.

Talk to friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow members of churches, clubs, or the guy sitting next to you at the bar. Ask them how they’re feeling about the first months of Trump’s second term. If they think everything is great, don’t argue. If they have doubts, draw them out, be sympathetic. You don’t have to try to persuade them—it can take several interactions before they are ready to acknowledge what you see as obvious truth and facts.

Contact our Republican representatives in Congress. It’s easy to think they won’t follow our pleas for them to oppose harmful legislation or hold the administration accountable, but if enough of us do this often enough, they will begin to understand that they may face difficulties in the next election if they ignore their constituents. There’s a great app available, “5 Calls,”  that makes it easy, and I try to call every day. It just takes a few minutes and the app provides suggested points to make on various issues. Make sure to identify yourself as a constituent. If you’re Republican and/or voted for Trump, mention that!

Do you have more money than time? There are many ways to donate to make a difference, and if you’re like me and have made some donations you are probably on every candidate and non-profit’s mailing list now. It can be a real turn off. For orgs that my wife and I know are doing great work, we budget an annual donation and then refuse all requests for additional. Currently, I think that the courts are the most effective arena for stopping the worst actions of the Trump administration, so I am donating to a few organizations that are bringing lawsuits to stop the harm like ACLU, Democracy Forward, and State Democracy Defenders Action.

There are many advocacy organizations in West Virginia working on issues that may be  important to you. Volunteering for them (and/or donating) can end up impacting elections in our state because these organizations notify supporters about which candidates are best on their issues, sometimes buying ads and knocking on doors. 

Many of the Republican supermajority in the legislature have  modeled themselves after Donald Trump. They are ignoring norms and attacking or revoking support for programs and government agencies that provide essential services while rewarding their rich donors including corporations with tax cuts and other favors. Consider donating or volunteering for WV Citizens Action (for 50 years fighting for rights, public policy, democracy and the environment in WV), WV Rivers Coalition (protecting our land and waters), West Virginians for Affordable Health Care, Together for Public Schools WV (project of WV Center for Budget and Policy), Moms Demand Action WV (gun safety), WV Free (reproductive health and more), Fairness WV (LGBTQ+ protection), WV Black Voter Impact Initiative to name a few.

Don’t wait until a month before the 2026 election to consider volunteering to make calls, send texts, knock on doors, or help out a candidate or county party effort. It takes time to establish trust with voters suspicious of government who think “they’re all corrupt.” In WV we are small enough to get to know the candidates personally, and if you do, you can tell people what you know about the ones you support. Of course, if you’re passionate enough, consider running!

Finally, while protesting may not be your thing, when large numbers of people make their dissatisfaction known in public, it can become a big news story that brings others out who may otherwise be fearful of making their opinions known. A feeling of being part of a peaceful movement is a powerful force for change.

We are not likely to change our deep red state significantly in one election cycle. But if we make some gains, we can start a change that builds over time. Now is the time for all of us to come to the aid of our country! 

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

They Found Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: It's Them

 They Found the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: It’s Them

Trump, Musk, and Congressional Republicans declare daily that federal government programs authorized and budgeted for agencies established by Congress and signed into law by US president are riddled with “waste, fraud, and abuse (of power).” Trump and Musk created a fake “Department of Government Efficiency,” (DOGE) to root it out. A real department must be authorized by law; DOGE is essentially an advisory council. 

If they were really interested in reducing the inevitable waste, fraud, and abuse that exists in systems involving millions of employees, contractors, and billions in grants, loans, and contracts administered and sometimes scammed by human beings, they would beef up the systems that were created by law to search out, end, and punish it. Democrats would work with them to do this, and it would be the lawful and efficient way of doing the job.

Instead, on Day 1 of his administration, Trump fired the Inspectors General of 18 agencies whose job it is to find and end that waste, who in previous years have indeed found and ended billions of dollars of wasteful and fraudulent spending, clawed much of it back, and referred investigations to the Justice Department. Trump’s actions seem more like a move designed to allow his appointees actually to commit the waste, fraud, and abuse of his choosing.

With encouragement from Musk, who is making X (formerly Twitter) into a banking service and Republicans who love to protect their rich banking friends, Trump’s new Treasury Secretary has shuttered the Consumer Fraud and Protection Department (CFPD). CFPD protects American consumers from predatory lenders, abusive credit card policies, and oversees banks to prevent them from cheating Americans. It’s saved Americans billions since being created in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

Trump (falsely) declared a national emergency at the southern border and sent thousands of troops who the NY Times reports are standing around doing not much since illegal border crossings had been slowing over the last year or so and migrant shelters are closing because they’re not needed.

He is trying to shut down USAID and all its activities were halted. Hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of authorized, purchased, and shipped life saving food and medicines headed to the poorest countries in the world are sitting in ships and warehouses, expiring or rotting. If the next plague reaches our shores, we’ll know who to blame. Meanwhile tens of thousands will sicken and die in countries that will turn to Russia and China or terrorist groups like ISIS for the help we are refusing to offer.

To reinforce his false claims that undocumented migrants are violent criminals, he decided to fly many of them to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, probably the most wasteful and expensive prison in the world where all supplies need to be shipped or flown in and it costs $13 million per year per inmate to imprison a few accused terrorists detained in the early 2000s. 

He uses military aircraft to deport migrants because it looks tougher than sending them via charter or commercial airliners as Biden and previous administrations did. It’s estimated to cost at least 4 times as much using this method.

dThese are only a few of many egregious examples of the fraudulent claims, wasteful spending, and abuse of power Trump, Musk, and his Republican supporters in Congress are authorizing or allowing. Trump and Musk are, contrary to lawful methods, capriciously and maliciously laying off, placing on leave, and firing thousands of dedicated and hardworking public employees claiming waste, fraud and abuse without evidence. Many of these employees are still being being paid, but not allowed to continue their work researching cures for cancer, prosecuting dangerous criminals, protecting America’s interests around the world, and more.

If Trump, Musk, and Republicans actually want to see waste, fraud and abuse in government, they can look in the mirror.

Published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail 2/18/25

Jimmy Carter and DEI

The death of President Jimmy Carter gives us all a chance to reflect on the current moment as well as the accomplishments and decades of service of a president who faced tremendous challenges during his one term in office including high inflation and a hostage crisis. Both of those problems plagued Joe Biden as well and contributed to his loss of popularity resulting in a one term presidency.

Those of us who lived through the 1970s likely remember Carter’s response to the gas crisis brought on by an Arab oil embargo and, as he wore a sweater, his plea to Americans to keep the thermostat at 65ºF to reduce fuel consumption. He placed solar panels on the White House, in a demonstration of one way to make America energy independent. Even then, climate activists were warning about Global Warming, and while Carter didn’t make solving that a priority, an internal memo revealed his awareness that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels was warming the planet and that continued burning of fossil fuels would one day become a danger to the planet.

He was much maligned for being unable to negotiate the release of the American embassy staff held hostage by Iranian students after the Iranian Revolution led to the formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many Americans thought we should go to war and the popularity of a version of the Beach Boys hit song Barbara Ann with a revised refrain, “Bomb, bomb, bomb. Bomb bomb Iran” was an indication of the pressure he was under to DO something about it. When he called off a rescue attempt after a helicopter crash killing eight servicemen, he was mercilessly criticized as if he had been the mechanic responsible for its failure. Yet Carter continued negotiating until his last day in office and secured their release as Reagan took the oath of office. Was he ever given credit for the lives he saved by keeping us out of war? Similarly, Biden couldn’t live down the perception that 13 brave soldiers who died in a terrorist bomb during the Afghanistan withdrawal couldn’t counter the lives he saved by finally ending a war that had dragged on over 20 years killing almost 2500 Americans.

While his legacy is much broader than his years in the Presidency, Carter’s stance on the importance of upholding human rights for our allies as well as our adversaries during his presidency marked a significant change from the willingness of previous administrations to look the other way even when an ally perpetrated horrors on its own people. Carter believed that, as Reagan later said, America was a “shining city on the hill” and in order for the world to hold us in high esteem, we must model exemplary behavior at home and demand it of others.

He believed that civil rights for all Americans were paramount. When he was elected Governor of Georgia, he declared that “the time for discrimination is over. No poor, rural, weak or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job or simple justice,” In forming the Carter Center, he took action in defense of the right of all people worldwide to fundamental freedoms and rights, monitoring elections, writing letters to and meeting with world leaders to plead the case of individuals and groups facing discrimination and human rights abuses and much more.

Which brings me to today and the demonization of a point of view and a program designed to make our country one that seeks to implement Martin Luther King and Jimmy Carter’s dream that Americans would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. That point of view, which President-elect Trump and his cronies in the Republican party like Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, have claimed is causing discrimination to white people and Christians, is called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion or DEI. 

DeSantis and his Republican super majority in the Florida legislature have banned DEI in Florida schools, including colleges, and now major corporations including Walmart, Ford, and Lowe’s have decided to roll back or end their DEI initiatives apparently to stay on the right side of the incoming administration.

Stop and think for a minute about what it means to be against DEI. Diversity refers to efforts to ensure that people of all colors, religions, and genders are represented and respected. Before  diversity was allowed or encouraged in the American workplace, we had businesses and colleges of primarily White Christian men. Is that what we want to go back to? 

The opposite of equity is unfairness, lack of equality. People of color, gays, Muslims, Jews, Mormons and others were once unfairly discriminated against without recourse. Do these Republicans want us to go back to that? 

And if we lack inclusion, we allow exclusion: keep them out so we don’t have to think about treating them fairly once they’re here. I feel confident that Jimmy Carter believed, as do most Americans, that diversity is our strength, equity is our goal, and inclusion of all kinds is our responsibility. We’re not going back. Jimmy Carter, born to a peanut farmer in a majority black town in Georgia, believed in DEI and promoted it through the Carter Center. So must we.

(published in Charleston Gazette-Mail, Jan 3, 2025)

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

Republicans Want to Hurt the Economy for Political Gain, Not to Cut Spending

I’m hoping that by the time this essay appears in the newspaper (sent to Charleston Gazette-Mail 5/25), if it does, Congress has fixed the issue and avoided defaulting on our national debt. But even if that occurs, there have already been economic effects from the threat of default that Republican lawmakers are using to attempt to force spending cuts.

Why would Republicans threaten the full faith and credit of the United States and a possible world-wide recession in a stated attempt to reduce federal spending that has already been allocated by Congress and signed into law by a president (yes, some of the spending that could be affected was signed into law by Donald Trump)?

Remember, approving the raising of the amount the US Treasury can borrow to pay our bills (Social Security, Medicare, Defense, Education, etc.) had, up until 2011 been a routine procedure—a job Congress is expected to do. It is in the planning of the budget that Congress gets to negotiate together and with the President on spending and taxation levels that will affect future debt.

Many don’t believe that Republicans really care about the debt. After all, if they cared about debt at all, they wouldn’t have raised the debt ceiling without complaint every year during the Trump administration, spending freely while also lowering taxes on the rich and corporations, which caused the national debt to rise far more quickly than during President Obama’s eight years in office.

So if not spending and debt, what is it they care about? Remember when Mitch McConnell, as Senate President during Obama’s first term, proclaimed that Republicans’ primary objective was to keep him from winning re-election? That was widely interpreted, correctly, to mean that in the midst of the Great Recession, Republicans would do all they could to slow down the recovery, because a President gets blamed for a bad economy whether at fault or not.

Republicans have calculated that a bad economy will hurt Biden’s chances of reelection and therefore the chances of Democrats retaking the House and holding their Senate majority in 2024. The easiest way to tank the economy is to hold out for spending cuts they know President Biden and Democrats cannot and will not agree to and to refuse to raise taxes or even close tax loopholes even one cent to avoid such cuts. In fact, the proposal they passed in the House would further lower tax collections by hobbling the IRS, actually causing greater debt.

To put it plainly, Republicans have shown for many years now that they are willing to harm the US economy, our standing in the world, and American people’s pocketbooks in order to regain the power of the presidency and control of the Congress.

Why didn’t Democrats hold up raising the debt ceiling when Donald Trump was president? Why didn’t they insist they wouldn’t raise it unless Republicans undid the tax cuts they passed to help their wealthy friends and corporations - tax cuts they falsely claimed would result in increased economic growth and a lower debt? Because Democrats actually care about American families and would never risk a damaged economy to improve their chances in the next election.

Remember who is likely to blame if we find ourselves in a depressed economy as the next election looms, and vote out those who only seek power and the money their rich friends and wealthy corporate donors will spend to make sure they keep it.

Paul Epstein is a musician and retired teacher living in Charleston

Rural White Appalachians Feel Victimized, We Should Listen

    I recently wrote an op-ed (Charleston Gazette-Mail, 2/15/23 "Is it Woke Just to be a Decent Person?") explaining and debunking the negative attacks by extremist Republicans on what they call “woke” (the English teacher in me wants to correct that to wokeness). They apply this taunt to anyone who holds ideas different from theirs, especially those held by Democrats, liberals, progressives. Beliefs such as that democracy is important; that our Constitution protects us from being subject to the religious rules and practices that may not agree with our own; that American history is not simply a story of rugged individualists conquering a wilderness and building a modern nation, but that our history contains many shameful chapters in which the majority white settlers oppressed, murdered, and stole from the indigenous people, they enslaved people they imported from Africa and the Caribbean and any immigrants whose skin was not as light as most northern Europeans. Republicans want laws that protect them from having to treat people equally whose sexual identity does not match the two genders recognized in the Christian Bible, ban books, teachers, and ideas that might cause their children to question the narrative of American greatness in all things at all times or cause them discomfort as they grapple with difficult issues encountered in factual history.

Remember Hillary Clinton’s comment that there were different “baskets” of Republicans, most of whom were reasonable and could be worked with, but a minority of whom belonged in the “basket of deplorables?” Remember Obama’s observation to a group of educated urbanites that when some working class folks lose the industries that had supported their communities for generations, sometimes “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations?”

Clinton and Obama weren’t wrong.  Who could argue that some of those who stormed the U.S. Capitol or those who marched with Tiki torches in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us,” weren’t acting deplorably? While I believe one shouldn’t label a person deplorable, suggesting they can’t change, aren’t many rural white Americans angry, going to churches or seeking news sources that tell them criminals and rapists are flooding over the borders to change our way of life? Aren’t some even considering using their guns to start a revolution?

But I want to argue that we are not going to change minds by writing people off as crazy, stupid, uneducated, or un-American. Despite our facts, statistics, and logic, many every day West Virginians feel as if they are victimized by life in America—and they are not wrong.

West Virginians endure jokes and even discrimination because they use the language they grew up with, a dialect that includes words like ain’t, usages like “he don’t,” accents that make it hard to distinguish pin from pen or make flower sound like “flar.” Their pride in independence: the ability to eke out sustenance from a rocky and mountainous region causes them to be subjected to stereotypes that they walk around with rifles, barefoot, carrying a jug of moonshine. Of course some do—and celebrate that, and will invite you to join them hunting or drinking. Many people believe Trump wasn’t entirely wrong when he said, “there were very fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville. We’ve had presidents, writers of the Constitution who it’s hard not to call “very fine people,” but they owned other people, profited off their labor, while being civil and polite to others. Among the January 6 rioters were people who truly believed they were protesting a stolen election. We should never define people in black and white, though their actions can be defined. As to their character, there are always shades of grey. 

My message today is simply this, we can’t write off our neighbors as beyond redemption. They may believe things that we know are untrue, they may fit Appalachian stereotypes: suspicious of outsiders, believers in strict religions that promise hellfire in the hereafter for anyone who touches demon alcohol or strays from moral strictures regarding gender and sexuality.  They may speak and write in what appear to be illiterate ways, and they may express hatred for people who do not look like them, who they actually may fear. Nevertheless, they can be decent people who would “give you the shirt off your back,” tow your car out of a ditch, give you a basket of fresh vegetables. 

Perhaps we can change their minds, but not unless we start from a place of respect. They may be extremists and may be fast asleep to the changes we see in the culture of the United States and the world, but we can begin to wake them up only if we rise above our prejudices.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston, WV

Wake Up, West Virginia

 

Wake up, West Virginia. If Florida is “where woke goes to die,” as their governor Ron DeSantis crows, then we need to understand what it means for West Virginia. For far right political propaganda warriors, “woke” is an all encompassing term for everything they believe is wrong with being liberal or progressive in one’s thinking.

The term “woke” started among young people on college campuses to describe the awareness they felt for the problems of our society that they were concerned with and studying. Those who denied that racism was a continuing problem in our institutions, that LGBTQ+ people needed protections against discrimination, that misogyny and sexual assault were not solved by laws, that climate change was an existential problem, and that there was a relationship, or intersectionality, that connected these problems, well, that person was not awake to the problems many vulnerable minorities face. In short, being aware, practicing empathy, is being “woke.”

Many social conservatives, on the other hand, proudly deny these problems and see possible solutions as problems. They claim it’s a problem to acknowledge that racism still exists in America and even sometimes go so far as to say it is the white majority that is suffering from discrimination. They claim that allowing same sex marriage somehow degrades the institution of marriage between heterosexuals and that someone who views themself as “trans,” or a different gender than they appear to be (or were “assigned at birth” which medically speaking is not always clear), is not entitled to the same rights as people they view as normal. They resent being asked to be respectful by asking or using a person’s preferred pronouns. They view the right to burn fossil fuels as a God given right despite trillions of dollars in disasters caused or made worse by climate change. They deny people the right of bodily autonomy in matters of pregnancy. And they demand that children should be shielded from learning anything about these issues in school, even if they come from families where it is their lived experience.

What does it mean to not be “woke?” Above, I identified social conservatives who deny these issues. Some are like ostriches with their heads in the ground, seeking to ignore a changing world. Some are angry that the world they were taught about in church or home is not the one they now confront. They want to turn back the clock. To not be woke, I believe, is to be either ignorant or in denial. As a white, heterosexual male, I cannot speak for my fellow humans who are directly affected by the daily barrage of insult or even vitriol coming from people ignorant or in denial. Growing up Jewish in a Christian community, I sometimes encountered small scale anti-semitism from acquaintances. Once I was asked for a quarter by a boy, who, after I gave it to him, turned to his friend and said, “See, he’s not a Jew.” I didn’t try to wake him up to the reality that I was, in fact, a Jew.

Being “woke” does not have to be something to fear or criticize or legislate against. C’mon West Virginia, wake up—it’s just being decent.

No, being calm and polite does not excuse monstrous behavior!

The Tuesday, 9/22/22 Charleston Gazette Mail carried my letter to the editor responding to an editorial by the VP of HD Media and Executive Editor who wrote an opinion piece PRAISING ROGER HANSHAW SPEAKER OF THE WV HOUSE (R-CLAY) BECAUSE HE WAS SO CALM AND POLITE AS HE RAMMED THROUGH AN ABORTION BAN (WITH NO PUBLIC INPUT OR EXPERT TESTIMONY)! I'll post the text of his piece and the text of mine below. The hell if I'm going to make anybody pay to read them. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!

Lee Wolverton: A speaker standing tall in the mire (Opinion)

Sep 16, 2022

Before writing that which I am about to write, I must do that which I am loathe to do regarding anyone holding political office. I must ask forgiveness. I must ask this because I am about to write that which I rarely find cause to write regarding elected officials. That is:

Roger Hanshaw appears from where I sit to be that rare sort in the modern milieu: A leader of keen intellect and high integrity and a respecter of law, propriety and decorum. The speaker of the West Virginia House and a Republican from Clay County, Hanshaw representsconservatism of yore — principled, thoughtful and reasoned.

This does not indicate I concur with him on the issues. It means rather that, observing him from afar, I find him to be what politics in West Virginia and America badly need in both parties — men and women of intelligence, skill and decency.

Those traits are virtually absent across the political spectrum, which is why I must ask forgiveness. Getting praise from the editor overseeing news operations at the Charleston Gazette-Mail and Herald-Dispatch, especially the former, is for a Republican in this state like getting a kiss from your sister after learning she contracted the flu.

For that reason and others, I am generally disinclined in this space to single out for praise or criticism individual officeholders below the rank of governor. It is more apropos to my thinking to opine broadly on the issues of the moment, and, of course, the issue of the moment is that onetime third rail known as abortion. Plenty of others are sounding off on that topic. Another voice would only add to the multitudes.

In Hanshaw’s case, I am compelled to deviate from custom because he is emblematic of something lost not only in politics and American culture but across the wider expanse of Western civilization. The human species long has been infected by liars, cheats and chiselers.

They will always be among us. But their successes once were fleeting. Corruption empowered and emboldened crooks such as William M. “Boss” Tweed, Richard M. Nixon and Arch A. Moore Jr., but it also eventually ensnared them.

People in power long have bullied others, but they once understood that public boorishness was bad politics. Lyndon Johnson on the Democratic side and Nixon on the Republican were presidents notoriously vulgar privately but publicly restrained because the lines of acceptable conduct were plainly delineated in American society.

All this has given way to a perversion of Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man” ode to domestic stupidity. Constituents no longer give a damn whether a carpet-bagging lawmaker is being investigated by the Congressional Ethics Office for buying Chick-fil-A sandwiches with campaign donation money. They care only that he voted against an infrastructure bill, not because of the legislation’s lacking merit but merely because its passage would represent a victory for the leader of the opposing party. That’s their principle: Shaft the other guy, always.

Hanshaw provides welcome contrast to this manner of thinking, partly because he has manners. With grace and dignity, he leads a state House where chaos would reign without him and surely will if he is toppled as speaker. This observation follows Tuesday’s rancor, when shouts of protest filled the House before lawmakers approved one of the strictest abortion bans in America. Hanshaw responded with typical calm before ordering the protesters removed in an affair that could have been avoided had the vote swiftly taken place instead of being preceded by floor speeches that stirred already raw emotions.

Engineering a quick vote would have necessitated Hanshaw performing greater feats of herding cats on the right than possible in current conditions. West Virginia’s state House no longer is a legislative chamber but a theater of the rabid in a Republican Vanity Fair that makes the one of allegory look like a bastion of tranquility and virtue.

Somehow, Hanshaw has navigated this Slough of Ordure avoiding both stain and stench. The same can be said neither of his counterpart in the state Senate nor of others in the upper chamber who were sullied by their own filth during their profane taunting of their House Republican colleagues last year over state income taxes.

West Virginia and America could do with a great many more like Hanshaw. One among his own party is angling to unseat him as speaker. What that delegate should be doing is supporting Hanshaw, learning from him and seeking to emulate him. That would add another adult to the one standing now among toddlers riding a supermajority high and riding West Virginia straight into Bat Earth.

Lee Wolverton is the vice president of news and executive editor of HD Media. He can be reached at 304-348- 4802 or lwolverton@hdmediallc.com.

My response:

I am flabbergasted by HD Media's VP of News and Executive Editor, Lee Wolverton's piece in Saturday, September 17th's Gazette-Mail in praise of the politeness of Republican House Speaker Roger Hanshaw during the passage of House Bill 302.

The bill outlaws abortion in WV except in very narrow circumstances that will exclude many or most victims of rape of incest and force doctors to make life and death decisions under penalty of losing their licenses or even prosecution. This bill will result in unfathomable misery for many West Virginians and their families, who, if they can't travel to a place where abortion is legal, and even if they can, may lose their health or lives. Hanshaw brought the revised bill to the floor without allowing the public more than a couple days to read it. No committees reviewed it, no medical experts were publicly consulted, and the public had no opportunity to comment.

Hanshaw, the legislators who voted for it, and the governor who signed it will have blood on their hands. There's nothing polite about that.

Paul Epstein, Charleston, WV