Category Archives: The Press

A Meeting

The following is an excerpt from “Peer Review” a play. The setting is a home in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. The 47th president meets the 16th.

THE TALL MAN

We have all noticed your obsession with political enemies. Mr. Nixon has kept a

particularly close watch on this activity.

DJT

Nixon’s dead, and I don’t care. Look if people aren’t nice to me I’m not nice back. They

all think they’re so much smarter than me. Obama, the Clinton’s, that Puerto Rican chick

from New York. All jerks.

THE TALL MAN

Ha. The Army of the Potomac had generals who thought the same of me. (Pauses)That

reminds me of a time when a client came to my Springfield law office and hired me for a

patent case. The fellow paid a retainer, and I began research on the legal particulars.

Oddly enough I never heard another word about it. Later the newspaper said the trial had

been moved to Cincinnati, Ohio.

DJT crosses his arms pouting. The Tall Man

merely smiles.

THE TALL MAN

Well sir, I made the journey by train to attend that proceeding. To my surprise a new lead

attorney sat at the courtroom table, and pointedly ignored me. Later I learned he had

dismissed me as a long-lanked creature in a dirty coat. Of course my feelings were more

than a little wounded. However I remained in Cincinnati and observed the court

proceedings. There is always something to learn. That attorney, Edwin Stanton, made a

fine job of it, and I later made him my Secretary of War.

DJT

What the hell is wrong with you! All you dead guys are morons. Made him a Cabinet

Secretary. I would have made up a name, you know, like Pocahontas or Shifty Schiff and

never stopped hounding him. I’da ruined the guy.

THE TALL MAN

And that would have proven a mistake. Secretary Stanton proved a wise choice for his

management of the Union Army. Besides, in the words of Mr. Lyndon Johnson, again, it

is “Better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing

in.”

The Tall Man laughs and slaps his leg.

THE TALL MAN

Stanton merited the post, as did most members of my cabinet, Seward at State, Chase at

Treasury, Blair as Postmaster General. They had been my competitors for the presidency,

and I appointed these men knowing full well they resented my election.

DJT

You’re crazy. I wouldn’t have let them in the White House. I’m still gonna get even with

the scumbags who stood in my way, DeSantis and Nikki Haley. May not be today, but I

will destroy them. I never forget.

THE TALL MAN

I required sound advice in a difficult time, and that these men were the best, except for

Simon Cameron. There was a scandal and he was undone. Deceivers like Cameron and

Floyd undo themselves. You could learn from their errors.

The Tall Man looks again at his writing, as DJT

speaks.

DJT

Who needs a cabinet anyway. Fill it with dopes who will do as I say. I’m in charge now.

THE TALL MAN

Americans are a free thinking people. Never will they all revere you as does a minority at

this particular moment. You, me, all of us have but a brief time in office. The American

people possess a truth beyond momentary and shifting opinions. Beyond a name on a

map America embraces noble ideals and accomplishes great things.

DJT

Just what I thought, a Rino. You liberals are what’s wrong with America.

THE TALL MAN

Ha. You foolish man. The whole idea of America is Liberal. This nation is the product of

the best political thinking of the 18th Century. It is the sovereignty of the people!

The Tall Man taps the pen on the desk top.

Mr. Madison crafted the Constitution and his Bill of Rights upon the rights of free people.

DJT

America doesn’t care about that anymore. Times have changed. I have changed it. They

want a strong man who gets shit done. Blacks, women, immigrants put back in their

place.

THE TALL MAN

You are mistaken. Only the people are the rightful masters . . .

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based own those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

A Surreal Landscape

In a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds locals are gathered in a cafe eating and chatting. An attractive blonde is on the telephone explaining that children at the local school were dive-bombed by attacking crows. An elderly lady in a beret and smoking cigarettes lectures the other diners that crows don’t behave in such an aggressive manner and that there has to be another explanation. The woman identifies herself as an ornithologist and holds forth explaining crows and even seagulls do not do such things. Immediately after her expert testimony all hell breaks loose outside the cafe window, with masses of birds swooping down on passersby. The scene is chaotic and bloody leaving no doubt these attacking birds are in fact lethal. As the nightmare scene ebbs, the camera catches the bird expert, her head bowed in grief and bewilderment, stunned everything she knew and believed no longer applied to any bird in her understanding.

That woman resembles this lifetime American history educator. I’m a fairly decent generalist in subjects ranging from PreColumbian America through today, give or take minutia. But I too, am stunned by the surreal landscape of what I believed about democracy has been easily undone by a vulgar man-child and a compromised and opportunistic Republican Party.

It feels like all my understandings of my country no longer apply. The epic and fraught-filled struggle of forging the Constitution, the furnace of Civil War, the reforms of the Progressive Age, the promise of the New Deal, and Great Society are gone, rapidly destroyed by sinister design. A totalitarian despot has seduced a once noble political party rendering the valiant patriotism of those whom came before moot. Simply writing this lament is difficult, as all I once believed and explored is no longer valid.

An online troll explained it as “no one cares about that anymore.”

That means the principled determination of General Washington to serve our nation doesn’t matter. The misguided genocide of the Five Civilized Tribes upon the Trail of Tears doesn’t matter. With nearly 700,000 deaths, the crucible of Civil War no longer matters. Those brave GI’s on Omaha Beach, (including my own grandfather) and at the Battle of The Bulge no longer matters. Those brave students who occupied lunch counter stools in the face of racial violence did so for nothing. Those boys who perished in the Vietnam War are irrelevant. In point of fact no veteran matters anymore.

American history and all the sacrifice of our forefathers and mothers doesn’t count.

That 47 can fly in a foreign “gift” aircraft with a classified budget is a good thing to do with our tax money. That he remodels a room in the White House in a golden gilt is a good thing. Who really cares if former medicaid recipients suffer.

Suck it up buttercup, these are the new rules of Trump’s America.

That he has done away with investments in the Arts and Humanities is a positive. That he has placed incompetent sycophants from Fox News in high Federal positions is good. Forget he stole top secret intelligence documents. The country elected him anyway. That he has drastically shifted the tax burden onto the middle class and off of the super wealthy is how God wants it, just ask today’s Christians.

That old white men rape girls is a good thing. 

The GOP bows at his feet and gleefully ratifies every stab-wound of domestic legislation is now to be celebrated, so pop a cork. In fact destroying America for profit is now simply wholesome and righteous. 

America’s heroes, like Sergeant Alvin York in the Argonne Forest, or Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at Gettysburg endured their generations difficulties so that Trump can plow up Mrs Kennedy’s rose garden for a putting green. Suffragette Alice Paul who went on a hunger strike and endured the torture of forced feeding did so that the current president can manipulate votes is just fine. The murders of JFK, Dr King, Harvey Milk, or the murder of Minnesota State Senator Melissa Hortman is merely a part of the 24/7 news cycle.

Indeed nothing of our past story matters because Mr 47 has disqualified all of it to make money, and more money because that’s all that matters today. Plus of course he is a convicted felon and is terrified of going to jail where he belongs.

So when you see this disoriented American History educator with her forehead in her hand, much like the bird expert in the movie, please understand the gravitational pull of her entire life’s work is today rendered null and void. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based on those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

The People Who Own It

And that — that brings me to the second mode of civil disobedience. There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus — and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all!!

Mario Savio, December 2, 1964

The GOP no longer pretends to care about the American people. Icons of wealth and raw power, along with compliant political figures parade in and out of Mar-a-Lago without a self-conscious blush. Former Trump critics now kiss his ring out of fear of disfavor and losing access to power. Many in the press are fearful of Trump as well, evident in the resignation of Ann Tenaes from the Washington Post over the paper’s censoring a critical Bezos cartoon, while NBC has threatened to jettison its progressive sister MSNBC.

At least smiling Ronald Reagan tried to demonstrate some kind of fidelity to American principles as his administration catered to the same rich and powerful.

This incoming crowd isn’t even trying to fake concern.

While America drowns in floods and burns in fire, both symptoms of advanced climate change, Mr. Musk has purchased access to Trump so Tesla can bring in cheaper, skilled technicians for his business operations. Not alone in his subservience, Mr. Zuckerberg too, along with Mr. Bezos, and Sam Altman, have made significant donations to Trump’s campaign while the world drowns and burns. These 21st Century tycoons intend to purchase the vain new president’s favor and clear the way for less public responsibility, and garner even more profits.

You see, in MAGA-world Trump is never wrong. Wrong doesn’t exist. The title “felon” carries no shame among supporters, nor rape, fraud, insurrection, or theft of sensitive US intelligence. Trump’s malfeasance is more a badge of honor with his supporters than a deal breaker.

American propriety and concern for the United States are sentiments of another, past era. Statesmanship, decency, and integrity are long gone. In the last days of the 2024 campaign Donald Trump mimed oral sex with his microphone, and no one at the rally appeared offended, not even so-called Christians. In any reality would President Carter had done such a thing? Would President Bush? Moreover, MAGA supporters self-righteously wrap themselves in neo-fascist certainty, nurtured by a steady diet of propaganda and misinformation. There is no longer a bottom.

Overseas enemies are delighted. Putin and Xi have waited a lifetime to overrun the United States. That simple fact should give us all pause on the political state of the nation. The Kremlin and Beijing are reveling in the certainty of easy access to the inner sanctum of American security.

And why wouldn’t they be?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made known he will no longer fact check posts plastered across his site. This is the same Mark Zuckerberg who threw Trump off Facebook not so long ago for disseminating misinformation. That Zuckerberg seemed to care about the country that has made his fortune. Adding insult to injury this same 21st Century robber baron announced the company will no longer practice diversity in hiring Facebook employees.

His decisions are unacceptable and unAmerican.

Though it certainly makes no difference in the larger scheme, I have decided to take a tiny seed of action by closing my Facebook account. As a writer, Facebook is a convenient way to publish my work as it appears also on Threads and Instagram. However, as Mario Savio so eloquently stated in 1964, I can no longer participate. My spirit is thoroughly sick and outraged with the alarming direction the Republican Party has eagerly chosen to sell out our nation for their 30 pieces of silver.

Though the gears and wheels have been replaced by motherboards, and circuits, the principle holds. The machine requires the public to participate, to provide the metaphoric oxygen for it to survive. And it is down to us alone, the American people. We must demand fair play and decency from the powerful.

If you feel the same please share this post, I know I can’t be alone in my objections.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir River of January and River of January: Figure Eight. Chumbley has also written three plays, Clay, Wolf By The Ears, and Peer Review, exploring the life of Henry Clay, the advent of chattel slavery, and four visits to DJT from past presidents.

chumbleg.blog

An Open Letter To NBC

NBC News is my media outlet of choice. Integrity and journalistic excellence has made for my confidence in the network. Adding Rona McDaniel as a consultant runs counter to the very qualities that built the network.

By allowing a documented source of misinformation (lies) as a consultant, NBC legitimizes that position as valid. 

It is not.

Lincoln would not treat with the Confederates, nor FDR with Hitler. Do not permit Ms McDaniel a seat of legitimacy in a world dependent on facts.

I would encourage your anchor line-up to a work stoppage, and  I will change the channel.

Post script-This goes for DJT as well. During the campaign you covered him easily 3:1 over the VicePresident. Give us all a rest. Don’t sell out our democracy for ratings.

Gail Chumbley, Idaho

Distraction By Design

On October 30, 1938, radio listeners tuned into Mercury Theater on the Air, a CBS radio program.  The broadcast, scripted and narrated by actor Orson Welles, dramatically detailed a moment by moment invasion of Earth by Martians. To the folks who tuned in late to the program the events were construed as real, that indeed the planet had been attacked, followed with authentic panic erupting onto American streets.

Welles, and Mercury Theater producers intended the script to sound like breaking news, and real it had been received. Bedlam broke out, threaded through with stories of injury, and of suicides. The whole episode left Welles and his producers with a lot of explaining to do.

The following day, CBS Radio and young Welles, (23 at the time) made an on-air apology for the chaos. Eventually the story died down, relegated to an interesting moment of Depression-era America.

Much like October, 1938, mass hysteria has again let-loose upon the country. Only this time the  alarm, and distraction is by design, jolting anew on a 24-hour news cycle. Cannibals, sex trafficking politicians, lizard people among royal families of Europe, and poisonous contrails find gullible believers who hang on every fearful word. 

And the heaviest assault is lobbed directly at main stream media.

How? Don’t believe any of what you see and hear, unless endorsed by the Right-wing echo chamber. In a real world of Covid, climate change, and other pressing issues, the blaring noise of the propaganda machine has sabotaged progress creating more avoidable problems.

Unlike Orson Welles, the profitable rot pumped continually through cable, books and the internet is disseminated without a self conscience blush, let alone any apologies for damages done and lives lost. American consumption of news has degraded far below any sort of accuracy or structured analysis.

Sadly, a large segment of society cannot separate the wheat from the chaff. Consider those who died consuming ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and even bleach. Misinformation and fear is lethal.

As the unvaccinated “do their own research,” and die, the insanity refuels every second across media platforms. Makes one long again for a time when truth and responsibility mattered, and mass-hysteria with all its dangers was to be avoided. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle. In addition Gail has also penned two stage plays, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” examining the normalization of racism in America.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

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The Die was Cast

The threat of disunion appeared long before either the Civil War, or the insurrection on January 6, 2021. The architects laying the chaotic cornerstone? President John Adams, and his Vice President, Thomas Jefferson.

David McCullough in his celebrated biography, John Adams, portrayed this Founding Father as a brilliant man, and that is true. However, his self righteous streak succeeded in undercutting his talent and better judgement. As the second president of the United States, John Adams, proved to be a prickly, and thin-skinned chief executive. A dour Yankee, Adams could not tolerate public criticism, and as many later presidents, came to view the press as an adversary—enemies of the government.

In a rage over newspapers excoriating his administration, Adams shepherded the Sedition Act through Congress in 1798. Opposition editors soon found themselves in the President’s cross hairs, and some were actually jailed. The Alien Act, also passed in 1798, aimed to delay new voters, by lengthening time for naturalization, as immigrants were certain to vote against Adams and his Federalist Party. (Hmm. The press, immigrants, and voting rights. Imagine that).

Jefferson, (still Adams’ Vice President), promptly took action to counter Adams’ wrong-headed legislation.

Launching a full out, but anonymous denunciation of the Adams Administration, Vice President Jefferson published tracts vilifying Adams, and emphasized the sovereignty of the states guaranteed under 10th Amendment.

Returning from France, where he had served as American ambassador, Jefferson had been appalled by the powerful Federal Constitution created in his absence. As a ‘natural aristocrat,’ and slave master, Jefferson was unwilling to cede power to any higher authority than himself, and his fellow patricians. Instead the “Sage of Monticello,” asserted the right of states not to obey laws they didn’t like.

Two state legislatures agreed to debate Jefferson’s counter measures, Virginia and Kentucky. Penned secretly by Jefferson, and Madison, these resolutions insisted the states were the final arbiters of what was legally binding. A new term emerged from this controversy—Nullification.

The die was cast, the seeds of disunion sown. In the years following, nullification intensified, fertilized particularly in 1832 by John C. Calhoun, a South Carolina Senator. That that state became the first to secede in 1861, sparking the US Civil War, is no coincidence.

The traitors who invaded the halls of Congress last January took their cue from Jefferson, as if they, too, battled the evils of John Adams. Scapegoating the media, immigrants and the Federal government has left a long, bloody stain on American history. As I write, the States of Georgia, and Texas among others, are attempting to limit voting rights once again. Texas has also taken a nullifying stance, limiting a woman’s right to her own body, despite Federal protections.                        

No government has a self-destruct button, none. John Adam’s pique, and Thomas Jefferson’s reaction stamped an incompatibility that still, today, inflames American politics. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.”

gailchumbley@gmail.com

It’s Only Fair

In his 1975 book, “The Russians,” author Hedrick Smith tells a story about a domestic fire in Moscow. He noticed passersby strolling along without a glance, despite urgent smoke and water damage. Neither Tass, nor Pravda covered the story–for Soviets, there was no bad news. This lack of public reaction, Smith concluded came from weary resignation. Citizens had long ago given up on honesty from Party authorities.

In stark contrast, an informed electorate founded the American system; information an essential component of our democracy. Cynical will not do. Without facts reported by a free press, it is game over.

Recognizing the influence of television as a news source, Congress, in 1949, codified equal time when broadcasts touched on public policy. The Fairness Doctrine the second of its kind (the first governed radio) was enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandating broadcasters to present equal sides of public information, or lose their license to operate.

And that doctrine governed news coverage until killed by the smiling, ever popular Ronald Reagan in 1987. His personal charm camouflaged the catastrophe his administration lobbed against journalism and, in turn, our democracy.

In 1968 when the most revered news anchor of his day, Walter Cronkite, returned from assignment in Vietnam, he broke with precedent by publicly admitting Vietnam a lost cause. Later the anchor conceded Woodward and Bernstein were probably on to something with Watergate. Cronkite’s statements spelled the end for both the war, and the Nixon Administration.

The modern GOP hasn’t cared much about the equal time component since Richard Nixon crashed and burned in 1974. From his earliest days “Tricky Dickey” gained attention as a ruthless Communist-hunter, first in the House, as a Senator, and then as Vice President. Following his 1960 loss to JFK, Nixon loathed the press and like Trump saw the media as “The Enemy of the People.” In Nixon V The New York Times, the White House challenged publication of the Pentagon Papers, and lost, then in US V Nixon, ruled the release of the disastrous tapes proving Nixon’s Watergate coverup.

Nixon and other Republicans believed reporters, the networks, and the media, in general, was out to get them.

Before his own 1973 resignation in a separate scandal, Vice President Spiro Agnew did not mince words concerning the press. Agnew referred to the media as the “Nattering Nabobs of Negativity.” Soon the press found there was quite a bit to natter on, when Agnew pleaded guilty to bribery and resigned.

Today, the far Right has capitalized on the end of the Doctrine, manipulating facts, and generally reporting misinformation, without even a blush.

In some respects the end of the Fairness Doctrine has set a course for gutting American democracy.

To hear about it now, the fiasco of January 6, 2021, according to the right-wing media, was no more than a pleasant tour group visiting the nation’s capitol. That violence we all witnessed, is just a misunderstanding. Bear spray, tear gas, and baseball bats used against the D.C police didn’t actually happen. The “Liberal” press exaggerates.

Perhaps before 1987 Americans actually wanted to know whether or not a national fire was raging.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

Idle Observations

Foreign oppression has, more than once, moved American policy makers at home to react with oppression. From the French Revolution to today, overseas upheavals frighten those in power enough, to prompt the same repression at home.

For example:

Immediately after World War One, the US endured a period of destabilizing fear–America’s first Red Scare. The U.S., bitter over entering the Great War, grew intolerant of unorthodox political views and worked to silence dissent. Radicals, both homegrown and immigrants from Europe, felt the wrath of political crackdowns. Anarchists, such as emigres, Emma Goldman, and Alexander Berkman, found themselves on trial, then deported back to Russia, while a home grown Socialist, Eugene V. Debs ended up in prison. Scores of other political agitators were targeted by the Justice Department for printing radical views, and voicing public opposition.

Why the oppression?

The reaction began following the bloody 1917 Revolution in Russia. The murder of the last Romanov Tsar, with his family, paved the way for the world’s first Marxist-Leninist government, the USSR. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, (Lenin) seized the reins of the Bolshevik Party, and abolished all political opposition, outlining the aims of this new workers utopia, to overturn Capitalism worldwide.

The response in the U.S. came quick and harsh. Labor organizers, the leftest union, The Wobblies, and any other radical group deemed un-American was quashed. The U.S. government viewed dissent as treason, and Congress shaped specific legislation to silence protest. First passed and signed into law came The Espionage Act, in 1917, shortly followed by the Sedition Act the next year. No public speech, publications, nor use of the U.S. Mail to criticize government policy would be tolerated. Period.

In two test cases, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of both laws. The majority ruled in the first case that nonconformists and draft-resistors presented a “clear and present danger” to the US. In the second opinion the Court ruled much the same, but this time with an important dissent. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote, ” . . . the ultimate good desired is better reached by the free trade in ideas . . .”

Still, non-conformists and dissidents endured government suppression.

The courts, the government, and public opinion merged to outlaw what they feared–an all-powerful, biased social/economic system, much like the restraint simultaneously underway in the Soviet Union.

This was not over.

After Hitler’s death in April, 1945, and the ending of WWII in Europe, Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin kept his Red Army in East Germany and Eastern Europe, nixing a promised democratic Polish government in favor of his puppet Communist regime in Warsaw. And that was just for starters. A frightening Cold War ensued between the Soviets and the West, that by 1963 witnessed the construction of an actual partition, aka, an Iron Curtain. 

In America a political fever seethed, and Congress responded. Establishing HUAC, the House Un-American Activity Committee, to sniff out citizens who leaned to the left, ruining careers and lives in the process. This second Red Scare elevated the careers of Senator Joe McCarthy, and Congressman Richard Nixon.

This post originally intended to discuss the War on Terror. The objective to cast light on the American Taliban; those promoting God, Guns, and Gasoline. But now, with Russia up to its old tricks, all of us again, have a decision to make. Will Americans excuse Putin, grow complacent and emulate his corrupt oligarchy? That path is wide open, visited upon us via the former guy. He proudly rubbed shoulders with that murderer, and publicly praised Putin’s integrity. 

But, at this very moment, another, clearer choice stands before the American public. President Zelensky has conducted a master class on the real cost of freedom.  The Ukrainian people have lain down their lives to remind us we, are the original heirs of freedom.

In that spirit, this upheaval in the Ukraine is one we must emulate here at home. When Putin attacks Ukraine, he attacks us all. We are Americans, it’s time to take a stand for our liberty. This is not a drill.

Gail Chumbley is the author of “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle. Gail has authored two historic plays, “Clay,” concerning the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” examining the foundation of American Slavery.

gailchumbley@gmail.com