Dear Commons Community,

Over the weekend, The New York Times published a guest essay written by Susan Stubson, a Republican from Wyoming, analyzing Lis Cheney’s chances of winning the Congressional primary. Cheney’s opponent is Harriet Hageman, who is being heavily supported by Donald Trump.  Seventy percent of Wyoming voters chose Mr. Trump in 2020, his highest share in any state. He has been good for Wyoming. Stubson writes that:  “We benefited handsomely from Trump’s administration’s energy policies. The mining industry is our lifeblood. It signs our paychecks; it funds our schools and paves our streets. There’s a joke that Wyoming is a two-party system: red and reddest, no Democrats allowed. Here, the primary is dispositive, and given that Mr. Trump has endorsed Ms. Cheney’s primary challenger, Harriet Hageman, it is a short leap across a dry bed to assume Ms. Cheney is toast.”  However, Stubson also suggests that the nuance of Wynmoing politics might just give Cheny a chance at winning the primary.

“But our state’s politics are more nuanced than Mr. Trump’s margins of victory suggest. Here, relationships and results matter. Ms. Cheney might hold onto her seat if she’s able to cobble together a coalition of forgotten moderates and crossover Democrats in the open primary just large enough to push her across the finish line.

Those quieter moderates — many of whom cannot stomach engaging with the bully extremists who often prominently display guns on their hips during party meetings — view Ms. Cheney as a champion, a courageous renegade who places country over party. The moderates speak less, but they vote.

…

Moderate voters don’t just matter at the polls — they influence how the state is governed, propping up the big-tent leadership in the Legislature as it holds its finger in the dike of Republican Party extremism.

The recent legislative session was instructive: A bill restricting the teaching of critical race theory failed. A bill preventing transgender women from competing on women’s sports teams failed. A bill to infuse federal money into rural health clinics passed. A Trump-endorsed bill to prevent crossover voting failed.

Ms. Cheney’s campaign is now unabashedly issuing Democrats and unaffiliated voters with step-by-step instructions on how to register as Republicans. It is a squishy electorate Ms. Cheney is banking on, a combination of crossover voters and moderate Republicans appalled by the testimony of the Jan. 6 committee.”

Stubson’s conclusion:

“We Westerners take rugged individualism seriously to the point of codifying a Code of the West. Chief among those principles are “Do what has to be done,” “Be tough, but fair,” and “When you make a promise, keep it.” And it is a personal case Ms. Cheney is making to her electorate: I will never betray the Constitution for my party. Choose me, not Donald Trump.

As a Wyomingite, I’m finding it both gratifying and terrifying to be in this pivotal moment in our country’s history. Ms. Cheney’s hope is that a quiet electorate will overcome the noisy hard-liners by registering its concerns the old-fashioned way: by voting. This may be the defining difference for Liz Cheney.”

Boy I hope she is right.

Tony

Jim Thorpe (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Dear Commons Community,

The International Olympic Committee reinstated Jim Thorpe as the sole winner of the gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics, according to ESPN.

The decision fully reverses a controversy that had lingered for more than a century. Thorpe easily won both events, the only athlete to ever win both events, but had his medals stripped a year later after the IOC learned he had been paid to play minor league baseball in 1909 and 1910.

As The Oklahoman notes, Thorpe was far from the only Olympic athlete to receive professional money while competing as an “amateur,” he was just the only one who didn’t use a fake name while doing it.

Because he received a reported $2 per game to $35 per week, Thorpe had his amateur status withdrawn by the Amateur Athletic Union and lost his medals in a unanimous IOC vote. As would be later noted, the IOC violated its own rules in doing so, as no protest was made against Thorpe’s eligibility in the 30 days after the Games.

Thorpe went to his grave in 1953 without getting his medals back, and it was only in 1982, 30 years later, the IOC recognized it had acted improperly in taking the medals. Thorpe’s medals were restored, but even then he was only identified as the co-champion alongside Sweden’s Hugo Wieslander in the decathlon and Norway’s Ferdinand Bie in the pentathlon.

Thursday’s decision restores Thorpe as the sole winner in each event, and no one is happier than the Native American community that has long lamented the decision against one of its greatest heroes.

“We are so grateful his nearly 110-year-old injustice has finally been corrected, and there is no confusion about the most remarkable athlete in history,” said Nedra Darling, the co-founder of Bright Path Strong, a group created to share Native American voices and a leading organization that fought for Thorpe — who died in 1953 — to regain his medals. She is also a citizen of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.

“Jim Thorpe is a hero across Indian Country, and he is an American hero,” she said. “He represented this country before it even recognized Native Americans as citizens, and he did so with humility and grace. Even after he was wronged by his coach, the American Athletic Union, and many others, he never gave in to bitterness and led with a spirit of generosity and kindness. I pray that Jim, his family, and our ancestors are celebrating that the truth has been respoken today, on this 110th anniversary of Jim being awarded his Olympic gold medals.”

Thorpe, of course, enjoyed plenty of other athletic success in his life, between an All-Pro NFL career and a seven-year MLB career, but, like many, hit hard times during the Great Depression. He was named the greatest athlete of the first 50 years of the 20th century by The Associated Press in 1950, and third-greatest of the entire century in 1999, behind only Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan.

Long overdue recognition!

Tony

Donald J. Trump’s private golf course in Bedminster, N.J. Credit…Laura Moss for The New York Times

Dear Commons Community,

Relatives of people killed on Sept. 11 are urging former President Donald J. Trump to cancel a Saudi-backed golf tournament set to be held this month at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.

In a letter dated Sunday, members of the group 9/11 Justice asked to meet with Mr. Trump and urged him not to host the event, set for July 29 to 31, noting that Mr. Trump has blamed Saudi Arabia for the attack. As reported by The New York Times.

“We simply cannot understand how you could agree to accept money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s golf league to host their tournament at your golf course, and to do so in the shadows of ground zero in New Jersey, which lost over 700 residents during the attacks,” they wrote in the letter.

“It is incomprehensible to us that a former president of the United States would cast our loved ones aside for personal financial gain,” they wrote to Mr. Trump, who is expected to run for president again in 2024. “We hope you will reconsider your business relationship with the Saudi golf league and will agree to meet with us.”

In the letter, the group noted that Mr. Trump told Fox News in February 2016: “Who blew up the World Trade Center? It wasn’t the Iraqis. It was Saudi. Take a look at Saudi Arabia.” He went on to say: “The people came, most of the people came from Saudi Arabia. They didn’t come from Iraq.”

On Sunday night, Brett Eagleson, the president of 9/11 Justice, said he emailed the letter to a Trump aide in the afternoon and had not received a response.

Mr. Eagleson, who was 15 when his father died on Sept. 11, said the stakes here were clear. It is “allowing the Saudis to literally get away with murder if this golf tournament is allowed to proceed,” he said in an interview.

“It just sends a message that with the right amount of money, you can make people forget about anything,” he said, adding, “If anyone knows the extent of the Saudi role in 9/11, it’s Trump.”

Messages left at Mr. Trump’s club in Bedminster, and with a spokesman for Mr. Trump, were also not immediately answered.

The Saudi-sponsored golf league is part of a campaign by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to refresh the kingdom’s image in the eyes of the world.

With Trump, it is money, money, money NOT principles!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd is visiting Ireland and comments this morning on how when it comes to abortion, the Emerald Isle and the United States have traded places.  Thanks to the influence of the Catholic Church, Ireland had a “no exception” ban on abortion which has since been repealed.  The recent decision of the US Supreme Court went the other way and repealed Roe v, Wade here in the United States.  Here is an excerpt from Dowd’s column.

“ I talked to Una Mullally, a columnist for The Irish Times on Thursday, curious to see what she thought about Ireland and America swapping roles: Ireland growing less benighted; America more so. Ireland less influenced by the dictates of the Catholic Church; America more influenced, reflecting the views of the five right-wing Catholics on the Supreme Court and Neil Gorsuch, an Episcopalian who was raised Catholic. Ireland once had too much church in the state. Now America does.

“If you had told me 15 years ago that abortion would be legal in Ireland and illegal in many parts of the United States, I would have suggested that you see a psychiatrist,” said Niall O’Dowd, the founder of Irishcentral.com and author of “A New Ireland: How Europe’s Most Conservative Country Became Its Most Liberal.” He mused darkly, “Now that the world has turned upside down, there will be charter flights from America to Ireland for abortions.”

Mullally called it painful to watch but not surprising. “I thought this was going to happen,” she said, citing Donald Trump’s inflammatory claim during a 2016 debate that Hillary Clinton’s stance on abortion meant “You can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.” Trump also said in an interview that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who get abortions, later amending it to say that doctors should be punished. “I thought, ‘That’s it,’” Mullally recalled. “People thought there was this American dream but it’s clearly becoming more of an American nightmare.”

She is mystified at the weak response of President Biden and the Democrats, calling it “appeasement” and “magical thinking,” given that Trump and the Republicans had spent years loading the courts with conservatives who were restricting abortion.

“Democrats saying, ‘Women’s rights are on the ballot’ and ‘Vote in November!’ is offensive,” she said. “This is not about votes for your party. Nothing is as important as bodily autonomy. And November? This happened in June. People should be out on the streets. Rape victims are crossing state lines.” That includes the horrifying case of the 10-year-old in Ohio who was raped and had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion.

A segment of Americans never accepted Roe; it was the source of endless, divisive battles. But in Ireland, legalized abortion seems to be accepted; some doctors don’t offer it; others will. And the church isn’t fighting back much; its power was decimated by the pedophile priest scandal.

“As the Irish feminist Ailbhe Smyth said, the greatest victory in 2018 was that the referendum carried without the country being split,” Mullally said. “It’s about creating an empathetic framework of discourse so that people are not at each other’s throats.”

She gets it. Why don’t we?

Dowd gets it!

Tony

Charlie Sykes

Dear Commons Community,

“Of course” Donald Trump is running yet again for the presidency; there’s no other way he can overhaul his “deplorable” legacy, said conservative pundit Charlie Sykes.

Trump told New York Magazine earlier this week that he has already made his decision about running but will reveal it at some time in the future. That’s all but saying he’s running, Sykes noted in his column in The Bulwark Friday.

“If you are at all surprised that he’s running, then you really have not been paying attention these last few decades,” added Sykes. “Of course, it’s about power and money. But mostly it’s about ego and revenge. And he knows he has to move quickly.”

Trump “understands that if he doesn’t run he instantly becomes irrelevant, and an embarrassing and deplorable artifact of political history. You’d be amazed how fast he never happened. The money would dry up, the ring kissing would fade away, and even Lindsey Graham might stop returning his calls. (Just kidding. That would never happen),” Sykes jabs.

The former president is bound to announce quickly, mostly because he has Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — and the devastating hearings of the Jan. 6 committee — nipping at his heels, Sykes pointed out. In particular, being a candidate would give him a much bigger platform to try to deflect attention away from the hearings that are dampening donor interest in Trump.

The Republican establishment — whatever that is — dreads an announcement that he’s running before the midterms, and instantly transforms all races into a referendum on Trump, whose poll numbers remain “ghastly,” warned Sykes.

“Team Normal” believes an early announcement by Trump would be a “huge gift to Joe Biden and the Democrats,” he added.

Sykes has it right. For Trump, it is all about Trump.  He could not care less about the country or anybody else.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Indiana Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita doesn’t express compassion for the rape victim but is furious about the doctor who provided the Ohio child an abortion.

Lawyers for the Indiana physician who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old out-of state rape victim have fired off an angry cease-and-desist warning against the Republican attorney general who launched an investigation against the doctor.  As reported by the Huffington Post.

Attorney General Todd Rokita’s derisive, unfounded attacks against Dr. Caitlin Bernard are utterly “false and defamatory” and risk inciting “harassment and violence,” which could prevent Bernard from safely providing care to her patients, said the letter sent yesterday. Rokita’s action “forms the basis of an actionable defamation claim,” the letter warned.

Bernard performed the drug-induced abortion on the girl last month after she was contacted by an Ohio colleague, a doctor who specializes in detecting child abuse, when he discovered the girl was just over six weeks pregnant and could no longer obtain an abortion in her home state of Ohio.

Rokita baselessly derided Bernard on Fox News as an “abortion activist” this week and informed Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb in a letter Wednesday that he was launching an investigation into Bernard’s activities. He suggested, without evidence, that the doctor failed to report the sexual assault and abortion, as required by law.

In a statement Thursday, Rokita threatened Bernard’s medical license, noting that failure to report is a “crime” and that he would not “relent in pursuit of the truth.”

He expressed no compassion for the child.

According to records in Indiana, Bernard did file the required report July 2 and did not violate the victim’s privacy, according to a statement by Indiana University Health.

The records were obtained by the Indianapolis Star Tribune and other media outlets — yet Rokita continued to question if Bernard had broken the law, the cease-and-desist letter noted.

Rokita’s office told Politico that the cease-and-desist letter would be reviewed “like any correspondence,” claiming, nevertheless, that “no false or misleading statements have been made.”

The case of the 10-year-old rape victim forced to travel out of state for an abortion has sparked a firestorm of controversy in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling last month tossing out Roe v. Wade and 50 years of abortion rights.

Conservatives, including Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), called the girl’s heartbreaking situation a fabrication — until Columbus police announced the arrest of an Ohio man accused of the rape. (Jordan quickly deleted his tweet mocking the “lies” about the report.)

Jordan and Rokita then pivoted to the problem of illegal immigration because the suspected rapist is reportedly an undocumented migrant. Like Rokita, Jordan expressed no compassion or concern for the rape victim.

A prominent anti-abortion lawyer said Thursday that the 10-year-old should have been made to carry the baby to term.

Jim Bopp, general counsel for the anti-abortion group National Right to Life, who crafted model state anti-abortion laws, told Politico, “She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child.”

Some of these Republican crazies are out of control!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Ivana Trump, ex-wife of Donald Trump, died Thursday afternoon. She was 73.  The cause of her death was an accident probably due to injuries suffered in a fall.

Though her high-profile marriage to the former president catapulted her into the limelight in the late ’70s, Ivana was much more than just Mrs. Trump – she was a savvy businesswoman, an athlete, a writer, a multifaceted clothing and jewelry designer, and above all, a proud mother adored by her children. Below is an obituary courtesy of People.

Born Ivana Marie Zelníčková in Zlin, a factory town in then-Communist Czechoslovakia, she was the only child of Marie, a telephone operator, and Milos, an engineer who died in 1990. Ivana skied competitively as a child and was a member of the national ski team, and the sport provided the metaphor that ruled her life.

“When you are going down a mountain at 80 miles an hour, you cannot count on Mama or Papa,” she previously told People. “You have to count only on Ivana.”

After graduating from Charles University in Prague with a master’s in physical education, Ivana married Austrian skier Alfred Winklmayr to get a western passport, People previously reported.

When they split two years later, Ivana moved to Montreal, where she modeled. Her stint in the modeling industry led her to meeting Donald while on a shoot in New York City in 1976. They married nine months later, and eventually welcomed three children together: elder son Donald Jr., only daughter Ivanka, and younger son Eric.

“My mother is my inspiration,” Ivanka, also a mom of three, told People in 2016. “She was the ultimate role model. It was always clear to us that we were her priority, but that doesn’t mean we got her 24 hours a day.”

While she and Donald were married, Ivana took on key roles in some of the Trump businesses, including running Trump’s Castle in Atlantic City as CEO. In his book, Trump: The Art of the Deal, the reality-star-turned-politician called Ivana a “great manager,” describing her as “demanding and very competitive.”

“When it comes to running a casino, good management skills are as important as specific gaming experience,” he wrote, per CNN. “She proved me right.”

She also was named president of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan – the first woman to hold that title – in 1988, according to Town & Country, and designed the interiors of the Grand Hyatt Hotel and Trump Tower, per Time.

Less than a year after she and the Apprentice star divorced – the couple split in 1992 – Ivana began dating wealthy Italian businessman Riccardo Mazzucchelli. Though he signed a prenup prior to their 1995 wedding and trailed loyally behind her at conventions and shopping malls, the union fizzled 20 months later.

Ivana would go on to marry once more, tying the knot with Italian actor Rossano Rubicondi in April 2008 after six years of dating.

Ahead of their nuptials, Rubicondi told People, “I am very excited about marrying Ivana. It does not bother me that she is older. She is an amazing woman, the whole package for me. She is an athlete, smart, sexy, funny and an astute businesswoman. We have a great time together.”

The former couple divorced less than a year after tying the knot in Palm Beach, Florida; however, Ivana served as his caretaker while he was secretly ill for the last year of his life. He died in 2021 at the age of 49.

Though Ivana’s love life was often the talk of the tabloids, the mom of three continued to propel her career forward throughout the years, having penned numerous books, including Raising Trump, Free to Love, and The Best Is Yet to Come: Coping with Divorce and Enjoying Life Again.

She also launched her own lifestyle magazine, Ivana’s Living in Style, and wrote an advice column called “Ask Ivana” for Globe from 1995 to 2010.

“I love to be me,” she told People in 2011. “I have fabulous friends, a boyfriend. Life is beautiful.”

In New York City where she lived most of her adult life, she was considered a “class act.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A previously unknown self-portrait (above) of Vincent Van Gogh has been discovered behind another of the artist’s paintings, the National Galleries of Scotland said yesterday.  As reported by the Associated Press.

The self-portrait was found on the back of Van Gogh’s “Head of a Peasant Woman” when experts at the Edinburgh gallery took an X-ray of the canvas ahead of an upcoming exhibition. The work is believed to have been hidden for over a century, covered by layers of glue and cardboard when it was framed in the early 20th century.  See video below.

Van Gogh was known for turning canvases around and painting on the other side to save money.

The portrait shows a bearded sitter in a brimmed hat. Experts said the subject was instantly recognizable as the artist himself, and is thought to be from his early work. The left ear is clearly visible and Van Gogh famously cut his off in 1888.

Frances Fowle, a senior curator at the National Galleries of Scotland, said the discovery was “thrilling.”

“Moments like this are incredibly rare,” she said. “We have discovered an unknown work by Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most important and popular artists in the world.”

The gallery said experts are evaluating how to remove the glue and cardboard without harming “Head of a Peasant Woman.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has lost the lease on her gun-themed restaurant, Shooters.

The restaurant in Rifle, Colorado, which was best known for its pistol-toting waitresses and a 2017 diarrhea outbreak, shut down on Sunday, according to multiple reports.

The Daily Beast reported  that the building’s new owners revoked her lease. An unnamed source was quoted as saying the new owners felt a “moral” imperative to shut it down, but did not elaborate.

Boebert, who is so extreme that a fellow Republican slammed her as “the Christian Taliban,” told the Glenwood Springs Post Independent the letter came as a shock, and the new landlords told her “there wasn’t really much wiggle room or anywhere to compromise unless we bought the building ourselves.”

She told the newspaper she expected to be back.

“We would just dramatically scale it back, because, obviously, we’re not in our building,” she said. “It may look like a Shooters coffee shop with pastries and some easy breakfast sandwiches and merchandise.”

Boebert frequently makes headlines for her conspiracy theories ― such as her embrace of QAnon extremism ― and her struggles with basic civics, including a recent claim that “the church is supposed to direct the government,” which would be a direct violation of the First Amendment.

A bit looney to me!

Tony

SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR – SHADED AREAS INDICATE U.S. RECESSIONS

Dear Commons Community,

U.S. consumer prices in June accelerated at the fastest annual pace since November 1981.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI) reflected a year-over-year increase of 9.1% last month, up from the prior 40-year high of 8.6% in May. Economists were expecting June’s reading to show an 8.8% increase, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

On a monthly basis, the broadest measure of inflation rose at a pace of 1.3%, inching up from 1% in May and climbing at a faster tempo than the 1.1% climb economists had projected. This marked the largest monthly increase since 2005.

U.S. stocks were slammed early yesterday following the hotter-than-expected print. The S&P 500 dropped 1.3% at the open, while the Nasdaq shed 1.7%, and the Dow fell 1.1%.

The continued surge in inflation across the U.S. economy was elevated by broad-based increases, including high food costs and record gasoline prices, which topped more than $5 per gallon at the pump last month.

“Core” CPI, which excludes the more volatile food and energy components, rose 5.9% in June, compared to 6.0% in May. Economists expected a 5.7% increase in this measure.

The report’s energy index soared 7.5% in June and 41.6% over the last year, marking the largest 12-month increase since the period ending April 1980. Meanwhile, the component of the report tracking food prices increased 1% over the month and 10.4% annually, the biggest 12-month increase since the period ending February 1981.

Commodity prices have been under pressure in recent weeks, however, with crude oil falling more than 8% on Tuesday.

“Overall, this report confirms that the Fed may need to hike interest rates again at the end-July meeting,” Capital Economics Senior U.S. Economist Michael Pearce said. “While some will draw parallels with the shockingly bad May CPI report, the backdrop is markedly different — commodity prices have fallen sharply and we’ve seen clearer signs of an economic slowdown, both of which will contribute to weaker price pressures ahead.”

In Washington, the White House on Tuesday warned in a call with reporters that June’s inflation numbers were likely to be “highly elevated” but downplayed the weight of last month’s figure, pointing to gas prices that have since retreated from their highs.

Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, echoed that defense of June’s CPI reading in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live on Wednesday. Deese underscored the downward trend in gasoline prices, but did not offer specific details when asked how volatility in energy markets may show up in future readings if prices swing back up.

“The Administration tried to get out in front of the bad economic news, and tell us the inflation report was going to be ugly this month, but it was even worse than markets imagined in their wildest dreams,” FWDBONDS Chief Economist Christopher Rupkey said in emailed commentary.

Inflation has become the Achilles heel for Biden and the Democrats as we move closer to the midterm elections!

Tony