October 28, 2016: James Comey Kneecaps Hillary Clinton

October 28, 2016, 10 years ago: James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sends a letter to members of Congress, advising them that the FBI was reviewing more emails written by, and to, the Democratic Party's nominee for President, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Members of Congress revealed the information to the public within minutes.

Comey's boss, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, could have stepped in, and reminded the country that nothing in those emails revealed any criminal activity, committed by anyone, including Secretary Clinton. So could Holder's boss, President Barack Obama, leaving office the following January 20, as he was limited to 2 terms in office. But neither did, to avoid the appearance of trying to "fix" the election -- as if Comey hadn't already tried that.

And so, "the appearance of impropriety" fed into the myth of Mrs. Clinton, and of her husband, Bill Clinton, as unethical, which the Republican Party had been pushing since he began his 1st campaign for President, 25 years to the month earlier.

It may have made all the difference in the election, throwing it to the Republicans' nominee for President: A spectacularly failed businessman with no political experience, of malignant narcissism, of disgusting racism, of unacceptable misogyny, and compromised in disastrous ways. His name was Donald Trump.

Trump won 306 Electoral Votes, Clinton 232 -- although, with "faithless electors" kicking in, it turned out to be 304-227 in Trump's favor. Trump won Michigan by less than 11,000 votes, Wisconsin by less than 23,000, and Pennsylvania by less than 45,000. Had those 3 States gone the other way, presuming no faithless electors, the Electoral Vote would have been 278-260 in Clinton's favor.

To borrow a term Trump would appreciate, given his love of the Mob: Comey kneecapped Clinton.

And how did Trump thank Comey for this? By firing him. James Comey ended up as the one figure from the 2016 Presidential election who was hated by both sides -- although, in the Republicans' case, it was for what he did after it.

*

October 28, 2016 was a Friday. Game 3 of the World Series was played, the 1st World Series game played at Wrigley Field in 71 years. The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago Cubs, 1-0. Coco Crisp singled Michael Martínez home with the game's only run in the top of the 7th inning. Josh Tomlin, Andrew Miller (winning pitcher), Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen combined on a 5-hit shutout. But the Cubs won the World Series in Game 7. 

October 7, 2016: The Trump "Access Hollywood" Tape Is Released

Left to right: Billy Bush, Donald Trump and Arianne Zucker

October 7, 2016, 10 yeares ago: It is 32 days until the Presidential election, between the Democratic Party's nominee, Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, Senator from New York, and Secretary of State; and the Republican Party's nominee, Donald Trump, a man with no political experience, and whose experience as a billionaire businessman was built on lies -- for example, the lie that he was a billionaire, rather than a billion dollars in debt.

The Washington Post releases a videotape from a never-aired interview on the NBC show Access Hollywood that correspondent Billy Bush -- a cousin of then-President George W. Bush -- did of The Apprentice star Donald Trump on September 16, 2005. On the tape, Trump and Bush are on a tour bus, outside the Hollywood studio where NBC taped the soap opera Days of Our Lives. Arianne Zucker, one of the show's stars, was waiting to greet them.

While waiting for the signal to get off the bus, Trump started talking about Bush's co-host on Access Hollywood, Nancy O'Dell:

I moved on her, and I failed. I'll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married. And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, "I'll show you where they have some nice furniture." I took her out furniture -- I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn't get there. And she was married. Then, all of a sudden, I see her, she's now got the big phony tits and everything. She's totally changed her look.

That was bad enough. But there's a difference between sounding like a sexist pig who cheats on his wife, which Trump was already known to be; and sounding like a violent criminal. As they got ready to get off the bus, Trump started talking about Zucker, and then confessed to committing sexual assault on multiple occasions:

I better use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful -- I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.

Zucker was also married at the time, to her co-star, Kyle Lowder. They have since divorced.

NBC kept the tape hidden, because Trump's reality show, The Apprentice, meant big ratings, and thus big money, for them. At the time, the tape would have destroyed Trump, and ruined the show.

But by the time the tape was released, Trump was the Republican nominee for President, running against a woman. It should have destroyed him.

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Republicans' 2012 nominee for Vice President, canceled a campaign appearance with him set for the next day, saying in a released statement, "I am sickened by what I heard today. Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified."

In a televised interview, Senator Mike Lee of Utah directed these words at Trump: "Step down. Allow someone else to carry the banner of these principles, rather than weighing down the very principles that will help us win in November." And Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus told Trump, "You need to step aside, or you are going to suffer a historic landslide of a defeat."

Trump released this statement: "This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course -- not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended."

Of course: The classic "if anyone was offended" apology, when he knew damn well that millions of people, including millions in his own Party, were offended. Equally "of course": "Whataboutism," bringing the opposition, and in particular his opponent's husband, the former President, into it.

Trump was lying, of course. There is no way in hell that Bill Clinton would say something worse than what Trump said. You gotta be an actual Ku Klux Klansman to say something worse than that.

Trump doubled down. In a televised interview that night, he said, "Bill Clinton has actually abused women. And Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims."

Up to that point, Bill Clinton was the most-investigated President in American history, much more so than Trump was during his 1st term in office. There is no proof that Clinton has ever abused a woman.

Trump did not give a damn what the truth was. He knew that there were millions of people in America who would believe every word he said, because he had given them permission to be bigoted in public again, and they were grateful to him for this, to the point of near-worship.

He also knew that there were millions of people in America who wanted tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of business, an end to civil rights progress, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade; and that they wanted these things so much, that they would vote for the Devil himself if he were the Republican nominee for President.

Campaigning in the Iowa Caucuses on January 23, 2016, Trump said, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" He didn't say he wouldn't be arrested. He said he wouldn't lose any voters. And he was probably right about that.

The one thing Trump believed could stop him is if he stopped himself. He saw dropping out of the race as a sign of weakness. And the appearance of weakness was the one thing he hated more than nonwhite people. So he made himself look defiant, bullish, strong, standing up to his enemies.

The RNC could have removed him from the ticket. They gambled that they had a better chance of winning with him than without him.

Trump's wife Melania said, "The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me. This does not represent the man that I know." She added that she hoped "people will accept his apology, as I have." Only she knew for sure whether she was telling the truth at that moment.

Things actually got worse for Trump that day: U.S. intelligence agencies publicly accused the Russian government of using computer hacking to interfere with the U.S. election process. Trump had previously invited them to do it: At a news conference the preceding July 27, he said, "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

And, also on October 7, WikiLeaks -- run by convicted rapist Julian Assange, who had ties to Russia -- released thousands of private emails from inside the Clinton campaign. And that may have, literally, made all the difference in the world: It gave a little more life to Trump's claims of his opponent as "Crooked Hillary," even though there was nothing in the emails that suggested any criminal activity on her part.

Two nights later, there was a Presidential debate, at Washington University in St. Louis, which had hosted such debates before. Trump not only invited, but held a press conference with, and seated in the front row of the debate, 3 women who had previously accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct: Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick, all of whose accusations had been proven false. Interestingly, he did not invite Monica Lewinsky, whose story, which did not include any form of abuse on the President's part, was proven true. Or, if he did invite her, she turned him down.

The idea of putting those women in the front row was that Hillary would have seen them, been reminded of Bill's cheating on her, and been thrown off her game. She wasn't: As she did in the other 2 debates, she kicked his ass.

Nevertheless, Trump again reiterated his lies about Bill, and his lies about Hillary, and his lies about the Democrats, and his lies about himself. And the rubes bought it. As the historian Will Durant put it, "You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but you can fool enough of them to be elected the leader of a country."

As a result of the tape being released, the only person who had to step down from any role was Billy Bush, who did nothing wrong -- except, I suppose, remain silent about the tape for 11 years. By 2016, he was a correspondent on NBC's The Today Show, and he had to resign that post. In 2019, he was back on the air, on another show-business-themed show, Extra! -- which had been on NBC, but had since moved to, of course, Fox.

Presidential Approval Rating Peaks and Valleys, 1933-2026

From The Moment with Katy Tur, October 2, 2026

According to polling presented on MS Now yesterday, on The Moment with Katy Tur, by Tur, Trump is at 82 percent disapproval on the issue of the cost of living. That's on one issue, not overall.

In contrast, the following Presidents were at the following peak levels of disapproval on the following issues: Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War, 57; Richard Nixon on the Watergate scandal, 71; Jimmy Carter on the economy overall, 74; George W. Bush on the economy overall, 77, and on the Iraq War, 70; and Joe Biden on the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, 62.

Not listed in that graphic, apparently because they didn't have as much as 57 percent on any particular issue, which I, having lived through every President since Nixon, find hard to believe: Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

So I got curious: When were Presidents at their most popular, overall; and least? Here's the figures I found, with sources listed in the link, starting in the modern era:

* Franklin D. Roosevelt: Highest: 84 percent in a poll ending January 13, 1942, in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the country rallying around itself, its troops, and its President; Lowest, 48, August 24, 1939, after the 1937-38 "Roosevelt Recession," but before the start of World War II.

* Harry S Truman: Highest: 87, June 5, 1945, in the wake of V-E Day in the closing days of World War II; Lowest, 22, February 14, 1952, at the depth of the Korean War, and with some Democratic scandals that would seem like penny-ante stuff by the time of Watergate.

* Dwight D. Eisenhower: Highest: 78, November 22, 1955, after recovering from his heart attack 2 months earlier; Lowest, 48, April 1, 1958, at the depth of the worst recession the country had seen since the end of the Great Depression, but one that would be surpassed many times starting in 1973.

* John F. Kennedy: Highest: 83, May 3, 1961, ironically in the wake of the failed Bay of Pigs operation, with people appreciating that he took full responsibility for it, instead of blaming Ike, the CIA, or anybody else; Lowest, 56, September 17, 1963, after he'd lost much of the South with his civil rights bill, but he was still personally popular.

* Lyndon B. Johnson: Highest, 80, March 5, 1964, in the wake of the JFK assassination and his promise of a War On Poverty; Lowest, 35, August 12, 1968, with the Vietnam War and race riots both seeming to have no end in sight.

* Richard Nixon: Highest, 70, February 15, 1973, after he'd won a 2nd term and "ended the Vietnam War," but before Watergate emerged as an issue; Lowest, 23, January 7, 1974, oddly not right before he resigned.

* Gerald Ford: Highest, 71, August 19, 1974, right after he'd replaced Nixon and given a unifying "not an Inaugural Address"; Lowest, 37, January 13, 1975, after his pardon of Nixon, and with the recession Nixon dumped in his lap having had inflation added to it.

* Jimmy Carter: Highest, 75, March 21, 1977, in his 1st 100 days; Lowest, 28, July 2, 1979, oddly, right before his "Crisis of Confidence" speech, before the Iran Hostage Crisis, the OPEC moves raising gas prices, the accompanying inflation with everything else, or the high interest rates.

* Ronald Reagan: Highest, 68, May 11, 1981, after both his 1st 100 days and his recovering from an assassination attempt; Lowest, 35, January 31, 1983, with unemployment at 11 percent, it's highest non-COVID point since the end of the Great Depression.

* George H.W. Bush: Highest, 89, March 3, 1991, just as he ended the Persian Gulf War; Lowest, 29, August 2, 1992, with the deepest recession yet since the end of the Great Depression, and with the Democrats having just had a successful Convention, but before his Party's Convention made things worse.

So far, all of these polls were by the Gallup Organization. These were not, with one exception:

* Bill Clinton: Highest, 73, by CBS News and The New York Times, January 27, 1998, 6 days after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, a day after his finger-wagging denial of the charges, and right after his State of the Union Address, so at a low point in his Administration, he was at his most popular; Lowest, 36, by Time magazine and CNN, May 27, 1993, right after his 1st 100 days, which had a few public-relations missepts.

* George W. Bush: Highest, 92, by ABC News, October 9, 2001, right after he'd begun bombing Afghanistan in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks; Lowest, 19, by the American Research Group, February 19, 2008, with a recession getting bad and the Iraq War having no end in sight, even though things would get much worse economically.

* Barack Obama: Highest, 76, by CNN, February 8, 2009, right after his Inauguration; Lowest, 37, by Gallup, September 11, 2011, 4 months after he killed Osama bin Laden, after Republicans had started running against him, including airing TV commercials against him, but before the 2012 Primaries started, and he wasn't airing his own ads yet.

* Joe Biden: Highest, 63, by the Associated Press, May 3, 2021, around the end of his 1st 100 days; Lowest, 31, by Quinnipiac University, July 18, 2022, around the time that inflation got the highest under him.

* Donald Trump, and these are the extremes for both of his terms combined, so far: Highest, 49, by McLaughlin & Associates, March 24, 2019, before his 1st impeachment, COVID, and the COVID-induced recession; Lowest, 29, Pew Research, January 12, 2021, after the January 6 insurrection, and right before his 2nd impeachment.

Therefore, they can be ranked as follows:

Highest: Dubya Bush 92, Daddy Bush 89, Truman 87, FDR 84, JFK 83, LBJ 80, Ike 78, Obama 76, Carter 75, Clinton 73, Ford 71, Nixon 70, Reagan 68, Biden 63, Trump 49. Surprise: Reagan was never as popular as Carter or Clinton at his peak, and Trump has never had a majority.

Lowest: JFK 56, FDR 48, Ike 48, Obama 37, Ford 37, Clinton 36, LBJ 35, Reagan 35, Biden 31, Daddy Bush 29, Trump 29, Carter 28, Nixon 23, Truman 22, Dubya Bush 19. Another surprise: LBJ and Clinton never got as low as Reagan; but Truman was lower than all of them except Dubya.

How about their average approval rating? These are all from Gallup, and they didn't list FDR's: JFK 70.1, Ike 65.0, Daddy Bush 60.9, LBJ 55.1, Clinton 55.1, Reagan 52.8, Dubya Bush 49.4, Nixon 49.0, Obama 47.9, Ford 47.2, Carter 45.5, Truman 45.4, Biden 42.2, Trump 41.1.

Think about that: Not only is Trump's the lowest, but even with him, and (as Rush Limbaugh would have said about Clinton) his willing accomplices in the media, bad-mouthing Biden for 5 years straight (counting the 2020 campaign), Biden's average was still higher than Trump's.

What does this mean? Basically, it means that there are certain rules to being President:

* Don't have a "Depression." Herbert Hoover, the last President before this list, had THE one. Nixon had one. Ford suffered for it, too. Carter was seen as having one, but it wasn't one. Reagan had one. Both Bushes had one. Biden was seen as having one, but it wasn't one. Trump is now on his 2nd.

* Don't have a "Vietnam." LBJ had one. Carter had won, in Iran. Reagan got out of one, in Lebanon. Dubya had one, in Iraq. Biden sort-of had one, in Afghanistan, although it was based on a Trump policy, which he didn't change. Trump now has one, in Iran.

* Don't have a Watergate. Truman sort-of had one, the various "corruption" scandals in his Administration. Nixon had THE one. Ford suffered for it, too. Reagan had one, Iran-Contra, but survived it. Clinton didn't have one, not that Republicans didn't try to say he had several. Dubya had one, the Scooter Libby vs. Valerie Plame story. Trump had one, getting impeached over trying to blackmail Ukraine.

* Don't screw up a hurricane. Nixon and Daddy Bush had particularly bad ones in both Year 1 and Year 4, but each responded properly, and while both had their Presidencies end earlier than they would have liked, their hurricane responses had nothing to do with it. Dubya Bush had the worst one in the modern era, and it basically ended his "9/11 untouchability," before his "Vietnam" could make things worse. Obama had one just a few days before voters had to decide whether to re-elect him, but he handled it right, though he probably would have won the most-affected States anyway. Trump screwed up a hurricane in Year 1, and hardly anybody even remembers that now, because he's done so many other horrible things.

* Don't screw up a pandemic. So far, only 4 Presidents have faced this problem. In 1918, Woodrow Wilson put up measures to fight the Spanish Flu, and we may never know how many people those measures saved. Obama faced Ebola in 2014, and his measures meant that literally no Americans died from it, and just one person on American soil, a visiting Liberian. The Obama Administration "wrote a pandemic playbook," because they knew something like that would happen someday, and we had to be prepared. Trump threw it out, because it was "written" by a black man. The result was the estimation that about 70 percent of the people who died from COVID wouldn't have if Trump had kept and followed the playbook. Biden was left to deal with the aftermath, and handled it as well as could have been hoped by that point.

So that's 5 rules. And Trump has broken them all. But only the "Depression" and the "Vietnam" seem to have hurt him in this 2nd term.

These polling averages also suggest that there will always be a core group that will support either party, no matter what; and a larger mass of people in between who are willing to change their minds to adjust to changing circumstances, and who do, whether the President or the media like it or not.

It's also worth noting that, once you take out FDR's 2 extra terms, most Presidents that managed to win a 2nd (or 1st full) term averaged better polling in their 1st term than in their 2nd. The exceptions, so far, have been Reagan, Clinton and Obama.

But now, as Year 6 of his Presidency is moving into its latter stages, and he is almost halfway through the 2nd term he won on the basis of fear of immigrants, inflation, and the issue of war & peace, Trump is facing blowback on the latter 2 issues, from people who had been his people all the way.

It is not enough to make them call their Congressmen and ask for his 3rd impeachment. It is not enough to make them call their Senators and ask for his conviction and removal through an impeachment trial. It is certainly not enough to make enough Republican Senators, plus Democrat John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, join every other Democratic Senator to make 67, enough to remove him.

But it might become enough to make supporters of his, who know he's not literally on the ballot in the elections to be held on November 3, either vote Democratic for the first time in who-knows-how-long-if-ever, or stay home, and lead to big Democratic victories.

Because now, Trump's policies are directly hurting them. And it's been almost 2 years: Blaming a President who hasn't been in office in that time, or the Democrats who don't hold Congressional majorities and are blocked from making policy, won't work. This is on him, and it is on his Party.

And if enough Republicans lose for the ones that are left to blame him for their new minority status, that might be enough to shake his 34-Senator firewall. And, instead of a literal wall he built that does little to keep immigrants from entering the country, it may just be that figurative wall collapsing that ends his Presidency.

Unless, of course, his health catches up to him first.

September 1, 2016: Colin Kaepernick Takes a Knee

September 1, 2016, 10 years ago: The San Francisco 49ers beat the San Diego Chargers, 31-21 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, in their last preseason game. Like any preseason game, the result doesn't matter. This time, it mattered less than ever.

Instead of standing while the National Anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," was played before the game, 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick got down on one knee for the duration of the song.

He did this in protest of the many recent cases of police brutality. This earned him a bit of praise, and also a lot of nasty blowback from racists, who said he was "disgracing the Anthem" and "disgracing the American flag."

These people were not idiots, though many of the people they pander to are: They were liars. His gesture didn't have a damned thing to do with the flag. It had to do with white cops murdering unarmed black suspects who have been convicted of nothing, and knowing they will get away with it, because the men in power let them get away with it.

But they managed to redefine his protest, so that people didn't get the message that police brutality was a problem.

As a result, nothing changed. That was my only problem with the gesture: It didn't work. But he kept on doing it long after it became obvious that racist cops were still going to beat, and sometimes even murder, unarmed black people.

The people who attacked Kaepernick for his protest were not only disrespecting the 1st Amendment, one of the biggest things for which the flag stands. If they didn't respect his right, then the flag they claimed to love so much means nothing. By attacking Kaepernick for his protest, they were endorsing the cold-blooded murder of unarmed black people by white cops.

See? That's an extreme way to put it, but such a thing works both ways. If Kap is "un-American," then those people were racist. Or, they could have simply admitted that Kap has a point, and try to take that point away from him, by taking steps to solve the problem. That way, everybody would have won. Except the actual racists.

The 49ers went on to have a horrible season, going 2-14. Statistically, Kaepernick wasn't much below what he had previously done, including taking the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII in the 2012 season. In 2016, he completed 59.2 percent of his passes, for 2,241 yards, 16 touchdowns and only 4 interceptions. He also rushed for 468 yards. The position of quarterback was not the 49ers' problem.

Their defense was the problem: Following a 28-0 win over the Los Angeles Rams in their regular-season opener, they allowed the 6-10 Carolina Panthers to score 46, the 7-9 Buffalo Bills to score 45, the 7-9 New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons to each score 41, the Seattle Seahawks to score 37, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to score 34, the Arizona Cardinals to score 33, the Miami Dolphins to score 31, and the New England Patriots to score 30.

Their only other win came near the end of the season, also over the 4-12 Rams, on Christmas Eve. Of their 14 losses, only 5 were within 7 points, so even if they'd won all of those, they still would have been 7-9 and missed the Playoffs. Head coach Chip Kelly and general manager Trent Baalke were both fired.

On New Year's Day, January 1, 2017, with Donald Trump, who called Kapernick "that son of a bitch" in a public speech, having ridden a wave of bigotry -- and Russian meddling -- to become President-elect, the 49ers lost their season finale to the Seahawks, 25-23. Kaepernick completed 17 out of 22 passes, for 215 yards, throwing a touchdown pass, and no interceptions. He was 29 years old, hardly old for a quarterback.

He has never thrown another professional pass, in any league on Earth. You see, in the NFL, you can do anything you want, as long as you don't embarrass your team or the League. Once you do that, they are done with you. And Kaepernick had embarrassed the National Football League. Other leagues, such as the Canadian Football League, didn't want him to do the same to theirs, so they didn't sign him, either.

He wasn't officially banned. He was -- pardon the choice of word, which originally had nothing to do with race -- blackballed. As Mike Lupica insinuated in his column in the New York Daily News, every single team organization in the NFL, some of whom desperately needed improvement at the position of quarterback, was sending a message: "We would rather go 0-16 for what would have been the rest of Colin Kapernick's career than have him play for our team."

A corollary to that message could have been, "We would rather have bigots pay for tickets, parking, food, souvenirs, etc. than take the money of Kaepernick's supporters." But even that didn't really enter into it. Every bigot is an asshole, but not every asshole is a bigot. For the team owners, this wasn't about money. If there is one thing that a rich person values more than money, it is control.

And the NFL team owners could not control Colin Kaepernick. So they acted as though he didn't even exist. They could not control him, so they denied him.

On February 2, 2020, with Jimmy Garoppolo as quarterback, the 49ers played in Super Bowl LIV, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-20. On January 20, 2023, the 49ers were in the NFC Championship Game, playing the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. In the 2022 season opener, Trey Lance was their starting quarterback, but he got hurt on September 18. From then until December 4, it was Garoppolo, but he was injured. From then onward, it was Brock Purdy, but he was injured early in that Championship Game. They had signed a previous quarterback, Josh Johnson, as an emergency backup after the December 4 game, and he stepped in for the NFC Championship, but left the game with a concussion in the 3rd quarter. Purdy was pressed back in for emergency duty, and threw 4 passes, completing them all, but for a total of 23 yards. The Niners lost, 31-7.

Colin Kaepernick was 35 years old. He should still have been the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, a team that has won 5 Super Bowls. If he had been, they might have won a 6th Super Bowl, and even a 7th.

On November 3, 2026, barring a medical calamity, he will turn 39. To put that in perspective: Aaron Rodgers, now with the Pittsburgh Steelers, is 42; Joe Flacco, now with the Cincinnati Bengals, is 41; and the aforementioned Josh Johnson, also now with the Bengals, is 40. Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams and Kirk Cousins of the Las Vegas Raiders are both expected to start for their teams this season, at 38.

If Kaepernick wanted to make a comeback now, and were permitted to do so, he would be very rusty, but he wouldn't be the oldest quarterback in the NFL.

October 31, 2015: Horse Racing's 1st "Grand Slam"

October 31, 2015, 10 years ago: American Pharoah wins the Breeders' Cup Classic, the highlight of the annual Breeders' Cup meet, held this year at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Kentucky.

On May 2, 2015, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, at 3-1 odds, American Pharoah won the Kentucky Derby, in 2 minutes, 3.02 seconds, by 1 length over Firing Line. Two weeks later, on May 16, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, at 9-10 odds, he won the Preakness Stakes, in 1 minute, 58.46 seconds, by 7 lengths over Tale of Verve.

Since Affirmed won the Triple Crown in 1978, there had been several near-misses, horses winning the Derby and the Preakness, but not the Belmont Stakes, the mile-and-a-half "True Test of Champions." Spectacular Bid had failed in 1979, Pleasant Colony in 1981, Alysheba in 1987, Sunday Silence in 1989, Silver Charm by 3/4 of a length in 1997, Real Quiet in a photo finish in 1998, Charismatic due to an in-race injury in 1999, War Emblem in 2002, Funny Cide in 2003, Smarty Jones by 1 length in 2004, Big Brown due to an in-race injury in 2008, I'll Have Another scratched from the Belmont due to an injury in 2012, and California Chrome due to an in-race injury in 2014. Racing fans were wondering if they would ever see another winner.

On June 6, American Pharoah was loaded into the paddock at Belmont Park in Elmont, Long Island, New York, just over the City Line from Queens, at odds of 3-4. There was no injury, no fade, and not even any drama: He won by 5 1/2 lengths over Frosted, in a time of 2 minutes, 26.65 seconds.

The idea for the Breeders' Cup was proposed at the 1982 awards luncheon for the Kentucky Derby Festival by pet food heir John R. Gaines, a leading Thoroughbred owner and breeder who wanted to clean up the sport's image.

The event was created as a year-end championship for North American thoroughbred racing, and also attracts top horses from other parts of the world, especially Europe. The Cup was initially faced with much skepticism in the racing community, but with the vocal support of legendary trainer John Nerud and others, the event was carried out for the 1st time in 1984, and subsequently experienced tremendous popularity domestically and abroad.

The feature race is the Breeders' Cup Classic, a mile and a quarter like the Kentucky Derby. Usually, it is won by a horse that has won at least 1 of the Triple Crown races, although the 1st winner, Wild Again, didn't even enter any of those races, but held off 1983 Three-Year-Old Male Champion Slew o' Gold and 1984 Preakness winner Gate Dancer at Hollywood Park outside Los Angeles.

American Pharoah was the 1st Triple Crown winner to whom the Classic was available. On Halloween, October 31, 2015, at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky -- practically home soil -- he won by 5 1/2 lengths, in 2 minutes, 0.07 seconds, by 6 1/2 lengths over Effinex. Thus, he became the 1st winner of an American thoroughbred racing "Grand Slam." Through the 2025 Classic -- taking place tomorrow, but with no Triple Crown winner -- he remains the only one.

It was his last race. Unlike many 3-year-old champions, he did not have a money-making 4-year-old season, and was immediately retired to stud. As of October 31, 2025, American Pharoah stands at Ashford Stud farm in Kentucky. Most of his descendants who have gone on to race have done so outside the United States, winning races in Britain, Europe and Australia.

In the Better Timeline...

I've heard people who are fans of science fiction, including time travel stories, say things like, "We are living in the worst timeline."

I've also heard people who are fans of the TV show The Good Place use that show's Season 1 finale shocker to describe the real world in which we now live: They've come to realize that this is the Bad Place: Hell.

The idea being that, maybe, there's another world where a historical event happened differently, leading to a better timeline, or that maybe we died, and began living in what would be, to us, considered Hell.

There's an old bit:

Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where the police are German, the chefs are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and it is all organized by the Italians.

And Trump has been President continuously since 2009, because there was a coup after President Black Man was elected.

In the better timeline...

* On November 2, 1968, a plane had mechanical difficulties, and Anna Chennault couldn't get on it to fly to Paris and sabotage the Vietnam War peace talks.

* Hubert Humphrey was elected President. The peace talks continued. Lyndon Johnson got a peace deal by Christmas. Humphrey took office without having to worry about Vietnam. He placed the call to the astronauts on the Moon, not Richard Nixon. There was no Kent State Massacre. Humphrey took us one step closer to universal health care, with MediKid, a children's version of Medicare. He replaces the retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren with former Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, the man who, as Robert F. Kennedy's Deputy, got George Wallace out of the schoolhouse door in 1963.

*  With Nixon out of the way, Ronald Reagan was free to be the representative of both the traditional conservative movement and the evangelicals, and ended 12 years of the New Frontier and the Great Society. Reagan's Vice President was chosen because he was a part of the "Southern Strategy": Senator John Tower of Texas.

* It was the Reagan Administration that bugged the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate, and Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post got right on it. It was also Reagan and company who orchestrated the coup in Chile in 1973. Mark Felt was still at the FBI, and, as "Deep Throat," he spilled the beans, and Reagan was impeached, and removed on August 9, 1974. The conservative and evangelical movements were struck a blow from which they could not recover in the short term.

* Tower became President, and couldn't stop the recession Reagan's tax cut had caused. The evangelicals abandoned him, because of his apparent womanizing and alcoholism. With the Reagan scandals hanging over him, he had no chance in 1976, and Jimmy Carter was elected.

* As President-elect, Carter met with the new Speaker of the House, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill of Massachusetts, and the new Senate Majority Leader, Robert Byrd of West Virginia. In our timeline, by his own admission, "I treated Congress like the Georgia legislature, and they treated me like the Governor of Georgia." In this timeline, they get off on the right foot, and, with the Kennedy-Harkin Bill, sponsored by Representative Tom Harkin and Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts, universal health coverage passes on October 18, 1977. (I chose the date because it's the day the Yankees ended a 15-year World Series drought.) 

* With Nixon defeated in 1968, Henry Kissinger never becomes a person of influence in the American government. He's not there to, along with others like David Rockefeller, convince Carter to let the Shah of Iran into America for cancer treatment. Instead, Carter is warned by his Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, and Humphrey's, George Ball, not to do it, and he agrees. While Iran remains a problem from 1979 onward, there is no Iran Hostage Crisis.

* There is still a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This time, though, with no hostage crisis, and no resulting OPEC actions that have jacked up gas prices and caused overall inflation, Carter's announcement of a boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow is treated as a principled action, and widely supported. Ted Kennedy sees no reason to run for President, gets his drinking under control, and his separation and divorce from Joan is relatively quiet. Unopposed in the Democratic Primaries, Carter rolls to re-election over former Representative and Republican National Committee Chairman George H.W. Bush.

* In a bipartisan gesture, Carter makes his one and only appointment to the Supreme Court the 1st woman, a Republican, Sandra Day O'Connor.

* Having gotten the Camp David Accords and the Panama Canal Treaty, then a 2nd term, Carter mediates the reunification of Vietnam under a coalition government committed to free elections, and ends the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador. He gets a peace agreement between Israel and Jordan, there is no Israeli incursion into Lebanon, and that nation, Jordan and Egypt work with Yassir Arafat to turn the West Bank into the Republic of Palestine, with a capital to be built in East Jerusalem. It is nicknamed "Israel's Marshall Plan," and Carter is awarded the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize.

* Having achieved several domestic aims in his 1st term, there wasn't a whole lot for Carter to do in his 2nd. His Vice President, Walter Mondale, won a narrow victory over Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas. There was no Iran-Contra Scandal.

* In 1986, Chief Justice Katzenbach retired. In his place, Mondale appointed the leading Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Joe Biden of Delaware. And there was no bitter partisan fight over the nominations to the Supreme Court of Robert Bork in 1987. Because, in 1987, to replace Lewis Powell on the Court, Mondale nominated Laurence Tribe, and the popular Harvard Law School professor was easily confirmed.

* By 1987, the economy had slowed, and the stock market crash that October sends the nation into recession. Complaints about "kitchen table issues" and crime lead to the election in 1988 of the darling of the tax-cut movement, Representative from New York, and former professional quarterback, Jack Kemp.

* It became one of the great ironies of American political history that President Kemp should be best remembered not for the tax cut he signed into law, or the recession it deepened, or for the budget reconciliation bill he signed to alleviate it, raising taxes, and causing those who had once been his foremost advocates to abandon him as "a traitor to the cause."

It was the Persian Gulf War. It could have been worse: He could have been dumb enough to press on to Baghdad, but his Secretary of State -- 1980 Republican Presidential nominee George H.W. Bush -- warned him against it, and he agreed. Kemp also presided over the closing of the Cold War, as first the Berlin Wall, then the Soviet Union, fell.

* There was no bitter partisan fight over the nomination to the Supreme Court of Clarence Thomas in 1991. Because, not desperate to pander to the conservative movement as the elder Bush was in our timeline, Kemp would have considered Thomas' record, and found him to be under-qualified to replace anyone, let alone Thurgood Marshall, the 1st black Justice on the Court.

Instead, he appointed Amalya Lyle Kearse to be the 1st black woman on it. (In our timeline, Carter appointed her to the federal bench, and Reagan thought enough of her to make her a finalist for the seat that went to O'Connor in 1981.) Kemp "crossed the aisle" to appoint her, being strong on civil rights. The joke was, because he'd played pro football, he had showered with more black people than most Republicans had ever actually met.

* Kemp responded to the beating of Rodney King by working with Democratic leaders to come up with a Crime Bill that not only would properly respond to escalating crime in the inner cities, but also hire more and better police officers. He knew it had to be done, but he also wanted to take crime off the table for the 1992 election. The officers who beat King were convicted on the 1st try, and there was no riot in Los Angeles.

* The 1992 Presidential election has been called one of the best ever. Kemp, only 57 and still full of vigor, was opposed by Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. It was a conservative idea man vs. a liberal idea man, both very popular with college-age voters, who didn't yet have to go out and get a job. People who did turned to Clinton, because the recession was still going on, and the Republicans' attempts to blame Mondale for starting it weren't working anymore. With Vietnam a non-issue after 1968, Clinton didn't have it as part of his problems. But with universal coverage passed, Clinton couldn't campaign on that, either. The election was very close, but Clinton won a narrow victory.

* Without an evangelical movement to stand in his way, the more ridiculous accusations against Clinton never gained traction. But with much of what our timeline's Clinton wanted to do having already been done, there seemed little for him to do domestically after getting his budget passed. With Israel at peace with every neighbor except Syria and not-so-neighboring Iran, he was able to end the genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia. But while his economic and peace achievement got him a 2nd term in 1996, over Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, there seemed little reason beyond ambition for him to run again. His 2nd term looked like it would be dull.

* It wasn't. Conservative journalists broke the scandal of his affair with Monica Lewinsky. With the country in peace and prosperity, on January 26, 1998, Clinton came clean, and, deciding that Vice President Al Gore could be President, but only he could be the one to work on his failings to his family, he became the 1st President ever to resign the office. He spared the nation a drawn-out story, and there was little celebrating among the Republicans, for whom the evangelical movement was just a quirky memory.

* Gore's environmental and tech initiatives helped, but while he proved an able administrator, he wasn't much of a politician. With the evangelical movement ruined, and the Bush name unable to regain momentum following the defeats for Governor of George W. in Texas and Jeb in Florida in 1994, the Republican nominee in 2000 was Senator John McCain of Arizona. He defeated Gore in a close election.

* On August 6, 2001, McCain read a Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S." He took it seriously. On September 11, he announced to the nation that a major terrorist attack had been foiled. On September 14, he gave a press conference at Austin J. Tobin Plaza at the World Trade Center in New York, one of the saved targets, and warned Afghanistan to turn Osama bin Laden over to the U.S. It did. McCain also worked with Iraqi rebels, and Saddam Hussein was toppled from power in late 2003, without a large U.S. military presence.

* The Democrats thought they had to counter McCain's various foreign policy achievements with their own war hero and foreign policy expert. This was Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. But, with most of the things our timeline's Democrats wanted already long established in law, and with most of the things our timeline's Democrats wanted prevented already done so, there seemed little reason to vote for him. McCain won in a landslide.

* But the recession that began in 2007 due to the Republicans' deregulations turned into a full-blown crash in 2008. With Hillary Clinton teaching at Yale Law School, and not in the Senate, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois cruised to victory in the Democratic Primaries. The Republican Primaries were a mess, as McCain's Vice President, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, was seen as insufficiently intelligent and mature for someone 60 years old. His demand for "a return to honor and integrity" following the 1998 Clinton scandal got him on the ticket, but his actions and words since nearly derailed him in the Primaries. Obama beat him in a landslide, becoming the 1st black President. With Biden on the Supreme Court, his running mate, lending experience and "gravitas," is Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

* Obama solved the recession. But there was no reason to fight for "Obamacare": Something better had already been passed. There was no reason to kill Osama bin Laden: He was rotting away in the "supermax" federal prison in Colorado. What could he run on in 2012? In part, civil rights, including for women, by convincing Congress to codify Roe v. Wade into law and approve a renewal of the Equal Rights Amendment; and gay rights, including replacing Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" with an Executive Order allowing openly gay military personnel.

* Obama put Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court. With them joining a liberal wing that included Joe Biden, Laurence Tribe, Amalya Lyle Kearse, and Clinton appointees Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, the 2 conservative McCain appointees of 2005, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, are all but powerless. The cases of Citizens United v. FEC, Shelby County v. Holder and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. go in the liberals' favor; while Obergefell v. Hodges goes the same way.

* In 2011, Donald Trump brings up the issue of Obama's birth certificate. Only this time, every living former President -- Carter, Mondale, Clinton, Gore and McCain (Kemp having died in 2009) -- signs a joint statement denouncing this as the rantings of a bigot, and saying it has no place in 21st Century America.

* With fewer achievements, Obama's win over former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts is a close one. His 2nd term amounts to little more than holding the fort.

* On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump comes down the escalator in the lobby of Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, ready to begin a press conference to announce his campaign for President of the United States. When he gets there, he is arrested by the FBI. It seems that Jeffrey Epstein chose to save his own skin as much as he could, and ratted Trump out. Before the 2016 election can be held, Trump is convicted of over 100 felonies, from the "Epstein Island" charges to business fraud.

* Governor John Kasich of Ohio is elected President in 2016, since Obama had no obvious successor, given that Vice President Leahy was 76 years old and not interested in the Presidency himself. Kasich governs as a traditional Republican, with tax cuts, deregulation, and the appearance of a strong foreign policy. There is little about him that is racist, and nothing like the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville ever happens. Because of earlier policing initiatives by Presidents Kemp and Clinton, many of the victims of police brutality in our timeline live out their lives. There is no Black Lives Matter movement, because nearly everybody in America agrees with that principle.

* Because of previous appointments to the Supreme Court, Kasich gets to make only one, replacing the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Neil Gorsuch in 2020. The Heritage Foundation wanted Brett Kavanaugh, but Kasich rejected their choice based on his inexperience and his personal behavior.

* When COVID hits in March 2020, Kasich follows the suggestions in the "pandemic playbook" that the Obama Administration left behind. Over 300,000 people die, but people take his word for it that things could have been even worse than that. By November, because people took him seriously in March, the crisis is over, and Kasich is re-elected over the 1st Jewish nominee for President of any major American party, Senator Al Franken of Minnesota.

* Kasich's 2nd term dealt mainly with the economic fallout of COVID, and the early 2020s are a time of recession. He aids Ukraine in its defense against Russia. He appoints Amy Comey Barrett to replace Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court in 2022, so the next appointment will decide the 5-4 majority. For this reason, Biden, Tribe and Kearse refuse to retire.

* Noting that these Justices, in 2024, are, respectively, 81, 83 and 87 years old, the Democratic nominee for President made the Court a big issue, saying that abortion rights and gay marriage could be overturned. Her message of "We're not going back" resonates, making Kasich's Vice President, the archconservative Mike Pence, look like the man who would reestablish a rejected old order. Kamala Harris is elected the 1st female President of the United States.

In our timeline, this was her swearing-in as Vice President in 2021.

* In 2025, Justice Kearse retires, and President Harris appoints Ketanji Brown Jackson to succeed her. Later in the year, following his cancer diagnosis, Chief Justice Biden retires, and President Harris appoints Patricia Guerrero, 53 years old and Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, someone she'd once worked with as California's Attorney General, to be the 1st Hispanic Chief Justice. She joins a liberal contingent with Jackson, Tribe, Sotomayor and Kagan; while the conservatives have Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett.

And here we are: A nation at peace, both domestic and foreign. Bigotry has been put in its place: In private, out of the public sector. When Democrats win, progress is made. When Republicans win, it's difficult, but it's not insane.

Less insanity -- in an official capacity, if not overall -- may have been the greatest gifts that Barack Obama and Joe Biden gave us in their time in office. Maybe the next President can do that for us, whoever he -- or she -- turns out to be.

June 26, 2015: Obergefell v. Hodges

June 26, 2015, 10 years ago: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Obergefell v. Hodges that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples, by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Jim Obergefell was a high school German teacher in Sandusky, Ohio, who met IT director John Arthur in the early 1990s. Arthur developed ALS, a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's disease. Knowing he was dying, and wanting to make it legal and get the legal protections that came with it, the two men flew to Maryland, where same-sex marriage was legal, and were married on July 11, 2013. Arthur died on October 22, only 3 months later.

Jim Obergefell (left) and John Arthur, on the plane to Maryland

Due to Ohio's law banning same-sex marriage, Obergefell could not be listed as the legal spouse on Arthur's death certificate. So he sued Richard Hodges, who held the office denying Obergefell his rights, that of the Director of the Ohio Department of Health.

The Supreme Court's ruling struck down all State laws that barred same-sex marriage, most of which had been passed in the 2000s, during the Administration of evangelical "Christian" George W. Bush, as a backlash against the gains of the gay rights movement in the 1990s, during the Administration of President Bill Clinton.

It was a 5-4 vote. It was known from the beginning that Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, all militantly conservative Catholics appointed by Republican Presidents, would vote to uphold their religious belief, and not the 14th Amendment.

It was known from the beginning that the 4 Justices who had been appointed by Democratic Presidents -- Sonia Sotomayor, a Catholic; and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, all Jewish -- would recognize that the 14th Amendment took precedence over any State's law, and over anyone's prejudices, whether inspired by religion or not.

The question was over the remaining 2 Justices, both appointed by Republican Presidents: Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy had long been a "swing Justice," deciding cases that were otherwise split 4-4; and Roberts had sometimes surprised people who expected him to vote the conservative way, but ended up finding ways to reconcile the more liberal position with the Constitution.

Not only did both men side with Obergefell, but Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. He cited not merely "equal protection," but "equal dignity in the eyes of the law."

In the wake of the current Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022, striking down the national right to an abortion, Justice Thomas has said that he wants the Court to re-examine certain decisions he called "wrong," including Obergefell v. Hodges. In other words, with the Court now having a 6-3 archconservative supermajority, the greatest victory in the history of the gay rights movement may not be final.

In 2022, Obergefell ran for the Ohio House of Representatives. Hodges served in that House from 1993 to 1999, albeit in a different district. Running as a Democrat against a Republican incumbent seeking a 3rd term, Obergefell lost the election.

June 17, 2015: The Charleston Church Massacre

June 17, 2015, 10 years ago: A white supremacist opens fire during a Bible study at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. It was the deadliest mass shooting at a place of worship in American history.

To make matters worse, that record stood for only 3 years.

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, known as Mother Emanuel, was founded in 1817. Though not the oldest continuously-operating black church in America -- that would be First Bryan Baptist Church, founded in 1788 in Savannah, Georgia -- it is the oldest AME church in America. In 2015, its pastor was Clementa C. Pinckney, who was also a member of the State Senate.

Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old native of the State capital of Columbia, espoused racial hatred in both a website manifesto which he published before the shooting, and a journal which he wrote from jail afterward. On his website, Roof posted photos of emblems which are associated with white supremacy, including a photo of the Confederate battle flag.

Pinckney had held rallies after the shooting of Walter Scott by a white police officer two months earlier, in nearby North Charleston. As State Senator, Pinckney pushed for legislation requiring police to wear body cameras.

During the hour preceding the attack, 13 people, including the shooter, participated in the Bible study. According to the accounts of people who talked to survivors, when Roof walked into the historic African-American church, he immediately asked for Pinckney, and sat down next to him, initially listening to others during the study. He disagreed with some of the discussion of Scripture.

After other participants began praying, he stood up, and aimed a gun he pulled from a fanny pack at 87-year-old Susie Jackson. Jackson's nephew, 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders, tried to talk him down and asked him why he was attacking churchgoers. The shooter said, "I have to do it. You rape our women, and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." 

In the aftermath, Jamelle Bouie wrote in Slate, "Make any list of anti-black terrorism in the United States, and you'll also have a list of attacks justified by the specter of black rape." He cited the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, the Rosewood Massacre in Florida in 1923, and the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955 as examples.

When Roof said he intended to shoot them all, Sanders dove in front of Jackson and was shot first. Roof fired at the other victims, shouting racial epithets. He reportedly said, "Y'all want something to pray about? I'll give you something to pray about." Roof reloaded his gun five times. Sanders' mother and his five-year-old niece, who also attended the study, survived the shooting by pretending to be dead on the floor. In total, 9 people were killed, and 1 other was injured.

The day after the shooting, President Barack Obama visited Charleston, and said, "Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun... We as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries."

Nothing was done about gun control, of course. But on July 9, the South Carolina legislature passed a bill to remove the Confederate flag from display outside the State House, and Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill. The flag was taken down the next day.

Roof was found to have targeted members of this church because of its history and status. On December 15, 2016, Roof was convicted of 33 federal hate crime and murder charges. On January 10, 2017, he was sentenced to death. He was separately charged with nine counts of murder in State court. He pleaded guilty to all nine state charges in order to avoid receiving a second death sentence, and as a result, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

As of June 17, 2025, he remains in United States Penitentiary Terre Haute in Indiana. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed there in 2001. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving bomber of the 2013 Boston Marathon, is also there. So is Robert Bowers, who broke Roof's record with 11 shooting deaths at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, joined him on Death Row at Terre Haute in 2023.

“Mad Men” vs. “Modern Family”

Donald Trump (left) and Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men

On November 12, 2012, 6 days after President Barack Obama was re-elected, with 51.1 percent of the popular vote, I read that an unidentified pundit wrote that the "Mad Men" found out that we are living in a "Modern Family" America; and that, unless the Republican Party reexamined its reckless hard turn to the right, it would render itself unviable for years to come.

Translation: The Republicans wanted a country like the one America was at the beginning of the 2007-15 AMC TV show Mad Men, set in 1960, when men were dominant, and could do what they want: Eat like a horse, smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, and screw like a rabbit, with no consequences.

Meanwhile, women stayed in their place: The house, especially the kitchen. And, if they dared venture into the workplace, it was only in a few jobs that were "woman's work," and faced sexual discrimination and harassment -- again, without consequences for the men.

By the time the show ended, it was 1971, and things had changed tremendously. As a previous Democratic President, Bill Clinton, put it, "If you thought the 1960s were good, you're probably a Democrat. If not, you're probably a Republican."

In contrast, the American people followed the lead of Obama and his Democratic Party, wanting a country like the one America was on the then-current ABC show Modern Family. The patriarch might have been a bit set in his ways, but he was learning, faster than Archie Bunker ever did on the 1970s CBS sitcom All in the Family. He even married a Hispanic woman and treated her son as his own.

Meanwhile, his actual kids? His daughter was a working woman, with a goofy but supportive husband, and 3 kids; and his son was gay, and married to a gay stereotype who was nonetheless a former high school football star who became the local high school's coach. And they adopted a daughter from Vietnam, the country where the patriarch had once fought for his country. He had to adjust to all of this, starting with the show's beginning in 2009 (it took place in the present day); and, by the time it ended in 2020, he had done fairly well at it.

It's also worth noting that Mad Men was a drama, with some humor; while Modern Family was a situation comedy, with a lot of drama, but a very optimistic show in general.

So the election, and the re-election, of Obama, the nation's 1st black President, and a very liberal one, was proof that America was more like Modern Family than Mad Men, right?

But that was before 2016, just 4 years later, when Donald Trump brought to the Republican fold millions of voters who had never voted before, because no Republican nominee had ever been bigoted enough for them to come out to vote.

Put these people -- as Hillary Clinton called them, "deplorables" -- together with all the people who had always voted Republican, no matter what, even for somebody as bad as Trump is on so many levels, so long as they get their tax cuts, their deregulation, and their right-wing judges. Trump was able to realign the country, and give the Republicans enough voters to, if not outvote the Democrats, then get them enough votes in the right States to win the Electoral College -- 2 and nearly 3 times out of 3.

America is not going to elect a woman as President, not for at least another 20 years. That is damning for our country. But not as damning as voting for Trump, who, on top of all the other reasons that make him unacceptable to rational people, actually has a record on the job, and he failed spectacularly.

But Americans wanted a man. Instead, they voted for a 78-year-old TV addict with a 14-year-old bully's way of looking at the world.

Not a Mad Man, not a "Madison Avenue" advertising executive.

A madman.

I Don't Want to Hear It

Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. Two adults for whom

character counts; and experience, the rule of law,

national security and the American Dream matter.

During the Bill Clinton era, January 1992 to January 2001, the Republican Party told us, "Character counts." They have since proven that they don't really believe that, with, among others, Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

When they tried to remove Clinton in office over the Monica Lewinsky affair in 1998 and 1999, they argued that they were standing up for "the rule of law." Under Bush and Trump, they proved that they don't care about the rule of law.

When the Republicans ran Bush to succeed Clinton in 2000, and when they ran John McCain to oppose Barack Obama in 2008, they told us, "Experience matters." They have since proven that they don't really believe that, with, among others, Trump.

When the Republicans ran Bush to succeed Clinton in 2000, and when they ran Trump to succeed Obama in 2016, they told us, "The adults are going to be in charge again." They have since proven that they don't really know what an adult is.

From Bush's Inauguration in January 2001 until the conclusion of the McCain campaign in November 2008, the Republicans claimed that only they, not the Democratic Party, cared about "national security." They have long proven that they don't.

And when Trump ran for President in 2015 and 2016, he often told his audiences, "The American Dream is dead." What he didn't say was that people like him killed it.

I don't ever again want to hear a Republican say that character counts. Clearly, it doesn't.

I don't ever again want to hear a Republican say that experience matters. Clearly, it doesn't.

I don't ever again want to hear a Republican say that their people are "the adults." Clearly, they're not.

I don't ever again want to hear a Republican use the words "the rule of law," "national security," or "the American Dream." Clearly, they don't give a damn about any of those things.

As our outgoing President, Joe Biden, would say, "Will you shut up, man!"

February 23, 2014: Jason Collins Becomes the 1st Out U.S. Athlete

February 23, 2014, 10 years ago: The Brooklyn Nets beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 108-102 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles. Jason Collins played 10 minutes and 37 seconds for the Nets, and he didn't score any points. He did, however, have an offensive rebound, a defensive rebound, and a steal.

This appearance made Collins, who, in the off-season, publicly revealed that he is gay -- also known as "coming out of the closet," or "outing yourself," and was not, at the time, signed to any team -- the first openly gay athlete in major league sports in North America.

Presuming, of course, that you do not include MLS, Major League Soccer, as "major league." Robbie Rogers had already played for the Los Angeles Galaxy since coming out. So far, the reaction to him has been positive. But in the traditional "Big Four" North American sports, Collins was the first. And it appeared that, on that night, the L.A. fans -- presumably, many of whom have cheered Rogers -- treated Collins no worse than they treated any other opposing player.

A few other athletes have come out after retirement. Collins, knowing that he could still have a shot at signing with a new team, but also that teams might shy away from signing him if they knew, chose to be honest, and let them know. The Nets decided that it didn't matter, that it wasn't an indication of bad character, and that he might still be able to help them win, and they signed him.

Born on December 2, 1978 in Los Angeles, Collins was an All-American center at Stanford University. He had previously played with the New Jersey Nets from 2001 to 2008, before their 2012 move to Brooklyn. He played the 2nd half of the 2007-08 season with the Memphis Grizzlies, 2008-09 with the Minnesota Timberwolves, 2009-12 with the Atlanta Hawks, most of 2012-13 with the Boston Celtics, and the end of that season with the Washington Wizards. He ended up playing 22 games for the Nets, starting only 1, and never played again.

In that 1st game for the Nets, he wore Number 46. For his remaining games with the Nets, he wore 98, as he had with the Celtics and the Wizards. He wore it in memory of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was murdered for being gay in 1998. Having proven his point, he announced his retirement on November 19, 2014.

Glenn Burke, who played baseball in the 1970s, didn't "come out" while he was playing, because, in his own mind, he was never "in." Baseball fans at large didn't know he was gay, but his teammates knew, and most of them didn't care. Unfortunately, he played for 2 bigoted managers, Tommy Lasorda and Billy Martin. Lasorda ordered him traded away from the Los Angeles Dodgers; and Billy Martin, with the Oakland Athletics, had him sent down to the minors, burying him and prematurely ending his career.

One day, people who are gay will not have to face the choice of announcing it, or keeping themselves in the closet because they're afraid of repercussions. One day, we will hear that someone is gay, and we'll say, "So what? It doesn't make a difference. It's his (or her) business, not ours."

Until then, anyone facing the choice that Jason Collins and Robbie Rogers have made -- not being gay, but revealing it -- will need more Collinses and Rogerses, to move people's hearts and minds forward. Such people will advance our society in the same way that Jackie Robinson did on race, to the point where the only thing that matters is, "Can he play?"

If a player is a good player and a good teammate, then I don't care if he's a purple Buddhist from Mars in a ménage-a-trois with a college kid and a teddy bear: His personal life doesn't matter, and he can play on my team. If a player is exactly like I was as a young man, except with talent, but not enough to make it at the major league level, then I'd cut him.

I'd rather have a gay player on my team than an anti-gay player.