Author: A.T.

Tom Friedman: How We’ve Lost Our Moorings as a Society.

I started to excerpt the first few paragraphs but couldn’t figure out where to stop. It’s worth reading in full.  The analogy to mangroves, so resonant.

Dana Milbank: In closing, Trump’s Team Takes the Jurors for Idiots.

We’ll soon see whether it worked.

BONUS

The Attempted Robbery of Rose Nylund

How great was Betty White?

But first . . .

> Inflation expectations are self-fulfilling . . . so Republicans — wanting to believe the worst — may have caused more of it.  An interesting perspective from the Wall Street Journal.

> The Ken Burns Commencement Speech everyone is talking about.  Eloquent, erudite, and stripped here to its very barest nub:

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Listen, I am in the business of history. It is not always a happy subject on college campuses these days, particularly when forces seem determined to eliminate or water down difficult parts of our past . . .

For nearly 50 years now, I have diligently practiced and rigorously tried to maintain a conscious neutrality in my work, avoiding advocacy if I could, trying to speak to all of my fellow citizens. . . .

[Yet] there is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route. . . .

The presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids . . . the author and finisher of our national existence, our national suicide . . .

Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.

Remember what Louis Brandeis said, “The most important political office is that of the private citizen.”  Vote.  Please, vote. You indelibly underscore your citizenship, and most important, our kinship with each other, when you do. Good luck and godspeed.

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> Marco Rubio on Trump — 36 seconds (turn sound on, bottom right corner).

It’s a holiday but I posted anyway — Caught Between Two Friends.

Now I see I should have saved that until tomorrow, because one of you just sent me this new poem by Garrison Keillor.

I’m a Neanderthal when it comes to poetry.

Very-long-time readers know that my one attempt was rejected by the New Yorker.

But every so often there’s a poem I can grab onto because it amuses (I think those are called limericks) . . . or tells a story I can understand (Casey at the Bat, anyone?) . . . or, in this case, really hits home.

They were so young.

Heartbreaking.

Steve Schwarzman is the most influential Trumper I know.  We’ve been friends for more than half a century.  There’s much about him to like, and much about what he’s built to admire.  Forbes estimates his net worth at $38 billion.  He recounts his successes and good works here (e.g., $350 million to MIT to support artificial intelligence research; $100 million to the New York Public Library; nearly $200 million to Oxford; $150 million to yale; a Rhodes-scholar-like program in Beijing).  I enjoyed reading it.

I’m not unaware he has his detractors, or that he backed Trump in 2016.

Then again, I doubt either of us — or any of us, really — appreciated just how awful Trump would turn out to be.

It’s different now that we know.

I was relieved when Steve quit Trump’s business advisory group after Charlottesville — though it turns out it was less out of protest than . . . well, he explains here.

I’d love to see the Biden team ask Steve to reconstitute that advisory group.  Presumably, fewer of their recommendations for lower taxes and less regulation would be adopted.  Still, there’s certainly room for smarter taxes and regulation.  And the group would have other ideas to contribute, as well.

But then he hosted a giant fundraiser for Trump 2020.

Really, Steve?

But again I was relieved when it appeared he would not be backing Trump this time around.  He is surely more of a Mitt Romney than a MAGA Republican.

Yet now this:

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Blackstone’s Chief, a G.O.P. Megadonor, Says He Will Again Back Trump

Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder and chief executive of the investment group, had previously called for a “new generation of leaders.”

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He names immigration as one of the key reasons he supports Trump — yet Trump is now the cause of the crisis, because Trump torpedoed the bi-partisan bill both the Senate and House were ready to pass and Biden, to sign, that would have provided the resources and policy changes needed to solve the crisis.

Could Steve really believe the Big Lie that Trump won in 2020?  Could he consider corporate taxation a more important issue than climate or reproductive rights or competence or honesty or Trump’s authoritarianism and eagerness to curry Putin’s favor?

The article was brought to my attention by a college friend of even longer standing.

He writes:

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There is absolutely no surprise here.  I’ve known Schwarzman since he was fifteen years old. Trump and Schwarzman are the quintessential, unapologetic transactionalists.  Whatever pads the bottom line.  Whatever most expediently preserves power and wealth.  However best to grease the respective palm. For both men, no moral compass or ethical convictions impact the calculus, despite lip service to both.  The difference is that Schwarzman knows better. He knows who Trump is. He knows exactly what is going on. He is fully aware of the danger Trump poses to the republic, but this awareness is subordinate to his undeviating pursuit of his own interests and the rapacious accumulation of personal wealth. The fact that Schwarzman’s intelligence compared to Trump’s is like the sun to a candle flame starkly demonstrates the boundlessness and ruthlessness of his cynicism.  He will die a very, very rich man, far richer than Trump could ever imagine on even the best of his self-deluded days.  But the country’s best interests and the preservation of its democratic institutions will be damaged in Schwarzman’s wake.  No matter; he will die with the ever-present self-satisfied smirk on his face.

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I hesitated to share that, but too much is at stake not to offer his point of view.

The emperor has no clothes — or, in this case, followers.

It seems Trump’s Truth Social has fewer than 80,000 daily users — down each of the last two months.  DJT reported a loss last quarter of more than $328 million on revenues of $771,000.

This, after more than 2 years’ operation!

Yet at Friday’s close, DJT sported an $8 billion market cap, or roughly $100,000 for each of its current active daily users.

What makes those users so valuable?

They pay nothing!

Advertisers do know that, as Trump fans, they’ll buy anything.  And that’s something.

(Well, right?  Trump Bibles?  Bobbleheads?  Bonds?  Big lies?)

But even then, $771,000 in revenue works out to just $10 each per quarter, $40 a year.

So if the company were so well managed by CEO Devon Nunez that it had zero expenses going forward — which, having lost $328 million in a single quarter seems unlikely — is there any way each $40-a-year user can be worth $100,000?

To someone like Putin, who desperately wants to see Trump win in order to conquer Ukraine and its neighbors, it may be worth pumping a few billion into the stock.

(I’m not saying he has, though he could certainly afford to.)

But that’s the only even remotely rational reason to buy it.

For Putin, Trump’s VP choice couldn’t be any clearer —  J.D. Vance!  A Yale-trained hillbilly who, like Trump, would abandon Ukraine . . . and whatever countries Putin moved to conquer next.

No need to read in full — that’s the nub of it.

A remarkable personal story of near-death experience.

Worth reading in full if you have the time this weekend.

This weekend we honor those who died fighting to preserve democracy — a form of government that Putin, Orban, Trump, Kim Jong Un and others in the Strongman Club don’t seem to revere.  To help preserve democracy well short of dying, click here.

THAT BILT MASTERCARD

One of you is peeved; another, pleased.

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Len: I signed up for the no-fee Bilt Mastercard at your suggestion.

It’s complicated to understand how to accrue points:

• 1 point per dollar, doubled on rent day (first of the month).
• Double that for Lyft? And something else?
• And triple on restaurants, even on other registered credit cards (but not 6x?) for local restaurants.
• And the rent day rewards show up in multiple dribs and drabs.
• And rent rewards aren’t doubled.
• And you don’t get any rewards unless you have five transactions in the statement period.

Fine. But then try to understand cashing them in!

• You can get a statement credit or rent payment credit. But it’s only $0.55/100 points!
• You can get a credit towards Amazon.com, but only $0.70/100 points.
• You can get 1 mile/dollar for some airlines, but how?
• You can use them to buy travel in the portal, which is hard to use.

You can set up autopay to avoid an accidental interest payment, but:

• You can’t use the Bilt app or website to do this. You need to set up a wellsfargo.com account.
• Their customer service is exceptionally poor. Almost as bad as a health insurance company’s.
• You need to use your cellphone to confirm your identity to login to the app, but they can’t authorize your (my?) phone by calling, you need to go to the ATM.
• Then you still can’t do it, because it’s a BiLT card not a Wells Fargo card.
• So you make an appointment with a banker and go in (again) and sit there while they (instead of you) are on hold, transferred back and forth (and back and forth and back and forth). To be fair, that part was oddly satisfying.
• Then they tell you they’ll call you to confirm (they won’t) and it will work in X business days (it won’t).
• Eventually it works (yay!) but it still won’t let you connect Credit Karma, so back to their customer support, suggestions to go to the ATM (still doesn’t work), suggestions to go make an appointment with a banker (still doesn’t work, lots of transfers, etc.).
• Eventually eventually you get a promise it’ll be fixed in one business day (it won’t) and they’ll call to confirm (they won’t).

To be fair, it’s thrilling to see whether or not the autopay will work and how much hassle it’ll be if it doesn’t.

Here’s my plan going forward, which is probably way too OCD for most:

1. Keep random, small Amazon purchases in your cart.
2. On rent day (or not, not a really big deal) purchase everything, one or two items at a time for a total of four orders, using Prime day delivery to get a $1.50 digital credit per order.
3. Those, plus rent, meet the five-transaction minimum.

In no way has this been worth my time. I’m more upset about this recommendation than all the companies you recommended that are now out of business.

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To which another of you responds:

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-Earning points doesn’t need to be as complicated as Len’s making it out to be. Everything he mentions is a bonus. If he doesn’t want to take advantage of those extras, just ignore them and focus on the one-point-per-dollar on rent, which is the biggest benefit of all.

-Spending the points – best is either to redeem for travel on the Bilt travel portal (at a rate of 1.25 cents per point) or else to transfer to airline and hotel partners (which can be worth a lot more, especially if used on international business, etc.).  See what The Points Guy has to say about this (scroll to the “Redeeming Bilt Rewards points” sections).  Both are very easy to use on the Bilt app – I’ve done it. Cashing in other ways is lower value (but still worth it, since these are points that otherwise wouldn’t have been earned at all).

-Yes, autopay needs to be set up through Wells Fargo – but I’ve been able to manage my account online without difficulty, let alone needing to go to a branch. Sounds like Len has an issue with his existing WF login that caused him problems managing this new card.

-It’s easy to make 5 small charges a month.  Five cups of coffee?  That’s a small price you pay for earning 60,000 extra points on rent or condo charges.

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I’ve looked at cards from both sides now/ From win or lose, but still somehow / It’s cards illusions I recall.

I really don’t know cards . . . at all.

Have a great weekend.

Retired General David Petraeus on Israel: 3 minutes followed by 4 more.  (Sorry to make you click twice.)

Friedman’s take.

A marine with daughters (15 seconds).

If I were innocent of a crime, I think I’d want to look the jury in the eye and explain why.

Tell them what really happened.

It’s not as though Trump is shy about speaking up for himself — just this week he told Minnesotans he won their state in 2020, even though he lost by a wide margin.

Nationwide, he says, endlessly, he “won by a landslide.”  (Actually, he lost.  Here’s how we know.)

In Trump world, it’s all part of the fun.  Most of them know he’s lying (don’t they?), but who cares — he overturned Roe v. Wade!  (“Something no one had been able to do before that everyone wanted!“)

He gave us Infrastructure Week (though no infrastructure) again and again throughout his presidency!

He promised to give “everybody terrific health care at a tiny fraction of the cost!”  What’s not to like about that?!

We didn’t get it; indeed, he never even revealed his plan.  But who cares?  He’s entertaining! 

Who wants same-old same-old boring thoughtful competence when you can have something new, outrageous, outlandish, and fun!  I’d like to punch him in the face! Come to Washington January 6th — it’s gonna be wild!  Now that’s not boring.  Indeed, you could watch the excitement for 187 minutes, eating up the violence on TV (not for nothing was Trump inducted into the fake TV wrestling hall of fame), before lifting a finger to rescue the nation’s Capitol and those fighting to protect it.

A press conference at the Four Seasons?  Boring!  Only Team Trump would hold its press conference in the parking lot of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping, across from a sex shop.  Now that’s colorful.  That, you might say, is nouveau Presidential.  “Alternative” Presidential.  Dignified in a unique way.

Sure, the bone spur thing was made up, but only suckers and losers actually go fight and die for their country, or pay taxes, or take their own college entrance exams, or endure five-and-a-half years of torture in a North Vietnamese prison camp (“I like people who weren’t captured, okay?”).

And the cool thing?  He gets away with it!

Best of all, he’s made sure we don’t solve the border crisis, so that he alone can fix it!

What a guy.  I predict a hung jury.  Sure, he’s guilty.  But why should that matter?

BONUS

In response to the President’s Commencement address, posted yesterday — Imagine Yourself In The Audience — one of you wrote . . .

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Biden’s speech brought tears to my eyes. The reminders of where we have been as a country and where Joe has been as a politician and a family man are as inspiring to me as they must be to those graduates. So, Bob and I just committed another $10,000 to help elect representatives in particularly tough races. Thanks for the uplift.

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. . . while Carl wrote . . .

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Imagine Yourself In THIS Audience!

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. . . accompanied by a photo of Biden calling Senator Robert Byrd, “One of my heroes,” captioned: “Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden (left) was mentored by former Ku Klux Klan Exalted Cyclops Robert K. Byrd.”

Is it Carl’s view that Biden is secretly a Klan member or sympathizer?  He can’t possibly think that Biden’s having admired Byrd for some things, and his having famously gotten along with Republican colleagues as well as Democrats, negates anything he said at Morehouse — can he? 

(In 2010, Biden spoke at Byrd’s funeral.)

Carl surely knows that the Klan loves Trump and hates Biden — right?

Also worth noting is that Byrd’s Klan heyday was 1944.  He would go on to say that joining the Klan was “the worst mistake of his life.” 

He integrated the Capitol Hill police force in 1959; voted to create Martin Luther King Day in 1983; and at his death was praised by the NAACP for having “became a champion for civil rights.” 

None of this will change Carl’s mind.  Nothing ever does.

What a guy.

I skipped my college graduation.

Not because the Shah of Iran was the speaker (he called for a global humanitarian effort) . . . or because I somehow knew it would pour (I didn’t; it did) . . . but because I was mortified not to have a girlfriend to invite like everybody else.  As noted yesterday, so much has changed.

Dr. King had been assassinated eight weeks earlier.  Much has changed on that front, too.  It took 22 years, but in 1990 America elected its first Black governor; in 2008, its first Black president.

Who chose Joe Biden to be his Vice President.

Who gave the commencement address at Morehouse College Sunday.

I imagined myself being in the audience as I read it:

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Thank you, thank you, thank you, President Thomas, faculty, staff, alumni.  And a special thanks — I’ll ask all the folks who helped you get here — your mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers — all those who got you here, all the way in the back, please, parents, grandparents, all who helped, stand up, because we owe you a debt of gratitude.  (Applause.)  To all the family.

And that is not hyperbole.  A lot of you, like my family, had to make significant sacrifices to get your kids to school.  It mattered.  This mattered a lot.

And the friends of Morehouse and the Morehouse men of the Class of 2024.

I got more Morehouse men in the White House telling me what to do than I know what to do.  (Laughter.)  You all think I’m kidding, don’t you?  (Laughs.)  You know I’m not.  And it’s the best thing that’s happened to me.

Scripture says, “The prayers of a righteous man availeth much.”  In Augusta, Georgia, a righteous man once enslaved set foot for freedom.  The story goes he feared no evil; he walked through the valley of the shadow of death on his way north to free soil in Philadelphia.  A Baptist minister, he walked with faith in his soul, powering the steps of his feet to glory.

But after the Union won the war, he knew his prayers availed him freedom that was not his alone.  And so, this righteous man, Richard Coulter, returned home, his feet wary, his spirit in no ways tired.

A hundred and fifty-seven years ago — you all know the story, but the rest of the world doesn’t, and it should — in the basement of a Baptist church in Augusta, he and two other ministers, William Jefferson White and Edmund Turney, planted the seeds of something revolutionary — and it was at the time — a school — a school to help formerly enslaved men enter the ministry, where education would be the great equalizer from slavery to freedom — an institution of higher learning that would become Morehouse College.

I don’t know any other college in America that has that tradition and that consequence.

To the Class of 2024, you join, as you know, a sacred tradition.  An education makes you free.  And Morehouse education makes you fearless.  (Applause.)  I mean it.  Visionary.  Exceptional.

Congratulations.  You are Morehouse men.  God love you.  (Applause.)

And, again, I thank your families and your friends who helped you get here, because they made sacrifices for you as well.

This graduation day is a day for generations, a day of joy, a day earned, not given.

We gather on this Sunday morning because — if we were in church, perhaps there would be this reflection.  There would be a reflection about resurrection and redemption.  Remember, Jesus was buried on Friday, and it was Sunday — on Sunday he rose again.  But — but we don’t talk enough about Saturday, when his disciples felt all hope was lost.

In our lives and the lives of the nation, we have those Saturdays — to bear witness the day before glory, seeing people’s pain and not looking away.  But what work is done on Saturday to move pain to purpose?  How can faith get a man, get a nation through what was to come?

Here’s what my faith has taught me.

I was the first Biden to ever graduate from college, taking out loans with my dad and my — all through school to get me there.  My junior year spring break, I fell in love at first sight, literally, with a woman I adored.  I graduated from law school in her hometown, and I got married and took a job at a law firm in my hometown, Wilmington, Delaware.  But then everything changed.

One of my heroes — and he was my hero — a Baptist minister, a Morehouse man, Dr. Martin Luther King — in April of my law school graduation year, he was murdered.

My city of Wilmington — and we were a — to our great shame, a slave state, and we were segregated.  Delaware erupted into flames when he was assassinated, literally.

We’re the only city in America where the National Guard patrolled every street corner for nine full months with drawn bayonets, the longest stretch in any American city since the Civil War.

Dr. King’s legacy had a profound impact on me and my generation, whether you’re Black or white.  I left the fancy law firm I had just joined and decided to become a public defender and then a county councilman, working to change our state’s politics to embrace the cause of civil rights.

The Democratic Party in Delaware was a Southern Democratic Party at the time.  We wanted to change it to become a Northeastern Democratic Party.

Then, we were trying to get someone to run for the United States Senate the year Nixon ran.  I was 29 years of age.  I had no notion of running — I love reading about everybody knew I was going to run; I didn’t know I was going to run — (laughter) — when a group of senior members of the Democratic Party came to me.  They couldn’t find anybody to run and said, “You should run.”

Nixon won my state by 60 percent of the vote.  We won by 3,100 votes.  We won by the thinnest of margins but with a broad coalition, including students from the best HBCU in America, Delaware State University.  You guys are good, but — (laughter) — they got me elected.  And you all — you all think I’m kidding.  (Laughter.)  I’m not kidding.

But by Christmas, I was a newly elected senator hiring staff in Washington, D.C., when I got a call from the first responders, my fire department in my hometown, that forever altered my life.  They put a young woman first responder on the line to say, “There was an automobile accident.  A tractor-trailer hit your wife’s car while she was Christmas shopping with your three children.”  And she — poor woman, she just blurted out.  She said, “Your wife and daughter are killed” — my 13-month-old daughter — “they’re dead, and your almost three-year-old and four-year-old sons are badly injured.  We’re not sure they’re going to make it, either.”

I rushed from Washington to their bedside.  I wanted to pray, but I was so angry.  I was angry at God.  I was angry at the world.

I had the same pain 43 years later when that four-year-old boy who survived was a grown man and a father himself, laying in another hospital bed at Walter Reed hospital having contracted stage four glioblastoma because he was a year in Iraq as a major — he won the Bronze Star — living next to a burn pit.  Cancer took his last breath.

On this walk of life, you can understand — you come to understand that we don’t know where or what fate will bring you or when.  But we also know we don’t walk alone.  When you’ve been a beneficiary of the compassion of your family, your friends, even strangers, you know how much the compassion matters.

I’ve learned there is no easy optimism, but by faith — by faith, we can find redemption.

I was a single father for five years —

No man deserves one great love, let alone two.  My youngest brother, who was a hell of an athlete, did a great thing.  He introduced me to a classmate of his and said, “You’ll love her; she doesn’t like politics.”  (Laughter.)

But all kidding aside, until I met Jill, who healed — who healed the family in all the broken places.  Our family became my redemption.

Many of you have gone through similar or worse — and even worse things.  But you lean on others, they lean on you, and together, you keep the faith in a better day tomorrow.  But it’s not easy.

I know four years ago, as some of your speakers have already mentioned, it felt like one of those Saturdays.

The pandemic robbed you of so much.  Some of you lost loved ones — mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, who were — aren’t able to be here to celebrate with you today — today.  You missed your high school graduation.  You started college just as George Floyd was murdered and there was a reckoning on race.

It’s natural to wonder if democracy you hear about actually works for you.

What is democracy if Black men are being killed in the street?

What is democracy if a trail of broken promises still leaves Black communities behind?

What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot?

And most of all, what does it mean, as we’ve heard before, to be a Black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?  (Applause.)

When I sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, in front of the fireplace across from my — my desk, I have two busts: one of Dr. King and one of Bobby Kennedy.  I often find myself looking at those busts and making decisions.  I ask myself: Are we living up to what we say we are as a nation, to end racism and poverty, to deliver jobs and justice, to restore our leadership in the world?

Then I look down and see the rosary on my wrist that was out of — my late son, he had on him when he died at Walter Reed and I was with him.  And I ask myself: What would he say?  I know the answer because he told me in his last days.

My son knew the days were numbered.  The last conversation was, “Dad, I’m not afraid, but I’m worried.  I’m worried you’re going to give up when I go.  You’re going to give up.”

We have an expression in the Biden family.  When you want someone to know — give you their word, you say, “Look at me.”  He said, “Look at me, Dad.  Look at me.”

He said, “Give me your word.  Give me your word as my father that you will not quit, that you will stay engaged.  Promise me, Dad.  Stay engaged.  Promise me.  Promise me.”

I wrote a book called “Promise Me, Dad,” not for the public at large, although a lot of people would end up buying it.  It’s for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to know who Beau Biden was.

The rosary on my wrist, the busts in my office, remind me that faith asks you to hold on to hope, to move heaven and earth to make better days.

Well, that’s my commitment to you: to show you democracy, democracy, democracy is still the way.

If Black men are being killed on the streets, we bear witness.  For me, that means to call out the poison of white supremacy, to root out systemic racism.

I stood up with George Floyd’s family to help create a country where you don’t need to have that talk with your son or grandson as they get pulled over.

Instead of a trail of broken promises, we’re investing more money than ever in Black families and Black communities.  We’re reconnecting Black neighborhoods cut off by old highways and decades of disinvestment where no one cared about the community.

We’ve delivered checks in pockets to reduce child — Black child poverty to the lowest rate in history.  We’re removing every lead pipe in America so every child can drink clean water without fear of brain damage, and then can’t afford to remove the lead pipes themselves.

We’re delivering affordable high-speed Internet so no child has to sit in their parents’ car or do their homework in a parking lot outside of McDonald’s.

Instead of forcing you to prove you’re 10 times better, we’re breaking down doors so you have 100 times more opportunities: good-paying jobs you can raise a family on in your neighborhood — (applause); capital to start small business and loans to buy homes; health insurance, prescriptions drugs, housing that’s more affordable and accessible.

I’ve walked the picket line and defended the rights of workers.  I’m relieving the burden of student debt — many of you have already had the benefit of it — (applause) — so I [you] can chase your dreams and grow the economy.

When the Supreme Court told me I couldn’t, I found two other ways to do it.  (Applause.)  And we were able to do it, because it grows the economy.

And I — in addition to the original $7 billion investment in HBCUs, I’m investing 16 billion more dollars — (applause) — more, because you’re vital to our nation.  Most HBCUs don’t have the endowments.  The jobs of the future require sophisticated laboratories, sophisticated opportunity on campus.

We’re opening doors so you can walk into a life of generational wealth, to be providers and leaders for your families and communities.  Today, record numbers of Black Americans have jobs, health insurance, and more [wealth] than ever.

Democracy is also about hearing and heeding your generation’s call to a community free of gun violence and a planet free of climate crisis and showing your power to change the world.

But I also know some of you ask: What is democracy if we can’t stop wars that break out and break our hearts?

In a democracy, we debate and dissent about America’s role in the world.

I want to say this very clearly.  I support peaceful, nonviolent protest.  Your voices should be heard, and I promise you I hear them.  I determined to make my administration look like America.  I have more African Americans in high places, including on the Court, than any president in American history — (applause) — because I need the input.

What’s happening in Gaza and Israel is heartbreaking.  Hamas’s vicious attack on Israel, killing innocent lives and holding people hostage.  I was there nine days after — pictures of tying a mother and a daughter with a rope, pouring kerosene on them, burning them and watching as they died.  Innocent Palestinians caught in the middle of all this: men, women, and children killed or displaced in desperate need of water, food, and medicine.  It’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

That’s why I’ve called for an immediate ceasefire — an immediate ceasefire to stop the fighting — (applause) — bring the hostages home.  And I’ve been working on a deal as we speak, working around the clock to lead an international effort to get more aid into Gaza, rebuild Gaza.

I’m also working around the clock for more than just one ceasefire.  I’m working to bring the region together.  I’m working to build a lasting, durable peace.  Because the question is, as you see what’s going on in Israel today: What after?  What after Hamas?  What happens then?  What happens in Gaza?  What rights do the Palestinian people have?  I’m working to make sure we finally get a two-state solution — the only solution — (applause) — for two people to live in peace, security, and dignity.

This is one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world.  And there’s nothing easy about it.  I know it angered and frustrates many of you, including my family.  But most of all, I know it breaks your heart.  It breaks mine as well.

Leadership is about fighting through the most intractable problems.  It’s about challenging anger, frustration, and heartbreak to find a solution.  It’s about doing what you believe is right, even when it’s hard and lonely.

You’re all future leaders, every one of you graduating today.  And that’s not hyperbole.  You’re future leaders, all of you.  You’ll face complicated, tough moments.  In these moments, you’ll listen to others, but you’ll have to decide, guided by knowledge, conviction, principle, and your own moral compass.

And the desire to know what freedom is, what it can be is the heart and soul of why this college was founded in the first place, proving that a free nation is born in the hearts of men spellbound by freedom.  But the — that’s the magic of Morehouse.  That’s the magic of America.

But let’s be clear what happens to you and your family when old ghosts in new garments seize power, extremists come for the freedoms you thought belonged to you and everyone.

Today in Georgia, they won’t allow water to be available to you while you wait in line to vote in an election.  What in the hell is that all about?  (Applause.)  I’m serious.  Think about it.  And then the constant attacks on Black election workers who count your vote.

Insurrectionists who storm the Capitol with Confederate flags are called “patriots” by some.  Not in my house.  (Applause.)  Black police officers, Black veterans protecting the Capitol were called another word, as you’ll recall.

They also say out loud, these other groups, immigrants “poison the blood” of our country, like the Grand Wizard and fascists said in the past.  But you know and I know we all bleed the same color.  In America, we’re all created equal.  (Applause.)

Extremists close the doors of opportunity; strike down affirmative action; attack the values of diversity, equality, and inclusion.

I never thought when I was graduating in 1968 — as your honoree just was — we talked about — I never thought I’d be in — present in a time when there’s a national effort to ban books — not to write history but to erase history.

They don’t see you in the future of America.  But they’re wrong.  To me, we make history, not erase it.  We know Black history is American history.  (Applause.)

Many of you graduates don’t know me, but check my record, you’ll know what I’m saying I mean from my gut.

And we know Black men are going to help us, lead us to the future — Black men from this class, in this university.  (Applause.)

But, graduates, this is what we’re up against: extremist forces aligned against the meaning and message of Morehouse.  And they peddle a fiction, a caricature what being a man is about — tough talk, abusing power, bigotry.  Their idea of being a man is toxic.  I ran into them all the time when I was younger.  They got — all right, I don’t want to get started.  (Laughter.)

But that’s not you.  It’s not us.  You all know and demonstrate what it really means to be a man.  Being a man is about the strength of respect and dignity.  It’s about showing up because it’s too late if you have to ask.  It’s about giving hate no safe harbor and leaving no one behind and defending freedoms.  It’s about standing up to the abuse of power, whether physical, economic, or psychological.  It’s about knowing faith without works is dead.  (Applause.)

Look — and you’re doing the work.  Today, I look out at all you graduates and I see the next generation of Morehouse men who are doctors and researchers curing cancer; artists shaping our culture; fearless journalists and intellectuals challenging convention.  I see preachers and advocates who might even join another Morehouse man in the United States Senate.

You can clap for him.  He’s a good man.  (Applause.)

As I said, I’m proud to have the most diverse administration in history to tap into the full talents of our nation.  I’m also proud of putting the first Black woman on the United States Supreme Court.  (Applause.)  And I have no doubt, one day a Morehouse man will be on that Court as well.  (Applause.)  You know it.

I’ve been vice president to the first Black president and become my close friend and president to the first woman vice president.  (Applause.)  Wh- — I have no idea — no doubt that a Morehouse man will be president one day, just after an AKA from Howard.  (Laughter and applause.)  She’s tough, guys.  (Laughter.)

Look, let me close with this.  I know I don’t look like I’ve been around very long.  (Laughter.)  (The President makes the sign of the cross.)  But in my career, for the first 30 years, I was told, “You’re too young, kid.”  They used to stop me from getting on the Senate elevator when I first got there, for real.  Now, I’m too old.

Whether you’re young or old, I know what endures: The strength and wisdom of faith endures.  And I hope — my hope for you is — my challenge to you is that you still keep the faith so long as you can.

That cap on your head proves you’ve earned your crown.  The question is now, 25 years from now, 50 years from now, when you’re asked to stand and address the next generation of Morehouse men, what will you say you did with that power you’ve earned?  What will you say you’ve done for your family, for your community, your country when it mattered most?

I know what we can do.  Together, we’re capable of building a democracy worthy of our dreams; a future where every — even more of your brothers and sisters can follow their dreams; a boundless future where your legacies lift us up — so those who follow; a bigger, brighter future that proves the American Dream is big enough for everyone to succeed.

Class of 2024, four years ago, it felt probably like Saturday.  Four years later, you made it to Sunday, to commencement, to the beginning.  And with faith and determination, you can push the sun above the horizon once more.  You can reveal a light hope — and that’s not — I’m not kidding — for yourself and for your nation.

“The prayers of a righteous man availeth much.”  A righteous man.  A good man.  A Morehouse man.

God bless you all.  We’re expecting a lot from you.

Thank you. (Applause.)

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You can argue with his policies (though no longer blame him for the border crisis; that one’s now squarely on Trump).

And you may prefer to hear what he has to say to a wider audience, not just Morehouse men (here’s a good one).

But can anyone come away from this somehow feeling he’s a bad dude?  Someone to be hated?  Someone who only pretends to love his country, his family, and his fellow man?

Lindsey Graham may have gotten a little carried away, but as he famously put it: “Joe Biden is as good a man as God ever created.”

OPRT

If you bought this one, you’ve likely gotten an email asking you to vote for three directors.  And if, like me, you’re hoping for a change of direction, I’d suggest you vote against the first two . . .

Ginny Lee:  Against

Louis Miramontes:  Against

. . . and for the third . . .

Richard Tambor:  For

The other thing I voted against was the resolution “to approve, on an advisory non-binding basis, the named executive officer compensation, as described in the proxy statement.”  After such poor performance, why encourage them?

(If you’ve already voted but want to make a change, search for the email you initially got– Vote Now! OPPORTUN FINANCIAL — and you should be able to do so.)

Here is Maureen Dowd profiling Bill Maher, of whom I’m a big fan.   A little X-rated for my prudish taste; and he skewers the left where we deserve it.  But he has no illusions of “equivalence.”  He’s no dupe to “whataboutism.”  And so — like Liz Cheney and Ben Sasse and virtually any Republican who hasn’t sold his or her soul — he . . . well, read the profile.  It’s fun.

As frequently noted: If we had open primaries and ranked choice voting, we could empower the sensible center and begin to wind down this cold civil war.

How 20 Years of Same-Sex Marriage Changed America.  Having grown up when I did, it just drops my jaw to see the Wall Street Journal ho-humming what not so long ago seemed unthinkable.

WheelTug: Still Kicking.  (Per an e-publication that serves the Middle East.)

I thought this line, careening around the Internet, was funny:

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So now cocaine is legal in Oregon, but straws aren’t.  That must be frustrating.

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But when I went to fact check it — is cocaine really legal in Oregon? — it turns out that Oregon Is Recriminalizing Drugs. Here’s What Portland Learned.

The trial resumes in New York — but not in Florida.

Listen: he took documents he shouldn’t have; lied to the FBI about having them; then actively moved to conceal them; and now claims it’s a “witch hunt” that he is being held to account.  He was a private citizen when he did most of this; but surely Donald Trump should not be subject to the laws of the United States.  What a crazy idea.