MY Columns

The best and the worst of times - in one day!

No wonder we feel dizzy. We live in a roller-coaster world, up one day, down the next. Or often up and down several times in the same day. Like this week, April 1 - no April Fools' joke! - where we experienced both the best of America and the worst.

The best of America was Artemis II, the most powerful rocket ever launched, blasting four astronauts on an historic mission around the far side of the moon and back to earth: a distance of 248,000 miles at a speed of 25,000 mph.

The first lunar mission in 53 years, Artemis II is not only a triumph of American engineering, it also reflects who we are as Americans. The Artemis crew includes the first woman, the first person of color and the first non-American citizen to soar beyond earth's low orbit. It is, in other words, a "DEI" event we can all be proud of - but which somehow escaped Donald Trump's attention. Otherwise, he would have canceled the whole mission.

That same day, the worst of America was on display when Donald Trump showed up at the Supreme Court to support his plan to end birthright citizenship. He's the first president to do so because no other president would do something so blatant or stupid.

Trump decided to attend the court's oral arguments on birthright citizenship for one reason only: to intimidate members of the court, especially the three justices he'd appointed to the bench. What a gigantic, delusional ego! He actually believed that if he showed up in person, conservative justices wouldn't dare vote against him. In fact, his presence may have the exact opposite effect: justices voting to uphold birthright citizenship if only to prove their independence from Trump.

Although one must always be careful about reading too much into oral arguments, from questions raised by even the most conservative justices, it doesn't look like the court will uphold Trump's Executive Order to eliminate birthright citizenship. Nor should they.

Some legal arguments are so complex you need a constitutional scholar to decipher them. But, as CNN's Jeff Tobin told my podcast, you don't need a degree from Harvard Law to understand the issue of birthright citizenship. You just need to know how to read.

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution was adopted in 1868 to ratify the results of the Civil War by affirming that children born of slaves were legal residents of the United States. It only takes one sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." And no sentence could be more clear: If you were born on American soil, you're an American citizen. Period.

On the first day of his second term, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order ending birthright citizenship because, he said, it was designed for slave children only - and not for sons and daughters of immigrants today. Now it's up to the Supreme Court to decide whether a president can single-handedly rewrite or negate parts of the Constitution. For Trump, prospects don't look good. When Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that we couldn't still follow the wording of the 14th Amendment because the world had changed, Chief Justice John Roberts fired back: "It's a new world. It's the same Constitution."

It's unlikely, but were the court to side with Trump, the results could be disastrous. According to the Pew Research Center, there are 1.2 million U.S. citizens who were born to unauthorized immigrant parents. Without the 14th Amendment, all of them could be rounded up and deported, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose Cuban parents were not American citizens when he was born in Miami.

Unfortunately, we saw more of the worst of America that evening when Trump addressed the nation from the White House, speaking as usual from both sides of his mouth. His war against Iran is over, but we're going to bomb them for another two to three weeks. They must open the Strait of Hormuz, but we don't care because we don't need their oil. We don't want regime change, but we killed all their leaders, anyway and we're going to kill even more.

It makes you jealous of the Artemis II astronauts. For the next 10 days, we'll still be stuck on this ridiculous Donald Trump roller coaster, but lucky them. They'll be 248,000 miles away!

Maybe we should all move to Finland

After every presidential election, many people disappointed by the outcome threaten to move - to Canada. Really? Why? Canada has little to offer but cold weather, high prices, no cultural advantages, hardly any diversity and a country whose national sport is - wait for it - curling!

No wonder so few who talk about moving to Canada actually do so. Because Canada offers so little appeal, especially when there are such better alternatives, as we learned again this year.

Since 2002, the World Happiness Report has used Gallup polling data from more than 150 countries to determine what they call "the world's happiest countries." Their findings are based on six categories: gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make your own life choices, generosity of the general population, and perceptions of internal and external corruption levels.

And now the envelope, please. According to the 2026 World Happiness Report, the planet's happiest country is - for the ninth year in a row - FINLAND! Followed by Iceland and Denmark, #'s 2 and 3; Costa Rica, #4; and Sweden and Norway, #'s 5 and 6. By the way, the United States ranks #24, after Lithuania, Slovenia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, and the UK.

Only someone as dumb as Donald Trump could miss the obvious lesson here: With the exception of Costa Rica, people who live in Nordic countries are the happiest people on earth. And what do they all have in common? They live in countries that follow the so-called "Nordic Model." You know, it's what Bernie Sanders talks about. Not socialism, but a related form of "democratic socialism," also known as a "capitalist democracy," whose main features are a stable government, robust economy, higher taxes and generous, universal social benefits.

Every one of the Nordic countries is celebrated for 10 key benefits. (1) Strong Social Safety Nets: universal healthcare; tuition-free or very low-cost universities; generous unemployment insurance; and robust public pensions. (2) Work-Life Balance: shorter workweeks; 5-6 weeks required vacation time; and flexible parental leave. (3) Dependable Government: transparency; little corruption; continuity in public policy; and trust in government. (4) Equality: low income inequality; strong gender equality; accessible childcare. (5) High-Quality Public Services: efficient public transit; modern infrastructure; well-maintained parks, libraries, and recreation centers.

Sound good? Wait, that's only half of it. (6) Clean Environment: abundant forests, lakes, mountains, and coastlines, all accessible; strong environmental regulations. (7) Safety: lowest crime rates in the world. (8) Social Trust: people tend to trust neighbors, institutions, even strangers. (9) Strong Education Systems: minimal standardized testing; highly-trained, well-paid, teachers. (10) Political Stability: stable political systems and consensus-driven policy making.

Compare that with the United States. The advantages are we pay lower taxes and, for much of the country, enjoy warmer weather. The disadvantages are we also have the highest health insurance costs and medical bills in the world, as well as the highest college tuition; limited parental leave; longer work weeks and no federally mandated paid vacation; expensive childcare; higher inequality; aging infrastructure; limited public transit outside major cities; higher violent crime rates; a top-sided economy that creates more and more billionaires, while leaving the middle class fall farther and farther behind; and a broken, divisive political system that changes direction every four years.

Now, I'm not suggesting we all pack up and move to Scandinavia. But I am suggesting there's a lot we can learn from Scandinavian countries, starting with the fact that what works best for most people is not the unfettered capitalism most Republicans embrace, but the Nordic mix of a free-market economy with private ownership, coupled with significant state investment in health care, education, and social security. Plus, no matter what Republicans have been preaching and practicing for more than 50 years, there are more important priorities than cutting taxes. Experience shows: cutting taxes helps only those already on top, does nothing for those at the bottom or in the middle, and means consumers pay more for health care, education, and other public services.

For most Americans, paying a little more in taxes (as long as everyone pays their fair share) in return for lower health care costs and lower tuition would be considered a good deal.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not packing for Finland. I'm a proud American. I don't want to live anywhere else. We live in a wonderful country. But we'd be an even better country if we spent less time bragging about how great we are, and a little more time learning from others.

Cesar Chavez: Say it isn’t so!

In 30 years, every column I've written has been about policy or politics. This one is personal. I'll never forget, as a young political operative, how thrilled I was to meet the already legendary Cesar Chavez. And now I'll never forget, as an older political junkie, how stunned and devastated I was to learn the secret history of years of sexual abuse that was buried with him.

For more than 50 years, I worshiped Cesar Chavez. My very first political activity was joining a farmworkers protest against buying California table grapes in front of the Safeway at 14th and Market streets in San Francisco. "Don't Buy Grapes," we chanted. And then the Farmworkers' slogan: "Si se puede!"

In 1975, I was working for California Governor Jerry Brown when he signed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which gave farmworkers the right to vote by secret ballot whether to join a union - and which led directly to formation of the United Farm Workers, led by Chavez. One year later, when Brown ran for president, busloads of farm workers, led by master organizer Marshall Ganz, showed up to campaign for him in every state primary he entered. I know, I was there.

I finally got to meet the great man himself at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, and was struck by how humble and soft-spoken he was. The next day, he electrified the convention with a speech nominating Brown for president. I met with Chavez several times after that. And in 1993 I attended his funeral in Delano, California, and took turns with others carrying his casket on our shoulders to the gravesite.

Cesar Chavez was my hero - until the New York Times this week released the sickening results of a five-year investigation showing that Chavez, at the peak of his popularity and power, used his position to abuse, molest and rape young girls, some as young as 12 or 13. Shades of Jeffrey Epstein! To his glorified record of historic labor leader, civil rights icon, Latino legend, family role model and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom must now be added one more title: criminal sexual pervert.

The news of Chavez's secret life as a pedophile came as a blow to the chest. But the immediate follow-up came as a hard kick in the groin: a statement by 95-year-old Dolores Huerta, who founded the UFW with Chavez and Gilbert Padilla, and whom I got to know well, attended several political rallies with and have interviewed many times.

Huerta told the Times what, out of loyalty to the cause of justice for farmworkers, she had chosen to keep secret for six decades: that Chavez had also raped her, co-founder of the union, repeatedly forced her to have sex with him, and fathered two children with her, whom she secretly put up for adoption. "Unfortunately, he used some of his great leadership to abuse women and children - it's really awful," she told the Times.

It's all so unbelievably shocking. And the fallout, as it should, will be brutal. Schools, streets, parks and public buildings will be renamed, statues torn down, marches canceled, and the federal holiday created on his March 31 birthday by President Obama will soon no longer be recognized. Even the UFW, the union he founded and led, announced it would never celebrate his birthday again.

For all of us who believed in Cesar Chavez and what he stood for, it's hard to process. We'd like to just remember all the good things he did, and forget the bad. But we can't. Because that would not only be denying reality, but ignoring the suffering of those young girls whose lives he destroyed. We must accept the facts, condemn him for his actions and deal with the consequences.

The Cesar Chavez story is an all-too-painful reflection of the human condition. Good people can still do horrible things. Thomas Jefferson is one of our most celebrated founders, one of only two to have his own memorial on the Washington Mall. Yet Jefferson not only owned slaves, he raped Sally Hemings when she was only 14 and later fathered six children with her.

And now another once-upon-a-time hero has let us down. Which, if nothing else, should remind us that, while we do need heroes to look up to, we must also always maintain a certain level of healthy skepticism about everybody. We have never met the perfect person - and never will.
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