The Iran War Is Terminated Because Trump Said So
Back in 1982, when I was still a rookie journo at the Boston Phoenix, I was assigned to cover a congressional race between incumbent Margaret Heckler and a Democratic MOC named Barney Frank, who already was a legend in Massachusetts politics (a field with a very high bar for becoming a legend). Frank had developed a reputation for being acerbic, but funny. Volatile, but brilliant. He had irritated a number of Beacon Hill panjandrums, and they decided to have their revenge by pitting him for reelection against Heckler. She was a moderate who herself had first been elected in a 1966 upset victory over Joseph Martin, a 22-year incumbent who had been both the House minority leader and the Speaker of the House. Campaigning harder than he ever had, and harder than many Massachusetts wiseguys thought he could, Frank beat Heckler going away.
One day during the campaign, I was supposed to meet Barney and go on a campaign swing through the state with him. I arrived at his apartment in Newton. The candidate was in the bathtub, smoking a cigar. And that was my introduction to the thrill-park that was Barney Frank. History will remember him not only as one of the first openly gay national political figures, but also as a stalwart liberal resistance fighter against the excesses of the Reagan administration and a ferocious defender of President Bill Clinton against the extended ratfcking exercise run by Ken Starr.
I will remember him as someone who took great joy in argument. On that long ago campaign swing, we discussed the ABSCAM scandal that had ensnared several congresscritters. I thought there was the reek of entrapment about the whole business. Barney, the liberal firebrand, thought his colleagues had got what they deserved. We went back and forth for a half-hour over it. I was the libertarian. And several years later, Congressman Dick Armey—never was someone more aptly named—”slipped” and called him “Barney Fag,” he responded by saying that he’d checked with his mother and that she said nobody ever had called her “Elsie Fag.”
(Barney needed all of his considerable chutzpah in 1989, when it was revealed that he was involved with a gay escort named Steve Gobie. Gobie was running an escort business out of Frank’s Washington apartment. Republicans pounced. In a spasm of Hibernian sex panic, editorialists at the Boston Globe called for his resignation. He was reprimanded by the House but was cleared by the House Ethics Committee, and soon came out for good.)
Over the years, we kept in touch, and the last time I saw him was on the day in 2012 when he announced he would not be running for re-election. He retired to Maine and I learned this week that Barney had entered hospice care for congestive heart failure. He was himself alone. May his journey be a peaceful one. I do wish he’d laid off the damn cigars.
Spectacularly, the administration is insisting that it gets out from under the 60-day statutory deadline of the War Powers Act because … well, let the president explain it. From Politico:
President Donald Trump notified lawmakers Friday that the Iran war has “terminated”—an effort to quelch the fight over the need for Congress to approve the conflict.
The White House laid out its rationale in a letter, obtained by Politico, as the Middle East conflict reached a 60-day legal deadline under which operations must halt unless lawmakers authorize military force. A ceasefire with Tehran, Trump argued, effectively stops the clock.
The missive seeks to head off a growing battle on Capitol Hill, where Trump faces the prospect of losing Republican support as the war stretches into its second month with no clear exit strategy. But the White House’s reasoning won’t sit well with Democrats and some Republicans, who argue the administration must wind down the campaign now that it has reached that benchmark.
Earlier last week, Secretary of Talking About War Pete Hegseth beta-tested this hooey before Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson, from whom shame long ago fled into the Witness Protection Program, stated flatly that the deadline was irrelevant because the United States was not at war in Iran. Pro tip: If you are blockading ports, that’s an act of war. It’s why John F. Kennedy called the blockade of Cuba a “quarantine.”
Words matter, and so does common sense.
Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: Four O’Clock Blues –(Lizzie Miles). Yeah, I still pretty much love New Orleans.
Weekly Visit to the Pathé Archives: Here, from 1939, is King George VI of Great Britain and President Roosevelt, meeting in Washington on the brink of serious unpleasantness for both countries. This was the first time a British monarch had visited the former colonies since we kicked hell out of their empire 250 years ago this summer. The king visited Mount Vernon to show he didn’t hold a grudge. The next day, FDR brought the royal couple to Hyde Park for a picnic and served them hot dogs, which horrified FDR’s mother, but which was later immortalized in the finale to the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy. History is so cool.
On May 1, 1776, 250 years ago on Friday, a rebellious dean of law at the University of Ingolstadt named Adam Weishaupt got five friends together and formed what he called the “Order of the Illuminati.” And a thousand conspiracy were born. Happy Illuminati Day to all who celebrate … and you know who you are, ya bastids.
This is the best thing I read all week. Peter Finney, Jr. is an old sportswriting buddy. In 1984, when Pete was at the New York Post, and I was at the Boston Herald, our respective cheapskate newspapers assigned each of us to cover the Los Angeles Olympics alone. One afternoon, late in the Games, the late Jerry Lisker, the great sports editor of the Post, came over with two big cups of beer and hugged us both, saying, “My guys. My guys,”
Pete is a New Orleans legend, as was his father, Peter Finney, Sr., who was the ideal of the Southern gentleman. So here’s the kid, telling the story of a priest on the cusp of beatification who also was a horse whisperer at the Fairgrounds. He took his students to the track, and then to visit the poorest family he could find, so that the students could compare the level of care given to the horses to the level of care available to the children.
“The place where I got the greatest hostility was at a luncheon group of businessmen at the Roosevelt Hotel,” Rabalais recalled. “A number of the businessmen were alumni of Jesuit, and they were furious. They were so angry, they said, ‘I went to Jesuit before the communists took over and they started indoctrinating the students.’ They were like, ‘Why don’t they clean up? Why don’t they buy a vacuum cleaner?’ Just completely missing the essence of poverty, that people didn’t have spare money to go out and buy a vacuum cleaner.”
Father Thomas was, of course, a Jesuit, and Peter has convinced methat he gets my vote for sainthood.
In related news, I’m all in on Further Ado for the Derby, but I am also intrigued by 11-1 shot Emerging Market.
Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found!From (apologies all around) the New York Post:
Archaeologists found part of Homer’s “The Iliad” stuffed inside a 1,600-year-old mummy’s abdomen—a surprising and first-of-its-kind find, experts said. Researchers from the University of Barcelona said a papyrus fragment written in Greek was discovered during an excavation of a Roman Empire-era Egyptian tomb.The fragment includes a section of Book Two of the ancient epic, which details the legendary Trojan War, the university said.
Homer always hit me on a gut level as well. I’ll get my hat.
Hey, Science Daily, is it a good day for dinosaur news? It’s always a good day fordinosaur news!
Dinosaur DNA may still be out of reach, but scientists are uncovering something almost as exciting—ancient blood vessels hidden inside fossilized bones. In a massive Tyrannosaurus rex nicknamed Scotty, researchers discovered a network of preserved vessels within a rib that once fractured and began healing 66 million years ago. Using powerful synchrotron X-rays from particle accelerators, they were able to peer inside the dense fossil without damaging it, revealing intricate, iron-rich structures left behind by the healing process.
One thing we do know—the T-rex didn’t break his rib in a fistfight with another T-Rex. Hope it healed up before the extinction event because its owner lived then to make particle accelerator technicians happy now.
I’ll be back on Monday for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and any New One. In your spare time, spare a thought for the Iranian people, and the Lebanese people and all the other people downrange in our newest war, and all the people in ICE detention, and the Epstein victims, whose trauma is back in the news again, and Eric Swalwell’s victims, and the victims and their families in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting in Canada, and for the shooting victims in Austin, and in Michigan, and in Virginia, and in Louisiana, and for the brilliant journalists of the Washington Post, and for the citizens of the occupied city of Minneapolis and South Burlington, Vermont, and for all he people suffering from the severe cold brought by the polar vortex. and the people in the flooded areas of southern Africa, and in the flooded areas in Ireland, and in the flooded areas of Brazil, and for the storm-clobbered,flooded areas of the upper Midwest, including my alma mater, and for people suffering from the outbreaks of measles, a particularly brutal flu, and Legionnaire’s disease outbreak in Harlem, and for our LGBTQ+ citizens, who deserve so much more from this country than they’re getting.
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