Bob Gaydos: The world in 500 words or less

07/05/2024

https://open.substack.com/pub/bobgaydos/p/you-mean-we-dont-shoot-dogs?r=e40n8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Noem finds a limit to GOP malevolence

03/05/2024

My Little League mitt, circa 1951. RJ Photography Bob Gaydos: The World in 500 Words or Less, More or Less is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. By Bob Gaydos Ruminations of an old sports editor:

23/04/2024

Just Another Day in America
By Bob Gaydos
A former president of the United States was on trial in a New York City courtroom in a story that could’ve been written by the National Enquirer. Well, actually, it was supposed to be, but then the Enquirer killed the story and that’s all part of what the trial is about.

Donald Trump, the defendant, brooded, slept, glared, argued with his lawyers and pretty much showed he didn’t want to be where he was, sitting at the accused’s table in court. The judge kept warning him not to misbehave, but somehow still resisted locking Trump’s butt up for being a constant threat to the community with his comments on social media and elsewhere, an action that would prove to the rest of us that the law is truly applied equally to everyone. No matter. That day has to come.

And despite Trump's call to arms that “all hell will break loose” on Monday when his trial started, the only menacing site outside the courthouse was a group of college Young Republicans trying to figure out what the heck they were doing there. Not very menacing.

Anyway, the trial is all about hush money paid to p**n stars to keep them from going public with their stories, and hurting Trump's chances of being elected president in 2016. Mostly, a lot of lying about what money was used for what purpose and one of the key witnesses against Trump is his old lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who served a term in the federal prison just down the road from me for lying about all that money a few years ago.

Anyway, it’s sleazy and salacious and I’m embarrassed as an American that this man once sat in the Oval Office and apparently a lot of Americans still think he should be given another shot at the job he totally botched. They keep showing up in these polls that are supposedly fair and scientific, but for which I have never been contacted in my entire life.

Oh yeah, he’s the first American president ever to face criminal charges after leaving office. Well, that’s something he can lay claim to without having to lie about it.

On the same day, NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned some player I never heard of from ever playing in the league for committing “a cardinal sin” of betting on the league’s games and sharing information on his own play, removing himself from games pretending to be injured, and controlling betting on his own play. The player actually played in Toronto, which is not in America, but the rest of the league is.

Sports betting may yet be the downfall of the major sports leagues, but there seems to be no limit to it. The Los Angeles Dodgers only recently escaped major disaster as star Shohei Ohtani‘s former translator took the fall for stealing money from the ball player to cover millions of dollars in gambling losses. No baseball. The FBI says Ohtani didn’t know about it. Well, OK. Perhaps he’s taking English lessons now.

On this particular day, I looked to see what the great grey lady, the New York Times, had to say about the Trump trial. Its editorial went into great detail, carefully explaining all the nuances of the justice system and why everything was being done the way it was being done, etc. It was not until the end of what the paper itself described as “a seven -minute read,” that the editorial referred to Trump's “disregard for the rule of law and his willingness to demean American justice when it suits his interests.”

It continued, “Those actions render him manifestly unfit for office and would pose unique dangers to the United States during a second term. The greatest of those dangers, and the one that Americans should be most attuned to, is the damage that a second Trump presidency would inflict on the rule of law.”

Well, no you-know-what Sherlock. Did no one at the Times ever explain to the editorial writer that “don’t bury the lead“ applies to editorials as well as news stories. Seven minutes to tell people don’t ever put this lunatic in office again? He’s too dangerous?! “Manifestly unfit!”

Give me a break! Tell them at the top, tell them why and tell them again at the bottom. Tell them every damn day while you’ve still got a press! Geez, people, this is no time to be gentle.

A friend of mine recently asked how I felt about the direction this country was heading. Well, the first four presidents of my lifetime were Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.

Maybe it was a trick question.

[email protected]

01/03/2024

You can tell a lot about people by the contents of their mailboxes. In fact, if you pay attention, you can even learn a bit about yourself.

30/01/2024

This column is updated from three years ago because it’s election time again and, well, denial is the first, big obstacle. Until and unless they can admit they were/are powerless over Donald Trump, Republicans have no hope of recovering. They will be forever known as Trumpaholics, people addicted ...

22/01/2024

Ivan Pavlov, who knew a bit about how to figure things out, had this bit of advice which can apply equally to journalists as well as scientists: “Don’t become a mere recorder of facts, but try to pe*****te the mystery of their origin.”

17/01/2024

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Dry-January-Good-luck-bu-Accident_Alcohol-Abuse-Disorder_Alcoholic_Alcoholics-Anonymous-240113-468.html

On a positive note, if Dry January results in a more responsible general approach to alcohol consumption (as brewers and distillers are obliged to promote), it has to be good for society's overall health. Excessive alcohol consumption contributes to a multitude of societal and health problems as wel...

06/01/2024

I typically start my day (assuming the stars are aligned and the usual very considerate dog-feeder has fed the dogs) by tackling a New York Times word game called Queen Bee. You get points based on how many words you can make from seven letters. It’s one of several word games I play each day so th...

25/12/2023

The year Santa brought the trains
By Bob Gaydos
Long ago and far away in a bustling, friendly North Jersey place called Bayonne, a young boy (about 5) clambered out of bed in what seemed like the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

He opened the bedroom door and entered a world of light and laughter and clinking glasses and aunts and uncles and … trains! Trains! And tracks. And ...!

Oh! Oh! Oh!

It was explained to the hyper-excited boy trying not to wet his pajamas that Santa had been there and brought the train set and set it up, but was coming back with more presents so the boy had to go quickly go the bathroom and then he could play with the trains for a few minutes and go back to bed and be quiet not to wake his baby sister sleeping in her crib.

And so he did.

He expanded on those trains and surrounding accessories for another dozen years with the aid of Santa, parents and aunts and uncles for many more Christmas Eve visits. The layout expanded to cover a side of the living room around a Christmas tree in another, larger, home until eventually, at the “request” of his mother, it moved to the basement.

Then the boy went off to college and life.

Those trains, the Lionel New York Central passenger line, are still in good shape, in storage now in a big box in the basement with all the rest, after the long run in Bayonne and a revival bringing joy for that boy’s own two sons some four-plus decades later in Middletown, N.Y.

That Christmas Eve with Santa’s two-stop visit returned vividly to that young boy’s mind as he listened to the news last night, now some seven decades later. A reminder of a simpler time.

A time of family, community, innocence, hope and peace. A time worth remembering and, perhaps, removing from the boxes in the basement.

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

15/12/2023

It’s time for the annual reminder. The holiday party season is always a potential source of bah humbug, what with the flu (and now Covid) potentially lurking around, but it is an especially treacherous time of year for people in early recovery from addiction.

15/12/2023

Connecting the dots on five deaths
By Bob Gaydos
I have always looked at my function as an editorial writer/columnist to not simply subject readers to my opinions on a variety of topics, but rather, to try to help them connect the dots: A plus B equals C. Or maybe it doesn’t. Here’s why.
This past week, five prominent figures in American society died, one after another, and it seemed, at least to me, that the dots were literally screaming to be connected: Charles T. Munger, 99; Rosalynn Carter, 99; Henry Kissinger, 100; Sandra Day O’Connor, 93, and Norman Lear, 101.
At first glance, the only obvious dots were their ages. All had lived past 90, two had reached 100 and two just missed. Good living? Good genes? Coincidence?
Not being a big believer in coincidence, I had to take a closer look.
Charlie Munger was the lesser-known half of the founding partners of the Berkshire-Hathaway investment conglomerate, headed by Warren Buffett. Munger was vice chairman.
On Wall Street, everyone is always interested when Berkshire-Hathaway takes a financial stake in some company, or sells one, because of the company’s phenomenal success. Buffett usually gets the public credit, but he attributes Berkshire- Hathaway’s success to a piece of basic investment advice he got a long time ago from Munger: “Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.”
Buffett has always preached that same philosophy, irrespective of all the bells and whistles and charts and algorithms others use to try to game the market. Munger would have been 100 years old on New Year's Day.
Plains, Ga., is as far from Wall Street philosophically as one can get, but Rosalynn Carter and former President Jimmy Carter made it their home base through all 77 years of their marriage, dedicating their lives to promoting peace, social justice, mental health advocacy, caregiving and also, long after their years in the White House, helping to build homes for those of limited means. Humanitarian is a word Rosalynn Carter did proud, as First Lady and even more so later.
“I was more of a political partner than a political wife,” she once wrote. Jimmy agreed. Indeed, she was a major factor in his 1976 election to the presidency. Yet it would be hard, even in these times of political anarchy, to find anyone to utter a negative word about Rosalynn, the world-traveling humanitarian from Plains.
Of course, when it came to being known and influential around the world, few could outdo Henry Kissinger, secretary of state for both President Nixon and President Ford. Unlike Carter, however, there are plenty of negative opinions to hear about Kissinger to go with the positives.
He was a constant presence on the world diplomatic scene during the unpopular Vietnam War. Some of his policies, including carpet-bombing of nearby Cambodia, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, to this day bringing anger and scorn from many. But his efforts regarding Vietnam also brought him a Nobel Peace prize.
Kissinger is also known for his “shuttle diplomacy” in the Mideast and is credited with helping Nixon renew diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China, a major diplomatic accomplishment. Indeed, he had still been quietly active in recent years in trying to revitalize tense U.S.-China relations.
Diplomacy of another sort was a trademark of Sandra Day O’Connor, who, of course, will always be known as the first woman to serve as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. President Ronald Reagan chose a fellow California politician in making the historic nomination and that political background was evident throughout her tenure on the court, not in a partisan political way, but in her recognition of the place of public opinion in the court’s decision-making process and her willingness to set aside her moderate/conservative views when she felt it proper to agree with the more liberal justices. It made her the quintessential swing vote in her 25 years on the court. Since her retirement from the court in 2006, for better or worse, every new justice has been a judge, not a political figure.
When it came to acknowledging public opinions, though, Norman Lear was without peer. The creator of TV sitcom classics All in the Family and Maude, as well as Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons and Good Times, he introduced social and political commentary into popular TV shows, often going where other producers feared to go and letting people actually laugh at their own behavior.
He received many awards for his shows, but he didn’t confine his outspoken tendencies to TV shows.
Lear was also an outspoken activist, supporting liberal and progressive causes and founding People for the American Way, an advocacy group that countered the growth of the Christian right in political debate. A strong supporter of the First Amendment, he also purchased, for $8 million, one of 200 copies of the Declaration of Independence
published on July 4, 1776, and took a road trip around the country with it so that Americans could see it firsthand. He was a proud American.
And maybe it’s as simple as that. Maybe that’s where the dots connect. Each, in his or her own way, was not only a proud American, but someone who contributed significantly to the American experiment. Some may have disagreed with them from time to time, but these five, with nearly 500 years of life among them, used their years to the fullest. Each lived a life worth remembering.

[email protected]
Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

21/11/2023

If the (Granderson) shirt fits, wear it
By Bob Gaydos
I wore the Granderson shirt the other day. For the second time. The first time I wore it was more than six years ago. Donald Trump had just moved into the White House, I was recovering from a serious automobile accident and they hadn’t started playing baseball for real yet. Yeah, fun times.

Still, the good news was that I had lost a significant amount of weight thanks to a more healthful diet and a bit of exercise, gotten into better shape and, noticing the Granderson shirt at the bottom of the shirt drawer, I decided to try it on. Again.

I say again because the shirt had been given to me a few years earlier as a gift for either my birthday or Christmas by my son, Zack. He had inherited my rooting interest in the New York Yankees and at one time my favorite player on the team was Curtis Granderson. So Zack gave me the Granderson shirt, which was very thoughtful and appropriate. But it didn’t fit because I was inappropriately overweight.

But, voilà, at this somewhat depressing time six years ago, I decided to try the shirt on again and it fit. Sort of. Let’s say I could wear it without being embarrassed. It also provided me an opportunity to write a little about sports, something an old sports editor can’t resist. And, as I’ve shared before, I often look to sports to start the day with some good news.

Well, the really good news is that when I found the Granderson shirt still at the bottom of the shirt drawer the other day and put it on, it fit perfectly. Clean living had finally paid off.

So this old Yankee fan wore the Granderson shirt. The Yankee one, number 14. I specify Yankee because, as New York sports fans know, Granderson also played for the Mets. And, to get to the actual news in all this, the former outfielder for both New York teams was recently inducted into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame, which I didn’t even know existed.

I came upon this bit of information, not surprisingly, via Facebook. A meme posting from the organization informed me that Granderson and Darryl Strawberry, who also played for both the Yankees and Mets, were among 16 recent inductees into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame.

At a time when Trump still dominates headlines and TV airtime because of the 91 felony indictments among other things, I thought it was nice synchronicity for sports to show up again to remind us of something positive.

The New York State Baseball Hall of Fame has been in existence since 2011, but opened its new museum just this past July, in Gloversville, which is a 45-minute drive from the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, thereby putting upstate New York on the map for traveling baseball fans.

Granderson and Strawberry, two hard-hitting outfielders, all-stars and fan favorites were naturals for induction to this New York-focused hall. As a major leaguer, Granderson was respected, not only for his baseball talent, but for his contributions to the community at large. He was an intelligent and articulate spokesperson for the sport and for sportsmanship in general and worked with inner-city kids. He was also a streaky home run hitter and could strike out a lot. He’d fit right in today if he were playing.

Strawberry was also a power hitter, known for booming home runs, but his most powerful story today is of his recovery from alcoholism and drug abuse, a story he freely shares with those who need to hear a message of hope. He and his wife have set up a foundation which helps pay for treatment for addicts.

So these two recently joined the ranks of other New Yorkers or those with strong New York connections who have contributed over the years to the sport of baseball — professionals and amateurs, players and coaches, executives and writers and announcers as well as the 22 New York-born major leaguers who are also enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame just down the road.

A quick check of other inductees into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame produces the name of Joe Nathan (induction class of 2018), who was a standout pitcher for the Minnesota Twins and Pine Bush High School, where my son, Zack, and his brother, Max, both graduated.

Synchronicity. Nice to have another shirt to wear. Thanks again, Zack.

[email protected]

23/08/2023

http://zestoforange.com/blog/?p=17041

There has been plenty of news coverage of the daily stream of complaints from the twice-impeached, four times indicted former president that (1.) accusing him of crimes (91 of them) for things he has said and trying to silence him from talking about the accusations constitute an attack on his First....

13/07/2023

http://zestoforange.com/blog/?p=16952
By Bob Gaydos

That was the motto of Adelphi College, my alma mater. Still is. Been around since 1896. It’s a good one, I think, as mottos go.

17/06/2023

It’s time for a new chapter.

It’s not exactly writer’s block. More like writer’s fatigue. It’s what happens, to me at least, when there’s really only one story to tell and I’ve told it from every possible angle, for, oh, about seven years now.

06/06/2023

http://zestoforange.com/blog/?p=16887
By Bob Gaydos
Ultimately, I decided there could be no dinner talk with Donald Trump because from what I’ve seen, he doesn’t have conversations. He talks at you. He makes pronouncements.

It was a good question. An excellent question, actually: “What would you say to him if you did have dinner with him?”

06/04/2023

Maine's most exclusive restaurant just got more expensive.

06/04/2023

http://zestoforange.com/blog/?p=16763
By Bob Gaydos
Ta**ry, like his life

With all the many sins and crimes alleged about Donald Trump, ranging from attempting to steal an election, stealing classified documents, actually stealing an election, obstruction of justice, attempted extortion of a foreign leader, inciting a riot and attempting a coup, the one that finally gets....

14/12/2022

Cryptocurrency’s cryptic rise and fall
Bob Gaydos
I admit it. I’m a crypto cynic. I didn’t get it from the start. Still don’t.

Who created it? Why? What was the point? What was the need? I could already spend money in a flash on my phone. My bank and various other accounts were always urging me to access my money electronically. Cash was still cash, whether I folded it or used PayPal.

Then there was the obvious question: How do I get some Bitcoin (the original cryptocurrency) and how do I know what it’s worth? There was all this “mining” of currency, basically some computer geeks spending thousands of hours on computers typing in digital codes to create algorithms that other geeks accepted as currency to conduct a transaction. To play a video game maybe or buy some cool electronic stuff.

If you didn’t have the patience or skill to create your own currency and protect the codes, you could, eventually, “buy” some crypto. From a “bank” or “exchange” with, you know, hard cash. Money.

Crypto turned into a major commodity, something to invest in, rather than an alternative monetary system.

Why? Greed apparently. Having “invented” some kind of cool, alternative “money,” the geniuses behind crypto apparently figured that convincing people with a lot of real money that owning a lot of too-complicated and shakily supported “crypto” money was too good an investment to pass up.

In other words, it was something to have, not to spend. The IRS, of course, had figured that out quickly, taxing crypto as a commodity, not income.

Anyway, a lot of not-so-rich people have also been victimized by the current crypto meltdown and it all turns around trust, an important thing when you’re talking about money. Can you trust the bank that your money is there and available when you want it? Pretty much, yes. No real problems of late. The government keeps a watch.

But who was watching crypto? And, more to the point, if it was supposed to be a one-to-one point of sale exchange program, as created, how did all the other people get involved?

Again, greed.

Cryptocurrency grew as an investment with no one really watching over it and, dare I say, with most people never really understanding it. It was “money” that was, in a practical sense, not really good for anything but having. Gold at least has some intrinsic recognized value.

Perhaps not surprisingly, like a magic trick, as mysteriously as it was created, crypto started disappearing, along with the real cash money people had invested in it. But it wasn’t through some modern computer wizardry. Rather, apparently through some good, old-fashioned larceny.

The folks who created one of the unregulated exchanges to buy and sell crypto apparently just stole their customers’ real cash (reportedly billions) to invest in some other stuff. Apparently they couldn’t use crypto to do it. You know, to get around the banks and all those annoying regulations. They’ve filed for bankruptcy. So the real money is gone, the astronomical price of cryptocurrency has fallen and no one apparently knows whom to trust in a field that relies entirely on trust.

What’s the message here? I don't know. Maybe to make sure there’s a need for something before inventing it. Maybe to make sure what you invent isn’t too complicated for most people to use. Maybe to make sure you can trust someone to whom you are giving lots of your money to invest and you understand what you’re investing in. Maybe, that greed finds its way into pretty much any enterprise that involves money, real or imaginary. Or just maybe that was the idea all along.

Whatever, I still don’t get it.

[email protected]

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.

06/12/2022

http://zestoforange.com/blog/?p=16528
By Bob Gaydos
What was the point of money you can have but can’t spend?

Who created it? Why? What was the point? What was the need? I could already spend money in a flash on my phone. My bank and various other accounts were always urging me to access my money electronically. Cash was still cash, whether I folded it or used PayPal.

26/10/2022

http://zestoforange.com/blog/?p=16440

What happens when politicians lose all interest in looking for solutions to the challenges facing the people they represent and become focused simply on retaining power by getting the votes of as many of those people as possible in any way possible? What if that includes inventing problems that don....

05/10/2022

Republicans succumb to Stockholm syndrome, just like Patty Hearst
By Bob Gaydos
A news report to ponder as the House January 6 Committee prepares to resume its hearings on Donald Trump‘s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results: 61% of Republicans contacted in a recent poll do not believe the aforesaid former president had classified government documents stored at his home at Mar-a-Lago.
In that same poll, conducted by the Marquette Law School, 65% of independent voters said they believe there were indeed classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago and 93% of Democrats agreed.
Why the disparity? Stockholm Syndrome. I’m convinced the Republican Party was taken hostage by Donald Trump more than six years ago and, for a variety of reasons, like Patty Hearst, they have fallen in love with their kidnapper. We’ve all been paying the ransom, but few Republicans seem to want to actually be freed.
Rather, the majority still support, implicitly by their silence or explicitly by their words and actions, Trump's claim that Joe Biden was not legally elected president in 2020. In the same manner, the majority support Trump’s claims of having nothing to do with the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020. And, as this new poll indicates, they support Trump and all his outrageous claims about the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, including the fact that the FBI planted them.
Stockholm Syndrome.
While it is not an officially recognized mental health disorder, studies of the syndrome have found it to be present in victims of kidnapping or abuse. Or, in this case, both.
In October of 2016, I noted in a column that Trump, as the Republican candidate for president, said he might not accept the results of the 2016 election if he lost. The crowd cheered. Republicans remained silent. He made good on that threat in 2020.
In the interim, he has kept his followers in line by promising to give them what they want — in large part, assurance that people who don’t look like them (white) or think like them (ultra-conservative Christian) will take away whatever they feel is important to them (an illusion of power). He alternates this con job with threats to punish them if they challenge him. The latter strategy has been especially effective with elected Republicans lacking the courage to speak the truth about Trump lest he campaign against them. Safer to work with him. Stockholm syndrome.
All the while, Trump has played the victim and raised enormous amounts of money from his sympathetic supporters for bogus campaigns. Over the years, many, probably a majority, of Republicans, have formed a bond with Donald Trump that belies their true relationship. He has made a mockery of everything this political party one said it stood for, repeatedly encouraging the use of violence to achieve his goals, turning the party of law and order into a mob that attacks police at the United States Capitol and threatens to attack the FBI.
In October, 2016, I wrote: “Republicans, Trump is not one of you. He is Trump. Period. You created him. … He has sullied us all. And he has destroyed you.”
But those documents he declassified by thinking about them, even though they weren’t actually there and the FBI planted them anyway and he still wants them back, really don’t exist.
Apparently, they still can’t get enough of it.
Stockholm syndrome.

[email protected]
Photo: Patty Hearst, holding up a bank with the Symbionese Liberation Army.

21/09/2022

http://zestoforange.com/blog/?p=16413
By Bob Gaydos
Here’s my list of banned books. Want to share yours?

04/09/2022

The Trump Mar-a-Lago stash?
The French have a word for it
By Bob Gaydos
An arabesque is an arabesque wherever you may be. A grand jeté is a grand jeté in Tokyo or “Paree”.
Came across a YouTube channel the other day in which a Russian ballerina and a Japanese ballerina were discussing their chosen craft. They knew enough of each other’s language to be understood, but what really made the conversation possible and meaningful to both is that when either of them said, for example, “sur la pointe” or “battu,” the other knew exactly what she meant.
Ballet terms are in French everywhere. Period. C’est entendu.
Thus has it been since King Louis XIV adopted the dance style that originated in 15 Century Italy for his own court.
The king, an avid dancer, created many of the terms and steps that exist to this day. He took the ballet out of the court and introduced it to the public, plié by plié, creating a professional dance company. And, while styles may differ somewhat, the language of the ballet persists, from Moscow to London to New York to Rome to Tokyo to Paris and to every pirouette in every ballet class in the world. Everyone understands it.
Brilliant. Simple. No confusion.
If only the same could be said for some other forms of communication. Compare the universal language of ballet to, say, the confusing verbiage surrounding a sizable stash of apparently sensitive, even classified and top secret government documents that Donald Trump apparently took home with him, along with newspaper clippings, notes, magazines and other stuff when he moved from the White House to a golf resort in Florida. Threw it all in cardboard boxes for, well, he never said what for.
Trump apparently regarded the documents as “mine.”
The people at the National Archives, which stores and protects government documents for the American people, consider them “ours.”
When Trump finally agreed, after many months, to return documents, his lawyer apparently said there were “none” left in Florida. The National Archives folks and the FBI disagreed. They said there were “some” documents left. In fact, “a lot.” They wanted them “all.”
Another lawyer suggested that Trump had “declassified” the documents, as presidents can do. The National Archives replied that saying so doesn’t make it so.
Trump said the FBI conducted an “unwarranted” raid on his Mar a Lago home, treating him like some common thief, rather than a twice-impeached former president. A judge said the raid was, in fact, warranted. In fact, he signed the warrant, saying there was “probable cause” to believe that classified or other sensitive documents were still stored at Mar a Lago and, furthermore, that there was “probable cause” to believe that evidence of “obstruction” would be found there.
At some point, Trump suggested the FBI planted documents, yet insisted he wanted them back. He even said the FBI should release the affidavit for the search, suggesting, one presumes, it would show no justification. What the FBI released said it had reason to believe Trump was keeping “national defense information,” a violation of the Espionage Act.
Espionage, by the way, is French for spying, another word that everyone understands.

[email protected]
Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com