Worst President Ever?

It's a bit early after just 10 days (just 1451 to go!), but Donald J. Trump is on a path which could make him easily the worst President of the United States in our history.

The ones who are ranked worst historically (see this 2015 ranking of the US Political Scientists) are typically ones who were relative non-entities, ones who died early or served a single, ineffective term.  The names sinking to the bottom of that list are Buchanan, Harding, Andrew Johnson, Pierce, William H. Harrison (who served less than two months); I would add Chester A. Arthur, Millard Fillmore, and the unelected usurper Rutherford B. Hayes to their list.

Trump's pattern--the manner of his election (of elected Presidents, only Hayes lost more decisively in the popular vote than Trump, and of course his campaign set new lows for the nature and ugliness of his rhetoric), the characteristics of his Cabinet nominees (nearly all are unqualified, disqualified, elistist, or actively opposed to performing their assignments, or all of the above), and his early posturing around executive decisions--all suggest he could end up in a category of his own:  inept, disengaged, but enormously damaging. (OK, those are exactly the characteristics historians use to describe Buchanan, rated the worst until now.)

Here are some damaging things Trump has already done--mind you, these are the easy actions, not requiring any negotiation with legislators, merely his interpretations of fulfilling the campaign promises he chooses to recognize:

• His bizarre insistence that voter fraud robbed him of a popular vote victory.  It doesn't matter, the investigation is certain not to support his claim (the "registered in two states" canard is both irrelevant and has already backfired, with many of his cronies "guilty" of this non-crime), and may lead to a report that describes in ugly detail the suppression of voters that occurred.  
• His order to restore black sites to detain suspected terrorists--a return to extrajudicial persecution and probably torture. 
• Suppression of agencies' normal processes of communication, awarding grants, and, secretly, all mention of "climate change" from the White House website. 
• The emerging disaster--coming particularly from Health and Human Services Department nominee Price in his confirmation hearings--in the administration's direction on a replacement for the Affordable Care Act and the associated Medicaid grants. 
• Attorney General nominee Sessions' statements that he will not recuse himself from investigating Trump's conflicts of interest, Russian hacking and its effects on the election, or voter fraud. 
• The announcement of the commencement of his long-promised, stupid border wall, to be paid for with taxes on imports, instead of the Mexican government's support, which clearly will not be forthcoming.  (At least it may create some jobs, and then they could continue their work to take it down when it's proven to be ineffective or unnecessary.)
• Preparation for massive deportations, threatening local jurisdictions that won't cooperate with them. 
• The continued suck-up to Russia, and the formal re-affirmation of FBI Director Comey, one of the chief enablers of Trump's electoral victory. 
• Last--for now--but not least, his announcement regarding the promised "extreme vetting" of refugees and prospective immigrants from certain countries (all predominantly Muslim, none of them ones where Trump has his investments, though religious minorities--such as Christians--may be exempted).  It has already created massive confusion, a judge's injunction, and widespread protests, partly because it was so poorly written, partly because it is so blatantly bigoted and xenophobic, and partly because (as Pope Francis has stated) it violates the principles of those who call themselves Christians.  

What to Expect Next from the Drumpfenreich
I expect him to throw a three-year-old-type temper tantrum when Senate Democrats use normal cloture procedures to extend the approvals for selected Cabinet nominees (those with huge conflicts of interest, lack of qualifications, or incomplete vetting).   He has consistently shown no understanding of the levers of government.

When his approval ratings continue to drop, he will look to make a deal to get income tax cuts ("for all", but especially for the wealthiest and corporations), infrastructure spending (look to see who--which companies, which states--will benefit), discretionary budget cuts, and entitlement spending adjustments.  Congressional Republicans will go along, but Democrats will not; without the entitlement spending adjustments (i.e., cuts to benefits), his program will lead to massive increases in deficits, as graded by the Congressional Budget Office.  He will whine about their methods.

Some country will want to test his bluster--I'm thinking Iran, or North Korea, possibly the Taliban, hopefully not Russia right away.  He will threaten, they will call his bluff.  I'm really hoping this does not lead to us entering a stupid war right off the bat, but I'm almost certain this will happen in the first 18 months.  I remember commenting in early 2001 that so far, Dubya hadn't gotten us into a war, so I graded him a passing "D".  Then came 9/11.

What Should We Be Doing? 
1)  Moderate Expectations - Democratic opposition is not going to prevent the confirmation of any of Trump's Cabinet nominees.  No amount of calls, letters, political contributions is going to change this.  Slowing them down, providing a spotlight on the worst cases, will have the desired effect of highlighting the inadequacy of Trump's choices, and will increase their vulnerability later.   The same argument applies to Trump's Supreme Court nominee--he will be approved, in the end, unless there are severe deficiencies (I don't see that happening with the three named finalists).  The yardstick to use is whether the nominee is worse than Scalia--for me, a very low bar.  Stopping one nominee could lead to the risk of a worse one being named:  I believe that happened with Bush and Harriet Miers, which led to Alito, which I would say was a bad outcome.

2) Dig In When Necessary - One place will be on cuts to Medicare and Medicare  (Social Security should be a non-starter, as there is no case for change at present); another will be on the replacement package for the Affordable Care Act.  There is no reason for any Democrat to support any of the likely proposals, and without that, there will be no cuts/replacement.  

A third case would be on the next replacement for the Supreme Court, depending especially on who is being replaced.  Use the same principle of change in level of harm: Justice Thomas--fine, whatever;  Justice Kennedy, or any of the four "Democratic" justices (one was nominated by a Republican)--extreme sensitivity.  For at least the next two years, we should not expect the "nuclear option" which some Republican mouthpieces will run on about:  the opportunity to set the rules (relating to filibusters) for this Congress has passed, and it won't happen.  2019-2020 could be a different story, depending on circumstances.

3) Do not get sucked into the Bushite-style jingoism - This was the fatal mistake of the Democrats in the early post-9/11 days.  They voted for Bush's program out of fear of getting hammered in the 2002 elections for lack of patriotism, and they still got whipped.  And, the Iraq War/Patriot Act collar ended up on a bunch of them for the rest of their careers. This time, it will need to be clear that the war fever is due to the Drumpfite bungling of diplomacy.  And it will be.

4) Work on unifying, and expanding upon, the 54%.  Trump's victory was a fluke, the result of a combination of circumstances and lack of a successful, unified opposition to him.  The majority of Trump voters will never get that they have been duped--the big payday, the expert management, the great inflow of jobs, they will never "get it".   Some, especially those who voted for Trump as the lesser of two evils, are already starting to get it.   We are willing to "forgive"; there is no shame in shedding Trump and admitting one's error, only the shame we all must bear as Americans.

The opposition candidate we should work for will successfully counter Trump without dividing. Right now, I'm thinking Sherrod Brown of Ohio is a good candidate (Gillebrand maybe a running mate)--which makes Brown's 2018 re-election campaign a personal priority.

5) Keep the base mobilized - There is plenty of excitement which needs to be maintained.  It's not a question of money; don't let them play you.  The main points are to pick the right spots (so far, so good), avoid violent encounters and provocateurs (can only lose), weed out Drumpfian spies and conciliators (there is no compromise with Trump himself, and little with Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell), and own the weekends.

6) Minimize harm when possible - First target is Steve "Race" Bannon; this racist megalomaniac is totally out of control.  It was Nixon's cronies, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, who compounded and reinforced his paranoia. Somebody needs to ban Bannon.  If Trump needs him for political advice, fine--that will only hurt Trump in the end (same with the likes of Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer)--but he should not be allowed within earshot of any national security or foreign policy discussion.  We want Trump to fail--sorry, we do, he can not be rescued and allowed to succeed in spite of himself--but it should be because of the myopia of his own program. 

Looking Back without Anger

There's a lot of talk about "holding Donald Trump accountable"--as if we actually wanted him to keep his promises.  I am nearly the opposite--I want him to go back on all of them.  With some, the result would be an improvement; with the others, he would alienate his base and make it impossible for him to be re-elected.  That would seem to be the best possible outcome, given that he completes his single term.   That, and not getting us into a stupid war.

Now, holding Barack Obama accountable--that is a different question, and one on which I have prepared my expectations from the very beginning.

On the Issues -- The Ten-Point Program:  10 Years Later
Let me be clear:  this was my 10-point program for the 2008 election, not Barack Obama's.  I did do a subsequent post comparing mine to his and found plenty of similarity, but this was one I outlined ten years (plus a month) ago, in December, 2006.  This was two months before Obama officially announced his run, but it was clear at this point that he would, and I set these down as the basis for my evaluation of the candidates on the issues.

On the issues!  That's how far we have fallen; ten years ago we were considering a host of possible candidates (Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards on the Democratic side; John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, George Pataki),  respectable, proven politicians who had meaningful, considered positions on the principal issues.  In this last general election campaign, the issues were barely noticed (somehow "conflicts of interest" got overlooked, too), and we remained mired in controversies about emails and pussy-grabbing.

Anyway, to begin my retrospective on the subsequent 8-year Obama presidency now about to end, let's review the progress, or lack thereof, on the issues around which I built my hopes and long-term expectations at the time.  Here they are, in order:

1. Get control of climate-changing gases.
2. Preserve our biosphere.
3. Rebuild our relations with the world.
4. Visualize our children’s / grandchildren’s society, and the implications of that vision.
5. Reform the UN Charter.
6. Get control of armaments.
7. Establish clearly the political dimensions of privacy and of permissible government intrusions into it.
8. Provide health care to our people.
9. Electoral reform.
10. End the "War on Drugs" (or at least give it some focus on the more harmful ones).

I would say, looking at the Obama Administration's accomplishments, that they did not do half-badly against these ambitious goals.   

The good:  On the #1 priority, the Paris Conference agreement was a huge step forward, and I do not believe the Trumpists will be so blind as to reverse or withdraw from it (perhaps overly optimistically), and even if they do, it will survive four years of Drumpfen depredation.   #2 is a big, long-term one, but the recent executive actions Obama made with regard to offshore drilling, the dreaded tar sands pipeline, and expansion of protected lands show that they had the right idea. Obama made huge progress with #3, however, it is reversible progress, and Trump & Co. will do a lot of damage to that progress, maybe more than the original gains since the Bush era.  

We will come back to #8 in a moment, but I would give the greatest credit to Obama's efforts on #10. Decriminalization of marijuana was always going to be a second-term initiative, at best, and would have needed a Congressional majority which was never present.  Still,  the progress on reducing the harm of Federal mandatory sentencing rules, the commutation of many excessive sentences for non-violent drug offenders, and the tolerance shown toward states adopting liberalization of marijuana--even for recreational purposes--turned a corner in the decades-long, failing "War on Drugs".  There is still a real possibility of a U-turn--the Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions would probably favor one, while Trump, though non-committal, seems inclined to leave the status quo. 

Health Care (#8)--the mixed bag: Well, Obama tried, he really tried.  There were flaws in the initial concept, which borrowed heavily from Republican free-market approaches.  Perhaps they were necessary: For this to succeed, Obama and his team needed to line up the willingness of the private insurers to support the exchanges in the states.  He was able to make the other two key compromises with Congress:  to define the juice which needed to flow to make it work (the additions to Medicaid made available to states), and the individual/employer mandates and taxes to make it fiscally sound. 

The biggest failure was a political one:  too many states' regressive governments gambled on creating failure through denying their own constituents the benefits of increased Federal aid   In the long run, such a policy would have been self-defeating in a number of ways, but the short-term refusal to accept "Obamacare" worked as a political rallying cry, and we are now here.  What will happen seems unclear from the variety of Republican postures, but I think it is clear:  They will take the unilateral step of "ending Obamacare", while preserving its most popular features.  Private insurers will get an even better deal, the individual/employer mandates will wither, and the question of thee Federally-funded expansion of Medicare to all age groups (the so-called "public option" which Obama's team eschewed), exactly contrary to Paul Ryan's inclinations, will return as a major political issue for 2020. 

Bridges Too Far:   I put #4 and #6 in this category, long-term goals which could never be accomplished in one eight-year administration, especially with intransigent partisan opposition, ones that were overly ambitious in this contentious political atmosphere. #4 is all about making the adjustments in taxation and endowment benefits needed to stabilize the long-term fiscal approach (and de-escalate the generational conflicts now emerging with the retirement waves of Baby Boomers).  There were programs put forward which could have been the basis for bipartisan negotiation (the only way this can happen), but they died due to the Republicans' phony obsessions with debt limits and their threats to shut down the government to get a balanced budget (where are those concerns now?).  As for more controls on armaments, nuclear and otherwise, Obama had the will, but the prospects soured when Russian President Putin decided to pursue instead a policy of Cold War revanchism in the Crimea and Ukraine.  The agreement with Iran, brokered with the assistance of all the major powers, was a significant achievement preventing a new wave of proliferation in the Middle East: let's see if it holds, or if Trumpian freelancing will destroy it. 

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: On the U.N. (#5), Obama gave the organization  the respect due, no more or less.  There was no leadership, and the organization is now in serious trouble due to the reactionary wave of xenophobic nationalism; already reduced to a debating society, the will to continue funding the essential functions of the Security Council and General Assembly at an adequate level may once again be endangered.  I'd have liked to have seen some structural recognition for the rising power of responsible nations like India, Germany, South Africa, and Brazil.   It's still possible, but I also admit that nine nations with veto power is nine too many. 

The limits on government intrusion into private communications (#7) remains a sensitive area, and one about which advocates of a right to privacy can only be pessimistic.  The odious Patriot Act from the hysterical post-9/11 period was rolled back somewhat, but notions that Americans can speak and act, secure in the protections which enable truly free "speech" are illusory.  Meanwhile, TV cameras monitoring everything, designed to reduce various forms of crime, are functioning largely to protect property rights, not individuals' ones, and we are all ever more dependent on the digital realm, which is also tending toward increasing vulnerability. Nothing good happening here. 

Last, and most egregious, only negative progress was made on electoral reform (#9) during Obama's watch.  More and more is being spent every campaign to produce less and less of substantive result. Voting rights are being eroded to prevent fictional electoral fraud; elementary measures to increase voter turnout are spurned. Finally, I included in my announcement of my 10-point program in 2006 that we must eliminate the Electoral College; my opposition is not partisan (nor is mine to the Citizens United world of unlimited spending), and I pointed out in 2009 that Obama must not be deceived by his apparent advantage from the E.C.  What the Electoral College produces is randomized havoc which undermines the legitimacy of our elections, and that is not not new news, nor fake. 

A Few Items I Didn't Include in My Program
Filling The Great Crater - In 2006 the collapse of the economy was two years away but nowhere in sight (except to a handful of people--see "The Big Short").   I do not fault the Obama Administration's handling of the economic crisis which he inherited one bit.  Given the limitations of his job and the willingness of Congress to spring for remedies, he did nearly the best possible.  I don't feel the Dodd-Frank bill did enough to prevent a relapse (requiring huge capital for banks with the combination of investment trading and consumer assets could have done it), and I don't feel enough was done--after the crisis was ended--to punish some of the worst offenders in investment banking, and credit rating agencies, but still--given the way I feel about "job creation", I cannot and will not complain

The Middle East/Russia - Obama had a very clear mandate to keep the US out of new wars in Asia and to get us out of the ones we were in.  With the single exception of the surge in Afghanistan (barely memorable now), he did not violate his mandate.  The ballyhooed use of "soft power" did not turn out to be all that was suggested (if not promised).  Two signal successes for it were the above-mentioned Paris Conference agreement on climate changing emissions and the Iran nuclear agreements; otherwise, though, it failed badly when put to the test in the Arab Spring (Egypt, Libya, the Arabian Peninsula), and with ruthless countries like Syria, Iraq, Russia, and, most unfortunately, Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinians.  With Syria, I would not say our intelligence was too bad--most of the groups we decided not to back ended up being about as bad as Assad was; with Russia and the Ukraine, I would say we did too little, though we were right not to overpromise--the fact remains, though, that Russia had promised (in the Budapest agreement) to protect Ukraine, in exchange for its giving up its share of Soviet nukes, and we did not punish Russia nearly enough for overtly violating its promises. Our President-elect should be reminded that, with regard to that, a deal is a deal, and deal-breakers must not be rewarded, no matter how seductive their propaganda may be to a narcissist's ears. 

The Racial Thing - I guess I was not expecting race relations to blow up in the way that they did--around allegations of police bias toward blacks, and whites claiming to be under-privileged by left-center government. My greatest concern in this area was that there be an attempt on Obama's life, and the consequences of that.  So, given that did not occur, things did not go as well as I would have thought. And here we are, with reactionary forces ascendant.  Do I blame Obama, though?  Of course not--I blame the Republicans for their dog whistle approach to stirring up resentments, and I blame the canine humans who responded to them. 

Finally, The Democratic Party - I do think Obama and his team deserve a share of the blame for the amazing failures of the party which climaxed with the 2016 disaster. They weren't particularly generous about sharing resources in 2010, 2012, or 2014, and the support provided in 2016 didn't turn out to be too effective.  Particularly at the state level, Obama's popularity and governing successes were not well translated into local campaigns. This past year was supposed to be the year the wheels came off the republican Party; the bolts holding them on were extremely loose, but it was the Democrats instead that got ejected from their vehicle with a brutal face-planting.  I accept that reality, though I do not consider it definitive and still feel their opponents are the ones that history will find in the dustbin. 

By my critical analysis (let no one say I am insufficiently critical of our President) and scorekeeping, I have: 

• Five big successes (#1,2,3, 10, plus the  response to the Great Crater)
• Two very large mixed bags (#8, and the Middle East/Russia)
• Three areas where my expectations were simply too high (#4, 6, and the Racial Thing); and 
• Four areas where I was disappointed (#5, 7, 9 and the Democratic Party). 

I know, I am falling into the trap of which I accuse others--expecting too much of a US President. Guilty. I am grading on the curve, though, and by the standards of postwar Presidents, I rate him in a tie for second, behind only Eisenhower, tied with Truman, who shared some characteristics with Obama (dropped into a hot mess, good with the allies, far-sighted, but left some sticky foreign entanglements himself), and just ahead of Kennedy, Johnson, and Reagan.   In the all-time list, he would be in the back half of the first quartile, somewhere between 7th and 11th. *

We will be missing him--daily--for the next four years, at least. 

*Top 6:  Lincoln, Washington, FD Roosevelt, Jefferson, T Roosevelt, John Adams; Obama grouped with Jackson, Truman, Wilson, and Madison. 

Saskia Van der lingen

My longtime acquaintance, friend, and relative by marriage died yesterday in Granada, Nicaragua. The cause of death was an antibiotic-resistant blood infection.

Saskia was a very intelligent person.  Fully fluent in four languages (at least--English, Spanish, Italian, and French), she had an excellent eye.  She was a skilled photographer (old school), and had a successful career as a young woman as a fashion editor (an assistant at Vogue--she said her experiences there with Polly Mellen were the real basis of "The Devil Wears Prada"--and a more senior role with Details). She was very generous:  her trademark was the quality of her gifts, which were carefully considered, sometimes way too expensive, and always included with a kind, loving note.  She was a great hostess and a great cook.

Born and raised in Rome, Italy to expat parents--her Dutch father and American mother (and named for Rembrandt's wife)--she was a true internationalist, with friends all over the world. She hated the very idea of Donald Trump:  At least she will not have to endure seeing him as our President.

I would not say she was a person of moderation, with the way that she loved--married twice, to a charming Frenchman and a handsome Spaniard--danced, partied, or, on occasion, hated.

Saskia was a person who lived life to the fullest extent.  Though she died relatively young (early '50's), who's to say that's wrong?   I am just sorry for her daughter, her sister, and others who loved her (one wonderful man was with her at the end).

Losing someone you know well makes you acutely aware of your own mortality.  Live accordingly.

The Manchurian President (-elect)

Now we hear that the Russians had a dossier of compromising information on Presidential candidate Trump, and they were not hiding that fact.  What they did with it is not yet reported, though clearly they chose to release publicly their Clinton research and not that on Trump.  Perhaps they let Trump know what they had; perhaps it helps explain why Trump has never said a negative word about Russia and its government in this campaign or afterward.  Of course, maybe they didn't need to tell him what they had; he might already have known it.  At the least, the classified (but leaked) report indicates that the US intelligence agencies briefed Trump on the alleged existence of the dossier.

I recently had the occasion to see the '50's movie "The Manchurian Candidate", a fictional story about American soldiers in the Korean War (1948-53) who were captured, "brainwashed" and sent back to America to act, against their own will, to promote the objectives of the Communists--in this case to help, through targeted assassinations, the Presidential candidacy of an extremist demagogue.  I was not particularly impressed by the movie's verisimilitude--in particular, they seem to conflate inaccurately the effects of brainwashing and hypnotism, and to overstate the range of actions a brainwashed/hypnotized person might take.

Still, the question remains:  can the malign influence of a foreign power reach even to the White House? How could we know?  One thing is clear, there is an unmistakable tendency from Trump, in his statements and in his nominees for office, to take the most positive view possible of Russia, its actions, and its own public posturing.

On Electoral Tampering
Intelligence reports now publicly released make clear their unanimous assessment, with "high confidence", that the Russian government sponsored interference in the Presidential election, with a clear intention to undermine the integrity of the election, and an apparent intention to damage Secretary Clinton's candidacy.

We can be offended by the lack of fairness of the Russian interventions.  I don't think we have the right to call this unprecedented or something previously unthinkable.  There is evidence that, among other intrusions in other nations' politics, the US itself involved itself in the affairs of our close ally, Italy, during the Cold War, favoring the anti-Communist Christian Democratic party (and against the Italian Communists).

What isn't fair, though, is that only the Russians should get to try to influence the US Presidential elections.  Our elections results affect every country in the world, and the campaigns go on for so long, it should be very tempting for many countries to get involved, though they may have more ethical scruples than Russia.  There are two sad facts about this:  one is that virtually all of our friends and allies would have expressed their preference for Hillary Clinton, with whom they worked successfully and whom they respected; and the second is that American voters wouldn't really give the slightest consideration to what the rest of the world might think.  It's true that the President is only responsible to the American electorate, and only has direct responsibility for American government, but if we claim to be the leaders of the free world, we might want to know what the rest of the free world would like to follow.

Lightening Up...Or Trying

Movies: 2016
I'm very happy for Hollywood that 2016 set all-time records for box office--contrary to the current perception that television rules, the money still seems to be in the movies.  Netflix is OK, I guess--I still have some problems with the concept that only getting to watch what they select for you, whenever you want, is somehow better than a broader selection of choices with limited time selection (especially since the advent of the DVR somewhat frees up the time limitations), but in terms of the experience, for me there is no contest.  Movies affect me much more deeply.

That being said, the movies that draw the crowds generally have a different sensibility from mine. There is one exception, which I will get to shortly.  The only movies in the top 20 of box office receipts in the year which were not "superhero" comic heroes or cartoons were "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", "Jason Bourne", "Star Trek Beyond", and "Central Intelligence".  The first four, I would say, continue the theme of total escapism; only the last, a comedy with Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson which I had totally forgotten, is the only exception to the rule that extreme absence of reality is what drove financial result (it was #20).

I'm not immune to the appeal of such movies:  one figures in my top 5, two in my bottom 5, while one of them (the Star Trek movie), I saw, I paid for,  I enjoyed it,  but I had forgotten I had seen it. Mission Accomplished!

My Top Five Movies of 2016: 

• Arrival
• Rogue One
• Moonlight
• Hell or High Water
• Free State of Jones

Honorable Mention:  Birth of a Nation, Allied, Queen of Katwe, Youth, Where to Invade Next, Hello My Name is Doris.

Comments: "Arrival" is my favorite movie of the year, and I'm hoping Amy Adams will win her long-deserved Oscar for her performance.  "Rogue One" is the Star Wars movie I liked best, by far, since "Return of the Jedi".  "Moonlight" is a touching story, beautifully filmed, and one with a critically-important message.  "Hell or High Water" feels real to me, and is also very entertaining. The other movies are all underrated, flawed, but valuable.

Serious Movies I Have No Right to Judge - though those with * I criticize for their pseudo-2016 release strategy:

• Manchester by the Sea
• Hidden Figures*
• Jackie*
• Silence*
• La La Land
• Captain Fantastic (did they have a release strategy?)
• Fences*
• Lion*
• Loving
• Deepwater Horizon
• Patriots Day*

Comments: "La La Land" and "Manchester by the Sea" are considered the other main contenders for Best Picture along with "Moonlight".  I will see both of them eventually but am in no hurry; I do not feel that we have a lack of escapist show-biz kid self-worship that "LLL" is going to fill, though--I will be rooting against it, though that may be in spite of my feelings after I actually see it.  Both had the late release more right--general release on Christmas is the tried-and-true approach. "Hidden Figures" could be the sleeper for the Oscars, but its late release (why?) will hamper it.  "Silence" may be the movie Martin Scorsese had to make for decades, but it looks like a miss to me.  "Captain Fantastic" is probably the one of all this list I most want to see; I simply missed it because it never came close to my area.

A Few Movies I Did Not Like:

• Nocturnal Animals
• The Lobster
• Suicide Squad
• Knight of Cups
• The Divergent Series: Allegiant
• Superman v Batman:  The Dawn of Justice

Comments:  With the exception of the last two, which I just saw on TV after their runs, the others actively disappointed me.  There were other movies, such as "Race", "Snowden", "Sisters", or "Hail, Caesar", which were about what I expected, but no more.  "Office Christmas Party" and most of the cartoon movies fall into a category I would describe as "No Objection to seeing them, but I will wait and see them for free".


Sports at the Moment
Though arguably this is exactly the time when the fate of 2017's baseball teams are being determined, there is really no news to report.  The Hall of Fame election this year looks to be a total PR disaster, no matter who is or isn't elected.  For the record, my choices this year would be  Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Ivan Rodriguez, Tim Raines, Fred McGriff, Lee Smith, and Vlad Guerrero.

Next, I must brag on my team in English soccer.  Chelsea is on a 13-game win streak--no losses or draws in 13 league games--which has lifted them to the top of the table.  They will be challenged to continue the streak, which would be a record, against Tottenham on Wednesday.  Chelsea has simply got everything going well right now.  Off last season's disaster, they have no Champions League distractions, and new coach Antonio Conte has them extremely well focused.  I think he's going to be a keeper (not a goalie).

I am very critical of the structure of college football, but I would not say there is a lack of talent, sometimes even excitement.  Yesterday's Rose Bowl, won 52-49 on a last-second field goal by USC over Penn State, was clearly the game of the year.  It goes to show that the playoff system as it is now will always be about those #5/#6 teams proving they should have been it.  On the other hand, though there are way too many bowl games, the variety and structure does tend to bring teams of similar ability to face off, with the decisive factor being motivation level. The final should be a ho-hum win for Alabama, assuming they aren't checked out already.  I don't think their obsessive, hectoring coach Nick Saban will allow that to happen.

The NFL playoffs and the NBA playoffs both look somewhat predictable at this point.  Dallas and New England are large favorites to meet in the Super Bowl, and Golden State and Cleveland to meet, for the third straight year, in the NBA championships.  College basketball, on the other hand, has the most exciting playoff system in sports, and  this year should be no exception.  Although the laws of probability still apply, there is plenty of room for surprise.

Before the Door Closed on 2016...
Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds stepped through it.  Both were highly intelligent actresses who played a variety of roles, on screen and in life.  Fame was hard on them but they were never defeated.  I identify Reynolds, above all, as the "Unsinkable Molly Brown", a movie role now largely forgotten by the world, but which I will never forget.  Look it up.  The manner of Debbie Reynolds' death, directly following her daughter's, was remarkable. As for Carrie Fisher, one can certainly say she lived a full life.

It is fair to say that 2016 had an inordinately large number of notable persons who passed away, but I feel that this is not a transitory, one-time occurrence.  Those born in the first years of the baby boom have been dominating our news in all areas for many years; now many of them, particularly those who lived hard, loved hard, consumed hard, are passing on.  There is no objective measure of this, but I suspect we're in for a few more years of famous folks falling fast.