American Morale: Worn And Weary

By Dwight Cunningham 

You wake up one morning and learn that we’re at war. No real inkling that was going to be your day  — but there you were,  watching the president in a baseball cap telling us, to our weary faces, that Americans will die. Just because.

Other top war officials cavalierly also proclaim that war is hell and, yes, Americans will die. 

So, another day you wake up and their sinful prophecy has immediately come to pass. Six Americans aboard a refueling tanker crash with no survivors. 

Donald Trump meets their flag-draped coffins at Dover Air Force Base, wearing a baseball cap and then issuing a fundraising plea on his social media — as an airman’s body moves past the president’s soulless body. 

Then one day you wake up and you hear about a US strike killing Iranian schoolgirls. Washington takes no responsibility, even though verified accounts show that it was an American super weapon that hit its target. But the targeting was off because the maps and the technology didn’t jibe. 

Another day you wake up and you wanna go back to sleep after learning that your cost of living has skyrocketed. Gasoline is up at least $1 more a gallon, food prices have crept up again and your day is confounded with tough choices as everyday living — (“We’ve tamed inflation. Everybody knows that!”) — gets harder. 

Another day you learn that farmers are bemoaning the cost of diesel and fertilizer in this wartime excursion. 

Then another day you wake up breathlessly awaiting prime-time news-news about when  this conscious nightmare will end – only to hear Trump recount lies and add more game-show bluster to the moment. 

Mere hours pass and you wake up to news that the Pentagon has jettisoned its top Army general, the chief of staff. Who does that in the middle of a war? Also kicked out is the Army’s top chaplain. On Good Friday Eve, no less. 

But the next day is the capper: an American F15E fighter jet is shot down by Iranian forces. One Air Force crew member is rescued, but there’s another one missing, fate unknown and a $70,000 bounty on his head. The Iranians want the airman alive — and what a bargaining chip that would be against “The Great Satan.”

Having a downed American airman behind enemy lines is a logistical and operational nightmare. It puts dozens of personnel in slow-moving aircraft at risk for all kinds of incoming fire. (So much for having no boots on the ground, heh, Donald?)

But embedded in this daily narrative of Trump’s illogical war machine are clear signs that things aren’t going too well for our military.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has blocked the promotion of four colonels — two Black and two women officers — primarily because of their race or gender. Bet that doesn’t help morale throughout the ranks, especially among current and prospective enlistees, as well as service academy cadets and midshipmen. (“Should I stay in or get out, because my Commander in Chief thinks I’m a diversity hire?”)

Then there’s the biggest warship in the world, the USS Gerald Ford. You remember, that’s the $1.3 billion aircraft carrier whose toilets don’t work. 

In the middle of air operations against Iran, the Ford reported a massive laundry room fire that took hours to contain and injured about 200 sailors. However, new reports suggest that it got seriously hit by enemy fire. 

Whatever really happened remains under wraps — for now. But the reality is that the prized CVN-78 recently limped into Crete and faces two long years in dry dock repairs.

What an embarrassment —regardless of the facts or just how the Navy flagship became disabled during war. It is down for the count, and our global sea power is clearly more questionable with a super carrier out of commission. (With Taiwan in mind, China ought to be gloating over this development.)

Morale aboard the Ford was already at low tide because the crew was on a record overseas deployment exceeding 10 months, including Venezuelan operations. That’s a mighty long time to be on station and far away from home sweet home. 

On another one of these dreadful days of late, you learn that the Army wants you to enlist — get this, up to age 42. (As an Air Force veteran who enlisted at 17, I’d like to see some 40–something finish a 50-mile hike with a full load of gear on one’s back. I’ll bring the popcorn.)

Today, Trump wants a $1.5 trillion budget for military spending. He says no need for day care, health care, bridges and roads. We’re going to get rich selling US oil to the world, in part because we’ve got all this seized Venezuelan crude.

There are also unconfirmed reports that possibly 700 service members have been wounded or injured in this conflict. And then there are 13 American service members who fulfilled their oath to the Constitution. 

Trump goes by a different oath. His bravado is scripted not to unite but rather to dismantle alliances and cause world dismay. His nonsensical rhetoric are lies spewed with venomous rapture: “Bomb them back to the Stone Age, where they belong.” (Wow. Just wow!)

So, one day soon I hope the Pentagon and our national security press corps work harder to get the truth out of this nefarious, kleptocratic regime. 

Their watchdog incisors need only to follow Trump’s fading bully blueprint. 

Just tell it like it is, for pity’s sake.

The angles of American worn are everywhere. 

                    — 30 —

Jesse Jackson — A Remembrance

I was one of the “boys on the bus“ in ‘84 covering The Rev. Jesse Jackson for The Washington Times. (FYI: I was the only Black reporter on the national staff.) 

I remember traveling through the South and Midwest, including Memphis, when he was barnstorming, meeting with Black pastors at their national conventions to discuss his platform and raise critically needed funding. Jesse had leased a propeller-driven aircraft  from a white televangelist; I want to remember it was someone out of Louisiana. Anyway, the plane had constant problems — and so we were always operating on CPT. I had to tell my editors that even though I had stories scheduled, Jesse was never on time for my deadlines. I spent a week in Missouri going from Kansas City through Columbia and then to St. Louis with Jesse.

And when that “ Hymietown“ whisper got picked up by Milton Coleman at The Washington Post, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan subsequently said that Coleman and other Black journalists,are “pure chump operatives” of white editors and should be harmed, I immediately wrote an opinion piece, defending us Black journalists. 

The takeaway: We had to tightrope between our skeptical newsroom managers and a skeptical, sometimes hostile Black populace. But we were journalists who happened to be Black — and Blacks who happened to be journalists.

When Jesse went to Syria to try to win back a downed American Navy pilot, I implored  my editors to send me because all other Reagan administration efforts had failed. No way would Jesse succeed, was the response, with them dismissively surmising it a failed adventure that smacked of a Jackson publicity stunt. 

They were dead wrong, of course. So, I was at Andrews Air Force Base when Jesse bought Navy Lt. Robert Goodman back for a triumphant homecoming in July, 1984. Later that day, a rally was held in a packed church in downtown Washington. (I want to say it was Metropolitan AME). Jesse introduced Goodman, a Black aviator, and everyone inside felt the love and the power of Jesse Jackson.

So, thanks, Jesse, for giving me the opportunity to spread my journalist wings. And my gratitude for giving voice, strength and support to untold millions of the underserved across our planet. 

My Washington Post Story: The good, the bad — and now the very ugly

As a Black child growing up in the 1950s in Washington, DC, my family subscribed to The Washington Afro-American, and my grandmother brought home the Washington Daily News, a Scripps Howard tabloid with the lighthouse icon in the masthead’s upper-left corner.

The only time I saw Black people in that paper were thumbnail mugshots of some alleged criminal. Didn’t see anyone who looked like me, my family or teachers in any local newspaper back then.

My first encounter with The Washington Post Times Herald came somewhere along the way when, as a teenager, I got a carrier job delivering it in Southeast Washington, in arguably the roughest part of town, the public housing development known as Barry Farms.

The Sunday paper was so humongous that my manager had to drop off bundles in different parts of my route.

I had to get an early start on Sundays, because I had to insert the heavy Sunday color section for the first half of my delivery, and then along Firth Sterling Avenue, I inserted the other 50 copies for my door-to-door deliveries.

I never got stiffed by my customers or robbed by the homeboys, many of whom I played basketball with at the playground. 

My customers may have been low income, but I know they were well informed by my Post product.

Fast forward. In high school, I wrecked my knee in football practice and became the team manager. I was tapped to phone in our Friday game results to the Post sports desk, earning $10 as a stringer. Perhaps that is when I was first bitten by the Bug Of Journalism.

But if not then, the glorious infection came after my Air Force enlistment in the Vietnam War. During that tour, the Chicago Tribune gave us troops free subscriptions, and I read pages of news to better understand what was happening at home — because it was hard to find the truth from my commanders overseas. I also grabbed copies of the New York Daily News and Sports Illustrated when I wasn’t engaged in war.

After the military and returning to Washington, I saw a posting at D.C. Teachers College for a dictation clerk at The Post. 

Applicants had to have good command of the English language and type at least 60 words per minute.

Well, I could always type like the wind, thanks to practicing on the second-hand Royal manual typewriter my Dad got me when I was about 12.

Now, my plan was to become a

history teacher. But…somewhere along the line I got bit by that old Bug Of Journalism, this time for sure.

As a dictation clerk, I took reporters’ live copy on six-part or four-part paper, depending on which desk it was destined for.

I took Metro, National and Foreign reporters, including dictation from the vaunted Black staff who collectively became the Metro Seven. I took dictation from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein before they became the celebrated Watergate scandal duo. I recall frequently asking Carl questions about his awkward copy (similar to a rewrite man, even though that wasn’t my lane.)

My gosh, in retrospect, I was imbibing in the caviar of my future craft.

But I left The Post after two years, knowing that they were never going to promote me to become a journalist.

It took some years for The Bug to work its infectious grace as I changed majors to print journalism and started stringing for The Afro before they finally put me on its tiny staff.

Later, I became its local reporter and sports editor, covering DC high school sports, Howard University and the Redskins before moving to Greensboro, North Carolina, for my first mainstream journalism job.

There, I was on the staff that became a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for its deep coverage of the infamous Klan-Nazi shootout in a Black public housing development in 1979. (Five protesters were killed that day. The white shooters were never convicted.)

After that journey, it was on to The Philadelphia Inquirer and the hardscrabble streets of Camden, New Jersey and Philly.

Wanting more challenges — and money — it was then on to The Washington Times, the conservative morning paper and an alternative to The Post’s liberalism. My beats, as one of four Black reporters, were everything the national desk didn’t see as top tier: Housing, Labor, Transportation and Minority Affairs. I was the only minority on National, but I carved out stories highlighting what even the Post didn’t see as viable.

Ronald Reagan had ascended to the presidency, and soon thereafter was sending aid to Chad to combat Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi incursion into the former French colony.

Onward to Chad, where I was met by Leon Dash, the Post’s intrepid Africa correspondent who took me under his wing. No matter that we worked for competitors. We were brothers in arms, in journalism and in our blackness.

We were surrounded by gunfire and Third World living conditions. We had to bribe officials to get our stories transmitted to Europe and beyond. Without Leon, one of the Metro Seven and a future Pulitzer winner, I sincerely doubt I could have returned a success.

Looking back, when I was at the Afro, I tried to do a story about heroin and D.C’s children encased in the rampant drug trade plaguing my home town.

I came close, but nobody, not the druggies, not the dealers, not the kids, not cops nor the prostitutes — they would trust and talk to me about the criminality, but never on the record.

Man, did I try. To no avail. 

When I was in Philadelphia, I learned that someone at the Post had indeed written that pièce de résistance. Her name was Janet Cooke, and she was awarded a Pulitzer for “Jimmy’s Story,” about a Black boy with a heroin addiction.

“Damn, she did it,” I recall ruefully saying again and again. She did what I had failed to do. 

I wanted to kick myself.

But it wasn't long thereafter when the world found out she had made up the whole thing. A work of pure fiction that had bamboozled all of journalism for a few disgraceful minutes.

But her stain hit me and my fellow Black journalists in Philly — because we knew our editors would distrust us more than ever, for no other reason than they thought we collectively couldn’t be trusted.

When her chicanery was discovered, a group of us congregated at a Center City bar to contemplate the inevitable blowback with editors looking at us and our copy sideways.

Thanks, Janet. Thanks Washington Post.

We survived. And there were a bevy of my former colleagues who wound up at The Post, where they did some solid journalism. Some of you are my Facebook friends whose daily journalistic superiority should have remained the gold standard in this Digital Age.

Even when the Post’s “Potomac”Sunday magazine delivered a hit job on young Blacks who were barred from downtown jewelry stores and the ensuing boycott, I marveled at its coverage.

Some of that period was included in Jill Nelson's wonderful novel, “Volunteer Slavery.” It was a treatise of mistreatment inside and outside The Post, and it should have been a lesson on respecting a largely loyal audience.

Not so, I regret to say. As the years passed, I have watched the newspaper’s demise, from journalistic icon into a laughingstock.

Early this century, I became editor in chief of The Afro, and tried to fill the void. I saw how the Post invariably missed stories in the city, how it wasn’t covering City Hall, the neighborhoods or its people. There was no sense of community in its metro pages. Even the sports section was empty as famed sports columnists Shirley Povich and Bob Addie were long departed.

So, today’s announcement of the gutting of The Post’s newsroom is most assuredly the anticipated death knell.

What was great is no more. What was a legacy of truth, accuracy and accountability is now a Dumpster fire.

This goes beyond my love for the craft of journalism. Today, the pulse of our democracy has lost its heart.

The Post’s motto has been “Democracy Dies In Darkness.”

Well, that light is now out.

                            —30–

THE FIRST AMENDMENT’S LAST HURRAH?

As a journalist of more than three decades, as a journalist who happens to be a Black journalist, as a reporter, editor, senior newsroom manager, as a journalism educator at four U.S universities, as a freelance journalist who still contributes to the body politic with credible information — the unconstitutional arrest of four journalists by the racist Trump administration forces me to wonder whether I need to have my own legal team on speed dial. 

There is a reason why I framed and display The First Amendment in my home. I have lived by it throughout my career. Now, many of my Facebook friends also have storied careers in journalism, upholding the sacred values of the Fourth Estate and the Founding Fathers’ vision. I know they are as troubled as I.

Today, I do not understand how those now in key positions in the journalism community aren’t expressing their outrage at the highest level. Have they been so intimidated that they would rather fatten their wallets instead of “afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted?”

Americans need to understand that this full-court assault on our freedoms follows an authoritarian playbook that eventually will destroy this almost 250-year experiment in equality for all. 

Some on Facebook have advised me not to be so challenging of this regime. Really? Know, too, that I am a Vietnam veteran who has also worked as a managerial advocate for disaster survivors from the 9/11 World Trade Center attack through Hurricane Katrina, sacrificing good health along the way. 

So, I’m not about to back down from serving my country — NOT EVER!

                            ###

August 1, 2025: America’s Newest Day Of Infamy

On so many fronts, the first day of August was a terrible day for the United States. 

We're sending nuclear submarines off the coast of Russia because President Trump must fitfully respond to Russian saber-rattling with anything to distract from the cause du jour, the ascension of convicted pedophile Ghislaine Maxwell to a cozy prison retreat in Texas. 

Beyond today’s psychic hits to national security, child abuse and judicial norms (all wrapped up in one), Trump also took to disemboweling the gold standard of American economic institutions, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The monthly jobs report, a bulwark of economic data and guidance, didn’t suit Trump’s liking. So he sacked the BLS commissioner, an honest bureaucrat whose departure makes for likely suspicious numbers ahead. 

August 1 signals to the world’s bankers that America cannot be counted on to be truthful about forthcoming economic data — given that autocratic Trump will install a nefarious chef to cook the books to please. 

The jobs numbers are down due to Trump’s disastrous immigration crackdowns and tariffs, which kicked in August 1. Still, there’s $200 million to redo the White House ballroom. In Trumpian gold leaf, to be sure.

We have become mummified to Trump's excesses. Needless to say, if Obama, Biden or Bush had committed the same atrocious acts, impeachment would ring all over the land.  

In the Ghislaine Maxwell case, Trump has demagnetized our moral compass. A heinous woman who used money and power along with consort Jeffrey Epstein to dehumanize hundreds of young girls is striding toward a full pardon by Trump. The minimum-security gambit is just a way to numb America’s fading vision of protecting our children — and shielding Trump’s past. 

In just six months, Trump’s shriveling of America has taken hold. Institutionally, media companies, law firms and universities have all kowtowed to Trump, agreeing to pay ransoms to “comply” with Trump grievances about liberals, diversity-equity initiatives and anti-Israeli sentiment on elite college campuses. 

Even the federal courts can’t catch a break, knowing that whatever ruling goes against Trump’s demagoguery will doubtless be reversed by the complicit US Supreme Court.

Numb yet?

Every action coming out 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is meant to castrate American democracy. But the Democrats are decaying too fast to thwart Trump’s messianic behaviors.

On August 1, 2025, American allies  drew closer toward acknowledging genocide in Gaza — with the United States on the wrong side of life, if not also liberty and the Palestinian pursuit of happiness. More in Gaza were killed today as they struggled to secure food amidst gangs and Israeli bullets supplied by the United States.

Meanwhile, our own food scarcity is starker, given federal cuts and food banks decrying dwindling stocks amid overwhelming demand. 

Those who can buy travel almost comatose through half-empty supermarkets, now numb to prices. With impulse buying out the window, shoppers arrive with smartphone lists instead. 

Expect even more of the same as Proctor & Gamble’s 25-percent hike takes effect August 1 on its product line. The household goods leader blames increased costs for tariff-laden raw materials. It’s goodbye, Crest and Tide, hello bargain brands.

The nation’s cultural sensibilities  also took a big hit today. The Smithsonian Institution’s impeachment exhibit will no longer feature twice-impeached Trump. Someone ordered that fact deleted. But down the street, the storied Kennedy Center Opera House may soon have, on full display, the name of the president’s wife, whose cultural contributions were highlighted in her nude pictorials.

Those announcements pale with August 1’s devastation that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will wind down operations. CPB is closing after Trump rescinded $1.1 billion in funding for the nonprofit that has helped sustain National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, and it counts hundreds of local public media stations across the country.

“Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement, “providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country.”

Yes, America, Big Bird is dying.

Borrowing from another cultural icon, and referencing Denzel Washington after he got shot in the butt in his Oscar-winning “Training Day”: What a day! What a motherfucking day!”

NO WAY TO TREAT A FRIEND

Goodbye FEMA. Trump is dismantling it. Truth will come when we have back-to-back hurricanes in 2025. He says the states are well equipped to handle natural disasters. No way, I say.

Goodbye storied Voice of America. For decades, citizens from around the world have listened intently to what democracy sounds like. It gave them hope and fervor. Not any more, to be sure. Adios to America’s low-cost propaganda machine, which triumphantly and accurately broadcasted morsels of humanity, trust and American goodwill.

Goodbye National Weather Service. Trump has gutted that vital meteorological agency. No way will they be able to help pinpoint impending disaster. 

Remember, in his first term, Trump took a Sharpie to diagram where a hurricane was supposed to hit along the Gulf Coast. Of course, he was dead wrong. 

And he will be wrong again — as time will show that our communities are more vulnerable with the lack of this technological expertise to gauge and try to get the upper hand against an ever-meaner Mother Nature.

Goodbye to the Department of Education. Students? We don’t need no friggin’ students, paraphrasing Trump, aided by his wrestling crony, who has no education experience. None. Nada!

In the midst of an exploding measles outbreak, his nutty buddy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., bids a nasty farewell to our health-protection agencies: the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, with thousands more firings at the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Many people at that agency learned they were terminated when their security badges were pulled at the door as they showed up to work. 

This whole alleged cost-cutting and rooting out abuse is a bridge too far. It is a dodge, a fraud perpetrated unto We The People.

Speaking of people, paltry little has been said about the rampant abuse to our federal work force. 

And don’t buy into any ugly Trump trope.  Civil service has been their calling, and they are experienced and competent — loyal to their jobs and these United States of America.

In these calamitous times, they have been subjected to hateful and passionate indignities. But adding more context: The people hired to protect us, in one way or another, are being let go.

Unceremoniously.

These mass firings will tear apart families and communities throughout the land, as breadwinners no more come home with the news.

Countless terrible stories are on the horizon with the loss of federal workers. Try making a call to the Social Security Administration. Wait times at Veterans Administration clinics and hospitals are sure to increase exponentially with the proposed hacksaw to the VA. How many veterans will suffer due to the lack of care? How many more will commit suicide with their support gone?

And don’t wonder whether that forklift operator or farm equipment assembly worker, or a hospital janitor will get workplace protections even after an accident. The occupational safety inspectors are gone, too. 

Consequently, Americans will perish because they work in hazardous conditions with federal oversight absent.

In the fourth month of this moronic U.S. presidency, Trump spews rapid-fire hurt. Daily, sometimes hourly, his policies impact working Americans, our vital student population, our old, and the most vulnerable.

In this era of White House Big Mac Attacks, it really doesn’t matter what’s on a new menu.

Just get me out of this vomit.

                    —30–

https://substack.com/@dwightcunningham?r=352h0i&utm_medium=ios

A PLEA — WHILE THER IS STILL TIME

Let me preface this by stating that I have been a transportation reporter and aviation enthusiast since childhood, and took that passion skyward when I joined the US Air Force during the Vietnam War. 

That said, let me be blunt: Trump — once again — is using a tragedy for his own racist benefit while ignoring facts. He blames diversity initiatives for the fatal Washington crash, pointing to control tower personnel as being unintelligent and of “low aptitude” because of diversity initiatives. 

Utter racist rubbish.

The reality is that for years, the passenger and cargo airline industries have castigated federal officials for the chronic shortage of air traffic controllers. The shortage is costly, and has contributed to chronic delays, cancellations, prolonged flight times and extended taxi periods.

Here’s an earlier bit of American aviation history: The FAA has been chronically understaffed since President Ronald Reagan fired all of the striking controllers in the 1980s. I covered that event.  (And I could never understand why they named Washington National Airport after him following that nasty, egotistic act.)

Fast forward 30 years and tens of thousands of controllers have retired or are now retiring because they have reached the mandatory retirement age of 56. Burnout also remains high. So, today there remains a chronic shortage of ATCs. 

Meanwhile, the standards for hiring and training remain high. But controllers are saddled with an antiquated nationwide air traffic system in need of expensive and critical 21st Century hardware and software upgrades.

At the time of the Washington crash, reports say that there was one controller in the DCA tower handling two positions, which some say is not unusual. But Trump, with no facts, is blaming the loss of 67 Americans aboard the two aircraft on diversity and equity initiatives in the control tower. How utterly ungodly and shameless.

But give him credit. Trump has hit a trifecta: 

• An undereducated and misinformed populace. 
• MAGA gone wild. 
• And a hollowed-out news media too cowardly to challenge the wannabe oligarch. (And don’t forget that he’s making millions in the White House with his cryptocurrency stakes, etc.)

Fundamentally, it is time for us citizens to take back the news and not be distracted by this Trump racist and rhetorical nonsense.

On the DEI front, many of my Facebook friends are solid journalists, present and past, who happen to be Black and Brown folks. I have followed your careers and reveled — in your bylines, live shots and constant achievements.

And if you don’t happen to be a journalist, that’s also great because you are leaders in your own fields and magnum force is needed at this crucial moment.

I think about the legends who helped me along the way: Arthur M. Carter of The Washington Afro-American; Mal Goode, the first TV network correspondent; Pulitzer winners Leon Dash, Acel Moore and Les Payne; and, Dorothy Gilliam of The Washington Post and Maynard Institute.

I wonder what they would say, what they would do to fight this patently vindictive civil rights rollback that’s creating seismic schisms in our society.

Thus, I know that we must do something to protect The Village. As journalists, we must do what we’ve always done: Speak truth to power.

That’s what Art, Acel, Leon, Les and Dorothy would do — and we are their legacy.

The Village, once again, is in peril. Let’s form a consortium or create strategies to harness our energy talents, and belief in a democratic future — while there is still time.

Rich Man, Poor Us

There is a depression over the land, and it grows with each passing day under this new Trump administration. Instead of inspiring, he is taking us down his own dark path of American madness. 

Speaking to retired federal employees, I know what is happening in Washington, DC. They know what’s happening in the hinterland with the federal programs they used to administer. Their programs were built to protect the old, the young, the sick, the poor — and every one of them is in jeopardy. The people who administer these programs at the grassroots — such as Medicare and food stamps — are now in limbo as well. Their staffs are being put on notice that they may not have jobs in coming days. 

This burgeoning nationwide mental health crisis also heavily touches the career civil service workforce, people who have given their entire existence to careers that benefit the public. Many of these federal employees are now depressed, not knowing which way to turn with Trump’s recent buyout offer. These are people with families. These are people with mortgages and children to care for, and aging parents to watch over. These are people with bills. These are people. 

Donald Trump does not care about people, only his entitled cabal of wannabe oligarchs. 

Now, Google is renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” Indeed, America has a growing gulf of insecurity bordering on insanity. The Gulf of America is now aptly named because we are in uncharted waters. 

Better yet, uncaring waters, Dear America.

A PLEA TO PROTECT FUTURE SONYA MASSEYS

My message to the upcoming National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago is basic: Report and tell us the truth on the police slaying of a Black woman in her Illinois home. 

Yes, send a delegation to Springfield to investigate how the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department could hire Sean Grayson in the first place. I ask because I saw his skull tattoos on his arm in the booking photo after his first-degree murder indictment. I ask because I am curious why the state’s Fraternal Order of Police is rallying for Grayson’s reinstatement, calling his firing unjustified.

How many other Deputy Graysons are on the sheriff’s payroll? I cannot trust the emaciated local newspaper to explore this and a range of other questions simmering like the boiling pot of water that triggered Grayson to shoot Sonya Massey below her left eye. In his callous inhumanity, Grayson didn’t even want to try to save her life as she succumbed on her kitchen floor. “Nah, she’s done,” his partner’s bodycam footage reveals. 

Why wasn’t Grayson’s bodycam activated?

Indeed, many questions are unanswered— and likely won’t be unless some truth is shined on this official darkness.

For my part, today I submitted my own Freedom of Information request to the sheriff’s department. At the end of the online form, they asked for a photo ID. 

I declined.

Still, I urge the NABJ, as they celebrate their existence and push the next generation, to send a team from Chicago to Springfield. Show journalistic integrity, strength and excellence in an era of distrust, division and detraction. 

Sonya Massey was unjustifiably killed. Let’s not be desensitized when any police officer exceeds their authority to protect and serve.

My freedom of information request asked for:

1– The initial police report of the encounter with deceased and Grayson. (Grayson’s family was first told that she had been killed by an intruder.)

2– For Grayson, any prior disciplinary or commendation reports.

3– Post-incident statements from sheriff’s office.

4– Racial composition of sworn sheriff deputies and other officials.

5– Demographic information on civilian and uniformed officers.

6– New training for officers, and other efforts for community engagement, sensitivity training,

Certainly, more probing questions loom. Like how could someone with two DUIs, with a bad conduct Army discharge, a man who worked for six law enforcement agencies in just four years, a deputy known for disobedience to superior officers — how could this be so egregiously missed and Grayson still hired?

The sad truth is we all could wind up as Sonya Massey. One answer is to have journalistic watchdogs who can help get to the root of the problem — before there is another corpse in the kitchen.

Democrats Gone Wild

The DNC is our democracy’s new WMD — Weapon of Mass Destruction.

For months, maybe years, they have disgracefully promoted Joe Biden, with full knowledge that he needed to be shielded because of his declining health, both mental and physical. He was protected by his inner circle, with few public appearances, no press conferences. All the while with him as the lone viable candidate on the Democratic primary slough. 

The party platform was weak as well. “Let’s trumpet fighting against Hitler 2.0 and for women’s reproductive rights. And, just as an added carrot, we have the courts to come after Trump, so that after he’s convicted, the GOP will be in utter disarray with their champion disgraced and hopefully behind bars.”

That didn’t work out so well, did it, DNC? Just like America’s failed search for Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction, which was the excuse to launch a full-scale war in Iraq, the DNC — for years— has been on its own fools’ errand. They have failed to develop a bench, abandoned any mass-appealing platform planks and proved themselves as enablers rather than coal mine canaries.

Now, we are faced with all kinds of slings and arrows, directed at our attempt to save this democracy from MAGA. I can’t wait to learn what the DNC‘s strategy is now. Whatever it is, I probably won’t be believing that it will be a sound one. Like our disastrous, multi-trillion-dollar Iraq War, which claimed thousands of GIs, the DNC has us in perilous, uncharted territory. 

Bye, Felicia (er, Joe)

Bye, Felicia (er, Joe)

What our democracy now must try to salvage is some kind of Plan ‘B’

By Dwight Cunningham

There hasn’t been this much carnage in Georgia since Gen. William “Tecumseh” Sherman burned Atlanta down almost 160 years ago.

Of course, I'm referring to President Joe Biden’s conflagration of a presidential debate performance against the known insurrectionist, serial liar, rapist and felonious business chief Donald Trump. One could add COVID-19 denier and disinformation guru to Trump’s infamous resume. His malfeasance undeniably took thousands more American lives.

All of that was low-hanging fruit for Joe Biden to just pluck with able, confident pricks. Done with any aplomb, he could have ground Trump into political dust.

Instead, Biden nosedived, crashing quickly into a firestorm where even the embers of his stellar presidency are no longer recognizable.

What our democracy now must try to salvage is some kind of Plan “B” — a hard handoff that could easily be fumbled with just mere weeks before Election Day.

At least Sherman knew his mission: To put insurrectionist Confederate rebels out of commission for good. History says Sherman’s men had begun firing Atlanta on Nov. 12, 1864, targeting places of military importance, such as factories and railroad depots. A subordinate general had issued a $500 reward to anyone who caught Union soldiers committing arson at private residences.

Nonetheless, wayward troops did torch plenty of homes and shops. Entire neighborhoods were burned to the ground, and with the destruction of Atlanta, the Union was saved.

Today, in a last-ditch attempt to save our precious union, now is the time for Biden and his Democratic handlers to reckon with the obviously hard truth: He just isn’t up for four more tough years.

Sadly, only Biden can shift his aged focus to what much of America witnessed with dread in the first — and maybe the only — presidential debate of 2024.

There is no denying that the president looked frail, weak and lacked mental acuity. He stumbled over set pieces on many subjects over which he has a clear policy edge.

Doubtless, the pundits and pollsters will hang onto flubs that point to an 81-year-old president. But who among us fortunate to live that long want to work? And, worse, with the toughest job on the planet?

Trump’s nefariousness is a smoking gun that is willing to load up with a new brand of facism run amuck in America. Again, low-hanging fruit.

But with his debate debacle, Biden may not even survive a second term, given that he would be 86 at its end. Not to mention the rigor to put in 16-hour workdays (or more) and few weekends off while overseeing an ever-complicated world stage.

We Americans deserve better. The world deserves better. Heck, this universe deserves better with no Donald Trump possessing the nuclear codes to oblivion.

Here we are, contending with the ever-faithful survivalist Trump uttering a plethora of powerful falsehoods and lies that likely will crush coming eons, given the opportunity.

We, therefore, will get no shot at good outcomes for our national security, veterans care, Social Security protection, immigration reform, women’s reproductive rights — none of that will matter in a few more weeks if Biden (and Vice President Kamala Harris, for that matter) fail to put egos aside and deal with Biden’s declining health issues.

At least Gen. Sherman knew when he embarked on his Atlanta journey to put the South out of business that he had the blessing of the Lincoln White House to do whatever was necessary to win.

Apparently not so with the Biden White House, who are blessing themselves with a blind spot for the ages. It is a fearful reality that their guy may be riding a pale horse.

It is time to take the reins away from Joe.

These days, when an older person is no longer able to drive without endangering themselves and others, the kids have hard talks before taking away the keys. With love, they convey the painful message that untold lives depend on the sickly person’s self-sacrifice.

Joe Biden may not be at that point yet. And there may not be too many among his inner circle — including his consoling wife and sister — who will have the moral courage to save him from an election defeat and much American chaos to follow.

As an adolescent, my first typing book had an exercise: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.” I must’ve typed that hundreds of times in those early years, without truly understanding its meaning.

Today, I do. More than ever, I know that now is the time for all good men — and women — to come to the aid of their country. Party be damned.

(Dwight Cunningham is a retired journalist, college educator, emergency manager and U.S. Air Force veteran. He resides in South Carolina.)