YELLOW BELLIED SAPSUCKER *SPHYRAPICUS) AND SABAL PALMETTO

TOOL USE (?) IN THE YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER

SABAL PALMETTO FRUIT EXPLOITED FOR FOOD BY YELLOW BELLIED SAPSUCKER.

FRUIT WEDGED IN TREE TRUNK DEPRESSIONS

St. Augustine, Florida

January 15, 2019

 A “tool” in regard to animal behavior has been defined as:

“The use of physical objects other than the animal’s own body or appendages as a means to extend the physical influence realized by the animal. ”  (See: Janes and Kamil 1973)  

Many animals have been observed to use tools—i.e. some physical object other than its own body which is employed  to achieve or improve its ability to advantageously exploit its surroundings— (this author’s definition).  Tool use has been described in mammals, birds, fish and even cephalopods.  Ravens, Crows and rooks are well-known to actually create tools out of twigs and wood splinters used as probes  and skewers employed to impale insect larvae which would normally be beyond their ability to reach within tunnels in rotting wood.  But as far as I know,  there has been no report of tool-use observed in the Yellow-belied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius)

The Sapsucker, which is about robin-sized, feeds (as its name suggests) by excavating small holes in the bark of trees to generate sap flow. It returns to these excavations to feed on the weeping sap and the insects which are attracted to the sweet fluid.  The bird exploits trees of many different species (Birch, Apple, Spruce , Hemlock, etc. ) upon which it excavates nearly horizontal and closely spaced lines of small holes.  Sometimes the holes are so numerous they cut off so much sap-flow that they kill main branches or the tree itself (i.e. girdle a tree).   This species is native to North America where it nests in the northern reaches of the USA, Canada and Alaska  and winters in the southern states, as far south as southern  Florida and Texas.  Many individuals range down into South America and the Caribbean as well.

This author observed the feeding behavior of a male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius)  ( it had a red throat) in northern Florida during the winter of 2008.   This specimen used s small borehole in the trunk of a Sabal palmetto to secure a palm berry and facilitate removal of the flesh of the berry.  

About mid-day, a male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker was observed feeding on the berries of a mature Cabbage Palm (Sabal palmetto).  The smooth-trunked palm—its “boots” had fallen away up to the base of the fronds—was located in an open area alongside of a public tennis court in St. Augustine, Florida.  The Sapsucker  was observed to be using an unusual and interesting feeding method.  This author observed the bird  pluck a palm-berry from the fruit-bearing flower panicle located among the spreading upper fronds of the tree. It  firmly wedged the berry into an excavated hole in the woody palm tree trunk. It then proceeded to remove and ingest the thick sweet mesocarp (flesh) . 

The “Cabbage Palm” or palmetto, a monocot of the Order Arecales, is a salt-tolerant species native to  the coast of North America and  ranging from south-eastern North Carolina, south through Florida and then west along the Gulf Coast to Texas.   It is known for its edible “heart of palm” and its edible berries.  The dark blue-black nutritious  berries of S. palmetto are small, pea-sized,  (about @ 6 mm to 10mm in diameter). The fruit has a thin skin (epicarp)  and a sweet, dark-colored,  edible (mesocarp) which encases a relatively large, (4mm to 8mm) hard inner pit or seed.  The ratio of fleshy fruit to the hard inedible seed is low.  In the winter months in Florida the S. palmetto berries have dehydrated considerably as a result of exposure to sun and wind and the epicarp or skin is often dry and papery, while the mesocarp or flesh part of the fruit for the same reason is thickened by dehydration, into a  viscous, sticky and gummy mass which adheres closely to the pit or seed.  

 The berry of the Palmetto is known to be rich in sugar and nutrients.  Zona, S.  (1990) summarizes reports  on the consumption of Sabal berries by both birds and mammals in a section of the report focusing on the fruit as a means of seed dispersal of this palm genus.  The author (See  Zona, S 1990)*, reports that the Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottus), Robin (Turdus migratorius), Yellow-rumped warbler (Dendroica coronata), Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus), and Piliated Woodpecker( Dycopus piliatus) are known to feed on Sabal fruits”. The author cites: Marin, Zim and Nelson (1951).   In adddition to these species other authors (Zona 1990 cites: Cruickshank (1950)) report the Ring-billed gull (Laras delawariensis), Long-tailed grackle  (Quiscalus mexicanus),  Mexican Jay (?) Aphelicoma coerulean. (?ultramarina),  Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) , and the Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) and others have been observed to exploit the dark blue-black fruit of the genus Sabal.   In the wilds of Florida the palmetto berry is also widely reported to be consumed by  the Wild Turkey, Black Bear, and Raccoon.   There is no mention of the Yellow-bellied sapsucker in these citations. 

 *(Zona, S. 1990, Vol 12, #4: page 613:)

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker specimen of this report was observed flitting among the top fronds of the 25 foot (@ 8 meter) tree where several dried floral panicle sprays still bearing the  dark-blue-black palm berries remained attached to the flower spadix from the tree’s last seasonal flowering .  The Sapsucker  plucked a berry from the branched spadix with its beak and then with the berry visible to this observer in its beak, it quickly flew down to the trunk of the tree where several  small circular holes were visible.   It used its beak to poke the berry into one of the small depressions in which the berry fit snugly.  The woodpecker, perched below the now filled hole in typical  woodpecker fashion, i.e. with feet gripping the palm trunk and its tail wedged into the trunk’s rough surface. It then  proceeded to feed on the berry, pecking off small bits of the gummy bluish flesh which it apparently ingested.  When finished, it repeated this same  feeding method several times, removing the seed and refilling the hole as it  ingested the flesh of several berries.  

After it departed, I tried to examine the depression where the bird fed.  It was too high above the ground, perhaps 18 feet (6 meters) for direct inspection, but from the ground I could see well enough with my binoculars to estimate  that the depression was  less than a half inch (@ 1 cm) wide and seemed to be excavated in the form of an inverted cone, decreasing in diameter toward the center of the tree.  The sides were stained dark blue.  Several other depressions and holes were noted on the same tree. These had no evidence of recent use.   I did not observe the Sapsucker actually excavating the depressions, though that appeared to be likely.   

Upon close inspection of the berries, which littered the ground below the tree,  it is apparent that the fruit has at its center a very hard and large pit which may make it less desirable for a small bird such as the Sapsucker to ingest whole.  The dark blue  flesh is a tough, thin mesocarp of perhaps only several millimeters thick, coating the large seed. The Sapsucker is a winter visitor and the berries at this time of the year likely remain very nourishing but the dehydrated winter-seaon flesh is gummy, and difficult to remove from the pit.   

The Sapsucker seems to have solved the problem of effectively exploiting the nutritious flesh of this large-seeded berry by seemingly  pecking out small depressions (or using naturally formed holes) in the Sabal palm’s tree trunk.  These small depressions provide the means of holding the berry firmly in place—as a carpenter would place his work in a bench vise— while the woodpecker pecks away at the berry to remove and ingest the nutritious but thin, sticky mesocarp which coats the pit.   

Reference: 

Zora, Scott, 1990 

A monograph of Sabal, Aliso, 12(4) 1990, pp 583-666

4 BILLION YEAR EARTH ROCK JOURNEY! AMAZING!

OLDEST EARTH ROCK FOUND ON MOON?

An earth-rock took a four billion year trip to the moon and back.

The amazing Odyssey of a small  chunk of Earth rock which was carried on a four billion-year round-trip from the Earth to the Moon and back is described in an article published by NASA, in Earth and Planetary Science Letters,  January 23, 2019.     

The article reveals the astounding science behind the near mythical journey of a tiny piece of ancient rock formed deep in the Earth’’s crust. It follows this rock’s ejection into space by a meteor impact and its fall to the lunar surface and  burial there for unknown  eons. The buried earth rock was subsequently “unearthed” by another meteor impact —this time on the moon (!)—which stranded it on moon’s surface.  It remained undisturbed there  for unknown eons until in January of 1971 it was miraculously found and collected by our own USA lunar astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell of the Apollo 14 team. These men collected it and —-brought it back to Earth from where it had originated some 4 billion years earlier. ! 

This is a story to pique the imaginations—and curiosity of our youth—and I share a summary of it with you—my readers.

 What caused the Apollo team to pick up this particular hunk of rock debris among the jumble of broken rocks (called lunar regolith) scattered around on the lunar surface?   How were scientists able to decipher the history of this piece of earth rock? How do we know it is 4 billion years old?  The story should not only awake our interest in science (and prod our imaginations) but make us all proud of the achievements of our scientist’s, the courage of our astronauts and the ability of the  human race to understand the magnificent complexity our world and to execute such wonders of discovery— using the methods of science, and the knowledge gleaned by generations of  geologists, physicists, astronomers and mathematicians.    

Let’s begin with the collection of the specimen by astronauts—Commander Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell near Cone Crater in the Fra Mauro region of the moon on January 31 1971.  What was it that caused Shepard to pick up this insignificant-looking rock  (smaller than a football) from many others strewn about on the lunar surface?  

I suspect what caught  Shepard’s eye was a small “clast” or embedded rock fragment —an inclusion— of light-colored rock surrounded by almost entirely dark gray rock material in an an irregular shaped cobble (about the size of a small football).   Almost all the rocks on the moon are of a gray-to dark gray color.  This rock an was different!  Shepard picked it up and placed it in the special collection bag for its return trip back to Earth.  it remained unanalyzed for many years until until sometime in 2018 when it was unpacked, studied and reported on in this recent publication (above)  authored by David Kring who finally decoded the history of the sample at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston Texas.  it was there these many years after it was collected that  its full history was finally revealed.   

(PS I was a graduate student 1971, studying “soft-rock” geology at a NY university.  Some of those samples the Apollo team brought back were delivered for preliminary analysis to my university Department where I did get a chance to see lunar sand-samples  collected by Shepard and others.  In fact I loaned a piece of my microscopic equipment ( a picking tray) to one of the physical geologists studying the mineralogy of these lunar samples. I eventually got it  back and have it to this day!  )

The clast of light-colored rock in the Shepard sample was composed of felsic minerals (i.e. granite).   These minerals (granite) make up the bulk of continental rocks on Earth. Granite or felsic rocks are the result of chemical and physical differentiation of the Earth’s crust and mantle. Earth’s complex geological processes—weathering, erosion, transportation, and  plate tectonics operating in an oxygenated, water-rich earthly environment are responsible for the creation of these lighter colored and lower specific gravity (felsic) rocks.  Felsic rocks are almost non-existant  on the moon—and certainly its surface.   Upon careful analysis, back on Earth—the small rock-clast (about an inch by two inches long ) was found to be composed of minerals common in granite (i.e.  K-feldspar, quartz and zircon).  The first two minerals are among the most common in the Earth’s continental crust,  while the latter mineral— zircon,  is a common accessory mineral in granite and felsic rocks.  Their presence indicated that the clast was almost certainly derived from the Earth! 

So how and when did it get onto the moon?  

The answer was helped along by the presence of the mineral zircon in the sample.  Zircon crystals (they may occur as gemstones) often have small amounts of the naturally radioactive element Uranium as an inclusion in its crystal structure.  Uranium is radioactive. That is uranium atoms decay naturally into the element Lead at a known rate (you have heard of the  “uranium-lead clock”). So carefully calculating the ratio of uranium to lead within the zircon crystals permitted scientists to date the age of the rock which contained the zircon.  The analysis  concluded that the zircon crystal (and the rock) was formed more than 4 billion years ago.  That means that the felsic rock clast crystalized from a melt very early in Earth’s history. (The oldest earth rocks are found in Australia where they have been dated to about 4.4 billion years)   That date puts the origin of the Shepard-rock very near the time the Earth itself was formed—estimated to be about 4.5 billion years ago.  So this little clast of earth rock was very likely crystalized during the very early history of our Earth, or only about half a billlion years (500 million years) after Earth had formed from its primordial dust cloud.  The fact that even at that early date geological processes were similar to the present—erosion, weathering and rock differaention were in progress. 

Astronomers have suggested that at that time in Earth history (@4 billion years ago) the moon’s orbit ranged  much closer to Earth.  Also we know that Earth itself, in those early eons experienced  more  frequent bombardment by meteors and comets.   When meteors strike a planet the force of impact is so great the collision sprays plumes  of “ejecta” —fragments of earth rock-dust-molten materials, etc. —upward in all directions.  In this shower of debris  some of the smaller fragments—may reach a speed sufficient to launch them into space ( i.e. 11 km/sec is Earth escape velocity).  These rock fragments shoot our beyond the Earth atmosphere and enter near-by space. The moon being near by would have been a likely place for these fragments of earth-rocks (“earth meteors”)  to fall into.  

The fact that the Shepard felsic-earth-rock clast was surrounded by and cemented into a larger piece of  lunar rock suggests that it had probably been buried among lunar rock fragments at some depth below the surface for a long period.  

On the moon there is no atmosphere and no wind, no flowing water and therefore there are few agencies to move rock debris other than infrequent and limited volcanism, lunar gravity or meteor impact.   Scientists theorize that a meteor impact—another one—this time impacting the lunar surface near where the “Shepard clast” was buried—dislodged the rock class and it’s enclosing “country rock” from its place of burial and ejected this  onto the moon’s surface.  The Fra Mauro area was chosen by Apollo 14 planners, for the very reason that  it sits near the rim of a meteor crater, strewn with ejecta from an ancient impact. 

It was there that Commander Shepard landed Apollo 14 close to the  Fra Mauro highlands and Cone Crater and where the now famous sample  was collected. The moon rock—in the hands of the Apollo crew—made its return trip to Earth in the Apollo Lunar Module and then in the Command Service Module.  

What a fantastic 4 billion year-old journey!!. 

TRUMP UNWISELY STIRS FIRES OF REVOLT IN VENEZUELA

PRESIDENT TRUMP TRIES BUSH-ERA STYLE REGIME CHANGE IN VENEZUELA

LIKE BUSH JR, HE IS MAKING A GRAVE MISTAKE

Almost alone among the world’s nations the Trump administration (joined by a few US-sycophant-nations such as Canada,  Brazil) has notified the world that it supports a junior Venezuelan politician who claims to be “President of Venezuela”.  This person—head of the opposition party in the national assembly— Juan Guaido  claims— on little authority other  than his own — that he is the “legitimate” President.   (His claims are based on  rumors and allegations that the recent elections were “rigged”).  However, it is the recently (May 2018)  re-elected President Maduro the vast majority of the rest of the world acknowledges, as the  winner and legitimately elected president.   President Maduro controls the military, the executive establishment and the Supreme Court and vast swathes of the population.  Yes the economy is in tatters, but our support of Guaido is a violation of common sense as well as existing international protocols.  The open support of the USA only encourages instability and will act to push the nation into civil war. . 

I wonder how would Mr. Trump feel if Mrs. Nancy Pelosi,  head of the “ democratically elected” House of Representatives, decided that the 2016 elections were “illegal or rigged”” and claimed  Mr. Trump was not “legitimate”. She then  decided to claim herself as “President Pelosi”.  That is analogous to what Guaido did in Venezuela.  Imagine that elements of the US population might  accept such a claim...but even in the USA such behavior  would lead to political chaos and massive civil violence.  That is what we are about to experience in Venezuela if Mr. Trump continues to stir the fire of revolt as he seems to be doing.  

Perhaps Trump should be reminded of the Obama Administration’s thoughtless involvement in the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime in Libya—and the resulting violence, bloodshed and massive displacement of people which caused  millions of immigrants to journey across the Mediterranean into Europe.  That failed Obama policy resulted in massive unrest and political upheaval in the EU and especially Germany where social ad politcal reverberatioins continue even today.  A million unhappy and unwanted Moslems now reside in Mrs. Merkel’s Germany as a result of that Obama and Clinton blunder.  Does Mr. Turmp what to repeat that stupidity in the Western Hemisphere?  

President Trump has-like “the kid” Bush, seems to have fallen under the spell of his war-hawk advisors.  Has he forgotten that he was elected to put America first—and give up Bush -Obama-Clinton foreign adventurism, and costly bloody involvement in the internal political affairs of nations which are of no threat to us and for which we are not responsible?    In fact his foolhardy (secret and not so secret)  intervention against the socialist Maduro regime is unlikely to improve anything and more likely to create unfavorable dangerous and costly circumstances which can only exacerbate the massive problems we already face on our southern border. 

What is he thinking?  Does he believe that Venezuelans do not have the right to decide for themselves who their leadership should be?  No I guess he thinks they need a Yankee in far away DC to decide what form of government is best for them. 

President Trump has been persuing a poorly considered Venezuela  policy for the last two years.  That policy has  been to destabilize Venezuela, to cut off needed domestic and industrial supplies, to place sanctions on the struggling Maduro administration, and scheming with the CIA to undermine its government. To what aim?  To help create a failed state in South America?. I guess the string of Bush-generated festering chaotic failed states in the ME (Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, etc, etc.) were not enough for the rabid militarists in the DC establishment who have inveigled themselves into the Trump administration.

What can we expect from such a policy?  More bloodshed.  More displaced persons?  More spending of US tax dollars that serves no interests or the needs of the vast majority of Americans.  More poor uneducated, alien immigrants streaming across our southern border?  

Let’s hope President Trump steps back from the brink of stupidity on Venezuela. We should emulate Mexico, and all the other South American nations which have put forth a position of neutrality regarding the internal affairs of Venezuela.  Leave those to the people who live there.  Self determination is one of our core belief’s.  Why have we ignored it for Venezuela?  

Our best interests lie rather than destabilizing nations and creating chaos around the world, but in helping our neighbors to the south (and elsewhere)—move toward political stability, economic security and growth rather than working to bring them to their knees.  

BRUCE OHR REVEALS CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN MUELLER PROBE

MULLER’S TEAM: “CONFLICT OF INTEREST BOGGLES THE MIND”.

In an Opinion piece in the WSJ  by Kim Strassel entitled: “What Bruce Ohr Told the FBI” (Jan 17, 2019) we are informed (again) of the abject corruption, bias and malfeasance of the FBI’s senior cadre.  Also we learn that the criminal actions of the FBI and Justice Department (obscured up to now by FBI stonewalling, slow-walking and obfuscation) , rather than the so called “Russian Connection” are THE real scandal of the 2016 election cycle.  

 Ohrs testimony to Congress (finally leaked out) reveals that Mr. Bruce Ohr brought the phony Steel Dossier to the attention of the FBI in July 2016.   At that time Ohr warned McCabe, Page, Strzok, Weissman and Ahmad (and others in the FBI) of its unverified and unsourced nature and its origin as a political disinformation document generated by the Clinton camp.  Strassel writes that the FBI and “every one of consequence” in the FBI and Justice Department knew well before the election of the fact that the Steel Dossier was political disinformation generated and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, yet they used this unverified material to mislead the FISA court judges  so as to permit domestic spying on the Trump campaign.  This revelation makes abundantly clear that the FBI leadership was involved in politically motivated domestic spying when it used this information to initiate its investigation of the Trump team using phone taps and other means of spying on low level Trump team member Carter Page.   We also know that two of these political instigators  (Zain Ahmad and Andrew Weissman) were both deeply involved in the 2016 politically motivated  “Hurricane Crossfire” FBI counter insurgency investigation. Yet these same two men wound up on special counsel Muller’s team. While other top leadership of the FBI and Justice involved in “Hurricane Crossfire” have been fired or forced to retire, these two remain  actively involved in investigating a President whom they conspired to undermine and then unseat.   

The long-term presence of these two men in S. C Robert Mueller’s team, as well as their past actions as prime instigators who in mid 2016 knowingly used unsourced political disinformation documents to mislead the FISA court (in an attempt to undermine the Trump campaign and later the Trump Presidency) is a major revelation.  More importantly, their roles and involvement in the on-going Mueller probe fatally compromises the integrity and credibility of Mueller’s investigation.  

“The conflict of  interest”  (related to Weinstein and Ahmad remaining in the Mueller investigation)  boggles the mind” according to Kim Strassel in this WSJ piece.  Any fair minded person would agree wholeheartedly.

It’s time for Mueller to present his case. His slowwalking weakens the nation and harms us all—-all Americans.  

4 DEAD IN SYRIA UNDERSCORE VALIDITY OF TRUMP POLICY

OPINION: CALLING OUT STUPID COMMENTS

DON’T BELEIVE THE WAR HAWKS AND NEOCONS

BRING THE TROOPS HOME


We lost four more young men in Syria yesterday (Wednesday) January 16, 2019.  It is disconcerting to have to listen to the stupidity of  Republican Establishment, the Democrats, War Hawks, “media war-facilitotors ”  and the disgusting Neocons all parroting the same stupidity.  “This proves that President Trump was wrong in claiming victory over ISIS and calling for the troops to come home.”

Four of our own were killed in the northeast of Syria Wednesday..many other citizens were killed as well in a contested village called Manbij.   ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombing but  if I were them I would claim this as a bloody “victory” too.  The fact is they are as President Trump claimed a spent force.  They are no credible theat to anyone.

 Who knows who actually lit the fuse on this powerful EID.  We can only try to assess who profits the most from the terror it creates?  The Kurds in this region have the most to lose from a US pullout.  If this stalls the US departure it it the Kurds who will profit.  The USA unwisely used these insurgents as pawns to keep a foot in the Syria Civil War....where we had no right to be.  The Turks consider them—and rightly so—a terrorist organization tied to the Turkish branch resident in Turkey.   So it is posssible that they were responsible.  But no one will ever know.  The conflict in Syria is so Byzantine so complicated it is impossible for a combatant to know who your friends are and who are you enemies.  This is the precarious deadly environment that our war mongers in DC have decided to  place our young men in to fight.  Mr. Trump was right (again) to declare the war over and bring our boys  home.  Let’s not let this happen again.  For we can be sure of one thing —it will.  

But let me reserve my sharpest barbs for the dummies who repeat the phrase: We must have troops on the ground there.  We have to fight them there so they do not come here. ”.   I think that was originally coined by that genius young President of ours—George Bush.  The very same one who started all the stupidity in the Middle East more than fifteen long years ago—in 2003.  He was wrong then and those who parrot a dummy are wrong today.  Fighting them overseas protects no one at home.  We shed the blood of our youth and waste the taxes of our citizenry—and gain nothin in return.

The insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen and etc. etc. etc  are no threat to our homeland.  They simply want us to leave their homeland.

REP RASIDA TLAIB—DISGRACEFUL, MISSED OPPORTUNTIY

Rashida Tlaib is a freshman female Congress member—from the 13th CD in Michigan which includes parts of Detroit and its suburban areas.  Congresswoman Tlaib, who is of Palestinian heritage, has disgraced herself, her Moslem faith, her party (Democrat) and her Congressional district by openly and intentionally calling our President—-the President of the USA —a “mother...ker”.  The gross and vulgar phrase was part of a victory threat/promise “to impeach the President” which she screamed out to her supporters and her young family.  

I was disappointed to learn that Tlaib was of Palestinian heritage.  Her vulgarity and lack of decorum at her official swearing-in...is, I am sure, a terrible embarrassment to her co-nationalists in the Israeli occupied territories and Gaza.  Those folks are desperately in need of a high profile spokesperson to expose the desperate plight of oppressed Palestinians— as well as Israeli brutality. 

Perhaps instead of calling the President a “MF” she might have used the opportunity to  remind her swearing-in audience—which was much of the USA—of the deaths of 250 unarmed Gaza demonstrators (among them women, children and innocent journalists and care-providers) who as they massed behind the Gaza border fence—were shot dead by Israeli snipers.  

Ms Tlaib’s missed opportunity and vulgarity has just about proved that she does not belong in Congress.  Her behavior was a disappointment even to this author—for I believe that the Palestinians (and those who support them) do have a legitimate complaint in regard to the brutal oppression their co-nationalists face in Israel and the occupied territories.  And where better to express those disturbing facts than in the halls of the USA Congress? 

Ms Tlaib will, after her offensive outburst, be seen as a vulgar, crackpot- radical who it is best for others to shun and ignore.

Sad—another opportunity—in Palestinian style—thrown away. . 

KAMALA HARRIS’ ANTI-CATHOIC BIAS—ENDS NATIONAL APPEAL

KAMALA HARRIS FOOT IN MOUTH MOMENT (ALREADY)

The far-left junior Senator. From California who has been widely touted as a “top tier” Democrat candidate for president  has just about cut her self out of a position on the list of potential Democrat nominees. She accomplished this with a now infamous December 2018 letter establishing her anti-Catholic bias even before her  name recognition grew to a level close to that of Massachusetts  Senator Elizabeth Warren  (she of the 0.09%  Cherokee Nation).   Perhaps President Trump may even coin an appropriate sobriquet for a Catholic hater. 

In December of 2018, Senator Harris as a member of the  Judiciary Committee questioned Nebraska District Court  nominee Brian C.  Buescher who was nominated for that seat by President Trump on November 3, 2018.    Harris and Senator Marie Hirano (D. Hawaii) submitted written questions on December 4,  2018 targeting Buescher’s membership in the Knight’s of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization.   (See “Kamala Harris’ Dark Knights” editorial board, WSJ 1-2-19)

The Knights of Columbus, founded in 1882 in New Haven Connecticut, and at almost 2 million members is the world’s largest Catholic, fraternal service organization. The Knights support Catholic education and the Church’s political and social policy views.  Attacking the  Kof C’s social and political positions was a sneaky back door swipe at the Catholic Church and the beliefs of its members. 

Harris described the Knights as “an all male society”, adding that it held a position opposing a “woman’s right to choose” (an abortion), and that it denied “marriage equality” (opposed same sex marriage).  In the same letter signed by the two US Senators, Hirano called the Knight’s views on marriage  “extreme” and asked Buescher if he would resign from the group to  “avoid the appearance of bias”.  Buecher rightly responded that he would not make his judicial decisions on the basis of the Knight’s social or political views.  

But the written questions submitted by Senators Harris and Hirano rather than smearing the K of C as out of the mainstream—-established the extreme political positions and bias of the Senatorial questioners (one of whom is putting herself forward as a potential presidential nominee). It also made clear Harris’ apparent ignorance of the Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees the right to religious freedom of its citizenry. And prohibits  her and those of her ilk from attempting to establish a religious based litmus test for a seat on the Court. 

Apparently Senator Harris would not confirm former President John  F Kennedy, who was a member of the Knights, or Joe Biden who is a practicing Catholic (was reportedly also a  Knight up to about 2008) the first Catholic VP—- or the 73 million Americans who profess Catholicism and who regularly vote in our nation’s elections.  By poking Catholics in the eye Senator Harris has alienated a 23 % bloc of the US national population.  Not a good idea in a nation wide election.     

Senator Harris can spew her hatred and disdain for Catholics  and those who hold more traditional views about family and gender-identity, and those who are morally opposed to taking the life of the unborn, in her home state of California. She can try to curry favor with the minority of socialists, abort-death-politicians, and fringe far-left progressives with such statements...but she has sealed her fate with the vast majority of Christian Americans, both Catholic and Protestant, as a potential national candidate.  Her blatant letters that establishes her anti-Catholic stance makes it “over for her”. 

RECOGNIZING THE TRUMP REVOLUTION 

The media relentlessly  hammer our 45th President without restraint or journalistic propriety.   Offending logic and rational thought, they claim to find absolutely nothing positive in any aspect of  the Trump administration, only the negative.   But the truth is more complex and it always  wins out in the end. I predict  history  will be much more kind to this President  An unprejudiced eye should be able to record  the errors as well as the the  accomplishments of this businessman turned politician.  One thing even the biased press does posit is that the nation will not be the same after he leaves.

What is a more equitable view of Trump accomplishments? Read on. 

1. His policy of America first exposed fat, wealthy NATO countries which fail to pay their fair share of defense spending. They put their defense burden on the tax-paying citizens of the USA while they shower their own citizens with benefits Americans can only dream of. 
2. Trump used his Twitter account to take on a biased and agenda driven US journalism which he exposed as untrustworthy to report the events of the day.
3. President Trump (unlike his predecessors)  has closely hewed to the promises he made on the campaign trail whether it was moving the US embassy or pulling out of the Paris climate agreement. 
4. He exposed the existential threat of unregulated immigration along our southern border. 
5. Trump exposed the corruption and bias in Washington DC and more specifically, corruption and malfeasance in the highest levels of the Justice Department and FBI where unelected top echelon bureaucrats  attempted a palace coup to unseat a legitimately and democratically elected President.  These elites, thinking  they knew better than the 63 million Trump voters scattered over thirty of our fifty states attempted to abrogate the choice of half the voting citizenry. 
6. Faced with a threatening North Korea...President Trump acted to bully, cajole and finally to actually negotiate with the North Korean leader.  No one accomplished that before.  I
7. Trump became the voice of the forgotten middle class workers of the Rust Belt who were ignored by both Republicans and Democrats. 
8. He first loaded up his cabinet with military men, but unlike the majority of his predecessors (except JFK) who slavishly followed the recommendations of military advisers — often into disaster—President Trump has learned to ignore the advice of the hardline “warriors” in his cabinet. He has wisely acted  to pull troops out of Syria end the interminable, expensive and often counter-productive wars our military brass have found  so attractive to pursue over the last half a century.
9. He created 3 million new jobs, and lowered unemployment down to a nearly unprecedented 3.9 % 
10. Helped generate a roaring economy with his tax cuts
11. Managed to put two new justices on the Supreme Court who favor his agenda.
12. He began a process of renegotiating trade deals to benefit the US worker. 
13. He exposed China as a threat to US trade, and (rather than Russia) scored that nation as a greater threat to US interests. 
14. President Trump has exposed the evil and power of the Washington establishment and the  “deep state”  and how it exists to further its own self-interest rather than serving the interests of the electorate and nation. 

It’s time we  begin to think of OUR  nation as a whole and to preserving the legitimacy of our elections and our democratic process, rather than the self-serving political agenda of the left .  It’s time to  give  credit for these accomplishments which have gone unrecognized by our hate-filled, politicized  media.