From The Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus:

Local Resistance to Trump off to a Great Start!

Women’s March on Cleveland: 15,000 showed up last Saturday for this glorious event in solidarity with the millions who marched around the world! A special thanks to all of you who marched and to our CCPC Super Volunteer’s who staffed our table, carried our banner, and circulated through the crowd to recruit nearly 400 new CCPC members!. A special thanks also to CCPC members Laura Johnson and Klaountia Pasmatsiou who put this wonderful event together with no previous experience in about two weeks.

Say NO to Jeff Sessions—Visit to Rob Portman’s Office: A special thanks to the 250 of you who participated in this event last Tuesday and waited patiently in line in the Federal Building to give Portman’s staff your thoughts on the Trump cabinet nominees. A special thanks also to the CCPC Trump Response Team who made calls Monday to get folks to the event. This event was the first Resist Trump event that the Indivisible Guide, MoveOn.org and The Working Families Party are planning nationwide for Trumps first 100 day’s in office. CCPC plans to be a proud sponsor of these events in Northeast Ohio. We’ll let you know as soon as we get the details of the next one.

Welcome New Members! About 500 of you joined this last week! If you have not already done so please go to cuycpc.org to get an idea of what we’re all about. If you have not yet joined CCPC go to Membership and sign up to become a member for free. Then please drop by Trump Response Team to see if this something you can help us with. If possible then please drop by Donate. Our organization is all volunteer staffed and all volunteer funded.To keep membership free we need small contribution’s from those of you who can so that those of you who cannot can remain a part of CCPC. Also please check out and like our CCPC Facebook page where you can see great photo’s and video’s of last week’s events as well as many other things.

CCPC Office Hours: Are 3 to 8 pm on Tuesday and Thursday and Noon to 5 pm on Saturday. Our office is located at 11910 Detroit Ave. Lakewood. Please stop in! We can show you the most effective to write letters and make calls to your congressmen. We also have an urgent need for help with our data. If possible please bring your cell phone and laptop.

CCPC February Membership Meetings

Congressional District Regional Meetings: These meetings are organized by congressional district so that we can discuss specific Trump resistance strategies for your district. If you are unsure of your congressional district please go to Find Your Representative. Please try to read through The Indivisible Guide before your meeting as we plan to discuss it. If you are a Trump Response Team member please make every effort to attend as we plan to discuss more specifics Continue Reading »

Via Mano Singham…

Mulder, Scully and Skinner are not typical FBI agents. That was the basic idea behind the The X Files. The real FBI is far scarier.

Glenn Greenwald and Betsy Reed, writing in Secret Docs Reveal: President Trump Has Inherited an FBI With Vast Hidden Powers for The Intercept, explain:

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the FBI assumes an importance and influence it has not wielded since J. Edgar Hoover’s death in 1972. That is what makes today’s batch of stories from The Intercept, The FBI’s Secret Rules, based on a trove of long-sought confidential FBI documents, so critical: It shines a bright light on the vast powers of this law enforcement agency, particularly when it comes to its ability to monitor dissent and carry out a domestic war on terror, at the beginning of an era highly likely to be marked by vociferous protest and reactionary state repression.

In order to understand how the FBI makes decisions about matters such as infiltrating religious or political organizations, civil liberties advocates have sued the government for access to crucial FBI manuals — but thanks to a federal judiciary highly subservient to government interests, those attempts have been largely unsuccessful. Because their disclosure is squarely in the public interest, The Intercept is publishing this series of reports along with annotated versions of the documents we obtained.

We’ve seen this before and we have no reason to believe that the practices ever stopped.

I don’t do Twitter, I have too many other distractions already and I have no problem getting my news in more than 140 characters, but the photograph of a poster in the Holocaust Museum has gone viral on Twitter and I applaud that.

Naomi Klein’s 2007 book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism laid out how the billionaire class uses the aftermath of national crises to push through controversial policies while citizens are too emotionally and physically distracted by disasters or upheavals to mount an effective resistance. When no natural disaster exist, the Shock Doctrine calls for the artificial creation of a crises: The book suggests that some man-made events, such as the Iraq War, were undertaken with the intention of pushing through such unpopular policies in their wake.

Our present Constitutional Crises, engendered by President Donald John Trump’s use of executive orders to close the borders to citizens of seven targeted, majority Muslim countries, fits the bill, and 16 Republican members of Congress—seven senators: Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona; and nine representatives: Justin Amash of Michigan, Mike Coffman of Colorado, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, John Faso of New York, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Will Hurd of Texas, Leonard Lance of New Jersey, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Elise Stefanik of New York and Fred Upton of Michigan—are standing against King Mob II President Trump’s xenophobia.

Sadly, neither of my Republican representatives in Congress—Senator Rob Portman and Representative Jim Renacci—have the stones to do ignore their corporate paymasters and stand up for the rest of America.

I’m not a big fan of horror fiction. I like only about 10 percent of Stephen King, nothing of Dean Koontz and read Edgar Allan Poe more for the historical voice than the scariness of his prose. Only two scary movies, The Exorcist and Alien made me look behind myself in bright sunshine. What David Frum has written, however, should not be read in the dark or home alone. Jeffrey Goldberg sets the stage in the email I just received.

Dear Reader,

I write to let you know that we’re doing something at The Atlantic that we only rarely do. We are releasing our upcoming cover story weeks before our subscribers receive it, and before we put it on newsstands around the world.

These unusual times demand unusual publishing decisions. Given the precipitous nature of the decision by the White House to issue an executive order concerning refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, I thought that it would be better for people to read David Frum’s upcoming cover story, How to Build an Autocracy, sooner, rather than later.

In the story, Frum argues that if Congress is quiescent and the public apathetic, President Trump can set the country down a path toward illiberalism, institutional subversion, and endemic graft. It’s an urgent story, one I hope gets read by every American, and by anyone who cares about America, and its role in the world.

We also produced a video featuring Frum, along with an audio version of the story, read by the author himself. You can access everything here.

We wanted you, our subscribers, to be the first to know about it. We’ve heard you tell us that you want The Atlantic to cover the presidency aggressively, with vigilance and discipline. We hope this demonstrates that that’s exactly what we plan to do.

Jeffrey Goldberg
Editor in Chief
The Atlantic

Everything will not be all right.

Noam Chomsky offers a few suggestions…

President Richard Milhous Nixon infamously had his Saturday Night Massacre on 20 October 1973. President Donald John Trump, perhaps reliving fond memories from The Apprentice, has fired interim Attorney General Sally Yates for holding the Law in higher esteem than her new boss.

David Smith, writing in Trump fires Sally Yates after acting US attorney general contradicted travel ban for The Guardian, explains:

Donald Trump has fired the acting US attorney general after she told justice department lawyers not to defend his executive order banning entry for people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The White House said on Monday that Sally Yates had “betrayed” the department by refusing to enforce a legal order that was “designed to protect the citizens of the United States”.

Yates, in a letter to justice department lawyers wrote:

On January 27, 2017, the President signed an Executive Order regarding immigrants and refugees from certain Muslim-majority countries. The order has now been challenged in a number of jurisdictions. As the Acting Attorney General, it is my ultimate responsibility to determine the position of the Department of Justice in these actions.

My role is different from that of the Office of Legal Counsel, which, through administrations of both parties, has reviewed Executive Orders for form and legality before they are issued. OLC’s review is limited to the narrow question of whether, in OLC’s view, a proposed Executive Order is lawful on its face and properly drafted. Its review does not take account of statements made by an administration or it surrogates close in time to the issuance of an Executive Order that may bear on the order’s purpose. And importantly, it does not address whether any policy choice embodied in an Executive Order is wise or just.

Similarly, in litigation, DOJ Civil Division lawyers are charged with advancing reasonable legal arguments that can be made supporting an Executive Order. But my role as leader of this institution is different and broader. My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is after consideration of all the facts. In addition, I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right. At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the Executive Order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the Executive Order is lawful [Emphasis mine, JH].

Consequently, for as long as I am the Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order, unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so.

Good on you Ms. Yates.

Just as I bought, and gave away, CDs by The Dixie Chicks back in 2003, I now find myself compelled to ignore my own, often proffered, maxim: Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink Starbucks. Not because the company, which I actually remember fondly from my days in Bremerton, Washington, in the ’70s, has started selling superior coffee, but because Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sent a letter to employees over the weekend saying:

Dear partners,

I write to you today with deep concern, a heavy heart and a resolute promise. Let me begin with the news that is immediately in front of us: we have all been witness to the confusion, surprise and opposition to the Executive Order that President Trump issued on Friday, effectively banning people from several predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, including refugees fleeing wars. I can assure you that our Partner Resources team has been in direct contact with the partners who are impacted by this immigration ban, and we are doing everything possible to support and help them to navigate through this confusing period.

We are living in an unprecedented time, one in which we are witness to the conscience of our country, and the promise of the American Dream, being called into question. These uncertain times call for different measures and communication tools than we have used in the past. Kevin and I are going to accelerate our commitment to communicating with you more frequently, including leveraging new technology platforms moving forward. I am hearing the alarm you all are sounding that the civility and human rights we have all taken for granted for so long are under attack, and want to use a faster, more immediate form of communication to engage with you on matters that concern us all as partners.

I also want to take this opportunity to announce specific actions we are taking to reinforce our belief in our partners around the world and to ensure you are clear that we will neither stand by, nor stand silent, as the uncertainty around the new Administration’s actions grows with each passing day:

Support for DACA: As I wrote to Senators Graham and Durbin this week, we are enthusiastically behind their work to support “Dreamers” across our country – including those young men and women who are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. There are nearly three quarters of a million hardworking people contributing to our communities and our economy because of this program. At Starbucks, we are proud to call them partners and to help them realize their own American Dream. We want them to feel welcome and included in our success, which is why we reimburse them for the biennial fee they must pay to stay in the program and why we have offered DACA-related services at our Opportunity Youth hiring fairs.

Hiring Refugees: We have a long history of hiring young people looking for opportunities and a pathway to a new life around the world. This is why we are doubling down on this commitment by working with our equity market employees as well as joint venture and licensed market partners in a concerted effort to welcome and seek opportunities for those fleeing war, violence, persecution and discrimination. There are more than 65 million citizens of the world recognized as refugees by the United Nations, and we are developing plans to hire 10,000 of them over five years in the 75 countries around the world where Starbucks does business. And we will start this effort here in the U.S. by making the initial focus of our hiring efforts on those individuals who have served with U.S. troops as interpreters and support personnel in the various countries where our military has asked for such support.

Building Bridges, Not Walls, With Mexico: We have been open for business in Mexico since 2002, and have since opened almost 600 stores in 60 cities across the country, which together employ over 7,000 Mexican partners who proudly wear the green apron. We have sourced coffee from Mexico’s producers and their families for three decades and last fall, we also announced the creation of a farmer support center in Chiapas to help accelerate our collective ability to grow and export some of the world’s finest coffees from this important growing region, while donating more than $2 million to support the livelihood, food security and water quality of coffee producing communities in Oaxaca. With the support of thousands of Starbucks partners and millions of customers, we have also donated over a million coffee trees to support 70,000 families, and we will be expanding the initiative this year to generate another 4 million tree donations. Coffee is what unites our common heritage, and as I told Alberto Torrado, the leader of our partnership with Alsea in Mexico, we stand ready to help and support our Mexican customers, partners and their families as they navigate what impact proposed trade sanctions, immigration restrictions and taxes might have on their business and their trust of Americans. But we will continue to invest in this critically important market all the same.

Our Healthcare Commitment to You: Finally, let me restate what we have recently communicated with you about the Affordable Care Act – our commitment remains that if you are benefits eligible, you will always have access to health insurance through Starbucks. Many of you have expressed concerns that recent government actions may jeopardize your ability to participate in the Affordable Care Act. If the recent Executive Order related to health care remains in place and the Affordable Care Act is repealed causing you to lose your healthcare coverage, you will always have the ability to return and can do so within 30 days of losing that coverage rather than having to wait for an open enrollment period. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Benefits Center at 877-728-9236.

In the face of recent events around the world, let me assure you that we will stay true to our values and do everything we can possibly do to support and invest in every partner’s well-being while taking the actions that are squarely within our ability to control. This is our focus: providing a Third Place of respite for those around the world who seek it, daily.

Starbucks has and will always stand for opportunity – opportunity for our young people who are working to land their first job in the 75 countries where we do business, opportunity for our farmers who care so deeply for the highest of quality coffee we offer to customers all around the globe, and yes, opportunity for those who come to America in search of their own fresh start – whether that is with Starbucks directly, or through our suppliers or our partner companies.

If there is any lesson to be learned over the last year, it’s that your voice and your vote matter more than ever. We are all obligated to ensure our elected officials hear from us individually and collectively. Starbucks is doing its part; we need you to use the collective power of your voices to do the same while respecting the diverse viewpoints of the 90 million customers who visit our stores in more than 25,000 locations around the world.

So, while we seek to understand what the new Administration’s policies mean for us and our business both domestically and around the world, I can assure you that we will do whatever it takes to support you, our partners, to realize your own dreams and achieve your own opportunities. We are in business to inspire and nurture the human spirit, one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time – whether that neighborhood is in a Red State or a Blue State; a Christian country or a Muslim country; a divided nation or a united nation. That will not change. You have my word on that.

Onward,

Howard

Buying Starbucks coffee is the least a decent human could do, which is to say that just buying Starbucks coffee is grossly insufficient and decency demands much, much stronger actions. What more will you do?

So, despite attempts by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer to twist the narrative in support of his boss, the domestic terrorist who murdered six people while they prayed is Alexandre Bissonnette.

Clearly, President Donald John Trump needs to ban all Canadians Christians from the United States immediately.

So, The United States of America on 20 January 2017 was not The Weimar Republic of 30 January 1933 and there is no hidden meaning in the fact that almost exactly 84 years separate the two events. President Donald John Trump is not Chancellor Adolf Hitler. That does not mean, however, that we all—not just Americans but the whole fucking world—ought not be terrified by events over the past three days.

Writing in Trump’s Muslim Ban Is Culmination of War on Terror Mentality but Still Uniquely Shameful, Glenn Greenwald begins:

It is not difficult for any decent human being to immediately apprehend why and how Donald Trump’s ban on immigrants from seven Muslim countries is inhumane, bigoted, and shameful. During the campaign, the evil of the policy was recognized even by Mike Pence (“offensive and unconstitutional”) and Paul Ryan (violative of America’s “fundamental values”), who are far too craven and cowardly to object now.

Trump’s own defense secretary, Gen. James Mattis, said when Trump first advocated his Muslim ban back in August that “we have lost faith in reason,” adding: “This kind of thing is causing us great damage right now, and it’s sending shock waves through this international system.”

The sole ostensible rationale for this ban — it is necessary to keep out Muslim extremists—collapses upon the most minimal scrutiny. The countries that have produced and supported the greatest number of anti-U.S. terrorists — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, UAE—are excluded from the ban list because the tyrannical regimes that run those countries are close U.S. allies. Conversely, the countries that are included—Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Iran, Sudan, and Yemen—have produced virtually no such terrorists; as the Cato Institute documented on Friday night: “Foreigners from those seven nations have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and the end of 2015.” Indeed, as of a 2015 study by the New America research center, deaths caused by terrorism from right-wing nationalists since 9/11 have significantly exceeded those from Muslim extremists.

All those right-wing nationalists are on our side, right?

John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight returns on 12 February.

Not since President Richard Milhous Nixon has an American president so energized my first profession: Journalism. In the aftermath of Watergate, journalism schools across the country saw an uptick in enrollments that carried forward for a good 10 years cumulating, perhaps, in the expansion of schools under the Scripps Howard banner like my own alma mater: Ohio University.

President Donald John Trump has caused the issuance of such a call today.

Francine Prose, writing in A top White House official told the media to ‘keep its mouth shut’. That’s a threat for The Guardian, explains:

Some years ago, I watched a documentary in which a series of reporters told Bill Moyers that they’d hesitated to question the assertion that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction because they were afraid of “losing access”, worried lest they be denied their places at White House press conferences and on Air Force One.

If that access no longer exists—as Trump and Bannon repeatedly threaten—reporters may lose their reluctance to ask the hard and difficult questions, and may have no choice but to seek out the answers for themselves.

Meanwhile, all of us must do what we can to support our free press: subscribe to newspapers and magazines, donate to the radio and TV stations we trust.

We cannot allow impartial and honest journalism to be something we take for granted – until it disappears. And the more stridently that men like Stephen K Bannon tell us to keep our mouths shut, the more essential it is for us to keep talking, to insist on our constitutional right to speak freely, to write and read the truth.

The election of President Trump has energized my own journalism. I expect I am far from alone.

No, not the $20 bills, the actual president.

We have had great presidents, good presidents, mediocre presidents and bad presidents, but we have only had one genocidal president who is famous for the drunken sots who stormed the White House during his inauguration seeking souvenirs and favors (which earned the President the nickname King Mob); and infamous for the nearly 1,000 mile forced march of Indians in winter that resulted in the deaths of one-quarter of the 15,000 evicted from their lands (where gold had been discovered) under the shameful Indian Removal Act of 1830.

That president was our 7th: Andrew Jackson, elected in 1828 and re-elected in 1832.

This is the man that President Donald John Trump wants to inspire him in the oval office?

Sad.

No wonder sales of George Orwell’s 1948 dystopian classic 1984 have, in 21st century terms, gone viral.

Yesterday over morning tea I had just this conversation that Richard Wolfe suggests in Trump’s lies are delusional. But the dangers they pose are now very real. For The Guardian, Wolfe writes:

Let us count the ways Donald Trump lies. He lies about the crowd size at his own inauguration, but that isn’t enough. His lies are so transparent that he stages a fake crowd of stooge supporters at the CIA to applaud his own lies about the crowd. In another country, which Trump rather admires, you’d call this a Potemkin village. But this took place at the CIA, which Trump previously accused of recreating Nazi Germany because they were investigating his Russian

Trump lies that he loves the CIA, that the press fabricated the dispute, and that he never had any dealings with Russia. Who needs a lie detector test when you can just watch the president’s lips flapping?

Trump lies about the big stuff and the small stuff alike. He lies about the weather at his own inauguration. As if the weather, and all its divinely ordained raindrops, were some running commentary on his lack of legitimacy. As if we couldn’t watch the rain falling on his fake tan on television. He lies about releasing his tax returns after the IRS audit is complete. He lies about making Mexico pay for his monstrous wall on the southern border. And these are only some of his most frequent lies.

He lies about losing the popular vote in November by almost 3 million Americans, claiming instead that a miraculously identical number of votes came from undocumented immigrants. There was of course no such vast conspiracy, and all the congressional leaders who heard his fantasies over dinner know this too. Otherwise their own elections would be in question, a case most succinctly made by the lawyers of one Donald Trump, as they tried to quash the recount after his own election. “All available evidence suggests that the 2016 election was not tainted by fraud,” they wrote in their filing to block the recount in Michigan.

All this would be laughable if Trump were still a private citizen engaging in pre-dawn tweet storms. Instead, he’s the commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military and the chief executive of a vast federal government with a global reach. He can dispatch his press secretary, a formerly sane Republican hack, to lie on his behalf from the press room podium about crowd size and illegal voters. Sean Spicer may claim that nobody has the facts, or that people can disagree about the facts. He may claim the president has “studies and evidence” to back up his fabrications. By doing so, Trump and Spicer are destroying not just their own credibility but the good name of the presidency.

And we’re not even a week into this presidency.

As Orwell wrote elsewhere: Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

We now have a bag of wind larger that even Orwell might have conceived.

A delusion is a false idea and delusion is the state of believing things that are not true.

Until yesterday I thought that President Trump was simply a liar. After further consideration, and his repeated obsession with certain, easily proven false lies like voter fraud involving millinos in the 8 November election and the attendance at his inauguration, I can come to no other conclusion that the man is, in fact, delusional and, this scares the fuck out of me. We might have to demand the invoking of the 25th amendment and face the prospect of four years of President Mike Pence.

Scary.

Sad.

Jeff Johnson and any other candidate for Cleveland mayor this November will have a very tough time defeating Mayor Frank Jackson, if he decides to run for a fourth term. Not their fault either.

Jackson, as I’ve repeated again and again, has been a bitter disappointing and discredited mayor.

However, this is a city in deep civic decline. No spark or verve. Despite the constant cheerleading.

Cleveland is a city totally dominated by elites. Greedy and self-satisfied as can be. They set the agenda and it’s not for YOU.

We are now in our second phase of massive downtown subsidies. Poor neighborhoods you’re out.

The Forbes-Voinovich era in the 1980 gave heavy tax abatements to downtown developers to build office buildings. At the end of their terms in 1989 they made another devastating deal to open up Chagrin Highlands—once owned by Cleveland—to the major developer Dick Jacobs and the Jacobs Group. It drew assets from the city they supposedly served.

So Eaton Corp. (which built in downtown Cleveland without abatement) uprooted to Chagrin Highlands’ virgin land. Eaton this time grabbed a 30-year TIF abatement. Other buildings, such as University Hospitals Ahuja, also fled to Chagrin Highlands.

One of the reasons it’s tough for a Jackson opponent was highlighted for me by a former City Councilman after my last week’s article about the need for a “Change Election.”

Here’s what the former member wrote:

I have been reading your articles with interest, particularly with Continue Reading »

Well, this didn’t take long. From The Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus:

We apologize for breaking with our tradition of one email a week but as Resistance to Trump begins more frequent communication is necessary. Tuesday, January 24th CCPC joins MoveOn.org, Working Families and Indivisible, in the nationwide resistance effort known as Resist Trump Tuesdays. The plan for this week is unannounced visits to Senate offices across the country to let them know that we will be watching everything they do and that we vehemently oppose all of Trump’s cabinet nominees particularly racist Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, climate change denier Tom Price for EPA head and Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State.

CCPC is proud to host the Resist Trump Tuesday visit to Rob Portman’s Cleveland Office this Tuesday, January 24th @ 11AM.

The plan is to meet at the Erieview Mall Food Court (1301 East 9th street) for camaraderie and instruction’s at 11 am and then walk over to Portman’s office (1240 East 9th street) around noon. Since this is a visit, not a demonstration outside the office please do not bring signs.

INFO & RSVP HERE: SAY NO to Jeff Sessions!! Protest at Portman’s Office.

If you have not yet joined the Trump Emergency Response Team and can help us make calls to get people to this event please go to Trump Response Team. If you cannot make the visit please call Portman’s office at 216.522.7095 and give him the same message described above.

In Solidarity,

Yvonka
Steve
Tristan

steve@cuycpc.org
440.220.1874

Show up or, if like me you can’t get off work, make the phone call at 216.522.7095

The president’s thoughts in this video come from a series of interviews—‘The Filter…Is Powerful’: Obama on Race, Media, and What It Took to Win; ‘Better Is Good’: Obama on Reparations, Civil Rights, and the Art of the Possible; ‘It’s What We Do More Than What We Say’: Obama on Race, Identity, and the Way Forward; and ‘Surprised Like Everybody Else’: Obama on the Election of Donald Trump—conducted between 27 September and 17 November of last year by Ta-Nehisi Coates for his Atlantic Magazine cover story: My President Was Black—A history of the first African American White House—and of what came next.

Coates is on my very short list of writers I admire and he captures in a number of interviews with President Obama conducted over several months what I consider to be an exit interview of deep insight. I printed out copies of the this piece (which runs some 17,000 words, a long read for many) to share with several of my students who, I think, will benefit from President Obama’s reflections and Coates’ writing.

Reading the piece I kept thinking: President Obama, who leaves office at the age of 55 (only two month younger than my next oldest brother) has great achievements to follow. There will be a book first, but I expect that like President Jimmy Carter, who left office at the age of 57, Obama will go on to have a far more spectacular and productive life after his presidency than he did during his eight years in office.