1,023: That Was the Week That Was

On November 10, 1963, NBC began airing one of the granddaddies of all satires on the news. Based on a BBC-produced program which was a huge hit across the pond, it was called That Was the Week That Was. Both were created and starred the future interviewer par excellence Sir David Frost. The American version - which only aired until May 1965, was, to say the least, an acquired taste. But what a delicious taste it was! Long, long before Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, The Daily Show starring John Stewart, The Colbert Report or Late Night With Seth Meyers, there was the show affectionately called TW3.

It’s pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, Tom Bosley, Bob Dishy, Mort Sahl, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing an opening news-satire-song.  The writing staff wasn’t too shabby either; it included such clever brainiacs as Gloria Steinem, Sol Turtletaub, and the irrepressible Calvin Trillin.  It’s music was handled by one of the greatest satirists of all time, Harvard Math Professor Tom Lehr (“It is a sobering thought to consider that when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was my age,  he had been dead for 2 years.”) 

This is not meant to be a piece on a classic television comedy.  If it were, I would be posting it on my other blog, Tales From Hollywood & Vine.  Rather, I begin in this fashion because we are about to conclude the first week (168 hours) of the MUMP Regime.  And what a breathless, mind-numbing and, to be perfectly honest, horrifying week its been.  For nearly a century, the measure of a new presidential administration has been “The first hundred days.”  With the advent of IT.2, it would now seem to be the first 168 hours.  And so, let us present, with some specificity of detail, what that week has entailed . . . . the first of a possible 208 weeks of the strangest, silliest and g-d help us all, most sinister time in American history.

Presidential actions can take different forms, including executive orders, memoranda and proclamations. Pardons and other acts of clemency — of which Trump issued hundreds in his first days in office, most related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot — are not executive orders.

Let us note here: An executive order is an official document issued by the U.S. president that shapes the way federal government operates and sends a message as to the president's top priorities in office. It is not a piece of legislation, and it does not require approval from Congress. The only way to overturn an executive order is through another executive order — Trump revoked dozens of Biden's executive orders on Jan. 20. Historically, however, Congress has challenged executive orders and can also delay an order from taking effect, such as by removing funding.

That following are executive orders issued by IT on January 24, 2025,

BORDER SECURITY, CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

• Clarify the military's role in protecting national borders; have the secretary of defense revise a plan to "seal" the borders and "repel forms of invasion."

• Designate cartels and other organizations, such as TdA and MS-13, as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.

• End birthright U.S. citizenship of children born in the country when neither parent is a citizen or legal permanent resident.

• Enhance vetting and screening across agencies during the visa-issuance process.

• Ensure the federal government upholds existing immigration laws.

• Pause entry into the U.S. of refugees under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program until the program is "realigned" with the interests of the U.S., given a "lack of ability to absorb large numbers of migrants."

• Secure U.S. borders, such as with a physical wall.

DIVERSITY AND GENDER

• End all "diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility" programs in the federal government, "under whatever name they appear."

• Prevent hiring in the federal government on the basis of race, gender or religion, and instead base hiring on "merit, practical skill, and dedication to our Constitution."

• Recognize only two sexes at the federal level of government, male and female.

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

• Declare a national energy emergency.

• Expand the use of American energy resources; for example, encourage energy exploration and production and end programs that promote electric vehicles over those with gasoline engines.

• Open Alaska to increased oil and gas drilling.

• Put the U.S. first in environmental agreements, including by withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement.

FEDERALWORKFORCE AND GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS

• End the "weaponization of the federal government," meaning the alleged use of the government's legal force and intelligence against its perceived political opponents. The attorney general will conduct a review of the federal government since 2021 to identify such instances.

• Establish the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

• Hold former government officials accountable for alleged election interference and improper disclosure of sensitive governmental information, such as relating to Hunter Biden's laptop and a memoir by former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

• Restore freedom of speech and end federal censorship by preventing federal government employees from abridging citizens' First Amendment rights, ensuring no taxpayer money is spent on such efforts and correcting past misconduct by the federal government related to censorship of protected speech.

• Revive a category of career federal employees — previously known as "Schedule F" — that makes them easier to hire and fire in order to "restore accountability" to the federal workforce. IT issued a similar order late in his first term, and Biden rescinded it shortly after his inauguration in 2021.

FOREIGN POLICY

• Bring the Department of State in line with an "America First" foreign policy.

• Designate Ansar Allah, more commonly known as "Houthis," as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

• Pause foreign development assistance funds in order to asses alignment with U.S. foreign policy.

• Withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

TECHNOLOGY

• Create a plan for the U.S. to "sustain and enhance" global artificial intelligence dominance and develop AI systems "free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas." The order also revokes certain existing AI policies and directives that "act as barriers to American AI innovation," but these policies and directives are not named.

• Delay a ban of TikTok for 75 days, starting on Jan. 20.

• Expand access to the digital asset industry, including blockchain technology, for citizens and the private sector by establishing a regulatory framework for issuing and operating digital assets. The order also revokes a Biden executive order titled "Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets" and the Treasury's "Framework for International Engagement on Digital Assets."  It should be noted that both Donald and Melania Trump now have their own crypto coins ($TRUMP).  It speaks to the nature of the crypto industry that someone could have more than $50 billion worth of something that literally did not exist 48 hours previously. How long it takes for this to come before the federal court as a conflict-of-interest is anyone’s guess. 

misc.

• Declassify the records concerning the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Reinstate the name Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America, which has officially been recognized as Denali since 2015, and change the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America."

• Restore the death penalty in federal cases and ensure states that impose capital punishment have a "sufficient supply" of lethal-injection materials.

• Revoke 78 of Biden's executive orders and memorandums. Notable examples are his efforts to lower prescription drug prices, eliminate privately operated criminal detention facilities and advance racial equity.

Not making this list is a call placed from Air Force One to King Abdullah of Jordan early Saturday morning “suggesting” that both Jordan and Egypt take in more Palestinians. This raises new questions about U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and two of its most important allies in the Middle East. The President’s comments appear to echo the wishes of the Israeli far right that Palestinians be encouraged to leave Gaza – an idea that goes to the heart of Palestinian fears that they will be driven from their remaining homelands, and one that is likely to be roundly rejected by Egypt and Jordan. (As of this writing, IT has yet to speak with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

And so, that, in a huge nutshell, was the week that was. It is daunting, gloomy and downright horrifying to consider what the second week will be like. And this is not even to mention that IT’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, whose baggage includes charges of alcoholism, support for extremist Christian views (including a belief in “sphere sovereignty,” which promotes Old Testament laws and patriarchal structures) has been approved by the Senate by a vote of 51-50. It not only shows how little IT cares about who runs the American military industrial complex, but how very weak-kneed and accommodating the Republican caucus is in the Senate; they are petrified that if they vote against their president, that their president with primary them. You tell me: is any job that pays $174,000.00 worth that much damage to one’s soul . . . presuming that one possesses a soul?

Of late, I have been receiving emails from readers wondering if I’m at all afraid of being labeled an “enemy of the state” for all my years of writing biting, satirical and occasionally downright disagreeable essays about the current POTUS.  My answer is always the same: “I’m too busy to be worried.  If there comes a day when I hear that ‘knock on the door,’ I’ll answer it and take it from there.”  You’ve got to understand, as a Hollywood Brat I lived through the Blacklist and know that a strong set of beliefs and an ethical core are more powerful than a gloved fist.  I also receive a different kind of email: those who write warning me that “you’re going to get what you deserve.”  I don’t respond to them.  But if I did, I would likely draw further wrath by explaining that “what I deserve is good health for me, my wife, our family and friends, and the ability to continue doing what I have always done . . . getting into good trouble.”  

When Erica and I were really young, our Grannie Annie, the mistress of a million million Afghans, used to put us to bed at night by reading poetry.  Her favorites were Lord Byron, Keats, Shelly and an American poet named Frank Lebby Stanton.  He couldn’t hold a candle to Byron, but was easier to understand.  My favorite of his pieces was called Keep A-Goin’! and has shaped my Weltanschauung (worldview) for more easily more than 70 years:

Ef you strike a thorn or rose,
    Keep a-goin'!
  Ef it hails, or ef it snows,
    Keep a-goin!
  'Taint no use to sit an' whine,
  When the fish ain't on yer line;
  Bait yer hook an' keep a-tryin'—
    Keep a-goin'!

  When the weather kills yer crop,
    Keep a-goin'!
  When you tumble from the top,
    Keep a-goin'!
  S'pose you're out of every dime,
  Bein' so ain't any crime;
  Tell the world you're feelin' prime—
    Keep a-goin'!

  When it looks like all is up,
    Keep a-goin'!
  Drain the sweetness from the cup,
    Keep a-goin'!
  See the wild birds on the wing,
  Hear the bells that sweetly ring,
  When you feel like sighin' sing -
    Keep a-goin'!

That was the week that was . . . what in the world will week two bring?

Copyright©2025 Kurt F. Stone

#1,020: Whatever Became Of the Truth?

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

Once upon a time there were newscasters like Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, and David Brinkley - solid experienced journalists - who were unimpeachable sources of broadcast truth.  What news they broadcast 5 nights a week was rarely - if ever - questioned; they were the voices of truth, reason and Mt. Sinai. Those who did not like what they were hearing - about the war in Vietnam, racial relations or the economy to name but three - did not question the veracity of their reportage . . .  but merely the painful reality of the times. This is no longer the case.

The heirs of newscasters/journalists like Cronkite, Chancellor and Brinkley (among others) are no longer bound by what may be called “the truth,” but rather by what their corporate sponsors wish the public to see, hear and believe. And when it comes to the news-gathering public, it would seem that most seek those who broadcast what they want to hear or already believe, as opposed to those of us who are doing our darndest to learn what in the hell is really going on.  Print media, I am sorry to say, is largely in the same creaky boat.  When billionaire publishers of newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post can, at the last moment, decide not to endorse a presidential candidate (Kamala Harris) for fear that they might be on ITs bad side should he be elected, is more than an act of craven cowardice; it is an egregious betrayal of journalistic integrity.

Precisely 2 weeks from today, the 47th POTUS will take the oath of office.  One can make book on the White House Office of Communications announcing that the gathered crowd was in the millions . . . far larger than any gathering since Moses descended from Mt. Sinai, Tablets in hand.  Of course, the crowd size will be exaggerated to the point of being an outright, obvious lie, which is only fair, considering that IT won the election on the basis of a long, long string of lies.  To have heard him tell it during - and even after - the campaign, “He is,” in the words of New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker “ . . . about to take over a nation ravaged by crisis, a desolate hellscape of crime, chaos and economic hardship.”  Indeed, just the other day, IT declared on social media “Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World!  This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective and virtually nonexistent leadership. . . . The USA is breaking down - A violent erosion of Safety, National Security, and Democracy is taking place all across our Nation. Only strength and powerful leadership will stop it.” 

This is, of course, pure nonsense. By many traditional metrics, the America that the MUMP Regime inherits from President Biden 2 weeks from today is actually in far better shape than that bequeathed to any newly elected president since George W. Bush moved into the White House on January 20, 2001. For the first time in nearly a quarter century, there will be no American troops at war overseas. New data reported in the last few days indicate that murders are way down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen even below than where it was when IT left office, and roaring stock markets, finished their best two years in the past quarter century.

Moreover, jobs are up, wages are rising and the economy is growing as fast as it did during ITs presidency. Unemployment is as low as it was just before the Covid-19 pandemic and near its historic best. And to top it all off, the United States is producing more oil and natural gas today than ever before . . . and far more than any other country. These are all facts - the truth - which can be verified if only:

1. One is willing to do a bit of research . . . which not everyone is willing or capable of doing;

2. One doesn’t mistrust anything that comes from a source they’ve been convinced is part of a conspiracy whose sole purpose is disproving whatever their MAGA leader says, and

3. One accepts the fact that there is such a thing as the truth.

It goes without saying that for many Americans all these positive trends have yet to make a difference in their daily lives; consequently, they firmly believe that Biden and his team are talking through their hats. For in reality, these naysayers do, in the main, live from paycheck-to-paycheck, carry high credit card debt, cannot afford to buy a home, remember when gas prices were under $2.00 a gallon (March of 2020, during the Obama Administration), can read you line and verse about how both inflation and prices for such staples as eggs, milk and meat are all far too high (actually, the rate of inflation has returned close to normal), and on and on.  In short, they swallow much - if not all - of what IT endlessly ragged on about during the campaign, and concluded the race by saying that he had scored one of the largest victories in history.  (For those who care to check, the final vote showed It receiving 49.8% of the vote (77,303,428) to V.P. Harris’ 48.3% (75,018,929 votes) . . . hardly a crushing victory.

If history repeats itself, we can expect to see the 47th POTUS continue to tear into his predecessor’s record of doing nothing, of pardoning his son Hunter, and of being a doddering old fool.  As time goes by, he will make fewer and fewer promises (except renewing his gift-wrapped 2017 tax cut to the execrably hyper wealthy), and assert in no uncertain terms that what the public may perceive as failures, is really the fault of ultra-liberal, communistic collaborators.  He will, in turn, have any number of “Come to Jesus” moments when he learns that no one can deport 12-20 million illegals (tons of whom have lived in this country for decades . . . many working at Mar-a-Lago) all in one fell swoop.  Who’s going to pay for it?  Who’s going to hire the busses, planes, trains and ships?  Similarly, one man cannot simply shut down FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. and all that entails with a simple performative utterance.     

Indeed, it’s going to be hard enough for IT to get many of his cabinet nominees approved by the United States Senate. As deeply conservative as the new Majority Leader - South Dakota’s John Thune – may be, he is both affable and an institutionalist. As Senate Minority Leader, Thune was one of the few Republicans in that chamber who acknowledged Joe Biden’s 2020 win, telling reporters, “At some point you have to face the music.” During Biden’s presidency, Thune voted with Biden 35 percent of the time, which placed him in the top half of GOP senators who have voted in support of some of Biden's policy priorities.

 Just how long IT and his loyalists are going to be able to bend reality and truth to fit their agenda is anyone’s guess. Convincing so many Americans that two-times-two isn’t necessarily the truth is both highly dangerous and the mark of a dictator-in-the-making. It brings to mind a quote by the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky who, in one of his earliest (and most difficult) novels, Notes From the Underground, (written in reaction to Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s appallingly bad ideological novel What Is to Be Done? (1863), put into the mouth of his anonymous narrator the following simple piece of insolence:

Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

This bit of sarcastic wisdom has stayed with me for nearly 60 years. Indeed, I typed out the quote, and hung it on my dorm room door a long, long time ago.

There are those who find health in seeking the truth; there are others who make a living convincing others that there is no objective truth . . .

G-d help us all!

Copyright©2025 Kurt Franklin Stone