Memorial Day is a day for reflection. The day honors the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Observed every year on the last Monday of May, Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day in a nod to the tradition of placing flowers or other decorative displays at gravesites.
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There are two funerals on tap this week at CBS, Inc., the company where I spent the first decade of my professional career. When I joined it in 1974, it had recently changed its name from the Columbia Broadcasting System to better reflect its position as a major media company, not just a broadcaster. Its four core lines of business were Broadcasting (TV and radio), Records (music), Publishing (books and magazines), and Musical Instruments/Toys.
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Some people are visionaries. Some people are great leaders. Few people can do both at the same time. Ted Turner was one of those special people.
In the wake of his death on May 6 at the age of 87, much has been written about his brash in-your-face style. I never met or worked for him. But I have many friends and colleagues who did. To a person, they sing his praises as a tough but fair leader. That he was a visionary is clear when you consider his impact on media in general and journalism in particular.
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John Roberts is displeased. John Roberts is exasperated. John Roberts is frustrated. John Roberts is annoyed. John Roberts is irked. John Roberts is any other of the many synonyms my thesaurus suggested instead of the word I originally used, which it found to be “vulgar.”
What has the Chief Justice of the United States in high dudgeon (I thought of that one myself) is the reaction to the Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which drove a stake through the heart of the only section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 the Court had not previously decimated. With the vote falling along party lines, many critics condemned the decision as racist and political.
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John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States, has achieved his life goal. With the Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, he has killed the Voting Rights Act. Roberts made the destruction of the VRA of 1965 his lifelong crusade. His opposition to the Act dates back to his days as a law clerk for then Associate Justice William Rehnquist. Rehnquist notoriously wrote a memo in 1952 stating, “I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed.” Plessy was the infamous “separate but equal” case institutionalizing racism in public schools. It was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
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What Would Tom Say? That’s the question running through my mind as I watched Charles III, King of Great Britain and Ireland and lots of other places, address a joint session of the Congress of the United States of America.
Tom is Thomas Jefferson, founding father, first Secretary of State, third President, and principal author of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain by the thirteen colonies henceforth to be known as the United States of America.
In the Declaration, written 250 years ago, Jefferson accuses Britain’s then King George III of being a tyrant, “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
When Donald Trump began his second term in the White House, there were fifteen original heads of executive departments like State, Defense and Treasury. There were seven additional cabinet-rank officials. Of the fifteen, Trump has fired three.
Trump’s first term saw a revolving door of cabinet-level officials. A newcomer to the Washington bureaucracy, Trump took advice from Republican insiders and appointed several department heads who had some experience in government. They stupidly put their oath to uphold the law and Constitution ahead of their loyalty to Trump. The Donald was not going to make that mistake again.
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