Druid New Year

   Happy New Year to Druids everywhere, and to all those who honor a tradition forgotten, but not gone.

   It's now known as Hallowe'en, or the evening of All Hallows Day, the time of year when this Middle World is closest to the spiritual Otherworld, and when those in the Otherworld can most easily return to visit family, friends and others still here, and when those of us here in the Middle World can most easily visit the spirit worlds.

   We do this by dressing up as "ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night," as Robert Burns wrote.

   To Celtic peoples, November 1 is known as Samhain, the end of the harvest season and the end of the year. It also marks the beginning of a new cycle of the year, when we begin to enter the dark time as the sun fades and the spirits of the dark begin to dominate the season.

   It is a time to reflect on the past and honor those who have crossed to the spirit world. It was and remains a time to mimic the tricksters of the spirit world and treat them to small favors so they would remain friendly.

   Samhain (pronounced: SAH-win) is the first of eight festivals of the Druid year, all of which are still observed, even as they were given different names as a new spiritual tradition spread throughout the Celtic world.

   Next is the Winter Solstice, December 21, known to the ancients as Yule, when the sun seems to stop its retreat toward darkness and begins to return, metaphorically defeating the powers of darkness and returning to dominate the world.

   Third in the series is Imbolc, February 1, when the first early signs of spring begin to show through the sleeping earth. The groundhog emerges from his winter sleep, lambs are born and we look for new life in grass, trees and flowers. A carryover of this tradition is Groundhog Day, or Candlemas Day, the Feast of Lights.

   Next in the cycle is the Spring Equinox, March 21, when days and nights are again in balance and people prepare in earnest for the return of the sun.

   At Beltane, May 1, the Druidic cycle is half-way through the year as people honor Belenos, a god of love. It is also a time to gather flowers, to dance and to honor Mother Earth during the modern romance festival of Mayday.

   Midsummer brings another festival, as the sun reaches its highest point in its yearly journey -- the Summer Solstice, June 21.

   Then comes Lughnasadh, August 1, time to gather the first harvest of wheat and bake the first loaves of bread from the new harvest. It is the day to honor Lugh, the sun god, with dancing and feasting. It is also known as Lammas (loaf-mass) Day.

   Lugh was also known as a warrior, with his Sword of Light, and is remembered in Hollywood as Luke Skywalker, with his laser sword.

   The final festival in the Druid year is the Autumn Equinox, September 21, when the days and nights are again in balance and it is time to prepare for the full harvest and begin preparations for winter.

   All these festivals go back many centuries, before the time when a new spiritual tradition began to spread throughout Europe. Rather then try to ban them entirely, the missionaries gave them new names and adapted them to fit the new tradition.

   Nevertheless, the old ways continue, as modern Druids incorporate them into newer belief systems.

John T. Harding is the author of "Druidry for Today: A Tradition Forgotten But Not Gone," available as an ebook or in paperback from Amazon.

Phony Constitution?

   "This phony emoluments clause" is how the president describes a phrase in the Constitution.
   One wonders what other parts of the Constitution he considers phony or fake.
   Perhaps he considers the entire document "phony," and therefore can be suspended or cancelled by executive order.
   Check the definition of "emolument," as posted in an earlier entry, quoting my edition of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. It means "profit."

Word Warrriors

 It ain't hard to figure.

   Emolument is Latin for profit, and profit means to derive benefit. The Latin phrase "quid pro quo" literally means "this for that," or "something for something." It's a trade.
   The Constitution says government officials are forbidden to profit from, benefit from, gain from or earn from any relationship with a foreign government, official or private entity.
   Lawyers spend hours, days and even weeks arguing over meanings of words, while the rest of the nation wonders why they can't or won't accept the concept of "shall not ..."
   Consider the term "inquiry" as applied to the possibility of an impeachment proceeding. Here are some synonyms for the word "inquire": Ask, question, examine, research, query, probe, investigate, seek or look for information, details and facts to support or deny the truth of some charge, allegation or theory.
   Which one of the ten verbs apply? Or all of the above? The debate only slows the process, which may well be the strategy.
   As for the current hassle in Washington involving the president, the question is this: Did he or did he not accept, earn, derive or benefit from any trade, agreement, pact, arrangement, or deal with any foreign official, agency, company, corporation, firm or individual or any foreign entity, whether friend or foe, while in office?
   If he did, then he violated the Constitution, which he promised to protect and defend. If he did not, then an inquiry -- by any name -- will clear him of any wrongdoing and the nation can move on.
   Either way, the inquiry, investigation, probe, examination, quest or whatever else you want to call it should continue, to establish the truth and the facts supporting it,  and the name-calling can stop.
   As for the comment from a high official the other day that this sort of thing "happens all the time," that does not make it legal.
   Politicians may ignore the Constitution just as burglars ignore the law, but repeatedly doing so doesn't make it right.
   Meanwhile, lawyers and politicians argue the meanings and implications of words, the better to support their beliefs and actions, regardless of what the Constitution says.
   Or as the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said, "Truth isn't truth." And as presidential spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway put it, there are "alternative facts."
   Many in the political herd may argue until the cows come home, but voters know what is left behind.

Electoral Curiosities

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and three times or more is a pattern.

   Only five men have been elected to the presidency after losing the popular vote, and four were Republicans. The fifth, John Quincy Adams, was chosen by the House of Representatives in 1824 after none of the candidates gathered a majority of electoral votes. The Republican Party as we know it was not founded until some 30 years later.

   Since then, all four of the presidential candidates who lost the popular vote but gained the Oval Office by winning the Electoral Vote were members of the Republican Party: Rutherford B. Hayes in the election of 1876; Benjamin Harrison in 1888; George W. Bush in 2000, and Donald J. Trump in 2016.

   Hayes defeated Samuel J. Tilden in 1876 by just one electoral vote, and scholars have long suspected that an exchange of money persuaded one member of the Electoral College -- originally a Tilden supporter -- to change his vote and support Hayes instead. The electoral vote was 185-184.

   Twelve years later, in the election of 1888, Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote but took the presidency after the Electoral College supported him by a vote of 233-168.

   More recently, in the election of 2000, Republican George W. Bush lost the popular vote but moved into the Oval Office after a prolonged battle in Florida over its vote count was stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court. Eventually, the nationwide electoral count was 271 for Bush and 266 for his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, who had received some 543,000 popular votes more than Bush.

    And in the election of 2016, Republican Donald J. Trump racked up 304 electoral votes to Democrat Hillary Clinton's 227, despite losing the popular vote. That count was 65.8 million for Clinton, and 62.9 million for Trump.

   Many Americans have long been unhappy with the idea of a president being chosen by a secondary vote of electors rather than by the population generally. However, it seems the founders were not confident that the people could be fully trusted when it came to electing a single leader, so the indirect method was designed instead. The Electoral College currently is made up of the total number of members of the House of Representatives -- 435 -- plus the 100 Senators plus three for the District of Columbia, for a grand total of 538 electors. These electors meet after the general election is held and vote for a president and vice president. The winner must score a simple majority of electoral votes, currently 270.

   Normally, the electors vote for their previously designated candidate, but there is no requirement that they do so. In 2016, two electors defected from Trump and five defected from Clinton, but there is little indication that would have changed the result.

   In 1876, however, it did, as Hayes scored an electoral victory over Tilden by just one vote. And in the election of 2000, a continuing recount in Florida was stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court, and resulted in Bush collecting 271 electoral votes, just one more than the simple majority of 270 needed to win the presidency.

   So the argument now is whether the general population has become educated enough, and trustworthy enough, to be able to select a leader by direct vote, rather than be swayed by a demagogue into choosing someone who might lead the nation down an unreasonable path.

   Meanwhile, we continue to choose a president by indirect vote, through the Electoral College of 538 members.

Lawyer's Creed

When you have facts on your side, argue the facts.
When you have law on your side, argue the law.
When you have neither, pound the table.

   We see a lot of table-pounding these days, as supporters of the president ignore direct questions from journalists and keep talking even as the interviewer points out that the person has changed the subject, has not answered the question and has launched an attack on someone else who is not connected in any way to the issue under discussion.
   Meanwhile, a federal judge in New York has rejected a Trumpian appeal of a state subpoena that the president deliver income and tax records to state investigators.
   Defense lawyers claimed that the president is immune from investigation while he is in office.
   The judge said, in effect, go away. "No one is above the law," he wrote, ordering that the records be produced.
   Defense lawyers said they will appeal.
   But this is a state case, not federal. It has been Department of Justice policy not to investigate a sitting president while in office. That, however, is policy, not law, and refers to criminal offenses.
   President Bill Clinton was investigated while in office for a civil offense allegedly involving an extramarital affair and lying to Congress about it.
   And former Vice President Spiro Agnew was investigated while in office for offenses allegedly committed years earlier. As a consequence, Agnew resigned.
   So there are precedents justifying investigations of a president and a vice president while in office. The current investigation, however, involves state offenses, and the federal government typically has no jurisdiction over state cases.
   To claim that the president -- any president -- is immune from prosecution, civil or criminal, while in office is ludicrous. As the judge said, "No one is above the law."
   Supporters can pound the table all they want -- check that: No, they can't. Pounding the table and shouting down and attacking reporters simply for asking questions does not and cannot change the truth nor can it stop journalists from trying to determine truth.

Polymantics

"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean."  -- Humpty Dumpty

"I never said that." -- Donald in Wonderland

   Implied threats and suggestions to potential violence against political opponents is a common tactic used by the current president.
   He leaves just enough semantic wiggle room so he can claim he didn't really say any such thing, and if someone did hear such an inference, he can say it was just a joke, and he's not responsible for the actions of others who can't take a joke or don't know sarcasm when they hear it.
   As if that alone is enough to excuse what to most listeners is incitement to violence -- a criminal offense.
   Example: Labeling a source of a whistleblower's warning on presidential  behavior "next to a spy," adding that we all know what was done to spies "in the old days."
   Inference: Spies were shot.
   Implied suggestion: Someone should shoot the person who contributed to the whistleblower's report, and probably also the whistleblower.
   By using such inferences, hints, suggestions, or "jokes," the president can claim he never said someone should shoot the whistleblower.
   Technically, no, he didn't. But many listeners won't see the difference, just as other listeners will take references to shooting a traitor as a suggestion or a recommendation, or even presidential permission.
   Similarly, at a campaign rally, the candidate said a protestor should be beaten up, and that he would post bail.
   References and comments like that, although technically innocent, are often heard and interpreted as instructions to do the very thing referenced.
   To avid listeners and supporters, subtle references like that are taken to be direct instructions, and are phrased that way only as protection.
   Another tactic, of course, is to deny having said what is clearly recorded and heard by bystanders and replayed on television repeatedly.
   Call it semantic word games, or polymantics, insisting that a word or word doesn't really mean what historically it has meant for decades or longer, but now means what the user says it means, and listeners can't know what a word means until and unless the user explains it.
   And if listeners point out that a word already has a certain meaning, the user insists, "I never said that," or "What I really meant was ... "
   In Wonderland, Alice responded that "The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things."
   "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."
   So in the Washington Wonderland that we see today, words have many different meanings, and members of Congress must now choose whether to accept the sudden new meaning, or to rely on the meaning they have known and accepted for many years.
   Or as the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said, "Truth isn't truth." And the White House relies on what presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway called "alternative facts."
   There is always a choice.

Avoiding the T Word

   The Constitution specifies three grounds for impeachment of a government official: "Treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
   But for all the talk about impeaching the current president of the United States, almost no one is using the T word in reference to the president's words and actions.
   Consider this definition of treason: Soliciting help from a foreign government in a domestic election. And offering to give to or threatening to withhold money from a foreign government in exchange for aid in a domestic election campaign can be tantamount to bribery or extortion.
   Recent revelations suggest two potential counts of treason and one count of bribery.
   Now consider this as evidence: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you can find the 30,000 emails that are missing" from the files of his opponent.
   And this: Asking the president of Ukraine for help in connecting the family of his political opponent to corruption, and in return he would release financial aid to the Ukraine military.
   As for "high crimes and misdemeanors," there is a long list of potential offences, as indicated in published reports.
   Is there truth and evidence to support any of these allegations?
   That's up to the House of Representatives to determine, as it undertakes a formal impeachment inquiry about the actions of the current president of the United States.
   Only four times in American history has there been a move toward impeaching a sitting president. Two -- Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton -- were impeached but not convicted after a trial in the Senate. Articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were approved by a House committee but he resigned before the full House could vote on it. Therefore, we must say that he was not impeached.
   Nixon's successor issued a presidential pardon soon after the resignation for any federal crimes that Nixon may have committed, so he would not have to face court charges after leaving office. (Cynic's note: If he was innocent, why issue a pardon?)
   Now the nation faces another potential impeachment of a sitting president, and the question arises as to whether -- if he is impeached -- will he be convicted after a Senate trial and removed from office?
   And if so, will his successor issue a pardon for any federal crimes he may have committed while in office?
   Even so, a president would still be liable for state charges -- either civil or criminal -- at any time.
   The speculation here is that the current president is likely to be impeached by the House of Representatives, but whether he will be convicted by the Senate and removed from office is too soon to say.
   And, considering the historic attitudes of the man currently in the Oval Office, would he refuse to leave, claiming the entire episode was a charade and a fake?
   We live in interesting times.