Cagle World

If you observe politics the way I do – as one stares at a five-car pileup on the freeway – your gaping will always be rewarded.

The House voted on Wednesday to impeach President Trump, but the rhetoric in the run-up to impeachment said a lot about the process. If you enjoy political hyperbole, you weren’t disappointed.

During the debate on articles of impeachment, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) searched for analogies to make a point about the injustice of Trump’s impeachment and came up with a doozy.

“Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats have afforded to this president,” he said.

Loudermilk said that “when Jesus was falsely accused of treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face his accusers.”

I see his point but I don’t think I would have gone there.

Trump himself went a little more current in a letter to Nancy Pelosi.

“More due process was afforded to those in the Salem Witch Trials.”

I said “more current” not recent.

About Trump’s letter to Pelosi. Five pages and a lot of anger. There’s really no news in it unless it’s news that Trump is really, really upset, or that he likes to use a lot of exclamation points when he writes. He especially likes to use exclamation points at the end of paragraphs.

“Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith but continually saying, ‘I pray for the president’ when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It’s a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!” Trump wrote.

Beyond the punctuation, the letter covers familiar ground – Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian president, “Russian Hoax,” “Impeachment Hoax,” (the capitalization is Trump’s) Joe Biden and so on.

But wait! There’s more. There’s always more.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, (D-N.Y.) said that Trump’s actions are “even worse than Nixon’s.”

No, they’re really not.

During the debate, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, (D-N.Y.) accused Rep. Louie Gohmert of “spouting Russian propaganda.”

Nadler apparently believes anyone not in favor of impeaching Trump is a Russian sympathizer.

Gohmert went back at Nadler demanding a retraction. The two stopped before making fists at each other.

House Majority Leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer, said “Democrats did not choose this, impeachment.”

Yeah, they did, but that was hardly the most interesting thing Hoyer said during the debate.

He also felt it necessary to mention that while Trump received more electoral votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016, more people voted for Hillary Clinton -, about 65 million compared to Trump’s 63 million votes.

Kind of a strange point to make during an impeachment debate. What does this have to do with “abuse of power” or “obstruction of Congress”? Nothing at all, unless Democrats view this impeachment as an opportunity to overturn the results of an election which, of course, many Republicans believe is the case.

As you listened to the rhetoric, one truth emerged, no matter what side you’re on – this has been anything but a bipartisan process.

Remember, this impeachment is not part of an ongoing criminal investigation, unlike the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. This is an inherently political and divisive exercise, and it has lacked credibility from the outset.

Thus, it’s not surprising that the whole fiasco seems to be helping Trump. A Gallup poll released Wednesday indicated that Trump’s approval rating has gone from 39% to 45% since House Democrats began their impeachment inquiry in October.

Next, there will likely be a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate and impeachment will be dead on arrival as the GOP will present a strong defense of the president.

That will leave us more divided as a country than we were when this whole thing started and there will be no winners, with the possible exception of Trump himself – the Democrats’ worst nightmare.

Perhaps that’s why Pelosi shooshed her Democratic colleagues to keep them from cheering when the impeachment vote was announced. She’s trying to play this very carefully by appealing to her base without looking like she’s taking a victory lap. It seems an almost impossible strategy.

It wasn’t all theatrics on Wednesday. Pelosi was actually a voice of reason when she said it was “a sad day” for America.

What’s even sadder is she could have kept it from happening.

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

She once ate an entire stack of pancakes – at least six or seven – while I was taking my daughter to the school bus.

On Thanksgiving, several years ago, she ate the last piece of apple pie. I didn’t actually see her eat it but the dots were very connectable. She was the only one in the kitchen, the pie plate was empty, and there were pie crumbs all over her chin.

She liked nibble the bottoms of my shirts. The vet said it was a way for her to show affection, a sign of love. I have a drawer filled with t-shirts with little holes in them.

She was an impressive looking watchdog – dark, powerful and, simply for show, she featured a low, menacing growl. In reality, all any burglar had to do was bring her a pizza and he could have cleaned us out to the studs before she took notice.

I first saw her at an animal shelter in New Freedom, Pennsylvania, a small town on the Mason-Dixon Line where I lived at the time. The workers at the shelter called her “Sweet Pea.”

At the time, I was a little “meh” on the name but I kept it. It turned out to fit her perfectly.

They first brought her to me while she was still in a crate, a big crate. They opened the door and she emerged, slowly, and she kept coming.

She was a mastiff/boxer mix, the kind of dog people cross the street to avoid.

The story was that she had been running through the streets of Baltimore. We weren’t sure how old she was, maybe a year, but she had a difficult early life. She was pregnant when they found her. It’s possible someone was keeping her to fight or to breed other fighting dogs.

This dog was clearly a lover, not a fighter.

The first thing she did when she saw me was roll over on her back and give me her belly. I’m kind of a pushover anyway but that did it for me. She was mine.

She was underweight when I took her home but she would soon fill out to about 90 pounds, more boxer size than mastiff, though she had a mastiff’s neck and shoulders.

One time, a neighbor boy came to the front door to raise money for the Boy Scouts. When he knocked, the big-headed Sweet Pea appeared in the window. The poor kid left a vapor trail down the driveway before I could even get to the door.

I lost track of how many dog beds I bought her over the years. They’re expensive and there’s nothing to them. Every once in a while, for no particular reason, she would strategically remove the foam rubber innards. I would come home to hundreds of pieces of foam rubber on the floor while she snored away in her disemboweled bed.

She snored like Grandpa Simpson. She slept at the foot of my bed but I eventually got used to the noise, the way some people listen to recorded sounds of the ocean to help them fall asleep.

Sweet Pea had the strength of a plow horse but she didn’t know it.

One time, not long after I adopted her, I crouched down in the yard about 25 yards away from her, trying to teach her to come.

“Come on, girl! Who’s a good doggie? Are you a good doggie? Come on!”

Evidently, the baby talk flipped some switch in her. She started for me in a dead sprint. But it became clear within a few seconds that she wasn’t going to stop or even slow down. She ran me over, much the way Wile E. Coyote was flattened by a big roller. As I was peeling myself off the turf, she circled back to lick my face.

I wrote an entire book with her at my feet. When I was exasperated, usually over my low-functioning computer, she would stick her snout under my arm to snap me out of it.

We went for long walks every morning, no matter where we were. Her routine was my routine and mine hers.

She was with me through multiple moves, job changes and personal trials, always at my feet and usually snoring.

Mark Twain said, “The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.” I’m not that cynical but I understand what he meant.

On a Saturday afternoon in December, when she was only about three or four, I felt a strange sense of urgency to take a photo of the two of us. I still have it, in a frame, on my desk.

On a Saturday afternoon, this December, her time came. She was 13 – a good innings, as the English say.

A friend of mine reminded me, “You gave her a good life and she knew it.”

A good innings, indeed. For both of us.

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

Thanks in large part to social media, and in equally large part to the mean-spirited discourse of the day, virtually anything can be turned into a national controversy.

For Exhibit A, I go to Melania Trump or, more specifically, to the first lady’s coat.

If you remember last holiday season, Mrs. Trump was lambasted by the media and Hollywood types for her red Christmas trees.

This year, because there are no red Christmas trees or otherwise scandalous decorations in the White House, Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan went wardrobe on Melania.

“Melania Trump’s Christmas decorations are lovely, but that coat looks ridiculous,” Givhan wrote. She also called it “a discomforting affectation taken to a ludicrous extreme.”

Based on Givhan’s criticism, you’d think the first lady was wearing a fresh bear carcass with the head still on.

I’m no expert in women’s fashion, as any woman I know will attest. But I like the coat. I would encourage you to see for yourself, but in the photo released by the White House, the coat is draped over her shoulders. I’m not sure of the color. Looks like an off-white or beige to me, but I think it looks nice. But, as I say, I’m no expert.

Was it Sigmund Freud or Calvin Klein who said, “Sometimes a coat is just a coat.”?

For Exhibit B – and I could keep going down the alphabet but there’s only so much time – I take you to Twitter, currently abuzz with criticisms and parody videos of a holiday Peloton commercial made by angry people with incredible amounts of downtime.

CNN ran a story under the headline, “Peloton’s perplexing new holiday ad has incensed the internet.”

The internet is always incensed about something, so that’s not exactly breaking news. But the ad itself, which you’ve probably seen by now, features a woman receiving a Peloton indoor bike as a gift from her husband and then chronicling her fitness journey on video.

The ad has been called sexist, among other things.

In its report, CNN asks the question, “So what, then, makes this ad so offensive?”

The question, of course, assumes that everyone finds the ad offensive.

I don’t see what’s offensive about it. It seems to me that Peloton has actually exercised (See, what I did there?) significant restraint, under the circumstances.

Peloton bikes feature an interactive screen with live and on-demand fitness classes led by a professional. Imagine the possibilities for offending.

“Pick up the pace, pork chop!”

“Why is your house so dark? You must be blocking out the sun. Pedal faster!”

“Come on! Imagine there’s a pizza at the finish line!

Now, that’s offensive.

As it stands, I don’t see what’s objectionable about a well-to-do, professional woman getting an exercise bike as a gift. But I’d clearly be in the minority in any survey of the frequently outraged and easily offended, a growing group which now includes Vice writer Katie Way.

“Her grim motivation that pushes her to drag herself out of bed combined with exclaiming at the camera how blatantly, inexplicably nervous the Peloton makes her paint a bleak portrait of a woman in the thrall of a machine designed to erode her spirit as it sculpts her quads,” Way wrote. “Titled ‘The Gift That Gives Back,’ the 30-second commercial is a mere glimpse into the barrage of horror its protagonist, a young wife and mother, slogs through daily.”

“Barrage of horror” might be just a bit strong. The woman is pedaling a bike, not landing on Omaha Beach.

These bikes aren’t cheap – about $2,500 – and given the woman’s luxurious surroundings, some have said the commercial smacks of “privilege,” which I suppose means a privileged person can be defined thus: Someone who has something I want but can’t afford so she shouldn’t have it either.

There is one thing a little odd about the ad. The woman featured appears just as fit at the beginning of the commercial as she does at the end. This is not a “before and after” scenario. The benefits of her fitness journey seem a little ambiguous.

But why should I care? My workout often includes hitting tractor tires with a sledge hammer. Whatever gets you through the day.

Was it Freud of Jack LaLanne who said, “Sometimes a bike is just a bike.”?

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

I’m not going to stop eating at Chick-fil-A for three reasons. First, I like it. Second, if I started avoiding businesses with which I might have a philosophical or ideological difference of opinion, my options would be pretty limited. Third, I believe Christianity would be much better served if Christians would focus more or introducing people to Jesus and less on boycotting restaurants and coffee shops.

But I am disappointed.

I’m disappointed because Chick-fil-A capitulated to political pressure and bullying from the left. The company, whose mission statement since its founding by Truett Cathy is “to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us,” evidently decided faithful stewardship is now bad for business or just too much trouble.

I understand that constantly defending yourself against baseless accusations is wearying. I also understand that demonstrators with signs showing up at your business locations is a bad look.

Chick-fil-A has been blocked from opening locations in the San Antonio and Buffalo airports amid criticism for supporting organizations with traditional, Christian views on sexuality. LGBTQ+ protests led to the decision to close a location in Reading, England.

“We’re taking in on the chin,” an anonymous Chick-fil-a executive told the website Bisnow.

Earlier this week, the restaurant chain announced it is ceasing donations to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) and The Salvation Army, two Christian organizations that believe, among other things, what the Bible says about sexuality and in the biblical definition of marriage – one man and one woman – as if Bible-believing Christians have other options.

Activists on the political left have targeted Chick-fil-A because they believe FCA and the Salvation Army, and Chick-fil-A itself, are generally hostile to the LGBTQ+ community.

Chick-fil-A had already stopped donating to organizations, such as the Family Research Council, that are politically active in opposing same-sex marriage.

FCA and the Salvation Army are neither political nor hostile, toward anyone. I’m not speaking for either but I do know that both organizations – while adhering to the authority of Scripture – believe that human beings are made in God’s image and are not defined by their sexuality. But neither FCA nor the Salvation Army affirms same-sex marriage or gender as a social construct. In today’s world, that makes you a bigot.

The Salvation Army is a Christian denomination that ministers to people of all races, religions and sexual orientations throughout the world. It has never treated the LGBTQ+ community as an enemy to be defeated.

“We serve more than 23 million individuals a year, including those in the LGBTQ+ community,” the Salvation Army stated Monday. “In fact, we believe we are the largest provider of poverty relief to the LGBTQ+ population. When misinformation is perpetuated without fact, our ability to serve those in need, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or any other factor, is at risk.”

We live in an age when biblical orthodoxy comes with consequences. It always has. Capitulation also has consequences.

“[Chick-fil-A] has abandoned their principles and betrayed the consumers who buoyed their rise from relative obscurity into the multibillion-dollar colossus that it is today,” writes John Hirschauer in National Review.

You’ll get no argument from me. I’m just not all that surprised. Christian universities and churches throughout the country have compromised biblical principles in the name of cultural acceptance. Why not a chicken restaurant?

“As we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are,” Chick-fil-A COO Tim Tassopoulos said.

We all need to be clear about who we are. Professions of faith and mission statements don’t mean much if they’re not reflected in our behavior.

The same applies to Christians who would rather spend their time and energy maneuvering their ideological opponents into checkmate rather than recognizing their dignity as human beings, and understanding that they are coming to the debate from a vastly different place.

The irony here is that capitulation will not be enough. The angry mob, with its pitchforks and torches, will be back. It doesn’t recognize differing viewpoints or acknowledge room for compromise. It will never be satisfied.

The sad thing is that Chick-fil-A seems to have exchanged truth for expediency and cultural relevance.

If we’re honest, we all face the same choice.

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

I’m not sure who to believe anymore.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman, and impeachment hearing ringmaster, Adam Schiff (D-Cal.) says he doesn’t know the identity of the whistleblower.

President Trump says he’s “too busy” to watch the hearings on television.

Each claim seems a bit far-fetched.

There are multiple reports that members of Schiff’s staff had secret meetings with the whistleblower. And we all know it’s unlike the president to miss, much less ignore, anything said about him by the media or his political opponents.

So, we hunker down with a bag of chips to watch the hearings to see if our side is winning. Meanwhile, America loses.

This process, such as it is, is so polluted by partisanship that I have very little confidence we are ever going to get to the truth which, after all, is what this is supposed to be about.

Instead, these hearings are an exercise in groupthink. Either the president is being railroaded or he’s already guilty and all that’s left is to fill in a few blanks.

Impeaching a president is a big deal. It doesn’t happen very often – four times in the history of the republic, though Richard Nixon resigned before the vote. It would be nice if we could trust our elected representatives as responsible stewards of such a gravely serious procedure.

But we can’t, and it’s their fault.

Our political discourse has plunged to such depths as to make it nearly impossible to accept anything we see or hear at face value. Many, if not most Democrats blame the president for this. Fine. To be clear, Trump doesn’t help himself by his bombast and name-calling. He has several nicknames for Schiff including “little pencil-neck.”

On the other hand, Schiff’s motives seem less than pure when he holds a series of secret hearings and declares, before any official impeachment inquiry, that the president is guilty.

On Tuesday, a day before the public hearings began, Schiff told NPR that he sees several impeachable offenses in Trump’s recent past, including bribery.

This is the same guy who, a year ago, told anyone who would listen there was “ample evidence” to prove the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians.

“There’s a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office the Justice Department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time,” Schiff said last December.

Due process is a fine idea, unless we really, really dislike the accused.

The media doesn’t help matters. If you watched the coverage on CNN and Fox News, you’d swear there are two hearings going on simultaneously; one that cements Trump’s guilt and another that exonerates him.

Most of the mainstream media declared Trump guilty long before his phone call with the president of Ukraine and well before the Mueller hearing. The New York Daily News, for example, wrote in a March 2016 editorial that “it’s not too early to start” the process of impeaching Trump.

It’s not breaking news that we don’t trust politicians and the media. The Congressional approval rating is hovering around 25 percent and, according to the latest Gallup poll, only 13 percent of Americans have a “great deal” of trust in the media when it comes to reporting news accurately and fairly.

And somehow, we’re supposed to trust the reporting on the current impeachment hearings. It doesn’t work that way.

If bias confirmation is enough to satisfy us, hearings marked by partisanship and grandstanding, followed by a healthy dose of agenda-driven reporting will do nicely.

But if we’re actually interested in getting to the truth, we’re pretty much on our own, though I am beginning to wonder if anyone really cares.

Of course, we should care. This is important. But there is a point at which the voices, on both sides, all sound the same – like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

According to a Reuters poll last month, 54 percent of independents agreed that lawmakers “should focus on fixing important problems facing Americans, rather than focusing on investigating President Trump,” while 34 percent disagreed.

The Democrats are taking a big risk by bringing this investigation to television. If those poll numbers are accurate, Americans who will decide the next election don’t seem to have the appetite for the political version of Friday Night SmackDown.

I realize that comparing the work of honest, dedicated Americans to a well-choreographed, public spectacle featuring trained actors is a bit unfair.

My apologies to professional wrestlers.

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

Joe Biden is going to win the Democratic nomination for president. I wouldn’t run to your bookie with this information. My track record is spotty, at best. But I’ll be shocked if I’m wrong and I’ll have plenty of company, including many Democrats.

I don’t believe Biden is going to win because he’s putting together a great campaign or because he has the best ideas. In fact, if I were advising the former vice president, I would tell him to take some time off. Don’t do anything or say anything. Just kind of disappear for a while. The nomination is in the bag.

Biden will win because Democrats, in their collective heart of hearts, believe he’s the only one who can beat President Donald Trump.

Sure, there will be a few more gaffes on the way to the nomination, and he might think he’s in Detroit when he’s actually in San Antonio, but that only makes him more kindly and relatable – an absent-minded uncle who pulls a silver dollar out of your ear.

If there is such a thing as a moderate Democrat these days, Biden is it. His positions on various hot-button issues, such as capital punishment and abortion have moved to the left over the years, but he has not endorsed a “Medicare for all” plan that his Democratic challengers are championing. He’s supported the “spirit” of the Green New Deal, if not the actual proposal, which left many climate activists wondering where he stands. Biden has a plan of his own, which includes elimination carbon emissions by 2050.

Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth Action, told the Associated Press in June that Biden’s commitment to climate change is “somewhat anemic.”

Well played, Joe. A solid, C-plus, right in the meaty part of the curve.

Biden is playing to the middle, at least compared to other candidates like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), who has a variety of crazy schemes which include eliminating private health insurance, free college for all, eliminating the Electoral College and a $52 trillion Medicare-for-all plan which, she says will not necessitate raising taxes on the middle class. This, of course, is a lie. There aren’t enough rich people in this country to pay for Warren’s Golden Corral, all-you-can-eat, entitlement buffet.

The media love Warren but they also loved Hillary Clinton. They’re just bored with Biden. He doesn’t move the needle much either way. He’s neither particularly inspiring nor overtly offensive. And this is why he’s going to win the nomination.

While a recent Monmouth University poll showed Biden and Warren in a virtual dead heat, a Fox News poll of likely Democratic primary voters revealed 68 percent believe that Biden can defeat Trump, compared to 57 for Warren.

But here’s some news that should give Democrats the heebiest of jeebies; according to a New York Times/Sienna College survey, Trump trails Biden but leads Warren in the battleground states that will ultimately decide the election.

Think about that for a second. Looming impeachment, low approval ratings, unrelenting attacks from a media that can’t stand him and still, Trump is competitive in swing states. Considering that the Democrats are actively involved in a primary and Trump really hasn’t started campaigning yet, Democrats should be worried.

If they want to give Trump a gift, they should nominate Warren.

To be sure, there are many progressives who believe Biden is too moderate, too centrist, and that he does nothing to energize younger voters. His nomination, they say, would lead to a repeat of 2016.

Biden is, indeed, the safe, establishment candidate. You might argue that so was Hillary Clinton. But she had baggage Biden doesn’t – too many people just didn’t like her. Warren has likeability issues as well, along with an extreme agenda. Will moderate, blue-collar, union-member voters in states like Michigan and Wisconsin vote for Warren? For what it’s worth, the Times survey says “no.”

Of course, the Democratic party will eventually support whichever candidate starts winning primaries and will jettison the others, much like the crew of the Star Trek Enterprise jettisoned Mr. Spock in Wrath of Khan.

But for Democrats who believe in an alternative to tepid, “middle-class Joe,” I leave you with the words of Spock himself:

“It is curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.”

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

“What do you do with the sands of time…when they carve out lines around your eyes?”

It’s a line from a sad Willie Nelson song called, “You remain.” I heard the song this week and thought of someone.

Nelson sings about regret and pieces of the past that now haunt him. He simply can’t let go. There are too many reminders, too many memories. “What do you do with old regrets?” he asks.

The someone I thought of when I heard the song was Merrilee Hancock.

Merrilee is 61 now. She’s watched the years streak by but something has remained in her life, something more than memories, something real that all of us would be blessed to experience, though not enough of us do. She calls it “absolute love,” the kind of love that endures, the kind that comes without explanations or conditions.

I first heard about Merrilee’s story from her husband, Dave, then from Merrilee herself.

Merrilee grew up just off a country road in Napa, California. The property is now a vineyard. But 47 years ago, Merrilee lived there, with her stepfather, when Jim and Cookie Rustice moved in across the street.

The Rustices had four children of their own. One day, in April, 1973, Merrilee knocked on the Rustices’ door and introduced herself.

Merrilee began babysitting the Rustice children when she was 15 and she became close with the family, who treated her more as a daughter than a neighbor. In 1980, Merrilee’s stepfather died.

When Merrilee was 26, she met Dave Hancock, whom she would eventually marry. When she introduced him to the Rustices, something strange happened. At least Dave thought it was strange. She introduced Jim and Cookie as her parents, their children as her brothers and sisters. Dave knew Merrilee had biological parents.

“I thought it was a little strange,” Dave Hancock told me.

Eventually, everything would make sense.

It seemed Merrilee and the Rustices had informally adopted each other. It was a relationship that would survive almost five decades.

“She’s always been a part of our family from the beginning,” Cookie Rustice said, in an interview with CBS 8 in San Diego.

Cookie Rustice is now 79. Jim is 80. Recently, Cookie had some health problems and decided she wanted to do something that hadn’t seemed necessary, at least not until she realized, as Nelson sang, “You can close your fist up good and tight,” but you can’t hold back the sands of time.

“She says, ‘We always have thought of her as a daughter, why don’t we adopt her?'” Jim Rustice said.

Because Merrilee’s parents have passed away, the Rustices would need Dave Hancock’s permission to adopt his wife.

Dave said he cried when the Rustices told him the news.

“There’s no sweeter thing,” he said. “What 80-year-old adopts a 61-year-old?”

Dave then told Merrilee.

“The adoption [idea] was a total and delightful surprise; actually made me cry,” she told me.

When she was actually able to process what was happening, as adoption day drew closer, Merrilee juggled a variety of emotions.

“Excitement, love, nervous, happy, and most of all, grateful for the blessing these people have brought to my life,” she said last week.

The adoption was finalized Oct. 18 in, of all places, juvenile court. After all, that’s where adoptions typically take place and there’s no provision – nor has there been any need – for the adoption of a 61-year old.

But absolute love pays no attention to age and it transcends convention.

Jim and Cookie Rustice recently celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary. Their four adult children now have an older sister, officially.

“She is just really special. We love her. A good girl,” Cookie said.

There are a number of things that strike me about this story. But perhaps more than anything, it’s the intentional nature of absolute love – the kind Merrilee is talking about.

There was no practical reason for the Rustices to adopt Merrilee and their relationship won’t change. But the highly unusual step of two senior citizens adopting someone in her sixties is simply an expression of love – uncommon, bold, unusual and absolute.

Willie was right. We can either watch the sand slip through and mourn yesterday or we can embrace today, because that’s the day we’ve been given.

Merrilee Hancock understands this. So do her mom and dad.

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

Imagine somewhere between Shawshank and a Motel 6.

You’ll come up with something pretty close to the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institute in Texas.

It’s a medium security prison, and we recently learned how mediocre its security really is. Inmates tend to escape, and in perhaps the most interesting twist in the history of prison breaks, they come back.

It seems four inmates – that we know of – have pretty much been coming and going as they pleased. They walk out, buy liquor, cigarettes, cellphones, and other contraband they can move in the joint, and they return.

Not exactly Clint Eastwood digging his way out of Alcatraz with a soup spoon and swimming across the bay.

The four men who had been using the federal slammer in Beaumont as a YMCA finally got caught last week.

U.S. Marshals told NBC News they had received “repeated reports” of inmates escaping and coming back with contraband. The Marshals weren’t sure how they were escaping.

Something tells me it wasn’t Tim Robbins bodysurfing through the sewer.

It occurs to me that in a recent column I was highly critical of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion that the U.S. abolish prisons. It seemed to me a ridiculous, naive, impractical idea. But maybe we should just make prison voluntary. Perhaps we’ve underestimated its appeal. Or maybe we’ve been watching too many movies. Let’s not do away with correctional facilities. Just unlock the doors and see who’s willing to hang around. Maybe we’d be pleasantly surprised.

Of course, this would ruin some great prison songs.

Maybe the guy Johnny Cash was singing about in “Folsom Prison Blues” wouldn’t have been so down in the dumps if he knew he could just walk down the street and pick up some whiskey and a Bowie knife.

“I’m stuck in Folsom prison.” Not anymore you’re not.

Elvis Pressley’s “Jailhouse Rock” wouldn’t be the same either.

“Sad sack was sittin’ on a block of stone… Way over in the corner weepin’ all alone…”

If he only knew attendance was optional.

The “prison movie” genre would also take a significant hit. Entire scripts would have to be rewritten.

Remember “Cool Hand Luke?” Paul Newman played Luke, the inmate who refused to conform to the rules of a brutal southern prison and kept escaping.

Guard: “Sorry, Luke. Just doin’ my job. You gotta appreciate that.”
Luke: “Aw, callin’ it your job don’t make it right, boss.”

It just wouldn’t have been the same had Luke said, “Aw, don’t worry about it boss. I was coming back anyway. In fact, I picked up some Budweiser and beef jerky for you.”

The Beaumont incident, while rare, was not the first of its kind.

Virtually the same thing was happening at a federal prison in Atlanta a couple of years ago. Those inmates had vehicles waiting for them.  One snuck out at least three times to see his girlfriend. Another, who was apparently planning quite a shindig, was caught with a cell phone, a pair of scissors, two 1.75-liter bottles of Jose Cuervo tequila, two cartons of Newport cigarettes, four boxes of Black & Mild Cigars and some food, according to CNN. His pantry is better stocked than mine. And this was the same federal pen that once housed Al Capone. Maybe old “Scarface” had just given up at that point.

In July, a Tennessee man escaped from a county jail only to come back seven hours later.

I’ve never done any prison time but I’m pretty sure that if I was on the loose for seven hours I wouldn’t be making my way back to the “Big House.” Unless, of course, life on the inside was comparatively more attractive than freedom and especially if someone else – you and me – was paying.

The federal Bureau of Prisons is responsible for housing about 184,000 federal inmates, according to 2017 statistics, at a cost of about $34,000 per year, per inmate.

I don’t want to suggest the unauthorized long weekends at Beaumont indicate some sort of national trend, but it would be nice to know that federal inmates are where they belong while they pay their debt to society.

The four Beaumont inmates have been charged with escape and are back in prison. Hopefully, someone has patched the hole in the fence or at least locked the front door.

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

He was once hit hard enough to lacerate his kidney. He woke up the next day urinating blood.

That’s neither a common experience nor an occupational hazard for most of us. It is if you play professional football.

In addition to the kidney laceration, he has suffered a sprained shoulder, torn cartilage in his ribs, a concussion and shoulder surgery which caused him to miss all of the 2017 season. This season he was dealing with a calf strain.

So, citing the physical and mental burden that come with the accumulation of such injuries, Andrew Luck, 29, quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts, decided to retire last weekend.

Luck officially announced his retirement after the Colts’ preseason game against the Chicago Bears. But the story leaked during the game, while Luck was standing on the sidelines. As Luck left the field in Indianapolis, where he played for seven years, some fans booed him, loud enough to be heard on TV and loud enough for Luck to hear.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I heard the reaction,” Luck said. “Yeah, it hurt. I’ll be honest, it hurt.”

I hope it’s at least of some consolation to Luck that many of those booing him probably count walking to the fridge as an aerobic workout.

NFL football players are wired differently than the rest of us. These are uber-competitive people who launch themselves at one another with little regard for their personal safety. Their careers are brief ‒ only an average of 3.3 years, according to the union that represents the players. They leave the game beat up, with damage that often lingers for a lifetime. It’s no wonder when every play is a car crash.

Yes, they played the game by choice and were well-paid. That doesn’t make them less human. And if a player like Luck decides he’s had enough, that’s up to him and his family.

The booing of Luck is a lot of things – shameful, disgraceful, embarrassing, among others. It’s also confusing.

I love NFL football and watch a lot of it. We buy tickets and that gives us the right to jeer. But I have to wonder what the booing of Luck says about us as fans, and as people.

A man decides he can no longer compete at his maximum level because of the pounding he’s endured and walks away, leaving potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on the table. And we view that as an affront. We paid our money after all. He should continue to bleed for us, whether he wants to or not.

I realize the timing of Luck’s announcement – two weeks before the start of the regular season ‒ wasn’t ideal and that the Colts let him keep $24 million in bonuses per his current contract. But these issues are between Luck and Colts. Or at least they should be.

Instead, it’s all about us and our entertainment and there’s no room for empathy, even among those who should know better.

“Retiring cause rehabbing is ‘too hard’ is the most millennial thing ever,” FS1 commentator Doug Gottlieb tweeted Saturday night.

That drew a harsh response from NFL analyst and former quarterback Troy Aikman.

“What qualifies you to decide how someone should live their life?” Aikman tweeted. “So you’re now the authority on what motivates Andrew Luck? And if his decisions don’t fit into what you think is best for him then you rip him?”

Bo Jackson, whose NFL career ended prematurely due to a debilitating hip injury, also chimed in.

“Don’t criticize a man until you’ve worn his cleats,” Jackson tweeted. “If you’ve never strapped on the pads you have no business commenting on something you know nothing about.”, ,

Bo knows.

You might expect such responses from Jackson or Aikman, who has said he suffered at least six concussions during his playing career.

But what about the rest of us? Don’t our eyes tell us enough about what these men go through every Sunday? Do we need to be concussed or carried off a football field ourselves to understand what led to Luck’s decision?

Injuries didn’t allow Luck to become the quarterback his skillset indicated he would be when he came out of Stanford in 2012. Don’t think he isn’t aware of that.

Still, he was very good and he played through the kind of pain most of us will never experience.

Andrew Luck gave what he had. That should be enough.

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

Harry Reid is starting to make sense.

I was afraid this day would come. Perhaps it’s an indication of the Apocalypse or, at the very least, that multiple blows to the head, received during my less-than-stellar amateur athletic career, have finally caught up with me.

It’s amazing what a politician will say when he isn’t running for anything or trying to hold onto power. This is one among many reasons I favor term limits, which are about as realistic as an Uber to Mars.

Nevertheless, the former Senate Democratic leader has called out his party’s presidential candidates for their unrealistic solutions to intractable problems such as rising health care costs and illegal immigration.

Reid recently told Vice that Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare-for-All” plan is the wrong way to go on health care. He favors retooling Obamacare. He also took issue with the idea of decriminalizing illegal border crossings.

“People want a fair immigration system. They don’t want an open-door invitation for everybody to come at once,” Reid said.

Reid might have also added, but didn’t, that it would be nice if Democrats would come up with an economic policy that wasn’t hatched on the campus of Sherwood Forest University in the Robin Hood School of Economics.

“We will tax the hell out of the wealthy,” said Bill de Blasio, Democratic candidate for president. He’s also rumored to be mayor of New York City but no one has seen him there recently.

I realize hating rich people and wanting to take their money and give it to someone else is in vogue right now but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

If you are one of those “Stick-it-to-the-man!” proponents, you need to realize that you might actually be “the man” or “woman” or “person” one of these days.

The Democrats’ wish list of free stuff – health care for everyone, student loan forgiveness, college tuition, a guaranteed job – would total about $41 trillion. As Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute wrote in December, the math doesn’t work. Even if you took every penny from the top 1 percent, you wouldn’t fund a Medicare-for-all program. And doubling the top tax brackets (from 35 and 37 percent to 70 and 74 percent) “would close just one-fifth of the long-term Social Security and Medicare shortfall. Even seizing all annual income earned over $500,000 would not come close.”

What all that means is the middle class will eventually bear the burden of these government giveaways. If you didn’t consider yourself wealthy before, congratulations.

This isn’t about “fairness” either. “The top-earning 20 percent of taxpayers earn 53 percent of the income, yet pay 69 percent of all federal taxes, including 88 percent of all income taxes,” Riedl wrote, based on numbers from the Congressional Budget Office.

So, the idea that the rich will fund the Democratic Socialist agenda is either a leftist fantasy or an outright lie. Of course, when you don’t have any serious ideas that don’t involve a massive redistribution of wealth, fantasies and lies will do nicely.

The odd thing is progressives continue to push these policies despite the fact that we can all see they don’t work.

California, for example, long under Democratic control, has become exactly what progressives claim to abhor – a place where only the super wealthy thrive.

“The annual household income necessary to buy a median-priced home now tops $320,000,” wrote New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo in May. “Yet the streets there are a plague of garbage and needles and feces, and every morning brings fresh horror stories from a ‘Black Mirror’ hellscape: Homeless veterans are surviving on an economy of trash from billionaires’ mansions.”

There is a serious shortage of affordable housing in California. Yet, the Democratic legislature doesn’t seem to have the stomach to do anything about it, which Manjoo calls “another chapter in a dismal saga of Nimbyist urban mismanagement that is crushing American cities.”

“Not-in-my-backyardism is a bipartisan sentiment,” he wrote, “but because the largest American cities are populated and run by Democrats – many in states under complete Democratic control – this sort of nakedly exclusionary urban restrictionism is a particular shame of the left.”

It’s a searing indictment of ultra-progressivism but for those who think he’s wrong, the evidence suggests otherwise.

You might have heard about California liberals wanting to secede from the United States.

There are a lot of reasons why they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

Mainly, they won’t be able to afford the gas.

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Copyright 2019 Rich Manieri, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, “We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me” is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at [email protected].