James M. Redwine

America

It Is On U.S.

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The title of a CNN article by Aaron Blake is, “Trump Launches the Regime-Change Effort in Iran that he Pledged to Avoid”. But President Trump did not start our wars with Iran, America did. We live in a republic where we choose our representatives. Their actions are our actions. The blame and shame for Israel sending three missiles into an elementary girls school in Minab in southern Iran to prevent the girls from developing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, is ours. We murdered more than 100 children in what Israel called its preemptive opening act of self-defense. We share Israel’s shame and blame for this crime; but we did not have the right to elect Benjamin Netanyahu. No, our Supreme Leader, who enabled and abetted these war crimes, is in office because we chose him twice. Or, as Donald Trump says three times, due to what he calls the stolen 2020 election.

During the Viet Nam War we Americans were branded with our country’s public attitude as reflected by the stated military strategy against the people of Viet Nam and Cambodia. General Curtis LeMay said we were going to “Bomb them back to the Stone Age”. Fifty-eight thousand of our soldiers and over 1,000,000 Vietnamese were slaughtered in that endless and mindless tragedy. That is the same strategy Israel has been and still is applying in Palestine with our encouragement, weaponry and diplomatic immunity. Israel is using the same actions now in Lebanon and Syria.

Americans who opposed the Viet Nam War and those who now oppose the war with Iran are reminded of the 1960’s folk song by Phil Ochs, “Is There Anybody Here?”:

♫ ….
[Verse 3]

Is there anybody here
Who thinks that following the orders takes away the blame?
Is there anybody here
Who wouldn’t mind to murder by another name?
…. ♫

Or as pointed out by the war hero, Senator Mark Kelly, whom Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wants to court martial for pointing out what is clearly the moral and legal duty of the military that they should refuse illegal orders. Before Kelly flew all those combat missions during the Viet Nam War, he could have paid a medico to find bone spurs in his ankles and let some other “suckers and losers”, as Trump called D-Day’s heroes, go risk life and limb to serve their country in Viet Nam.

President Trump declared one of his main objects of our attacks on Iran was regime change. With Israel’s killing of Ali Khamenei and other senior leaders of Iran’s government, that objective has been met, not by ballots, but by bullets. America has the right to regime change also. We have several non-ballistic alternatives and all of them require citizen and elected representative involvement. Impeachment is one non-violent alternative.

But, to cast the blame on the narcissistic, megalomaniacal military decisions of one person out of 350 million does not absolve the rest of us. We are America; President Trump is one American. The blame and shame are on U.S. all.

Follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

 

The More Things Change

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Photo by Peg Redwine

President Trump gave his 2026 State of the Union address last night, 24 February 2026. He spoke for almost two hours on several topics. One of the most important was the survival of humanity as highlighted by his insistence that he would not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. After the world saw the destruction the United States rained down on Japan in 1945, rational people realized we humans had finally “progressed” to the ability to make ourselves extinct. Or as former mathematics professor turned folksong singer Tom Lehrer (1928-2025) wrote about WWIII during his stint on the television show That Was the Week That Was:

♫ So long Mom I’m off to drop the bomb
So don’t wait up for me
But while you swelter
Down there in your shelter
You can see me on your TV
….
I’ll look for you when the war is over
An hour and a half from now. ♫

Since our Manhattan Project, 1942-1947, the world has raced rapidly towards Armageddon. The Russians spied on us for nuclear secrets with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were executed, while the Israelis stole our nuclear bomb using Jonathan Pollard who was released by the USA and now lives the good life in Israel. Pollard’s Israeli handler, Aviem Sella, who recruited Pollard to spy against us was granted a full pardon by outgoing President Donald Trump on January 20, 2021.

Israel and Russia both have the bomb and the ability to deliver it anywhere in America, Russia by its own devices and Israel by our knowing enablement. Our traditional allies, Great Britain and France, possess nuclear weapons as do our traditional enemies, China and North Korea. Whether India and Pakistan are considered friends is a matter of debate, but both possess nuclear weapons. Other countries may have nuclear weapons programs also but in various stages of development. There is no doubt several nuclear bomb capable countries are already beyond Iran’s paper tiger status as far as being able to strike back at America if we were to try to disarm them.

So, Mr. President, why are we readying another military attack on Iran who, according to you, if it ever had a military nuclear program, you and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu obliterated it in 2025? Why are you so eager to take us to war with Iran which has no nuclear bomb program when we are not attacking countries we know have bombs and the means to drop them on America? How about concentrating on the real national threats, such as the economy and our health care? Instead, we are acting like a cowardly schoolyard bully when it comes to weak, feckless, and according to you, nuclear harmless Iran.

We know China and Russia and perhaps soon North Korea might gladly stand up to us, but that Iran could not land a punch on our homeland even with non-nuclear missiles. Iran is the weakling a bully uses to glorify its power. Why don’t we just do what a true hero would do, and bring our troops home until and unless they are needed, as our Constitution provides, to defend our homeland?

We have allowed Russia to invade Ukraine, China to threaten Taiwan, North Korea to bully South Korea and we enable and support Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians because those countries are capable of striking back at us. Also, you apparently have failed to consider our own military personnel who will have to do the killing and dying.

Mr. President, our military is not a Christmas toy for a spoiled child to play with. Please reconsider your rush to abuse our citizens and those of other countries. You tout yourself as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. To be truly worthy of it, please make peace, by not ordering our country into another unnecessary war. As General Norman Schwarzkopf said, “It doesn’t take a hero” to order others into combat.

In your State of the Union speech, you spoke of Christianity and how, in your opinion, religion is integral to our Union. Jesus might refer you to his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:9), “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Mr. President, real service, not lip service is true leadership.

Bad Bunny vs. Bad Donnie

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Our version of a Puerto Rican cane field; a corn field in Posey County, Indiana. Photo by Peg Redwine

Metaphors are never perfect. If they were, they would be identical copies, not learning opportunities. A more perfect metaphor for Donald Trump’s vision of America versus Bad Bunny’s vision of how Donnie treats Puerto Rico would have had the New York Jets play the Seattle “Sharks” in the 2026 Super Bowl. This would have left no doubt of the half-time show message. My northeast coast bred wife, Peg, said about five minutes into the spectacular production of telephone poles, sugar cane bundles and salsa rhythms, “Hey, Jim, this is West Side Story!”

With my small-town Southwest upbringing I got it a little more slowly, but I had to agree. Donald Trump’s MAGA view of America (the white Jets) was juxtaposed to Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio’s Puerto Rico (the Sharks). Themes of immigration, bias, and what America is truly about were punctuated by throbbing music and ecstatic dancing. In less than fifteen minutes, Bad Bunny celebrated the culture of the United States and of Puerto Rico and Spanish speaking peoples, including soccer, but reaffirmed America’s triumphant football talisman by personally carrying a “real” football.

Bad Bunny has stated that the only thing stronger than hate is love. He described his “fifteen minutes of half-time fame” as the desire for Americans to conquer hate with love, especially through music and dancing. Bunny, dressed all in white, joined that endless legacy of dreamers such as Jesus, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) who advance the hope that love will conquer hate. I am less sanguine, but it is probably better to keep an open mind even in the face of thousands of years of contrary evidence.

I am familiar with Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story but confess I had never heard of Bad Bunny until Super Bowl LX. On the other hand, I had never heard of Taylor Swift until she started showing up at Kansas City Chiefs games. I do know a few songs by that earlier “Elvis the Pelvis” who drove my generation’s parents to distraction and to whom Bad Bunny is compared for what the Donald calls Bunny’s pornographic movements and song lyrics (does Donald even understand Spanish?). Although, if anyone should recognize pornography it might be someone judged by a jury with sexual assault. Unfortunately, the endings for both Romeo and Juliet and for Tony and Maria were not love conquering hate but tragedy.

If football is America’s new substitute for great literature, the Super Bowl half-time show may have become the type of looking glass through which we see and seize our country’s future. Will we celebrate another 250 years of our Constitutional republic and a striving for what even our most mundane athletic contests offer: Due Process and the Rule of Law as interpreted by impartial officials? Or will we finally have reached the final gun as so many other cultures have done? Bad Bunny says he is betting on love while Donald proudly professes hate for his enemies.

If sports are a metaphor for our country’s life, Super Bowl LX’s half-time show with its “Love conquers all” message may draw upon the “Better Angels of our nature”. Hey, it could happen.

 

Coach Cignetti, The Philosopher King

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Curt Cignetti was hired to be Indiana University’s football coach beginning with the 2024 college football season. In 2022 IU’s record was four wins and eight losses. For 2023 it was three wins and nine losses. In 2024 IU lost two games, one in the College Football Playoffs, and won eleven. IU just won the College Football National Championship for 2025-26 by being the only undefeated college team and posting sixteen wins and zero losses. IU started 2025 as history’s losingest college football program based on over 700 losses. A couple of basic questions are: How did IU go from the whale dung of college football to Marathon type victors (490 BC) and who wrought this miracle?

Those are important issues to ponder. However, America is currently dealing with other much more important matters than sports. Perhaps we can learn something as a country by examining how Indiana University went in two years from football fodder to pundits accusing my alma mater of cheating to win games. That has been the ultimate unintended compliment from the envious. We are now so good we must have called upon the gods or stolen signs or somehow bought a championship with NIL money. Surely no mere educational ivory tower could turn southern Indiana limestone into football lemonade in only two years.

Dunn Meadow and the Little Jordan River must have been co-opted by trolls or John Mellencamp and Mark Cuban. Only magic and money could explain the college that lost its first game in 1887, then followed it with over 700 losses, to winning the National Championship on January 19, 2026. But, what if instead of just assuming this Hoosier triumph is but a logical lacuna, we try to learn something from IU and its miraculous turnaround that can be applied to help America out of its miasma.

Is it possible that Curt Cignetti and his staff are the Philosopher Kings of football whose methods should be applied to our democracy? As Plato recommended in his Republic, instead of us choosing our leaders on the basis of popularity created by promising to give stuff away or to conquer other countries because we want their stuff, maybe we should elect our leaders based on their character, ability and hard work as proven by their past performance. Maybe we need portals which incorruptible leaders could pass through to be rewarded for their proven public-spirited expertise; Name, Image and Likeness indeed, but most importantly, proven character!

Instead of our political leaders being voted into office based on the drivel of cackling TV panelists who hate or love whomever they are promoting or opposing, what if we citizens evaluate our future leaders as Coach Curt Cignetti and his staff did for our Indiana University football champions? Quality of past performance, not feckless promises of future nirvanas are the lodestone we voters can learn to follow based on the example of these 2026 Hoosiers. Too often five-star potential from our politicians metamorphosizes into a sense of entitlement without the sweat required for production. Maybe what America needs from its leaders is evidence of proven positive results based on performance. What if we stop mouthing MAGA and adopt for our motto: “Hoo, Hoo, Hoo, Hoosiers!”?

On Facebook follow us at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

Therapy

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Photo by Peg Redwine

America needs therapy; about 350 million counselors seems about right. Where to find them and how to compensate them are the seminal issues. As therapists always approach client treatment with the same, lone question, “How do you feel about that?”, the answers to America’s dilemmas and to each of our personal problems must lie within. We need only to bring forth for analysis the quandaries we are facing, then have other individuals or groups help us solve things for ourselves.

For example, a Catholic penitent might say, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned”; he or she divulges the sin, then does whatever penance, say ten Hail Mary’s, the priest decides will expiate those transgressions. Or we pay $500 per hour to psychiatrists who might treat us by asking, “How do you feel about that?”. An example of a United States problem in need of therapy might be invading Greenland or Venezuela. Perhaps we could allow our Congressional therapists to have us explain to ourselves why America deserves and must have Greenland or Venezuela or even Iran or whatever country it will take to “Make America, or us as individuals, Great Again”.

This approach to therapy for people or for countries has been used for thousands of years. The Greeks in Persia, the Romans in Palestine, the Zionists in Palestine, the United States in Iraq, etc., etc., etc. If armed conflict offends your sensibilities, one could simply join a group that can ask that age old question, “How do you feel about that?” and let each American respond with the knowledge our group will help us work out how we truly feel. The answers are always within, it is just bringing them out that is difficult.

A literary example of successful group therapy was Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast in the Paris of the 1920’s. Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and James Joyce to name just some of the group would meet at Silvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in the Montparnasse neighborhood on the left bank of the Seine River and interchange what would become some of the best writing and therapy of any generation, especially the Lost Generation of post-World War I.

Hemingway’s experience came to mind when my long-time friend, fellow jurist and fellow writer sent me a Christmas present of his therapy group’s book, Holiday Tales from the San Juans. It is a compilation of his writing group that meets each Thursday morning, if so inclined, at the Ruby M. Sisson Memorial Library in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. This Ruby’s Writer’s Guild consists of Judge Albert Northrop, my friend, and some of his friends in Pagosa Springs. Anyone who wishes can offer a written item such as a poem or a personal story for the rest of the Guild to ponder and pontificate upon. This is the epitome of the therapy America needs. Put the innermost thoughts out first then listen to well informed and well-intentioned responses.

An example for America might be, “Should we adhere to our Constitution or ape the behavior of despots such as Putin, Netanyahu or Hitler?” As for this one American, admittedly in need of therapy myself, I suggest a country of Ruby’s Writer’s Guilds generously sharing their thoughts would be more likely to make America America again than heedless hegemony.

Highly Resolved

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Peg getting the “Gavel Gamut” article typed, posted online and emailed on January 1, 2026. Photo by Jim Redwine

Abraham Lincoln published one of our nation’s solemn resolutions in his address at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863. The over three thousand dead Union soldiers were the particular men Lincoln referenced that day. However, since President Lincoln’s main focus of the Civil War was to hold our country together, most likely he had in mind all the dead and wounded on both sides when he said:

“…[W[e here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain…”

That resolution was not made for a New Year, but it was a noble hope for our country’s future. From 1863 until 1914 this goal was fractured by almost continuous death and destruction, such as the Indian removals, the Spanish American War and then “The War to End all wars”, World War I. After that final war, America fought WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, The Gulf War, Afghanistan, The Iraq War and so many conflicts most Americans cannot recount whom we have fought and are still fighting nor why. We are currently aiding and abetting and directly involved in Palestine and Ukraine along with Venezuela and bellicose behavior bordering on armed conflicts with so many countries and groups even the cable news cannot keep up with them.

President Lincoln’s resolution for our country has gone the way my 2025 New Year’s Resolutions have. I dug through my devout promises to myself last year and find I do not need to address any new 2026 resolutions as, just like our government, the resolutions from 1863 until January 2026 will suffice.

Therefore, I resolve to give up on exercising more, saving more, losing more weight, being nicer, helping out around JPeg Osage Ranch more and restraining my penchant to gossip about politics. After all, not one of my 2025 ideas that I have offered to our leaders has even been acknowledged, much less implemented.

I, therefore, resolve my 2025 resolutions shall “perish from the earth” should anyone be interested.

Typical “script” Peg works from! Photo by Peg Redwine