The time for women to lead the country and a woman to claim the presidency of the U.S. is now.

All the capable men, Republicans and Democrats alike, for the last several decades have chosen the good life by pursuing money and sex. When they are exhausted, instead of reading it as a sign nature sends to them telling them to stop, that’s enough, they weirdly resort to chemicals to enhance their performance and get deeper into non-political endeavors. The last several years have revealed the decaying of the sense of patriotic and civic duties in American men. Their political behavior has been unfocused, presenting a danger not just from the outside, the Putins of the world, but also internally such as the January 6 riot.

Look at those billionaires. Many say strange things such as taking back the right of women to vote, betraying a shallow understanding of American politics because they do not care to try to understand it. Others choose not to roll their sleeves to get involved in the running of the country but standing aside playing the wise men once in a while giving occasional advice to people in power in order to have access to power. They let the country run by less than sufficiently competent people or by the people who pursue money by way of politics.

Over the years, the competency of women in politics have been proved. Their brain is as brilliant as men’s, but their emotion is many cuts better, much calmer and much steadier. After sex on a yacht (so many male politicians want to have sex on a yacht) men just don’t want to think. They don’t want to act but because they are in important positions, act they must, but their acts are not guided by clear thinking.

On the Republican side, the choice is almost certain between Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former president Donald Trump. Most of the Republicans probably don’t want the former president to run, not much because he may present a clear and present danger to Democracy and the country, but because they are wearied that he would not be able to win. In 2020, he was riding the crest of political electorate influence, and lost. After years of repeating the tiresome refrain “rigged election”, they would not believe he would win, except for the supporters of the former president whom he himself calls parasites hitching his wagon for fame and profits.

Mr. DeSantis has played the role of an extremist Republican well. He is aggressive, ruthless, and fierce not just politically but personally. That extremism and fierceness may have played well in Florida politics but not in Peoria (I borrow the expression). The term “macho” is still not, politically, an English word nationally, and may put off a lot of voters. Not many people outside of Florida, including Republicans, approve of his arbitrary dissolving the Disney Company’s debt-issuing district, or suspending an elected State Attorney for vocally (not in action) supporting transgender people.

That is how, I surmise, the Democrats look at the Republican 2024 presidential political field.

Then, they look at themselves. What do they find? No male name out there is recognizable, let alone a male potential candidate. But several female names figure prominently.

The first name, naturally, is the vice president, Kamala Harris. The last two years did not do her well. Or more bluntly, she has not done well for herself. One can only guess but doesn’t know for sure whether that is all she is, or a Machiavellian plot behind the scenes pulls her down. She therefore is in a disadvantageous situation.

The second lady is the formidable Hillary Clinton. A lot of Americans especially women still consider her the embodiment of excellence as a woman and as a politician. In 2016, she beat Donald Trump by 2.9 million votes. That is an incredibly large number of voters. In terms of presence in front of the camera, she even beat the popular TV show host and a hovering massive body (Mr. Trump was well aware of it and consciously tried to exploit it) in the debates. So, she can be said first among the three equal potential female candidates.

But there is one big almost insurmountable hurdle that she, and her Democratic supporters, must overcome: the revengeful, efficient, and effective Republicans who have been dead set against seeing her in public life. Unless they could find an antidote, something similar to her husband’s “quick-response” team but more ruthless, the Democrats would probably pass.

That leaves Nancy Pelosi, the grandmotherly twice Speaker of the House, friendly, approachable, no scandal, as familiar with American politics and maneuverings as any politician alive. She has just added some foreign affairs experience to her attributes.

Some may raise the issue of age and health. Female longevity is 82, and male is 76. So, she at 82 years old is as young as the former president and younger than the current president. As to health, everyone can observe that she walks faster and more briskly than both the former president and the president. And more importantly, she has full command of what she is talking about.

Nancy Pelosi for President! It does not sound farfetched. In fact, it sounds desirable.

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John P. Le Phong, Esq.

At my very first court appearance in a Los Angeles County Superior Court, I was totally intimidated by my opposing counsel. She was so natural, like fish in water in the courtroom. She was walking about, smiling, and chatting at ease with other lawyers. She was in first-name conversation with the judge’s clerk.

After the lawyers’ routine identification of themselves, the judge said, “What do we have here?” and my opponent jumped the gun, “Your honor, Mr. Le Phong is so wrong …”

I was so nervous shuffling the documents in front of me waiting for her to tell the court what was wrong with my motion that I almost missed what the judge said, “Counsel, I have not made my ruling yet so you can’t say he is wrong. But you can say that you disagree with him or his argument.”

He saved me from my nervousness and enlightened me of the courtroom decorum.

That was in the lowest court in the judicial hierarchy in the U.S. It was a matter of faith for me that the higher up you go, the judges or justices would be more gentlemanly, courteous, benign. The Supreme Court, in my thinking, was the bastion of deliberateness and calm. Their debates were well controlled, their language polished, and their words carefully weighed.

Judges do differ in a lot of issues. The Supreme Court justices are no different. Reading their opinions, majority decisions and the dissents, I always feel awe and marvel at the institution, which has been built, maintained, and preserved to command deep respect from the public. Crude force, uncontrolled emotion, fighting words, discourteous language, were never to get into the justices’ debates. Not even a hint of any of those was detected from their decisions.

I used to hear, and love it very much, “I respectfully disagree” when a judge in a court of appeals or a Justice in the Supreme Court does not like an argument or decision.

So, when Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson called Roe v. Wade “egregiously wrong”, I felt saddened with these chosen words.

Roe v. Wade had been scrutinized, reviewed, critiqued for 50 years by subsequent Supreme Court cases. Again and again, they re-affirmed its decision. In my mind, if Roe v. Wade was “egregiously wrong”, that means all those cases were egregiously wrong and the Justices who wrote it and those later affirmed it were all egregiously wrong. It should be noted that the Justices who approved Roe included Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the court’s majority opinion of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey re-affirming Roe.

She went to Stanford Law School, a former Republican majority leader of the Arizona Senate, a judge in the superior court and the court of appeals of Arizona, and a Chancellor of The College of William and Mary, a post also held by fellow Republicans Henry Kissinger and Robert Gates. She was one of the most respected SCOTUS Justices (I can’t go through the bios of other Justices who wrote and supported Roe v. Wade over the last fifty years. Rest assured; their credentials were as impressive).

Justice Samuel Alito did not just disagree with Justice O’Connor. In his opinion, she, and her brethren and sistren who supported Roe were not just wrong but “egregiously wrong”. That should bother a lot of people.

Even the chief justice, John Roberts, who joined the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson, did NOT agree with the majority’s decision to overrule Roe. In fact, the State of Mississippi, represented by Thomas E. Dobbs did not even ask the Court to overturn Roe. It only asked the Court to reconsider the bright-line viability rule (when abortion should not be allowed) and stated that a ruling in its favor would not require the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Was Justice Alito arrogant? I don’t know. Is he too political? I am not sure. My guess is he might have been deeply influenced by his Catholic upbringing against abortion, and by the Republican Party’s politics in the last few years. This second part will be essayed below.

In Congress, the work environment was described by a Republican congressman as “toxic”. One Republican called her Democratic colleagues “Jihad squad”. A Republican posted an anime video depicting the killing of another, a Democrat. When he was censured, the Republicans circled the wagon. The discourse is no longer civil but outright uncivil.

The fighting between Republicans and Democrats, always present and healthy, has become bitter and extreme.

The Republicans have harbored deep resentment against the Democrats and Hillary Clinton since the late former president Richard M. Nixon was forced to resign when the impeachment process against him was under way. Hillary Clinton was a staff lawyer hired by the House Judiciary Committee to work on the impeachment. That deep resentment would have died down until her husband, William J. Clinton was elected president of the U.S. and she followed him into the White House, the center of American political power. That was the Muleta waving in front of the Republicans, the lighted cigarette butt thrown in a forest in a dry hot summer. The Republicans started digging and investigating anything connected to her, from the failed Whitewater real estate investment, the Vince Foster’s death, the Benghazi terrorist attack, to her emails.

The Clintons were investigated three times for their alleged involvement in the Whitewater real estate development. The first investigation by federal regulators led to the appointment of special prosecutor Robert B. Fiske who cleared them of any wrongdoing. Regardless, a new special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, was appointed to investigate them – again – for the same alleged wrongdoings. For two years, Mr. Starr, a Republican, worked hard to prove that the Clintons were guilty of something in connection with the Whitewater investment. He failed. But he diligently looked around and found a story about an intern in the Clinton White House. Nothing to do with Whitewater but he investigated it anyway that led to the impeachment of the former president for perjury in the intern’s case.

That started a pattern that repeated itself again and again: just hit them hard with serial investigations regardless of whether an investigation had any merit.

The Vince Foster’s suicide was investigated five times including investigations by the same Republicans Kenneth Starr and Robert B. Fisk. They all cleared the Clintons.

The Benghazi terrorist attack was investigated ten times to find if Hillary Clinton, among others, was guilty of a dereliction of duty. The FBI did not find any evidence to support the conclusion that she was. The bi-partisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence did not find that she was.

The Republicans ignored both findings. Five of their committees in the House initiated their own investigations and not even one of them could find that she was responsible in any way for the attack or the killing of the consulate staff.

But the Republicans were not done with the Benghazi investigation. A sixth House Select Committee was formed to investigate ad nauseam Benghazi. After two more years of investigation, costing seven million dollars, the committee’s 800-page report did not contain a single thing to help them charge Hillary Clinton with wrongdoing. After Mrs. Clinton testified for eight hours before his committee, a reporter asked Trey Gowdy, the committee’s chairman if he thought she lied, he responded “That’s a word you couldn’t use in a courtroom”. In the culture of Republican politics, it was a resounding “No”.

It should be noted that the person, Hillary Clinton, the Republicans believe to be guilty of something, anything, was willing to come and did come before their committee to testify for eight hours. When their time comes to testify to what they know about the January 6^th riot, they run in any direction but the hearing committee, pleading the Fifth Amendment.

One just wonders whether politics in the U.S. is still a noble call?

The Republicans were not done with Hillary Clinton either. After the FBI announced that its team of career investigators unanimously concluded that no criminal charges were warranted in its investigation of her emails, they issued seventy subpoenas and letters.

Such conduct, even though too excessive, could have been understood as diligent and legitimate work of people’s representatives serving the interest of the people and the national security of the country. But history has other events worth in-depth investigations. If the so-called “Hillary investigations” were juxtaposed with them, it is hard not to see they smacked of petty revenge and retaliation, a stubborn pitbull attack for no reason other than tearing the flesh off its object.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was not investigated that many times. In fact, only one investigative commission was formed, the Warren Commission, to investigate it. During the Trump administration, there were several things, regardless of if they were illegal or criminal, or not, worth investigating. But the Republicans have moved in the opposite direction: they consistently blocked or sabotaged any investigation to get to the bottom of any alleged wrongdoing by the former president or his administration: people’s interest or national security of the country take a hike.

American political debate has degraded to street fighting level, wrestling in the mud. Such words as noble, gentlemanly, civil are no longer applicable. Political discourse has become outright uncivil. The Republican leaders have shouted and led the chant at rallies “lock her up” while they have no more stone to turn and can’t find any wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton. Lying has become a fad. Accusations are repeated umpteen times without evidence. A pleading “say it ain’t so Joe” sounds quaint. The Cherry Tree is not just a myth but children who can watch TV would think it a ridiculous myth.

The uncivility seems to have been committed exclusively by the Republicans who have directed it even to themselves. Peter Navarro accused his Vice President Mike Pence of treason. Steve Bannon threatened to break his president’s son in law in half.

Is it deliberate?

The Republicans have sowed discord, chaos, and hostility in every political arena including, dangerously, the voting public, a sizable segment of which is still confused by the big lies and intended misinformation.

The fighting language seems to have spread from the Capitol to the building across the street and seeped through the wall of 1 First Street, NE Washington, DC, into the inner sanctum of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The abortion issue is complicated. Both sides of the issue, the women’s right and the right to life, put forth legitimate claims. If the Court in Dobbs v. Jackson said that it did not find any thing clear cut in the Constitution to guarantee a women’s right to abortion, and that the abortion issue should be reserved for each state to decide, and therefore it overruled Roe v. Wade, that would have been understandable even to the abortionists because the fight over abortion was not over and will never be. The abortionists have prevailed for fifty years and should have expected that the anti-abortionists would come back to battle again and probably win. They did win this time because the Court chose to accept their argument.

Judge Alito and the Court’s majority could have just overruled Roe v. Wade and said, “We disagree,” or more desirable,
“We respectfully disagree with Roe v. Wade.”

For the Christian right, it could be satisfying to so declare, but for the Supreme Court Justices (except the Chief Justice) to say Roe v. Wade was “egregiously wrong”, I respectfully, and sadly, disagree.

John P. Le Phong, Esq.