In Washington, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Except when they get worse. The recent Democratic Party Presidential Debates had me thinking on the enclosed essay on campaign finance, fished out of the wayback machine, that appeared in Barron’s. Way back, over two decades.

If you haven’t seen it, the long version of Matt Taibbi’s critique of journalism over Russia-gate, is worth your time as an exercise in grappling with media herd instinct and the folly of putting our grand papers of record at the head of the herd.

Attending as press, alas, not as a member, I first crossed paths with the Patriotic Millionaires several years ago at one of their events in Washington. At a dinner they hosted afterwards, I had the added treat of Alan Grayson at my table, and was mighty impressed with both the group and with Grayson’s witty comments about naked influence-peddling on the Hill and Congressional hypocrisy.

Dance with the one that brought you – BERNIE! As Bernie changed the national dialogue on critical issues and transformed large swaths of the Democratic Party, that’s my bid for his slogan. 

Tick Tock. The good folks at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have returned to wind their Doomsday Clock. Last Thursday at the National Press Club a group of well-credentialed speakers, including former California governor Jerry Brown and former Secretary of Defense William Perry, underscored the organization’s warning that we have established residence in “the new abnormal.”

Despite democracy’s diminishment by gerrymandering and the playbook of suppression, your vote is still your best Hail Mary defending against the Big Money’s low art of the thinly disguised bribe. It’s your best chance to sink the oligarchy floating in on the tides of captured government.

Attending the National Press Club for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s impassioned speech on corruption, my mind drifted to an intoxicated phone call I made to Chris Mathews. It was during the Mondale/Reagan campaign, when Mathews was chief of staff to House Speaker Tip “All politics is local” O’Neil. Mathews was phenomenally gracious, given that he didn’t know me from Adam, I woke him at midnight and my tequila-fueled exasperation fell short of diplomatic grace.

Anyone who’s had the pleasure of knowing Tom Dunkel knows he’s an adept and fair observer of unique Americana who readily turns phrases that do his subjects justice. His book "Color Blind: The Forgotten Team that Broke Baseball’s Color Line," about a Depression-era integrated semi-pro baseball team out of North Dakota, is regarded as a top-tier sports book deftly matching cultural insight with entertainment.

I don’t want to genuflect to Robert Mueller as if his sainthood is imminent. Plenty of others are already busy at that task. Separating him from his legal environment is a challenge, as it’s difficult to ignore a stench floating above many aspects of the US Dept. of Justice.

Allow me to introduce a friend, Elliott Negin, who writes for the Union of Concerned Scientists. The UCS, marshals volunteers and a network of twenty-thousand scientists for a variety of objectives including fighting misinformation and attacks on science, on matters from global warming to pollution to nuclear weapons.