Dick Hubert’s Worldview: A list of October surprises drains our emotions in an historic countdown

October 16, 2024 at 11:44 p.m.

A police car sitting in front of Congregation KTI, the synagogue on King Street in Port Chester, is a constant reminder that the threats of antisemitic violence stemming from the Middle East can reach our shores in ugly fashion. (David Tapia/Westmore News)

This is the month for the societal/political October surprise that upends elections and our lives.

I’ve got a long surprise list, as you must, too, so here’s mine, from local, to regional, to national and international.

1. Our Board of Regents goes politically correct crazy. That’s the only conclusion possible after reading Roberta Schaefer’s mind-numbing op-ed on these pages in our Sept. 27 edition. The Regents’ intention to drop testing requirements for high school graduation is a body blow to the reputation of New York’s public schools and the value of a New York State high school diploma. I’ve tried without success to get comment from the Blind Brook school board whose members are entrusted with guarding an institution with a national reputation for quality education. In Massachusetts this Nov. 5, voters will have a chance to vote on the same issue the Regents are deciding on their own. It’s called Question #2 on the ballot, and it’s titled: Repeal Competency Assessment Requirement for High School Graduation Initiative. Ballotpedia.com has everything you might want to know here. They report that the Massachusetts Teachers Union has spent $7.6 million so far to get the requirements killed. A consortium of businesses who hire high school graduates and know the educational needs the graduates must possess has so far spent $1.5 million to persuade voters to keep the testing requirements in place. At the least this issue in Massachusetts is the subject of a heated public debate. In New York State, the Regents are sneaking it through on their own, and at least in this community, Ms. Schaefer’s exposé has been received by the sounds of silence.

2. I hoped that the Mondaire Jones/Mike Lawler Congressional battle in our neighboring 17^th District would not come down to ugly racial issues, but I should have known better. A photo of Lawler in blackface as a 20-year-old Michael Jackson fan surfaced thanks to The New York Times, with all the expected condemnation from those who say he should have known better even as a college sophomore. Not given a fraction of attention is the alliance Lawler has formed with the extremist Hasidic Jewish community. They’re trying to destroy the public schools of the East Ramapo School District with their ongoing siphoning of public school funds for their private schools, leaving the largely Black and Hispanic public school system financially crippled. Not given proper media coverage beyond that of The Journal News is NYS Education Commissioner Betsy Rosa insisting that East Ramapo’s property taxes be raised to begin the process of making up for the years-long financial vandalism. Jones has made sidelong reference to this in ads that every major TV station in New York is running, while Lawler is beating up Jones with TV ads for past positions he held. Control of the federal House of Representatives could come down to Democrats winning the New York State Republican districts like Lawler’s that the GOP won in the 2022 elections. I’ve contended in this space that Jones’ refusal to challenge Jamaal Bowman in a primary and instead try to regain a Congressional seat in Brooklyn’s then brand-new 16^th District was an epic political mistake. From where I’m sitting my gut is that Lawler has a nail-biting edge over Jones in today’s 17th.

3. We’ve just been through the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas surprise attack on Israel, and now police and bomb squads routinely protect our synagogues and Jewish community centers, while Israel carries on a war against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, other Iran supported terrorists, and Iran itself. At the same time, if, like me, you’ve been emotionally invested in the survival of Ukraine against Russian onslaught, you have to be deeply discouraged at the horrific position President Zelenskyy of Ukraine is in: the Russians throwing everything at his homeland in their human and military arsenal with the aid of weapons from Iran and North Korea plus financing from China, while support for Ukraine is problematic here in the U.S., with Donald Trump, if elected, promising to make a deal with Putin and throw Ukraine’s sacrifices to the winds. Both situations are stomach churning. 

4. And then there’s our national election, less than a month away, with early voting starting within days. Donald Trump leads a Republican avalanche of sickening lies and worse. Here’s how Axios, the leading newsletter company in the U.S., summed it up two weeks ago:

“*The big picture: In a 13-month span, Trump's speeches about migrants have become darker and apocalyptic with baseless claims the migrants have criminal records, are eating pets and could start "World War III."

*The unfounded accusations about migrants from African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries come as the GOP presidential nominee pushes for mass deportations of immigrants.

*By the numbers: An Axios analysis of 109 of Trump's speeches, debates and interviews found that he has called Venezuelan migrants criminals 70 times and Congolese migrants criminals 29 times from Sept. 1, 2023, to Oct. 2, 2024.

*He's also called migrants from El Salvador criminals 22 times and those from Honduras criminals 20 times. Trump called migrants from Mexico criminals 13 times and migrants from Guatemala criminals 10 times.

*Of the remarks analyzed by Axios, no European countries appeared on the list.”

This litany of Trump’s racist and baseless accusations conclusively shows his poisoning of the public dialogue. If you’re a migrant or the descendant of migrants (and aren’t we all), this ought to outrage you. That it does not, as anyone can tell from even our letters pages, strikes horror to the civic heart.

5. A weak American response to the threat of Russia winning in Ukraine, and Iran and its militias being at all successful in pushing their regional “destroy Israel” policy in the Middle East, will surely encourage China as it eyes an end to an independent Taiwan still on its doorstep.

Trump promises once again he’ll only have faith in the American election process if he wins. His loyal fans believe him.

These next weeks of American and world history will be emotionally draining.

Addendum

Port Chester Republican Chairman Aldo Vitagliano and I go back a long way together—we jointly worked on electing Joe Carvin as Rye Town Supervisor. But we’re in a different political world now. Carvin this year endorsed Democrat George Latimer for Congress in the pages of this newspaper. Vitagliano, loyal to the GOP in its Trumpist transformation, now picks up the Trump approach to the media. On a national level, Trump is calling for the broadcast licenses for any TV or radio station running anything he doesn’t like to be confiscated and sold to the highest bidder (Elon Musk?). Most recently on his list: CBS television stations for carrying an edition of “60 Minutes” where he cancelled a scheduled interview at the last minute. Vitagliano’s local copycat move is to demand that this newspaper cease to run my column because he didn’t like the interview I did with Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser and her published responses (the 17^th District’s GOP Congressman Mike Lawler has so far failed to endorse Flisser for Congress, while his opponent Mondaire Jones has endorsed George Latimer). Flisser reported to me she has yet to receive a dime from any GOP Political Action Committee or even the leadership of the Westchester County GOP. That’s what I called political malpractice, and Vitagliano is more than unhappy with the term.

Another reader of my column urged that I clarify which McCarren Act affected Dr. Flisser's parents. It was the McCarran-Walter Act, also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a controversial Cold War measure that changed immigration policy in the United States.

Dick Hubert, a retired television news producer-writer-reporter living in Rye Brook, has been honored with the Peabody Award, the DuPont Columbia Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Journalism Award.

Editor’s Note: This column, written by Dick Hubert, represents his opinion and not that of this newspaper.