The upcoming 2024 Presidential election has raised serious issues which demand addressing.
Unfortunately, it’s too late to apply such remedies to this election. But they could be in place by the time the 2028 election occurs.
Reform #1: Institute mandatory FBI background investigations on all declared Presidential candidates.
Donald Trump’s trial for hush money payments to porn “star” Stormy Daniels has highlighted an issue that should have been addressed long ago: Americans don’t know as much about their candidates for President as they think they do.
- As the trial testimony of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker has revealed: In August, 2015, he met with Trump at Trump Tower and offered to use the Enquirer to catch and kill any allegations of extramarital affairs against Trump.
- Later he personally facilitated a $150,000 payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to keep her affair with Trump hushed up.
- This came in addition to Trump’s paying $130,000 in hush money to Daniels to ensure his 2006 tryst with her didn’t emerge during the campaign.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
- Similarly, in 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy successfully ran for President while concealing his affliction with Addison’s Disease—an insufficiency of the Adrenal glands that can prove fatal.
Thus, all future candidates for President should be required to submit to full FBI background investigations at least one year before election time—with the results released before the election. Any candidate refusing to participate should be barred from competing.
You’re not allowed to become an FBI agent or Cabinet Secretary without passing a background investigation. You shouldn’t be allowed to become President without one, either.
Reform #2: No Presidential candidate can be over 70 at the time s/he leaves office.
The Federal Aviation Administration mandates that commercial airlines cannot employ pilots after they reach the age of 65.
FBI agents have a mandatory retirement age of 57.
Commissioned officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps must retire by 64.
Yet Donald Trump is 77 and will turn 78 on June 14. Joseph Biden is 81 and will turn 82 on November 20.
If Trump wins, he will be 82 in 2028, his last year in office (assuming he doesn’t stage another—and successful—coup attempt). If Biden wins re-election, in 2028 he will be 86 (assuming he’s still alive by then).
Funeral for Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev – 1982
The Presidency is notorious for prematurely ageing its occupants: “The typical president ages two years for every year they are in office,” said Dr. Michael Roizen. He used presidential medical records from the 1920s through today to reach this conclusion.
The United States Presidency is becoming a mirror-image of the former Soviet Union:
- In 1982, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev died at age 75.
- He was succeeded by Yuri Andropov—who died, in 1984, at age 69.
- He, in turn, was followed by Konstantin Chernenko—who died in 1985 at age 73.
Finally, the Politburo—tired of replacing the General Secretary every two years—elected 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev, who lived to leave office six years later at age 60.
In the United States, having two geriatric Presidential candidates has become comic fodder for late-night TV hosts. Yet voters fear that neither candidate can handle the strains of another four years as President—or even survive a full term.
Reform #3: Abolish the honorific title of “Mr. President” for ex-Presidents.
This used to be offered as a tribute to a former President for having won the support of the majority of Americans.
But Donald Trump has corrupted this phrase, as he has so much else in American life. Since losing the 2020 Presidential election, he has continued to insist that he is the legitimate President of the United States, and Joseph Biden is a usurper.
When his fanatical followers refer to him as “President Trump,” that is what they mean—thus trying to de-legitimize Biden’s Presidency and elevate Trump as the rightful victor.
The 2005 Stolen Valor Act makes it a federal misdemeanor for anyone to falsely claim to have received any U.S. military decoration or medal—such as the Medal of Honor or Purple Heart. Violating the law can lead to fines, up to a year in prison, or both.
Thus, Congress should mandate that only the current holder of the Presidency has the legal right to call himself “Mr. President”—and that right ends when he no longer occupies the White House.
Reform #4: Require millionaire ex-Presidents to pay for Secret Service protection.
Every ex-President since Dwight D. Eisenhower—even Jimmy Carter—has been a millionaire.
Assigning a platoon of elite Secret Service agents to watch over every ex-President 24/7 is a huge expense.
The case of Ronald Reagan is instructive: At a cost to the government of $10 million annually, Reagan—while living in a 7,200 square-foot mansion overlooking Beverly Hills—received lifetime Secret Service protection from 40 fulltime agents.
United States Secret Service
It’s also an unnecessary expense. There has never been an attack on an ex-President in all of American history.
Still, if the powers-that-be consider this essential, then millionaire ex-Presidents should be required to pay for their protection—just as moguls and Hollywood celebrities do.
As the situation now exists, the government is simply providing welfare for the rich. Whereas the poor face strict limits on how high their income can be and still receive welfare.
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TRAGEDY–GENUINE AND SELF-INFLICTED
In Entertainment, History, Medical, Social commentary on September 12, 2025 at 12:10 amWhitney Houston drowned in her bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 11, 2012.
The cause of death: Coronary artery disease—and cocaine use. She was 48.
Ever since, reporters and commentators have repeatedly used the word “tragedy” to describe her fate.
But there are tragedies that are brought on by events beyond human control—and tragedies that are self-inflicted.
Consider:
Julie Andrews: Whose four-octave soprano voice has delighted audiences for decades on Broadway (Camelot, My Fair Lady) and movies (Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music).
In 1964, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress (for Mary Poppins).
Her performance in The Sound of Music made it the highest-grossing film of 1965—and won her a second Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.
Julie Andrews, in her best-loved role as “Mary Poppins”
In 1997, she underwent surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center to remove non-cancerous nodules in her throat. The nodules were removed—but so was her ability to sing.
Her husband, Blake Edwards, was widely quoted as saying that Andrews’ voice had been all but ruined: ”If you heard it, you’d weep.”
Whitney Houston: Blessed with beauty, charm and a golden, intense singing voice that could turn even the almost-unsingable “Star Spangled Banner” into a rousing anthem.
As a beloved, internationally-recognized vocalist, she enjoyed even greater fame and wealth as a movie star (The Bodyguard, Waiting to Exhale).
Whitney Houston
Meanwhile, she took on increasingly deadly habits. She chain-smoked cigarettes. And marijuana—“a lot.” She dove into alcohol, pills, cocaine.
During a 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer, she denied using crack. Not because it’s lethal, or because it would destroy The Voice that she believed was God’s gift to her.
No, it was because “I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let’s get that straight. OK? We don’t do crack. We don’t do that. Crack is whack.”
Crack cocaine
In 2006, the National Enquirer ran an interview with her sister-in-law, Tina, who charged that Houston spent her days locked in her bedroom “smoking crack, using sex toys to satisfy herself and ignoring personal hygiene.”
Then, in 2009, appearing on Oprah Winfrey’s season premiere, Houston finally admitted that she used drugs with her ex-husband, Bobby Brown, who “laced marijuana with rock cocaine.”
In other words, crack.
So, apparently, crack wasn’t whack.
Over time, the once-magnificent instrument that was your voice started to change noticeably. She could no longer hit high notes, or hold one the way she did in her immortal hit, “I Will Always Love You.”
Her voice now sounded hoarse, raspy.
In 2010, she embarked on a “Nothing But Love World Tour.” It was a disaster. In Brisbane, she paused during singing to take a drink of water.
A critic said her performance in London was marked by a strained voice filled with coughs and wheezes.
Fans felt cheated—especially after paying $165 for a ticket—and reacted with jeers and boos. Some walked out in mid-concert.
On the night before her death, Houston become belligerent and almost duked it out with singer Stacy Francis at the Tru Hollywood nightclub. Her boyfriend, Ray J, had to step in to prevent a fistfight.
Houston was seen leaving the club drunk, with scratches and bloodstains on her legs.
* * * * *
Whose tragedy was genuine—and whose was self-inflicted?
The ugly truth is that Whitney Houston’s singing career ended long before her life did.
When people remember her monumental hits like “I Will Always Love You,” they’re recalling a time more than 30 years ago.
Another ugly truth is that each of us is responsible for our own actions.
Attorney and talk-show host Nancy Grace blamed Houston’s doctors for Houston’s death. She argued that they had kept writing prescriptions for “America’s songbird” when they knew she was an addict.
But Houston was the one who requested that they write those prescriptions. And she was the one who administered them.
The same chain of events occurred in the Michael Jackson case.
Jackson wanted his drug-of-choice: propofol, a hypnotic sedative used for general anesthesia. And he got it.
He paid his private doctor, Conrad Murray, $150,000—a-month. For a salary that large, Jackson clearly expected to get more than the standard: “Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.”
So he got what he wanted—and it killed him.
Houston, for all her charm, was also used to getting her own way. Once. on an airplane, she tried to light up in the bathroom. When the pilot warned that she could be fined $2,000, she offered to write out a check that moment if she could have her smoke. The pilot refused.
No matter how famous, talented, beautiful and/or wealthy you might be, in the end, you remain a mere mortal. Even if you are allowed to disobey the laws of man, you will be held accountable by your own body for bouts of deadly excess.
That, in the end, is the real legacy of Whitney Houston. And Michael Jackson. And Elvis Presley. And Marilyn Monroe. And a great many other now-dead celebrities.
Sadly, it is a truth that both celebrities and their worshipers must re-learn—over and over.
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