Month: August 2018

Echo, Echo, Echo

Daily Caller 8/27/18 –China Hacked Hillary Clinton’s Email Private Server

Daily Caller 7/12/18 – Gohmert:  Watchdog Found Cinton Emails Were Sent to Foreign Entity

It was supposed to be the “highlight” of the conservative right attack on the FBI.  Peter Strzok, the disgraced head of the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton emails and of Trump and Russia, was publicly testifying in front of  a joint session of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.

It had a Freedom Caucus “all star” cast:  Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Sam Gohmert along with fellow travellers Trey Gowdy and Bob Goodlatte.  They were poised to finally “get” the bête noire, the man who “let Hillary go” and went after the Trump campaign.  Strzok was fatally flawed; he had an affair with a DOJ employee, they were both married to others, and they had a lot of the affair on government phones.  There was a written record of their infidelity, and of their disdainful political opinions about Trump.

For ten hours Strzok was grilled.  Democrats on the committees gave him some respite, but Republicans came back at him again and again.  However, this former top agent in counter-espionage responded clearly and definitively, even in the face of Congressman Sam Gohmert’s personal attacks.  Gohmert asked how Strzok could look in his wife’s eye and lie about the affair.  That encounter led Democrats to ask if Gohmert had forgotten to take his medication.

The hearing was a letdown for the Freedom Caucus team.  Strzok held his ground, and projected the aura of a competent intelligence officer. The hearing itself became a circus, ultimately embarrassing both committees.

But just before Gohmert’s snide remark, he asked a question about a meeting Strozk had with Frank Rucker of the Intelligence Community Inspector General Office (ICIG) regarding an anomaly on the Clinton server.  Gohmert claimed that the ICIG knew that over 30,000 Clinton emails were being copied to a different address (30,000 is a “magic” number, the number of Clinton emails that were unavailable for FBI inspection.  Trump famously asked the Russians to find them.)

The Daily Caller, Fox News Commentator Tucker Carlson’s online “newspaper,” picked up the story that day.  Last week, Carlson himself repeated the charges on his Fox News show, and the Daily Caller re-echoed the charges in a “more specific” article.  President Trump obviously watched Carlson, and repeated the story as “fact” in a series of tweets, claiming that all of Clinton’s emails were copied to the Chinese.

Since July 12^th, there has been no independent confirmation of Gohmert’s claim.  But his words have entered the “echo chamber” of Trump-supporting media, and have been bouncing back and forth.  Today in a brief Google Search, there are more than eleven different sources reporting the story that “Clinton emails were hacked by China.”  Like the proverbial “fly story” where millions can’t be wrong, each of these stories cite either Gohmert, or the original Daily Caller article from July 12^th.

In fact, the only “new news” regarding this story is a blanket FBI denial:  “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised.”

It is a prime example of the “echo chamber” effect.  What real evidence Gohmert had has not been revealed or may not exist, and besides, that’s not the point.  The Daily Caller cites him and unnamed sources, and all of the other publications ran with the story.  The President then elevates it to national prominence, and, voila, it is now “fact.”  The “missing” 30,000 Clinton emails are with the Chinese government, and the FBI investigators ignored the evidence. Trump cries:  “Stop the Mueller investigation, there is NO COLLUSION!!!”

In our current crazy world, truly all things are possible.  But what evidence we have now on this story is the word of a Congressman, Sam Gohmert, who has proven he will say anything to get Trump “off the hook.” It is interesting that even his “brother” Freedom Caucus members, Jordan and Meadows, haven’t taken up this fight. But the story continues to bounce around the internet, and for the thirty-percent “always-Trumpers” the repetition alone will create a “fact” out of this fiction.

Dog Whistles or Old Saws

Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida and devout Trump supporter, won the Florida Republican Gubernatorial primary this week. He built his campaign around his fealty to the President, even filming a television commercial with his toddler “building the wall” and learning how to read from a “Make America Great Again” poster.  He spent millions of dollars less than his opponent, but got millions of dollars (approximately $9 million) in free advertising from Fox News appearances.

Andrew Gillum, Mayor of Tallahassee, won the Democratic nomination for the race, defeating front-runner former Congresswoman Gwen Graham.  Gillum will now bid to become the first African-American Governor of Florida.

Gillum ran from the “left-wing” of the Democratic Party.  His platform includes health insurance for all, a $15/hour minimum wage, a billion dollar increase in Florida education spending, and an increase in corporate income taxes.  He was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders as well as supported by billionaire progressives Tom Steyer and George Soros.

In a world were common political sense says that campaigns are won in the middle among the independents and undecided, DeSantis and Gillum are running from the extremes.  The two “middle of the road” candidates of both parties were left behind in the primary.  So it is seems likely that this campaign will generate a lot of controversy.

It didn’t take twelve hours.  On a Wednesday morning Fox News interview, DeSantis made the following statement about his opponent:

 “He is an articulate spokesman for those far-left views. And he’s a charismatic candidate… …The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state.”

Gillum and the media immediately cried “foul,” claiming DeSantis was mimicking his mentor by using “dog whistles” to racist followers.  They claim the terms “articulate” and “monkey” were coded insults against black opponents.

“Monkey this up” is an awkward phrase.  “Monkey around” or “monkeys and a football” or “monkey business” all are common phrases.  “Mess this up” or “Screw this up” or its more profane derivation is commonly used.  But where did the phrase “monkey this up” come from?

Racists have long used monkeys, apes, and gorillas as insulting terms for black people.  To insert the word “monkey” for what should have been “mess or screw” couldn’t have been accidental, it doesn’t fit.  So DeSantis, Harvard and Yale educated, either intentionally chose the term, or subconsciously inserted it.

In the same way, claiming that an African-American candidate is “articulate” has undertones of racism as well.  It highlights the “surprise” that an African-American could be so “well spoken.”  DeSantis isn’t the first to run into this situation.  Joe Biden, in opening his last campaign for President in 2007, made the following statement about his opponent Barack Obama:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.  I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

What Biden meant as a compliment came out as condescension to his black opponent.  He quickly apologized, Obama accepted, and the campaign of 2008 moved on.  DeSantis, a history major and lawyer, would or should have been aware of that precedent.  So again he either intentionally chose the term, or subconsciously inserted it.

What my grandfather might have said, or even my father, is not politically acceptable today.  What was common speech in the 1940’s or 50’s we now know is “loaded language” full of racist connotations.  Politicians use speech as their “art,” their way of shaping the views of potential voters. So when DeSantis places these “loaded” terms in his speech, we can’t assume that it’s an accident, or something his grandfather used to say, or even his subconscious bias slipping through.

Politicians practice the art of communication.  Either DeSantis is committing malpractice, or he’s doing exactly what he intends to do:  communicating to the voters of Florida that they really don’t want to vote for a black man. It exactly what the President would do.

 

 

Controlling the News

My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral,
the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening

Alice Longworth Roosevelt, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest man to serve as President of the United States at forty-two.  He was also the “first” modern President, using the turn of the century media to help achieve his political goals.  In fact, Roosevelt’s Presidency was a direct result of the media.

One of the primary causes of the Spanish-American War of 1898 was the competition between the newspapers of New York City:  Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal.  In their drive for greater readership, both papers resorted to first embellishing stories about Spanish atrocities in Cuba, and then actually making them up, in order to heighten public tension.  This created public pressure on the US Government, and resulted in the deployment of forces to Cuba, led by the Navy Cruiser USS Maine.  When the Maine exploded in Havana Harbor from undetermined causes killing 260 men, the newspapers immediately blamed the Spanish and loudly demanded war.

The US proceeded to invade Cuba to fight the Spanish, and Teddy Roosevelt organized a regiment of cavalry called the Rough Riders.  His leadership of that unit, particularly at the Battle of San Juan Hill and in conjunction with the accompanying newspaper coverage, put him in the national spotlight, leading to his election as Governor of New York.  Within a year he was Vice President and, upon President McKinley’s death, the President of the United States.

Roosevelt was constantly aware of his “image” in the press, and continued to use them to forward his goals. Whether it was long hikes across Washington D.C. (including swims across the Potomac) proving his own energy and youth, or his insider support for “muckraking” authors like Upton Sinclair (his book, The Jungle, exposed the Chicago unsafe and unsanitary Chicago meatpacking industry) Roosevelt kept public pressure on the Congress to get his agenda passed.

While current President Donald Trump is “no Teddy Roosevelt,” he does have a well-developed sense of the media. It is clearly his goal to dominate every news cycle.  There is an old saying, “no news is good news.”  However, in the Trump Administration the phrase has been altered to say “any news is better than no news.”  For example, this weekend the US news cycle was dominated by the news of the death of Senator John McCain, one of the very few Republicans to stand up against Trump.

In order to regain the news cycle, the Trump White House decided to create a controversy over the US flag flying over the building.  It was lowered to half-staff immediately upon hearing of the Senator’s death on Saturday, but on Sunday was raised back up.  The media then spent most of Monday focusing on whether the President would honor McCain by lowering the flag or not.  He waited until Monday afternoon, stealing the daily news cycle, then begrudgingly declared a state of national mourning and officially lowering the flag.

But the Trump Administration has gone far past “stunts” to manipulate media attention.  They also have gone to great lengths to create a theme that much of the media lies about the President.   The President has instructed his supporters to ignore “Fake news.” That has become their battle cry when any story is presented that shows the Administration in a critical light.  Yesterday Trump even went so far as to demand that Google change its search algorithm in order to make the Administration look better.  He quoted a conservative blog article showing that Google on a given day showed over 90% negative articles when googling the President.

Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press had a great retort to this claim.  He noted that almost all of the articles about the Cleveland Brown’s football team have been negative in the past three years. Todd pointed out that there wasn’t much positive to talk about a team that won 4 games and lost 44 over those three years (a 91% losing record.)

And like the Yellow Journalism of Hearst and Pulitzer, the President also is willing to create crises out of nothing. Monday night he met with Christian Evangelical leaders in the White House.  In the meeting he stated:

“If the GOP loses(control of the House of Representatives in the November elections) they will overturn everything that we’ve done and they’ll do it quickly and violently, and violently. There’s violence. When you look at Antifa and you look at some of these groups — these are violent people.”

So, his message is that if he loses and the Democrats win, then there will be violence against Christians and Republicans by the Democrats.  It’s a ludicrous idea, but it’s a continuing message to his base: if we lose, our world will end. Be ready to fight.

The Administration’s “fake news” and distractions continue on an hourly basis. Just in the past two days, from the flag, to violence, to firing Attorney General Sessions, to Google, to spreading rumors that China hacked Clinton’s email; they have tried to dodge the realities of the Russia investigation, and Democratic gains, and another burgeoning crisis over the inappropriate influence in the building of a new FBI headquarters (and its impact on Trump’s Washington Hotel.)

President Trump has certainly achieved one goal:  he has so muddied American thought and perception that it is often difficult to tell what is real news, and what is fluff.

For those who have struggled against his media savvy there are two signs that may clarify the waters.  The upcoming elections in November may create a new narrative with greater integrity. And the Mueller report will lay bare Trump’s flaws, dissolving  his “Fake News.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Constitutional Dilemma

(Sorry about the history lesson – but I was a history teacher!!)

The founding of the United States was messy.  Thirteen colonies, breaking away from the British Monarchy, were incredibly jealous of their sovereign powers.  They came together to fight the British, but they were like a group of squabbling children, unwilling to give authority to a national government.  The Articles of Confederation, an agreement that took four years for all thirteen colonies to ratify, did not even give the Nation the power to tax, only to ask the states for money.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, we were a nation of loosely organized sovereign states.  We found that this organizational model did not work; thirteen currencies, thirteen tariffs at the borders, thirteen different codes of law, did not make a nation.  It was a recipe for division and disaster.

The Constitution was written, and while the Preamble stated WE THE PEOPLE writ large, it still was a contractual agreement among the states.  Nine were required to agree to make it the foundation of the United States.

There is a segment of current legal thought that claims the Constitution should only be evaluated through the thinking of those that actually wrote it.  They believe the words, carefully chosen, often in compromise, should be examined only in the context of the thoughts of those amazing minds: Madison, Hamilton, Sherman, Franklin, and of course, Washington.

This echoes the earliest debates of our nation, the “strict interpreters,” who wanted to follow the letter of the document versus the “loose interpreters,” believing that there were implied powers that the National government could exercise.   The “strict interpreters” then, and the “original meaning” voices now, both saw the only way of expanding the Constitution was through the Amendment process.

This argument advanced into the mid-19^thcentury, culminating in the attempted dissolution of the contract, and of the Union.  The Civil War used military force to enforce a differing view of the Constitution, as a compact among the people, not just the states.  When Lincoln stated, in the Gettysburg Address, that this was a “…government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” he was defining a new interpretation of the deal.

The Fourteenth Amendment further defined the change.  It made it clear that there was a single citizenship, of the United States (not just of individual states) and that states, or the nation, could not differentiate or discriminate among those citizens.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. – 14^th Amendment – Section 1

While the writing of the Constitution brought the states together, it was the Fourteenth Amendment, and the war that preceded it, that made us one nation.  While the Constitution said WE THE PEOPLE, it was the ALL PERSONS of the Fourteenth that made us Americans, and guaranteed what we now believe and enforce, the equal protection under law.

We have in our midst today, a powerful legal group that has been given the ultimate authority of selecting our Supreme Court Justices.  Unfortunately this group is not the United States Senate, though Constitutionally they still have that power.  The President has “contracted out” the selection process to the Federalist Society, an organization of like-minded lawyers who have dedicated themselves to the concept of “original interpretation.”  They are re-litigating American history, trying to take our nation back to a time before the experiences that shaped our current law.

They wish to apply only the thoughts of the founding fathers to the two-hundred thirty years of experience we have lived since. They want to believe that the founding fathers, who led a Revolution, organized a government, then re-organized it again; did not write a document that in and of itself could grow and expand with the changing times. They want to judicially determine that change can only be made through amendment, not through changing interpretation to meet changing times.

Their impact is already being felt.  The scourge of money in our political system, already enhancing the formidable powers of the wedge interest groups and the billionaire class, has been protected as “individual free speech” by the Citizen’s United decision, five justices (four of the Federalist society) to four. The door was opened to the NRA and the Koch Brothers, and even more insidiously the Mercer family; to buy our national government.

This is why the Supreme Court appointment of Brett Kavanaugh is so important.  He represents a Federalist Society coup, a full majority of the Court.  The bitter struggles that applied the Fourteenth Amendment to our daily lives, rights that protected ALL PERSONS and they way they live, are in jeopardy.   It is an old argument, one we thought was already resolved.  This nomination opens the door to that struggle once again.

 

Just heard that the President has determined not to fly the flag at half-staff in honor of Senator John McCain.  It shouldn’t be a surprise, I guess.  The President is a man who does not recognize heroism, or grace, or dedication.  His lack of respect for McCain says much more about him, than the Senator.

 

He could look East and West, but he always sailed true North. 

– Admiral Stavridis on John McCain

 

The Heart of an American

There is a governing tradition in America; one that, sadly, we seldom see today. It states that our partisan politics are just differing ways of achieving a common goal:  a better life for Americans.  If everyone is striving for the same goal, then politics is just technical, just a series of tactical maneuvers.  At the the close of debate and end of day, opponents can walk out, together as comrades, knowing that they still share in that common goal.

In politics today they are more likely to “tweet” some insult about their opponent, or run off to a press appearance to explain why the other side “hates” some part of America.  It makes it near impossible to reach across party or ideological lines and find compromise.   Today the politics of polarization means that to compromise is to be attacked by the extremes of your own side.

There are a few who have tried to rise above the tide of division and hate.  We lost one of those giants yesterday:  Senator John S. McCain of Arizona.

McCain was a man in the truest sense of the word.  His courage was tested under the most intense conditions: a fighter pilot who risked his life in defense of his nation, shot down in a jet fighter over Hanoi in the Vietnam War, over five years as a prisoner.  The son and grandson of four-star Admirals, he refused an early release by the North Vietnamese, unwilling to give them the propaganda victory or gain his freedom out of turn.  It cost him two additional years of captivity and torture.

McCain left the Navy to follow in even bigger footsteps:  he won the Senate seat of retiring conservative icon Barry Goldwater of Arizona.  And while McCain in general was a conservative, he really never followed a single ideological path.  He chose his conscience, his determination of what was right and wrong, over ideology, and sometimes even over party.

He was a “Lion” of the Senate. He was able to reach across the aisle and work with any number of members from the other side.  The pivotal campaign finance law that tried to keep “dark money” out of our elections was McCain-Feingold, where he joined a liberal Democrat Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, to try to improve our nation.

The law to truly fix immigration, charting a path to citizenship for many, was called McCain-Kennedy.  Ted Kennedy, the liberal “Lion” and John McCain were able to work together, and though this particular effort failed, they established a friendship that went beyond the Senate.  When Ted Kennedy died in 2009, remarkably of the same brain cancer, it was John McCain who gave the eulogy.

And this week we will see Democratic Vice President Biden and President Obama eulogize McCain, as well as Republican President George W Bush.  These men were all rivals, but they also found deep respect for McCain:  the respect of men with differing ways to achieve a common goal.

McCain was outspoken, even until the end.  It was only a few weeks ago that he criticized President Trump for his performance in Helsinki.  And he earned Trump’s permanent enmity by voting against the Senate bill to end the Affordable Care Act; the famous “thumbs down” late in the night.  McCain wasn’t necessarily in favor of the Act, but he was absolutely opposed to the Senate Republicans short-circuiting of  procedure to get it done.  All Trump could do is mimic McCain’s action, ridiculing the movements of a man whose shoulders were broken by torturers.

McCain was a man of the Senate, but he twice ran for President.  It was in his 2008 campaign that he proved his true loyalty to America, even above party, and even above his own ambitions.  In a town hall meeting, an older woman declared that Barack Obama was “an Arab” that she couldn’t trust.   McCain didn’t let her finish, taking the microphone back and stating, “He’s a decent family man/citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.”

And it was in his incredibly gracious concession speech at the end of that campaign, where instead of being bitter and continuing strife, he spoke of the enormous historical significance of the election of the first African-American President, and concluded by offering the new leader his support.

It was in his final paragraph that night, that we saw the heart of that American, the true identity of John McCain.  It is more than fitting that his own words from that night, are his lasting legacy today.

Tonight — tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Sen. Obama, I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president.

And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties but to believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.

Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history. Thank you, and God bless you, and God bless America.

God Bless John McCain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Want an Audit

Donald Trump as President of the United States is paid $400,000 a year.  He also receives a $50,000 expense account, a $100,000 travel account, and a $19,000 entertainment budget.   And of course, he gets to live in provided government housing, with a full staff, and round-the-clock protection.  He gets the use of Air Force One, Marine One, and a fleet of armored vehicles.

I know, this President “donates” his $400,000 to charitable causes.  But it’s my money, in part, and if he doesn’t want it, he can give it back to the government to defer other costs.  I pay taxes, and so do you, and we ought to have some say in how it’s spent, or donated.

And I know that the job, “President,” is not an hourly, punch-the-clock,  job.  It’s salaried.  But even a salaried job needs to have some bounds for how much time is put in on the work of governing the United States, and how much time is spent doing “other” things.  So let’s look at the amount of other things the President is doing, beside the hard work of being the leader of the United States (can’t say the leader of the free world anymore, we’ve clearly abdicated that position.)

In the last three days, the President of the United States has started a minor international crisis with South Africa.  The basis for this crisis, is that the President was watching Tucker Carlson, a commentator on Fox News.  Carlson parroted a report about the majority black government of South Africa taking over large farms owned by whites, and killing the farmers.  Carlson’s sources, South African right-wing commentators, proved to be inaccurate, but the President continued to pursue action by calling for an investigation by the US State Department.

The President of the United States has multiple intelligence gathering agencies, among them the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the State Department’s on the ground embassies and headquarters analysts.  He can ask any of those agencies for information about anything, from what’s in Area 51, to the location of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.  But instead, he watches Fox News.  I don’t want to pay for that.

It’s 8:52 am on Saturday morning right now.  The President has tweeted three times already this morning (it’s a nice day in DC, I wonder if he’s tweeting from a golf cart.)  Yesterday he tweeted twenty-one times.  This President has lifted twitter to the same high standard as the Gettysburg Address and the Fireside Chat, but he needs to focus on something more than just tweeting at his base.  Twenty-one times:  I know teenagers who tweet less than that! I don’t want to pay for that either.

Speaking of golf, this President has played golf 139 times since he entered the White House.  He’s been in office for 580 days, that means he averages a game of golf every four days; spring, summer, fall and winter. When he can’t play in Washington, he flies to Florida and Mara Lago.  When he doesn’t want to stay in DC to play at his National Golf Course in Virginia, he flies to his club in New Jersey.  And when he goes to Europe, he spends some time at his golf course in Scotland.

Once every four days: we aren’t talking about a thirty-minute workout here, we are talking about eighteen holes of golf.  That takes hours.

There’s a website dedicated to the President’s golf addiction; they estimate that the price tag for his golf (including travel and security) is over $75 million.  While the website is embroiled in an argument about the costs of auxiliary aircraft that travel with Air Force One, the point is obvious – it’s a whole lot of money.  That’s not coming out of his salary or his personal account, it’s coming out of my taxes (and, since I’m not paying $75 million in taxes this year, probably your taxes as well.)  I surely don’t want to pay for that.

So I want an audit. We have outstanding auditors in the government, but I want an audit from outside the executive branch.  I vote for the Congressional Budget Office, they do a great job in determining costs, estimated expenditures, and telling the hard truth, without a lot of political influence.  I want them to audit the amount of time the President actually does the job of President, and how much we are paying for recreation, tweets, and watching Fox News.

I’m perfectly happy to pay for that.

 

 

 

 

Sessions

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is doing everything he can to pursue the “Trump Agenda.”  From his hardline stand on immigration as one of the prime advocates for child separation at the border, to moving the Justice Department away from civil rights enforcement, to refusing to look at criminal justice reform proposed by the Congress; Sessions is using his term at the helm of Justice to radically turn America to the right.

He, at the minimum, misled the Senate in his confirmation hearing about his contact with Russian officials during the Trump campaign:  many would say he lied.  He has consistently refused information to Congress, even to his former Republican Senate colleagues, whining out, “…I don’t recall…” as only an Alabaman can say it. He is no hero to the “resistance.”

But he has been battered by President Trump, in interviews and with his famous tweets, excoriating Sessions for recusing himself in the Russia investigation.  Trump has called on Sessions to resign, and stated that his appointment as Attorney General was a mistake.  Sessions, clearly achieving a lifelong goal by serving at the helm of Justice, has steadfastly refused to quit.  Yesterday he even responded to the President’s barbs, by claiming that “his” Justice Department would not be “politicized.”

This is the one area where Sessions has risen above the political swamp of the Trump Administration. Realizing that his Senate confirmations answers and Russian contacts compromised his ability to supervise an investigation,  he removed himself from leadership.  He recused himself, turning over oversight of the Russia inquiry to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.  And Rosenstein, after the firing of FBI Director James Comey, brought former Director Robert Mueller in as Special Counsel.

President Trump has continually threatened to fire Sessions and put a new Attorney General in, one not recused from supervising Mueller.  When this came up a year ago, leading Republican Senators, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and leading member Lindsey Graham, warned the President not to do it.  They stood with Sessions.

Yesterday they both made it clear that their minds have changed,  both opening the door to supporting the President in finding a new Attorney General.  And while it still doesn’t have total Republican support in the Senate, with Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn still supporting Sessions, the idea firing is gaining momentum.

So why would the President replace an Attorney General who is doing more than almost anyone else to advance his agenda?  It isn’t about Sessions, it’s about Mueller.

Logic would say, that if Trump fires Sessions, Rosenstein, second-in-command at Justice, would become the interim Attorney General until a new one is confirmed by the Senate.  But there is an obscure provision that would allow the President to make a different interim appointment.

We saw a similar action when Richard Cordray resigned as Director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.  Upon leaving, Cordray appointed his deputy, Leandra English, as acting director until the Senate confirmed a replacement.  President Trump exercised his authority under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to appoint a different interim director. Under that law, as long as the appointment held a  similar Senate confirmed position in the Administration then he could be moved to fill the vacancy.  It was a “musical chairs” moment:  Mick Mulvaney Director of the Office of Management and Budget was added as Director of the CFPB.

So firing Sessions would not automatically lead to a Rosenstein promotion.  It was theorized that one of the reasons that corrupt EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt stayed in office through so many scandals, was he law degree (University of Tulsa) and history as Oklahoma’s Attorney General. He looked like the perfect interim appointment.   However Pruitt’s corruption finally couldn’t be tolerated.

If Trump fired Sessions now, who could the President choose to serve as interim replacement.  He would need someone of cabinet level, with the prerequisite legal background to make the shift seem “appropriate.”  There is only one.

He is a graduate of Harvard Law School  (highly valued by the President,) and clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Alito.  He served as US Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, a US Attorney in Florida, and a member of the National Labor Relations Board in the GW Bush administration. He is Alexander Acosta (no relations to CNN’s Jim), currently Secretary of Labor; and with the current conflict over Sessions he is on the “hot seat.”

Where he stands on any of the issues regarding the Mueller investigation, we don’t know.  Whether he would accept the job, we don’t know either. But he’s in the right position, and because he is, Trump has an alternative to Sessions, and to Rosenstein.

If a new, “unrecused” Attorney General, even an interim, was appointed, Rosenstein would no longer supervise the Mueller team.  A new Attorney General could throttle the investigation, or fire Mueller. The President would demand it, and the Senate couldn’t prevent it.

A year ago it was clear that this would be a “threshold” moment, when the Republican Senate, even the silenced Leader McConnell, would stand against the President.  Today as the crisis grows, Trump still has moves, and the Republicans in the Senate are divided.  Acosta may well refuse to jump into this fire, but the will of the President is a powerful force to resist.

Sessions stands with Rosenstein and Mueller, and we stand on the brink of the crisis.  To quote Alexander Hamilton, it is time for the Senate Republicans to “Rise Up.”

 

Last Chance

Yesterday Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to Donald Trump, pled guilty to eight charges in federal court.  He is facing several years in prison.  Six of the counts involved his personal actions: failing to pay income taxes and giving false information to attain loans from banks.  But the last two counts are the ones that involve more than just him.

Cohen admitted to making  two counts of illegal campaign contributions, one for making an illegal corporate contribution, and one for exceeding the personal contribution limits. In the elocution phase of the plea, when Cohen admitted to the crimes and outlined his actions, he stated that he was told to make payments to silence two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, by then candidate Donald J. Trump.

In open court, the President was accused of committing a felony.  He was accused of influencing the 2016 election by paying hush money.  He was accused of overseeing elaborate financial arrangements to hide the transactions.  And we know that much of this is true, as Cohen taped his conversations with him.

Had these two “affairs” come to light, they may well have altered the outcome of an election that hinged on 77,744 votes (out of over 120 million.)

No, this isn’t the “Russia” investigation.  This isn’t even the Mueller team, it’s just the regular US attorneys from the Southern District of New York.  This isn’t some fancy, spy-laden story of  “collusion” or conspiracy. That’s all still to come.  This is just straight-up corruption:  paying people to keep quiet about unacceptable behavior, and using campaign funds to do it.

The Republican Party is faced with another inflection point, another choice to be made.  The first chance was when it became clear that Trump’s candidacy was real, and effective.  Republicans could have coalesced around another candidate, making a true one-on-one competition where Trump’s 40% of the vote wasn’t dominant. They didn’t do it, allowing the vote to remain split until far too late in the process.

The second chance was between the end of the primaries and the Republican convention.  The party leaders could have chosen to back a traditional candidate, perhaps Ohio Governor John Kasich, and risk a split convention and Trump as an independent.  It probably would have cost the general election, a three-way race, and the outcome would have been a Clinton win.  But it would have kept the core values of the party intact.

The third chance was October 6^th 2016, the day the “Access Hollywood Tape” broke.  Trump used vulgar and profane terms, and more importantly, made it clear he treated women as objects for his own sexual gratification.  The party clearly thought about it; about removing Trump from the ticket and replacing him with Pence or someone else.  Again, it probably would have thrown the election to Clinton.  But at that point the leadership of the GOP chose to accept Trump’s behavior.  They did not turn away from him; they actually watched the polls, and decided to stay “on board.”  And soon the carefully worded statements about “having wives and daughters” didn’t matter, the party rallied behind Trump, and, through “hook or Russian crook,” he became President of the United States.

We can argue about the Affordable Care Act, or the Tax Cut Cut, or the Supreme Court nominees.  We can talk about the deregulation of environmental protections, and national conservation.  We can discuss immigration policy.

But what cannot be argued anymore is that the President of the United States is an immoral man, who will do anything to get what he wants.  He degrades women, and minorities, and has shown his admiration for authoritarians.  Expect him to continue to use the powers of his office to try to silence critics and investigators.

What comes next?  We can anticipate that the Mueller investigation will have more indictments for those close to the President.  We can expect that, while Mueller won’t indict the President himself, he will make it clear that he was involved, just a Cohen made it clear yesterday.  We can expect the President to fight back, with more firings, pardons, removal of security clearances, and suppression of the investigations.

The Republican Party has not just stood silent; they have actively defended and supported the President. The Republican House of Representatives has served as the strongest bastion of Presidential support.  The Senate Republicans, with a few retiring exceptions, have at best remained silent.

The last chance to save their party is approaching.  They have made the choice to stand with Trump and “Make America Great Again,” time and time again.  They have placed an immoral man in the Presidency, one who has no concept of American history or tradition, one who may well be using the Presidency for his own financial gain, and one who illegally conspired to achieve office.  History will judge what they did, and what they do now:  Last Chance.

 

 

 

Truth Isn’t Truth

It was the “moment” of Sunday’s political interviews.  Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York and present attorney for President Trump, responded to questioning by NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press about Prosecutor Mueller interviewing the President.  Todd said,  “truth is true.”  Giuliani retorted, “Truth isn’t truth.”

{click here to see the interview}

Todd stopped, credulous, and asked Giuliani if he meant that.  The Mayor went on to try to explain that he meant that Mueller’s truth in an interview with the President might not be the President’s truth, and therefore Mueller would charge the President with perjury.

Later on Meet the Press, I listened to conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt summarize an earlier interview with former CIA Director John Brennan.  Hewitt stated that Brennan had “…taken conspiracy off the table…” in regards to President Trump.  I listened to the Brennan interview myself, and heard Brennan specifically say that while the President had committed “…collusion in plain sight,” Brennan was waiting for the Mueller investigation results to see if there was a conspiracy, creating criminal liability.  There was nothing said about conspiracy charges being, “off the table.”

In ten minutes, Meet the Press summarized the pivotal problem of our politics and our government today.  We hear what we want to hear, we determine “truth,” not on some objective standard of validity, but on what we choose to believe ought to be true.  We have made “truth” into some squishy concept no longer black and white, but varying shades of gray.

It has always been a tenet of modern propaganda:  if you can control “the truth,” you can control what people believe and what they do. From the reality of Nazi Germany to the fiction of Orwell’s 1984, the control of what is considered “truth” is critical to authoritarian government.

And “truth” has always been “flexible” is some situations.  In 2009, the Republicans believed in the “truth” that the government had to step into to support the economy to avoid a massive Depression. While that was “truth” then, by 2012 they blamed Democrats for the national debt growing by trillions of dollars because of it.  And Republicans have always argued their “truth” that universal health care would lower health standards for the majority of Americans.

There is a difference between ideological views and truth, and there is a difference between truth and blame.

There is a “truth;” a factually valid item.  Either the President knew about his campaign’s collusion with the Russians, or he didn’t.  Either he fired FBI Director Comey because of Russia (as he said in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt) or he didn’t.  Either he asked Comey to take it easy on former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, or he didn’t.

These aren’t “squishy” concepts.

This is why the Mueller report, when it comes out, will begin to determine “truth.”  And this is also why it is the task of the President’s men, like Giuliani, to destroy the credibility of Mueller’s conclusions before we even get to see them.  The Trump Team’s goal:  pre-determine the “truth” and the “un-truth” of Mueller to control the outcomes.

There is room for questions: does the President have the ultimate right to fire any member of the executive branch, or did the campaign’s interaction with the Russia somehow not reach the threshold of illegality or is the Special Counsel law itself Constitutional?  These are questions of legal interpretation, not of fact or truth.

As hard as the President and his men, try to change the subject (why aren’t they investigating Hillary) or try to discount the outcomes (seventeen angry Democrats on the Mueller team) or try to make the “truth not the truth”:  we will have facts, the truth, to make a determination of what should occur.  There will be a Mueller report, and an opportunity to see reality.

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free –

 but Trump’s team is afraid the truth will take their freedom”

– John Meacham, American Historian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Polarized

Slavery was the “…serpent under the table” at the US Constitutional convention.  It awakened as the critical issue during the decades long lead-up to the American Civil War.  Legislators over the first half of the 19^th century reached a series of compromises that pushed the crisis down the road, but, as mid-century was passed, there was little room for compromise left.

The last “Great Compromise” in 1850 tried to divide the new territories acquired in the Mexican-American War into slave and free areas.  California entered the union as a free state, Texas as a slave state, and the territories of New Mexico and Utah were granted the right to decide by vote, popular sovereignty.  This maintained the precarious balance of slave and free in the Congress.

But to “sweeten” the deal for the slave states, the Compromise also included the Fugitive Slave Act.  This law required that runaway slaves that made their way to free states must be returned to their masters in the South.  Federal marshals and other officials who did not fulfill that duty were subject to fines.

The Act was anathema to the abolitionists in the north.   There were dramatic protests and legal arguments, and folks jailed for refusing to obey the law.  It was the “wedge” the drove anti-slave and slave farther apart, with the South demanding the law be enforced, and the North outraged at the forced immorality it required.

By the late 1850’s the split was further exacerbated by the Supreme Court, who in the Dred Scott Decision, ruled that slaves had no standing in court to sue.  If slaves (or former slaves) could not go to the Court to enforce freedom, then ultimately it would be impossible for “free” states to remain free.

And popular sovereignty, allowing territories to determine their own status of slavery, turned out to be a recipe for violence.  The Kansas Territory ended up in a state of civil war, as both sides violently fought for their cause.  It was a rehearsal for the national battles soon to come.

By 1860 there was little middle ground left.  The Presidential candidate of the center, Democrat Stephen Douglas, received few electoral votes.  The results for the candidate of the North, Lincoln, and the one of the South, Breckenridge, showed the divided nation.  War was only a few months away.

The middle ground is slipping away today as well.  The “Republican Party” of Lincoln and even George Bush has been co-opted by President Trump.  The remaining old-school Republicans have found voice only in retirement, with Bob Corker of Tennessee, Jeff Flake of Arizona and John Kasich of Ohio the best examples. The traditional views and values of the Republican Party have been left behind.

The Democratic Party is only marginally better.  The current split between “left” and “lefter:” Progressives versus near-Socialists, has left the traditional centrist Democrats with no where to go.   There is little room in either party for a supporter of individual rights and fiscal responsibility, the traditional stand of the “Blue Dog” Democrat or “Rockefeller” Republican.

And our current means of communicating, with a choice of tailored news outlets that give the news that fits your views, serves to drive the wedge in deeper.   Seldom is heard the “other side,” and if so, then critical commentary quickly follows.  The power of the “tweet,” so effectively used by Trump, has narrowed our political discussion to 240 characters, and obliterated the value of the truth in our discussions.

The United States, created in compromise at the writing of the Constitution, is finding itself unable to reach a middle ground.  Those who try to reach agreement in the political sphere, now find themselves struggling to survive primary elections where extremism is the winning strategy. This is not just an ideological issue, it has become part of our structure with the gerrymandering of political districts that reward that extremism.

Are we on the verge of some kind of modern-day Civil War?  Whether President Trump is stopped and potentially removed, or his term is fought out in elections and tweets, is there some point where one side or the other will find the political arena unsatisfactory, and move to other, more dangerous venues? Are we so polarized that there is no path to the center?

The potential is there:  a Congress that is unwilling to act, a Supreme Court soon to be dominated by a marginal, far-right view promulgated by the Federalist Society, and a President who is demonstrating a willingness to embrace authoritarianism.  We are quickly moving to a political scene where there is no room for the center.  And when there is no compromise, then one side or the other will seek some other way to redress their grievances.

But there is still hope to avoid an existential crisis.  An election in November could start to fill in the center (though it could also further divide.)  There are still courageous leaders, willing to stand up for what they believe regardless of the consequences.  Non-political voices like John Brennan and Admiral William McRaven, and the remaining moderates in both parties are still there, though muted.

There are a large majority of Americans who still fall in the political middle.  They need representation as well, and those representatives could serve as the balance to the extremes of both sides.  We can hope that America, founded in compromise, might find its center again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Plot to End the Investigation

President Trump stripped former CIA Director John Brennan of his security clearance on Tuesday.  While Trump’s original statement claimed it was due to Brennan’s “erratic” statements in the media, in a Wall Street Journal interview he added a more insidious rationale:  that Brennan was one of those who began the Russia investigation.

The President also presented a list of those being considered for “stripping.”  They all were involved in the Russia investigation in one way or another.    Former CIA Director Mike Haden, former DNI James Clapper, and former FBI Director James Comey, along with Brennan, were at the January 2017 meeting informing then President-elect Trump of Russian interference.  Comey famously stayed after the meeting to tell Trump about the Steele Dossier’s most salacious sections.

When Trump then spoke out, stating that there wasn’t proof of Russian involvement, these four stood together behind their findings that the Russians did interfere. While the others left with the end of the Obama Administration, Comey was later fired by the President “…to end the Russia thing.”

Some others listed are former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strozk, and former Justice Department lawyer Lisa Page.  They were all involved in the beginnings of the Russia investigation.  Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice were Obama appointees that Trump has picked out for special attention; Rice because of her role in the Carter Page investigation, and Yates for warning the White House about Mike Flynn’s compromised position.

All of these individuals are no longer in government service (all but Rice and Page were fired.) Taking away their security clearances doesn’t change what they are doing now.  What it does do is take away the government’s ability to use their memory and experience with current problems:  if they don’t have clearances, they can’t be approached for information.

It also denies them the ability to look at their own files to refresh their memories.  When called to testify to Congress or in Court, they can’t confirm their testimony with “the record.”   This might create a potential perjury situation, but more likely makes it easier for the White House and their apologists, who can review the record, to contest their statements.

And, perhaps more ominously, the President is threatening the clearance of Bruce Ohr, currently in the FBI. If Ohr loses his clearance, he will no longer be able to do his job.  Trump would be effectively firing Ohr, without any “due process,” because he was a friend of Christopher Steele and vouched for his credentials.

Some commentators see the Brennan attack as the beginning of a slow-motion “Saturday Night Massacre,” effectively ending the investigators ability to investigate the Russian involvement. And while Nixon’s “massacre” drew Congressional rebuke, and resulted in a new Special Counsel with even greater authority, this slow motion attack has not drawn the same kind of criticism.   In fact, moderate Republicans like Senator Richard Burr  head of the Senate Intelligence Committee,  and Lindsey Graham, have recognized that this is within the President’s authority.

So far, outside of the media and Democrats, the only voices being raised against Trump are former leaders of the intelligence agencies themselves.  Former commander of Special Operations, Admiral William McRaven, specifically asked Trump to strip his clearance so he could stand with Brennan, while a dozen former intelligence officials, including Leon Panetta, Robert Gates and David Patraeus, publicly support Brennan.

So who’s next?  If this is Trump’s retribution for the Russia investigation, will the clearances of Robert Mueller or other members of the Special Counsel’s office turn up on the list?  Will the President reach down into the CIA to find those who brought the Russia information?  Is this a “kill the messenger” situation, or a larger attempt to actually kill the message?

Clearly this is the ultimate attempt to coerce potential witnesses against him, and obstruct justice. The President has been given the legal advice that he has these powers, and therefore has the authority to do this. The “unitary executive” principle his advisors espouse states that since the President is the ultimate authority in the executive branch, anything he does is legal and within his authority.

We will see if this theory holds up.  It didn’t work for Richard Nixon, who ultimately was rebuked by the Supreme Court, and finally by the Congress for obstructing justice.  And perhaps President Trump is enjoying the “threat,” without actually intending to proceed.  It certainly has achieved one goal:  it has changed the subject again.

Mr. Mueller, do what you have to do.  But please, if you could hurry, that would be good too.

 

 

 

In the Fog

The Manafort trial went to the jury yesterday.  Over the next few days, jurors will be examining four hundred pieces of evidence and hundreds of hours of testimony.  Former Presidential aide Omarosa is being sued by the Trump Campaign for violating a non-disclousure agreement, and will probably release another recording to upset their apple cart.  The President is using his powers to attack “enemies,” notably former CIA Director John Brennan.

There is a “fog” of activity around the Trump Administration, generated by tweets and Giuliani and Huckabee-Sanders, that is covering the significant changes to our world they are making. Here’s what’s going on this week, underneath cover.

The Department of Interior modified the endangered species act, allowing for animals whose conditions have improved to be removed form protection.  The state of Wyoming’s Fish and Wildlife Commission will allow a “big game” grizzly hunt next month, killing as many as twenty-two bears.   It costs $15 for a hunting license, but $600 for a Wyoming resident and $6000 for a non-resident to get a tag to kill a bear.   Wolves, also removed from protection, are hunted in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

The Environmental Protection Agency is allowing industry to apply to use known carcinogen asbestos in newly developed products.  While previous administrations had followed a trend towards banning all uses of asbestos to reduce its cancer causing effects, the Trump EPA is allowing it. In addition, they have re-written the safety rules to state that previous cancer causing uses of asbestos, like asbestos insulations, cannot be used showing proof of future dangers.  The current safety studies must create whole new evidence.

The Education Department has put new guidelines into effect for educational institutions using Federal funds.  The changes to rules for Title IX alter how schools, in particularly colleges and universities, deal with sexual offenses.  Under President Obama, schools were required to investigate charges of sexual offenses, hold hearings on the results of the investigation, and follow a “preponderance of the evidence” standard in reaching conclusions (preponderance of the evidence means that of the evidence is given a percentage scale, the side with more than 50% of the evidence wins.)

Under the new “DeVos” rules, schools can now offer to “mediate” sexual offenses rather than treat them as student conduct offenses.  If the school does investigate, it now must use a “clear and convincing evidence” standard in reaching conclusions (clear and convincing is a higher standard, more of a 75% standard but still less than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of criminal law.)  Formerly both sides in an investigation could appeal the outcome, under the new rules now only the accused can appeal the outcome.

The overall effect of these changes will make it harder for sexual offense victims to get justice, and easier for offenders to “get away” with it, especially in “date rape, he-said/ she-said” situations.

Education Secretary DeVos has also cut $13 billion from the fund to help students repay loans used for “for profit” schools that ultimately were fraudulent.  This leaves thousands of students holding the bag for loans that were granted by the Federal government to use at schools that were giving worthless degrees.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has been using the Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency (CIS) to trick illegal immigrants into coming to meetings where they are arrested.  The immigrants, following a government program that creates a path for them to become legal, come to scheduled meetings at CIS.  ICE officers then come to the meeting, and arrest the immigrants for deportation.

An ICE officer who helped schedule and implement these arrests stated: “…They are typically the easiest to remove, they have the shortest average length of stay, and at the end of the day we are in the removal business and it’s our job to locate and arrest them.”

The goal of the CIS program is for an illegal immigrant to be granted legal status and gain a “green card.”  In effect then, CIS is baiting those immigrants by offering a path to legality, then ICE is capturing and deporting them.

So as we focus on the sad circus that has become the Trump Administration, we shouldn’t miss the steady drumbeat of change in American government.  Whether we are baiting bears or immigrants, or leaving victims in our educational systems hanging, or risking further poisoning our citizens: the Trump Administration is constantly demonstrating coldness, cruelty, and a bias towards profit.  Under cover of the fog of the daily craziness, they are quietly changing our world.

Paybacks

Today, President Donald J Trump “pulled” former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance.  While he came up with a variety of excuses for doing so, this is really only about one thing:  Brennan called Trump’s behavior at Helsinki treasonous.  John Brennan, in his own well-developed opinion, felt Trump did not act in the best interest of the United States.  Today Trump told him – paybacks are a bitch (or a dog.)

Others, including NSA Director Mike Hayden, former DNI James Clapper and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, are also under consideration for losing their clearances. And, while James Comey and Andy McCabe are also mentioned, they have carefully pointed out that they lost their clearance when they were fired from the FBI.  I’m sure Peter Strozk’s name will be added to the list of those who should lose clearance, but already have lost them.

Retired intelligence officials are kept on clearances in order to help current officials. Intelligence issues cross the boundaries of political changes; sometimes it’s necessary to find out what was done before.  These former officials act as the institutional memory and can help add depth and understanding to current decisions.  They don’t get updated intelligence briefings, but occasionally are brought “up to speed” in order to give input on current operations.

This won’t stop Brennan, now working for NBC, or the others from stating their views and opinions. They don’t need a clearance to work in the media, and they don’t need the President’s permission to speak out. They cannot reveal “secrets,” they are still bound by the laws and regulations that protect national security, with or without a clearance, so having the clearance doesn’t effect their current employment.

What it does do is deprive our current national intelligence leaders of their experience.  In an Administration that is sorely lacking in that area, it seems reckless to deny access to more.   And it threatens the free speech rights of those named.

But, as it has been made clear again and again, the President’s main goal is to defend himself, not our country.  That Brennan would dare speak out, stating what a great many Americans were thinking as they watched the President humiliate himself to Russia’s leader, is unacceptable.  And since Brennan seems impervious to the President’s preferred method of attack, the dreaded “tweet,” Trump had to find some more dramatic way to try to disgrace him.

By the way, it also changes the subject from the Manafort trial, and the Omarosa tapes, and the election failures, and the looming Mueller investigation.  This action, among all of the others, shows we have a President who runs the nation like he was the 8^th grade class President.

The disgrace isn’t Brennan’s.

 

 

The Enemy of My Enemy

We are in August, or more exactly, the “silly season.”  We are waiting; waiting for the results of the Mueller investigation, waiting for the verdict of the Manafort trial, waiting for the November elections.  We are impatiently looking for some “action.” So we are drawn into the nonsense.

Just because someone is “the enemy of my enemy” does NOT make them your friend.  Let’s start with Omarosa.  She recorded Chief of Staff Kelly firing her, she recorded President Trump consoling her, and she probably has more recordings that will embarrass the White House.  “Resistors” will take pleasure in the squirming, but don’t forget that this is the same Omarosa who owes any fame she has to Trump, and who, with shining eyes, told us what a great President he would make.  She has only one interest, and it’s not necessarily the “good” of the country.

Next is the prospective candidate for the Democratic nomination for President, lawyer Michael Avenatti.  We have enjoyed watching him ride circles around the Trump and Cohen lawyers, and we have marveled as he revealed secret information to forward the Cohen investigation. He has proved his openness to society, standing shoulder to shoulder with porn star Stormy Daniels, demanding that she receive due process.  He is a “shooting star;” taking his legal advocacy onto the cable networks, going to the border to reunite families, and expanding his role as a leading “resistor” to the Trump Presidency.

But don’t mistake his legal adeptness and articulation as qualifications for President.  He demands that we find a candidate that can go toe-to-toe in our new “reality show” politics, and that he’s the one.  And while I agree that he is a true “reality show” hero, I don’t believe that makes for a qualified President of the United States. We are living with the results of one reality President, that experience should lead us to find a different set of qualifications, not just the opposite of the same thing.

Yesterday Peter Strozk was fired by the FBI.  Strozk is the flawed hero of the 2016 Presidential investigations; the one that opened the Trump campaign probe but kept that information from the press during the election cycle.  Strozk has been the leader of some of the most successful counter-espionage investigations of the last two decades, and he was a leader in the Clinton email search as well.  It is easy to make him another “martyr” to the Trump corruption, along with Comey, McCabe, and the rest.

But keep in mind, Strozk also was the highly trained agent who decided to have an affair using government owned phones.  He put thousands of texts, critical of all sorts of candidates for President but particularly Donald Trump, on devices owned and controlled by the US government. It was a stupid mistake, one made out of hubris, a disbelief that anyone would ever investigate the investigator.

Had he made them on a personal device, his argument that he was simply exercising his 1^st Amendment rights would carry a lot more weight.  As it is, he embarrassed himself, and his agency, and did serious damage to the search for the truth.  He inadvertently gave aid and comfort to those who want to discredit the entire investigation.  While we may argue about the technicalities of the FBI Professional Responsibility office recommendation of a lesser penalty, Strozk’s behavior certainly earned him getting fired.

So as we wait for the next “shoe to drop,” don’t fall into the trap.  The enemy of your enemy may be fun to watch, and may even further your cause, but she, or he, is NOT necessarily a friend, or a future President.

 

 

Our American Crisis

Today I was watching “second to second” coverage of the anniversary of the Charlottesville race violence of last year.  Charlottesville has declared itself closed to demonstration and protests of any kind this year, so the white nationalists have determined that they will take their message to Washington, D.C.

They organized in Fairfax, Virginia, and drove by car with police escort to the Vienna Metro Station. Then they took a (single) reserved Metro car into DC. By the way, if you can fit a whole protest into a Metro car, then it probably isn’t much of a protest.  Hundreds, perhaps thousands of counter-protestors awaited them, as the white nationalists made their way from the “Foggy Bottom” Metro Station to Lafayette Park across from the White House.  The counter-protestors point is already made; the “anniversary protest” is now just a First Amendment exercise.

This is after a week where Americans have had some reason to question whether our leaders are racist or not. President Trump has called black men who criticized him, Don Lemmon of CNN and LeBron James of the LA Lakers, “stupid,” Maxine Waters a black woman who opposes him  as“low IQ,” and Omarosa, a black woman who was his former staffer a “lowlife.” The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency tried to “spirit away” Hispanic immigrants who were asking for amnesty in Federal Court (the judge ordered them returned to the US,) and a Fox News Commentator (Laura Ingraham) told us that the migrants have “taken away” the America we all “loved.”

So while we are still a nation dealing with a backlash to the momentous changes of the past twenty years, the paltry turnout of “hate” in Washington today may give us some measure of reassurance.

Last night I had the privilege, thanks to my brother-in-law, of watching the musical, Hamilton.  Lin-Manuel Miranda has written the striking saga of an immigrant, Alexander Hamilton, and his impact on our nation.  In song and rap, it covers the idealism of the American Revolution, and the terrible crises of American infancy.  Farmers versus City dwellers, North versus South, Slave versus Free, Strong Government versus Weak; the founders struggled with immense problems. And, while they all “took their shot,” it wasn’t clean, or agreeable.

When John Adams ran for his second term in office, Thomas Jefferson, the Vice President, ran against him. And while in those times it was considered “unacceptable” for a candidate for President to campaign, partisan newspapers took up the fight, not unlike today where we have differing “news outlets” supporting one side or the other.  And while the Democratic-Republicans called Adams, the author of the Alien and Sedition Acts, a tyrant who wanted to be King; the Federalists had a much more personal attack.  To the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” a song was composed to “Montecellian Sally,” referring to Jefferson’s slave and paramour, Sally Hemings.

America has been through tremendous crises.  And while we haven’t seen the intellect and power of post-Revolutionary America (Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison et al) rise yet on our current crisis, you can already see the beginnings of the “American Exceptionalism” we have grown to expect. There will be those who “Rise Up” to lead our country forward.

And it isn’t just Democrats. While Republicans seem bound and gagged by the Trump base and tweet, there are still a few who lead forward, even some who have not already given up seeking office.  Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, is quietly leading the Senate Intelligence Committee to find real and honest results in their Russia investigation (yes, a distant relation to Aaron Burr, Hamilton’s protagonist.) John Kasich, Governor of Ohio continues to speak out against the abuses of the Trump Administration.

And as we watch Democrats begin the long, drawn-out process of jockeying for the 2020 Presidential nomination, there are those doing the hard intellectual work of finding the truth, without making too much political capital from it.  Congressman Adam Schiff of California, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, and Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York are pressing for fairness and truthfulness, and in January, may well be leading us through this Presidential crisis.

There are always those who will refuse to accept an outcome.  Aaron Burr, the Vice President of the United States who shot and killed Hamilton in a duel, went out West to become involved in a plot to create a separate nation. In our present circumstances, there will be those on both sides who will refuse a “political” solution.  To the right, they will threaten to “exercise their 2^ndAmendment Rights.”  To the left, they will demand an overthrow of all of the Republicans, regardless of the Mueller results.

We have been there before. This is not our first American Crisis. And while we may not be as “…young, scrappy and hungry…” as we once were; we will still find the leadership to find our path through.

The Mirror

Israel is a nation whose foundations are shaking.  Barely the size of New Jersey, it is surrounded by nations hostile to its existence. It was founded as the homeland for Jews, and, after the Holocaust and World War II, was given the “blessing” of the United Nations to exist in 1948.

It has been seventy years since the establishment of the state of Israel.  There have been five wars with the surrounding neighbors, and a history of terrorism, rocket attacks, and unrest.  In 1967 Israel expanded its territory and took over strategic refugee areas just beyond its border.  Israel now has a total population of 8.5 million, with 1.6 million Palestinians living within the “old” borders. There are an additional five million Palestinians who live in the areas occupied in 1967.

Israel is a democracy based in religion.  Judaism is given preference in the laws of the nation, and while a majority of Jews in Israel are “non-practicing,” the conservative religious parties have a strong say in what laws are made.  They are proud of their Jewish heritage and want their country to remain a Jewish homeland.

But a democracy means that citizens have the right to vote and alter laws.  With over 20% of their nation non-Jewish even without the occupied territories, the pressure is growing on Israel to address the concerns of all their citizens.  Theocracy or Democracy is a growing question.

The current government of Israel is addressing the problem by building walls.  While the occupied territories are still under Israeli control, they have their own elected governments.  So Israel has walled them off, both the West Bank and Gaza.  The Walls keep the Palestinians contained, and Israelis strictly control access into their country.  Since most employment in the region is in Israeli territory, unemployment in the West Bank and Gaza is over 30%.  These living conditions create a constant cause of protest and demonstration, leading to violence at the border crossings, particularly in the Gaza region.

If all of this sounds vaguely familiar to current Americans, it should.  The Trump Administration has close ties to the Netanyahu government in Israel.  Many of the tactics chosen by Netanyahu:  building walls, restricting borders, meeting immigrants with legal resistance; all are similar to tactics the Trump Administration are using.  Trump advisors have spoken of their great admiration for what Israel is willing to do, and have failed to speak out when hundreds were killed in violence at the Gaza border.

To the Trump Administration and its supporters, the problems of Israel are similar to the problems of the United States.  They fear the “browning” of America, looking to projections that show that by 2045, whites in the US will no longer by the majority race.  And like Israel, Trump demands that we build “the Wall” to protect us from the peoples to our South, “brown people.”  They are not only trying to stop illegal immigration, but also cut back on legal immigration and even going so far as to revoke the earned US citizenship of immigrants.

Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham made this statement last week:

“The America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore. Massive demographic changes have been foisted on the American people, and they are changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like … this is related to both illegal and legal immigration.”

Her racism is more than apparent, and her view is shared by many of the Trump Administration.  This is the same “Breitbart” fueled fear that has driven the far right movements in the US for twenty years.  Now they are in control of the reins of power, and they are trying to “foist” their white vision of America on all of us.

They are taking the Israeli model and trying to apply it the American problems.  The problem is that it isn’t even working for Israel.  While the walls and violence has separated Israelis from Palestinians, it has also place Israel in a constant state of war, costing them over 5% of the Gross Domestic Product annually (US spends 3.5%.)  And it hasn’t stopped violence, rocket attacks, and terrorist bombings.

There are alternative strategies for both the US and Israel.  There are more humane ways of resolving problems beyond just walling them off.  And for both, change in the future is inevitable, no matter how high a wall they build.   The inhumanity of their current tactics are obvious.  Both nations should look in the mirror and see what their current strategies are doing, before they lose their souls.

 

 

 

 

 

By Their Oath

Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of California, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; gave a fundraising speech last week.  In the grand tradition of Mitt Romney and the 49% speech, there was an undercover reporter with an IPhone, getting all of what Nunes had to say between the clink of glasses and clank of silverware on plates.

The essence of Nunes’ message:  that the Republican majority in the House of Representatives was the only thing standing between President Trump and impeachment.  Nunes made it clear that since Attorney General Sessions won’t “un-recuse” himself and fire Mueller; that the House should take up the impeachment of Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein once again.   Their goal:  get rid of Rosenstein and replace him with a more amenable Deputy who would get rid of the “meddlesome” Special Counsel.

And with an insider’s nod, he explained that they couldn’t impeach yet, because the Senate was busy with the Brett Kavanaugh nomination.  He wouldn’t want to interfere with that.  But after Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court, and after the mid-term elections, it would be time to impeach Rosenstein so Mueller could be fired.  There would be plenty of legislative space from November until the House adjourned in December, regardless of the results of the popular vote.

The “secret tape” was revealed with all of the drama of “Geraldo and the safe” on the Rachel Maddow show.  What did it show?   Nunes thinks exactly what we thought he thinks, and that he is stupid enough to say it in a setting where it became public.  It made for outrage in the “Resistance,” but no surprises.

But it did openly reveal what has been apparent for a while.  Republicans are pretty sure that Trump did something illegal.  They are planning on Mueller coming out with criminal offenses that would place anyone other than the President under indictment. And, they believe that Mueller probably won’t indict the President, but place all of the evidence against him in front of the House and the public.

Republicans are laying the groundwork for the defense against those charges.  Rudy Giuliani has been making their strategy clear through his incoherent ramblings:  the “seventeen angry Democrats” on the Mueller team, the constant refrain of the illegitimacy of the investigation, claiming that it was based on the Steele Dossier, and now a deadline.  A nation that clearly saw the impact of the Comey letter on the national election in October of 2016, is now being told that if Mueller doesn’t “wrap up” his investigation by September 1^st, then he is illegitimately trying to influence the Congressional election.  It is the “phantom” Department of Justice sixty-day rule.

What does all of this “smoke” imply?  Republicans are preparing to lose control of the House of Representatives.  They clearly believe that a Democrat controlled House will begin investigations, followed by impeachment hearings and actual impeachment of the President.  It only takes a simple majority of the House to bring charges against the President, and if Democrats have it, they will use it.

There is little Republicans in the House will be able to do at that point, other than to try to “muddy the waters.”  But what Republicans, in the House, and working for the White House, can do is to build a case for the President in the Senate.   The Senate would decide the fate of an impeached Donald Trump, with sixty-seven votes required to remove the President.  This means, regardless of the election outcome in November, it will require sixteen or seventeen Republican Senators to vote for removal.

This entire campaign of disinformation about the Mueller investigation isn’t really aimed at the House, or the public.  It is ultimately aimed at those few Republican Senators who might ultimately be persuaded by charges against the President.  It gives them an “out” to stand for the President, to claim that the entire investigation is illegitimate.

The oath each Senator (and all government officials) pledges upon entering office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

We are on a long road towards impeachment.  Republicans, who, according to Nunes, have seen it as their duty to undercut the investigation at every turn, will try to stall as long as possible.  The question of whether the President will be questioned by the Mueller team, which has dragged on for over a year, is just another way they have strategically slowed the pace of the investigations.  There will be more roadblocks.

And the Mueller Team remains silently doing their work. We don’t know what they know, or what they have.  We do now that they will ultimately place their evidence before the nation.  And then we will ask our Senators to live up to that oath of office, rather than their political allegiances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glass Half Full

The Democrat came within a couple of thousand votes of winning Ohio’s 12^thCongressional District last night.  In an August special election to replace long time Republican Congressman Pat Tiberi, Democrat Danny O’Connor was within a percent of Republican Troy Balderson.  There’s provisional ballots to count, and a potential recount, but in all likelihood Balderson will gain the seat, at least until November, when the two face off again.

The 12^thhas been a traditional Republican district for decades, the last Democrat to win was in 1980.  And with re-districting in 2011, the 12^thwas even more “Republicanized.”  It contains rural counties:  Morrow, Muskingum, and parts of Richland and Marion. These are traditional farm and Republican strongholds, but while there’s a lot of geography, that’s not where the votes are.

The 12^thalso has the northern Columbus suburbs in Franklin County.  It’s hard to imagine that upscale residential suburbs of Worthington, Dublin and Westerville (as well as the northern residential areas within the city of Columbus) are now considered “Democrat;” but O’Connor’s 65% vote margin shows it’s true.

So it’s the balance, between the rural and the urban/suburban.  And in between those two extremes are the “exurbs,” the tremendous residential neighborhoods that have grown beyond the Columbus outer-belt in the past forty years.   Southern Delaware County and Western Licking County make up those areas, and hold the current balance in electoral outcomes.

Delaware County, where President Trump came for a pep rally last Saturday, ran close to it’s 55% Trump vote in 2016, with Baldeson getting almost 54%.  But the upscale areas nearer Columbus ran more Democratic, raising the question of Trump’s impact on white suburban women, the “soccer moms.”  If O’Connor made a dent in the Republican wall, it was there.

Where he didn’t have an impact was in Western Licking County, my home.  Like clockwork, Licking County gave the Republican 60% of the vote, the same numbers that the area has produced for decades.  The difference is that it is now much more populous, feeling the increasing Columbus growth pivoting to the east, and is another Republican bastion.

Things may be different in November in the 12^th, when there is an election with more than one race on the ballot.  A hotly contested gubernatorial race will head the ticket (Democrat Rich Cordray versus Republican Mike DeWine) and long serving Senator Sherrod Brown is up for re-election.  Traditional wisdom would say that a November election would mean a greater turnout for Democrats; it wouldn’t take much to tip the scale for O’Connor.

But it will also take greater outreach to the outer suburbs, not necessarily to win Licking and Delaware counties, but to mitigate the losses.

That’s the “micro” version of this election.  The “macro” version is more encouraging:  in a Congressional District that voted 11% for Trump in 2016, that Pat Tiberi won by 66% in the same year, and has had a Republican Congressman for thirty-five years:  a Democrat came within 1700 votes (out of 200,000) of crossing the finish line.  If this district is “in play,” then the Republican Congress should put their “blue wave” life jackets on.

They’re going to drown.

 

 

 

 

Patriots and Victims

I became politically “aware” in the late 1960’s.  I grew up in the heat of the civil rights and anti-war movements; both were part of my day-to-day world.  It was a time of turmoil:  a time when Americans were at odds with each other, and with their views of what America was.

One of the bumper sticker slogans I remember from that time was, “AMERICA – LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT.”  It meant that if you wanted to change America, by ending the Vietnam War, or by fighting for full civil rights for minorities, then somehow you didn’t love America, and you should get out.  It meant that questioning authority was somehow un-American, that wanting to make America “better” in your own view wasn’t acceptable for an American citizen.

So here we are, fifty years later.  We are perhaps as divided now as we were then, though it seems to me that things were terribly divided then too.  And I hear the same sentiment now that I remember from those days.

There is a Facebook “meme” going around – it’s a picture of an American Flag flying from the front porch of a house.  It demands that if you’d fly the flag, you should share the “meme.”  It originates from a group that favors President Trump, and it implies that those that support him support the flag – and those that don’t are against it.

President Trump has tried to forward this claim, literally wrapping himself in “the flag” on issue after issue.  He has convinced a large group of Americans that their fellow citizens who use flag ceremonies as an opportunity to express their grievances about America are un-American. If you are against Trump, you must be against the flag. That is the farthest from the truth.

There is nothing more American than protest.  There is nothing more American than voicing your views, and trying to change America for what you believe is the better.  America began in protest and revolution.  How can the descendants, actual or political, of Washington and Jefferson, and Sam Adams, Thomas Paine and Crispus Attucks; somehow claim that protest is un-American.  It is how we began.  It is in the DNA of our nation.

On the other side, there is a terrible condescension in the anti-Trump, Resistance movement.  It is summed up with one term:  deplorables.  With that one term, we dismiss the concerns of our fellow Americans, we mark them as ignorant, irredeemable, and backward.  That is just as wrong as “…LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT.”  It denies their legitimate grievances; that the America they thought they knew has changed so radically that they are left out of the American dream.  They aren’t wrong, the pace of change in the past twenty years has been dramatic; it is no wonder some feel pushed to the side.

And there are Americans who are so frustrated that they look to easy answers to explain what has occurred. Conspiracies and theories; stories of dreaded cabals of varying kinds that have “taken” our country have found fertile ground in the turmoil of our times.  The changes have happened so fast, and been so dramatic; that it is easy to think there must be some dark and shady forces with purpose behind them.

And the crisis hasn’t yet been reached.  We, Americans, have a “fiery trial” still to go through; it will be years before we can put this time in our lives into the past, before reconciliation.   But even in the passion and heat of the coming crisis, we, Americans, need to recognize that no one side of the argument has a full monopoly on what is right; or what is American.

There’s a flag flying from my front porch.  It’s been there for years.  It symbolizes the nation we can be, even if that is not the nation we are.  James Madison said it best:  “…a more perfect Union…” We are still “perfecting” our Union; two-hundred and thirty-one years after he wrote those words.  No matter where you stand on the issues of our time, fly the flag:  it represents the nation YOU want to perfect.  That’s as American as it gets.

 

 

 

 

Ohio’s 12^th

Tomorrow is election day, here in Ohio’s 12^th Congressional District.  Pat Tiberi, who represented the District from 2001 until this winter, chose to do what many “mainstream” Republican politicians found to be their best choice in the Trump era:  he resigned from the House and went to make money in the private sector.

While the 12^th District was redesigned after the 2010 census, it has always been Republican. The 2010 redistricting, the result of a Republican computer driven gerrymander, made it an even more Republican seat.

Today’s 12^th District goes from Mansfield in the north, down I-71 sixty miles to include a sliver of the city of Columbus (for those who know the city, it’s the east side of High Street from OSU, then both sides of High Street to Worthington.) Then it includes the northern suburbs of Columbus including Dublin, Powell, Lewis Center, and Delaware County.

The district then goes east over sixty miles, splitting the suburb of Gahanna, includes all of Licking County, and into the rural eastern part of Ohio, with parts of Muskingum and Perry County.  The gerrymander diluted the Democratic areas of Columbus and the smaller urban areas of Newark and Zanesville, with the massively suburban northern Columbus area, and the rural areas of the east.

For many years this was not a contested election.  The Democrats would usually put a body on the ballot (and I would vote for them) but the reality was that Pat Tiberi, and before him John Kasich, were the overwhelming favorites.  Tiberi won with over 66% of the vote in 2016; President Trump won by 11% over Clinton.

That’s not the case tomorrow.  Tomorrow Republican Troy Balderson, a state representative from the Delaware area, is facing stiff opposition from Democrat Danny O’Connor, the current Auditor in Franklin County (Columbus and Central Ohio.)  Current polling shows Balderson ahead, 46% to 45%.

Whatever the outcome of tomorrow’s vote, the Republican party has already gotten the message. They can no longer assume that the suburban vote is automatically “theirs.” With Trump’s numbers upside down with women, the “soccer mom” vote of suburban Worthington,  Dublin, Olentangy and New Albany is up for grabs.  And frankly, Trump’s rally on Saturday and Pence’s visit last Monday probably didn’t help.

The key to a Democratic victory tomorrow is turnout.  The usual gripe:  Democrats don’t show up for mid-term elections.  Ohio looks like a “Red” state at first glance:  only one Democrat holds statewide office, and both houses of the state legislature have large Republican majorities.  But the results of the past several Presidential elections show that with a full Democratic turnout, Ohio can be, at the least, “purple.”

The higher the visibility of the race, the more likely Democrats will be motivated to go to the polls. What would normally be a “reflex” Republican district, now has the accelerant of a Presidential and Vice Presidential visit to drive Democrats out to vote.  Republican Governor Kasich, who endorsed Balderson, suggests that the candidate didn’t want the President to come in for that reason.  That didn’t stop the “Wrestlemania- like” Trump rally from coming to town, to  Olentangy’s Orange High School, right in the heart of upper-middle class suburban Columbus.

This election is only for four months.  No matter the results tomorrow, there will be a re-run in November, when the same two candidates will face off again.  But with the focus of the nation, and both political parties, squarely on Ohio now, the money has flowed.  The usual negative ads have been on television, with O’Connor claiming Balderson will raise the retirement age and cut social security, and Balderson claiming O’Connor is a Pelosi sycophant who will raise taxes and open the borders.

From inside the district, it really doesn’t feel like any of those claims have “stuck.”

Tomorrow then, ends up being a referendum on the President.  The election is taking place in a District that overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016.  If Danny O’Connor wins, it would be a huge upset; if he loses within a couple of points, it still will send a message.  While the “Trump voter” may support Trump, that support doesn’t extend to Republican candidates in a general election.

Ohio’s 12^th District will tell that tale tomorrow, and give all of us a better idea of what will happen in November.  For those of us in the District, don’t forget to go out and vote (even if you may vote differently than I would.)  For the rest, we will know more on Wednesday.  Stay tuned.