Month: January 2019

What IS the Plan?

February 15^this the next deadline.  If the Congress and the President cannot agree on a funding plan, including Border Security, then the government may be closed once again, and 800000 employees will face financial crisis.  Wednesday, a committee of House and Senate members from both parties got together to begin the process of negotiations.

It would seem obvious that all sides want to avoid another disastrous closing.  But, in the current era where “normal” rules no longer matter, nothing is obvious anymore.  As the committee gathered, with both leadership teams choosing members who aren’t “bomb-throwers,” the President issued his first salvo in a tweet:

 If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!

The “bomb thrower” was sitting in the White House.  While Republicans and Democrats in Congress will likely reach a negotiated agreement, there is no guarantee that any deal will pass Presidential muster without “Wall.”  Both sides recognize this, but the problem is: what is “wall?”

“Wall” started as a “great” concrete barrier stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Coast. But that concept, created as a memory device for the then-candidate to remember to talk about immigration, has faded away.  While the President wants the legacy, a monument to the strength of his will, perhaps the Trump Wall like the Hoover Dam;  to the opposition it has become a symbol of racism, of complete disregard for the environment, and of the folly of using simplistic solutions to complex issues.  A concrete barrier is totally unacceptable.

What will “wall” be? The discussions have grown into a complicated mix of fence, barriers, actual walls, electronic monitoring, and more border personnel on the ground.  This modern border security has been given a name to use as a fig leaf for the President:  “Smart Wall.”   In addition, funding to alleviate the Trump created humanitarian crisis would be included. Left out are the larger immigration issues that seem intractable:  a solution for the Dreamers, for those temporarily admitted to the US, and an overall immigration strategy.

This solution seems inevitable, with both sides moving towards agreement.  But that may not be the Trump strategy.  The President has consistently shown his desire to govern alone, without suggestions or assistance from Congress, or even those who work in his administration.  His recent treatment of his own National Intelligence leaders is just another example of this trend.  

There is a way that the President can avoid a shutdown, and have a better chance of building the “Great Wall of Trump.”  Rather than use the legislative process, the normal means of determining policy and law in the United States, the President could simply declare a National Emergency, and try to subvert Congressional powers to determine funding.  The advantages for him are clear:  he can declare a public “victory” (whether an Emergency declaration would hold up in court is an open question) then declare that there is no need to shutdown the government.  He would attempt to gain powers that have never been claimed by a US President outside of wartime.

He would also “flip the script” from the ongoing Mueller investigation, at a time that the Special Counsel is likely to bring the most damning indictments to those closest to the President, and Congressional investigations into his actions are gearing up. 

Oddly enough, the President declaring an emergency is as much a problem for the Republicans in Congress as Democrats.  To the Democrats it would be seen as a probably unconstitutional move to be contested in court, and another rallying cry to the Democratic base.  To Republicans, the declaration would establish a dangerous precedent.  Should the next President be a Democrat, what would stop her or him from taking similar action for REAL national emergencies:  global warming (not the neutered “climate change”) or mass shootings, or health care.  

While I was writing this essay, the President has put out six tweets, four dealing with the need for his “wall” to stop “murderers and drugs.”  He continues to undermine the Congressional negotiations almost before they begin.  It may seem like he is floundering; trying to negotiate from weakness.  But it is just as likely that this IS the plan:  a plan to gain control of the message, and of authoritarian power.

Billionaire

Musical Selection – Millionaire by Chris Stapleton

There is an arrogance that comes with being a “billionaire.”  There has to be; they’ve been successful at the game that everyone has to play, the game of making a living.  They are clearly the winners:  political folks like Mike Bloomberg and Howard Schultz, but also the gentle Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.  Some like Gates, Zuckerberg and Musk, found a way to “build a better mousetrap;” they used their genius to ride their creations to wealth.  Others, like Buffet and Bloomberg; were better than others at manipulating the financial system, building their own wealth as reward for creating wealth for others.

It’s an arrogance that comes from not having to worry about any kind of basic needs.  To just go through a million dollars a month, it requires spending $33,000 a day.  And that’s only twelve million a year, only a 1.2% of a billion.  To say that someone with that kind of financial capacity is “in touch” with the cost of health care, mortgages, retirement or the price of bread at Krogers, is hard to imagine.  

Howard Schultz made his money in Starbucks.  He has a great “rags to riches” story, and says “he understands” the American people. But of course, he understands not what the American people need, but what he sees from the high altitude of his billions in wealth.  He claims to see “the big picture” that “average” Americans can’t possibly understand. He thinks we need “serious people” to sit around the table to solve American problems.  That doesn’t seem to include average Americans, because he does not feel the reality of living in an America where the disparity of wealth is so great, that one percent of the population controls forty percent of the wealth. 

There is also arrogance grown from the immensity of their financial success.  From their achievement comes the attitude that they can do anything, including running the country.  President Trump is simply the most unvarnished example of this, whether he is a real billionaire or not.  And there is, among almost all of them, a dedication to the system that providing them with success, a no-holds-bar belief in unbridled capitalism.  It worked for them, so it should work for everyone.

It doesn’t.

I’m not a socialist, or a communist; but I do believe that our nation has an obligation to those whose labor creates our wealth, as well as to those who own it.  And more than that, I do not believe that there is a quid-pro-quo; an economic bargain saying you labor and maybe you will get what you need. We as a nation should be better than that:  food, shelter, education, healthcare; all should be inherent entitlements of being in America, and not gained as a reward for labors performed.

Regardless of the excesses of the past two years, the United States still has the potential for being the greatest example of a nation in world history.  We have the greatest amount of wealth available to benefit our people, and we already have near the highest standard of living.  What the United States needs to do is recognize the obligation we have to ALL of the people in our country.  This is not a matter of scarcity of wealth, it is a matter of wealth distribution.  And as soon as that term comes out, redistributing wealth, the hue and cry against socialism (or communism) rises, particular from those with the biggest megaphone:  the most wealthy.  Well of course they don’t want their income redistributed, they have the most to lose.

Don’t say it can’t be done, or that it would make us a SOCIALIST COUNTRY.  Two years ago, when the Trump era began, I wrote an essay about some Americans longing for the simplicity of the 1950’s, the era of the television show “Leave it to Beaver” (Trump World and the Beaver.)  In that “black and white” time the tax rates on the most wealthy was over 90% (the tax charged on income OVER $200,000, the first $200,000 was taxed at lower rates.) Today the equivalent income is over $2 million, and the tax rate is 37%.  We were doing it in the era of Elvis and Eisenhower; why not now?

Billionaires don’t represent the interests or experiences of most Americans.  And success in creating wealth doesn’t equate to success in running government (we should know that now more than ever.)   What billionaires do have is access to our communication system:  they can buy the biggest megaphones to deliver their message.  It doesn’t make them qualified to govern, nor does their experience help them understand the concerns of most Americans.  They are good at making money, so, as the saying goes;

“Do what you know best; if you’re a runner, run, if you’re a bell, ring.”

Ignaz Bernstein – Jewish Folklorist and Wealthy Philanthropist (1836-1909)

Papering Over Our Differences

America polarized, compromise unattainable:  while it sounds familiar, it is not the upcoming election of 2020, but of 1860.  The United States was in the ultimate Constitutional crisis, unable to resolve the issues.  While revisionist historians now claim it was about the rights of states, or the abuse of tariff policy to the detriment of the South, or some other lame excuse; the men of the time knew exactly what the issue was:  human bondage.  As early 20^thcentury reformer and essayist John Jay Chapman said:

“There was never a moment, when the slavery issue was not a sleeping serpent. That issue lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.”

The chasm in American thought was never clearer than in the election of 1860. The Republican Party, though abolitionists were members, was not the Party of Abolition, but of Containment. Slavery could remain where it was, but it would not be allowed to spread on into the new territories of the United States. 

The Democratic Party was as divided as the nation.  The Party nominated Stephen Douglas of Illinois as their candidate, avowing the policy of popular sovereignty, giving each new territory the “right” to vote slave or free.  But that wasn’t enough for the Southern Democrats, who walked out of the convention to nominate their own choice, John Breckenridge of Kentucky, dedicated to allowing slavery in every part of the nation.   The split doomed both sides to electoral disaster.

A fourth political party, the Constitutional-Union, formed with the explicit message in their one-paragraph party platform:  they would recognize no other principle but the Constitution of the United States.  They specifically took no stand on the issue of slavery.

The election results were as fragmented as the nation:  

Candidate                    Party                Elect Votes      Pop Vote         Percent

Abraham Lincoln         Republican      180                  1866452          40%

John Breckenridge      S. Democrat     72                    847953          18%

Stephen Douglas         Democrat          12                  1380202          29%

John Bell                     Cons. Union     39                    590901          13%

Lincoln won the electoral votes, but was governing with only 40% of the popular votes (note: Bill Clinton had 43% in 1992.)  Secession and Civil War were in the air.  

William Seward of New York was the pre-convention leader of the Republican Party.  Lincoln, the “rube” from the plains of Illinois, demonstrated the skills of a Chicago lawyer in out-maneuvering Seward for the nomination, and Seward became Lincoln’s Secretary of State in the “team of rivals.”  He was desperate to find a way out of War.  His proposal: invoke the Monroe Doctrine and declare war on Spain and France for their incursions into Central and South America, uniting the nation against a foreign enemy instead of fighting a civil war.  We could be “ All Americans” against an imperial foe.  But the battle lines were already drawn, soon states began to secede and the cannons were firing at Fort Sumter.

Flash forward to this past Sunday.  Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press,was clearly searching for positives in President Trump’s awful, very bad week: the shutdown ending on Speaker Pelosi’s terms and the Roger Stone indictment.  Hewitt pointed out that the Trump Administration was intervening in the Venezuelan government crisis, where the socialist-dictator incumbent, Nicolas Maduro, stole the Presidential election.  Juan Guaido, the President of the National Assembly, claimed the Presidency, and the United States and several European countries backed his move. Russia and China are backing Maduro, and a full-scale international crisis is developing.

Hewitt praised the US intervention, using it as proof that the Trump Administration wasn’t following the Russian line on policy.  But then he went even further, hoping that American involvement in Venezuela might serve to unify the nation, overcoming our internal political differences.

I don’t think Hewitt was calling for a foreign war to paper over our polarization, but he might have been.  In this “Wag the Dog” scenario (after the 1990’s movie of a President who distracted from personal scandal by literally creating a war in the Balkans) the US would fight for Venezuelan democracy, along with our European allies.  The socialist opponent, would be supported by Cuba and indirectly Russia and China. It would harken back to the Cold War anti-communist days, with a simple enemy for Americans to focus on.

 And it would have the added benefit of blurring the lines between dictators like Maduro (and Chavez before him) and Democratic Socialists in the United States like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Should Trump survive to run in 2020, he could further weaponize the division through simplistic Twitter statements. 

It was all  “Sunday Morning Talk.”  Then Monday, National Security Advisor John Bolton appeared at the surprise press conference, announcing additional sanctions against Maduro’s regime.  The sanctions weren’t surprising; what was chilling was the note scribbled on the legal pad Bolton was holding:  “5000 troops to Columbia.”

The Trump Administration has already announced the ominous phrase, “all options are on the table.”  It must be tempting for them; to change the subject from Mueller and “Wall;” to reach for possible “national unification” in war.  Russia, China:  the Monroe Doctrine (and the Roosevelt Corollary) all could be applied.  

I hope democracy wins out in Venezuela.  I hope the United States uses all its diplomatic skills to make that occur. But Venezuela is not Granada, the island nation President Reagan invaded in four days in 1983.  It is a nation-state with a long history of controversy and disruption; and a situation where American troops could be mired for decades.  Military intervention there will not solve their problem, and it will not solve ours either.  It will not paper over our differences, but simply make them worse.

Running Out the Clock

It seems like some kind of “madman” strategy.  Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani goes on multiple Sunday morning news shows, changing the narrative of the Moscow Trump Tower story.  It went from nothing, to a deal no one cared about that Michael Cohen was “playing” with, to a deal they were involved with until spring of 2016, to something the Trump staff worked on until the election.  Giuliani “accidentally” talked about tapes, and seemed to “give away” secrets of the Trump defense.

He sounded at times confused, occasionally deranged, and often unprofessional.  It leaves observers with two choices:  either Giuliani is incompetent and should be immediately fired, or he has a strategy that is so obscure that even the “experts” can’t follow it.  The prosecutor of the mob, the mayor of 9-11, has either lost has skills, or…we’re not so sure what.

One of the great fears of the Trump White House was Democratic control of the House of Representatives. With Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, the President is faced with two years of investigation from multiple committees and their chairmen:  Schiff’s Intelligence, Water’s Financial Services, Cumming’s Oversight, and ultimately, Nadler’s Judiciary.

Chairman Schiff particularly wants to get started; after the Intelligence Committees’ debacle under Republican Chairman Nunes, acting as a defensive wall for the Trump organization. Schiff wants to make things “right.” But Republican Minority Leader McCarthy has found another way to impede the investigation; he has failed to appoint Republican members to the committee.  By preventing Republican participation the Committee is unable to reach a quorum of members, and cannot conduct any business.  The stall is “in.”

As we approached Christmas of 2018, there was a clear “deal” to be made for the Southern Border.  The current theory is that the far-right media, led by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, nixed a deal to keep the government open (I wrote an essay on it for Christmas – Merry Christmas Rush) and so portions of the government were closed for thirty-four days.  The focus of the media, and the public, was on the impact of the closings: air travel in disarray, law enforcement working without pay, tax returns stalled, food stamps threatened, government workers in food lines.  While the shutdown is temporarily over, the President still threatens its return in three weeks.

It seems like so much confusion and distraction, from Giuliani to Congress to shut downs.  But there is a clear impact of each of these actions:  delay, delay, delay: delay of Congressional action into the Trump Presidency, delay of impeachment.

Perhaps this is the real underlying strategy of the Trump legal team.  This “band of fools” may actually be playing out a strategic long-term game.  Judge from how the electoral calendar is established.  It’s almost February, 2019, the first shots of the 2020 Presidential campaigns have already been fired.  The Republican National Committee has pledged their fealty to the Trump Presidency, and multiple Democrats have already entered the race.  We are on the cusp of the campaigns, the Iowa caucuses are just 371 days away.

Once the Iowa voters straggle through the snow to their meetings, once the counting has begun, the clock will have run on Presidential impeachment.  Congress will not put themselves in the position of competing with voters for the power to choose the President.  This is the ultimate argument of the Trump team, the same argument they made to negate the impact of Trump’s sexual dalliances.  “Let the people decide if it’s important” they said, the results of the election adjudicates the issue.

It makes some sense. Even James Comey, with inside knowledge into what really happened in the 2016 election and no friend of the President, has called for the 2020 election to be the determining factor, not impeachment.  Comey’s theory is that if the President is removed any other way than through the electoral process, it will leave a “rump base” that will forever feel they have been cheated.  Only an election could convince them that it was “fair.”

That will become even truer as the clock ticks closer to November of 2020.  The Presidential strategy may be much simpler than we thought. Delay today, delay tomorrow, delay this week and this month; find a way to stall and keep America distracted.  It doesn’t have to be until November of 2020, it only has to make it for another ten months.  Then the argument will change from what happened to 2016, to letting 2020 determine the outcome.

Democrats in the House are concerned that their actions not be seem as a “rush to judgment.”  They want to make sure the Democrats can be seen a “governing,” not just investigating and attacking.  But each day that President Trump is in office, another action is taken that damages our country and world.  So while it might be easier to “wait for the people to decide,” there is an undetermined cost to be paid.  The “meter is running” on the Trump Presidency:  we will all have to pay the fare for his actions.  

It’s all about time; and the clock’s running now.  

Stone’s Turn in the Barrel

“Trust me, it will soon be Podesta’s time in the barrel” – Roger Stone tweet, August 21, 2016

Roger Stone, the shadowy first political advisor to Donald Trump, got his wish Friday morning.  He was indicted by the Mueller Grand Jury, and arrested by the FBI.   He now has reached the “pinnacle achievement” of his mentors, the Watergate operatives of the Nixon campaign. The whole nation was watching as he emerged from the courthouse – his arms spread wide in a Nixonian victory gesture.

Stone was there at the beginning of the Trump campaign, organizing the early moves as Trump entered the race.  Soon though, he officially “left”, but continued to work to support Trump, preferring to function outside of the harsh light of publicity shined on the official campaign structure.  

In the summer of 2016, Stone publicly announced that he had contact with the internet sites who had possession of stolen Democratic National Committee emails, Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks.  His August 2016 tweet about Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta (see above) predicted the release of Podesta’s emails that were hacked from the DNC server, emails that proved to be embarrassing to the Chairman when they were revealed in the last two months of the campaign.  While nothing illegal was found, the internal campaign discussions about a series of speeches Clinton gave to Wall Street groups proved to be difficult to explain.

Guccifer 2.0 was determined by US Intelligence to be a Russian source.  Wikileaks, publisher of many of the DNC emails timed to influence events in the campaign, denies they got them from Russians, but US Intelligence sources have determined that Russia was the source.  The political impact of particular email releases was clearly targeted, most notably with the first Podesta email “drop,” on October 7, 2016, thirty minutes after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape of Donald Trump discussing sexually imposing himself on women.  

The legal questions for Stone was how he had knowledge of the emails, and whether he communicated with the internet sites as to the timing of their release.  It is known that Stone was in communication with the Trump campaign, and Trump himself, throughout this period. It is alleged that Stone may be the “link” from the Trump campaign to Wikileaks, controlling the timing of the releases.  This conspiracy could extend from the highest levels of the Trump campaign to those in possession of the stolen emails.

  He is currently being charged with “process” charges:  one count of obstruction of justice, five counts of making false statements, and one count of witness tampering.  The Special Counsel has not brought any charges regarding Stone’s actual conduct during the campaign, though those may come later.  Mr. Mueller may be trying to gain cooperation from Stone in the investigation, though Stone has consistently claimed he won’t cooperate. And while the charges may be about violations during the “process” of the investigation, the question continues to haunt the Trump Campaign: if they weren’t doing anything wrong, why have they so consistently lied to investigators?

On December 3, 2018, Stone spoke on ABC news: “There’s no circumstance under which I would testify against the president because I’d have to bear false witness against him. I’d have to make things up. And I’m not going to do that.” The President, already shaken by the cooperation of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, tweeted in response:

“I will never testify against Trump.” This statement was recently made by Roger Stone, essentially stating that he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about “President Trump.” Nice to know that some people still have “guts!”

Roger Stone began his political career working for the Committee to Re-Elect the President, the Nixon 1972 campaign. Stone was a young member of the “Rat F—kers,” the dirty tricks squad organized as part of the campaign structure. He was the youngest campaign operative called in to testify as part of the Watergate investigation, though he was never charged with any offenses.

Stone was so impacted by his Nixon experiences, that he had a life-sized image of Nixon’s face tatooed on his back.  He continued his political career, working with former Trump campaign chairman and now convicted felon Paul Manafort and legendary Republican political operative Lee Atwater.  Their company was successful, a campaign consultant firm working internationally with whoever had the money to pay, including dictators and despots.

Stone and Manafort broke apart, but Stone continued to be a “go-to” guy for the Republican party for “shady” actions. He was brought in by the 2000 Bush campaign during the Florida recount, and was in part responsible for the “Brooks Brothers Riot” that disrupted the counting process in Miami-Dade County.

Stone has modeled his whole political career after his Nixon campaign mentors, and it seems unlikely that he will cooperate with the Mueller investigation.  However, like his compatriot Manafort, he may find a number of even more serious charges awaiting him should he decide to have the “guts” that President Trump so admires.  Now it’s his “turn in the barrel.”

Let Them Eat Cake

Musical Suggestion –Wolves at the Door– Aaron Burdett

“It’s not fair to you and we all get that, but this is so much bigger than any one person.  It is a little bit of pain, but it’s going to be for the future of our country, and their children and their grandchildren and generations after them will thank them for their sacrifice. Right now, I know it’s hard. I know people have families, they have bills to pay, they have mortgages, they have rents that are due.”– Lara Trump ( wife of Eric, daughter-in-law of the President)

 reporter – “There are reports that there are some federal workers who are going to homeless shelters to get food.” “Well, I know they are but I don’t really quite understand why because … the obligations that they would undertake say borrowing from the bank or credit union are in effect federally guaranteed, so the 30 days of pay which some people will be out ―there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it.” – Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross

It’s an apocryphal story (a literature major way of saying it’s probably not true.)  Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France and married to Louis XVIII during the French Revolution, was supposed to have said it in response to the French “peasants” rioting because there was no bread.  Saying “Let them eat cake” represented a total lack of compassion or understanding; if there wasn’t bread available then there certainly wasn’t cake. The nobility had no sense of what it was like to be a common person, and even though the Queen probably didn’t say the phrase, the attitude it represents certainly came through.  It’s no wonder she lost her head, along with her husband’s, to Dr. Guillotine’s new invention.

So it wasn’t too much of a surprise that the “let them eat cake” moniker was plastered on Lara Trump’s statement (see above) about the government shutdown, with more than 800,000 missing more than a month’s pay. “It is a little bit of pain…” denies the reality of folks being evicted from their homes, forced to use food banks, and choosing between rent and medical care.  Their “children and grandchildren” may be proud in the future, but right now they need food and shelter, something the shutdown is denying. The statement was made with faux noblesse oblige (how ‘bout that French phrase); praising them for their involuntary service as the sacrificial offering on the alter of the “Wall.”

That same attitude exudes from Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross (see above) who doesn’t understand why the unpaid workers just don’t run down to the bank and “get a loan.”  As a former investment banker (Rothschild and Sons) and bank Vice Chairman (Bank of Cyprus) he should be more aware than most that banks only lend money to people that have money.  The guaranteed way to not get a loan, at least not a pay-day or loan shark loan, is to not have the money to pay for it.  Even with a Federal “guarantee” most banks wouldn’t touch a loan that had no guaranteed collateral, especially with the current crisis that has no clear end.

In his world, banks always loan money.  That’s how he met Donald Trump in the first place, as Trump was running out of money for his New Jersey casinos, it was Ross who reorganized the financial backers to keep Trump in business.  

Ross also is personally “disappointed” that TSA workers are calling in sick, as many can’t afford to fill their gas tanks for the drive to work, or pay for child care as they work for free.  In his world of a $700,000,000 personal valuation, Ross has never faced the “wolves at the door” moment that some of our government workers are facing now.

And of course, there’s the President himself.  In order to claim support, he had his “little talk” with “many people.”  During the second week of the shutdown, the President said: “And many of those people, maybe even most of those people that really have not been and will not be getting their money in at this moment, those people in many cases are the biggest fans of what we are doing.” 

While there are undoubtedly some government workers who support the President’s proposals, it is much more likely that “many of those people” would like the President and Congress to settle the issue without being volunteered as the sacrificial lambs.  

The President, his family, his cabinet; they don’t understand.  They didn’t understand the moral outrage of separating kids at the border, and they don’t understand the moral outrage of impoverishing the government workers they need to operate our country.  It’s not just wealth: Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and both Bushs’ were all raised in wealth.  Yet all of those Presidents still had empathy for the vast number of Americans not born with a silver spoon.  It is a personal flaw in this President, his family, and many of his appointees.  

Soon though, they will have a different kind of “wolves at the door.” Then they can eat their cake, maybe one with a file baked in it.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

“If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll ask for a glass of milk”

Children’s book written by Laura Numeroff

It is one of my favorite classic modern movies, “Air Force One”.  Harrison Ford stars as the President of the United States, travelling on Air Force One from (surprise!!) Russia. His plane is infiltrated by terrorists; they take the President hostage to exchange for their imprisoned leader.

Ford struggles against the intruders; fighting them off again and again.  In a whispered satellite phone conversationwith the Vice President of the United States, played by Glenn Close, they talk about negotiating with terrorists:

            Ford – If you give a mouse a cookie

            Close – He’s gonna want a glass of milk.

Spoiler Alert: The terrorist leader is shot in the prison courtyard as his helicopter to safety hovers above.  Ford kills all the terrorists, saves his family and escapes from a crashing Air Force One.  And the heroic music swells!!!

We are in day thirty-two of a partial government shutdown.  Funding for the Departments of Homeland Security, Treasury, Commerce, Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Justice is stalled.  Employees of those departments are either furloughed or are working without pay. Over 800,000 government workers are affected, and government services such as Food Stamps, tax returns, National Parks and the FBI are impacted.

President Trump has made it clear that he will accept nothing less than $5.7 Billion for building a “wall like barrier” on parts of the Southern Border.  Democrats, led by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, have stated that: “…we will give money for border security, but not $1 for the ‘Wall.’”

The United States government is deadlocked.  Proposals from both sides aren’t getting past the discussion stage, or as the news media seems to love to say; “are dead on arrival.”  After two missed paychecks, Federal workers are desperate to feed their families, and concerned that they will be unable to continue their jobs.

The pressure is growing, on both sides, to solve the problem.  The President seems to be immune to public concerns, focused completely on maintaining the support of his base by delivering on his promised “Wall.” Republicans in the Senate are in a quandary:  feeling the pressure from their constituents to resolve the crisis, but also concerned about the almighty Presidential “tweet” destroying their electoral chances in the future.  

And Democrats are feeling pressure as well.  While polling shows they still have a majority of the nation behind them, it is the Democrats who support the “working folks” including the government workers who are feeling the greatest impact.  The whispers are beginning, “…is stopping ‘Wall’ worth the suffering that will get worse?”  Will the public stay with the Dems, or will they finally grow weary of the spectacle of the “world’s greatest democracy” unable to function.  Who will get the blame?

 Should Democrats offer the $5.7 Billion for “Wall” and get whatever they can in terms of DACA, TPA and immigration reform; then claim credit for ending the shutdown?  Or should they hold fast against the wasteful “Wall” and negotiate a better security system?

There is a third position. Some government workers, some most impacted by the shutdown, and some Democratic Congressmen and Senators; are saying that this form of negotiations needs to end.  This is the third government shutdown in the past two years, and while the others were measured in terms of hours, we have been headed for this kind of long-term showdown for a while.

They are saying that “shutdowns” as a negotiating tool must end.  The United States must find a more effective means of resolving differences and determine that closing part or all of the government must stop being an option. They call for Congress to pass a resolution re-opening the government, without answering questions about “Wall,” put it in front of the President, and if he dares to veto it then override his veto.

The warning: it will not stop even if the Democrats back down.  It will come up again, probably on the next budget resolution.  It is time to realize:  if you give Trump a cookie, he’s gonna want a glass of milk.

De-Construction

The government shutdown is moving into its second month.  Over 800,000 Federal government employees are going without pay.  Around half of these workers are actually showing up at work everyday, some even working overtime hours but are note getting a paycheck.  They are trapped:  if they don’t show up, they lose their jobs, if they do show up, they lose an opportunity to work somewhere else and make money for themselves and their family. The shutdown has made them make an impossible choice.

There is a perception among some, that government workers are making “big money” and can afford to take a month off.  There is the further perception that we don’t “need” them to do their work; that a smaller government is a better thing anyway.  And, I’m sure, someone thinks we are saving “taxpayer” money by the shutdown.

The average salary of a TSA agent, the person keeping weapons and bombs off of airplanes, is around $44,000 a year.  That’s less than $4000 a month; and they have already missed a month’s pay.  It’s an unsustainable burden; no wonder the “sick out” rate is more than three times greater than last year.  FBI agents make more, between $70,000 and $140,000; but they are also looking at a month without a salary.  And since this crisis is ostensibly about the border, those who are there, the border patrol agents, also without pay, get $70,000 annually. They are still going to work everyday, without a paycheck, or a wall.

Sure, Congress and the President, unable to agree on anything else, have passed a law granting back-pay for all of the workers, furloughed (not working) or working without pay.  They will be “made whole” when the government re-opens; if they can survive the wait.

Many businesses; banks and utility companies, rental offices and retailers; are floating loans and delaying payments for the Federal workers.  There have been food banks set up, treating this as some kind of natural disaster, a flood, hurricane, or fire.  It’s a nice thing for them to do, but there’s the other image it creates: the government can’t get this done, so American business will come through.

The “Giants:” Amazon, Microsoft and Apple; are taking “corporate responsibility.”  They are recognizing that their presence in communities so inflates the average income, that the cost of living climb out of the range of “normal” people.  In San Francisco the average apartment rents are near $5000, that’s a month not a year. That’s more than the $4000 average in Manhattan.

It’s all well and good that corporations are stepping in, both to “cover” for the government, and to try to rectify their negative impacts on communities.  But there is a greater point to be made here.  The alt-right agenda, led by the shadowy Steve Bannon, would like to see the government shrunk, with reduced regulations, fewer employees, and less impact on average Americans.  This leaves “the field” open to private corporations. While Bannon long ago left the White House, his views are still in control:  look at the reduced environmental regulations, national land protections, and lax pharmaceutical controls to name just a few.

Shutdown parts of the government, and show everyone that they aren’t needed.  Oh wait, we need to file taxes, and control the border, and check passengers are airports.  Well, let’s make them work without pay.  Maybe the TSA agents will quit, then we can find private companies to overpay for the same services.  

Perhaps this shutdown is about “Wall,” or perhaps it’s about the giant ego of the President.  Or, most likely, it’s about a President who stumbled into a huge political crisis with no plan to get out, and now is stuck between reality and his base.  But it may well be part of an alternative agenda.  In one of Bannon’s first interviews when the Trump Administration took control, he talked about “deconstruction” of the government.  Even though Bannon is gone – it’s looking pretty “deconstructed” to me.

Martin Luther King Day

 Musical Choice – Shed a Little Light – James Taylor

It’s Martin Luther King Day, celebrating the 90^thanniversary of his birth.  How far has America come?  Well, it’s Martin Luther King Day:  the concept of celebrating a national holiday for a man who led a movement to alter our society, challenge our existing beliefs, and was harassed by the FBI; that concept would have been unbelievable when I was a child in the 1960’s. 

In 1964 my parents and I visited a friend in a Virginia suburb near Washington, D.C.  I was surprised, the kids had a day off of school in the middle of January. It was Robert E. Lee Day, a state holiday. Today, that’s still a state holiday in Alabama and Mississippi, joined together with Martin Luther King Day. There’s a true contrast in history. 

Just a year before my visit, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (there’s a plaque marking the spot) and gave us his vision for our future in the “I have a Dream” speech.  With full awareness of his position on the stairs of the “temple” of Lincoln, King echoed the Gettysburg Address, telling of the “…five score years…” since the Emancipation Proclamation, and the “hallowed spot” where they now gathered.

King answered a question for white America.  When should black people be satisfied?

We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality; we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities; we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one; we can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”; we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and the Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No! no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”(I Have a Dream Speech – Martin Luther King)

If those are the goals, America still has a ways to go.  Argue with the Black Lives Matters movement if you will, but the problem of police brutality continues.  This week’s sentence of a failed police officer in Chicago, eight years in jail, is six months for every bullet that entered the body of seventeen year-old Laquan McDonald as he walked away.  And as for voting rights, the machinations of Brian Kemp in Georgia to prevent black people from voting in this last election were almost as obvious as the literacy tests of the Jim Crow Era.  

Justice; while the flow may be more than a trickle, it has not become “the mighty stream” that King hoped for.  The election of Barack Obama was a beacon of hope, the election of Donald Trump was a blanket thrown over the beam.

And it was in that same location, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, that the theatrical drama of America was on review this weekend.  A group of high school boys, brought from Kentucky by their Catholic school to march for the “Right to Life” (or the right to tell others how to live their lives) were waiting for a bus.  A few black men, steeped in their own religious belief and determined to point out the racism that still exists in our nation, challenged them.

The boys reacted like high school boys often will, in defense and with derision, and without any understanding.  A Native American and Veteran, aware of the rising tensions, stepped in between the few black men and the many students, and tried to use his traditional drum and chants to keep the peace.  He was met with obvious disrespect.

It’s a “right of youth” to be ignorant, that’s what schools are supposed to do; educate them.  In the “education business” it’s called a “teachable moment,” that instant when reality creates the opportunity for responsible adults to step in and present the lessons of acceptance of differences; of when it’s time to react, and when it’s time to listen.

So where were the chaperones, the teachers, the administrators of Covington Catholic High School in the state of Kentucky?  They put their students in the line of fire, the placed them in protest in Washington, D.C.   Weren’t they ready for some kind of counter-protests, some response to their presence?  Their “boys” were chanting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where were the adults? Not at the concession stand, it’s shut down, as are the restrooms under the Memorial.  That’s why no Park Police appeared.  There was nowhere else for the adults to be, but supervising their kids.

So while the sixteen year old smirk under the red Make America Great Again hat may be symbolic of our nation today, in contrast to King’s Dream, it really represents the failure of the adults in his life.  They needed to be there, and they were not.

Kentucky celebrates Martin Luther King Day today.  They moved Confederate Memorial Day, in a state that never joined the Confederacy, to June 9^th this year.  

————————–

And this is where I should end.  But that isn’t what I really believe, that we are a nation that cannot move forward, where adults allow racism and hate to further their own causes.  I don’t even believe that about the Catholic Church.  In that kid’s smirk, and those red hats, I see hate, but I see hope in the man who risked abuse and injury to make peace. Hope is what Martin Luther King, and his “Day” is about.

…And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Protection Isn’t Protection

In 1975 I was the one of a few freshmen in an upper level political science course at Denison University, “Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century.”  Its short title was “Bombs;”we were learning about the theory and application of nuclear warfare in our lives.  It was exciting, and scary, and we learned a lot about things like “acceptable losses” and “pre-emptive strikes” and the most important “mutual assured destruction, or MAD.”

In our final paper we had to take one aspect of nuclear warfare theory, and expound on its impact on our world.  I chose “deterrence theory,” the basis of all of our nuclear weapons.  It was pretty simple, if one nation uses a nuclear weapon, another nation would respond with a similar attack. Having weapons prevented others from attacking. I thought I wrote a great paper, typed carefully out on my electric typewriter, written on “onion skin” paper so that errors could be erased without having to use “correct-o-type.”  Doesn’t all of that sound like ancient technology now?

I was incredibly disappointed when I got the paper back, with a “B+” emblazoned on the front:  “B+,” that was an “A” paper for sure!  And that’s what the notation on the last page said, it was an “A” paper, but for one small flaw.  The note said – “…when writing a paper on deterrence theory, it is most important to spell ‘detterrence’ (sic) correctly.”   On the title page, on every page and in almost every paragraph, the critical word of the paper was in error.  You’d think I’d never forget that, but still today “spell-checker” is catching me, making det-ter-rence into de-ter-rence.

Deterrence theory made perfect sense in the 20^thCentury world.  Nuclear weapons were held by large nation-states, with lots to lose in a nuclear disaster.   The absolute destruction and millions of dead in the Soviet Union, and the United States and Europe, made the use of nuclear weapons truly horrifying.  The leaders of those nations, even though they did other despicable things, were unwilling to take that last step.  When they got close, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the multiple times that each got false alarms from their warning systems; their view of the abyss of nuclear destruction pushed them to negotiate rather than incinerate.

A decade after I graduated from Denison, US President Ronald Reagan pushed the limits of deterrence theory. He pressed for the development of a space based defense system, satellites that could stop enemy nuclear missiles, either by firing missiles at them, or by laser beams that would heat them beyond tolerance.  The laser beam thing caught on, and the project was nicknamed “Star Wars” after the George Lucas films.  

It seemed like a logical idea, though it turned out not to be scientifically possible at the time.  Build a “shield in space” that would stop a Soviet nuclear launch, destroying the majority of their all-out missile attack in the air.  Research into the project cost the US billions, but it also forced the Soviets to spend as much to keep up.

But to the nuclear theorists “Star Wars” was horrifying.  In their view, the end result of developing a successful “shield in space” had to be a nuclear attack.  The logic was pretty simple:  in a world of mutual assured destruction, the balance of weapons stopped their use. But if one nation would become invulnerable to attack, then the other nation HAD to attack before that invulnerability was in place.  If they didn’t, then the nation with effective space defense would be all-powerful, and the nation without would be at its mercy.  There was no deterrence.

Intentional or not, the attempted development of “Star Wars” forced the Soviet Union to try to keep up. That effort devastated their economy, and helped lead to its collapse.  Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has left space-based defense alone.  We have developed various defense systems against slower moving “cruise” missiles, the most famous being the Patriot system used against Iraqi missiles during the Persian Gulf War.  We have recently worked at developing a more advanced system to “shoot down” Medium range and Inter-Continental missiles, called the THAAD system (Two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense.)   

THAAD is incredibly complex. A missile launch is detected from, say, North Korea.  The detection is made from Alaska, and the anti-missile missile is launched from an island in the Central Pacific (thus the two terminals.)   The anti-missile missile explodes on or near the attacking missile, somewhere high above the earth, stopping the attack.  It’s like a bullet is fired from one gun, and another bullet is aimed, fired, and hits the first bullet, except a whole lot harder and faster.  It works in some tests, but only so far with a single missile attack.

President Trump wants to spend billions more to increase our missile defense.  He also wants to layer space with satellites carrying sensors that can more easily detect missile launches, not just from outlier nations like North Korea or Iran, but also the new “hyper-sonic” low flying cruise-type missiles, with speeds of Mach 5 or more that can defeat all current missile defenses.  The United States, Russia, China, and France are working to develop these.

It all seems to make sense. Protect yourself in order to prevent attack.  But the problem remains the same as it did in the 1980’s; if it becomes clear that only one nation can protect itself, making others vulnerable, then it encourages those near-vulnerable nations to attack before it’s too late.  Even in the “hypersonic” missile field, deterrence is mutual. 

It’s more than rocket science.  It’s also the highest level of policy theory.  The United States may spend billions of dollars on defense, and do nothing more than trigger an attack.  Sometimes, protection isn’t protection at all.

You Can’t Un-Ring the Bell

In the legal world there is an expression; “you can’t un-ring the bell.”  It applies to jury trials, when some information is revealed in open court that the jury isn’t supposed to hear.  But they do hear it, and no matter what, you can’t make them un-hear it; you can’t un-ring the bell.

In our real world of today the term also applies.  In 2016, both the United States and United Kingdom made enormously consequential decisions.  In June of 2016, the United Kingdom voted in a national referendum to leave the European Union. It was 52% leave, and 48% stay, with Scotland and Northern Ireland voting to stay, and Wales and England voting to leave. Now, two years later, the United Kingdom can’t decide how to get out, and is facing a “cold divorce” from the rest of Europe that could completely disrupt their economy, risk reigniting Ireland, and perhaps drive Scotland to consider leaving the United Kingdom again. 

In November the United States also made a consequential decision, voting (albeit by a minority of votes) Donald Trump into the Presidency.  Now two years later our government is shutdown, we are in the middle of a national crisis over the political crimes of the Trump campaign, and it is just possible the President is an asset of Russian Intelligence.  We have abandoned many of our international obligations, from the Paris Accords to Syria, and are now threatening to leave NATO and the United Nations. Things have been bad in America before, even as recently as Vietnam and Watergate, but it certainly feels like now things will get much, much worse before they get better.

We now also know that both of these events, Brexit and the Trump election, had a lot more in common than we realized at the time.  Both elections involved Russian Intelligence; who used the powerful influence of social media to manipulate public opinions for separation and for Trump.  Both were also impacted by Cambridge Analytica, the right-wing funded company that created individual targeting profiles for use on social media. Cambridge Analytica was run by Steven Bannon who ultimately would be Trump’s last Campaign Chairman.  The Russians and Bannon used social media to inflame racial tensions in both nations, creating hate to drive voters to the polls.

We know that nationalism is growing throughout the world, and while it’s not exactly like the 1930’s, it’s close enough that we should all take pause – are we seeing history “rhyming,” with Russia in the place of Germany, and the helplessness of the United Kingdom and the United States repeated?

In the United Kingdom there is a suggestion that the Brexit question should be re-voted, that now that the consequences of the decision are apparent; “let’s have a do-over.”  In the United States we are searching for a similar mechanism to undo all the perceived damage done by the Trump Administration. 

But the way forward cannot be to go back.  We cannot “undo” the decisions of our nations, even though that would seem to be the best.  We cannot rewind the clock, back to 2014 before it all occurred.  We cannot “un-ring the bell.”

Why not?   The hot emotions stirred by Bannon and Russia were there before they were blown into flames.  While the modern social media “attacks” definitely made the decisive shift, a large minority already held those nationalistic views.  Un-ringing could well have the opposite effect than intended, it could easily serve as the final fuel on the nationalistic flames; violating, in their eyes, their democratic rights.  It might create all the incentive needed to make their view the majority view, and push both nations even farther along into the nationalistic isolationism that seems so similar to the 1930’s.

Both nations must find a way through our crises without undoing our democratic traditions, even though they may have been subverted.  We must allow our democracies to use all of the established mechanisms to right our paths, without denying the choices our nationalistic minorities have made.  If we try to “undo” their history, we take the chance of empowering them even more. We cannot “un-ring” their bell, but we can ring our bell even louder.

Outrage

I heard it in Lindsey Graham’s opening statement in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Bill Barr.  He was outraged; outraged that the FBI would dare to open a counter-intelligence investigation of the President of the United States.  Outraged that they would have the audacity, and in his mind the arrogance, to question the loyalty of the duly elected Chief Executive.  He, and other Republican members of the Committee, used the word “unprecedented” over and over.  They asked it this had ever happened before in American history.  And the answer, over and over, was no.

If you start from the position that the President of the United States is elected by the people and subjected to absolute scrutiny by the voters, the media, and the government; then you might arrive at the conclusion that the process guarantees that he or she is above reproach.  President Trump has claimed this when it comes to the nineteen women who charge that he sexually harassed them.  The voters adjudicated the question in the election, he says, and they elected me; it’s over.  

It is kind of a corollary to the “Unitary Executive” theory.  The Unitary theory states that the entire Executive Branch of the government is embodied in the President, and therefore all of the powers belong to him. Given that, then a portion of that Executive Branch, in this case the FBI, cannot investigate HIM.  It is a logical absurdity, the President cannot investigate himself, he cannot and would not arrest or indict himself, and since all of the power resides in HIM, it cannot happen.

According to this “theory,” the actions of the FBI are therefore a form of rebellion. It is THEY that are acting outside of the law and the Constitution, making THEM the lawbreakers.  The only governmental body able to take these actions is the co-equal legislative branch. It is the Congress only that can investigate, charge, and remove the President.  

This is the theory of the Republican conservatives, including Attorney General Designate Bill Barr. It is no wonder that they are outraged, perhaps even without regard for the facts.  Our Constitutional system has never considered electing a President who is compromised, though it has been the subject of American fiction.  It is the easy way out to stick to the theory, and depend on the “cleansing” of the electoral process to protect America from a “Manchurian Candidate.”  Wait until the election of 2020, let the “people” sort this mess out.  It is the answer that fits with the “theory,” and perhaps the easiest answer for both political parties.  No one is forced to confront the historic and unprecedented possibilities.

But the leaders of the FBI have a different theory to work from.  Their theory is that their ultimate responsibility is the national security of the United States.  That is based in the oath they took upon entering the FBI:

I do solemnly swear 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.

Their allegiance is not to a theory, but to protect the Constitution against real enemies, foreign and domestic.  When their facts showed them that the President of the United States, their Chief Executive, was aiding an enemy, they were required to act.  They too were outraged, and well aware of the possible consequences of their actions.  They struggled to find their way forward, but they acted, following the facts wherever they led, and reaching whatever conclusions those facts required.  

Emerson wrote:  “when you strike at the king, you must kill him.” The reason is obvious, if you don’t succeed, the king will surely strike and kill you.  From the FBI and Justice Department perspective, that is what happened: Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Miller, Rybicki, Ohr; all removed or resigned from the agency.  Yet the investigation into the President continues, this time from the Mueller team, so far immune from the direct effects of Presidential attack.  

The government is shutdown. We have a manufactured crisis at the border.  We have withdrawn from the Paris Accord, forced the re-negotiation of NAFTA, and are questioning our membership in NATO and the United Nations.  Daily actions are being taken by our President that discard decades of American policy and leadership.  Our world is upside down.  Is this just a matter of  “elections having consequences” or is there something more insidious happening?

Without the facts, we are left to wonder:  who is right? Is it Lindsey Graham and Rudy Giuliani; Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy; or is it the “disgraced” and removed leadership of the FBI? Is the President an “asset” of Russian Intelligence, or the target of an internal “intelligence coup?”  Who do we trust, who has the information?  However it turns out, we should ALL be outraged.

Blue, Black and Gray

He was supposed to be the new “Law and Order” President. He wrapped himself in the Blue flag of local police; tried to speak their language about suspects – “…it’s ok if you rough them up a little bit, don’t go too easy on them.”  He has counted on their support, often surrounding himself with sheriffs and chiefs with stars on their shoulders around his “Resolute Desk” in the Oval Office.

Trump see himself as the “Cops’ President;” and many police officers return the favor with their support. They are the Blue.

It is the President’s pivotal issue: undocumented migrants, or as he would say, ILLEGALS! He made it the center of his campaign, raising levels of fear, hatred and even racism (“…if they’d only come from Norway…”) to mobilize his base to vote. Once in office, he encouraged Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the officers dressed in the black of ICE; to use mass roundups, trick the undocumented who are trying to follow the rules of the Homeland Security’s own Citizenship and Immigration Services division and deport them, and randomly “pick-up” the undocumented who are in every other way following US law.  

ICE does perform a valuable service in removing those undocumented migrants who are dangerous criminals, and doing the hard work of protecting all residents of the nation.  But they have also become the “point of the spear” of President Trump’s controversial view of immigration, and he has used them as props to further his policies.  They are the Black.

Then there are the officers of the United States who enforce the laws, and protect us from foreign subversion.  They are the FBI agents who follow the facts wherever they may lead, and who give their best analysis of what other nations may be doing in our nation.  These officers are the core of maintaining and protecting our nation; they protect us from harm, both foreign and domestic.

They are the unannounced who have stopped major terrorist attacks since 9-11 and tracked down a madman living in a van building pipe bombs. Their successes are often not noted, but their failures are played out over and over on our TV screens.  From a kidnapped child in Wisconsin, to a bank robbery in Reynoldsburg, to a Russian spy infiltrating the National Rifle Association; these officers in gray (suits) protect US.  

Since even before he took office, the President has done everything he can to undermine their credibility with the public. He held their leadership up for ridicule and decimating their ranks, he has questioned their process, their motives, and their loyalties.  He has tried to protect himself from investigation by attacking them; and tried to make them as much an “enemy of the state” as he has the media.  They are the Gray.

And now the President has been joined by several Republican Senators. Lindsey Graham, new Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called for the FBI to be torn down and reorganized based only on information contained in a New York Times article.  That article stated that the FBI felt they had enough evidence to open a counter-intelligence investigation into the President.  

Graham, like all other Senators, doesn’t know what the FBI knows, or why or how they determined to act.  He has taken his position on public information, and done so for public effect.  Unlike the support enjoyed by the Blue and the Black, the Gray are under unrelenting attack by the President and his allies. Those attacks are meant for public political consumption; they hope that they can so damage the public perception of the Gray, then should the President actually face charges, he can claim he has been unjustly accused.

But the damage done goes beyond the relatively small group questioning Trump’s actions.  It reaches to the agent on the street, knocking on the door for information, or making an arrest.  Each FBI agent depends on the “aura” of their badge not only to get their job done, but also to protect themselves.  Attacking “a Fed” has always carried a greater weight then other potential crimes; the denigration of their agency undermines their authority. 

As a society, we call on all law enforcement, the Blue, the Black and the Gray, to do the hard work of protecting us from lawbreakers.  It is often thankless; no one is appreciative of the Highway Patrolman writing them a ticket. But as a society, we owe law enforcement a debt for taking on the hard tasks of controlling our society.  They aren’t flawless, and we have entrusted them we great powers.  But to have our political leaders single out one portion to attack, only to protect themselves, makes us ALL less safe.  

Not Reality TV

Last June I wrote an essay titled “Twenty Four.”  It was a fantasy based on the old Fox television series by the same name. I took the lead character, Jack Bauer, an agent willing to go to almost anything length to protect the United States, and placed him in a situation where a Presidential candidate was compromised by the Russians.   

We now know that in reality, the Jack Bauer character of my story was in place of real-life Peter Strozk, the FBI’s now dismissed Deputy Assistant Director for Counter-Intelligence.  Strozk had been one of the lead agents in the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation; in the late summer and fall of 2016, he turned to evidence of Russian involvement in the Trump campaign.  

The FBI had multiple reasons to be concerned. They were aware that the Democratic National Committee computers had been hacked and emails stolen. The Australian Ambassador to the United Kingdom reported that a Trump associate, George Papadopoulos, told him that the Russians had the emails.  Federal agents were also aware of multiple connections between Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and the Russian government, and had long had campaign advisor Carter Page on their radar.  Page had been involved with a Russian spy ring two years earlier, and continued to have close contact with the Russian government.  Finally Trump chief foreign policy advisor General Michael Flynn had multiple Russian connections.

The FBI knew that a social media campaign was being driven by Russian intelligence, originally against Hillary Clinton, and then positively for Trump.  The put all of these together, along with many statements by the Trump campaign (and Trump himself) that were far from “mainstream” Republican (or Democrat) thought on US policy towards Russia. 

The original investigation was trying to determine what Russia’s actions and intents were involving the Trump campaign.  With the information already in front of them by the fall of 2016, it would have been FBI “malpractice” if they weren’t investigating.  In those early days it wasn’t a question of the actions of the candidate, President Trump; but of what the Russians were doing and were these four Trump campaign employees knowingly involved. 

And the FBI became aware of a report by a former British Intelligence agent, Michael Steele, regarding potential compromising materials and actions the Russians had on Trump. While this report was not fully “vetted” and was written for political opposition research, Steele had proven to be a good source of information in the FIFA (world soccer association) scandal,  and was trusted by American intelligence agencies. His information was taken seriously.  Strozk was doing his job, and doing what we expect of the FBI.  He wasn’t “Jack Bauer” breaking the rules, but was doing what he was supposed to do:  find out when and how a foreign nation was trying to secretly influence America’s elections.

After the election, the FBI was aware that the Trump transition had ongoing contact with the Russian government.  They knew that Jared Kushner tried to set up a “private” communication with Russia over secure Russian connections.  They knew that Flynn had multiple conversations with the Russian Ambassador, and was not telling the truth about those conversations.  When they questioned Flynn, he lied about it, even though he was given multiple “cues” that the FBI knew the truth.

And then, the President himself took multiple steps to try to shut down the investigation.  He repeatedly told the Director of the FBI, James Comey, to go easy on Flynn, and made it clear he wanted the Russia “matter” to be dropped.  The new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, lied to the Senate in his confirmation hearing, denying that he had multiple meetings with the Russian Ambassador, meetings the FBI already knew about.  Sessions was confirmed, but his contacts and lies forced him to recuse himself from the investigation.   

If the adage “…where there’s smoke, there’s fire…” has any truth to it, then the agents involved had to be concerned.  Chief advisors to the President were lying, more and more information about Russian contacts were coming out,  and the President himself seemed to be trying to obstruct the investigation.  Then the President fired Comey, told NBC’s Lester Holt in a national interview that he did so because of Russia, and bragged to the Russian Ambassador and Foreign Minister that he had “ended” the Russia thing. It looked like the President had committed the ultimate obstruction of justice.

This weekend the New York Times published a story, quoting James Baker, FBI special counsel, that after the Comey firing the Russia investigating team took an ultimate turn:  they began to investigate the President of the United States himself.  This had to be a chilling moment for the agents, men and women who had spent their entire adult careers protecting the United States against enemies, foreign and domestic, who were now confronted with their chief executive as a possible suspect.  It would have been easier, and much, much safer, for them to turn their back on that possibility.  But their creed is to follow the evidence, wherever it leads.  

It led to the Oval Office, and to a President who seemed to be cooperating with Russian intelligence. If this had been an episode of Twenty Four, aired on the Fox Network, the President would have been a Democrat, but this was reality, not reality TV.  

History Has Its Eyes on You

Surprise – Hamilton AGAIN!!  History Has Its Eyes on You

2030:  it sounds so far away, too far in the future; it can’t be something we need to plan for now.    Yet,it’s only eleven years, damn, my mortgage won’t even be paid off.  2030 has tremendous significance on the politics of today.  Yes, we worry about climate change, and 2030 may be too late.  We worry about the economic impact of us baby boomers, but as a close millennial friend frequently tells me, most of us “old white guys” will finally have aged out of power (read dead), and the world can finally change.

By 2030 we will have reached a time when history can look back at today, with some distance.  That eleven years will guarantee that all of the information about President Trump is out there, everything about foreign loans, Russians in 2016 before the election, in 2017 when investigations began, and in 2018 when secret grand jury testimonies were taken.  2019, this year, is the year of the Mueller Report, and the Cohen testimony, and the seemingly unending manufactured crisis at the border. Eleven years from now, we will know what we can only guess about today.

Don’t think that 2030 isn’t having an impact today.  Many of our leaders, grew up in the Watergate era.  While the Roger Stone’s of the world would like to re-write history in Nixon’s favor; the rest, Republicans and Democrats, remember the heroes and the villains.  And those who look more intensely, beyond Senator Sam Ervin, John Dean, Archibald Cox, and Elliot Richardson; will remember John Mitchell, the Attorney General who went to jail for Watergate crimes, and L Patrick Gray, who resigned as Acting FBI Director after destroying evidence, and sad Hugh Sloan, who saw criminal actions and resigned rather than be drawn in.

History has its eyes on them.  On the leaders of today, not just the President, but Secretary Mattis, General Kelly, and Senator Lindsey Graham.  History will judge the decisions that Matt Whittaker or Bill Barr make as Attorney General.  And history will NOT be kind to those who grabbed power over principle, or who shrunk in fear from a thing called Twitter.

So what if it turns out that the Mueller Investigation; the other Federal investigations in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Southern District of New York, and the Southern District of Florida; the New York Attorney General’s investigation, and all of the soon-to-come hearings in the House of Representatives show that Donald Trump is really as bad as it seems.  What if he has millions in loans from the Russians, and he cooperated (read conspired) with them in the election, or maybe even worse, is following their lead now in directing US actions.

In our current era of “fake news” when it’s so easy to discount truth, will the “leaders” of today find ways to ignore reality?  Will they decide that the “Trump base” in its minority has too much power, and cower from decisions?  Will their fear of being “trolled by Tweet” be so great, that they turn their backs on the truth? 

Believe it or not, most politicians did not enter public life with the goal of getting rich, or getting intimidated.  They started with a goal to achieve, to solve problems, and with an awareness of their place in history.  Most grew up with an education in the “political heroes” of the past, and the dream that someday they would “write their sentence” in the book.  How that sentence will read and what it will reveal, is not just a passing thought for our current leaders; they know that they are now going down in history, for good or bad.

I believe that some, ultimately perhaps many, will think of their legacy, of their paragraph in the story, and will choose to be on the right side of history.  Early in the morning, before the Senators join up in the Congressional gym for their morning walk, run, or ride; it has to come to mind: “history has its eyes on you.”  In 2030, we will know.

Missing the Point

Yesterday, the United States Government set a dubious record:  the longest government shut down in American History.  This shutdown has gone on for three weeks:  over 800,000 government workers either aren’t working at all, or perhaps worse, are required to work without pay.  It’s not just about their lost or delayed wages; it’s also about the services they are unable to perform.  Farmers are waiting for loans to buy seed, brewers are waiting for licenses to brew, small businesses depending on SBA loans are stymied, local governments are cutting bus services because of stalled Federal Grants.

These are the less known examples:  we are all aware of the trash piling up in the National Parks.  They aren’t closed; that would impact “civilians” too much, so instead they are left open and unprotected.  At Joshua Tree National Park, vandals are literally cutting the Joshua Trees to gain access to the back-country for four-wheeling.  At Yellowstone, Shenandoah and on the National Mall; the trash accumulates.  Should the shutdown continue, the SNAP (food stamp) program will be effected, non-agent employees of the FBI will be furloughed, the Federal Courts will be curtailed, and tax returns may not be processed.

The shutdown is all about the President and the Congress.  President Trump wants $5 Billion for building “WALL” on the Mexican border, Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, while willing to provide money for border protection, won’t give him his WALL.  While both sides have tried to negotiate, it has all come down to WALL, and neither side is willing to budge.  The shutdown goes on.

But there are some consequences of the shutdown that are benefitting the President, and others who support him.  Those consequences make it even less likely that the shutdown will end soon.

The first, and most obvious, is it takes the focus off of the Mueller Investigation.  It seems clear that it is coming to a conclusion; in the next couple months the Special Counsel will be issuing indictments, perhaps even of the President’s children.  The shutdown has quieted much of that talk (though the New York Timesarticle reporting that the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation into the President seems to have risen above the shutdown “noise.”)  

As long as the President sees himself as the focus of news coverage because of the shutdown, it also keeps the new Democratic House of Representatives from stealing the spotlight. I’m sure the President isn’t happy when Speaker Pelosi, or even worse, Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, gets headlines.

But there are other hidden “benefits” for the President as well.  The Federal Courts have slowed down the progress of most civil litigation, and it will come to a halt if the shutdown continues.  The President is facing a number of civil suits, particularly the emoluments case in the District of Columbia.  He still faces a lawsuit from Stormy Daniels, and a lawsuit about First Amendment violations of multiple “Trump enemies.”

While the Federal shutdown impacts Federal cases, that aren’t slowing the work of the New York State Attorney General, particularly her actions regarding the Trump Foundation and Trump Organization violations of New York State tax law.

One way the shutdown might end is if Republican Senators feel the pressure from their constituents to make the government work.  The problem is that Republican Senators are even more sensitive to pressure from their financial base, particularly the huge money interests represented by billionaires like the Koch brothers.  Until “the money turns” it’s not likely those Senators will turn on the President.

The Cato Institute is a conservative think tank, founded by the far right billionaire brothers.  This is the Institutes’ view of the shutdown in an article titled “Government shutdown exposes how big government has become.”  Here’s some excerpts:

…And now, because the TSA is the only screening organization we have, the shutdown may affect the entire nation’s air travel…The loss of officers, while we’re already shorthanded, will create a massive security risk for American travelers…but political battles would not impact such important activities if they were separated from the federal government. Many advanced nations, including Britain and France, have privatized their screening or moved it to the control of local airports.  If we followed suit, there would not be just one “pipeline” for trainees because airports could contract services from numerous companies. (Response Action Network)

With an overall goal of privatizing almost every government function, the Cato Institute is using the shutdown to try to prove that the government is unreliable.  If their sponsor Koch Brothers want to use the shutdown to prove their point, they are unlikely to encourage the Republican Senators they finance to end the crisis.

Ending the shutdown will depend on pressure on all sides.  While the President is likely to hold firm to WALL, the critical balance will be Federal worker pressure on Democrats and constituent pressure on Republican legislators.  Congress could open the government over the President’s objections – but it would take a two-thirds vote to do it.  That’s not likely, but with a President, and some members of Congress, with less obvious reasons for keeping the government closed, that might be missing the point anyway.

Collect Call from the Alexandria Jail

This week the lawyers for Paul Manafort, convicted felon and former Chairman of the Trump Presidential Campaign, made a big mistake. In a filing with the Federal District Court in Washington, DC, that was trying to counter Special Counsel Mueller’s assessment that Manafort broke his plea agreement and should be sentenced accordingly. The Defense filed an electronic brief  with several paragraphs redacted by the famous “black lines.”

The “boo-boo” was that in blacking out the details, they covered the information but didn’t delete it.  When the media copied the brief, they discovered that the black lines could be removed, revealing the classified information.  

The revealed information explained why Special Counsel believed Manafort reneged on his plea deal.  Manafort lied to them about his contacts with Russian political operative and former Manafort employee Konstantine Kiliminik, who himself was indicted by the Special Counsel’s Grand Jury for obstruction of justice.  Mueller’s team noted that when Manafort was running the Trump Campaign, he gave detailed polling information to Kiliminik; information that would have been extremely helpful in targeting the Russian social media dis-information campaign against Hillary Clinton and for Trump.  

The Manafort team was attempting to excuse the gift of the information as “one politician showing off to another,” but the significance of the information, and the lying by Manafort, was not lost on the Special Counsel, and resulted in the withdrawal of the plea agreement.  Manafort faces a ten-year Federal prison term, and could face additional time if he is tried for more offenses.  With the Mueller deal cancelled, there is only one other way he could avoid a long stretch in incarceration.

President Trump has never taken a Manafort pardon “off the table,” keeping the option dangling.  He has also praised Manafort for his courage in not telling-all, as opposed to the Presidential Twitter storm of criticism about his cooperating former lawyer, Michael Cohen. 

But it’s not just the prospect of a Trump pardon that keeps Manafort from coming clean with prosecutors.  He also is deeply in debt to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, to the tune of $10 million.  Like all Russian oligarchs, Deripaska is closely aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  From the beginning of his involvement with the Trump Campaign, Manafort was consistently looking for ways to re-pay his debt.  

Deripaska was interested in getting repaid, but also represents the interests of the Russian Government.  If Manafort really was cooperating with Russian Intelligence by getting them the granular polling data from the campaign; telling the Mueller team might put Manafort in grave physical danger.  He might not be lying out of loyalty to Trump, but out of the fear that he could end up a victim of Russian assassination.

So Manafort might be stuck – unable to cut a truthful deal, and unwilling as a sixty-nine year old man to serve a decade or more in jail. His only chance:  a Presidential pardon.  Maybe the “clerical” error in redaction was really more of a message to the President:  “…look at what we know, and what we can tell, get me out of here!!!!” 

And maybe the Manafort legal team isn’t really quite as incompetent as they appear.  They have from the first Federal hearing, emphasized that their client was going to stick with the President, and with his story.  Now that a ten or more years sentence stretches before him, they may have needed to remind the President of what the former Chairman knows.

They did it in the way most likely to reach Mr. Trump; through media reports about the “boo-boo.”  They were saying:  “…Paul Manafort calling collect from the Alexandria Jail for Donald Trump, do you accept the charges?”  We all await the answer. 

The Easy Way Out

President Trump gave a speech to the nation last night.  ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, FOX CNN and MSNBC all gave him prime time.  The rumor beforehand was that the President planned to declare a “national emergency” at the border, getting extraordinary powers to “build the wall.”  No network was going to ignore that news.

He didn’t do that.  He simply reiterated his case for building a steel-slat not beautiful concrete wall.  He used blatantly misleading and inaccurate statistics, then tried to scare us with horror stories about murders committed by illegal immigrants.

Then Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer spoke, looking for all-the-world like Grant Wood’s  “American Gothic” painting as they stood side by side at the podium. They fact-checked the President, and blamed the shutdown on him.  While they weren’t wrong, they also weren’t particularly convincing.

So, if you tried to be “open-minded” last night, and didn’t turn off the “other side,” in the end neither side won.  It did manage to disrupt Tuesday night prime-time TV, the best night of the week – don’t mess with NCIS!

After the speeches, social media lit up.  I read post after post by my Republican friends, saying that Democrats were for “open borders” and refusing to defend AMERICA.  My more extreme “friends” spoke of Democratic conspiracies to get illegals to vote, or vague alliances between drug cartels and the Democratic Party. 

I am a Democratic, and a liberal, and definitely have a minority view for where I live.  So I need to make it clear what the Democratic position is.

I am not for uncontrolled borders, where anyone can wander across.  Any nation has the “right” to determine who comes in or out, and the US is no different.   I am also not in favor of unlimited immigration, where anyone can enter the US and stay.  And I am certainly not in favor of drugs or humans being trafficked across the border.

I am in favor of security at the border.  We are now technically capable of checking the contents of trucks and vehicles with electronic devices to find the 90% of illegal drugs that are coming across at LEGAL entry points. We need to spend the money to do this, even though I do believe that the answers to our drug problems are on the “user” side.  We won’t stop illegal drug use until we find a way to get people to stop using.

I am in favor of a strong Border Patrol, keeping track of what’s happening on our border.  That Patrol needs the latest electronic means of surveillance, and needs to be able to adapt to the changing geography at our border.  In urban areas, barriers make sense, in the middle of Big Bend National Park in Texas, where the Rio Grande serves as the boundary, drones and helicopters make more sense.    

That Border Patrol has to be more than just about enforcement, but also must serve as a rescue service for those who try to cross the border wilderness.  That includes emergency medical care, as well as food and water.  

I am in favor of an Immigration Service that focuses on those who are illegally in the United States and are criminals.  There seems to be plenty of them, so they should leave the undocumented who are working, living, and thriving here alone.  If gangs are the problem, then they should focus their efforts on them. Raiding chicken processing plants and setting up undocumented mothers makes them look like some kind of un-American secret police.

And I am in favor of a humane policy at the border.  We should recognize the desperation of migrants who have literally walked thousands of miles to escape the intolerable conditions of their homes.  We should welcome them, care for them, and determine whether they should be granted asylum.  Our current policy is driving them to act illegally, risking their family’s lives to step on US soil.  

We should be getting to the root of the problem, the issues in Central America of poverty and gang violence and corruption.  Like the drug problem being more about users than suppliers, the migration problem starts at the source.  Dealing with that would be a great use of our funds.

And we should deal with the Dreamers and immigration reform as a whole, without the current overtones of racism.  The blatant fear of “brown people” that emanates from the White House degrades the American dream.  We need to fix that.

This all means that “the Wall” is not only a waste of money, but also not a solution to the problem. We need a nuanced and complex approach, one that hiding behind concrete, or steel-slats, won’t fix.

So that’s where I stand. And that’s where the Democratic Party stands as well, so stop falling for the propaganda of “memes” on Facebook, or scare tactics by our President.  Americans can deal with complex problems, whether it’s health care or going to the moon.  We need to do the hard work of solving the problem, not fall for the simplistic solutions don’t work.  They make for great “sound bites” on network news, or audience chants at campaign rallies, but the “easy way out”  — never is.

Presidential Fog

Almost two years ago I wrote the second essay for “Trump World,” called “Liar Liar Liar.”  We were entering the Trump Era, and I tried to define the new reality of “facts” used by the Administration to justify whatever they wanted. The final portion of that essay gave survival instructions:

1. Hold fast to the “facts” that are actual facts. Don’t fall into the trap of allowing “alternate facts” to take hold as reality. Remember, the formula for Trumpian success is to establish the “rules” for his reality – pressing REAL reality onto that forces the administration to defend their “alternative.”

2. Chaos creates “the fog of war.” It is within the false reality of that “fog” that the Trump Administration operates. Don’t get distracted by the “alternate fact” of the day. Cut to the important decisions and news that is underneath

3. Recognize the “Trump Plan” – and begin to counter-plan!!!

Tonight, in the midst of his manufactured crisis on the border, the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, will address the nation on network television.  If he repeats what his Administration has been saying, he’s going to lie to America.  Let’s look at his “facts.”  

Vice President Pence, Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen and Press Secretary Sanders have all said “…four thousand on the terror watch list have crossed the border this year” to justify their Southern Border Crisis.  The reality: all but six of those came through airports or Canada, not the Southern Border.  They also said the 17,000 criminals crossed the Southern border.   The reality: the Trump Department of Homeland Security defines anyone who crosses the border illegally as a criminal.  Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor offense, not a felony like “rapists and murderers.”  It can even be handled as a “civil” offense, like a traffic ticket.

When mainstream media fact-checked the 4000 “terrorists,” the Administration’s story changed. Vice President Pence this morning said 3000 “special interest aliens” came across the Southern border.   “Special interest” aliens aren’t criminals, or even likely terrorists, but simply trigger a “red flag” because of their travel patterns.  The “crisis” of terrorists and criminals coming in caravans to “attack” the United States is manufactured and it’s imaginary.

And now, for the first time, we are in a “humanitarian crisis” according to the Trump Administration.  All of those folks coming are “stacked up” in the border towns, victims of crime and fraud.  Those conditions are forcing them to try to cross illegally, risking their lives and their children.  This is an “emergency” that the President believes “WALL” will fix.

The reality: the migrants are in a bad situation, but their emergency was created by the Administration through their own policies. Emergency powers aren’t required; what is needed is more judges, medical care, and fewer incarcerations.  Nothing extraordinary needs to occur; it’s how both Presidents Bush and Obama handled increased border pressure.  And, to answer the Trumpian excuse that “…Obama separated children at the border too;” that’s true. But there is a huge difference: the Obama policy separated children from parents who were criminals, but not everyone who crossed the border illegally were classified as criminal.  The number of separations was much smaller, and dealt with felons, not misdemeanor offenders.  

And the most easily checked Presidential “fact:” four former Presidents told Mr. Trump “they’d wished they’d built a wall.”  The facts: all of the living former Presidents, Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Carter have clearly denied speaking to Trump about this, or wanting a border wall.

So if the “crisis” is a manufactured emergency, why have we closed part of the government?

Going back to “LIAR LIAR LIAR,”Mr. Trump has created chaos. Government workers aren’t getting paid, government services are getting cut back:  food stamps are in jeopardy, Parks are full of trash, TSA agents at the airport are taking sick days and plane inspectors are having trouble keeping up. This “shutdown crisis” was created so that the President can “fulfill” his campaign promise of “WALL.”  It helps solidify his base, and in the chaos, we aren’t talking about the Mueller investigation, or about the new Democratic House of Representatives, or even the dramatic declines in the stock market. It’s exactly the way the President operates; in the fog he moves the focus to the issue HE wants to talk about.

Tonight we will hear the President speak.  It will have all the trappings of a “Presidential Address,” with flags and pictures in the Oval Office.  The setting will remind us of real crisis times, of Bush after 9-11 and Johnson stopping the bombing in Vietnam.  Don’t let the setting fool you, it’s just more Presidential Fog.  

Beta O’Rourke’s Video on the Border Wall

In the Room Where It Happens – Hamilton

Speaking English

Writing essays for “Trump World” has given me the opportunity to get in lots of conversations about our times.  Some have been face to face, some have been through comments directly to the “Trump World” site, and some have been on social media. Last week I was in an extended discussion with a pro-Trump friend about “WALL.”

I came into the discussion with a pre-conceived of what a “wall” was.  To fall back on my Mom’s British upbringing; the Oxford dictionary definition of a wall is, “A continuous vertical brick or stone structure that encloses or divides an area of land.”  That seemed pretty “cut and dried,” a wall is – a wall.

In our current polarized world it is difficult to have discussions. We often don’t share the same facts, or communicate using the same terms.  It’s hard to discuss when you don’t understand each other; that incomprehension contributes to the divisions in our society.  The feeling often is, “I don’t understand you – so you must be stupid,” or words to that effect.

But, arguing about the definition of “a wall”?  Is that what our political discussion has come to?  Maybe the problem isn’t in defining a “wall,” but in reading and listening more closely.  Maybe “WALL” is different than a “wall,” at least as my Trumpian friends define it.

I know, this all sounds like nonsense, but this may be the basis for a win-win deal to re-open the government.  Regardless of what many Trump supporters say, Democrats are in favor of trying to solve the problems on our Southern border.  Democrats believe in a more humane and comprehensive solution, dealing with both migrants that are at the border now, and the conditions in Central America that are causing the migrations.  Democrats are not “in favor” of illegal immigration and are willing to strengthen our position on the Southern border.  

But Democrats are NOT willing to see the “Great Wall of Trump” built from the Gulf to the Pacific.  It not only represents a huge waste of money in a low-tech, outdated mode of border control, completely deferrable by ladder or tunnel; but it also embodies a racist view of Hispanics, who must be “walled out.”

As I listen to the Republicans, they are beginning to change their definition of a wall to “WALL.” Already the President has left his construction world of concrete and re-bar, and moved to a steel-slat barrier, something that I define as a fence.  His statement is that the “WALL fence” would serve the same purpose as a true wall, and would allow the Border Patrol to see through to what’s happening on the other side.  And today, the President’s new Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, acknowledged that “WALL” would be used where appropriate, not as a continuous barrier from Gulf to Pacific.

Jared Kushner and Senator Lindsey Graham have both suggested that a deal could include solving the DACA situation, with a permanent law replacing the current Obama executive order that’s being challenged in court.  Over a year ago, Democrats were willing to take an “actual wall” for $25 Billion to get comprehensive immigration reform, maybe there’s room for less on each side now.

So is all of this about semantics, about the definition of “WALL?”  If the President was willing to accept $2.6 Billion for “improvements” including steel-slat fence, electronic surveillance and detection on the border, in exchange for a limited DACA deal and changes on how migrants are handled, is that enough “WALL” to re-open the government?  

The President has to have “WALL.”  As Lindsey Graham said, it’s what Trump has staked his Presidency on.  Democrats cannot allow a “wall,” they staked their election victory of 2018 on stopping it.  The entire left wing of the Democratic Party would be betrayed by a “wall.” 

So we will each have our own version of the deal.  To Democrats, there will be border security enhancements, legalization of DACA, and improved treatments of migrants at the border.  To Republicans, there will be “WALL”, even though it’s a steel fence, only going in certain places.  Both sides will get something, neither side will get everything:  it’s “…how the sausage is made;” a compromise to open the government.  And we will all be speaking our own version of English.