Month: April 2019

The Geometry of Politics

In tenth grade, I transferred to Wyoming High School in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Wyoming was a “top tiered” public school, still rated highly (US Newsnumber two in Ohio.)  And while I got a top education there, I was never, ever, going to be a good math student.  The agony of sophomore year was sitting in the back of Mr. Parker’s geometry class, trying to memorize theorems and postulates, and watching Mr. Parker dust his fingers in the chalk tray and then lick the chalk off.  The basketball team must have given him a sour stomach.

But I did learn the definition of an axiom:  a statement that is self-evidently true.  And the axiom of politics today is this:  Special Counsel Robert Mueller is an honorable man, who pursued and honest and serious investigation into the election of 2016 and the Trump campaign. As his former FBI Counsel and later Director of the Drug Enforcement Agency Chuck Rosenberg said; “Robert Mueller is a Marine, if you tell him to take the hill in front of him, he’ll take it, but not the hill to the right or the left.”

As we await whatever Attorney General Barr is doing to Mueller’s report, we can take as “axioms” a few things about how that report was prepared.  We can assume that Mueller prepared the report properly, including sections that needed to be protected due to Grand Jury testimony or classified information.  We can assume that Mueller was well aware that there would be a Congressional version and a “public” version of the report, and prepared his work for both.  

Knowing those things, it’s an open question what the Attorney General is doing to the Report. 

But there are a couple of additional “axioms” that we can be sure Mueller followed.  The Department of Justice operates on internal regulations, and one of those regulations states that you cannot bring charges against the serving President of the United States.  If the regulations say that Mueller couldn’t bring charges, he wouldn’t bring charges against the President.  He also wouldn’t say that there “should” be charges against the President; such a statement would have the same impact as actually bringing the charges.  

What Mueller would do is present the evidence of what he found, organized in a way that would draw them to the conclusion that Mr. Mueller reached.  If that conclusion was that, if Mr. Trump wasn’t President, he would be charged, then the Report will show that.  Robert Mueller was well aware that the Constitutional alternative to a President committing crimes is the Congressional impeachment process; it is to them that the evidence presented in his Report would be directed.  He would then allow Congress to reach its own conclusions.

Robert Mueller knew his job well.  He was the FBI Director who, with less than a week on the job, confronted the 9-11 attacks and completely reshaped the FBI from domestic crime fighting to counter-terrorism.  He was not afraid to set priorities and make decisions.  Given that, clearly Mueller was not afraid to reach a conclusion about the President’s possible actions to obstruct justice.  He chose not to reach a conclusion, because he wanted the Congress to do so.

Instead, the most recent political appointee to the Justice Department, William Barr, chose to intervene and announce a conclusion.  Not only did that immediately politicize the Report, but it re-opened the original controversy about how Barr got the Attorney General appointment in the first place.  

In June of 2018, then private attorney Barr sent an unsolicited twenty-page opinionto the Justice Department and the White House specifically stating his views on the limits of Presidential obstruction.  That opinion, made without any specific knowledge of what evidence the Mueller investigation had, attracted the attention of the White House, and was clearly one of the reasons Barr was tapped to return to the Attorney General’s job.

That creates a conflict of interest, and the appearance of bias on the part of the Attorney General. For him to intervene and reach conclusions that Mueller specifically did not, immediately raises a cloud of suspicion over his actions.  It’s the last thing that Robert Mueller would want.

Like geometry, there will be an eventual proof of what the Mueller Report states.  Whether it is fully released soon, or held for history scholars later, we will all find out what Mueller knew.  “History has its eyes on you” Attorney General Barr (yep – another Hamilton reference) and if what you’re doing is trying to obscure the evidence in the Mueller Report, history will not look kindly on you.

Barr has promised a report to Congress by mid-April.  The House of Representatives has demanded the entire report, in order to reach their own conclusions about the actions of the President, and to determine how best to protect the electoral process from further foreign intervention.  Congress and all Americans need to know what happened, in order to move past 2016 and onto 2020.  A truncated document will only prolong the fight, and extend our “long national nightmare.”  Mr. Barr needs to “finish the proof” and release the Report.

Love of Country

Sergeant Joseph Collette was killed in Afghanistan on March 21^st.  His body was brought to his hometown of Lancaster, Ohio yesterday, with thousands of Lancaster’s citizens coming out to honor his service. He was 29, a newly married young man who sacrificed himself for his comrades and his country (Lancaster Eagle-Gazette.)  He was eleven years old when the war in Afghanistan began.  He will be buried Friday.  He is a hero.

No matter how you feel about the continuing presence of United States troops in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Syria; you have to honor the men and women who are serving their country and risking their lives there. No one is being drafted to go and fight, these are volunteers.  And, while Sergeant Collette was on his first tour in Afghanistan, many have been asked to go back again and again.  Most return home eventually, but many are damaged by their experiences, changed for life by what they were required to do or witness.

I had a discussion yesterday with a friend about honoring the Sergeant’s service.  My friend remembered that returning Vietnam veterans were not treated with the respect and honor that we show our current service members, and made it clear that to him, either you support the current President, or you are against our soldiers.  After some calculation I determined that my friend was eight years old at the end of the Vietnam War. 

I was eighteen when the war in Vietnam ended in 1975. The war had been winding down for a couple of years, and while I had a draft registration card in my wallet, no one was drafted from my age group to go to Vietnam. I was strongly against the war, and as a teenager I marched in protest against it.  I never protested the veterans of the war, and in fact, many of them joined in protest as well.  But I also have friends who fought in Vietnam, who came home to be personally attacked.  They were told to change out of their uniforms at the San Francisco airport when they arrived from Da Nang, to avoid being harassed by protestors.  

That was wrong then, as it would be wrong now.  But somehow the actions of those protestors in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, has been conflated with those who are appalled by the actions of our current President.  The logic seems to be:  liberals were against Vietnam and some acted dishonorably against returning soldiers, so, the liberals that are against the President today are dishonorable.   My friend claimed “patriotism” and “the flag” as his ideological own, drawing a straight line from the hippie/protestors of the 1960’s to today’s opposition to President Trump.

I guess in my case there is some accuracy in the drawing, though I was hardly a “hippie/protestor.” I was against Vietnam, and I am against the actions of President Trump.  But I don’t accept that this means I am not patriotic; I see my opposition to “Trumpism” as honoring my nation.   Patriotism is defined as “love for or devotion to one’s country (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary).”  Both in the 1960’s and today, my opposition to some of the policies of our government is the most patriotic stand I can take.  If our government, in Vietnam then, or at the Southern border today, acts immorally or improperly, it is my duty as an American citizen to call out those actions as wrong.  This is the absolute definition of love and devotion.

I can be against the President, and proudly fly the American flag.  I can protest the actions that the US government is taking in my name, and love my country.  And I can ask that we can find a way out of our eighteen-year war in Afghanistan, while still honoring the service of the men and women who fight in our name there.  I am asking for them to be relieved of their burden, a burden they have voluntarily taken on for us.  

Patriotism is not described by a #MAGA hat, but it can be shown in the honoring of military sacrifice in Lancaster, Ohio this week; or in protests for the Mueller Report throughout the nation today.  Both are acts of love for our country. 

The Right to Choose – The Briefing Book

In every political campaign (at least the good ones) there is a “book,” outlining the issues the candidate will face, and the arguments and positions the candidate takes.  It is so everyone on the campaign is literally on “the same page” when it comes to that issue. I’m not running for office, but over the next several weeks, I will be presenting a series of issues for my “briefing book.”

It is the most divisive issues of our time.  For single-issue voters on either side, it is the determining factor.  It is how folks who believed they were taking a “moral” stand, voted for a demonstrably immoral President.  It is the question of the legality of abortion in the United States. 

No one is in “favor” of abortion.  Abortion is a “last chance” act; everyone should be in favor of education and contraception, both of which lead to fewer abortions.  All Americans should be in favor of fewer abortions.  And all Americans should be in favor of effective sex education in the schools, education that actually deals with the issues of sex and contraception rather than continuing the myth of “abstinence education.”  The “just say no” mantra of abstinence has been about as effective as it was in drug education; not effective at all.  It is sad but not surprising, that many of the same people who want to ban abortion, also want to ban school’s abilities to teach children how to avoid the situation that requires abortions.

And no one is “against life.”  Americans need to be more than just “pro-choice” or “pro-birth;” we need to have as much concern for how a child will live, and eat, and grow, as we do that the baby exists.  This includes the life of the young women who often seek abortions; recognizing their needs and concerns.  Like being a parent, “life” is more than just birth, it is a lifetime commitment. 

The right to choose to have an abortion should not be an issue where men dominate the conversation. Men are not having abortions, and legally, should have little or no say in what happens.  This is a woman’s decision; the picture of “old men” telling women what they can or can’t do with their own bodies is a vision from days before women had the right to vote, or work, or stand as equal citizens. 

Prior to the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, access to legal abortion was on a state-by-state basis.  Thirty states absolutely banned abortions, sixteen allowed for some abortions based on the health of the mother, rape, incest, or fetal damage; and four allowed for abortions upon request, up to the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy.  

This did not mean that there weren’t abortions in the thirty states where it was banned, it meant is that those abortions were performed illegally, often unsafely, and with a much higher risk of infections, complications, and death.  It also meant that if a woman wanted a safer legal abortion, they had to have the finances to travel to one of the four states that allowed them.  Safe abortion was about having money, not “right or wrong.”

In 1973 the US Supreme Court weighed the right of the woman to control what happened to her body against the right of the fetus.  The Court reached a difficult decision, ruling that the fetus had limited “rights” until it reached a stage in development where it could survive outside of the womb.  That was around the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, and the Court in a series of rulings established a pattern:  abortion on request for the first twelve weeks, abortion for reason the second twelve weeks, limited or no abortions the third trimester to birth.

The Court ruled that the fetus had limited “civil rights” under the 14^thAmendment definition, and that those rights increased with the increasing viability of the fetus. The civil rights of the mother were not limited, and therefore her 4^thand 14^thAmendment right to privacy outweighed that of the fetus, before it could survive outside the womb.

A new Court might take a different look at the Roe decision, perhaps denying the “privacy right” the 1973 Court found in the 4^thAmendment.  But currently, the law is established.

As women see it, the law was established by nine old men (1973) making women’s decision for them. Should the current Court take a different view, it would be led by the five conservative Federalist Society men who now hold the majority on the Court, with the women of the court, three of them, in the minority.

The ability of a woman to have an abortion is a personal question, one that needs to be answered by the woman herself; not others, and particularly not men.  The decision to have an abortion is a matter of personal morality, akin to choosing one’s own religion, and is one that should be decided individually rather than societally.  In that mode, men need to defend the “right to choose.”  Like other moral and religious decisions made in the United States, this may be a matter of discussion and debate, but not a decision made for everyone by “old men.”  It is a personal decision to be made by individual women, and America needs to respect that right, and the right to have safe access to the procedures that protects women’s health.

“Mexican Countries”

President Trump is threatening to “close the Southern border” because of his self-made migration crisis.  Under international law and treaty, signed by the United States, migrants have the absolute right to enter the United States and ask for asylum.  The United States is not required to grant the asylum requests, but treaty obligations require that those requests be adjudicated.

Instead, the President has significantly slowed the process of entry and adjudication.  He has intentionally stacked migrants in the Mexican border towns, knowing that they will be under unrelenting pressure to cross the border, either legally or illegally, in order to make their asylum claim. This is why those found in the wilderness surrender to Border agents rather than run; they are looking for an agent to ask for asylum.  So thousands, and now hundreds of thousands, are poised at the ports of entry, and risking hazardous treks through the mountains and deserts that make up much of our Southern border. 

These migrants are in Mexico, but they are not Mexican.  They have trekked across the length of Mexico from their home countries in the “Northern Triangle” of Central America.  They are Guatemalan, Honduran, and El Salvadoran, people from three sovereign nations; not the “Mexican Countries” that Fox Newsreferred to in their Sunday morning broadcast.

Why are they leaving their homes and risking the thousand-mile trek to the US border?

Violence:  the three nations of the Northern Triangle rank in the top ten nations in the world for homicides.  Honduras has a rate of over 90 murders per 100,000 in population, ranking it the highest in the world.  El Salvador was fifth, and Guatemala sixth on the list, making the Northern Triangle the most dangerous place in the world.  Migrants are the poor, living in the most dangerous slums of those nations.  They are most at risk for crime, and are choosing to leave rather than suffer (World Atlas).

Not only are these the most violent countries in the world, they are also among the nations most dominated by gang activity.  El Salvador is ranked the worst country in the world for gang activity, with the MS-13 controlling the streets. To grasp the violence, think of MS-13 having more in common with the tactics of ISIS rather  than the New York Mafia.  Guatemala is ranked second worst, while Honduras is fifth (Business Insider).  Gangs forcibly recruit boys and girls from the slums to become gang members; the alternative to not being in a gang is violence and death.  No wonder parents are sending or bringing their children to “America.”

Gangs dominate life in these countries, and bribes and extortion becomes the way of life.  The Honduran newspaper El Prenza estimates that El Salvadorans pay $390 Million in extortion fees every year, with Hondurans paying $200 Million.  This is in nations where the vast majority of people live in abject poverty (CFR).

Poverty:  the three nations rank near the bottom in per capita income.  Honduras is ranked 170^thout of 229 world nations, with an average per capita annual income of $5600.  Guatemala is ranked 153^rd($8100) and El Salvador 146^th($8900). In contrast, Mexico is ranked 91^stwith $19,900 average income, and the US 19^thwith $59,900 (CIA.)

They have good reasons to leave, and face huge risks by staying.  Whatever “disincentives” the Department of Homeland Security “creates” at the border, they are unlikely to match the risks these migrants face every day in their home countries.  They are coming to America, because it’s the only choice they have.

The solutions are not at the border.  The answer is in doing the hard work to make Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras places where people want to stay, not go.  This requires a regional effort, by the United States, but also Mexico and Nicaragua and Panama and Columbia to intervene and change the environments there. Instead, President Trump has threatened to cut what little funding the United States is providing now.  

Making things worse in the Northern Triangle will not improve conditions at the border.  And making things worse at the border cannot equal the risks that these migrants face at home.  

In every political campaign (at least the good ones) there is a “book,” outlining the issues the candidate will face, and the arguments and positions the candidate takes.  It is so everyone on the campaign is literally on “the same page” when it comes to that issue. I’m not running for office, but over the next several weeks, I will be presenting a series of issues for my “briefing book.”

What We Can Afford – The Briefing Book

Here is the number; on February 11, 2019, the United States reached a new milestone: the debt of the United States exceeded $22 Trillion.   The anticipated income for the United States government for 2019 is  $3.422 Trillion.  The anticipated spending is $4.407 Trillion; so in 2019 the United States will add to the debt by almost $1 Trillion (this is the annual deficit.)

What is the debt of the United States?  It is the total amount that the government has spent over the years more than it has received in income.  $3.9 Trillion of that debt is in held by foreign countries in the form of US bonds or Treasury notes, a little over $1 Trillion of that is specifically held by the government of China (28%.)  That leaves about $18 Trillion held either by the American people, or that the government has “borrowed” from itself.  

As the United States owes money to other countries, so other countries owe the United States.  The US has $29.27 Trillion owed by other nations. So on the balance sheet, the US is owed more than it owes.

To simplify all of this – think in terms of credit card debt.  The United States is spending using long-term credit cards, financed by all sorts of people, and nations, and from other US Government line items (kind of like borrowing from your own retirement account.)   Like all credit card spending, the good news is you get to have what you want when you want it.  The bad news is that there is a cost; the interest paid to carry the debt.  In 2019, the United States government is expected to spend $389 Billion on interest on the debt, or about ten percent of the US budget.  In 2016 the debt service was the third line item on the budget, behind pensions, healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, etc) and Defense.

Last year, President Trump and the Congress cut taxes (income) by $1.5 Trillion.  Their hope was that the cut would spur an economic boom, creating more income taxes to ultimately make up for the amount lost in the cut.  Currently, that boom hasn’t occurred, with economic growth staying steady between 2.5% and 3.0%.  So the net effect so far of the tax cut, is an estimated $1.3 Trillion loss in income to the government.

The President has increased defense spending in his budget requests, between $40 to $60 Billion over the past three budgets.  Congress has continued to operate on a budget over $4 Trillion, so there has been little action to reduce Congressional spending, despite the reduction in income due to the tax cut.

So here we are:  little interest in either Party for attempts to “balance” the budget, and increasing pressures on both Parties to spend. Republicans want more for Defense and Border Security, Democrats want more for Heathcare and Education, and both want to address “infrastructure.”  Going into the Presidential election of 2020, everyone wants to spend and no one wants to cut; so it’s likely that both the deficit (yearly) and the debt (total) will continue to grow.

Like a growing personal credit card debt, it’s easier to ignore the debt rather than deal with it. There are too many urgent problems for the American government and people, then to worry about a financial issue that looks like a lot of book keeping.

But there are long term impacts of the Federal Debt, both on what the government can do, who controls our finances, and what happens to our economy.  The first impact is that paying for the cost of the debt (interest owed) will continue to take up bigger and bigger “pie slice” of our total government spending.  $400 Billion or more on debt service is $400 Billion NOT spent on other budget items; items from border walls to student debt relief.  And the greater the debt grows, the greater that service budget item will grow:  estimates show that the debt will exceed $30 Trillion as soon as 2028, with estimated annual interest approaching $600 Billion. 

And, since a large portion of the debt is the US Government “borrowing” from itself, it essentially is increasing the amount of money in circulation.  This increase causes the “value of money,” the actual purchasing power of that money, to decrease.  That’s called inflation, and means that while there is more money around, it doesn’t purchase a whole lot more.   So both the Debt and the Deficit create inflationary pressure on the economy, and can have devastating impacts on the finances of regular citizens:  savings accounts, retirement accounts, and fixed incomes are directly hurt by inflation. The quotes:  “why isn’t a dollar a dollar anymore” or “go find a penny gumball machine;” both highlight the impact of inflation.

As the debt grows, more and more of the “spending decisions” of the government will be made by the financial institutions that own, manage, or control the money. Government priorities will be set not by elected officials, but by the financial markets.  This isn’t some “deep dark conspiracy” of the alt-right or radical left, this is the natural outgrowth of the growing impact of the debt.  Everybody loves bankers when they are loaning money out, but no one likes them on the first of the month when the payments are due.

Like the environment, social security and Medicare; the debt is a long-term problem.  And like the environment and those others, it doesn’t yield to quick and easy answers; it will require a re-prioritizing of what Americans want to get done.  But it will continue to loom over every other American decision in the next decades; it will require a solution; the longer we wait, the bigger and more invasive that solution will need to be.