“Hunter Biden promises Dad’s protection to Burisma for $50000 a month”.  It’ll be next October’s headlines in the New York Times, fresh from the latest Wikileaks dump of Burisma emails.  “We are serving mankind by revealing information,” Wikileaks will arrogantly claim, though the one piece of information they won’t reveal is who hacked the emails.  “We don’t reveal our sources”.  It all echoes 2016:  if only FBI Director Chris Wray would open an investigation.

It could happen.  

GRU Hacking

We will never know whether it’s real or not, whether those emails were written by Hunter Biden, or by a young lieutenant in a St. Petersburg GRU facility.  The first step has already occurred.  The GRU – Russian Military Intelligence, hacked the Burisma Company computers.  They used the same “spear fishing” technique that worked so well on the Democratic National Committee, convincing employees that they were confirming passwords on a fake site.  A US computer security company announced the crime this week.

We don’t know what was taken.  But it really doesn’t matter.   The GRU is good at hacking, but they are just as good at creative writing.  Look how they manipulate social media to get Americans to believe that Democrats are mourning Iranian General Soleimani.  How hard would it be to dump hundreds of emails to Wikileaks, and bury in the pile a few that are a products of their imagination. 

Truth and the Media 

The mainstream media here in the United States only casually recognizes their impact on the 2016 election.  Clinton and DNC emails and other Clinton “scandals” dominated the headlines through the fall of 2016.  Meanwhile, the known scandals of Donald Trump, from porn stars to the Trump Foundation, seemed to go quietly under the radar.  In an election decided by 0.06% of the vote, it had a determining impact.

But like a junkie to a dealer, the media will go right back to the source in 2020.  If Wikileaks offers up “Burisma emails,” don’t think that anyone will pass them up.  “Well it’s already out there,” they’ll say, “people will read them on the internet”.  But the headlines will be trumpeted as “BREAKING NEWS” on the CNN and MSNBC chyrons.  It will be impossible to verify, and Hunter Biden will claim they are faked.  “We will leave it to the public to decide,” will be the high and mighty media claim.

Trump Re-Election Plan

It’s all a part of the Trump re-election strategy.  We know that, it’s what Rudy Giuliani has been doing for the past two years.  Rudy’s been searching for Hunter Biden dirt, asking already compromised Ukrainian politicians to “be honest”.  Honesty can be purchased for the price of a visa to the US. 

And now the Giuliani operation seems a little darker, as evidence reveals that US Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch was under surveillance by a Trump minion.  She stood in the way of Giuliani’s plan.  Evidence now shows that Robert Hyde messaged Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas, “…if you want her out, they are willing to help if we/you would like a price,” and “guess you can do anything in Ukraine with money … is what I was told.”

New evidence also reveals that another fired prosecutor, Yuri Lutsenko, offered “dirt” on Hunter Biden if Ambassador Yovanovitch was removed.   Giuliani responded that “No. 1” was involved.  Yovanovitch was soon summarily ordered to leave Ukraine and return to Washington.

Everyone’s Involved

Giuliani’s plotting may all sound like some comedic spy story, a kind of “Get Smart goes to the Ukraine”.  But it all gets more serious when the GRU, already involved in feeding the CrowdStrike 2016 election conspiracy, hacks into Burisma.  And there’s a Washington angle to all of this as well.  

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stood against witnesses testifying in the Senate Impeachment trial.  But if he’s forced to hear John Bolton and the others, there’s always a fall back plan.  Bring Hunter Biden in.  No matter what he says, or what he doesn’t say, it will keep his name on  “above the fold” on the front page.  

All ready for next October’s headlines.

All the Rhetoric

We’ve heard from both “sides”.  One side claims that the Obama Administration gave $150 Billion to Iran to finance terrorists around the world.  The other side cries that the Trump Administration is impulsively risking all-out war in the Middle East to destroy Iran. The reality is that both Presidents have a clear view of how they wanted to handle the “Iran Problem”.  

Let’s clear a couple of the issues up.  The Trump Administration didn’t act “impulsively”.  We just recently learned that Iranian General Soleimani was targeted months ago by the top Administration leadership, led by then National Security Advisor John Bolton.  Rather than an “impulse” decision by the President, it was a decision already made, simply waiting for the opportunity to be implemented.

And the Obama Administration didn’t “pay” Iran $150 Billion.  Iran did get $1.7 Billion from the United States, much of it in cash, as Iran was banned from the world banking system.  That money was principal and interest on $400 million in Iranian money, already paid by the Iranian government to the United States for weapons before the 1979 regime change. The weapons were never delivered.  Iran also got access to their assets frozen throughout the world banking system by American sanctions.  That Administration at the time estimated that amount to be about $56 Billion. 

Iranian Action

Iran has been a “bad actor” on the world stage for the past thirty years. Shia religious leaders overthrew the US backed regime, led by Shah Reza Pahlavi, in 1979.  Those leaders, called Mullahs, believed in a strict view of Shia Islam, and wanted to see Shia’s throughout the Middle East empowered. 

One of their first actions was to encourage Shia revolts in Iraq.  Shias are the majority in Iraq, but the dominant governing party was Sunni, led by Saddam Hussein.  From 1979 to 1989 Iran and Iraq fought a conventional war, costing half a million lives.  After the end of that war the Iranians opposed US intervention in the Middle East, starting with the Persian Gulf War in 1991.  

Direct opposition to the United States was difficult.  Conventional war, when troops meet in traditional battles, was a losing proposition for the Iranians.  Instead they chose to encourage “asymmetric” attacks, financing local militias throughout the Middle East to further their interests against the US, Israel, and the Sunni stronghold of Saudi Arabia.  Hezbollah in Iraq and Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Yemeni rebel forces are all financed and supplied by the Iranian regime.

But Iran also wanted to have a more conventional base of military power.  The Mullahs wanted nuclear weapons, and in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s made a lot of scientific advances in pursuit of a “bomb”.  Iran is in many ways a modern nation, with a strong base of educated scientists.  Iran not only worked in nuclear issues, but also became adept in the new battlefield of cyber warfare.

Carrots and Sticks 

The Obama Administration divided Iran’s conduct into two parts.  They determined that the first part, building a nuclear weapon, was the most immediate threat to world stability.  So the Obama Administration worked to get Iran to delay their nuclear development.  It was a two-pronged approach:  the world sanctioned Iran, making it difficult for Iran to get goods in, or sell their main product, oil.  This strangled the Iranian economy, and also limited the amount of materials they could get to further their nuclear goals.

With that “stick”, the Administration offered a “carrot” to the Mullahs.  Come to the table and negotiate over nuclear development and there was the possibility that the sanctions might be lifted, and Iran could participate in the world economy.  From the Iranian side, this was an important “carrot”.  Iran continued to have a modern society despite the draconian theocratic regime.  Iranians wanted a modern economy with modern goods.  

So for two years the United States, China, Russia, United Kingdom, France and Germany negotiated with Iran.  In 2015 they reached an agreement, the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”.  In return for delaying nuclear research and development for at least ten years, Iran was allowed partially back into the world economy.  Part of that deal was the controversial financial payment made by the US government.

In the meantime the US and Iran actually cooperated in defeating a threat to both:  ISIS.  Using the philosophy of  “…the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” both Iranian backed militias and US backed forces allied to stop the ISIS Caliphate incursions into Iraq, and ultimately to destroy its base in Syria.

The JCPOA was never seen as a final document.  It was the first step in a three-step process.  The second phase would address the “asymmetric” military actions of the Iranian government and their support of the various militias.  The third phase would be a final resolution ending Iran’s nuclear possibilities.

But the Obama Administration was over before the second or third phases began.

Maximum Pressure

The Trump Administration came in with a totally different concept.  They had no desire to “deal” with Iran on a co-equal basis.  Instead, they wanted to apply “maximum pressure” on Iran, first through increasing economic sanctions, then through indirect military pressure.  Their belief is that the Iranian people will not continue to support the theocratic regime if they are forced to suffer under draconian sanctions.  

The first move was to withdraw from the JCPOA, and institute even stricter sanctions.  In addition, the US began to increase support for Saudi Arabia’s fight in Yemen, pitting Saudi’s surrogates in battle against Iranian surrogates.  And the United States doubled-down on support for Israel, backing harsh Israeli actions against Hamas protests in Gaza, further Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and moving the symbolic US Embassy to Jerusalem.

It was all part of the plan, to pressure Iran economically, and force them to defend all of their far-flung militia-allies throughout the Middle East.  The US hope was that either the Mullahs would come to the negotiating table again, this time in a much weaker position.  Or, even better, the Iranians would overthrow the current regime.

Seen in this light, the assassination of the Iranian General in charge of the entire militia program is not quite such an aberration.  It’s just one more increase in the pressure.

Who’s Right?

It’s hard to figure which strategy will work.  It took two years to negotiate the JCPOA, only the first step in a long process.  On the other hand, the “maximum pressure” strategy has raised world tensions, and allowed Iran to begin nuclear development again.  

But both strategies are more than just “knee-jerk” reactions, and both ultimately have the same goal:  to end Iranian nuclear development and support for extremist militias.  The election of 2020 will determine who gets to find out if their plan works.

Apple Pie

We live in a age of divisions.  That’s as American as “apple pie”.  I grew up in such an age.  That was the time when our hard working parents who won World War II, what Tom Brokaw called “The Greatest Generation,” ran right into their children unwilling to accept their life choices.  It was about Civil Rights and Vietnam, but it was also about the value of life over economic and social success.  The children wanted to satisfy the spirit rather than the wallet.  

Sure it was the “Age of Aquarius” (cue the Fifth Dimension) and we all remember the pictures of kids dancing in the mud at Woodstock.  But it was also about the Greatest Generation’s commitment.  They first sacrificed in World War II, and then many changed that into sacrificing for the all-mighty dollar.  Their children wanted more than that.

Model Family

I grew up in that family.  My parents were both veterans of the War.  They came back to the United States to start a life together.  Mom was from London; she came home with Dad to Cincinnati. They first went into business for themselves, bottling soda pop with an imperious name:  The United States Bottling Company.  It was just the two of them, Mom mixing syrup in giant vats for the bottling machine, Dad going from store to store marketing the product.  

Their hard work was ended by the Ohio River, flooding out the “plant” and ruining the pop.  All that was left was the paper shares of stock.  Dad decided to take his sales skills into a new industry, television. Mom decided to stay home and take care of what turned out to be three children.

Climbing the Ladder

They climbed “the ladder” together.  Dad went from local salesman at WLW-T in Cincinnati to national salesman for Ziv Productions.  Then it was sales manager, and then station manager at WLW-D in Dayton.  By the 60’s they were doing well; a house in suburban Kettering, kids in the play, sports, and music at the local school, two cars in the driveway.

Mom and Dad were still involved in the world.  Mom was always finding ways to help people, volunteering for different community projects.  And Dad, a suit and tie businessman, allowed WLW-D to lead the way in discussing the controversial issues of the day in Dayton.  They were concerned about making the world a better place.

Like any family we had our issues.  But in the end, that Greatest Generation couple produced a surgeon, an artist, and a teacher.  All three children went into professions serving the community in one way or another.  I guess that was rebellion, no one followed Dad in business. But it was rebelling with full support from our parents.

The Next Generation

Now we are those folks:  “OK – Boomer”. 

Divisions in our society are nothing new.  But today, we face a different kind of generational division.  Our children look at us “Boomers” as failing.  We have brought them the age of “Trump”, of “Red and Blue” so divided that it shakes the very foundations of our country.  

And we have committed the ultimate sin.  We are literally leaving the world, the earth, in a perilous state and facing irrevocable change.  It only takes a look in the paper (which our children would never do) to see Australia burning, Venice drowning, Greenland melting, and drought in the jungles of Central America.  It’s not what we’ve done; it’s what we have failed to do to stop this procession.

Old White Guys

We “Boomers” have allowed truth itself to become a tennis ball bouncing back in forth in the game of political rhetoric, so much so that the evidence of our own eyes isn’t enough.  Somehow, we allow the “deniers” to stop every attempt to fix the problem.

And it’s not that the next generations, the Millennials and Generation Z, don’t understand money.  In fact, we have made then incredibly aware of costs and cash, letting them be strapped with the financial burdens of their education so they will spend their twenties in “servitude” to the debt.  It’s not surprising that we don’t hear a lot of thanks from them.  As one Millennial I know says:  “…we’ll have to fix things after the ‘old white guys’ are dead”.  While as an ‘old white guy’ myself I might resent it, that statement carries a lot of truth.

We who have let our political divisions threaten our world still have a last obligation to fix the problem.  Perhaps we will, though that makes 2020 the last, best chance for us.  But if we fail, our children will put down their cell phones, pull out their ear-buds, and get to work.  Their faith is that technology can lead us out of the crisis. 

I want to believe they’re right.

“He looked at me like I was stupid, I’m not stupid” – from Hamilton the Musical 

There’s a lot of misinformation and outright lies in politics today.  Whether we call it “business as usual” or “fake news,” it often makes it feel like there is no way to discover the truth.  But some tales are so fabulous, so ridiculous, that they aren’t really attempts at misinformation.  They are just insults.

CrowdStrike

Lets start with the fundamental conspiracy of the “Giuliani” set.  It states that Hillary Clinton, through the Democratic National Committee, organized Ukrainian officials to attack the US elections and get her elected President.  This is based on the tenuous connection of a co-founder of the computer protection company CrowdStrike, Dimitri Alperovitch. He was born in Russia (not Ukraine).  Supposedly he was connected to a Ukrainian oligarch, Viktor Pinchuk.  That connection:  Aperovitch, along with his role at CrowdStrike, is also a senior fellow on the Atlantic Council, a global think tank.  Pinchuk is a major donor to the Atlantic Council. 

That’s the entire link.  According to Giuliani, Pinchuk used his financial influence (that he doesn’t have) to get CrowdStrike and the DNC to attack the US elections, hack the DNC, and leak the DNC emails in the 2016 election.  He then says that CrowdStrike “spoofed” evidence that Russia hacked the American election.

Not only is Giuliani pushing this idea, but so is Russian Intelligence.  It not only creates confusion that benefits the Trump Administration, but it lets Russia off the hook for interfering in the 2016 elections.

Ukrainian View

In addition, Giuliani points to the Clinton “support” of the Ukrainian government during the election as evidence of this conspiracy.  Of course the facts for Ukraine are different. Hillary Clinton took a much stronger stand against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and theft of the Crimean Province. Donald Trump seemed to be willing to allow Russia to maintain possession of that strategic location.  Ukrainian leaders would certainly support the candidate that opposed Russia’s invasion.

Add that to Giuliani’s characterization of the US Embassy in Kyiv as the “Clinton Headquarters – Kyiv” because of embassy cooperation with a US citizen and former DNC attorney with the hunger-inducing name of Alexandra Chalupa.  Chalupa helped get evidence of Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort’s corrupt activity to the US media.  When the press asked the Embassy about that evidence, they were directed to Chalupa. That’s it.  But Giuliani uses that cooperation as proof that the Embassy was biased, and at the heart of the Ukraine conspiracy against Trump.

Defying Logic

The social media campaign waged in the 2016 campaign clearly benefited Donald Trump’s candidacy.  The concept that the DNC arranged to hack itself, and then drip out it’s own emails to the demise of the Clinton campaign, is ludicrous.  

I’m a Democrat.  We Democrats are capable of doing foolish things.  I was a Democrat when Senator Gary Hart, leading the race for the Presidential nomination, dared the press to find out about his illicit affair.  They did.  I was also a Democrat when Bill Clinton had sex with an intern in the halls of the White House. 

But while I can point to Democrats who made incredibly poor personal choices, I don’t think the Democratic National Committee would wage war against itself in the middle of the 2016 campaign. I can believe that the DNC was biased against the Bernie Sanders candidacy in 2016, but I don’t think it hacked itself and leaked it’s own emails to destroy the Clinton candidacy.  It not only defies logic:  but we aren’t that stupid.

Insurance Policy

The second conspiracy theory is that the FBI conspired to destroy the Trump Campaign and insure a Clinton victory in 2016.  This hallucination is based on the private text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and Department of Justice Attorney Lisa Page.

Strzok was the agent in charge of the FBI’s investigation into contacts between Russian Intelligence and the Trump Campaign, called “Crossfire Hurricane”. The FBI was warned by the Australian Ambassador to the UK that a Trump operative, George Papadopoulos, had prior knowledge of the DNC hacking and the Clinton emails.  

Papadopoulos got this information from Paul Mifsud, a known Russian operative.  In addition the FBI was getting information about Campaign Manager Paul Manafort’s contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, also linked with Russian intelligence.  And finally a third Trump advisor, Carter Page, had already been connected to a Russian “spy ring” in New York.

Crossfire Hurricane

“Crossfire Hurricane,” was vetted to the highest levels of the FBI, including Director Comey and Assistant Director McCabe.  The Clinton email investigation was publicly announced, both when Comey determined that there was no crime committed, and then when he reopened the investigation two weeks before the election.  But the FBI made no mention of “Crossfire Hurricane” either during the election or afterwards.  It didn’t come out until Congressional hearings in March of 2017.

Strzok did have an “insurance policy,” the existence of “Crossfire Hurricane”.  A single leak to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or CNN would have had a dramatic impact on the 2016 election, a choice determined by less than 78,000 votes out of almost 130 million.  He didn’t use it.  Comey could have stood in front of the press, as he did with the Clinton investigation in July of 2016, and announced the investigation.  He didn’t either.

If Strzok, Comey and McCabe conspired to stop the Trump candidacy, they had everything they needed to do it.  But they didn’t.  So when they accused of having “the insurance policy” there is that fatal flaw.  They didn’t use it.

Angry Democrats

And then there were the thirteen, or seventeen, or eighteen “Angry Democrats,” the lawyers on the Mueller investigation team.  Trump supporters claim that those lawyers were biased against the President, and therefore the Mueller Report was unfair towards him.

But reality again pushes back against this “theory”.  First, Mueller himself was apolitical, even though he was a registered Republican.  And second, you have the top prosecutors in the nation, all “Angry Democrats,” investigating for almost two years.  They didn’t “close the deal” of Trump/Russian conspiracy, despite all of the evidence showing that it occurred.  They had to settle for the Trump argument that the campaign wasn’t organized enough, good enough if you will, to conspire with anyone.

If they were “Angry Democrats,” they set aside their political biases to do a solid investigation.  If they erred, the did so in favor of the President, Donald Trump.  At several critical decision points, the investigation didn’t act like “Angry Democrats,” but like cautious Federal lawyers investigating the President of the United States.  

Not Stupid

So Democrats attacked social media and hacked their own computers to rig the 2016 election for their candidate. The FBI rigged a counter-intelligence investigation to prevent Donald Trump from winning the election. And when he did win, despite these efforts, thirteen or seventeen or eighteen of our finest Democratic Prosecutors spent two years trying to impeach Donald Trump.

And none of it worked.  So if you follow all of the conspiracy theories against the Presidency of Donald J Trump, you must reach the following conclusion:  Democrats are really, really stupid.

We’re not.  And if you fall for this nonsense and buy into these fabrications, you should ask another question. 

How stupid are you?

Limbo

We are in “Impeachment limbo,” caught between the House and the Senate, waiting for someone to blink.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding onto the Impeachment Articles, waiting for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to outline the Senate’s trial procedures.  McConnell is refusing to budge, saying send the Articles, or don’t.

What the Speaker wants is a commitment from Leader McConnell to hear witnesses in the trial.  McConnell is refusing to commit to anything, standing on his power to control the majority in the Senate.  It might seem like a classic power standoff between the two Houses, but it’s really much more than that.

Here’s what’s at stake.  McConnell wants to get Impeachment over, the President acquitted, and move onto the Presidential elections of 2020.  He knows that there is no where near the sixty-seven Senators needed to remove the President, so let’s get it over with.  From a Republican standpoint, an uninspiring and dry presentation of already known information with “no new news” and a quick acquittal that would allow the President to declare “exoneration” is the goal.

Controlling the Trial

The Republican leader doesn’t want to hear witnesses, voices that could change the voting equation in the Senate, or more importantly, in the 2020 election.  So he stands firm in his “stare-down” with the Speaker.  His only problem: can he keep an “antsy” President, desperate to get the trial on and over, under control.  That isn’t easy.  The President is pressing for his counsel to be the “screamers” from the House: Jim Jordan, Doug Collins, and John Radcliffe.  Trump would like a replay of the House proceedings, with the Democrats presenting facts, and the Republicans attacking the process.  It’s not the boring, quiet, and sleep-inducing procedure McConnell wants.  Trump wants a circus; McConnell wants spiritless droning.

I anticipate that Speaker Pelosi will allow the President to build a little more pressure on McConnell, and then transmit the Articles.  Leader McConnell will then begin impeachment proceedings with no witnesses, and, after the opening presentations, the Senate will go through a series of votes on whether witnesses will be heard.  McConnell may be boring, old and seemingly lifeless.  But he knows how to count votes in the Senate, and right now, he has the fifty-one votes to control it. 

The likelihood is that President Trump will get his acquittal.  And it will be in large part because of two men:  Mitch McConnell in the Senate, and Attorney General Bill Barr.  McConnell because he is using all of his acumen to control the proceedings, and Bill Barr because he used all of the powers of the Attorney General to stifle investigations of the President.

Investigating the President

Let’s look back at the last two Presidents who faced Impeachment.  Two different Independent Prosecutors in the Department of Justice investigated Nixon for almost two years.  Every possible witness was deposed and then questioned in front of the Grand Jury.  The House Judiciary Committee was presenting with volumes of evidence, testimony, and dozens of witnesses.  Nixon was an “unindicted co-conspirator” in indictments brought by his own Department of Justice.  

In the case of Bill Clinton, another Special Prosecutor, Ken Starr, spent almost four years investigating.  It took a U-Haul truck to get all of the Starr evidence, Grand Jury testimony, and video evidence to the House Judiciary Committee, including a damning video deposition by the President himself (“…it depends what the meaning of the word is, is…”).  And even with all of that evidence already available, in the Clinton Trial the Senate still heard from witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky.

In both the Nixon and Clinton cases, the Department of Justice did their job of investigating potential crimes.  Even though the Attorney Generals, the leaders of the Department, were political appointees, they saw a higher duty as the chief law enforcement officers of the United States.  Nixon’s Attorney General Eliot Richardson, resigned rather than fire his Independent Prosecutor.  Janet Reno, Attorney General in the Clinton Administration, made it clear that the investigations were protected from Presidential interference.  

When the Congress considered impeachment in both Nixon’s and Clinton’s cases, all of the potential witnesses were already on the record.  Nixon and Clinton both allowed the subordinates to be questioned.  While Nixon tried to use executive privilege to shield some evidence, it was his own Justice Department that took him to Court to pry the White House tapes loose.

A Loyal Servant

Bill Barr seems to have chosen loyalty to the Trump over dedication to justice.  We saw it from the beginning, when the Mueller Report was held up while Barr peddled false conclusions.  In those conclusions, we saw that Barr examined at least ten indictable charges of Trump’s obstruction of justice, and waived them all.  And we now know that Barr limited the scope of the investigation.  Donald Trump was all but named in the Federal indictment of Michael Cohen (individual one) but Mueller was barred from that part of the investigation.

And when the “Whistleblower’s Report” came to the Department of Justice, it was disregarded without investigation.  There was no FBI referral, simply a Department statement clearing the behavior.  “These aren’t the droids your looking for, move along.”  It hard to imagine that Bill Barr’s hand wasn’t in that decision.

So for the President’s actions with Ukraine, there was no existing body of evidence, no volumes coming over in a U-Haul, no video depositions to see.  The House was required to do all of that investigation themselves, all under the pressure of time, and the disruption of the Republican “screamers”.  Remember young Congressman Matt Gaetz’s storming of the secure ‘SCIF’, the closed hearing room?

Obstruction

And all of Barr’s actions allowed witnesses to avoid testimony.  The key figures in the Ukraine story, Mulvaney, Bolton, Duffy and Giuliani have not been heard.  

Witnesses heard Bolton call the pressure on Ukraine a “drug deal”.  Duffy’s emails show that the funds for Ukraine were held on order from “POTUS” (President of the United States).  Mulvaney has publicly said that the funds were withheld.  And Giuliani, well, he’s still seems to be trying to get “the deal” done.

Whether the Senate would remove the President or not, it seems likely that the testimony of these witnesses would serve as damning proof of Presidential abuse of power.  And that’s something that Mitch McConnell doesn’t want.  

He, and Donald Trump, can thank Bill Barr for giving them the choice. 

Wyoming Wrestling

As a sophomore in high school, I was a wrestler.  Of course I ran track in the spring, and later track would become my predominant sport, but in 1972 I trained for wrestling all fall, even running distance to get ready.  Our Coach, “Tink” Miller was a young, new teacher, just out of the University of Cincinnati wrestling program.  He was a dynamic leader, who could take you onto the mat and show you what he needed you to do.  

We wrestled in the middle school, the “old” high school in Wyoming, Ohio.  The program shunned the facilities in the brand new high school.  That balcony above the gym couldn’t get hot enough.  Coach Miller wanted the steam heat in the old school, he wanted to test us, and make us sweat.  We practiced six days a week, the day after Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve, and the days after Christmas.  We were a tough, smelly, and dedicated crew.

So it surprised me that Coach Miller allowed the seniors to miss practice on February 2nd.  There was no excuse for missing Wyoming wrestling practice, and the seniors led the way enforcing attendance.  But that day, they were all gone.

Vietnam

When I was growing up, the Vietnam War went on and on and on.  The United States first started major combat operations in 1964, when I was eight.  By the time I was eleven in 1967, there were almost half a million American forces there.  Not only did the conflict rage in Southeast Asia, by 1967 protests against the war here at home were growing.  The Presidential election of 1968 was fought over Vietnam, with the winner, Republican Richard Nixon, promising a secret peace plan.

But by 1972 when I was fourteen, we figured out that the “peace plan” was to gradually withdraw and let the South Vietnamese take over, “Vietnamization”.  Americans were still going to Vietnam, and unlike today, it wasn’t an “all volunteer” Army.  Most of the US soldiers in the jungles were drafted, required to serve whether they wanted to or not.  

Conscription

The “Draft” was nothing new in American life.  The Continental Congress asked the states to conscript men for their militias during the Revolutionary War, and both the North and the South required men to serve during the Civil War.  In World War I men eighteen to forty-five were required to register for service, and almost half of the total army, 2.8 million men were required to serve.

But the draft that we knew it began in 1940, in the lead up to World War II.  The system was set so that when you turned 18 you registered with the Selective Service System.  You were required to take a physical, and then your “status” was determined.  If you were healthy and didn’t have an “exemption” from service, you were certified 1-A, ready to go.

There were a series of exemptions that could keep you out of the Army.  If you weren’t physically able to serve, you were classified 4-F.  If you were in a job that was too important to leave, you were 2-A.  There were other exceptions as well, but the US military had to fill the quotas for numbers.  In World War II, ten million American men were drafted out of the sixteen million who served.

The Draft was a universal experience for American men.  After World War II was over, the US government decided to continue the system.  My Dad, drafted in 1941, served until 1946.  But he had friends who served in World War II and then were re-called to fight again in the Korean War in 1949.

The system went on through the 1950’s and 60’s.  Elvis Presley was drafted and served in the Army in Europe about the year I was born.  The heavyweight-boxing champion, Mohammad Ali, went to jail rather than be drafted to go to Vietnam. 

Dodging Service

The draft system had some big flaws.  If you could stay in college, you could get a deferment.  If you stayed long enough, you might avoid being “called up” – drafted for service.  And if you were in a religious group that banned fighting, Amish or Quaker for example, you could be a “conscientious objector”.  You still might get drafted, but you would be in a non-fighting role.  That didn’t mean you were safe, you might be a combat medic, in the middle of the fight.

But the biggest flaw was that if your family was wealthy, there were ways to avoid the draft.  Stay in school, get a doctor to say you were medically unfit, or get hired in the right job, and you could avoid going to war.

Making the Draft Fair

In the protests in 1968, that was one of the biggest arguments; that the draft was unfair.  So in 1969 the government switched to a lottery system.  It was like a big “bingo” machine, with every day of the year in the hopper.  The birthdates of men born eighteen years before were pulled out and announced.  Born on September 14, 1951?  In 1969 you were number 1, the first group of eighteen year olds to go.  While religious and medical exemptions continued, the rest were done.  As the song goes – “…and it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?  Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, next stop is Vietnam!” (Country Joe and the Fish).

The Lottery

So February 2^nd, 1972, my senior wrestling teammates were all together, watching television, and waiting to find out what their lives were going to be like.  For some, they got good news.  Their birthdates were “pulled” late.  If you had a “number” of 125 or higher, you weren’t likely to be drafted.  You could go on planning for college, and life.  But if you had a low number, you needed to prepare:  you were likely to go to war.

The seniors came into practice late.  Most were pretty excited, and jumped into the drills to pound on us younger and tired wrestlers.  But for a few, there were long faces and long conversations with Coach Miller, then back into the practice fray.  The draft was looming, but the Harrison Invitational was this weekend.  Back to work, got to make the weight.

By the end of 1973, the Vietnam War was winding down.  No one after that was drafted, though you still had to “go downtown,” register, and get your draft card.  And they still pulled the numbers, just in case they needed to re-start the draft again.  I was in the last group pulled, in 1975.  It was a “good” number, my birthdate, September 14, 1956 came out 343^rd.  Even if they did start drafting, I would be a long way down the list.

Today

They soon stopped even issuing draft cards, and for a few years didn’t even register folks.  It wasn’t long though, in 1980 President Carter ordered the Selective Service to begin collecting registrations again.  So every eighteen-year old man is required to register with the Selective Service, even today.  

The US military has been an all-volunteer force since the end of Vietnam in 1975.  When men and women join up, it’s for four years or more, not the two years of active service of the draft years.  We avoided the kind of wars that require long-term service of large numbers of ground troops, the kind of situation that calls for draftees.  But if that comes up again, the Selective Service has the lists and is ready to go.  And the “bingo hopper” still works.

The Clock

It’s twelve hours since Iran launched missile attacks against US bases in Iraq.  According to the Pentagon there were no US casualties.  According to Iran up to eighty Americans were killed.  Everyone is entitled to their own facts, I guess.

The United States and Iran are at a breathless “pause”.  Each has climbed the ladder of escalation. After months of tit-for-tat actions in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian backed militia Hezbollah bombed an Iraqi base and an American contractor was killed.  The US responded by bombing three of the militia’s bases.  Hezbollah responded by attacking the US Embassy in Baghdad.  The US responded with a drone strike that killed Iran’s number two leader on the road to the Baghdad airport.   And then Iran responded with last night’s missile strike. 

The world is waiting for President Trump’s response.  He supposedly will speak to us all this morning, and what he says will determine how far our current crisis will go.  If the President is “all talk” but no further action, then there is time.  If he launches further strikes, we will be back on the ladder, climbing to war.

Enter the Peacemakers

After these actions, the United States and Iran are unlikely to “sit down” with each other.  The assassination of General Soleimani placed the two sides far beyond the ability to talk face to face.  So who can mediate, what world leader can step in and say to both sides that they have risked too much, and taken world fears too close to reality?

The Swiss legation in Tehran right now represents American interests.  But the Swiss have never been peacemakers; they are instead honest brokers in a world where honesty is rare.  They aren’t the ones to bring peace.  And the United States often uses the government of Pakistan to communicate to Iran, but we really don’t trust them.  Pakistan has so much at stake in the outcome that their own interests outweigh their ability to broker a deal.

French President Macron could serve as the go-between.  France has economic interests in Iran that makes them committed to peace, and Macron’s on and off relationship with Trump might be effective.  But while France could negotiate, they aren’t in a position to force a deal between two parties that have gone so far.

So who’s left?  There’s one world leader who has enough respect from Trump, and can pressure the Iranian mullahs to accept the personal insult of Soleimani’s death.  He’s waiting for his chance to be the world leader, to take charge on the global stage.  And he’s already moving into position, speaking to the European and Turkish leaders.

It’s Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia!!!! (I feel like there should be a Hamilton moment, a fanfare like – Hercules Mulligan!!)

Putin’s Eye on the Prize

Keep in mind Putin’s ultimate goal:  to bring Russia back to the stature of the Soviet Empire of the early 1980’s.  So he’s been in Europe in the last week, and was in Ankara, the capital of Turkey just days ago.  Putin has been allied with Iran in the Middle East for the past several years, including helping Iran keep Syrian President Bashar Assad in power.  And even in the past few days, as relations between Iraq and the United States have deteriorated Putin has made offers of military assistance to the Iraqi government.

Putin’s Russia is a major player in the Middle East.  Russian troops have taken over the American outposts in Northern Syria.  Russia has already made arms sales to Turkey, ostensibly a NATO ally of the United States. By becoming a force in the Middle East, Russia becomes an economic factor when it comes to controlling the Strait of Hormuz, and European oil supplies.  

America’s allies have questions.  Why did the US abandon the Kurds in Syria, but move troops to protect Syrian oil fields?  Why did the US go from a tit-for-tat response to Iranian provocations, to assassinating the second most powerful government figure in the country?  In short, can America be trusted as a stable partner.

So if not the US, then Putin.  He can become the “new” peacemaker, and by doing so, gain more influence over the Middle East, Europe, and the world.  The era of “Pax Americana” may be over.  “Pax Rodina” may be coming.   

The Colonel

Colonel Larry Wilkerson has “street cred”.  He flew combat helicopters in the Vietnam War, graduated from both the Ranger and Airborne Schools of the US Army, and earned degrees in international relations, national security, and English literature.  He was on General Colin Powell’s staff in the military, and then followed Powell into civilian life as his Chief of Staff at the State Department.

Wilkerson is outspoken about how Powell was “used” by the Bush Administration to justify the invasion of Iraq.  Powell’s speech to the United Nations about Iraqi nuclear weapons development was critical in the lead-up to the invasion.  That speech was based on information “cherry picked” from intelligence by the Bush Administration, led by Vice President Cheney, information turned out to be false. 

Wilkerson understands force, understands the military, and understands intelligence.  Last night on MSNBC, he called the intelligence leading to the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani  “…a bunch of bull.”  He added, “We have surrendered the strategic initiative to Iran”.  

In the interview, Wilkerson added an anecdote from the Obama administration. He said that Obama told him in a White House meeting in the Roosevelt Room, that,  “…there’s a bias in this town toward war”.

Biggest on the Block

It’s easy to see how Washington would have that bias.  The US has the largest military in world history.  We spend huge amounts of money to maintain it, last year budgeting almost $700 billion.  We have more of everything, from ships to planes to tanks.  And while there are larger armies in the world by number of soldiers, the US has more of everything else.

And of course, we have nuclear weapons.

So military solutions are often “the easy” ones.  When there’s a world crisis that lends itself to blowing something up, we have the best means to do it.  We are like the biggest and strongest kid on the block.  When other kids annoy us, or even threaten us, it’s easy to simply swat them away.  

No one can resist the ultimate force of America, “…the American people in their righteous might” as Franklin Roosevelt noted after Pearl Harbor.  But there is a key modifier in that sentence, and in America’s role in the world.  America has the ultimate force, but America must also be “righteous”.  America cannot be seen as a world “bully” and maintain that “rightness”.  When the US has acted (and we have) as the “bully”, we find that the national unity that flows to that power, stops.

Americans Together

Roosevelt’s call to arms after Pearl Harbor led to the development of the US military as the greatest world force, a force maintained today.  Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor, and Bush after 9-11, could call on the full force of the American people.  Few opposed their efforts, and there were long lines outside of enlistment offices.  America knew it was time to defend itself.

But in other times and other wars, Americans have had questions.  It didn’t take long to figure out that Vietnam was not a war defending the “homeland”.  When we committed thousands of combat troops in 1964, millions of citizens began to question our motives.  By 1968 it was the major issue in American politics, on American campuses, and in the streets of American towns. 

Draft Army

Vietnam reached into the lives of most Americans because of the draft.  The US Armed Forces then were based on conscription.  At eighteen, American boys were selected to serve, and sent into combat in Vietnam.  By the end of the war the draft system was based on a simple lottery, if you were born on the wrong day, then eighteen years later you were on the way to Vietnam.  Have a “good number” and you got to stay home.

After the end of Vietnam, the United States military moved to an “all volunteer” force.  And while those soldiers are incredibly effective and loyal, when we stopped the draft it somehow became “easier” to send troops into danger.  After all, they volunteered, they chose this.  It was less of a national burden to send troops to Kosovo and Bosnia and Iraq.  And even the “righteous” war in Afghanistan against the forces that attacked us in 9-11 has dragged on.  Al Qaeda is defeated and bin Laden dead, but we continue to battle, for so long that the soldiers fighting today might not even have been born when planes struck the World Trade Center.

An Easy Solution

So it’s easier to send our forces to fight in far away fields.  It’s even easier when those forces can be piloted remotely, from a base in Virginia, as the bombs fall in Baghdad.  No one mourns the loss of a drone, even if it costs millions.  We proved that when the Iranians shot down one of ours a few months ago, and our response was a cyber attack.  The choice to use military force becomes less “righteous” when it’s done with an upscale video game controller.

As the use of military force becomes easier to do, it is incumbent upon the decision makers to chose more deliberately and carefully.  And that’s where we stand today.  Do we believe that the President and his small coterie of militant advisors made a “righteous” choice in trying to provoke war with Iran?  There is no question that Soleimani was a “bad actor”, a purveyor of terrorist acts throughout the Middle East.  But there is “no new news here,” he’s been that same “bad actor” for the past twenty years and more.  

It seems that the neo-cons, some of the same folks that led us into Iraq eighteen years ago, are happy to lead us into Iran.  They decry the “righteousness” of their cause, trying to paper over the divisions of America with a patriotic war.  Pompeo, Esper, and good old John Bolton have got what they want from Donald Trump.

But they gave up control when we killed Soleimani.  As Colonel Wilkerson said, it’s not our call, “…we have surrendered the initiative”.  Now it’s up to Iran.  Their response will determine what we will do, whether it will be war or peace or that tenuous balance point we’ve maintained in between.  

It’s hard to be righteous, when it’s not your call.

Wrapped in the Flag

If you glance through Facebook, you see it.  There are memes and statements, demanding absolute loyalty to America’s new policy in the Middle East.  “This is war, you must stand by the flag,” and  “protect our soldiers in the line of fire,” appear in one form or another, over and over again.

The assassination of Iranian General Soleimani by US drones is an American political sledgehammer.  Question the action, and you must be “soft” at best, or a traitor at worst.  Stand with the President or stand against your country.

Of course all of that isn’t true.  It’s perfectly OK to question President Trump’s actions in the Middle East.  We don’t know his “plan” other than the threats and bluster we read on Twitter.  His wild threats, and Mike Pompeo’s pompous assertions demanding trust in their unknowable plan, do nothing to relieve national skepticism.  Leaders lead through confidence, education, and reason.  The Trump Administration has revealed none of those traits.

So the question we have to ask:  is this a Trump strategy for the Middle East, or is this a Trump strategy for 2020.  Or, perhaps even scarier, is this a random act decided between the fourteenth tee and green at Mara Lago with no strategy involved at all.

Middle East Strategy

If it’s a Middle East strategy, it’s a risky one.  At the best, the United States has determined that it’s all or nothing with Iran.  In the past decades, the primary goal was to make sure that Iran couldn’t become a nuclear power, able to use the ultimate weapon to pursue their acknowledged goal of Middle East domination.

That was the tradeoff the Obama Administration made.  They would accept the “asymmetric warfare” Iran waged, led by General Soleimani, as long as Iran abandoned the strategic objective of getting a “bomb”.  Previous Presidents, Obama, Bush and Clinton; were well aware of Soleimani’s role in encouraging the terrorists militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Palestine.  They also were aware that until we invaded Iraq in 2002, Iran served as the counter-balance to Iraq’s military aggression led by Saddam Hussein.  We changed that dynamic, taking the “cork out of the bottle” in Iraq and leaving a huge vacuum in leadership.  Iran wanted to fill that vacuum.

Iranian Power

It’s so much more than just “power” though. Iran is the center of Shia Islam, and sees with some justification, the repression of Shias throughout the rest of the Sunni Islamic Middle East.  Iran also has a different ethnic group, Persian, rather than the majority Arab of the rest of the Middle East.  So Iran’s not just using their influence to gain power for themselves, but also for minority groups throughout the region.  

So Clinton, Bush and Obama accepted that Iran would support groups that the US often opposed.  And, sometimes, the US and Iran would find mutual enemies and work together.  The most recent battles against ISIS, a Sunni extremist cult, found Iranian supported militias and US forces working shoulder to shoulder.

But in the Trump Administration all relationships are transactional:  support today if it benefits us, enemy tomorrow if there’s profit in that.  Ask the Kurds, or our NATO allies.  

Protests in Iran

It’s odd that this attack occurred right now.  The Iranian government was rocked by protests in their own country; marches and demands by young Iranians to change policy.  The US economic sanctions were working; many Iranians wanted change. The Iranian people have never been a “monolithic” Shia block.  They are a modern people, highly educated, and want better conditions, and more say in their government.

But there are no protests against that government today.   The Facebook campaign in the United States may or may not be working, but in Iran, the actual remains of General Soleimani have served as a unifying force.  It may be just what the Iranian theocracy needed:  now it’s all “death to Americans”.  Their nation is focused, and ready to sacrifice.

New Middle East Strategy

Secretary of State Pompeo states we have a “vast alliance” to stand against the aggressor Iran.  Let’s hope that’s true.  We know that the traditional Iranian enemy, Sunni Saudi Arabia will be happy with the new US stance.  Saudi is in a “proxy war” with Iran in Yemen, and the Iranians were escalating beyond “proxies” with attacks on Saudi oil producing facilities.  Now the US has stepped into the breach to force Iranian attention in our direction.  The MBS-Kushner axis may be at work (MBS – Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince and leader of Saudi Arabia and Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law).

Iraq is faced with a no-win situation.  The Iraqi government exists because of US support.  Should the US withdraw, Iraq will become an Iranian vassal state.  In the end, Sunnis have controlled Iraq, but the nation is two-thirds Shia.  The pressure of Iran is intense.  It’s why Iran and Iraq fought an eight-year war in the 1980’s.

Unless the US is willing to become fully involved in war with Iran, it’s hard to see a “reasonable” outcome in this situation.  Iran isn’t likely to abandon their allies in the Middle East, and if that’s the price the US wants, it will be the US military that will have to extract it.

Ground war in Iran would be ugly, much worse than Iraq or Afghanistan.  There are fewer “friendlies” in Iran than there were in Iraq, and the opposition will be better organized and dedicated than Afghanistan.  It’s not a matter of who has “the most” power, but whether that power is enough to dominate a stubborn and determined opponent.  That hasn’t worked historically:  Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq all come to mind. 

Wag the Dog

There was a movie released in the 1990’s just before the Bill Clinton scandal was fully revealed.  It was about a President who started a war to distract from a sex scandal.  Wag the Dog became a watchword of the Clinton impeachment:  what would the President do to change the subject from impeachment and Monica?

Is this escalation against Iran a Trump ploy to mobilize his base in the United States, in the face of Senate trial for impeachment, and the drip-drip-drip of negative revelations?  You can hear echoes of “campaign” in the President’s tweets:  the false equivalence of Baghdad and Benghazi, and the fifty-two targets in Iran for the fifty-two hostages in 1979-80 that a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, couldn’t get out.  

Last week, Office of Management and Budget emails were revealed showing the President directly ordered Ukrainian aid to be held.  This week the Senate will determine whether witnesses will be heard in the impeachment trial.  If the Senate hears Bolton, Mulvaney, Blair and Duffy, it seems clear that their story will further damage the President.  If the Senate refuses, then Democrats will run with the “Senate Republican cover-up” story.  

This weekend we found out that a sanctioned Russian bank might have backed millions of dollars of Deutsche Bank loans to Donald Trump (Forensic).  And the pressure is growing as the US Supreme Court determines whether Mr. Trump’s taxes will be revealed to Congress or the Courts.  It might be a good week to change the subject.

No Backing Out

Whatever the reason, the United States has changed the dynamic in the Middle East.  We are on an “adventure” in foreign policy, a journey into the unknown.  Whether this is a strategy to succeed in the Middle East, or the 2020 election, it’s put Americans and the Middle East at greater risk of violence and war.  And there’s no backing out.

The Guns of August

It was a summer day in the Balkan city of Sarajevo in 1914.  The town was then in the Bosnian Province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  The Crown Prince of the Empire, Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophia were in town after inspecting the Austrian troops. They came for the feast of St. Vitus and to show Austrian loyalty to the region.  A parade we held in their honor, and they waved their way through the town in the back of an open car. Suddenly an assassin jumped in and shot them both.

The assassin, nineteen-year old Gavrilo Princip, was an impassioned member of the “Black Hand”. This was a Serbian society that wanted to unite the Southern Slav states into a nation separate from the Empire.  Serbia was already independent, and wanted Bosnia to join as part of what would ultimately become Yugoslavia.

But the assassination of the Archduke had consequences far beyond his death.  Austria-Hungary rightfully blamed Serbia, and mobilized troops at the Serbian border.  Serbia responded with troop mobilization as well, and asked for help from their ally, Russia.  Russia began to bring their troops up, and Austria-Hungary turned for help to their ally, Germany.

Germany was already planning for European conquest. They attacked Russia’s ally France.  And thus World War I began, with the killing of one man.

Soleimani

Thursday, the United States used a drone attack to assassinate a leading Iranian General, Qasem Soleimani, as he travelled to the Baghdad Airport in Iraq.  Soleimani was the mastermind behind twenty years of Iranian involvement in “irregular” forces, defined by the United States as terrorists, throughout the Middle East.  These include Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, the Popular Mobilization Force in Iraq, and the Houthis who are fighting against the Saudi Arabian backed government forces in Yemen.

Soleimani was one of the most powerful men in Iran, second behind leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.   There is no question that he was the author of many terrorist actions throughout the Middle East.  He was not a “good actor” in the region. The United States government believed that Soleimani was planning additional attacks in Iraq targeting US assets and personnel, so he was targeted and killed.

But unlike Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; Soleimani was a “state actor”.  The difference is that bin Laden and al-Baghdadi were leaders of non-state, irregular terrorist forces.  Both their organizations, al Qaeda and ISIS, were failing and widely dispersed. Those groups were  unable to respond to the US actions.  Soleimani was a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, an official position in the Iranian government.  With Soleimani gone, another general fills his position, and Iranian assets remain unchanged.

Act of War

Targeting another nation’s leadership is a technical act of war.  The United States, like it or not, has attacked Iran in a legal sense.  It should be no surprise to anyone that Iran will respond to the attack.

This doesn’t mean that Iran will launch conventional military attacks against US Forces.  They aren’t stupid; in a conventional war the United States has the overwhelming advantage.  Iran will respond in a way that gives them an advantage. They might use their irregular allies throughout the Middle East.  Or they could use their developed expertise in cyber-warfare, and somehow disrupt US networks or infrastructures.  It is called “asymmetrical warfare,” where attacks of one kind, like the US drone strike in Iraq, are responded to by random bombings, suicide attacks or electronic assaults in a totally different place.

Young Gavrilo Princip did not kill Archduke Francis Ferdinand and Sophia to start World War I.  There was no way that he could know the fuse he ignited, creating an explosion involving all of Europe, and ultimately the United States.  That was far beyond that young man’s nationalistic vision.

Neither he, nor the leaders of Europe, foresaw what would happen. Their actions resulted in the unintended consequence of a world at war, enormous loss, and irrevocable change. 

Unintended Consequences 

The assassination of Qasem Soleimani feels much the same.  

Iran will have to respond.  Where they will strike, and how the United States is prepared to respond, is difficult to know.  But, unlike World War I, we know that America’s current allies in NATO are not happy with US actions.  Most of the them were still abiding by the Iranian Nuclear Protocol, negotiated by the Obama Administration to stop Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.  President Trump repudiated that deal, and now has directly attacked the Iranian government.  

What will those allies do?  How will they respond if Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz, strangling world and particularly European oil supplies?  Or decides to disrupt the international banking network?  And where will Russia and China, both frequent allies of Iran, stand?  

And perhaps the biggest question is, has the Trump Administration actually thought through the consequences of the assassination?  Are we following a carefully thought through plan for the Middle East, and the world? Or are we living in an era of knee-jerk reactions and unintended consequences. It’s easy to fear that the latter is the case.

(and other misleading things)

Biden Did It

I was discussing the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump the other day.  One of the participants argued that Biden did the exact thing Trump did:  use American funds to try to leverage a Ukrainian government decision.  We went down “into the weeds” of what Biden did back in 2016, as opposed to what the President did last summer.  Ultimately, the argument faded out:  neither side would accept the other sides “facts”.

To be clear, Vice President Biden was representing US, NATO and EU policy when he told the Ukrainian government that we would withhold aid unless Prosecutor Viktor Shokin was removed.  Shokin was uninterested in prosecuting corruption, particularly by the Russian backed Ukrainian oligarchs.  

We will soon hear from Trump’s “personal lawyer” Rudy Giuliani with accusations of Biden corruption.  Those charges begin with a Shokin deposition.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that a Russian backed former Ukrainian Prosecutor would be opposed to the Democrat.

President Trump, on the other hand, was actually (as opposed to threatening) holding congressionally mandated funds for Ukrainian defense.  And he and his “team” made it clear to the current Ukrainian government that they would have to announce investigations of Biden and Crowd Strike to get the money.   The announcement alone would provide more “Trump cannon fodder” for the 2020 campaign.  There was no US government policy or interest being furthered, just the personal ambitions of the President.

So, while the two actions seem to be similar, in reality, they are completely different.  And that’s the definition of a “false equivalency”.  We’ve heard a lot about those lately.

Baghdad

This week an angry riot began outside of the US Embassy in Baghdad.  The rioters were protesting a US attack on an Iraqi militant group.  The group had earlier killed an American citizen.  The rioters tried to “take” the embassy, and penetrated through the first layer of the multiple Embassy defenses.  President Trump ordered additional US Marine reinforcements in, and within hours those Marines from Kuwait were landing in the Embassy courtyard.  

More Marines or not, the Iraqi government finally helped to remove the protestors.  They made an agreement with the militant group to reevaluate US military presence in Iraq.

President Trump made the right decisions in this crisis.  The Embassy staff hunkered down in the heavily defended core, and the multiple lines of defense in the most strongly defended US Embassy in the world held.  As the crisis seemed to escalate, the President called in resources to reinforce the existing Marine guards.

Just Like Benghazi

Trump supporters have taken this success, and tried to draw a parallel with the Benghazi crisis of the Obama Administration.  “Trump acted,” they demand, “while Obama (and Hillary Clinton) let those people die in Benghazi”.  They are creating a false equivalence between the two crises.

Why is this false?  What happened in Baghdad was at the most heavily defended US Embassy in the world, one that has always been considered a high-risk station.  Benghazi was a lightly defended US Consulate, a condition that the Ambassador Stephens was well aware of when he went there.

In the recent case, US Marines and other troops from Central Command were on standby in Kuwait, 400 miles from Baghdad, about a two-hour helicopter flight.  At Benghazi, the closest US troops were in Italy, over 700 miles away, and not a prepared assault force.  One of the issues the Obama Administration faced was that the military was not prepared to rescue anyone in Benghazi, and by the time that could be arranged, the riots and killing was over.

Everyone Does It

Biden and Trump in Ukraine, Trump’s actions in Baghdad and Obama’s in Benghazi:  they are similar situations.  But both have huge practical differences that make comparing them uncertain at best, and a false equivalency at worst.

But the final “false equivalency” in today’s politics is in overarching theme:  “Trump is just doing what all politicians do, he’s just more blatant about it”, followed by the inevitable “Democrats did it too”.

That is not a false equivalency, it is just bull.  

Just Bull

Just a short list of Trump personnel in or going to jail:  Manafort, Gates, Flynn, Papadopoulos, Cohen, and Stone.  Another list of Trump Cabinet level officers who have resigned under fire:  Shanahan, Price, Zinke, Sessions, and Acosta.  There hasn’t been a President since Andrew Johnson that had so many senior staff under accusation.  Even Nixon only lost a couple cabinet members to Watergate.

The President of the United States constantly violates accepted norms of behavior.  He insults his opponents, belittles those who disagree with his policies, makes fun of the handicapped, and calls for the killing of those who speak against him.  Not sure about the last one?  Ask “the Whistleblower,” the one the President accused of “treason”.  “You know what we did with traitors in the old days,” are Trump’s words. 

The scope of Trump’s actions are wide. No Democrat has behaved this way.

There’s going to be a lot more false equivalencies made as the 2020 campaign season continues.  Don’t buy into them, and don’t let others get away with using falsehoods to buttress their arguments.  Whether folks accept or not, there is a single truth, a set of irrefutable facts, that should lead us to answers.  Stand by the truth.

Last night – the United States used an aerial drone to kill a senior Iranian General outside of the Baghdad airport. While Soleimani lead Iran’s influence on groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, he was also one of the top leaders of the Iranian government. There will be consequences.

The Jetsons theme song

Color TV

I was born in 1956.  Eisenhower was President, Elvis was about to be drafted, and televisions were small and in black and white.  So my “cartoon watching” days were in the early 1960’s.  Dad was working at a TV station (WLW-D in Dayton, he commuted from our Cincinnati home every day).   We got our “color” TV in 1963, the first in the neighborhood.

I watched the old favorites:  Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Popeye and Mickey Mouse.  But a new form of cartoons came about, the serial comedy shows.  Rather than just a five or ten minute adventure “hunting wabbits,” these cartoons were like the evening family shows, Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, and of course Leave it to Beaver.  In 1960 a show about a family in the Stone Age, the Flinstones began, and in 1962, The Jetsons.

The Jetsons

The Jetsons was the story of a normal family in the year 2062.  Father George worked in a “white collar” job at the Spacely Space Sprocketts.  Jane, his wife, lived a middle class life, shopping and taking care of the home (with the help of various robots).  Daughter Judy was in high school, and son Elroy was in elementary school.

The show set the tone for what the future would look like.  The Jetsons lived in an apartment on stilts high in the clouds, and drove air cars from place to place.  All the sidewalks were moving, and most of the time, in fact almost all of the time was spent “in the air”.  The ground was still there, it was where homeless folks (called hobos back then) wandered, the stilt-like apartments had foundations, and birds stayed because the sky was too full.

We didn’t really know why the “middle class” moved up into the sky.  But we did get a cartoon version of what the future should look like.  Now, more than half way there, we are still waiting for our flying cars.

But there’s a lot of other cartoon “predictions” that are now matter of fact.  While we don’t yet have “Rosie” the robot maid, we are well on the way with robot vacuum cleaners and digitally controlled homes.  And maybe the Jetsons foreshadowed climate change, as they abandon the flooded or droughted earth to the homeless and move into the clouds.  

Wrist Radios

But the most predictive show was Dick Tracy.  This cartoon started as a comic strip about a detective who from 1946 on had a “wrist radio,” a watch that he could use to communicate to others on his team.  In 1964 the cartoon series debuted a “wrist TV”.  Well we got those.  Apple Watch has all of those traits, and even folks older than me are wearing them.  I’ve resisted that temptation; it’s just one more thing that I need reading glasses for.

But we are all carrying greater computing power in our pockets (and on our wrists) than any of us could access as late as twenty years ago.  It’s hard to imagine that the Apollo moon rockets, or the Space Shuttles, had less computing power than we all carry with us everyday. 

It Comes Around

What else has the “future wrought?”  Well, what’s a “long distance” call, in our age where we expect absolute connection with each other at all times?  And while today we have Uber Eats and Grub-Hub, back while I was watching the Jetsons we had milk and bread, ice cream and chips (Charlie Chips) delivered to the house several times a week.

Wires are gone.  My TV’s aren’t even hooked to cable anymore; I’ve “cut” away to use a streaming service.  It’s a bit of irony; I remember my television industry father talking about how the hundreds of cable channels would crowd out broadcast television.  He worried that the “stations” would get chased out of business.  Today those channels still exist, but cable service is getting relegated to a “pipeline” role.  Programming has passed onto the “streamers,” Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and the like.  

Connections

And what have we lost?  When my father passed away a few years ago, I cleaned out his home office (I’m writing this essay on his executive desk, shoe-horned into my home office now).  I found files of professional letters between the executives in his industry, congratulating each other on achievements, promotions, or anniversaries.  Typed by their secretaries, dictated either live or on “Dictaphones,” these courteous notes on onion skin paper were markers of a more “proper” time. 

Today, maybe it’s an email, or more likely a text.  We’ve lost the “class” by saving the time and effort.   And maybe we’ve lost those connections to each other as well.

So here we are in the “future”, 2020.  We are more connected, and somehow more isolated.  We are webbed into the world, but less present to each other.  And we are certainly more vulnerable as our pipeline for information gets narrowed to what can fit into ten seconds, in our pocket, or on our wrists.  

Fox News

Fox News will tell you that Democrats have been trying to remove Donald Trump from the Presidency since the day of his inauguration.  They aren’t wrong; there has been a series of actions since January 20, 2017, that have outraged a majority of Americans.  Those actions have been so far outside the “norms” of what we expect from the President of the United States and the “Leader of the Free World,” that some form of removal became common conversation.

Because there’s been so much controversy, so many outrages, and so much insult to our Constitutional form of government:  let’s not forget what we are determining in this coming pivotal year in American history, 2020.

Truth Fails

We should have known from the day after the inauguration, when Press Secretary Sean Spicer came out and demanded that the Trump ceremonies were the largest and best attended in American history, a demonstrable falsehood.  While that lie didn’t matter in the short run, in the full scope of the Trump Presidency it set the stage.  We should have known that the truth was the very first casualty of Donald J. Trump.

Five days later, President Trump began his assault on migrants.  He ordered federal aid stripped from “sanctuary cities,” though the Courts would stop that order.  A few days later he banned refugees from seven Muslim countries.  The Courts banned that order as well, though a modified version eventually went into effect.

All the President’s Men

We soon found Trump’s appointees were flawed.  National Security Advisor General Mike Flynn resigned and ultimately pled guilty to Federal felonies.  Attorney General Sessions misled or lied to the Senate in his confirmation hearing, and recused himself from the Russian investigation.  His Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, resigned under investigation, as did his Secretary of the Interior and Environmental Protection Agency Director. 

Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka, all with white supremacist ties, were made senior advisors to the President.  Bannon and Gorka were later fired, but Miller remains.  Mr. Trump also made his daughter and son-in-law senior advisors as well.

Russia

We found out that the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign for its connections with Russia.  The President then fired Jim Comey, the FBI Director, and on TV a few days later stated that it was because of “Russia”.  He then met with the Russian Foreign Minister, and said the “pressure was off” because of the firing.  In that same meeting, the President revealed classified information, causing an ally’s agent to be put in danger.

Soon a Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, was appointed to continue the Russia investigation.  We would later learn that the President would order his firing, but the White House Counsel and a Trump campaign manager refused to carry out the order.

Strong Men

We found that Mr. Trump had an affinity for dictators.  President Duarte of the Philippines was invited to the White House, and we later learned the President was close to Prince Muhammad Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, President Erdogan of Turkey, and Premier Kim of North Korea.  But the leader Mr. Trump showed the most respect for was President Putin of Russia.  In contrast, he showed continuing disdain for our allies; Trudeau of Canada, Macron of France, Merkel of Germany and Nieto of Mexico.

Charlottesville

Then there was Charlottesville.  The President failed to condemn racism, then said the famous phrase:  “…there were good people, on both sides.  I know it, and you know it too.”  It was perhaps the last “pivot point” for Republicans, when they could have stepped away from supporting Trump.  But, while many condemned the words, they remained in his support.

And all of that was in the first year.

Security Clearances and Porn Stars

In January of 2018, we found out about the porn star payoff.  

The President continued the wage war against his own intelligence services.  In particular, the President continually attacked the FBI, still involved in the Mueller investigation.  

We found out that the White House waived security clearance procedures for several senior staff members, including the critical Staff Secretary, who resigned under allegations of abusing his wife.  Jared Kushner also avoided questions on his security clearance.

Child Separation

And then there was child separation at the border.  Thousands of migrant children were taken from their parents, put into confinement camps, and “lost” in the system.  Tent camps were set up near the border to handle the separated children, and we found that many were transported in the dead of night all over the country.  We then found that this was an intentional plan to “deter” migration by taking children from their parents.  Senior Advisor Stephen Miller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions were pushing the plan.

5460 children were separated (NBC). Even today, entering 2020, as many as 120 children are still separated from their parents (ACLU).

Mueller

His personal attorney, Michael Cohen, admitted to paying hush money to a porn star to hide the President’s affair with her before the election.  He also admits to lying to Congress about that, and the Trump Organization’s involvement with building a Trump Tower in Moscow.  Michael Cohen gets sentenced to three years in jail.

President Trump defended Muhammad Bin Salman in the kidnapping, murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.  He has continued to ignore his own Intelligence Agencies findings that MBS was the prime instigator of the murder.

All of that happened, and more, up to a year ago today.

And this year, 2019, we had the Mueller Report.  It showed hundreds of contacts between the 2016 Trump Campaign and Russian intelligence sources.  While Mueller was unable to prove conspiracy, the Report outlined that the finding was in part caused by the obstruction of the Trump staff.

In addition, the Mueller Report outlined ten counts of President Trump’s obstruction of justice.  Mueller saw himself as hamstrung by Department of Justice policy against indicting a sitting President, but he made it clear that these were indictable offenses.

But Mr. Trump’s new Attorney General, Bill Barr, distorted and confused Mueller’s findings.  He determined himself that the obstruction charges were invalid, and told the nation that the President was exonerated.  That’s not what Mueller said.

Today

And finally, we have the current Ukraine crisis. The President used the power of his office to pressure another nation to interfere in the 2020 election by smearing Mr. Trump’s potential opponent, Joe Biden.  And for that, Trump was impeached, and faces trial in the Senate.

What will happen in the Senate is still uncertain, though it seems unlikely that the President will be removed from office.  What is likely is that the campaign of 2020 will be even uglier than 2016 was.  

President Trump has done so much to this country; it’s easy to become numb to his actions.  What would have been outrageous in 2015 has become commonplace.  But, on this last day of 2019, let us remember:  why we fight.

Special Thanks to AOL for providing a comprehensive Trump Time Line

In any legal or contractual action, it is up to the agreeing parties to perform their own “due diligence”.  They have an obligation to investigate the agreement, the other party, and the process of the agreement.  We often hire lawyers to perform this task for us.  By hiring them we make the lawyer liable for any issue that gets missed and later on causes problems.

Buyer Beware

For example, a friend bought a home.  As part of the purchasing process, it is customary for the buyer to arrange and pay for an inspection of the building before closing on the contract.  That is a part of “due diligence”.  My friend waived inspection, and failed to find significant wiring issues left over from a fire that took place years before. 

Months after the sale, the buyer discovered burnt and cracked wiring, an obvious hazard that needed to be replaced.  Since he waived inspection, the cost of re-wiring the house fell to him.  He failed to perform his “due diligence” and now bore the responsibility.   

Political Vetting

In the United States, we have a great obligation to perform “due diligence” when it comes to our Presidential candidates.  We “assume” that the media, and the process itself will “vet” candidates, revealing their weaknesses and failures.  In the past, this worked.  

In 1988 Democratic Presidential candidate Gary Hart, literally taunted journalists to find out about his extra-martial activities.  When they did, it ended his run for the Presidency.

And in 2008 then leading Democrat John Edwards had an affair and a child while his wife was being treated for cancer.  Edwards then paid the other woman off.  That was revealed, ending Edwards political career.

Sometimes the vetting process is a little odd.  In 2004, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean was the front-runner and top fundraiser going into the early Democratic primaries.  When he finished a disappointing third in the Iowa caucuses, his concession speech including an odd “scream”.  When the “scream” was broadcast over and over again, it became the dominant issue in Dean’s campaign.  After a disappointing showing in other early primaries, Dean abandoned the race.

Campaign Norms

Traditionally candidates for President reveal their finances, usually making their tax returns for a number of years public.  They also reveal their health conditions, giving access to medical exam results.  And candidates often reveal “problematic” information proactively.  Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both revealed youthful drug use, and George W Bush discussed his own substance abuse issues as part of his lead up to running for President.  This “tradition” wasn’t written in stone, or law.  It was a political “norm”.

But in our current political era, “norms” don’t count.  

In 2016 we elected a President who scoffed at the “norms”.  He refused to reveal his tax returns, and continues to do so, fighting all the way to the US Supreme Court to maintain his secrets.  He had a “doctor’s note” about his physical health, claiming he would be the “…healthiest individual ever elected to the Presidency”. 

We also now know that Mr. Trump spent significant sums of money to hide stories of his sexual indiscretions, including an affair with a pornographic movie actress only months after his wife gave birth to his son.  He also had his friend David Pecker use his ownership of the National Enquirer to “catch and kill” other embarrassing stories.

Applying the Rules

It seems the current group of Democratic candidates are still following the “old” norms.  We are seeing tax returns, learning details of Bernie’s heart attack, and Hindu group financing of Tulsi Gabbard.  Senator Warren is modifying her “healthcare for all plan”, and Vice President Biden revealed a lifelong stuttering issue.  

But will the rules apply to all?  Mike Bloomberg is bypassing much of the scrutiny by campaigning in the mass elections of Super Tuesday, rather than the microscopic evaluations of Iowa and New Hampshire.  Will his money by him a “pass” from the norms?

And, of course, the House of Representatives and public opinion are now retroactively vetting the President.  But he has been immune to the “norms”, and Republicans have steadfastly refused to hold him accountable.  Will Mr. Trump ever have to follow the rules, written or unwritten?  

Don’t count on it.  We know all that we know about Donald J. Trump.  However, unlike the sale of that house with bad wiring, America gets to have a “do-over” in 2020.  Will we finally exercise our due diligence?

Leave it to Beaver

Like almost every other aspect of American culture, America’s religious participation is changing.  It used to be that religious “diversity” in the United States was Catholic, Protestant, and a few Jews. Back then; most Americans claimed some religious affiliation, with the vast majority Christian.

It was easy in that “Leave it to Beaver” time to believe that the United States was a land of religious freedom.  The teachers in elementary schools said generic Christian prayers at the beginning of the school day and at lunch and told Bible stories in class.  Christmas decorations and Easter bunnies were all part of the bulletin board displays.  And when a few parents who might be Jehovah’s Witnesses or Jewish objected, teachers took pride in the fact they “allowed” those students not to participate.  That was freedom of religion. 

School Prayer

But, of course, it wasn’t.  And when fifty-six years ago the Supreme Court ruled that public schools could not advocate for any particular religion in the course of official duties, folks were outraged.  How would our children learn morals if they couldn’t pray before school, or the game?  

I was in third grade when the teacher led prayers stopped.  They no longer had Bible study classes either, though students were still allowed to walk down to the Episcopal Church during school time.  But prayer didn’t stop in schools.  Kids prayed all the time, for better test scores, to not get caught, that the Principal’s arm might be tired before the paddling.  I presume teachers prayed as well, but they didn’t lead students in prayer anymore.  

The Locker Room

That is, except in the “sanctity” of the locker room.  Like Vegas, what went on there stayed there.  The coaches might swear, they might physically confront athletes, and they might pray with the team.  Of course they didn’t pray for victory, at least, not officially. No, only that the team would play to it’s best, and no one would be injured.  

So the Jewish, Atheist, and Muslim kids knelt in the big “huddle” and bowed their heads as the words were intoned “…in Jesus’s name we pray”.  And those kids who didn’t have religious beliefs – well the hope was their exposure to prayer would bring them to an epiphany.  It was about something those kids wanted badly: athletic success, playing time, “put me in Coach”.  Prayer becomes a kind of a “quid pro quo”. By praying, maybe the Coach leading the prayer would gain confidence.  Refuse to pray, and for sure it will be time to sit the bench.  Who wants to anger the one person who controls everything that’s important?

A Different America

America is changing.  Today only 43% of Americans identify as white and Christian, down from 81% forty-three years ago (PRRI). 24% of Americans identify as “unaffiliated”, and 10% believe in a non-Christian faith.  It’s religion, but it’s also race, as America moves to a minority “white” nation.

And those changes are causing a rise in fear for many white Protestants.  They fear that their “rights” will be taken away.  It’s a fear that whites and specifically white males have felt before.  The privileges that they assumed were fundamentally entitled rights back in “Beaver” times are gone, and they’ve become “the victims”.

Public School Coach

As a high school track and cross-country coach, I always led my teams in a “talk” before competition.  It wasn’t religious, and it wasn’t even usually technical.  Our “huddle” was to focus on the “job” of the day, and to encourage support for each other.  In some years, some team members wanted to pray before competition, and did.  Other team members didn’t feel comfortable with that, and they didn’t.  

As the Coach, my goal was for each of my team members to begin competition physically and mentally prepared.  We had our team “ritual” and each athlete had his or her individual ones as well.  If prayer was part of that individual ritual, I made sure there was time for that.  But it wasn’t a Coach-thing.  It was an athlete thing, their choice, and their belief.

En Loco Parentis

But in our rapidly changing society, there are those who feel entitled to push their religious beliefs on others.  They claim it is “tradition” or “their religious freedom”.  As public school teachers, coaches, and administrators, it’s easy for them to forget that they represent “The Government,” not the old no-longer majority religious view.  “The Government,” is restricted by the First Amendment phrase: “…shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” 

When the public school Coach leads a team in prayer, that person represents all of us.  He or she stands “en loco parentis,” in place of the parents.  That position doesn’t allow for a religious obligation, and the Constitution prevents a religion being “established”.  Public education is required to abstain from religious education, because parents really do have the right to choose their children’s religious education.  It’s not up to the Coach, or the teacher, or the government, no matter what they did back in “Beaver” times.  Leading prayer is not an entitlement of a public school adult.  Freedom to choose religion is an entitlement of the children.

Privilege Lost

But to many, if feels like they’ve “lost something”.   They used to be able to impose their religion on everyone, in the “Beaver” times.  Now, they can’t.  So they feel that they’ve lost a “right,” the right to lead others to their religion.  And that’s not true either. Everyone has the right to their religion, and even the right to proselytize their beliefs.  They can stand of the street corner and preach, they can wear religious symbols, they can attend the church, synagogue, mosque or meeting of their choice.  What they can’t do, and what they shouldn’t have been able to do in back then either; is to use the “bully pulpit” provided by government school employment to recruit or indoctrinate young people in “their” religion.

That’s the kids’ choice, and the parents’ choice.  It’s not the government’s. 

Victim-in-Chief

Battered Tweet Syndrome

President Trump plays a variety of roles in American life.  He is the “Bully-in-Chief” especially when it comes to his use of Twitter.  It’s his most effective tool, one that allows him to communicate to his base, unfettered by the restraints of the law, staff, media, or anyone else.  With the “big stick” of his Twitter account, he keeps his political allies in line, and his opponents at bay.  

It seems silly, that “grown ass” men and women are intimidated by a “tweet”.  These are the most powerful folks in our nation, Congressmen, Senators, and Cabinet Secretaries.  But they will say and do almost anything to avoid the “twitter beating” of their leader.  It is fear that the Trump base will receive 240 characters of marching orders, directing them to march right over the target.

Devil on Your Shoulder

And Trump plays the “dark” model for many.  He can say and do almost anything.  His is that secret voice in some people’s minds, the voice that no one lets be heard for fear of offending or looking ignorant.  But the President has no such inhibitions.  He says whatever comes to his tongue, regardless of how inappropriate or hateful it might be.  And many admire that freedom.  It’s part of the “secret” Trump base, the “un-pollable” dark support that the Trump Campaign depends upon.  

Victim

But his greatest super-power, the “card” he plays over and over again, is Trump as Victim-in-Chief.  He is always the victim:  of the media, Democrats, the Courts, and the “Deep State”.  In fact, the Trump machine created the concept of the “Deep State”.  They needed a “dark force” to fight against, someone to blame for all of Trump’s failures.  What better enemy than some amorphous agglomerations of letters: NSA, CIA, FBI, DIA, and NSC.  The intelligence agencies are secret and silent, doing their jobs in the shadows.  They are unable to defend themselves in the public square, unwilling to reveal themselves to parry the tweets and accusations.

And so the President can rail against them without response, claiming bias and prejudice against his “outsider” insurgency.  It gives him an excuse for failure.

Defender of the Presidency

And the President as Victim has found an even greater role, that as the poor, abused defender of Article II of the Constitution against the Pelosi-led Congress.  He’s managed to turn a straightforward impeachment process into “the Salem Witch Trials”, with Mr. Trump himself starring as one of the witches.  

In the beginnings of a normal Court proceeding, the suspect has few rights.  The prosecution investigates, presents to a Grand Jury, and returns indictments without the defense given any chance to make a stand.  It is only after the indictment is filed, and the Court begins proceedings, that the Defense is allowed to demand recognition and make their case.  That’s when they get their “day in court”.

Grand Jury

The Impeachment process is similar, the bringing of charges against a President for trial in the Senate.  The trial phase allows for the President to make a case and be represented by counsel and witnesses of his choosing.  But in the Impeachment phase, much like the Grand Jury phase, there is no “right” to representation.

Not that this President didn’t have fierce defenders.  The Republicans in the House stood up against the process and for Mr. Trump over and over again.  From the beginning of the Intelligence Committee investigation, everyone from Minority Leader McCarthy to Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan screamed about the “unfairness of the process”.  But, of course, the process was exactly fair:  the Intelligence Committee did the investigation, serving the role of the “prosecution”, then presented their findings to the Judiciary Committee, who served as a Grand Jury.  

The Judiciary Committee than presented their recommendations to the full House of Representatives.  And the President’s men protested every step of the way, from Jordan’s litany of four points, to Doug Collins “clock and a calendar”.  The President had representation that a defendant in a criminal case could only dream of.  

But the President was portrayed as a poor victim of Democratic abuse.  They claimed he was denied “due process” and lack of representation, when in fact Republicans fiercely represented him. They never made a serious claim against the facts that the Committees put forth, only against the “process”.

Day in Court

The President has every right to his “day in court”.  It’s coming, if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will allow it.  The “due process” and factual presentations can and should be made on the floor of the US Senate, in a trial of Presidential removal.  Now is the appropriate time for a full airing of the case, and for the President to defend himself.

But it’s not likely to happen.  Mr. Trump, and the Republicans in the Senate don’t want due process, fairness, or the truth. They want to be victims, to claim persecution.  That way they don’t have to defend the indefensible:  the President’s actions.  

Christmas

It’s a Christmas tradition in my family.  After all the presents are opened, all of the volumes of food are consumed, and that nap is finally acquired:  it’s time for a movie.  It was a quieter celebration than usual this year, with all of the grandnephews and nieces at other celebrations.  It was an “adult” Christmas, but traditions run strong in our family.  We loaded up the cars, and went to the theatre.

We saw the new Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker.  I remember seeing the first one in 1977.  Back then it was just Star Wars (now they call it The New Hope).  I was twenty-one, and I went to the local theatre in Cincinnati with Jon Phillips, the kid next door.  The most dangerous part of the movie was the ride home, as my 1967 Volkswagen Station Wagon (Type II) dodged and kicked like an X-Wing Fighter.  Star Wars lit our imaginations. 

That was forty-two years ago.  

I’m not a movie reviewer, but The Rise of Skywalker was very entertaining.  From a technical standpoint, it was stunning, as always.  The decision to replace the recently deceased Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) with an electronic version came off without a hitch.  And like all the Star Wars sagas, it’s a story about failure and redemption, good ultimately triumphing over evil, and common people finding their inner heroes.

There’s a reason that the opposition to President Trump is called “the Resistance”.

A Tipping Point

No, I’m not going much farther comparing the Star Wars story to our current political struggles.  But what this latest movie got me thinking about is how pivotal next year is going to be for the United States, and the world.  2020 may be a year full of dread and concern, but what it must be, is a year of hope.

What’s at stake is clear.  The United Nations came out last month with a message, stating that the Paris Accord’s 2040 deadline for controlling climate change might be wrong.  Since 2016, the world has worked with this twenty-four year deadline.  If we could control carbon emissions by that time, we could avoid the most devastating impacts of our pollution on the environment.  

But with the election of President Trump, the driving force behind the Accord has been lost.  There was little progress made in the last three years in the world, led by the United States.  Now the United Nations estimates that instead of twenty years, we have twelve.

In our rabid media culture that message was lost in the “tweets” between President Trump and sixteen-year old activist, Greta Thunberg.  She did her best to raise the issue:  he did his best to insult a kid and change the subject.  But our impact on our climate and world is inexorable.  Our environment will change:  the fires will grow worse, the floods deeper, the storms stronger and more frequent.  And it’s happening all because the United States made the conscious decision to turn away from leadership and action.  2020 is our last best chance.  We face an irrevocably altered earth if we do not.  That’s terrifying, but it’s also reason for hope.  There still is time.

Self-Centered

The leadership of the United States in the world has vanished, and not just regarding climate.  Whether we earned the right or not, the United States has stood as an influence for “good” in the world.  Whether it was controlling the driving ambitions of nations like Russia, or the despotic tendencies of Turkey, or balancing the myriad of interests in the Middle East: the United States was the one world power who could influence action everywhere.

But for the past three years, we are “America First”.  We have left influence on the global stage to others.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and nations like Russia are filling in the space.  In fact, the US policy has become one of antagonism in the Middle East, and Korea, and Central America.  Our current Administration has shrugged off the burden of world leadership, choosing to be a “player” rather than a referee.  

In the past three years America has become less inclusive, compassionate, and caring.  As we have turned away from the world stage, we have become internally selfish.  The main Republican campaign slogan, “how are your stocks doing” is a single marker of that self-centeredness.  We have had four years of internment camps on the border, attacking tweets in the media, and Senate inaction on everything except judicial appointments.  Four years is a trend, eight years will make things a certainty.

The Force

Joe Biden says that the United States can take four years of this without permanent damage but not eight.  But the world may be moving more quickly, and the damage already done.  Like the climate, we are at a tipping point, here in 2020.

In the Star Wars saga, the galaxy is always on the edge of anarchy or destruction.  The “Good Side of the Force” seems to fail, but, often by the narrowest margins, wins out in the end.

It’s almost 2020.  May the Force be with us.

Sleeping Serpent

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons – Article I, Section 2, Constitution of the United States 

Late 19^th century author John J. Chapman described America’s founding curse:

“…there was never a moment in our history when slavery was not a sleeping serpent.” 

Mathematical Racism

Slavery was enshrined in our founding document, the Constitution.  The Convention used a mathematical “sleight of hand,” only two sections after the transcendent language of the Preamble where they described forming “…a more perfect union”.  Through process of elimination, slaves were left as “three fifths of all other persons”.

Why did those “all other persons” count as three fifths?  In 1786, as the Constitution was being written in the hot summer of Philadelphia, the population of the new United States was about 2.8 million.  Of those, 682,000 or about 24% were slaves, with the vast majority of those slaves in the South (Weber).  As the debates raged on, the outlines of a democracy emerged.  Population meant votes, and therefore power.  

There was never a consideration of giving slaves a vote, but the South was unwilling to “give away” such a large population when it came to deciding how many Representatives they would have in the new Congress. The Southern representatives wanted the slaves counted as “whole” for population, but as none for taxes.  The North wanted them either counted as whole for both, or neither. So in the same spirit of compromise that gave us a House by population and a Senate by state, slaves were counted as three fifths of a person.

Weighted Votes

That mathematical equation also gave the South enhanced power in the newly created Electoral College.  States would receive votes for the President based on the number of Representatives in the House plus their two guaranteed Senators.  The states of the South, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, were almost 40% slave.  That 40% of non-voters empowered the other 60%, giving more weight to their “free person” votes.

The Civil War, and the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th Amendments to the Constitution removed the stain of slavery from the Constitution.  But the arguments that supported the three-fifths personhood, that same idea that factors other than the vote of the people should determine how the country is governed, still echo in debate. 

Land is Not Power 

We hear them in discussions about the Electoral College.  Last week in the impeachment debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, a Congressman displayed a map of the 2016 election results by County.  It was the “great red map” of America, and the Congressman dramatically accused the House of trying to overturn its overwhelming result.  

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It looks impressive, the huge expanse of Red with only dots of blue scattered through.  Mr. Trump overwhelming won the “land mass” of America.  But even with the Founders, even with the slave owners, land didn’t mean power.  Population meant power, even if “other persons” were counted but not empowered to vote.  And so the sleight of hand of the Founders continues, as states of geographic size gain power through the Electoral College.  

When the United States is viewed by voting, by the actual choices people make when they go to the polls, it no longer is the great “red” expanse.  

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This is what our nation looked like in 2016 looking at the essential factor of power established in the Constitution, the individual vote.  When others argue that the Electoral College was created to offset the “power” of the individual vote, they echo the same arguments made in 1786 in support of slavery.  They argue that some other factor should empower our nation, giving authority to a minority in order to prevent a majority from governing.

Democracy

It is anti-democratic.  The argument is clothed in “republicanism” (the governing philosophy, not the Party) but in reality harkens back to the original sin of America’s founding.  As the Founding Fathers compromised with slavery, so the present argument compromises the power of the vote to empower a diminishing racial group.  We are compromising the core foundation of our nation, the value of an individual’s vote.  Like the “sleeping serpent” under the table in Philadelphia, the obvious racism and bias will come back to bite our country.

Billionaire for President

Tom Steyer, one of the billionaires running for President, just went off the air again.  His pitch:  “I’m going to make the Washington Establishment uncomfortable with two words:  ‘term limits’”.  He then goes onto extoll the virtues of limiting Congressional terms, saying that will help end the “corruption” of our government.

Of course Tom Steyer is in favor of term limits.  That concept fits with the entire basis of his campaign. He believes that someone whose life experience isn’t based in government and the machinations of Washington politics is the one who can fix the problems of our nation. Limiting terms match that view, and from his standpoint, there is only one Democratic Presidential candidate that fits the bill:  Tom Steyer.  That his approach sounds vaguely like the present President’s 2016 campaign theme should be disconcerting.

Yeoman Farmers

The concept of term limits goes all the way back to our Founding Fathers.  Thomas Jefferson wrote of the virtues of the “yeoman farmer”; who would put down his plow and rake, and ride into the center of government to repair our national problems.  After the crisis was over, the “yeoman farmer” would then ride off into the sunset, back to repairing fences and sowing seeds in the soil.  

That concept was also self-serving, as Jefferson, Washington, Madison and the rest left their plantations to ride off to the “big cities” of Philadelphia and New York to found our nation.  And while Jefferson and Washington were always worried about how their plantations were doing, the reality was that they spent most of their professional lives far away from the fields, barns, and slaves.  Jefferson was a professional diplomat, Washington a professional soldier, and both were professional politicians.

Jefferson in particular participated in the kind of job rotation that current “term limited” politician’s use today.  He started as a representative to the Virginia House of Delegates, and then was chosen as a Delegate to the Continental Congress.  He came back to serve four years as Governor of Virginia, then went back to the Continental Congress as a Delegate and Minister after the Revolution. 

Jefferson then went to France as US Minister for four years.  He came back to become the first Secretary of State under the new Constitution, and then Vice President.  Finally, he was elected President of the United States, served two terms in the office, then went back to his home in Monticello.  So from taking his first office in 1769, Jefferson was steadily employed in the government until 1809, forty years of service.  Not much time for planting and the myth of the “yeoman farmer”.

Inexperience Counts

As Jefferson’s career proved, experience counts in politics and government.   Apply the “term limit” concept to other professions and the problems become clear.  Say we “term limit” surgeons.  After they go through four years of college, four years of medical school, two years of internship and another two or more years of residency:  should we limit surgical careers to – say – fifteen years?  That way we will solve the problem of “old surgeons”.

Of course that really doesn’t make much sense.  We know that skills are learned and practiced, techniques developed, and experience counts when someone is cutting into the pericardium, or the frontal lobe.  There is no great “virtue” in inexperience when it comes to saving lives.  Do surgeons ultimately age out?  Of course, but arbitrary limits aren’t an effective solution.

Whose Empowered

If we limit the experience of those in government, then those around them who “know” will become empowered.   Those folks are already there:  we call them lobbyists.   They get a bad name for a good reason.  Lobbyists represent private interests getting influence in public government, often by giving or withholding campaign financial contributions.  

But lobbyists often bring more than just money to the table.  They also bring specific knowledge of “their” issue, knowledge that only years of experience can acquire.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that groups that want influence get the most knowledgeable people available to work for them.  Knowledge is power when it comes to writing legislation.  The less knowledge legislators have, the less ability they will have to see through the lobbyists’ self-interest.

Richard Neal, Congressman from Springfield, Massachusetts is a great example.  Neal has been in the Congress since 1989, fully thirty years.  Without a lot of fanfare he has become one of the most powerful Congressman as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the House Committee that deals with taxes.  He’s been a member of Ways and Means since 1993.

His experience matters in the complex arena of tax policy and regulations.  Term limiting would remove his kind of experience from the field, leaving the only knowledge in the hands of those who most have “an angle,” the lobbyists.

Effective Term Limits

Does it mean that all “the old men” in Washington are wise and have the best interest of the nation are heart?  Of course not, we know that there is corruption in Washington, corruption based in an electoral process that depends on millions of dollars in donations.  But term limitations won’t solve that problem.  Campaign finance reform, and Constitutional legislation to alter the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United would have a much greater impact on corruption.

If we get the money under control, that would remove the significant advantage of incumbency.  Get the money under control, and we can have effective term limits.   

They are called elections.

I heard a phrase the other day in the analysis of the Democratic Debate.  A commentator was speaking about the appeal of Amy Klobuchar, saying that she and Pete Buttigieg appealed to “the center” of the Democratic Party.  The two were called “Pragmatic Moderate Midwestern Democrats;” drawing more political lines in the sand.  It definitely isn’t a good bumper sticker slogan.  

Trump Country

I live in Pataskala, Ohio, twenty miles east of downtown Columbus.  The town is located in Licking County, with the county seat in Newark, fifteen miles to the east.  Columbus is in Franklin County, where in 2016, Hillary Clinton got 60.6% of the vote.  Here in Licking, Donald Trump got 62%.

So where I live, what in my college sociology class was called the “exurbs,” is still pretty much “Trump Country”.  Our blue flag with the words “Literally Anyone Else for 2020” emblazoned on it, is waving in a very lonely cold breeze in front of our house. 

I guess that makes me a Midwestern Democratic.  I also considered myself a “liberal” in the old school sense.  Liberals were my role models in the Democratic Party, folks like Hubert Humphrey and Bobby Kennedy from when I was first got involved in politics.  And today I still look at new-speak “Progressives” as liberal; Senator Sherrod Brown comes quickly to mind.

So as I look at the Presidential Campaign for 2020, I’m trying to figure out where my “liberalism” fits into the current crop of candidates.  I’ve never been at the Social-Democrat extreme of the Party with Bernie Sanders, nor was I comfortable with Bill Clinton’s Republican-Lite.  

Health Care

Lets look at health care.  In my heart, it makes sense to me that America should move to a single-payer health system, controlled by the government.  Medicare, with all of its flaws, serves 44 million Americans today.  Most are pretty happy with their benefits, so much so that when the Paul Ryan Republicans tried to “privatize” that care, it turned out to be a political non-starter.

So it doesn’t seem a huge leap to me to simply “grow” the program into Medicare “for everyone”.  So that’s “liberal”, right?

But there’s a real electoral problem with that, and it’s about what used to be the Democratic base.  Labor Unions were Democratic, and they used to represent over a third of America workers.  Today, it’s closer to ten percent.  But those workers have given up wages and hours to get good benefits, particularly good health insurance.  They aren’t willing to give up that insurance easily.

And that’s where the “pragmatic” part comes in.  If “Medicare for all” means losing the election, then the “ideal” needs to be moderated to fit what the electorate will accept.  I don’t view that as a “sellout;” but more a recognition that change requires leadership willing to convince, cajole, and coordinate, rather than march alone in the front. 

Climate Change

Healthcare is easier to reconcile with today’s electoral reality.  Climate change is different.  The immediacy of this crisis, and the “clock and the calendar” (thanks Doug Collins) of a global tipping point makes it impossible to find a “moderate” stand.  Change is going to come, we either have to take control of that change, or we, and more importantly our progeny, will face the consequences.

Again though, that requires leadership, not just prophecy.  It requires education, even educating those folks who don’t want to hear that coal and gas are causing the problem.  And that’s what a leader needs to do.  I guess that’s pragmatic too.

Southern Border

And then there’s the issue of illegal immigration and immigrants.  There can be no waffling on what’s going on at our Southern border.  We are putting people into nothing less than concentration camps, we are still separating children from their parents, and we are creating a crisis of poverty and violence on the Mexican side.  All of that needs to stop and it needs to stop now.  The atrocities (yes, that’s the correct word too) have to be redressed.

But that doesn’t solve the long-term problem of what to do with folks coming to the border.  And Democrats aren’t answering that question.  The answer will take a serious financial commitment to Central America, and changes in American attitudes.  We need to view those immigrants as refugees, not invaders.  Again, that’s the job of a leader.

That’s hardly even being discussed in the Debates these days.  Like everything else in our world, it’s being overwhelmed by Impeachment and Elections.  

Label

I have never seen myself as “moderate”.  Bill Clinton, in my view, was a moderate, and I didn’t agree with a lot of what he did.   But in today’s spectrum, it seems there isn’t much to the “right” of Biden, Klobuchar or Buttigieg.  Maybe Mike Bloomberg but we haven’t really gotten much more than “I can beat Trump” from his millions.  

So on the current chart maybe my Liberalism is moderate.  And I definitely am pragmatic, if pragmatic means defeating Trump in 2020.   Maybe the commentator was talking about me – a “Pragmatic Moderate Midwestern Democrat”. 

Better get a bigger bumper.