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We probably will find out what President Trump said to Ukrainian President Zelensky. But the phone conversation that we will never know is the one between Trump and his “TV Lawyer” Rudy Giuliani.  It must have been remarkable.

• Trump – Rudy, I was trying to get Zelensky to move on Biden.  I told him he might get his money if he’d start investigating. 
• Giuliani – Mr. President, that was my job, please tell me you didn’t do that on an open phone call?
• Trump – Rudy, do you think that might be a problem?
• Giuliani – Oh, Mr. President, it’s going to come out.

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

The President of the United States was, as Don Corleone of The Godfather would say; “making an offer he can’t refuse.”   In the movie, the offer was made with a horse head in bed.  For the Ukraine, if they didn’t investigate Trump’s rival, then no foreign aid money.  If they began an investigation begins, Ukraine gets even more aid than they asked for. 

Is that illegal?  Sure, and it’s not the vague “emoluments” clause of profiting from a foreign state.  He asked a foreign power to intervene and interfere in America’s election; something he announced was “OK” by him, even if it violates Federal Statutes.  And he spent the money of the United States’ government as if he owns it, using it to leverage the intervention.  Whether he “knew” he was asking Russia for help in 2016 or not, a question that the Mueller Report couldn’t answer; he sure knows he did it this time.

Crazy Grandpa

Rudy Giuliani was the tough Federal Prosecutor, then the firm and courageous Mayor of New York during 9-11.  After another divorce and a failed Presidential campaign, Giuliani has developed a whole new “persona.”  He is now the “crazy grandpa” on CNN, contradicting himself and seeming to blurt out “privileged” information about his sole client, Donald Trump.

You know, he ain’t crazy.  When he blurted out that Trump paid “hush money” to keep his affair with Stormy Daniels out of the papers, everyone went “nuts.”  Giuliani confessed that his client was guilty, live on CNN!!  But what he really did was get the “bad news” out, and begin the process of justifying how it was “OK” to pay off a porn star.  The fact that Trump did it to hoodwink the American people and his wife and then later lied about it: well that might be unsavory, but certainly not illegal, according to Rudy.

Lying to the press and public is an integral part of the Trump operation.  Ask Corey Lewandowski:  last week he testified in the Senate that he felt no obligation to tell the truth to the media or the American people.  

So Rudy going on CNN, getting “confused,” and telling Chris Cuomo that the President did pressure Zelensky to investigate Biden wasn’t a “crazy grandpa” error.  Just like the Porn Star scenario, Giuliani was getting the bad news out.  But he did more than that.  He began to change the story.  

Lock Him Up

Rudy doesn’t really want this to be about the President of the United States muscling a foreign leader to help in his US campaign.  The Trump narrative is to hamstring Joe Biden with the same smear of corruption that covers the President himself.  Rudy took the “holy” position that the President was helping Ukraine ferret out Biden’s crimes; they just needed a little financial incentive to do it.

And so the message went out to the faithful Republican leaders.  Make this all about Biden, his son, and the made-up corrupt acts of the Obama Administration. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, running for reelection, has already called for a Biden investigation.  More will chime in today.

 They want to make this a whole new “lock her up” message.  Hillary was smeared with all sorts of untrue accusations: in the Republican-Fox News universe, the facts really don’t matter.  Now Giuliani and Trump are laying the same groundwork for the 2020 campaign and Joe Biden.  “LOCK HIM UP, LOCK HIM UP:” we can hear the chants even now.

The Silence of the Good

And where are the “good” Republicans in the House and Senate.  You can hear them in their silence.  Adam Schiff, Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is trying to protect the oversight power of the Congress.  Richard Burr, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, must have gone fishing in the mountains of North Carolina:  we’ve heard not a word from him.  He must have taken most of the other Republican Senators with him.

And the fact that this smears Trump even more really doesn’t matter.  

Mud on mud? It looks like mud.

The Mueller Report

Like it or not, Donald Trump won the Presidency with the help of the Russian government.  The Mueller Report was unable to determine whether his campaign intentionally sought out and accepted the help, but was clear that they definitely got it.  

The Report listed over one hundred contacts between the campaign and Russians. It’s hard to imagine they didn’t seek it out, despite the protestations of Trump, Lewandowski and the rest.  Mueller could prove those contacts happened, but somehow was unable to prove Trump Campaign “intent”.  In at least one case, he gave them a “pass” because they might have been “ignorant” of the law. 

In an election determined in the Electoral College on a razor’s edge (77,744 votes over three states) there was no room for error.  The Trump campaign lost the popular vote by over three million votes.  They needed all the help they could get. 

They got it.

2020 – A Razor’s Edge

With the 2020 election looming on the horizon, there doesn’t seem to be much difference.  The polls today show almost exactly what they showed in 2016. The Democrat, really any Democrat, would surely defeat the current President.  The Trump Campaign sees former Vice President Joe Biden as their greatest threat.  The biggest difference today:  the President now has the authority and power of the United States government behind him.  

Wednesday night, it was revealed that there was a “whistleblower” report being withheld from the Congressional Intelligence Committees.  Subsequent reporting suggests that if the report was revealed, it would show that the President is engaging in a pattern of putting pressure on the President of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.  The President may be using access to US funding to “convince” him.  Trump knows he needs to “level the table” and he’s already stated he would take help from anywhere (ABC.)  And now he’s got the leverage he needs for that help:  US government money.

Giuliani’s Tale

Rudy Giuliani, the “crazy like a fox” private attorney to the President, has spent years trying to sow the seed of a story of Biden corruption.  He has travelled the world, especially to Ukraine, to find “dirt” about the person Trump sees as his 2020 opponent.  Giuliani is stoking a “Biden corruption” fire.

In 2016, the United States, the World Bank, and many European countries were very concerned about corruption in Ukraine.  Viktor Shokin, the State Prosecutor, seemed uninterested in investigating potential crimes, particularly left over from the former Russian supported President, Viktor Yanukovych.

At that time, Vice President Joe Biden was the “point man” for US policy towards Ukraine.  With widespread support from allies, he pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Shokin.  The US threatened to withhold funds from Ukraine if Shokin wasn’t removed.  

According to Giuliani, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, the largest natural gas company in Ukraine, for laundering money.  Hunter Biden, Joe’s son, was on the Board of Directors of Burisma. So was Chris Heinz, nephew of former Secretary of State John Kerry.  Giuliani claims that Biden intervened, not to remove a prosecutor protecting Russian backed corruption, but to protect his son.

More recent Ukrainian investigations have shown that Shokin wasn’t actually investigating Burisma (or much of anything else). His removal had no effect on who was investigated (Newsweek.) But that hasn’t stopped Giuliani and the right-wing media from echoing the “Biden corruption” claim. And, of course, the Trump Campaign had close connections to factual corruption in Ukraine. The former Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort is now serving seven years in Federal prison in part for his actions in the country.

What We Know

The Trump Administration withheld $250 million in aid from Ukraine, in addition to advanced weaponry needed to counter Russian aggression.  The President had a phone conversation with the new President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.  Vice President Pence met with Zelensky in Poland (on the trip while Trump stayed in New Jersey and played golf waiting on Hurricane Dorian.)  

After those contacts, the funds and arms were released.  Today, an advisor to Zelensky announced that they were willing to open an investigation of Burisma, if the US officially asks (The Daily Beast.)

The Whistleblower’s Tale

We don’t know whether the President and Vice President used US money, our money, to try to get “dirt” to use in a potential political campaign against Joe Biden. But we do know that the Administration is making every move possible to keep Congress from knowing what the “whistleblower” knows.

It seems that the “whistleblower” had access to either Trump’s phone call to Zelensky, or a summary of the conversation.  The complaint is more than just the result of that single phone call; it involves a pattern of Presidential action.  And finally, we know that the complaint is not about “Presidential declassification” of secrets (something the President can unilaterally do) or a policy issue (not contained under the “whistleblower” statute.)

The Department of Justice, under Attorney General Barr, weighed in to “re-interpret” the Whistleblower Statute to NOT include acts of the President.  So if the President commits an action that could be considered illegal, a “whistleblower” revealing it wouldn’t be protected by the law, and Congress wouldn’t be given a report.  

Wrong or Right

IF, as Mr. Giuliani seems to indicate, it would be OK for the President to use US aid money to leverage an investigation in Ukraine, then the President should simply let everyone know. Certainly it shouldn’t be a secret: the President is just trying to stop corruption in another country.  That is, if the President thinks that using US aid monies as leverage to find information on a US political opponent is OK.

But if the President sees pressuring Zelensky for what it is, extortion, then of course he, the Vice President, and the Attorney General would do exactly what they’re doing now: hide it and keep covering up.  It certainly could be interpreted as using US funds for private gain, aid to the Trump 2020 Campaign. The President gets an investigation of Biden, Ukraine gets US aid:  a quid pro quo.

And that’s got to be impeachable.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a pivotal figure in the Trump Presidency.  Her goals and objectives determine the actions of the sole portion of the Federal Government that Democrats’ control, the House of Representatives.  From the right she is pilloried, seen as the literal “face” of Liberal change in America.  A Congressman from San Francisco, she is the “bête noire;” used for decades in Republican ad campaigns to defeat Democrats all over the country.

A Life Long Liberal

But now, even though she has represented them for years, the Liberal side of the Democratic Party is attacking her.  They demand that Pelosi move against the President by starting the impeachment process NOW.

Nancy Pelosi has a long tradition of Liberalism.  She certainly recognizes the President’s transgressions, supposedly saying to her leadership that she wants to see him in jail.  Why is she holding back, why hasn’t she demanded that Mr. Trump is accountable for his actions?  What’s stopping her?

Democratic control of the House seems overwhelming, a thirty-five-vote majority over the Republicans.   But that thirty-five-vote margin is actually pretty tenuous, with thirteen of the Democrats winning seats in 2018 from Districts won by President Trump in 2016.  If those thirteen flip back in a Presidential election year, the Democratic majority becomes a slim nine votes.  Given the vagaries of American political life, the Democrats could lose their majority in 2020.

Impeachment as Grand Jury

Many Liberals believe that the House should begin impeachment proceedings.  Impeachment is described as a “political” action rather than a judicial one.  But impeachment is much like the “grand jury” process in court.  It is a way of gathering evidence, and determining if charges are justified.

The President and the Attorney General have made it next to impossible to investigate illegal activities in the Executive Branch, and particularly by the White House.  The Department of Justice has already declared the President immune from indictment.  Now they are going so far as to say he is immune from even investigation.

Congress is blocked from exercising its oversight authority.  So the facts are simple:  there is currently no way for anyone in the government to find out IF this President is breaking the law. Those who support President Trump demand that …they want to see the evidence…” of Trump’s transgressions, but the mechanisms to show it are stifled. Impeachment is the only “judicial” action that can display that evidence.

Impeachment is the only check on the Federalist Society and Trump’s warped unitary executive theory of Presidential authority. It is all that is left, the only Constitutional recourse. And even if a Mitch McConnell dominated Senate refuses to convict the President, a House impeachment would bring the evidence to light.

But, the Speaker asks, at what cost?

A Vague, Indefinite Shore

Speaker Pelosi sees a bleak future: an impeachment that backfires and causes Democrats to lose the House and the Presidency in 2020. It’s not only the slim margin in the House of Representatives. The nation is just as divided, with both right and left having 40% of the electorate. Who wins “the middle,” 11% of the remainder, wins the Presidency. Pelosi fears impeachment could push that middle to the Trump side.

Yet there remains the spectacle of a President, unchecked, and willing to go to any lengths to do what he wants, and stay in the White House.  As a former Obama speechwriter, Jon Favreau, tweeted:

“Trump is seeking foreign assistance to win another election but House Democrats are reluctant to impeach him because they’re afraid it will help him win another election. (9/20/19 – Tweet from Jon Favreau.)

The Choice

The definition of a “Hobson’s Choice” is:  “the necessity of accepting one of two or more equally objectionable alternatives” (Webster.)  This is what the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party must decide.  Either:

• Use the impeachment process to gather evidence about Presidential transgressions, and present that to the American people; knowing that the Republican Senate will never remove Trump.  Or,

• Continue the current strategy of highlighting those transgressions, and believe in the American people’s common sense to defeat Trump in 2020.

It seems that Nancy Pelosi has made her choice and intends to avoid impeachment.  She is the “den mother” of her vulnerable moderate majority.  Meanwhile, the free press continues to present the evidence of corruption in the executive branch.  It is serving as a “grand jury” of the New York Times, the Washington Post and others, that will put the facts before the public.  

The ultimate result of an impeachment and conviction is removal from office.  The election of 2020, now fourteen months away, will do the same thing. 

 It seems we will have to wait. 

There is breaking news today – about the President, the Vice President, and a possible quid pro quo of US money for Ukrainian aid for the Trump 2020 campaign.  There’s lots of speculation now, but we will soon know the answers.  If it’s true the question will be – is this enough?  I will write about it, but when there’s more fact than speculation.

Under the Soviet Moon

In the late 1950’s, The United States of America was caught with its pants down.  The Soviet Union beat America into space.  Sputnik was the first successful satellite placed in orbit, and soon Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space.  Lyndon Johnson, then Senate Majority Leader and soon to be Vice President, warned of “…going to sleep by the light of a Soviet Moon.”

America went to work. We put more emphasis on space, starting with NASA and the Mercury Program.  And we also placed a greater emphasis on math and science in public schools, to develop the skillset in American students to ultimately “win” in space. We were all on “the mission,” to quote President Kennedy:

“…We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills…” (NASA)

The Method

So as a boy in school in the early 1960’s I was raised on the “scientific method.”  It was a way of analyzing problems, and trying to determine answers.  Here’s “the method:”

• Make an observation.
• Ask a question.
• Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation.
• Make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
• Test the prediction.
• Iterate: use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions.

We learned to trust in science, in the method, and in the results.  

Today science has made it very clear that we have but little time to “save the world.”  Our planet is changing, the climate is warming, and it is dramatically impacting our life.  Science demonstrates that one significant cause of that change is modern civilization, and more exactly, the byproducts of the use of carbon based fuels. We are changing our world, and, science tells us, that we have reached a tipping point.  If we don’t alter the balance of carbon byproducts in our atmosphere by 2050, we will lose the chance to “fix” the problem.

Observation

We can see the impacts already (making “observations”.)  We know that our “weather” has changed.  The extremes are greater, the storms are more intense, the heat greater (and the cold, Mr. President, be careful what you wish for in the winter.)  From Force Five hurricanes, to the storm system that quickly turned into a tropical storm and is flooding Houston today, they have all occurred before.  But now it happens with much greater regularity.  

And we can see the non-linear impacts as well. There is a drought in Central America, particularly El Salvador (National Geographic) and as a result, people are forced to leave their homes. Many are coming to the United States, not because they want to, but because they have little choice.  We now have climate migrants, and a real issue at the Southern Border created by our changing climate.  It will only get worse.

So when we “observe” all of this, we need to ask the question:  why is our climate changing?

Hypothesis

Climate Change Deniers have “formed their hypothesis.” They really don’t deny the change, they simply say that the climate has changed in the past, and it’s doing it again. They say it’s part of the planetary cycle, and humans have little impact on it.  So, it’s not our problem, not our fault, and not a reason to change our behavior. We need to just deal with the consequences. 

That’s so damn convenient.  We don’t have to take responsibility for melting ice caps, rising oceans, and extremes in weather.  It’s not our fault, and we can’t do anything about it.  So burn that coal, oil and gas.  Let’s make the profit, before we all have to pay the price.

But there is a more “hopeful” hypothesis, and one that has been tested and found correct.  We have dumped the waste products of our “hydrocarbon success” into the skies and waters.  What we have put in the sky, carbon waste products, serves to “insulate” our planet and warm our oceans.  This provides the “fuel” that changes our climate.

This hypothesis has been tested over and over again for years.  Even back in 1977, Exxon-Mobil, the biggest oil producer in the world, had it’s own scientists predict that in fifty years their hydrocarbon emissions would alter the environment.  We are almost there; our world has “tested their hypothesis,” and they were right.

Prediction

This doesn’t sound “hopeful,” but science offers us a way out.  Make radical changes to our hydro-carbon use, stop dumping our “trash” in the sky, and we can stop mitigate the damage, and reverse the trend.  We get to keep “our world.”  We’ve got twenty years to get it done.

I’ve heard Millennials say it more than once:  “I won’t have children, how can I bring them into a world which will be dramatically altered by the time their adults?  It’s not fair to them.”  They say that, because they have no belief in change; no faith that our leaders, government, or institutions can a make a difference.  They are hopeless.

My grandfather was born in a time before there was human flight.  My father was born before there was television.  I was born before men went into space, or a computer could fit in a room, much less a pocket.  

We will change, for better or worse, so why not now?  We will do “…the other things…because they are hard.”  The election of 2020 is a turning point in so many ways, but this is perhaps the most important one.  Will we allow our own actions to damage our planet beyond repair, or will we step up, as we did in the 1960’s, and commit to change?  It’s not for me, one of the Baby-Boomers; I’ll be lucky to see 2050. But it needs to be done for the Millennials, so they can have hope for the future, for their children.  

There are millions of students on the streets today, demanding that we take action.  They are fighting for their future.  They are right.

I spent Tuesday afternoon with the House Judiciary Committee. I watched the Committee question Corey Lewandowski. He is the former Campaign Manager for the Trump Campaign, a current Presidential “enforcer,” and a possible future New Hampshire Senate candidate.

Impeachment Lite

There were four main themes at play during the hearings.  The first was from the Democrats.  They are trying to find their way towards impeachment, but are unwilling to actually commit to doing it.  Instead, we have “impeachment-lite”. That’s the idea that the Committee can examine the idea of bringing impeachment resolutions to the House, without actually having those resolutions.  

In the normal course of business, a bill of impeachment would be introduced on the floor of the House of Representatives, then referred to the committee for study.  If that process was used, then the House would have already heard actual impeachment resolutions.

But the House Democratic leadership doesn’t want to go “that far”.  They aren’t ready to have an actual impeachment process begin. Instead, to mollify the majority of Democrats in the House who favor impeachment, and the large number of Americans who feel the same way, the Judiciary Committee is studying whether to introduce the resolutions.  It’s backwards to “normal order,” making it vulnerable to Republican complaints.

Disruption and Disorder

Leading us to the second theme of the day:  the Republicans.  Their function was to disrupt the hearings as often as possible.  Congressman Doug Collins, Ranking Minority Member on the Judiciary Committee, was animated in his protests and distractions.  The Committee spent over an hour on procedural arguments, debates, and votes as the minority stalled the proceedings.  

It made a lot of the hearing interesting only to true “parliamentary geeks,” arguing whether a hired consultant or a Congressman was by definition a “staff member,” or whether a point of “parliamentary inquiry” was “in order” or not.  We all got to watch the clerks call the roll, over and over again.

And when the Republicans actually engaged in the questioning, it was not to elicit information from Mr. Lewandowski.  Their goal, led by Ohio’s Jim Jordan, was to create a separate narrative.  Republicans want Americans to believe that the entire Russian intervention in the 2016 election was the fault of President Obama and Hillary Clinton.  They re-wrote the Mueller Report to exonerate the Trump Campaign, and regurgitated the claim that there was a failed US Intelligence operation that was designed to defeat him.  

They used Lewandowski as a foil, firing softball questions to set up obvious answers.

Lewandowski for Senate

This leads to our third theme:  the Lewandowski candidacy for the US Senate.  In the middle of questions about the actions of the President, who ordered Lewandowski to demand Attorney General restrict the Mueller Investigation or be fired; the Republican Congressmen gave Lewandowski time to make speeches.  His statements on patriotism, and sound bites on the Democrats, “…they hate the President more than they love America,”  were tailor made for thirty-second advertisements.

Lewandowski was well aware of his “moment in the sun.”  In the middle of the hearings, during a five minute/twenty minute recess, he tweeted the link to his political action committee, and all but affirmed his candidacy for the New Hampshire seat.  

Privilege or Right

But the main theme of the day, was the President’s total disrespect for Congress.  It began with his refusal to allow White House staffers to appear in front of the Committee.  Former employees Rob Porter and Rick Dearborn were ordered by the White House to ignore the Committee subpoena and not appear.  

The President is claiming a novel version of Executive Privilege.  Traditionally, the President has been granted the latitude of allowing the advice he receives from his advisors to remain secret.  In general, this makes sense, as it allows his staff to give him unrestricted advice, knowing that it won’t necessarily become public.

But by definition, a “privilege” is not a “right.”  The President claims that he can restrict ALL access to his advisors, including investigating potential crimes.   He has expanded that definition to all information from the White House as well, basically denying Congress any opportunity to perform their Executive Branch oversight.

Mr. Lewandowski has never worked in the Executive Branch.  He hasn’t had an official role in the Presidency, or with the Trump Campaign since May of 2016.  Yet the President claims that any discussions he had with “private citizen” Lewandowski were privileged as well, and sent White House lawyers to enforce his wishes. Those lawyers even went so far as to protesting who could question Lewandowski, taking a place at the microphone before Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler gaveled them to silence.

And Lewandowski used the White House letter like a battering ram, quoting verbatim his “orders” time and time again.  It was a way of “eating up time” from the Democratic questioners; with the spectacle of Lewandowski reading aloud as Congressmen continued to demand answers. 

Sound Bites

Lewandowski would read that letter aloud, but he refused to read his own words in the Mueller Report for the public to hear.  He claimed the same “privilege” as Special Counsel Mueller, as if he deserved the same respect as the man who served the nation for his entire lifetime.  But the real purpose:  Lewandowski didn’t want to put “his voice” to his own actions described in the Report.  He didn’t want those thirty-second sound bites to appear in 2020.

Despite all of the distractions, the Democrats did actually make some headway.  They were able to get Lewandowski to verify his own actions. He acknowledged that he took the President’s dictated letter, then failed to deliver it to Attorney General Sessions.  It forced Lewandowski to make lame excuses, “…I was on vacation…” for his intentional failure.

Contempt

And the Democrats got some “payback” on Lewandowski as well.  In the final thirty minutes, a staff (consulting) attorney for the majority questioned him.  Barry Berke forced Lewandowski to acknowledge that he lied in interviews.  Lewandowski stated that he felt no obligation to tell the truth to “the media.”  If he finally does run for Senate in New Hampshire, that thirty-seconds will come back to haunt him.

The hearing allowed the President to use Lewandowski to show his contempt for the Congress.  The Democrats in the House looked muddled and unorganized, but continued to proceed down their confused path towards impeachment. At some point, the House will need to take a more substantive stand.  They have enforcement provisions, contempt citations, and the House Sargent of Arms that could physically enforce their orders.

They aren’t ready to do any of that yet.  

But while contempt for “impeachment-lite” might be acceptable to some, contempt for national security shouldn’t be.  Today’s news about a possible Presidential breach of security makes all of this more than a “game.”  It’s deadly serious.

Civil War

Yemen has been at war for four years. The civil war broke out in 2015 against the government led by former Field Marshal, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.  The leading opponent in the struggle is the insurgent Houthi force.  The Houthis control the eastern part of the nation, including the capital at Sana’a. Hadi’s forces control much of the rest of the nation.  

In addition to the government forces and the Houthi, Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and even ISIS has some territory in the region.  And a third breakaway group, the Southern Transitional Council, controls the main port at Aden.

Yemen borders Saudi Arabia and Oman, and has a critical geographic position at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, leading to the Indian Ocean.  The geography alone makes Yemen of world interest, but the addition of both Al Qaeda and ISIS earned the attention of the United States.  US Special Forces operate against the terrorists groups, and the US has a significant drone assassination program in the region.

Proxy War

Saudi Arabia has actively taken the side of the government forces, including launching air attacks and putting troops in the country.  The United States is providing logistical and intelligence support.  Iran is supporting the Houthi side.  If it sounds like a mess, it is.  Over 10 million civilians are caught in the middle of this conflict. According to the organization Save the Children, a thousand children are dying each week from preventable diseases.  Over 90,000 combatants have been killed.

The war is in part a “proxy” fight between the two largest Islamic nations in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Iran are both heavily invested in their sides.  And like most “proxy wars” the attacks have spilled over to direct action against each other.  The most recent drone and missile attack on two Saudi oil refineries, puts them into direct conflict.  US intelligence believes that they were originated and controlled by the Iranian government.

The loss of oil production is causing a spike in world oil prices; to say that the problem is between Saudi Arabia and Iran is naïve.  Conflict in the Middle East always impacts the entire globe; and Europe and the United States are particularly affected.  

US in the Middle East

The United States historically has been willing to use military force to protect oil resources. The Persian Gulf War in 1991 was characterized as protecting Kuwait from Iraqi invasion, but Iraq’s control of Kuwaiti oil resources and proximity to the Saudi oil fields was the critical factor. The US drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, but in 1991 stopped short of invading Iraq.  

In 2003 the United States invaded Iraq and  removed Saddam Hussein, the dictator of the country.  With Hussein’s dictatorial regime removed, Iraq fell into sectional conflicts.  The US then spent the next years trying to establish internal control, finally withdrawing most troops by 2011.  Some US forces returned in 2014 to combat ISIS.

President Trump is closely aligned with the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia.  Secretary of State Pompeo is there today, consulting with Mohammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince of the nation.  We have backed the Saudis in Yemen, and ignored human rights violations there. In addition, we ignored the Saudi’s brutal assassination and dismemberment of a Washington Post columnist in Istanbul.  

President Trump is also closely allied with the embattled Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu, who sees Iran as the existential threat to Israel’s existence.

And President Trump himself is in a continual struggle with Iran. When he was elected, Trump withdrew the US from the Joint Agreement controlling Iranian nuclear development, and reinstated harsh economic sanctions on the country.  Just last month the Iranians shot down a US drone, and the US responded with a crippling cyber-attack.

Saudi-Iranian War

The United States is NOT in a joint-defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, and we are no longer dependent on Saudi oil to directly supply American needs.  But the President has close contacts with the Saudi royal family, and consistently praises their actions.  

It won’t be a surprise if the Saudis respond to the oil refinery attacks with direct strikes at Iran itself.  And should Iran respond to those attacks, it also shouldn’t be a surprise if the United States unilaterally stands with Saudi Arabia.  

But after three wars in the region (Persian Gulf, Iraq and ISIS) and the eighteen-year struggle in Afghanistan, the US should be very careful about starting a direct war with the largest military force in the Middle East, Iran. The US cannot depend on NATO or the European Union to join in, and is looking at an opponent better armed and organized than Afghanistan or Iraq. 

In short, a war with Iran would be an ugly, deadly, and many-year conflict.  The United States still has a choice, but the deciding moment is coming soon.  

Monday Night Football

ESPN’s Monday Night Football at BW’s:  these are code words.  Monday Night Football, is the NFL game on Monday night. This one was the New York Jets versus the Cleveland Browns (the Browns won 23 to 3.)  BW’s is a sports bar, Buffalo Wild Wings.  It’s a cold beer, chicken wing place, with tables packed in.  It’s set up close, to watch the game, cheer or boo the teams, and end up in conversations with strangers about that “terrible call” or “amazing catch.”

But BW’s was relatively quiet on this Monday night, despite the Browns playing.  There were plenty of empty tables.  Jenn and I were on the way home from visiting a friend in the hospital; cold beer and wings sounded good.  And, after all of my nephew’s hype, I was interested to see the Browns. Hard for a Cincinnati Bengals fan to admit, but he’s right, they’re pretty good.

We sipped our beers, and waited a while for our food.  The game came on, and three men met at the table immediately beside us.  Of all the open tables in this bar, of all the BW’s in Columbus, these three men decided to meet here, the younger one at the end sitting closer to me than Jenn was across the table. 

So Sayeth the One 

And then the lesson began.

The older guy started the conversation (I guess at sixty-three now I need to qualify that he was significantly older than his two acolytes, but significantly younger than me.) He started the “Trump Doctrine” litany; all of the Fox News talking points supporting the President.

Now it’s impolite to listen to another table’s conversation, but when the seating is so close it’s difficult to avoid.  And when the conversation is held at the “teaching” level, emphasizing points with firmness and authority, it’s difficult not to hear.  Jenn and I found it difficult to concentrate on the wings or the game.

With the voice of a priest indoctrinating the Chosen, he talked about Trump’s taxes, how a private businessman shouldn’t have to let the government know what he made.  Then it was onto North Korea, how Trump silenced Kim Jung Un, and the strategy was obviously working.  It got louder when he intoned on Beto O’Rourke revealing “their real secret plans” with “…Hell yes, we’re going to take your…” but he substituted the word “guns” for Beto’s “AR-15’s and AK’s.”

The two younger men made affirming comments, about how “they” are so wrong about America, and how “we” will show them in the next election.  The laughed at a government that would try to save energy by keeping home thermostats at 78, quoting from a local TV ad for home insulation.  And they took pride in American “energy independence” with the President releasing oil from the Strategic Reserve to compensate for production lost by Saudi Arabia due to a drone attack.

Free Speech

Listen, I believe in the First Amendment.  These guys have the right to think and say whatever they want, and take their “lessons” even in a BW’s during the Browns’ game.  I guess my problem is their feeling of entitlement, that it doesn’t matter who sits not just within earshot, but “elbow shot.”  Jenn and I didn’t have a choice about hearing the conversation, and didn’t have a voice in the discussion.

It was hard, at first, not to laugh.  Then, as the conversation went on, it was harder not to correct.  It was time for the check.

We forgot the game, paid the bill, and stepped off the high seats.

Then Jenn turned and said to the Trump adoration meeting:  “The world will be a better place when you vote Blue.”  They sat silenced, and we headed out of the bar.  As left the room we heard, “Build the Wall.”

These days, they probably need to build one down the middle of BW’s.

Oh Denison!

I went to Denison University in Granville, Ohio, in the 1970’s.  It was a wonderful, liberal arts institution; I learned a lot, and had a great experience there.  It was also a very serious “party” school.  

That point was made clear from the beginning.  At the June Freshmen Orientation, I walked into the lobby of my future dorm, Crawford Hall.  I was seventeen, two weeks off of the high school graduation stage, accompanied by my parents.  An eager Denison sophomore met us there, welcomed us, and pointed in the direction of the beer keg in the center of the room.  

Study Hard, Play Hard

That was Denison; study hard, play hard.  As a freshman I was in the Student Senate. We spent $22000 a year on beer for the student body.   You just had to sign a “petition” with twenty students, and you got a keg for your dorm floor.  My resident advisor, the senior “in charge” of “Club Crawford” (somewhere there’s a T-Shirt) let everyone know on Thursday he was making a “liquor run” into Newark: he was twenty-one, place your order.

Not surprisingly, there were nights when things got a little “crazy” up on the hill.  Those nights always brought out “those guys.”  There was the “naked guy” who always ended up in the East Quad with no clothes on, the “climbing guy” who tried to get to the third floor on the outside of the building, the “screaming guy” who, well, you can figure it out.  They all were young, maybe as old as twenty-one; and they did things that they probably aren’t so proud of now.

To quote an infamous Supreme Court Justice, I too “liked beer.”  After a long session of second floor Crawford, five of us determined that what the September night needed was traveling Christmas carolers.  We wandered campus, serenading through the girls dorms, getting everyone prematurely in the spirit.

Bet on the Freshmen

During my three years on campus, there was a lot of that kind of activity, but other than some shading of the then-current drinking laws, no crimes were committed.  That wasn’t true for everyone there.  And, with other upper-classmen who lived in Crawford instead of joining a fraternity,  we had a betting pool on the incoming freshmen.  We knew, some would play so hard, they wouldn’t make the second semester. 

We meant that they would drink their way out of school.   In the first two weeks, you could see who was out of control and who was not.  But there were more serious consequences for a few. There were alcohol related student deaths each year I was on campus, it was only after I graduated that the institution began to face up to the issue.

Yale Too

It seems that Yale University in the early 1980’s was similar: study hard, play hard.  It also seems that Yale had a “penis guy,”  the partier who seemed to always consume so much beer that he ended up revealing himself.  And that guy crossed the “legal” line, time and time again, shoving his “member” into the hands and faces of co-eds who were perhaps as drunk as he was.

His name is Brett Kavanaugh, the newest member of the United States Supreme Court.  His actions are documented in a new book coming out, and more importantly, the government cover-up of those actions in the past two years.

I get that things happened when we were younger, but  youth doesn’t excuse felonies.  And “youthful indiscretions” that actually were sexual assaults shouldn’t get a pass.  Even in the 1970’s we knew the difference between pranks and attacks, between drunken foolishness and felonies.

Lying Today

It’s almost 2020, and lying is still lying.  What happened back then shouldn’t be lied away by the Justice, and the powerful movement that was behind his nomination.  

Kavanaugh represented the fifth and deciding vote on the Court.  As we are now seeing, the Supreme Court has placed itself firmly in the Trump camp, interpreting statutes in novel ways to back the President’s view. Precedence is worth less, ideology seems to be worth all.

I would suspect that retiring Justice Kennedy strongly supported Kavanaugh’s nomination.  And I believe that Kavanaugh’s financial difficulties were “cleaned up” before the nomination process began.  But I don’t think his backers knew about the “penis guy” from Georgetown Prep and Yale.  They were as surprised as the rest of the nation.  Kavanaugh must have hoped that “what happened in New Haven, stayed in New Haven.”

It did not. But the FBI was told NOT to follow investigative leads. The witnesses were discredited, and the subject was changed.  We even know when that decision was made; at the “lunch break” of Dr. Blasey-Ford’s testimony.  In the morning she was questioned by the “guest counsel;” a female Arizona prosecutor, brought in to do the “dirty work” of discrediting the witness. But the “guest” didn’t, instead she did what a prosecutor should do, search for the facts.

Senator Lindsey Graham led the charge after lunch, removing the “guest counsel” and launching a screaming diatribe against the investigation and the opposing Party. His fellow Republican Senators picked up the mantle, ignored the witness, and muddled the facts.  They moved the hearing to an attack on the Democrats, rather than an examination of Kavanaugh’s youthful actions.

Defending the Indefensible

So Brett Kavanaugh is a member of the Supreme Court, and like many others in the Trump Administration, he has the constant stink of scandal.  This latest research has raised all the old questions again, and raised new concerns.  The Senators; McConnell, Graham and Grassley, made the call.  They chose to cover Kavanaugh’s record, rather than acknowledge his prior bad acts, and move onto a more suitable candidate. 

They must defend him now. And, should the Senate majority shift to the Democrats, they will really have to defend him after 2020.  Kavanaugh’s seat on the Court represents the vulnerability of the “Trump Majority.”  They have gone “all-in” on the “penis guy” from Yale, and now they will have to defend him for decades:  good luck with that!  

The Facts

After Thursday night’s Democratic debate, it is clear where the future of American healthcare should go. There are tremendous differences among the candidates, but they all have common goals:

• For every American to have access to affordable health care
• To reduce the costs of prescription medications
• To protect Americans from extremes in health coverage costs, medical bankruptcy, and to include covering pre-existing conditions.

This is the alternative that Democrats are offering.  So far, the President and the Republican Party have offered no new ideas. They seem willing to go back in time, when private insurance companies denied those with pre-existing conditions, or stuck them with extreme costs for coverage.  

The facts are that in the United States medical care costs $3.5 trillion a year; an average of $10,739 per person (CMS.) It is the most expensive medical care in the world.  And while it’s among the best medical care in the world, that doesn’t do any good for those who can’t afford to access it.

All of the Democratic plans would address ways to control costs.   The price of medical care, prescription drugs, and expanding insurance industry profits all need to be restrained in order to reduce current escalating prices. 

How do Democrats plan on getting this done?  

Incremental Plans

The more moderate plans, including Vice President Biden and Senator Klobuchar, seek to expand the Affordable Care Act. That would cover all Americans, and add a public insurance option. That option was discussed but later removed from the original ACA legislation.  The public option would be a government sponsored health insurance plan that would compete with private insurance. 

In this way, Americans could have medical coverage in multiple ways. Many would continue their existing private insurance through their employer.  Others without employer provided insurance could choose to purchase through a revitalized insurance marketplace. Or they could buy the public option insurance at a sliding scale price, dependent on income. Those at the lowest income levels could continue to access Medicaid. Others over 65 years of age would still have Medicare.

These plans have the advantage of maintaining the current insurance structure, allowing folks to “keep their insurance”.  They are incremental ways to expand coverage, without the tremendous upheaval of an entirely new system. 

Medicare for Some

The next level of plans would expand the already existing Medicare plan.  The first level, proposed by Senator Booker, would be to expand an optional Medicare from 65 down to 55 years old.   In the United States, the most expensive health care costs are those in the current Medicare age range, from 65 years on.  The next most expensive is the 55 to 65 age group.  By extending Medicare to that level, it would cover that expensive age group, removing them from the private insurance pool and reducing overall insurance costs.  

Medicare for Most

Other candidates, including Mayor Pete Buttigieg, would use this as a first step, then continue over several years to expand Medicare until it ultimately covered all ages.  This would be an addition to, and in competition with, private insurance.  The expectation would be that the increasing scale of Medicare would reduce costs, making it more affordable, and eventually private insurers would be unable to compete.  Over decades then, by consumer choice, the US would become a mostly “single-payer” insurance nation.

The problem with the “hybrid” plans, is that the insurance pool of healthy people is divided among private and public plans.  Even more, people can currently “go bare” without any insurance coverage.  While it seems to be a “choice” that some Americans want to make, when those folks do need medical care, they access it in the most expensive way.  The law mandates that they are cared for, and if they are unable to pay, their costs are folded into the costs of everyone else’s bills and insurance costs.  

In order to keep the plans affordable, the government would have to reinstate the individual mandate, requiring everyone to either buy health insurance or pay a fine.  This was a part of the original ACA, but was rescinded by the Republican Congress in an attempt to destroy the program.  So far, that hasn’t worked.

Medicare for All

And finally, Senators Warren and Sanders want to make a simple, radical, change:  end private insurance and provide Medicare for all.  This would model successful systems in other countries, most specifically Canada.  The costs of these plans would be paid for by increased taxation, but it would remove the need to pay for private insurance.

It’s Not a Choice

One question remains unanswered. Employer provided insurance usually means that the employer covers a percentage of the insurance costs, typically 75% or more.  The employee then pays the remainder.   The personal tax cost of a full Medicare for All plan would be significantly less than the current cost of insurance. But it wouldn’t necessarily be less than the employee costs.  Employers would either have to pay to Medicare, or pay employees the difference. Otherwise employees would be stuck with increased net costs.

Health care costs are skyrocketing.  A serious illness could bankrupt even those with insurance.  There are 44 million people in the US without insurance, and another 38 million with inadequate coverage (PBS).  It’s not just a moral thing to do; the cost of providing care for the uninsured is a key factor in escalating costs for everyone. 

 It needs to be fixed; at least Democrats have ways to do it.

An Apocryphal Story

This is a story of a village, mostly poor folks who worked in the field.  The owner of the field, the store, the bank; lived on a big house on the hill overlooking the village and the little creek than ran beside it.

One night there was a fierce storm, the rains fell so hard, that the little creek rose up.  The village was washed away, with just ruins left behind.  Except, of course, for the house on the hill.

The owner barred his doors. There was plenty of food and water inside his home, he didn’t see any need to share his wealth with the unfortunate villagers.

Add your own ending:

1. The villagers suffered and died.  The owner discovered there was no one to work his fields, use his store or bank, and withered away.
2. The villagers stormed the house.  They got the food and water. It  served the owner right.
3. The owner came to his senses, and realized his wealth depended on everyone’s efforts.  He shared his food and water, and he helped rebuild the village.  

Our House on the Hill

We are the United States of America,  the wealthiest nation in the world. We are the most successful democracy in the world,  the world’s banker, the world’s store, and we produce much of the world’s food. 

There is an obligation in success, to help those who are more in need.  It’s not just a moral obligation, or a Biblical ordainment.  It is the right thing to do, because in the end our world, like the apocryphal village, is dependent on everyone.  In recognizing and acting on that dependence; it guarantees that the world will continue to come to us for our goods and services.  

But today, America is acting like the “master” on the hill, barring our door, denying disaster around us, and turning inside ourselves.  We are in danger of “withering away,” choice “1” in the story ending.  We have already lost our influence in Europe, and Asia.  Other suppliers in the world are replacing us.  And we are doing it to ourselves.

This is no fluke, no accident of circumstance.  This is a conscious act of the Trump Administration.   The philosophical heart of the White House today, is a nationalist, racist, and selfish one.  Here are some examples.

The Bahamas

Hurricane Dorian was at Force Five levels, 185 mile per hour sustained winds, when it hit the northern Bahama Islands.  It equaled the strongest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic.  But unlike most hurricanes, even hurricane Maria the Force Five one that struck Puerto Rico, Dorian stopped.  The storm stayed on the northern Bahama Islands for over twenty-four hours, scouring the surface, then drowning it with huge storm surges.  

Dorain was like an F3 Tornado, sitting in one place for over a day.  It was so bad, that now, ten days after the storm is gone, the Bahamians still are searching for over 2500 missing and dead.  2500 from the population of the Bahamas is the equivalent to over 2 million dead or missing Americans.  Over 60,000 are displaced by the hurricane, their homes, and towns, simply a pile of splintered wood and metal.  That’s over ten percent of the population of the Bahamas.

The nation of the Bahamas is fifty miles off of the United States coast; 2 hours by boat, 30 minutes by helicopter.  We are “the big house on the hill” for the damaged nation.

And our door is closed. 

The Trump Administration refuses to grant Bahamians “Temporary Protected Status,” the legal designation for refugees from natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes (NBC.) All Bahamians travelling to the United States must have “proper documentation,” something difficult to do when all you escaped with is the clothes on your back.  Mr. Trump himself worried about “very bad people and very bad gang members” sneaking into the US with the refugees (Washington Post.)  

The Judge

Steven Menashi is a nominee to become a Judge on the US Appellate Court in Washington, DC. Menashi, of late, has been part of the White House “brain trust” headed by Stephen Miller, designing US policy for immigration.  Menashi has written articles claiming that “ethnonationalism” is the only way for a democratic nation to survive.  “Ethnonationalism” translates into a belief that a nation made up of a single race or ethnicity is the “best:”  so much for the American melting pot.

Mr. Menashi also worries about “gynocentrism,” a pseudo-scientific pejorative used to attack women’s movements, and argues that need-based student loans were “unfair to rich people” (Huffpost.) He is the mirror image of his current boss, White House senior advisor Stephen Miller, and at forty years old, the President and Senator McConnell hope he impacts the Court for decades.

Mr. Menashi is a racist.  He is a man trying to block the inevitable “browning” of America.  Menashi represents everything dark in the American soul, and he is nominated for the second most important Court in the land.

Dying Kids

But perhaps the worst example of Ugly Americans  is the new twist as Stephen Miller orchestrates a tightening of the immigration policy screws. It involves kids from other countries, legally brought to America to some of our best hospitals.  They have conditions or diseases that only our advanced medical facilities can cure, they are alive because they are in America.

They, and their parents with them, have received notice: thirty days to get out and go home.  It doesn’t matter what the treatment or prognosis is, and it doesn’t matter that for many of them, this is a death sentence. Mr. Miller and company are working on their ethnonationalist America; foreigners, and particularly foreigners of color, need not apply (NBC.)

The Ugly American

“America First” is a theme of the Trump Administration.  He wants an America that looks after itself first, and only.  Whether it was the Paris Climate accords, or the Trans Pacific Partnership, or attacking our allies in NATO; Mr. Trump claims to only have American interests at heart.

But “heart” is a misused term here, because the America of Mr. Trump, Mr. Miller, and Mr. Menashi is an America with no heart, no compassion, no sympathy.  We, and as our President he unfortunately represents us all, are the Ugly Americans, the self-centered, all consuming, self-absorbed pattern that has been the “dark side” of America’s image since World War II.  

It is ugly, and it’s exactly what we signed up for in the election of 2016.  

November 22, 1963

I was six years old when John F Kennedy was shot in Dallas.  My memories of the time are clear:  released from school, something awful happened in Dallas.  The teachers wouldn’t tell us, so second graders were talking about monsters attacking the state. The staff wanted our parents to handle it.  I fought on the way home, some boy said they shot the President, and I didn’t believe him. Words turned to fists, a second grader versus a third grader.  I think I won.

When I got home, Mom met me at the door, tears in her eyes.  I wish I hadn’t punched that kid; for the next few days it was grainy black and white television, first from Dallas, and then the funeral from Washington. The caisson carrying the flag covered casket, the rider less horse behind with the boots strapped backwards in the stirrups; the President’s family stoic and brave. 

So I guess if you were six on September 11^th, 2001, you would have some pretty clear images of what happened, even if, you didn’t have much understanding.  To put that in perspective, you’d be twenty-four today.

It is amazing how quickly “events” become history.  What feels like just a couple of years ago, is now in an eighth grade textbook.  

Tuesday Morning

Tuesday morning, September 11^th, 2001, I was in “recovery” mode.  We had just completed our big home cross country invitational the previous weekend, I was looking forward to getting my team ready for the next competition, and to concentrating on my classroom.  I taught senior American government class, and we were reaching the end of the first unit, trudging through the US Constitution and the Amendments.

At Watkins Memorial High School we started the day early, the first bell rang at 7:19.  The school was under construction; all of the in-class TV’s were off line.  So it was on a restroom run between second and third period that a fellow staff member told me of a plane, crashing into the World Trade Center in New York.  

A tragedy, a horrible accident; I talked briefly to my class about it as we started.  When another staff member came to the door, and told us of the second plane, we all knew it was something more than an accident.

The Planes

I wanted to know what was going on, and I wanted my classes to know too.  We moved outside and sat in the band bleachers of the football field, facing north, and turned up the radio from my jeep.  The class sat and listened as the third plane crashed into the Pentagon, and heard the rumors of other planes “out of contact” with air traffic control. We heard reports of a fourth plane down in Pennsylvania.

And as we sat in the bleachers, we watched the final approach leg into the Columbus Airport, (then Port Columbus, now John Glenn International.)  We listened as the World Trade Centers collapsed, and watched as plane after plane, maybe forty of them, lined up to land right in front of us.

Later that day the football coach and I rigged up a television with an outdoor antenna in our school’s wrestling room.  Hundreds of kids came in, watching, wondering, and looking for answers:  who did this, why, and how could it have happened? I spent any breaks on the phone, trying to reach my sister and her husband in New York.  All the lines were down, crashed by the volume of calls. When I finally did talk to them that evening, my sister was at home when it happened, my brother-in-law had to walk home from the City.  He had passed under the World Trade Center only a few minutes before the first plane hit.

My Mission

We released the kids from school, finally.  I went home that night with a mission, to find out everything available, so I could teach my kids what this was all about.  The Amendments to the Constitution would have to wait (it would end up being two weeks,) American Government at Watkins Memorial was going to be about what happened to our country, and our lives, on September 11^th.  

Out in the front yard that evening, the sky was almost completely empty of planes.  Only one crossed, Air Force One, taking President Bush back from Nebraska to the White House.  It looked odd and lonely; the escort fighters must have been high above.

The next weeks were filled with questions and information.  We learned about Al Qaeda and Wahhabism, the puritanical version of Islam they practiced.  The Class studied the difference between that and the Islam worshipped by the Taliban, the group that controlled Afghanistan and allowed Al Qaeda to set up bases there. We learned history:  of Afghanistan, of the Middle East, and that Islam didn’t attack the United States, Al Qaeda did.  

The class asked questions about how we should respond.  These were seventeen and eighteen year olds (now thirty-six) and the question of war had tremendous immediacy to them.  Several of the students in that class would end up in the armed forces, fighting in the mountains and villages of Afghanistan.  They all came back, but many suffered injuries, both physical and mental, that they are still struggling to overcome today.

Eighteen Years

It doesn’t seem that long ago.  On Friday of that week, I was in a car crash.  My Suburban was totaled, my fault, but fortunately no one was hurt. On Saturday my cross country team went to the Galion Invitational, and since I had to find a ride to school I got there early.  That gave me the opportunity to have a long talk with our bus driver, the sweetest older man ever, Lester Kahrig (here’s a link to his story.)  We talked about war, about what would happen to these kids on the bus.  He talked about “his 9-11” when he was seventeen, Pearl Harbor, and about the war he fought in the Pacific. 

Those weeks were the best teaching I’ve ever done.  They were also the best learning my classes ever did.  There were no tests, no matching “Osama bin Laden” to “leader of Al Qaeda;” there was no need.  The kids wanted to know, needed to know.  I don’t remember any principal saying that I could take my class this direction, but they knew it was the right thing to do.  

Eighteen years since 9-11, it’s time to let Afghanistan go.  One of the things were learned in those weeks is that controlling Afghanistan is like holding desert sand in your hands, you might think you’ve got it, but slowly, inexorably, it slips between your fingers.  The harder you clench, the more slips away.  Every conqueror from Alexander the Great, to the British, to the Soviets figured it out.  America needs to learn the lesson too.  

Kids who weren’t born on 9-11, shouldn’t be fighting there.

Article XIV 

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

(Amendment 14 – Rights Guaranteed: Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship, Due Process, and Equal Protection)

Email from RAN

I received another email from my conservative “friends” at the RESPONSE ACTION NETWORK (RAN.)  As usual they needed my help, and money, to help the “educate” the American public. This time it was about one of their favorite “bogeymen,” what they call “birthright citizenship.”

So here’s their problem.  Any person, born in the territory of the United States of America, is considered a “natural born” citizen of the United States.  They have US citizenship from birth.  This includes illegal migrants in Texas, and Russian bimbos that rent Trump apartments in Florida to have their children. And while my RAN friends don’t seem to care much about the Trump bimbos, they really, really hate the migrants in Texas. 

So they want to change how citizenship is granted. Here’s the current “rules.”

• Be Born in the United States of America
• Have one or both US Citizen Parents
• Born in a US Commonwealth or Territory
• Born “under the US Flag” on a US flagged ship, plane, embassy or military base. 

Black Codes

These “rules” are based on the 14^thAmendment to the US Constitution, written after the Civil War.  The original purpose of the Fourteenth was to require the Southern States to treat their former slaves as citizens.  Many of the states in the former Confederacy quickly wrote a series of laws called the Black Codes after the War ended.  Those Codes created a second level of status for the former slaves, with restrictions on employment, movement, contractual rights and voting rights.  

In short, the Black Codes prevented the freedmen from being full citizens.  The Republicans (just thought I’d point that out) in Congress wanted Freedmen to have full citizenship rights, and to make sure, they put it in the Constitution. It’s called Black Letter Law:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

All Persons – regardless of their immigration status, their skin color, their profession or their education, are included in the Fourteenth.  In the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof – within the boundaries of the United States of America, or in areas under its jurisdiction are all included.  Are citizens – have all the rights of citizenship in the United States and the state where they live.  

Seems pretty cut and dried; if you are born here, you are a citizen here.

Black Letter Law

Now, my “friends” at the DIRECT ACTION NETWORK aren’t stupid.  They can read, and they know what the Black Letter Law says.  And like any good second year law students, they can make an argument, even against the clearest of statutory language.  Here’s their assertion.

Illegal migrants have come to the United States in violation of US law,  That makes them not “under the jurisdiction” of the United States, and they haven’t “earned” the right to be a citizen.  

On the surface, it sounds like a legitimate argument.  Illegal is illegal, right?  But the problem is, that while they may have entered the US in violation of the immigration law, that doesn’t change the “all persons” part of the Fourteenth.  The Amendment itself recognizes that their was an “excepted” class. In the second clause it mentions that “Indians not taxed” would not be counted in the enumeration, census, for the purpose of apportioning legislative seats.  But even, here, those Indians were specifically not excluded from the citizenship clause.

And ask ICE, those illegal migrants are certainly under the jurisdiction of the United States when they are rounded up at the chicken processing plant, or as they drop their children off at school in the morning.  So it is more than disingenuous to say they are NOT under US jurisdiction for the purpose of citizenship, but ARE under the jurisdiction for all other legal purposes.

Birthers

The Stephen Miller/Trump Administration is already trying to alter the citizenship code, changing how children born to Americans overseas are treated as citizens.  Many famous Americans, including Senator John McCain, were born outside of the boundaries of the nation.  McCain was born in the US Canal Zone (Panama), “under the flag” and of two American parents.  He was considered a “natural born” citizen, allowing him the opportunity to run for President of the United States (the natural born citizenship status is required.) The Administration is proposing changing how that works.

That was also the whole basis of the “Birther” movement to disqualify Barack Obama.  He was in fact born in Hawaii of a Kenyan father and American (Kansas) mother, but the “Birthers” tried to claim that his Hawaiian birth records were forgeries, and that he was actually born in Kenya.

Even if he was (he wasn’t) he still could claim US citizenship through his mother, but that wasn’t the Birther point. Trump supporters now claim that the “Resistance” is trying to delegitimize the Trump Presidency based on a “stolen” election; the “Resistance” learned the tactic from the Birther Movement’s false claims. (By the way, I’m not convinced that the “Resistance” isn’t right about the election – history will tell us in a few years.)

 

White Citizens

But, the RAN people demand, what about “Anchor Babies?”  These are children, born in the United States, of foreign parents.  Since they were born in the territory of the United States of America, they are, in fact, natural born US citizens.  Whether their parents stay in the US or not, when those children reach adulthood, they have the right to claim that citizenship.

And that makes the RAN people crazy:  that even more people, particularly “brown” people, are US citizens.  It is strange though, that the same argument isn’t being made against Europeans, particularly the Russian women who come to Florida, rent a Trump controlled apartment, and give birth.

The RESPONSE ACTION NETWORK  is responding, to the racist citizenship politics of the Trump Administration.  They want to “educate” Americans on how the Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t really say what it says, just as they are fascinated with ignoring the “…well regulated militia…” section of the Second Amendment.  

I guess they won’t get my help.          

If you own a dog, you can imagine the horror.   A friend looks after her for a few minutes, and she breaks away.  You know she was looking for you, and you know that your puppy panicked when she couldn’t find you.

Runaway 

It happened here in Pataskala Friday, at the local Laundromat.  The dog, a seven month old puppy, slipped out of her collar and ran out the door to find her “Mom.”  This puppy was more than just a cute, happy friend, she had an innate way of knowing how to ease the severe anxieties “Mom” had from the recent tragedies in her life. The puppy’s name was Valen, short for Valentine, and she could ease the shaking of PTSD, and wake “Mom” from her night terrors.

But she was gone, running across a four lane highway at rush hour, and off into a local woods.  

There are a lot of bad things you can say about Facebook.  From coldly profiting from personal information, to underhandedly influencing our election, Facebook has taken an enormous and often negative role in American life.  But at its best, it sometimes fulfills the “dream” that Mark Zuckerberg said he thought his invention could be. Sometimes, it can unite a community. 

So how to find a lost, scared and lonely dog running in a strange woods?  Here in Pataskala, those woods are surrounded by housing developments. If somehow you could let folks living around them know what’s going on, then they could maybe help find Valen.

And this is where Facebook shines.  Within hours, the “Pataskala Page,” best known for complaints about local taxes and student drivers, had Valen’s picture and possible location posted.  Along with posters on local utility poles, Facebook reached thousands surrounding the area.

We’re on a Search

It reached Jennifer, my wife.  Jenn has always had a soft spot for lost dogs, the two that are sleeping under my feet right now are rescues from the local shelter.  One was days away from euthanization, the other rejected by two other homes.  They both found a home and safety here, with us.

So Jenn got in the car, and started trolling the suburban streets around the woods.  Like any small community, people notice strange cars going back and forth in their neighborhoods, and come out to see what’s going on.  Jenn had lots of conversations with folks on a sunny Saturday afternoon, letting them know about Valen, and giving them contact numbers if she was spotted.

The “pros” were involved too.  “Pet FBI” listed Valen on their website, a group that helps spread the word about lost pets in Ohio and the Midwest.  And there are actually groups that take on “lost dogs,” they make posters, put out traps, and have amazing success in finding dogs lost for weeks.  “Lost Pet Recovery” got involved here in Pataskala too.

But Saturday ended in frustration.  There was one report of a dog running along the edge of the wood, and a second of two dogs going into the woods along a deer path.  But Valen was still out in the woods, and “Mom” was close to panic herself.  She sat in a parking lot of a store bordering the woods, looking desperately into them, calling Valen’s name, and talking to anyone who stopped by.  As evening arrived, she went home to another sleepless night without Valen.

Dog and Deer in the Woods

It was on “our” to-do list Sunday:  go look for Valen.  We tromped through the woods, and trespassed on all of the backyards along the way, calling Valen and holding out gas station hot dogs.  Other than collecting every burr and thorn bush in Pataskala, we didn’t do much good.  But we kept talking to people, showing them pictures of the dog, and asking them to keep an eye out.  

The cool thing about Pataskala, and probably most smallish towns, is that people felt the pain and fear of losing their pet.  They all were willing to help, to look, and to overlook those strange people going through their yards.  We walked, then we drove, but we didn’t do much good.  We stopped by “Mom”, back in a chair waiting in the parking lot, then we headed out to check off a few other items on our list.

And that’s when Jenn got the call.  It was a lady in the neighborhood; Jenn talked to her husband on Saturday, and he had let the neighbors know about Valen. One of them saw a dog matching her description walking in a clump of trees in their backyard.  Valen seemed to be hanging out there, along with a doe and her three fawns. Jenn contacted “Mom” and “Lost Pet Recovery” at the parking lot, and gave her the location.

“Mom” and “Dad” too, drove to the address, and went back into the woods.  Valen was too panicked to come to her name, but with patience, sitting, waiting, and treats, Valen finally got close enough to “Dad” to recognize his smell and come to him. She went home, exhausted.  “Mom” got her emotional support back, and a community got a success story.  

Community Means Together

All those folks, on Facebook, in the woods, in the neighborhoods; the “pros” and the volunteers like Jenn, reunited a dog family.  In a world so divided, no one asked what political party anyone supported, just a lot of people feeling one person’s pain, and doing what they could to make it better.  

Jenn’s been on these searches before, and it doesn’t always end well.  But this one did; it took the community to get this happy ending.  Valen’s home, and Pataskala’s got something to smile about this morning.

Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they only made it worse! If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight? – Donald J. Trump Tweet – 9/7/19

Yesterday, President Trump tweeted that he was cancelling a secret meeting at Camp David.  The meeting was kept secret because it was supposed to include the President of the United States, the President of Afghanistan, and leadership from their opponent in the Afghan War for eighteen years, the Taliban.

The Eighteen-Year War

The American envoy to negotiations with the Taliban recently announced the framework for an agreement, allowing US troops to withdraw from the longest war in American history over the next eighteen months (to read the Trump World essay about the negotiations and an outline of the framework, link here: “Deal with the Taliban”.)  The core of the deal was that the US would leave, and, the Taliban would negotiate with the Afghan government.

The current Afghan government sees the Taliban as an existential threat to modern Afghanistan. The Taliban ruled there from 1994 until the US invasion in 2001.  They enforced a strict form of historic Islamic control, Sharia law that in many ways put the country into the eighth century.  Women had no rights; freedom of speech, or even thought was banned or controlled.

The Taliban are making it clear that they are negotiating from strength.  They have launched a series of suicide bombings in Afghanistan. This week, a US soldier was among the victims in an attack.  

Negotiating from Strength

President Trump claims that as his excuse for cancelling the Camp David meetings.  It seems that the President was hoping for a breakthrough there, perhaps emulating the famous “Camp David Accord” negotiated by President Jimmy Carter between archenemies Begin of Israel and Sadat of Egypt.

But then the last attack occurred, another American was killed and the President said, it was enough. 

At least, that’s what he said in his tweet.  His Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is doubling down on the President’s reasoning on the Sunday morning news shows.  But there is a real question about what happened with the Camp David meeting.

Did the President cancel the meetings, or did one of the participants refuse to attend?  Did the US recognize that the Taliban weren’t negotiated in good faith, or did the US realize that the strength of the Taliban was so much greater than the US, that they had no reason to negotiate.

The facts are:  the United States is going to withdraw from Afghanistan.  After eighteen years of war, the US Government, military, and the American people, don’t have the will to maintain the long-term stalemate we have achieved. We know it, the Afghan government knows it, and most importantly, the Taliban know it.

And besides, the President announced that’s what he wanted to do.  That was from the candidate who ran for office claiming that you never give away your goal in negotiations, never tell “the other side” what you really want or will take.

Winning the War

The Taliban have proven they are willing to accept a seemingly unlimited amount of pain and suffering to end the US presence.  Like the Communists in Vietnam in the late 1960’s, they are willing to continue to fight, and wait for the US to come to their terms.

And Trump faces difficult pressures.  He desperately needs a foreign policy “victory.”  His diplomacy has failed:  in China, North Korea, Europe, and the Middle East.  The President promised his voters he would get the US out of Afghanistan. With the election of 2020 looming, he needs to accomplish something, anything, and soon.

But he also faces pressure from the more traditional conservative Republicans, who are unwilling to leave the American mission in Afghanistan.  American casualties reinforce their view that we should not negotiate with the Taliban.  They are still looking for a military miracle to end the Afghanistan War in victory.

So Trump lost his chance for a “Trumpian Camp David Accord;” no three-way handshake.  The surprise is that the President felt the need to tweet out a “secret” meeting.  It’s more likely, he was getting the “first word” in before one of the other participants backed out.

And in the final analysis, President Trump should know the answer to his question: How many more decades are they willing to fight?  It’s simple, they are willing to fight longer than the United States.

“All politicians are liars.”

It was an almost offhand comment in a long series of Facebook statements.  No one even contested the idea, that everyone, EVERYONE who runs for office has no standard of morality, no inherent honesty.  “Politicians and used car salesmen” were described as professions where integrity had no place.

Field Coordinator

I was on track to becoming a politician.  I worked on my first campaign at fourteen years old, by my late teens I was taking organizational positions for local candidates.  At twenty, I was a “field coordinator” for the 1976 Carter/Mondale Campaign.  My job was to organize countywide operations in several areas outside of Cincinnati, and to help with all of the tasks in the “big city” itself.

It was an all-consuming experience.  From September to Election Day I was working eighty hours or more a week.  I remember working more hours than the dollars I was paid, but it was amazing.  The folks I worked with were dedicated, excited, and a “band of brothers and sisters” dedicated to changing the country.  

And we found, in the inevitable contacts we had with the Ford Campaign, that they too were just as dedicated and excited.  Sure, they were “wrong,” but other than that, we had a lot more in common than our differences in political philosophy.

Paybacks

We “pranked” them. When President Ford was coming into town to have a rally on Fountain Square, we floated a rumor that the public address system wouldn’t work.  I remember I slept on the floor of our offices, there to answer the 2 am call from the Ford guys, “…are you really going to mess with the President’s speakers?”  My quiet “we’ll see” generated profanity, I went back to sleep.  He was the President, we just wanted to make sure his local staff stayed awake.

And they pranked us. As we were on the rooftop of our building on Fountain Square on the morning of the Ford Rally, our counterparts on the Ford Campaign pointed us out to the Cincinnati Police.  I remember it looked like those pictures from Dealey Plaza in Dallas, the bystanders pointing up at the windows.  While the Secret Service knew what we were doing (putting up a banner) the local police didn’t.  When I saw a dozen officers head into the door at street level, I knew we were in trouble.

They met us on the stairs, and put us up against the wall.  After vigorous frisking, we were frog marched back to the square, and the Secret Service finally stepped in.  They, and the Ford staff, were having a good laugh.  We were angry at the time, they got us better than we got them.

But of course, we got the last laugh in the end.  The first count in Ohio was that Carter won by 5000 votes, I think I shook each one of their hands during the campaign.  While recounts made the gap a bit greater, at twenty I felt like I made a difference.

Make a Difference

That’s what politics is about, isn’t it?  Making a difference, trying to change things for the better, trying to help people. That’s why people run for office, and work to get people elected.  

Does corruption exist? Absolutely; the last political campaign I managed in 1980 we should have won, and, probably did.  But my candidate didn’t take office, somehow, the votes turned out differently.  Rumor was we needed to “hire” someone in the Board of Elections; if we had, perhaps the vote count would have turned out in our favor.

I left politics then, and went back to teaching.  That was my first real taste of corruption, and I didn’t want any part of it.  The classroom was where I chose to  make a difference.  I was twenty-four and the world was still pretty “black and white” then.

Shades of Gray

There are no regrets from that decision; I loved my career as a teacher, administrator, and coach. But in my “advanced age,” I’ve discovered another shade, just like the color of my hair: “gray.”  Our nation, its government, and its politics have pockets of corruption, of leaders not willing or able to tell the truth.   There are also leaders trying to make a difference, trying to “do good.”  I don’t agree with all of them, Bernie Sanders for example.   I believe that he, and many of the other Democrats who have risked their reputations to run for President, are doing so not for money, power, or notoriety. They are doing it to make the world they know better.

So I don’t believe all politicians are liars, or cheats, or out for themselves. They are far easier ways to “advance” yourself, then to strip your entire life and being bare to be examined in front of the world. Most politicians are trying to do that most honorable thing: make the world better.

They don’t deserve ridicule. They are earning respect.

I was just beginning to write essays for Trump World in February of 2017. In those early days, I was trying to explain Trump to my Progressive friends, still reeling from the 2016 election results.  One of those early essays, called Liar Liar Liar, tried to analyze the Trump organization’s relationship to the truth.

Alternative Facts

Here we are, two and a half years later, and that relationship hasn’t changed.  The President built his political foundation on the phrase “fake news.”  If no one can tell what the truth is, then people will only believe what the leader “they” support tells them. The President has flat out stated: “Just remember: What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”  Combined with the confirmation of a major “news” organization, Fox “News,” and a whole other universe of “alternative facts” gets created. (Thanks Kelly-Ann, for that contribution to the American political phraseology.)

The Shooter was a Democrat

This week is a great example.  It started with the shootings in Odessa, Texas, when seven people were killed and dozens wounded by a random shooter.  Within hours of the deaths, Twitter was alive with “facts.”  

• The shooter had a “Beto for Senate” bumper sticker on his truck. 
• He was a registered Democrat and a Democratic Socialist.
• He was a member of Antifa.

This was all fabricated.  The Trump Administration didn’t create these falsehoods. But, Anthony Shaffer, a former DIA officer and a member of the Trump 2020 Campaign Advisory Board, lent them credence by re-tweeting.

I was caught up in those same lies from one of my Facebook “friends” posts.  When a “Snopes” fact check didn’t reveal an immediate response (it was too soon,) I worried that somehow they were true, and would be used to turn back efforts for gun controls.  I didn’t respond on Facebook, the reality that there are crazed folks with all kinds of political views, including ones similar to mine, was too real to mention.  It shouldn’t be.

So the lies did exactly what they were supposed to do.  They helped smother the debate. Here was a man, acknowledged by his neighbors to be “scary and angry.” He could not legally pass a weapons background check, and sat on his rooftop at night and shot at animals. Yet, he was allowed to have a weapon of war.

China Invades Ohio

The second example isn’t even related to Trump, but it is a great example of how absolute falsehood has become our modern political tool.  Here in Ohio, the Republican legislature and Governor have just passed “energy” legislation, rolling back conservation incentives, and pouring money into the failing company running Ohio’s nuclear power plants.  

Opponents of the legislation, a strange amalgam of environmentalists and the natural gas industry, are trying to gain enough signatures to put the legislation up for vote on a statewide ballot.  The nuclear power folks, who won in the state legislature, are paying for an advertising blitz on statewide television. 

 The commercials claim that those passing the petitions are working for China, they show videos of marching Chinese soldiers, President Xi, and Red Flags; and claim that China will interfere in Ohio’s politics and energy production.  “Don’t sign the petition” they demand, as if the Chinese secret police will be pounding on your door with paper and pen.

What does China really have to do with any of this?  Some of the natural gas industry plants in the state have financing that includes Chinese banks.  So, by the way, is some of the financing for Direct Energy, the nuclear power company. And, of course, so are trillions of dollars of the US debt, sold to China by the  US Treasury.

It’s the “Red Scare” tactic, creating a complete fictional story about “Chinese hands” on Ohio’s power switches.  

Magic Marker Hurricanes

Some may say this is just “politics as usual.”  But even the most outlandish campaigns usually have some casual relationship to the truth, some tenuous connection to reality.  But, in this “grand example” of the President’s “fake news,” the nuclear industry is following the classic propaganda technique:  if you’re going to lie, tell a big one.

Our third example is directly from the President’s hand.  As Hurricane Dorian was grinding away the northern Bahamas, stalled precariously off of the US coast, the President warned folks, including in the state of Alabama, about the dangers.  The problem was, there was no danger to Alabama; projected tracks for the storm did not include them.

It was a mistake, while extremely early tracks from a week before included a possible move across Florida, all of the more recent projections showed Dorian headed up the Atlantic coast.  It was a mistake the President could have explained, corrected, and moved past.

But this is the era of Trump.  In yesterday’s “news opportunity” with the President, he presented an older map, complete with a Magic Marker addition to Dorian’s projected course. It couldn’t have been more obvious, the President added his “projection” so that he could claim to be right. Asked about this, Trump followed his own “rules.”  He doubled down on his mistake, claiming that the Weather Service would put out a more detailed map showing him right.  The Weather Service chose not to answer questions about the mistake.

Believe Your Lying Eyes

It’s a lie, an obvious one, and a foolish one.  But, to a substantial portion of the American electorate, it is believed.  They are conditioned:  listen to the President, ignore the “fake news” that calls him to task.  It’s tough to argue with his success.  

Abraham Lincoln said: “…you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people, all of the time.”

Let’s hope Lincoln’s right.

September 11

It was September 11, 2001.  The United States was assaulted, a sneak attack, using our own commercial aircraft.  The death toll was worse than Pearl Harbor, but the biggest casualty was America’s way of life.  It has never been the same. We check exits, we line up for security to enter Broadway plays, and we glance twice at airplanes streaking through the sky.

A terrorist group, Al Qaeda, was behind it.  They were led by a scion of one of Saudi Arabia’s richest families, Osama bin Laden, who believed in an aberrant version of Islam. Unable to organize in his native land, he moved first to Sudan, then onto Afghanistan.  There he found shelter with kindred spirits in charge of the government, the Taliban.

The Taliban believe in a similar ancient form of Islam. They viewed Sharia Law, the 1300 year-old rules of the desert, as the foundation of Islamic life.  The Taliban emerged to govern from chaos as the Soviet Union was driven from Afghanistan in 1994.  They ruled with an iron hand, destroyed historic relics of Buddhism, denied women education or the ability to participate in public life, executed men for not growing beards.  

Soon after September 11, the United States determined that Al Qaeda was responsible.  The US government issued an ultimatum to the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan:  deny the terrorists sanctuary, or face invasion. The Taliban refused. And on October 7, less than a month after the assault and while dust still rose from the rubble at Ground Zero, the United States attacked.

The Second Generation

That was nearly eighteen years ago.  The original goal, to destroy Al Qaeda, was largely achieved in the first few months, though it took several years for US Special Forces to find and kill bin Laden himself.  The US drove the Taliban from power, pushing them back into the mountainous territory that borders Pakistan.  They set up a new government, one that had modern values.

And the war took on a new goal, to reshape Afghanistan itself into an Islamic democracy.  The US picked sides in the constantly shifting amalgam of tribes that tried to rule the country, and found their allies could only survive with US backing.  The Taliban waited, knowing that it is one thing to “conquer” Afghanistan, but another to “govern” it.  No one, from Alexander the Great to the Red Army of the Soviet Union, could maintain control for long.

Today, American soldiers are walking the same mountain trails their father’s did, and are fighting for the same territories and villages. There is no “winning” in Afghanistan, only a turgid stalemate that is dragging a second generation of Americans, and Afghans, into the horrors of war. 

The US must make a decision:  maintain the stalemate, or change the equation.  They have tried a “surge” that was supposedly successful in Iraq, sent in the best in counter-insurgency, bombed with B-52 bombers and used  “Special Operators.”  It remains a stalemate; much like the Communists in Vietnam, the Taliban are willing to accept more pain and deaths than the Americans are willing to receive or give.

Today the US is negotiating with the Taliban, trying to reach some agreement to allow Americans to withdraw.  Taliban leaders who spent years in the US prison at Guantanamo are sitting across from the American soldiers that put them there.  American Generals, who began as young Lieutenants in the beginning of the war, are now negotiating with the enemy.  

Negotiation or Stalemate

There are a lot of similarities with Vietnam.  While America clearly has overwhelming military strength, somehow they are negotiating from weakness.  Just like in Vietnam, the US has been unable to bring that might to bear on an enemy able to slip into the mountains, and willing to suffer unacceptable casualties to achieve their goal.  

This week, on the very day the US envoy announced a tentative agreement, the Taliban emphasized their strength and resolve, and sent a suicide bomber to attack the “Green Village,” the “safe” enclave for foreigners in Kabul, the capital.  Sixteen were killed and 119 wounded, almost all local Afghans.

A spokesman for the Taliban stated: 

“…we understand that peace talks are going on … but they (the US) must also understand that we are not weak and if we enter into talks … we enter from a strong position.”

Claiming Victory

The Taliban want the United States military out in weeks.  The United States is looking for leverage to force the Taliban to become a part of the current Afghan government, instead of taking the entire country back to the dark ages of Sharia Law.  They will leave, but over eighteen months.  Much like the negotiations that ended the Vietnam War, the Taliban are likely to agree to whatever deal removes US troops, and then will do what they want.  They believe that the US won’t come back.

And they are right.

In early 1973, President Richard Nixon announced the “end” of the Vietnam War.  He claimed “victory” and brought US troops home; his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Two years later it was President, Gerald Ford, who sent in the helicopters to evacuate the last US officials as Saigon fell to the Communists. 

I expect President Trump will claim “victory” in our negotiations with the Taliban.  The troops will come home, with cameras broadcasting their arrival and bands playing. It will fall to the next President to send in the helicopters and evacuate our last embassy personnel, as Kabul falls to the Taliban.  

There’s not much else to do.

(Hamilton the Musical)

Hurricane Dorian:  the entire population of the Southeast Coast of the United States is holding its breath.  Savannah and Charleston are being evacuated.  Florida towns have abandoned the protective barrier islands. 

The President was shocked (again) that there was a Category 5 in the Saffir-Simpson Scale.  Dorian is the second strongest storm recorded in the Atlantic.  

Coverage 24/7

The Weather Channel and cable news networks, all went to wall-to-wall with coverage, with lots of shots of waves striking beaches, empty restaurants, and boarded up windows with catchy slogans.  

But Dorian hasn’t gotten to the United States yet.  It is sitting on the Bahamas, grinding them down, hour after hour, and now day after day. Dorian is spending its energy, dropping from Category 5 to 4 and this morning 3, on the small island nation. The highest point on the northern islands of the Bahamas is about thirty feet above sea level.  Dorian’s storm surge is twenty-four feet.

We don’t know about the Bahamas yet, it’s still happening.  The Abaco Islands in the country, a beautiful, tranquil Caribbean paradise; are still in the hurricane, though the eye has moved west to the island of Grand Bahama and the town of Freeport.  We already know that five are dead, but we don’t know more.

Days in the Grinder

It’s likely to be awful. But one small note to be proud of. The US Coast Guard is already there. In a time when “America First” is the standard phrase, American helicopters are making rescues in hurricane winds, American ships are braving hurricane seas, and American Coast Guardsmen are risking their lives for others.  

“America First” today means more than just a xenophobic “America Only,” it means American’s first in to help with disaster.

I’m sure there wasn’t a lot of discussion about this in the upper echelons of government.  The Coast Guard probably just went, knowing their job, and the need.  People needed help, it didn’t matter the color of their skin, or their nationality as Bahamians.  They spent days in one of the worst hurricanes in history, days in the equivalent of an F-3 tornado (for those of us in Ohio where we know the Fujita scale with much more intimacy.)

This is what America really is: the orange helicopters hovering above, pulling folks to safety. There are already private citizens in Florida, arranging for more helicopters to take supplies into the devastation. They know airplanes won’t work; the airport is literally six feet under water.     

The News Cycle

Our news cycle moves so quickly.  Dorian better move soon, or we will all forget about it.  The folks moving one-way out of Charleston will start sneaking home on the back roads, and the surfers at Sebastian Inlet will jump back into the waves.  For the sake of the Bahamians, Dorian needs to go, anywhere, away.

But as we wait for that moment, for the time when we can see the damage and devastation, we can only hope that the US reaction will be one of horror, sorrow and an outpouring of support. Hopefully it will be greater than what we did for our own countrymen in Puerto Rico, after another Category 5 hurricane, Maria, spent several hours on that island.

Helping others after disaster is America at its best.    It is as American as “John Wayne coming over the hill” or comic book heroes rescuing the world.  Americans already are saving lives, when Dorian finally moves, there will be many more to save, and a nation to help salvage.  Let’s not let the news cycle blow them away.

The National Rifle Association stand is crystal clear:  the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.  Their answer to the growing mass shooting attacks in America is to arm all Americans.  It’s the “wild, wild west” with semi automatic weapons of war; a dystopian “Mad Max” vision of America.

Texas Gun Laws

The NRA is incredibly persuasive.  They have convinced the Republican Party to pursue a policy of denying gun controls, and even removing existing regulations.  And NRA persuasion isn’t just based on the votes of their members; their most significant influence is the money they can spend.  The NRA not only donates directly to candidates, it also buys advertising for and against candidates on their own.  It is one of the most formidable forces in American politics.

Texas is at the height of NRA influence.  The state legislature, in response to the shootings at Sutherland Springs Church with 26 killed and 20 more injured, and at a Santa Fe High School with 10 killed and 13 wounded, RELAXED existing gun laws.  Starting today (September 1, 2019) Texas law allows:

• Weapons in places of worship unless the specifically banned by posted signs, 
• Weapons in rental properties, 
• Prevents home owner associations from banning weapons,
• Allows for more armed personnel in schools,
• Eases restrictions on carrying weapons in vehicles, 
• Allows foster homes to store guns, 
• Allows handguns to be carried without license during a declared disaster.

Since the laws were passed there have been two more mass shootings in Texas, the El Paso shooting with 22 dead and 24 wounded, and yesterday, the random killings along I-20 between Odessa and Midland, with 5 dead and 21 injured.  

A Good Guy 

Where are the “good guys” with guns?

The NRA points to the Sutherland Springs shooting as evidence of the failure of gun restrictions and the success of “good guys” with guns.  The shooter who walked into a Church, wearing body armor and a facemask and armed with a semi-automatic weapon of war, shouldn’t have been able to buy the gun (a Ruger AR-556 Semi-Automatic.)  He was court martialed from the Air Force for domestic violence, a disqualifying offense in gun sales.  The system failed to register his conviction, allowing him to purchase the weapon.

After leaving the carnage in the church, the shooter was attacked and wounded by a bystander with a similar weapon from across the street.  The shooter drove away in his vehicle, and the bystander followed in a high-speed chase.  Ultimately the shooter crashed vehicle due to blood loss, and committed suicide.

Twenty-six killed, twenty more injured:  the “good guy” with a gun may have prevented further deaths, but he didn’t stop what happened in the church sanctuary.  

But Chicago

Gun advocates point to the city of Chicago as the “example” of how gun restrictions fail.  And a decade ago, Chicago did have some of the strictest gun regulations in the country.  However, more recent Court decisions have stripped many of those away.  Prior to 2010, Chicago:

• Banned private owned handguns from residences,
• Required permits and registration of firearms, and
• Banned concealed carry of firearms.

All of those restrictions are removed, and the homicide rate has grown (Tribune.)

But the greater issue for Chicago, and for any attempts to control weapons, is the limitation of state action.  Even when Chicago had those restrictions, Indiana was less than an hour away, and had few restrictions on buying or carrying guns.  And while Chicago’s homicide rate has been higher than Los Angeles and New York for a while, it has increased even more since 2010.

A National Choice

Gun violence, and particularly mass shootings, is a national crisis.  No one state has a “corner” on the issue, attacks have occurred from schools in Connecticut, Florida and Colorado, to the nightclub district of Dayton, to Wal-Mart’s in Texas, to conference centers in California.  The one thing these most horrific attacks have in common is a semi-automatic weapon of war, with large quantities of ammunition.

A national crisis requires a national solution.  The answer is obvious; to stop a bad guy with a gun, take his gun away.  

There is no Second Amendment right to a weapon of war.  There is no legitimate hunting purpose for weapons of war.  Weapons of war have a single purpose, to kill and maim human beings, as quickly and efficiently as possible.  And to those Americans who “need” those weapons to “protect from the government” I need to point out that the “government” could overwhelm your puny “AR’s” in a New York minute.  

Our current national impotence is not an answer.  Letting these killings continue must stop.  It’s time for the vast majority of Americans to stop “humoring” the “black helicopter” folks.  We don’t need to ban all guns, and we don’t need to repeal the Second Amendment.  We do need to decide that weapons of war are not acceptable.  It’s time to follow the rest of the modern world, and protect ourselves from the broken among us.

Last night I woke up in the chair, in the middle of watching All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC.  Somewhere between the “Trump International Doral” and the “Monmouth Poll” I drifted away.  It reminded me of my father.  

I wrote so much about him that I broke it into parts, yesterday and today – so here’s the second installment of “Turning into Dad.” Click on this link to read the first part – Turning into Dad – Part 1

Part One began with my childhood and Dad’s amazing ability to fall asleep. It then goes on to highlight the early part of his career as a broadcaster. Dad helped start and sell the Phil Donahue Show. They changed the world of broadcasting from Dayton, Ohio.

Part Two

Back Home in Cincinnati

The Phil Donahue Show took off, and Dad found himself managing WLW-D and back on the road selling the show to individual stations.  At its highest point, the Donahue Show was in 224 television markets in the United States and internationally.  

We moved out of Dayton and back to Cincinnati, where Dad was made President of Syndication for the new company, Multimedia.  He had a whole staff of salesmen, including both Lee and Grant, and his favorites, Joe Cifereilli and  Bruce Johansen.  The prime property was the Donahue Show, but Dad also produced and sold Sally Jesse Raphael, After School Specials, and the beginnings of The Jerry Springer Show.  

On the Road with Dad 

The travelling wasn’t just national, Dad went to Europe to sell shows.  Mom and I went along for the Scandinavian trip; Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We stayed in nice hotels,  and I didn’t realize that putting laundry in the bag was a big deal.   Dad wasn’t too happy about a 4000 kroner bill for four pairs of underwear and blue jeans.  

But he didn’t stay mad for long, he had a luncheon meeting with Swedish television.  In Sweden, business meetings began with a vodka toast, then continued with toasts through each course of the meal.  I don’t know if Donahue ever made it on Swedish television, but I do know that Dad was smashed when he got back from lunch.  Of course, he needed a nap.

They were making big sales. Dad closed one in Philadelphia, a million dollar contract signed on the placemat of a restaurant.  He had the mat framed and hanging in his office.  But perhaps his best story was with one of his salesmen, making a big “pitch” to a client.  They took a break, and his salesman came back from the restroom with a problem, he couldn’t get his zipper back up.  He pulled and twisted, but it was still down, and the clients would be back shortly. Finally Dad offered to help out, and there he was, pulling on another man’s zipper, when the clients came back in.

By now it was the mid 1970’s, and I was in college.  I’d come home some weekends, arriving on Friday evening to tell all my tales to Mom and Dad on the couch.  I had to talk fast, because it wouldn’t take long for Dad to start snoring.  Nothing changes.

One Last Story

Dad was retired when the Donahue show ended, but Phil was always grateful to him.  Dad took the risk of starting the show, backed it up with hard work and sales, and changed television.  When it finally came to an end, twenty-nine years later, Phil took everyone involved with the show on a cruise.  

He rented the entire Seabourne Legend (the ship in the movie Speed 2)and cruised out of New York to Bermuda.  He wanted to make it special for Mom and Dad, so he arranged for my sisters and I to be a part of the cruise.  We were flown to New York, and “hung out” at Phil and Marlo Thomas’s apartment until it was time to board.  Then we were snuck onto the ship, and locked in a stateroom (with caviar and champagne) until we put to sea.

We watched the Statue of Liberty fade behind us from the crew deck, then waited until the opening cocktail party.  Phil presented Mom and Dad to the crowd (they were like parents to many), then gave them his “special present” — us.

The Dining Room 

Mom and Dad had a party one night, and a man there was describing his office downtown.  The guest said it was strange, he could see into an office in the building across the street. He didn’t know whose office it was, but the TV was on ALL THE TIME.  He figured that the guy didn’t work, just watched TV.   After a little bit of geographic geometry, we realized he was looking into Dad’s office.  Dad always had a TV on, no sound, but the picture on from the time he walked in until he left for the day. Oddly enough, it didn’t put him to sleep, I guess it was work.  He wanted to know what “his” station was showing, even if he didn’t hear it, and even if he wasn’t managing one anymore.

Mom and Dad were always, always up for a party.  They were energized by conversation.  Politics, government, history, business,  and travel:  all were argued around the dining room table in my parent’s house.  There were “formal” dinners several times a month, with different friends and guests. Mom always wanted interesting people at the table.

The “dinner” itself took less than an hour, but no one left the table.  The conversations went on long into the night.  Dad was wide-awake for all of that. (That table, and the furniture that went with it, now are in my niece’s dining room.  The food there is great, and the conversations are as just as intense.)

Dinner at the Dahlman’s

I remember sitting at that table one night, talking about US spending on defense.  The Chardonnay had done its part, and the conversation was growing.  One of my parents’ friends was an aircraft engineer at General Electric, a big industry in Cincinnati, and started describing a plane he was working on.  It couldn’t be seen on radar, and could fly undetected against the enemy.  We didn’t know if he was kidding or not, but I definitely expected the FBI to bust down the front door and take us all away.

This was before we knew about Stealth technology, or the Skunk Works in California where it was developed.  And it was long before the stealth fighter or bomber was public.  But they were public that night, at least around the dining room table. 

Those dinner parties became a tradition.  When I was there, I took the “liberal” side, backed by Mom and some of their friends. Dad was a “business Republican,” but some other friends were true dedicated conservatives.  We debated every issue, except for religion and the Queen of England (Mom’s rules.)  We all learned a lot, respected each other views, and drank a lot of wine.

 Both my parents had long lives; at ninety-two they were still throwing those parties.  It might be a couple of days of naps on the couch (and the chair, and wherever else) to recover, but they were still up for it.  It was their lifeblood.

A Seat at the Table

I’m glad that table is still set, now in Cleveland, ready for the next dinner and debate.  I miss those evenings with Art and Louise, Dick and Lois, Peter and Luce, and the other friends who joined in.  I miss Mom sitting at the end, managing dinner and conversation, and Dad running his end of the table, and looking for more chocolate cake.

And I am a Dahlman. I’m writing in the same chair as last night, in front of the TV on our favorite station. You probably didn’t notice the long pause in the typing – well – 

 I took a nap!