Category: Uncategorized

Christmas Morning

When I was a kid in Kettering, Ohio, Christmas was a big deal.  I remember waking up early, six-ish, and waiting in bed until I thought I could wake my parents.  But when I went up to their room, I was groggily admonished, “not until seven!!” So I sat on the end of their bed, counting the clicks on the stone faced clock they had on the dresser.

Nine hundred:  it was the number of “clicks” in fifteen minutes. Nine hundred:  counting anticipation on Christmas morning.  Now, I feel like I’ve been counting clicks for weeks; we must get to nine hundred soon.  It’s not just the Mueller Report were waiting for:  it’s the other half of the Russian indictments.  Thirteen Russian nationalshave been indicted on conspiracy to defraud the United States by putting false propaganda (is that redundant?) on social media.  It is the Russian “side” of the conspiracy, but there has been only one indictment on the American side,Richard Pinedo, the California man who helped launder the money paid to social media. He pled guilty, and was sentenced to six months in prison, and six month of house arrest.

It is the core of the Russia question.  Did Americans, and specifically members of the Trump Campaign, conspire with Russians, either in the use of Clinton Campaign emails, or social media.  There is a tremendous amount of “smoke,” it will be in indictments or the Report that we will discover if Mueller found a “fire.” 

It might include the “misfits;” Roger Stone, currently under indictment but not for Russian conspiracy;Jerome Corsi, who stated he was threatened with indictment by the Mueller team; and Carter Page, who has either effectively “played the fool” in the Russia saga, or is an exceptionally clever Russian agent.  And of course Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks and still hidden in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.  Assange has been indicted in the US, though not directly on charges relating to the Trump Campaign.  But he clearly conspired with Russian Intelligence to put the Clinton Emails into the campaign.  There is circumstantial evidence that Stone, Corsi and Page were connected to either Wikileaks or Russian Intelligence itself.

Or it can be the secretive “dark forces” behind the Trump Campaign.  Steve Bannon, campaign director who was connected to Cambridge Analyticaand the Mercer family.  Brad Parscales, the social media director for the Trump Campaign, and the nexus of Facebook, Twitter and the Trump social media strategy.  Paul Manafort, already serving seven years in jail, but never charged with crimes directly linked to Russia, even though his associate, Konstantin Kilimnick, a “former” Russian Intelligence agent, was indicted for obstruction and witness tampering.  And, perhaps the Mercer familyitself,  the founders of Cambridge Analytica and the “big money” behind the Trump Campaign.  They providing  Bannon, Kelly-Ann Conway and the use of Cambridge Analytica for the general election campaign, and the fortune’s founder, Bob Mercer, is already on the hook for tax evasion.

Or, it could be the “family,” the central core of the Trump Campaign.  General Mike Flynn may be directly involved, but has a plea bargain with the Mueller team, and is providing them inside information.  Does he, or Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates, also with a deal; have details on conspiracy by Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, or Ivanka Trump.  They were the real forces directing the Trump Campaign; if the campaign was cooperating with Russian Intelligence or Wikileaks, it’s impossible that they wouldn’t have known, consented, and participated.

And finally, is there evidence against “the big enchilada,” the President of the United States.  Like it or not, the US Department of Justice won’t indict a sitting President, a determination made as a side note when they were indicting the Vice President, Spiro Agnew, in 1973.  So if there are indictable actions by Donald Trump, otherwise known as “individual one,” it will be seen either as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in other indictments, as was done by Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski to Richard Nixon, on in the text of the Report itself.

If the family knew, Trump knew.  If they are indicted, it’s difficult to see how he could not be, barring the “Presidential exception.”

Soon, the “nine hundred clicks,” and the arguments will be over.  We will know if the Trump Campaign cooperated, colluded, and most importantly, conspired with Russian Intelligence or their agents.  Robert Mueller will give us the answers: I have faith that the former FBI Director and Marine knows where his duty lies; to give honest answers to the people of the United States.  

Then we open the presents:  will we be excited, or will we be disappointed? Either way, the next fight will soon begin.

De Mortuis Mil Misi Bonum

I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don’t care about this. I didn’t get thank you. That’s ok. We sent him on the way, but I wasn’t a fan of John McCain. – President Trump Speech, 3/21/19

 Many Americans are appalled – President Trump is attacking deceased Senator John McCain again, on Twitter, in speeches, and in statements to the press.  McCain died in August of 2018; even in Roman times it was said, “de mortuis mil misi bonum;”do not speak ill of the dead.  The Romans were aware of the “social inappropriateness” of attacking the dead; and while there was a certain “danger” in stirring the spirit world, it was really more practical:  society saw it as an unfair attack, as the dead could not defend themselves.

The Romans had a strong view of heroism as well. There history was filled with great generals and soldiers.  Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was one of the most famous citizen/soldiers:  drawn from his farm to lead the Roman Army against invaders, given absolute power to defeat the enemy, winning, then relinquishing his power and returning to his farm.  He was the model of the citizen/soldier/leader that Romans, and history, has looked to for inspiration.

Sedona was where John McCain’s home was in Arizona; the “farm” where he spent his final days.  McCain, regardless of what the President has said, was a war hero, a man who flew carrier bombers and was shot down over North Vietnam.  He spent five and a half years in the “Hanoi Hilton,” a North Vietnamese prison. He returned, served a few more years in the Navy, then retired and ran for office, first in the House of Representatives, then as Senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death.

McCain certainly had has flaws (though the internet nonsense about his career as a pilot, including accusations of starting a fire that almost destroyed the carrier Forrestal, have been proven scurrilous.)  He was one of the “Keating Five,” accused of accepting campaign funds to influence Federal regulators (he was cleared of ethical violations, but rebuked by the Senate for “poor judgment.”)  And he was well known for his legendary temper.

But McCain was best known for his “maverick” attitude.  Generally a conservative Republican, he often took stands against his Party on issues like campaign finance reform, opposing pork barrel spending by the Congress, and regarding US military intervention overseas.  It was his final maverick act, the “thumbs down” vote against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, that gained the eternal hatred of Donald Trump.

Many Americans think that Mr. Trump is simply getting revenge, the same way he has attacked many Democrats and even the husband of one of his own senior advisors.  They feel that it is simply Trump, that his mind “wanders” to those that he feels have betrayed him, and attacks.  

But there is a more targeted reason that the President is attacking a dead, war hero, Senator.  Like everything else in Trump’s world, he is sending a message to those who really have the President’s fate in their hands.  It’s not his “base,” that 35% who will stick with him without regard to the facts that come out about him.  They accept his “fake news” categorizing of any critical facts, and are willing to take whatever he does as acceptable conduct.  It was probably to Trump’s surprise that he found he really could stand in the middle of 5^ThAvenue and shoot someone, and it would be OK.

His attack on McCain is much more refined.  There are forty-five Democrats in the Senate, and two Independents who vote with them.  That leaves fifty-three Republicans in the current body.  If the Democrat controlled House of Representatives votes to impeach Mr. Trump (a simple majority) it would take a two-thirds vote of the Senate to convict and remove him.  That would require sixty-seven votes; twenty Republican Senators would need to turn against a President of their own Party.

The President is sending those twenty (whichever they may be) a message:  I can go so far as to attack a dead hero of the Senate, an American Cincinnatus; what do you think I will do to you.  What would be the result of such a concerted attack?  While the “base,” the 35% percent who would applaud alongside 5^thAvenue, is not a majority of voters; it is a majority of voters in the Republican primaries.  Mr. Trump believes that he can turn them against his enemies in the Party should they look to waver on an impeachment vote.

Mr. Trump, and the public, are awaiting the Mueller Report, and the House Congressional investigations that are forthcoming.  We don’t know what “facts” may be revealed by these investigations, but it is clear the President is being proactive in attacking them, whatever they are. Should they turn out to be as bad for him as it might seem, then it will require some Republican Senators to take a closer look at Cincinnatus, and at McCain.  It might be time for them to make their stand, and return to their farms.  Their political careers might end, but their place in history would be secured.

Immorality

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?  – Matthew 16:26 KJV

I had a long conversation with a friend of mine, discussing the morality of the Trump Administration.  I took what I thought was a “pure” view (who would have thought “pure” was in my vocabulary) that Donald Trump was an immoral man, creating an immoral time, and never had the moral standing to be President of the United States.  My friend disagreed.

She started by giving Mr. Trump a “pass” on all personal immoral behavior prior to being President.  Quoting scripture, Matthew 7:1, “judge not, that ye be not judged,” she stated that judgment is between Mr. Trump and the Lord; and made the argument that we should evaluate the President only through his current acts, not by his past behavior.  More than that, the personal morality of the President, even now, should not be an issue: it is only the benefits he brings to the nation that we should examine.

Democrats aren’t “pure” on this issue either.  Bill Clinton was (and is) a man of questionable personal morality (the Epstein scandal might involve the former President as well.)  He was impeached for having an affair with a twenty-one year old intern literally in the Oval Office, in our current #METOO era he makes Senator Al Franken’s transgressions seem trivial.  Yet many Democrats supported Clinton, taking the stand that his personal morality was not a political issue.   Democrats took several steps down a slippery slope that we are still struggling to climb today. (see an earlier essay on Trump World – Bill Clinton Should Have Resigned)

The argument about Trump’s past immorality seemed insoluble, so we switched the conversation to his current actions.  I brought two issues to the table that I thought were clearly immoral:  the separation of children from their parents at the border, and the President’s clear preference for world leaders who are brutal dictators.  We argued back and forth about child separation.  The issue was: were the migrants actions, crossing the border without permission and “risking” their children, “immoral” acts that “cancelled” out the immorality of the government.  In fact, did the government have a “moral duty” to protect those children.

Not surprisingly, I didn’t buy that argument.  Many of the migrant parents are faced with an awful choice; stay where they are and risk the lives of their children from the gangs and crime, or take almost equal risks to travel to the United States and try to find a safer life.   I failed to see how this could be a choice in morality; it must ultimately be moral to protect your child.  But the actions of the government, essentially kidnapping children from the parents they hold in custody, removing them far away and permanently separating some; this can be nothing but immoral.

And as far as the President’s “friends” from Mohammad bin Salman, to Kim Jong Un, to Vladimir Putin: all have jailed, tortured and murdered to maintain their power.  Mr. Trump has demonstrated an affinity for them, in my view a disturbing admiration for their ability to control their citizenry.  He has abandoned a “moral” view of American foreign policy, instead making deals with dictators to the detriment of their own people.  My friend’s argument, that the President’s friendships are to the benefit of the United States and therefore are good for us, is reminiscent of Henry Kissinger’s Real Politik theory of foreign diplomacy.  It views diplomacy as a “zero sum” game, with the United States either winning or losing. Trump, Kissinger, and my friend, would argue that it is an amoral stand, but that benefits to America are clearly moral. We have to be winning.

So I asked a final question: if we find that Mr. Trump is in fact compromised by the Russians, either financially or otherwise, and that he cooperated with them to get elected, can we finally determine he is unacceptable? 

My friend refused to answer the hypothetical.  She demanded to “wait for the facts” before drawing any conclusion.  

My concern:  in our current climate, where “truth” is as malleable as a Facebook post; will we ever be able to find a consensus on “the facts.” I worry that we will be left with cries of  “fake news” that leave us divided, not in a moral quandary, but in a struggle of conflicting views of the truth that cannot be resolved.  

After the revelation of audio tapes definitively showing his guilt, Richard Nixon resigned from office. 29% of Americans believed he should remain in office.   In our current age of moral convenience and differing facts where 69% of Christian Evangelicals still support the President, how many Americans would choose not to believe “the facts,” regardless of what they concluded?

Why is Ohio Red?

Listening to the “pundits,” Ohio is becoming a state no longer “in play.”  Traditionally Ohio was a most important swing state, often determining which Party would control the Presidency.  But more recently, Ohio has trended more and more Republican, not so much in the Presidential elections (Trump won in 2016, but Obama won in 2012 and 2008) but in statewide offices.  The Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Auditor are all held by Republicans, as are five of the seven elected Supreme Court Justices.

So is Ohio now just a “Red” state?  It sure feels that way, as the State Legislature becomes the incubator for every ideologically based Republican law.  This is most obvious with the passage of the anti-abortion “heartbeat bill,” banning abortions from the moment a fetal heartbeat is discovered, between six and eight weeks of pregnancy, often before a woman even knows she’s pregnant.  Under the current US Supreme Court ruling of Roe v Wade, the law is unconstitutional, but Ohio’s Republicans are happy to be a “test case” for the new Supreme Court of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.  

The Republican Party in Ohio is so anti-abortion that Republican Governor John Kasich appointed the leader of the State Right to Life organization as President of the State Medical Board, even though he isn’t a physician (he no longer is the President of the Board, but remains a member.)

Ohio was also “ground zero” for the Republican “RED MAP” plan, gerrymandering the state to maximize Republican voters and minimize Democrats.  The secret deliberations and street by street computer mapping, held in a hotel in Columbus with neither Democrats nor the public allowed to participate, was so effective that even Republicans themselves were surprised.  John Husted, the current Lieutenant Governor and former Secretary of State, found the results so biased that he put forward and passed reform of the redistricting process that will go into effect for the 2022 elections.

But there is one giant “anomaly” in the Ohio elective results, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. Brown is a “progressive Democrat” and has held elective office in Ohio since 1975.  In what seems to be a “reddening” state, Brown is the big blue difference.  Add the Presidential results from 2012 and 2008 and it raises the question; is Ohio going “red,” or are Democrats simply not competing?

In the 2018 elections, “not competing” was the operative term.  Looking at the candidates for office, led by Richard Cordray running for Governor, Ohio Democrats failed to find standard bearers that could spark excitement.  Cordray was a candidate from the Hillary Clinton mold, a good administrator and a well-known name, but unable to impact on the average voter. He would have made a great Governor, but wasn’t a dynamic candidate. Brown won by seven percent, but Cordray, facing an aging Mike DeWine lost by four.  The rest of the statewide ticket followed suit, with every statewide Democrat losing by around four percent.

That sounds like a massive defeat, because it was.  But to look at it politically, in 2018, with an uninspiring slate of candidates, the Ohio Democrats were within four percent of statewide office.  Republicans in Ohio have a dearth of “exciting” candidates as well, with Husted probably the heir apparent to take the lead.  So Ohio remains under Republican control.

What will it take for Democrats to overcome the four percent gap?  In 2020, a Presidential turnout of voters may well be enough to put Ohio back in the “Blue” Presidential column, but for statewide offices, up for election in 2022, it is going to take more than retread candidates from the 2018 campaigns.  Ohio Democrats need to reach out to find inspiring candidates, candidates that can “fire-up” not just the base in the strongholds of the Northeast and central cities, but can cross the line to make gains in the suburbs that control Ohio politics.

It can happen.  The Twelfth Congressional District special election in August of 2018 is the playbook, as Democrat Danny O’Connor came within two thousand votes of Republican Troy Balderson in a heavily Republican area.  O’Connor made huge gains in the northern suburban areas around Columbus, demonstrating the path to regaining Democratic success. 

It will take exciting candidates.  It will take clever strategies.  And, of course, it will take money (something that O’Connor had in the special election, but not so much in the general election three months later.)  But the claim that Ohio has turned “Red” for good is premature.  Ohio is still within the grasp of the Democrats: they need to find the Conor Lambs or Elaine Lurias as well as the solid Democratic veterans.  And find the money to support them.  Do all that, and Ohio can stop being the “proving ground” for all of the far-right Republican strategies, and get back to governing for the people again.

The Day After St. Patrick’s Day

There is a line from a not-so-great movie with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt, by an Irish terrorist (Pitt) hiding in New York, discovered by a NY Cop (Ford.) The movie was  “The Devil’s Own.”  I remember watching the show with my parents, as Brad Pitt murmured his lines in an Irish brogue. My Mom understood every word, but my eighty-nine year old father struggled to hear through the Irish accent as Pitt said:  “Don’t look for a happy ending. It’s not an American story. It’s an Irish one.”

My mother was an O’Connor, her father a cooper (barrel maker) born in County Kerry, Ireland.  She grew up in England, but in the years before World War II she described stories of Irish cousins, fighting for independence from the British Empire, hiding from the British soldiers.  As she said, “I saw the world through rose colored glasses, and my politics were a little rosy too…” and just maybe a little green.

We look at our politics today, and think how divided our land is.  There seems to be no room for compromise or discussion: Trumpers versus Resistance, pro-birth versus pro-choice, Second Amendment versus gun control.  We are a nation that seems to be facing insurmountable fractures; even if the election of 2020 changes the Presidency there will still be a substantial number of Americans who will feel they have been cheated.

But on the Day after St. Patrick’s Day, as I, Martin O’Connor Dahlman, nurse my St. Patrick’s weekend headache and my voice recovers from songs of Revolution (it’s good to be retired) I think about how bad things could really be.  It wasn’t just when my mother was young in the 1920’s and 30’s; the conflict in Ireland lasted until 1998.  It was a war among people with everything in common: a shared island, language, culture, and history. But it was that history dividing them: a history of religious warfare between Catholic and Protestant, so bitter that it lasted from 1642 until nineteen years ago – 357 years.  It makes the two years of Trump World seem puny.

Catholic and Protestant: they even agreed on most of the religious tenets. Theirs was an argument about “process,” one that cost 3500 lives in just the last chapter, the “Troubles” from 1969 to 1998.  Bombs blew up stores and churches, the IRA (Irish Republican Army) versus the “Unionists” and the British military in the streets of the cities and the small villages of Northern Ireland.  And yet, even the “troubles” ended  peacefully – though it was an “Irish story, not an American one.”  At least as long as the current Brexit deal doesn’t upend the twenty-year peace; a real concern on the currently open border between the Republic of Ireland (in the European Union) and Northern Ireland, a part of the departing United Kingdom.  

So when we look at the forces that divide us here in America; forces of hate and discrimination that seem insurmountable, we need to remember that we can overcome this era, just as we have overcome divisions before.  We are a nation divided, but for most this is not a matter of religious process, but of those who are afraid of the future, and those who look forward to a changing and growing society.  It’s a matter of facing inevitable change, or trying to turn the clock back.  

Unlike the “troubles” in Ireland, we are a nation that has found a way to overcome our differences.  Only once have we resorted to warfare, and while violence is a part of American culture, it isn’t a preordained outcome.  We are a nation dedicated to becoming “A More Perfect Union.”  It is in that constant perfecting that we have written the American experience, and with work, we will continue to do so. We Shall Overcome, and face the future together. 

After all, this isn’t an Irish story, it’s an American one.P

The Cover Story                                              


Trump Tweets – 3/15/19

More “New evidence that the Obama era team of the FBI, DOJ & CIA were working together to Spy on (and take out) President Trump, all the way back in 2015.” A transcript of Peter Strzok’s testimony is devastating. Hopefully the Mueller Report will be covering this. More So, if there was knowingly & acknowledged to be “zero” crime when the Special Counsel was appointed, and if the appointment was made based on the Fake Dossier (paid for by Crooked Hillary) and now disgraced Andrew McCabe (he & all stated no crime), then the Special Counsel…should never have been appointed and there should be no Mueller Report. This was an illegal & conflicted investigation in search of a crime. Russian Collusion was nothing more than an excuse by the Democrats for losing an Election that they thought they were going to win…THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN TO A PRESIDENT AGAIN! 

Let’s get this clear.  The story the President wants us to believe, is that the FBI and Department of Justice were aligned against him in the election of 2016.  He wants us to think that an FBI “cabal,” led by Director James Comey, plotted to stop Trump from being elected, and keep him from serving as President.  He needs us to accept his assertion that the evidence that began the “Russia” investigation in the summer of 2016 was the “Fake Dossier,” (or “Dodgy Dossier” as Carter Page would say) developed by former British intelligence operative Michael Steele.   In fact, he really wants us to believe that the only Russian collusion that occurred was the Clinton campaign colluding with the Russians through Steele.

If we accept all of this, then the President concludes that all of the crimes that have occurred since; all of the obstruction, perjury, witness tampering, and bribery; were done to protect themselves from a false premise, and therefore are “process” crimes, and, according to the President and his supporters, not important.  As we grow closer to the climax of the Russia investigation; the final Mueller Report and what are likely to be a series of indictments of those closest to the President, the din of Trump produced “fake news” will grow even louder. 

In June of 2018, the Republican led House Judiciary Committee had a series of closed hearings with those that they considered “the leaders” of the “Plot to Stop Trump” movement.  Peter Strzok, former Deputy Director of Counter-Intelligence; Bruce Ohr, former Associate Deputy Attorney General and leading expert on Russian organized crime; and Lisa Page, Justice Department Attorney; each were brought before the committee and questioned for several hours.  The transcripts were kept sealed at the time, and the minority Democrats were bound by secrecy from revealing them.  Republicans “cherry-picked” a few key sentences to try to make their points, but Democrats characterized the testimony as debunking the conspiracy theory.

When the Democrats gained control of the House, this same Committee brought Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen in to testify in open and closed sessions.  The impact of the Cohen testimony was dramatic; he accused the President of the United States of multiple crimes.  His testimony was telling, and came across as truthful, particularly as much of it was backed with documentation.  

To counter the Cohen testimony’s impact, Republican Congressman Doug Collins, the Ranking Minority Member on the Judiciary Committee, took it upon himself to change the discussion.  In the past two weeks, he has leaked the full transcripts of Strzok, Ohr and Page; each hundred of pages.  Unlike the Democrats who respected the Committee rules, Collins did so without the permission from the Chairman or the majority.  

Obfuscation is defined as making something obscure, unclear, and unintelligible.  By dropping hundreds of pages of testimony, Ranking Member Collins tried to bury the Cohen testimony.  The problem is that in all of that testimony, the Republican Committee members were unable to prove their key assertions.

The most important for them, was that the FBI, CIA, DOJ and the Obama Administration were trying to “take out” Trump from 2015.  The FBI opened their investigation into members of the Trump campaign because they were informed that Trump campaign members had contact with Russian intelligence regarding the hacked DNC emails.  Their first source was the Australian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, who reported a conversation with Trump Foreign Policy Advisor George Papadoupolos, when Papadoupolos bragged about knowing about the emails.  This was long before public knowledge that the DNC was hacked, and long before the Steele Dossier was available.  

Once the FBI began to look at Trump personnel, they realized that there were multiple contacts with multiple Russian Intelligence sources.  Papadoupolos, foreign policy advisor Carter Page, Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, and chief foreign policy advisor General Michael Flynn all had documented interactions with Russian sources.  We know now that in addition to these, Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner met with representatives of the Russian government, as well as campaign surrogate Senator Jeff Sessions.

The President has a fundamental  (and intentional) misunderstanding of the role of the FBI. They don’t have to “know” that there’s a crime to investigate.  The agency, particularly when acting as the counter-intelligence arm of the United States, investigates to see IF a crime has been committed.  They begin with “probable cause” that a crime may have occurred, then dig in to see whether there was an actual crime.  When the evidence led to the possibility that the President of the United States might be involved, a Special Counsel was appointed.  We now await his results.

While we wait, we can examine the fundamental flaw in the President’s “FBI conspiracy” theory.  If there was a plot to stop Trump, the obvious way to do so would be to leak the existence of the Russia investigation before the election.  Just as the Comey announcement of the re-opening of the Clinton email investigation impacted the election, certainly information that Trump was under investigation would have done the same.  If Comey, McCabe, Ohr, Strzok, Page and the others were plotting to stop Trump, why didn’t the investigation leak?  Thanks to Mr. Collins, we can hear Ms. Page’s answer to that question.

Ms. Jackson – Lee:  If someone at the FBI was trying to stop Donald Trump from being elected President, yourself or Mr. Strzok or others, do you think they could have publicly disclosed that his campaign was under investigation for potentially colluding with Russian Government actors?

Ms. Page – That’s why you would think.

Ms. Jackson-Lee:  But to your knowledge, no one at the FBI did disclose this fact publicly, correct?

Ms. Page:  No, ma’am.

Ms. Jackson-Lee:  Would you consider this strong evidence that there was not a deep state conspiracy at the FBI to stop Donald Trump from being selected-elected?

Ms. Page:  Yes, ma’am. That and the fact that this is an extraordinary (sic) conservative organization.  So the notion that there’s a deep state conspiracy about anything is laughable.

The conspiracy wasn’t in the FBI or Department of Justice. The conspiracy today is among the Republicans, from Doug Collins to Donald Trump, trying to undercut the Mueller investigation.  It isn’t a “crime” to conspire to undermine an investigation (though crimes may be committed in doing so) but it is wrong.  Americans need to know the truth, even though that truth may do the opposite of setting the President and his friends free.

The Blurry Line

Tuesday a huge scandal broke:  rich people were buying their kid’s enrollment in some of the top universities in the United States!  USC, Stanford, Wake Forest, the University of Texas, Georgetown, Yale, and UCLA were all named.

Wait a minute – rich people have been buying their kids into schools for years.  That’s why there are buildings with rich peoples’ names on them, endowed “chairs” in varying departments (remember the “bin Laden” chair at Harvard), and named fields and stadiums.  Sure the kids have to meet entrance requirements, but in the “black box” of college admissions, they get a “legacy” boost and a “financial endowment” boost. 

So what’s different about Tuesday’s outrage?  Well first, unlike the vague quid pro quo of donating money to the institution and depending on the admissions office to recognize the effort, this was more of a “sure deal.”   We should assume that the “rich kids” probably had good grades in high school (quid pro quo works even better in private prep schools) but didn’t have the College Board scores to make the cut.  The two scams used here either guaranteed an outstanding College Board score, or guaranteed an athletic admission waiver allowing a lower score into the institution.

Both of those are currently legitimate ways to get into school.  Great grades, average Board scores, but run 10.2 in the 100 meter dash? USC needs you, and that 100 meter  clocking will make up for an average test score.  Did you really think all those football players at Notre Dame met all the academic entrance requirements?  The Fighting Irish want to win some football games too.

What’s different about this example, is that these weren’t 10.2 100 meter runners, or 347 pound football tackles.  These were kids with “created” credentials, not actual athletes at all.  The forged athletic successes weren’t good enough to be on scholarship, just strong enough to make it onto the tail end of the water polo, or rowing, or tennis teams (not that these kids could even play the sports.)  It was those last few team slots, where coaches don’t have scholarship money but do have some enrollment “waivers” to fill out their squads.  Add faked credentials to a huge sum of bribe money, and the coach put the “athlete” in for enrollment.

I’m sure some coaches decided that was a great fundraiser.  I can hear the internal conversation now:  “…well, I can get the money the school won’t give me to make my team better, more competitive, build a new track, and it only costs me a spot on the roster that wouldn’t probably play anyway.  It’s just like an endowment!!?”  Or some coaches: “I deserve a raise, I need this to support my family, I always wanted to go to the Bahamas!!!”

None of this makes the fake credentialing and lying right.  It was absolutely cheating, and sets a horrible example for the team members and other students.  But it really not a huge leap from what happens today, just a little shuffle over an already blurry line.

And what about those kids who cheated on the ACT or SAT?  Here’s another dirty little secret:  success in college is much more closely correlated to success with grades in high school than with the outcome of a single standardized test.  A good friend in college had a 4.0 GPA out of an elite prep school, but completely froze on the SAT.  A combined score of 850 (out of a possible 1600) meant that the top colleges were off the list.  Luckily for him and us, Denison University was willing to look past the test score, and we got a brilliant and successful student.

But the most competitive schools in the nation have to find some way to sort out their admissions. Everyone has a 3.9 or 4.0 (or in this modern age of grade inflation, a 4.4 or 4.5!!)  So the next step is using the Boards, get those 36’s on the ACT and 1600’s on the SAT (and even higher with the essay portion kicked in.)  They know it isn’t a matter of future success, but there has to be some way to take the almost 30,000 applicants to Yale and narrow it down to the 2000 that are accepted.

There’s a major industry in “teaching the test” today.  Parents pay $43/hour (Sylvan Learning Center, Columbus, Ohio) to tutor kids and raise those scores!!  Reality for parents is that it can be a good investment:  in the state universities in Ohio, the scholarship money starts at 25 on the ACT and goes up dramatically with each additional point.  A few thousand now could save many thousands in tuition costs later.

For those kids who have grades and simply aren’t good test takers, there are plenty of great colleges in the United States for you.  But if parents have to have their kid in Stanford, or Yale, or USC or the others, and the test prep classes won’t cut it – then they have found a way to spend their money – cheat on the test.  Have someone else take it or have the test proctor correct it afterwards.  It’s all cheating, and it’s all about money.  Pay off the Proctor, put the correct fingerprint on test, then have the brilliant “test proxy” step in and score another 36!!

No:  it’s cheating, forging, and defrauding the test and the colleges.  But if the standardized test score really doesn’t say that much about future success in college, why not?  They are just buying a sure thing, instead of a risky college endowment that might not result in admissions.

Sure, the kids who don’t cheat, and the parents who can’t buy their way in, get screwed.  There’s no denying it’s wrong, and the real damage being done is that it simply is one more way that the rich get richer, and the poor get worse.  But something to think about:  it’s only different in “degreed” from what colleges accept everyday.  Sure it crossed a line, but it’s a very blurry line, one that’s been moved a whole lot already.  Sure the cheaters who got caught should be in trouble, but the whole process was slanted for the money before.  To make it “right,” it will take a whole lot more than sending some celebrities to jail. 

Born to Be In It

Beto O’Rourke – announcing his candidacy for President of the United States

Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke declared his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.  While he made an official “social media” announcement, sitting on the couch beside his wife; in almost Trumpian fashion he preempted his own headline with a premature tweet to his hometown newspaper twelve hours before.

He joins a crowded field, with fifteen other candidates already declared.  Three others (and probably more not “out” yet) are expected to announce, including the “elephant in the room,” former Vice President Joe Biden. It’s reminiscent of the Democratic primaries of 1992 and 1976, when there was no apparent front-runner.  In both, a “dark horse” candidate emerged to win the nomination, and go onto secure the Presidency; Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1992. (Yes I definitely ignored the 1988 primary, when Michael Dukakis emerged to run against George HW Bush.  I don’t think the end of the Reagan Presidency, despite the Iran-Contra Affair, was analogous to the post-Nixon election in 1976, or the Ross Perot candidacy in 1992.)  

There are many reasons why so many candidates are running for President.  The first is the “blood in the water” scenario, as Democrats see the more than troubled Presidency of Donald Trump as an opportunity.  The belief is:  IF you can catch on and survive the primary process to win the nomination, defeating Trump in the general election will be the easier of the two races.  They see this is “their time,” or more exactly, their “best shot;” particularly if they were “born to be in it;” the Presidency of the United States.

But it’s not just political considerations and ego that brings them into the race.  Each of these candidates see the United States at some crossroads:  generationally (time for the baby boomers to go,) environmentally (the Green New Deal,) culturally (the #METOO and LGBTQIA movements) and economically (income inequality.)   And all of them see the Trump Presidency as an American disaster, one that has placed the fate and future of the nation at risk.

One potential candidate who has already withdrawn from consideration is Ohio’s Senator Sherrod Brown. In the crowded field, Brown could not find his path to the nomination, but his brief interest in the Presidency has already impacted the campaign.  From Amy Klobuchar to Beto O’Rourke to Elizabeth Warren, almost every candidate has adopted Brown’s message of the “dignity of work,” appealing to American laborers to vote their economic interests, instead of the “wedge” issues offered by Republicans (wall, abortion, “socialism,” kneeling during the National Anthem.)

For many Democrats, O’Rourke offers the uplifting candidacy reminiscent of 2008 Barack Obama (and for West Wing aficionados, he offers the joy of the Matt Santos campaign.)  He took on and almost defeated Ted Cruz in red/red Texas, maybe in a more purple nation he can thread the needle of a more moderate Democrat and still appeal to the “new” millennial vote.

Should Vice President Biden enter the race, he and O’Rourke will share an ideological lane.  Both are from the “moderate” wing of the Party, particularly when compared to Senators Warren and Sanders.  Current polling shows Biden as having the best chance of defeating Trump in 2020.  He is the “surest” candidate, and yet is some ways he is also the most vulnerable. Biden’s age is definitely a factor; at seventy-six years of age, if elected in 2020, he would be eighty-three at the end of his first term.  

As a career politician, Biden brings with him all of the experience, and all of the baggage, that stretches back to his first election in 1970.  He was elected to the Senate in 1972.  While that incredible depth of experience, including eight years as an extremely active Vice President in the Obama administration, obviously makes him the most qualified candidate in the race, it also brings with it the baggage of three failed Presidential bids, the Clarence Thomas hearings, the crime control act, and a plagiarism scandal.  

For the left wing of the Democratic Party, neither O’Rourke nor Biden offer the dramatic economic changes that Warren or Sanders suggest.  For the environmental wing, they don’t have the intense focus of Jay Inslee.  And for those looking for diversity, for the end of “white dudes” as candidates, they don’t offer the diversity that Castro, Harris, Booker, Gillibrand or Buttigieg  represent.

Beto O’Rourke is in. He’s gotten a ton of attention, and hours of time on MSNBC just this morning.  But the Democrats have a long way to go before they face the ultimate test: moving America away from the disaster that is the Trump Presidency.

ADDENDUM – The President (Trump) has decided that his derogatory nickname for Beto is “Robert Francis” – presumably after Bobby (Robert Francis) Kennedy. Kennedy was the candidate who was able to unite liberals and workers in the Democratic Party – hardly a derogatory thing!!! check out the Vanity Fair spread on Beto

Declared Candidate for the Democratic Nomination for President in 2020 (3/14/19)

• John Delaney – former Congressman from Maryland, Entrepreneur
• Andrew Yang – Tech Entrepreneur
• Julian Castro – former HUD Secretary, former Mayor of San Antonio
• Kamala Harris – US Senator from California, former California Attorney General
• Cory Booker – US Senator from New Jersey, former Mayor of Newark
• Tulsi Gabbard – Congresswoman from Hawaii, Hindu, Iraqi War Veteran
• Elizabeth Warren – Senator from Massachusetts, founded Consumer Protection Bureau
• Amy Klobuchar – Senator from Minnesota, former corporate lawyer
• Bernie Sanders – Senator from Vermont, career socialist/independent
• Jay Inslee – Governor of Washington, former US Congressman
• John Hickenlooper – Governor of Colorado, former Mayor of Denver, Entrepreneur
• Kirsten Gillibrand – Senator from New York, former Congressman, corporate lawyer
• Pete Buttigieg – Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, gay, Afghanistan War veteran
• Marianne Williamson – best selling author of 12 books on spirituality 
• Beto O’Rourke – former Congressman from Texas, former El Paso Councilman, Entrepreneur
• *Joe Biden – former Vice President, former Senator from Delaware
• *Stacey Abram – former Georgia State Rep, former Georgia Governor Candidate
• *Eric Swalwell – Congressman from California 
• * – not declared

If this be Socialism – Let’s Make the Most of It

1787 was the year the founding fathers met in Philadelphia to re-think the government of the United States.  The current establishment, the Articles of Confederation Congress, was unable to control thirteen states with disparate interests; too weak to govern, too poor to lead, too hamstrung by the “nine state majority rule.”   It was only a year later that the Constitution was ratified, and the nation was put on course towards firmer national unity.

But as flawed as the Articles of Confederation form of government was, it did manage to keep the colonies together through the Revolution, winning a war of attrition against England.  And it did develop the Northwest Ordinance.  This law set the precedent for what America would do with its greatest resource, the land stretching to the Mississippi (at that time) and later to the Pacific coast.

The Northwest Ordinance established how a territory could become a co-equal member state in the Union. The law called for three to five states to be created out of what is today Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin.  It established that those areas could become separate territories when their population reached 5,000, and could petition to become a “sovereign and co-equal” state once they reached 60,000.

One of the most significant aspects of the Northwest Ordinance was the emphasis it placed on the government’s role in education.  Portions of land in each township were set aside to support public education, and larger sections set aside for the development of state universities.  Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, was the first of these “land grant colleges,” enrolling its first students in 1809.

Government involvement in education was “baked-in” even before the writing of the Constitution.  Public education, even in 1787, was considered a legitimate role of government, along with protection from attack (military) maintaining of order (police) and development of infrastructure (roads, bridges, canals.)  

Today we hear a hue and cry over Democratic political views that public support for education needs to be expanded beyond the current K-12 public schools.  Critics deride as “socialism” the idea “the government” should pay for most or all of college education.

But it is a natural progression.  The United States has from it’s beginning realized that a democratic citizenry needed to be educated.  Public education, with all of its current flaws, has expanded from the one room schoolhouse to thirteen years.  We have made it a “right” for children in America.

We all now agree that the thirteen years are not enough to prepare them for life and work in our complex and changing world.  We recognize the need for education beyond high school, but we have decided that the demands of  “capitalism” means that we require steep payments to gain those additional, necessary years.  For thirteen years student costs are “covered” by the government, but the next four, even at the “land-grant schools” envisioned by Northwest Ordinance, could cost over $100,000.  

The United States has always paid homage to the concept of “meritocracy;” that we are a nation where a citizen, regardless of their parents’ economic condition, could “rise to the top.” But our public schools are already economically skewed, with the rich getting richer. Here in Ohio the state Supreme Court recognized that disparity in 1997 (DeRolph v State) but in the twenty-one years since, has done little to “even the playing field.” However, there is no greater disparity than what is now told to high school graduates:  your diploma is not enough, you need an even more advanced degree, and you must literally mortgage your or your parents’ future to get it.

It’s not “socialism” to say that we need to prepare our young citizens for their future.  It’s not “socialistic:” it is a responsibility that has been recognized for as long as we have had our nation.  It’s not a question of political “philosophy,” it’s a question of political will.

To provide the opportunity for two more years of public education to every student, might cost the United States $100 Billion a year.  That sounds like an enormous amount of money, but is it really?   The Federal government is already spending $91 Billion a year in grants and loans, so a large portion of the money is already there, and just needs to be reapportioned. In addition, there are fifty states; each would be required to pay a portion of their own costs, just as they pay for K-12 education today.  

So it’s easy for critics to deride Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren for “pie in the sky” “socialistic” dreams like free college education.  They are called “socialists,” and for most critics that epithet is enough to end the conversation.  But the reality is that America has a long tradition of educating its citizens, and we all need to recognize that more is needed.  It’s not socialism:   it’s American. 

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

Reality on the Border – The Briefing Book

Customs authorities at the Port of New York announced the seizure 3200 pounds of cocaine yesterday, the second largest bust of all time.  The Columbian cocaine was secreted in a shipping container of dried fruit.  Authorities became suspicious when the typical hardware used to secure the container was altered.

Like most illegal drugs entering the United States, this cocaine came in through a legal port. While most drugs enter through the Southern Border, they come through the legal points of entry, hidden in semi-trucks, or cars, or trucks.  The “romantic” view of drugs coming in backpacks through the desert, or catapulted over a fence, or through tunnels into suburban homes in San Diego, while true, aren’t the main means of entry.  

No wall will prevent these shipments.  

What is needed:  more detecting equipment, more personnel, more intelligence to interdict attempts to cross the border.  What is needed even more:  a nationwide effort to reduce the “demand” for drugs.  As long as the United States remains the “great marketplace” for drug use there will be a motivation for drug smugglers to find a way to get it here.  And with stronger and more dangerous drugs being imported, the consequences of drug overdose are deadly.  It is likely that had the New York cocaine gotten into the market, it would have been cut with Fentanyl to make it more potent (Fentanyl is cheap, making the 3200 pounds of cocaine go farther.)  This means that potential cocaine users wouldn’t know that they were inhaling Fentanyl as well.

Does this mean legalization and regulation of now “illegal” drugs is the answer, as some European nations have done (Portugal, Germany, Netherlands?)  That is one solution (not the only one) for removing the profit incentive for drug smuggling.  Getting rid of the profit is the only real solution to long-term drug control.  

President Trump has recently quoted the following Customs and Border Patrol figures:

In February, 66,450 people were apprehended between ports of entry on the Southwest Border, compared with 47,986 in the month of January and 50,749 in December. In FY18, a total of 396,579 individuals were apprehended between ports of entry on our Southwest Border. (Customs and Border Patrol Website)

He uses this increase as “validation” for his plan to build a wall on the Southern Border.  

What this statistic fails to mention, is that the Customs and Border Patrol have intentionally slowed the process of “legal” border crossing.  In the past, Presidents have met migration surges with increases in personnel at the border to process asylum seekers.  Lawyers, judges, and others needed to make asylum decisions were rushed to help move migrants through the system, either to gain asylum, or return back across the border.

With the current increase in migrants from Central America, the President has actually slowed the legal processes.  The lines forming at the border are extremely long, with only a few daily being allowed entry into the asylum process (this may well be a violation of treaty and international law.)  The inexorable pressure on all of those migrants stuck in the Mexican border towns, is making crossing the border illegally a more acceptable alternative. Surprise:  the number of illegal entries is going up, and the number of family groups trying to make the trek through the wilderness to the United States is increasing as well.  The President has established policies that are causing the problem.  He has gotten his self-fulfilling prophecy; and created a “crisis” he needed to back his emergency declaration.

The answer isn’t a wall. The long-term answer isn’t even more personnel to the border.  The response needs to be to the initial problem, the reason that all of these migrants have chosen to risk their families on the thousand-mile trek to the US border.  Addressing the problems in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras; poverty, crime, and political oppression; is the answer.  Until those problems are resolved, no amount of walls, or border personnel, will be able to prevent folks from trying to improve their lives, a very American thing to do.

And the final issue:  the President’s claim that undocumented migrants are responsible for increasing crime. The President has used “Angel families” to emphasize his claim, the surviving family members of individuals murdered by undocumented migrants.  And there is no question that those “Angels” have lost a loved one, and are incredibly sympathetic.

Here’s the fact:  100% of undocumented aliens have committed a crime – they are undocumented.  That doesn’t make them dangerous criminals, it makes them violators of US citizenship and immigration laws.  When that factor is accounted for, undocumented criminal rates are actually lower than the surrounding “legal” population.

With that in mind, the statistic about the percentage of undocumented persons in the Federal Prison system makes more sense.  It is estimated that undocumented aliens represents one in thirty in the US population, but the one in six in the Federal prison population.  That statistic has been used to trumpet the “dangers” that must be addressed by a wall at the border.  But again, as crossing the border is a Federal offense, many of those in the Federal prison population are being held for illegal crossing and related crimes. 

There is no such number as an “acceptable” number of violent crimes, and no one can deny the pain of the “Angel families.”  But, when comparisons are made between “apples and apples,” crime rates minus the “crime” of being undocumented, there is no greater criminality of the undocumented over “regular” citizens, and in fact, they commit fewer violent crimes.   

A Wall is expensive, estimated at over $30 billion.  A wall is disruptive, to the private property owners on the border and to the sensitive environment along many parts of the border (Big Bend National Park area being only one.)  If the United States is going to spend that kind of money, and disrupt so much of the border life, it better be for a real reason, one that would make a difference. 

“Build the Wall” is a great campaign slogan, and makes for loud cheers and chants in political pep rallies.  But it is a simple answer, and like most oversimplifications, won’t solve the complex of problems at the border. 

Old White Dude Rules

Federal Judge of the Eastern District of Virginia TS Ellis has been on the bench since his appointment in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan.  He is seventy-nine years old, a “senior Judge” in the Federal Court system.  When he was appointed to the Bench, the number one song was “Walk Like an Egyptian,” the top movie “3 Men and a Baby” and the top TV show, “The Cosby Show.”  Less than 20% of homes in the US had personal computers, with most of those computers built by IBM.

It’s called the “Rule of Eighty.”  After a judge has reached the age of sixty-five, if they can add their age and their years of service on the Federal Bench together and reach eighty, they can take “Senior Judge” status.  This allows them to continue on the Bench, working part-time, and still draw their judicial salary.  Prior to “Senior” standing being established in 1919, judges either had to serve full-time or resign.  Today judges do have the option of full retirement as well.

According to the “Rule of Eighty,” Judge Ellis is at one hundred and eleven.   He has been on “Senior Status” since 2007.

Judge Ellis has tremendous academic credentials; Bachelors in Engineering from Princeton, Magna-cum-Laude from Harvard Law, and an additional Law Degree from Oxford University. He presided over high profile cases in his career, including John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban (sentenced to twenty years); and Khalid El-Masri, who sued the CIA for rendition and torture (case dismissed.)

Judge Ellis also presided over the corruption trial of former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson, where $90,000 was found in a freezer in the Congressman’s Virginia home. The money was part of a bribe paid by an FBI informant. Jefferson claims that he was cooperating with an FBI sting of foreign officials, but a jury found the Congressman guilty on eleven of sixteen counts of bribery and corruption, and Ellis sentenced him to thirteen years in Federal prison (subsequent to the Supreme Court ruling in McDonnell v United States, Jefferson appealed, and was ultimately released after five and a half years.)

Most recently, Judge Ellis presided over the Eastern District trial of Paul Manafort, brought by the Special Counsel’s office of Robert Mueller.  From the pre-trial hearings, Ellis expressed his skepticism towards the Special Counsel; commenting that the eighteen charges against Manafort, from tax evasion (over $6 million owed) to defrauding the United States, did not include any conspiracy charges with Russia.  Ellis, in open Court, decried that if Manafort hadn’t had a role in the Trump campaign, the other charges wouldn’t have been brought.

Ellis seriously entertained a defense motion to reject the charges, based on the limited authority of the Special Counsel to investigate the Russia matter.  However, after deliberating for several days, he found that Mr. Mueller was acting within his scope of authority.  That ruling didn’t seem to alter Ellis’s antipathy towards the Special Counsel’s office though, and prosecution lawyers faced continuing interruptions and restrictions from the judge throughout the proceedings.

Manafort was a long-time Republican operative from his beginnings in the Nixon campaign (along with his friend and business associate, Roger Stone.)  Manafort worked for Ford, Reagan, George HW Bush and Dole, as well as taking his “talents” overseas.  The firm of Black, Manafort and Stone served as political consultants to dictators and despots in Africa, and later in the former Soviet Union.   It had been since the Dole campaign that Manafort was involved in US politics, but he volunteered himself to the Trump Campaign, and quickly was appointed Chairman.

The jury found Manafort guilty of eight of the eighteen counts, the other ten counts were declared a mistrial – a single juror voting against conviction (That juror later admitted that she was influenced by the President’s tweets about the trial being a “witch hunt.”)  According to Federal sentencing guidelines, Manafort could have been sentenced to up to twenty-four years in prison.

Judge Ellis sentenced him to four years, with nine months already served.  When questioned about his departure from the guidelines, Ellis stated: 

“The Court also has to take account of the guidelines. They’re not mandatory, but they’re advisory. These guidelines are quite high. They provide for a sentence that is from 19 to 24 years, roughly. I think that sentencing range is excessive. I don’t think that’s warranted in this case.”

And in determining the sentence of Manafort, convicted of a pattern of criminal activity going back over a decade:

“The defendant is a Category I in criminal history; that is, he has no criminal history. He is a graduate of a university and law school here, Georgetown for both, and he’s lived an otherwise blameless life. And he’s also earned the admiration of a number of people, all of whom have written the Court about him.”

Congressman Jefferson must have been ineligible for the “blameless life” status, nor was his Bachelors from Southern, Law Degree from Harvard, and Masters in Law from Georgetown good enough to qualify for the Ellis “discount.” Of course, the disgraced Member already had two strikes against him:  he was a Democrat, and he was black.

It is certain that Judge Ellis was doing what he thought was just towards Jefferson and Manafort.  The Judge did not take a bribe, or is some other way violate the law.  He seemed to operate on two principles in his sentencing: his open disagreement with the authority of the Special Counsel, despite his ruling to the contrary, and his empathy for the wheelchair bound Manafort, struck from the highest levels of American political life.  That would be the “old white dude” rule; the obvious standard of judgment throughout the American judicial system. Ask the former Congressman.

The Holy Alliance

Fox News, the alt-Right, Trump, American Zionists, and the Christian Right:  which of these is not like the others?  

It’s not too difficult to draw a political line from Trump to Fox News (if you need reinforcement, read Jane Mayer’s treatise in The New Yorker).  And, despite the contradictions of a moral group supporting a demonstrably immoral man, the Christian Right has “sold-out” for Mr. Trump. They are willing to accept his personal immorality in return for his dedication to their causes:  an end to legal abortion, privatization of schooling (and the use of public money to fund private schools,) and rolling back LGBTQIA rights (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Asexual or Allied – the IA were new to me, and I want to be thorough).  

And while others in the Trump Administration would deny it, the President has made it clear that he sees “…fine people on both sides.”  Trump owes the ideology of his rise to political power to the “alt-right,” from the members of his staff like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, to the more established hate groups (“…I don’t even know who David Duke is…”) to the absolute crazy conspiracy theorists of Q-Anon, a group that Trump quietly and consistently signals his approval.  

So how do American Zionists, mostly Jewish, end up in such a mix?  Traditionally American Jews have supported the Democratic Party platform, are moderate to liberal on social issues, and have been the target for right-wing attacks.  Anti-Semitism was a foundation of the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis; of the three civil rights workers killed during the Mississippi “Freedom Summer,” two were Jewish. 

The President has placed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner in charge of Middle East Policy. Kushner, a Modern Orthodox Jew, has close links to Israel.  And it’s more than just his connection to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Kushner’s father was a close friend of Netanyahu, and Kushner was educated from a young age in Zionism (New York Times.)  Trump himself has connections to the Jewish community, with one of his earliest mentors being attorney Roy Cohn.  And Trump has  more recent found political backing from billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson, whose pro-Zionist views are well known.  When Trump moved the US Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Adelson was given a seat on the podium, and when Adelson wanted to build a casino in Japan, Trump brought the subject up to Prime Minister Abe.

But President Trump isn’t the only nexus between pro-Israeli forces and the conservative right.  Since the late 1960’s, Christian evangelists, starting with Billy Graham himself, have supported the Jewish state in the Middle East.  Christian Zionists see modern day Israel as a sign of Biblical prophecy come true; foretelling the coming of the “end of days” as written in Revelations. 

Both Christians and Jews are encouraged to “own a piece” of the Holy Land. To Christians, Israel is the land of the Second Coming, to have a piece of that land gives a “foothold” for the End (check this Youtube offer to buy 1 square inch for only $49.99!!!) And Jews too can a piece of the Jewish Homeland – $36 for one square cubit near Mt. Carmel, a great Bar Mitzvah present on E-Bay! They even send you a “Deed” with the Star of David (and written in English.)

Sure, someone is making money off of these “land” deals, but it also gives thousands of American Christians and Jews another reason to support Israel; defending their own land!

Democrats have been put into a difficult position.  They used to have the monopoly on Zionism, but the Trump coalition has cracked that wide open.  Democrats are more politically aligned with the Labor Party in Israel, the dominant political force through the late 1990s.   More recently, the Labor Party has been eclipsed by the right-wing Likud Party, led by Netanyahu.  As Democrats try to represent other legitimate interests, including the fate of Palestinians and the concept of the two-state solution to Middle East peace, they are treading a thin line:  it has become difficult to criticize Netanyahu’s policies, without being attacked as Anti-Semitic.  It doesn’t help Democrats that the most recent face of criticism has been a Muslim Congresswoman from Minnesota, playing into the right-wing “trope” for Muslim hatred.

In current Israeli politics, Likud is polling at 30% and Labor at 18%.  Israel has fourteen political Parties, it takes an alliance of multiple parties to gain the majority.  The coalition around Likud is polling at 61%.   Israel is itself divided, so it’s should be no surprise that support for Israel in the United States is divided as well.

It is possible to be pro-Israel and not accept some of the actions of the Netanyahu administration. It is possible to be in favor of a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine, and still be supportive of a Jewish state.  It is possible to be concerned about the fate of the Palestinian people, trapped on the West Bank and in Gaza, without being anti-Semitic.  But in our current political climate it is difficult to be nuanced; every action is exaggerated to its extreme, broadcast from the mountaintop by Trump and Fox News.  

And somehow, they have laid claim to the power of declaring who is Anti-Semitic.

While We Wait

We are waiting: waiting for the next move by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.  Waiting for more indictments, for a final report, for something!!!!  Waiting, waiting; for the other shoe to drop, twiddling our thumbs, spinning in circles:  on hold until the next step in our history is revealed by the Special Counsel’s office.

And meanwhile we watch the Democrats in the House get twisted around a freshman member from Minnesota, trying to balance anti-Semitism against anti-Muslim words and “tropes.”  We listen to Republican moderators demand that Democrats renounce “SOCIALISM,” while still supporting programs that are by definition socialistic.  But those programs are exactly what Democrats should be standing for; if socialism means caring for the poor and the “least” among us, we ought to be doing it.

To quote a line from Hamilton (as always); can we get back to politics?

The Presidential election of 2020 is tough to sort out.  The first assumption, that Donald Trump will be running for reelection, is so dependent on the waiting game we are playing, that it’s tough to go to the next step.  And Democrats have a lot of sorting out to do, with some of the major players, Biden for instance, still sitting on the sidelines, waiting for – well – I’m not sure what Biden’s waiting for.

But there are other elections in 2020, elections that may have just as dramatic an impact on the nation as the Presidential one.  In 2018, Democrats made a lot of noise about trying to gain a majority in the United States Senate.  It was a bridge way too far for the Party, the electoral map depending on not only winning a tough race in evenly split Florida and an upset in Texas, but also by holding Senate seats in Republican Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana and West Virginia.  Only Joe Manchin in West Virginia was able to hold on, by acting as more of a voting Republican than some actual Republicans.

2020 is a far different story.  Republicans today have fifty-three Senate seats, a three vote majority plus the tie-breaking Vice Presidential seat.  Democrats have forty-five actual seats, but the two Independents (Bernie Sanders and Angus King) both caucus with the Democrats, giving them a working forty-seven seat minority.  Thirty-three Senate seats are up for re-election, twenty-two now held by Republicans, and twelve by Democrats.

So Democrats are already at an advantage, defending significantly fewer seats.  That’s important when it comes to apportioning money into the electoral process, particularly in a Presidential election year when finances get sucked into the national process.

But even more importantly, eleven Democrats running are in a “safe” position, running in states that traditionally elect Democrats anyway:  New Jersey (Booker), Massachusetts (Markey), Oregon (Merkley), Peters (Michigan), Rhode Island (Reed), New Hampshire (Shaheen), New Mexico (Udall), Delaware (Coons), Minnesota (Smith), Illinois (Durbin) and Virginia (Warner). Even with Booker running for President, his replacement, if needed, would likely still be a Democrat.

Thirteen Republicans are running “safe” in many states as well:  Tennessee (Alexander), West Virginia (Caputo), Louisiana (Cassidy), Arkansas (Cotton), Wyoming (Enzi), South Carolina (Graham), Mississippi (Hyde-Smith), Oklahoma (Imhofe), Kentucky (McConnell), Idaho (Risch), South Dakota (Rounds), Nebraska (Sasse) and Alaska (Sullivan). 

So here’s the math: Republicans are defending twenty-two seats, and thirteen are “safe”, leaving eleven seats in some jeopardy.   Democrats are defending twelve seats and eleven are “safe”, leaving one at risk.  

So here are the “high risk” Senate races, two Republican and one Democrat.  Susan Collins (R-Maine) is in for the fight of her life.  Her flip-flops and final vote on the Kavanaugh nomination have made her a target of pro-choice and pro-women groups, and at the same time her vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act didn’t improve her Republican standing.  Maine does not easily fall into a political category, but Collins definitely looks to be a likely Democratic (or Independent) pick-up.

The second Republican “high risk” seat is the one Martha McSally was appointed to (the John McCain seat).  McSally ran and lost in the other Arizona Senate election (to Democrat Krysten Sinema) and is likely to face an even tougher Democrat, former astronaut and Gabby Gifford’s husband Mark Kelly, in 2020.

The Democratic “high risk” seat is from Alabama, the election won by Doug Jones in 2017. Jones ran against Roy Moore who was saddled with accusations of being a pedophile, and Jones is likely to face a more normal opponent in 2020.  While the South is changing from it’s solid Republican tradition, it’s unlikely that Jones will survive a “normal” election.

The “high risk” seats won’t change the majority in the Senate.  However, Republicans are faced with four more “risk” seats and the Democrats have none;  Texas (Cornyn), Colorado (Gardner), Perdue (Georgia) and Tillis (North Carolina). Texas and Georgia would be particularly vulnerable if the two stellar candidates from 2018, O’Rourke in Texas and Abrams in Georgia, chose to run.  This would require Beto to ignore the lure of the Presidential race, and Stacy to chose to not wait for a re-match with Kemp for Governor.  

So with the “high risk” and “risk” seats going to the other parties, the Senate would flip: Democrats 52, and Republicans 48. This would not even require a Democrat winning the Presidency (and Vice Presidency) to control the tie-breaker.

Flipping the Senate (and holding onto the House) will not be an easy task for Democrats.  The Presidential election will absorb much of the electoral energy; Democrats will need to have an “eye on the prize” for both the White House and the Capitol.  

Who Counts?

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.²  The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.  US Constitution Art 1, §2, Clause 3

Could there be anything less controversial in the Constitution then the Census?  It is the basis for our representative democracy, but it’s the simple counting of heads to determine the apportionment of representatives and taxes. No complications, just count everyone.

From the very writing of the Constitution, the Census was counting more than just “citizens.” As written, free persons, including indentured servants, were counted at one each.  Indians were excluded, and all other persons, namely slaves, were counted as three fifths of a person.  With the 14^thAmendment to the Constitution, the “three-fifths” compromise was deleted, and after 1900, Indians both on and off of reservations were beginning to be counted.  By 1930, Indians were fully included.

It is supposed to be a head count of every person in the country.  Recently there have been concerns about “under-counting” of homeless folks and those who are in the country without documentation.  The current census is done by “household,” with the “head of household” filling out information for everyone who resides under their roof.  But for those who don’t have literal “roofs” it is more difficult to gather the information. However, the census takers try, physically going to find those folks.  That’s how serious the Census is about counting – everyone.

To many Americans, it seems innocuous that the Census Bureau was asked to include this simple question on the 2020 survey:

•  Is this person a citizen of the United States?
•          ____ Yes, born in the United States
•          ____ Yes, born in Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, or
• Northern Marianas
•          ____ Yes, born abroad of U.S. citizen parent or parents
•          ____ Yes, U.S. citizen by naturalization – Print year of
• naturalization ________
•          ____ No, not a U.S. Citizen

There have been several censuses where they asked about the number of toilets in the house, the access to internet, and the income of the household.  Up until 1950, the census always included a question about citizenship, so why shouldn’t the Census gather this information?

It is both a question of intent, and of consequences.  If it is the intent of the Census (and it is) to count everyone in the United States, then this question that will without question create an “undercount” of persons,  and should not be on the census.  In our current climate regarding illegal immigration, with seemingly random and capricious ICE raids, dragging people from their long established homes for deportation, how likely are the “heads of households” where undocumented immigrants live to answer the citizenship question?  And since not answering the question could serve as a “trigger” for further investigation, it is so much more likely that the head of household will simply fail to fill out the census document itself.

That’s illegal, by the way. Failing to fill out a Census form or falsifying the information can result in a $5000 fine and up to sixty days in jail.  And while the Census Bureau is not an enforcement agency and rarely prosecutes folks who fail to file, they will actually send workers to a household that fails to fill out the form. Despite this, placing the citizenship question on the form is likely to result in non-compliance and will result in fewer forms being returned.

The Census Bureau promises that all information provided is confidential, and will not be personally identified to anyone, including other government agencies like ICE.  But “trust” in government among minorities and the undocumented is pretty low.   It doesn’t help that today it was revealed that the Census Bureau is proposing to get data from the Department of Homeland Security about individual citizenship status, including full identifying information; name, address, and even the alien registration number of those who aren’t US citizens.

The professional staff at the Census Bureau were well aware of the consequences of asking the citizenship question, and advised the political leadership against it.  Yet the orders to include it literally came from the top, from Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.  The Secretary went to some lengths to obscure it as his request, asking the Justice Department to “ask him” to include the question, but the origin clearly came from Ross and the White House political staff.  This raises the question – what was their intent in wanting this controversial question added to the 2020 census?

The Republican Party has for a decade waged a legal campaign to restrict the impact of the changing demographics of America.  From the “Redmap” gerrymandering plan that has successfully maintained Republican majorities in many state legislatures and Congressional districts despite changing voting patterns, to legislation that served to restrict voting such as Voter ID laws; Republicans have searched for legal ways to maintain political power regardless of shrinking party membership and votes.

What happens if the 2020 Census undercounts undocumented migrants?  It isn’t like they are voting, despite the alt-right cries, the worst recent voter fraud seems to have been committed by Republicans in North Carolina. So what’s the difference if they aren’t counted?

The Census population is used to determine the “apportionment of representation.” Members of the House of Representatives are divided by ALL of the population, so if areas are undercounted, they will get fewer Representatives, and other areas will get more. Since the areas with greater numbers of undocumented also tend to be Democratic, that means fewer Democrats in Congress.  In addition, votes in the Electoral College, the body that actually chooses the President and Vice President of the United States, are determined by the number of Members of the House (plus the number of Senators plus three.)   If the population is undercounted, then those representatives and electoral votes will go to more Republican areas.

Ultimately this is a partisan question with partisan outcomes.  This has been confirmed by two US District Court Judges, one of whom said that;

“… Secretary Wilbur Ross acted in bad faith, broke several laws, and violated the constitutional underpinning of representative democracy when he added a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.” – US District Judge Richard Seeborg.

The case has been “fast tracked” to the US Supreme Court, where the Federalist Society majority will be forced into a difficult choice.  Their philosophical foundation is to follow the “original intent” of the founding fathers, who in clear language wanted everyone counted (other than Indians and two-fifths of slaves.)  But their political desire is to help and maintain the Republican Party, and particularly the current President.  It will be interesting how they reach a conclusion, because in the end there is only a basic choice:  the question is on, or it is off.

Briefing Book – Capital Punishment

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

It was the Presidential election of 1988.  George HW Bush, the Vice President for the past eight years under Reagan, was behind in the polls.  His opponent, Democratic Governor Michael Dukakis, was smoothly moving to win the Presidency.  On October 14^ththey held their last Presidential debate at UCLA.  

CNN’s Bernard Shaw led off with the first question, asking Dukakis if his wife, Kitty, was raped and murdered, would the Governor then be in favor of an “irrevocable” death penalty.  It was a shocking question.

Dukakis answered calmly, citing statistical studies of the ineffectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent, and stating his continuing opposition to it.  It was the beginning of the end of the Dukakis campaign; the American people saw a cold and calculating politician who showed no emotion at the vision of his own wife raped and murdered.   Bush then followed up with the racially charged “Willie Horton” television commercial, and ultimately won the Presidency.

It was over thirty years ago, but the issue still continues today.   And, just as Governor Dukakis found in the debate, there are two levels to the question of the death penalty.

The first level is evidentiary – does the death penalty work in deterring criminals from committing certain crimes?  There are different studies examining states that have removed or reinstated the death penalty to see if there is some impact on crime rates, but none have shown a change.  In fact, there is almost no scientific evidence that shows the death penalty deters crime (other than crime committed by the person put to death) and volumes that shows that capital punishment has no impact.

This is difficult for many people to accept.  They think in terms of:  if I knew I was going to be killed for doing something, I probably wouldn’t do it. That makes common sense, but it is the thought process of someone who is highly unlikely to commit the kind of crime that would result in a death penalty.  However, were those folks to be “out of control” angry, would they still have the same thought process?  Or would they act, and then regret it later on?

For a drug dealer on the street, carrying loads of drugs or cash, having no protection other than what they can carry, the threat of the death penalty is abstract and far away. The more imminent worry is that some other criminal will kill them for their money or drugs; their risk is right now, not in some court.  So legal penalties have little determinative value to them, their own survival is paramount and immediate. 

So we know the death penalty doesn’t work as a crime deterrent.  We know that the thought process of those willing to commit capital offenses does not include the calculation of legal punishment.  And we know that the use of the death penalty is biased, economically and racially.

50% of prisoners now on death row are black, in a nation where blacks represent 12% of the overall population.  The most likely death sentence recipient:  a black man who killed a white person.  And overwhelmingly, poor people get the death penalty, people with means, who can afford effective legal representation, do not.  

In recent years we have developed evidence, including DNA, that has exonerated 164 men and women who were facing the death penalty.  164 people who were facing death, and ultimately found to not have committed the crime they were sentenced for. 164 who would have been killed by mistake.

And of course, the actual process of execution is difficult.  We try to kill “mercifully,” but our current methods are only merciful to those who must watch, not those who are killed.  Killing is ugly whether it’s hanging, or electrocution, shooting, or lethal injection.  We place some civil servants, including medical personnel, in the position of taking life rather than saving it.  They bear that burden, for all of us.

So from an evidentiary standpoint, the death penalty does not deter crime, if is racially and economically biased, it is irrevocable if a mistake is made, and it forces some of our society to become our “killers.”  So why is it still in use, and why is it still politically popular, with 56% of Americans in favor?  (October, 2018, Gallup Poll)

The death penalty satisfies an “Old Testament” sense of justice, or revenge:  “an eye for an eye.”  As stated earlier, it makes “common sense” to those who are the most unlikely to commit a capital crime.  To average Americans, it “feels” like the right thing to do, especially with particularly abhorrent forms of murder; the “do unto him what he did unto someone else” view.

But revenge is a poor motive for a society to kill someone.  A “New Testament” view, forgiveness of sin, turning the other cheek, or judge not lest you should be judged; all counter the Old Testament Biblical argument.  In fact, revenge is one of the actions we hope to make unacceptable in our society; we want to be “better” than that.  We want to act from reason, not passion or anger.  

And in the same way, our “civilized” society should move away from Government sanctioned murder. In the world today, 104 nations have abolished capital punishment.  Another 36 nations have not carried out an execution in the past ten years.  That leaves 53 countries that still have and use the death penalty.  China with 1000+ executions leads the world, followed by Iran 567+, Saudi Arabia 154+, Iraq 88+, Pakistan 87, and Egypt 44+. The United States with 20 is next in line, putting us in dubious company. (2016, Amnesty International)

Mike Dukakis wasn’t wrong in 1988.  Where he made his mistake was in failing to acknowledge the instinctive horror of capital crimes, and the emotional desire for revenge.  Abolishing capital punishment won’t happen by ignoring those emotions; they must be acknowledged, and discussed before the “factual” conclusions are drawn.  Only then can the United States stop being a  “top ten” executor, and join the more civilized world.

Bill Clinton should have resigned

It was the first big government shutdown.  House Speaker Newt Gingrich, freshly empowered by the Republican House victory in the “Revolution of ‘94” with their “Contract with America,” led a confrontation with the Democratic President, Bill Clinton.  The first shutdown was over Medicare premium increases (Gingrich wanted the increases, Clinton did not) and lasted for five days.  It ended with a temporary resolution, but within the month the government shut down again.  

The second shutdown lasted twenty-one days.   The issue now was a balanced budget agreement, but public perception was altered when the Speaker complained about an apparent snub on Air Force One from the President.   The public began to see the shutdown as a personal temper tantrum by Gingrich against Clinton, rather than about principle.  

It was during these shutdowns, that Bill Clinton began an affair with a twenty-one year old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.  As many of the White House staff were laid off by the shutdown, unpaid interns were used to run errands, including getting food.  It was during one of these “pizza runs” that Clinton began their affair, which ultimately included nine sexual encounters.  Clinton and Lewinsky never had intercourse, but had oral sex during these trysts in the Oval Office.  

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton were under investigation by a Special Prosecutor, Ken Starr, originally for illegal land deals in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was Governor, called the Whitewater Investigation.  The investigation expanded into the series of sexual relationships Bill Clinton had during that time, with potential charges of sexual imposition and even rape.  The Starr investigation found out about the Lewinsky affair in early 1998, and Clinton answered questions about it before a Grand Jury (via closed circuit TV.)

In his testimony, Clinton denied having “sexual relations” with Lewinsky.  He later tried to parse the difference, stating that oral sex wasn’t intercourse, and therefore not sex.  He also claimed that sex required action by both participants, and that since he had “received” oral sex, he wasn’t “participating.”  These arguments led to a reasonable conclusion that the President had perjured himself in his testimony to the Grand Jury.

As a high school government teacher at the time, my curriculum changed from political science to sex education.  The United States, and most certainly the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year olds; were engrossed (and grossed out) with the definition of sex, what one could do with cigars in sex, and Clinton’s famous line; “…it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’, is,” describing whether he “is having an affair,” or “was having an affair.” 

The President of the United States, then fifty years old, had an affair with a twenty-one year old intern, and did it in the Oval Office.  He then lied about it to a Federal Grand Jury.

The Republicans in the House of Representatives determined that Clinton’s actions met their definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors;” the phrase describing grounds for impeachment in the Constitution.  After a series of leadership resignations, including Gingrich (affair with secretary) and his apparent successor as Speaker, Bob Livingston (four affairs;) the Republicans finally settling on Dennis Hastert as their leader (who eventually served time in prison for molesting high school wrestlers when he was the coach)  and voted on impeachment.

The President was impeached by the House in a close to party-line vote, and a trial was held in the Senate.  There were eleven counts divided into two Articles against Clinton, including perjury, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.  The Senate is required to reach a two-thirds majority to convict (and remove) the President, but in the final vote, neither Article gained a simple majority vote (45-55 on the first, and 50-50 on the second) and Clinton remained in office.

There have been three Presidents in American history who have faced removal from office.  The first, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (1865-1869) was Lincoln’s Vice President, who became President after the assassination. Johnson was chosen Vice President as a “Union candidate” to balance Lincoln’s “Republicanism,” and when he became President he faced a hostile Republican Congress.  Their political fights over the shape of the post-Civil War nation, led the Congress to exercise the impeachment clause for the first time.  

The Johnson impeachment was purely political, and Johnson remained in office by just one vote (Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas.)  

The second President to face impeachment was Richard Nixon.  After two years of denying criminal involvement in the Watergate break-in, the release of the White House tapes clearly showed that Nixon was involved from the very beginning in covering up the crime.  Republicans in the Congress went to Nixon and told him he was going to be removed, and Nixon chose to resign rather than face the humiliation of impeachment.

Which brings us back to Clinton.  He disgraced himself by having an affair with a twenty-one year old, in the Oval Office of the White House.  He then perjured himself to a Federal Grand Jury.  With the standards of today’s #METOO era, his behavior is completely unacceptable.  Even in the 1990’s, his actions evoked cries for his resignation.  Instead, in what became a partisan vote, Republicans tried to remove him.

This leaves us with the legacy of impeachment as a political action, one used for partisan rather than Constitutional reasons.  When questions arise about the actions and behaviors of President Trump, his allies claim that it is a “partisan witch hunt,” along the lines of the Clinton impeachment.  

What if Bill Clinton, rather than “toughing” it out, had resigned.  Even Democrats acknowledged (at the time) that Clinton had disgraced himself in the Presidency, and while the economy was good, Clinton was hamstrung in other actions by the crisis.

If Clinton had resigned, Al Gore would have become President of the United States.  Gore would not have had to carry the burden of the Clinton legacy in the 2000 election, and would undoubtedly been elected to office on his own (he won the popular vote as it was.)  The “alternative history” that would have created, likely no war in Iraq, early intervention in environmental issues, and a different handling of 9-11; is interesting to contemplate.

But what would be more impactful in today’s crisis, is that impeachment would not be seen as a wholly political/partisan move.  Because Clinton set the example of “toughing out” an impeachment, even though his actions were disgraceful and illegal, he established the path for Trump to do the same. Clinton should have followed the example of Nixon rather than Andrew Johnson, and because he didn’t, Trump will try to follow Clinton, forcing the nation through an even more excruciating period.  

So whether Trump is impeached, or the final decision is turned over to the people in the election of 2020, it is the actions of Bill Clinton that is determining our course today. By “saving” his Presidency, he has left us with his legacy – a disgraced Presidency, then and now.

Dear Hillary

This weekend Hillary Clinton attended the annual commemoration of the Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery.  This was the famous march that ended on the Edmund Pettus Bridge with the marchers being attacked and beaten by police.  Current Congressman John L. Lewis was one of the young leaders of that march, and suffered a skull fracture in the melee.  

Clinton was only one of the dignitaries honoring the memory of the marchers.  Civil Rights icon Jessie Jackson was present, despite suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.  Announced Presidential candidates Senators Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders were there as well, though Sanders had to leave before the memorial march itself along with unannounced candidate  Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.

As Lincoln said, “…it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”  The marchers on “Bloody Sunday” altered the course of the Civil Rights movement.  The media coverage, particularly television, brought the reality of Southern discrimination into every American living room, and forced the nation to confront its brutality.

Secretary Clinton was one of the speakers at the Brown Chapel, the historic starting place of the march.  In her speech, she spoke of the continuing fight for voting rights in the United States. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, the basis for applying racial equality to voting, was passed as a direct consequence of the March.  Part of the Act required that nine southern states demonstrate that any changes in their voting laws would not be racially discriminatory.  That remained the law from 1965 until 2013, when the Supreme Court struck down that portion of the regulation.

Since 2010, the Republican Party has made it their policy to try to gain power by redistricting (gerrymandering) to advantage their candidates, called the “Redmap” plan. They have also engaged in a nationwide campaign to enact laws that make voting more difficult, reducing lower income and minority voting.  Voter ID legislation, restricted polling times and locations, and voter roll purges are all part of a clear strategy to keep groups seen as “Democrats” from being able to vote.

The impact of the Republican policies has been seen in several close elections, including the 2018 Georgia Governor campaign, where Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp used multiple forms of voter suppression to defeat Democrat Stacy Abrams.  Secretary Clinton also mentioned the closeness of her own electoral defeat in 2016, with states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania all enacting laws suppressing minority votes.  

She isn’t wrong.  But the problem is that when Mrs. Clinton talks about losing the 2016 election, the narrowness of the loss means EVERY factor cost her the race.  Absolutely, voter suppression in those three critical electoral states made a difference. And so did FBI Director James Comey’s announcement October 26^thstatement saying he was re-opening the e-mail investigation, the social media attacks by Russian Intelligence, and their still unexplored attacks on the actual voting systems.

No, she isn’t wrong. But somehow every time Mrs. Clinton talks about the election, it seems she never states what most Democrats would now acknowledge:  that despite all of these factors, her campaign should have won.  They lost because of a failed campaign strategy, probably based on flawed polling data.  And they lost because she was unable to overcome an undeserved image as a cold candidate, unable to relate to regular voters.

She now comes across as a sore loser.  Even though it’s hard to deny she has that right, it indicates that she is unable to move on.  You can’t blame her, or Al Gore; they both had the Presidency and the fate of the nation in their grasp, only to have it ripped away.  But that attitude won’t work with the American voter of 2020; and if Hillary Clinton isn’t running for President, she needs to step back and let the new candidates take charge.  

America is in an existential struggle.  If you didn’t think so before, just spend a couple of hours listening to our current President’s speech at CPAC this weekend.  Defeating voter suppression is a major part of that struggle, the courage shown by the marchers on Bloody Sunday may well be needed again to change the Republican plans already in the works for 2020.  But unless Hillary Clinton is going to run for President (and I hope she is not) she needs to take a role familiar to her husband; one where she encourages specific voting groups to take action.  She needs to get off of the main stage, and allow the Democratic Party the room to sort out the list, and determine who should lead us in this next battle.

Winning the Big Ten

Congressman Jim Jordan on Meet the Press 3/3/19

I listened to Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio today, fresh off his interrogation of Michael Cohen in front of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.  Jordan is adept at sticking to his talking points, nimbly pivoting from questions about why the President would have allowed a man like Cohen at his side for ten years, to “the good” Mr. Trump has done in his two years in the Presidency.  

Jordan praised the “successes” he sees in the Trump Presidency:  the tax cuts, lower unemployment rates, cutting regulations, appointed “Federalist” judges.  “Why doesn’t the media talk about these,” he decries, “instead of Russia and scandals.” He talked about the “corruption” in the FBI, and the removal of the top leadership there, from Director Comey to agent Storzk.  And he threw in his favorite “pivot,” the assertion that the only Russian “collusion” was Hillary Clinton, followed by his litany:  from lawyers, to Fusion GPS, to Michael Steele to the Russians.

And in listening to all of this, I realized that Jordan wasn’t a fool, or stupid.  He was a man on a mission; to get his “good” out of the Trump Administration, and ignore all of the bad.  It’s something that Jordan has been doing for most of his life.

I was a successful high school track coach for forty years.  We won league and district championships, lots of invitational meets, and hundreds of duals.  In the second to last year of my career, I clearly had the best team I’d ever coached. We had returning all-state runners, including one of the top distance runners in the nation.  We had potentially state placing athletes in many events, enough so that we could begin to dream of taking home the ultimate prize, a state championship.

Like any athletic endeavour, there is always a risk of injury.  Going into May, we lost a key pole vaulter, but otherwise we remained strong.  We won the league meet on by a huge margin, and were ready to make our run at the state.

Two days later I got a call, saying that a team member, a key athlete in four events, had been caught stealing a bottle of booze from a local store.  While I could have waited to be notified “officially” by someone; could have stalled to keep him in play for as long as possible, I didn’t.  I can’t say I didn’t consider the stalling option for a few minutes, but it was only a few.  I was a high school coach, and while winning was important, doing things right, as an example to my athletes and to the rest of our community, was the standard we set for our program.  

I called the athlete in question, and he confessed the entire incident.  I suspended him from the team, and notified my administrators.  They agreed, but expressed surprise at my decision; we all knew that this was the beginning of the end of state championship dreams.  I said it was obvious, that the decision was the right thing to do.  

From Monday through that Friday, we lost that athlete, then a high jumper (quit), and one all-state sprinter in four events (hamstring.)   It was a dramatic disaster.  By the state meet we had three runners left, including a state champion in the 3200, and a third in the 400 (so damn proud of those guys) and we placed 13^thin Ohio.  Looking back, I wouldn’t do a thing different; I recognized my responsibility as greater than my own individual goals.  That might make me righteous, or stupid, or just obstinate.  

Jim Jordan was an all-star wrestler, and became an assistant coach at Ohio State from 1987 to 1995. Unlike most coaching, the job of an assistant wrestling coach is to teach wrestling by wrestling.  Bringing in the “best” (Jordan was a two time NCAA champion) meant that Ohio State wrestlers would compete against the “best” in “the room” (the practice facility) every day.

What makes that kind of individual a champion?  Jordan wrestled 151 times in high school, and lost only once (to a wrestler I helped coach!) His intensity of focus, a complete ability to ignore distractions; allowed for that kind of career.  He brought that into “the room” at Ohio State.

So while the athletes he was coaching were being molested by the team doctor and ogled by perverts in the shower room; Jordan focused on wrestling.  That might have been the right thing for an athlete to do, but not for a coach responsible for the athlete’s welfare.  But Jordan, and his head coach, Russ Hellickson, were focused on winning the Big Ten, and molestation became a distraction to be overcome, not a crisis.  

Jordan made a choice, one that he now pretends didn’t happen.  He chose to let his athletes face sexual abuse rather than disrupt their season.  He wanted to win the Big Ten.

Listening to Jim Jordan today, it’s the same choice he’s making with President Trump.  Jordan, with a Bachelors in Economics, a Masters in Education and a Degree in Law; isn’t stupid.  Jordan is ignoring the “distraction” of a President who violated laws and made deals with our enemies, in order to achieve his goals:  the “Federalism” of the court system, the de-regulation of America so that industries can do whatever they want to make a profit, and the institutionalization of his brand of Conservatism.  

Jordan is a United States Congressman in the Trump era, and is still focused.  And just like his days at Ohio State, he is missing his real responsibilities.  As a coach he needed to protect his athletes, and set a standard for acceptable action. He, more than most, should be standing up for the Constitution, for the rule of law, and for the good of America. Instead, he has put his political goals ahead of what is right.

He didn’t learn.  Ohio State didn’t win the Big Ten.  

Presidential Wednesday

President Trump (and the United States of America) had a really bad day Wednesday.  The talks with North Korea broke down, with both Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim cancelling meetings and heading out of Hanoi.  They had reached the inevitable sticking point:  nothing Mr. Trump could offer was enough for Mr. Kim to give away his nuclear capacity; it is all North Korea has.  Air Force One revved up two hours early for home.

For any President, and particularly one whose reputation is that of the “great deal maker,” a failed summit is a bad day.  And, regardless of how you feel about Mr. Trump, the world became a lot more dangerous Wednesday.  We can expect North Korea to continue to work on their technical abilities to use nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, something that the world ultimately will find difficult to tolerate.

But Mr. Trump’s failed summit was really the least of his worries on Wednesday.  Back here at home, the day was given over to the House Oversight Committee questioning of former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen is a disgraced man; sentenced to three years in federal prison for multiple crimes including income tax evasion and bank fraud.  But his most serious crimes were committed in the name of aiding the Trump Presidential campaign, and his testimony and evidence were an indictment of the President himself in those crimes.

Mr. Cohen made a compelling case that the President conspired with Cohen and members of the Trump Organization in the last days before the election, to buy off the story of porn star Stormy Daniels’ affair with Mr. Trump.  This was an all out effort to keep it out of the press; on top of the Access Hollywood tapes the affair would have cost Trump the Presidency.  

The actual “catch and kill” buying off of Ms. Daniels’ story wasn’t illegal.  What violated the law was the spending of $130,000 for the campaign, without declaring it as a campaign finance donation.   Mr. Cohen spent $130,000 of his own money, raised from a home equity loan; it was never listed as a contribution (and if it had been, it would have been over the allowable limit by $128,000.)  Then, through the artifice of “payment for legal consultation” Mr. Cohen was reimbursed by the Trump Organization in a series of monthly checks.  Cohen testified that the checks were paid monthly in an effort to reduce the amount of tax required on this “income.”

The checks were written and signed by Donald Trump Junior, Alan Weiselberg, Trump Chief Financial Officer, and by the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.   Mr. Cohen (and the Federal Prosecutors both in New York and Washington) have copies of the signed checks.  In a simple criminal conspiracy, two or more people have to agree to commit an illegal act, or take legal action for an illegal purpose.  Part of Mr. Cohen’s prison sentence is for violating Federal Campaign Laws.  Trump Junior, Weiselberg and the President and Cohen are all equal participants in the crime – thus unindicted co-conspirators.

Some of the Republican members of the committee did their best to mark Cohen as a criminal (true) and a liar (also true.)  They brought up his previous perjury to Congress, where he stated lies that benefited the President’s story.  They marked him as a tax evader (true) and a disgraced lawyer (true.)  But with all of the insults and Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows’ foaming at the mouth, they failed to do the one thing they had to do to protect Mr. Trump:  they failed to shake Cohen’s factual accounting of the story.  Cohen, disbarred on Tuesday, going to jail in May, came across as a man with nothing to lose by telling the truth:  and he had the checks.

There’s a Saturday Night Live line, lampooning the famous Lester Holt interviewwith the President, where Trump stated that he fired FBI Director James Comey because he wanted to end the “Russia thing.”  Michael Che, the actor playing Holt, turned to the camera and said “…so did I get him, is it all over?”  He then receives a call, and is told that absolutely nothing matters.

Did Michael Cohen “get” the President with his testimony, or does nothing really matter?

Michael Cohen alone will not end the Trump Presidency.  But this was the first time the Trump corruption had a face, and a voice.  Conspiracy to avoid election finance law, in another era might have brought down a Presidency, but it won’t do it today. The United States has somehow grown accustomed to this kind of deceit from the President; we have accepted that he can lie to us about almost anything, including what is true and what is not.  A significant portion of the nation expects him to be with porn stars, and lie about it, and cheat to cover it up.

But what the Cohen testimony does anticipate is what the multiple Federal investigations might reveal. Disgraced perjurer, tax evader and disbarred lawyer; he represent the tip of the iceberg in how the Trump Organization did business, and how they approached every opportunity.  Cohen is going to jail, but he might get some company in the not to distant future.  And maybe then, it really will matter.

Back in Vietnam

Music Selections          Modern – Back in Vietnam – Lenny Kravitz

                                    Generational – We Gotta Get Out of This Place– Animals

                                    Traditional – Fortunate Son– Creedence Clearwater

Donald J. Trump, turned eighteen and draft age, in 1964.  His father had a doctor/friend, and Donald was able to avoid the draft, and the war in Vietnam, with five medical exemptions for bone spurs.

There were a lot of American men who found ways out of Vietnam.  In full disclosure, I was two years too young  (though I still have my “draft card” from the day, and I was still nervous as hell when I had to go and apply for it.)  I never had to make the decision, nor did I ever face the letter with the heading, “greetings from the President of the United States.”  I did watch my older friends struggle, worrying about draft numbers and college deferments.  Some went to Vietnam; many found a way out.

So I can’t really blame Trump for the decisions he and his father made in the 1960’s.  What I can say is that whatever decision you made in that time of crisis, you should own it now.  Bone spurs, becoming a public school teacher, whatever way you found out, don’t hide from the fact.  And for those many who truly believed that fighting in Vietnam was immoral, respect that decision.

But once you took that position, don’t criticize those Americans who went to fight in Vietnam. Criticize the President, the Generals, the Congress, the War; but don’t say a word about those guys in the rice paddies, or helicopters, or walking trails as moving bait for Viet Cong attacks. They didn’t choose Vietnam; they did what they thought our nation expected of them.  

So President Trump will continue his Quixotic effort to speak reason to Kim Jong Un of North Korea, this time in Hanoi.  The last grand meeting in Singapore created a lot of talk, but little action.  Kim did destroy a collapsed underground nuclear testing facility, and he hasn’t sent missiles over Japan recently.  But US intelligence estimates, regardless of the President’s dreams, show that North Korea is continuing to work on developing and improving their nuclear weapons.

It sure seems unlikely that Kim will “give up” his nuclear weapons.  What the US can offer:  a peace treaty for Korea, a removal of some US sanctions, and the possibility of US development of the tourist industry (“don’t they have great beaches”); doesn’t seem enough for Kim to give up the weapons that has become the basis of his national identity. 

The US reaction isn’t Kim’s only worry, he has to be concerned with the economic power of South Korea, the 11^thlargest economy in the world (The Economist.)  North Korea is ranked 118^th.  While North Korea’s 23^rdrated military (without the added nuclear weapons) is behind South Korea’s 12^thranking (depending on US nuclear power), that’s a lot closer than the economic comparison (Business Insider.)  Peace on the peninsula might mean a North Korea subsumed by the South Korean economic juggernaut, winning a peace instead of a war.

Having this summit in Hanoi is symbolic in several ways.  It may well represent the same frustration that the Vietnam War engendered; the idea that the most powerful nation in the world, the United States, could not enforce its will on a dramatically smaller nation.  Like the North Vietnamese outlasting America, Kim may be looking to drag the US along, getting more time for nuclear research while pretending to negotiate.  

For President Trump, Hanoi presents him with another chance to contrast himself to one of the city’s most famous former residents, John McCain.  McCain was imprisoned for five and a half years in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton;” that will be a poor comparison with the image of Trump staying in one of Hanoi’s luxury hotels:  the Intercontinental, the Marriott, the Crowne Plaza, or, ironically, the Hilton.

Don’t count on Trump ignoring the obvious.  He probably will have something negative to say about John McCain once again, the temptation will be too great.  But the real contrast is to John McCain’s determination to use American power to protect the world; to make real changes that made the world safer.  I was not a great supporter of McCain, and I don’t necessarily agree with his willingness to use our military to intervene in every world situation.  But two things were clear:  he had a substantive idea of what was needed, and he had the courage to implement it.  

The President has no plan, simply image.  And, bone spurs or not, he clearly doesn’t have the courage to work for real change.