Category: Uncategorized

Men in Black

It was 1997.  One of the leading movies of the year was “Men In Black”, starring Tommy Lee Jones as “ Agent K” and Will Smith “Agent J.”  It was a story of the “MIB,” a secret government agency that managed the aliens that were already here on earth.  While the “MIB” had multiple weapons, at the end of each alien “event” they brought out their “neuralizers” and with a flash of light removed any spectator’s memory of the incident.

One of the prime investigative sources that “K” used was tabloid newspapers.  Early in the script, “K” taught “J” the value of the tabloids:

K – We’ll check the hot sheets.                             

J – These are the hot sheets?  (K riffles through the tabloids)                           

K – Best investigative reporting on the planet.  Read the ” New York Times” if you want.      They get lucky sometimes.                             

J- I cannot believe you’re looking for tips in the supermarket tabloids.                            

K – Not looking for —  Found.

(here’s the scene – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brawJsSUtxk)

The National Enquirer is one of the most successful “newspapers” in the United States, with circulation just under the Sunday New York Times and ahead of the Washington Post.  The difference between the Enquirer and the Times and Post is that the Enquirer is a tabloid paper, one with banner headlines and stories about celebrities that are mostly not true.  Whether it’s news about the aliens that “K and J” are supposed to control, or the sordid actions of Brad Pitt cheating on Angelina Jolie, the Enquirer screams out its headlines from the check-out line of every supermarket in the country.  You might not buy “the rag,” but it’s still in your face – every time.

It’s a joke.  You buy one to have a laugh, to read on a long road trip, to use as an example in classroom of un-vetted journalism or how the Spanish American War started.  But while it only sells a million, the front page is seen by hundreds of millions.  Those banner headlines are an un-recognized force, quietly planting ideas in the public mind, even if they don’t actually ever read the paper.

And when the National Enquirer took a side in the 2016 election, we didn’t really even notice it. When all of the Trump articles and headlines were positive, and all of Clinton’s were negative, it went under conscious perception.  But read the headlines, at every check-out counter, the week before the election day:

11/5/16 – Hillary Clinton Hooked on Narcotics

11/4/16 –  Hillary Clinton’s Satanic Inner Circle

11/2/16 – Sick and Tired Hillary Erupts at Bill Clinton Rape Protestor

11/2/16 – Hillary Clinton FBI Investigation – ‘The Fix is In”

11/1/16 – Clinton “Love Child’ Wants DNA Sample – From Monica’s Stained Dress

11/1/16 – Hillary Clinton:  8 New Shameful Email Leaks

10/31/16 – Top FBI Agent:  The Clintons are a ‘Crime Family.”

And the “beat goes on,” even recently:

4/17/18 – Hillary Clinton Plans Her Own Hero’s Burial (brain-cancer patient eyes Arlington for eternity.)

But what we didn’t know in 2016, is that the publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, was not only a Trump supporter, but was allowing the Trump campaign, through Attorney Michael Cohen, editorial control of the paper.  Positive articles about Trump, and damaging faked headlines and articles about Hillary were checked with Cohen, who made the final decision about publication.  In essence, the Enquirer became an arm of Trump campaign.

In addition, Pecker paid $150,000 for Karen McDougal’s story of a year-long affair with Donald Trump, and then quashed the story. It never made the Enquirer, or any other paper.  This was done in coordination with Michael Cohen, and could be considered an unreported campaign contribution, along with the value of all of the headlines from the election year.

The Trump era is clearly the time of “Reality TV Politics.”  With the First Lady wearing signs on her coat, the drama of the morning “tweet,” the barrage of unsubstantiated and false information coming out of the White House, the invention of “fake news,” and now the revelation of the weaponizing of tabloid newspapers; it never seems to end.  Last night Tom Arnold added his schizophrenic view to the mix.  It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.

Maybe it will make a good movie in twenty years. Tommy Lee Jones won’t probably be around (the National Enquirer I’m sure will let us know) but Will Smith would make a great hero.  Or maybe after the “Trump Era” is over, we can all get a flash from the “neuralizer.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four Letter Words

WALL

The President tweeted this morning – no surprise there.

“Republicans should stop wasting their time on immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/Women in November.  Dems are just playing games, have no intention of doing anything to solve this decades old problem. We can pass legislation after the Red Wave.” 

The Republican controlled House failed to reach any solutions to the immigration issue this week. The Goodlatte Bill, considered a conservative response to the issue, included a legal status for Dreamers, an end to child separation at the border, and the full $25 Billion funding for the President’s Wall.  Every Democrat voted against the bill, but the bill’s fate was decided by the Republican Freedom Caucus.  Forty-one Republicans voted against the bill, including many of the hardline caucus members.

The key complaint of the Freedom Caucus – an eventual path to citizenship for the Dreamers.

A second, more moderate Republican alternative was pulled from consideration by Speaker Paul Ryan. The Freedom Caucus has united to stop it, and even though there would probably be enough Democratic votes to overcome the block, outgoing Speaker Ryan is unwilling to violate the unwritten “Hastert Rule.” The Republican rule states that if the bill cannot pass with Republican votes alone, the Speaker will not put it on the floor for consideration. The unwritten code puts a group like the Freedom Caucus, with enough members to prevent a Republican majority, in control.

Ryan is unwilling to risk revolt in his last few months as Speaker by negotiating with Democrats for needed assistance.

And while the Senate is considering some narrowly written bills regarding child separation, the House is unlikely to vote on any of them without getting their Wall funding.  This failure marks the end of the “Zero Tolerance Maneuver” strategy from the White House, who hoped by creating the crisis on the border, they could force through immigration legislation.  While the policy may continue on the border, its prime goal has failed.

DON’T

I Really Don’t Care – Do U?

 First Lady Melania Trump, rumored to have influenced the President’s decision to end the “child separation” strategy, went to visit a care center in Texas yesterday.  The optics of the visit were great, as she asked significant questions of the care workers, and showed great concern.  Yet the carefully crafted message of a “caring” First Lady was completely blown up by a bizarre jacket choice.  Mrs. Trump, on a humid eighty-degree day, wore a $39 raincoat with a large-writ message on the back:  “I really don’t care – do U?”  While she took the coat off upon arrival in Texas, it was back on for the flight back to DC.

So the question is: did the First Lady want to send the message that she didn’t really care about the kids?  The President later tweeted that she didn’t care about the “fake news media,” but that seems like a convoluted means of sending that message. Perhaps she was sending a message to the President, but whatever the thoughts were; the jacket definitely overshadowing her intended message.

She obviously knew what she was doing – just the fact the former fashion model was wearing a “cheap” jacket proves that.  So either there was a huge staff controversy about her decision prior to the trip, or someone on the staff needs to be fired.  Maybe they were the same staffers who plagiarized Michelle Obama’s text for her “Be Best” book, or the convention speech.  They should definitely hear the President’s trade-marked phrase.

CAMP

“Since more illegal immigrants are rushing the border, more kids are being separated from their parents and temporarily housed in what are essentially summer camps, or as the San Diego Union-Tribune described them today as looking like basically boarding schools,” – Laura Ingraham

Fox commentator Laura Ingraham decided that since there were tents and cafeteria-style meals served, the detention facilities for the children taken at the border were “summer camps.”  This as contrasted to:

Senator Jeff Merkley – concentration camps

First Lady Laura Bush – internment camps

Attorney General Jeff Sessions – concentration camps is an exaggeration.

So if they are like summer camps, except for the fences and the detention, then Laura wouldn’t mind if parents could get their kids back?  No job consequences were announced for Ingraham.

WOMP

“Womp-Womp” – Corey Lewendowski

Corey Lewendowski, Trump advisor and former campaign manager and currently employed by Vice President Pence’s political committee, was in a heated discussion on Fox News about child separation at the border.  When his “opposing” debater mentioned a ten-year old girl with Down’s Syndrome separated from her mother, Lewendowski responded with the universal adolescent sign for indifference:  “womp-womp.” The phrase, best known from cartoon character Bart Simpson, enraged the opposite speaker, but didn’t seem to faze the moderator.

The Vice President Pence had no comment on the “womps.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Find Ken Feinberg

This is my fifth essay on the border crisis.  The “unwritten rules” of Trump World are to not get stuck on one subject, and not “chase” the headlines.  As General MacArthur said,  rules are made to be broken.   

President Trump signed an executive order yesterday to end his “policy” of separating children from parents who cross the border illegally.  He did so under extreme public pressure, and even greater pressure from the Republicans in Congress.  They saw the policy as a huge campaign liability for November.

President Trump states that separating children from their parents will stop.  He also stated that the policy of “zero tolerance” at the border will continue.  This means that every person who crosses the border outside of the designated “ports of entry” will still be charged with a crime, and held for trial.

This was the change that started the entire border crisis.  Prior to the beginning of May, those caught crossing illegally were processed for a “civil” offense, then released until trial.  Ninety-nine percent of those released were returning for their trial, even though the result might well be deportation.  The “zero tolerance” policy made the crossing a criminal action, and those charged are held in custody.

So the arrests will continue.  Families will be held together in custody.  Within eight days all of the existing facilities designed for families are likely to be filled.  This will be the first of a series of cascading crises keeping this issue at the fore of American thought.

The second crisis is centered around the Flores Agreement.  This legal understanding, originally settled in 1997, determines how long children can be held in custody by the Departments of Homeland Security or Justice.  The agreement states that after twenty days, the children must be removed from custody. If the parent(s) is still held in legal custody, and the children are not released to a custodial parent or relative, then the government is obligated to transfer the child to a “least restrictive” situation.

The government considers that “ least restrictive situation” the camps and facilities, run privately under contract to the Department of Health and Human Services. They are holding 2342 separated children now, as well as several thousand other minors who crossed the border on their own.  Lawsuits have already been filed questioning that action.  The Attorney General has given notice that he will go to court to get the Flores Agreement modified, giving him more time to hold families in jail. As a twenty-year old decision, it is unlikely the courts will do so.

The second crisis under “zero tolerance” will be when the “families in custody” reach the twenty-day limit.  Under Flores, those children have to be released.  Under the Executive Order, they cannot be separated from their parents. Will the Government release the families, or ignore the courts, or separate the children again?

Or will President Trump declare “victory in defeat;” release the families, and blame the Congress for failing to build “the Wall?”  This could make his policy failure into a “hot” political issue for the November elections.  “My hands are tied by Congress, give me a bigger Republican majority,” might be his tweet the day that the families walk out.

All of these are a few days out.  But the greatest crisis arising from the President’s actions is occurring right now. 2342 children, from eight months to seventeen years old, have been “seized” by the US government, and literally scattered across the country.  While the government has kept the locations and conditions of these privately run facilities secret, we already know that they are located in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Michigan, as well as in the southern border-states.

There is no plan to return these children to their parents.

The parents are in the custody of the Justice Department.  The children are held in private facilities, ostensibly under control of Health and Human Services.  There is no direct method, no wristband or bar code, that connects these kids to their parents.  The numeric coding used by the Border Patrol doesn’t transfer to HHS.  And if the parent gets deported, there is no process to send the kids with them.

There are already multiple cases of parents returned to their home country and unable to get their kids for months.  Former leaders of the Department of Homeland Security have made it clear that there will be children who will NEVER BE RE-UNITED with their parents.

The United States has taken these kids from their parents.  We have kidnapped them.  The penalty for the parent’s misdemeanor offense of crossing the border illegally: loss of their child, maybe forever.

This cannot be allowed.

Ken Feinberg is the attorney America turns to in its greatest moments of need.  Feinberg was the “special master” who distributed the funds from 9-11, from the BP oil spill, from the Penn State molestations, and from the Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook and Aurora shootings.  Ken Feinberg sorts out the biggest problems that our country has, and while he isn’t always perfect, he is able to take these incredibly complicated actions and provide some relief.

The Immigration, Customs and Enforcement Agency had no plan to put these kids back together with their parents.  The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t either.  The kids, some infants, have been “disappeared” into the maze of facilities and foster care programs.  It will take a special person with special powers to get them back to parents, who might well be back in the dangerous slums of El Salvador or Guatemala before they can be reunited.

Ken Feinberg should be appointed as the “special master” by the courts, and given whatever powers and authorities he needs to get the job done.  The US government is willing to spend over $750 a night per kid to keep kids in tents in the desert; if they can afford that, they can afford Ken Feinberg. Whatever the cost, it’s the right thing to do, and it needs to be done NOW.

Beneath the Screams

The United States is faced with a moral crisis. Our nation is taking children from their parents and holding thousands of them in detention.  We are not starving them, but we are abusing them.  We have snatched them from their parents, and we are not offering them a sure way to reunite their families.  The mental and emotional damage is difficult to estimate, but it is sure.

There is a tremendous amount of emotion in this issue.  In the House of Representatives hearing on the Inspector General’s Report, Elijah Cummings, Democratic Congressman from Maryland, ignored Mr. Horowitz at the table, and eloquently demanded the Congress free the children.  Multiple reporters and new commentators have emotionally broken down on air; Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are full of the arguments about what America should do.  It’s hard to post “rational” comments on those, it is so much easier to scream out.

So let’s start with the facts.  The facts are the government of the United States has altered the immigration enforcement policy on the Southern Border.  No “statutory law” has been changed; what changed was the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice enforcement policy.

Crossing the border is and always was illegal.  So is driving faster than the speed limit.  Both of these offenses were considered “civil” offenses, in neither case was the lawbreaker held in jail.  The government of the United States for many years (and many Presidents) treated illegal border crossings as a civil offense; offenders were picked up, processed, and returned across the border.

The Trump Administration has changed that interpretation.  They have criminalized border crossing.  They have ordered the Justice Department to prosecute every case of illegal border crossing to the full extent of the law.  The analogy is:  now when you get caught for speeding, you are arrested and go to jail.

There have been “unaccompanied minors” crossing the border for several years.  This came to a head in the last couple of years of the Obama Administration, and the immigration service has had to find ways to house and care for these teenagers.  So when the argument is made that Obama, Bush, and Clinton held children, it’s true. They held these teenagers, crossing by themselves without parents.

They also held those few children who crossed with parents, but whose parents committed other crimes beyond the crossing itself.  Clearly if a parent with child tried to evade the border patrol, much like those poor folks killed this week in a tragic car chase, then the parent would be jailed until trial, and the child would need to be cared for.

So what has happened to create today’s crisis?  By criminalizing illegal crossings, the Trump Administration has created a whole new class of immigrants who are jailed until trial.  Court rulings have made it clear that the minor children cannot be jailed (their parents committed a crime, they didn’t) and so the families cannot be held together.  Now, all of a sudden (since the April implementation of the policy) the Border Patrol is faced with thousands of minors to care for, ranging from the teenagers they were used to, to babies.  They weren’t ready for the numbers, and they certainly weren’t ready for the little ones.

So in answer to the right-wing cries that every President did this:  not true. In answer to the claim the “the law is the law:” no – it’s changed.

And to answer the President’s cry that it’s up to Congress to fix this:  no, you changed it, you can fix it.

And meanwhile the kids pile up at the border.  And it’s not only the change in policy that created this crisis.  In addition, the Department of Homeland Security knew that there was a “spring” influx of migrants heading toward the border.  In the past there has been increases in the hearing officers, judges, and attorneys needed to quickly evaluate the claims of immigrants for amnesty.  This time, DHS did nothing.

The lines to cross “legally” are days and weeks long.  The Mexican border towns, long known for their lawlessness, are dangerous places for these families to wait.  And as they wait, more and more migrants pile up behind them.  The pressure builds to pay the last “bribe” to find someone to lead them across the border, illegally.  Once they cross, they turn themselves into the Border Patrol.  And since they are “criminals” their children are taken away.

The Trump Administration is wholly responsible for creating this crisis.  At every turn, they have made choices to exacerbate the situation. And, just as DHS wasn’t ready at the border, they weren’t ready for the influx of kids they’ve created.  They are scrambling to find places for them, building tent cities in the desert, and shipping children all over the country (reports of young children being sent to Florida and New York City.)  No one; no one for or against the policy, has any assurance that those children can be tracked and linked back to their parents. Adults have been deported, unable to regain their children, and unable to get them back.  We stole their kids.

Besides the horror of government sanctioned kidnapping, there is the economic cost.  Who will pay for these children who get “left” in America? Perhaps a new private industry will grow up; right now the defense giant General Dynamics is making a fortune providing instant housing.  The tent city in the desert of Texas costs $10 million.

We have a border crisis, and a moral crisis.  And we aren’t even sure we can get the kids back, whatever we decide about the parents. It grows darker and darker, an artificial crisis, created on purpose, with tragic results.

 

 

 

 

This is Bannon’s Crisis

I first began writing essays for Trump World in February of 2017.  One of my earliest was called The Bully and Bannon.  It was an attempt to try to predict what the Trump Administration would do through the known views of Trump’s political “wizard,” Steve Bannon.  Trump himself seemed malleable, willing to take on whatever view achieved his goal, but Bannon was much better defined and had the President’s ear.

Bannon is no longer a part of the Administration, though adherents like advisor Stephen Miller are still in place. But the President believes that Bannon’s philosophy won the Presidency, and that it will keep him there.

There’s a lot of what Bannon believed that has come to pass.  His philosophy was that the US is stronger in one-on-one relationships with countries, rather than in international groups. The size of the US economy gives it the advantage in almost every bilateral negotiation. We are the big bully.  So, the United States has removed itself from multi-lateral treaties and groups.  The Pan-Pacific Trade Agreement, the Paris Climate Accords, the Iran Nuclear Agreement and the threats to the North American Free Trade Agreement are just a few we have reneged on.  In addition, the actions at the last G-7 summit, where the US declared a tariff war on our allies Canada, Mexico, and the European Union fits in with Bannon’s view.

The same holds true with the actions towards North Korea.  The beginning strategy was one of bluff and bluster, from “fire and fury” to “bigger buttons.”  Then, without asking for the aid of other nations, including South Korea, the US opened bilateral negotiations with the North with a Trump/Kim summit.  Whatever the outcome of this strategy will be, it fits perfectly with the bi-lateral view.

Bannon also believed that the US needed to stop being the “role model” for other nations.  His view was that the US should do what’s best for the US, no matter what impact it might have on others.  It’s not surprising then, that long held allies, NATO in particular, have felt slighted and insulted.  This view also lead to US actions in the Middle East, where the transfer of the embassy to Israel to Jerusalem cost hundreds of Palestinian lives. That wasn’t “our concern.”

But perhaps one of the scarier Bannon philosophies was his world-view.  He saw the word poised on the brink of a world conflict between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern; between Muslims and Christians, and between white people and brown.  He looked to nations with similar problems to ally with, most notably Russia, with its significant and restive Muslim population. Bannon, and potentially now the US government, is on the side of the nationalist movements in Europe, including Brexit in the United Kingdom, the new leader of Italy, and other far right organizations.

It should be no surprise that President Trump tweeted yesterday:

“The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”

There is no false nicety here:  this is about race.   It’s not just Europe; it’s here too.  The US actions on the Southern border, seizing the children of immigrants who commit the misdemeanor offense of crossing the border outside of the “ports of entry” wouldn’t be happening if they were Norwegian refugees.  It is no surprise that Attorney General Sessions was parsing the difference between his actions and those of the Nazis on Fox News last night. There are too many similarities.

The “browning” of America, where “whites” become a minority by 2050, is a focus of the White House.  Presidential actions from the travel ban, to Charlottesville, to Puerto Rico, to the border, all have one thing in common.  The President reacts very differently to the problems of “brown” people then he does for “white” people.  And it is exactly what we should have expected from Steve Bannon.

We have placed this philosophy in power.  We have elected the radical right to run America, whether we knew it at the time or not.   It is now up to us to determine what we can do about it. We can accept this nationalist, racist, apocalyptic view of America’s future; or we can stand against it.  We are in the same position as the Abolitionists of the 1850’s and the civil rights marchers of the 1960’s.

We don’t have a border crisis; we have a moral crisis.

 

 

 

 

 

Hostage Choice

In the “post truth” world it is difficult to find “a real” fact.  President Trump’s rant on the White House lawn on Friday exemplified this, with multiple statements that simply were not true.  He claimed the Inspector General’s Report on the FBI Clinton email issue completely cleared him of any wrongdoing in the Russia scandal. He claimed the Democrats have total control of the immigration debacle on the Southern border.  Both of these statements are false.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirsten Neilsen claims that there is no policy of separation at the border. She is parsing the legalities of the situation.  Her stand: if migrants cross legally with an asylum claim, they are not separated from their children.  If they cross in any other way, either not at a “port of entry” (cross the border illegally) or without a prior asylum claim, they are “criminals” and therefore lose their children.

The change is not in the law, it is in the policy of enforcement.  Prior to April, immigrants who claimed asylum were processed as families regardless of how they crossed the border.  In April, a “zero tolerance” policy, developed and pressed by White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller, was instituted.  Everyone who came across the border without the full legal niceties was considered a criminal.  Criminals go into the criminal justice system, they are not processed in the immigration system.  Since they are in the criminal system, they lose their kids.

So when President Trump says this is a Democratic law, and their problem to fix, it simply isn’t true. What is true is that the Miller created and driven policy has generated the crisis, putting thousands of children in Federal custody, without their parents.  Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, “President Trump can stop this policy with a phone call.”  So why doesn’t the President make the call?

The President and the Republicans in the House of Representatives are using the children as hostages to force their border wall agenda.  A bill soon to be introduced in the House will offer to end the family separation policy, and give Dreamers special status allowing them to remain in the US; in exchange for the $25 billion border wall.  Whether that bill can pass the House (the Freedom Caucus radical Republicans aren’t sure it’s tough enough) or the Senate (Senate Democrats aren’t interested in hostage blackmail) remains to be seen.  But Trump and Miller are looking for a big immigration “win” before the November elections and they see this crisis as giving them the legislative leverage to get it.

First Lady Melania Trump is even part of this strategy, as she chimed in this weekend.  A statement released through her spokesperson said:

“Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” her communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told CNN on Sunday. “She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”

Steve Bannon, the architect of many of the President’s more controversial policies, returned to the political fray, saying “…It’s zero tolerance. I don’t think you have to justify it.” And, of course, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has quoted the scriptures to justify the policy, quoting Paul’s message to obey Caesar’s laws (Romans:13.)

But to the Administration, this is about politics, not children.  They are betting that the Trump base will stand with the President, enforcing the “law” against the “criminals.”  Administration surrogates throw the magic words “MS-13” onto the flames, as if the gang members are bringing kids with them to sneak across the border.  And they are happy to have this distraction from the Mueller investigation.

To many, many others, this is seen as a moral crisis.  Since April, 1174 children have been separated from their parents at the McAllen Immigration Processing Center alone.  We, and this is being done in the name of the citizens of the United States so it is ‘we’, have put thousands of children in custody.  We are imprisoning them, even if the prisons have clean sheets and “three squares a day.”

But they are not prisoners.  They are hostages, taken to secure the President’s border wall and win seats in Congress in November.  It will be up to the citizens of the United States to determine the outcomes of this action, through protest, demanding legislators to act, or at the ballot box.

What actions, what morality, are we willing to accept from our government?  President Trump admires Andrew Jackson, who had no problem ordering an entire race to be moved across the country in the Trail of Tears.  We are setting up camps, just as we did during World War II with the Japanese/American internment camps. We are reproducing some of the most immoral periods of our nation.  In the end, it’s our choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspected and Certified

Michael Horowitz has the unenviable job of Inspector General to the Department of Justice.   For those of us who watch “Law and Order” on TV, the Inspector General is the hated Internal Affairs, the IAD.  Horowitz determines whether the law enforcers follow the rules as they enforce the law. IG’s are never going to be popular; their job is to criticize and hold up to the light what was wrong.

Like many of the other players in this long drawn out crisis, Horowitz is a product of the best law schools (Horowitz graduated from Harvard, as did Deputy AG Rosenstein, Mueller from Virginia, Comey from Chicago, Chris Wray, Yale.)  His job is to be thorough, to examine every action, and to make recommendations. Sometimes he suggests improvements in departmental regulations; sometimes criminal charges.

Last week, Horowitz released an incredibly detailed report about the conduct of the FBI in the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, known as “Midyear.”  For all sides in the ongoing crisis called the Trump Presidency it was anticipated to be an inflection point, setting the next direction of debate.  It turned out to be exactly what it was supposed to be, a detail review of the actions of the FBI team and whether they adhered to policy and the law.  And to all of the pundits, waiting to pounce on the report to further their side; it was a disappointment.

To those looking for a Deepstate conspiracy to further the Clinton campaign and stop the Trump candidacy:  to use the phrase of this crisis, there wasn’t much “there, there.” The only red meat was more foolish texts from lead investigator Peter Strozk to his paramour D of J attorney Lisa Page, pledging to “stop Trump.”  Horowitz found Strozk, Page and others to have been unprofessional in their use of government owned devices.  For experts in counter-terrorism, they were either so confident, or so arrogant, that they never thought their communications would be read.

Horowitz hammered home on the “appearance of bias.”  But, to the Deepstate conspirators dismay, Horowitz also described a decision making process with many involved.  He found no evidence of Strozk’s bias changing the outcome. And in fact, Horowitz suggested that the final actions of FBI Director Comey influenced the outcome of the election towards Trump favor.

There was no declaration that “Clinton was let off” or “FBI agents protected Clinton.”  The only unanswered question:  why did the search of Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer (I refuse to say laptop) stall for three weeks.  Deepstate conspirators may point to that as protecting Clinton, but the outcome; Comey’s “October Surprise” letter to Congress, now seen as the reason for Clinton’s defeat.

To those looking to “shut down” the Deepstate rumors, the report wasn’t enough either.  The Inspector General carefully circumscribed his examination to the Clinton e-mail; he did not enter the Russia investigation at all (originally lead by Strozk.)  And while the IG mentioned the “culture of leaking” that pervades the FBI, he did not provide any details about the long suspected New York Office–Giuliani link. Many Clinton supporters believe that it was this connection that drove Comey to write the October letter.

In more than five hundred pages, Horowitz outlined the evidence gathered in his study.  He did not give an opinion on the result of “Midyear” other than to say that he found the outcomes to be reasonable given the evidence found.  His criticism was reserved for the actions of Director Comey after the investigation was concluded, and the “appearance of bias” the text messages showed.

No one is going to be “locked up” (much to Giulani’s dismay.)  Horowitz has made recommendations to FBI Director Chris Wray, and Wray has promised to follow up and make changes.

Hillary Clinton has been reserved in her response.  For the sake of Democrats in the 2018 election, she needs to be.  While she will find reason to be angry in the IG report, her further response will simply become more fodder for the “right.”

President Trump has declared that the report exonerates him from any “Russian Collusion” and proves he was right to fire Comey.  The report states neither, but that hasn’t stopped Trump from creating his own “fake news.”

In short, the report did exactly what it was supposed to do. It examined the FBI investigation, and it showed what was right and wrong about it.  It detailed the past and made recommendations for the future.  It didn’t reveal much, it simply added more detail to what we already knew.  It will take the next report to change the direction of the debate, and the nation.

It will take the Mueller report.

 

 

Twenty-Four 

[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!

No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it – text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page

 

“24” was a Fox television series that ran from 2002 to 2011.  The lead character was Jack Bauer, an agent for the Central Terrorist Unit of the US Government.  His job, hour by hour, was to protect the United States from a variety of threats, often using any means necessary.  Brutal torture was one of Bauer’s tools, but only to “really bad guys.”  He saved the country, again and again.

If Jack Bauer had been around during the summer of 2016, here’s what might have happened.

A famous reality star and businessman, Ronald Crump, was running for the Presidency of the United States.  As the season begins, we find out that members of Crump’s campaign have been in contact with Russian Intelligence operatives.  Russian intelligence has hacked into the email of the Crump’s opponent, Jillian Hinton, and a clearly coordinated release of embarrassing emails hits the internet at the optimum time.

Bauer receives further intelligence through highly secret electronic intercepts that the highest members of the campaign are working with the Russians.  In addition, an old friend in British intelligence lets Bauer know that Crump is deeply indebted to Russian oligarchs, all controlled by the leader of Russia.  He also reveals that the candidate engaged in deviant sexual behavior that Russian Intelligence has on tape.  “Kompromat,” blackmail, was another hook into the Crump’s campaign.

Bauer is faced with the possibility that a “Manchurian Candidate;” controlled by Russian Intelligence, is a major party nominee for President of the United States.  And Bauer has another problem, Crump’s opponent is also flawed; Hinton has been extremely careless with emailing classified information, an investigation that Bauer concluded last season.  But now, there are more emails that might further damage her candidacy.

Through all of this, Bauer is having an affair with a Justice Department attorney.  Both are married to other people, but see each other daily on the job.  The pressure of their highly classified missions pushes them together.  They want to communicate, but can’t use their own personal phones for fear their spouses will see the texts.  So they use their government issued phones, classified from their spouses, to carry on their relationship.

What would we expect Jack Bauer to do?  Will the US elect a “Manchurian Candidate,” who could be used by the Russians to further their foreign policy aims of destroying the post Cold War world order? Will the flawed opponent overcome her email mistakes?  As the clock clicks down to the end of the season, we sit on the edge of our couches, wondering what will happen next.

Bauer, confident that the US voters will make the right choice, continues to build the case against the Crump campaign.  But then, in an unexpected plot twist, Bauer’s boss at CTU decides to release new information about Hinton’s email.  Thousands of messages have been found on the laptop of a sex deviant, and turns out the deviant, a former Congressman, is married to Hinton’s chief campaign advisor.

The Director of CTU releases the news that the Hinton investigation is reopened, ten days before the election.  Bauer and his lover are desperate; Crump, even though some of his deviant sexual actions are now public, is recovering in the polls.  The election closes in, and Crump, by a fluke in the Constitution, becomes President of the United States.

As the last hour ticks away, Bauer goes back to work, building a case.  The man elected President of the United States is under control of the Russians.  Tune in again next season, to see what happens next.

Of course, that season of “24” couldn’t run on Fox.  Maybe NBC will pick it up.

The Power of Tweet

Mark Sanford, Republican Congressman from South Carolina, lost his primary bid for another term this week.  Sanford, the former Governor of South Carolina, is a well-known conservative, who has also spoken out against some of the excesses of President Trump.  He is not a “never-Trumper,” the kiss of death in Republican circles, and he has baggage of his own, including his famous “ naked hike” on the Appalachian Trail that turned out to be a flight to Argentina to meet his lover.  But he thought that was all behind him, until, the tweet.

Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina. I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie! – @RealDonaldTrump 

It was the day of the election, and President Trump weighed in with his view.  It was his first entry into this campaign.

There is a famous scientific phrase, “correlation does not equal causation:” just because something happened, it doesn’t mean it caused something else to occur.  Sanford had run a “lean” primary campaign, saving money for the expected tougher general election campaign in a “blue wave” environment. And Sanford’s criticisms of Trump were well known.  But the Republican primary turnout was low, and Sanford lost by less than 3000 votes out of 63,000.  The general consensus among “those who know” is that the tweet was the decisive factor. The message the President sent was clear:  speak out about me, and I will cut you down with a tweet.

To those of my generation (the end of the baby boomers) it still is hard to comprehend the power of the tweet.  We grew up with information filtered and vetted, through news sources we trusted. Twitter is twelve years old; it is hard to “wrap our head” around the impact it has.   To my generation, twitter was a “kid” thing, something to send funny memes and videos, or more nefariously, a way to harass and threaten.

And it’s even harder to imagine that a seventy-two year old man who doesn’t know how to email would become a master of twitter.  But here we are, and while most agree that there is a “twitter team” in the White House that runs the Trump feed, Trump’s greatest power seems to be his ability to tweet.

Abraham Lincoln was able to move the nation through his oratory.  But it wasn’t only those few that actually heard the speeches that were moved. It was the reprints in the newspapers and pamphlets that spread across the nation, from the famous debates with Stephen Douglas (a house divided), to the Gettysburg Address (this hallowed ground) and the Second Inaugural (with malice towards none.)

Teddy Roosevelt believed in moving the nation through his own example.  Whether he was boxing on the front lawn, dragging ambassadors on hikes through Washington, or riding in the American West; Roosevelt created his image as a role model.  And he made sure the press was with him, to report his example to the world.

His cousin Franklin became the master of the new medium, the radio.  He used his voice not so much in oratory (though he did say “nothing to fear but fear itself”,) but in living room conversations with America, broadcast from the fireside in the White House.  In the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt talked to America assuring them and giving them reason to hope.  And through his use of radio, and the dramatic broadcasts from the battles of World War II, Americans came to trust the voices of CBS, NBC, and ABC.

President Kennedy was the first to master the television, but it was President Reagan who used the medium to its fullest.  Reagan, trained as an actor, was able to reach Americans through his speeches and press conferences, making them understand his views and actions through his folksy charm and modesty.  And again, the nation got its contact with the President through the three networks, and continued to trust both him and the other news they delivered.

The Trump team has found a way to circumvent the press.  They first generated attacks on the mainstream media (MSM is the derogatory shorthand) aided by the long running feud between Fox News and the rest of the industry.  They “softened the ground,” chanting the “fake news” mantra over and over, backed up by the alt-right internet and Fox News personalities.  “Don’t trust the MSM,” they said, “they are the same liberal ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ that Spiro Agnew declaimed in 1970.”

Then they set out their own facts, directly to the public, on Twitter.  The President, much as FDR did in the 1930’s, spoke directly to the people, this time in one-hundred and forty characters (later doubled.)  And while Twitter didn’t have the penetration of radio or television, it still became the preferred means of talking to Trump’s nation. It is their “news,” now not just from the President, but from everyone around him.  And since “the nation” no longer trusts “fake news,” then what comes out on Twitter is just as likely to be considered true.

Trump has mastered the power of tweet.  It has allowed him to try to create his own universe of fact, whether we are safe from North Korean nuclear attack, or in a trade deficit with Canada.  And as the whole nation approaches the crisis of the Mueller results, it will be a real battle: the power of the tweet, versus the power of Mueller’s findings.  The results of that conflict may well determine the future of America.

Not My Country

I know I wrote about this subject last week.  I know that this was President Trump’s number one priority:  his first speech as he glided down the golden escalator, about stopping the murderers and rapists (and maybe some good people) at the border.  I know that we are getting exactly what he promised.  But my country is not Nazi Germany.

I also know that the “family centered” support of the Trump Administration simply doesn’t apply to brown people. Chief of Staff John Kelly made it clear in his statement to NPR that, while they aren’t bad people, they can’t “assimilate” into the United States, “…they’re overwhelmingly rural.” Hey, General, they’re overwhelmingly Hispanic too.

And Attorney General Jeff Sessions believes he has the plan:  let potential immigrants from Central America, legal or illegal, know that their families will be separated and their children sent away if they come to the United States.  That way – they won’t come.  Put them in jail when they get here, and put their kids in a “kiddie jail” too.  And if we run out of room for all of the kids – well our pardoned buddy Sheriff Joe Arpaio has the answer:  put them in tents on a military base.  That’s a great place to herd a bunch of unsupervised kids.

I know my friends from “the other side” will tell me that it’s not the US Government’s fault.  The adults that brought those kids risked them from the moment they left their homes.  They risked kidnapping, rape, human trafficking, exposure to the elements, and starvation.  And that was just the journey.  So they “get what they deserve” when they reach the border.

To quote the kids from Parkland, I call BS.  America is better than this.  These are the kind of people America wants, folks who care so much about their families and their lives, that they are willing to risk it all for a better place. The vast majority of them are not – “OH MY GOD – MS-13!!!.”  They aren’t even the young drug runners from Mexico.  They are, literally, “ the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”

This is  what America was made of.  And it’s not just what happens to the immigrants, or the kids. It’s about what happens to the Americans who are put in the position of doing these deeds.  Doesn’t anybody recognize the words, “you’re just going to take a bath.”  Will we start playing symphonies as they go next?  Those AMERICANS who are forced to separate the screaming kids from their screaming parents:  what are we doing to them?

And for those who say President Obama was doing this before – not so much.  There was a whole lot of underage immigrants coming to the border, and the Obama Administration was faced with dealing with all of those teenaged kids.  But they were alone, not with their parents.  Americans had to take charge and control of them.

Stop this.  Stop doing this in OUR name.  I know the Trump Administration has promised to stop illegal immigration, and while we can have the long argument about what the policy should look like:  STOP THIS NOW.  We are America – we do not abuse the weak and helpless, even if it gets a few more votes “from the base.”  STOP THIS – in the name of whatever it is you believe in that makes you human, STOP.

Who Votes

While our attention was turned to the events in Singapore, the US Supreme Court released a decision that upheld Ohio’s law to remove and update the state’s voter registration list. The Supreme Court split five to four for the decision, with the conservative five lining up against the more progressive four.

The Ohio Law is one of several state election laws brought into question in the courts.  Each of these laws has a process for automatically removing voters from the registration lists if over a period of time those voters either don’t vote, or don’t respond to communications from the elections department.  The avowed claim is that this is simply a “housekeeping” chore, removing those from the voting rolls who have moved, or died.  Ohio’s law is one of the more reasonable versions.

If a voter fails to vote for two years, the Board of Elections sends a card in the mail asking them to respond.  If the voter fails to respond, it triggers a series of mailings over the next four years. If the voter neither responds nor votes during that time, the voter’s name is stricken from the voting list.

It seems reasonable. Voting is tied to residency; if a voter is no longer living at the residence given on the election registration, then the voter is no longer eligible to vote in that precinct.  Election officials point to voting lists filled with the moved and the dead; and warned that such lists are inviting voting fraud. They claim that in order to prevent fraud, the lists need to be purged.

So if the law seems reasonable, then why was it brought to court, and why was the Supreme Court so split on its response?

The Ohio law was passed by the Republican dominated legislature, as part of a nationwide effort by Republicans to maintain power by limiting voting.  This has three principal strategies:  gerrymander districts to maximize Republican representation; restrict voting access by limiting days, times and places to vote; and restricting voter registration by requiring voter identification and constant registration monitoring.  All of this is legal, and much of it has been done in the name of “safe and secure” elections.

But the reality is that our elections are more than safe and secure.  Every non-partisan study of voting shows that are incredibly few incidents of illegal voting in the United States (Time: The Actual True and Provable Facts about Non-Citizen Voting.)  And while the President has claimed that as many as five million votes cast (all for Hillary Clinton, of course) in the 2016 election were illegal, the organization of Secretaries of State (the state officials in charge of elections) completely disagrees.

So the Ohio law and others like it are fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.  So how does a registration list law like Ohio’s influence elections?

Statistically (and sadly) Democratic voters are less likely to vote than Republican voters.  This is why partisan results are often so different in Presidential election years, when there are a lot more votes, than in off-years.   For example, while Ohio is consistently a “purple” state, closely balanced between Republican and Democrat during Presidential elections, all but one statewide office is held by Republicans, most elected in off-years.  A law that removes folks for not voting is more likely to remove Democrats than Republicans.

Lower income voters are more likely to change addresses, and are more likely to have difficulty getting “land mail.”  This is common sense, as lower income voters are more likely to live in rental situations. While voting registration is tied to residency at an address, changing address does not necessarily disqualify a voter.  In Ohio, an address change should trigger a “provisional ballot.” And, as lower income voters are more likely to be Democrats, the law is going to effect them.

Finally, when this is combined with a strict voter identification law (requiring state issued ID) and with restricted voting days, locations and times; the overall effect is to reduce the number of Democrats that can vote.

The Ohio law is one of the more “moderate” versions.  Other states go so far as to scour the lists, looking for duplicate registrations. Somehow, thousands of “John Smiths” remain, will multiple “Juan Gonzales” get removed.  It is all part of a legal scheme to retain Republican control.

Ohio’s law has been upheld by the Supreme Court, but even their decision represents a partisan act. The refusal of the Republican US Senate to consider President Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, then filling the vacancy with Neil Gorsuch after the Trump election, in all likelihood determined the outcome of yesterday’s decision.

And unfortunately, the battle over the “legal” restrictions ignores the real threat to our voting system: outside “hacking” into registration to prevent legal voting.  The facts are that Russian intelligence attacked at least twenty-one state voter registration databases before the 2016 election:  we still haven’t determined what damage was done.  Last week in the California primary, over 100,000 voters disappeared from the Los Angeles County voting rolls.  While those effected were allowed to cast “provisional” ballots, there still has been no clear explanation of what happened.  (For more information on possible voting “hacks” check out unhackthevote.com.)

The United States is a Republic and the foundation of our nation is free elections, not only free from outside interference, but also free from partisan lawmaking that restricts voter access. Our goal should be for every citizen to vote: Ohio and the Supreme Court have raised one more barrier prevent that. But it can all be overcome by citizens, Democrat and Republicans, voting; even if it’s hard, even if means checking to make sure you’re still registered, even if it requires waiting in line at the polls.  Because in a Republic based on the will of the majority, when the majority shows up, they will prevail.

The Nuclear Apprentice

Today begins the climax of the “Celebrity Apprentice goes Nuclear” season.  Last week, President Trump was in the outdoor boardroom in Quebec, where he was able to say his famous phrase “your fired” to America’s strongest allies of the last seventy years.   Trump particularly tried to humble the young and handsome Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, who had the audacity of trying to treat “the Donald” as an equal.

The Quebec boardroom episode left America and the world in suspense.  Would Donald develop a new alliance with the Russians and Chinese? Was Donald simply making the old allies “work harder” to keep traditional balances, so that he can take advantage of the chaos?  Is the President working his famous “gut” to find a better deal?  Or, as some fear, is Donald under the influence of his secret boardroom advisors, who have as their goal a New World Order (NWO – also a pro-wrestling team and a rap music group) where the US doesn’t need allies.

That was last week. The President left the episode calling Trudeau a weak back-stabber.  He stepped on the famous Trump Airliner (now Air Force One) and flew off to exotic Singapore, where this year’s final episode is being filmed.

In this week’s edition, the President goes nuclear.  He meets with Kim Jung-un, the “boy leader” of North Korea.  Kim has developed his nation into a nuclear power with ballistic missiles despite US and world sanctions, and now wants his seat in the “boardroom.” Trump wants Kim to give up all of his nuclear and ballistic missiles, Kim wants Trump to lift the sanctions to allow North Korea to grow economically, and remove US troops from the region.

The problem:  if Kim gives up his weapons, then, like Trudeau, he will appear weak – the biggest failure in the Trump world.  Weakness in the boardroom means only one thing: “you’re fired” (which hopefully doesn’t translate into the North Korean term for “fire the missiles” to prove you’re not weak.)

Kim has been preparing for this episode literally his whole life.  While he might appear as a “boy king,” Kim has over and over demonstrated his ruthlessness.  In a previous episode he sent a captured American student back to the US physically destroyed and on the verge of death.  That was a different season, but he brings that “strength” to the boardroom, a trait that “the Donald” needs to take into consideration.

The President comes into the meeting with his famous ability to “make a deal.”  He also has raised the stakes of this episode:  after last week is his famous “gut” able to make this deal work, or will we have a season finale where all of Trump’s deals fall through? And if the negotiations get into the “nitty-gritty” details, will the President be prepared?  He hasn’t studied for this meeting, he says, he’s been preparing “all of his life.”

The President says he’ll know within minutes of the start whether Kim will make a deal or not.  Old viewers of American policy, might remember President George W Bush’s claim that he could “…look Vladimir Putin in the eyes and see into his soul.”  The soul turned out to be cold and empty, much to Bush’s surprise.  Putin turned his nation away from democracy, and moved to a kleptocratic autocracy.

But “the Donald” has a special weapon at his disposal.  Look for a guest appearance by that famous character of the nineties, basketball legend Dennis Rodman.  Rodman has previously developed a rapport with Kim, who appears in awe of the pierced and tattooed member of the famous Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls.  If Trump can’t find a way to get some concessions from Kim, perhaps Rodman can.

But there might be success even in failure for “the Donald.”  The secret boardroom advisors are looking for an excuse for war:  if “the Donald” fails in Singapore, they can then say that he did everything he could, and it’s time for the US to move. Trump advisor John Bolton has been preparing for that scenario for years.  In a New World Order based on strength, Bolton wants a show of US might against someone:  if not Iran, North Korea might well work.

But that is a script from next year’s season.  Today we brace for the season finale, “Trump goes nuclear.”  Let’s hope the episode title isn’t too prophetic.

Bro Code Rules

There is a set of rules among boys and men called the “Bro Code.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen it written down, they are what sociologists call “mores,” but they are none-the-less real. We learn them in young adolescence as we develop close relationships with other guys, and then start to get interested in romance.

There is no one closer than “bros.”  They stick together, they share secrets, they get in trouble, they try things, both legal and illegal, they are the brothers that “bros” represent.  They sometimes fight, but in the event of trouble, they have each other’s backs.  In fact the true test of how much of a “bro” you are, is when there is a fight.  There are those that find a way out, and there are those that find a way to stand up. Stand up guys are true “bros.”

Part of the code governs what to do when friends are both interested in the same romantic relationship. The code states that the first to express interest, should get to pursue the romance.  But the code also recognizes that sometimes love (and lust) trumps all other rules.  It allows forgiveness for failing to follow the code when it comes to love.

And the final part of the code covers when one of the “bros” falls in love,  and falls away.  It recognizes that romantic relationships take all attention and time, and that when it happens, that “bro” will not live up to the other obligations of the code.  If the romantic relationship is temporary, the code allows the “bro” to be forgiven and come back.  If it is more permanent, then the “former bro” will be forever remembered as part of the group, but no longer a “bro.”

The alliance that developed in response to the Cold War is like “bros.”  The World War II “bros” of the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Canada was joined by Germany and Japan to become the most influential alliance in the world.  They had each other’s back, in Korea, in Vietnam, in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They had arguments over the Middle East and other issues, but they stood together against the Soviet Union and Communism.

And like any “bro group” they looked for one nation to be the leader.  The United States, the most powerful and most wealthy, used its strength to pursue the goals of the group.  Since the 1950’s, this group has been together, surviving falling outs, romances with other groups, wars and depressions. They’ve also had great successes including the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communism.

Now, one of the group seems to be in love with someone else.  President Trump is leading the United States to love affairs with autocrats and dictators: Vladimir Putin, Kim Jung-un, Recep Erdogan, Mohammad bin Salman, Xi Jinping.   Even Benjamin Netanyahu, like Trump, can act without much input from his government.  Trump is a “personal guy,” he relates to the world by how he feels about their leaders.  And, since Trump views himself as a decisive and strong “bro,” he relates to other leaders who can make decisions on their own without consultation or vote.

My expectation is that Trump views the G 7 leaders this way.

1. Justin Trudeau of Canada is an Obama type liberal, and a kid.
2. Macron is a slick operator, but in the end, way too French.  Trump really doesn’t like to hold hands, with anyone.
3. Angela Merkel is a woman who dares to compete with him for leadership.
4. Theresa May is weak both at home and abroad.
5. Shinzo Abe, a good golfer, and is doing a good job of “schmoozing,” but the Japanese gave up their military.  Trump cannot stand weakness, ask Puerto Rico.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that President Trump has treated the G7 disrespectfully.  He did the same thing with NATO (most of the same folks) and even with the European Union, seen by Trump as the antithesis of decisive.

The “G6” is complaining that Trump is walking away from the “bro group.”  He thinks they don’t really have a choice, that the US is such an important “bro” that they will stick with the group, regardless of what he does. And besides, he wants to start a new group, one that has the power to do anything it wants.  Trump, Putin, Xi; that’s the “bro group” he wants.

If he and his “theorists” (Bannon, Miller, and Bolton) get their way, the world will be a very different place.  The US will be aligned with nations where power rather than ideology is the critical factor.  But if the US turns back from the Trump Doctrine towards the “bro group” of democracy, we can only hope that “bro rules” apply.  Maybe they will take us back.

 

 

 

The Comey Dilemma

It sounds like the President’s birthday present may be the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the conduct of former FBI Director James Comey during the Hillary Clinton investigation.  “Deepstate” theorists are keenly awaiting the release, sure that it will reveal a conspiracy to protect Clinton from the consequences of her email use.

It’s a tremendous contradiction.  Comey is the “proximate cause” of the defeat of Hillary Clinton.  His actions in announcing the reopening of the email investigation (the search of the Weiner laptop – there has to be a better way to say that) ten days before the election, clearly stopped the Clinton momentum and lead to the narrow results giving us President Trump.  It also made all of the other influences, including Russian involvement and possible voter tampering, factors in the outcome.

In short then, Comey got Trump elected President.  So what’s everyone complaining about?

The President speaks of “Comey and his band of thieves.”  But theft isn’t going to be what the Inspector General finds in his report, so what will Mr. Horowitz discover?

Without any investigation, there are several areas where James Comey probably stepped over the edge of Department of Justice policies.  Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein has already outlined many of these actions in his letter prior to Comey being fired.

1. He announced the results of an investigation without filing any charges, but used the opportunity to draw conclusions on the actions of a “suspect”. This was the July speech announcing the results of the Clinton investigation, without consulting his superiors in the Department of Justice, and determing that charges should not be filed. He then chided Clinton for being “careless,” hardly a legal determination.  That decision  to file charges is made by the prosecutors at Justice, not the investigators of the FBI.
2. He then violated the “sixty day rule” of the Department of Justice. The rule states that the Department, including the FBI, must avoid unduly influencing elections by avoiding actions within sixty days of an election.  Comey’s October 26^thannouncement clearly violated that policy.  In addition, that statement also was done without consultation with his superiors at Justice.
3. It is now known that there was a three-week delay between the discovery that there were Clinton emails on the Weiner laptop, and permission to search those emails. Whether Comey is responsible for the delay, or his deputy McCabe, or there is some other rationale, this delay caused the “October surprise” reopening of the Clinton email investigation.  Had they started the laptop search earlier they would have been able to clear Clinton weeks before election day instead of hours before.

It won’t take an Inspector General’s report to reveal these issues, they are already well known.  Comey makes a strong argument for taking the first two actions, based on what occurred with Attorney General Loretta Lynch. A few days prior to the determination that the FBI would not recommend charges for Clinton, Lynch had an indiscrete meeting with former President Bill Clinton at the Phoenix Airport.  This meeting created an aura of impropriety around the Attorney General.  She did not recuse herself from the investigation, but stated she would accept the FBI results and recommendations. This and Comey’s desire to keep the FBI out of politics, made him feel empowered to make the July statement.

And the reaction of Republicans in Congress to that announcement, in particular the House Government Oversight Committee and Chairman Trey Gowdy; made the October letter inevitable.  Comey had assured the Committee that he would notify them if anything changed regarding the Clinton emails, their presence on Weiner’s laptop was a major change.

It is also rumored that the Weiner Laptop information was already being leaked from the New York FBI office.  Rudy Giuliani claims to have had forewarning of the information, and Comey probably had little choice but to get out ahead of the release.

Comey almost assuredly violated Department of Justice regulations, and while he had good reason, and felt that he also had the authority to do so, “Monday morning quarterbacking” by the Inspector General will probably find him wrong. None of these actions rise to the level of violation of law; the ultimate penalty for them would to be removed from the Director’s job.  That’s happened.

The Trump campaign owes Comey a huge favor.  He’s why Trump is in office; he couldn’t have strategized it better if it was planned. But instead, Comey is called a “thief,” and this report will be used to create fog and doubt around the Mueller investigation.  Happy birthday, Mr. President:  but soon the Mueller report will be your real present.

 

I was going to take this morning off, but then I heard Mr. Trump and “Comey and his band of thieves,” and I had to write!!!

 

1968

Yesterday was the fiftieth Anniversary of the death of Robert Kennedy.  The coverage brought back a lot of memories.

It was the worst year I can remember:  worse than 2017, worse than even 2001.  It was the year I turned twelve, and the year that I became involved in politics, history, and the life of America.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know about politics before.  In 1960, I proudly wore a JFK for President button.  When visiting a very Republican family friend, I was told to take the button off or sit outside.  I patiently waited outside the door and eventually they relented and let me in. I still have the small iron elephant they gave me as a present that day.

In 1966 my parents took me to see the President of the United States at the Fairgrounds in Dayton, Ohio.  I was excited and in awe just getting to see the President in person.  As Lyndon Johnson began to speak, a line of young people in the front, wearing black turtlenecks, began chanting for the President to stop the war in Vietnam.  They were from Antioch College in nearby Yellow Springs:  I was shocked that they would interrupt the President.

But it was in 1968 that I really became part of the American political system.

It was a Presidential election year, and it was the year that the Civil Rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War both went to the streets.  Richard Nixon was back as a Republican running for the Presidency, and the Democrats were in disarray.  Gene McCarthy, running against the War, chased President Johnson out of the race with a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary.

Bobby Kennedy, also against the war, was reluctant to run against Johnson and the “Best and the Brightest” staff chosen by his brother and still running the government.  But he finally entered, infuriating the kids who got “clean for Gene” and splitting the anti-war Democrats.  Hubert Humphrey, the Vice President, also entered as Johnson’s proxy (I got to meet him at the Dayton Airport.)  There were protests at colleges (my sister was at Miami) and in the streets, both anti-war and civil rights.  We were a nation in turmoil.

The Civil Rights movement was torn:  Martin Luther King continued to lead the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the main organization, but the younger generation of leaders were splitting off.  The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had broken away, and more radical groups like the Black Panthers and the Black Muslims were pressing for change.  King, seeing that black men were the greatest proportion of dying soldiers in Vietnam, came out against the war.

He began the Poor People’s Campaign, and marched in the streets for the sanitation workers in Memphis.

Each morning I woke at seven to catch the bus for Van Buren Junior High School.  The day began with a click, followed by the “clock-radio” with rock and roll.  Each half-hour, they read the news.  The news at 7 am on April 5^thwas that Martin Luther King had been shot and killed in Memphis.

Dayton burned that night. We sat in our family room, watching the live coverage from the TV station Dad managed.  Mom made sure we all stayed close to home.

I became a Bobby Kennedy supporter, and following his lead, and that of my sisters and Walter Cronkite, came out against the War.  It was not the majority view in suburban Kettering, Ohio, a town that was dominated by heavy industry and Wright Patterson Air Force Base.  Looking back, it probably wasn’t a majority view of my parents either.

I closely followed the Democratic campaigns.  Gene McCarthy refused to withdraw. He had earned the right to stay in the election, but at the time I wanted him out to give RFK a clear path to the nomination. It came down to California, and the delegate fight after, to see if anti-war Kennedy or pro-war Humphrey would gain the nomination.

June 5, 1968:  the clock-radio clicked and I woke to the news that Bobby Kennedy had been shot.  The next morning, the clock-radio clicked again, and he was dead.   The following days were quiet as we watched another Kennedy funeral.  The church service was in New York, and Ted Kennedy delivered the eulogy:

“…my brother…a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal, saw war and tried to stop it.”

He concluded with the words that were the driving force of the Kennedy Campaign,

“some men see things as they are and say why, I see things that never were and say, why not.”

It felt like the “things that never were” would never be.  Bobby Kennedy’s promise was lost.  We watched the mourning train go from New York to Washington, thousands lining the tracks, and the burial beside his brother in Arlington.

I spent the summer doing what eleven year olds do.  I swam, I rode my bike all over the city, and I played.  In late August, right before the start of school, I broke my arm.  After they set the break (without pain killers, I really remember that, just “hang on”) I was told to stay still for the next few days.  I sat on the couch with a “beer box” under my arm, and watched the continuous coverage of the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

It was a convention of disaster.  While the anti-war forces were marching the streets, the pro-war Humphrey forces had control of the convention.  Mayor Daley, a Humphrey man, decided to clear the protestors.  There were riots, there was tear gas; the live television coverage included beatings, and gassings, and cops chasing protestors and reporters into hotel lobbies and up stairwells.  It permanently disabled the Humphrey campaign.

It came as little surprise in November then, when the Principal announced over the PA system that Nixon was the next President of the United States.  Van Buren Junior High erupted in cheers, and I felt pretty miserable. There was little good to say about 1968.

Christmas of  ‘68 seemed to be more about turning the page on the year, and moving on towards the ‘70’s.  The one shining achievement was space exploration.  After the 1967 tragedy of Apollo 1, burning up on the Launchpad and killing three astronauts, the space program returned with earth orbits of Apollo 7 in October.  But it was Apollo 8 that was the first to leave earth and travel to the moon.

As they orbited, Astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders made live broadcasts back to earth.  It was Christmas Eve, and the voices from far away read the Book of Genesis, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth…” as we watched the sun rise over the moon.  It was the most watched TV broadcast ever (at the time) and we all watched as three men in a tiny vessel reached out across space to remind us that we are one on a small world.

The war would drag on for seven more years, and the issues that Martin Luther King died for are still apparent today.  It seemed like we turned away from hope.

Now, fifty years later, we may feel like we have turned away from hope again.  But, just as in 1968, we are a resilient country and a nation of essential goodness, and we will persevere and return to hope.  And somewhere, there is some eleven year old, watching all of this, probably between video games, and learning about politics and the world in 2018.  I hope that child will find the leaders and inspiration for a better future.

 

 

 

 

In Case You Missed It – June 6th

The news this morning: Eagles football team didn’t show at the White House, but the ceremony went on anyway.  It did raise the question; does the President know the words to the National Anthem?  Paul Manafort contacted witnesses in his upcoming trial to make sure they got their story straight (he must not know that witness tampering goes in the “cloud” and stays in the “cloud”) and will probably be in jail before his trial begins. This increases the pressure on him to cut a deal with the Mueller team:  what does he know?  And of course, primary elections across the country, setting the stage for a possible Democratic Congress after November.  Does this mean impeachment?

Kelly Sadler, the White House staffer who made the comment that it didn’t matter what John McCain says because, “…he’ll be dead soon,” is out of the White House.  Whether she left because of the comment, or for some other reason is unknown.

It’s the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Robert Kennedy (I can still remember the shock of hearing that as I woke up to the “clock-radio”) and the seventy-fourth anniversary of the D-Day Invasion.  Bill Clinton discovered that the excuses about his sexual exploits that worked in the 1990’s don’t work in the “Me-Too” era.  He faltered in a “softball” interview with NBC’s Craig Melvin.  Clinton needs to “fade away.”

Speaking of “Me-Too,” remember the Stanford swimmer case, where the man was convicted of sexual assault (attacking an unconscious woman by a dumpster) but received a short six-month sentence where he served three?  The judge who issued that sentence was recalled from office yesterday.

But as the political news clogs the airways, there are changes quietly being made in the US government that will alter our world.  President Trump has asked Secretary of Energy Rick Perry to use his emergency authority (until now confined to natural disasters) to force energy utilities to use more expensive and polluting coal plants rather than natural gas.  Trump is trying to prop up the coal industry at the cost of both the environment and consumers.  Employment in the coal industry is at 53,000; up from a low of 49,000 two years ago.

Scott Pruitt, the embattled EPA Director, used his staff to search for used Trump Hotel mattresses as he looked for a new apartment.  He also used his aides to help his wife find a job with fast food giant Chick-Fila. The good news, as long as he keeps concentrating on this stuff, he won’t get to damage the environment.

Grizzly bears in the Yellowstone Park region were taken off of the endangered species list a year ago. Bears had grown from a low of 136 in 1975 to around 700 in 2017.  The Wyoming wildlife commission just approved a hunt for as many as twenty-two bears, the first time in four decades.  This is how the bears got on the endangered list in the first place.

The ongoing crisis at the border has grown worse, with thousands of children being held in temporary shelters, including a closed Wal-Mart, while the Administration continues to remove children from parents who arrive, both legally and illegally, to ask for refuge in the United States.  The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has called on the US to end the practice:  US Ambassador Nikki Haley responded by attacking the Commission.

Vice President Pence is planning to go back to South America, working to ostracize Venezuela from the Organization of American States, and putting more pressure on the failing government there. The Vice President is getting out of the US and away from the political crisis.  He also sent his heartfelt concerns to the people of Guatemala, where a volcanic eruption has buried several villages.  Hundreds are missing.

But nothing is mentioned about Puerto Rico, where a Harvard study shows that thousands died (perhaps as many as 8,500) as a result of Hurricane Maria last year, not the sixty-four of the “official” count.  There are no Congressional investigations planned, and there is no increased influx of Federal funding coming.  Puerto Ricans, US citizens, are on their own. The infrastructure, no-where near repaired, is so fragile that even a minor storm could knock out the island again.

In another infrastructure crisis, the state of Michigan is ending its free bottled water program in Flint, Michigan.  The Governor says that testing shows lead levels below the Federal limits, so the bottled water isn’t needed.  Many residents point out that the lead pipes that created the problem are still there, and water should be provided until they are replaced.  But, Michigan is considering taxing a Nestle bottled water plant across the state.  The plant pumps 400 gallons a minute to fill 4.8 million bottles a day.  The cost for the water: $200/well annual fee.  Maybe a larger tax could be used to fix lead pipes.

In case you missed it, the US and China are arguing about small manmade islands that China is claiming in the South China Sea.  The Chinese have built these sea level reefs into military bases, including an airfield, in order to claim extending national sovereignty over the Sea almost to the Philippines.  The US refuses to recognize the Chinese claims, and has sent both US warships and B-52 Bombers to do right-of-passage exercises in the area.  As long as everyone keeps their fingers off the triggers, it will probably be OK.

And to bring it all back around to the Mueller investigation again, a candidate for the New York State Attorney General office is running on one main issue:  whatever happens in the Federal investigation, she will make sure the State of New York will prosecute the Trump family for their actions. Federal pardons don’t effect state charges.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pardon Me

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. – Constitutional Oath for the President

There are few powers as unlimited in the US Constitution as the Presidential power to pardon.  In the complex system of checks and balances established by the Constitutional Convention where each branch has an alternate authority over the other; there is no check against the power of pardon.

John Marshall, who as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court established the power of the judiciary in the United States, defined the pardon power in 1833:

A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual, on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. It is the private, though official act of the executive magistrate….  – John Marshall – US v Wilson

The Constitutional Convention recognized that no matter how structured and balanced the government was, there might be times when the “grace” of a pardon was necessary.  George Washington exercised this power during his Presidency, forgiving the participants in the Whiskey Rebellion.  Most of the Confederate Civil War veterans were pardoned after the Civil War.  Jimmy Carter pardoned many of those who dodged the draft during Vietnam.  And, while many disagreed with President Gerald Ford, his pardon of disgraced President Richard Nixon brought to an end three years of national turmoil.

These pardons had a high purpose, to reunite the nation after some critical event. President Ford described it well; he was trying to end, “…our long national nightmare.”

A second use of the pardon power was to “right a wrong, ”the “private” act that John Marshall described.   Some have been famous:  Eugene Debs the Socialist Presidential candidate of the 1920’s, Patty Hearst the kidnaped heiress turned terrorist.  Some have tried to rectify the wrongs of an earlier time: President Obama pardoned hundreds who were convicted of drug charges in the 1990’s and given lengthy sentences during the “war on drugs.”  And some have been related to the President; President Clinton pardoned his brother Roger who had already completed a jail sentence for cocaine possession and trafficking.  Roger was caught up in a sting that the President himself had authorized as Governor of Arkansas.

There is no check on the pardon power.  If a President is willing to face impeachment and removal from office by the Congress, then he might be able exercise the pardon power in any way he chooses.  At least, that’s the position the President Donald Trump has taken, as he claims to have the power to “pardon himself.”

However, there are two legal precepts that could alter Mr. Trump’s perception. The first is the legal precept that no one can judge their own case.  A pardon requires someone who can give the pardon and someone to accept it; a President pardoning himself is in fact judge and jury.  It is possible a court might be persuaded to void such a pardon.

The second is the legal concept of “corrupt purpose.”  If the President uses the pardon power to prevent testimony against himself, or if a President uses it to avoid personal prosecution, these actions have a corrupt purpose.  Federal jury instructions describe corrupt purpose as:

A person acts “corruptly” if he acts voluntarily and intentionally, with an improper motive of accomplishing either an unlawful result, or a lawful result by some unlawful method or means.

Avoiding or interfering with criminal prosecution is an unlawful result, so even the President’s lawful act of pardoning may be considered corrupt.

Would a court, and ultimately the Supreme Court, rule that a Presidential pardon “doesn’t count?”  If the President were to pardon, say, Paul Manafort, it is unlikely that the Court would stop it.  The President might be held accountable for a corrupt use of his power, either by impeachment and removal, or by criminal indictment after the term in office is complete, but the pardon itself would probably stand.  However, if the President were to try to pardon himself, this would create a crisis not foreseen in the halls of Philadelphia in 1787.

There certainly would be one price that any President that pardoned himself would face: sure impeachment and removal by the Congress.  President Trump should realize this from the response the Republicans in the House and Senate gave.  Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) maybe put it best:   “If I were President of the United States, and I had a lawyer that told me I could pardon myself, I think I would hire a new lawyer.”

 

 

 

Going Back to School

Twelve years of public school, four years of college, a semester of law school, three years to get a Masters, and twenty-six years of teaching history and government: throughout that time I learned and taught that the President of the United States was “immune” from prosecution while in office.

In high school I was more than fixated on the Watergate crisis: I watched the three committees hearings almost gavel to gavel, I read everything I could about it, I memorized the Nixon re-election campaign personnel charts.  The Special Prosecutor’s office of Archibald Cox and Leon Jarworski made it clear then, that they did not think they could charge a President.  In their major indictments, when the Attorney General, the Chief of Staff, the Secretary of Treasury and others were brought to trial, there was an eighth “unnamed and unindicted co-conspirator.”  It was clear who this was:  President of the United States Richard M. Nixon.

The Watergate special prosecutors thought their only option was for the House to impeach the President, and the Senate to hold a  trial and remove him.  I thought it was gospel, or in the legal term:  black letter law.

This week the legal team for President Trump re-asserted the claim that the President, while serving, is outside of the reach of the legal system.  Mayor Giuliani went as far as to say that Trump could have shot (FBI Director) Comey in the Oval Office, and there would be nothing the courts could do. While Guiliani may have been tricked into the old “law school game” of taking a position to its most absurd end, this is where they stand.

Seeing that position, I went back to the actual “black letter law,” the Constitution of the United States.  The US Constitution in Article 1, Section 6 does create limited immunity for members of Congress:

They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

The Constitutional convention considered the possibility that members of the government might be subject to the legal system.  In order to keep them from arrests that might be used to prevent them from attending sessions, they were given limited immunity.  It also protected them from legal liability for what they might say in debate.

The authors knew that the sessions of Congress would be limited (four or five months a year in the beginning) and carved out exceptions for major crimes. Members of Congress were clearly NOT above the law.

US Constitution Article 2, Section 4 speaks to the removal of the President:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

This is the only place where possible criminal activity by the President is addressed.  So while the authors of the Constitution clearly thought about criminal immunity for members of Congress (Art.1, §6,) they did not mention it when it came to the President, other than grounds for impeachment.  The President then, clearly is NOT above the law.  The Constitution outlines the process of removing him from office, but it specifically does not grant him criminal immunity.

So where did the “immunity” idea came from?  Like all good controversies in US History, enter Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.

After Burr shot Hamilton (giving drama to the ending of an amazing musical) he headed west across the Appalachians.  He got involved with a group plotting to break away from the United States, and in 1807 was brought to trial for treason.  Burr subpoenaed the President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, to testify on his behalf at the trial in Richmond.  Chief Justice John Marshall, sitting as a traveling federal judge, presided in the case.

Jefferson refused to appear, citing the pressing duties of the Presidency. Marshall did not enforce nor did he rule on the subpoena (but Burr was acquitted.)  So a precedent was sort of established relieving the President from appearing in court.  Presidents have cited Jefferson and Marshall ever since.

On the other hand, when Richard Nixon refused a subpoena to hand over evidence (tapes) to the Special Prosecutors, the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 requiring release. Nixon might have refused (guaranteeing his impeachment.) Instead, he chose to comply, and was forced to resign within the month.

And when Bill Clinton said he was too busy to testify in a civil case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that that he couldn’t hide behind privilege.  He ultimately did testify, and lied, and was impeached (but not convicted or removed.)

So where is the “black letter law” granting the President immunity?  There isn’t any.  There is a series of norms and traditions that respects the President’s time, and treats him with special care.    Presidents deserve the respect that this implies, and Giuliani has a point when he stated that the President should be worried about North Korea not Bob Mueller.  But when it comes to the assertion that he is immune, there is no statute or Constitutional provision they can cite.

To history and government classes from 1978 to 2006, you have my apologies.  I can blame Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, but I failed to find the nuance in his position.   And to everyone else:  this President has been nothing if not a “norm and tradition breaker.”   It is no wonder they are worried that this one might be broken.

 

Our Enemy, Canada

US Constitution, Article 1, §8

1. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.
2. To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
3. To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes

On December 7^th, 1941, the day that “will live in infamy,” the United States was attacked by Japan.  The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt went to the Congress and asked them to declare war.  It was the last time war was declared by the United States, even though we have fought five major wars since.

The Cold War changed all of that.  When we arrived in the era with the specter of nuclear destruction hovering over every facet of American life, there was no time for the niceties of Congressional judgment.  As a second grader, hiding in the hallway of an elementary school in primary target zone Detroit, I was prepared for a nuclear detonation:  head between my knees, hands over the back of my head, eyes firmly closed to the flash.  It could happen; less than an hour from start to finish.  Congress didn’t have a chance.

Congress, in recognition of the immediacy of war, began to divest its powers to the President.  While they retained “ultimate” authority, it was clear that the US government needed to be able to act quickly to defend itself.  It originally was the war making powers, but later devolved into the power to respond economically if a nation threatened our “security” through its trade practices.

There were two implications in this transfer of power. The first was that while Congress might give immediate decision making away, it retained the ability to reconsider. And second, that since the power was given by Congress, they could take it back.

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the same year I was hiding in the hallway, allows the Secretary of Commerce to defend our “national security” industries by controlling tariffs.  Under the terms of this section, the Secretary declares that an industry, vital to our national security, needs to be protected.  He can then set a higher tariff (tax on imports) on competing goods from other countries.

Last week, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross declared that Canada, yes Canada, was a danger to US national security because of the competition of Canadian steel and aluminum with US products.  He instituted a 25% tariff on Canadian steel, and a 10% tariff on Canadian aluminum.

Since Franklin Roosevelt declared the “day of infamy;” for the purposes of national security Canadian steel and aluminum production was considered part of the US production.  It made sense, our “real” national security was tied to Canada; during the Cold War, it was a string of US radar bases, the DEW line (distant early warning) in Canada that kept us aware of the Soviet missile actions.  In World War II and every war since, Canadian troops have fought, as Prime Minister Trudeau stated, “…shoulder to shoulder” with US troops. They have been our truest ally.  But now they’re not.

This isn’t really about national security; it’s about leverage.  Secretary Ross is in negotiations with Canada and Mexico over NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement.)  President Trump spent his campaign railing against NAFTA (at least in part because it was negotiated by his opponent’s husband) and is set on making dramatic changes.  Canada and Mexico were willing to come to the table, but aren’t moving as quickly as Ross wants.

And the President claims that the US steel industry will have a rebirth, much like the coal industry.  It was a campaign promise, as unlikely as it is to occur.

So it’s about money and politics, not security.

The consequences are serious.  First we are in the process of alienating one of our firmest allies.  We have completely changed the rules of our relationship, without notice or seeming cause.  It has already strained our relationship, and real damage is not far away.

Second the costs of tariffs aren’t borne by the producers, but by the consumers.  In real terms, “We the People, of the United States,”  will pay the cost of these tariffs, through higher prices in construction and vehicles and beer cans and all the other products made with aluminum and steel.

And where is Congress?  A clear majority of both the House and Senate are opposed to these tariffs.  Will Congress take their Constitutional authority back? If they did, perhaps they might take a few more back as well, including their control of America going to war. But don’t hold your breath.  We are more likely to go to war…with Canada.

 

 

 

 

 

Trust but Verify

In the 1980’s, President Ronald Reagan drove the Soviet Union to the nuclear bargaining table by outspending them on weapons.  The United States was spending 6% of its GDP  (gross domestic product) on defense, to match it, the Soviets were forced to spend almost 20% of theirs.  Those of the right age will remember the “Star Wars” defense, a satellite in space that could launch rockets at enemy missiles and destroy them above the atmosphere. The US never completed “Star Wars” to our knowledge, but the effort forced the Soviets to spend their rubles to keep up.   It was an untenable position that drove them to negotiate.  It ultimately was a major cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the negotiations, which resulted in the INF (Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces) treaty and the groundwork for START  (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) many Americans were fearful that the Soviets could not be trusted: that they would sign the treaties but secretly continue to develop the banned weapons.  To these concerns, Reagan responded with an old Russian proverb, “Doveryai, no proveryai,”  trust but verify.

From the many essays in “Trump World” it should be clear that I am not a Donald Trump fan.  But I am an American, and however I feel about our current President I would like to see him succeed in his dealings with North Korea.  To him I say “doveryai, no proveryai.”  The North Koreans have a long history of faithless bargaining, agreeing to many things at the table, but continuing in secret with the development of their nuclear and ballistic missile programs.  Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all hoped for a truthful North Korean response, and have all been let down.

It isn’t that they didn’t know.  And it isn’t that they didn’t plan for North Korean subterfuge.  They made these treaties in the hope that North Korea would follow through and normalize their relations with the world, but in full knowledge that it was a hope and not a surety.  Clinton, Bush and Obama all believed in “Doveryai, no proveryai.”

And now, through what feels like a series of seat of your pants maneuvers, the “Great Deal-maker” is planning to sit at the table with the “Supreme Leader” of North Korea. Perhaps it was the “big stick” strategy that the President has employed, threatening “fire and fury” if the North Koreans won’t give up their nuclear capabilities.  Perhaps it is that North Korea has reach a point where they no longer need to test their nuclear tipped ballistic missiles, and can easily give up their testing facilities without losing their arsenal.

Or perhaps, just maybe, the Supreme Leader, spending 22% of his nation’s GDP on defense, has decided it’s time to allow his people to stop starving and to share in the economic development that his neighbors have enjoyed.  Perhaps, by Trump allowing Kim to sit at the “big boy table” of world diplomacy; Kim will be willing to bring his country into the economic world where all of the nations around him:  Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan; are enjoying great prosperity and a high standard of living for all their people.

President Trump has allowed expectations to rise exponentially.  He has violated the rules of diplomacy, giving North Korea the prize of a summit with the leader of the free world, without a price.  Trump needs this summit, and he needs it to succeed.  He sees this as a way to prevent a Democrat takeover of Congress in the fall, and he may really see it as an advance in world peace.  I hope he earns a Nobel Prize, not by having the meeting, but by making real progress in denuclearizing the peninsula.

So to the Trump negotiating team: “Doveryai, no proveryai.”  Don’t get in too much of a hurry, estimates are that it would take fifteen years to establish a verification program in North Korea that would really know whether they are disarming or not.  Doveryai, no proveryai:  we didn’t believe the facts of UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency in 2002, and we invaded Iraq on false information.  Some of the folks who pushed for that invasion are members of your team, including the National Security Advisor.  Don’t get pushed into failure in negotiations, in order to hurry along and start a war.

And to the American people: “Doveryai, no proveryai.”  We know how badly the President wants and needs this effort to succeed.  While we wish him luck, we also know that he is the master of “relative truth” and “fake news.”  Whatever the perceived or published outcome of a Singapore summit, we must trust but verify too.