Category: Uncategorized

Don’t Change the Subject

Saturday, March 24^th 2018, we saw what youth can do. Hundreds of thousands marched in Washington, and millions more marched across the country. They marched for change and for making their lives and ours, better. They are high school kids and they marched to claim possession of the power to end an American problem, a problem that older generations failed to solve.

Their speeches were articulate and moving. Even in a little rally at the county courthouse in Newark, Ohio, the high school students made their views clear, and asked for simple common sense.   They also spoke from their heart, from the fear of a generation taught to bar the door, huddle in the corner, and throw rocks and soup cans against a semi-automatic rifle.

They have made it clear: America should not be a land where mass shootings are commonplace. They see a the way to solve the problem, remove the weapons of war that have strangely been accepted into our society by the older generations. Yes, better mental health care; yes, better background checks; but the real solution is in the guns.

Don’t change the subject. Adults who see the power of the movement are drawn to deflect it for their own needs. Well meaning adults, even teachers. who want to see less bullying in schools, who want to see kindness in place of cruelty, are trying to co-opt the energy of the “revolution.” These adults are acting as a buffer for the NRA, distracting from the raw agenda that frightens the lobbyists. Don’t let them change the subject.

Politicians see a mass of energy, votes, and workers. They may share many of the “revolution’s” views, but they see a path to election through the kids. They want that energy behind them, so they race to lead the students. These kids don’t want or need to be lead. They are not interested in the traditions of transactional politics. Agree, don’t agree, to them it’s how do they get America to change. Politicians: don’t change the subject.

There certainly are adults who are “enabling” these students. As one of the student leaders said, “…I’m seventeen, I can’t make a hotel reservation.” Those adults are doing a great job of coaching, letting the students determine the course, and then helping them find the tools to get to their goals. There are parents and teachers and school administrators behind these kids, but they have found the way to let kids lead. They haven’t changed the subject, and they have kept the movement in the students’ hands.

And the students have expanded their movement to include not just victims of mass shootings. One of the most powerful speeches in Washington yesterday was by a young woman from South-Central Los Angeles. She spoke of the loss of her brother to gun violence, she learned to “duck” gunfire before she could read. We heard from black students from Chicago, where gun and police violence are part of their everyday lives. This is more than just the students who survived Parkland, it’s about kids who survive gun violence everyday.

The National Rifle Association will try to make this about “privileged Parkland kids.” They’ll try to pit rural versus urban kids, and they’ll try to convince America that there are only two choices: semi-automatic weapons or taking away the Second Amendment and all guns. These kids recognize that the subject is much more complicated, they aren’t falling for the NRA bait. Don’t let the NRA change the subject.

How can we enable these students without co-opting their movement? They are really asking for one thing:  that our vote becomes our tool for change. We must demand of our candidates that they accept a solution to end gun violence. If they do, then they get our vote, if they don’t, then we vote them out. That’s how we can support this “revolution.” And, we can’t let others change the subject.

 

As Seen on TV!!!

I take a few days off to travel across the country, and look what happens. Sure, there’s the Porn Star, the Playgirl, and the Apprentice contestant; all suing the President for one sex related thing or another. And, of course, there’s the lawsuit filed by several states claiming that the President is violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution by profiting from the office of the Presidency. And then there was the congradulatory (sic) phone call to Vladimir Putin, praising him for rigging the Russian election and killing off his opponents. Oh, and forgetting to mention that Putin used nerve gas to try to kill a former spy in the United Kingdom. And then there’s the $60 Billion trade war with China, and a 700 point drop in the Dow Jones Average.

It’s hard to imagine a worse week for President Trump.

But here we are. Thursday was another crazy day in Trump World. John Dowd, the President’s lead attorney for the Russiagate investigation, resigned. His replacement, already hired in the reverse world of Trump, is Fox Television personality and analyst Joe DiGenova. DiGenova, whose recent law practice consists of going on Fox and claiming that the FBI was plotting against Trump, meets the requirements for the President’s new strategy towards the Mueller investigation.

It seems that Dowd, and his compatriot Ty Cobb, were presenting a defense based on “facts” they believed showed that Trump was innocent of any charges of conspiracy (collusion) with the Russians. Their “innocence strategy” included being cooperative with the investigators, and waiting for Mueller to prove the President’s position.

It doesn’t seem to be happening; Mueller continues to rack up more facts that raise questions about Trump’s involvement, and his vulnerability to influence and blackmail. An “innocence defense” won’t work if the client isn’t innocent. DiGenova represents Trump’s change in strategy: now it won’t be about the “facts,” but about the biased investigators who are trying to “overthrow” the elected government. DiGenova’s employment means that things will get very ugly; it’s Trump’s move to go “to war” against the Mueller team.

It’s likely that Trump will soon move against Mueller, following the “Saturday Night Massacre” example of the Watergate years.

Hard to imagine, but that wasn’t the worst reality TV of the day. Over the past fourteen months, one of the quiet saving graces of the Trump administration was the presence of the “adults” in the room. Secretary of State Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Mattis, Chief of Staff Kelly, and National Security Advisor McMasters were considered the calming forces in the turmoil of Trump World. By Thursday, Tillerson and McMasters were gone (fired, by tweet or phone call.) Replacing Tillerson at State: Mike Pompeo from the CIA, a “hard liner” on issues like Iran and North Korea.

And, as seen on TV, the replacement for McMasters is a real bomb thrower. John Bolton, most recently a Fox Commentator (“we should pre-emptively bomb North Korea”) and chairman of a conservative political action committee (over $1 million from the Mercer’s of Trump-Bannon and Cambridge Analytica fame) is to take the National Security role. McMasters has been the calming voice in the White House, Bolton hasn’t ever found a war he didn’t like. When Trump starts thinking about using his “bigger button,” Bolton is likely to push it for him.

It’s Friday morning. Is Kelly next on the Trump “hit list?” Will Mattis stay? When (not if) will Mueller be fired? And what will Stormy Daniels say or show on “60 Minutes” Sunday evening? It would be a great TV drama, if it wasn’t real.

How long will this go on? The question is really one for Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell. Now that they have passed their omnibus budget (which Trump this morning threatened to veto) will they finally begin to pressure Trump to end the drama? Don’t bet on that outcome, they are in for the entire season of Trump World.

 

It’s been 37 days since the school shootings at Parkland High School.  Tomorrow (Saturday 3/24) students and their supporters across the country will march for change.  Their power and dedication is amazing:  and the children shall lead!!!

 

 

 

 

Stone’s Dream

Roger Stone was twenty-one when he was called in front of the Watergate prosecutors in 1973. He had been a “dirty trickster” in the Richard Nixon re-election campaign for the past two years. Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President (ironically known as CREEP) had a secretly funded wing, led by lawyer Donald Segretti, to sabotage opposition campaigns.

Nasty letters, cancelled rallies, misdirected motorcades: dirty tricks to disrupt and distract. And sometimes, more serious attacks: the “Canuck Letter” written by the Nixon team took out the strongest Democrat, Maine Senator Ed Muskie. Nixon ended up running against a far weaker Senator George McGovern from South Dakota. It was one of the largest electoral landslides.

Stone, the youngest to testify in Watergate, to this day believes that the Nixon campaign didn’t do anything wrong. He has lived his life by the model of those Nixon tricksters, on the fringe of New York Republican politics, priding himself in his scams and false dealings. He became a protégé of Roy Cohn, the infamous lawyer from the McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s.

Stone has Richard Nixon’s face tattooed on his back. He’ll take his shirt off and show you. His dream is to re-write history.

Cohn introduced Stone to another client, Donald Trump.

Stone has been the informal political advisor to Trump for the past two decades. He claims that the Presidential run was his idea, and was an early member of the Trump campaign. He left the campaign early as well, but continued to work for Trump “from the outside.” In Roger Stone’s case, that’s probably on or over the edge of legality. Stone clearly was in contact with Julian Assange of Wikileaks about the leaked Democratic emails during the summer and fall of 2016.

The Watergate break-ins, the proximate cause of the Watergate scandal, took place in June of 1972. It was a petty bugging operation of the Democratic National Headquarters, and while the break-in itself was “small time,” it led to two major issues that brought down the Nixon Presidency. The first was the illegal use of campaign money, millions of dollars in cash in a closet, to fund the illegal operations. Those operations weren’t just campaign related, as Nixon also used his “Plumbers” to break into the offices of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist trying to find incriminating information on him (Ellsberg was the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers recently highlighted in the film “The Post”.)

The second issue became the case against the President himself. He directly participated in a major effort to obstruct justice by covering up the campaign and White House staff’s involvement in illegal activities. He tried to use the FBI and CIA to block investigations, he bribed people, and did everything he could to discredit the forces against him.

And, if Roger Stone is in part orchestrating the Trump response to Russiagate, he is following the Nixon playbook. Watergate failed to reach the level of court or Congressional investigation until the summer of 1973. Until then, the “crisis” was sustained by the press, notably Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post, but, then as now, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were involved, as well as other papers. CBS news, and particularly Daniel Schorr, were also part of continuing the story.

Nixon did his best to attack and discredit the press, using both his press secretary Ron Ziegler, and other administration officials. Vice President Spiro Agnew described the press this way:

“A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.”

Stone has Trump on the same game plan, but this time with a powerful tool to bypass the media. Twitter has allowed Trump to speak unfiltered to the masses. The reporters aren’t “effete snobs,” they are now just all “fake news.” It’s actually been an effective strategy, especially with Fox News following the President’s lead. Ultimately though, like Watergate, the investigation has moved to the professionals. In Watergate it was Archibald Cox and his team, today it’s Robert Mueller.

Nixon fired Archibald Cox in the famous Saturday Night Massacre of October 1973. Stone believes that Nixon should have followed up the firing with a bonfire, burning the incriminating audio tapes on the White House lawn in order to “preserve executive privilege” over the information. Instead Congress appointed a new prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who continued the Court process to force the release of those tapes. When, in July of 1974 Nixon was forced to turn them over (Nixon v United States, US Supreme Court) the evidence clearly showed Nixon’s guilt and he was doomed.

Stone won’t let Trump make the same mistake. When the “hammer drops” on Mueller, Stone will make sure the investigation doesn’t continue. That means (or meant) Andrew McCabe out at FBI, and Chris Wray on notice that the Russia investigation is a career ender. It means Devin Nunes’ efforts to discredit any evidence showing Trump conspiracy with the Russians will actually have an impact; as cover for the “good” Republicans to use when they refuse to appoint another Special Counsel. Stone’s goal: no Leon Jaworski and no Supreme Court this time.

Stone is quietly communicating with the “Trump stalwarts” in the Congress, most notably Congressman Matt Goetz from Florida. As Trump loses more and more of his inner advisors, Stone remains at the other end of the phone late at night, helping the President maintain office.

Stone’s dream: this time they’ll get it right, and show the world how “hard ball” is played. This time, Nixon (whoops – Trump) won’t be forced from office. This time, and for all time, the men who dedicated themselves to Nixon/Trump will prevail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acts of a Guilty Man

A may seem simplistic, but an innocent man tends to act innocent, and a guilty one guilty. Innocent folks are open, they are willing to cooperate, they are willing to discuss. If you need an example James Comey would certainly be one: he is open, he is willing to discuss, there is no subterfuge, even about the questionable decisions he made about the Clinton email investigation.

Oddly enough, another innocent (seeming) man is Sam Nunberg. As “manic” as his reactions to the Mueller subpoena seemed to be, he came across as an innocent guy, who wanted to defend his friend Roger Stone, and who was overwhelmed with the task of searching through three years of emails. His “manic” behavior, going from one interview to the next, made us question his mental health, but not his guilt. This contrasts to Carter Page, who also did a whole series of bizarre interviews. Page left us with the feeling that he was either nuts, or playing the “nut” role. I’m betting on the latter.

So let’s take the Trump side for a moment, and look at the defense strategy he has taken.

The first move was to immediately deny any and all charges of “collusion” (whatever that term means, the legal charge would be conspiracy.) He’s done that since January of 2017, when the Steele dossier was first revealed. Every step in the investigation since then has been followed with the claim of “…no collusion here…”

The next move was to discredit the investigators. When the Russia investigation began, it was led by the media. “FAKE NEWS” was the cry, and every detail was challenged. Michael Cohen (Trump’s private lawyer) immediately initiated a lawsuit against the first publisher of the Steele Dossier, Buzzfeed. Attacks against journalists began (and continue) from Jim Acosta at “Fake News CNN” to Michael Schmidt at the “failing New York Times,” to “sleepy eyed Chuck Todd that son of a bitch” at MSNBC.

Fake News, Fake News, Fake News, Fake News: over and over again, denying the truthfulness and the accuracy of the American media. And while many Americans have been able to get past the background noise, to those looking for a Trump defense, this was the first and foremost.

As the investigation moved to its legal phase, the attacks changed to include the investigators themselves. They claim that the FBI (the same agency that impacted the outcome of the 2016 election by revealing further Hillary Clinton email investigations) was corrupted against Trump. There were texts between a lead FBI agent and his “paramour” (gotta love that word – it characterizes the illicit nature of both participants) showing they hated Trump (and Clinton and Bernie Sanders – but we never get much on that.) They fire the leader of the agency, Comey, then attack his replacement, McCabe.

They bring in Rod Rosenstein, then immediately begin to attack him (“a Democrat from Baltimore” – not true by the way.) Soon it’s a picture of an entire Department of Justice gone rogue, from Rosenstein through the FBI.

There is no real evidence that any of this is true, it’s all two plus two equal five stuff. But it doesn’t matter. Damage the investigators, and call into question the outcome of the investigation, even before the outcome has come out! These are the actions of someone who presumes guilt, not innocence.

And what about Robert Mueller himself? Other than the repetitious claim that his team is “Democrats” there has been little else said about the investigators. The FBI has borne the brunt of the charges; the lawyers and investigators working out of the Mueller offices have been immune so far. They are the final target – when Trump goes directly after Mueller, either through word or deed (attempting to fire him) we will know that the end is near.

When you step back from the details of the fray, insults, interviews, indictments and investigations; what you see is a long term pattern: actions of guilt. I don’t claim to know what Trump is guilty of, more likely financial failures than direct campaign violations (though everything is possible) but he sure is acting like a guilty man.

 

Crocodile Tears

Let’s get one thing straight. The Russians hacked the 2016 election. They may have altered actual votes. They definitely altered social media and magnified our differences (and continue to do so.) We have not “paid them back” for their actions.

But, the proximate cause of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss was the actions of the FBI. The polling results are clear. Before the famous “Comey Letter” of October 28^th, Clinton was surviving the storms of Wikileaks’ released emails. Trump was struggling with the impact of the “Access Hollywood” tape. Comey’s letter, reopening the investigation into the Clinton emails, flipped the polling. She never recovered.

It’s odd that President Trump has taken such hatred towards Comey, McCabe, Storzk and the rest of the FBI. I understand his resentment of Mueller; but those other guys are the REASON he got elected. Pay-backs are a bitch, I guess.

So “Dems,” let’s not cry “crocodile tears” for the “gallant heroes” of the FBI. James Comey, as much of a Boy Scout as he appears, is the reason we are living with Trump in the first place. Had he left his black and white Boy Scout world, he could have found a gray answer that didn’t require him to alter the US democratic process. If he had followed the black and white rules of his own Department of Justice, he would have kept his letter “shut.” He felt that there was a greater moral calling, and he changed history.

And Andrew McCabe today reigns as the role model for the modern FBI agent. Intelligent, ambitious, willing to deal with the nuances of intelligence work, McCabe made the decision to allow the “Weiner Computer” crisis to sit on his desk for three weeks. It was only at the last minute that he determined that something had to be done (the Comey letter.) This was perhaps to head off the internal politics of leaks from the New York FBI office, whose members were using Rudy Guiliani to get their information to Fox News.

Absolutely, Attorney General Jeff Sessions knifed McCabe in the back last night. Whether the internal investigation showed wrong-doing or not, clearly the “due process” that should be afforded to all employees was not followed. What should have been weeks if not months of deliberations, hearings, and discussions; got done in four hours.

Sessions likely did so in an effort to keep his own job. Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t really need an excuse to fire Sessions, but one would be nice. Sessions followed the clear dictates of his President (“…who will bring me the head of that wretched priest…”) making sure that McCabe can’t get full benefit of the twenty some years with the Bureau.

It’s petty. It’s vindictive. It’s everything we think about the Trump Administration, from firing by tweet to close advisors who become “volunteers who hardly helped.” And it probably damages the Bureau, putting agents on notice that theirs is a most political world. Mueller better back up his files.

But let’s not cry crocodile tears for McCabe, Comey and the rest. Whatever their intentions in October of 2016, when they revealed the Clinton investigation but hid the Trump investigation, they made their “big boy” decisions. They altered the course of American history. They stuck us with this President.

 

Musical Chairs

The game has begun. It started a few weeks ago, when the fallout from the lack of security clearances at the White House finally caught up with the Trump Administration. Robert Porter, the Staff Secretary, heard the music stop, and found that he had no place to sit without a security clearance. Allegations of abuse against two wives, already known to the White House Counsel (and presumably the Chief of Staff John Kelly as well) leaked out to the public. Mr. Porter needed to exit the game.

Next came White House Communication Director Hope Hicks. After her meeting with the Mueller Investigation, and then a House Committee hearing where she admitted to telling “white lies” for the President, it was time for her to lose a place.

Then the President’s body man, John McEntee was up. It seems he has a gambling problem.

But the bigger chairs were opening up too. Gary Cohn, Chief Economics Advisor ignored on tariff policy, it was time for him to go. And now Rex Tillerson, long abused Secretary of State, has been unceremoniously shown the door (through a tweet.) CIA Director Mike Pompeo was tapped to fill his place.

Last night, conservative columnist Bill Kristol posted the following:

This is RUMINT, but pretty credible RUMINT: Trump preparing to fire Sessions, name Pruitt Acting AG (which he can be since he already holds a Senate confirmed position), and Pruitt fires Mueller. And McMaster likely to be replaced by Bolton. Shulkin also on way out, FWIW.

RUMINT = Rumored Intelligence

FWIW – for what it’s worth.

Under the “Vacancy Reform Act of 1998” the President of the United States has multiple choices to fill a vacant position. One choice is to follow the Constitutional pattern: nominate someone for the job, then wait for Senate hearings and a confirmation vote. This fills the position “permanently.” In the meantime, the normal line of succession within the agency would be followed. For example: Trump fires Sessions, nominates someone else for the job, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein acts as Attorney General until the appointment is confirmed.

The second method is for the President to appoint an “acting” person to the position, then nominate someone else for the “permanent appointment.” The “acting” person must have already passed Senate muster for another job, may only serve 210 days, and cannot be the nominee for the position. In this scenario: Trump fires Sessions, orders Tom Pruitt from EPA to run both the EPA and be Acting Attorney General, then at the President’s leisure, nominates someone to the Attorney General job.

This has already been done with the Consumer and Finance Protection Bureau. Richard Cordray, now a candidate for Governor of Ohio, resigned as Director. Mick Mulvaney, Director of Office of Management and Budget, was further detailed as acting Director of CCFB (ostensibly to dismantle the agency, though Mulvaney denies it.)

The Mueller investigation seems to be tightening around the President and his family. With increasing evidence that the President was directly effected by US sanctions against Russia in 2014 and tried to bargain them away during the election, and damning information on the conflicts of interest Jared Kushner has between his actions as a Senior Counsel to the President and begging for investments in his New York real estate disasters; it actually seems inevitable that Trump would look for a way to lash back at the Mueller team. Here’s how it may go.

Step One

The Department of Justice has just wrapped up its investigation of former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. A recommendation has been made that McCabe, who has less than a week until he can officially retire, be fired from he Bureau (thus preventing him from collecting his pension.) The final say on what happens to McCabe is in the hands of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Whatever Sessions does: fire McCabe or allow McCabe to keep his pension; could be the final grounds for dismissal that Trump is looking for.

Step Two

Trump fires Sessions (probably by an early morning tweet) and appoints Pruitt (former Attorney General of Oklahoma) to the job of Acting Attorney General. This puts the Mueller Investigation in a difficult position. Muller currently acts under the supervision of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, after Sessions recused himself from all Russia related matters. Pruitt is not recused, and could take charge of the Mueller team. In that capacity, he could limit the scope of investigation and indictments, or fire Mueller himself.

Step Three

Even if Mueller is not fired, it is unlikely that he can bring indictments against a serving President. (Current Justice Department policy opposes this, if Mueller were to bring such an indictment, it would be possible grounds for dismissal.) Mueller can make recommendations and reports (including recommendations for impeachment to a Congressional committee) as well as bring charges, but the recommendations and reports are made to the (Acting) Attorney General, who then determines what happens to them (go public, for example) from there. Since Pruitt would be in charge, Mueller would have to submit to him, and Pruitt could withhold the entire report.

Step Four

All is not lost. If Mueller is fired, the investigations will revert back to the FBI, where Director Chris Wray would be in charge (the same place where this all started with Director Comey.) While the Attorney General would still have overall supervision of the FBI case, charges can still be brought. In addition, a Congressional Committee could subpoena a Mueller or FBI report, forcing it into the public. That of course, would require the Congressional Committee to be willing to do so, in short, be controlled by Democrats. This makes the outcome of the November elections even more important. There is also the unlikely possibility that the current Republican leaders of the House would see a Mueller firing as a “bridge too far” and act (but don’t hold your breath for that.)

And what about National Security Advisor HR McMasters (has too many details for the President), Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke (first class trips and expensive doors), the aforementioned Tom Pruitt (first class trips), HUD Secretary Ben Carson (expensive furniture and family on the payroll), and VA Secretary David Shulkin (took wife to European vacation on taxpayer money), and of course, the man who actually tries to ORGANIZE the President, Chief of Staff John Kelly?  And of course the clock must be ticking for  Jared and Ivanka Trump (too many to number.) Don’t be surprised by any or all of their departures, the music is about to end. The better question is, who will be “the replacements” to sign up for this game of “find  your chair, lose your reputation?”

 

 

 

 

 

In the Tempest

Last night, I had a great idea a for today’s essay. The President of the United States made a porn film with Stormy Daniels back in 2006. It’s the only logical conclusion. And while the logical process of this was well thought out, it doesn’t matter. Today’s events have overtaken that story.

Rex Tillerson was fired as Secretary of State. In fact, he was literally kicked to the curb, receiving word from the President through media. Tillerson, a true example of success in American business (rather than flash in American business – Trump) did the President’s bidding in dismantling the State Department: none of those “old” experts around to impede decisions with facts or history.

Tillerson was likely fired for two reasons: he stood by the United Kingdom when Russia attempted to execute a former spy with nerve gas in Salisbury, and he has made it clear that Iran was following the letter of the Accord. And of course, he was fired in the typical Trump fashion, with no courtesy or courage: informed through a tweet.

As the Mueller Investigation draws nearer to its conclusion, and the “sinking ship” of the White House grows in focus; Trump is making sure that those surrounding him have the primary value of personal loyalty. Mike Pompeo (former Director of CIA and former US Congressman) fits that bill better than an independent Tillerson.

It is clear that loyalty to Trump is coming to equal denial of Russian involvement in anything. This is playing to the script of “long ago” aide Steve Bannon. Bannon last week spoke to the French National Front party, the party of French nationalism (that can be read racism) and anti-European Union (NYT – Let Them Call You Racist.)

“Let them call you racists. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists,” he said. “Wear it as a badge of honor.”

The Fascist tone was clear. That this matches the fascist tone of Putin’s Russia is clear as well. Bannon believes that there needs to be a “Northern European” (white) alliance of nationalists, to wage war (real or trade) against the true enemy: Islam. (see one of my first essays: The Bully and Bannon .)

We (the United States) have insulted our allies by withdrawing from the Paris Accord, demanding re-negotiation of NAFTA and CAFTA, and demanding tariffs on trade with allies like Canada, the European Union, and South Korea. We have failed to institute Congressionally passed sanctions against Russia for attacks on the US electoral process, as well as leaving the United Kingdom “hanging” when Russia tried to assassinate someone on their soil. It is plain whose “side” we are on.

The question is: why?

Why have we chosen Russia as the nation to treat with kid gloves? Why are we supporting a nation that clearly does not share our values in freedom and democracy?  In fact, why are we acting like them, with the President going out of his way to undercut the credibility of the press (“don’t boo Dictator Kim of North Korea, but Chuck Todd of NBC is a son of a bitch.)  Why is the European Union now our adversary?

Is this because the Administration has taken the Bannon philosophy to heart? While Bannon himself is gone, his ideology is still a powerful force in the White House. Or is it some more nefarious reason; a reason that only Robert Mueller may be able to ferret out?

We are in a tempest – one that is perilous to our nation. Today’s election in Pennsylvania may shed some light on the way out of the storm, but the next shoe to drop by Mueller may do even more.

 

It’s been 27 days since the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and while the Florida legislature, as dominated by the NRA as they are, was able to reach some changes to protect schools, as far as the US government is concerned – it’s all talk.  Now woefully unqualified Secretary of Education DeVos is in charge of the “commission” to find solutions – there’s no reason to hold your breath.  WE need to demand action, not talk.

While You Were Sleeping

While you were sleeping, President Trump’s administration changed our world. While we were distracted by the Stormy Daniels’ revelations, or the confusing tariff discussion, we missed some things.

We missed that Don McGahn, White House counsel, was told by President Trump to deny that Trump ordered him to fire Robert Mueller. McGahn refused to lie for the President, and  Trump threatened to fire him.[1]  This  should meet the legal definition of obstruction of justice.

We missed the Interior Department changing the import rules for ivory, so that “big game hunters” (like Don Jr. and Eric Trump) can import elephant ivory into the US.  Interior Secretary Zinke states that the import fees will go to help prevent poaching – I’m not sure the elephants will care whether it was the President’s sons or poachers that kill.[2]

We missed that the Environmental Protection Agency relaxed rules for mine runoff so that there is greater flexibility for coal mines to allow mining wastes into watercourses. This will increase the amount of acidity in streams draining from those mining areas, and removes Obama era regulations aimed at protecting them.[3]

We missed that Jeff Sessions has raised the twin headed demon of nullification and secession in regards to California. Quite a stretch for Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, son of Alabama, to insult the battle cry of South Carolina and the Confederacy, and wrap himself in the bloody UNION flag of Gettysburg (I’m not being hyperbolic, that’s what HE said.)

Sessions’ complaint: California passed a law protecting state employees from state sanctions if they fail to cooperate with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) attempts to round out illegal immigrants. Sessions’ denonced this as the state standing against Federal Government enforcement, and reverses the arguments used by Southern states against the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.

Sessions is demanding that California state authorities help ICE enforce immigration laws, and outlaw “sanctuary cities” like San Francisco and Oakland.[4]

And we missed that George Nader, an American citizen who was acting as an agent for the United Arab Emirates, is cooperating with the Mueller investigation. Nader has significant information regarding attempts by the Trump transition team to establish undercover contacts with the Russian government, including sending Eric Prince, the founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater (now evolved into Reflex Responses) and major Trump financial supporter, to talk to close advisors to Vladimir Putin in the Seychelles.

Nader and the UAE also have information about Jared Kushner’s ongoing search to re-finance his building at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York. We also missed that Kushner continued to use his White House position to attempt to get money to cover the mortgage of over a billion dollars, due next year.[5]

What did we listen to? We listened to Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen try to muzzle a porn star. And, we listened to the President of the United States continue to trigger a trade war with many of our allies, and China.

The tariff talk split traditional support and opposition to Trump: with “rust-belt” Democrats discovering Trump on their side, and “Wall Street” Republicans, including Speaker Ryan, finding themselves opposed to the President. One unintended consequence may be to undercut Republicans running for office, specifically in the Pennsylvania special Congressional election on Tuesday, with Trump seeming to weigh-in on the Democrat side of the tariff issue.

Trump is probably secretly pleased about the porn star story – it’s another one of his “hand size” things. I’m sure he thinks that it will  help him with “the base.” And it’s clear that the tariffs and potential trade war is also a great distraction from what’s happening in the Mueller investigation.

But underneath the “fog” of Mueller, the government is slowly growing harder and crueler. In an interview last week, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin (Illinois) said that we (Democrats) will have a lot of damage to undo. That damage is happening, even as we sleep.

 

[1] http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/377311-trump-considered-firing-wh-counsel-if-he-didnt-deny-threatening-to

[2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elephant-trophy-import-ban-lifted/

[3] https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/02/06/dump-coal-waste-into-streams/

[4] http://time.com/5190064/jeff-sessions-speech-today-sacramento/

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/us/politics/george-nader-mueller-investigation-united-arab-emirates.html

Why is Trump Fueling Inflation?

The Mueller noose is tightening around the Trump Presidency, but the outcome of the Russia investigation is far from certain, and meanwhile, Donald J Trump is still the President of the United States. As President, he has taken a series of economic actions that will have one impact: creating inflation.

Inflation is when the price of goods goes up faster than commensurate increases in income. Inflation hurts those living on fixed incomes (that used to be a pretty undefined term for me until I retired from teaching) and those living on the lowest incomes (as wages don’t keep up with costs.) Inflation is something those of us who lived in the 1960’s and 70’s, when gas went from twenty-five cents a gallon to $1.50, remember well – but recently it hasn’t been a serious concern.

It’s coming back, and President Trump’s caused it.

He most recent action is to impose a twenty-five percent tariff on imported steel, and a ten percent tariff on imported aluminum. This “protective tariff” is designed to raise the cost of imports to make American-made steel and aluminum more competitive. And while there are several concerns with this, particularly US capacity to make those products, the real issue is that it will raise prices for everyone. The breadth of the products effected is astounding: as MSNBC commentator Stephanie Ruhl stated: “Even Hershey’s kisses are made with ‘love,’ but they’re wrapped in aluminum foil.”

This isn’t a Republican versus Democrat fight. Many Democrats, including Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, have long demanded protection for heavy industries like steel. And Republicans have long been the party of free-trade, allowing world market forces to establish prices. Regardless of which side you’re on, one of the likely outcomes of the Trump tariffs is to start an “old fashioned” trade war, with effected countries responding to the US moves by raising taxes on uniquely American products. Already Kentucky Bourbon (made in the home state of Majority Leader McConnell,) and Harley Davidson motorcycles (made in Wisconsin, home of Speaker Paul Ryan) as well as American food exports have been targeted.

While free-trade versus protectionism is a good academic argument; the reality is if the tariffs are implemented, the costs will be pushed onto consumers. Prices will go up.

And that’s not the only force driving inflation.

The “vaunted” Republican tax cut is certain to have the same impact. It has “created” money, by adding $1.6 trillion into the economy without finding a way to collect it back in taxes.   And while Republicans claim that the impact on the economy will create a “boost” raising incomes to meet the additional tax burdens (people making more money and therefore paying more taxes,) there is no evidence to show that will occur. The economy has had a steady growth rate of around three percent for several years, that won’t be enough to overcome the deficit they created.

But what the tax cut does do is shove more money in the economy. And while I’m as happy to see my “paycheck” increase as the next guy (by having less with-held for taxes) and I’m certainly able to spend the extra, the real effect is to create inflationary forces in the economy. In simple terms: more people spend more money for the same goods, reasonable sellers will raise prices to meet the increased demand.

Something to be wary of: while the new with-holding tables, slammed into action on a month’s notice, do decrease with-holding so we all “get more money” before the November election, some may be surprised to find that their 2018 taxes didn’t decrease as much as expected, and that they owe money come next year. That’s my situation, so check before you spend it all up front!!

The next inflationary step is current Congressional action to remove the restrictions of the Dodd-Frank legislation. This law was passed after the Great Recession of 2008, when the uncontrolled actions of large banks and investment firms created a “bubble” of high earnings. When the bubble burst, the entire economy began to crash. Only huge government bailouts saved us from a full-on Depression of the 1930’s mold.

Dodd-Frank put tight restrictions on bank lending and investment, and demanded that those institutions had enough actual cash around to cover variations in the market. Now, Congress is working to remove those restrictions.

While the immediate result will be an increase in the amount of money available for borrowing, probably creating a new housing boom, inevitably (or at least history has shown) the ability to profit will create abuses that will threaten economic stability. What will happen for sure: more money in the economy, and therefore an increase in prices. And it’s not just for homeowners selling, increases in home values means more availability of second mortgage (home equity) loans.

As homeowners borrow closer to the maximum value of their homes, they become more vulnerable to shifts in market prices. 2008 was the year of the “upside down” and “underwater” mortgage; Dodd-Frank put controls on some of the processes that created that crisis. An example even today: a commercial on television urges veterans to borrow from a company that can lend them “100% of their home’s value.” That’s great, as long as the value of their home goes up. What if it goes down?

And the final inflationary pressure by President Trump is to restrict the labor market. He calls it immigration reform, but his goal is to reduce the number of people in the United States willing to work for lower wages. By doing so, his advisors believe that those jobs will become more competitive, requiring higher wages to fill, and more “Americans” will be employed.

This is in an era of four percent unemployment (what many economists call a full-employment figure.) But Trump has tapped into a deep-set view of many Americans that they are working harder for less. He’s not wrong that people feel that way, but it’s not the immigrant from (Honduras, El Salvador, Somalia, Haiti, or wherever) that’s causing it.

American immigration history shows that the newest immigrants work the “worst” jobs, providing for their families, and that the second generation moves “up” into better employment (an example: Washington Post – Cactus, Texas .) Should jobs that are often done by immigrants: migrant farm labor, roofing and dry-walling in house construction, the factory meat processing noted in the article, go unfilled by immigrants; it would require a substantial pay increase to make it an “American” job. We can argue the right or wrong of low pay and new immigrants (legal or illegal) but today’s reality is that the American economy depends on them. Should President Trump get his way, it would have a huge inflationary impact by driving the costs of those products and services up.

Prices will go up, and while wages will too, they certainly won’t keep up with the costs. Those whose incomes are restricted (pensions, social security, welfare) will feel the immediate impact, but the end result will be the “quality of living” will get worse for many Americans. Those at the high end of the economy, with incomes based on investments, will do well. Those are the real constituents President Trump serves.

 

Empty Chairs

Donald Trump’s election was a “shock and awe” moment for many Americans. There was little the majority that voted for Hillary Clinton could look to as a positive: they saw a President whose life view was reality television, with little background in governing (see a previous essay: An American Apprenticeship.)

The hope: that Trump would bring in a “team” to run the country that could make up for his lack of experience. Here is the current cabinet of the United States.

1. Secretary of State – Rex Tillerson (CEO – Exxon/Mobil)
2. Secretary of Treasury – Steve Mnuchin (CEO – OneWest Bank)#1
3. Secretary of Defense – Jim Mattis (Marine 4 Star General)
4. Attorney General – Jeff Sessions (Senator from Alabama)#2
5. Secretary of Interior – Ruan Zinke (House of Representatives from Montana)#3
6. Secretary of Agriculture – Sonny Perdue (Governor, Georgia)
7. Secretary of Commerce – Wilbur Ross (Vice Chairman, Bank of Cyprus)#4
8. Secretary of Labor – Alex Acosta (US Attorney, Florida)
9. Secretary of Health and Human Services – Alex Azar* (Deputy Secretary)#5
10. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development – Ben Carson (Neurosurgeon)#6
11. Secretary of Transportation – Elain Chao (Secretary of Labor, GW Bush Admin)
12. Secretary of Energy – Rick Perry (Governor of Texas)
13. Secretary of Education – Betsy DeVos (Republican Fund Raiser)#7
14. Secretary of Veterans Affairs – David Shulkin (Deputy Secretary)#8
15. Secretary of Homeland Security – Kirstjen Nielsen (Deputy Chief of Staff WH)

#1 – Mnuchin led Wells Fargo Bank that engaged in million of dollars worth of fraudulent credit accounts, as well as contributing to the 2008 housing crisis through improper lending practices

#2 – Sessions lied to the US Senate in his confirmation hearings regarding his contact with Russian agents during the Trump campaign

#3 – Zinke has spent millions of dollars in taxpayer money for private luxury travel

#4 – Ross was Vice Chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, a bank infamous for laundering Russian money

#5 – Azar replaced originally appointed Tom Price of Georgia, who quit due to luxury travel and spending using taxpayer dollars

#6 – Carson is currently under fire for letting HUD contracts to his children as well as luxury spending of taxpayer dollars for his office refurbishing

#7 – DeVos is best known as the key fundraiser for Republicans in Michigan, but also has been deeply invested in for profit charter school corporations

#8 – Shulkin is under fire for using public funds to pay for a European vacation for himself and his wife

And there’s more. Elaine Chao is married to Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, creating a “bedroom” conflict of interest. While Rex Tillerson had a brilliant career at Exxon, a worldwide company, he has no experience in governmental diplomacy. And Rick Perry, well, he is now in charge of the US nuclear program, an area he didn’t even know was part of the Department a few months before he was appointed. He replaced Ernest Moniz, a Stanford PhD in nuclear physics.

There were a few more comforting placements: General Mattis at the Defense Department, General Kelly at Homeland Security, and General McMasters as National Security Advisor. He also placed Gary Kohn, chairman of Goldman-Sachs as his National Economic Advisor. While you can argue about their views, they all seemed to be competent picks for their positions.

But it was more difficult to fill in the staff positions at the White House and departments. Trump chose to emulate President Andrew Jackson, the populist Democrat elected in 1828. Jackson ran against the “establishment” National Republican party, the party of John Quincy Adams. When he won the Presidency, he introduced the concept of the “spoils system:” to the victor goes all the spoils.   Jackson believed that ANY American could fill the roles of government, so  the applicant’s loyalty to the President himself became the most important part of the selection process.

This became the critical criteria in selection for the Trump administration: a golf caddy became the President’s social media advisor, a young model turned PR executive his communication director, and even worse, a son-in-law his chief foreign policy advisor and his daughter filled a high White House role as well (though we still aren’t quite clear what she does.) Last week it was floated that the President’s personal pilot (remember the giant Trump Jet on the campaign) could be the next Chairman of the Federal Aviation Administration.

And now there is the evacuation. Forty-eight positions in the administration have been vacated since the Trump inauguration in January of 2017 (Rachel Maddow List .) National Security Advisor McMasters, Senior Advisors Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Kohn, and even Chief of Staff Kelly (“God punished me with this job”) are all rumored to departing soon.

Who will turn off the lights when no one is left in the White House? More importantly, who will man the Situation Room when an international crisis begins – maybe one started by a President who decided to begin a trade war (in order to change the subject from his flip-flopping on gun control.) And what about the attention demanded by Russian President Putin, creating cartoons about non-existent weaponry attacking Trump’s club at Mara Lago?

Who’s on watch when everyone’s gone or distracted, or talking to their personal attorney about exposure to the Mueller investigation? It’s not just about scandal, it is not just about crime, it is about the fate of the nation. Who will be sitting in the empty chairs, and who will be left to make decisions?

 

It has been 19 days since the school shooting at Parkland High School. While debate goes on, there still has been no significant legislation to protect kids in schools. We can debate gun control, but mental health and background checks should be a “no-brainer.” It’s not though, because of the millions of dollars of the NRA, and even more, the propaganda campaign they have effectively waged to a significant portion of America. Don’t let this one go by – America owes it to the kids at Parkland (and Sandy Hook, and Virginia Tech, and all the others) and more importantly, to the next school in the crossfire.

 

 

 

 

 

Atlantis:  America Can Do This

As a retired couple, my wife and I have taken the opportunity to travel. We have our little camper, and right now it’s parked in the town of Sebastian, Florida. It’s hot, it’s near the ocean, and it’s a great place to be in the winter.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit the Kennedy Space Center, about an hour up the road. The visitor center is both a monument to the history of the space program, and also a preview of what comes next, the expedition to Mars.

But the most striking exhibit is the building dedicated to the Space Shuttle Project. It was 1970, and the Apollo project was still going to the moon. But Americans were already planning for the next phase: “Apollo is a camping trip, now we’ve got to learn how to live and work in space.”

It took almost ten years to build a vehicle that could launch as a rocket, stay in space as a vehicle, then fly home as a plane. The engineers, thousands of them, had to create all new ways of doing things; from lightweight materials that could withstand space, adhesives that would hold heat resistant tiles, an engine that could take -472 degree fuel and burn it at +6000 degrees.   They were doing something no one had ever done: “gone where no one has gone before.” They built a fleet of ships that for the next twenty-six years would shuttle humans, satellites, space stations, and telescopes into space, then return to earth.

It was a combined effort of government and private industry. Sure, folks made money in the project, but the supreme effort of extending the knowledge and abilities of mankind raised the level of our humanity.

They had dramatic failures; Challenger and Columbia. But they also had enormous successes, launch after launch, one hundred thirty-five times. They didn’t have the glory of the Apollo “moon-shot,” like the drama of the Lewis and Clark expedition across the continent. Instead they had the grit of the wagon trains taking settlers across the plains and mountains: individual acts of determination that changed our history and advanced our future.

We ultimately wore them out. The last flight was in 2011. The remaining shuttles: Enterprise, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, are now museum exhibits.

In our time, with a tremendous political crisis consuming all of our focus and attention; it’s important to remember we, Americans, can do great things. Elon Musk is an immigrant from South Africa who became an American citizen. He made his billions in computer programming developing Pay Pal and has taken part of that fortune and invested it in the next phase of space exploration.

The Space X project has already marveled the world, launching the most powerful rocket since Apollo’s Saturn 5, with its boosters return simultaneously and safely to earth. He is leading the way to our nearest neighbor planet, Mars, perhaps within this next decade. And he’s trying to do it at a tenth of the estimated cost.

Musk is an immigrant American, leading OUR American dream forward. Whether you are of “the Resistance” or “a Trumpster,” it is a place where we can all dream and work together. And while we all recognize the problems of America whether it’s guns, or education, or healthcare, or jobs: we should also recognize that Americans need to be able to dream great things as well as do regular things.

Yesterday we went to the Kennedy Space Center and saw our past and our future. Today we will sit (in a outdoor café) and watch a weather satellite launched into space. It’s my first time to see a launch, and as a kid who grew up with a crew cut like John Glenn’s (I didn’t know he was really bald) and put boxes together to make space vehicles, I’m pretty excited.

As an American, I hope we can find the new dream as compelling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Russian Fairy Tale

NOTE: There are emerging facts that point in the direction that this story is headed, but to be clear – this is yet a fantasy, not fact. 

 

Yesterday it was revealed that seven states were officially “hacked” by the Russian government during the 2016 election. Alaska, Arizona, California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida and Texas were all compromised according to the US Intelligence community. Also according to the intelligence community, they were never told.

Months ago it was announced that possibly thirty-eight, and later more definitely twenty-one states were attacked by Russian hackers. Some were told, some not.

Like the Equifax hack with 143 million effected, the Office of Personnel Management hack of 14 million government employees and families, and the one of the biggest hacks, the Adult Friend Finder hack of 412 million: we really have no idea what happened to the information that was hacked. We take precautions, credit checks and identity protection. With Adult Friend Finder, those involved hope their significant other doesn’t find out. But unless our identity is actually stolen, or our credit falls apart without our knowledge, or those “cute” pictures come out, we just don’t know what happens to the data.

So the drip-drip-drip of information about the real Russian assault on the American electoral system continues. Maybe thirty-eight, probably twenty-one, for sure seven: the real answer is we don’t know what the extent of the Russian manipulation was. And like those other hacks, we don’t know what the Russians did, how far they got, and what they were able to change.

In addition, many non-federal government agencies, including voting agencies, are using Kaspersky computer protection software. Kaspersky: software produced by a Russian company under influence of the Russian government. Those “protected” computers might not need to be “hacked;” the key to the backdoor would already be in the Russian government’s hand.

It is disingenuous for Republican political operatives to say that the Russian social media attack didn’t effect the outcome of the election, it is even more disingenuous to say that attacks on the American voting system “…DID NOT ALTER A SINGLE VOTE.” We don’t know that, and neither do they.

Let’s suppose there was definitive proof that the Russians had manipulated American vote counting. (There is evidence for this, see the statistical studies done by Mike Farb www.unhackthevote.com .) What if the United States intelligence agencies were able to pinpoint successful attacks on just three states: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania; the three states where a small change would have altered the outcome of the electoral vote, changing the Presidency.

Would they tell us? Would we ever know?

I don’t think so, and to quote one of Marco Rubio’s favorite phrases, “let me tell you why.”

First:

The bedrock of the American system is the invulnerability of our vote. One citizen, one vote: it is the basis of our democracy. If it was shown that the system was altered, that we couldn’t be sure of any electoral outcome, then the whole system of American government would be at risk.

If the Russian goal is to disrupt our government, damage our reputation, and tarnish the American image as a “shining democracy,” what better way to do it? If the American intelligence community was faced with the choice of admitting that kind of Russian success, or quietly fixing the problem without revealing it to the American people, would it be unreasonable to think those dedicated professionals would take the second course?

Second:

The destabilization of announcing that the 2016 elections were broken would be profound. A majority of Americans would call for some kind of fix: impeachment, an extra-constitutional “do-over” or some other repair. But a significant minority of Americans would see this as “fake news” and an attack on the “legitimate” outcome of the 2016 election. The results of that conflict are difficult to foresee, but could include violence leading to permanent damage or destruction of our form of government. This definitely sounds like the “black helicopter” scenario that requires so many to keep their assault rifles.

It would be the ultimate achievement of Vladimir Putin, bring down the US government (as he would say – why not, they are trying to bring me down.)

Would America’s intelligence leaders take the chance? Or would they say, no matter how destabilizing Trump is now, we can survive the knowns of that rather than the unknowns of an America that doesn’t believe in its elections.

Third:

Many would say that in this era of twenty-four hour news and the omnipresent internet, there’s no way this kind of thing could be kept secret. It would leak out. They would be right, but without some kind of government legitimacy, without some formal acknowledgement that it really happened, it would be another “crackpot” theory. Reading all of this now, isn’t that what a lot of you are thinking anyway?

And the advantage of our electoral system: fifty-two agencies controlling states, dozens or more agencies in each state controlling counties; if there is no “trusted source” saying it happened, how would you know? So a vote or two was changed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania; does that mean the whole system was under attack? Licking County, Ohio says their voting system is untouched; but their entire system was ransomed just a few months ago.

How, without government acknowledgement, could anyone “prove” that enough of those little agencies were hacked to alter the election?

Yes this is a fairy tale. Like any good tale it has enough basis in fact to be scary. There is a sad hero (Mike Rogers at the NSA would be my nominee) and a villain (who better than Putin) and a difficult moral choice (truth or the “good” of the nation.)

At least, let’s hope it’s a tale…

 

 

 

 

What Does Manafort Know?

The Mueller Investigation into the Russia and the Trump Campaign is picking up public momentum. In the past couple of weeks, Mueller has filed multiple indictments, not only building “the case,” but also building pressure on key witness, Paul Manafort.

Last week, Mueller indicted thirteen Russians for a “conspiracy against the United States” in manipulating social media to create factionalism, and to generate support for the Trump campaign. While it is unlikely that any of the thirteen will ever stand trial in the US (they would have to be foolish enough to go to a place that shares extradition agreements with the US), the indictments did establish an underlying principle. They answered the question: were laws broken in the 2016 election, and can they be enforced. Mueller’s indictments explained the theory: the Russians were in a conspiracy against the United States to impact and disrupt a critical American Constitutional action: the election of the President. That conspiracy is the legal violation.

Last week, Mueller also issued additional indictments against Manafort and his junior partner, Rick Gates. These, added to the original ones filed earlier this year, stacked the possible prison time that Manafort or Gates could serve at more than twenty years. Gates then proceeded to ask for an interview with the Mueller team to talk about a plea deal. He lied in that interview, and found himself in even deeper trouble.

Gates cut a deal this week, agreeing to fully cooperate with the investigation in return for a guilty plea for lying to Federal agents and conspiracy. Manafort was hit with further indictments, and the beginning of a process that could result in his losing his right to bail, forcing him to await trial in jail. Today it is reported that the Mueller team is dismissing several of the other charges against Gates, signaling that they are getting that full cooperation.

This puts the pressure on Manafort. Gates knows pretty much everything that Manafort knows about their business and he  was even more involved in the Trump campaign (working there both before and after Manafort’s short tenure.) The noose is around Manafort’s neck; he faces what could effectively be a life sentence if convicted.

So what does Manafort know? He certainly knows the details of the June meeting with Russian representatives with Kushner and Trump Jr. He was present in the meeting, and would absolutely know what knowledge Trump Sr. had about the meeting. This could be the definition of his conspiracy with the Russians.

Manafort himself may have been an agent of the Russian government, placed into the Trump campaign. Manafort was indebted to Russian oligarch Oleg Derispaska, a close friend of Putin, owing him $17 million. Manafort through early 2016 was desperately trying to find cash to clear the debt, but was unable to do so. He then joined the Trump campaign free of charge and arranged for a more Russian-favorable plank on Ukraine to be in the Republican campaign platform.

Even with his brief time in the Trump campaign, Manafort could offer up information about the involvement of key campaign leaders and organizations in the development of the social media strategy, including Cambridge Analytica and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. This may include cooperation with Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) and Wikileaks as they worked to impact the 2016 election. Donald Trump Sr. is known as a micro-manager in business. If he was micro-managing this portion of the campaign, Manafort would know that as well.

Manafort may be facing the ultimate choice: stay silent and risk US prison, or agree to cooperate and face Russian retaliation. And while his lawyer continues to “fish” for a Presidential pardon, even that might not be enough to avoid prison. Several states, including New York, are looking at state charges of money laundering, tax evasion, and other financial charges not impacted by the Federal Pardon power. And the current Ukrainian government has lots of questions about $12 million that Manafort may have received from ousted Russian backed strong man Victor Vanukovych.

It’s a rock or a hard place for the sixty-eight year old. The Mueller team continues to squeeze, and might only take information of the highest level to give Manafort any break at all. What Manafort knows is the key: both to his own future in or out of prison and to the fate of the Trump Administration.

 

It’s been 13 days since the Parkland High School shootings.  There’s been lots of discussions and noise, but so far little actual progress in keeping kids in school safe.  This issue cannot, and should not, be allowed to go away.

They Don’t Work

They Don’t Work.  They don’t work:  background checks to purchase a gun.  They don’t work:  bans on types of weapons, bans on high capacity magazines, bans on kinds bullets.  We are told over and over again, they don’t work.  We are told this by the National Rifle Association, we are told by the President, we are told by an idiot Congressman from Kentucky, we are told by our “friends” on Facebook. 

In fact, the only thing they say can work is to fill our lives with guns.  If we all were “strapped” we could then protect ourselves, just like the good old “wild, wild West.”

By the way, even in Dodge City, you had to remove your firearm before entering the saloon; doesn’t that make it a gun-free zone?

This macho, carry your gun and defend the weak “liberals” view is really a helpless view of the world.  It says:  our society can’t be changed, and so we just need to go with it and get ready to shoot more people.  There is nothing our government can do to protect us, it’s up to us (or more specifically, US with the gun!!)

Is it too “liberal” or  too “Democrat” to believe our government can solve problems?  Is it too “progressive” to think that we can’t find a way to protect our children besides flooding our world with more guns?   My God, some are even fighting fixing background checks for weapons, because that’s the first step to “taking our arms!” Facebook claims that all recent mass killers were Democrats:  all that does is push everyone into their corner.  Is that the NRA or the Russians – or both?

It is clear that when we have a national will to do something, we can get it done.  Whether it’s fighting World War II, or changing our culture about civil rights, clearly, We Shall Overcome!!!! 

I love my friends with guns.  I know we can talk civilly about what changes our nation can make to try to stop the killings.  I know we BOTH care about that kid hiding in the closet in Parkland.  But the conversation cannot begin with the words:  They Don’t Work.  Nothing works without the will to make it happen behind it. I believe in America.  I am a patriot who knows our destiny is to solve problems.   We shall find the national WILL to get this done. 

By the way:  last night President Trump claimed he never made any phone calls that proved “collusion” with the Russians.  That’s a new one:  did Trump read some classified report saying he made those calls?  If that’s true – is he trying to get out ahead of the news?  Trump said it was “fake news” before it was “real news” – so he wins!!!!

A Teacher with a Gun

I was a classroom teacher for twenty-six years in both high school and middle school. I was the Dean of Students in a high school for eight years. Please, don’t make me be a teacher with a gun.

It’s not that I’m afraid. Though it’s difficult to know how you’ll act if the worst happens (ask that deputy in Florida) I knew that part of my job as Dean of Students was to find the shooter. Yes, we talked about all of this, one administrator bolted in his office with the video screens, a phone, and a window to the outside; one administrator directing staff and students; and one administrator to go find the shooter.

Our hope was to have enough communication with students before that event, that we could avoid it. We studied Columbine, and saw the signals they missed. We worked to develop lines of communication in our one thousand-student school, so that we knew our kids, the good and the bad and the silent. It wasn’t that the potential shooter would come talk to us (though kids often find ways to cry out for help, if someone’s listening, Nicklas Cruz did) but they almost always talk to someone, a friend or a classmate; and that someone needs to trust an adult will listen.

And if they don’t talk directly to someone, they post. Students would walk into my office and let me know what was being said or shown on social media, something even the best prepared adults aren’t able to access. Whether it was pictures of weapons or threats of harm, it gave us the opportunity to intervene.

That was our job: establish trust. We hired staff that could relate to kids, and we opened our doors. You can’t just develop rapport when there’s a crisis, it has to be day to day. But it’s tough to do with a gun and holster and your hip: a loaded firearm somehow changes the conversation.

We had a Sheriff’s deputy, a school resource officer. He was there because of the ultimate threat, but he helped with a myriad of discipline/legal issues. And because he was a good one, he also found a group of kids that related to him, he opened lines of communication. But the uniform and the gun made him stand out and defined his role.

Not to think about how many fights I jumped into, both as a Dean and as a teacher.  Many times my years as a wrestling coach helped to mitigate a fight, keeping kids from hurting each other more. Do that with a loaded gun? What happens if it comes loose, gets in the hands of a kid stoked with adrenaline, goes off accidently. A school shooting created by the addition of a weapon.

Introducing more weapons into a high school or middle school environment is like putting gas on a fire. In an emotional time of life, when kids are struggling with all kinds of turmoil, you don’t need the constant reminder of deadly force, of an “ultimate solution” to a problem. And it’s not always just kids. Adults in schools are subject to the same stresses, and sometimes, they crack as well. Schools don’t publicize that, but it certainly happens. What if they had a gun?

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” We hear that over and over. And, it’s reasonable to look at the establishment that has the most guns, the military, to see how they handle them. In military life, guns are highly controlled. In base, most soldiers are disarmed most of the time. Their military weapons are brought out for use, then carefully cleaned and put back in storage. The military police carry sidearms, and the guards at the perimeter patrol with weapons, but generally, folks aren’t armed.

So if the military has it figured out, a highly disciplined organization like that, why would we assume students with be safer if teachers had guns? It seems like the contrary so much more likely, guns introducing life and death choices into almost every scenario.

We are desperate to protect our kids. We want our schools to be safe, nurturing, and accepting. As other institutions in our society have changed, schools are taking on more and more of the responsibility of caring for kids: from health and nutrition to guidance and mental health. And, as our schools serve everyone, we need our schools to be accessible to those with differences. None of those goals are served by adding deadly weapons to the hallways.

Schools should take reasonable actions. They should control access, they should develop cooperation with law enforcement, they should develop rapid response plans. Most of all, they should listen to their kids. What they don’t need is a teacher with a gun. Guns are society’s problem that comes into school. Fix that.

 

 

Nixon Went to China

A little History

Richard Nixon was a World War II vet, who made his political career based on his anti-Communism. As a Republican Congressman, he was a key part of the House Un-American Activities Committee, searching for Communists in US society. He was in on the beginning of what we now call McCarthyism. He won his first Senatorial race in 1950, running in California against Helen Gahagan Douglas. While this wasn’t the only “ugly” campaign of 1950, Nixon went to great lengths to claim that Douglas was a Communist sympathizer. To give his candidacy even more momentum, the Korean War broke out in the middle of the election cycle.

Nixon went on to be a highly visible member of the Senate, and was used to “balance” the more moderate Dwight Eisenhower on the 1952 Presidential ticket. Nixon, the ultimate anti-Communist, became Vice President. After eight years as VP, a close Presidential defeat to Kennedy in 1960, and an abject failure in the 1964 California Governor’s race, Nixon came back to win the Presidency in 1968. He ran on a Vietnam “peace plan” which ultimately led the US to stay in the war for another six years.

Nixon’s chief foreign policy advisor was Henry Kissinger, later Secretary of State. Kissinger believed in a world view of “Real-Politik,” which attempted to balance the US against foreign adversaries. He saw that a key to ending the Vietnam War was to get China to help balance Soviet (Russian) influence on the North Vietnamese. The problem was that since the 1950’s, Chinese Communism was seen as the ultimate failure of US policy.

And in 1972, Nixon was at the height of his power. He was running for re-election, and it was before the Watergate crisis was revealed, the “cancer” that would eat away his Presidency. To open communication with Mao Zedong, the Communist dictator of China, was the ultimate betrayal of what Richard Nixon stood for his entire political life. The nation: both Democrats and Republicans trusted in that reputation.

He could go to China. He had the credentials, and the ability to convince his followers, that this was not a betrayal of American values. Only Nixon could go to China.  He went.

Today

Donald Trump is struggling.   The “Russiagate” crisis is eroding his Presidency, the constant drip of damage: from security clearances to marital infidelity to Mueller indictments; distracts from any focus his Presidency has found. He goes to great lengths to maintain his base, the thirty percent who seem to deem any of his actions as acceptable.

Yesterday Trump sat in a meeting with kids and parents of school shootings. While we can marvel that it required “notes” to make sure the President was empathetic, in reality it was a gutsy move by the Presidential staff. They took a huge risk putting him out there, and, while Trump seemed unable to display the real feeling that other Presidents would have found (GW Bush or Obama), he did seem to listen to them.

He is still the President. And he is the leader of “his base.” They are also the most adamant against any form of gun control. He has followed their lead, and they have lead him to the Oval Office.

Trump could “go to China.” He could (and from time to time seems to want to) lead his base to a different view. He could overcome his own addiction to NRA values: he could propose a plan of gun and ammunition control, background checks, and mental health care. If he were to propose the “Trump Child Protection Plan,” he would provide cover for the Republican legislators. They could find “the courage” to follow his lead.

Trump could go to China. It could be his legacy. It might be the only positive that he can leave.

I watched the CNN Town Hall with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, parents and faculty last night. I came away with the following observations:

I am incredibly inspired by the kids, parents and faculty of the school. They are articulate, driven, and focused – they have found purpose in their grief.

I am amazed by the Administrators (Superintendent and Principal). They are true leaders: as a teacher/coach/administrator I could work for those guys. That’s my ultimate compliment.

I don’t agree with Marco Rubio, but I admire his courage for standing on that stage. He took the abuse, and showed compassion and thoughtful responses.

Bill Nelson missed the compassion part, he was busy running for re-election against Governor Rick Scott.

And when the NRA lady came on – I couldn’t stand her logical contortions. I turned it off.

 

Defending the FBI

What an odd position I find myself in – defending the FBI.

I remember the FBI of the 1960’s, the end of the J. Edgar Hoover era, when their were illegal wiretaps on Martin Luther King, and files of what today we would call “kompromat” in a cabinet in Hoover’s office. And while I grew up watching “The FBI -in Color” on TV, where every crime was solved and the nation protected, I also knew that the Bureau was protecting the status quo, from the Vietnam War to the White House during Watergate. I often quoted the George Carlin line about wiretaps when answering the phone, “…f**k Hoover, may I help you.”

And it was only sixteen months ago that I was railing against the FBI Director, James Comey, who so clearly tipped the scales in the Presidential election, announcing at the last minute that the Clinton email investigation was reopened. I believed (and still do) that his hand was forced by his own agency, with leaks about the Weiner Laptop already coming out of the New York office. I suspect Comey acted to cut off his own department’s duplicity, though that’s a question I don’t think will ever be answered.

So here I am today, defending the FBI, an agency under attack from those that have for generations been there greatest supporters. From Fox News to Congress to the White House, the FBI is being dragged through the mud. Like any massive agency (35,000) it is a bureaucracy, and sometimes things get lost. In the Parkland shooter case, two warnings out of thousands were in some way mishandled, and a possible way to prevent the disaster was missed.

That needs to be fixed. Just as after 9-11 the Bureau had to “up its game” to stop terrorism, in the same way it will need to find answers to its current bureaucratic maze. The term is “stovepiping;” when information gets stuck in one column of authority, and not shared with others. We discovered the concept after 9-11, when multiple branches and agencies had bits of information about the terrorists: if all of that had come together before 9-11, we might have avoided the attack. The fact that we have prevented that kind of organized mass terrorism since speaks to the effectiveness of the solutions put in place. I’m sure the FBI will resolve this one as well.

And while the current criticism of the FBI has some validity, the reality is that much of it is based in politics. The President and his supporters have made one pillar of their defense that the FBI is on a political “witch hunt,” led by “Deep State” bureaucrats that hate Trump. If they can de-legitimize the FBI, they give Republican Congressmen a way to deny a possible Trump impeachment.

For a moment, let’s look at facts. The FBI opened investigations into the Trump campaign after receiving information about possible Russian contacts from varying sources, including Papadoupolos drinking and talking too much in London, the Page wiretaps, and warnings from Allied foreign intelligence agencies. After President Trump fired Director Comey, the investigation was put under the direction of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He continues to lead his mix of attorneys and FBI investigators, already indicting Papadoupolos, Flynn, Manafort, and Gates, and thirteen more Russians.

Mueller, ironically, is the former FBI Director who reformed the Bureau after 9-11, taking it from a primarily crime fighting agency to one geared to stop terrorism. His reputation is so solid, that the Trump defenders can’t attack him directly. So instead, they launch volley after volley at the FBI.

It must feel like the ultimate betrayal to the leadership of the Bureau. They are known to be generally conservative, law supporting and abiding, and less diverse than any other government agency. They are the very model of the modern day Republican, at least what the model Republican was before Trump.

Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity: that is the motto of the FBI. Robert Mueller is the absolute embodiment of that motto, and he will plow forward with the work he has begun. And the FBI leadership will continue to do their job, despite their portrayal in the “Trump World” media. The danger is to their ability to do their work. If the integrity of the FBI is in question, if the national trust in them is lost; then why would the young Islamic man come to them with word of a terrorist plot, and why would world agencies share the most sensitive information with them?

That is the danger of the Trump strategy. To protect themselves from Mueller, they are trying to discredit the agency with the primary mission of defending us. Even with its flaws, we must defend the FBI.

 

 

 

Inch by Inch

Lost in the sadness of last week was the new set of indictments brought by the Mueller investigation. They are directed towards the Russians who attacked the American political process by manipulating social media. The indictments clearly point out that not only were they sowing disruption, but they were clearly taking sides in the election. It also outlines a large operation, including stolen identities, laundered money, and real events planned. This was not a four hundred pound man in bed, or a kid in the basement.

While one of the indicted is a US citizen, the rest are Russians, and probably unreachable by the US justice system. So why did Mueller go to the effort of a thirty-seven page document, calling for trials that will likely never occur?

There has been an ongoing “backstory” about the Russia investigation stating that even if the Russians did attack our system, and even if the Trump campaign cooperated with them, they were no crimes committed here. This theory was best articulated by Professor Alan Dershowitz (see the previous essay: Fake News.) The indictment lays the groundwork for the criminality of what happened in the last election with the charge, Conspiracy against the United States; one that attempted to invalidate the public confidence in the legitimacy of the election. While there are also the other charges, the Conspiracy charge lays the basis for further prosecutions.

The charge is one of common sense. The core basis of the United States is the free election of the government. If someone attacks that core basis, it must in fact, be a crime, and therefore prosecutable. Folks who plot together to make that attack are then conspiring against the United States. With the existence of the conspiracy against the United States, anyone who knowingly cooperated in that conspiracy becomes subject to criminal action. While some, notably President Trump, claims there was NO COLLUSION, this puts a criminal definition on the possible actions of US citizens who aided the Russian effort to subvert our electoral process.

Since November of 2016, we have used the term COLLUSION to describe what actions the Trump campaign may have taken with Russia to influence the election. But now we have a more clear reality, and a legal definition. We are not using the legally undefined term COLLUSION, we are now using the quite clear legal term of CONSPIRACY.

For those of us who remember, conspiracy is what helped bring down the Nixon administration in Watergate. In the final indictment brought against the seven highest ranking Nixon officials, including the Chief of Staff, HR Halderman, the core charge was conspiracy to orchestrate the cover-up of the break-in, or legally, conspiracy to obstruct justice. There was an unnamed additional “unindicted co-conspirator:” later found to be the President of the United States, Richard Nixon.

Mueller is laying the groundwork for indictments further down the road. He is also undercutting another key element in the Trump legal package, that Trump has been acting in “defense” of himself from an unwarranted investigation of a non-existent crime. That defense tries to negate possible obstruction of justice charges: if the Russia investigation was about a “fake crime,” then Trump’s firing of Comey, attacks on the FBI, and barrage of “Tweets” about the investigation are, to him, justifiable. Mueller, through these indictments, has shown that a crime was committed, and the investigation is real.

This is not the end of the Mueller investigation.  Other lines of inquiry are still wide open.   There is a clear-cut obstruction of justice case to be made. There are both financial irregularities of those involved in the Trump campaign, and also undue influence brought about by those irregularities. And there is the possible conspiracy with the Russian government to use stolen documents (the Clinton and DNC emails) to subvert the election. What this current indictment does is lay the table of criminality for further actions.

The President claims that these indictments “prove” that there was no involvement by himself or his campaign. What these indictments actually prove, is that inch by inch, the Mueller investigation is moving closer to its final outcome. That may prove to be a bad one for the Trumps.

 

Comment –There are some things that should be so sacred, that even President Trump won’t touch them. The deaths of seventeen in the Florida school shooting should be one. Instead, this:

Trump’s Tweet:

“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign — there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”

Conflating these events is what is NOT ACCEPTABLE.

And finally, I am amazed at the articulate and reasoned statements of the students in Florida. As their Superintendent said: if our generation doesn’t fix this, theirs will!!!!

 

Again

We’ve taken up vacation residence in Florida. We are ensconced in our camper, a few minutes from the beach. It’s warm, it’s ‘chill’; it’s palm trees and sand. It’s not the ice I slipped on Monday morning at home in Ohio, landing flat on my face (laughing).

But the reality of America found its way here to our little paradise. Yesterday, about a hundred miles away, seventeen kids and teachers were killed and fifteen more wounded in another school shooting. There were heroes, including a football coach who threw himself in front of the kids, teachers who followed the plan, and kids who led others to safety. And there was the deranged shooter, again.

I read a friend’s Facebook post, asking what we can do about this crisis in America. This was one of many school shootings in 2018; it’s only six weeks. There was the usual back and forth, degenerating to arming teachers and guards, the claim there’s nothing that can be done, and personal attacks (my friend, a teacher, was warned not to advocate for his views in his classroom – I know he’s far too good a teacher to do that.) I didn’t chime in, it’s a conversation we’ve had so many times before I don’t feel like there’s much to add to that debate.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. – Preamble to the United States Constitution

The Preamble outlines what the national government should do. Past improving of our Union, the next three goals: establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for common defense require us to do more than take “a pass” on this issue. It is the primary duty of a nation to protect its children. We cannot avoid dealing with this because it’s too hard, or there’s too much conflict in the Second Amendment, or we are too politically divided on so many other issues. We must protect our children, we must keep them from becoming targets and outlets for the deranged. It’s that simple.

National crisis after crisis, we have had “blue ribbon” commissions to determine what went wrong, and what we can do differently. Those commissions have had an impact: note that the 911 Commission helped put in place policies that have protected us from similar attacks for the past seventeen years. How can this NOT be a national crisis, demanding our best come forward to propose resolutions.

Here’s my list of where to start. I’ll save the most controversial (and most effective) until last.

We must do a better job of taking care of the mentally ill. Event after event, we find that the perpetrators were somehow deranged, and that they were known to mental health professionals. It isn’t that the professionals failed, but that we as a society must empower them to do their job better. It means more money, more people involved, and a willingness to recognize that mental health is a public health crisis. We have no problem quarantining those with highly contagious diseases, we need to look at how we can find those who are dangerously mentally ill before they get the opportunity to prove it. There are serious civil rights issues involved, we must balance rights and responsibilities.

Schools have an obligation as well. As the front line in dealing with students, schools often know where potential problems are. In the most recent case, students were somehow not surprised who the shooter was; several said that, if there was going to be a shooter, he was the most likely. The school administration should have known the same. This also requires money, time, and personnel.

As a former high school Dean of Students, it was a major part of my job to “know” the school, to be able to have a read on students, and to keep lines of communications open to every faction of kids. When something was wrong, when someone was threatening or quietly demanding attention, that connection gave students access to  an adult who could do something about it. This is the lesson learned from Columbine: the shooters were planning the attack for a year, and literally had a page in the yearbook. School administrators didn’t know what was happening. The school needs to recognize that not every “different” kid is a threat, but that kids that feel “different” can sometimes feel pushed to act. Again, there are civil rights issues on the line, schools need personnel who can deal with those kids and those issues.

There is security to be considered. While we don’t want our kids to go to school in armed fortresses, we do need to do a better job of securing our kids. Yesterday the National Security Administration headquarters was attacked by a car trying to breach the entrance, three were injured, shots fired. The car was stopped and those involved taken into custody. While we cannot guard our kids as tightly as we do our national secrets, and we cannot expect or want our schools to be fortresses, what more can be done to protect them? I do not advocate arming teachers or patrolling schools with semi-automatic weapons. Introducing more deadly weapons into the school environment seems to be a “gas on the fire” approach – what happens when the next shooter is a guard or a teacher? But there are reasonable measures that schools can take to try to protect their kids.

And finally, the ultimate question: why is America the leading country for these kinds of attacks? I read a different friend’s Facebook post claiming that it is not the inanimate object (the gun) but a failure in American values. There is a laundry list of American “failures,” from lacking school prayer, to video games, to working Moms. But other countries have all of those same “flaws,” yet absent political terrorists, don’t have the same problem. What’s missing, why don’t they have massacres like the US? There IS an obvious answer.

President Obama (my more conservative readers just clicked off) said that he would talk about guns every time there was a shooting, until America realized it was time to do something about it. In the 1920’s, when the weapons of World War I came back to the US in the form of “Tommy Guns” and the like, the police were outgunned by the criminals. We did something about it; we outlawed the automatic weapons. Today we are taking the approach that we should simply arm the “guards” better, giving them more powerful weapons. It isn’t working here, we aren’t preventing the violence, the loss, and the sadness.

We are at an intersection of fear and money. Fear, often generated by those who have the most financial incentive, that we will lose our 2^nd Amendment rights and our freedom by increased control of guns. Money, buying the political influence to keep arming our citizens with sophisticated weapons of war and profiting from their sales. We must reach some agreement that our children are at least a part of this equation, they have been left out so far.

We need a National Commission to take a hard look at what we are doing. We need to attack this issue on multiple fronts, including reducing the availability of weaponry. We need to start. Why: because a Nation that cannot protect its children – sucks. We must begin, because we will certainly have to go through this again and again until we do.

 

Sadly – here are links to the other essays I have written on this subject:

It’s Not About Hunting

False Outrage

Guns and Sadness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is This Our America?

As the Senate begins its debate on immigration and DACA there is a dark underside to America’s actions against illegal immigrants. There is a basic question on the table:  what is America, and how should we see those who have come here from other countries?

No one would argue against removing those who have come to the United States illegally to commit crimes. Drug dealers and gang members obviously have no place here; we’ve got enough troubles with home grown ones. But the Trump Administration and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) have now taken the view that EVERY illegal immigrant is a criminal. They argue that the fact that since they have not followed the immigration laws they have committed a crime, and therefore should be thrown out.

There IS a basic logic to this, and when General Kelly was the Secretary of Homeland Security he made the point that if we want to change the law, we have a Congress that is capable of doing it. His view was until the law was changed, it was the Administration’s job to blindly enforce it  The problem with that simple logic is that it is NOT a simple problem. Most immigrants, legal and illegal, come to the United States for opportunity, to improve their lives. Most work hard, live hard, and do the best they can to support their families, both here in the United States and those they left behind. We have developed an economy that DEPENDS on the work of those immigrants, including those here illegally, and we are not prepared to deal with the economic consequences of removing them.

So what the Trump administration has done is set quotas on how many “illegals” ICE must remove. If they can’t find enough MS-13 gang members, then they must reach it some other way. This number proves to “the base” that they are getting “rid” of undesirables, with all of the dark racial undertones that implies; but the result is capricious: the long established view that United States’ law should be enforced in an evenhanded manner with due process is lost.

Instead we have a “secret police,” snatching otherwise law abiding folks and hustling them out of the country before anyone has a chance to react. They deny due process by claiming that the status of illegal immigrant absolves authorities of guaranteeing protection. A university professor, currently on a legal work visa, was taken from his home in Lawrence, Kansas and thrust on a plane to Bangladesh, a country he left thirty years ago. The charge: he had twice overstayed visas during his thirty years in Kansas. His wife and children, US citizens, were threatened with arrest if they tried to hug him goodbye. He was not a member of MS-13. He was not a potential terrorist. He was a taxpayer, benefiting his community, and legally registered.

A man in Tukwila, Washington saw a trespasser in his yard, after a series of car break-ins. He called the police, who were unable to arrest the suspect without probable cause. But they did arrest the caller, who they found had an administrative (not court approved) warrant filed by ICE for his detention. He is a carpenter, who fled brutal gang violence in Honduras. The Tukwila police now say they should not have executed such an administrative warrant, but in the meantime the caller is in ICE custody.

Is this our America? In a country that was created by immigrants, is this how we want it to be? In a nation that uses over eleven million illegally entered immigrants for all kinds of labor, do we want to drive them into the shadows; unable to call the police, unable to pay taxes? Is this what we are about?

General Kelly is right about one thing. Congress needs to step up and deal with the issue. But in the meantime, the United States should not be a nation where there is the shadow of a police state, where you need to have “your papers” ready to prove your citizenship at any moment. The term “WOP” was a pejorative of the early twentieth century for Italian immigrants, it originated from an abbreviation of Without Papers. Are we to equal the prejudice and racism of the 1920’s? Is that our America?