Category: Uncategorized

Guns and Sadness

I live in Pataskala.  It’s twenty miles east of Columbus, Ohio, and when I moved here forty years ago it was a little farming community, with a grain elevator and two small restaurants “downtown.”  Today, it’s a suburb; the grain elevator is left to equipment storage and rodents, and the restaurants downtown have been replaced by McDonalds, Wendys, Taco Bell and Subway, all lined up on the main highway.  Oh, and there’s a new “coffee house” trying to make it “downtown.”

And while rural Pataskala went away many years ago, there still remains the political views of folks who actually knew the difference between a John Deere and a Massey-Ferguson (for my “city” friends, those are two brands of tractors, like Chevy and Ford.)  The NRA (National Rifle Association) doesn’t publish statistics by community, but I’d bet Pataskala has a large group of card-carrying members.  Our friends and neighbors enjoy hunting and shooting, and don’t have far to go to get to the nearest gun shop (downtown) or shooting range (up the street.)

So I live in “gun country.”  And while I am often uncomfortable with the truly “open carry” guys with pistols on their hips, I don’t criticize their desire to go have “some fun” shooting.  They are responsible, and they are more aware than most about the dangers their guns represent.

I also believe in the Second Amendment.  That will surprise many, but my rationale stems from my hardcore belief in the First, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Amendments (and the others.)  How can I demand respect for those, when I discount and disdain the Second?  It might be different if someday we reached a point where the Second itself was in question, but we aren’t there, and you ignore it at the peril of the rest.

I write this two days after the carnage in Las Vegas, where a man with multiple firearms was able to kill and maim hundreds at a concert.  This wasn’t Al Qaeda or Isis, it doesn’t even seem to be politically inspired, a Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City) moment.  No, this was truly the crazy guy with a gun.

Or more exactly, the crazy guy on the 32^nd floor, with twenty-three weapons, including two modified semi-automatic rifles.[1]  They were modified, legally, for rapid fire, so that each time the trigger was pulled the “kick” of the bullet leaving the gun would trigger the next pull.  This “bump stock” is a perfectly legal modification, even though fully automatic rifles (machine guns) have been outlawed to the public for many years.

He also had “high capacity” magazines, to reduce the number of times he would have to stop and reload.[2]  And he was firing bullets with an effective range of over 1000 yards, so the 500 to 600 yards to the stage with easy.  So at least fifty-nine were killed, and hundreds injured.  Undoubtedly some were trampled, but the crazy guy on the 32^nd floor was able to maintain a rain of fire for over ten minutes.  From the stories told by survivors, he was aiming at those who got up and ran.

And, for those who say how did a guy walk through the lobby of the Mandalay Bay hotel with that many firearms, keep in mind that there is a gun show is Las Vegas every week, and all of these firearms were legal.

So while I respect the Second Amendment, and I respect my friends and neighbors, can’t we draw some conclusions from what happened?  I know the excuses; “no one can stop a madman,” and “it takes a human to pull the trigger,” but can’t we do better than this?

Can’t we say, without infringing on the Second Amendment, that folks shouldn’t be able to go to the local store and buy a gun that can be converted to an automatic weapon?  Can’t we say that other than “it’s fun to do,” we don’t really have a use for high capacity magazines?  Can’t we look at what kind of bullets are being sold, and say that ones that resemble what the Army fires from their rifles shouldn’t be for public use?  Can’t we do these things, without threatening the deer hunter, and the target shooter, or the gun collector?

And can’t we say that a gun, like a car, should require licensing?  While my car can be a lethal weapon, that isn’t what it was designed for, and we still regulate every aspect of it. I can’t drive a race car on the streets.  We control who can, and who can’t drive.  Why can’t we do that for guns, assuming that we respect that it remains a Constitutional right?

Just raising these questions is a dangerous business.  In politics (at least in Ohio) stating what seems to be obvious will lose the state in a heartbeat.  But, unless you need assault weapons for when the “black helicopters” come to take away your freedom, is there any other use for these weapons of war? (And I need to point out, the “black helicopter” people are going be so outgunned if that really happens, they don’t stand a chance.)

I know it must be fun to fire a machine gun.  But is my ability to “have fun” enough to keep these weapons out there?  And for those who say: “it’s too late, there’s too many;” you have to begin.  Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or next year, but ten or twenty years from now we would have a safer country. It worked in Australia.[3] Crazy guys on the 32^nd floor could still get pistols, and knives, and axes.  And all of that is a hell of a lot better than what they can get now.

Listening to Tom Petty as I write.  His words are a part of many great memories in my life.  RIP

 

[1] http://www.tmz.com/2017/10/03/las-vegas-massacre-shooter-stephen-paddock-hotel-room-bullets-guns/

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/10/02/video-from-las-vegas-suggests-automatic-gunfire-heres-what-makes-machine-guns-different/?utm_term=.0e9ab6f867e4

[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/australia-gun-control/541710/

Outrage in the Sun

While happily tweeting from his golf club in New Jersey this morning, President Trump decided to attack the Carmen Yulin Cruz, Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Just like Kim Jong Un, John McCain and the NFL; she has run afoul of the President’s little fingers because she has called out the Federal response to the Puerto Rican disaster.

The United States military: poised to invade North Korea, helicoptering thousands from the flood waters of Houston, is unable to respond to the incredible disaster that Hurricane Maria made of Puerto Rico. “Because, you know, it’s an island, surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.”

I don’t believe that for a second. Our military, arguably the finest in world history, can’t launch an “invasion” of one of our islands in the Caribbean? Didn’t we do that to Granada in the 1980’s? Can’t we airborne in the 82^nd and the 101^st, can’t we land on the beaches with the 1^st Marines? We obviously can. It’s not a question of capability, it’s a question of will.

And not even the will of the military. It’s been interesting to listen to the interviews with the lower level officers. In one, the communications director of the Naval Hospital Ship Comfort, tried to explain why they didn’t even leave for Puerto Rico until ten days after the hurricane struck. “It takes five days to mobilize,” he explained, as they draw the crew of the ship from land based medical facilities. And it takes four days to get to the island (you know, surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.) But the question that was left unanswered, over and over, was why wasn’t the order to mobilize given as soon as the destruction was clear. Why the four day wait?

It’s a question of will. And not the will of the “generals” who we have depended upon to make the “adult” decisions in our country: not the will of Mattis, and Kelly and McMasters. This was a failure of the will of the civilians in Washington. The acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke, said the Puerto Rican effort was a “good news” story. Her agency, including FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) was “in charge” of rescue and recovery efforts.  And she serves at the “pleasure” of the President.

Yesterday, Mayor Cruz responded to the “good news.” She presented the thousands of pages of “red tape” she was struggling with to get needed supplies out to the people of San Juan and the rest of the island. She made the very clear case that this was about “life and death,” not paperwork. And she also made it clear that the US citizens of Puerto Rico were being left to die.

Trump, meanwhile, is arguing about the Puerto Rican debt, beginning the case for NOT rebuilding their infrastructure. He is trying to lay blame back onto the territorial government. But there is a more insidious reason for Trump’s lack of compassion and action.

Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but they don’t vote for President. The only non-state with that privilege is the District of Columbia. And even if they did, Puerto Rico is a heavily Democratic territory. And they are Hispanic.

But, you might say, Trump responded to Houston, a city with large minorities. He responded even more so to Texas, that big Republican state that gave him great margins. And what about Florida? Look at the vote totals, and besides, Mara Lago is there!!

So Trump was slow to respond to what he considered to be “some other part” of the world, not the United States. Now, as the references to Bush’s debacle in New Orleans with Katrina grow louder, Trump is beginning to move. While he can tweet all he wants about Mayor Cruz, he’s finally given the orders to make rescuing Puerto Rico a military mission. In an era where we grow more and more dependent on the military to solve our problems, there should be a nagging worry there. But in the meantime, invade Puerto Rico and save as many as we can. It’s already too late.

 

 

 

 

 

Who’s Afraid of a Snow Flake?

What is a Snow Flake? It is a multi-sided crystalline of frozen water, falling from the sky when temperatures are below freezing. No snowflake is the same, they are diverse, by definition.

In “Trump World,” Snow Flake is used to describe a “liberal”: someone who “melts” at the first sign of trouble, who cannot stand up for what they believe. They are “bleeding hearts”, “lovers of strays”: ones who cannot turn away from the problems of others. Snow Flakes are defined as scared, bullied, unable to deal with differences “like a man,” (often because they are in fact, women); unable to take care of themselves without the “nanny” state.

And yet in our current society, who is most “scared?” Snow Flakes aren’t the ones claiming they need guns to “protect their homes.” Snow Flakes aren’t frightened of the challenges of diversity, of the “browning” of America, of the reality that gender identity is gray, not black and white. Snow Flakes are willing to accept differences, and work to learn how others live, not demanding that “the different” hide themselves.  And Snow Flakes aren’t scared of the economic challenges of a changing world, they don’t need to build walls of steel, or tariffs, to protect America.

Snow Flakes aren’t challenged by young African American men, kneeling in solidarity with their brothers at an NFL football game. Snow Flakes recognize that there are grays in our society: it isn’t a binary choice between supporting “the thin blue line” or “Black Lives Matter.”

Snow Flakes see the American flag as a symbol for what makes America great, and that the ability to speak out, even for an unpopular cause, is one of the hallmarks of American greatness. As the French philosopher Voltaire is misquoted as saying; “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” (It was his biographer, Evelyn Beatrice Hall, a woman!!)

And Snow Flakes aren’t indifferent to Americans in crisis, even though they may be Hispanic Americans living in Puerto Rico (they know Puerto Ricans are US Citizens.)   They aren’t willing to accept a government that won’t take care of the less fortunate, and they aren’t interested in tax cuts for the wealthy.

In fact, Snow Flakes are pretty hardy, willing to stand up for those who cannot: not melting down at the first challenge to their preconceived notions. They aren’t afraid of Muslims, gays, the city, or immigrants. And Snow Flakes aren’t afraid to get to the facts of what happened in the 2016 Presidential election. In fact, when you really get down to it, who IS melting down in our current political situation? It doesn’t seem to be the Snow Flakes.

 

 

Highs and Lows

Today the “ other shoe” dropped on the Graham-Cassidy “Health Care Plan.” Susan Collins, Republican Senator from Maine has determined that she cannot vote for a bill that wipes out insurance for millions. This, along with John McCain’s and Rand Paul’s ‘no’ vote, means that the Republicans cannot pass the legislation through the Senate.

Most bills in the Senate require a majority fifty-one votes for passage (or fifty with the tie-breaking vote of the Vice President.) But before a bill gets a final vote, Senate rules allow unlimited debate. To oppose a bill, unlimited debate can expand to a full-blown filibuster, and prevent the Senate from continuing any business. The Senate has found a “civilized” way out of this work stoppage. It takes sixty votes to stop the debate, so they take a vote at the beginning of debate to see if there are enough to stop it. If there is, then debate limits are set, and a vote is scheduled. If there aren’t, then that piece of legislation fails there, without filibuster and the “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” drama.

There are a couple of exceptions to the “sixty vote” (cloture) rule. Nominations to the US Supreme Court, and certain bills relating to taxes are a straight majority vote. This is how Justice Neil Gorsuch received his appointment, and, for the next four days, it is how that Graham-Cassidy  (as a “tax” bill) could pass. That bill’s status as a “fifty vote” bill expires on September 30^th. If there’s not fifty votes, then the issue is dead. Likely Graham-Cassidy will never be called to the floor for a vote.

It’s a good day for the Affordable Care Act, and for America. When the dust settles, it will be up to the Senate Democrats and Republicans to return to the table, to negotiate a way to fix, improve and make the ACA work. I hope our legislators can hammer their swords into plowshares for at least this important American question.

On a much more personal note it’s also been a day of highs and lows. On the low side, a friend got sick last week, went to the hospital, and is now home with a terminal diagnosis. There is little to do but be a friend and help. When we get so upset, depressed, and angry with what is going on from Russia, to the NFL, to healthcare, to the arrogance of the Trump Administration; it is important to remember that change can happen fast, and life can be altered.

To end on a high note, a different friend officially adopted his son today, and honored us by an invitation to the Courtroom for the final adjudication. He has been the boy’s father for three and a half of his four-year life, and the father/son bond between them is clear to all. Now it is official, and the joy in the face of the father (and the pride of the young son in his “official” last name) shines out.

Hug the ones you love.

Watching the NFL

I am a Bengals fan and I have been since 1968. That’s what you get for growing up in Cincinnati. As a Bengals fan I am aware that there will be many seasons when I will be “freed” from my obligation to watch the weekly game. Some years they are just that bad.  But today I am watching the NFL, and not just the two loss Bengals versus the two loss Packers. No, today I am even watching the two loss Colts versus the two loss, dare I say it, Browns.

1968 was not just the beginning of the Bengals. It was also the year of the Mexico City Olympics, the year when two of my track heroes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, made a stand against racism in the United States. After scoring the gold and silver medals in the 200 meter dash (my favorite race) they raised gloved left fists as the Star Spangled Banner was played.

1968 was the year of the death of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the year of race riots in many cities in America, and the year when our nation was torn apart about Vietnam. Tommie Smith and John Carlos represented the best of American track athletes, and they knew the price they would pay for their actions. The American Olympic Committee, led by the infamous Avery Brundage, dismissed them from the team, with the 4×100 and 4×400 relays to go.

Smith and Carlos raised their fists and American and world awareness of the lack of civil rights in America, and ended their careers in track and field. Colin Kaepernick did the same. He took up the challenge of an America whose President cannot distinguish between legitimate protest and white supremacy and who is willing to use the latent racism of our nation to advance his own political cause. Kaepernick figured this out last year, sooner than most, and is paying the ultimate price of NFL exile for his action.

I was not a believer in the Colin Kaepernick, taking a knee during the National Anthem. I reflected that here was a man making millions, using the Anthem as a stage for his protest. I looked for a more “appropriate” way. But Kapernick knew early what we all have found out later: that racism is still an inherent part of America, whether we recognize it or not. Kaepernick was right – though it may be uncomfortable for the rest of America to see it.

And while Avery Brundage used his authority to “put down” the revolt of protest, the NFL (amazingly) has recognized another American value: the right to your own opinion, and the right to express it. Today the NFL (and many other professional sports) are showing solidarity with Kaepernick, whether they are taking a knee at the Anthem or not. Today I watched the Browns link arms, kneeling or standing, to demonstrate that they are one as a team, black or white. So did the Colts, and the Ravens in London as well.

And the President, rather than recognizing that America is still flawed and that the First Amendment allows and encourages this respectful action, instead uses his “bully pulpit” to call them “son of bitches” and demand their firing. He has raised the level of their protest, a protest that recognized early the internal racism that has become more and more evident in our nation.

Trump has called on Americans to “boycott” the NFL until the protests stop. So I will watch my Bengals – bad or good. I’ll even watch the Browns – and if I must, the Steelers. I will stand for what is good in America, even if it means kneeling.

God Speed John McCain!!

John McCain is the Senator of Arizona, hero of Vietnam, and the Presidential candidate who showed what grace in loss is all about. John McCain was the Senator who at the midnight hour, dramatically returned from brain surgery and turned his thumb down to defeat the Republican Senate’s last attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Today John McCain announced that in good conscience he cannot vote for friend Senator Lindsey Graham’s newest attempt to repeal Affordable Care Act.

McCain’s vote, combined with Kentucky’s Rand Paul (who believes that the Graham/Cassidy Bill doesn’t repeal enough), and one more Republican Senator will defeat the bill, and finally, put the Republican attempt to end the Affordable Care Act to rest.

Graham/Cassidy takes the amount of money currently spent for the Affordable Care Act, and sends it to the states in “block grants” where the states can use it to either continue what they are doing now, or alter it. The problem, over the next ten years the dollars are continually reduced, and then finally eliminated.

Graham/Cassidy ends the individual mandate, the centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act that hoped to keep it affordable. It calls for insuring those with pre-existing conditions, but it allows for separate pricing, so that most of those folks would be priced out of the market. And finally, its reduction in funding would end both Medicaid expansion and even rollback some of those who had Medicaid before the Affordable Care Act. While the Congressional Budget Office will be unable to “score” the bill before a September 30^th vote, it is likely that twenty million or more people will lose insurance.

So, after the debacle of “skinny repeal” last month, why would the Republicans come to this again?

Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, answered the question for the Des Moines Register:

“You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered,” Grassley said. “But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. That’s pretty much as much of a reason as the substance of the bill.”[1]

It’s not about what’s good for “the people,” it’s about Republicans campaigning for eight years to end “Obamacare, ” They have to try do it. The fact that it may well fail again isn’t the point. The major Republican donors have made it a “must do” priority. Going into the 2018 election, Senators must show they have used every opportunity to try to end Obama’s signature achievement.[2]

And it’s an integral part of the overall Republican strategy on taxes. If they can find a way to pass repeal, they well then have over $300 Billion to use for their expected tax cuts.[3]

The clock is ticking. The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that after September 30^th, the special rule that allows for a fifty-one vote passage (or fifty with the Vice Presidential tiebreaker) will expire, returning the Senate to normal rules, where sixty votes are required for passage.

What will Senator Murkowski of Alaska, or Senator Susan Collins of Maine do? Both voted against the “skinny repeal,” and neither have committed either way on the current legislation. If either or both announce that they will not support, then Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t bring the bill to the floor for a vote. The pressure on these two must be incredible. I’m sure they are waiting on the Presidential tweet!

If this bill fails, it will allow a bipartisan attempt to revamp and improve the Affordable Care Act to continue. Senate Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander and Democratic Senator Patty Murray were working on this process before the introduction of Graham/Cassidy (and the presentation of a single payer proposal by Senator Bernie Sanders.) Ten governors, five Republicans and five Democrats, have endorsed this attempt and oppose Graham/Cassidy.

And, as far as insurance companies and medical providers are concerned, they need a stable environment to establish pricing and policies. After nine years it is time for the Affordable Care Act to become established law, with the Congress working to fix and improve, rather than destroy. Thank God for the courage of some Republican Senators, like McCain, who have determined to put country ahead of party.

 

 

[1] http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/09/20/chuck-grassley-regardless-substance-republicans-must-support-health-bill/685674001/

[2] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/21/1700305/-Voters-hate-Republican-healthcare-bills-but-the-donors-who-matter-demand-repeal

[3] https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/like-other-aca-repeal-bills-cassidy-graham-plan-would-add-millions-to-uninsured

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

As President Trump (Madman Across the Water) and Supreme Leader Kim (Rocketman) engage in a battle of old Elton Jon songs, I am tremendously concerned. After reading about Trump’s speech to the United Nations this morning, it seems like KIM may be the more stable of the two leaders.

Trump seems more than willing to “think the unthinkable.” He is openly threatening not just the lives of the North Korean people, but the lives of hundreds of thousands of South Koreans, thousands of Japanese, and hundreds of thousands of US military and civilians in South Korea. It is a struggle to rationalize how the “leader of the free world” is so willing to engage in such reckless talk.

In the Cold War days it was called Nuclear Brinksmanship. The “hope” is that the US has determined a strategy of “carrot and stick,” where Trump and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley represent the stick of nuclear war, and Secretary of State Tillerson represents the carrot of peaceful resolution. And the grim reaper, General Mattis, remains poised to fulfill his duty to annihilate the nuclear capability of North Korea.

This is the “hope.” The world is aghast at our actions, as we stoop to the lowest denominator, acting as if we too were a petty dictatorship. And the “hope” is based on the premise that Kim is in the end a reasonable actor, who will value self-preservation over annihilation. From the North Korean standpoint staying alive makes perfect sense.

But that’s only if they calculate the decision in the same terms. What if the North Koreans don’t believe the “Madman Across the Water,” and instead think it really is all a bluff. What if they decide that the odds are right to call the bluff, just as Sadaam Hussein did in Iraq, claiming he had weapons of mass destruction when he did not.

Then what will the United States do? Will we engage in a war with North Korea, likely the biggest since World War II? And will this be because of North Korea’s miscalculation, or ours? And in the meantime, is this what Trump needs to distract from the looming Russia crisis?

Or will world peace, and the people of South Korea, be “like a candle in the wind?”

A.D.D.

On this the 240^th day of the Trump Administration, it’s a wonder that he can concentrate to get anything done. What’s on the menu today?

North Korea

The North Koreans launched another missile over flight of Japan, triggering air raid warnings across the northern island of Hokkaido. South Korea responded by firing short range missiles into the Sea of Japan demonstrating their ability to target North Korean missile sites. All of this brings us one step closer to a war, possibly nuclear, that would go beyond the Korean peninsula.  And US Ambassador Nikki Haley states: “if diplomacy fails to rein in North Korea, (Defense) Secretary Mattis will take care of it.”*

United Nations

President Trump is scheduled to address the United Nations Tuesday. His topics: North Korea, Iran, and World Terrorism. Let’s see if he can handle that without saying something that sounds racist. In the meantime, he is having multiple bilateral talks with world leaders. Who is not at the United Nations for this summit? Putin and Xi aren’t attending (not that Russia and China could help with North Korea.) However, Sunday night Secretary of State Tillerson did meet with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. This time we hope they aren’t joking about who got fired!!

Hurricanes and Fires

The Virgin Islands are devastated. Millions in Florida still don’t have power. Everglades City hasn’t seen an emergency worker. Texas is just starting to recover. Fires in Montana have been dampened by a freak early snowstorm, four days before Fall begins. Hurricane Maria is strengthening to possibly Category 3 before it hits the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, then heads northwest towards the US coast. Meanwhile no one seems to be clear about what Hurricane Jose will do. But Climate Change: since we don’t cause it there’s not much we can do. And by the way, there are billions of tons of coal in land now designated as National Monuments and the Interior Department’s Zinke recommends that we reduce restrictions and go get it[1]!!

Healthcare

Mitch McConnell is rumored to want to try “one more time” to kill the Affordable Care Act. Bernie Sanders is further dividing Democrats as he pushes the “Medicare for All Plan” (my opinion: good idea, bad timing) and helps intensify Republican efforts. And Republican Lamar Alexander is trying to find a way to support the Affordable Care Act through the next couple of years. Kasich and Hickenlooper want to help, but this doesn’t seem like a time when reason will prevail.

DACA and the WALL

Trump has made a deal with Democrats, maybe. Trump wants DACA Dreamers to be able to stay, maybe. And we will build a WALL, maybe. There is massive confusion by everyone about what the President will or will not support regarding immigration, the border, and the Dreamers. But there is one thing we know: New York Democrat Chuck Schumer thinks the President likes him!!!

But the President and his team have much more important issues to consider than those. Are their colleagues in the White House wearing secret recording devices to get in good with the Special Counsel? Can they afford the private attorneys they hired to council them during questioning?[2] And will their “friends” cut a deal to throw them “under the bus” when indictments come down?

The Mueller investigation is getting closer to the White House and the (New York Attorney General) Schneiderman investigation is getting closer to the Trump/Kushner family jewels (investments). General Flynn’s son is now a target[3], as well as Manafort’s son in law[4]; the pressure is clearly on to get these principals to flip. As they are near the top of the pyramid, there is only one person left for them to turn on, the President.

Meanwhile the President’s own lawyers can’t seem to get their act together, as they fight over the amount of cooperation they should give the Mueller investigation. Ty Cobb, newly hired Presidential counselor, known best for his outlandish midnight tweets, can’t keep his conversation private over steak in a Washington restaurant, and the world finds out. [5]

With all of this, how is any President supposed to concentrate. Especially when there’s so much tweeting to do: re-tweeting Hillary getting hit by his golf ball, calling North Korea’s leader Kim a “rocket man”, and calling terrorists “losers” like they were caught smoking in the high school restroom.[6]

Attention Deficit Disorder isn’t the problem: a Presidency and a world sliding out of control is. And no matter how many Generals demand ATTENTION, it’s unlikely there will be much unless and until the Commander in Chief is focused.

 

 

 

*http://nypost.com/2017/09/17/haley-says-mattis-will-take-care-of-north-korea-if-diplomacy-fails/

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/shrink-at-least-4-national-monuments-and-modify-a-half-dozen-others-zinke-tells-trump/2017/09/17/a0df45cc-9b48-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html?utm_term=.eb510fcd5498

[2] http://www.newsweek.com/white-house-staff-worried-colleagues-are-wearing-wire-robert-mueller-666741

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mike-flynn-s-son-subject-federal-russia-probe-n800741

[4] http://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-reportedly-investigating-manafort-and-son-in-law

[5] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/us/politics/trump-lawyers-white-house-russia-mcgahn-ty-cobb.html?_r=0&referer=

[6]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/18/why-donald-trumps-tweets-are-only-going-to-get-worse/?utm_term=.0def65398ad5

Is it Trump?

I apologize for not blogging much this week. In the “other” world where I run really big high school cross country meets, I’ve been involved in a crisis of leadership and “political correctness.” It’s led me to this blog.

There seems to be a “new” style of dealing with each other in every day life. My role models both in education and as a coach, taught me that it was the job of a leader to care about the folks that he/she led. A good friend, who won five state championships as a coach and school administrator said: “…my job is to serve those that I lead. If I serve them, then we can achieve our common goals…”

A leader is a servant. It’s not a new concept, but it’s one that seems to be lost in our current era. Whether it’s on the “macro” level: with President Trump creating an equivalence with Nazis and the “antifa” and calling even his allies “losers”, or whether on the local level where leaders demand obedience without question. “Be happy you have a job” is the message that comes across. Ask questions or disagree, and risk retribution and unemployment.

In both cases, we have lost the view that the role of a leader is to serve. As a coach, my biggest goal was to get a team of high school kids to “buy in” and believe in themselves. To lead was to not only make them feel that THEY were leading, but actually have them be the leaders. That era seems to have past.

And in life it seems like “Trump World” has overtaken civil relationships. We had to build “a wall” around our yard to fence out the neighbor (we paid for it) and even that could not keep out the intimidation and hate (see Thanks Mr. Frost.) We have local politicians who espouse fear tactics, and threaten legal action for every criticism. We have lost the common goal: to improve life for everyone.

Trump is not the cause. This has been going on for a while, and the divisions in our society grew far before his political career began. I believe part of the problem is our “new” ability to voice our opinions without having to be “face to face.” We can tweet and post and all of the other electronic media (including blog) without having to look someone in the eye. We can be cold and cruel without sharing in the emotional burden that results. And, of course, it all can be inflamed by others, whether they are individuals who enjoy the “game,” or more globally, those institutions who gain from division.

I am not calling for a “leader” in the Facists sense. I am not looking for someone to strong arm our nation back to caring. I hope that we can find leaders whose true goal is to serve US (both in the you and me and national sense.) They don’t have to agree with everything we believe in, but they do have to care. I certainly feel that President Obama tried to be that kind of leader, but I also think Governor John Kasich has that sense as well (though I don’t agree with much of his policy.) It’s about serving others, not a just serving a term in office.

 

 

(nothing to do with Trump World – just my world!)

Thanks Mr. Frost

Thanks to you Mr.Robert Frost. Today I had our yard surveyed. I paid to have someone tell me to the tiniest inch where the property lines were. They used high tech metal detectors to find fifty year old pins buried in the ground.   They used high tech sights to hone in on the actual line of property. The placed stakes and flags: HERE IS THE PROPERTY LINE!!!!

We have two neighbors. On one side, a young couple with a child and a dog, friends. Their fence (to hold the dog) hooks to ours; we have temporarily ceded some of our property to them (to avoid digging post holes into buried cables.) We are happy and they are happy.

On the other side, the neighbors that required a survey. They hate us, they hate our dogs, they hate, hate, hate. To avoid interaction we built a fence, six feet high, picketed across: they don’t need to see us, nor we them. But good fences haven’t made good neighbors.

After the fence went up came the questions: it’s on OUR property, your fence is on OUR property!! We fought over cutting grass, we killed all the weeds on the other side of the fence (that’s OUR property); good fences didn’t make good neighbors. So today, we surveyed – and the fence is on OUR property (though the corner is pretty close.) The stakes and flags meant to reassure – they will most likely inflame.

We will border the “line” with steel garden border; we will place bushes between our fence and our property line; we will build another barrier to hold out the hate. If good stakes, and steel, and bushes, and fences won’t make good neighbors, perhaps nothing will. But we will try – because good fences should make good neighbors.

 

Under Water

We have been appropriately distracted from the Trump Administration for the past two weeks. From Harvey to Irma to fires in the West, we have watched with empathy and dread as the winds blow, the waters rise, and our fellow citizens step up to help each other. And while the triple tragedies of storms and floods and fire are heart rending, the true “heart” of America is visible as well. Regardless of race, political views, gender: Americans are working to save their communities, and to join together to begin to recover. As Lincoln would say: “it is all together fitting and proper that we should do this.”

But these events did not completely cloud the failures of Trump through these weeks. While he (so far) has managed the crises pretty well, including making a deal with Democrats to get reconstruction money for Harvey damages; he also thrust over 800,000 young people towards deportation with the soon to come end of DACA, and he has moved the United States one step closer to a major war in Korea.

And last night the veil was lifted on Trump’s strategy to continue to govern. In his first interview since leaving the White House, Steve Bannon declared war: not on his hated “liberal elites” (though they got plenty of mention), but on the establishment of the Republican Party. Bannon attacked McConnell, Ryan, and the entire Bush Presidency. He claimed that he intentionally left the White House to free himself from the constraints of being a “Federal employee.” His plan: to continue the “insurgency” of the Trump candidacy from the outside, and take the Republican party from the “forces of establishment.” Bannon advocated for his “America for Americans” view, whether it’s economically against China, or against the DACA Dreamers.

So the Trump strategy: to fight from the outside, with Bannon at Breitbart and Lewandowski at the Trump PAC, with Trump TV and the support of Sinclair Communications and the Mercers, as well as with the official Trump 2020 Presidential campaign. What he can’t win in Washington he will try to win “in the heartland.” He will use his core support to pressure the Republicans in Washington. That pressure will be used to try to keep his Presidency alive as the Russia investigation gets closer to the top. If Republicans are afraid to run for office against a Trump insurgent, then they will be forced to find ways to protect him.

This is already at work in the House of Representatives, where Devin Nunes has returned to meddle in the Intelligence Committee investigation. Nunes, the chairman who was scorned and forced to recuse himself last spring for trying to sidetrack the process, has taken action as chairman again. Over the objections of Democrats and despite his “recusal,” Nunes has subpoenaed the Department of Justice and the FBI for all documents relating to the Steele Dossier.

The Steele Dossier is the “opposition research” document, originally contracted for by Republicans running against Trump, that revealed deep connections between Trump and Russian Intelligence. While parts of this report have yet to be confirmed, many of the allegations are proving valid. The Republican hope is that the Department and the FBI in some way relied on the Dossier as part of their investigation of the President.  If they did, and the committee can somehow discredit the dossier, then the claim will be that the entire investigation into the Trump campaign should be discredited (http://dahlman.online/index.php/2017/08/06/fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree/). Can a recused chairman do this? The only check on his actions is the Speaker of the House, and Speaker Ryan shows no sign of intervening.

And while Special Counsel Mueller quietly continues his investigations, the more visible aspects of his work seem to be concentrated on obstructing justice charges, rather than the underlying causes. While lying to prosecutors and interfering in investigations are all illegal and actionable; in the biggest action of all, Presidential impeachment, it is likely to take more than just obstruction to convince the Republican majorities in the House and Senate to proceed.

It’s September. Congress is back in session, and, absent more storms and fires, may begin to actually  work. Part of that agenda is the continuing investigation of the Trump campaign. But, don’t be surprised when the “insurgency” strikes back with more attempts at distraction and intimidation. “God willing and the river don’t rise,” they won’t succeed.

 

 

 

 

 

Coward!!!

“No greater good can be done for the overall health and well-being of our Republic, than preserving and strengthening the impartial rule of law. Societies where the rule of law is treasured are societies that tend to flourish and succeed.”

Jeff Sessions – Announcement of the end of the DACA Program[1]

Today, Tuesday September 5^th, 2017, President of the United States Donald J. Trump announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program.  He is ending the legal status of over 800,000 Americans who have committed the sole “offense” of being brought by their non-citizen parents illegally into the country as children.  Implicit in this is the eventual deportation of these 800,000 to their “country of origin;” countries where they did not grow up, have little or no contact, and may not even speak the language.

This is just another step in the slow erosion of America.  America has over the past two hundreds years gradually expanded citizenship.  First it was white, property owning men, then the property qualification was dropped, then the “white” was dropped, then women were added, native Americans included, and since we have continued to expand the legal definition to include more of the diversity that makes America great. Clearly the Dreamers, this group of Americans, here by no fault of their own, raised here, serving here, working here; most deserve this expansion.  Until the last six months with the election of Donald J. Trump.

He is a coward.  A coward:  hiding behind the “strength and well being of the Republic,” when the real strength and well being of our Republic is the value we place on life, liberty, and happiness. A coward:  using the old saw of “law and order” instead of the real values of America.

Lincoln said:

“With malice for none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in…”

This was from a man who recognized the citizenship of Americans who fought AGAINST their country. Instead of following this Republican model, Trump hides behind the “law” to inflict his ultimately racist views on our nation.

He is a coward.  A coward who could not even stand up to spout his racist decision.  He did it through Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, a man familiar with racist views.  And he didn’t even have the courage of his conviction to really “do it;” he passed the buck to the Congress to let them struggle with it.

And he did it to those who committed no crime:  whose only act was to follow their parents.

Coward!!!!

 

 

[1] http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/05/trump-ending-daca-dreamers-program-sessions-transcript-242326

Short Bursts

just a few sentences on issues today.

Sins of the Fathers

We have many traditions in this country. One is that we believe that the “sins of the father” should not be visited upon the son. This is enshrined in the US Consitution which states that no “corruption of blood” could be punishment for treason (Art III, Section 3, Part 2.) Corruption of blood is the punishment of the family for the parent’s ultimate crime against the state, treason.

Dreamers are children of illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration is also a crime “against the state,” though nowhere near as terrible as treason. Dreamers were brought to the United States as children. They had no choice in this “crime.” If they had been born in the US, there would be no question of their citizenship. They would be “born under the flag,” born under US jurisdiction and therefore automatic US citizens (some would use that incredibly demeaning phrase of the last election, “anchor baby’.) Since Dreamers were not born “under the flag,” they were and are technically illegal immigrants, subject to possible deportation.

Children: unable to legally speak for themselves. Children: raised “American,” and who have known no other home. Children: innocent of the sins of their parents. Dreamers are Americans in every way but paper, and America should treat them as such. No matter what your view about what should happen to those who illegally entered this country, this should be different. For this particular class of Americans there should be a quick path to citizenship, to the full rights of Americans. They have no other home, and they already are American in every other way.

Riders on the Storm

We have discovered that President Trump and others are using the disaster of Hurricane Harvey as a “cover” for other actions. Trump admitted as much when he said that he pardoned former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Friday night as the storm made landfall, because he knew that “the ratings would be high.”

Today, both Vice President Pence and Texas Congressman John Culberson used the Harvey disaster as an excuse to avoid discussing the possible end of the DACA (Dreamers) program. Trump documented his order to ban military service by transgender persons, and fired Sebastian Gorka (not all bad that one) all under the literal clouds of Harvey.

As the folks in Texas face this, it seems inappropriate to use the overwhelming catastrophe as “cover.” “Lets slip this by, no one will notice it hidden in the storm.”

Who Can Fix This

Several years ago my parents Florida condo was seriously damaged by a hurricane, along with many other places along the barrier islands.  Roofs were gone, walls moldy, carpets and furniture ruined.

There  wasn’t enough construction labor in Florida to even begin to deal with the problems.  My parents condominium association made an offer:  allow migrants to live in your damaged home and they will fix it and others, faster.

Were they legal or illegal immigrants?  That question wasn’t asked.  These Honduran and Guatemalan workers camped in the damaged homes, cooking re-fried beans, drinking cerveza; and repairing walls, ceilings and roofs.  They got the job done quickly and with high quality.

My parents moved back into their condo six months later, years before they could have done so if they had waited for existing contractors.  Mike Rowe, famous “Dirty Jobs” actor and pitchman for vocational education, spoke today about who might fix the hundreds of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed in Harvey.  There was already a shortage of construction labor in the Southeast, and particularly Texas, before Harvey.

We don’t need to build a wall, we need to bring in the labor to rebuild ALL of the walls.

 

 

The Next Civil War

As many in our nation struggle over what to do with the relic monuments of America’s Civil War, others fear that we are on the brink of the next.

There are the ridiculous. Roger Stone, former Nixon dirty trickster and long-time political advisor to President Trump stated last week: “…Try to impeach him, just try it,” Stone continued. “You will have a spasm of violence in this country, and insurrection, like you’ve never seen.”[1]

Pamela Geller, an anti-Muslim columnist for Breitbart uses the works of Ayn Rand to back her prediction of insurrection. She sees the “left” as advocating a breakdown of institutions (including the Presidency), leading to the vision of Rand:

“Politically, mass civil disobedience is appropriate only as a prelude to civil war—as the declaration of a total break with a country’s political institutions.”[2]

And then there are the more serious. The National Rifle Association has put out videos calling for a “counter-resistance” and threatening “elites.” “We’re coming for you…”

“The times are burning and the media elites have been caught holding the match,” NRA spokeswoman and radio host Dana Loesch says in one video aired on NRATV, the gun lobby’s web video site, as it shows footage of people fighting police, breaking storefront glass and burning the American flag.”[3]

And the violence of Charlottesville by the white supremacists and in Berkeley by the antifas demonstrates that for some violence is more than just threats.

If, as the “resistance” hopes, we are moving into a time of open investigation and the beginning of the end of the Trump administration, what should we expect?

Looking back at the Nixon era, Roger Stone believes that there was a “vast conspiracy” to unfairly end his Presidency. That is a re-writing of history. It was in fact the leadership of the Republican party that convinced Nixon that it was time for him to resign or face impeachment and removal. While, as Stone embodies, there were true believers in Nixon, a large proportion of the country (over 75%) had lost confidence in him.[4]

It was a different time. Today we are faced with even greater divisions in America.   It is greater than the “blue and red” seen in electoral results. There is a clear division in “culture” as seen in the details of the Trump election. It isn’t the overall numbers, it is the overwhelming percentages Trump was able to gain in rural America, versus the less dramatic but still dominating numbers that Clinton got in the cities.

Trump has definitely tapped into an American reality: there are a substantial number of Americans who feel left behind by the social changes of the last decades. They look to solutions much like ones that appealed to Americans in the past. From World War II: the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, all Japanese are bad, put Americans of Japanese descent in relocation camps. That sad view is reflected in the anti-Islamic views of today: terrorists claiming to follow Islam caused 9/11 and other acts, therefore all Muslims are bad, and lets ban them.

In the same way, Trump has tied illegal immigration and globalization to the failure of the US economy to provide “great paying” jobs. Just as the coal miners in West Virginia didn’t want to hear Hillary Clinton tell them that mining jobs were gone for good, some Americans are looking for easy answers to go back to the “good old days.” And while most Americans wouldn’t do the jobs done by illegal immigrants, they accept that excuse  rather than face the changed climate (both economically and literally.)[5]

Some Americans are armed and prepared to fight by the NRA, threatened by new social mores which include open acceptance of the LBGTQ, told that they CAN go back to the days of great factory jobs and big paychecks, and allowed to disregard all the information they get to the contrary as “fake news.” And they are made afraid: afraid of the vision provided by Trump of “the urban area” where people are constantly shot on the street and other crime and violence are so rampant that “it’s worse than Afghanistan.”[6] It plays to the white supremacist ideology still lurking under the table of American life.

Trump has pandered to the worst “angels” of America, and in doing so has found a strong vein of support. That’s why it is so important for the process of removing Trump to be not only beyond reproach, but clearly define his illegality and illegitimacy. It cannot be just a list of “obstruction of justice” charges: Trump’s followers already believe that the entire “establishment” is arrayed against him and that his obstruction would be justified. And it cannot be just firing Comey or pressuring Sessions: Trump followers believe that people who work for the President SHOULD  ALWAYS obey the President.

And while the case showing that Trump was a criminal financier and developer might be compelling to those who already don’t like him; to his base there is acceptance that this is “Wall Street” behavior. We’ve seen it in all of the movies. It’s how they all act, Democrats and Republicans, when Goldman Sachs and politics come together. It’s probably  illegal, but it’s not the impeachable issue.

No, the case against Trump has to prove that Trump cooperated with another country, Russia, in order to win the Presidency. It needs to show that in fact Russia has had Trump “by the balls” for years; that he is NOT the powerful leader they are looking for, but simply a controlled man fidgeting to avoid “the squeeze.”

In short, Trump needs to be proven weak and manipulated. Months ago I wrote an essay about Trump’s view of manliness.[7]  Part of Trump’s allure is that he is the worldly, manly billionaire who can fix things ( and, who has “big hands”.) If the “resistance” can demonstrate that Trump is not that man but as a “gig0lo” used by the Russian kleptocracy, then even those who have swallowed his bile will not rebel. They will grouse, and a few will scream, but they will turn their back on him. If not: then there will be a percentage of Americans (20%?) who will always believe that their ideals and beliefs were ignored. They may or may not be violent, but they will always be there.

Whatever you think of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, he did do one last thing for the UNITED STATES. As he contemplated surrendering his army at Appomattox, some of his junior officers proposed to dissolve the army, to slip away into the mountains and reconstitute as a guerilla force. Some of his generals in the West, notably Morgan and Mosby were already using these tactics. Lee absolutely refused, recognizing that the war he was fighting was to gain legitimacy, not for never-ending violence and illegitimacy. The next day he surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant, and spared our nation a protracted guerilla war.[8]

In the same way, we need to make sure that the removal of Donald Trump from the Presidency doesn’t just meet the standards of the “resistance.” We must be able to convince all but the most crazed that he is an illegitimate President who represents the interests of the Russian kleptocracy, not American citizens. That is the rationale needed so that ALL Americans  accept the conclusion.

 

[1] http://www.salon.com/2017/08/24/roger-stone-predicts-a-civil-war-if-donald-trump-is-impeached/

[2] http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/22/pamela-geller-the-coming-civil-war/

[3] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/26/nras-video-message-to-elites-were-coming-for.html

[4] http://historyinpieces.com/research/nixon-approval-ratings

[5] http://www.npr.org/2016/05/03/476485650/fact-check-hillary-clinton-and-coal-jobs

[6] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-trump-tweets-quotes-chicago-htmlstory.html

[7] http://dahlman.online/index.php/2017/06/13/john-wayne-had-it/

[8] http://www.salon.com/2010/11/21/south_civil_war_lee/

It Ain’t All Their Fault

It feels like America is truly divided. Even before the election of Donald Trump, the nation felt like two different places: the progressive trans-national vision of Barack Obama, and the protectionist, nationalist philosophy of the Republican right. And now we have the “alt-right” outflanking the already conservative Republican party. There is little room left in the middle. There are few “blue-dog” Democrats, liberal on social issues, but conservative on defense and economics. And there are almost no “moderate” Republicans. The few that look moderate now (John Kasich for example) are far more conservative than Jacob Javits or Edwin Brooke of the past, or even Mitt Romney in his Massachusetts Governor days.

Some would argue that America is essentially a “purple” country. While a look at the 2016 Presidential election map is quite stark in its red and blue contrast, an analysis of the election show state after state had incredibly narrow results. In “all Republican” Ohio, Trump received 2.8 million votes, but Clinton had 2.3 million. North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania: all were narrow wins. There was no “mandate” for President Trump, just a perilously close electoral win.

Others would take the same evidence and note that Clinton won only 8 counties in Ohio, while Trump won 80. The contrast was clear: the urban areas of Cleveland, Toledo, Dayton, Cincinnati, Youngstown and Akron, along with “liberal” Athens County went for Clinton: the rest were for Trump. In many of those counties Trump gained more than 70%.

The “progressives” feel that the gains of the past decades in LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, national health, education, the environment and a multitude of other issues are being lost. They also feel that the President at the helm might get the US in a war across the world.

Conservatives feel like even though they “won,” Progressives still rule. They feel that the institutions of government (the “DeepState”) are preventing the “winners” from running the country. They feel  that Trump’s win should give them the right to rewrite the changes of the past decades. Instead, they feel that America is re-writing its own history, writing out the role of traditional heroes, and defiling the symbols that represent our nation.

Are we re-writing history? Today we are tearing down the monuments to the Confederacy, declaring all Confederates “supporters of slavery.” We are focusing our rear view vision on the war fought over 150 years ago. And just as the idea that the South was fighting for “states’ rights” only and not slavery is foolish, so is the idea that every Confederate was a “traitor” fighting for slavery. Like all history, it’s a whole lot more complex than that.

While slavery was always an issue for the United States, the dynamic of state versus federal power was always on the table. We struggled with that from the writing of the Constitution. Madison had to add the 10^th Amendment, reserving rights to the states and the people, to try to clarify the issue, but it didn’t. The first great argument for secession was from New England, facing economic losses from Jefferson’s embargo prior to and during the War of 1812.

The next was between President Andrew Jackson and Vice President John C. Calhoun, both slaveholders, over taxation in South Carolina in the early 1830’s. Calhoun argued the concept of nullification – that a state could nullify a federal law within its jurisdiction – originally authored by Jefferson in the Kentucky Resolution. Jackson proclaimed that the union must be preserved. Calhoun ultimately resigned from the Vice Presidency, and Jackson sent Federal troops and ships to the state. A compromise was reached: the state dropped nullification, the taxes were reduced and the troops removed, but the argument of the power of states versus the federal government would continue.

So to claim that the state’s rights argument was only about slavery is far too simplistic. Had slavery not existed, there probably would not have been a Civil War, but the issue was more complicated than just slavery. And while Northern abolitionists were loud and clear about ending slavery, they truly represented a small minority of Northern thought before the war.

Prior to the Civil War, Lincoln, like Jackson, declared that the Union was inseparable. When the Civil War began, Lincoln made the war one of union versus dis-union, not slavery versus freedom. It was only after a year and a half of war that Lincoln began the process of emancipation.

So does this mean that we should maintain Confederate monuments? Whether they were fighting for states’ rights or slavery, they were fighting for dis-union. We should begin our discussion there, and determine what is right today. And we should do so as communities, not as a national showdown. We should remember that while Confederates were fighting for dis-union, most perceived the fight as protecting their homes. At the least, we should allow their cemeteries to be honored for the sacrifice they made, even for a losing cause.

And “progressives” should not make re-litigating the Civil War as the cause of the day. There are too many issues of NOW that we must contend with as we attempt to maintain the progress of the last twenty years. To allow our focus to be drawn to the alt-right distracts us from that more important cause.

This is but one issue that divides our country, and one where some feel that “progressives” are changing the nature of it. Others “hot button” examples:  kneeling during the national anthem as a  form of protest, or university campuses providing “safe zones” from free speech, all make “the red” side of our nation feel like the nation is changing beneath their feet. Right or wrong, it ain’t all their fault that they feel that way.

 

 

Contempt of Court

Yesterday President Donald J. Trump pardoned the former Sheriff of Maricopa County (Phoenix, Arizona) Joe Arpaio. Arpaio was convicted in Federal Court for Criminal Contempt. His department was profiling Hispanics, stopping and placing them in custody until they could prove their US citizenship. When some of the US citizens who were jailed went to Federal Court, the Court agreed that the Department was violating their 4^th and 14^th Amendment rights. The Court ordered Arpaio to stop these actions. He continued the profiling for years, and therefore was held in contempt.

Trump’s actions really surprised no one. He has made it clear that he will go to great extents to keep “undesirables” out of the United States, including his Muslim ban and asking local police departments to enforce immigration policy. Arpaio decided he knew better than the Courts what was “good” for Maricopa County, mirroring Trump’s own view.

Trump has demonstrated disdain for the Courts. His career in real estate began in Court, as he was sued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for discrimination in leasing apartments. His businesses have used the Courts to avoid paying debts, to declare bankruptcy, and in general as a tool for furthering their own financial interest.

Trump doesn’t recognize that judges might operate without bias. His claim against Gonzalo Curiel, who heard the case against Trump University, was that of course Curiel would rule against him;  he was Hispanic and Trump was against illegal immigration. (Curiel, the son of legal immigrants, was born and raised in Indiana and got his law degree at Indiana University.)

Trump has constantly criticized the judges (as opposed to the decisions) of the Courts that have ruled against his various immigration schemes. Most notably, he has claimed that the 9^th Circuit of Appeals is an “Obama” court,  getting back at him for being elected.

Trump clearly has contempt for the Courts, and his pardon of Arpaio allows him to display that contempt. It also fits in with his current strategy of “playing to the base.” More insidiously, his preemptive use of the pardon power at this time also may be the beginning of a grander strategy to “pardon” his way out of the Russia crisis.

Here’s how that might work. The Mueller investigation in part is based on pressure. Like any criminal enterprise investigation, it begins with the “smaller fish:”  truthful testimony elicited with promises of leniency. The information gathered is then used to get the “bigger fish.”

A Presidential pardon can be for actions that might have occurred (see Ford’s pardon of Nixon) and prevents any Federal prosecution. However, it would also remove the “pardonee’s” 5^th Amendment right to refuse to testify due to self-incrimination. Should a person who is pardoned refuse to testify, the next leverage against them is criminal contempt of court. However, with the Arpaio pardon, it is clear that the President would be willing to pardon that infraction as well, thus closing down that entire line of testimony.

It would be incredibly ugly, but it would work. There is absolutely no legal check on the President’s right to pardon, with the exception that it applies to Federal cases only. State cases could continue. (Could Trump pardon himself?  There is no precedent, and it would certainly end up in the US Supreme Court.)

There is, of course, one massive check on Presidential power. If it became clear that President Trump was using the pardon power to obstruct justice, that certainly would be an impeachable offense. It would require the members of the House and the Senate to put down their political battles, and find the courage to do what’s right for the country. If Trump starts to “pardon his way out” of this, let’s hope they find it.

 

 

The Speed of Air Force One

Was it the weekend before last that there were marches and tragedy in Charlottesville? Was it just a few days later that we realized that the President of the United States was implicitly endorsing white supremacists? Was Bannon fired just last Friday? Was it only two days ago that the President announced a “new” strategy in Afghanistan – and then the next day back to the same old stuff at a rally in Phoenix? And Trump himself has gone from New Jersey to Washington to New York, to New Jersey to Washington, to Virginia, to Washington, to Phoenix and back. Whew!!!!!!

It is no wonder that Americans are tired: tired of the constant tirades, tired of chaos, tired of living in hysteria. Thank God for the total eclipse, we got a breather from our “real” world to marvel at THE REAL world. The Chaos theory of Trump is pretty effective though, as we focused on his tirades and questionable loyalties, we missed the slow drumbeat of Russia building momentum to threaten the Presidency.

Glenn Simpson, the President of Fusion GPS, spent ten hours talking to Senate investigators yesterday. He also left 40,000 pages of documentation. Fusion GPS is the organization that contracted with Christopher Steele to produce the “Steele Dossier” which detailed contacts, collusion and cooperation between Trump and Russian intelligence agencies. While the full text of Simpson’s testimony is still held private (Simpson himself has asked that it be made public) the one point that came out: Simpson and GPS Fusion stand by the accuracy of the dossier.

Billy Piper, a Republican lobbyist and former Chief of Staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell raised the “I” word in remarks about Trump: “The quickest way for him to get impeached is for Trump to knock off Jeff Flake and Dean Heller and be faced with a Democrat-led Senate…”[1] The relationship between Trump and McConnell has gone from shaky to bad, as Trump targets GOP senators (Flake, Heller) for primary challenges by candidates more “Trump-like.”

In addition, Trump has consistently attacked McConnell for the failure of the health-care legislation in the Senate, and now, according to the New York Times, berated McConnell for failing to protect him (Trump) from Russia investigations. Some GOP Senators have been willing to criticized Trump publicly, notably Bob Corker from Tennessee, who raised questions about Trump’s competence to be President. Others are reported to being  very critical, privately.

In the meantime his Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, is under investigation by the department’s Inspector General for the “strong arming” Alaska’s Senator Murkowski to pass the health-care legislation. His Treasury Secretary’s wife is attacking folks who complain about her use of public monies for travel, and his Secret Service is running out of overtime money from covering the travels of Trump and his family.

It’s August. We will get back to the meat of the Russia investigation soon, when Congress returns from the August recess. We know that the Mueller investigation is proceeding, with requests for information from the White House itself. We also know that there will be confrontations in Congress about taxes, and more immediately, about the budget and the debt ceiling. The next crisis may be a government shutdown at the end of September.

As events seem to move at the speed of Air Force One, behind the scenes there is the building momentum of the Russian investigation. As Trump  burn more bridges, those that could protect him seem less and less inclined to do so.   For some of us, the results of the investigation can’t come out soon enough. Expect that there will be more distractions, but know this:  we will eventually know what really happened between Trump and Russia.

 

PS – on a wholly different subject – what is the likelihood that the most professional Navy in the world would have four ship collisions in the same geographic area in the past several months? Several sailors have been killed in these incidents. The Navy is treating this as human errors and has relieved the three-star admiral in command as well as others. But as all of these events are in proximity to China, and China has a huge interest in dis-crediting the US Navy in the region, is someone checking that our incredibly complex navigation computers haven’t been hacked?

 

 

 

 

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/us/politics/mitch-mcconnell-trump.html

Darkness at 2:31!

President Trump tweeted
·today:

North Korea and Venezuela have managed to use crooked – stolen technology from fine American Industries TO BLOT OUT THE SUN!!!!  SAD!!!……

New Tweet

  ….So we will now BUILD A DOME WITH CLEAN COAL POWRRED LIGHTS  over the entire United States and the CHINESE will pay for it!!  We will MAKE AMERICA LIGHT AGAIN #MALA

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said the President’s statement speaks for itself and she could think of nothing to add….

Happy Eclipse Day!!  I’m in Oak Ridge Tennessee waiting for totality!

PS – my wife says to tell you I made this up! Too many people will think he really tweeted it!!  SAD!

---

 

 

 

You break it, You Buy It – The Republican Dilemma

The Republican Party is facing a difficult dilemma. They leadership of the party accepted, with reservations, the candidacy of Donald Trump. They allowed him to have their nomination for President, against their own better judgment, and now they are faced with the reality of his actions as President.

Let’s look at the facts. The Republican leadership, and by that I mean, Paul Ryan, Reince Preibus, John McCain, and the rest; fell in behind the Trump juggernaut at the Republican convention. They were faced with a difficult choice: turn against the party they love, the supporters they worked with, and the voters they needed; or accept Trump’s legitimacy as the Republican candidate. They could have done it: John Kasich did. They could have divided the party, taking the moral position that Trump should not be the President.

They didn’t. They didn’t because they were afraid of the backlash of their own voters. They didn’t because they were afraid that taking that moral view would mean they would lose their personal power. They didn’t because (some) hated the Clintons with such virulence that they were willing to make a “deal with the devil” than to allow her to win the Presidency. They didn’t because they didn’t think it was possible he could win.

They had a second chance to do so when Trump demonstrated his own personal immorality in the famous “bus tapes.” Some stepped back from Trump then, stating that they couldn’t explain support for him to their families. Yet, a week later, they were back with personal endorsements. Jason Chaffetz is the prime example of this (and it seems the decision so soured his gut, that he left Congress.)

They didn’t. They swallowed their pride and their morals, and probably secretly wished that the polls were right and Clinton would win. They began planning their “resistance” to the Clinton Presidency, preparing more hearings on Benghazi and e-mail.

And then Trump won. The legitimacy of his win is questionable. There is the known Russian interference in the election, and the unknown question of whether votes in key states were tampered with. Republicans in those key states have block inquiry into the voting totals: but like the questionable elections of the past, Trump is the President (Bush/Gore, Hayes/Tilden, JQ Adams/Jackson.)

And as President, Trump is demonstrating the incompetence and incapacity that everyone from Jeb Bush on, knew. It’s not just his inability to get his own agenda through Congress; it’s his willingness to risk the nation by foolhardy saber-rattling in North Korea, and his tacit support of white supremacy in Charlottesville. The Republican leadership now is faced with the dilemma: can the country survive a Trump Presidency without irreparable damage.

As a Republican leader the choice is the same one that faced them in August. Allowing Trump to be President lets them temporarily keep their party, their power, their base. But there must be a “tipping point” where they recognize that they will inevitably lose that party, power and base with Trump: and perhaps their nation too.

There are more than just the political issues involved. To some principled members of Congress it is most difficult to overturn what they see as the decision of the American people by attempting to throw out a duly elected President (though they didn’t seem to have much of a problem when that President was named Clinton.) Their concern extends beyond the precedent of second-guessing the electorate: it also raises questions about the stability of the American government and the Constitution.

And to some, there is the real concern that Trump supporters will do more than just scream and wear MAGA hats if he is removed. Pence is not a legitimate substitute for those folks, he does not represent the “outsider” they were looking for in a candidate. The marches in Charlottesville, while NOT representing most Trump voters, might pale in comparison.

And what of the Democrats? Their role in this is to accept the “conversion” of Trump supporters to the current reality, without blame or recrimination. They must recognize that for the good of the Nation, those who finally recognize the incompetence and inability of Trump, even as late as now, have a role to play in what happens next.

But in the end, it is the Republican leadership that still controls what happens: Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and the number of Congressmen and Senators who can recognize that we have reached the “tipping point.” It will take the political courage that failed them twice already. But in the end – they broke it – they bought it – they better fix it.

 

 

 

Who Are Those Guys?

This week the President of the United States drew a “moral equivalency” among all of those at Charlottesville last weekend. In fact, the President watched (more carefully than the reporters did, he said) the “tiki torch march” on Friday night, and saw some “very fine people”. (It’s amazing what Fred Perry polo shirts, khakis and a permit can do!)[1]

A “moral equivalency”: that both sides in a struggle have no more or less claim to being “right” (that’s right versus wrong – not right-wing). The President also introduced a new term in the ongoing debate over the division of America: “alt-left.” No one had heard that one before.

It’s time for a “scorecard.” Who are these groups, what do they stand for, and who, if any, has the “moral high ground”? Names are thrown around: Alt-Right, Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, Black Lives Matter, Anti-Fascists, and White Supremacists (Nationalists); all need to have some meaning. As Butch said to Sundance: who are those guys?

Let’s do the historically clear groups first. The Neo-Nazis (current) are those who espouse the racial message of Hitler. Hitler believed in the racial superiority of the Aryan race, Aryan being defined as white, Northern Europeans. According to Hitler, other races existed to serve the Aryans. He also believed that the Jewish people subverted the power and authority of Aryans, and must be eliminated.  Neo-Nazis (and the modern KKK) believe in the creation of a white “ethnostate” in America.

When the “boys” in their Fred Perry Polos chanted “Jews won’t replace us” they were echoing the cries of the Hitler brownshirts from the 1930’s. When they carried their “tiki torches” they were purposefully imitating Hitler-era demonstrations. The fact that they dress like “preppies” does not change the hate in their words, thoughts and deeds. [2]

The “anti-fa,” or anti-fascists trace their origins to the anarchists of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Dressed in black, they believe that the only way to confront Nazism and White Supremacy is through intimidation and violence. To them, Trump and “Trumpism” represents the triumph of those views. They argue:

“to call Trumpism fascist” is to realize that it is “not well combated or contained by standard liberal appeals to reason.” The radical left, it said, offers “practical and serious responses in this political moment.”[3]

In other words, you can’t reason with facists, so attack them physically.

Black Lives Matter is an organization developed after what they see as government sanctioned killing of black men over the past few years. From the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, through Michael Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York, and Tamir Rice in Cleveland: the Black Live Matter movement cites a continuing number of unarmed men being killed by police as a reason for protest. Their goal: to raise awareness and create change through marches and protests. Critics have said that the BLM movement has encouraged rioting, particularly in Ferguson, Missouri where national attention was first focused. The organization itself states:

“We are committed to embodying and practicing justice, liberation and peace in our engagements with one another.”[4]

The Ku Klux Klan has a long history, starting from the end of the Civil War in 1866. Its goal was and continues to be to champion the supremacy of the white race over other races, and Protestant Christianity over other religions. The Klan has had several eras of resurgence, usually coinciding with an era of increased civil rights. The end of the Reconstruction Era in 1876, after World War I and into the 1920’s, and in the 1960’s in opposition to the Civil Rights movement; all were times of high visibility. [5]

Historically it should be no surprise that they have gained notoriety again, given the progress in civil and social rights of the last twenty years. The Klan has also worked to become more “mainstream alt-right” by toning down its hoods and robes and blending into the other white supremacist groups.

The “alt-right” is a more modern (internet) version of the far right represented by Breitbart “News.”  While many of the same ultra-conservative views are espoused by the alt-right, there is a more Libertarian bent, which allows for more individual differences. This is perhaps best shown through Milo Yiannopoulos. A 32 year old British man, Yiannopoulos is openly gay, and was a leading speaker and writer in the alt-right community. He led the tech section of Bretibart “News.” His recent statements regarding gay men and teens have taken him out of the limelight, but his alt-right success demonstrates the difference between alt-right and neo-Nazis.

“The Resistance” is a loosely associated group of millions of folks who feel that the election of Donald Trump threatens the progress in American society made over the last sixty years. There is no membership card or uniform, and people of all ages, races, particular areas of concerns and motivation have participated in protests and demonstrations against a wide number of actions by the current government majority.

The “anti-fas” and Black Lives Matter groups are often a part of those “Resistance” activities, and while a vast majority of BLM and the Resistance are non-violent, the anti-fas are willing to use violence to achieve their goals.

In full disclosure, I started blogging as part of my contribution to the “Resistance”. In addition, I have marched and demonstrated, both against President Trump and the results of some of his actions (cutting Medicaid in Ohio for example.) I am a believer in the First Amendment (as well as the rest of the Amendments – including the Second) and I believe that, particularly in our current time of political unrest, it is important for voices to be heard.

Destruction and or physical violence do not advance the causes I believe in. During the lates 1960’s and early 70’s, there were widespread protests against the Vietnam War. A vast majority of those protests were non-violent, learning from Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement. But there were also groups that used destruction and violence to protest, notably the SDS (Students for Democratic Society).  Violence and destruction did not end the war. It gave “the establishment” an excuse to restrict protest.

There is clearly no “moral equivalency” between the white “supremacists” and those who are protesting against them.  The fact those some of the counter-protestors came ready for a fight should not diminish the reality:  we should ALL (you too Mr. President) stand up for American values, and denounce hate and prejudice.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/15/read-the-transcript-of-donald-trumps-jaw-dropping-press-conference.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5g_1exP7H4

[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-rise-of-the-violent-left/534192/

[4] http://blacklivesmatter.com

[5] http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan