Category: Uncategorized

Step Back from the World

On March 19, 1920 the United States stepped back from world leadership. Led by Senators Borah and Lodge, the Senate rejected for the second time the Treaty of Versailles, largely negotiated by US President Woodrow Wilson. The United States withdrew from the coalition of forces that won World War I. We relinquished the leadership role that Wilson had taken in the world, and we stepped back behind our borders (back then it was the oceans, not a “wall”). Soon we were letting business “make America Great” during the roaring 20’s.

The result of this was the US was not a part of the League of Nations and was not involved in trying to balance the crises between nations of the 20’s and 30’s. The League was unable to deal with the rise of Fascism, and in the end, our oceans did not serve as barriers to Fascism as the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The idea that a world agreement and organization could prevent world calamity failed, in large part, because the United States was not a part of the solution.

Franklin Roosevelt tried again after World War II, with the advent of the United Nations. And while the UN is far from perfect, it can well be argued that it helped balance the competing interests of nations for the latter half of the twentieth century. Certainly the terrifying possibilities of the nuclear age were also a part in that balancing, as the United States and the Soviet Union faced off around the globe. The UN served as a “pressure relief valve” for those two nations as well, and nuclear war was avoided.

If war and conquest was the existential crisis of the twentieth century, the growing reality of climate change is the world crisis of the twenty-first century. Until today, the United States was a world leader in trying to modify world behavior and reduce the impact of industry on the environment.

We have often been the greatest offender of environmental change. Our behaviors in the past have led us to recognize the complaint of less industrially developed countries that the US can’t claim “an even playing field.” We got the advantage of damaging the environment early, now we have to pay a greater price to make up for it.

On June 1, 2017, President of the United States Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. He claims that he can “re-negotiate the deal” in order to “Make America Great Again” and deal with other nations on an even basis. Other nations won’t, and shouldn’t, accept this arrangement. Because of this, it is likely that the Paris Accord will ultimately fail, just as the League of Nations did in the 1930’s.

The end result of the League’s failure was World War II. The outcome of this withdrawal might be even greater; it may well mean global catastrophe, which will impact the United States just as much as the rest of the world. President Trump has abrogated our role as world leader, instead pandering to his base (and perhaps the Russians) in order to strengthen his political position here at home. He has led the United States to step back from the world. The problem: the world problem will ultimately step up to the United States, just as it did at Pearl Harbor. At that point, it may not be possible to “fix” the world, even with the kind of national effort that World War II involved.

Deal with the Devil

Despite everything I’ve said and written, I really don’t believe President Trump is stupid (wow – did you hear that – everyone just clicked off the screen and moved on!!!) I do think he has made some stupid moves, and I do think he is not prepared or suited to be President of the United States. But he’s not stupid.

The facts about climate change are the facts: the climate is growing warmer, we face real consequences that create a long-term crisis for the United States and the world, and Trump (and Tillerson, and Mattis, and Kurshner, and Ivanka) know it too. The Paris Accord set voluntary standards, they don’t force anybody to do anything. If we don’t stay in, we join Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries in the world not to join.

All of the recent studies show that there will be equal or greater job creation in non-carbon energy than in continuing carbon energy. And finally, Exxon-Mobil, BP, Chevron, Cocono-Phillips, and Shell are all IN FAVOR of the Accord (as well as hundreds of other corporations) – if it’s so bad for Carbon and Oil – then how can that be.

President Trump has said amazingly foolish things about climate change. He also said amazingly foolish things about Muslims, NAFTA, and President Obama’s birth. He didn’t say them because he was stupid, he did it as a way to manipulate the “Breitbart Crowd” to his favor. It was “calculated” stupidity, and it worked.

So why then, would he consider withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords?

Howard Fineman, Editor of the Huffington Post, made a very interesting point today. He suggests that while the Russians are signatories of the Paris Accord, their goal may well be to CONTINUE Global warming, in order to melt the Arctic Ocean further and increase its shipping and drilling utility. Perhaps Trump’s decision will be in part driven by what he may owe Russia.
Huffington Post – Fineman

Or perhaps President Trump realizes he has made a deal with the devil, and the devil (with Bannon as spokesperson) is demanding payment. Trump may well withdraw from the Paris Accord and consummate his deal with the alt-right and Russia. Or he may find some way to not withdraw: either way he will ultimately have to pay the Devil his due.

Call It What It Is

Picture this: a corrupt and decadent family, professing to be billionaires when in fact their wealth was based on indebtedness to an enemy nation. This family, and the desperate leaders of a political party, conspire with this enemy nation to take over the Presidency of the United States. Through a series of incredible actions, some taken by individuals who were acting in “the best interest of the country,” the family gains control of the executive branch of government, and sets out to “Make America Great Again” for themselves and their foreign sponsors. Tom Clancy couldn’t have written this one, it’s way too far-fetched. Yet here we are, in what looks to be a novel of the 60’s (more like Seven Days in May or Manchurian Candidate.)

Alan Dershowitz, noted Harvard Professor and legal scholar, has argued that much of what the Trump Administration has done, while bad, does not rise to the level of criminal activity. This includes the big “C’s,” contact, cooperation and collusion with Russian Intelligence. Dershowitz does suggest that some of the other activity of Trump might be impeachable, but NOT criminal.

Deshowitz – CNN

Dershowitz panned the idea that anyone in the Trump campaign might have committed the ultimate offense: treason.

US Code 115 Defines Treason as the following:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

The critical phrases for the Trumps: “…adheres to their enemies giving them aid and comfort within the United States…” If the Trump campaign cooperated and colluded with Russian Intelligence in an effort to win the Presidency, is that not by definition adhering? If the Trump campaign so needed to communicate with Russian Intelligence that it needed to set up a “hotline” using Russian Intelligence communications after the election, isn’t that aid and comfort?

Kushner and Russian Connection – WAPO

If it is shown that the Trump organization is in fact deeply financially indebted to Russians, and therefore highly influenced and susceptible to financial and political blackmail, doesn’t that also show adherence to an “enemy.”

Mr. Dershowitz is probably concerned that it would be difficult to prove a basic element of any crime – intent. The Trumps would say that their intent was to “make America great again,” and that they “manipulated” the Russians to get that done. Perhaps their real defense will be that they were duped by the Russians, bought and used by them. There will be a real question: were the Trumps so brilliant as to knowingly make their deal with the devil, or were so stupid that they fell for it.

The facts are not yet in. Mueller, the Senate and House Committees, and probably most importantly, the unencumbered free press of the United States, will lead us to the facts, regardless of the political barriers that will be erected along the way. But if and when the facts show “adherence and aid and comfort,” we should not shy away from calling it what it is: treason.

But the Trains Run on Time

Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross was fascinated that during his visit to Saudi Arabia he didn’t see: “…a single hint of a protester anywhere there during the whole time we were there.” What he didn’t seem to realize (or care) was that protests are banned by the Saudi monarchy, with punishments ranging from imprisonment and torture to death by beheading.

CNBC – Wilbur Ross

It was an off-hand comment by a member of the Trump cabinet, who surely has grown tired of the constant drone of protest back home. And yet it seems to be an ongoing theme of the Trump Administration, to embrace world leaders with little commitment to American values such as freedom and democracy. A list of state visitors to the White House, including Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, Egypt’s el-Sisi, and an invitation to the Philippines’ President Duerte shows the Trump Administration willingness to embrace strong-arm leaders. And the President’s unwillingness to even shake the hand of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who represents a more “liberal democracy” and his tacit support of Marine Le Pen in France strengthens the concern.

Wilbur Ross, whose original connection to the President who is re-structuring Trump’s bankrupt casinos in Atlantic City, also served as the Vice Chairman of the Bank of Cyprus. That bank had direct connections to Russian money laundering schemes, particularly after the advent of US sanctions against Russian banks (due to the Ukraine incursion) and Deutsche Bank money laundering scandal.

Guardian – Ross and the Bank of Cyprus

It seems clear that the Trump Administration is enamored with leaders who can “get things done” regardless of their commitment to human rights and values. This is not particularly new for the United States; it reflects many of the attitudes we took in the Cold War. It also shows the dramatic influence the “Henry Kissinger School” of foreign policy has on this Administration.

Here’s the next step. The world leader who most directly embodies this strong-arm form of governance is Vladimir Putin. Putin, through assassination, imprisonment, bribery and intimidation rules Russia with an iron hand. The Trump Administration, despite all of the concerns of contact, cooperation and collusion, are pre-disposed to see Putin as a “get things done” kind of guy. President Trump, “hamstrung” as he is by the strictures of American Democracy, sees Putin as the kind of leader he wants to be. As the old tale goes about Mussolini in Italy, folks may have lost their freedom “but the trains run on time.”

There’s No Place Like Home

President Trump was in his element, as he joined in the “Peace Swords” celebration with the Saudi Royal family. He was the center of attention, he received gifts, from medals to swords, and was praised and admired by all.

It’s the golden bubble President Trump has been in for his entire life, much like the bubble that delivered the “Good Witch of the North.” The rebellious scion of a real estate millionaire, from the beginning he has been coddled and pampered. As an adult, he would spend weeks in the bubble of Trump Tower, moving from his office to his residence to his restaurants, always “in control” of everything and, more significantly, everyone.

It’s the golden bubble that President Trump creates when he steps onto Air Force One. It’s the golden bubble that burst as his White House came apart in the last week, starting with the Comey firing and ending with a special prosecutor. No wonder he left town.

It is a Presidential tradition: when things aren’t going well at home, “get out of Dodge.” Every President has done it: Nixon went to China, Kennedy went to Berlin, Obama went to Africa. The President then becomes the focus in an arena where he has the most power: foreign policy.

Speaking of Nixon going to China, it was the cool dark shade of Henry Kissinger and the “real politic” theory that ran through Trump’s speech to the Arab summit. The United States is NOT interested in telling you how to run your lives (women in the Middle East be damned), the United States is looking for partners (money and troops) in our shared goals, the United States will support it’s friends. Build up Saudi Arabia to balance Iran, challenge the Islamic world to live up to the Koran’s peaceful intent (even avoiding the magic words of the 2016 campaign: Radical Islamic Terrorism.)

Then fly “the bubble” directly to Israel to be with friends there. Show the world how simple it will be to negotiate “the deal” between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It’s so important, you’ve put your son-in-law in charge (because in the Trump bubble, the ultimate mark of respect is family). And by the way, hope Jared Kushner isn’t “the person of interest, close to the President” that the FBI is investigating.

Next fly away to Europe, meet the Pope, and assure NATO. The bad news in all of this: there’s no place like home. And home is where the trouble is, home is where the inquiries are, and despite Trump’s desire to stay in the bubble, home will come Trump to face the impact of his actions. There’s no place like home.

When the Money Turns

The United States electoral process took a dramatic turn in 2010, when the US Supreme Court ruled in the “Citizens United” case that non-profit corporations are guaranteed “freedom of speech” whose expenditures could not be restricted.

In the decades prior to “Citizens United,” the America seemed to recognize that the influence of money in politics needed to be controlled. Starting with the post–Watergate Federal Campaign Act, the law included building a federal Presidential campaign fund. Later laws, including McCain/Feingold and other legislation, sought to put restrictions on what forces outside the actual political campaigns could do. Campaigns continued to find ways around restrictions, notably the 2008 Obama campaign, so successful with internet oriented fundraising that it passed up the Presidential campaign fund (and the restrictions created by using it) and effectively ended publicly funded Presidential campaigns.

“Citizens United” changed the game. Non-profit corporations (known politically as 527’s) could raise as much money as they could, and could shield the origin of their contributions. While “dark money” had been a part of politics (Swift Boating in the 2004 Presidential election) now it had unlimited resources.

Citizens United

Enter the billionaires. They had the money, and they had the desire to impact American politics and influence it in their favor. And while all sides of the spectrum are represented, no one used their money better than the Koch Brothers, oil billionaires out of Wichita, Kansas. The Kochs made themselves instrumental in conservative and Republican politics. They made it clear: toe their conservative line, or face a well-financed primary challenge. They financed the “tea party” Republicans. They controlled the Republican agenda.

Koch Brothers – 2010

But they weren’t the only ones. The Mercer family were also in the fray, and it is from those supported by the Mercers (Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Mike Flynn) that Trump ran his general election campaign and his White House.

The Koch Brothers sat out the Presidential election of 2016. They invested instead in the Senate and House races (those who live in Ohio will remember the anti-Strickland 89 cents campaign.) They were able to secure the Republican Senate majority, which enabled full Republican control and the ability to put conservatives on the Supreme Court.

So what has all of this have to do with today’s Trump World?

In the last week: Robert Mueller appointed as Special Counsel for the Russia Investigation, Comey fired, Trump interviewed saying that the firing was about stopping the Flynn investigation. This morning’s revelation: the Trump campaign was very aware of Flynn’s Turkey connections well before the inauguration and still made him National Security Advisor. Today the money will make all the difference.

The Republicans in the House and the Senate are searching for a way to respond to the worsening situation at the White House. The media will say that they are afraid of coming out against the President because of their concern of the backlash of the Trump voters. The media will also say that Republicans still hope to get their agenda through the Congress, and that they want to keep the President’s behavior off of the Congressional Agenda for as long as possible.

The media may be right about all of that, but there is an even more important point. The Republican majority is controlled by the money: the fate of the Trump Presidency rests more with the determination of the Koch Brothers, the Mercers and others, than with the conscience of the Republican legislatures.

When will Congress truly act, and ask the big question: should Trump be the President?

We’ll have to wait, wait for when the money turns.

Take a Breath

It is absolutely breathtaking: the speed at which the Trump Administration creates a crisis, so fast that the seemingly impeachable offense of last week gets usurped by the seemingly impeachable offense of yesterday. Events move so fast, that it is difficult to take it all in. Here’s this week’s list.

1. The President of the United States stated that he fired the Director of the FBI, James Comey, in part because of the Russia Investigation: possible obstruction of justice
nbc: Holt interviews Trump

2. The President of the United States invited the Russian Foreign Minister and the Russian Ambassador into the Oval Office, then revealed classified information which may put intelligence sharing agreements at risk (as well as possibly individuals)
WAPO – Trump leaks intel

3. The Senate Intelligence Committee has requested and will receive money laundering data from the Treasury Department division charged with tracking potential illegal transactions (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network)
Reuters – Senate asks for financial information

4. The drip, drip, drip of information on the Trump Campaign staff connections to Russia continue, with the White House visit of Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahayan (MBZ) who connected the Russian Intelligence agencies and Trump surrogates in the Seychelles prior to the Inauguration.
WAPO – Trump surrogates meet Russian in Seychelles

5. And finally, the rumors of federal sealed indictments in Federal Courts, in both the Southern District of New York (Manhattan) and the Eastern District of Virginia. Some rumors even mention Donald Trump as being named in an indictment.
EXCLUSIVE: Sealed Indictment granted against Donald Trump

To try to change the subject – Trump just tweeted about “LEAKERS” even though he should be worried about HIS OWN leaking!!

Take a breath. The President is not going to resign today, nor will he be impeached tomorrow. All of this is a jigsaw puzzle, only the straight edges are starting to be put in place. We don’t know what the puzzle will ultimately look like yet, we aren’t even sure if it’s a portrait or a landscape. All we know is the tantalizing images of the little pieces we think we have fit together correctly – it will take time to complete. It was June of 1972 when the “White House Plumbers” broke into the Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate Office Building. It was May of 1973 when the first Senate Watergate Committee hearings began. It was May of 1974 when the House of Representatives began Impeachment hearings, and August 9th, 1974 when Nixon resigned. That’s over two years (and my junior and senior year of high school!)

The President of the United States is immune from judicial prosecution. You can’t convict him of a “crime” while he’s President, all of that must wait until he is out of office. That leaves the political process as the only possible way to remove him.

IF IF IF

If Donald Trump were to be impeached or resign, if the Republican majorities of the House and the Senate were even willing to entertain the idea of removing him, if any of this were to occur, it will take time. Stop holding your breath!!!!!!!!

Disgruntled Former Employee

We’ve heard it time and time again: “a statement was made by a ‘disgruntled former employee’.” They quit or were fired, what they have to say is completely colored by the fact that they left the employer, they are “disgruntled” a word that can only mean that they are willing to lie in order to get back at the former employer.

Here’s a quote from a contracting business website:

He was called a “phone buff, pompas, (sic) arrogant, street angel – closed doors devil.”
Wow. But that was just the start. The former employee added, “This Executive is afflicted with accute (sic) narcissism, a pronounce inclination toward moral insanity, utter lack of empathy for our clients, management, staff or professional tradesman.”

Contracting Business.com

The White House strategy of the day is to paint James Comey as “the disgruntled former employee.” Trump leads the strategy, characterizing Comey as a “showboat” (my mother would say the pot calling the kettle black) and as someone begging to keep his job (he wanted to come over to dinner and asked to stay on as FBI Director.) As Comey or his friends began to try to correct the record, Trump tweeted:

“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”

When Comey does eventually began to talk about what happens, the White House will have already begun the smear: disgruntled former employee. This way they can discount anything he says, and at the same time warn others – this can happen to you (Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, and the rest.)

The problem for the White House is their absolute tone deafness to history. With the ghosts of Watergate already haunting the halls of both the Executive Mansion and the Capitol, they continue to conjure up the memories: Henry Kissinger on Monday, tapes on Friday. All of the “old men” of Watergate days are re-appearing and comparing today’s actions to the past. The White House doesn’t get it – they don’t have the perspective to see that much of that is their own doing. It is just one more factor that makes the Trump Administration so troubling.

And what they also don’t remember is the famous Godfather quote: “Keep you friends close and your enemies closer.” Comey is a “Boy Scout”, and folks will find it very difficult to believe he has taken on the role as “disgruntled former employee” particularly with the amount of praise Trump has heaped on him over the past year. Even the most avowed Trumpster will begin asking questions. Trump should have kept Comey in-house, giving Trump more control and access. Instead, now he’s got an unfettered Comey who can (and maybe will) say what he thinks. Trump has also given the core of the FBI and the rest of the intelligence community a martyr to rally around. All in all, not a good week for the Administration.

Why in the world would President Trump fire James Comey as FBI Director.
What is the upside for Trump?
1. He gets rid of a “wild card” FBI Director who seems to follow his mind/conscious wherever it leads him
2. The Dept. of Justice regains “institutional control” over the FBI, no longer will it be perceived as a separate entity
3. If Comey was getting close to Trump or his inner circle, it will delay the inevitable.
4. Democrats should be happy – they didn’t like Comey either (really, it’s true!!!!)
5. Getting rid of Comey might put the “she would’ve won if it weren’t for the October Surprise” stuff to rest.
6. He gets to say “YOU’RE FIRED” to another guy on TV (Comey wasn’t even given the common courtesy of notice, he was out of town in the middle of a speech when the Networks began broadcasting his ouster).

But lets really go into the darkness and conspiracy of what might have happened in the Comey firing. Unlike many of these posts, let’s delve into the “maybes and might bes”, not necessarily the facts.

1. Comey had just gone to the Deputy Attorney General to ask for additional funding for the Russian Investigation. According to “unnamed sources in the White House” Trump was furious about the continuing focus on Russia.
2. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is a well seasoned and respected lawyer. Reading his memo on Comey to the Attorney General, it sounds more like a political hatchet job than a lawyerly account of why Comey should be fired. Where are the citations of Dept. of Justice policy, where are the legal precedents? Instead, it is a document full of “I think” and “others say.” I would expect a great deal more from him, even on two weeks notice. The suspicion – he was handed the document by a political flak, and told to sign on. It’s too bad he couldn’t find the courage of Eliot Richardson or Don Ruckleshaus (from Saturday Night Massacre/Nixon era) and stand up to the politics. Instead, he signed on, and lost his opportunity to write history.
3. Comey, who had access to the necessary intelligence to know, discounted Trump’s claim that “Trump Tower was tapped.” It angered Trump so much, he wanted Comey out.
4. Rudy Guiliani, a well known Comey critic, all of a sudden is in and out of the White House again. Doesn’t this just sound like a Guiliani move, particularly when you remember his “contacts” with the FBI New York Office who were so upset with the fact charges didn’t come out of the Clinton Email investigations.
5. Attorney General Sessions, ostensibly recused from all decisions regarding the Russia investigation, helps lead the way to decapitate the Russia investigation. It’ll be fun to hear how he justifies that in testimony in front of some committee.
6. “Teflon” Vice President Pence was right in the middle of this decision, which also puts him right in the center of what could be seen as an obstruction of the Russia investigation.
7. And finally, what are the optics of bringing Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, into the White House the day after the firing? Who in the West Wing thought that was a good idea?

So what’s the next move?
The pressure is going to be on the Congressional Republicans. How long can they stand it, before they either: call for a special prosecutor (also the way that Rosenstein, the official who has that responsibility, can redeem himself) or set up a different investigative committee. The problem with all of that – time time time!!!

If nothing happens – will this guarantee a change in power in the House (more likely) or the Senate (less likely) or both? With the full investigative power of either or both arrayed against the Trump administration, it will grow very ugly. Think of the Benghazi investigation on steroids – or for folks my age – think of the Watergate investigation at quadruple the speed!

IF this all comes down, IF the Trump administration and Trump himself collapses, we can look back at this moment as the true beginning of the end. In Watergate, it was the moment when Alexander Butterfield acknowledged that there were tapes of all White House conversations, in this one, the day Comey was canned.

Quid Pro Quo (to get something for something)

President Donald Trump, through his newly appointed Deputy Attorney General, fired the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, Tuesday night. Doesn’t seem to be quite fair, not a “quid pro quo,” considering many feel that Comey was instrumental in getting Trump elected to the Presidency in the first place with the “October Surprise” announcement.

Sonny Corelone(the Godfather) once said “…the goddamned FBI don’t respect nothin’…” Clearly Donald Trump felt the same way, as his letter from Tuesday night shows:

“While I appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nonetheless concur with the judgment in the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.”

Trump’s own letter made it clear that his focus was on the possibility of an FBI probe into his own behavior in the 2016 election. He took the opportunity to get rid of the man leading the investigation that could end up there. As the noose grows tighter around Flynn, Manafort, Stone and the others; the path to Trump himself may be opening. What better way to delay and deflect, than to decapitate the agency doing the investigating.

The details are ridiculous. Comey was fired ostensibly because he bungled the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The Deputy Attorney General’s critical letter could have been written by the Democratic National Committee. It states that Comey should not have held a press conference about the Clinton emails in July, should not have released the “October Surprise” and should not have commented on any of it.

Trump, of course, rejoiced in all of those actions at the time, praising Comey for being fair and above the political process. Now that investigation has turned to him he has the “quid pro quo:” “You’re Fired.”

So what now? Clearly the firing will have a chilling effect on the career officials of the FBI and the Justice Department who are investigating the Trump campaign. The message is clear: start getting close and you’re out. Ask Comey, or Sally Yates.

But just as clearly, this firing will have a galvanizing effect on the Democrats and the Press, and place more pressure on the key group in this whole mess: the Republican moderates in the Senate. McCain, Portman, Collins and the like are being pushed to take a side. They don’t like Trump anyway, and they are also the ones who saw the center of the Republican party slip away. Now they are the key to what happens next. The same is true from the “Tuesday Group” in the House of Representatives; they have the future of the Republican Party, and perhaps the nation, in their hands.

Like the Watergate investigation, a Special Prosecutor should be appointed to oversee the investigation. That would require Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (since Attorney General Sessions has recused himself from this issue) to make the appointment, but it seems unlikely he would do so after he followed Trump’s lead to fire Comey.

If a Special Prosecutor is unattainable, then the investigation will be left to the Republican dominated House and Senate. The question then is the same question former President Obama asked on Sunday night:

As everyone here now knows, this great debate is not settled but continues. And it is my fervent hope and the hope of millions that regardless of party, such courage is still possible, that today’s members of Congress, regardless of party, are willing to look at the facts and speak the truth even when it contradicts party positions.

We are left to hope that those moderate Republicans will find their Profile in Courage, not for a quid pro quo, but what’s right for the United States of America.

Washington Post – Documents

up next – “When will the money turn?”

If They Only Had a Heart (Karma’s a Bitch)

Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, was one of the members of the Freedom Caucus that directed the Trump Health Care bill. His statement on the impact of the bill (if it were to become law) on those with pre-existing conditions is not only significant, but horrifying in its implications.

Mo Brooks on Pre-Existing Conditions

For those who choose not to click on the link – here’s the synopsis:
Brooks stated that in order to bring insurance premiums down for those who have lived “a healthy life” and “done all of the right things” sick people (those with pre-existing conditions) should pay more. While he then states that not all sick people are at fault for being sick, we need to balance their needs against the needs of the “healthy” to pay less.

The clear frame of reference: sick people are getting what they deserve.

Mo Brooks is not a “barn burner” like former Congressman Joe Walsh. He represents a tremendously conservative part of the world, and was born and raised there:

Brooks Campaign Biography

Raul Labrador, Congressman from Idaho (and the Hispanic Conservative Republican hope) stated:
“No one dies because they don’t have access to health care.”
Labrador – News and Guts

It is of course the fallback position for de-regulating health insurance. NO ONE DIES – because they can always go the the emergency room. NO ONE DIES – because they can get emergency care without insurance. It ignores the whole proven effect of preventative care, of making prescription drug use affordable and therefore consistent, and of early detection and intervention. THE REALITY – many will die if their only access to medical care is emergency care. Not only will many die, but their medical care will be delivered in the MOST EXPENSIVE way possible, through emergency services.

And the argument that the truly poor can get on Medicaid starts to collapse, when Medicaid is on the chopping block. Fewer people get insurance, more people DO get their only medical care through emergency rooms.

By the way, when all of the emergency care is charged off, where do the costs go? Who pays? Oddly enough, not the government. The cost is absorbed into the overall operating costs of the hospital, those costs are then distributed among the paying customers. So in the end, we pay, we pay through higher hospital costs (or higher insurance costs) to cover those who can’t pay.

I don’t believe (or choose not to, anyway) that Mo Brooks and Raul Labrador are so hard hearted to wish people to die. They want to lower the costs of premiums for their chosen constituents (and reduce taxes and controls on their chosen contributors.) The problem, taking care of the “chosen” means that those who truly can’t afford insurance are left even farther behind.

So what’s the deal? Insurance companies don’t want to insure people who are more likely to get sick. That sounds like a stupid statement, but it’s completely valid. Insurance companies aren’t about protecting people, they ARE about making money. Sick people cost a whole lot more than well people (who just pay into but don’t take out of their insurance policies.) So if they can find a way to “bring competition into the market” by “charging more for pre-existing conditions” they can make more money. From all of the sound bites, the current House bill states that as long as you don’t drop (or get dropped) from your policy, you won’t have your premium raised for a condition. However, if you change jobs, if you fail to continue your current coverage, or if you somehow lapse in coverage, you are vulnerable to a huge increase under the current House bill.

“But we have returned power to the states, where they are closer to the people, rather than the federal government!!” Power to the states, where gerrymandered districts have guaranteed that insurance companies will be in control of any legislation. States can get waivers from even the modest requirements that the House bill suggests.

Maybe the title of this blog should be “Karma’s a Bitch” rather than “IF They Only Had A Heart.” Because as cruel as it may seem, I hope that the authors and supporters of the House bill may someday face the results of their legislative prowess. Because if “Karma’s a Bitch,” they are in for some difficult times.

America’s Heart?

My vision of America is a nation that cares about others, both here and abroad. A nation that at its heart is invested in people, not process. A nation that is willing to sacrifice to make everyone’s life better, not just those who already have successful lives. A nation that believes in the value of the individual, not at the exclusion of the many but as part of a complex goal that states “we can have it all.”

As an educator for forty years, I have seen the educational “establishment” move from caring about the individual to caring only about process. Process: in “educationese” it’s all about numbers, measuring proficiency and growth, whether teachers follow curriculum and meet testing standards. We then add another layer of “measuring” to derive statistical values to determine whether someone is a “good” teacher.

Caring about individuals: in real terms it’s about meeting the needs of students at their level. It might mean dealing with the societal issues the students are faced with, it might mean getting breakfast or coffee for students who can’t sleep at home, it might mean – heaven forbid – not following today’s curriculum to deal with real student issues (without penalty for the teacher.) It might be caring about kids, rather than statistics.

This “process priority” has devolved down to the lowest level; it is the rare Principal or school district bucks this trend. It makes our schools into “machines” rather than places that nurture kids, we are turning out “widgets” not students. And we have “normed” teachers, taking the best and beating them down to average, so that we can take the worst and try to force them up to average. The penalty is huge, both for our best students who are no longer challenged, and our worst students who are left to fail.

In education we have abandoned the hope of the turn of the 21st century, when we saw a model of empowering teachers to make decisions and improve both the education and lives of their students. Education is now a “top down” model: the administrators govern the employees, and teachers are rendered powerless. For a teacher to suggest differently means real threats and job sanctions.

In our “everyday” world: we care less about the passenger on the airline, more whether that seat can be cleared for an airline employee. We care more about removing an “illegal alien” than about the mother with four children who’s lived a productive life in this country for many years. We care more about the money in our pocket than the life of an infant. Ask Joe Walsh, former Congressman best known for screaming out LIAR to President Obama during the State of the Union Address. When talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel spoke about how he felt during surgery on his infant child, Walsh came back with:
“Your sad story doesn’t obligate me to pay for somebody else’s health care.”

Walsh and Kimmel

In our political world our President should represents the values of the United States as well as the interests of the United States. We now have a President whose view is completely “transactional” (read process): we don’t care what actions or immorality other leaders take, if they can help us we use them. We can invite a murdering President of the Philippines to “come see me at the White House,” or soft-pedal the insanity of North Korea’s Kim, or instantly change our mind about China’s role in the world.

We have appointed a woman to oversee a national program fighting teen pregnancy who doesn’t believe in contraception.

Trump picks anti contraception appointee

We have appointed an EPA chief who rejects the science that protects our environment.

Pruitt and Science NYT

We have a Congress still attempting to pass a Health Care Bill that will ultimately deny insurance to 24 million. They seem determined to find a way to force those who are unfortunate enough to have a pre-existing medical condition to either be forced off of insurance or forced to pay exorbitant fees. They hide this by pushing the heartless decision of cutting them off onto the states, but it’s there.

The America of 2017 grows heartless. Donald Trump is a result of this trend, his election was not the cause. We need to look deeper into ourselves to find the flaw and the cure for our hearts.

Lunatic Fringe (thanks Red Rider!!)

I know it’s been a while since my last blog. In my non-blog life I am a high school track coach, and this is “crazy” time. But I’m back today, so let’s get crazy!!

Louise Mensch has “all of the answers” in regards to Trump, Putin, and the Russian takeover of the American Presidency (her theory, not necessarily mine.) She has an odd background for a “ground-breaking” reporter on an American crisis. Born in England, a former Conservative Member of Parliament, she moved to the US to be with her children and husband Peter Mensch who runs “Q Prime” a band management group (Metallica, Red Hot Chile Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins.)

She made her reputation in Parliament with her sharp questioning of the Murdochs (Fox News) in the British media phone hacking scandal. After she resigned from Parliament and moved to the US, she went to work for “Heat Sheet” on online political “news” journal owned by the Murdoch’s News Corp.

She broke into the Trump story with a November 2016 story stating that the FBI had been granted a FISA warrant for activity between the Trump Tower server and two Russian Banks. This warrant would cover anyone with connections to these servers, thus perhaps including Donald Trump himself. While at the time the story seemed fantastical, and in fact was denied by the New York Times, later research by other organizations (BBC, the Guardian) seemed to back her claims.

Mensch: FISA Warrants

Since that time she had developed a comprehensive theory of a multiple year attack by Russia on the United States, which include the claims that there are Russian “moles” in the National Security Agency that influenced and aided Edward Snowden in his massive data breach of US secrets. She sees all of these actions (Snowden, email hacking, election involvement, subversion of senior American government officials) as one plan orchestrated by Russian President Putin. She no longer writes for “Heat Sheet” though she continues to be employed by News Corp. She blogs about the Trump crisis at her website patribotics.blog. Her comprehensive theory of the crisis is further explained here:

Mr Putin, lets play chess

I can’t prove that she’s wrong: but it’s difficult to prove that she’s right either. She has attempted to develop a “roadmap” for the current crisis, and much of her early work has proven to be accurate. It doesn’t mean that it’s all correct: but it does give pause.

Christopher Steele, the author of the famous “Trump Dossier” (including Golden Showers) is another Englishman whose work has had a dramatic impact on the current crisis. Steele, a former British intelligence agent, was commissioned first by opposing Republicans and later by Democrats to develop a report of Trumps’ activities regarding Russia. It was the revelation of this document (wholly unsubstantiated by outside sources at the time) that began the Trump crisis. And again, while large portions are still unsubstantiated, significant pieces have been documented.

Steele Report

As Bob Woodward of Watergate fame pointed out at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, reporting is about putting a story together piece by piece, and not getting ahead of the substantiated facts. He and Carl Bernstein look back to the years it took them to piece together (along with many other reporters) the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon Presidency.

Deep Throat stamped his foot. ‘A conspiracy like this…a conspiracy investigation…the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone’s neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and the Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished – they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level. If you shoot too high and miss, then everyone feels more secure. Lawyers work this way. I’m sure smart reporters must, too. You’ve put the investigation back months. It puts everyone on the defensive – editors, FBI agents, everybody has to go into a crouch after this.’

Louise Mensch may be on the “lunatic fringe” of the Trump investigation. It doesn’t mean she’s wrong, it just means she’s shooting too high. Christopher Steele wasn’t worried about an investigation, he was just writing an opposition research report. In the end they may both be road maps to nowhere, or they may show the direction of this Constitutional crisis.

Wagging the Dog

The dropping of the “Mother of All Bombs” on an obscure target in Afghanistan brings back memories of movies. The first was the really bad Charlie Sheen 1991 send-off of Top Gun, Hot Shots. “Topper Harley” drops a bomb on Sadaam Hussein “ the mother of all targets.” But the actions of Trump World this week brings to mind another fine film of the 1990’s, Wag the Dog with Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. This story, filmed in the middle of the Clinton sex scandal, stars De Niro as the political operative for the President, colluding with film producer Hoffman to create a war in Albania to distract the public from the President’s sexual activities with a Girl Scout.

In 1998 Al Qaeda launched terrorist bombings against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Clinton retaliated with missile attacks on Al Qaeda sites in Afghanistan and Sudan. Critics claimed that Clinton was “wagging the dog” to distract from his ongoing political problems as the Senate proceeded with impeachment.

This past week we had three military actions. While some may see all of these actions as justifiable, they also may be seen as “wagging the dog.” The first was the missile attack on the airfield in Syria in response to Syrian chemical weapons use. Fifty-nine cruise missiles were launched at a previously warned airfield in Syria, at an approximate cost of $800,000/missile (Newsweek ). That’s a total of over $47 million in missiles that did a minimal amount of damage: the Syrian’s launched a conventional bombing mission from that airfield the next day.

The second was the transferring of the Carl Vinson Carrier strike group from Singapore to near North Korea, in an attempt to intimidate Kim Jong-un to stop testing ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads. The concern: with the well documented paranoia of Kim, he may well react to this intimidation by responding with the self-same missiles and nuclear weapons, and of course, we have now given him a primary target. He can’t reach the continental US with a missile (yet) but he certainly could take a stab at the Vinson Group in nearby seas. (Reuters)

The third was what triggered the flashback to the drug fueled Charlie Sheen and Hot Shots. The US dropped the GBU-43/B, a 30’ long by 3’ wide 11 ton bomb also known as the “MOAB”, the Mother of All Bombs. The bomb is estimated to cost $15 million. It was dropped on a ISIS cave complex in Afghanistan, reportedly killing 36 ISIS soldiers (at a cost of $416,666 a piece) and perhaps collapsing the tunnel complex. While it’s use this week was against ISIS, many commentators suggest that it was to send a message to others, including Assad in Syria and Kim in North Korea.

The net effect, we spent $62 million plus the cost of moving the Carl Vinson Strike Group, to essentially kill a few Syrians and ISIS soldiers and damage some planes and buildings.

It seems that this could have been done with a lot less dramatics and at a far smaller cost. But it certainly “Wagged the Dog”. We weren’t talking about the advances in the Russian connection investigation, we weren’t talking about the over $21 million the President has spent going to his Mira Lago Resort, we weren’t talking about the signing of a law which allows states to withhold federal money from Planned Parenthood. We were watching videos of missiles taking off, carriers moving, and giant phallic bombs.

President Trump will have to act in foreign policy. I hope that he can find a way to do so through diplomacy as well as explosions and death. But discussions, even between the old friends Putin and Tillerson, won’t distract from the internal problems Trump faces. Blowing stuff up “wags the dog.”

Passover and Easter Eggs

It’s been a bad week in Trump World. Sean Spicer, Presidential Press Secretary, tried to make a comparison between Assad of Syria and Hitler making Hitler the “good guy.” That normally is a non-starter in any conversation, as Spicer blithely stated that at least Hitler didn’t use chemical warfare against civilians. He was right, except for a large part of the 10 million executed in the gas chamber of Death Camps (Spicer called them Holocaust Centers) by various chemical compounds: OOPS!!! It almost made you feel sorry for him as he tried to walk the statement back again and again and again.

It does demonstrate three things. First, these guys aren’t as smart as they ought to be. Second, they read way too much alt-right news. newsmax This is similar to the Trump “Obama wiretapped me” tweet generated from a Breibart article (Washington Post).
Third, it demonstrates Spicer and a lot of the Trump Administration are insensitive to Jewish history and anti-Semitism. Just so everyone is clear: a concentration camp is where Jews and other minorities and “undesirable” people were sent to work as slave laborers and die. Death camps were places where those same people were executed upon arrival. Holocaust centers are museums or other places commemorating the events of the Holocaust. You don’t die there. It seems pretty basic. That this compounded gaff took place during the Jewish celebration of Passover only makes it worse.

The second ridiculous statement comes from Eric Trump, son of Donald. Eric stated that firing missiles at Syria was in fact proof that his father did not collude with Putin ( Time). It proves nothing of the sort. The United States carefully bombed an airfield, but warned the Russians we were coming well in advance, and carefully avoided putting the airfield out of commission, destroying some buildings and Syrian aircraft. We carefully did nothing that would alter the calculus between the US and Russia, and while the war of words have heated up between the two countries, nothing of substance has changed. This attack was neither evidence for or against a possible collusion between Trump and the Russians.

But the “Easter Egg” (more in the gaming sense) of the week, was the disclosure that a FISA warrant was issued for surveillance of communications by Carter Page, Trump campaign foreign affairs advisor (Washington Post). Months ago we talked about the possibility that Carter Page was the “go-between” from the Trump campaign to Russian Intelligence (Drip-Drip-Drip).

Page’s role in the Trump campaign is murky at best. At one point, Trump named him as one of his policy advisors, but the campaign later distanced themselves from Page. How he got into the Trump organization in the first place is still obscured. Page’s role in the Russian connection was first identified through the “Chris Steele Report,” the incendiary document which outlined the Trump connections to Russia. Steele claimed that Page was the go-between from Russian Intelligence to the Trump campaign.

The revelation that a FISA warrant was issued means that the FBI had probable cause to believe that a crime was being committed or that an intelligence issue was at stake. The “drip-drip-drip” continues, as the FBI does a classic investigation, working from the bottom up.

The second “Easter Egg” was from Trump himself, as he distanced himself from Steve Bannon, calling Bannon a “nice guy” who came into the campaign “late” (New York Post: New York Post
It may well be that Trump’s loyalty to the folks that work for him will again turn into his favorite phrase: You’re Fired.

And the final “Easter Egg” week involves Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager from March through August of 2016. Manafort has continued to deny taking any money “under the table” from pro-Russian Ukrainians. When those same Ukrainians fled their country, a journal was discovered with notes showing $12.7 million in payments to Manafort. Manafort denied that this was correct. The AP news service has reported that they have actual transaction receipts for $1.2 million (AP – AP
This validates part of the journal claim, and makes Manafort look like a liar, especially since the money was laundered through dummy corporations set up in Belize.

Page under surveillance, Manafort laundering illegal money, Flynn hiding ties to Turkey: the drip-drip-drip of the Russian scandal continues. It can be clouded for a time by missiles over Syria, but inexorably the investigation draws tighter and tighter around the Trump campaign. It will take time.

United Airlines stock has dropped today: Damn Right! United can’t get what it deserves for the actions not only of its employees, but of their management in the Chicago “re-accommodating” incident. If you missed this one: a man was seated and buckled in on a United flight out of Chicago. At the last minute, the United management realized that they had “overbooked” the flight by 4 seats. This “overbooking” was not caused by selling the seats to passengers, it was caused by a deal with regional airline Republic that United would move their personnel (4).

United offered $800 and a hotel room for anyone willing to give up their seat: three took the deal. United than randomly selected the fourth guy to go. He refused, and Airport security bodily dragged him from the plane, busting his lip. He then ran back onto the plane, chanting “…I have to go home, I have to go home…” as other passengers looked on. Finally the entire plane was cleared, and he was taken off on a stretcher.

United’s CEO apologized for the “re-accommodating” incident. He didn’t apologize for United using security like goons to further the company’s financial agenda. He didn’t apologize for exposing the passengers on the plane to this kind of violence, and he didn’t apologize for his company’s crass attitude towards an actual paying customer.

And, while the passengers on the plane were all willing to video the incident, and a few spoke out (including one telling the security guards “good job”) no one stood up for the guy being dragged off of the plane.

So what does this incident tell us about United Airline? First, your safety and security are only worth $800 and a hotel room. After that, it’s onto the goon squad. Second, United is more interested in its corporate contracts than it is individual customers. Third, United is willing to go to pretty much any length to get what it wants, including bodily harm to its passengers.

We all know that the ticket we hold on an airline is completely conditional. We know the plane can be delayed, changed, cancelled, or our seat “contract” withdrawn for any number of reasons, which the airline is not held accountable for. We know this is the “price” we pay for modern aviation, though we wouldn’t accept this kind of business arrangement for any other kind of transaction (well you did buy a new car, but we going to give you a different one, and by the way, we won’t deliver it for a while, and we just might completely change our mind.)

A lot of the accommodations we make with airlines are actually reasonable. What we do expect is that the airline will recognize that those accommodations also imply a greater duty of the airline to take care of their passengers. What should United have done differently?

Well, I would be willing to bet that if $800 and a room wouldn’t do it, $1600 and a room would have. I’d also be willing to bet that United wishes they had offered $1600 now!!

But what I really get from this incident, is the cavalier way that we accept this kind of authoritarian violence. That those security officers,the passengers, the crew and the ground personnel would all find these actions acceptable, that is the biggest concern. If this passenger was drunk, disorderly, or in some other way dangerous, than perhaps these actions would be justifiable. But he was simply a guy who wanted to go home. He could have been you or me.

In a “new” society, where the cries of “Black Lives Matter” have receded into the background as the smokescreen of “Trumpian America” fills our world, it is a ongoing question: what level of violence are we willing to accept in our day-to-day lives? And on a more specific matter, should United pay any cost for these actions?

I don’t generally fly United, they don’t usually go where I want to go, but I’ll make sure not to do so now. That will be the language they understand, not common decency, but cash on the barrelhead.

Phantom of the White House (unmasking the smokescreen)

Picture this: the President’s National Security Advisor is given intelligence showing that the Russian government was intervening in the United States Presidential election. The Advisor then sees that in the course of the campaign, it appears that one of the Presidential campaigns is coordinating it’s efforts with the Russian attacks. As the Advisor reads through the intelligence, it shows that Russian intelligence representatives are having conversations with Americans about this effort.
(see October 6th, after the “Bus Tapes” when the Podesta emails are released per the prediction of Roger Stone)

Whatever political party is in power, and whatever political party is campaigning for the Presidency, it would be unreasonable, incompetent, and probably malfeasance if the National Security Advisor did NOT take all legal measures to find out what was going on. It IS legal for the National Security Advisor to ask the “owner” of the intelligence (in this case the National Security Agency) to “unmask” the names of the Americans on the other side of those conversations.

President Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, did exactly that. She did exactly what we would expect of any National Security Advisor of either party to do. She saw a threat to our core national interest, the choosing of the President, and acted appropriately to try to find out what was going on.

All the other nonsense about this is just a stall and a smokescreen. Fox News, the Daily Caller and the like have pulled out all the stops on Susan Rice, from Benghazi to her original roles in the Clinton administration. None of that has any relevance to this issue.

If Susan Rice had “unmasked” Americans named in the intelligence reports (Michael Flynn for one) for political reasons, wouldn’t she have done more to actually influence the election before election day? If she tried to disrupt the Trump campaign, wouldn’t that information have been more influential on October 7th? At least give her the respect to think that if she “playing” this card, she would have actually played it.

It is just another distraction, another “shiny ball” to keep the public distracted, and to give Senators like Rand Paul the opportunity to show “righteous indignation.” It is amazing to me that those Republicans, some of whom were as damaged by the Russian actions as Hillary, still stand up for Trump (or stand silently by) as the evidence of Russian actions grow.

By the way – just announced – Steve Bannon removed from National Security Council – look for the quiet removal of Ezra Cohen-Wotnick soon…

This is not a new story

I just finished watching the local Sunday news interview show. The local news anchor had a representative of Trump and a representative of the opposition to talk about the administration. The representative of Trump made the statement that former NSA Director Clapper and current FBI Director Comey had both stated that there is no connection to criminal action by the Trump Administration and Russia. Her line was: “there is no there, there”.

The statement was allowed to go uncontested by both the moderator and the opposition representative. The statement is patently false, and a great example of what has happened to our view of “facts” in the past two years. Both Comey and Clapper did state that there was no connection – to statements made that the Trump campaign and transition team had been tapped by the Obama administration. Those statements did not address connections of the Trump campaign and transition team to Russia. “There is no there, there,” better applies to the statement made about the “ Obama tapping fake-news controversy” on Donald Trump’s twitter account.

It’s been going on for several years. The media has agonized over how to cover these statements. If they correct every falsehood, if they call them LIES, then they are declaimed as being biased and unfair. So the “little” untruths are passed over, the half-truths (Clapper and Comey did say something that sounded a little like this) are left uncontested, and the public is left confused.

George Orwell predicated this alteration of truth in “1984.” When we read the novel back in the 1960’s, we related to Winston Smith, the main character who saw through the lies. We were arrogant in our view that it couldn’t really happen, and in the year 1984 marveled at how Orwell got it all wrong. We now live in a true Orwellian world, just a little later than he thought, where the truth is altered to match the political ideology of the teller.

This is the unspoken crisis that our political world faces. As we realize the depth of dis-information the Russians and others were able to place into our political thought, it’s difficult to see what “the fix” is? How do we get back to a point where we can at least agree on the truths? And it’s not just the Russians, certainly there is enough money in our political system, particularly in this post “Citizens United” decision world (NYT – How much has Citizens United changed our political world), that others will follow the Russian game plan to alter the body politic.

We, all of us, the politicians, the media, the private citizens: we all have a duty to define the facts and debunk the lies. Our public lives are currently infected with lies: whether we call them half-truths, opinion, alt-facts, or Russian mis-directions. The cure, the inoculation against manipulation, is to call the truth true, and non-truths lies. It has to happen every time, so that we can find a baseline of healthy truth again. This is the test of whether our nation will survive foreign and domestic terrorism on the truth. How we respond to this test, will determine the fate of our Republic.

The Russian Connection

In 1977 I spent the winter/spring semester in Washington, DC. I started at the Carter Inauguration, dancing in the DC Armory with the Charlie Daniels Band at the Staff Ball, then spent half of my time in class, and the other half in the office of Congressman Tom Luken from Cincinnati.

That winter a new movie came out with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, “All the President’s Men,” about the Watergate scandal six years before. A pivotal character in the movie was “Deep Throat,” Hal Holbrook’s shadowy figure in the parking garage, who helped confirm and direct Bob Woodward as he dug deeper and deeper into the scandal that brought down a President. The movie made you look over your shoulder just as Woodward was doing, worried about what was going on under the surface, behind the tourists and the white marble monuments.

We now know that “Deep Throat” was FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt. Felt knew what the FBI investigation was revealing, and he knew that the pressure on those above him to keep it quiet was so great that the only way the truth would be revealed with through the press.

In “All the President’s Men,” Deep Throat whispers to Woodward from behind the garage pillars:
“follow the money.”

Following the Money

The major question about the Trump Administration: is it co-opted by the Russians, and if so how much, and why. It is possible that this whole scandal isn’t about power or secret alliances orchestrated by Steve Bannon, but simply about money.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia had a brief flirtation with a democratic society. But with so much money at stake (remember that the Soviet government owned everything, now all of the means of making capital were on the market) the democracy slowly drowned in a sea of easy money. Vladimir Putin was a Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB and then head of the FSB (successor to the KGB) under Boris Yeltsin. He rose to power after Yeltsin resigned, and made an accommodation with the Russians who were making huge amounts of money, legally and illegally, controlling Russian industry and trade. These oligarchs agreed to support Putin.

In this sea of easy money, a huge issue for the new “kleptocrats” was to find a way to launder the money so they could spend the illegally gained money, legally. Laundering money is done “for a price,” with the illegal funds “cleaned” for a percentage (30-40% or more). This process can be pretty obvious, like buying a property valued at $41 million for $95 million. (Trump sell Palm Beach Mansion) Or it can be much more complex, like the Russian Deutsche Bank scheme where Russian stocks were bought in rubles, then sold for relatives in dollars. (Mirror Trades at Deutsche Bank).

By the way, Deutsche Bank was fined $10 Billion for the rubles for dollars scheme, and the CEO, Anshu Jain, was let go. He immediately became the Chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, a bank whose current existence is based on Russian money. The fact that current US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross was the vice chairman of the Bank of Cyprus prior to joining the Trump cabinet only “stirs the pot” even more.

So what do we know? We know that Donald Trump was in difficult financial straits in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. We know that his business was based on his ability to borrow money, and that after the bankruptcies and collapse of the New Jersey casinos, he was struggling to do that. We know he had loans from Deutsche Bank, and we know HE was the one who sold the Palm Beach estate. We also know that his Florida properties are heavily sold to Russians (Investigation of Trump Florida Properties). We also know that Trump World Tower is filled with Russian money (Trump Tower and Russian Oligarchs).

President Trump has said over and over again that he has no investments in Russia. Perhaps that’s true (though we’ll never know for sure unless his taxes are released), but that doesn’t mean he isn’t heavily invested in RUSSIANS.

Sure there’s plenty of other Russian connections. Paul Manafort, who we now know was a paid employee, at $10 million a year, for a close Putin associate; the phone calls, the contacts, and the clear passion Bannon has for a Russian deal. But perhaps this whole scandal comes down to a much simpler motive: Trump needed money, any way he could get it, and the Russians needed to clean their rubles. The problem: what kind of influence and leverage does this give Putin over Trump’s actions?

911

September 11, 2001: I was teaching high school government, in a building under construction. TV’s didn’t work, computers were limited and not on the internet. A colleague whispered in my ear: planes into buildings in New York. I took my class out onto the track, we sat in the bleachers listening to the radio in my jeep. We watched the planes lined up coming into Port Columbus. We faced 911.

George W. Bush was a disputed President. The ballots in Florida were flawed, many thought they were voting for Al Gore, and instead voted for Ralph Nader. The Supreme Court allowed the Florida count to stop, Bush was declared the winner by the official appointed by his brother, the governor. Later counts showed that Gore would have won.

Much of the same anxiety, anger, and acrimony greeted Bush at the White House door as welcomed Donald Trump. And while Bush, unlike Trump, seemed to recognize his status and his duty to try to represent the whole country; his actions did not mollify many of us who resented his presence.

September 11, 2001, the United States was under attack. Bush, who started the day in an elementary school in Florida, was flown to Air Force bases in Louisiana, and then Nebraska. He was in a bunker at Offut Air Force Base when he made a fateful decision. The President needs to lead in times of crisis, and he can’t do it from a bunker in Nebraska. His plane was the only one in the sky as he flew back to the White House.

In the next few days, Bush chose to lead. He addressed the nation from Washington, and from ground zero in New York. He went to a mosque to declare this was NOT a war on Islam. He embodied the “righteous might” of the United States. And while many of his decisions after were beyond questionable: the excesses of the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, and the war in Iraq; he was able to lead the country through a national crisis. For the moment, we were “proud to be an American.”

Donald Trump has done nothing to unite us. The anxiety, anger and acrimony has continued to grow as he tries to jam his alt-right policies down the nation’s throat. He has failed to acknowledge that his Presidency represents a truly minority view. He has even co-opted the song, making “proud to be an American” into “proud to be a Trumpian.”

The United States has gone through many crises. We have survived drunkard Presidents (Andrew Johnson), disabled Presidents (Woodrow Wilson) and Presidents who broke the laws (Richard Nixon.) The question is, in an era when North Korea is poised to start a nuclear war, when the Russians are willing to attack our democratic process with impunity, and where we have insulted and shunned our allies; what will happen in a tragic national crisis. Will Donald Trump have the “gravitas” to lead our nation?

Historians have noted that in American history, someone has also appeared to “lead our country” through. From George Washington to Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Roosevelt, the Presidency has brought out the best in those Americans tasked with the crisis in office.

Donald Trump has not shown an inkling of that strength. The first 100 days of his tenure have been nothing but division, trivial tweeting, and management failure. My greatest fear is not that Donald Trump will remain in office despite his Russian backers, my greatest fear is that Donald Trump will prove what we all fear: that he does not have the capacity to lead under fire. Let’s hope that he will not be tested.