Category: Uncategorized

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.

77744

Seventy thousand, seven hundred and forty four is the number. That is the difference between the vote totals for Donald J Trump and Hillary R Clinton in three states: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Out of the 13,233,376 votes cast, the difference was 77,744. In Wisconsin, Trump won by 22,748; in Michigan, 10,704; and in Pennsylvania 44,292. Had these numbers been reversed, Hillary Clinton would have won the electoral college with 278 votes to 260 votes for Trump.

NYT – 2016 Presidential Election Results

We all know it was a close election. The difference in those three states is less than 0.6%.

So here’s the point: now that we are aware that the Russian Government, through a highly complex and orchestrated campaign against Hillary Clinton, influenced the United States elections in 2016, we don’t really need Trump “collusion” to come to a conclusion. All the Russian actions had to do was effect 77,744 votes in three states: convincing folks to vote for Trump versus Clinton, change their vote to a third party rather than Clinton, or stay home. All the Russians had to do was change 0.6% of the electorate in those three states for the outcome of the election to be changed. It’s a simple fact: the Russians changed the results of the election. Russian intervention elected Donald Trump.

They did it through a variety of means. They hacked into the Democratic National Committee, stealing emails and information which they strategically leaked out in a manner to not only damage Clinton, but to distract from the seemingly catastrophic failures of Trump. They used Wikileaks as their “cover,” trading on Julian Assange’s reputation of being the voice of those who “blew whistles” against “evil institutions.”

We now know they also developed a complex strategy, using “bots” to flood Twitter and Facebook with anti-Clinton messages, targeting those messages to those Clinton supporters who were “on the edge,” particularly those who originally supported Sanders. They also targeted pro-Trump folks, feeding them “red meat” stories, increasing their drive to the polls despite their misgivings about Trump himself. (Note: I am NOT saying that Sanders voters were more susceptible than others to Russian manipulation, I AM saying that we were ALL manipulated, tweet by tweet, and post by post, to be resentful towards Clinton, and to be less motivated to vote for her against Trump.)

Whether the Russians attempted to hack the “actual” vote count doesn’t even really matter. They hacked something much more significant: the new means by which we communicate and discuss our political thoughts and ideas. They got ahead of the American people by getting into our internal conversation. We were played.

More will come. Whether that manipulation in some way involved members of the Trump campaign, or the new President himself, is a whole different question. The results of those investigations may lead to a national change in leadership. But we are already in a national crisis: it is clear that Russia has chosen our President. It only took 77,744 changed minds, voters who stayed at home, or voters who were motivated to vote against Clinton. We’ve got the President the Russians wanted. Now what?

We have never been faced with this kind of crisis before. We need to ask the most serious question: if we know that the election was manipulated, and we can clearly see the results are in fact distorted by that manipulation, what do we do? In sports if a game is rigged, than the results are vacated. Ask the multiple Russian athletes who have lost their Olympic Medals due to their doping actions. Since we know that this election was tainted, as is clearly true with or without Trump campaign collusion, then what is the next step in our American saga? Will it take a “smoking gun” of Page, Manifort, Flynn, Sessions, Stone and Kushner’s direct cooperation with Russian actions? And if we know that the results were flawed, then how is it that the majority of the country (there’s that 3 million again) will swallow everything from Neil Gorsuch to the gutting of the EPA? Is it any wonder that the country feels “wrong?” It is.

Steve Bannon and the alt-right believe that Trump’s election has given them the “right” to control the total policy of the United States Government. They believe they are being resisted by elected officials who work for the Federal Government (see the first post in this blog:
Astronomy and the Trump Administration)
In the alt-rights’ mind, the “deep state” represents the drag on the government that prevents their radical changes from taking effect. Trump supporters have called for a “purge” of the executive branch (Steve King calls for purge.)
Let’s take the alt-rights’ views on Russia. To quote:
That a group of faceless, unelected intelligence and foreign policy careerists in the Deep State could effectively run an operation to oust a duly elected sitting U.S. president is a much clearer and present danger. How, exactly, would repairing relations with Russia, which is sitting on a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons, be a bad thing for Americans? (Julian Assange: Hilliary pushing for a Pence Takeover)

The alt-right sees the resistance of the “deep state,” what we used to call the bureaucracy, as preventing change. The questions regarding Russian involvement in the election, Putin’s dictatorial actions including the murders of opponents, and the Russian actions in the Ukraine; all fall by the wayside to the alt-right view. Russia, to them, is seen as a natural ally, who will help lead the Northern European coalition against “Radical Islam” (which seems to mean all of Islam.)

Trump’s own words about immigration ban and the “unprecedented judicial overreach of District Court judges” is another way the Administration is trying to weaken the non-Trumpian government. The courts represent a drag on the Administration’s radical changes, and since federal judges cannot be “fired,” they must be emasculated.

And, of course, the Deep State represents the greatest threat to the Trump Presidency. The FBI, NSA, and CIA all are “deep state” organizations, and all have access to the information which may actually call into question the actions of the Trump campaign, and Trump himself. As a pure case of self-protection, Trump, Bannon and the alt-right need to devalue the information those organizations may offer, in order to win a possible future battle for the Presidency.

So what role should bureaucrats play in determining policy? Is their job to use the Nuremberg defense, simply following orders regardless of whether they think those orders are sound or in fact lawful (as in former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates?) Or do we want the bureaucrats to use their own judgment, developed over what for many is decades of experience, to temper what they see as the excesses of the Presidency? And isn’t that too fraught with danger, both now and in the future.

The United States, like it or not, elected Donald Trump as President (3 million votes to the contrary.) Even with that fact, I don’t believe we also chose the alt-right radicalism that Steve Bannon represents. While I don’t like the power that the bureaucracy has represented for years (at least since the 1930’s) I think I’d rather make my deal with that devil, than the one the sits next to the Oval Office.

Your Money or Your Life

As Congress, the President, and the rest of the country discusses what will happen with the US Government involvement in health care, the issue comes down to: your money or your life. The Congressional Budget Office scored the current Trump/Ryan health insurance bill as reducing the US Government deficit by $33 billion a year over the next ten years. The current deficit is $441 billion and projects to $1.4 trillion for 2027. (The deficit is how much more the government will spend in a year than it will bring in.)

Reducing the deficit would be a good thing. The problem: The CBO also projects that 24 million Americans will lose their health care coverage if the Trump/Ryan bill passes.

The traditional “liberal” argument is that “conservatives” would let people die rather than pay for health care. Some statements by conservative Congressmen seem to echo that idea: Jason Chaffetz telling folks to, “skip their IPhone to buy insurance,” or Roger Marshall saying, “… some people just don’t want healthcare.” But that’s not really a fair argument. Let’s assume (danger!!) that everyone wants people to have access to health care, it’s just a matter of paying for it.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has stated, “everyone will have access to health insurance…” under the Trump/Ryan plan. Those are carefully chosen words. Having access does NOT mean being able to afford health insurance. We all have access to buying Porsches, but not all of us can pay for them.

The Trump/Ryan bill replaces the Affordable Care Act subsidies (the government pays for part of the insurance) with tax credits (the government credits part of the taxes you paid to pay for insurance.) Two problems: first the subsidies were a percentage of insurance cost and increased with increasing premiums, the credits are a set amount.
Second: the subsidies did NOT depend on the amount of taxes you paid, but you can’t get a tax credit if you didn’t pay any taxes. The least able to afford insurance, those who didn’t make any or enough to pay taxes, will be the most likely not to be able to get it.

So, will the people without insurance be left to die? NO one wants that, not even Chaffetz and Marshall. But here’s the effect of not having insurance. Those folks are less able to access preventive care (it costs) and therefore will be more likely to end up with serious but preventable illnesses. They then WILL be treated, but in an emergency room and hospital setting, where costs are the highest.

Uninsured hospital costs will NOT be “eaten” by the hospitals, those costs will be spread among the “paying” customers. This will result in higher hospital bills for everyone else, higher costs to insurance companies, and ultimately higher insurance premiums to EVERYONE (not just those using federal health insurances.) So instead of either paying more taxes, or having a larger deficit; the costs don’t disappear, they get transferred to EVERYONE.

Your money or your life? It’s our money for other lives, and we get to pay for it either way. The Trump/Ryan plan makes sure that we don’t take as much off of the government books, but it doesn’t mean we don’t pay. It just means we pay through “market forces,” the conservative way of saying that we’ll pay more, for less.

Process

This is NOT an opinion piece. There have been some questions about what would happen if the President is impeached. This is how it works.

The Impeachment Process

The President of the United States is immune from criminal prosecution while in office. While this is NOT a Constitutionally mandated rule, it has been confirmed by the US Supreme Court historically, and as a practical matter makes sense. Since the President is not only the “chief law enforcer” and also has the power to pardon, it would make little sense for him to arrest himself, and/or pardon himself.

The President can be impeached and removed from office for Treason, Bribery or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors. While this sounds like a big deal, in reality Presidents have been impeached for perjury, abuse of power, failure to follow a law passed by Congress, contempt of Congress, obstruction of justice, and failure to pay taxes. The former President does NOT have immunity. Therefore, in order to criminally prosecute a President, it is necessary to remove him from office first. This process is called the Impeachment Process (US Constitution, Art. II, Sec. 4.)

Impeachment begins in the House of Representatives. In the past, the Judiciary Committee of the House votes for a “bill of impeachment,” which then goes to the whole House. A majority of the House members must vote to Impeach. The term ‘impeachment” is similar to “indictment” used in the court system. When a President is impeached, it is the House of Representatives bringing charges for trial in front of the US Senate. The House acts as the prosecutors of the case, the US Senate acts as the jury, and the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court acts as the presiding judge.

The impeachment trial takes place in front of the Senate, with the Chief Justice serving as the presiding judge. The “managers” from the House of Representatives act as the “prosecution” in the trial, and the President is represented by counsel of his own choosing. Two thirds (67) of the Senators must agree in order to remove the President. Once they have done so, they can remove the President, and bar him from holding other offices in the United States.

Two US Presidents have been impeached and tried: Andrew Johnson in 1868, and Bill Clinton in 1999. Neither was convicted, (Johnson stayed in office by one vote.) Richard Nixon resigned after the House Judiciary Committee started impeachment proceedings. He was then pardoned for any crimes he might have committed by President Ford.

Presidential Succession

If the President is impeached and convicted, he is removed from office. The Vice President then becomes President for the remainder of the President’s term of office. If the Vice President is removed (or resigns) then the Speaker of the House of Representatives becomes the President. Under law, when the Speaker of the House becomes President, he no longer is Speaker or a member of the House, and he would remain President through the full term of office.

If the Speaker is unable to become President, then the Presidency goes to the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (usually the Senator of the majority party who has he most seniority in the Senate). The current line of succession then: President Trump, Vice President Pence, Speaker Ryan, President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch. By the way, if none of the above serve, the Secretary of State is next in line: from Exxon/Mobil to President!

25th Amendment

The 25th was written as a response to the possibility of a President who was alive but unable to serve (Wilson’s stroke, Eisenhower’s heart attack, if Kennedy had survived Dallas). It also allowed Congress to approve a new Vice President if the office was vacant.

This is a process for the “temporary” filling of the Presidency, but this process is intended for the temporary disability of the President (illness or injury). If the President states that he is temporarily unable to fulfill his duties, he can notify the Speaker and President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and the Vice President can become acting President until the President notifies them he is ready to resume office.

In addition, the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet can declare the President unable to perform his duties and “take over.” If the President wants to resume the office and the VP and cabinet disagree, the Congress has twenty-one days to determine the outcome, with 2/3 of both the House and Senate having to agree to allow the VP to continue as acting President.

“I know You’re Not a Doctor, but Take Out My Appendix Anyway”

Not a lawyer: be on the Supreme Court. Not a doctor: operate on a hot appendix. Not a plumber: run a plumbing company. If that makes sense, then it makes sense for Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education.

Betsy DeVos has no experience in public education. She went to private Christian schools through elementary and high school and to a private Christian college, Calvin, where she earned a bachelors degree in Business Economics. Her children were home schooled.

Betsy (Prince) DeVos is an heir to a car parts company fortune. She married Dick DeVos, an heir to the Amway corporation fortune. Her brother was a founder of Blackwater, the private security company. She has worked for the Republican party throughout her life. She was party chairman for Michigan, raising millions for Republican candidates, and her family has reportedly donated over $17 million to Republican candidates and committees.

What were her credentials for Education Secretary? DeVos headed up the non-profit “American Federation for Children.” The goal of this organization is to break down education funding into voucher/scholarship programs which would allow individual parents to spend public funds on public, private, charter or home schools. She is committed to this vision of moving money for public education into the private sector.

And, she raised a lot of money for Republicans. And, she has spoken of dissolving the Department of Education. And she fits into Senior Presidential Advisor Steve Bannon’s overall plan of “deconstruction of the state.”

If the Department of Education represents the federal public education, then Betsy DeVos represents the anti-public education world. Much like the appointment of Scott Pruitt as the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, her choice signals that the Trump Administration looks to “deconstruct” public education.

So what’s wrong with the idea of vouchers: of packing all the government money for a student into a per student package, then handing the package over to the parents to spend their education money where they wish?

1. Private schools do not have the oversight for student learning that public schools do. Students and teachers in private schools are not required to meet the educational standards that public schools have. In the “charter school revolution” of the past several years, many private schools have failed their students because there was no oversight.

2. Private schools can pick and choose students. Students who don’t measure up: in performance, behavior, ability, or following the school’s faith based views – are dumped out. That also means the more expensive students, those with special education needs or physical disabilities, are weeded out of the private school setting.

3. Private education can teach whatever the school decides to teach. While every parent has the “right” to have a religious based education for their child, should every other parent be required to pay for that with public monies?

4. Private education is a profit making monster. Companies running private schools would love to have more access to public funds.

5. With a systematic voucher system, the students left in the public system would be the most expensive or difficult to educate. Of course the claim would be that private education is more efficient, because they wouldn’t have to educate the most expensive students.

What does the Department of Education do? They distribute federal funds, often linked to programs to help certain groups of students like those with physical or learning disabilities or from low income families. The Department of Education uses funding to enforce laws providing equal opportunity to education, gender equality, and preventing discrimination. Going to a voucher style system, with federal monies passed out in blocks to states to be divided into vouchers, defeats this entire process. It sets up a system designed to discriminate.

This is what Betsy DeVos stands for. This is what the world of Steve Bannon and Donald Trump believes in. This is why Betsy DeVos was the exact wrong choice for the Education Department.

Shiny Balls

There is no direct evidence (yet) that the Trump Campaign cooperated with Russian intelligence in the disinformation campaign against the Clinton campaign in the 2016 election. Slowly, some circumstantial evidence is coming to light. Meetings between various Trump associates and Russians raise questions about the nature of those contacts: the fact that those same associates lied about those meetings makes them even more suspect.

The leaked “Trump Dossier” written by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele (what a “007” sounding name!) states that the Trump campaign actively coordinated with Russian intelligence using Carter Page as the “go-between”. While a great deal of that dossier is still unverified, many of its statements are now checking out as factual.

There are currently at least three active investigations of the Trump/Russia connections. The House and Senate Intelligence committees are both committed to investigations and hearings. Currently, neither committee has plans to call Christopher Steele to testify. And, while it hasn’t been directly acknowledged, it is assumed (ass-u-me, I know) that the FBI is conducting its own investigation as well. Ultimately, a special counsel may be appointed by the Justice Department to oversee another investigation.

Last Tuesday, though it seems like months ago, President Trump gave a “state of the union” style address to a joint session of Congress. Like it or not, it was the most “Presidential” thing he has done. The Trump White House naturally hoped that the speech would drive the newscycle for a few days.

Last Wednesday it was revealed the Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not testify factually to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings. Sessions forgot about two meetings with the Russian Ambassador, the second one held in his office the day after the Obama Administration announced that they were investigating Russian involvement in the US election. Sessions was forced into recusing himself from involvement and control of the Justice Department’s investigations into the Trump/Russia connection.

On the same day, it was revealed that Jared Kushner met with the Russian Ambassador during December, along with resigned National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Carter Page revealed that he too met with the Russian Ambassador, and made several trips to Russia (where he had business ties with Gazprom).

CNN: Who is Carter Page

Instead of the newscycle being driven by the speech, the momentum was rolling towards more investigation into Trump and Russia.

Ask any magician: the essence of any good magic trick is distraction. While you watch the beautiful girl, the flaming hat, or the shiny balls; the magician performs his trick. You are amazed!!!

On Friday, Trump left Washington (again) to go to Florida. Saturday morning the first of the “shiny balls” was dropped, as Trump, apparently quoting a Breibart article, claimed that President Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped. Trump then “doubled down” on the tweet, calling for a Congressional investigation of Obama’s alleged actions.

This tweet took over the weekend news cycle. On Monday, the Trump administration cautiously released the next version of the immigration (Muslim) ban, then on Tuesday dropped their version of the new health act. Meanwhile, Julian Assange at Wikileaks dumped a huge load of supposedly CIA information, including allegations that the CIA has worked to hack household electronics for eavesdropping.

NYT: Wikileaks Releases Trove of Alleged CIA Hacking Documents

The Wikileaks dump looks like another “shiny ball.” Its content is designed to “fire-up” both extremes of American political thought, playing into both the fears of the Breibart “black helicopters” groups, and the far-left.

Oh, and we can’t forget the tweet about Obama releasing all of those terrorists who went back onto the “battlefield” (except most of those were released by George W Bush, and of those most who returned to “combat” were released by Bush as well).

It’s only Wednesday. Don’t be distracted by the “shiny balls.” It will take some time, but step by step the nature of the Trump/Russian relationship will be revealed. How far up the Trump organization it may go, we don’t know yet. But in this age of absolute information (alternative or not) we will ultimately find out whether a candidate for President of the United States joined with a rival nation to take over our country.

Drip Drip Drip Part Deux

What an amazing weekend!!!
This weekend we learned:
– there were no “wiretaps” of Trump Tower (James Clapper, Meet the Press)
– the President of the United States cannot “wiretap” people
– the current President of the United States doesn’t know that!!!!

So where do things stand, and what does it mean?

Donald Trump accused President Obama of “wiretapping” his campaign both before the election and after. Legally, the President of the United States hasn’t been able to directly “wiretap” since the 1970’s (that’s Nixon’s era.) The process requires a court order, either from a domestic court because of an ongoing criminal investigation, or through the courts set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which involves a national security interest. Either court would require the agency requesting (FBI generally, but other agencies as well) to produce “probable cause” evidence. Probable cause means that there is clear evidence (not necessarily proof) that a crime or national security violation is being committed, and that listening in to conversations is necessary to gather further evidence.

So if in fact Trump Tower was “wiretapped”, then there was probable cause that the Trump campaign was coordinating in some way with Russian intelligence. By Trump suggesting that there was eavesdropping, then he’s admitting to this probable cause. I don’t think that is what he was doing, but it is an interesting side note.

The agencies dealing with national security DO NOT need a warrant to listen in on foreign electronic communications. They DO need one if the foreigner is conversing with a US citizen. The process goes that a transcript of the conversation is made, and a FISA warrant requested. If the warrant is turned down, the transcript is destroyed. Keep in mind, the transcript or other evidence would have to create probable cause in order to get the warrant.

Trump’s tweets over the weekend were clearly to distract from the controversy itself: was there communication between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. Trump decided to “call out” the Obama Administration, and he got a clear answer from former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper – there were no wiretaps in Trump Tower.

So what does that mean? It means there were no FISA warrants issued for Trump Tower, for the communications using the Trump Tower phones or other devices. That’s really pretty limited, as most modern communication is done through cell phones, and it would seem reasonable that if a Trump operative was talking to either Russian intelligence or someone in between the two, they would not use an office phone.

It means that Trump is trying to change the subject again, to focus on the “Obama Plot” to get Trump, or as Breitbart now categorizes it, “DEEPSTATEGATE.” It’s all a liberal plot to overthrow the Trump Presidency, so focus on that, not where the actual facts lead. As Obi Wan Kenobi would say, “there are no droids here.”

So are there “droids” here? We don’t know. The information isn’t out there. As many commentators stated over the weekend, there is so much smoke, it’s hard to believe there isn’t a fire. And the Trump group is making even more smoke.

Steve Bannon believes that the “Deep State,” the long time civil government employees who make up the core of the agencies involved, are working against Trump. He believes that they are still following the orders of President Obama. He may not be completely wrong.

There are long time government civil servants who have sworn an oath:

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

They take their allegiance seriously, and they are determined to support and defend the Constitution. If there was information that the Trump campaign was in fact colluding with Russian Intelligence to influence the 2016 election, it is clear where their oath should take them.

Drip Drip Drip

No surprise to anyone who knows me, I’ve always been interested in politics. I earned my stripes getting kicked out of Aunt Lee’s apartment for wearing a Kennedy for President button at four years old, and I “got hooked” laid up with a broken arm at eleven watching the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968.

But it was during Watergate that I truly became a political junky. For the last three years of my high school career I watched as the Nixon Administration slowly fell apart. I fought with my government teacher (a stalwart Nixon supporter) and found secret allies among the other teaching staff. As I prepared to head off to college, Nixon resigned, a fitting conclusion to his Presidency and my high school career.

From 1972 to 1974, the investigation of Watergate slowly worked it way up the chain. It started with the five in the break-in. Then the leader of the five, then the check in the account of the five, then the Nixon re-election campaign. From there, onto the White House itself and finally the testimony of Deputy Assistant Alexander Butterfield and the revelation of the White House taping system. That was the beginning of the end.

Richard Nixon resigned as President for orchestrating the cover-up of a felony break-in, and for using the entire apparatus of the Executive Branch, including the CIA, FBI and IRS to continue that cover-up. The key evidence was the tapes, all of the conversations he had in the White House – he bugged himself.

Flash forward to 2017. The question: did the Trump campaign cooperate, coordinate, and collude with the Russian Intelligence agencies to torpedo the Clinton campaign and win the election. It’s NOT proven yet. But there is a familiar (to old Watergate “fans”) drip-drip-drip, as the circle around Trump slowly gets dragged into the morass of Russian connections.

What is clear

It is clear that Russian Intelligence involved itself in the 2016 Presidential election. They did this by hacking the Democratic National Committee and Clinton Chairman John Podesta and then using Wikileaks to put those emails into the public. Russian Intelligence also planted multiple “fake news” stories about Clinton and the Clinton campaign, undermining her credibility, and using timely interventions to re-direct the electorates’ attention back to Clinton’s problems (a clear example: one hour after the release of the Access Hollywood tape when Trump made lewd and inappropriate comments, Wikileaks released the first of the Podesta emails.)

It is clear that Trump has had a strange “relationship” with Vladimir Putin, consistently praising him and defending him even to the extent of justifying Putin’s killing opponents. It is also clear that Trump can’t decide whether he’s met Putin or not or whether he knows Putin or not, he’s publicly answered the question in completely opposite ways.

It is clear that multiple figures with direct connection to the Trump campaign and administration have had conversations with members of the Russian government. Those confirmed to have had contact: former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former advisor on international relations Carter Page. Others accused of having contacts but denying them: former campaign manager Paul Manafort and longtime friend and campaign supporter Roger Stone.

It is clear that both Sessions and Flynn denied having contact with the Russian Ambassador. Flynn denied this to the Vice President, and other members of the administration. Sessions denied it in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Once the contact was revealed, they claimed that their contacts were in the reasonable pursuit of their jobs. Their denials raise the question: if what they were doing was legitimate, then why did they deny the contact?

What is Possible

Paul Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager during the summer of 2016. Paul Manafort was a founding partner of the lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly from 1980 to 1996.
Manafort had pro-Russian Urkrainian client, President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych was forced to flee the Ukraine when free Ukrainian forces took over, exiled to Moscow under the protection of Putin. He left his mansion completely intact, and documentation was found showing that Manafort was paid $12 million under the table for his services (this is disputed by Manafort).

News sources have suggested that Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign because pro-Ukrainian forces threatened to blackmail him with this information. In addition, Manafort has done other business with Russia as well, but has stated that he never knowingly talked to Russian Intelligence agents.

Carter Page was an investment banker with Merrill Lynch located in Moscow, after which he returned to New York and founded an investment fund with a former Gazprom executive (the Russian Government corporation which controls gas). He has gained a reputation as a harsh critic of US policy towards Russia, and has expressed views in support of Putin. Clearly he had the ability to connect with Russian Intelligence.

Roger Stone, who began his political career as one of the Nixon Campaign’s “dirty tricksters”, was an old friend of Donald Trump, and served as an early advisor to his campaign. Stone claimed in August of 2016, that he was in contact with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange regarding an “October Surprise.” Stone has also worked in Ukraine.

What’s the Possible Outcome

What if a final investigation shows that the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian Intelligence in an attempt to win the White House? This would place the entire Trump Administration at risk, both from Russian blackmail, and from US legal and political sanctions.

But one thing for sure – somebody knows!!!! Just like the Nixon White House tapes, most communication with Russian officials are tapped, and US, British, Dutch, French and German Intelligence agencies try to reach in to get the reports sent back to Moscow by Russian representatives. And of course, some members of the Trump campaign must know. The final outcome: the story will come out – and will have consequences.

Trump World and the Beaver

“Leave it to Beaver” was a television show from 1957 to 1963. It presented the model suburban family, the Cleavers, living in Mayfield, Anytown, USA. It was a tranquil world, as June cleaned the house in pearls, dress and heels and Ward went to work in shirt and tie, then came home to the business of raising Wally and “the Beaver”.

It was white, middle class, suburban, and has become a model of what life used to be like. “If only we could go back to those innocent times,” before Vietnam (though we were already there), civil rights (Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955), and grateful Muslims (“Lawrence of Arabia,” 1962). Jobs seemed plentiful (unemployment rates averaged 6% – currently 4.8%) and crime didn’t happen (1.6 in a hundred thousand chance of violent crime, versus a high of 7.6 in 1992, and a current 3.8.)

All of those issues existed, but Ward, June, Wally and the Beaver never had to deal with them. And with the election of 2016, many in this nation were trying to go back to that idyllic, make believe, world. Gay marriage, immigrant rights, global warming, a black President: the drumbeat of change, change, change that many want to escape. Escape back to Mayfield, to a non-existent time when everything was “right.”

Did this nation’s reach towards acceptance and freedom exceed its grasp? Here is just a few of the changes we’ve gone through in the past 50 years:

1993 – President Clinton authorizes “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in the military
2011 – President Obama allows military service regardless of sexual preference
2016 – President Obama allows transgendered to serve in military

1970 – US Census defines minorities at 16.5%
2020 – US Census projects minorities at 39.9%
2042 – US Census projects “minorities” at 50.1%

1990 – Major Broadcast News – ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS
2016 – Major Broadcast News – ABC, CBS, NBC – MSNBC, FOX, PBS,
hundreds(thousands?) of online sites

1990 – Flags memorializing the Confederacy flew over the state capitols of South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Georgia
2017 – Mississippi still displays the Confederate Battle Flag, some other states still have some symbolism of the Confederacy in their flags.

Our nation has moved towards change with what to some is alarming swiftness. While there were plenty of issues specific to the Trump/Clinton Presidential race, there is a much larger context that should be considered. Many in this country, after electing the first African-American President in 2008, were demanding a halt. The first woman President was beyond them. Even Donald Trump was better than this crazy pace of change: to go back to a calmer time, when Wally and the Beaver went to school in Mayfield, and the world was predictable and constant.

That world existed only on television. But its “reality” still exists in many minds. If we look at the “Red and Blue” schism (or the “flyover country schism”) we need to acknowledge that the pace of change in America is incredibly unsettling to many. They feel left behind, looking at a country they don’t recognize, seeing things they didn’t think were possible, and facing challenges that Ward and June never acknowledged.

As one of her final acts of the Presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton and her staff wore purple to symbolize a uniting of America. As the “resistance” movement moves forward, we should not be secure in a 2.8 million vote majority. We need to find ways to assuage the concerns of those who feel left behind by the rapid pace of change.

The Bully and Bannon

As the Trump Administration moves into its second month, it is clear that the “brains” behind the operation is Steve Bannon. To understand Bannon is to understand the direction of the Trump Administration.

In my first blog, Astronomy and the New Trump Administration, I talked about the different spheres of influence over President Trump. While the Flynn resignation has already altered some orbits, it is clear that the alt-right Bannon sphere still controls the policy making machinery.

How does Bannon view his opportunity to govern?

“It’s going to be an insurgent, center-right populist movement that is virulently anti-establishment, and it’s going to continue to hammer this city, both the progressive left and the institutional Republican Party.”the radical anti-conservatism of Steve Bannon

On Thursday, February 23, Bannon spoke at the annual CPAC convention. His stated goals:
Economic nationalism
National sovereignty
Administrative deconstruction

Bannon details Trump plan for deconstruction of state
So what does this all mean? If you watched Trumps’ demeanor during the campaign, a touchstone of his candidacy was bullying, the idea that he could bully other candidates and force them to operate on Trumps’ terms. “Little Marco, Tired Jeb, Crooked Hillary,” all come to mind. Apply that bullying strategy to national policy, and you have Steve Bannon’s governing policies.

Economic Nationalism and Sovereignty

Bannon (and by extension Trump) believe that the United States is best served by signing bilateral economic treaties with individual countries, rather than multi-national pacts like NAFTA or TPP. This is for an obvious reason: the United States is in a superior position to every economy in a one-on-one negotiation. While that actually sounds like a reasonable position, the difficulty is that it makes it harder to deal with regional and global issues: NAFTA in part tried to deal with the reasons for illegal immigration to the United States, TPP was linked to competition with China in the Pacific, and certainly the Paris Climate Accord tried to improve the global climate.

Bannon doesn’t see the value in global cooperation. As then Senator now Attorney General Sessions explains it: “We shouldn’t by tying ourselves down like Gulliver in the Land of Lilliputians with so many strings a guy can’t move.”
It also means that the Trump Administration is going to naturally be against the European Union, as that presents economic competition to the United States. It should be no surprise then that Trump/Bannon find common cause with the Brexit politicians from the United Kingdom. It serves their purpose. By being the biggest economy “in the room” in any negotiation, it allows the US to “bully it’s way to victory.”

This is in contrast to the previous administrations (both Democrat and Republican) strategies of building world coalitions to deal with over-arching world problems.

National Sovereignty and Foreign Policy

The “bully” analogy continues, as the Bannon plan is for the United States to be the biggest, strongest, and “baddest” by rebuilding the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, adding more ships and planes, and increasing troop levels. Bannon’s view is similar to Putin’s view, if we are so big, no one will “mess” with us. The problem of course is that Putin does feel the same way, and another arms race is a possibility, as both countries try to outdo each other. Last time (the 1980’s) it bankrupted the Soviet Union, but it also almost tripled the US national debt.

This conflicts directly with the Bannon/Flynn view that Russia is our natural ally in the struggle with “Radical Islamic Terrorism.” They see a union of the Northern Europeans, the “Christian-Judeo West” against what they see as billions of Muslims lined up to try to take over the world. If this has undertones of racism, of white versus brown, so be it.
Bannon explains his world view
This also fits with the mixed messages the Trump administration has sent about NATO and the United Nations: while Trump says it’s out of date, Pence and Mattis say we are committed. From the Bannon standpoint, NATO and other alliances hamstring the US ability to use its overwhelming advantage in power to get what it wants.

Deconstruction of the Administrative Government

Bannon sees the departments of government (see the blog Astronomy and the New Trump Administration) as forces of inertia, maintaining the “old” government that he wants to rip out. The “old” government represents the policies of the past (not just the Obama Administration, but really all Administrations) and won’t bend easily to his priorities. He sees this as being done through the regulatory process, as departments and agencies write regulations for the laws passed by Congress. Bannon wants a government essentially free of economic regulations, allowing individuals to do whatever they want to succeed. The “biggest bully” gets to be the biggest company. Agencies like the EPA represent impediments to industry and “progress”. They certainly are impediments to polluting by the Oil and Coal industries, both well supported by the Trump Administration.In the same way, the Dodd/Frank Regulations on the stock market and the Consumer Protection Agency stand in the way of the progress of Wall Street investment. Bannon, himself a former Goldman-Sachs executive, believes that regulation only “restrains” a free market.

Just a brief sampling of “deconstruction”:
EPA – removing water protection regulations from coal mining
Department of Interior – placing millions of acres of public land for sale
Department of Education – removing Title IX Act guidance regarding transgender students
Department of State – multiple high level officers resigned or were fired.

What will it look like?

If Bannon has his way – the United States Government will be much less involved in the day to day like of it’s citizens. Less regulations, less protections, less interference, and less assistance: that is what Bannon wants.

It also means a world where the United States is less of a leader and more of a single actor. Like the 1920’s and ‘30’s, the United States will step back from leading on the world stage, and focus on it’s own strategies and problems.

And how did that work out? Well start with the Great Depression, add World War II, and it would be better to learn the lessons of history rather than repeating them.

George Takei made a statement about transgender kids being forced to use their “biological” restroom rather than their “identified” restroom – “this is a made up issue.”

On NPR, a man answered the question about transgender and restrooms by saying, “I don’t hang out with people like that.”

I have had the opportunity to interact with transgender kids. They are not a “danger” to “our children.” They are kids: kids who have made the most difficult decision of recognizing that their brain sexual identity and their biological sexual identity are not the same. It is such a powerful force that they are willing to face all of the barriers which society marshals against them, just as the kids who find they are gay or bisexual do. It’s not a “choice,” it’s a recognition of who they are.

It’s been going on in our schools for years. Many schools have quietly taken care of the problem: transgender girls (biological boys) who dress like girls, act like girls; use the girls restroom and no one is the wiser. The same is true with transgender boys (they go in the stalls, as do many non-transgender boys). The old argument of locker rooms and showers is from a totally different generation: today’s kids don’t “get naked” in schools anymore. Most shower rooms (other than for wrestling teams, where most kids wear some form of swimsuit) have become storerooms.

Most kids don’t have a problem with any of this. They accept the differences of their friends. It’s the adults who are hung up.

Transgender is the new frontier for identity law. Our society has reached a general understanding of gay and bisexual people; we have removed most of the laws that discriminate against their conduct. In public schools the era of the being gay meaning getting bullied and attacked has changed, the school administration is now often in a role of protecting the victims, rather than enabling the perpetrators. While incidents still occur, in general, kids accept their friends.

Transgender kids (and adults) are not “molesters” sneaking into the opposites sexes’ restroom to “catch a peep.” They are generally the victims. As a society, protecting the civil rights of folks is not a state’s right’s issue. While Attorney General Sessions argues that states should be able to determine these rights, that old argument, a hold over from the Civil War, does not pass legal muster. As the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and the multiple civil rights acts passed since it’s inception state: a citizen of the United States enjoys the rights and protections of all US citizens in every state.

We should not have different rights in Pennsylvania than we have in North Carolina. This should apply to all forms of discrimination, including transgender folks. And we must NOT discriminate against the most fragile members of our society, children who are discovering that their differences are so much greater than their peers. That’s got to be hard enough, without the government (or the Principal) checking their genitals at the restroom door.

It’s not just about Trump

*note – this one gets in the “weeds” of politics in Ohio

Flynn resigns, Russian connections: how different would Trump world be if the Democrats had a majority of either the House or the Senate. The Affordable Care Act would still be intact, there already would be investigations of the administration, and several of the Cabinet picks, particularly DeVoes, Mnuchin, Sessions, and Price (as well as Pruitt at EPA) might not have gotten through.

The changes brought about by the Presidential election of 2016 are more than momentous. The fact that the Democratic Party failed so miserably at every level of government means that there are few checks on what Trump can do.

Why did it happen?

The Republican Party (well before Trump was even an official “Republican”) did a tremendous job of taking control at the state level. This was through a series of steps, starting in the early 2000’s. The first was the use of “wedge” issues to drive up the Republican Party identification, and Republican turnout in the election. An example of this was the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio, George W Bush versus John Kerry. The then Republican Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, played a pivotal role in Ohio in two ways. First, he was the main statewide official supporting an amendment to the State Constitution outlawing gay marriage. That amendment was on the statewide ballot at the same time as the Presidential vote, and helped drive up the Republican turnout throughout the state. Kerry lost to Bush by 2% of the vote.

“Wedge” issues not only increased the amount of Republican voters to the polls. It also caused many voters who had traditionally been economic Democrats to switch to the other side. The Republican Party was essentially able to label the Democratic Party as anti-traditional Christian, the party of minorities and of big cities. Scioto County (Portsmouth, Ohio) is a good example of this. In 1996, Scioto went 48% Clinton, 37% Dole, and 14% Perot. In 2004 it was Bush 52%, Kerry 48%. 2008 it went McCain 52%, Obama 46%, and in 2016 Trump 66%, Clinton 29%.

The Republican Party used this “wedge” issue tactic to drive up votes and party identification throughout the country. The second method used by the GOP was to press for more restrictive voting and identification laws, called by Democrats “voter suppression”. Limited time to vote and the requirement of photo identification almost always favored economically better-off voters, and therefore makes it more difficult for economically disadvantaged voters, many of whom were minorities, to vote. The net effect: drive down the voting percentage, therefore increasing the percentage of Republican voters.

Both of these techniques were very effective in the first decade of the 21st century, and allowed Republicans to gain complete control of the Ohio state government in the 2010 election (Kasich-R versus Strickland-D). This gave Republicans what they wanted most: control of re-apportionment. They were able to control how voting districts would be drawn, both on the Congressional level, and for state legislative seats.

Elbridge Gerry, the Democratic-Republican Governor of Massachusetts in 1810, gave his name to the process of drawing legislative districts to favor one political party or the other. Gerrymandering has been a long time political art, but with the advent of the computer, it has become a science. With Republicans in charge of all phases of the re-districting planning in Ohio, the drawing was done carefully to minimize Democratic strongholds and maximize Republican dominance.

The most obvious example is the 9th Congressional District of Ohio, currently a Democratic district. It stretches for downtown Toledo to downtown Cleveland, barely edging from the Lake Erie shore (a some points contiguous by only a bridge), over one hundred miles. It put the inner cities of Toledo and Cleveland in the same district, taking two old (and generally Democratic) districts and throwing them into one.

This was done at the state legislative level as well, generally guaranteeing a Republican majority in both houses of the legislature.

Unintended Consequences

The unintended consequence of this re-apportionment is that by creating such Republican and Democratic districts, there were no longer any “moderate” seats. The general election (Dem versus Rep) was not the one that mattered anymore, its outcome was a foregone conclusion. What mattered was the primary election. In a primary, where voting participation is down, the “core” of the political party has sway over the outcome. The consequence was that the “hardliners” were able to control the primary process, and the moderates, who might have had more sway in a less slanted electorate, were driven from office (on both sides).

It makes sense then that the hardliners are unable to negotiate with each other when it comes to the legislature (and as this has happened throughout the country – at the national level as well). Not only are they less likely to anyway, but if they do, they risk getting “Primaried” in the next election, out flanked by an opponent who can use their compromising as a campaign issue.

What can be done?

This makes the next couple of election cycles so important. To reverse this cycle of polarization, districts need to be made more competitive again. This is even recognized by the current “masters” of re-apportionment, the Ohio Republicans. Secretary of State John Husted has pushed for re-apportionment reform to allow more bi-partisan input into the process. But for Democrats to make real headway, they have to win elections. However, with current Districting, what elections can be won?

Statewide – Ohio is still a “purple” state. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Auditor are all up for election, as is a US Senate seat (Sherrod Brown-D). They are all statewide, where re-districting doesn’t matter. Under Ohio’s new apportioning law, the Governor, Auditor and Secretary of State are members of the Board. Also members: a majority and a minority party appointment of the state House of Representatives, and the same from the State Senate. Therefore whichever party wins the most statewide seats in 2018, controls apportionment.

It’s a long way back for the Democratic party. But winning control of statewide offices will be the first step to gaining some control, and making Ohio’s government more representative of a “purple” state rather than the “red” state it appears. The problem: finding candidates that can succeed.

Two Universes of Facts

In 1968 there were three television networks, CBS, NBC, and ABC. The vast majority of Americans got their up-to-date facts on the evening news from one of these three. While I was raised in an NBC household listening to the Huntley/Brinkley report (Dad worked at an NBC affiliated TV station), the number one newscast in America was the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Cronkite inherited the CBS mantel from Edward R Murrow, the legendary reporter/anchorman who broadcast as the bombs fell in London during World War II, and took on Joe McCarthy.

On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite made a three minute commentary at the end of the nightly news, saying that the he didn’t believe that the US could win the Vietnam War, that it would at best end in a stalemate, and that we needed to negotiate with the Vietnamese communist. Historians may argue whether this altered US opinion on the war or merely reflected the change, but what it did do was make opposition to the war acceptable to the mainstream of America.

Walter Cronkite and Vietnam

During this time, Daniel Ellsberg leaked a classified Pentagon study of the war, called the “Pentagon Papers”. The New York Times and the Washington Post wanted to publish these documents, which showed the war in an unflattering light for the US government. The Government went to court to stop them. The US Supreme Court ruled that the papers could be published.

Pentagon Papers Case

Why dredge up all of this old Vietnam history (with CSNY in the background)?

This was an America divided by the war, yet able to agree on a reasonably common set of facts about what was going on there. While citizens had widely different opinions about the war, they could argue from a single foundation of knowledge.

In 1996 Fox News was founded by Roger Ailes, a highly successful Republican media consultant, and Rupert Murdock, an Austrailian media mogul who owned newspapers and broadcast outlets throughout the world. Fox News claimed that other media outlet (notably NBC, CBS, ABC and others) were biased, and that they were “fair and balanced”. This began a campaign of “differing” interpretations of news (MSNBC was founded in 1996 as well) that led many Americans to “shop” for the news that fit their own ideas.

Enter the internet, and news shopping became an art form.

Today you can choose your “facts” completely based on your political bias. Here are some examples:
Trump News

Breitbart

Here’s a chart of the biases of various media sources:

Media Bias Chart

So what’s the problem?

You can’t have “civil discourse” if you can’t find common ground on what “the facts” are. You can’t begin to bring the country together, or even have a reasonable discussion, if one side or the other simply thinks that the arguments are “lies”. And you can’t begin to understand what other people think, if you don’t understand what they are being told.

By the way, looking at my past blogs, quoting MSNBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times; firmly establishes where my foundation of facts begin!!!!

So – to begin to persuade, you need to be have at least a passing understanding of “their facts”. If finding common ground is the beginning, then we must find some ground to share.

And — who is the Walter Cronkite of our era, whose word will allow more Americans into the discussion?

for a timeline of General Flynn’s up and dramatic down see this link:

“>NBC timeline

It is clear that on December 29th, after President Obama placed sanctions on the Russian Government for “meddling” in the 2016 election, General Flynn had a conversation with the Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

As former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Flynn knew or should have known that the conversation would be recorded by US intelligence.

In the conversation, General Flynn discussed President Obama’s sanctions. He then denied publicly that he did so for the next month and a half. Even now, he simply “doesn’t recall”. News sources state that it was an extended conversation
Washington Post Article
White House officials, including Vice President Pence, stated that Flynn never talked about the sanctions in the conversation. When that became public before the Inauguration, Intelligence Officials became concerned that Flynn might be subject to Russian blackmail, since he did have conversations about the sanctions and then apparently told (at least Vice President Pence) that he did not.

On January 12th, David Ignatius of the Washington Post raised the question of Flynn’s conversation (and clearly had sources providing him with information about the recorded calls).

On January 15th Vice President Pence stated that the sanctions were not talked about, and on January 23rd Sean Spicer repeated this in a press conference.

On January 26th, the Acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, informed the White House Counsel of the concerns. On January 30th, she was fired for refusing to enforce the immigrant ban. The Counsel to the President, Mike McGahn briefed the President and a small group of aides. Pence and Spicer were not informed.

The Trump Administration knew that General Flynn lied to Vice President Pence and the rest of the Administration about the phone call (and didn’t tell Pence or Spicer until February 9th), and Administration knew and tried to “gut it out” to see if it would go away.

It clearly is possible (especially in light of today’s New York Times story) that the Trump Administration knew and condoned the phone calls, and General Flynn has “fallen on his sword” for the Administration.

New York Times – Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence

The nature of the Trump Administration and Russia – another topic to talk about.

Resistance is NOT Futile*

Why is there resistance to President Trump, and what is driving it?

There is still tremendous shock that Trump won. The election outcome was completely unexpected. Many, including the Trump campaign itself judging from the transition, were unprepared. To the opposition, the Trump Presidency represents a fundamental threat to the things they believe in, including:
– the rights of women (including reproductive rights)
– the advances in rights and acceptance of LGBTQ citizens
– the progress made towards protecting the environment
– the increases in health care protection covering more and more citizens
– the future peace and prosperity of the world
– the vision of America as a diverse and welcoming nation to the world.

Each of these will be the topic of future blogs, but added together they represent the weight of concern that drives many to want to find a way to “save” these issues. It makes it a time of Resistance (much like the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements of fifty years ago). So how should the Resistance proceed?

In Trump world, while the “facts” may be malleable, getting “the cover, the lead, above the fold, breaking news” is ALWAYS important. During the election, it was a fundamental truth of the Trump campaign that any publicity is better than no publicity. The Trump use of Twitter reinforces that truth, and continues today. Here’s the list from Sunday morning (2/12).
live joint statement with Prime Minister Abe
– crackdown on illegal criminals
– 72% of refugees
– FAKE NEWS on CNN
– Two days of productive talks
– I know Mark Cuban
– Congratulations Stephen Miller.

He dominates the medium, and uses it to force mainstream media to respond. You might not like the topics or the results, but the strategy works.

So How Does The Resistance Respond?

First it is important to compete. Competition in the media means to consistently find a way to fight for coverage. Marches, protests, pressing Congress for responses (even if it’s from the Republicans) puts the Resistance in the news. But it’s not only the coverage that matters. It’s also the message – that there are a MAJORITY of Americans who are NOT represented by the current President (sorry Trump-World, but even in the lost election almost 3 million more folks voted against Trump and for Clinton). Not only does that demand attention, but it also may prove to be a modifying force. President Trump needs legislative, judicial, state and executive branch cooperation to get things done, and all of those individuals will be impacted by what goes on outside “Trump-World”.

Second, it is important to discuss what the future will look like. It is not just resistance to the current administration, it is planning to achieve the next administration. It is also planning to rebuild the Democratic party, moving it from its current inability to win state and local elections to a party that can compete at every level of the process. Rebuilding the Democratic Party is a better choice than starting over. The Democratic Party is a vessel – a structure that already exists. It’s difficult to get a “third party” on the ballot, the legal structures are designed for the two-party system. And, as the Trump campaign proved, parties can be taken over and changed!

While there will be a lot more to say about how to rebuild the Democratic Party, here’s just one example: Ohio is a “purple” state, it has supported Democratic Presidential candidates often. Even in the last election, it was very close. Yet almost every statewide office is controlled by the Republican Party (the two exceptions: Justice William O’Neil and Senator Sherrod Brown). The Democratic Party has ceded all power in the state and remains only a feeble opposition.

One difficult question that will arise will be: how will the remaining Democrats in power respond to the Trump Administration? Should they follow the Republican playbook of opposition at all costs, a strategy that proved to be very effective politically, but kept the country from progressing. Or should they cooperate when it benefits all interests, such as infrastructure, or even the Republican re-write of the Affordable Care Act (if they ever get around to doing it!)? What will the “Resistance” demand – and what price will they force “cooperative” Democrats to pay?

The McConnell led Republicans did a huge disservice to the Nation by refusing any cooperation with the Obama Administration. While it seems to have worked politically, it failed the basic test of Government – to serve the people. I hope the price of Resistance will not be that Democrats are forced into the same role.

Third, Resistance needs to be inclusive. It must include both Clinton Democrats and Sanders Democrats, and also those that could not support either. Soon there will be a lot of folks who voted for Trump disappointed in his Presidency: the Resistance needs to be open to them. They must not be excluded, they must be welcomed as they join in.

Fourth, Resistance must be sustained. This is not a short-term project, Resistance will be required through the 2020 election or even longer. This requires organization, and commitment. Will it work?

In 1964 Texas Democrat President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, breaking the Democratic Southern coalition. That move was a direct result of the civil rights movement. In the early 1970’s, Republican President Nixon began a slow process of moving out of Vietnam, a direct result of the pressure brought about by the anti-war movement. So movements of this kind work – Resistance is NOT Futile!!!!!

*(yes, besides being a snowflake, I’m a Trekkie as well!!!!!)

I’m Marty Dahlman. I spent most of my career teaching government, and a lot of my spare time working on politics (from local to national campaigns). In this age of “identification”, you can put my ideology in the Liberal column (I hate the new-speak “Progressive”) and politically in the Democratic party. Now you’ve got me categorized, it might be time to “turn me off”.   That’s what we do in this new political world: “turn off” any ideas that might conflict with our own: ideas that might pierce our little bubble.

But if you’re still here, I’d like to talk about the new world we live in: Trump-World.

As a Democrat I closely identify with what President Obama said during the campaign: that in the near past, both candidates for president might disagree, but both were actually qualified for the job. Is Donald Trump qualified for the job he holds now? And if not, then what might happen to us all?

Chaos Theory – the science of non-linear surprise events that are inter-connected and create unforeseen consequences.   Sounds like the first week of the Trump administration. From the travel ban (which sounds a lot like the promised “Muslim ban”) to the executive order to end the Affordable Care Act (more symbolic than real) to the now rumored executive order to “insure religious freedom” (and deny civil rights to those whose lives don’t pass the religious right’s litmus tests); the Trump administration seems to bump from one chaotic moment to another. It’s the same way the Trump campaign operated, and while it seems impossible, it’s the strategy that won the White House. I don’t think it’s an accident, there is intent to the constant “new issue”, the next “tweet” or pronouncement. And whether it’s factual or actual, it doesn’t even matter: it can be addressed by new “alternate facts” or constant modification of what was said or meant.

It’s a clear strategy – how many times can the New York Times say falsehood or dis-credited or even call a lie a lie, before we stop listening or stop believing anything. And when we do stop listening, the only “facts” we will hear are those from the administration. Besides, a large minority (those that voted for Trump) already believe that “alternative facts” are true, and aren’t interested in hearing anything else.

I’d say it’s time to take the camper and head up to Montana to hide out – wait, isn’t that where the “Breitbart” guys are??

So what happens next?

Spheres of influence – like orbits of planets around a sun, the Trump administration has set up, intentionally or not, spheres of influence. And while from my ideologic/political standpoint none of these guys comes close to representing me, there still may be some that are better than others.

Clearly the first sphere of influence (over Presidential decisions) is the Bannon/Flynn sphere. They have the President’s ear now, and Bannon represents the current instigator of Chaos Theory in Politics.   The “shock and awe” of the past ten days is thanks to his influence. Certainly the removal of the Director of Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Staff and their replacement by Bannon was a move to consolidate power. So to was the removal of the Presidential Daily Briefing authorship from Central Intelligence to the While House National Security office. As long as they hold sway, we can expect this constant drip of adrenalin and anxiety to continue (and the cheering of our “alt-right” friends.

The second sphere, and one that might offer some hope for a future that doesn’t feel “on the brink” at every tweet, is the “old GOP” sphere, represented by the Pence-Priebus-Ryan-McConnell constellation. They are the remainders of the conservative wing, with the same old tired conservative ideas of less government in business, more government in private lives, and let the rich get richer.

They have their own agenda, and as Trump’s administration moves to actually trying to pass legislation (as opposed to governing by executive order – say – isn’t that what they were so angry at Obama for?) they will gain more influence over the President.

The third sphere is the cabinet secretaries, particularly State, Defense and Homeland Security. General Mattis seems to be a consensus pick at Defense as does Kelly at Homeland Security, and while Tillerson doesn’t come from a background that thrills an old liberal Democrat, he does seem to have an air of competence and leadership that feels steadier than the current direction. As this administration ages, it will be interesting to see if it matures through the counsel of these secretaries, or if their influence is ignored. If that happens, expect that these men will make an early exit from the fray.

The fourth sphere is the Executive Branch of the United States. We’ve already seen some stand up: the firing of acting Attorney General Sally Yates and ICE Director Daniel Ragsdale and the letter of dissent by the career State Department employees. These represent the top of the pyramid, but there are thousands (maybe millions) of employees, many of whom have a clear idea of what a “lawful” order is. This could be the “dark hole”, a constant force that is unrecognized and unseen.

And the final sphere: the Courts, with over eight hundred Obama appointees scattered throughout the country. They have been nurtured in an era of civil rights applying to all forms of human differences: they will not easily be persuaded to curtail those rights. And while a battle looms for the control of the Supreme Court (not this appointment as much as the next one); those judges stand as a counter-force to the loss of freedom and human dignity.

This is the “night sky” we see: all trying to gain influence over the actions of the nation. Whether there are “winners and losers”, or much more complicated interactions among the forces: this is the “chaos” that represents the Trump Administration.

“The Bowling Green Massacre”
“Hundreds of Terrorists Acts not covered”
only…”109 people were effected by the travel ban”
“If you were a Muslim, you could come in, if you were Christian, it was impossible”
“That was the largest audience to witness an Inauguration, period”
“Those were alternative facts”
For a more inclusive list – try here:
(http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/)

LIAR LIAR LIAR

The Trump administration has taken “political spinning” to a whole new level. No longer is it about changing the subject, the famous “Kellyanne Pivot.” No, it’s different: if the Trump administration doesn’t like reality, they simply create a new reality, a new set of “alternate” facts. Some are arguable, most are outrageous, and a few are laughable (especially if you sell pizza in Bowling Green, Kentucky where the “massacre” pizza sales were on record pace!!).
As a believer in the American Republic, and a student of American History, this blatant alteration of reality is beyond belief. Why would any serious political organization determine that it’s “OK” to lie to the American people?

Why LIE?

Donald Trump’s most successful undertaking prior to running for President was the reality show, “the Apprentice.” In a reality show, producers create an artificial set of circumstances, and have “real” people interact within the fake situation. It made for successful television, and the principals have been applied to American politics where Trump (and his political producers) drove the narrative just as they did on the show. From “Tired Jeb” to “Lying Ted” to “Little Mario”, and finally “Crooked Hillary,” he was able to bring the political debate to territory where he could be successful. In the same way, he is trying to shape the current narrative by creating “facts” that aren’t factual.

Who BELIEVES?

In order to “fact-check” the Trump administration, you have to have something to measure against. The “media” (the fourth estate) is the main way that facts are checked. Rather than debate “facts,” the Trump administration simply changes reality. The media becomes “the dishonest media” who have their own agenda and cannot be trusted. To many who voted for Trump this is exactly what they want to hear: that the beliefs they have are backed by “facts,” and that those who say different are “liars” and “dishonest.” A reasonable political debate is based on a shared set of “facts,” abolish that basis, and reasonable debate simply turns into “I’m right, you’re wrong” Reality TV brought to Reality Politics. Trump maintains his political base (and his hold on the Republican legislators through the threat of that base to their survival) and reasoned discussion stops.
In addition, the Trump administration constantly puts out different versions of its own narrative. The Navy Seal Operation in Yemen is a good example: at first, a success with the gathering of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula intelligence with the unfortunate loss of an American Seal’s life, then a huge operation to capture on of Al Qaeda’s top leaders, then back to gathering information. All of this information (including that which was “leaked” to the media) comes from “inside” sources. Is the Trump administration so full of holes, or is this a concerted effort to confuse the issue in order to make all “facts” suspect? Which version to believe, if any?
If no one trusts the facts, then it’s impossible to have a debate, and that’s just what the “Reality Presidency” wants. No debate, just the insults and innuendo, where the Trump team excels. It puts them in charge.
The lies create chaos and confusion: who and what to believe. Confusion not just by the civilian observer, but also by the news media, who clearly are struggling to determine how to cover the chaos; what’s important, and what to believe among their myriad of White House sources. And as the Trump Administration leaks one thing then disavows it the next day, they further undermine the credibility of those trying to find “the truth.” The “chattering classes of New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC and San Francisco,” as (WH Deputy Ass’t and Breitbart alumni) Sebastian Gorka puts it, are made to look confused and foolish. This plays to the base of Trump supporters, and further divides the country: all to Trump’s advantage.

So what is the rest of the country supposed to do?

1. Hold fast to the “facts” that are actual facts. Don’t fall into the trap of allowing “alternate facts” to take hold as reality. Remember, the formula for Trumpian success is to establish the “rules” for his reality – pressing REAL reality onto that forces the administration to defend their “alternative.”

2. Chaos creates “the fog of war.” It is within the false reality of that “fog” that the Trump Administration operates. Don’t get distracted by the “alternate fact” of the day (whether it’s Ivanka’s clothing line or Trump’s latest “SEE YOU IN COURT” tweet). Cut to the important decisions and news that is underneath: Trump losing in court (and working on another plan), Trump talking to China (and agreeing to the “One China” policy).

3. Recognize the “Trump Plan” – and begin to counter-plan!!!

Next time – the beginning of the counter-plan