Category: Uncategorized

Pre-cooked Deliverables

In the past, when the President of the United States met in a “summit” with another world leader, teams from the two nations would negotiate for months before the meeting.  Their goal was to reach a few agreements that the two national leaders would claim as a result of the successful summit. Those agreements were called “pre-cooked deliverables.”

 

 On the official American side, there was no agenda.  There were no “pre-cooked deliverables” agreed upon in advance, there were no concessions made before the meeting began.  Yesterday in Helsinki, President Trump met with Vladimir Putin without a topic beyond the “relationship” between the US and Russia.  This left the field open to the Russians, who were able to manipulate the outcome to achieve many of their clear purposes.

The Russians didn’t get sanctions lifted (though Putin did offer up a “trade” of sorts, election hackers for Bill Browder and lifting of the Magnitsky Act.)  They didn’t get US recognition of the takeover of Crimea from Ukraine.  Other than those, the Russians achieved what had to be a long laundry lists of items. President Trump dumped his own intelligence agencies in favor of the Russian leader, he took the Russian side of disputes with the European Union, he spent a large portion of the press conference attacking the American media, and Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party. After the “summit” Russian officials called the outcomes  “fabulous…better than super.”

And the United States really gained nothing but embarrassment.  Putin was able to once again deny the Russian involvement in the 2016 American elections, denied the poisonings in the United Kingdom, and received what sounded like major concessions in the Middle East.

Almost unanimously (with the notable exception of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, the lead story on Fox News) American officials outside the Administration were shocked and dismayed at the President’s actions.  Republican Senators McCain, Flake, Corker, Graham and Speaker Ryan, all spoke out against the statements made by the President, as well as the full lineup of Democratic leaders.

Commentators looked back at the great “summit failures” of the past:  Kennedy’s ill-fated meeting with Khrushchev in 1961 (leading to the Soviets putting nuclear weapons in Cuba) or Obama’s 2013 G-20 stare down with Putin (ending the “reset” with Russia.)  But Trump’s performance yesterday brought back the specter of the greatest of all summit failures:  Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s Munich meeting with Hitler in 1938.

Hitler demanded that Chamberlain allow Germany to take over Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain bought time for Great Britain to prepare for war by giving in to him.  Chamberlain returned to Britain holding the agreement and touting “peace in our time.” World War II started a year later.

President Trump’s performance is not the beginning of World War III.  But it, along with the President’s actions at the NATO meetings and in the United Kingdom before the summit, have led our real allies to question our commitment.  Germany today begins to evaluate whether the United States is an ally or adversary; the Eastern European nations formerly part of the Soviet Union are re-evaluating US defense promises.  But the greatest shock was the President NOT defending his own government in an international forum.

There are three possibilities for the President’s actions.  The first:  he was not prepared.  There was no preparation for the meeting, there were no “pre-cooked deliverables” or scripted agendas.  President Trump walked into a meeting with Vladimir Putin “cold,” and got taken. Trump was maneuvered into defending himself instead of pressuring Russia, and Putin got to look “Presidential” and equal.

The second:  the President can’t get beyond himself.  Mr. Trump fed his base with the same lines as his rallies; from investigating Hillary Clinton to Fake News to “no collusion.” And perhaps, there is that deal for “Trump Tower – Moscow” still in the works, the one the President denied throughout his campaign.

The third, and most ominous, is that Putin really does have “the goods” on Trump.  Whether it’s unsavory video tapes, the Trump Organization’s dependence on Russian financing to stay in business, or the proof of the Trump campaign’s conspiring with Russian Intelligence; it would place our President in the role of an “agent” of Russia.

Whichever the case, the actions of President Trump should be questioned by every American.  We expect our President to stand up for American institutions, we expect him to stand up for our traditional alliances, we expect him to be a strong leader.  What happened yesterday brings all of that into question.

Perhaps these are the “pre-cooked deliverables” the Russians prepared.

 

 

 

I See Brown People

In 1999 M. Night Shamalyan directed his breakthrough classic, the Sixth Sense.  The story was of a young man who could see “dead people” and the psychologist who tried to help him, played by Bruce Willis.   From the movie came an iconic line, in a high child’s voice:  “… I see dead people.”

Listening to President Trump’s press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May this weekend, I reached a realization.  With almost every action, it seems clear that President Trump “sees brown people.”  In the press conference, Mr. Trump praised the United Kingdom exit from the European Union, stressing that they would regain “cultural control” (sounding perilously close to ethnic purity) by ending the EU immigration policies.  Those policies allow an immigrant admitted to one EU nation to move to another.  The President spoke of Brexit, the UK’s plan to leave the EU, as Britain regaining independence.

This plays to some in Britain who claim that the immigration policies have made Britain “browner” mixing and  damaging their culture.  This is not very different from the President’s own base here in the United States; who believe that US immigration policy is making it the same. From the “Mexican Rapist” line of Mr. Trump’s candidacy announcement, to the current government legal argument that they cannot return some of the children they have in custody because their parents’ may not “…be fit;” all demonstrates a view of “brown people” as being different.

President Trump is presenting a remarkable world-view, one that sees the existential threat of a “north-south” world conflict.  The North is the ( (white) European and North American nations, including Russia.  The South is the overwhelming (brown) Muslim, Hindu, and Oriental world, growing in population, and migrating to provide labor to the north. The view sees this migration, particularly of Islam, as a direct challenge to “Western” culture and power.

In the US this view has also turned against immigration from Central and South America, for many of the same reasons.  It has resonated among some Americans; uncomfortable with a land where Spanish is the native language for some, and with the increasingly different appearances and cultures.

And, of course, many are being told that the Hispanic immigrants, legal or not, are criminals, or freeloaders, or here to take jobs.  This somewhat contradictory message is complicated even more by an exceptionally low unemployment rate, combined with an exceptionally high divide between the wealthy and the poor.  People have jobs but still feel “poor,” and a racial/cultural reason may be easier to understand than the economics of a society that has shown little real income growth for the many, while the few grow richer.

President Trump is not exporting this message; he’s simply tapping into an existing pattern.  What he is doing is normalizing a view that has always been seen as racist or extremist.  And he’s gotten help from the Russian government, who for their own reasons intervened in the US, Brexit and other European elections on the side of this extremism. They were not always successful, but they did end up on the winning side of many of these contests.

All of this is happening at the same time that those same Russian actions are being brought to the fore in American courts.  The Mueller investigation indicted twelve Russian intelligence officers for hacking into political party emails and state election systems on Friday.  The impact of the email hacks were clearly to divide the Democratic Party, to the advantage of the Republican candidate, Mr. Trump.  What happened in the state election systems hacks is still unclear, and while no one is stating that actual voting was effected or changed, it would seem a realistic goal for Russian Intelligence.  Why hack in if not to do something?

So President Trump goes to see Mr. Putin tomorrow, for a one-on-one meeting in Helsinki.  And while we should worry about our next elections, the Western Alliance, Russian imperialism and autocracy, and other issues:  Trump and Putin do have one thing in common, one thing we know for sure.  They see brown people, and they don’t like it.

I am writing this from a friend’s home alongside the Muskingum River.  There are several folks here, and while we all assuredly don’t agree on politics, we can still be friends and enjoy each other’s company.  Hopefully it’s an attitude we can return to  in America, as we struggle with the politics of division today.

Traitor or Hero

I spent yesterday with Peter Strzok and Members of Congress.  Yes, I did clean the awning on the camper, buy parts for my Jeep, and run some errands; but I watched or listened to Strzok’s questioning through most of ten hours.  The neighborhood got to listen too.

What was the result of all of the questioning, showboating, insults, and posturing?  Either Strzok is a traitor, attempting to stage a coup to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President, or Strzok is a flawed hero, fighting to prevent Russian influence in our elections.  There isn’t really any middle ground.

Peter Strzok was FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counter-Intelligence.  To use intelligence specialist Malcolm Nance’s description:  “Strzok was our foremost spy-catcher.”  For those who watched the series “The Americans,” Strzok led the FBI investigation that broke that Russian spy ring.  He was the front line leader of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, and, when information was found showing Russian intervention in the 2016 Presidential election, he led that as well.

It might seem like a lot of responsibility for one man, but as Strzok said yesterday, he had hundreds of counter-intelligence cases on his desk, and he was managing multiple levels of the agency in dealing with them.  He was one of our best.

And clearly, Strzok was a man of strong political views.  We know that because he was having an affair with Lisa Page, a Department of Justice attorney working on some of the same cases.  Since they were both married to others, they kept their communication secret by using their DOJ phones to talk.  Oh, and they sent texts, thousands and thousands of texts.

In those texts were insults towards Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but the worst were directed toward Donald Trump.  And some of those texts made it sound like Strzok could actually do something to alter the election results.

In looking back at my texts the months before the election, it is very possible that I would have sent a text that said:  “we can stop Trump,” or “what are you doing to stop Trump.” In context it would be about going door to door for Clinton, but out of context, what could it sound like?

Strzok took the “traitor” scenario apart with a simple fact:  if he wanted to stop the Trump candidacy, he could have leaked the fact of the investigation to the media before the election.  What happened to Clinton, with the final Comey letter killing the momentum of her campaign in the last ten days, could have happened to Trump.  Strzok didn’t do that, he said it never crossed his mind.

Strzok and Page not only cheated on their spouses, but they left a record that became public.  It was a stupid mistake by smart people.  It has opened the door for the Republican House Members to make Strzok the bête noire who started the Russia investigation out of his animus for Trump.  Their argument returns to the “fruit of the poisonous tree” defense:  that since Strzok started the investigation out of “bias,” then the entire effort is illegitimate.

Strzok responded by admitting the obvious:  he didn’t want Donald Trump to become President.  He then stated, that he did what we hope every FBI Agent can do, leave their personal bias at the door, and go into the office and do their job without fear or favor.  After ten hours of testimony, most Republicans didn’t believe him, and most Democrats did.

IF, for a moment, we can take Strzok at his word, then what would this investigation look like?  FBI and DOJ procedures call for investigations to be secret until final.  This way the prosecutors can get evidence without “tainting” it with media attention, and the innocent don’t get their reputations smeared.  When the prosecutors bring their case, they do it in the court, not in the media.  That’s not what happened with the Clinton email server investigation.  As one Democratic Congresswoman said, the FBI didn’t leak the Trump investigation, but they were so afraid of leaks that they cost Hillary the election.

But so far the Mueller investigation is doing exactly that.  There hasn’t been a leak; the only information from Mueller has been in Court documents.  Leaks and rumors about what Mueller is doing comes mostly from defense attorneys, or speculation in the media.  The Republican claim that there “…is no evidence…” is mostly true – Mueller is holding the evidence until he is ready to go to Court.  Just like we should expect him to do.

So what about Peter Strzok? He made a huge mistake.  But he came across as a dedicated agent, who stood between America and our enemies.  His mistake cost him his career, but the loss is both his and ours.

 

I watched advertising executive Donnie Deutsch this morning and he made a good point about today’s America.  He noted that those who support the Mueller investigation will think that Democrats “won” the hearings yesterday, and Trump supporters will think Republicans “won.”  Not many minds changed.  A sign of the times –

 

 

America First

President Trump has made “America First” a prime pass-phrase of his Administration.  The term has come to mean that America will do what benefits America, regardless of the history or the long-term consequences.  “America First,” in President Trump’s terms, means “every other country second.”  It means that the United States will take advantage of other nations to our benefit, even if it means to others’ detriment.

The US actions at this week’s NATO meetings are a prime example of “America First.”  The world is faced by a rising tide of racism and nationalism.  Italy, Germany, France, Turkey, the United States and the United Kingdom all have growing political movements that echo the nationalist/fascist movements of the 1920’s and 30’s.  NATO has been the counter-balance to this kind of nationalism for the past seventy years.

Fascism and nationalism led the world to both world wars.  Before both of those, the United States took a similar position to President Trump’s: the view that America was being taken advantage of by “foreigners;” and that the US can do better one-on-one with the world rather than through multi-national organizations.  After World War I, the US walked away from the League of Nations (proposed by Woodrow Wilson, the US President) and tried to hide behind the oceans in “Fortress America.”

Just prior to the US involvement in World War II, the “America First Committee” played a prominent role in politics.  Well known figures such as Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford called for America to stay out of the war in Europe (started by Hitler in 1939.)  And, like today, the America First Committee had vague undertones of racism and anti-immigration, particularly Jewish immigrants trying to escape the Holocaust.

The America First Committee disbanded on December 10^th, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

It was the alliance of nations, led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, that led the world to victory over German Nazism and Japanese Imperialism. And when the Soviet Union became the next threat to world stability, the United States organized NATO to counter-balance the Soviet bloc.  For seventy years the NATO allies have cooperated and shared; preventing Soviet aggression and nuclear conflagration.

We now have a new “America First” movement.  Like the old, it sees the US as being more powerful by itself, unrestricted by the “encumbrance” of alliance.  This Steve Bannon produced philosophy sees America as the ultimate “bully,” able to use its strength to demand what it wants from other nations without need of cooperation. It is now national policy. We see it in the trade wars the US has started, we see it in US strong-arming at the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the G-7, and we see it in the personally insulting treatment President Trump has for our allies at this week’s NATO summit.

And what of the concern that NATO is being “…carried on the backs of US taxpayers (Senator John Kennedy, Rep- LA)?”  NATO has always been an extension of US foreign policy.  There is no “NATO ARMY,” there is cooperation among the various armed forces of NATO members.  The US has by far the largest military in the organization.  Member nations have agreed to support THEIR OWN FORCES with 2% of their gross domestic product.  This is not money owed, it is money to be spent.

And if there wasn’t NATO, then the United States would still have to execute its foreign policy without that assistance.  For example, the United States invaded Afghanistan after the 9-11 attack.  The NATO allies not only supported the US invasion, but over twenty-seven nations fought alongside US forces there. Could the US have done it alone?  The answer is yes, but at an even higher cost in lives as well as money.

President Trump sees the United States as a “world leader.”  He clearly sees Vladimir Putin as an “equal” world leader, and in Mr. Trump’s bilateral view someone worthy of praise.  He clearly sees the NATO alliance leaders at somehow inferior, eligible for criticism and disdain.  This is his personal style of leadership:  if you work for him you are liable for attack and insult.  He clearly sees the Chancellor of Germany, and the Prime Ministers of Canada and the United Kingdom, as “employees” rather than equals.

But when Putin’s Russia begins to attack the national sovereignty of the Eastern European nations, as they already have in Ukraine, will the US stand by its policy of defending NATO members, or will we step back and say it’s not our concern?  Will “America First” once again lead us to world conflict?

In World War II, we waited for a direct attack on our nation to respond.  It was only with tremendous effort and sacrifice that we defeated aggression.  With this new version of America First, are we doomed to repeat history?

The US is Against Breast Feeding

The nations of the world gathered together in Geneva for the World Health Assembly this spring.  The Assembly is the driving force behind the United Nation’s World Health Organization, the leading agency involving in improving life expectancy and battling disease, particularly in the under-developed nations.

The Assembly was preparing to pass a resolution endorsing mothers breast feeding their babies.  The resolution didn’t say that mothers shouldn’t use formula, it simply said that all of the scientific evidence showed that breast feeding was the best, if possible.  It was a “no brainer” to pass, and Ecuador sponsored the resolution.

The United States opposed it.  The US delegation tried to water down the language, ignoring the science.  And when they couldn’t get that done, the US threatened Ecuador with removing military aid and adding punishing trade measures. Ecuador, of course, backed down.

There is a lot of concern that the current President is “ignorant” of science; willing to discount scientific facts.  To many of its opponents, the Trump Administration flies in the face of common sense when it comes to issues like climate change, pollution, and now, breast feeding.  But the Administration isn’t working from ignorance.

It’s about money.

It’s about Nestle (that’s Gerber) and Abbott Labs and Bristol-Myers Squibb.   These are the formula manufacturers who saw the World Health Assembly resolution as a threat to their world markets.  Regardless of the science, the US delegation to the Assembly was more interested in sales, then in the health of the world.  And it wasn’t just a “good fight” effort, the US threatened and bullied Ecuador into dropping the resolution (ironically, picked up and pushed through by Russia – they didn’t like to see little countries bullied. The US didn’t threaten them.)

The same can be said for many of the changes the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to make to pollution regulations.  From allowing greater emissions from chemical plants to automobiles; the Trump Administration is making sure oil, chemical and car companies can maximize profits. The theory:  if business is doing well, the economy will do well.  It worked in the 1950’s.

In the 1950’s the US expanded manufacturing at the expense of the environment.  While the 1950’s are now looked back (by some) with nostalgia; forgotten are the smog alerts, the burning rivers, the dying lake and streams and the abandoned towns.  We traded those things for a “better economy,” and paid the price with two generations of cleanup.  That work still is not complete.

We are well on the way to creating that environmental damage again.  The Trump Administration is taking the short-term profits against the long-term damage.  But it’s not out of ignorance.  It’s the groups like the Koch Brothers, millions of dollars in political support, that has bought this policy.  Koch Industries, a major petro-chemical company, gets what it wants by buying politicians.  They aren’t the only one, the car industry, the chemical industry, the petroleum industry and the baby formula industry are all putting their money on the line.

There’s not a lot of political money coming from the “environmental” side of the equation. There’s not a lot of support to be had  from the “breast feeding lobby.”  So the current Administration has no problem aggressively trading the future for the present.  Ask Ecuador.

What are the long-term consequences?  The United States is now ignoring global warming, having scrubbed the term from many government websites.  There is no scientific argument:  human pollution is a direct contributor to warming.  Warming is changing our environment, from more powerful storms and droughts, to rising ocean levels that threaten our coasts.  We are losing the opportunity to deflect even greater changes by allowing greater pollution.  But that doesn’t matter.

And it doesn’t matter that third-world nations won’t receive support to encourage women to breast feed their children, even if it will make those children healthier.  The Trump Administration has made it clear – short-term profit is much more important.

 

Small Town  – America

Pataskala Town Hall

My wife hated to go to Kroger’s (our local supermarket) with me.  I was a school teacher, coach, and administrator in the local high school for forty years.  When I first began, I made a choice to live where I taught.  It was a conscious decision:  to be a part of the community more than just the 7:00 am to 3:00 pm “teaching shift.”

So trips to Kroger’s were often more than picking up bread and coffee beans.  Somewhere in the store, there always lurked a parent, or an old student, or a fellow teacher.  The five-minute “grab the eggs and get home” would become a forty-five minute parent conference; from how “my kid’s” grades were to why he got suspended. I considered it part of the job, and the fact that I hadn’t had enough coffee to think, or had just got off the mower, really didn’t matter.

It happened at Kroger’s, at the local restaurants, even in the restroom at the local bar.  I was a teacher in a small town, and I expected that I was “on duty” whenever necessary.  It wasn’t always positive, parents who were angry at school were still angry in the bread aisle.  But it was part of the job, and a choice I made.

So I guess I don’t feel too bad that Stephen Miller got yelled at by the bartender at the Sushi place, or Scott Pruitt was lectured by a Mom at a restaurant, or Sarah Sanders was refused service at the Red Hen.  They have chosen a public life, they make their living “at the public trough;” and they have acted in a manner that raises public ire.  There is no way to openly discuss their actions with them, no “parent-teacher conference.”  They are public employees who are seemingly without restriction in their thoughts and actions.  It’s no wonder that “the public” feels it’s acceptable to approach them and speak their minds.

Many feel that they have gone beyond the bounds of decency. Perhaps they are even trying to provoke public reaction. When Homeland Security Secretary Neilsen and Stephen Miller chose Mexican restaurants in the middle of the “child separation” crisis: they were either being provocative or oblivious.

It is the new nature of our current political divide.  While in the past there was always a common standard of  behavior (and a common set of facts) today we are divided beyond the “old rules.”  We see “the other side” as not just wrong, but inhumane and uncaring.  And it’s not just the border crisis; from the President’s new selection to the Supreme Court, to the EPA’s withdrawal of regulations protecting the environment, to the Consumer Protection Bureau moving to protect banks, our nation seems like  Orwell’s 1984, with the Ministry of Peace waging war and the Ministry of Truth telling lies.

We are a nation founded on the First Amendment.  We, the public, have the right to speak our minds, particularly when it comes to political views.  There are many who feel that some in our government have stepped beyond the norms and mores that have governed our collective actions:  they seem unreachable and uncaring.  So the public is approaching those leaders whenever it’s possible.  If that’s in a restaurant or outside of a public hall, then welcome to our small town: America.

 

In better news – here is another proof of what people can do when they have a common goal and a powerful motivation.  Twelve kids and a coach, trapped two miles in a cave, surrounded by water, left for seventeen days; were safely rescued today.  It was said you couldn’t save kids that couldn’t swim by diving them out of the flood, and that they were too weak, or would panic and die. They didn’t, they are safe and in a hospital.  And the hundreds of folks who risked their lives to achieve this miracle rescue did it without hesitation.  One retired Thai “Navy Seal” came back to add his expertise, and gave his life that the thirteen might live.  It was a powerful sacrifice.    Hoo-rah!!!

 

 

 

A Duty of Care

I was a high school coach for forty years, thirty-six of those as a head boys track coach.  My duties ranged from technical coaching to managing meets to painting lines on tracks to helping kids through the trials of life.  But one thing I knew for sure:  beyond how fast I could make kids run, or how high I could make them jump; my primary obligation was to protect them and act in their best interest. Their parents placed them in my care, whether we were practicing at home or travelling across the country for national competition.  I had a duty to protect them:  a duty of care.

Caring for athletes would include discipline as well as love.  It would include taking their side against other adults from time to time, even if it would be easier to step aside.  It was protecting them, but also demonstrating to them how to do what was right, even if it was hard.

Most of my athletes were minors, only a few eighteen or older, but it didn’t matter to their parents, the school, or to me.  They were in my care.  When many of them earned the opportunity to compete at the collegiate level, we recognized that they were now young adults of legal age.  But we still expected that their coaches, who would demand an enormous amount of time, dedication, and effort, would feel that same duty of care to protect them.

For several of those forty years, I coached wrestling as well.  It’s the hardest thing a kid can do in athletics, combining strength and stamina, putting it all in front of the world in one-on-one competition.  It demands intense dedication; a “take-home” sport of control at all times.  Wrestlers constantly focus on their body, from weighing in every day, to worrying about injuries and skin conditions.  They are also constantly “inspected” by coaches, officials and medical personnel, more than any other sport I know.

Whether it’s today, or in the 1980’s and 90’s, coaches in wrestling have a special “duty of care” to protect their athletes, who are more vulnerable to abuse than in other sports. This was just as true at the Division I collegiate level, where tremendously motivated and talented wrestlers are willing to do or endure almost anything to achieve their dreams.

You might well ask: why didn’t the gymnasts at Michigan State cry out against their abuse?  Why didn’t the Olympic swimmers tell their parents?  And why is it only now that the wrestlers from Ohio State are speaking out?

The answer is, they knew that to speak out was to risk their dreams.  They knew that to question the “powers” that were abusing them was to risk being sent away, ending their quest for achievement.  And while looking back it might not make much sense, to the young and dedicated athletes their abuse became part of the “price” to be paid.

It was up to the adults, the coaches in the case of Ohio State wrestling, to stand up for these athletes.  It is clear that everyone “knew” what the team doctor was doing; why didn’t the head coach Russ Hellickson, or his assistant, now Congressman, Jim Jordan, speak out.  The probable answer:  they didn’t feel empowered by the administration to take a stand, they would be risking their jobs.

That’s too bad.  It was their “duty of care” to speak out and protect their athletes.  It was a failure on their part.  And it is even more of a failure, now twenty-five years later, to not acknowledge that mistake.  Congressman Jordan has been “called out” by his wrestlers.  He might have said, “I was young, I made a mistake, I’m sorry.” He didn’t, he called them liars and the right wing media machine has gone to work to discredit them.  It is “ME TOO” again, this time, with forty-year old men.

Should Jordan’s actions disqualify him from his political office? He should have stood up for his athletes then, but he didn’t. He made a mistake twenty-five years ago.  That is forgivable.  What should disqualify him is his failure to acknowledge that mistake now, and his continuing failure to recognize that he stills owes those athletes, those kids of the 1990’s, a duty of care.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s About Elections

“The Caravan”

The White House has created a crisis in immigration.  It was foreseeable, preventable, and intentional.  It started with word that “caravans” were coming from Central America, large groups of immigrants trying to get themselves, and for many their children; away from the violence of the gangs of the cities of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.  While they crossed Mexico, the vast majority aren’t Mexicans.

This has happened before. The responses of previous Administrations was to increase the amount of judges and lawyers at the border crossing, in order to more efficiently judge the asylum claims of the border crossers. Legal crossers who passed the first, quick test determining the legitimacy of their claim, were placed out into the communities, often with ankle bands monitoring their location.  Illegal crossers claiming asylum were arrested, held for a short period of time, then bailed out as well, their misdemeanor illegal crossing offense punished by time served.  They were allowed to work, to try to support their families.  Surprisingly, almost all came back for the final adjudication hearing, even though for many it meant going back to their home country.

The Trump Administration determined not to do these things.  They did not send lawyers and judges to the border crossings.  They in fact, slowed legal crossings at the border, causing even greater pressure on immigrants, trapped in violent border towns, to come across illegally.  When most of those illegal crossers presented themselves to the border patrol, asking asylum, they were placed in custody.  Their children were taken from them.  The backlog of court appearances meant that the adults were held for extended periods of time.  Instead of being released into the community pending their asylum hearing, they were imprisoned, some shipped to Federal prisons throughout the country.  And those that were previously released, now are not allowed to legally work.

And, as we know, their children were imprisoned as well, all over the United States.  And a majority of the country asked the question: WHY? Why did “we” do this?

IT WAS ON PURPOSE.  The Trump Administration is convinced that being against immigrants is a winning political position.  They have good reason to think so.  When Donald Trump came down the “golden escalator” in Trump Tower and talked about Mexican rapists and criminals (and some good people) he tapped into a racist political energy that swept him into office.  But once he was elected President, it wasn’t enough to just rail against the Democrats for being soft on immigration. Mr. Trump was President of the United States; he had to show he was tough on immigration.  He had to create a “desperate situation” on the border to fan the flames of his base.  He engaged in “crisis creation.”

The moves at the border: no additional lawyers or judges, “zero tolerance” for misdemeanor illegal crossing, the separation of children and the incredibly incompetent (or intentionally) slow process of returning them; all were “crisis creation.”  From the millions of people who marched last Saturday to “return the children” to the “law and order” posts on Facebook (they broke the law they lose their kids); the President has our attention exactly where he wants it.

But there’s one more twist coming to this saga; another play for the Trump “team.”  The Trump Administration is well aware that the clock is running on the children.  A District Court in California has already set the deadline; the children must be released.  The Administration is doing very little to meet that deadline, and soon the Court will order an expedited process to get them back to their parents.

This will give the Trump camp another political bone to chew:  judges intervening and “making up” the law.  “President Trump will appoint judges who won’t do that,” they’ll say; “we started with Justice Gorsuch, and we will continue with ______” (fill in the blank on Monday at 9pm.)

The new Justice can now be debated on the grounds that energize Trump followers.  He can be portrayed as a Justice dedicated to judicial restraint, not prone to making laws like the “California judges” (the state that gave Hillary Clinton her majority in 2016) did in the case of the children, or the Muslim ban.  It reduces the impact of the new Justice’s views on abortion, or gay rights, or labor unions.  It is an attempt, and probably a successful one, to make the fall campaign about immigration; not the Mueller investigation, or the EPA Administrator (former), or the multiple other issues created by the President’s actions.

President Trump feels safe campaigning on immigration.  He has convinced a portion of America that MS-13 is streaming across the border; and that “Mexicans” threaten us all; neither of which is true.  It’s familiar ground for him.  It will be up to the Democrats to find ways to try to win this debate, but also to move the campaign to other topics.  After all, for both, it’s about elections – though it feels like the we’re deciding the fate of the free world.

Senator Rob Portman                                                                                                         448 Russell Senate Office Building                                                                     Washington, DC   20510

July 4, 2018

Senator:

I am a life-long Democrat, who also happens to be your constituent.  I know that we disagree on any number of issues in American political life, and I have written critically from time to time about your stands (I write a political ‘blog’.)

We also have occasional issues in agreement, for example, your final vote on the health care bill, you stand on LGBTQ rights, and your concern with opioid addiction.  And we have other areas in common; I graduated from Wyoming High School the same year you graduated from Country Day, and I worked for Tom Luken while you were working for Bill Gradison.  I have always thought of you as a principled man, one who stands for the values of the United States. You are a “traditional” Republican, one my Republican father would have been proud of; and those acquaintances we have in common speak highly of you.

Senator, our nation is in crisis and I hope you will help us through it.  There are two areas of absolute concern that should rise above partisan differences.  They both speak to the essence of our Constitutional Republic.

The United States has placed over two thousand children in custody, taking them away from their parents. Regardless of our national disagreement about immigration, we all must agree that those children should be reunited with their parents, either here in the US, or in their home country.  And it has to happen now.  I am asking you to do all in your power to make this occur, including making sure an actual system is established to process and return those kids.  It is a national emergency, one that goes directly to the soul of America.

And now we are building large internment camps for immigrant families.  The American answer to this migrant crisis should not be to put them in “camps.” Some of the darkest moments in our history used that solution; we need to find a more humane way to resolve this issue.   The data shows that a high percentage of migrants released on bail return for their trial.  This is a low cost, humane solution that should be implemented.

The next concern is politically more difficult.  We have a nation divided by the election of 2016.  Regardless of which candidate you supported, we are now in an era where a large portion of our nation questions the legitimacy of the current President. We have chosen one of our most trusted citizens, Robert Mueller, to determine what occurred in 2016, and it seems that his investigation is drawing near to some conclusions.

At the same time, the Supreme Court is as divided as the rest of the nation.  I know it is your duty as a Senator to “advise and consent” to the President’s choice for Justice.  But I also know that the President has done nothing to pull the nation together.  Even President George W Bush, despite the controversial election in 2000, found a way to be “President of the United States” rather than President of a specific group or view. President Trump has not.

The results of the Mueller investigation will be announced in the next few months, and it is likely the Supreme Court will play a pivotal role in the outcome.  This President has consistently made personal loyalty the highest priority in his selection process: clearly he should not be allowed to pick a judge in his own case.

The election of a new Congress will occur in November.  I believe that “fairest” solution would be to wait until the new Congress is seated to select a new Justice, using the same rationale that your Majority Leader, Senator McConnell, used with Judge Garland.  It allows the American people their opportunity to “rule” on the Administration.  I imagine this will not be popular among Senate Republicans, but if the goal is to try to unite America, then party popularity should not be the highest priority.

So, I am asking you to delay the confirmation of a new Justice until the new Congress begins in 2019, and to take steps to improve the immigrant crisis.    These actions will be a big step in confirming our national unity as we struggle with our national crisis.

Thanks for your attention, and have a good Independence Day!!!

Sincerely,

Martin Dahlman, Retired Teacher/Coach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Democrat’s Dilemma

The Supreme Court is split, four to four.  The split is partisan, four Democratic appointees, and four Republican.  While in the past, party didn’t seem to matter as much once a Justice receives their lifetime appointment, cases such as Bush v Gore and Citizens United demonstrate that the party is “strong” within each justice (thanks Yoda.)

And the Supreme Court is split four to four along ideology.  There are four more liberal Justices, not surprisingly the Democratic appointees.  And there are four conservative justices, all carefully groomed from their earliest legal careers by the Federalist Society.  They aren’t just Republicans, they found their legal ideology in law school and have carried it forward throughout their careers.

These justices are different than the “old days” Republicans. Just as the modern Republican party has changed, so has their Court appointees.  Republicans like Chief Justice Earl Warren (Eisenhower), Justice John Paul Stevens (Ford) or Justice David Souter (H W Bush) found their more liberal voice on the court.  They were the compassionate, business Republicans, who saw individual rights as paramount.

The Federalist Society justices have embraced a view of the Constitution that places strict guardrails on the Courts.  They are akin to the “Strict Interpreters” of early American history; they look to the original language and intent of the authors of the Constitution.  The more liberal idea of the Constitution as a “living document” able to grow and expand with the nation, is anathema to them. Their view:  it is up to the legislatures and states to grow and expand the Constitution through legislation and the Amendment process.  The Courts “merely” maintains the “lanes.”

This dogma puts the choice of the ninth Justice at a “national crisis” level.  No longer can we expect a new Justice to “find their view” on the Court; the Federalist Society members have a pre-ordained theology that will control their rulings.  The ninth Justice becomes the fifth vote, and the Federalist Society will control our judicial process for the next twenty years.

For current Republicans (other than the old-school Republicans like John Kasich or Mitt Romney) this judicial appointment is a once in a lifetime opportunity to shape America.  The driving forces behind the current conservative party, not just the Trump voters, but the huge dark money interests such as the Koch brothers; are “all-in” on this selection.  Senator Majority Leader McConnell has no choice but to pull every string and use every piece of leverage he has to get this appointment done, and done before Democrats have the opportunity to change the majority.

It really is a win-win situation.  If the Democrats actually stop a Trump appointee, then Republican voters will be highly motivated to vote in November, and Republicans are likely to maintain power in Congress.  If the Democrats try and fail, then the life-dream of a Federalist Society Supreme Court is realized, and that conservative philosophy will be enshrined in decisions and precedent for the next century.  Republicans may lose control of the Congress, but for many it will be worth it.

So what should the Democratic strategy be?

Minority Leader Schumer has lowered expectations.  His deputy, Senator Durbin, has gone so far as to say there is nothing Democrats can do, one vote shy of a majority.  They are making a shrewd political calculation. Should Democrats commit to defeating a “Federalist Society” candidate for the Court, they will need every vote in their caucus, plus at least one more.  Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski offer the tantalizing pivotal votes to change the majority.

The problem:  even if they can get this done, the short term win on the court may well cost a longer term chance at the Senate majority.  Four Democrats running to return to the Senate; McCaskill in Missouri,  Manchin in West Virigina, Donnelly in Indiana and Heitkamp in North Dakota are in very difficult races in “Trump” states.  If they are “whipped” to vote against a Trump Court appointee, it makes their reelection chances even shakier.

If, on the other hand, the Democratic leadership “fights the good fight,” but allows those bubble candidates to vote their conscience; then they have a better chance of winning a majority in the Senate.  The four would might well return to the Senate, with the Supreme Court change becoming a fiery motivator to drive Democratic voters to the polls.

The “more progressive” end of the Democratic party, represented by Senators Booker and Warren, see this nomination as the existential fight for the nation.  From the liberal standpoint, they aren’t wrong. It is a true test of ideology: if a Democrat doesn’t stand with them on this; then they just aren’t a Democrat. The problem with that approach is that if they don’t win, and maybe even if they do, it puts off Democratic ability to actually exercise power until at least the 2020 election.

The Democrats are not as split in ideology as commentators would suggest.  The division is based more in strategy and priority:  gain control of the Congress, or stay ideologically pure and risk losing both the fight for the court and the chance for power. That is the Democrat’s dilemma.

 

 

The Last Bribe

A family fleeing from the violence of El Salvador or Guatemala or Honduras is risking a difficult journey. They face two thousand miles of walking dusty roads, riding in packed vans and freight cars, staying in dirty “safe” houses; each day being completely vulnerable to violence, rape and extortion.  How much are they willing to pay to flee life  those countries?  The average annual income is a little under $700, yet they are willing to pay from $6000 to $9000 to get to the US.  (Want that put into American terms?  The average US income is $51000, equivalent costs would be $500,000 to $750,000.)

How do these impoverished people put together ten years or more of wages to get to the US?   The New York Times reported how relatives in the US wired money to help at each stage of the journey, demanding Facebook Messenger “proof of life” pictures along the way to make sure the smugglers weren’t collecting without delivering “the package.”  Bribes to Mexican officials are all a part of the journey, with the last bit of extortion the $180 smuggler fee to get across the US border.  There is no guarantee; while “there’s an app” to meet transportation in the US, it doesn’t prevent the US Border Patrol from discovering the crossing.

And under the “zero tolerance” policy of the Trump Administration, a family caught crossing the border was separated.  Children were taken away from parents, and sent to facilities all over the United States. Those children ultimately could be released to a parent once they are out of custody, or to a relative.

But the United States has its own price to extort.  For relatives to get a child, every member of the household must give their fingerprints to ICE.  Of course, should they be here illegally, ICE will move to deport.  And, past that arguable requirement, whether it’s the parents or relatives; the family must pay the cost of the child’s transportation from wherever the government sent them.

So a child is taken at the border and sent to contracted facilities in, say, Michigan. A relative in Texas, to get the child back, must pay for a plane ticket for the child and for an escort.  When the escort and child arrive in Houston, it’s “cash on the barrelhead” at the baggage return, the escort taking the money in exchange for the child.  It’s the last bribe, the last bit of squeeze faced by the migrants.

This is far before the status hearing, when a court determines whether the legal asylum claim of the migrant is determined.  This is not a criminal fine, nor is it some form of legal punishment.  It’s just another “fee.”

Coming to the United States to claim asylum is not illegal.  Civilized nations around the world have determined there are reasons to accept migrants, even those who “appear” at the border without the normal visas issued in their home country.  Entering the United States and making that claim begins a legal process to ultimately determine its validity.

If the entry into the United States is done legally, that is, at a legal border entry point, then there is no “illegal” activity.  However, since the Department of Homeland Security has intentionally slowed the border entry process, stacking thousands of migrants in the dangerous border towns of Mexico, the pressure to enter the US illegally is intense.

At a point where funds are at there lowest, migrants are forced to feed their families in the border towns, survive the violence and extortion, and ultimately face the cost of an illegal border crossing.  There’s no going back, and there’s no staying put.  Crossing the border outside of a designated point of entry is a misdemeanor offense in the US, but most of the immigrants are tapped out, and the  “zero tolerance policy” of the US means they won’t be released.  Since Homeland Security has also “slow walked” the increase in immigration judges, it may be years until the asylum request is adjudicated.

The US policy of child separation was one more way of “punishing” migrants.  We know there is money to be made in that business, with the new facility in Texas costing over $700/child/day to house children in tents. And far be it from the government who caused that separation, or the contractor, to bear any additional costs. So there’s one last “fee,” one last bribe, to get their kid back.

It’s the Fourth of July

It’s the Saturday of Fourth of July weekend, 2018.  Like the era we live in, it was a day of conflicts and reflection, as well as fun. The morning started out hot, high eighties by the 10am protest on the lawn of the Statehouse in downtown Columbus. Thousands joined in, demanding that the children separated from their parents at the border be reunited. The demonstration was organized by a young Mom.  She had never even been to a protest before, much less organized one; but she has an eight month old, and couldn’t imagine how it would feel to be torn from her daughter.   She had to do something.

There were no “big” celebrities, no Lin-Manuel Miranda singing a cappella (in DC), no John Legend with a new song (in LA); just a few politicians working the edges of the crowd. There were older folks, remembering the days of Vietnam and Civil Rights.  There were immigrants, proud of their heritage, and proud of their life here in America.  There were the college kids from OSU, so intense in their struggle to change the world. And there were lots of “just parents with kids;” just like the “Mom” organizer, who clearly couldn’t understand how our nation would do this.

There were a couple of hours of speeches, and a couple of people collapsing from the heat.  When the “medics” didn’t respond quickly enough, the Highway Patrolmen and Columbus Police officers came to help the stricken. Their job was “crowd control;” who knows what they thought about the protestors or the issue.  But they immediately moved through the crowd, just doing what cops really became cops to do, help people.

There was a march around the Statehouse, on the sidewalks since there was no parade permit.  When the crowd pressed into the main intersection, Broad and High, the police wanted them back on the sidewalks, and some in the crowd decided to focus on them to chant:  “we own the streets.”  Seemed like the cops were doing their job, and who owned the streets was beside the point of why we were there anyway.

Then back to the small town of Pataskala:  burgers, brats and beer; good friends for dinner, then onto the town fireworks at the park.  Pataskala lost their fireworks celebration a few years ago, the town couldn’t find a way to afford it.  But Mike Compton, the new mayor, decided that small towns had to have fireworks on the Fourth of July; it’s what made them a town.  Whether he voted for Trump or Clinton or someone else I don’t know, but Mayor Compton has a great view of what the town should be, and how to make it happen.

Sitting in a field, battling the mosquitoes, listening to little kids worry whether the rockets will hit planes: hanging out with friends and watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.  In a nation so divided, small town Fourth of July’s are a little bit of healing. The divides will come back soon enough;  a little time for the “Oohs and Aahs” is OK.

 

A Time to Kill

It was 1996, amazingly, twenty-two years ago.  John Grisham’s novel about race and the South, A Time to Kill, was released on film. Matthew McConaughey played the young white lawyer who discovers his own prejudices; his client, Samuel L Jackson, falsely accused of rape, made them clear.  His mentor, a disbarred and disgraced Southern gentleman, was Donald Sutherland. Sandra Bullock was the young researcher who found the important information, and was kidnapped by the Klan. The pivotal scene, when the white McConaughey convinces a white Southern jury to be color blind is one of the great closing arguments in cinema.

Trey Gowdy, retiring Congressman from South Carolina, is fifty-three, too old for the McConaughey role. But he’s carefully combined the smoothness of McConaughey with the worn tiredness of Sutherland to create his own persona.  Thursday, his “cross examination” of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the House Judiciary Committee; tied pulled loose, three days of blonde beard on his face; had the drama and pace of that climatic scene in A Time to Kill.

Of course, it wasn’t a cross examination, it was a closing argument.  Gowdy used the idiotic tweets of FBI Agent Peter Strozk, to try to discredit the Mueller investigation.  Gowdy tried to demonstrate that Strozk’s bias against Trump managed to save Clinton from prosecution, and prevented Trump from being President.  It would all make sense; except that Trump did become President. The Russia investigation was never leaked out.  The FBI and Strozk protected it, keeping it so secret that they misled the media, convincing them that there was no investigation.

Gowdy demanded that Mueller take his evidence and, “…present it to the damn grand jury.”  “Finish it the Hell up,” Gowdy insisted of the year-long investigation. This, after leading his own Benghazi committee on an $8 million, 322,000 word, two and a half year quest to find wrong-doing by Hillary Clinton: and found nothing.

The fact that the Judiciary committee questioned Strozk himself this week was left silent. Strozk, and the Democrats on the Committee, asked for the testimony to be made public, but the Republican members have kept it classified, carefully cherry-picking snippets to bring up in public hearing.

But Gowdy did make one good point in his “McConaughey” moment.

During the hearing, the US House of Representatives, led by the Freedom Caucus and not Speaker Ryan, voted to warn General Rosenstein that they will consider his impeachment if the Justice Department doesn’t give them the “scope and sequence” documents of the investigation.

Those documents outline the “who, what, and where” of Mueller’s investigation.  It is beyond unheard of that a criminal inquiry would be opened bare in the middle of the investigation, even more that the information would be turned over to those being investigated, as Mayor Giulani has suggested.  Mueller and Rosenstein will never allow it:  should the House of Representatives truly want, they can create a Constitutional crisis.

Rosenstein may be impeached by the House.  The Republicans are so enamored with defending the President, that they are “all in” regardless of what might come out of the investigation.  And while the Senate would never remove Rosenstein, the impeachment itself would probably require his recusal from oversight of Mueller. Or, more likely, it would give the President the excuse to fire him.  And once Rosenstein is gone, Mueller loses his “air cover,” and is open to attack.

The Mueller investigation can bring charges against almost everyone involved, except for the President himself.  It is highly unlikely that Mueller would bring those charges; instead, he will probably report to the same House Judiciary Committee a referral for impeachment of the President.  Whether that report is private to the Committee and buried, or public to all; is up to Rosenstein, or whoever would replace him.

Where will things go? We have the crisis on the border, the Supreme Court vacancy, the ongoing trade war with our “former” allies, and a President still unconvinced that Russia attacked our elections.  We are in a world of crisis, and the Mueller investigation is looming over all.  Gowdy’s dramatic diatribe, intentional or not, was really a warning:  get the investigation done, get the charges out; or the political situation may spin so far out of control that no one can foresee the consequences.

On that point, he’s right.

 

Civility or Civil War

Democratic member of Congress Maxine Waters spoke at a rally last weekend.  She called on the crowd to harass Trump Administration members:

“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them!”

The owner of the Red Hen Restaurant of Lexington, Virginia, asked White House Press Secretary to leave her restaurant.  She could not, she said, in good conscience serve the spokesman for the President who split families and took children.  The Trump supporter response has forced the restaurant’s closure for at least two weeks.

Stephen Miller, Presidential Counselor and the purported author of the child separation plan, was shouted out of a Mexican bar in Washington, DC.  Protestors gathered outside his apartment complex. Protestors also gather outside of Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Neilsen’s home, broadcasting the cries of babies being removed from their parents.

President Trump is no stranger to threats and intimidation.  Through his tweets and in his political rallies, he has slandered, sworn, and threatened a variety of people.  According to the President, Maxine Waters is “low-intelligence,” and NBC news commentator Chuck Todd is a “sleepy eyed son-of-a-bitch.”  In a recent rally he pointed out CNN’s Jim Acosta, who was then verbally attacked by the crowd.  Trump has offered to pay the legal fees of audience members who beat up protestors. He has suggested violence against gang members in police custody, and found “good people” among white supremacists.

The “Resistance” to Trump has taken on a new tactic.  While mass marches and demonstrations continue, some have taken the attack personally to the Trump Administration.  In response, many, both “Trumpsters” and others, have cried foul, saying that this lack of “civility” is beneath the goals of the resistance.  They quote Michelle Obama (in response to the Trump campaign)  “…when they go low, We go high!”

Those in favor of the new tactics, cite American history.  They view themselves as the modern day Abolitionists, fighting an ultimate evil. As the Abolitionists might have done anything to end slavery, including fomenting revolution as John Brown did at Harper’s Ferry, so many feel today.  They see the President committing the ultimate immoral action of using children as political pawns.  They feel that “stolen” children are beyond the rules of civility, and must be met with “the gloves off.”

The resignation of Justice Kennedy makes that desperation even greater, as their most important rights are now on the block:  from women to LGBTQ to organizing as workers.  In some ways the Kennedy resignation nullifies whatever results of the future November election might be; regardless of the outcome the conservatives will remain in control of the Supreme Court. It doesn’t help that the Democratic leaders in the Senate like Dick Durbin are whining about being the minority, one vote short of control.  They offer no hope.

So what should the analogy be?  Is our era equivalent to the pre-Civil War times?  Is this what we must do to maintain morality, recreate the Abolitionist movement of the mid 1800’s to stand against Trump’s actions?  And if we are in that sorry a state, does it mean that there is an inevitable conflict coming among Americans?

There is the theory of revolution:  revolutions among the people don’t occur when things are at there worst.  They occur when things get better, and then dramatically change to worse.  It’s a “darkest before the dawn” idea. We went from a progressive era, represented by the Obama Presidency, to this present.  Are we at the darkest moment of this era, or will the “Resistance” be even more aggrieved in the future?  Are we facing a second American apocalypse, or is this “counter-revolution” to progressivism a last gasp?

Enough questions:  my answers are also taken from American history. While we have from time to time had extremists in control of the government, we have also ultimately rebounded back from it.  In 1968, when the nation was rocked by assassination, anti-war protests, civil rights demonstrations, and the cultural revolution of the “age of love;” the nation chose Richard Nixon as President.  It seemed like a complete reversion from the hopes and dreams that John F. Kennedy had provided.

It was an ugly time, and would continue to be so through Watergate to the end of the Vietnam War.  But there ultimately was a “dawn” after all of the darkness.  In the same way, the darkness that “Resistors” see now, may well change. There is November, and the opportunity to regain Congress.  There is the Mueller investigation, and the opportunity to find out what really happened in 2016.  There is still hope.

And if there is hope, there is power.  Despite Dick Durbin’s message of futility, the Resistance still can make a difference, and make a change.  The chanting crowds in the restaurants and at the homes of Trump officials are emotionally satisfying, but they are ultimately signs of weakness and hopelessness. Stephen Miller won’t be changing his mind because of confrontation, in fact he probably went to the Mexican bar looking for it.

It’s not about civility, it’s about directing energies to create change.  We have November, focus on that.  As the two famous phrases from the civil rights movement say:  “keep your eyes on the prize” and “we shall overcome.”

 

I watched “Selma” this week.  If you haven’t seen it, you should.  It’s about moral courage in an important and desperate cause – and sounds eerily like today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rights on the Border

“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.” – Trump Tweet – 6/25/18

Tuesday (6/26/18) the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Trump v Hawaii.  This was the question that started out as the “Muslim Ban,” the campaign pledge made by candidate Trump to ban all Muslims from travel to the United States, “…until we find out what the hell is going on.”  This pledge was translated into an executive order in the first days of his Presidency, banning travel from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen; all Islamic countries.

The ban immediately started a firestorm, focusing on the religious singularity of the order.  The question: was the President of the United States able to ban “a religion” from entering the country?  It didn’t help that the ban went into effect so immediately that folks got onto flights to the US with visas, and arrived to find they were “rejected.”

Federal courts in various states stepped in to put a hold on the action. The administration issued a revised ban, modified but still including only Islamic countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.   This ban was blocked by the Courts as well.  Subsequent to those court orders, a third revision was issued, significantly adding North Korea and Venezuela to the list.

It was this third iteration that the Supreme Court evaluated.  The additions of North Korea and Venezuela clearly altered the “Muslim Only” issue.  The Court, in a Conservative/Liberal (Republican/Democrat appointee as well) split of five to four, ruled that the National Security duties and powers of the Executive branch give the President great latitude to make policy decisions.  And while the Court noted the statements made by candidate Trump prior to the election, they chose to focus on the “black letter” wording of the executive order itself. The religious singularity issue no longer applied, with Catholic Venezuela and mainly Buddhist North Korea added to the list.

The Supreme Court decision gives great deference to the President’s powers on issues of national security.  This was the same deference granted to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he instituted a plan to place American citizens of Japanese descent, known as Nisei, into internment camps for the duration of World War II.  The Supreme Court, in the 1944 decision in Korematsu v United States, ruled that the “national security” emergency of World War II overcame the Constitutional rights of those American citizens of due process and from government seizures.

It was a dark period in American history, comparable to the Trail of Tears removal of Native Americans and slavery.  And while Korematsu himself was exonerated in 1983 by a Federal District Court, the actual Supreme Court decision was never overturned.

However, Chief Justice Roberts referenced Korematsuin the Trumpdecision, stating that a executive decision based, “…solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority.” Roberts made it clear that Korematsuwas no longer a part of American legal precedent, joining  (Dred) Scott v Sanford and Plessy v Ferguson as historic relics.

So it is now established law that race cannot be used to deny rights to citizens in the United States, even when national security is the “excuse.”  It is also established that the President can bar travel into the United States based on national security concerns.

So what rights do non-citizens have once they are on US soil (or under the jurisdiction of the US)?  The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution applies here, stating:

“…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Do non-citizens fall under the US Constitution, entitled to 14^th Amendment protections, or are they some other class of persons who have lesser rights?

In the 2008 case of Boumediene v Bush, a Guantanamo prisoner filed a writ of habeas corpus with the Court.  This motion requires that the government authority holding the prisoner show cause (proof) of the reasons.  The US government argued against answering the “writ,” citing national security and location.  National security  based on the government stating that the “proof” would require them to reveal sensitive intelligence data and sources.  In addition, the government claimed that the prisoner was not located in the US, but in Guantanamo, and therefore not eligible for Constitutional rights.  And finally, as a non-citizen, the right to habeas corpus would not apply.

The Court ruled in favor of the prisoner, stating that the he was within US jurisdiction even if not US territory proper, and therefore gained Constitutional rights.  This even though Boumediene himself was a non-citizen designated an “enemy combatant” in the War on Terror.

In light of these decisions we can draw the following conclusions.  First, non-citizens under US jurisdiction have Constitutional rights (Boumediene.)  Second, while the President’s authority in the interest of national security are powerful, they do not extend to actions based on race (Korematsu).  And that the President does have significant powers when it comes to immigration (Trump.)

So it clearly is within the President’s power to stop illegal border crossings.  While it hasn’t reached the Supreme Court level, lower courts are already weighing-in on the actions of the government to separate families, finding against it. Could the President deny Constitutional rights to due process (legal hearings) to an illegal border crosser who claims the legal right to asylum in the United States, as his tweet demands? Taking the decisions together, I believe not, even in the reign of the conservative Court created by Senator McConnell.

So if there ever was a question if voting makes a difference:  had Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to the Court, been confirmed rather than Neil Gorsuch, this case would have been decided differently.  The outcome is the reward for Senator McConnell’s refusal to allow a vote on Garland. If the Democrats gain control of the Senate in November, they should definitely remember his actions.

 

 

 

Government for Sale

It was Christmas of 1991. Mikhail Gorbachev, the Communist Party Secretary and leader of the Soviet Union, failed.  In his four years of power, the economic and political reforms he introduced to save the Soviet Union, desperate changes to “Communism,” foundered.  The economy didn’t recover, the disparity of wealth between the party apparatchiks and the rest of the people was too great.  The “member states” of the Union had broken away.  Gorbachev had decided to “…tear down this wall” in East Germany, and the readymade markets of Eastern Europe were gone.

Hard line members of the Communist Party revolted against the reforms in August, but were faced down by Boris Yeltsin (standing on a tank) and the people.  The Communist Revolution of 1917 was over:  Gorbachev resigned on Christmas Day, and on New Year’s Eve, 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved.

The Soviet Union was a Communist based economy.  That meant that the means of production, the factories and the stores; were all owned by the government.  So were the collective farms, the fields and machinery.  With the end of the government, all of this went up for sale; up for grabs to the highest bidder.

Much like the US South after the Civil War, those with some money, both insiders and “carpetbaggers,” were able to “buy low” in the fire sale of a buyer’s market.  Billons of rubles were made and lost; and a whole new class of wealthy “apparatchiks” were created.  They were not Communists; their path to government power was based on their money, legal or illegal.  Russia went from a Communist state to a “kelptocracy,” a nation based on theft, the theft of the fortune that was the Soviet Union.  The Russian people were still left with the money at the top, and the vast majority left to struggle.

Those billions of rubles moved throughout the world economy, impacting most aspects of finance.  The world center for financial markets is located in New York City, so it was no surprise that Russian rubles began to exert influence on American business and politics.

There has long been a strain of American conservatism that believes that whatever needs to be done, private industry can do it better.   There is an old cartoon from the early 1960’s that shows Senator Barry Goldwater, the father of modern conservatism, with an aide whispering in his ear “…Senator, the post office has always been owned by the Government.”  It was a joke, the Post Office is an original Constitutional authority of the government.  It’s not a joke anymore.

The Trump Administration issued its proposal for Government reorganization last week, under the fog of the immigration scandal.  The big items:  merging the Departments of Education and Labor into one, “…to address the educational skills and needs of American students and workers in a coordinated way…” and moving all of the nutritional aid programs from the Department of Agriculture into a renamed Department of Human Services (to become the Department of Health and Public Welfare.)

But it’s in the privatization of long government-administered programs where the money can be made. The air traffic control functions of the FAA, and the Postal Service are two services on now to go on the block.  This is in addition to the private contracting of such services as the housing of interned migrants.  The $10 million contract for the “tent city” camp erected in the Texas desert southeast of El Paso, was let to General Dynamics, a company best known for building defense systems.

And now the Trump Administration is looking to build what can only be called internments camps for many thousands of immigrants on military bases throughout the country. Those camps will be paid for by the Defense Department, but the actual building won’t be by the Army Corps of Engineers or the Seabees.  These are high priced contracts, going out to private companies.

It has been the “mantra” of conservatism that private industry can do it better.  We in Ohio have seen the folly in that plan, at least in the traditional government function of education, with the colossal failure of ECOT, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, a private computer based school that received an enormous amount of state funding.  ECOT ultimately enrolled thousands of students who didn’t “attend,” and received millions of dollars for them.  While it is now being sorted out in the courts, at least $60 million in state educational funding was misused.

So while the privatization of government may seem like a good “capitalist” plan, we should look carefully at the available examples.  The “fire sale” of the Soviet Union, that brought us the kleptocrats of Russia, made the rich richer, and left the people even farther behind.  And we know that Russia seems to be admired by the far-right minds that provide the Trump ideology.  And we also know there’s lots of money to be made by “selling” the government.

Doesn’t that sound like ideas designed to appeal to President Trump?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mom’s War

On June 25^th, the Union Jack will fly from the flagpole at my house. Mom would be one hundred years old.  She left us seven years ago, surrounded by her family, and giving instructions until the end.  That was Mom, in charge.

I was thirteen years old in 1970, living in Dayton, Ohio. My Mom was from England; we had been there to visit relatives several times.   I knew she had done something more in World War II than the civil service job she mentioned.  I also knew she had a deep-seated hate for the Germans (a hate that faded when my good friend’s Dad turned out to have served in Luftwaffe.) But I didn’t know much about what Mom did during the War.

1970 was twenty-five years after the end of the War.  It was also when the Official Secrets Act oath expired.  Mom had sworn to keep her wartime activities secret, and had lived up to the promise.  So we were in a car, driving down the South Dixie Highway, when Mom began to tell her story:  the story of a covert operative at war.

Phyllis Mary Teresa O’Connor was born in June of 1918, during the Great War.  She was the fifth and youngest child, and given the nickname Babs that stayed with her the rest of her life.   Her parents did their best to raise their children in the tradition of the British “Public” School (what in the US we would called private boarding schools.) Mom went to several, finishing her education at the Loretto School in Leige, Belgium.  When she returned to London, she was fluent in French with a Belgian accent, and began her study of English Literature at the University of London.

It was the late 1930’s:  as the nations of the world recovered from the Great Depression, the young people found ways to have fun.  Babs was friends with a group studying at Oxford University, and while in her later years she would strongly deny it, they were a partying crew.  She fell for a young man, her “…golden haired Apollo,” and they loved life.  Her parents held an engagement party; twenty men and twenty women attended.

 

“Babs” O’Connor Dahlman – 1945

But Nazism was growing more powerful in Germany, as Hitler moved to take over Europe. The leaders of Great Britain made compromises to appease him, but on September 1^st, 1939, he invaded Poland, starting the Second World War. All of Babs’ male friends went into the service, her fiancé joining the Royal Air Force.  By 1940 the Nazis determined that they could bomb Great Britain “…to her knees,” and the Battle of Britain began.

The Spitfire pilots of the RAF defended the island at a high cost.  Her fiancé, stationed not far from London at Grantham, would “buzz” her home after each mission.  But inevitably, he did not come back; shot down and killed.  Of the twenty men at the engagement party, all perished in the war.

When the war began, military intelligence was forced to staff up quickly.  One major source of personnel was academia, the professors from Oxford and Cambridge were brought in to defend their nation.  As the young men went to the service to fight, their older professors went to the intelligence agencies.  As these same young men died defending the skies over England, a new branch was formed:  Special Operations Executive.  The goal was to run missions in Nazi-occupied Europe, disrupting the infrastructure, and keeping Nazi troops pinned down controlling the countryside.  SOE worked with underground resistance groups throughout Europe, and also performed solo missions.

What SOE needed was dedicated operatives, willing to risk everything, who could blend into the population.  A young woman, educated in Belgium and desperate for a chance for revenge, would be perfect.  Babs was approached by an SOE officer who was familiar with the Oxford group and the fate of her fiancé.  He offered her that chance:  “it would be very dangerous, was I willing to chance my life?”  She was.  She was given a code name:  Virginia.

The select team was trained to be spies.  They practiced tradecraft, how to leave and take secret messages.  They learned how to work the tiny radios, and were trained to memorize at a glance (Mom was a master of “pelmanism,” what we would call fifty-two card pickup.  We thought it was a game.)  They followed each other through the streets of London, learning the art of remaining undetected.

They were sent to commando training in Scotland, climbing cliffs and making forced marches.  Her group raided other groups, practicing their techniques as they stole cases of Scotch. It made the ten mile march back easier.  While a sprained ankle delayed her parachute training, she was still ordered to deploy.  Training was over.

Mom’s favorite plane was called a Lysander.  It was a single engine, top wing plane that could land and takeoff on short and rough runways (we used to visit the one hanging in the Air Force Museum in Dayton.) The SOE used it to fly their agents into fields in Europe, lighted only by a few torches.  Virginia started her first mission from RAF Base Tempsford, headed to France.

Lysander at US Air Force Museum

A chance encounter with a Messerschmitt almost ended things before they began, but the pilot was able to evade, and a few days later she was off again to France.  The Lysander landed in a farm field, met by the Resistance.  Information was exchanged, and soon after another Lysander landed in the field and she was back in England.

During those early missions, Virginia was paired with a teammate, Tony Graham.  Tony was another dashing blonde from Oxford, part of the social group that included her fiancé.   He fell in love with her, and she loved him, but only as a great friend.

Virginia and Tony went on many missions into occupied Europe.  In one, she had the information about the mission, he had the explosives needed for the job.  They landed in Belgium, contacted the underground, and delivered the goods.  A Nazi troop train was destroyed, and Virginia and Tony were picked up by another plane.

The plane was shot up and caught fire.  They bailed out, parachuting back into Belgium.  The pilot wasn’t so lucky, staying with the burning plane into the ground.  Virginia made her way to a safe house.  Tony was on his way to the same place, when he ran into a German tank column, asking for directions.  He directed them in perfect German and both went on their way.  Tony arrived at the safe house, and in a day, both were back in England, Babs at her cover assignment in the pensions office.

Tony was later sent to the Tehran conference (Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt met in Tehran in 1943 to plan the invasion.) He was captured by the Nazis along the way.  Of the ninety-six members of Virginia’s group in SOE, only three survived the war.

Virginia was sent to Yugoslavia (now Serbia) to work with the Resistance there.  She aided in their operations, and met the leader and future dictator of  Yugoslavia, Tito.

When back in London, Babs continued to find ways to have fun.  An American was coming to London and arranged a blind date with her through a mutual friend.  Since Americans had “terrible reputations,” she wanted to meet publicly, so she chose a restaurant called “the Queen’s Brasserie.”  As she described it, “… she kept looking at the tall blonde Americans coming in the door.  But then there was a dark haired smaller man, he looked interesting.”

Don Dahlman – 1944  (thread on canvas by Patricia Dahlman) 

Babs and Don fell madly in love.  They talked through the night, walking through the blacked out streets of London. Don only had suspicions of what Babs did (he had some friends in US Army Intelligence) but he wanted to be near her, so he wrangled a transfer to be closer to London.  They were married on March 27^thof 1944, but their honeymoon was interrupted.  Don was sent to a port in England to prepare for the D-Day Invasion, Virginia was flown to France to help the coastal Resistance groups prepare.

After the invasion, Don followed the fighting across France.  Virginia continued missions ahead of the battle, and for ten months they were separated.  After one mission, she hitchhiked across France to find Don.  When she finally located his unit, he was out on the town and she had to return without seeing him.

As the Nazis faced total defeat, Virginia was sent to search for her SOE teammates in the Concentration Camps, where they might be taken if they weren’t executed.  She found Tony at Dachau.  The Nazis had done brain surgery experiments on him, and there was little left to save. She got him back to England, but there was nothing the doctors could do.  He soon died.  As Mom said, “…Virginia died then too.”

In late 1945, Babs and Don left England for the United States, sailing on separate ships.  They went to Cincinnati (Don’s hometown) to start a family, then teamed together to advance his career in broadcasting.  It wouldn’t be until that drive in 1970 that she would talk about her real role in World War II to family and friends:  Babs, Virginia, Mom; we learned about a real story of sacrifice in the War.

Don and Babs Dahlman – 2008

It is Mom’s 100^thbirthday, and her story lives on.  She had a final request, that as much as she loved the United States, she was “always, always,” to be remembered as a citizen of  England.  We quoted her favorite poet, Rupert Brooke, on her headstone.

 

Mom’s Grave Stone

 Note:  Mom told us many of her stories in the latter years of her life.  We (the family) are lucky to have them both in written and recorded form.  The actual SOE records were destroyed in the 1950’s –burned in a fire – too many lives lost. I have used information from her writings for this essay, as well as my own ‘history teacher’ memory.

My sister Pat has done a complete art work of Mom’s life – link here.  Thanks  for allowing me to use one of her works in this essay.

Men in Black

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

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

K – We’ll check the hot sheets.                             

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

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

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

K – Not looking for —  Found.

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

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

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

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

11/5/16 – Hillary Clinton Hooked on Narcotics

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the “beat goes on,” even recently:

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four Letter Words

WALL

The President tweeted this morning – no surprise there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

DON’T

I Really Don’t Care – Do U?

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

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

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

CAMP

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

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

Senator Jeff Merkley – concentration camps

First Lady Laura Bush – internment camps

Attorney General Jeff Sessions – concentration camps is an exaggeration.

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

WOMP

“Womp-Womp” – Corey Lewendowski

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Find Ken Feinberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This cannot be allowed.

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

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

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