#92 - Patriot's Owner Takes A Stand

Corporations are stoic beasts, often fixated on the bottom line, who are loath to take a political stance which could alienate some part of their customer base and preclude future access to their wallets. But every now and then, some radical thinking CEO decides to pull a “PopEye” and declare that they have had all that they can stand, they can’t stand no more.

New England Patriots owner and CEO Robert Kraft explained his “Popeye” yesterday and why it was a “no-brainer” to lend the team jet to the families of the 17 victims and other injured students of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting who were participating on Saturday in the “March for Our Lives” rally against gun violence in Washington DC.

Kraft acted on a request to lend the team’s Boeing 767 from former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, herself a victim of gun violence, and her husband, Mark Kelly. Kraft’s mini dissertation on the topic and and his clear frustration follows below:

“I have a big problem with what’s going on in Washington and the divisiveness, and no one’s listening to one another, and forgetting where you stand on this issue. So when they called and asked, would you send a plane to help take the wounded kids and their families, kids who couldn’t go on a normal plane, we didn’t hesitate a minute.

“Think, all of you who have kids. Think about losing one of your kids. You wake up in the morning, they go to school, and they don’t come home at night. I just thought this is a way for our organization to reach out to these people who were hurting bad. I can’t think of a worse unnatural thing than losing a child. Think of little kids going to school and seeing bullets, in America, going over their head. Something’s not right, and we’ve got to fix it. Congratulations to these kids for trying to get the attention of this country focused on it.

“I hope our friends in Washington are smart enough to figure out a way to listen to one another and do something that can be positive.”

We applaud your strong words Mr. Kraft, but unfortunately our friends in Washington, specifically our Republican friends, continue to hide out on this issue, so that makes your suggestion to listen to one another a little hard to pull off. With Congress on recess at the end of last week, Republicans had a built-in excuse to literally and figuratively head for the hills on this one, so none of them stuck around to hear what the kids had to say.

Once onboard the Patriots jet, the students and their families were greeted by a letter of support from Kraft which read:

"On behalf of the New England Patriots organization, I want to express our support as you travel to Washington for this weekend's March for Our Lives. In the wake of incredible tragedy, we have hurt for you, mourned with you and been inspired by you. It is an honor for us to now partner with you as you push for progress.

Your community is stirring our country towards a better future. That is the true mark of a patriot. Thank you for your leadership and inspiration. Best wishes as you prepare for takeoff on your journey."

So now, let’s compare Mr. Kraft’s words and deeds to those of the tone deaf dunderhead and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum who suggested on CNN that the students would be better off taking a CPR course rather than trying to motivate a Republican Congress to do something positive for once in their sorry lives.

President Trump at least avoided putting his foot in his mouth on this one, but he did so by high tailing it out of town over the weekend and headed to his personal golf course, again, where his motorcade took the long way home to avoid even driving by protesters. For a brief moment in time, when the President met with survivors of the shooting, we all thought he might actually lead the country forward on this one. But a meeting with the NRA the very next day caused him to crawl back to the safety and comfort of his Twitter feed, and a briefly hoped for bang, ended with a whimper.

Mr. Kraft’s assistance on this worthy effort will certainly lead to some blow back from some of the good ‘ol boys who buy seasons tickets every year, who will view this as a big nod to those on the left who, they will say, harbor a long term goal to repeal the second amendment. But he appears willing to accept it, and we should note that this is not the first time the corporate owner of the New England Patriots has taken a personally difficult stand. He previously stood up for his players’ right to protest during the national anthem at the start of each game. The most interesting part of all this is that it comes from a man who was a big supporter of Mr. Trump and who reportedly donated $1 million to his campaign.

Proving that there are people on both sides of the aisle that can come together and agree on common sense steps to make our country a better place to live.

And for those of you Patriots haters out there, you might ask yourselves, what has your team done to take a stand ? What has your team done to take a risk?

[Footnote - coincidentally, tonight I will be attending the Boston Speaker Series with Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly. I am looking forward to hearing their perspective on this important issue first hand.]

#91 - Steve Mnuchin's Lies and Stupidity On Display, Again.

Chris Wallace on Fox News Today was interviewing Steve Mnuchin, President Trump's Secretary of the Treasury this morning.  For those of you who feel that Fox News is one sided in their outlook and  a cheerleader for DJT,  I would remind you that there are exceptions to every rule, and in Chris Wallace, I offer you at least one exception.

1) On the topic of the Republican tax cut passed at the end of last year.  Wallace reminded Mnuchin
that he and the President both promised Americans that most of the benefits of the corporate tax reductions would go to the workers.   Then he showcased a recent study which clearly showed the bulk of the benefits from S&P 500 Companies have gone to shareholders, as summarized below:

• $5.2 Billion to employees on higher wages and bonuses
• $157 Billion for stock buybacks

Mnuchin said it was still early and stock buybacks were not an equivalent comparison and were a good thing because they get recycled into the economy.  He's right of course, they get recycled in to the economy, right into the pocketbooks of those lucky enough to own stock portfolios, i.e. the rich get richer,  workers get screwed over, and Steve Mnuchin, the President's spokesman on the tax cut, lies....again.

2) On the topic of the President's recent signing of the budget bill, which left many of the President's own base extremely unhappy, Mnuchin complained that the President wanted a line item veto on the budget.  Wallace politely pointed out to Mnuchin that the Supreme Court ruled that the line item veto was unconstitutional, to which Mnuchin replied that Congress could pass a rule that allows them to do it. 

This is where it got ugly.

Wallace then attempted to educate the Secretary on the meaning of the word 'unconstitutional', informing the Secretary that he would need a Constitutional amendment to pass a line item veto

And Mnuchin replied, "I don't want to get into a debate Chris, there are different ways to do to this."

No, Sir, there aren't.  You need a constitutional amendment. Period. 

Lies and stupidity, on display by Secretary Munchin, again, courtesy of the best and brightest of Fox News.   

Thank you Mr. Wallace.  Your father's legacy on 60 Minutes, always in search of the truth, was in full view this morning on another network.  I am sure he was watching and was proud of his son, again.

#90- Perspective Lost: McMaster Out, Bolton In

On February 21, 2017, the day after President Trump announced the selection of Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster as his National Security Advisor, and less than one month into the Age of Trump, I said it was a win for all of us. 

I made that statement based on two early data points which had come out in the news. First, McMaster was well respected by individuals on both sides of the aisle, and second, because he had written a book for taking the military to task for aspects of its public posture during the Vietnam War, which, for those of us who grew up in the sixties, offered an honest perspective of history and with it, the hope they we might learn from our mistakes.

McMaster's work concluded that the Joint Chiefs had been so focused on their own self interests of their different services, that they never properly pressed their opposition to the gradual escalation strategy favored by President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

Retired general David Petraeus would later bring the book to General Hugh H. Shelton when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 1997. Shelton said “It is a valuable resource for leaders of any organization,’’ and made it required reading for all of his staff.
There are two take-a-ways here, the first that McMaster was thoughtful enough to study history and come to a different conclusion than the prevailing wisdom at the time.  The second was that others in our military understand the grave importance of learning from the mistakes of the past, so those mistakes are never repeated.

“Focused on their own self interests”.  Does that remind you of anyone?

Neither of these concepts appear to be part of the repertoire of John Bolton, Trump’s new replacement for National Security Adviser, fresh off another stint as a Fox News Commentator.

We don’t have to go back too far in time to recall that Bolton was a key part of the worst piece of calculus ever formulated in the history of our imperfect democracy.  No one was a louder proponent in the promotion of the invasion of Iraq under the biggest fake news story of the century, the search for the mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Along with Cheney, and Rumsfeld, he concocted the story line that the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms and that US military involvement would be quick and easy.   Right, that worked out well, didn’t it?

It’s mind boggling to me that Bolton and men like him who effortlessly create false narratives to convince the masses and are then proven wrong, aren’t immediately relegated to the trash heap of time, but somehow, the imperfections in our democracy allow them to keep creeping back in.

No, the horrific choice of the Iraq invasion has not seemed to slow down Bolton in the least. Less than a month ago, Bolton made a case in the Wall Street Journal, for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea when he said that “it is perfectly legitimate for the United States to respond to the current ‘necessity’ posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons by striking first.”  Even more noteworthy is that Bolton told Fox News earlier this month that (Trump’s) talks with North Korea would be worthless, and he has called South Korean leaders “putty in North Korea’s hands.”

The real problem is that a case for pre-emptive strike cannot be completely eliminated as a viable option, but when it’s the singular perspective of the boy who cried wolf one too many times and that boy is the National Security Advisor, we are left in a quandary.  We can never feel comfortable listening to this man. 

When Trump selected H.R McMaster to be his National Security Advisor a year ago, I said it was imperative that he listen to McMaster’s advice and I concluded with a warning, that It won't do anyone, any good, on any side of the aisle, if McMaster leaves the administration early and ends up going on to write a sequel to his first book, which was appropriately titled "Dereliction of Duty".

Now sadly, with McMaster’s early departure and the selection of Bolton as National Security Advisor, the odds for war and very possibly, nuclear war, have increased dramatically overnight.  Layer in Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior and his singular self-interest to be perceived as a “winner”, using any means necessary, and at any cost, and I now worry that my greatest fear will come to pass. 

The complete loss of perspective of our own President will lead to catastrophic losses for us all, not just in the United States, but around the world, and the, yet to be published, “Dereliction of Duty of Donald J. Trump” by HR McMaster will become the best read book of the new millennium, for those of us who are still around to read it. 

#89 - Will Hillary Clinton PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEEEEEASE Go Away and Never Come Back?

If I lost a head-to-head election to Donald J. Trump, I would feel such shame, such embarrassment and such abject failure, that I would want to crawl into a hole and never come out.   I mean, let’s face it, it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that a highly trained seal should have beaten Donald Trump.

Apparently, that’s not the belief held by the former Democratic Candidate for President and now (thankfully) irrelevant, Hillary Clinton.      

I could forgive her loss to the Republican candidate.  I could forgive the fact that she wasted one of the best looking resumes ever held by any presidential candidate.  I could forgive the fact that she was handed the nomination on a silver platter, with the support of a popular sitting Democratic President and with the Democratic National Committee secretly sitting in her back pocket. I could forgive the fact that she had the advantage of being the first female President of the United States. I could even forgive the fact that she lost to one of the most horrible individuals on the planet. …. if only for once in her life, she would shut up and stop making excuses.  If only, she would take some responsibility.

This past week proved once and for all, that this will never happen, that she will never accept responsibility for letting our country down and leaving us with Donald Trump.   She will never own her loss. 

Speaking at a conference in Mumbai, India this week Clinton continued her “Make Excuses for Failing America, Again” Tour when she (I) inferred that folks in Red States were pessimistic and backward and (ii) women who voted for Trump were incapable of standing up to their Man

Aggggghhhhhh!  Stop it ! Stop it! Stop it ! You are kiling me ! Has this woman learned nothing in her 18 months of political exile ?  

So you don’t think I am making this stuff up (trust me, I’m not that creative), let me read you her comments.    

Statement 1:
“If you look at the map of the United States, there is all that red in the middle, places where Trump won. What that map doesn’t show you is that I won the places that own two thirds of America’s Gross Domestic product. I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward. And his whole campaign, Make America Great Again, was looking backwards.”

*** So let me get this straight, if I just happen to live in a state you FAILED to carry in 2016, this means I am pessimistic, conforming, boring and backward thinking? My God, I never realized I was so horrible. Maybe I should just go home now and blow my brains out.

Statement #2:

“We do not do well with white men and we don’t do well with married, white women, and part of that is an identification with the Republican Party, and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.”

***Excuse me, I was wrong. All along I thought you were the first women running for President. I completely missed the fact that you were the first Neanderthal.   Tammy Wynette is looking down at you and smiling, while married, white women everywhere want to know if you need to have your meds checked.

Let me sum it up.   If you have to insult and denigrate large parts of America to compensate for your own personal failure, you are no better than, than, than.,...Donald J Trump. 

Oh no, not the ‘D’ Name.  Anything but that!  Swear at her all you want, call her every god-awful curse word in the book, but never use the ‘D’ name!

Too late friends, I already did.

Sadly, Hillary Clinton is incapable of admitting that she just turned out to be poor candidate who turned in a very poor performance.   She won’t admit that she failed to connect with anyone outside her base.  She won’t acknowledge the critical fact that she foolishly neglected the good people in the Midwest who once represented a strong piece of the Democratic base, that her failure to set foot in Michigan and Wisconsin and barely give the time of day to Pennsylvania would cause her to lose a paltry 100,000 votes and the Presidency. She refuses to admit that it was her campaign failure which gave rise to the surprising success of Donald Trump and left our country in such miserable shape. 

While I am sure she would have made a very good president, she was a very poor candidate, and without the later, you don’t get a shot at the former.  It may be unfair, and it may mean that we don’t always get the best people as president, but that’s how they game is played.

Looking ahead, it’s not clear to anyone who the Democrats will put up to oppose Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election.  That is the big question facing the Democrats today. Who will they look to for leadership?  At the moment, it’s anyone’s game. Twenty-plus names have been bantered around with absolutely no one being considered the front runner. 

But after the Hillary Clinton debacle of 2016, maybe that’s the best news the Democrats have had in a long time.

#88 - The Pennsylvania 18th Congressional District Speaks

I had never heard of Rick Saccone, the Republican Candidate, for the 18th Pennsylvania Congressional District, before, until I saw clips of him campaigning with Donald Trump Jr. This image alone was enough to make anyone feel nauseous, but then I heard Saccone speak, and that was enough to make the average person throw up.

Mr. Saccone was wrapping up his campaigning the day before the special election and was speaking with a small group of his supporters. In a sick attempt to galvanize support, he told the attendees there, that - he had seen his opponent’s supporters and…. they hated our country. Worse than that, and his wife had seen this too, they hated God.

Whoa!!

That’s right, apparently because they were supporting Mr. Saccone’s Democratic opponent, they hated our country and they hated God.

On the surface, this seemed to be a bit of a stretch for me, so I thought I would investigate more, and so I posed a few questions to Mr. Saccone.
____________________________

Let me get this right, sir. You both saw this? You and your wife? Really, sir, how do you know this? Oh, I see, you just know.

Do you have videos of them burning the flag? No?

Have they been stomping on your rosary beads? No?

Are you and your wife both telepathic and have you both seen in to the evil dark recesses of their sick and twisted minds? Nooo?

You weren’t abducted by aliens as a child, were you sir? Anal probing would explain a lot, sir. We could be very sympathetic here. Still No ?

Or Mr. Saccone, are you simply taking a page out of Donald J. Trump’s playbook on “How to Hate Your Way to Victory”?

I see a little smile in the corner of your mouth, sir. We nailed it, didn’t we sir ? Yes, yes, we did.
____________________________

Well, sadly for Mr. Saccone, the man proved to be a mere novice attending the Charter School of Haters. He hasn’t spent a lifetime perfecting his message of hate and vitriol like our dear, sweet President has. Generally speaking, it takes a rare person to espouse hate effortlessly, flawlessly, naturally and so happily, but that’s just what makes our President oh so….special.

It’s one thing to be hateful, but it’s another thing to hone the skills necessary to use hate as a galvanizing force. Those skills, take a life time to perfect.

As of this morning, the race was still too close to call with Saccone’s Democratic opponent, Connor Lamb, holding a microscopic lead as absentee ballots were still being counted. And either way, the race will go on to a recount, but the good people of Pennsylvania had spoken.

The 18th Congressional District which had been won by Donald J. Trump by 20 points less than 18 months ago had firmly voted to repudiate the hate espoused by DJT and his DJT wannabe, Rick Saccone.

It may be days or weeks before this race certified, for either Mr Saccone or Mr. Lamb. But no matter how the final votes are counted, make no mistake, this is a win for the good guys.

March 14, 2018

#87 - "Hopefully, You Will Give Me Credit"

Trump walked out of his Thursday meeting with the South Korean National Security Advisor which covered his prospective face-to-face meeting with Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, and while the first inclination of the previous 44 US Presidents would have been to talk it all over with their Secretaries of State, their go-to guys on all affairs foreign, Trump’s instincts took him instead to the pool of reporters down the hall, to announce that there would be a major statement on North Korea. 

VP Mike Pence, dutifully in tow, (because being VP for this great man has unequivocally been the greatest honor of his life) was stone cold silent, perhaps because he was in a complete state of shock that Trump would actually do this, but more likely because he had no idea what crazy thing Trump would do or say next.  In other words, it was just another day at the White House.

The formal announcement that Trump would meet Kim by May 2018  to “achieve denuclearization”  was actually made on Thursday evening on the steps of the White House, by the South Koreans on behalf of the U.S. Administration, apparently because recent staff turnover was much worse than any of us really knew, and we were now reaching out to the foreign offices of Robert Half to back fill the open slots in the White House Communication team.

Indicative of his obsession with feeding his own ego, an excited President Donald J Trump told Jon Karl of ABC News, "Hopefully, you will give me credit," a reference to his bombshell announcement, and also to the undeniable evidence that he is totally clueless as to all the steps that remain ahead.

“Hopefully, you will give me credit”. 

Uggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Those six words sum up with everything that is completely wrong with this President

In his mind, our President has already won the Super Bowl, taken home the MVP trophy and will soon be the star of the victory parade on Pennsylvania Avenue riding on top of a tank (there will be lots of tanks) to the cheers of the adoring crowd,….and he hasn’t even completed the first day of training camp.  He is still waiting in line to get his jock strap.

In our country of over 330 million Americans, it’s all about him.  It always has been, and always will be

Look I get it, he has been getting hammered by the Liberal (but accurate) Press for everything, Russia, Jared, Stormy, record staff turnover, tariffs, more Russia, his failure to advance discussions on immigration or gun legislation and his overall, but incredibly consistent level of incompetence.   And this was just last week.

His ratings are in the toilet, Republicans are set to take a beating in the mid-terms.  So yes, I get it.  Even I feel for the guy. He wants credit for something.  He wants a win. He wants to feel the love.

But please Mr. President, this is a nuclear North Korea.  It’s not a game show.  It’s not reality TV.  North Korea and Kim Jong-un now represent the biggest threat on the world stage.  They are a throw-back to an antiquated world where an entire country is completely, dominated by a third generation child king who has been described as irrational, selfish and childish.  Yes, sir I know.  Yes, he is your kind of guy.

But you are intending to embark on incredibly complex international negotiations which will ultimately require cooperation from China and Russia, and in North Korea, we will be negotiating with a country on which we have very little, good intelligence.

So, please Mr. President listen to you advisers, get Rex Tillerson out of bed, leave Jared the Boy Wonder at home, bring back the recently retired State Department's designated North Korea envoy, Ambassador Joseph Yun to come back in to work for you.  Tell him this time, you will actually listen to his ideas.  Get some help Mr. President. Don’t try to do this on you own.  Even you fiercest critics (I’m not at that level yet, but I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t a personal goal), even your fiercest credits want you to succeed.  I want you to succeed.

This is too big.  This is too critical. Don’t expect to tweet your way to victory.  Take it one game at a time, and for God‘s sake, Sir, put the victory parade completely out of your head for two very important reasons:

1) You might not ever get there, and you know that old expression about “the bigger they are”...

2) It will distort your negotiations terribly. It will cause you to make terrible decisions. It will make you behave in irrational ways…Yes Sir, I know, this all sounds pretty good to you, but, but..

Either way, if the victory parade is your ultimate motivation here, it won’t end well for any of us.  No Sir.   You want to succeed Sir, because it’s good for all Americans, and it’s good for the Rest of the World.   It’s good for America, it’s good for the World. It’s good for America, It’s good for the World.  That’s it Sir, keep repeating it.  You can do it Sir. Keep repeating. It’s good for America.  It’s good for the World.

Keep your eye on the ball Sir.  Stay focused and please know that you are my horse in this horse race and I want you to succeed.

Oh, but don’t think for a second that I will every vote for you Sir, it will be a cold day in hell before that ever happens.  But I do want you to succeed.