#65 - Trump Week In Review - 10.6.17

PUTTING THE PR IN PR - When George W. Bush told his then Director of FEMA, Michael Brown, “Brownie”, that he was doing a great job in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it was laughable, but it only lasted about 12 seconds.  When President Trump arrived on the devastated island of Puerto Rico, reeling from Hurricane Maria, it was clearly for purposes of Public Relations, and the self-congratulatory love fest that kicked off his visit lasted more than 12 minutes, and as a result it was that much more painful to witness.  With only a passing view of the pain and suffering of the residents of Puerto Rico, the focus was clearly on the Trump Brand, as DJT went around the room, teeing up the representatives from the various government groups to let them expound on their own greatness in their response to this natural disaster and to dismiss any dialogue to the contrary as political and fake.  It has never been about Making America Great Again, it's only been about Brand Trump.  If something positive also happens to America, well, that’s just a lucky coincidence.

FROM THE INNER SANCTUM OF TRUMPWORLD- NBC reported it had multiple sources that confirmed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had threatened to resign in July and that said Tillerson referred to President Trump as a moron (aligning his perspective with that of 60+% of the American Public).  When asked about the authenticity of the comment, Tillerson did a typical political pivot common among lifelong Washingtonians, appeared insulted at the question, failed to respond directly, and fell back on the “I’m not from Washington” excuse, adding that “where I come from, we don't deal with petty stuff....Not exactly sure where Tillerson is from, but clearly DJT has never been there.

HONEST REPUBLICAN OF THE WEEK - As reported in Fox News Insider, when asked about a reported feud between the President and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson,  Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said “I think Secretary Tillerson, Secretary [of Defense James] Mattis, and Chief of Staff [John] Kelly are those people that help separate our country from chaos”. That's c-h-a-o-s, spelled T-R-U-M-P ……..the White House tried to spin Corker’s response as if it referred to chaos in the world. Nice try by spin monkeys there, but read the question he was asked, and their excuse fails miserably.

FROM THE “CAN THEY LOOK AT THEMSELVES IN THE MIRROR?” DEPARTMENT - President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, as a Georgia congressman railed against the use of private jets by members of Congress, resigned from his post, for … use of private jets.  Republican Congressman Tim Murphy (PA), known largely for his anti-abortion stance promptly resigned his position, once the news came out that … he asked his mistress to have an abortion.

WHEN CORPORATIONS EXHIBIT TRUMPLIKE BEHAVIOR - Facebook, with a mission statement “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”, refused to re-release the 3,000+ ads linked to Russian entities and turned over to Congress.  You read that correctly, I said “re-release”, because Facebook was already PAID to release them the first time.  Apparently, full transparency and empowering community are mutually exclusive.  Time to unfriend Mark Zuckerberg.

AMERICANS NO LONGER VOTING WITH THEIR POCKETBOOKS  (Suffolk / USA Today Poll. 9.26 - 10.1) - Despite the stock market being at an all-time high and unemployment at extremely low levels, 64% of American say the country is on the wrong track, while only 24% say country is going in the right direction. 

Further, 57% want Congress to stand up to Trump while just 33% want Congress to cooperate with Trump.  Imagine, Americans now want help from Congress.  Is this the definition of “desperation” in the new millennium?

SADNESS OF THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING - DJT behaved relatively well in dealing with this horrible tragedy, and for that, we should all be grateful.  In moments like these which shape the psyche of a nation, we want our President to be presidential, even if we disagree with just about everything about him.

37 weeks down, 171 to go.

#64 - The Trump Family's $4+Billion Tax Break

On Wednesday, while speaking about his newly introduced tax plan, President Donald J. Trump
told Americans "I think there’s very little benefit for people of wealth.”

Really? So, how many of you actually buy that one?   I think this one deserves a bit more scrutiny.

On May 17, 2016, then presidential candidate Donald J. Trump filed a new personal financial disclosure form that detailed a net worth of more than $10 billion (Reuters)

$10 billion. Yes, the decimal is in the right place, $10 billion.   Every modern presidential candidate with the exception of Pat Paulson, has released copies of their personal income tax returns, but DJT refused to do so in the past presidential campaign, telling Americans that it wasn't necessary, because the financial disclosure forms actually contained MORE information than his tax returns. Despite ongoing pressure from Democrats, Republicans in congress ignored the matter and didn't make income tax return disclosure a requirement of the campaign, possibly because the little munchkins saw DJT as the wonderful but mysterious wizard and willfully chose to follow him down the yellow brick road, desperately hoping the wizard would fulfill each one of their individual wishes

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be pointed out that several financial organizations such as Bloomberg News estimated DJT's net worth to be closer to $3 billion at the time, but DJT claimed this was fake news at its finest, spread by the liberal elite who were jealous of his greatness.  As always, his audience was his base, and the $10 billion figure, accurate or not, was there to impress all the little people. 

And so if he was worth $10 billion back in May 2016, with markets up over 20% since then, he's probably worth closer to $12 billion today. How could such a great man be worth anything less?

I hope to grow up and be just like him some day.

Fast forward to this week, when DJT announced his new tax plan. 

He had to announce something, for the effort to "Repeal and Replace" the Affordable Care Act was replaced with "Rewind and Regurgitate... Again", and its most recent form, it failed... again (a topic for another day, I promise).

So the new tax plan was pulled out of moth balls, and as we suspected, 
(i) it does very little for the little guy, 
(ii) significantly reduces the income tax burden for the top 1% of income tax earners as it lowers the top income tax rate from 39.6% to 35%, and
(iii) because it's a net tax cut, the country's annual deficits and debt levels will balloon way beyond there already excessive levels. 

Many of my old conservative, and now deceased, good republican friends are rolling over in their graves on the last point. DJT will tell you, worry not, we are going to grow our way out of these deficits, which might be believable if the message didn't come from someone with lower credibility than Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon.

What seems to be getting much less press is the fact that the DJT tax plan also eliminates the estate tax, a.k.a. the death tax.

That's not surprising really, and the reason is the vast majority of Americans aren't impacted by it.  According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 99.8% of estates owe no federal estate tax at all, leaving only the estates of 0.2% of the wealthiest Americans to pay up.  According to the Tax Policy Center, just 4,700 estates were taxable in 2013.

How does the estate tax work? If you have a net worth of $11 million or more, you probably already know, because a married couple can avoid paying estate taxes on this amount, but, and this is the kicker, must pay a 40% federal tax on any excess.  

So if you are in the stratoshere of the ultra-wealthy, this change in the tax law is the holy grail.   And if it passes, just think of all that excess cash that can be freed up to go to in to the new, "Donald Trump is God" Super PAC, which should be up and running around the time the 2020 Presidential election kicks off.

Now while very wealthy individuals can take some steps to lower the impact the estate tax, in the case of the Trump family, based on DJT's personal assessment of his net worth, they could be looking at estate tax bill of roughly $4.8 billion (40% of $12 billion) when the big guy goes to that great big real estate tower in the sky.  Not exactly chump change.

But that all goes away, if he is successful in his effort to repeal the tax, a fact that DJT seemed to ignore when he told Americans  on Wednesday “I don’t benefit. I don’t benefit. In fact, very, very strongly, as you see, I think there’s very little benefit for people of wealth.”

Let's play that one back, again....in slow motion,  so we can all thoroughly grasp his point... THERE'S VERY LITTLE BENEFIT... FOR PEOPLE OF WEALTH

Now I find this remarkable on several levels.  

- First, that DJT can actually make the statement without twitching uncontrollably and exploding like the Hindenburg. 
- Second, that he thinks his base won't be the least bit bothered by his bold face lie.
- And third, that his base won't be the least bit bothered by his bold face lie.

It's just mind bongling, his base seems to epitomize the term "selective recall", as they have the uncanny ability to selectively ignore the collective falsehoods espoused by their man, if they happen to contradict their own personal image of their own personal wizard.

They seem willing to gloss over this massive tax benefit he will deliver to his family and to tolerate absolutely anything he says or does, on any given day, on any given topic, perhaps because they still believe him when he says,

that Mexico will pay for the wall, and it will be beautiful.

#63 - In the Crosshairs of DJT's DOJ

So I took the day off from work today, a beautiful sunny fall day in New England, there is nothing like it really,  but a story caught my attention, that sent a chill up my spine.

As reported in the New York Post and on CNN today, that the Trump administration reportedly has obtained search warrants that would allow them access to the Facebook pages of thousands of anti-Trump protesters.

The requested data would include information on about 6,000 individuals who “liked” an anti-Donald Trump Facebook page, according to CNN.

Welcome to Donald Trump’s America, Welcome to the New World. It appears that DJT feels emboldened after calling out NFL protesters as SOB’s and telling the owners they should be fired.   He need’s to feed more red meat to his base, and must now target others who don't think he walks on water.  By vilifying others, he keeps all of his supporters marching to the beat of his own perverted drum.

Now it’s probably even money that I could eventually become a target of this probe, for in addition to posting “With Malice Toward None (...mostly)” to my small Facebook page, I post to half a dozen left leaning Facebook groups including a couple which are specifically Anti-Trump in nature.

My posts seem to resonate with those groups, and as there are over 60 posts, most of which deal with the natural born incompetence and egotistical, selfish persona of DJT, and average a couple of pages in length, I am thinking yes, I may eventually end up in the crosshairs of the DOJ. 

But that is fine by me, I welcome the fight.  So tell Jeff Sessions, that he can come and get me, I’ll be here waiting for him, but tell him this, and please quote me accurately.

“I’ll give you my keyboard when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.”

#62 - Standing on the Sidelines No More

During the presidential campaign, then candidate Trump told his fan base that only he could unite the country, only he could bring the country together.

I have to say, I never thought there was a grain of truth to it. I thought there was a higher probability that the moon was made of cheese.  But after the events of this weekend, I have to admit, I was flat out wrong. Donald Trump has exceeded even my jaded expectations and actually unified a large portion of America.

On Friday night at yet another one of Trump’s post-campaign, political campaign rallies, in one of the reddest of all the states, Alabama, in a clear attempt to placate his base of supporters, the President said that the NFL owners should fire any NFL player who refuses to stand during the National Anthem at the start of all the NFL games.  He referred to “those people” as “sons of bitches”, subsequently tweeted that the fans should boycott games until owners take these corrective steps.

He was essentially advocating that the owners break the law and fire employees (many of whom are under guaranteed contracts) for exercising their constitutional right of free speech, by kneeling during the national anthem to protest against abuse of people of color by police.

In the process he turned a very small story on the political landscape into a much, much bigger one. What began as a protest by a few NFL players against the oppression of people of color, was transformed into a fight for the individual right of free speech.  What followed were statements by the commissioner of the league, many of the team owners, including Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots, who contributed $1 million to the President’s campaign, in support of those individual rights of their players and for that matter, everyone.

And so this Sunday, across the league you had many teams protest the hate speech from the Commander-in-Chief by standing for the national anthem, arms linked together as a show a solidarity for their brothers who might choose to kneel for the anthem.  Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, not exactly a liberal snowflake, took a knee with his players in front of a giant American flag as it was unfurled just before the singing of the anthem,

New York Jets chairman and CEO Christopher Johnson, whose brother, Woody, is the ambassador to England and one of Trump’s most ardent supporters, called it ‘‘an honor and a privilege to stand arm-in-arm unified with our players during today’s national anthem’’ in East Rutherford, N.J.

The Jets, who some said, wouldn't win a game this year, beat the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, 20 – 6.   Unity certainly has a way of bringing out the very best of us

But the events of the day was summed up best by Joe Lockhart, Executive Vice President of Communications when he said: “I’d say looking at yesterday, everyone should know — including the president — that this is what real locker room talk is,’’

Trump’s attempt to use a singular absolute view of patriotism as a way to define himself as a leader and to denigrate others who have a different opinion than he, offers a perspective that virtually all NFL players and a significant majority of Americans find, pick your descriptive term: baffling, absurd, wasteful, valueless, infuriating, insulting, hateful, way beneath the dignity of any American, especially the President, but was….pretty much just another day at the office for the 45th President of the United States.

Trump’s perverse desire to divide Americans, while distracting us from the more important issues of the day: North Korea, Puerto Rico,  our health care system, has had the energizing effect of motivating those, who previously found it safer, both literally and figuratively, to just stay on the sidelines, to, for the first time in their lives, take a position, to kneel or lock arms or speak out and jump into the fray because in many ways they know, that hell will freeze over before this approach makes America great again.

With all this being said, it is not lost on me that I need to apologize to my President, for ever doubting that he had the necessary skills to unite us all.  I was terribly mistaken. 

So, Mr. President, from the bottom of my heart, I offer my sincerest gratitude, only you could bring the country together, only you could unite is, with that singular focus on a common goal, to protest you Sir, to protest you.

#61 - Rocket Man

In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Donald Trump was his typical Trumpster self.  Ignoring dialogue favored by diplomats around the world for generations, Trump used language typically reserved for that Tweeter thing he likes so much.  Referencing “loser terrorists” and calling the international nuclear deal on Iran “an embarrassment to the United States” and just for yuks, coming close to declaring war on Venezuela, just to throw out a little more red meat for that very red base of his, he still managed to save his best for Dennis Rodman’s BFF both on and off the court, that short little chubby guy with the funny haircut, from North Korea, Kim Jong-un.

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump said on Tuesday. “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

Poor Elton John.  What did he do to deserve this?

Now Trump’s success in the primaries and in the election in coming up with Twitter friendly derogatory putdowns of all of his opponents, you know them all - Lying Ted, Lazy Jeb, Crooked Hillary etc, etc, may have led him to conclude that if he simply calls the chubby little guy some kind of nasty name, he will roll over and die, like the rest of Trump’s mediocre opponents did along the way. But I have my doubts. 

I’m just not sure “Rocket Man” should have been Trump’s go to insult.  It's not clear what the impact will be on this one.  The little guy might take it as a compliment, a pretty mild insult, or just an accurate description of one his bigger hobbies.  Either way, I don't consider this approach as adding value to the matter in any way whatsoever. 

North Korea has been a major thorn in the side of the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations going back 24+ years and now under the “leadership” of Kim Jong-un, the thorn has been getting bigger and has been getting pushed in deeper.  With each passing year North Korea has been improving both its nuclear capabilities and the delivery systems for those weapons and making America look weak and inept at dealing with this crisis.  And in recent months their progress on both of these technical fronts has accelerated. So now, through no fault of Donald Trump, North Korea now represents the single biggest wild card on the nuclear horizon.  China, Russia, the United States and other nuclear nations would all acknowledge that any nuclear armed confrontation is a lose, lose proposition, and as such, this belief has acted as a built-in control and provided humanity with a high degree of comfort that no one, absolutely no one would be dumb enough to actually engage in such an “undertaking”.  That’s been the working theory for 70+ years now and it has kept most of the world relatively safe.

Well that was before, and this is now.  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, completely (double emphasis intended) dominated by a third generation child king who has been described as irrational, selfish and childish. Recent reports have said he has a fondness for caviar, teen sex slaves and gory public executions. In an attempt to consolidate power and put an end to any possible political threats, it has been said that he has had his uncle and his half-brother assassinated. In other words. he appears to be a highly functional and sadly perverted, whack job.     

Enter Donald Trump, who was appropriately warned by numerous members of the outgoing Obama administration that North Korea represented the single biggest threat to America (If Obama knew this crisis was going to be placed in the lap of Donald Trump, do you think he might have been a bit more pro-active on this one?)  

In recent months, Trump has directly insulted Kim Jong-un by saying that he is not as powerful as he thinks he is, and announced that we were sending a big, huge powerful armada to the seas off of North Korea, even though someone forgot to tell the armada, which was actually moving AWAY from North Korea at the time.  Still more recently Trump has threatened to “rain fire and fury on North Korea, the likes of which the world has never seen”.  And now in Tuesday’s U.N. speech, without any attempt to offer a diplomatic olive branch, Trump threatens to “totally destroy” Rocket Man and North Korea.   Just in case you glossed over it, “totally destroy” is secret code for “Nuclear annihilation”

If Donald Trump has a strategy here, and I sure as hell hope he does, it seems to be that he announcing to Kim Jong-un, that “I am bigger, bader whack job than you!”

Sadly, this may be the extent of the Trump Doctrine, because on top of the fact that he offered no visible path for diplomacy to North Korea, he infers that the previously negotiated international nuclear deal with Iran deal might be on the chopping block.  This point is not helpful to getting North Korea to bend toward any type of diplomatic solution…on yes, that’s right, another nuclear deal.

Personally, I don’t subscribe to the theory that Trump employs strategy in anything he does.  I think the more accurate version of reality, is that on any given day, he is not sure who he is, what he stands for, and doesn’t have a clue about well, a lot.  While he says he is “detail oriented”, he is anything but that.   No, the simple truth here is Donald Trump really is a whack job.  But maybe the beauty of this, the potentially powerful beauty, is that in dealing with North Korea, this may absolutely be the best way to deal with them.  For if you subscribe to the theory that the Donald really is a whack job, as I do, there is simply no evidence on the planet to contradict the fact that he is certainly a bigger one and a much more powerful one than Kim Jong-un.

The Trump Administration has already achieved some level of success in getting Russia and China to back increased, but still not a high enough, level of economic sanctions against North Korea, either a sign of Trump’s diplomatic acumen or a sign of just how dangerous this situation has now become (I’m going with the second choice here).  Still, this is not something that Obama, Bush or Clinton could have pulled off.  Whether you agreed or disagreed with any of their positions or policies, they were all simply too… reasonable.

Having said all this, I don’t want you to think I am oblivious to the danger of having the most important man in the world (oh, how it hurts me to say this) actually be a whack job in his own right.   I get it, things can also go horribly wrong, and in the worst of situations countless innocent people can be killed or harmed, but I have a certain amount of faith that some of the people surrounding Trump, will, when the rubber really meets the road on this one, pull our guy back from the brink and avoid a catastrophe of epic proportions.  We have seasoned veterans with important military experience including Secretary of Defense James Mattis, National Security Advisor, HR McMaster (See Post # ) and Chief of Staff John Kelly, advising Trump.  They understand the grave consequences of going to war.  They will speak up to the President, for they know the possible ramifications if they do not.   Therein lies the difference between the United States, even with Donald Trump at the helm, and North Korea.  In North Korea, if you say something the that Kim Jong-un doesn’t like, you get shot.

We can only hope that all of this is just our whack job’s amped up attempt at a very simplistic Good Cop / Bad Cop strategy that Trump is attempting to execute, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has seemingly be missing in action for most of the year, has secretly been working behind the scenes and actually working on a diplomatic solution.  We could also hold out hope that Jared, the Boy Wonder, has been pressed into action on this one, but then again….

While I have dissed Donald with some frequency (and you have my personal commitment, I will continue to do so), more for his incredibly consistent level of incompetence (a strong attribute of the highest caliber whack jobs) and less on his policy, and while I personally disagree with all of his bombastic rhetoric regarding North Korea, and don't believe it is helpful, as difficult as it is for me to say, he is still my horse in this horse race.  

So I am not at all ashamed to say that I am absolutely rooting for our whack job on this one.

And the rest of the world should be rooting for him too, as difficult as that may be.

#60 - Bookends to the Hijacking of Patriotism, Part 2

My earlier post on this topic dealt with Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who chose to kneel during the national anthem as a form of protest to the oppression of people of color, and in the process they hijacked a common show of patriotic honor for their own special cause.

This post deals with President Trump’s campaign rally in Phoenix last week.  

Mr. Trump is always in rare form at his rallies.  He behaves as if he is still on the campaign, and he feeds off of the crowd, and the crowd feeds off of him.  It’s as if they were all once part of an original single cell organism, and they divided and divided and divided again, and with each division the resulting generations of offspring became more and more detached from reality, but at the same time, they all became more attached through an invisible umbilical cord to the amoeba-in-chief who despite being elected to the most powerful position in the world, still behaves pretty much like a single cell organism.

Anyway, at last week’s rally, President Trump, delivered a speech in which he called journalists “sick people.”

While criticizing media coverage has long been a surefire tactic to rile up his crowds, the depth of the President’s most recent jabs took even seasoned journalists by surprise. He accused the news media of “trying to take away our history and our heritage” and questioned their patriotism.

“I really think they don’t like our country, I really believe it” he said.

By now, the Liberal Press should be accustomed to the attacks and name calling from Mr. Trump, it's just part of the shtick that he pulls out for all of his rally goers. And it makes them feel good to boo and hiss whenever he brings them up and makes them seem like evil villains.

But the comments at the Phoenix rally were more alarming to journalists than most of his previous attacks.  Margaret Sullivan, a media columnist for The Washington Post, called it “the most sustained attack any president has ever made on the press.”

But I want to specifically focus on his comment where he said he believed that journalists didn't love our country.  In politics, it's certainly fair game to go after your opponents and challenge their positions, their experience, their skills, and  their competency.  I do it all the time, and with Mr. Trump, as we all know, there is never a shortage of material.

But I have never challenged his patriotism, nor to the best of my somewhat limited knowledge on this particular point, have I ever heard any members of the Flaming Liberal Press or the perpetrators of Fake News from CNN do so either. 

So while this was just one line from another one of Trump’s misguided, ego-gratifying rallies, it represented a serious escalation in the rhetoric against the press.   Most independent minded thinkers are fully aware of Trump’s tendency to misstate facts or just make something up on the fly, and this includes many of his supporters.  While they might acknowledge this behavior, it does not change their support for him. 

But in my mind this one is just a bridge too far.  Once again, Mr Trump attempts to vilify those who might oppose him, in this case the Liberal press, but this time he does it by making the case to his rally goers that if you are patriotic, you are with him. But if you have a different opinion, you are not. 

And not only are you unpatriotic, you are also sick.

We have almost become numb, hearing the extraordinary amount of divisive commentary from this man, but this one I can not forget and I will not forgive, not because it is another vile attempt to belittle and denigrate those who disagree with him,  but because he has the outlandish gall to hijack our collective patriotism and use it to fit his own minuscule political purpose.

While I do disagree with Colin Kaepernick’s protest of the national anthem, I do observe that his actions were intended for the benefit of others.   When Donald Trump did it, it was solely for the benefit of Donald Trump.

Neither one was good, but Trump’s stands out because of the intended animosity and hatred.   And more importantly because he is the President of the United States.

#59 - Bookends to the Hijacking of Patriotism, Part 1

Two stories caught my attention this week

The first was the continuing story of some NFL players who are choosing to kneel during the national anthem, following the lead of former San Francisco Forty Niner Colin Kaepernick who first did it back in a 2016 pre-season game stating:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color”
”

When this first started, despite the fact that I personally sympathize with his position and believe minorities are not certainly not free from discrimination in our country, I was mildly miffed.  At the time I thought it was just a “one and done” story, but believed there were better ways to express a position.  Still, I wondered what compelled Kaepernick, and then eventually some other players, to grab attention this way in order to make their protest. 

I hadn't given it that much consideration until I read a response from former (Super Bowl Champion) New England Patriot Defensive End Chris Long who discussed his recent 'symbolic' gesture of putting his left hand on the shoulder of a kneeling teammate and said it proved the power of national anthem protests

Long (son of Howie Long, a popular sportscaster, a Hall of Fame defensive end and a product of Charlestown and Milford, MA) has had strong feelings about social issues in this country for years.  Long spoke to NFL.com last Tuesday about anthem protests, saying that his gesture proved how effective protests are in generating a conversation:

“No one gave a (expletive), frankly, until I put my hand around Malcolm. That just goes to show you the power of symbolic protests. All of a sudden, everyone cares about my protest, but they never cared about my actions — which kind of proves, well, why do you need (to protest during the anthem)? If guys were just like, ‘Hey, I’m over here! I want to talk about social issues,’ the reporters would be like, ‘We don’t care.'

Hearing this blunt rationale directly from one of the protesters made it really sink in, and as a result, made me disagree with it even more.  Let me first say that I applaud, celebrate and and honor any individual who fights for social issues or serves others who are in need, whatever that need is.  Those individuals represent the best our country has to offer.

From what I know of Chris Long, he is highly principled and caring man, however, he appears to believe that his voice and his opinion is so much more exceptional than the opinions of the rest of us, that he is deserving of special attention.   All of these players must feel that their voices must be heard, and so they pick the national anthem to amp up the volume. They have decided that their end justifies any means. 

Conservatives have frequently denigrated the “Liberal Hollywood types” who upon winning some type of award, use that podium as an opportunity to speak out for some ideal or against some perceived wrong.  I never had an issue with that, as they had earned the right to speak and be heard.  It’s a wonderful example of the exercise of free speech.  You can do it on a soapbox on a street corner or in a post on the Internet or at an awards ceremony where you have been given 90 seconds or so to thank your friends and family and/or make a point. 

But standing for the national anthem, removing your hat, putting your hand over your heart, and even singing (if you can hit the high notes) seems like a sacred moment to me, and I’d like to think is it for all of us.  It is a reminder that we are a country where free speech is embraced, despite the difficulties which often surface as a result of its exercise. 

And so when Colin Kaepernick and others kneel during the anthem, it feels both counter-intuitive and counterproductive to the cause they wish to discuss.  They believe that their cause is so special that they choose to protest a solemn moment for others in the stadium. They protest the county which grants them free speech as an indisputable right, but they want more than free speech, they want a podium, and a large one at that.  Near as I can tell, that is not a right guaranteed to us in the Constitution, and so for a brief but solemn moment, they choose to hijack our collective patriotism, in a poor attempt to promote their cause.

They are just looking for a shortcut, while the rest of us have to take the long way around.   I don't believe that deserves any sort of special treatment.

Look for Bookends to the Hijacking of Patriotism - Part 2, to follow.  

#58 - Blinded by the Light

“I am blinded by the light,

Of God and Truth and Right,

And I wander in the night without direction”

Some might disagree with me, but I believe these lyrics are an apt metaphor for this man's entire life.

__________________________

In the aftermath of  yesterday’s remarkable solar eclipse, I have seen multiple references to Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded by the Light” from his first album (and still one of personal favorites), “Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ”, but when I saw this picture of Mr. Trump blindly staring up at the sun, the specific lyrics above came jumping back in to my mind.

They are from “Flowers Never Bend After the Rainfall” (1966) by Simon & Garfunkel off of their “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme” album, another personal favorite (yes, I am dating myself) .

The full lyrics follow below:

READ ALL OF THEM, and tell me, they don’t shout ‘Donald Trump’

Flowers Never Bend After The Rainfall

Through the corridors of sleep
Past shadows, dark and deep
My mind dances and leaps in confusion
I don’t know what is real
I can’t touch what I feel
And I hide behind the shield of my illusion

So I’ll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall

The mirror on my wall
Casts an image dark and small
But I’m not sure at all it’s my reflection
I am blinded by the light
Of God and truth and right
And I wander in the night without direction

So I’ll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall

No matter if you’re born
To play the king or pawn
For the line is thinly drawn ‘tween joy and sorrow
So my fantasy
Becomes reality
And I must be what I must be and face tomorrow

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Always loved Simon & Garfunkel, but never really appreciated they were visionaries...

#57 - Miltary Principals In An Imperfect Democracy

You have to feel good that our military leaders get it. 

The associated comfort reassures us, that while we may have our disagreements on different issues, through it all the military seamlessly holds true to its principals.  It is a sign that despite the level of angry discourse which only seems to increase by the day, and despite the clear imperfections in our wonderful democracy, we did get something right in the creation of our new nation more than 240 years ago.  This is no small fete, and it should be acknowledged and celebrated.

My father served in Africa and Italy in WWII and several of my uncles were in both the European and Pacific theaters.  But there is no way I could say that I was from a military family.   In those days, everybody served, everybody was equal and everyone did their part.  One might observe that they were forced to do so, forced to put their petty differences aside, and come together to fight for their way of life.  It's hard to argue this was not a uniting cause, still, it could have gone the other way, but it didn't.  It's why Tom Brokaw referred to them all as the Greatest Generation.

The descendents of that generation live on today, and while their numbers are sadly much smaller now, their individual and collective resolution is much greater.   Along with their families, they represent approximately one percent or our country who have chosen to serve.    They would tell you they are serving our country, and the principles upon which it was built.  But in the process, they are serving the rest of us, the other 99% who go about their daily lives content with letting others do all the heavy lifting.  On any given day,  they might ask why don't others step up and make similar sacrifices, or any sacrifices for that matter?  While this would be a justifiable request on their part, we never hear it.  It is not how they lead.  Their principles require them to serve, to sacrifice and to lead by example, but deep down, they must hold out hope that their actions will inspire others to find a better path.

They know instinctively why they fight, why they serve, they don't have to stop to contemplate their actions.  Their principles  are reinforced by their shared sacrifices and commitment, and most importantly, by their desire to not let their brothers down, all of their equal brothers.

So it was not shocking to see that  America's top-ranking military officers spoke out against racial bigotry and extremism in the immediate aftermath of President Trump’s bizarre and controversial press conference on Tuesday, which was supposed to be about infrastructure, but turned into the latest of many examples of the Trump Train jumping off the tracks yet again.

[From the LATimes] The members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- the senior uniformed brass of the Navy, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force -- all posted messages on their official Twitter accounts to denounce the far-right extremists behind Saturday's violence in Charlottesville, Va.   The messages did not mention Trump, who is the commander in chief, by name. But the rebuke seemed clear in several posts given the bipartisan furor over Trump's insistence Tuesday that "both sides" were at fault for the violence.

“The Army doesn't tolerate racism, extremism, or hatred in our ranks,” Gen. Mark Milley, chief of staff of the Army, tweeted Wednesday. “It's against our Values and everything we've stood for since 1775.”

For the military, this represented a rare public foray into domestic politics, that revealed growing concerns about the judgement of our current President.  And they speed and consistency with which they ALL responded was just another example of their principles on display.  While it lacked the visual of a military parade, it was still a show of force, reinforced by a heritage of shared sacrifice and commitment.

Yet as rare as this response was, it was not the first time the US Military delivered a message to the country that their values would not be compromised by the man sitting in the Oval Office.  Back on the morning of July 25, seemingly out of the blue President Trump tweeted out that “the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military”. (See post 54 - Transgender Transgression”

Clearly blindsided by the President’s lack of comprehension of the impact of his tweet, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford quickly responded in a statement. "There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President's direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued guidance."

It both responses, our military leaders were reinforcing that shared principal of fighting for the man next to them against all enemies, be they domestic or foreign.

In both responses, our military leaders were stepping in to fill the void of leadership created when the executive branch of our government went off the rails, again.

In both response, our military leaders were providing comfort to all of us that there is still hope for our imperfect democracy.

You just have to feel good that our country still has a few good men who get it.

I do, and I am just so grateful. 

#56 - Freedom of Speech on Display in Charlottesville, Virginia

The First Amendment to the Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law …. prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging THE FREEDOM of SPEECH, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble”.  Along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, the amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791.  Fifteen years earlier, in 1776, the second year of the American Revolutionary War, the precursor of this Right is seen in the action of the Virginia colonial legislature when this body passed its Declaration of Rights.

Fast forward to the events of yesterday when the right of free speech was on display again in Virginia, this time in the city of Charlottesville.   A planned rally was organized to protest the removal of a statute of Robert E. Lee and promoted as “Unite the Right”.   The organizers and the critics both said it was expected to be one of the largest gatherings of white supremacists in recent times attracting the KKK and Neo-Nazis, with movement leaders such as David Duke and Richard Spencer.  Duke told reporters Saturday that the protesters were going to “fulfill the promises of Donald Trump” and “take our country back”.  Chanting Nazi-era slogan and waving Confederate Flags, the protesters began chanting “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us”.

In response, counter-protesters made up of religious leaders and Black Lives Matter activists and antifascist groups known as Antifa surrounded the park singing spiritual songs, chanting and carrying their own flags.

When the dust cleared, Freedom of Speech had sadly claimed several innocent victims, led by some whack job who decided to try some ISIS inspired tactic and drive in to a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring others.  In addition, two policemen were killed in helicopter crash, the unfortunate victims of the unintended consequences of the day.

For the record, I want to observe that the Far Right does not have a monopoly on whack jobs, for we only have to look to the shooting of Republican Congressman Steve Scalise and three other individuals shot back in June as Republican lawmakers and aids conducted baseball practice in preparation for an upcoming game against their Democratic counterparts.

I make that point so you understand that the purpose of this post is not to focus on the perverted driver who drove into the crowd of counter-protesters, no, I wish to save my commentary for our President’s failure to specifically call out the actions of these white supremacist nut jobs.  So let’s look at what the President had to say when he spoke briefly on the protests from his private golf club in New Jersey.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides It has been going on for a long time in our country -- not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America."

With the events of the day being what they were, it was hard to comprehend the President’s reference to condemn hatred “on many sides, many sides’.   For in this case, on this day, there were the White Supremacists on one side and, well, everyone else on the other side, i.e. the good guys

.

The President did not mention white nationalists and the alt-right movement in his remarks, and later called for a "study" of the "situation.

So while our commander in chief, struggles to decide what to do about one of the biggest zits on the face of America, other Republicans, who already understand our history, are ready to lead on the matter. Listen to some of their commentary.

·    Timothy Naftali, Presidential Historian and Former Director, Nixon Presidential Library observed that the four confederate statutes in dispute were not erected in Charlottesville during the civil war or shortly thereafter, but were erected in the 1920s during a time of great social change in the US and during the second coming of the KKK and white supremacists were worried about losing their country

·     Bill Crystal, Republican Strategist was asked why Trump didn’t call out White Supremacists and just acknowledged that “he said what he meant, and he meant what he said”

·     Republican Senator Orin Hatch of Utah tweeted that “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn't give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.”

·     Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida tweeted "Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists."

·    Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado tweeted “Mr. President - we must call evil by its name.  These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism."

·    Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona stated that "White supremacists and neo-Nazis are, by definition, opposed to American patriotism and the ideals that define us as a people and make our nation special.  As we mourn the tragedy that has occurred in Charlottesville, American patriots of all colors and creeds must come together to defy those who raise the flag of hatred and bigotry."

President Trump was extremely critical throughout the election of President Obama for not calling out Terrorists as Radical Islamic Terrorists.   Conversely, President Trump seems unable to utter the words “White Supremacist” or “Neo-Nazi”. 

So, why the disconnect with everyone else? Why ?  His fellow Republicans know what’s right and wrong, but still our President fails to grasp the basic concept

A.     Is he just playing to his base, and doesn’t want to lose any votes in the next election cycle?

B.     Does he secretly sympathize with the thinking and ideology of these groups?

C.     Does he think he won’t appear to be a strong leader if he caves late, after receiving stinging criticism from so many members of his Republican Party?

D.     Does he want to avoid giving in to the desires of the Left Leaning Press, because that would make him a loser?

or

E.      Is it all of the above?

Obama never used the term Radical Islamic Terrorists, because he didn’t want to alienate a few billion moderate Muslims.  Now I admit, I don’t get out much, and so I have never heard of one, but I guess President Trump must be worried about insulting all the moderate Neo-Nazis out there.  Most of them are just homebodies, who play bridge, watch Wheel of Fortune, tend their gardens…. And vote Republican.

Like all Americans, the First Amendment guarantees the right of our President to say what he wants, or conversely, ignore topics of his choosing, but the bully pulpit which he commands magnifies both his comments and his silences, and so when he fails in his role to be the moral authority for our nation, the echo is loud and long. 

#55 - Midwestern Values

The very first time your child teaches you something new, something you didn't know, may not seem like a momentous occasion, like their graduation or their wedding or the start of their first real job, but it stays with you.  It is a private moment and occurs with no advance warning, one day it just happens.   It is not recognized or acknowledged, and your child will be oblivious to it.  You may not even realize it when it happens, until you stop and look back and it hits you.  All you can hope for is that you don't miss it, for it will come with a lasting sense of satisfaction. 

My son went to a small college in Ohio to study Equine Business Management; it’s only noteworthy to point out that his education was much more outside the classroom as he traveled around the Midwest competing on his college’s equestrian team. In the process, he was interacting with all kinds of people, all outside the academic environment.  In his senior year, my wife and I went to visit him and watch one of his competitions.  During the visit he and I ran an errand together to pick up his riding jacket at the dry cleaners he used.  He got out of car while I waited, returned with the jacket, and began to talk about how nice the owners were, how beyond the good service they provided, he always enjoyed seeing them.  And then it happened.   He said “You know dad, I never gave it much thought, I guess I thought it was just one of those stereotypes, but it's true, the people out here in the Midwest are really, really friendly.  They are good, genuine people, honest, and down to earth”,   And he added, “It’s a really nice place to live”.

I of course had heard the stereotype of the friendly Midwesterner before, but in all honestly, I had never given it much thought.  But on this day for the first time ever, I did.   I smiled to myself, and the moment passed.

Over the years, I have silently gone back to this moment reflecting on the statement itself, and re-living the satisfaction that came with it.  More recently, I went back to it in the days following the Presidential election on November 8, 2016, when Donald Trump upended the world and surprisingly became our 45th president.

Many of my left-leaning friends were sure Hillary Clinton was going to pull it off.  I was much less certain, and despite the fact that some of Trump’s positions were acceptable to me (I say some), I thought he was a horrible human being, and I thought he would be an absolutely terrible president.  So on the night of the Election Day, I sat glued to my chair with the worry of a nervous parent watching their child act in a play or perform in their sport. The nervousness turned to worry, the worry turned to sadness.  I cursed at the TV as the results came in from Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin, all of them, in the Midwest.  All of them had been in the Democratic column in recent elections, and they all went for Trump.

It would be easier to say, that it didn't happen, that the swing of just 77,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio hadn’t won the Presidency for Donald Trump, despite the fact that Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.  But it did happen, I knew it was real, and that hurt even more.

I have since reflected on the words of my son, words that I believed were true, but I couldn't reconcile how the kind, friendly folks of the Midwest, who had in recent years been leaning left, all of a sudden leaned right, and more disturbingly had chosen Donald Trump to be the leader of our country.  I asked myself, what did they see in him?  Didn’t they see the constant stream of falsehoods he promotes?  Why did they fall for it?  Did they despise Hillary that much?Did they want change so badly that they will tolerate his miserable behavior?

I wanted change too, but I was worried the host of Celebrity Apprentice and the owner of the Miss Universe pageant did not have the skills, the smarts and the morals to morph into a leader for all the people.   While he might be the leader we deserved, but he was not the leader we needed.

Then I remembered the words spoken by Michael Bloomberg at the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 2016.

“I’m a New Yorker, and New Yorkers know a con when they see one”.

With that perspective, I could now rationalize, at least for myself, how the pieces had fallen into place.  Of course, the folks from the Midwest are NOT from New York.  They have not seen the Donald close-up.  More importantly they are kind and caring, and they repay a stranger’s kindness with more kindness. They give strangers the benefit of the doubt.   They don't question a stranger’s authenticity, certainly not the way New Yorkers do.  They don't look at them with cautious eye. And they had to be impressed by the number of times that the Donald came out to visit them during the campaign, and they had to be equally unimpressed with the number of visits Hillary didn't make.  For them, actions speak than words. 

They didn't realize it at the time, but they were falling victim to the con.  They came to believe Donald Trump was their friend.  He would be their voice.  The victims of Bernie Madoff’s scam were his friends too, and while the newly minted Trump supporters were not as personally abused as Madoff’s victims were, they should feel no less aggrieved, no less appalled when they finally came to grips with the fact that they had been used, they had been fooled, they had been taken. 

Their vote counted.  As it turned out their votes were by far the most important votes in the entire country.  39,000 people in the Midwest pulled the lever for Donald instead of Hillary, and here we are. 

New Yorkers, on the other hand had seen this movie before.   They had endured 40+ years of the escapades of the Donald, well documented in the New York Post and other local rags.  They had seen successes earned in New York real estate and the building of Trump’s brand, but they had also witnessed firsthand the failures of Trump Shuttle and the New Jersey Generals and Trump’s Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.  They endured Donald’s affair with Marla Maples, his first divorce, his second divorce, his third marriage and the Donald’s disco days, and they were not impressed.   Despite the fact that Donald was born and raised in their city, that he was one of them, he was not the favorite son.  Donald received 36.8% of the vote in New York State in 2016, pretty much on par with the 36.03%  Mitt Romney received four years earlier.   New Yorkers knew what to expect from Donald, and so the needle never moved. 

A lot has passed since the election results were affirmed the night in November and I haven't spoken to any mid-westerners who voted for Trump since, so I offer no tangible proof or even anecdotal evidence of what I am about to say, but I do believe that in the next presidential cycle, provided that the Democrats put up a half-way decent candidate that the Midwest will swing against President Trump.

I say that because after four years, they will have been forced to bear witness to the actions of President Trump and they will conclude that he is not like them, that his service to others takes a back seat to his personal addiction to the service of his own ego, that his general animosity to those who don't bow down to him does not fit with their own Midwestern values.  I say this because they are genuine and because they are part of the best our country has to offer.

And I know this, because my son taught me it was so, so many years ago.

I’m from New York.

#54 - Transgender Transgression

A funny thing happened after President Trump’s tweet on the morning of July 26, announcing his new policy on Transgender individuals in the military…

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing…..Nothing happened,

I don't mean to suggest there wasn’t any news or blow back on the topic. There was plenty of both.  First, everyone was trying to figure out what the clown in Oval Office was up too this time.   On top of that, the LGBTQ community now had the proof that many of them had warned about, that many of them had believed.  They could now shout out to the world that President Trump was a Class A Number One liar when he said he would be a better friend to them than anyone and certainly better than Hillary Clinton.

No, lots of activity emanated directly from that early morning tweet, but the funny thing was.….nothing was happening in the military.

The President’s tweet read “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming.....victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

The tweet was then followed by a press briefing later that day, where White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the White House and the Pentagon would work together to implement the policy, with the Defense Department taking "the lead."

The very next day, the nation's highest-ranking military officer said that the Defense Department was making "no modifications" to current policy regarding transgender service members until President Trump gives more direction.  "I know there are questions about yesterday's announcement on the transgender policy by the President," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford said in a statement. "There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President's direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidance”.

It was now clear that Trump’s tweet about consulting with “MY generals and military advisors”” was just another one of his everyday, bold-face lies.   

And sooooo… we have an interesting dynamic in play here.  The President announces his new policy, his new edict, some might say, then his press secretary says the Defense Department will take “the lead” on implementation, but, but, but, that's not how the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman sees it.  Dunford says that there will be no modifications to the policy until the President's direction had been received.

Now both parties are pointing to the other, to take the lead.  I am no military expert, but this is not how I recall the military is supposed to act when they receive an order from their Commander-in-Chief. 

I am not saying they this is a mutiny by the military, because it doesn't come close to that standard,  but it appears to me, that Dunford’s quick response was meant to send an important message to the White House that “We are not your pawns sir, we will not permit you to include us in your vile decision to vilify one group, and we will not permit you to mess with heads of our service men and women for your own political, self-serving gains.  No sir, we will not permit it”.

Something similar occurred back in1993 when President Bill Clinton pushed to open the services to gays and lesbians. Colin Powell, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pushed back, resulting in the implementation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, which lasted until 2011 when Obama tanked it after a full review and with the full support of the Joint Chiefs

I could be accused of reading too much into it, but I do believe Dunford was, ever-so-politely, ever-so-subtly, delivering the message, that it took our armed forces 20+ years to morph into an open, and integrated organization, and we are not going backwards now.

It wasn’t quite a middle finger salute to the Commander in Chief, but I have to believe it's what Dunford was thinking.

 

The issue was in the news again today, when Republican Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina and a member of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate was asked about it, and he told CNN that "we're not going to change transgender policy based on a tweet."

Don't you just love it when (some of) the leaders of our country actually stand on principal and show a little backbone?  

It's like a breath of fresh air.