#101 - Failure at The Red Hen

Look, I understand why the co-owner of the Red Hen politely asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her restaurant. But if I could speak with her directly, I would tell her, she was just shooting her cause in the foot.  For a brief moment yes, it allowed her to feel good, but really, what good did it do?  Nothing was accomplished. 

Stephanie Wilkinson, the co-owner of the restaurant, said she asked Sanders and her family to leave because of previous comments she had made defending the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military members.

Wilkinson explained that the restaurant employs several LGBT employees, some of whom voiced concerns over having to serve Huckabee Sanders and said she took her actions in order to uphold her morals.

That sounds fair, on the surface perhaps, but it doesn’t excuse what would normally be described before the Age of Trump anyway, as rude behavior on her part.  

Asking Huckabee Sanders to leave a public restaurant when she was clearly “off the click” that night did nothing to uphold any moral values.  It just provided more fodder for the haters as Huckabee Sanders legitimately became the victim.

With her actions, Ms.Wilkinson, despite her fair and reasonable moral conviction, played right into the open and waiting arms of Donald Trump, the President of Hate and Vitriol (POHAV).  And in doing so, the divide in our country just got a little bit deeper.

No matter how much we disagree with others on the other end of the political spectrum, our goal must be to continue to employ the art of political discourse with the belief that at a absolute minimum, we can reach a point of compromise or possibly, just possibly, convince others that our thoughts, our policies, our ideas… are not as bad, as they might think.

This doesn’t mean we give up our right of free speech or our right to gather and protest peacefully, but we should not intrude in our opponents’ distinctly private pieces of their lives.

We must always treat those with differing opinions with respect, despite the fact that these same words knowingly fall on Donald Trump's deaf ears.

Yes, I know, I can feel your blood boiling. How can I hold Ms. Wilkinson to a higher standard while  Donald Trump has been routinely spewing hateful messages since the day he came down the escalator?

We must accept this unfairness and move forward, for one reason and one reason only. We are better than him.Trump motivates his supporters by branding enemies for them to hate: illegal immigrants, the Deep State, the Liberal Press, the FBI, the Justice Department, any politician with a “D” beside their name, and all the Republican Senators from the great State of Arizona, just to name a few.

For hate is the easiest of motivators. It’s his MO, and there is no one on the planet better at it then him. And he embraces it as a winning strategy, that if he takes us all down to the land of the bottom feeders, this lose - lose proposition is a win for him.  He seems to think this is how to Make America Great Again.

But we have a choice, we all have a choice.  Both his supporters and those who would oppose him. We don’t have to follow him to the bottom. We don’t. 

We win the the battle and the war by not losing our souls. 

#100 - Bizarro World in the Age of Trump

Donald Trump has exhibited an exquisite talent for upsetting the apple cart and casting aside norms that have existed in our society and in our politics for generations.  He has shown a willingness to break things large and small, new and old, giving new meaning to the old expression “a bull in a china shop” along the way.  With a strong propensity for “repeal” and little or no interest for “replace”, all of this comes naturally to him, as if he was born with his middle finger protruding upright as he exited his mother’s womb.  Perhaps it was this early start, that now enables him to execute his unique talent, so flawlessly. 

So, if on any given day, you feel that you that you were the innocent victim in a car crash, and you walked away with a severe case of whiplash that just won’t go away, know this.  You are not alone. 

So, if everything you have come to know and believe seems to be part of a past, long ago forgotten, and the world seems to have been turned on its’ head, know that there is a rational explanation for this.  You see we have now crossed into a new dimension of time and space and entered a new world where up is down and down is up.  We are now living In Bizarro World,

DC Comics described such a world back in 1961  (From Wikipedia). In the Bizarro world of "Htrae" (that’s Earth, spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!”  

And Bizarro No. 1, a.k.a. Bizarro Superman, the imperfect duplicate of Superman, was portrayed throughout the story's episodes as a character of equal parts humor and confusion.  

Does this sound like anyone we know?

Barack Obama was criticized for failing to execute a consistent foreign policy strategy. His was often distilled into that singular line “Don’t do stupid things”.   In our new Bizarro World, it seems as if Donald Trump lives by the strategy that is best described as, “Do stupid things as much as possible”.

The last few weeks of on-again, off-again, trade tariffs has revealed, to the bewilderment of Democrats and Republicans alike, that our President is perversely obsessed with punishing our allies, while giving the benefit of the doubt to our adversaries.

Born and raised life-time Republicans are shaking their heads, wondering:

(i) How the hell did we get in to this mess?

(ii) What on earth is he going to go next ?

(iii) Which decisions am I supposed to be for and which decisions am I supposed to be against ? I forget.

And please, don’t even think to ask Republicans about Trump's decision to let the Chinese telecom company ZTE, who has been accused of severe security violations, off the hook with a mere, peasant like $1billion fine, for they might start twitching uncontrollably and implode.  Democrats just seem to be walking around in a perpetual fog, affected with a severe case of head trauma caused by Trump’s eradicate actions and spoken words, wondering aloud if all of this would have happened if Anthony Wiener just hadn’t been so obsessed with teen age girls.

In the past week, the activities within Bizarro World were on full display. It started as Trump was about to board his chopper to head to the G-7 summit, when, unbeknownst to all of his own aides (this is how you do things in Bizarro World), he started pitching for the G-7 club to let his personal buddy, Vladimir Putin, back in.  This is the guy who invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, imprisoned his political opponents, poisoned  British citizens and sought to influence and disrupt the US Presidential elections.  

In the normal world, the mere suggestion of this would have automatically led normal folks to conclude that the Steele dossier was 100% accurate, except for one important thing.  It left out all the really good parts. 

In Bizarro World, well, this was just downright normal.

But Trump’s affinity for his buddy Vlad is only one half of this truly bizarre story, the other half involved attacking our oldest and longest international ally, our neighbor to the north, for which no border walls are needed, Canada.  

If seems that Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada issued a statement after the G7 meetings regarding the tariff issue that Canada was not going to be pushed around.  Trump threw a hissy fit and promptly removed the United States from a joint communique the G7 was going to issue and blasted Trudeau for dairy tariffs. Mind you, the US is currently running a trade surplus here, but please let's  not let facts get in the way of the larger point, that the President had kicked his lap dogs into high gear, having them take to the airwaves to attack Trudeau.

Larry Kudlow, the former Fox News business personality, and now the President’s Economic Advisor, claimed that Trudeau had “stabbed them in the back”, proving once again that you can take the fox out of Fox News,  but you can never take Fox News out of the fox. 

Peter Navarro, who may be the only person on the planet who agrees with Trump’s policy on trade said of Trudeau “that there was a special place in hell” for him.  Whoa! Navarro later apologized and walked his statement back, but it was too late for the horse was out of the barn, and the President's real thoughts were there for all to see.

All of this was just a backdrop to Turmp’s historic summit with North Koren despotic leader Kim Jung Un who he basically described as the cuddly, affectionate leader of group of koala bears.  

Barack Obama was metaphorically castrated by conservative Republicans when he merely suggested he would meet with Kim Jung Un. When Trump does it, it’s strategic. 

A few Republican leaders have attempted to push back on what was viewed as an over reach of power by Trump who invoked the national security exception permitting him to usurp Congress’s responsibility to manage tariffs, essentially naming Canada a national security threat.  Let that sink in.  Canada is a national security threat. 

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) pressed for a vote that would allow Congress to block Trump’s tariffs.   He’s won support from free-trade Republicans and some Democrats. But GOP leaders would not permit the vote.  It seems that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned last week that HIS Senate won’t pass anything that ties Trump’s hands on trade.

The Republican leadership had concluded that the politics of supporting their own Bizarro Superman were more important than supporting free trade, one of the decades long, core principles of their very own party.  And when McConnell’s office was asked to comment about the administration’s feud with Canada.  There was no response. 

It seems that some things never do change. Even in Bizarro World.

#99 - My 39th Wedding Aniversary

Today is Saturday, June 16, the 167th day of 2018. There are 198 days left in the year.

Today is also my 39th Wedding Anniversary which I share with my wonderful wife Mary.   Early this morning she texted me a picture from our wedding where we were smiling, toasting each other.  I remember the day went by fast, going by in a blurr for both us.  And as we look back now, the last 39 years feel the same, and we wonder how did all go by... so fast.

Now, many of you may not appreciate this, simply because you are not as old and wise as I am now, but he 39th wedding anniversary is an extremely important one.  You see the clock has started ticking and you only have one year left to think up something really special for your 40th.  Failure is not an option here, guys, for the alternative, well, let's just say it's not pretty.  So please put the word out on my behalf.  I'm accepting suggestions now.

After we exchanged anniversary cards (we had already given ourselves our anniversary gift) I did a few of the simple things that make her happy.  I made her coffee, fed the dog and then took the dog for a good walk.  This allowed her to relax, have her morning coffee, read and eventually take her time getting ready for an early lunch we had scheduled at a new spot nearby.

Upon my return with the dog, I went out into our courtyard with a second cup of coffee,  For the record, it was a beautiful morning in the Boston area, sunny, comfortable, with a slight breeze.  I was flipping through the Boston Globe on my IPhone, when the very last article caught my eye, the one you have all seen before, "This Day in History".  Honestly, I never go here, but today, being our anniversary, I dove in with great curiosity to discover all of the tidbits of the day'. 

I discovered that today is Phil Mickelson's birthday.  He is 48.  Now I am not a golfer, but Phil has always been a class act who has carried himself well, so I always end up routing for him on those summer days when I turn golf on in the afternoon, purely as a background for taking a well deserved nap.

On this day in 2008, Tiger Woods, playing on a throbbing injured knee, won an epic US Open after a 19-hole playoff at Torrey Pines with Rocco Mediate.   I can't be certain, but I suspect I actually nodded off on this one as well.

I learned that the Ford Motor Company was incorporated on this day in 1903.  I suspect that this may represent the official birth of the American Automobile industry, so that seemed pretty cool.  That industry is 115 years old, but I also reminded myself that it almost crash and burned in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, but the Obama administration stepped in to support it, and soon it came roaring back.  Imagine that, a so called liberal administration helping corporate America for the good of all.  How is that for a story?

On that same day that Tiger won that playoff, a California Supreme Court ruling that overturned the state’s bans on same-sex marriage became final.   I have written about gay rights several times before, for as I have explained, I have a horse in this horse race.  I have a gay son, of whom I am extremely proud, and I simply want him to have all the rights and all the respect that all Americans deserve.  So this was a good one, I will remember this one on all my anniversaries to come.

Perhaps the best one though, goes back 160 years.  In 1858, while accepting the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for the US Senate, Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved, declaring one of his most well known lines, that ‘‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’’  We could use an Abraham Lincoln today, the gentle man who fiercely held the moral compass for an entire country, and despite the intensity of a devastating civil war, never let go, understanding the importance of keeping the fabric of the country together.  Honest Abe was so good for us, he deserves to be remembered everyday, not just on my anniversary.

But then I came to the very last item on the list, the most recent one, the one that read:

In 2015, real estate mogul Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign with a speech at Trump Tower in Manhattan.

I remember it well, the picture of the Donald descending from the heaven's above, on an elevator no less, with Melania dutifully leading the way, with Neil Young's 'Rocking in the Free World' blaring in the background.  Besides the fact that Neil likely didn't authorize his music for this purpose, it was disturbing scene then, and its just become more terrifying since.   You recall right?  Yes this was the Donald's controversial speech where he stated:

"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. ...They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

The Captain of hate and vitriol was just getting started.  That was three years ago today and its been downhill ever since.  

I admit, until this morning I had no idea that this event had occurred on our anniversary. That's probably because at the time, I ascribed so little probability to his success as a presidential candidate.  That's because I was certain that our country would never in a thousand years elect such a hateful, dishonest, morally bankrupt shell of a man.

But it turns out I was wrong, it turns out there are many others in the country that don't share my sentiment, and I was clueless.  My disappointment in our country is profound, and I am unable to shake it, burdened by the belief that the harm this man has caused our country will linger, long after he is gone.  

For the time being I will do my best to focus on the thing that is best in my life, the love of my wife of 39 years who accepts me for who I am.   I love my wife, and I look forward to all of our anniversaries to come,.  And for her benefit as well as my own, I promise  I will focus all my attention on all the other good things that happened on this special day, on This Day In History.    These are the ones that will carry me forward.

#98 - Yogi Berra in Trump World

Former New York Yankee great, Yogi Berra, was famous for his memorable expressions and phrases. They all contained a degree of truth, even though they really didn't make the least bit of sense, such as this familiar one:

“You can observe a lot by just watching."

I think Yogi actually might have been on to something here, for those of us who were watching over the past Memorial Day week, the observations were there for all to see.

1) ABC shut down their number one rated television show and fired Roseanne Barr for her sick and racist tweet about former Obama Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett and for proving once and for all that ‘hilariously funny’ and ‘profoundly stupid’ are not mutually exclusive terms.  ABC’s actions were notable because of their swift and decisive nature (they are even pulling the re-runs), but more importantly because of the large economic hit they were willing to accept by taking a stand.

2) Republican Representative Trey Gowdy (S.C.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, whose name is synonymous with Hilary Clinton and Benghazi, forcefully rebuked Trump’s baseless claim that the Obama administration improperly implanted a “spy” into his Presidential campaign.  Gowdy received a classified Justice Department briefing on the matter last week, so he was one of a few people in the know on this and concluded that “I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got”, and he did so…on Fox News no less.  

3) Lifelong New York Yankee fan and the Mayor of America, who desperately sought to be relevant again by supporting Donald Trump in his campaign and was now defending him against Robert Mueller and against a little thing called the truth, was back in the Bronx celebrating his 74^th birthday, but instead of birthday wishes from Yankee Stadium fans, he was greeted by loud and sustained boos throughout the crowd,  As a Red Sox fan, I must confess I have new found respect for the fans of the Evil Empire,

4) The New York Times reported that despite pressure from President Trump to "un-recuse" himself from Mueller's Russian investigation, Attorney General Jeff Sessions held firm and refuse to fold, simply because…it was the right thing to do. 

5) That same article reported that several Senate Republicans told the President not to fire Sessions, for if he did, they would not support his next nomination, drawing yet another line in the sand against our President. 

Each one of these events taken by themselves might just look like another day in the Presidency of Donald J Trump, where outrageous wrongs occur routinely and the Teflon Don just keeps chugging along with no apparent personal consequence, or as Yogi would have said… “It’s deja vu, all over again”.

But taken together, the observation was that some people with some moral and ethical values were finding their voice despite the personal, political, economic and social risks they were taking, providing a little bit of hope that the Bizarro world of Donald Trump, which has sucked our country into a sink hole of lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations, was beginning to fray at the edges. 

We still have a long way to go until we rid ourselves of Donald J. Trump, perhaps through impeachment for collusion, obstruction of justice, hateful and vile rhetoric or gross incompetence (take your pick) or perhaps through our constitutional right to vote.  In the meantime, I will keep pushing forward with this very goal in sight and I hope you will too.  For we should all remember the wisdom and guidance offered by that beloved Yankee great: 

“It ain’t over till it’s over”

#97 - The Politics of Protest and Hatred

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 NFL players began to kneel during the anthem, almost two years ago now, as a sign of protest against police brutality, to me it felt both counter-intuitive and counterproductive to the cause they wished to discuss. They consciously or unconsciously had concluded that their cause was so special that they could protest a solemn moment for others in the stadium. They chose to protest an aspect of our less than perfect democracy, they chose to protest the county which grants them free speech as an indisputable right, but they wanted more than free speech, they wanted a podium, and a large one at that.

I didn’t agree with their approach and if I had a cause I wanted to promote (say the impeachment of our President for hateful rhetoric and gross incompetence), I wouldn’t choose to do it by kneeling for the national anthem. I would simply look for other ways to express my opinion

However, their actions didn’t bother me, I didn’t lose any sleep over it and quite frankly,  I just didn’t give it a lot of thought. We are after all a diverse nation, and we all come to the table with unique personalities, with unique backgrounds and more often than not, in the history of our country, it has made us all better over time.

As long as no one was being harmed in this process or personally insulted, then my own outlook might be best described as (pick one)

 “No harm, no foul”
- “To each, his own”,
- “Different strokes for different folks”
- “Live and let be”
Or, all of the above

But none of these old sayings would hold any meaning for our selfish and demented President.

Back on September 22 of last year at a campaign rally in Huntsville, AL ostensibly to support the senatorial bid of fellow Republican Luther Strange. (just one of Donnie’s many political failures ) Trump veered off topic, because, well, it was in his own self interest to do so, and he eventually landed on the Colin Kaepernick inspired protests.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners,” sad the president, “when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out. He’s fired. He’s fired!’ ”

And his adoring crowd went wild...

And so it began, in a moment’s time, this little story that was reserved for page six of the sports section was now prime time on the nightly news. Trump had weighed in and thrown a slab of rich, red meat to his adoring fans. And in the process, he took out his machete and made the divide in our country that much greater.

The NFL has been under fire for the better part of nine months since Trump iterated his divisive comment and this past week announced their new rules in the subject. Players who choose to be on the field during the anthem will be required to stand. But If a player or team employee is on the field during the anthem and chooses not to stand, that player’s franchise will be fined by the NFL. The new policy does give players the option to remain in the locker room during the playing of the anthem if they do not wish to comply.

In an interview on Fox News Thursday morning, while acknowledging the improvement (in his eyes anyway) of the change in the NFL’s stance on the topic, Trump just couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to serve seconds on his personally seasoned piece of rich, red meat, and said:

“You have to stand proudly for the National Anthem or you shouldn't be playing. You shouldn't be there. Maybe you shouldn't be in the country,"

Maybe you shouldn’t be in the the country…

So now in addition to deporting the 11 million illegal immigrants, apparently we are going to do the same for anyone who disagrees with him on anything. Somebody shoot me now, please . So I don’t have to listen to his idiotic musings any more.

The real story here is not that the President of the United States is a vile and despicable human being. No, the real story is that he has made this behavior acceptable for others in the Republican Party.

New York Republican Rep. Peter King on Saturday expressed his disdain for National Anthem protesters, suggesting their actions were on par with spouting racial insults or giving the Nazi salute.

"Disgraceful that @nyjets owner will pay fines for players who kneel for National Anthem," he tweeted. "Encouraging a movement premised on lies vs. police. Would he support all player protests? Would he pay fines of players giving Nazi salutes or spew racism?

So there you have it, another Republican dissing the act of peaceful protest, where no one was hurt, no one was attacked, and no one was insulted. Republicans were dissing a right that all free nations uphold, and comparing this act to the actions of the most hate filled group of the 20th century.

The specific details varied, but the central theme of the story was the same as many of the other stories that have played out over the last sixteen months. Donald Trump had legitimized the art of hate for all to witness. And Republicans hadn’t even blinked. Instead, they were all clamoring to get a seat at the front of the bus.

#96 - Barbara Bush: A New England Perspective

For those of us who have been life-long Patriot fans, we take great pride in our quarterback.  And we do so, not because of his Super Bowl victories or his statistics or his consistency over his many years in the league.  No, those accomplishments are the just the end result of his unique ability to make the players around him that much better, to help all of his teammates perform at a higher level and to get them to step up and improve their game when it mattered most.  This is his critical value add.  This is why we respect him so.  This is why New England loves our favored son.

When I heard the news earlier in the week, that Barbara Bush had chosen to cease her medical treatment and chose instead to gracefully accept the end of her life, I was deeply saddened, but I was not surprised. So, despite this sadness, I had to smile.  This was how she lived her wonderful life - head on.

The wife of a US Navy pilot, congressman, ambassador, CIA director, vice president and president, married for 73 years, the mother six children, including two governors and a president and a parent who had buried a three year old child, the hardest ordeal any person could possibly endure, she bore witness to a world that very few of us have even glimpsed.  And with the even more important legacy of 17 grand-children and seven great-grandchildren, her experience of a life well lived only taught her to be more grounded, more giving, more thoughtful, 

Listening to a wide array of family members, historians, lifelong friends and associates over the last few days, she was described as genuinely kind and loving, but one that would always offer up tough love whenever the moment arrived.  She was plain spoken, comfortable In any surrounding, as honest as the day is long, caring, funny, and most of all she was authentic.

Listening to her sons describe her as the disciplinarian, teaching them to be humble and to treat others with respect, all with the purpose of taking them to higher levels and making them better men, it was apparent that Barbara Bush was the parent we all wanted, the parent we all needed.

She was many things to many people.  The Enforcer to her family, Tranquility to the Secret Service, America’s Grandmother to the country, she could subtly morph herself to fill the apparent need in her line of sight.   At a time when our politics have become so bitter, most noteworthy were the stories and accolades that poured out from around the country from those who only met her once, retelling the value of the moment, extolling her kindness, her sincerity, and her authenticity.  It was a welcomed breath of fresh air.  And it seemed that even in her death, she was guiding us, teaching us that there is a better way.

We can only hope that the memory of Barbara Bush will linger for many generations to come, for the people she touched over her consistent 92 years were all better off for it.  But the question remains, will they continue to grow? Did they grasp enough from her in her lifetime that they will continue to move the ball forward on their own or will they get pushed back? Will they lose ground with her absence?  Only time will tell, Barbara Bush, a straight talking woman of action, would be the first to tell you that.  

Over the last several years, many offensive players have left the Patriots to go on to play for other teams, but few have achieved the same personal or team success they did when they played with Brady.  With the passing of Barbara Bush and the loss of her aura in American politics, sadly I worry that the prospect of our collective successes to come and of our collective efforts to move our country forward will be diminished.  While I hope and pray that others will step in to fill the quiet void she leaves behind, it’s not lost on me that her value-add was so great, that doing so will take a village. 

In New England, and specifically along the coastline of Maine, we understand this implicitly.

#95 - Michael Cohen, the Slam Dunk Example of the Incomptency of DJTrump

From the get go, I have been amazed by the belief of many Trump supporters that the Donald was this tremendously successful businessman who could take what he had learned over his lifetime and apply it in a way that we would make our country greater.

From what I could tell, he ran a successful family business in one industry, but when he failed to stick to his knitting (airlines, football, casinos, retail, education), he either crashed and burned or never moved the needle one bit.  From what I could tell, he was a mildly successful host of a reality TV show, which if you stopped to think about, offered no redeeming value to anyone, anywhere under any circumstance.  From what I could tell, he was extremely successful at bragging about himself and more importantly, getting some people to actually believe him.   

If he had the background of a Michael Bloomberg or a Rex Tillerson or a Mitt Romney, I would have gladly given more credence to his skills.  These men succeeded in business in because they could work in large organization, influence those around them and move their businesses forward.   They succeeded in businesses where they had to report to independent boards, which no doubt challenged them and forced them to learn and grow, which made them better businessmen, which made them better leaders. (Note - Mitt Romney actually headed up a Private Equity firm, but the skills required to manage numerous other PE partners are even more challenging than those required for an independent board) 

It is with this perspective that the lion's share of the posts in With Malice Toward None (....mostly) have spoken to the ongoing incompetency of  our President Donald J. Trump.  I know, there is a lot of  low hanging fruit here.   I never said any of my musings were intellectually challenging. 

The recent news that the home and offices of Michael Cohen, the President's lawyer, the President's fixer, the President's consigliere and the self-described right-hand man of the President, were raided by the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York offers the definitive proof of the complete and total incompetency of our President.   It has been reported that Michael Cohen, the Fixer, failed to take the advice of Michael Cohen, the lawyer and went ahead and taped a lot of his conversations.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) on Friday blasted  Cohen, over the reports that he taped business conversations.  "Michael Cohen's an idiot. To be taping — if he did tape — conversations with his client, that's stupid," Graham said on "The Brian Kilmeade Show." 

"I don't know what kind of legal advice Michael Cohen gave Donald Trump. I'm not really impressed with him as a lawyer, just to be honest with you," he added.

The most successful businessmen will surround themselves with other talented and competent managers.  The most successful presidents know will surround themselves with the best and the brightest our country has to offer.  I am going to go out on limb here, but I don't think Michael Cohen meets this standard for either Donald J. Trump, businessman or Donald J. Trump, President of the United States.  But that's not the fault of Micheal Cohen.  The honor belongs to the Incompetent One.

#94 - The National Debt Is Out of Control

My taxes went down with George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001.  Like all Americans at the time, I thought this was a good thing.  

At the time, the National Debt approximated $12.5K per person.  Today that number is closer to $61K per person.  That's an increase of almost 5X in a mere 17 years, in just the blink of an eye.  How could it have gotten so bad in the time it takes to raise a child and send then off to college?  Assuming they can afford college...

Shortly after the Bush tax cuts, our world changed as passenger jets became missiles targeted at the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon and another crashed in a peaceful field in Pennsylvania. Beyond the impact to our national psyche, the subsequent costs to our economy and our society were massive and included the creation of yet another government entity, the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate our defense.  But strangely enough, despite the increasing costs that our country had to bear, no one came to ask me to pay my fair share.  Sure, I hung out the American flag like everyone else, but the additional costs were merely added to our country’s debt.  I didn’t pay a dime.

Not long after 9/11, America began our war in Afghanistan. We were certainly not going to sit back and take a defensive posture. We were going to retaliate, we were going on offense to find Osama Bin Laden and hunt him down like a dog.  I was all in on this. I wanted payback. I wanted justice. But still nobody asked me to pay my fair share. The costs were simply added to our national debt, and they are still being added to our national debt today, for this war is still raging on, some 17 years later. 

To make matters worse, we couldn’t be content with just one war, we needed more. So we turned our sights on a war with Iraq, which was predicated on either (you pick it) the stupidity or the dishonesty of the Neo-cons in the Bush administration who falsely concluded that Saddam Hussein was sitting on a stockpile of WMDs.  With Shock and Awe, we would be greeted with open arms, we would free all the little people and we would be in and out of there in twenty minutes. Right, that worked out well.

[For the record, the day the Bush  Administration announced there were no WMDs in Iraq was the day I stopped voting Republican]

I was too old to serve in both of these wars and so my share of the burden was picked up by the brave service-oriented volunteers in our armed forces and equally by their families, a group which represents less than 1% of our population. Still, nobody came to ask me to pay my fair share. The added costs of both wars just went to increasing the country’s debt.  I didn’t have to pay a dime.

In 2008, our economy, nearly crashed and burned when the sub-prime housing market tanked and almost took the rest of us down as well. My investments tanked, but the governments TARP program and federal stimulus and I believe, some steady leadership at the top, pulled us back from the brink and we recovered.  My investments recovered as well. Still no one asked me to pay my share.

And, while you might find this hard to believe, my luck was about to get even better

The Republicans came along in 2016 and took the trifecta winning the Presidency, the House and the Senate, but instead of holding to a now forgotten heritage of managing with fiscal responsibility and instead of asking me to pay my fair share, the Republicans did me a solid.  Not only did they lower my personal income tax rate, even more noteworthy, they lowered the federal income tax rate for my company (of which I am CFO) and all the other corporations in the country from 35% to 21%. That’s a reduction of 40% year over year. 40%!!  Wouldn’t you like it if your bank lowered your mortgage payment 40% and explained to you that they were doing it to Make America Great Again? Pretty cool, huh?

Looking back at all of these significant events of the last 17 years culminating in this Republican give-away, I realize this is probably the closest thing to real magic that I will see in my lifetime.  

But as you might suspect, this was ALL simply too good to be true.

At the time of the vote, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the new tax bill would cost about $1.1 trillion over a decade. That was bad enough on its own, but now, four months later, a Congressional Budget Office estimate released Tuesday showed the bill will add $1.9 trillion to deficits over a decade.

After hearing this, the man that cast the deciding vote on the tax reduction, retiring U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on the new CBO estimate, “If it ends up costing what has been laid out here, it could well be one of the worst votes I’ve made,”

“None of us have covered ourselves in glory. This Congress and this administration likely will go down as one of the most fiscally irresponsible administrations and congresses that we’ve had,” Corker said.

Business Insider also reported that the new CBO estimate also showed the U.S. will now reach an annual budget deficit of more than $1 trillion beginning 2019.

I am on record as railing against the Republican Tax Cut before it happened (See posts #72, #73 and #74), so while this won't help my children deal with the overhang from this decision over their lifetime, at least I will be able to look myself in the mirror in the morning and take comfort that my head was still screwed on straight.  Republican leadership who, in the words of Republican Bob Corker will be viewed as one of the most fiscally irresponsible that we’ve ever had, will look in the mirror every morning and simply remember, that they screwed us.

We are all shareholders in America.  We all have an equity stake in it and we want to see it grow and prosper. And despite the differences in our politics, our beliefs and our religions, we are joined together at the hip.  When our country does well, the benefits accrue down to us all, as it’s shareholders.  When our country hits some rough patches, even those created by the poor or even stupid decisions of our management, we can’t simply walk away from it, as much as we might like.  We must all suck it up and contribute to make our corporation strong again.  We must all pay our fair share. 

And that means that those of us who have more, must pay more.  That’s the way it works in Corporate America.  Someone just needs to explain that to the Republicans.

#93 - The Failure of Fox News

Ralph Peters, a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel, has been a Fox News contributor for over 10 years.  He has been a tough critic of Barack Obama, once describing him as having been “date raped” by Vladimir Putin and was briefly suspended in 2015 for calling President Obama a "total pussy" while on the Fox Business Network.

I lead with this background for its important to appreciate that Peters is no Liberal Snowflake hiding out in a fox skin fur.  Earlier this month, Peters chose not to renew his contract with Fox News stating "Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association.  Now I am ashamed”.   Ashamed….

“Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers”, Peters said in resignation letter to his colleagues, adding , “In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts--who have never served our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.”

Peters makes several extremely important points that speak to the selfish behavior of Fox News, which is causing long term damage to our imperfect democracy.

First, he reflects upon the fact that Fox once had a mission to offer a legitimate and much needed outlet for conservatives.  On the surface, this was a well-intended goal, but the face of American press has morphed dramatically over the last few decades.   Walter Cronkite was once considered to be the most trusted man in America, so much so that when his perspective turned on the Viet Nam war, President Johnson was quoted as saying “If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country."  Since those days, the press has clearly leaned left in its outlook, which set the stage for the arrival of Fox News. It was a void waiting to be filled.

If Fox News had only stayed true to its original mandate, things might have turned out better for them and better for all of us.   While the network was being established back in 1996, co-founder Roger Ailes actually used the slogan ……."Fair and Balanced".   Honestly, I am not making this up.  Check out Wikipedia if you don’t believe me. 

Peter’s resignation refers back to those days, when real value could have been added by the arrival of the network, but sadly, somewhere along their path, they lost their way.

Second, Peters references the Fox’s more prominent role in the press today as “a propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration”.   Think about this for a moment.  A Fox News contributor is accurately depicting the network’s action as the defacto spokesperson for the Trump administration, where the only speech that emanates out is so far from the truth, it’s officially …“propaganda”.

Third, Peters hits the nail on the head when he states that “Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.”   The profit motive was not far from the minds of the Fox executives who released a reply to Peter’s resignation statement which read “We are extremely proud of our top-rated primetime hosts and all of our opinion programing,”

Their reference to their top-rated primetime hosts is accurate.  Of course they are top-rated, Fox News effectively has a monopoly owning the only major conservative voice in the main stream media, while all the other networks fight over the left leaning and moderate voices in our country, so how can they lose?  Fox’s profits is their raison d'être.   They achieve those profits by catering to a large minority of America, and they are not going to let anyone poach their territory.  So as many conservatives and republicans morphed into the current base of Trump supporters starting back in 2015, they moved with their market.  They moved to protect their brand with no concern for the loss of the any remaining credibility they might have once owned.

There is a reason President Trump is not rushing to fill the Director of Communications role, formerly held by Hope Hicks, who officially left the White House on Friday.  It’s not because he is his own Director as many political commenters have postulated.  No, it’s because he already has Fox News acting in this role.  Under the guise of being “independent”, they offer additional validation to his base.  This has led to a circular, reinforcing dynamic, where the President is happy, Fox News is happy, and Trump supporters are happy.   They are all tucked in and cozy, in their hermetically-sealed bubble, undisturbed by all the fake news around them. 

And for the rest of us, who choose to live outside of any bubble, it’s now confirmed.  Walter Cronkite is no longer with us and we are not in Kansas anymore Dorothy.

#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.