Author Archives: shiningseausa

Trump Administration Climate Science Deniers Are Risking Crimes Against Humanity

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As the affronts to science, human dignity, and the very viability of the planet continue to multiply, through climate change denial and evisceration of the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, the question naturally arises: when and how will those responsible be held accountable for the damage they are doing, or facilitating, to the Earth? For surely the day of reckoning is coming and possibly sooner than many people think. When rising sea levels, crop failures, unprecedentedly destructive storms and other natural disasters begin to impair the water supply and food supply of the “comfortable countries,” like the United States and much of Western Europe, against whom will the public turn? And what punishment will they demand as they face the realization that the science deniers have fooled them into believing a false idea that has led to the destruction of their world? Will it even matter at that point?

A few things seem somewhat clear. While it is within reason to interpret “climate change denial” policy actions as a “crime against humanity” under existing usages of that term (specifically, the “extermination” of an entire population), the United States has never ratified the Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court and thus there is no international body with plausible jurisdiction to punish the leaders of the United States for what they are inflicting on the rest of the world by, for example, denying that carbon dioxide is a meaningful contributor to global warming. http://wapo.st/2mRiia3.

Given the Trump administration’s determined effort to gut the EPA, it will remain to the American people to punish those who, by willful ignorance or worse, have traded away the health and well-being of future generations for a few pieces of silver. Of all the crimes likely being committed by the Trump administration, including blatant conflicts of interest to interfering with the reasoned development of regulations that, properly understood, are “protections” for the people, the undermining of work to manage climate change is the most serious. The consequences of unchecked climate change will at some point become irreversible. That outcome will be directly traceable to the decisions of this administration to unleash the forces of pollution and environmental degradation without meaningful restraint or even requirements to report on what the industries are doing that negatively affects the environment.

If any of my readers doubt the certainty of what I am saying, I can only urge you to read some of the respected works on the subject that are readily available. The Sixth Extinction is a good example. There is no more important issue because the very existence of life on the planet depends on it. The actions being taken by the Trump administration are occurring without the benefit of public hearings or other meaningful input. Trump and his ideologues already know everything they want to know, no matter how inadequate.

The March for Science is on Earth Day, April 22. The Peoples’ Climate Movement March is April 29. If you care about this issue, you should add your body and those of your family to this mass demonstration in support of science and in support of the air you breath and the water you drink. Take to the streets with the masses of others who will be there to protest, peacefully but loudly, against the Trump administration’s crimes against humanity.

I Am an Immigrant – And So Are You

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I attended a rally a few days ago at the White House in response to Not-My-President Trump’s Travel/Muslim Ban 2.0. There were a few hundred people there; not bad considering the last-minute callout from MoveOn.org. I have a few observations about this experience.

The rally group was forced by uniformed officers to move from the side of Lafayette Park closest to the White House to a spot furthest removed from the White House even though we were separated from the WH fence by two sidewalks and the wide pedestrian-only stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue between them. I say “forced” because the threat was “move away or be arrested.” The organizers asked the crowd to comply and it did.

I later asked a DC police officer who was “guarding” us on the opposite side of the Park about the reason for the forced move. He politely explained that he didn’t know the answer because the order came from the Secret Service and Park Police citing “unspecified security issues.” No one apparently had explained the “security issues” to the DC Police who were also on the scene. I believe this was the work of the Trump White House. Congress should investigate.

The impetus for the rally was the signing of Travel/Muslim Ban 2.0. The language of the Executive Order comprising 2.0 reflects the same hateful and unfounded animus against immigrants that was the essence of Travel Ban 1.0 found constitutionally and otherwise deficient by, among others, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Each EO manifests a desire to keep Muslims out of the United States, as Trump repeatedly promised during his campaign. There is no reason to doubt now that these Executive Orders are the direct implementation of those promises, no matter how dressed up the language in 2.0.

I am an immigrant in every relevant sense. My maternal grandparents came to the United States from Russia in 1906. My father’s parents, it is believed, hailed from the Netherlands. I am therefore only a second generation American. In point of fact, almost everyone in the United States is a descendant of immigrants. According to Quora.com, “The White American average genetic makeup is 98.6% European, 0.19% African, and 0.18% Native American.” http://bit.ly/2mpHEvh. According to the U.S. Census, American Indians and Alaska Natives comprised about 2 percent of the total population in 2014. http://bit.ly/2mjNoEy.

Thus, every anti-immigrant action taken by the xenophobic Trump administration is, at least indirectly, an attack on virtually everyone. It is but a short step from where Trump is now to “show me your bloodlines.” This is truly a situation where if anyone is unsafe, all are unsafe.

One feature of Travel Ban 2.0 not focused on elsewhere to my knowledge is that the time periods for suspension of entry under the two EOs are the same, even though 2.0 was announced more than a month after 1.0 and will not be effective until March 16. The changes made in 2.0 could, it would seem, have been made by one or two competent attorneys in a week’s time or less, even allowing for inter-agency consultation and coordination. That they were not must reflect that 2.0 is a political timing event and that the Trump administration has been sitting on its hands about the “emergency” of “uncontrolled entry” and “unvetted immigrants” while it dawdled with the language and Trump gave his speech to Congress. Thus, 2.0 reflects that no significant progress appears to have been made in the actual review of immigration procedures that are the centerpiece of the supposed rationale for the emergency “temporary” entry restrictions. The administration has certainly not announced any such progress. The procedures and the results of them are surely well known within the government. How can periods of 90 and 120 days be justified for “reviewing procedures?”

Consider also that in the interim between 1.0 and 2.0, Trump proposed to Congress the creation of a new government body inside Homeland Security: Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement, or VOICE. It is, as usual, unclear what this entity will do, or how much it will cost taxpayers, but the President has shown no similar solicitude for the victims of “non-immigrant crime” who vastly outnumber those affected by criminal behavior of immigrants. Perhaps Trump will eventually demand that immigrants mark themselves with an “I” so everyone can identify them on sight. Sound familiar? Right out of the Nazi playbook.

The President of the United States Lied … Again

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President Donald J. Trump has distinguished himself in the pantheon of American presidents by his remorseless lying about dozens of important issues. His White House support team has become famous by asserting “alternative facts” and arguing that actual facts are irrelevant now – the only thing that matters is what you choose to believe. (The lies have been listed in a multitude of places so I won’t repeat all of them here.)

Thus, it comes as no particular surprise that a few days ago, Trump awoke early, thought about the fact, yes, the fact, that his administration is embroiled in a serious crisis related to lying and/or dissembling about the relationship between his election campaign and the Russian government. This is an existential crisis for the President because if the truth emerges that his campaign people, with his knowledge, worked with the Russian government to tilt the 2016 election his way, his status as President will be in the gravest jeopardy.

So, at 6:35 am on March 4, 2017, Trump tweeted that he “just found out” that “Obama had my “wires tapped” [Trump’s quotes], citing no evidence because, of course, there is none. If there were, Trump would have published it. Instead, he has demanded that Congress investigate what he already “found out.” Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded to media calls for release of confirming evidence by saying the administration will have nothing further to say until Congress ferrets out the truth about the President’s allegations. It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for him, but he has chosen the bed he lies in so, no, no sympathy. And the Republican-dominated committees with jurisdiction appear to be complying by adding this issue to the Trump-Russia connection that they are, with extreme reluctance already allegedly “investigating.” They resist calls for an independent counsel to conduct the investigation because, of course, they want to investigate themselves and, surprise, “we found no evidence….”

It is tempting to say, as I and many others have said before, that Trump’s claim is another unhinged example of his erratic behavior that makes him unfit to hold office. It is that certainly, but it is also the latest example of Trump’s deflection skills. He is treating the country like a school yard where he the biggest bully. Then, just as someone is about to stand up to him, he yells “look, there’s XX, he stole the money, get him!” And the kids all chase after XX. The bully laughs and counts out the money.

Consider this. Suppose Trump had not “found out” about the wiretap but instead “found out” once again that President Obama was born in Kenya to non-U.S. parents and thus arguably all his actions as President would be null and void. Would the Congress then add that issue to the Russia-Trump investigation? Maybe they would. They likely appreciate that their “hold” on the government turns on Trump not being held accountable for lying to the American people. So they continue to do his bidding.

But that doesn’t make the lies anything but lies. Trump’s strategy earned him the presidency so he likely will continue to play the lying hand until it fails to work. If you read his infatuants’ tweets (I beg you to not expose your mind to them), you can understand how difficult it will be to deal with a president for whom the truth is simply whatever he chooses to make up.

The question for the majority of Americans is: how long will this continue before they rise up against Trump’s official supporters in Congress? Continuous, unrelenting pressure through calls, letters, postcards, demands for answers at town halls for those legislators with the courage to face their constituents, marches, demonstrations, public humiliations are essential elements of the process of making these people uncomfortable with what the President, and they, are doing. Give money to ACLU, Planned Parenthood and every other organization that has shown it will stand up against the tyranny of the Trump administration. Attend the rallies and demonstrations whose numbers are increasing almost daily.

This national disgrace and nightmare will not end until the people make it end. Go to https://www.resistancecalendar.org/ where you will find the amazing array of actions being planned. Take action.

 

Trump Completes New Secret Wall: the Great Stonewall

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The news has leaked out that President Trump has secretly built a new, not previously announced, wall that was finished in the dark of night while the nation slept. It stretches from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico.

It’s called the Great Stonewall. It’s a replica of a stonewall we’ve seen before:  Watergate. It comes with the bilious stench of “cover-up” that just won’t go away.

The Great Stonewall was built by a select team of Trump insiders and Republican supplicants on Capitol Hill: Trump himself, Bannon, Conway, Spicer, Miller, the Republican majority on the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others. The Great Stonewall has the same characteristics as all of its predecessors: dissembling (well, that meeting was in my “other capacity” so the fact that I didn’t mention it when asked under oath is of no consequence), misdirection and just plain lies.

The cost of the Great Stonewall is considerable: among them, the further loss of credibility of many leading players in the Trump ensemble, including the President himself, untold damage to the democratic process and, if the worst fears are true, serious potential harm to the security of the country. The problem is made worse, of course, by the fact that the President and members of his entourage have lied about so many things, so consistently, throughout the campaign and since the election, that it is difficult to credit anything they say when the truth could be so damaging to their situation.

The solution seems obvious: If there is nothing to hide, appoint an independent “prosecutor” (call him/her what you like: “investigator” would be fine) to dig out the documents, transcripts and other relevant material, take testimony under oath and eventually to get to the bottom of the “Russia Connection” and make a full public report of findings. If there is nothing to hide, Trump and his gang will come out way ahead … if there is nothing to hide. If there is something to hide, then heads, perhaps many of them, will roll, as well they should.

I, of course, don’t know whether there is anything to hide; no one does. But I do know one thing that I believe is irrefutable: it is not acceptable to expect the American people to believe in an investigation of the potentially guilty parties conducted by of themselves or by their political allies in Congress.  There must be an independent investigation. If not, this issue will haunt this administration for the rest of its days. The Great Stonewall must come down.

 

 

 

 

“Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”

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Statement by the President of the United States, February 27, 2017. http://nyti.ms/2ltf0pN.

Nobody?

We knew.

The law known as the Affordable Care Act was signed in March, 2010. The Republican Party hated it. Still does. The RP has had seven years to comprehend how “complicated” health care is. Now the President is shocked to learn that it is complicated. What more is there to say?

Perhaps someone – Kellyanne Conway? – will now explain that “nobody” doesn’t really mean nobody, at least when Trump uses the term. It’s just an adjective, like “military” in relation to deportation activities. That must be it: the “alternative fact” is that “nobody” doesn’t mean “no” body; it means, as Humpty Dumpty famously said, “”just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

It’s all so … complicated.

Compromise on Trump’s Tax Returns? — No!

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A thoughtful article appeared in the Washington Post yesterday (http://wapo.st/2kV9os6), penned by two law professors proposing a plan to “compromise” with President Trump to secure at least a quasi-public view of his tax returns. I would normally defer to this type of approach to solving a high-conflict problem, but in this case, I must, with respect to the authors, reject the idea for multiple reasons.

The concept involves engaging the staff of the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, now dominated by Republicans, to privately review Trump’s returns and prepare a “public summary report redacted of any proprietary business information.” The result would be two reports, one “large confidential” and one “redacted public,” based on some “bipartisan process” negotiated in advance with a “summary explanation of any compliance issues raised by the review.”

The problems with this well-intentioned proposal are many and, in my judgment, insuperable. First is the fact that Trump lied repeatedly about his intention to release his tax returns. This proposal gives him the benefit of those lies and that seems fundamentally wrong on multiple levels. Second, the complicated process does not result in full transparency and will almost certainly lead to continued complaints that critical details have been sanitized, whether intentionally or not. Third, there is no reason to trust the Republican majority to play this straight, as they have shown time and again an unwillingness to challenge the President’s remorseless lying, attacks on the independence of the press and many other examples too numerous to detail here but well-known to everyone paying attention. Finally, Trump’s dishonesty suggests he cannot be depended upon to live up to any arrangement if he suddenly decides he doesn’t like it. The latest reported efforts of the White House to suborn the FBI regarding the “Russia connection” are only one of many examples of the lengths Trump will go to delegitimize criticism.

It is true, of course, that full disclosure of Trump’s returns might reveal some confidential business information. That is a problem of his own making. If he had properly divested himself of his business interests, rather than the charade he perpetrated with the infamous stacks of legal documents display, these concerns would perhaps carry some weight. As it is, there is no reason to let Trump off the petard on which he has hoisted himself. If he persists with the fantasy, often repeated by his chief counselor, Kellyanne Conway, that since he won the election, no one cares about his tax returns, he and those who support him will suffer the political consequences. As Abraham Lincoln allegedly said: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Time will tell. Let’s not make it easy for the foolers.

American Airlines Customer Service – Updated, Over & Out

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To bring closure to this sordid episode in airline hubris, we tried multiple times at Washington National and again at Tampa to get someone from American to address the problem it had created. The responses were to keep pushing us off to a later step in the process where, we were told, the now empty Row 13 would be available for assignment to us at the airport. Needless to say, that did not happen. The last person I spoke with in Tampa did not even bother to read the boarding passes and kept insisting that I was someone named Hammond, then said she was only working the Dallas flight and we should await the arrival of another gate agent. That’s when we gave up.

We traveled in separate rows, not the end of the world, being adults and all. But as a matter of principle, this is a classic case of corporate irresponsibility toward customers. At no time was a notation made in the record to do anything to resolve the problem American unilaterally created by breaching our seat purchase contract.

The last message from American to my wife, who made the initial seat arrangements, reads in relevant part:

“A systemwide reservations system migration which went into effect after you made your seat reservation but before your departure date created a problem with your reserved seats. While it may seem like a small matter, changes can play havoc with seat assignments. In such cases several passengers may have to be reaccommodated in a limited amount of space, reducing our ability to satisfy everyone’s first choice of seat location. Moreover, during the small window of time in between the modification to our schedule and the reassignment of reserved seats, it is possible for another customer to request and receive a seat previously held by someone else.” [Emphasis added]

Reading that, you would think some independent force brought all this about without American being aware it was coming and helpless to do anything to mitigate its effects. At no point is there an explanation of why our seats had to be reassigned. There was no evidence of an aircraft change or seating configuration change on the plane. This seems like just so much corporate double-speak, the sound of “you’re dismissed.”

And the final kicker: “while reserved seats aren’t guaranteed, the next time you fly with us and settle into your seat, we’ll do our best to provide you with the one you reserved.”  We understood that seat assignments aren’t guaranteed when they are made without charge, but foolish me, after so many years in the industry, I actually thought there was still some semblance of bilateral contractual responsibility involved when I paid for something and the other side signified acceptance. Be aware.

Time to move on to something more important.

How Not to Treat a Customer – American Airlines

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I told myself I wouldn’t write about the industry in which I worked for so many decades, but enough is enough.

On November 20, 2016 my wife booked herself, her daughter and me on flights from Washington DC to Tampa tomorrow morning. Since we were denied the opportunity to get free seat assignments on the return, my wife paid a premium of $24 per seat so we could sit together in Row 15. She received an email confirmation of the purchase and the seat assignments.

Today we received the usual notice to check-in and saw that we no longer had the seats on the return flight. Instead we were offered the opportunity to buy two of the seats we had already paid for but at a $10 higher price. The middle seat was gone. But we can buy the middle seat in Row 14, an Exit Row, for $61. Or we could wait until we get to the airport and take our chances. All of the other seats on the seat map are shown as X’d, meaning they are “unavailable.”

American’s explanation was that there was a “reconfiguration of inventory.” This action occurred on January 4, roughly six weeks ago. No notice from American which is sitting on our money with no intention of returning it until, they said, it was noticed that we didn’t sit in the seats we paid for, at which point they would “automatically refund” the money paid for the seats.

We were further told that it is “no longer possible” to move the person occupying the middle seat that we had paid for. The other two seats in Row 15 are still available for purchase at the $10 higher price.

This bait and switch scheme is another example of what happens when there is no real competition among the airlines. And, of course, there is no practical remedy because the airlines are immune from suit under state laws governing fraud. We could, perhaps, make out a case of breach of contract, but I suspect there is buried somewhere in AA’s terms and conditions a statement that says its promises to provide special seats in return for additional charges are not binding.

The bottom line from American – come to the airport and bring the situation to the attention of the gate agent who will “do her best” to get your party seated together, somewhere on the airplane, precisely what we intended to avoid happening by paying extra for assigned seats.

I will be lodging this as a complaint with the Department of Transportation but it is largely helpless to compel airlines to live up to their promises regarding purchased seat assignments.

Keystone Kops Meet Three Stooges – Three Weeks of Trump Administration

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Those of you old enough to have seen the old film clips know that the Keystone Kops and Three Stooges comedy shtick involved a lot of bumping into each other, falling down, bopping on the head and nose pulling to what, in the case of the Stooges, were regarded as amusing sounds. In those days such things were indeed considered very funny by millions of fans.

Now we have a modern day version of the same thing playing out in the administration of Donald Trump. But it’s not funny.

The sheer incompetence of Trump’s management style is playing out for the world to see. The latest episodes have him and members of his inner circle huddled over a dinner table in the main dining room at Mar-a-Lago discussing national security and military issues arising from North Korea’s latest missile test. There are photos taken by another guest, not part of the government, showing papers, presumably highly confidential, being lit up by cell phones. The Prime Minister of Japan is at the table and part of the conversation.

While the issue certainly affects Japan and our relations with it, you would think our top government people would first want to discuss the situation among themselves before talking it over with the leader of a foreign power. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said today that all that activity just related to organizing a press conference and that Trump had been advised before the dinner about the missile launch in secure quarters. Maybe. Hard to know what to believe when everyone in Trump’s house has a different version of events, as in, for example, the conflict between Spicer and Kellyanne Conway over whether Michael Flynn was fired or resigned. More alternative facts, I suppose. Take your pick.

Trump has been in power less than one month and chaos reigns around him. The great business leader appears to be thrashing around trying to look like a tough guy who’s on top of his agenda, while the work product is mostly a bunch of Executive Orders that accomplish very little actual change and were mostly unnecessary, including, of course, that masterwork on immigration that has been soundly repudiated by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The travel ban EO appears to have been written by people with no legal degrees. One of the chief authors, Stephen Miller (Senior Advisor to the President), just finished a round of weekend interviews in which he decreed that the authority of the president may not be questioned. Mr. Miller was smart enough to graduate from Duke University, no easy feat if you’re not an athlete, but went to work in politics for the likes of Michelle Bachman. Now, at age 31, he is one of Trump’s closest advisors. With all due respect, Mr. Miller probably should have gone to law school first, or at least a graduate program involving constitutional learning.

Trump’s reliance on Miller, Stephen Bannon (Chief Strategist), Reince Preibus (Chief of Staff) and Kellyanne Conway (Counselor to the President) has produced constant chaos and gaffes at every level, an embarrassment to the United States here and abroad. In case you missed the interview, here is the exact Miller statement:

“Well, I think that it’s been an important reminder to all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government. One unelected judge in Seattle cannot remake laws for the entire country. I mean this is just crazy, John, the idea that you have a judge in Seattle say that a foreign national living in Libya has an effective right to enter the United States is — is — is beyond anything we’ve ever seen before.

The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.”

Is there something about judges in Seattle we don’t know? Miller smirked when he mentioned Seattle, as if a judge from Seattle was somehow a ridiculous idea that merited no respect? The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sits in four Western cities, covering nine states plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. It rejected the government’s attempt to overturn the District Court’s injunction pending further litigation. That apparently is not good enough to satisfy Mr. Miller’s concept of judicial authority either.

What exactly does Miller mean that as a result of “further actions,” the powers of the president to protect our country will not be questioned?” It sounds like a direct threat to the role of the judiciary in our tripartite system of checks and balances established by the Constitution. Maybe all he meant to say was that next time the Executive Order will be competently and narrowly written so that there is no real question of its legitimacy. Maybe. Mr. Miller should choose his words carefully. Threats to reject the authority of the judiciary as the third co-equal branch of government are more serious than Mr. Miller appears to understand. Oh, and the judge in Seattle did not say that “a foreign national living in Libya has an effective right to enter the United States.”

At the time of the weekend interviews Mr. Miller had ample time to read the 9th Circuit opinion rejecting the government’s request to overturn the decision of the “unelected judge in Seattle.” The court’s opinion eviscerates the government’s arguments one by one, including these findings:

“… although courts owe considerable deference to the President’s policy determinations with respect to immigration and national security, it is beyond question that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action.” [Opinion Part IV]

and

“The procedural protections provided by the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause are not limited to citizens. Rather, they “appl[y] to all ‘persons’ within the United States, including aliens,” regardless of “whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.” Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 693 (2001). These rights also apply to certain aliens attempting to reenter the United States after travelling abroad. Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 33-34 (1982).”  [Opinion Part VI]

Again, a few years in law school would have helped Mr. Miller grasp these Constitutional fundamentals. Why is the President of the United States relying on this person to speak for his administration in matters of this nature?

Just today a USA Today reported that

“review of presidential documents shows at least five cases where the version of an executive order posted on the White House website doesn’t match the official version sent to the Federal Register. The discrepancies raise further questions about how thorough the Trump administration has been in drafting some of the president’s most controversial actions.”

I won’t belabor this further. The Trump administration is led by a man who claims to be a master business leader, disciplined organizer and super-decisive “very smart” person. In today’s press briefing, Sean Spicer went out of his way to emphasize how “decisive” the President has been in all things. Yet everywhere one looks through the first three weeks of his administration, we see people bumping into each other, heads being bopped and noses yanked. This made for good comedy way back when, but it’s no way to lead a government. Despite months to prepare, all the President’s men seem to have little idea of what they are doing.

#RESIST

Republican Senators (save two) – Party Before Country

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SHAME on the Republican members of the U.S. Senate who voted for Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. Ms. DeVos demonstrated at her truncated confirmation hearing and in her post-hearing written responses that she is uniquely unqualified to run the Department of Education. This callous act ranks right down there with the nomination of Sarah Palin to be Vice President. The Republican senators who voted for DeVos have dishonored themselves, the Senate and the country. There is nothing left to say, except hats off to Senators Collins and Murkowski for having the courage to do the right thing in the face of what must have been massive pressure to yield. Oh, there is one other thing to say – this will not be forgotten. SHAME!

#RESIST