Tag Archives: Trump

Tax March DC 2017

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Yesterday tens of thousands of Americans gathered in cities across the country to demand that the sitting President of the United States release his tax returns so that the country can decide for itself whether there are concerning ties to Russia, whether and where lie his continuing conflicts of interest resulting from failure to divorce himself fully from his business interests and how he and his family may benefit from changes in the federal tax code now being considered.

There are also many questions whether he has lied about his charitable giving, the scale of his earnings and others. Trump first said he would release his returns when the audits were finished. That excuse fails on multiple grounds. He signed the returns when they were filed and, as we all do, vouched for their accuracy and completeness. The audit may reveal issues with those criteria, or other failings, but the audit, which Trump could and likely would contest for years, is no excuse for withholding the returns from public scrutiny. As many of the signs at yesterday’s march stated: what is Trump hiding? T

he same question arises due to the Trump decision to withhold from public view the visitor logs to the White House. The proposed excuses for this latest example of secret government are security and privacy. The security question can easily be handled by time delaying the release or by masking names where there is a legitimate security reason for not disclosing a visitor to the White House. In an open democracy those should be few and far between. The privacy rationale is ludicrous coming from an administration that supports letting Internet providers sell the browsing records of their users.

For those interested but couldn’t attend a march personally, I have attached 116 images from the march in the District of Columbia which was massive. The photos from ground level do not fully reveal the size of the event nor, of course, the sounds.

Next up is the March for Science on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22. I urge you to join this march to convey to the administration that the people of this country are not going to accept the dismantling of the environmental protections that have been put in place to protect our life-essential air, water, bio-diversity and other natural elements critical to life on the one planet on which we can live. See this site for information:  https://www.marchforscience.com/

Mitch McConnell – Hypocrite for the Ages

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In the April 6 edition of the Washington Post, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wrote “Reaping what they have sown,” devoted to blaming the Democratic Party in Congress for, in effect, forcing Republicans to use the “nuclear option” to stop the filibuster of the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch. http://wapo.st/2oVsKeP. McConnell called the Democratic filibuster of the Gorsuch nomination an “unprecedented attack on the traditions of the Senate.”

Not one word of McConnell’s 753-word “the devil made me do it” disquisition mentions the refusal of the Republican Party last year to even given a hearing, let alone a Senate vote, on President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for the seat that has now gone to Gorsuch.

Upon close examination, the real thrust of the piece is not to poke the Democrats about resisting Gorsuch per se. It is rather to say to Democrats, and everyone else watching: “we beat you on this one and now you should start cooperating with us and the Trump agenda instead of your “blind “resistance” to anything and everything this president proposes.”

Ah, yes, it’s time to stop resisting and start cooperating. See my blog post immediately preceding this one, entitled “On Tyranny-Read It Now.” McConnell’s call for “cooperation” is precisely what Timothy Snyder warns against in his prescient treatment of the sources of authoritarianism.

McConnell’s piece ends with this:

“Perhaps this is the moment Democrats will begin again to listen the many Americans – the people who sent us here – who want real solutions so we can work together to help move our country forward.”

Consistently with the rest of his thoughts, McConnell overlooks the fact that while Trump won the Electoral College vote, the majority of American’s voted for someone else. There is no case for listening to the Republican minority now. Indeed, as the former Democrats who flipped for Trump continue to become aware of how the Trump/McConnell/Ryan agenda is going to actually defeat their interests, it is reasonable to expect, by 2018 mid-terms, a significant shift away from the party that proposes to gut the federal government, reverse the environmental rules that have resulted in massive improvements in air and water quality and … on and on. Mr. McConnell is feeling pretty smug right now so he can, with a straight face, now call on Democrats to “cooperate.”

As long as the President of the United States continues to lie about the Russia connection (see “White House assertions on intelligence and Russia” in Fact Checker, Washington Post print edition, Sunday, April 9, 2017, inexplicably not online, at A2), promotes health legislation that reduces coverage for millions, supports desecration the environment and wanton killing of animals on federal land, to name just a few, there can be no “cooperation.” McConnell and the Republican Party’s hypocrisy is on full display now as the administration careens from one side of the listing ship of state to the other, with no principled leadership or strategy. So, NO, Mr. McConnell, there will be no “cooperation.”

On Tyranny – Read It Now

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On his CNN show last Sunday, Fareed Zakaria recommended that viewers read On Tyranny, by noted Yale University Professor of History, Timothy Snyder. You can read about him here: http://history.yale.edu/people/timothy-snyder.

The subtitle of the 126-page book is “Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.” Using examples from the history of Europe and other places where dictatorships and far-right authoritarian regimes have arisen, Snyder sets out advice, well-grounded in history, of how people in the United States should respond to the threats to democracy that are now flourishing in the United States. Some of the “lessons” may seem simple in their expression, but Snyder powerfully connects them to historical experience elsewhere. It is a “how to” guide to resisting the slide toward authoritarian governance.

The compelling first chapter, for example, is entitled “Do not obey in advance” and explains the concept of “anticipatory obedience” and where it can lead. I found Chapter 17 particularly compelling. It’s titled “Listen for dangerous words” and explains it this way:

“A Nazi leader out-maneuvers his opponents by manufacturing a general conviction the present moment is exceptional, and then transforming that state of exception into a permanent emergency. Citizens then trade real freedom for fake safety.” [On Tyranny at 100].

On Tyranny is an important work that should be read by everyone interested in the disrupted and disruptive political situation faced by the United States under the Trump administration.

I have thought a lot about the source of this book’s power. In part, I think, it derives from the very brevity of the messages and supporting material. The 126 pages are only 4.5 by 6.75 inches – you can carry in the back pocket of your jeans

But the call-outs are not merely cheap and easy aphorisms. They are deep concepts that should be absorbed and acted upon by all who want to preserve the Land of the Free. If you are concerned about what is happening to America under the Trump administration, you should read this book. You can find it here: http://amzn.to/2ouLXHs and here: http://bit.ly/2oRXmx8.

 

Trump and Putin – Two Peas

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Commentators continue to marvel and puzzle over Not-My-President Trump’s apparent adulation of Vladimir Putin and, in turn, the adulation of Trump by the Rust Belt workers and families who have historically been the Democratic base. I have a theory of my own based on my and others’ observations of Trump’s behavior during the campaigns and since taking office.

Recall Jimmy Connors, the great tennis champion of the 1970s and 1980s who was known for his fierce competitive drive. When asked for an explanation of his ferocity in what had been a gentlemanly game, he said “I hate to lose more than I love to win.”

Trump sold his political base on much the same idea. With him as President, he claimed, the Rust Belt workers, who were either unemployed (and possibly unemployable) or were hanging onto tenuous positions in dying industries like coal mining and raw steel production and who felt, rightly, that they had “lost” something, would “win” again. No more losing!

Generally, behavioral economists tell us, loss-aversion is a stronger force on people’s thinking than is the opportunity to gain an equivalent value. Like Jimmy Connors, people really hate to lose especially employment that, in the American ethos, is so central to people’s sense of self-esteem. That was the psychology that Trump played to in the campaign with his “jobs, jobs, jobs” and “Make America Great Again” themes. He called the Rust Belt voters the “forgotten people” and assured them they were “forgotten no longer.”

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was announcing multi-part complex plans to solve the dis-employment problem while promising to put coal companies and their employees out of business and condemning Trump’s supporters as “deplorables.” In essence, Trump’s simple message, while phrased in terms of “so much winning,” was actually “When I am president, you will no longer be losers.” By touching the “loser nerve,” Trump was able to capture the deep loyalty of his fan base that is seemingly impervious to repeated proofs that he has lied or made demonstrably false statements.

Now consider Putin. Many knowledgeable people in the Western world would describe Putin as dishonest, corrupt, despotic, a murderer and generally an immoral and evil person. To that description, Putin would likely have one answer: “Am I winning?”

Putin’s answer would be ‘yes,’ though the price of his “winning” is being paid in impoverishment of much of the Russian population along with suppression of opposition speech, among other horrors. To which Putin would respond again, with a smirk, “Am I winning?” That is the only relevant metric for him. His political goal, to the extent one exists beyond ill-gotten accrual of personal wealth, and the likely source of such support as he enjoys among some Russians is the restoration of the Russia of days gone by – a global superpower equal to or even dominant over the United States and the “West.” Not too far in concept from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” theme. Putin uses different techniques than Trump to advance his agenda, but in fundamental ways the goals are very similar. The crucial point is that losing and winning are not equivalents. “Avoiding loss” carries more psychological heft than “winning.”

That perception is, I believe, the true meaning behind the question he reportedly kept asking as the ObamaCare “repeal and replace” legislation unraveled: “Is the Ryan legislation a good bill?” He really meant “am I going to lose with this bill?”  When it became clear that losing was almost certain to happen, he abandoned the effort before the losing could become choate in a House floor vote.

Trump hates to lose and ending the healthcare fight was a way to avoid losing, even if in reality he did not achieve his goal and by any objective standard would be seen as having lost with resulting damage to his self-image as an infallible deal-maker. When he was widely portrayed in the media as having lost the ObamaCare replacement fight, he immediately reversed course and said that the battle was not over and that negotiations were on-going, an assertion now shown by recent reports to be true. http://wapo.st/2nYE37S.

Given Trump’s history and lifestyle, it is hard to imagine he ever really got to know people like those who are now his most ardent supporters. It is highly unlikely that he is capable of genuine empathy regarding their situation. But Trump doesn’t have to genuinely care about those people in order to “win” with them. He showed during the health care battle that he was prepared to deprive millions of them of health care coverage in order to avoid losing the fight to repeal ObamaCare. And, by recent accounts of what is being discussed among Republicans as a “compromise” approach, the “essential benefits” and “pre-existing conditions” coverages that he promised to keep are now expendable. One solution reportedly being considered is to amend the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) so that the states can individually decide which essential benefits to retain. In the states the influence of the giant corporations and the big-money SuperPACS is even greater than at the federal level, so the principal benefits of the ACA will likely be diluted or eliminated.

On the other hand, we are now witnessing an apparent backlash against Trump’s agenda at multiple Town Hall meetings of Republican legislators. Republicans are facing the wrath of their constituents who are finally beginning to recognize the threat of the Republican agenda to their welfare. The reality that Trump lied to them appears to be sinking in, as his popularity in polls has fallen to 35 percent.

It is, on the other hand, often reported that many of his infatuants still appear to forgive him every sin, no matter what he does or says. These folks are impacted by a real conundrum. Trump promised to lift them up from their “loser” status. He is failing to deliver on those promises, but his base really hates to return to being losers. Losing is the worst thing and they have nowhere else to turn that offers the same comfort. So they reject the idea that their chosen champion has played them. They refuse to accept a self-image of being losers and … chumps.

Putin, of course, doesn’t have to worry about whether his constituents approve of his policies. His dictatorial control over the state machinery of compulsion assures that he cannot be displaced or even seriously challenged. Putin hates to lose too and no doubt understands what might happen to him if he were displaced, given that Russia is not wedded to the peaceful transfer of power. He would readily crush any opposition with any and all means at his disposal.

Trump doesn’t have the same tools at this disposal as Putin, so he is forced to negotiate when he would prefer to dictate. That Trump admires Putin so much is one of the most disturbing aspects of his status as President of the United States. One wonders whether Trump would attempt to use the instruments of state compulsion to get his way if he believed he was otherwise completely blocked and that he was losing his hold on the infatuants who continue to believe he can do no wrong. He is showing signs of that in his deportation policy and in the latest announcement that the Department of Justice consent decrees on law enforcement practices in some major cities may have gone too far in compelling the use of non-violent policing practices.

Ultimately, Trump’s affection for Putin may be his undoing. The investigation of the Russia connections, and possible collusion, involved in the presidential campaign is on-going and almost every day some new revelation emerges that strengthens both the concern about possible collusion to influence the election and the concern about Trump’s efforts to sabotage the investigations. To the more suspicious mind, there is a major cover-up underway whose unmasking would likely bring about the premature end of the Trump presidency.

Assuming that does not occur, the 2018 electoral season is afoot and it’s time to prepare to act where it matters most. The challenge for the Democrats is to relearn the language that in the past had earned them the voting loyalty of the working-class American. It is not enough to offer complicated ten-point plans to these citizens. They have experienced loss, are suffering deeply as a result, both economically and psychologically. If Democrats are to be successful in regaining their prominence with this voting group, they have to change how and what they are communicating. Trump still knows how to talk their language and the Democrats need to catch up.

And they need to do it fast.

Killing Us Bigly – Trump Environment Policy

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Killing Us Bigly – Trump Environment Policy

Surely Neil DeGrasse Tyson is one of the smartest, and I think also the funniest, humans on Earth.

In Death by Black Hole (2007) he devoted the first chapter, “Coming to Our Senses,” to the reality that the five senses humans enjoy, while robust for many purposes, are insufficient to help us understand the world and the universe. He wrote this:

“Consider that the human machine, while good at decoding the basics of our immediate environment – like when its day or night or when a creature is about to eat us – has very little talent for decoding how the rest of nature works without the tools of science. If we want to know what’s out there then we require detectors other than the ones we are born with. In nearly every case, the job of a scientific apparatus is to transcend the breadth and depth of our senses.” [Death by Black Hole at 26]

He expanded that idea by noting that the development of our senses as we grow up helps us make sense of the world but almost no scientific discoveries in the past hundred years were accomplished by relying just on our senses. Instead, they came through the use of mathematics and human-created hardware. Id. at 29.

And finally Tyson made this powerful point:

“Our five senses even interfere with sensible answers to stupid metaphysical questions like, “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”” My best answer is, “How do you know it fell?” But that just gets people angry. So I offer a senseless analogy, “Q: If you can’t smell the carbon monoxide, then how do you know it’s there? A: You drop dead.” In modern times, if the sole measure of what’s out there flows from your five senses then a precarious life awaits you.” [Id. at 30]

That brings me to the environment “agenda” of Not-My-President Trump. His proposed budget, which is subject to review and adoption by Congress, seeks to lay off 25 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency staff, terminate 56 programs involving restoration of some of America’s largest and dangerously polluted bodies of water (the Great Lakes and the Chesapeake Bay). See details at http://wapo.st/2nJy9FX.

To the extent that there is any solace in these proposals, some funding would be directed at the states who would, in theory, act to protect the environment in lieu of the federal government. However, at the root of this view is the inevitability that the influence of the large polluters on state regulators is likely to be significantly greater than they have been able to exercise at the federal level. The threat to “move our assets, and jobs, elsewhere” is powerful lever against aggressive environmental regulation by states and localities, creating a “race to the bottom” among the states to show the big polluters that they are a “coal friendly” or “farmer friendly” state where regulation in the name of the environment is nothing to be feared.

In addition to the possibility, however remote, that the Republican-dominated Congress will reject those drastic cuts, coalitions of environmental groups are using the courts to challenge Trump’s effort to turn environmental protection over to the polluters. See http://wapo.st/2nMn7B6. These actions portend a long fight to protect the country and the world from the Trump agenda to reduce or eliminate regulation of corporate behavior in the interest of the biosphere.

Trump’s approach to the environment is not a “conservative” program. It more closely resembles something an anarchist would propose. Not surprising, perhaps, considering the prominent position at Trump’s right and left hands of Steve Bannon who has vowed to “deconstruct the administrative state.”

There can be no reasonable doubt that the implementation of Trump’s plans will result in many deaths, not only of animals and their habitat, but of humans as well. I haven’t seen any estimates, partly, I think, because Trump’s proposals are in a state of flux and get more draconian with each iteration. But deaths will surely result, along with more black lung disease, cancer and other avoidable ailments arising from lack of care for the environment.

The number and quality of “new jobs” created due to the removal of environmental protections will be miniscule compared to the costs to humans and the planet. All of the regulations that Trump is now sweeping away through Executive Orders and budget hatchet jobs were carefully evaluated, before adoption, for costs and benefits as required by federal law. The destruction of the environmental safety net is not being accompanied by a similar demonstration of costs and benefits.

The ensuing damage to the biosphere and the deaths of animal and human life that will inevitably result from Trump’s policies will be laid by history at Trump’s feet. The blood will be on his hands and on the hands of his enablers in Congress. But the pain and suffering will be felt by others.

Disturbingly, in my view, a contrary view was set out in the Washington Post on Sunday, April 2 at B1 (not posted on WaPo website). The article by Ben Adler, a New York journalist, is entitled “Trump can’t do much to worsen climate change.” As I understand it, Adler’s basic point is that Trump’s anti-environmental policies in the U.S. cannot by themselves do much to worsen global warming and, in any event, other countries will likely step up their game to offset the negative contributions of the United States.

That, I suggest, is wishful thinking of the worst kind. The United States has been a leading force in bringing about the Paris Agreement under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Paris treaty went into effect in the United States just days before the last presidential election. http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php.

There are no guarantees that other countries will not lose their resolve in the wake of the United States’ retreat from its commitments as the Trump administration appears intent to do. Moreover, whatever other countries may do in the way of offsets on a global scale will do nothing to resolve the air and water pollution and habitat destruction that Trump’s no-nothing approach to the environment will impose directly on the United States.

If you have young children, or grandchildren, you no doubt understand already the harsh future that Trump’s policies will yield. If so, you should immediately engage with the Resistance to oppose what the administration is trying to do. It is not enough now to wring your hands and hope for better days after the mid-term elections. The damage will have been done by then. It is time now to join actively with the Resistance by connecting with MoveOn.org, PeoplePower.org, the ACLU, Indivisible, the Sierra Club and any of the many other organizations actively working right now to stop the desecration of the planet which is the only home the human race is going to have in any time frame that matters. Just ask Neil deGrasse Tyson.

The White House Press Corps Must Do Its Job

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Most weekdays White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer holds a Daily Press Briefing by Press Secretary Sean Spicer, during which members of the White House “press corps” sit in a small room, listen to a recitation of White House “news” and, when signaled by Spicer, ask him questions. March 28 was No. 30 in the series. You can, if so inclined, read the transcripts of these events, with a day’s delay, at http://bit.ly/2nMPMqv. The contests are also covered on radio and sometimes on television. I caught part of the March 28 episode on radio, during which Spicer lambasted a reporter for “shaking your head” while he was rejecting her question, and decided to read the entire transcript.

Because the mission of the free press is to discover and report the factual news, what we might call reality or as close to reality as they can get, while the working hypothesis of the Trump administration is that the free press is out to get the President through “fake news” (i.e., anything Trump doesn’t like), these sessions often have a competitive edge to them. Indeed, you might say there is a lot of hostility, both expressed and implied. Some of this conflict is natural and has been around for decades. The White House always wants the news to be good and the press brings to the table an innate skepticism about much of what politicians have to say. Nevertheless, the Trump administration has, perhaps uniquely, declared open war on the press, describing it, in a phrase borrowed from dictators and autocrats over the ages, as the “enemy of the people.”

Turning to the Spicer performance, he said this:

“One of those places that he [Trump] hopes to find common ground with Senate Democrats … is the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.  Yesterday, many Senate Democrats began declaring support for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s partisan filibuster of Judge Neil Gorsuch….

Leading Democrats have lamented these tactics as recently as last year [citing statements by Senator Schumer, Hillary Clinton and Senator Claire McCaskill who tweeted “[T]he constitution says the Senate shall advise and consent.  And that means having an up-or-down vote.”] ….

When the shoe was on the other foot, when a Supreme Court nominee for a Democratic President went through the confirmation hearings and meetings with senators from both parties, neither Justices Kagan nor Sotomayor faced an attempted Senate filibuster.  Both received Republican votes in support of their confirmations.

In fact, during the Kagan nomination, on the Senate floor, when Senate Leader Harry Reid planned to file a cloture motion to bring Kagan to a vote, it was then-Senator and now current Attorney General Jeff Sessions who … asked Senator Reid to proceed with a vote without the need for overcoming a Republican filibuster.

Judge Gorsuch has met with most of the Senate Democratic caucus.  He has gone through days of hearings and answered probing questions.  He is eminently qualified and deserves the deference and consideration from the minority Senate Democrats that President Obama’s selections were given once they had gone through the confirmation process.” [Italics added]

Wow! That one takes my breath away. Notice the phrasing “when a Supreme Court nominee for a Democratic President went through the confirmation hearings” and “once they had gone through the confirmation process.” That language enables Spicer to completely ignore the fact that the Republicans refused to give even a hearing to President Obama’s nominee for the same Supreme Court seat. Nicely done, Mr. Spicer. You juked and dodged around that one without a challenge!

Later, Spicer said: “… the President was pleased to see that Ford announced $1.2 billion investment in three manufacturing facilities in Michigan, just two weeks after automobile executives came to the White House and met with the President.”

Another whopper. Trump once again claims credit for something that Ford Motor Company, according to its President for the Americas, as reported in the Detroit News, has been working up for “quite some time. It’s a mixed bag here for what’s new.”  http://detne.ws/2nGDC24. Ford’s own announcement on March 28 did not mention Trump or their meeting. http://ford.to/2nedho9.

Eamon Javers of CNBC asked this:

“… the White House is saying that they’re going to reverse President Obama’s so-called “war on coal.”  But a lot of people in the coal industry suggest that jobs are just not going to come back in that industry, based on the way the industry has changed, technology and other things.  Does this administration have an estimate of how many jobs will be created as a result of the actions it’s taking today?

Spicer’s response: “I’m not aware of one, an estimate….” He went on the say that miners and mine owners who had been invited to the White House were big supporters and that was enough.

Clearly, the White House has no clear idea what the job-creating effects of the reversal of environmental restrictions on the coal industry will be. The administration is simply taking the word of the industry that it’s “going to make coal great again,” and is disregarding the painstaking work that went into the Clean Power Plan to estimate the benefits and costs, as required by law. The MCGA move will result in huge environmental damage while likely yielding an insignificant number of new jobs.

But that is small potatoes compared to what followed.

Francesca Chambers of Mail Online asked:

“Yesterday you weren’t able to tell us very much about Congressman Nunes’s visit to the … White House grounds to view classified information last week.  A Democrat on the committee today said that the White House would have known that he was here.  The same Democrat also said that it looked like a criminal cover-up to him.  My question to you is, have you learned any more information since we had this conversation yesterday about how he would have even gotten in and how he would have gotten cleared?

Here is Spicer’s response:

“I think the thing that’s important to note is there is somewhat of a double standard when it comes to classified information.  When leaks are made illegally to the press, and you all report them, the coverage focuses almost entirely on the substance of the allegation and that are part of an illegal lead, not on the illegal nature of the disclosure, the identity of the leaks, or their agenda.

But when the information that is occurring now, which is two individuals who were properly cleared — or three, or whoever he met with — I don’t know — that they are sharing stuff that is entirely legal with the appropriate clearances — and then there is an obsession on the process.

… it’s a backwards way that when you all report on stuff with sources that are leaking — illegally leaking classified information, that’s appropriate and fine.  No one questions that — the substance and material.  When two individuals, or however many are engaged in this process, have a discussion that is 100 percent legal and appropriate and cleared, suddenly the obsession becomes about the process and not the substance.

And I think that it is somewhat reckless and — how the conversation over classified information is discussed without — while sort of attempting to press a false narrative that exists.  So while it is completely appropriate to share classified information with individuals who are cleared, it is clearly not the case to do that when it is illegally leaked out.  And I think that’s sort of the irony of how this whole conversation has …. [Note: transcript ends here]”

Spicer never came close to answering the question that was asked, which was: ““have you learned any more information since we had this conversation yesterday about how he would have even gotten in and how he would have gotten cleared?” Instead, he launched an attack on the media’s treatment of leaks, the standard playbook for almost every question that relates to whether Trump and colleagues colluded with Russia to influence the last election.

And he got away with it! The closest he came to a substantive response is this exchange with another reporter: “So we’re taking what you’re saying as assurances that Chairman Nunes’s decision to call of [sic: s/b “off”] that hearing did not have anything to do with any pressure from with [sic] White House? Spicer’s answer: “No.”

Then there was this exchange:

“Does the President still believe that climate change is a hoax?

Spicer’s reply:

“I think you will hear more today about the climate and what he believes.  I think he understands — he does not believe that — as I mentioned at the outset, that there is a binary choice between job creation, economic growth, and caring about the environment.  And that’s what we should be focusing on.  I think, at the end of the day, where we should be focusing on is making sure that all Americans have clean water, clean air, and that we do what we can to preserve and protect our [transcript ends].”

Of all the questions asked at this briefing, that one, you would think, could be answered with a simple, direct “yes or no.” The equivocation suggests that the actions the President has taken to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency and other abrupt removals of restraints on air and water pollution show that the President of the United States sticks to his earlier claims that “climate change is a hoax.”

It’s also a fair conclusion that, despite the dissembling, the press corps never laid a glove on Spicer or Trump, despite multiple opportunities to challenge falsehoods, distortions and deflections. It’s perhaps too early for a final judgment but this experience suggests that Trump is winning the disinformation battle with the media. If so, we are in serious trouble.

If you are concerned about this, you should communicate with the principal media organizations on which you depend to find out and report the truth. Tell them they must not sit like lumps of clay when confronted with overt dissembling, avoidance of hard questions and outright false statements. It is difficult, but the members of the White House press corps must aggressively press for answers to their questions and challenge the evasions with which the March 28 event was replete.

When You Rest on Your Laurels, You Become a Stationary Target

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The defeat of the Republican-sponsored American Health Care Act (AHCA) was a great victory for the people.  Thanks go to the organizing leaders at, in alpha order: ACLU/PeoplePower.org), Grassroots Alexandria, Indivisible (and its many local arms), MoveOn.org, Women’s March, plus the many other national and local groups whose names I don’t even know and, of course, to the individuals who called, wrote, marched, protested, demonstrated and rallied against the atrocity of the AHCA. And thanks also to AARP, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Planned Parenthood, among others.

I have noted that some people feel that we have somehow “won the war” with this victory and that they can now either step back or at least “move on to something else.” This is an understandable response to what has happened. At the same time, we must not become complacent about the Trump administration. The AHCA could be brought back by the Republican majority at any time. So by all means celebrate, relish the feeling of a huge and, I must say it, improbable achievement. Then prepare to fight the enemy in our front.

But also post guards on the flanks and in the rear. Trump blames the loss of the ACHA on Democrats and, of course, he would. It is certain as the sunrise, however, that Trump never expected any Democrat to vote for the bill. Blaming Democrats is just another head-fake. Remember, as someone (not Thomas Jefferson) famously said, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” This is particularly true now. Trump and Ryan are humiliated and angry and they have shown that they do not grasp what “the welfare of the people” really means.

Moreover, Trump has tweeted that the way forward is this: “ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!” That tweet has been “liked” over 91,000 times. As suggested by Deepak Gupta and others, what does this say about Trump’s constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed?” U.S. Constitution, Art. II, sec. 3. Trump appears to believe that the Take Care obligation is part of the “fake Constitution” and does not apply to him. Wrong again.

What comes next is not clear. It could be “tax reform” or something else. Or multiple things. We already know that the Trump administration, through executive orders and Cabinet appointments, has declared war on the environment. Many more craven acts of legislative and regulatory vandalism are coming. But the March for Science is also coming – on April 22 in Washington and elsewhere … and many other demonstrations of the peoples’ commitment to resisting the destructive agenda of the Trump administration. It is critically important to show Trump that the people do not accept his assault on the air they breathe and the water they drink, that the people do not accept his attempt to shift the burden of taxation toward the population sector already suffering economic hardship or worse and that the people will not accept his effort to turn the country into “fortress America” with border walls and distrust of everyone who does not fit his narrow concept of what it means to be an American.

The Resistance must remain constant, relentless and ubiquitous so the administration sees that there are no weak spots to be exploited. Resistance is the only course left to stop the right-wing idealogues from undermining American values. In this regard, finally, it is important to make clear to Democratic lawmakers at every level that supporting the Republican agenda in any respect is unacceptable.

We have seen what the Republican agenda is prepared to do to achieve its imaginary wonderland of the “free market” in all things: just consider that the leadership was prepared to strip from the Affordable Car Act replacement legislation most of the “essential benefits” in order to appease the Freedom Caucus and secure their votes. Fortunately for the country, enough of the extremist demands of the Freedom Caucus were rejected to stop them from supporting the legislation. While Trump’s oft-touted-but-never-demonstrated negotiating skills failed him in this instance, we have seen the price the leadership was willing to pay to achieve their ideological ends, regardless of the consequences to the people who need those “essential benefits” the most. We cannot afford to take chances with a group that is willing to drive the country off a cliff to prove a point.

What Is the Democratic Alternative to the American Health Care Act?

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We are about an hour and a half from the House vote on the ludicrously named American Health Care Act, which brings to mind the famous phrase from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: “The horror! The horror!” In typical fashion, Not-My-President Trump is threatening recalcitrant Republicans in the House that he will “come after you” if they don’t support the AHCA. Changes are being made to make the legislation more palatable to extreme right-wing Congressmen in the so-called Freedom Caucus. It’s hard to tell what is going on because most of the action is behind closed doors, but it seems clear that major reductions in benefits for low-income people have been incorporated into the legislation to buy votes of the ultra-conservative far right wing of the Republican Party. Those Republicans coldly and calmly stand before media cameras and boast about removing health care benefits from the AHCA package.

Given the inhumane indifference with which the AHCA treats most health-challenged people and given that it includes a large tax break for the wealthiest Americans, there is nothing good to say about the legislation. Most Democrats have railed against it since its details were released after much secret negotiating among its Republican sponsors.

What has begun to stand out to me is that while Democrats have rightly and righteously opposed the AHCA, they, including former President Obama himself, have acknowledged that there are issues with the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) that need to be addressed. Instead of producing an alternative to the AHCA that would make repairs where needed, however, the Democratic leadership has focused entirely on the multitude of negative features of the “repeal and replace” legislation.

This may be a political attempt to make the Republicans “own” the AHCA and its inevitably horrific consequences, but it strikes me, late in the game (I admit), that this is not the best strategy. Rather than simply counting on a handful of Republican legislators to block the legislation in the House or Senate, it would have been better, I think, to offer a realistic alternative to the current Obamacare.

Perhaps most interesting are the observations of Jennifer Rubin, described by the Washington Post as a person who “writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective. She covers a range of domestic and foreign policy issues and provides insight into the conservative movement and the Republican Party.” http://wapo.st/2nSfAyQ. Rubin said this:

“… the legislation is a dog’s breakfast. It’s a bill that does not repeal Obamacare and does not address the most acute issue, namely rising premiums. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) keeps promising that will be addressed in the third prong of legislation, but as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) points out that is never happening (since there are not eight Democratic votes). If the GOP passes this, it will be stuck with the worst of all worlds — a highly regulated insurance market with skimpier tax credits than were available under Obamacare. That, plus the roll back on Medicaid expansion, explains why so many conservatives and moderates oppose it.

The bill was so unworkable Ryan had to come up with a last minute “manager’s amendment” to, for example, try to improve support for rural, older voters who are badly hurt. But there is no legislative language laying that out. Those who vote for this literally won’t know what is in the bill. In short, it’s bad legislation that will hurt people, many of whom voted for President Trump. If it passes, the problems with the bill and the hard luck cases will be on the heads of Republicans.

As for the politics, it has already split the party and pitted Republicans against one another. It gets a pitiful level of support. Voters, as opposed to politicians and political insiders, rank health care relatively low on their priority list. Voters really are not clamoring for this. Rather than get mired down in an endless negotiation back and forth with the Senate and be responsible for a lousy outcome, Republicans would be wise to move on to jobs, just as the president said he wanted to do.”

Further:

“Obamacare’s faults don’t make the case for this particular bill. Significant numbers of Freedom Caucus members are saying the bill does not do what it is supposed to. Perhaps they have internalized the real lesson of Obamacare: Don’t pass a bad bill, take responsibility for people’s health care and hope it gets fixed later. Right now, Sen. Cruz won’t vote for the bill. And he’s right. It should die in the House.”

http://wapo.st/2nnIh93.

It is not the case that some of the fixes to Obamacare have not been identified. For example, Nalini Pande, Sappho Health Strategies, LLC’s Managing Director, who has significant health care policy credentials and experience, has identified three “repairs” worth consideration:

“(1) Increasing subsidies for the poor so that the Exchange plans are more affordable; (2) Encouraging state insurance commissioners to conduct stronger rate reviews/rate regulation to prevent unreasonably high rate increases … and … to ensure that for-profit insurers are not increasing rates at a dramatically high rate to ensure more profits for shareholders at the expense of their customers – this goes for employer plans, not just plans on the Exchange under ACA; (3) stronger evaluations on plan performance, premium increases and surplus and reserves, especially for-profit insurers/health plans.”

As I stated in my previous post, I claim no expertise in health care or insurance policy, but Pande’s prescriptions make sense. There are likely many others. Hopefully for the country, the Democratic strategy will work out in the end and the AHCA will be defeated. If not, the failure to offer an effective alternative may be seen as a very serious error.

For Whom Is the Chair of House Intelligence Committee Working?

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In a report published this afternoon in USAToday, http://usat.ly/2nojfXw, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee was attributed as saying that “communications involving members of President Trump’s transition group were “incidentally collected” by U.S. intelligence officials following the November election.”

According to the report, updated from its first publication,

“Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., did not identify other transition members swept up in the surveillance, adding that he has viewed “dozens” of such intelligence reports that appeared “legal” but perhaps “inappropriate.” “What I’ve read bothers me, and I think it should bother the president himself and his team, because some of it appears to be inappropriate,” Nunes told reporters at the White House after briefing the president on the findings. [Note that the original USAToday story included this line, “”I think the president is concerned and he’d like to see these reports.”] [Note also that Sean Spicer has been reported saying that Nunes spoke to the press before informing Trump]

The chairman said the intelligence reports were not part of a criminal investigation or the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election. Rather, he said the collection was related to broader intelligence gathering activities.

….

Nunes also has rejected the president’s claims that Trump Tower had been wiretapped. And he said “none” of the newly disclosed surveillance was related to “any investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team.” [emphasis added]

“Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration—details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value—were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting,” Nunes told reporters Wednesday. Nevertheless, Trump, while meeting Wednesday with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters that he felt “somewhat” vindicated by Nunes’ statements.

” I must tell, you I somewhat do,” the president said. “I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found, I somewhat do.” Before briefing the president, Nunes said he also notified House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., of the information. Nunes suggested that the information came from one or more whistleblowers. “It came through the proper channels and the proper clearances,” Nunes said. “This was information that was brought to me that I thought the president needed to see.”  He said the National Security Agency has been cooperative, but the FBI so far has not.

Nunes said the surveillance itself appeared to be legal — presumably through a warrant from Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — but that the concern was what intelligence agencies did with that information. He would not rule out that senior Obama administration officials received the intelligence or that they were involved in the “unmasking” of the citizens identified in the reports. [Note that he can’t rule Obama’s officials “in” either] But he also re-stated his belief that Obama did not order the wiretapping of Trump Tower, as Trump himself has suggested in a series of March 4 tweets and subsequent public remarks.

“From what I’ve read, there seems to be some level of surveillance action — perhaps legal, but I don’t know that it’s right,” he said. Nunes said nothing he shared with the president was within the scope of the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and Trump associates. “The reports I was able to see did not have anything to do with the Russia investigation,” the congressman said. “The president needs to know that these intelligence reports are out there, and I have a duty to tell him that.”

The source of that duty is not clear. The chair of the House Intelligence Committee does not report to the President. I would think that in the midst of an on-going FBI investigation involving the President’s staff, present and former, and possibly the President himself (the investigation is in early stages), the chair would not go running to the President with every piece of information he discovers that he thinks helps exonerate the President or gives more ammunition for the thoroughly discredited claims that the former President Obama ordered electronic surveillance of Trump Tower. Moreover, Nunes concedes that the surveillance he claims to have discovered was legal. The basis for his suggestion that it was not “right” is not clear.

The first USAToday report also stated that “White House spokesman Sean Spicer characterized the Nunes’ information as “startling,” saying that it required additional investigation.” Clearly, Nunes’s disclosures have had the intended effect of bolstering the President’s team in promoting the false narrative that Trump Tower was surveilled.

This hasty action by the chair of the Intelligence Committee speaks volumes about the objectivity of the Republican-managed Committee’s involvement in the FBI investigation and is further compelling, indeed overwhelming, evidence for the need to appoint an independent prosecutor to oversee the investigation of the Trump-Russia connection.

The USAToday report goes on to quote Nunes thus: “I think the president is concerned and he’d like to see these reports.” And then this:

“The chairman said the reports and incidental collection of names were not part of a criminal investigation or the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election. Rather, he said the activities were elated [sic] to intelligence gathering.”

I am not an expert in these matters but I’m having a hard time distinguishing between these disclosures by the chair and what the Trump administration, and the chair himself, have repeatedly decried as “leaks.” Apparently, the only bad leak is one that doesn’t help the false presidential narrative. Furthermore, if the documents reviewed by the chair were indeed related to “intelligence gathering,” why did he feel it was appropriate for him to rush to the White House with the information?

Despite all this hoopla, the report states that “Nunes also rejected the president’s claims that Trump Tower had been wiretapped. But he said “none” of the newly disclosed surveillance was related to “any investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team.”  By disclosing this “unrelated information,” Nunes appears to have fed the President the talking points he needs to continue his discredited (by both the FBI and NSA) claim of wiretapping. Chair Nunes has, it seems to me, removed the last shred of doubt about his inability and/or unwillingness to lead a proper investigation into the President and his minions. He is too beholden to the President and way too anxious to exonerate him. What is required here is an independent leader of a serious investigation. Failing that, any ultimate exoneration by the Republican led House Intelligence Committee will be suspect.

Trump Is Unfit to Serve as President of the United States – It’s Time to Act

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It is not unreasonable, I suggest, to expect, indeed to demand, certain minimum norms of behavior from the political leader of the country. This is true even with respect to someone elected on a “drain the swamp” and “end political correctness” platform. The rhetoric of campaigns is often excessive and fierce but once campaigns end, politicians generally show remarkable, indeed Herculean, capacities to forgive and forget. Witness the parade of Trump’s defeated candidates at Trump Tower after the election to make peace, beg forgiveness and ask for a job in the new administration. Mere mortals can only guess what is said in those conversations but at the end everyone is all smiles as if the personal and professional vilification that characterized the campaigns had never occurred.

The general expectation has also been that the electorate will “get over” the electoral combat, accept the outcome with good grace and “move on.” The theme is that the president is now the president of all the people and of the whole country and so everyone should respect and accept that.

This time, however, these expectations have not been fulfilled. The elected president has generally behaved throughout the transition and since the inauguration as if he were still campaigning. Worse yet, he has continued to lie about matters of both minor and very major import, continued to lash out at every critic, attacked the independent press (“enemies of the people”), demeaned the judiciary (“the so-called judge”) and behaved like someone who has no understanding of the job of president. His single respectable performance, conceded by most critics, was his speech to Congress. The warm glow lasted a whole day.

Trump stunned the country, indeed the whole civilized world, when a few weeks ago, at 6:35 in the morning, he tweeted that he had “just found out” that former President Obama had “wire tapped” Trump Tower during the campaign. He produced no evidence of his claim that his predecessor had committed a serious felony, choosing instead to say that it was up to Congress to investigate the claim. The Republican Congress, to its everlasting shame, snapped to attention and, happily I suggest, diverted attention from the ongoing investigation of Trump’s connection to Russia to look into the allegations. Now the leading members of the relevant committees, Republican and Democrat alike, have stated that no evidence has turned up to support Trump’s claims.

Instead of admitting that the allegations were a sham to draw media and public attention away from the Russia investigation, Trump continued to insist that the allegations were true. His Press Secretary Sean “Whatever You Say, Sir” Spicer, took as his charge the all-out defense of his chief, asserting, first, that “wire tapping” didn’t mean “wire tapping” but referred to broader forms of surveillance and then, when that position was widely mocked because of the continuing lack of evidence, claiming there were reliable media reports that Obama used the British secret service to carry out his illegal clandestine operation at Trump Tower. The rightfully offended British government rejected that claim immediately and forcefully.

What then did the White House do? When asked about the incident specifically in a joint press conference with Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, Trump first suggested that Obama had spied on both Merkel and him and then said this:

“And just to finish your question, we said nothing. All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn’t make an opinion on it. That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox. And so you shouldn’t be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox.”

Listen to this for yourself at http://mm4a.org/2mEskIo.

That Trump statement is a bald-faced lie. Here are Trump’s tweets:

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!

How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

Once again the President of the United States has lied to the people about his conduct, trying to pass responsibility to someone else. His staff, apparently willing to go to any lengths to defend him (remind you of Nixon’s staff?), insulted a major ally, then “walked back” (translation: admitted the President lied) the allegation of British involvement in the non-existent wire tapping scheme.

Not only has this collection of lies, deflections and insults drawn the attention of the media like a piece of rotting meat attracts maggots, but it has wasted time of the congressional staff, congressional committee members the FBI and the Department of Justice, chasing after a ghost, a knowingly false invention by the President of the United States. You are likely aware that this is not the first time. We have lost count.

I say, enough is enough. Donald Trump is not competent to be President of the United States. He is detached from reality and believes that dishonesty is acceptable to get what he wants. His behavior is endangering the United States. Other world leaders are watching every move he makes. How will they ever trust anything he says or believe any promises he makes? The famous parable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf applies here. Trump has squandered whatever small reserve of respectability and trustworthiness he had and should be made to face the consequences before the country faces them in a dangerous situation.

This is not about policy differences. All politicians will exaggerate and sometimes misstate facts and outright lie to escape responsibility for things they have said or done. It usually doesn’t work, at least not indefinitely.­­­­­ ­­­This is about competency to carry out the responsibilities of the office of President. Trump is a man of no integrity who cannot be trusted. The evidence of this is overwhelming. He has jeopardized the United States and undermined the office of the presidency.

The Vice President and the Cabinet should therefore exercise their responsibility under section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the founding document that the Republican Party is so fond of citing in support of its agenda, by initiating removal proceedings against Trump on grounds that he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It is past time.