2017 Feb 14^th

It is tempting to believe that General Flynn’s resignation was a Valentine’s Day present to the Trump administration, but it wasn’t. On his way out Flynn said that he was a “scapegoat.” We  know that a scapegoat is an animal sent off into the wilderness because it bears the sins of others. Is Flynn searching for an excuse for his firing, or is he trying to tell us something? Just whose sin is he bearing, and what is that sin?

Republicans are certainly in no hurry to get the answers. We get the usual political comments from politicians who want to do nothing at all: Don’t rush to judgment! Don’t get out over your skis!  Why not say, “Move on folks, nothing to see here!” Speaker Ryan claims that there is already a committee investigating the Russian interference in our election and he feels that’s enough investigating of potentially embarrassing stuff for Republicans to be doing so fugetaboutit.

You can’t blame him because there is the possibility that boss Trump put Flynn up to his awkward conversation with the Russian Ambassador. That would account for Flynn’s scapegoat comment. Trump’s long-term affinity for Putin and his willingness to deny Russia’s role in his election win all give some credibility to Flynn’s comment.

Trump must have known about Flynn’s Russian ties for some time. Sally Yates, the Assistant Attorney General. told the White House about Flynn weeks before Trump did anything to get rid of him. Why did that take so long? They fired Sally Yates three days after she told them about Flynn, but the firing was described as because she refused to enforce an illegal Muslim ban. For this Trump described her as “traitorous.” Yates was fired; Flynn remained the president’s favorite…until now.

Flynn had many subordinates under his direction. I assume that there will be a general housecleaning and re-furnishing of that department but not before the new guy is appointed. At this point, who that is remains a mystery but there is general agreement that whoever it is, the decision should come very soon. In addition to North Korea firing off a missile and the ramifications of that discussed with Japanese Prime Minister Abe at a public dinner at Trump’s resort, there is the deployment of intermediate range missiles by Russia in violation of treaty agreements.  (Some find it curious that Trump complains about security leaks and then discusses North Korea’s missile launch with his security people at a public restaurant.)

Much seems to point to a Russian connection: The Brit’s MI-6 agent has told us about Trump’s behavior in Russia that could lead to blackmail. Maybe Trump is a Putin puppet. The now gone Paul Manafort had Russian connections that eventually got him canned. Flynn, even when he was considered “trustworthy” was shown having dinner with Putin after a paid speech to R/T the Russian mouthpiece TV for Putin. The long gone Corey Lewandowski also had Russian ties as does current advisor, Boris Epshteyn. Even Breitbart’s Steve Bannon the current alt-right  resident White House advisor is strongly pro-Russian.

Because mainstream Republicans and conservatives have abandoned the cause and accepted things like gay marriage and multiculturalism, the Alt-Right Traditionalists needed to find a new ally and they found a powerful ally in Putin.  The Alt-Right thinks that Putin will be their new Traditionalist hero as they have been marginalized by the Republicans and Conservatives of the West. 

About the only Trumpeters without an announced admiration for Russia are Kellyanne Conway, who might not be around all that much longer and Stephen Miller. It will be fun to get to the bottom of this.

Because mainstream Republicans and conservatives have abandoned the cause and accepted things like gay marriage and multiculturalism, the Alt-Right Traditionalists needed to find a new ally and they found a powerful ally in Putin.  The Alt-Right thinks that Putin will be their new Traditionalist hero as they have been marginalized by the Republicans and Conservatives of the West. 

2017 Feb 13^th

The latest threat to the republic comes not from some puny missile from North Korea that can manage just a 300-mile flight; the threat to the republic is in the White House. On Sunday Stephen Miller was spread all over our TV screens to announce that his master, Donald J. Trump’s presidential behavior is not to be questioned. Mr. Miller is a slightly built, prematurely balding, 32 year old graduate of Duke University in political science who seems to have learned nothing about the constitution of the United States, or at least nothing worth remembering.

I watched his performance Sunday morning on Chuck Todd’s “Meet the Press.” I was, at first stuck by his absolute absence of facial expression. His lips moved but the rest of his face seemed absolutely frozen. I thought, this man believes that he is in enemy country, he is meeting the evil lying press head on so all of his defenses are up.

The content of his answers to Todd’s questions were, to say the least, frightening.  He was asked what evidence there was for Trump’s claim that millions of illegal immigrants voted. He had none but he said that he would come back at a later time and give Todd unarguable evidence that millions of people had voted illegally.

He pulled the same, “I’ll explain later,” gag on George Stephanopoulos’ program that same Sunday. Trump and his favorite Senator, Kelly Ayotte, lost their races in New Hampshire and Trump just can’t stand that, so time for some alt-facts. These “facts” presented by Miler hinge on people being bussed into New Hampshire expressly to vote against Ayotte and Trump. When Miller was asked for evidence that this happened he retreated to the old, “This morning on this show is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence,” which is to say, I’m bull shitting you, you ninny. This has produced some blowback: an angry governor and some other functionaries have said there is a thousand dollar reward available to the first person who produces proof of these alt-facts; no takers so far.

Trump opposes anyone or any group he believes might limit his power. You can tick them off: the press holds his feet to the fire when he tries to get away with alt-facts, (lies). The court stops his ill-conceived executive order obviously aimed at Muslims. Aliens took the popular vote victory away from him. His hostility to each of these groups is well known and he does not attempt to conceal it. Miller said on “Meet the Press” that Trump’s action as president when he moves to limit the entry of aliens is “not reviewable.” This means that he believes the court voiding his executive order acted illegally. The obvious next step in this ballet is for Trump to ignore a court order he considers illegal and so move us completely away from the three co-equal branches, the checks and balances upon which the government is built.

Lest anyone believe that Miller did not speak for the president, Trump has already responded with his pleasure at Miller’s performance on Sunday.

2017 Feb 12^th

The man of the hour is retired Lt. General Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s National Security Adviser. General Flynn has been criticized for telling a Russian ambassador that Russia should not respond to then President Obama’s sanctions against Russia because once Trump was in control those sanctions would disappear.

This may explain why Putin did not respond as expected when we sent a number of Russian agents packing because of their interference in our election. Normally, in the tit for tat world of diplomacy, Russia would have expelled at least the same number of our diplomats. This time for some curious reason, Putin did nothing. If our National Security Advisor, General Flynn, had, indeed told a Russian diplomat not to worry, this unusual lack of response makes perfect sense.

General Flynn has denied he had any such conversation. He quite specifically denied it to Vice President Pence who told reporters the he knew that there was nothing to the charge. How did the vice president know that? He knew it because General Flynn told him so. Then, a bit later, General Flynn admitted that his memory was a trifle foggy about all this that perhaps he did talk to a Russian ambassador, he just wasn’t sure about it.

I can tell you who was sure: American intelligence agents who monitor the communications of Russian agents, their ambassadors and others as well. They had General Flynn’s conversation on tape if his memory was a bit hazy about the content of that conversation, they could remind him…and remind the rest of us.

The facts I have mentioned here are in the public domain. On Meet the Press this morning an expressionless Stephen Miller, an advisor to the president, was asked about this and he admitted that he had been given no instructions on the matter and therefore he had no comment. Trump responds to everything: he even responds when a department store stops selling a line of shoes his daughter Ivanka sells, but when his national security advisor lies to his vice president, he has nothing to say. (Keep in mind that General Mattis, his secretary of defense, is the general who canned Flynn for incompetence an action that led to his retirement.)

Flynn’s lies to the vice president are only part of the problem: We must assume Flynn was oblivious to the fact that our security people would be monitoring the phone calls of Russian agents. This man is National Security Advisor to the President of the United States and he didn’t know that his own security people would be monitoring Russian phone calls. How is this possible? How can a man this ignorant of basic techniques of the craft he supervises hold a position of national importance? The only answer is because he was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Donald J. Trump. Look at the screw-up of the executive order crafted by Stephen Miller and Steven Bannon, an order that has surely embarrassed Trump when the ninth circuit threw it out. Are Miller and Bannon secure? You betcha. There just aren’t that many people of even marginal competence willing to have their name associated with this administration.

On the other hand they haven’t tapped Governor Sarah Palin, or Annie Coulter yet. They might show up in Trump’s second month.

2017 Feb 11^th

Mona Charen is indignant once again…or maybe still indignant. I have never seen a non-indignant Mona Charen column. This time a high school program at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois elevates her dudgeon. Ms. Charen claims this program is “far- left brain washing.”

This program, which has so aroused Charen was, in fact, designed by the high school students themselves and by their parents. Now that is simply awful; parents ignoring the proclivities of a political columnist like Charen to design a school sponsored program all by themselves. The program focuses on discussions about some of the country’s shortcoming when it comes to equal opportunity. She says that one invited speaker has written an objectionable song. She doesn’t assert that this speaker is planning to present this song at the school’s program, just that he has written it. Is she desperately seeking a rationale for her invective?

She writes, “The program that is being imposed on Winnetka, Illinois,…is a hard left indoctrination that could have come straight from the pages of Howard Zinn.” This “imposed program” is being imposed by the parents and the students themselves. Charen simply cannot imagine a political view different from her own being voluntarily produced.  Then she writes, “…straight from the pages of Howard Zinn;” and what does Zinn write that is false to fact? Charen doesn’t say. I guess she just hates that he emphasizes inequality.

Charen says that with a program “dedicated to civil rights and mutual understanding, the guests might steer clear of racism and anti-Semitism...” Charen conflates anti-Israeli sentiment with “racism and anti-Semitism.” It may be that her enthusiastic support for Bibi Netanyahu and all things Israeli, is responsible for her blast at this high school program’s desire to push civil rights for everyone. Charen needs to remember that Israel contains less than half of the world’s Jews; being anti-the current hard right government of Israel is no more being anti-Semitic than being anti-Trump is being anti-American.

There are some who object to this program: what a surprise! Any parent is free to pull their child from school that day so Charen’s notion that this is forcing an unwanted program on poor helpless parents and their kids who don’t like it is silly. There is a petition supporting the program that now has 3700 signatures; a petition opposing the program has several hundred signatures. (The high school has 4000 students so this whole thing may be a big deal only to Charen who needs column fodder.)

If Charen were truly concerned about pushing falsehoods onto students, she should look at the Texas school book disaster. Five million public school students in Texas will began using new social studies textbooks a while back based on state academic standards that barely addressed racial segregation. The state’s guidelines for teaching American history also did  not mention the Ku Klux Klan or Jim Crow laws.

And when it comes to the Civil War, children are supposed to learn that the conflict was caused by “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery” — written deliberately in that order to telegraph slavery’s secondary role in driving the conflict, according to some members of the state board of education.

Slavery was a “side issue to the Civil War,” said Pat Hardy, a Republican board member, when the board adopted the standards in 2010. “There would be those who would say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over states’ rights.”

Anyone can retrieve the Texas Statement of Secession from the internet. The statement makes it very clear that the problem was indeed state’s rights, the right of people in Texas to own black slaves. Why doesn’t Charen write about that?

2017 Feb 10^th

Six is the current magic number! It will probably increase in the next few days. At this writing, there are six members of the national champion New England Patriots football team who will not go to the White House to be congratulated by President Donald Trump. There is an interesting history here: The team’s owner, Robert Kraft and the head coach Bill Belichick, were devoted Trump supporters. Last year, when they were all invited to the Obama White House, their quarterback, Tom Brady made quite a show of refusing to go. This year some of the rank and file players offer Brady’s snub as justification for their refusal to attend President Trump’s event.

Kellyanne Conway who quite forthrightly pumped for Ivanka Trump’s line of clothes and accessories while she got airtime on Fox News was in clear violation of ethical regulations governing White House employees. Even Sean Spicer Trump’s mouthpiece said Kellyanne would get counselling. Trump, however, is just fine with Kellyanne’s performance. The president says that his daughter “was treated very unfairly by Nordstrom.”

As far as Trump is concerned, if he believes a family member has been treated “unfairly” he, or a confederate, can weigh in with the full power of the executive branch to make matters right again. He has no problem with the ethical challenges this produces. The Republicans have so little backbone that they surely will not risk it confronting Trump on silly ethical issues.

Steve Bannon Trump’s senior consiglieri, has hired a really vicious hit writer from Breitbart News. Julia Hahn is the woman’s name and she had become very famous for her pieces raking poor Paul Ryan over every hot coal in sight. She is virulently anti-immigrant and accuses standard Republicans, typified by Ryan, as disregarding the crime produced by these immigrants to the detriment of the country. Once again we have a top fear monger joining all the other fear mongers. Just so you know this woman also claims that she is an expert shot.

(Well, so am I. When I was on the pistol range in WW 2, I made marksman because the guy beside me was also shooting at my target. There were 16 holes in my target and I had been given only 15 rounds to fire. Hey, skill will out.)

Then we have new news about General Flynn. He has apparently been in touch with the Russians about the sanctions. There is considerable uncertainty about just what Flynn did and just what he has admitted doing. He does not have many supporters in Trump’s inner circle and there are those who see his tenure time as very limited. Keep in mind that Flynn was cashiered by General Mattis, now Secretary of Defense, when he served in Afghanistan. There is little job security in this administration. Thi is particularly true when Flynn has apparently deliberately lied to the Vice President about his conversations with the Russians.

2017 Feb 9^th

President Trump, our thin-skinned, hyper-belligerent national embarrassment, has now declared war on Nordstrom’s, a Seattle, Washington, department store. Their sin was to drop some of daughter Ivanka’s clothing line. Sean Spicer, his mouthpiece, declares that this is just a protective father coming to his daughter’s defense. The fact that Ivanka’s stuff hadn’t been selling well, and that Nordstrom’s had advised Ivanka a month ago that this was coming, is irrelevant. Ivanka’s brother suggested that Trump’s fans boycott Nordstrom’s.

He needs to have a care with his boycott bit: Part of Ivanka’s problem is that many people are already boycotting Trump products. Sales have fallen and Ivanka’s brand has suffered mightily at Neiman-Marcus, Amazon, Bloomingdales and Dillards.

Nor is it helping Ivanka that her stuff is made in China and Hong Kong. Of course 97 percent of all clothing sold here is made overseas. Daddy Trump is very opposed to things manufactured overseas and sold here but perhaps “first daughter’s ” company is exempt from his criticism.

He has tweeted his profound displeasure with Nordstrom’s actions claiming they are politically motivated. There is no evidence for this; what a surprise! There are organizations that track sales of various brands in department stores and elsewhere and Ivanka’s stuff has been taking a beating. Trump’s unhappiness with Nordstrom has not damaged Nordstrom’s stock; it is up about 2.45 percent so far today. Maybe Trump senior’s unhappiness with someone, or something, no longer matters very much.

Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President, has made a boo-boo. This is a boo-boo that even Sean Spicer has admitted happened. Counselor Conway, ever pro all things Trump, has used her mini-bully pulpit to urge everyone to “buy Ivanka’s stuff.” No doubt Counselor Conway was trying to offset Ivanka’s stuff’s decline in sales. Unfortunately, it is a serious no-no for members of the administrative team to push commercial ventures even to help out presidential family members. The result is that Counselor Conway will now, herself, be counselled. Will that help? Wanna bet?

Even Judge Gorsuch, Trumps pick for his addition to SCOTUS has not been totally loyal. He has not taken kindly to Trump’s vilification of the judiciary that seems to oppose him. Judge Gorsuch has called Trump’s comments about the judiciary “disheartening and demoralizing.” Trump claimed that Senator Blumenthal had misrepresented Judge Gorsuch’s views until another senator who was there said that Senator Blumenthal’s comments were accurate…and then Judge Gorsuch himself agreed about that.

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Adding to Trump’s angst was the news that a three judge panel had ruled against his travel ban which will now remain in effect until Trump can present a ban which does not so obviously target Muslims. 

2017 Feb 8^th

Trump met with sheriffs and chiefs of police today and he continued his lies about the awful dangers the country faces. He claimed that the murder rate is the highest it has been in 47 years. That is a lie. The murder rate is, in fact, lower than it has been in years and continues to decline.

On Monday, Trump accused “the very, very dishonest press,” of covering up terrorist attacks around the world. His staff promised to release a list of them. What the White House came up with was full of typos and questionable examples of “under reported” terrorism. It cited 78 cases, including “two killed and one wounded in a knife attack at a hostel frequented by Westerners” in Queensland, Australia. The young woman, Mia  Ayliffe-Chung was killed by a knife wielding psychotic who also killed Tom Jackson, an Australian who tried to come to her aid. Mia’s parents have written to Trump enraged that he should use their daughter’s death at the hands of a psychotic man as part of his political agenda. Their letter will probably not be mentioned by Kellyanne Conway in her next TV appearance.

Trump continues to pound away at the awful and dangerous nature of life in America. The more awful he can convince his followers that life is here, the more they will believe they must be saved from it, and of course as he has said, only he can save them. Perhaps this tendency to paranoia is built into our genetic code; perhaps our more fearful early ancestors were more likely to survive and so this paranoia has been built into us.

Shift gears here: Last night, in an effort to publicize Jeffery Sessions past bigotry, Senator Elizabeth Warren began reading a letter sent to the Senate 30 some years ago by Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King. Sessions at the time was a candidate for a federal judgeship and this letter pointed out some of Session’s racist statements. Sessions was not confirmed by the Senate and Mrs. King’s letter might have helped defeat him. Her letter is in the senate record.

Now Sessions is one of two Alabama senators, a member of the privileged club that rejected him years ago for a federal judgeship. The club’s rules do not permit any club member to say anything derogatory about another club member…at least not on the senate floor. Mrs. King’s letter had a number of derogatory things to say about Sessions and so an objection was raised to Senator Warren’s reading of that letter. The objection was not based on any falsehoods in the letter, just that the letter was derogatory…and it was derogatory. Senator Warren was not permitted to continue reading the letter, This is in spite of the fact that the letter’s contents are already in the senate record. Now she is not permitted to speak in the senate at all regarding Session’s confirmation. McConnell, the Republican leader of the senate, had effectively silenced his colleague for reading a letter about Sessions that was entirely permissible to read on the floor of the senate until Sessions became a senator, and then Sessions became immune from such criticism.

Well no, he is not entirely immune. Today four male senators took up the fight; they read from Mrs. King’s letter and Senator McConnell did not object, did not make any attempt to silence these male senators. I know that McConnell is supposed to be a very astute political operator but this kind of overt sexist behavior will be powerfully energizing to women generally and women represent at least half of all the voters. Thanks Mitch!