The Militarization of Trump's America

Donald Trump, since deciding to run for President, has had a mixed record in his dealings with the military. On one hand, he has pushed for an increased military budget, given field commanders more freedom to conduct operations as they see fit and appointed several active and retired Army and Marine Generals to cabinet and White House posts. On the other hand he denigrated John McCain for having been captured during the Vietnam War, claimed that he knew more than "the generals" about ISIS, and accused "the generals" of having "killed Ryan", the Navy SEAL who died in a mission early in Trump's presidency. However, it's the latest tempest in a teapot, his conversation with the widow of a Special Forces Sergeant, that reveals deeper issues.

For one, I don't believe that Trump meant to be disrespectful to Mrs. Johnson. Her perception that he couldn't remember Sgt. LaDavid Johnson's name could have been just that: her perception. After all, Trump seems to struggle rhetorically at most times, and seems singularly unaware of how his words sound to others. While he appears to lake empathy, I'll give him credit for making the attempt, as it's part of the job. The part about him saying "he knew what he signed up for" I believe is a result of getting bad advice from John Kelly, a retired Marine General whose son was killed in action. Kelly, in a press conference, essentially confirmed that Trump said what Rep. Wilson said that he said, and that the guidance to say it came from him, Kelly. The problem is that "he knew what he signed up for" or words to that effect, would have a different affect on a parent who was a decorated service member himself than on a young, pregnant woman, who only knew that she lost her husband. In my opinion, Kelly gave Trump bad advice.

Trump could have still salvaged the situation if he had suppressed his inclination to viciously fight back and simply apologized and expressed sincere condolences. Instead he attacked a Member of Congress and in effect called a war widow a liar. President Bush was once faced with a widow who, upon encountering Bush at Dover Air Force Base when the body was brought home, was screamed at by her. He never attacked her or spoke badly about her. He let her vent, and then hugged her.

What was equally disturbing was Mr. Kelly's press conference and Kellyanne Conway's follow-up. He defended Trump's behavior and suggested throughout that the military were better, or above, non-military Americans, confirmed by his refusal to take questions from any reporters who were not either veterans or Gold Star family members. Conway extended the adoration of the military by suggesting that it was inappropriate for reports to question "a four-star general".

What?

One of the things enshrined in the Constitution that right-wingers claim to love so much is that the military in our country answers to a civilian, the President. In addition, the Secretary of Defense is customarily a civilian - it takes a Congressional waiver to appoint an active or recently retired service member. But our Secretary of Defense is a retired general. The National Security Advisor is a retired general, and the White House Chief of Staff, formerly Secretary of Homeland Security is a retired general. Trump has removed much civilian oversight and removed "restrictions" on what the military does. Do I think that the President should be micromanaging the military? No, but overall civilian control is essential. If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail; if your top advisors are all military, the all solutions look like military solutions. This is exacerbated by the under-staffing of the State Department.

Military solutions sometimes are the answer, but diplomatic answers must be on the table as well.

Despite Trump's attacks on individual military officers and his high opinion of his own strategic acumen, we are becoming a top-down, don't question authority type of nation.

And that's not a good thing.

Russia Distractions: Investigations into the So-Called Russian Uranium Deal & "The Dossier"

Anyone who pays any attention knows that the Trump campaign, and possibly even Trump himself, is being investigated for allegations that they colluded with Russia to influence the last Presidential election. Unlike the President, Special Counsel Mueller doesn't tweet his every thought, so we won't really know anything until the investigation is complete. However President Trump, as well as some of his surrogates, have been suggesting that it has been established that there was no collusion, and the real collusion was between President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and the Clinton Foundation with Russia in the instance of "The Russian Uranium Deal". There are also suggestions that the "dossier" on Trump that had a section on urinating Moscow hookers, was evidence of the Clinton campaign colluding with Russia.

The "Uranium Deal"
The allegation is that a Canadian mining company that owned uranium processing plants in the United States was sold to a Russian company resulting in the Russians having control over 20% of the United States' uranium and that this deal happened because The Clinton Foundation received a large bribe from Russian interests.  Sometimes the allegations are phrased as "Clinton sold the Russians 20% of our uranium".

What is true?

• The U.S. government did approve the sale of the uranium plants owned by Uranium One, a Canadian company, to Rostom, a Russian nuclear energy company
• The FBI, at the time of the sale, was investigating Rostom for bribery, extortion and other crimes

What isn't true?

• That 20% of U.S. uranium was sold to the Russians

The assets that were purchased in the United States were processing plants, not mines. If fully operational they had the capacity to process 20% of all uranium processed in the U.S. in a given year. Furthermore, even if these plants had any uranium in their possession, the company had no license to export uranium, so any that they did mine would remain here.

• That the approval was a quid pro quo for a large Russian donation to The Clinton Foundation. 

Despite the fact that the State Department was one of the departments that signed off on the Uranium One sale, Secretary Clinton did not participate in any of the discussions related to the sale. The Treasury Department was the lead cabinet department in the approval of this sale. 

This sale did not affect national security, including our stock of uranium, in any way, nor was Clinton involved except as the head of a department that had a small part in the approval process. 

The "Dossier"

Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, compiled 17 memos detailing interviews that he had with unidentified Russian sources. Some of the interviewees allege that the Putin government sought to promote Trump as a Presidential candidate and to undermine Clinton, and that the Trump campaign revived information from Russian sources that helped their campaign. The information tracks with a conclusion by the U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian worked to influence the Presidential election. Recently it has been revealed that funding for Steele's research came from the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Trump is using this information to accuse the Clinton campaign, rather than his, of colluding with the Russians.

What's different?

• The allegations against the Trump campaign are that they actively assisted a foreign government in undermining and influencing the election; the Clinton campaign paid for information that established this. 
• Nothing about what the Russians are alleged to have done seems to have benefited Clinton, but were clearly designed to   undermine Clinton's campaign. 

Distractions

Whether there was active cooperation between the Trump campaign and the Russian government remains to be determined. Mueller is working his way methodically through the evidence, and I for one will trust whatever he comes up with, even if it exonerates Trump. What I find disturbing is how Trump, at every step, is seeking to paint the investigation as a waste of money - money being the ultimate measure of value in Trump's mind. He acts as if it's a forgone conclusion that there is no evidence against him or his associates and that everyone knows this. He points at DNC/Clinton funding Steele's research and the uranium sale as evidence that it's the other guys who are the bad guys, not him.  

What I find scary, though, is the number of people who will believe whatever he tweets without even five minutes of research.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/29/the-dossier-and-the-uranium-deal-a-guide-to-the-latest-allegations/?utm_term=.f70ff0c893a6

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/10/27/claims-of-clinton-russia-uranium-scandal-are-a-real-empty-barrel/#3f9ef0837b55

Trump's Gaslighting

He did it again.

During the press conference with Mitch McConnell earlier this week President Trump suggested that we "not believe what we read", that he and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a great friendship and working relationship, and just so you wouldn't think this was a new development, he told us that he "has had" a great friendship with Mitch. He wants us to think that a feud between Trump and McConnell is a creation of "The Fake Media", and that there's nothing to see here, please move along. But we don't have to rely on the media, we don't have to lean on the pundits, we don't have to be beholden to the "failing New York Times". We only have to read Trump's tweets, which are full of attacks on McConnell, including calls for him to resign.

This is not new, this is not the first occurrence of this behavior, this is not a slip of the tongue. This is gas-lighting, plain and simple. This is lying in order to manipulate someone. Most of these lies can be and are easily checked, so you would logically think that this would stop. But if you think about it, we all know people who act like this. Boyfriends, wives, employers, friends, who tell a big enough lie often enough that you doubt your own sanity. My first wife once insisted to me that a stop light that was on the corner two doors down from our house wasn't there; I doubted myself so much that I had to go out and check to make sure that it was really there. (It was)

This Presidential gas-lighting would seem insane if it wasn't for the fact that some people ignore what they see and hear and believe what Trump says. Why do you think there's the drumbeat on "fake news" and the constant attacks on specific media outlets? Doubt is thrown on all sources of information except for him? Even when the source of the information is him, like his tweets, if he wants to change the narrative he simply tells us that "the fake news" took it out of context, or he tells us what he really meant, or one of his mouthpieces spins it in a contradictory way, further confusing the matter. A few days after the election, when Trump had some rare conciliatory things to say about Secretary Clinton and was respectful to President Obama, and he talked about how "very, very, important" it was to him to be "President of all the people", I asked if we were supposed to forget all the hateful and divisive things that he said during the campaign?  An acquaintance of mine took the position that Trump hadn't said hateful or divisive things during the campaign. Little did I know how widespread that would be. 

So, are there four lights, or five?

Trump's Agenda: Destruction

Trump talked a good game in the campaign. He was going to do things! He was going to build a wall, he was going to strengthen our military, he was going to use his legendary deal-making skills to negotiate better trade agreements, he was going to propose a better, cheaper alternative to the ACA, he was going to put into place the most massive tax decrease in history, he was going to defeat ISIS...

But what, in the real world, not the make-believe world of campaigns, has he accomplished? Nothing legislatively. He claims to have signed a record number of bills, but they mostly consist of naming buildings & parks, and other ceremonial items, as well as bureaucratic tweaks, and about a third were bills reversing Obama-era regulations. "So", his supporters might reply, "he's signing a lot of executive orders since we have a do-nothing, ineffective, Congress". But the executive orders are mainly reversals of Obama administration regulation as well. Executive orders regarding immigration have been held up in the courts. 

A big part of this destructive path is that he simply has no idea how legislation works. He has no idea what the relationship between the Congress and the President is. This is what you get when you get someone steeped in New York media culture, who was the star of a "reality" show and who is the top dog at a huge tentaculer collection of interlocking businesses. In that world the CEO is the king, the emperor, the "one man" in "one man, one vote", everyone else is an employee. When you're President there are people that you can order around, and you can get two scoops of ice cream, but members of Congress don't work for the President. He has to work with them, not demand that they do his bidding. He also has no idea how complex legislation has to be. One of the reasons that he was legally able to cancel subsidies to insurance companies to help them cover low-income people is that, while the subsidies were written into the ACA, the funding mechanism was not. This small oversight left a vulnerable hole in the law. He doesn't understand that a loophole, while it can be a purposely crafted exception to a law, is just as often an interpretation that no one thought of when they were writing the law. I've seen this many times in the short time that I have been working in government.

His destructive tendencies are not just an outgrowth of his ignorance. His default action when questioned is to attack, whether it's the Democrats, his own party, foreign leaders, the press, or not unusually, his own cabinet and White House staff. Another default setting seems to be to lie big as often as possible. He lies when he doesn't know the answer, he lies when he knows the answer but doesn't want to appear stupid, he lies as an opening gambit to negotiation. All of this lying and second guessing about when he is or isn't lying sows chaos all around him. Look at his statements on North Korea, Congress and the media, chaos is the new normal.

We have elected a President with no plan other than to tear down...everything.

Trump and Science

The thing about science is that people who use science to make decisions like to see this elusive thing called "evidence"; to compile this mystical thing called "data" to confirm or disprove their ideas.

Not only does President Trump not understand science, but he holds scientists and their work in contempt, especially when they disagree with him. He has appointed as heads of cabinet departments people who have actively fought against the missions of those departments. Two examples are Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma Attorney General who repeatedly sued the EPA, as the head of the EPA; and Rick Perry, former Texas governor, who once campaigned on the promise to eliminate the Department of Energy, as the Secretary of Energy. And let's not forget the nominee for the USDA's Chief Scientist who was not in fact a scientist, no matter how broad you stretched the definition of "scientist". Trump has suggested that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. He has recently betrayed an abysmal ignorance of what "clean coal" is. (No, it's not coal that's been washed in a certain way).

The department and agency heads have plowed forward with their deregulation jihad without consulting the experts within their departments; see, they don't need no stinkin' experts, they know what they want! They want job growth (see the post on Trump and Business), the environment, food safety, workplace safety and healthcare be damned. Since our new administration has no need for experts, their minds being already made up, the proposed budget contains across the board cuts to any government agency that has scientists, researchers or anything else that has to do with knowledge. The National Institutes for Health, NASA, R&D for the Department of Energy, NOAA, the Department of Defense science researchers, Health & Human Services, Department of Agriculture, and let's not forget FEMA, have all been slated for budget cuts...drastic budget cuts.

It would be naive to believe that politicians never make scientific decisions based on partisan considerations, but it seems like Trump and his minions view relying on science as a weakness.

Trump and Business

In the last post I discussed Trump's position on the environment and how his decisions regarding it are made. One of the main points was that policy is set, not on how it effects the environment and by extension Americans' health and well-bring, but on bottom-line costs and supposed job creation. I say "supposed", because rollback of various regulations will likely cause costs to the affected corporations to decrease, but that this doesn't necessarily translate into more jobs. Companies, especially large companies, do not automatically pass on increased profits to their employees. The only legal responsibility of any board of directors or management team is to maximize profit for their shareholders. Employment levels at any company will be set according to the minimum needed to produce their product in quantities that meet the demand. Jobs will be created only if an additional demand for the product materializes, not because the profit margin increases. The coal industry is a great example. The demand for coal is down due to competition from other energy sources; in addition, fewer workers are needed due to increased automation. Scrapping regulation isn't going to resurrect coal industry jobs.

Trump knows this.

Trump, despite his history of bankruptcies and stiffing his contractors, knows how business works. His Mar-a-Lago golf club hires temporary workers on immigrant visas because it would cost more to pay local people.  I'm sure that he's never advocated hiring extra people just because the balance sheet was looking good that year. So what is his motivation for talking as if repealing regulations that cost companies money is a good thing? It can only be that he is working to make life better for, not the coal miner or assembly line worker, but for the owners of the coal mines and the factories. This is an updated version of the trickle-down economics of the eighties. Which didn't work in the eighties.

But what about the "record job creation" and the stock market setting new records every week? Surely that means that Trump knows what he's doing. Right?

Let's look at jobs. During Trump's first six months in office, 1.1 million jobs were created. Is that a record? Is that a good number? Any increase in employment is good, but not exactly a record; approximately the same amount of jobs were created during Obama's last six months in office, so we're essentially still coasting along on  2016's economy. Obama's  first six month of his second term had an increase of 1.2 million jobs - other presidents had similar numbers. (Obama's first six months of his first term saw a loss of 3.4 million jobs - coming off a nationwide recession).

How about the stock market? Here we see a similar trend. Trump likes to brag about record setting Dow Jones numbers, and technically he's correct. We are continually setting new records, however, since 2010 the stock market (based on the Dow) has been on a steady upward curve that has continued into Trump's term. To be fair, many economists predicted that Trump's unpredictability would cause the market to drop, which hasn't happened. But is the precipitous rise in stock prices indicative of a healthy economy? Maybe. It's at least an indicator that the people who are buying stocks think that the economy is going to continue to be healthy for a while. But before we get too excited about Trump's stock market savvy, remember that just this week he talked about the increase in value of the Dow Industrial Average stocks as if they negated part of our national debt.

Trump has no real knowledge of economics, or at least doesn't care about the rules of economics. He's all about talking about helping American workers and bringing jobs back, but his actions thus far have been, by chance or design, have benefited other billionaires, with scant evidence that the lot of working Americans is improving.

But slogans, we have good slogans - the best slogans.

Trump and the Environment

Lately when writing about President Trump I have emphasized his clownishness, his craziness, his seeming inability to focus on anything of import. But despite his cartoonishness, the aura of fakeness about him, he is very real and has been doing very real damage. Some of the damage is being done to the environment.

Trump's views on the environment were quite clear before he took office. Several years ago he claimed that climate change was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. He has never reversed himself. Trump's attack on the environment has several foundations:

1. His obsessive crusade to undo everything that President Obama accomplished
2. His tendency to view everything through the prism of business
3. His penchant for extreme, unscientific views on nearly everything
4. His realization that his base distrusts environmental regulation as a liberal scheme

#1 is pretty self-evident and doesn't require much exposition.

If you look at almost everything Trump does, it all comes back to money, to the hallowed bottom line. Precious few issues don't boil down to his position that if it lowers the cost of doing business, it's good, if it increases expenses, it's bad. It's a simple calculus, so simple in Trump math that it's more like first grade arithmetic. It really can't be argued that many regulations cost money. If there's a regulation that limits the amount of pollutants that an automobile can emit, it will cost more to produce than one that can belch forth as much toxic smoke as possible. It costs a factory more to safely dispose of it's waste than to simply dump it in a river. If you listen to virtually every proclamation that involves environmental regulations, it is justified as a money saver, as a job creator. It is seldom if ever framed as contrary to established science; the environmental impact is simply not an issue. Think back to the announcement about the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord - it was explained as burdensome because of the costs.  The overturning of the rule prohibiting certain coal waste products from being dumped was promoted as a way to increase coal industry jobs, not addressed as being environmentally unneeded. With Scott Pruitt as Environmental Protection Agency Director we have someone who so disagrees with the actual mission of the agency that he regularly sued the EPA while Attorney General of Oklahoma. In addition to Pruitt, the agency has been filled with industry lobbyists and has removed agency professionals from the decision making process. Her is a list of environmental regulations either overturned or in the process of being overturned:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html?_r=0

Trump's statement that climate change was a Chinese hoax was mentioned earlier. He seems to have a very shallow understanding of science and no desire to learn more, especially if it contradicts what he already believes. Based on his proposed budget Trump sees little worth in scientific research and has cut the budgets of many agencies that do that research, such as the National Institute of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, not to mention the EPA. 

Finally, there's the appeal to his base. Much of what Trump says and does is designed to "piss of the liberals". Right-wing talk radio, in particular Rush Limbaugh, have derided "environmentalist wackos" for years, feeding a revulsion among many of anything that is "liberal". He appeals to a scientifically ignorant segment of the population, making false claims, knowing that if he makes them loud enough and with enough schoolyard insults, his base will cheer. 

Yes, he is a clown, but he's a dangerous clown. 

Why Does It Always Have to Be About Trump?

To put it bluntly, this is some serious shit. We have had multiple hurricanes hitting the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean this year, with death and destruction. We have a lot of professionals in FEMA, the military (including the National Guard) as well as local organizations and individuals doing their best to help. Inevitably there will be problems and some people overlooked and areas poorly served, no matter what the intentions. People will complain, people will point fingers, local officials will highlight problems as often as they express thanks for the help. The targets of the complaints usually bite their tongues, realizing that some of the complaints are likely justified and even if not, those effected are under a lot of stress and striking back is counterproductive, not to mention cruel.

As usual, our President has made it all about him. He has attacked the Mayor of San Juan for complaining about the federal response, he has suggested that the people of Puerto Rico are lazy, he has crowed about "good reviews" (what is this a Broadway show?) and even posted a video highlighting all that he has supposedly done for Puerto Rico that the "Fake News" hasn't reported, whining all the while about the lack of appreciation. He has commented on how Puerto Rican rebuilding is  going to break the budget, and complained about how tough it is to get help to Puerto Rico because "it's in the middle of an ocean, a big ocean". And let's not forget the ridiculous photo ops that included remarks like "have a good time" and the throwing of paper towels.

As usual, no matter how grave the situation, it's all about Trump.

Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Any Weirder

Let's assume for a minute that NFL players kneeling during the national anthem is disrespectful. Many people (not me) think so. Many people (also not me) think that players who do not stand with their hand over their heart should be fired. This is something that should work itself out through the free market. Players, in my opinion, have the right to express their opinions, fans have the right to express their opinions by boycotting games, and owners have the right to make business decisions to protect their bottom line as long as it does not violate the law. Whether owners should fire kneeling players, or whether fans are morally correct in boycotting, is an issue that I'm not addressing right now.

What I am addressing and what I find astounding is that this is an issue that the President of The United States of America has decided to focus his attention on. Over a recent weekend the President tweeted over a dozen times regarding this issue, following up on an interview where he referred to those who knelt as sons of bitches and expressed his opinion that they be fired. There are various opinions about what Trump is hoping to accomplish. One view is that this is just another distraction from the ongoing probe into alleged collusion with Russian election interference; another is that it's some red meat to toss to his base, which includes people who agree with him wholeheartedly on this issue. Or maybe the man just has no filter. He has a track record of making statements that are inappropriate to someone in his position: he has pilloried companies that have made decisions that he disagrees with and has attacked legislators who don't vote with him.

What is indisputable is that there are more important issues that the President of The United States of America should be focused on: possibility of war with North Korea, the continuing battle over health care, tax reform, to name but a few. Our government has become a circus.

And as if it couldn't get crazier, Trump sends Pence to an NFL game to feign outrage, all the while neglecting to mention the Special Forces troops killed in Niger.