March 28, 2019--Randy Paul

Did I hear or was I hallucinating that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul wants the Senate to investigate Barack Obama's alleged role in launching the Mueller investigation?

If you've noticed that some of the crazies who wait outside federal courts or the Department of Justice, the one's who wear clothes made from American flags, carrying FISA signs, they are alluding to Obama supposedly getting the FISA court to authorize illegal wiretaps of Trump associates in order to trap Trump in one nefarious scheme or another.

Paul must be having fantasies of hauling Obama before the Foreign Relations Committee and grilling him about his roll in getting the investigation of Trump going.

This would assure that Paul would be welcomed back to Mar-a-Lago after being banned from Palm Beach as the result of leading the opposition to Trump's trumped-up national border emergency. Remember that one?

Jilted Paul, shivering in Kentucky, sees Lindsay Graham hanging in the sun with the Trumps and it makes him crazy. He knows, though, that any attacks on the Clintons and Obamas gets one a ticket south on Air Force One.

Even if Paul has to caddy for his beloved Mr. President it also assures him some attention from Trump's people and a leg up on another (disastrous) run for the Oval.

Actually, I'd love for this to happen. Can you imagine the mincemeat Obama would make of that committee and especially the pathetic Paul? Just ask Mitt Romney what it's like to debate Obama. 

That would be worth the price of admission.

January 12, 2018--Trump 2018 Removal Act

Earlier this week, Donald Trump flew to Nashville to visit Andrew Jackson's nearby home, the Hermitage, to honor him by, among other things, placing a wreath on his tomb.

Though Trump doesn't read and knows nothing verifiable about American history, including the American presidency, a large portrait of the 7th president is currently on prominent display in the Oval Office.

Why might that be? Not because Jackson owned about 200 slaves (though that per se would not repel Trump) but because he was the first president to be widely regarded by "ordinary" people. Trump views himself that way. There is his base that he spends all day pandering to, which was on vivid display yesterday.

It began in the morning. The House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on an extension of the FISA act, legislation that was first approved in 1978 to allow intelligence-gathering agencies to spy on foreign nationals as well as American citizens who might represent terrorist threats. 

Libertarians such as Senator Rand Paul had proposed an amendment that would require that a FISA court, more than at present, be required to authorize in advance any domestic spying.

Paul was on Morning Joe a few hours before the vote, seemingly to explain his amendment but, as it turned out, to seek and secure Trump's support. Seemingly as a non sequitur, unprompted, he went into a passionate attack on the FBI who, he falsely claimed, was working to "bring down" the president.

When I wondered out loud why the senator switched subjects, Rona patted me on the arm and as if to humor me and with a sigh, said, "Of course to suck up to Trump in order to secure his support."

"Rand Paul?" I asked, still naively, "The same person Trump mocked and destroyed during the 2016 Republican primary season?"

Rona just looked over at me as if I were born yesterday.

Needless to say, waffling back and forth all day, Trump came down to oppose the Paul amendment after an hour earlier endorsing it.

So much for attempting to suck up to and relate transactually to our president.

More of Trump playing to his base was on disgraceful display later in the day.

At a bipartisan meeting in the Oval Office about legislation that would provide some additional support for the Wall along the border with Mexico in trade for Congress's approval for a path to citizenship for 800,000 stateless DACA young people, Trump met with six congressional leaders, seemingly to wrap up final details.

Appearing to be unmotivated, almost like a non sequitur of his own, Trump began to ruminate about immigration writ larger, asking why we accept immigrants and refugees from places such as Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa. 

From "shithole countries" like these.

After this outrageousness, Republicans offered their usual tepid response, mainly mild forms of faux incredulity (they too worry about the power of Trump's base--perhaps 30 percent of America's adults) while most others expressed genuine outrage.

Has Trump finally crossed the line that many of us have been waiting for for more than two years, a line that will finally bring him down? 

Even in my hopeful naïvety, I was skeptical. Trump critics were not surprised by his ignorance and racism. We have come to expect it and have been rendered exhausted by it. Perhaps even inured.  

As someone yesterday evening was quoted as saying, it was another example of Trump seeking to "make America white again."

That caused me to think more about Trump's visit to Andrew Jackson's home and grave. 

Among other disturbing things that Jackson was responsible for was the infamous Indian Removal Act of 1830 that required native people, to leave our then western territories and relocate west of the Mississippi. Some tribes did so "voluntarily," others needed to be "removed" forcefully along the Trail of Tears.

This is what Trump is up to and why he admires Jackson so much--Trump too wants to see the removal of millions of Americans along a contemporary trail of tears. El Saladorians back to El Salvador, Hatians back to their island, Africans back to Africa, Muslims back to their countries.

One thing they have in common--they are all people of color. "What can't we admit more Norwegians, white-supremacist Trump opined wistfully.

If he didn't cross the line yesterday maybe he inched closer to it. Mueller is thankfully lurking while cravenly GOP members in Congress aren't.

June 11, 2013--Barack W. Obama?

Imagine the following scenario--

You are a progressive U.S. senator and also a legal scholar, having taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. As a very junior senator, at the 2004 Democratic national convention, as the keynote speaker, you expressed grave reservations about the extent and potential overreach of the Bush administration's surveillance of U.S. citizens who, Bush claimed, might be potential terrorists.

Four years later you are elected president of the United Staes and thus, as Commander-in-Chief, become the person most responsible for keeping America and Americans safe.

The first thing you ask for is a series of briefings about national security. You want to know about the major threats overseas and what are the dangers you will need to worry about domestically.

You are briefed primarily about the many crises in the Middle East and Africa--nationalistic movements; the rising power of Islamic fundamentalism; the on-going conflict between Israel, the Palestinians, and their neighbors; and, of course, you hear about Iran's nuclear ambitions and what might or might not be going on in North Korea, which, even four years ago, had atomic weapons and rockets capable of threatening South Korea and Japan.

On the domestic front, as the recently-inaugurated president, your attention turns to threats closer to home--locally-grown terrorists and other plotters who, though not U.S. citizens or legal residents, may have plans to slip across our relatively open borders with intent and the means to do us grievous harm.

"What are we doing about them?" you ask your national security team.

They tell you that, among other things, via the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the FISA Court, you, as president have been granted by Congress and the courts extensive powers to collect data about potential domestic and international terrorist threats.

As a constitutional-minded chief executive with progressive civil liberties credentials, though you are not surprised to learn this, the extent of the federal government's and your powers as president trouble you.

And so you ask, "Give me some examples of how sweeping in so much private information about citizens paid off--how this thwarted significant terrorist plots. I particularly want to be convinced that this process of domestic surveillance was the only way to stop these plots because if there is a more constitutional, more effective alternative, I will not agree to continue these post-9/11, Bush-era tactics."

A memeber of you team, perhaps the head of the N.S.A. says, "Let me remind you about the so-called subway bomber. You know about him. Just a few months after you took office in 2009, he tried to bring explosives into New York City in order to use them to blow himself up in the subway, potentially killing hundreds and maiming many more."

"Of course I remember that. I feel fortunate we were able to intercept him."

"And do you remember how we were able to do that?"

"I do, but refresh my memory."

"Under the authority of the PRISM Program, N.S.A. was using its powerful computer search engines to monitor an e-mail address in Peshawar, Pakistan that in the past had been used by Al-Qaeda operatives. It had been dormant for months but then someone in the United States was found to be using it. Investigators tracked that user to an e-mail address near Denver, Colorado, to a 24-year-old, Najibullah Zazi, who had been born in Afghanistan but had been brought to the U.S. by his parents as a child.

"In his e-mail, he asked a Qaeda operative for information about how to make a bomb using a flour-based mix. When our people read a subsequent e-mail in which he wrote, 'The marriage is ready,' they interpreted that to mean a major attack was about to be launched.

"Over the next days our people tracked him as he headed east. They stopped Zazi at the George Washington Bridge as he was about to cross the Hudson River and enter New York City. For some reason they fouled up and let him go. Spooked by being interrogated, he flew back to Colorado, but after several false starts was arrested. He confessed to officials that he and other Al-Qaeda cell members planned backpack bombings in the city's subway system."

"So you're saying," the new president said, "that without the ability to read these e-mails, to invade Zazi's privacy, so to speak--he was, I think, a legal resident--we would not have been able to to discover the plot and he likely would have been able to bomb the subway system?"

"That's what we think. His was a real threat that otherwise we would have known about only after the tragic fact.

"Here's how we view this," the president's briefers continued, "like you we worry about the right to privacy but for people working alone or in small groups,for those plotting in the shadows, we need to be able to cast a wide information-gathering net. As someone said, 'To find a needle in the haystack, first you have to have a haystack.'"

As we have known for years, that new president, Barack Obama, did in fact extend most of the Bush-era domestic and international surveillance programs. With constitutional concerns, he nonetheless signed off on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act and, it is now claimed, not only was Zazi intercepted  and convicted but so were dozens of others.

But on the civil-libertarian left, Obama is now being criticized and even attacked. In an editorial last week, for example, the New York Times said, he has "lost all credibility on this issue."

The Huffington Post called him Barack W. Bush and published a mash-up picture of him that combines some of his facial features with others of his predecessor.

Take a look. It's a brilliant example of Photoshopping, but I'm not sure if this picture is worth a thousand words.