February 27, 2018--Trump Unfettered

As much as I am enjoying following along as special counsel Robert Mueller makes Donald Trump and those close to him who not only colluded with the Russians but obstructed justice, as much as I like to see them squirm while their world continues to implode and they are forced to face justice--I like schadenfreude as much as the next fellow--I am beginning to worry about some of the unintended consequences of, one-by-one, Trump's people being indicted or copping pleas.

I do look forward to seeing the Trump boys' comeuppance, Hope Hicks being exposed for the enabler she is, as eager as I am to see Ivanka brought down for taking commercial advantage of her First Daughter status, as much as Jared Kushner likely deserves to be exposed and prosecuted for financial shenanigans, and of course above all how I crave the outing and perhaps impeachment or prosecution of the Godfather of the Trump Crime Family, while impatient for all of this, I am beginning to worry what Trump will be like when he finds himself essentially alone in the White House with Hope and Jared and especially Ivanka gone, as one way or the other they all likely will be.

No matter what Mueller finds, even if the Democrats in November take over the House of Representatives and impeach Trump (40/60), he will not be convicted by the Senate, and since he delusionally is not a quitter (his whole being depends upon viewing himself as winning at everything), he will not take a Nixon and resign and we will be faced with two-and-a-half more years of Trump as president with the nuclear codes not far from his night table. 

As fundamentally corrupt and perhaps as felonious as they are, Hope, Jared, and Ivanka may be the only ones who have the access and capacity to have a chance to moderate him, such as moderating Trump can ever be.

With them gone, do we want to see a White House with weaselly Stephen Miller even more empowered, former UN Ambassador John Bolton brought in as head of the National Security Council, and Steve Bannon re-ensconced, this time as Secretary of State?

Whatever small measure of sanity and constraint John Kelly, Rex Tillerson, H.R. McMaster, and James Mattis provide, with the three children exiled, and the hawks more in charge, what would the next two years of Trump's presidency look like? 

War with North Korea? We have a preview of that right now as Trump didn't even give our ally South Korea the courtesy of an additional day or two to close the Olympics before imposing a form of naval blockade on North Korea, virtually an act of war as blockades are.

One more round of indictments of those closest to Trump and . . . 

The one proven thing for presidents to do when cornered, as Trump surely will be, is to start or intensify a war. John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon did that in Vietnam, Reagan invaded Grenada, and George HW and George W did the same in Iraq. As a result HW's approval ratings shot up to 90 percent as did his son's.

To make matters even more psychosomatically complicated, it appears that First Lady Melania is weighing in on the Ivanka-Kushner-versus-John Kelly blood feud. She is taking Kelly's side in a deeply Freudian struggle that ultimately is about the jealousy she doubtlessly feels as Trump so clearly prefers the daughter to the spouse.

While Trump leers at and talks smuttily about Ivanka and gets exposed for cavorting with pornstars and Playmates, Melania seethes and then draws upon her Eastern European DNA to come up with an appropriate form of revenge, that among other things includes getting rid of the competition.

Some of this may be over-speculation, but is it wise to deny that this scenario is plausible and if true imperils us?

I would prefer to wake up one morning to find that the Trumps, grifters that they are, overnight moved out of the White House. But since that is inconceivable, I am thinking it's prudent to hope the three kids figure out a way to hang in. At least through November. Maybe even until 2020.

January 19, 2018--Lock Them Up

Announced Friday was the first in at least three chapters about how Russians influenced the 2016 presidential election. 

This report from the Mueller investigation and the Department of Justice did not contain a "smoking gun."

That means no one from the Trump campaign, including President Trump, was accused (yet) of knowingly playing a direct part in the dozens of efforts to derail Hillary Clinton's campaign while boosting his.

But a smoking gun, in a second or third chapter, will soon be forthcoming.

The second chapter will show the many ways in which Trump's people wittingly were involved, likely including Trump himself. A third chapter, knitting everything together, will reveal how money was the root of all evil that led to this widespread malfeasance--how Russians indirectly and directly laundered oligarchs' ill-gotten gains (including from Putin) through western banks such as Deutsche Bank, which in turn loaned it to the likes of Trump (and the Kushners) to bail out their failing real estate deals.

Expect in these two chapters to hear directly from the perpetrators themselves as perhaps up to a dozen have been cooperating, for months working undercover for the Mueller investigation, wearing a wire, in exchange for not being tried, convicted, and sent to jail.

Thus far, some of this is unintentionally ironic.

For example, we learn how pervasive and effective Russian interference was in the 2016 campaigns and likely continues to be, including as we grind toward the 2018 midterm elections.

Their use of social media and their direct involvement in dirty tricks undoubtedly helped tip the election to Trump. By working strategically how could the Russians not have turned the few thousand votes Trump needed in purple states (which they targeted) such as Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida, and Pennsylvania to build his winning margin in the Electoral College?

This means (the irony) that the Russian campaign in 2016 was more effective than Hillary's--Trump won with Russian support; she lost for the same reason.

Rattled by the implication that he is an illegitimate president Trump spent the weekend off the golf course (too windy) attacking via tweets those he perceives to be his enemies from Congressman Adam Schiff (who he called a "monster") to his own National Security Advisor, General H.R. McMaster to . . . Oprah, who Trump says is "insecure".

Making what the Russians were up to vivid, Mueller, in this first series of indictments revealed how Russian operatives showed up at campaign events, including in West Palm Beach, FL with a flatbed truck on which there was a simulated jail cell within which there was "incarcerated" an actress dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit pretending to be Hillary Clinton.

Mueller is now moving quickly, wanting to complete as much of his work as possible before Trump attempts to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in an attempt to shut down the investigation.

None of this will work. Friday witnessed the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.

July 31, 2017--Bring In the Generals

Reince Priebus is out and General John Kelly is in.

For months there have been rumors about replacing Priebus as White House Chief of Staff. Half the reason Anthony Scaramucci was brought in as Communications Director was to get rid of Priebus, who Trump had growing misgivings about but not the cojones to fire face-to-face. He appears only capable of doing that on reality TV.

So they tortured Preibus until he had enough and said enough. Big-bucks cable news and book deals await.

Kelly, a highly-decorated four-star Marine general will be moving from heading the Department of Homeland Security as soon as he can fill out the paperwork. Let's hope he doesn't forget to mention any meetings he had with Russians. Who will replace him in Homeland Security is anyone's guess. Maybe, God help us, Rudy or Christie?

Trump does like his generals. And he has appointed seemingly good ones in high level positions. Jim (Mad Dog) Mattis in Defense, H.R. McMaster as National Security Advisor, and General George Dunford as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Though generals are not by nature my favorite people, I am feeling good about these men.

As the Trump presidency continues to come undone, I am reminded of the last days of Nixon's reign. As he realized his time was nearly up, as the evidence became conclusive that he was involved in the coverup of the Watergate break-in, as he himself began to unravel, not sleeping, drinking heavily, and reportedly talking to the presidential portraits on the walls of the White House, concerned about his sanity, his chief of staff, General Alexander Haig, and his secretaries of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld), State (Henry Kissinger), and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (General George Brown) talked among themselves that if in a stupor he commanded them to launch nuclear missiles against, say, Russia, they would commit technical treason and not carry out Nixon's orders.

I am assuming that similar discussions are now occurring among senior members of Trump's administration. At least I hope so because as Trump sees himself more-and-more cornered, as only he knows the full extent of his dirty dealings with Russians both in business ventures and undermining Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign--with Trump likely directly involved in both--one sleepless night he might call for a nuclear attack on North Korea or Syria. With North Korea it may come to that, but to the generals who know best about the perils of such an intervention, it may be wise for them not to carry out a bomb-first-think-last order of this kind.

In popular culture, in films such as Seven Days In May and Dr. Strangelove, it is the generals who seize power and get their hands on nuclear weapons. But in Nixon's day and hopefully now, it may be the the generals who will save the country.

General James (Mad Dog) Mattis

February 24, 2017--Jack, On Immigrants

"So tell me what you and your friends would do about the more than 10 million illegal immigrants."

It was the morning after the Trump administration unveiled a new executive order that outlined plans to round up and deport millions of undocumented workers and their families and Jack was sounding excited.

Before I could respond, he continued, "My boy was back on his heels last week what with the Flynn fiasco, Kellyanne Conway, and that press conference. But with this he's back. And the general he appointed to replace that crazy Flynn is everyone's favorite. Even your crowd's."

"Well I do agree about General McMaster but about the immigration executive order, I'm not so sure."

"Perfect bleeding heart material for you liberals. Feeling sorry for all those displaced Latin Americans. See, I didn't say 'Mexicans.'" I sensed that made him feel good about himself. "But we've got a lot of problems and needs of our own not to have to worry too much about them."

"Well, they're here and for the most part are hard working and law-abiding. I just read that the crime rate among undocumented people is actually lower than among citizens."

"Probably from your New York Times. But aren't they all doing illegal things? I mean, just being in the country without documents or visas is itself illegal."

"So you'd round up everyone? Even the so-called Dreamers? Young people who were brought to America when they were very young children?"

"Maybe not them and as I understand it for some time at least the Trump immigration police will leave them alone."

"Just send their parents back?" I hope he heard my sarcasm.

"You know your American history."

"And?"

"And wasn't it true that when your grandparents as well as mine came to America, because they didn't have the money, many left family members behind? Isn't that a version of the same thing? Isn't it in the nature of immigration itself?"

"I'll have to think about that some more. But it is true that for almost everyone--though they faced a lot of discrimination--they had legal status. They in most cases were sort of welcomed here as laborers, to build railroads, or settle and work on farms in the Midwest."

"Don't we have a guest worker program here that allows people to legally cross borders so they can work on farms and restaurants?"

"We do," I acknowledged.

"But we're getting sidetracked," Jack said. "I come back to my initial question--what would you do about the millions and millions of illegal immigrants? And I should remind you that your president Obama was the deporter-in-chief. He rounded up and sent back about two and a half million. More in total than all his predecessors combined."

"That's true but he didn't do it in the same kind of mean-spirited way. Unlike your president." It upset me that I was beginning to sound like Jack.

"Sure, Obama didn't publicize it because he didn't want to get legal Hispanic-Americans all upset. He wanted their votes. And pretty much got them."

"Can we forget Obama? Trump is now our president, so let's limit ourselves to what he's doing. Not much good as I see things."

"So you're Ok with all the illegals living here, sending their kids to our schools and hospitals, and . . ."

"The evidence is overwhelming that from an economic point of view, from a cost-benefit perspective, immigrants, even undocumented ones, contribute more that they get in government services. In other words, in bottom line terms, we get more in return than we pay out. Also, most of the unassimilated immigrants do work that, forgive the expression, real Americans don't want. Like a lot of the restaurant and field work. How many Americans do you know who want to wash dishes, cut lawns, or pick lettuce?"

Jack was silent so I said, "I take that to mean you don't know too many field hands who are citizens."

"Up here plenty of the farmers are Mainers. But to tell you the truth there are also a lot of Hispanic agricultural workers. Again, we keep getting off the subject. So let me try again--what would you do about the millions of illegals? Just let them be? Make them all citizens?"

"First of all, can you find another name for them. 'Illegals' sounds really nasty."

"Let me come at this another way. You live half the year in New York City, right?"

"Right, but where are you going with this?"

"You're a so-called sanctuary city, right?"

"Right. But again?"

"Which means that you don't cooperate with federal immigration enforcement people."

"Not entirely true because if an undocumented person commits a felony in most cases they do get turned over to the ICE people."

"But basically, if they obey the law, illegals, sorry, illegal immigrants, can stay in the city as long as they want, get drivers licenses, have any kind of job, etcetera."

"Basically true. And most New Yorkers are fine with that. In fact, we feel good about being welcoming and tolerant."

"We're not talking abut refugees, right, but people who came here or overstayed their visas to live and work?"

"Again, I don't have all day so can you get to your point because it feels as if you're building up to some revelation."

"I'll cut to the chase."

"At last." I was feeling exasperated with Jack. I liked him better when he didn't call so much. I did have things I wanted to get to and he has the ability to get under my skin.

"You have any immigrants living in your building?"

"I haven't checked but I assume so."

"They'd have to be rich ones, right, considering how much apartments sell for?"

"That's true," I admitted.

"So you're OK with where you're living?"

"Pretty much."

"It doesn't disturb you that your place isn't diverse?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"That everyone, I assume, is pretty much like you? All rich and . . . "

"There are some who have lived here for decades, before prices shot through the roof, and they are more modest than most of the rest of us. And again, your point is?"

"That you live pretty isolated from your typical illegal immigrant. My guess is, and it's an easy one, that you don't have any Mexicans who snuck across the border living in your building."

"Could be."

"And so this subject for you is pretty theoretical because the only illegals you maybe encounter are working in restaurants, cleaning up after you're finished with dinner?"

"Could be." I was starting to feel defensive.

"I'll bet you don't wake up in the morning and meet any in your elevator when you're heading out for breakfast. Except if someone is renovating their apartment and some of the illegal construction workers are around."

"Could be."

"How would you feel if somehow one morning you woke up and half the apartments in your building were occupied by Guatemalan or Syrian refugees?"

"That is . . . ," I sputtered.

"Go on. You can say it. You'd hate it."

"I don't know. This is all so crazy."

"But it's not theoretical to people here in Lewiston, Maine, where more than 5,000 refugees have been relocated. Altogether, including the refugees, there are only about 35,000 living in Lewiston. Some for generations. They wake up in the morning and see their neighborhoods and downtown turning into Somali enclaves. Ask them, from your Manhattan sanctuary, how they feel about that. And these are good people. But it's not how most want to live."

"But other places like Buffalo, New York, seem to be welcoming refugees and undocumented people because they contribute to their economy. Things are pretty bleak up there and new arrivals rent places, do the work that a lot of local people don't want to do, and buy things from Buffalo merchants. So it appears that it's good all around."

"I read about that too. In your Sunday Times, and I get it. But in just as many places, again like Lewiston, nobody asked the local people what they wanted. Refugees from Somalia just began to show up with the assistance of the U.S. government."

"I can understand that. I want us to be welcoming but local people should have a say in relocation programs. And I'll concede that refugees are not the same as undocumented people."

"As long as they don't move into you building."

I was out of gas and didn't respond.

"I hear you, you've got other things to do. I'll call you next week."

I said to myself, "If you must."

Somalis In Lewiston Maine