January 9, 2020--Trump the Nation Builder

Virtually all presidents shy away from talking positively about nation building. They know from experience and history (a few presidents actually know something about American history) that more frequently than not it doesn't work and that the nation attempting to carry out the nation building usually winds up paying a huge political price.

Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon come to mind. Both presidencies collapsed as the result of sinking into the quagmire that was the Vietnam War. 

And then we have George W. Bush who, during the October 2000 presidential debate with Al Gore, when asked by Jim Lehrer about nation building, said--

I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win wars. That's what it's meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops . . . I strongly believe we need to keep a presence in NATO, but I'm going to be judicious as to how to use the military. It needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the strategy obvious.

Then, ignoring his own advice, Bush authorized nation building after invading Afghanistan and Iraq. In both instances this turned out to be an expensive, bloody disaster that to this day many years later continues to fester.

And now we have Trump who as a candidate and later as president spoke contemptuously about his predecessors' nation building efforts.

Trump though now finds himself in an ironic situation. Like it or not, after mocking Obama and Bush he too finds himself supporting nation building in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran where neo-con advisors such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been pressing him to abrogate the de-nuclearization deal struck by Obama and a number of allies and to act more confrontationally.

I refer to current pressures that Trump is placing on Iran as ironic because the demands he is making and the aggressive military actions he has authorized are having unanticipated consequences.

Until Trump turned up the volume of threatening talk, bragging that we have the capacity to bring down the current regime and devastate the country, there were dissident political factions in Iran that might very well, with the right kind of support, have had enough power to challenge the ruling ayatollahs.

But the decision to assassinate general Soleimani so inflamed Iranian national pride that the contesting factions are now fully united in their hatred of Trump and America. Now everyone in Iran is chanting "Death to America."

For this example of nation building they and we have Donald Trump to thank.

August 7, 2018--Under the Bus or Taking a Bullet?

Donald Trump in a Sunday morning tweet appeared to throw his son, Donald Jr., under the bus. 

He pled him guilty to committing a federal crime that forbids a candidate for the presidency or his agents to accept any form of material help from a foreign citizen or government. This includes both direct donations of money or in-kind assistance that has monetary value. 

Asking Russian agents to help gather "dirt" about Hillary Clinton ("an opponent") surely qualifies. 

The pertinent section of the federal code (52 U.S. Code 30121) reads as follows--


(a)Prohibition It shall be unlawful for—

(1)a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make—

(A)

a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;

(B)

a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or

(C)

an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or

(2)

a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national.

Sunday morning Trump tweeted--

Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics - and it went nowhere. I did not know about it. 

8:35 AM - Aug 5, 2018

This would appear to be Trump throwing his progeny under the bus to save his own skin when he denied he knew about his son's meeting in Trump Tower. If there is anyone to blame, this tweet appears to say, it is his "wonderful son."

One thing Trump gets right--gathering dirt, or engaging in "oppostion research" (oppo) in a political campaign is done all the time and is not per se illegal. On the other hand, seeking assistance in this by foreign agents is seriously against federal law.

This, however, is not going to be the end of the story. First, some possible context--

It is not a coincidence that all sorts of information is just now leaking, flooding out of Robert Mueller's thus-far leakproof investigation.

This is because he is following the Justice Department 60-day rule--not to report publicly less than 60 days before Election Day about an investigation that might include candidates for office. FBI director James Comey violated this unofficial rule just weeks before the 2016 presidential election when he reported out about allegations that Hillary Clinton used a private server for her official work as Secretary of State.

If Mueller is to observe the 60-day rule, if he has indictments to announce before November, he has to get that done by Labor Day. Thus, he is likely right now, as part of the discovery process, telling people he has been investigating that he is about to indict them. This doubtlessly includes Trump Jr. If the young Donald has been thus informed you know he shared that news with his father.

Among other consequential matters affecting Trump's state of mind--the Manafort trial, the Michael Cohen tapes, the subpoenaing of Trump's accountant (Allen Weisselberg)--the impending indictment of Donald Jr. has father Trump in a panic. As I mentioned yesterday this unraveling has drawn Hope Hicks back into the mix. And has Trump flailing about in a tweet storm. Including Sunday's in which for the first time he admitted there was collusion. After months of denial, even though collusion occurred, according to Fox News's and Trump's and his people's twisted logic, it is not a crime. 

As my grandmother used to say, "We'll see."

In spite of Trump reflexively dumping all of this on his son, if there are three or four people in the world he cares about (and this may be stretching the limits of his caring) it is his boys, Ivanka, and again Hope Hicks. 

If true, expect at least one of two things--

First, he will begin to churn out a bushel of presidential pardons. For  all his children as well as for Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, his accountant, and of course Hope.

If and when he does this there will be the expected outcry from all Democrats, a few Republicans, and Fox. Whether this will turn out to be more than a week of stories will depend on how it is absorbed by his base--35 percent of the adult public. Will they let him get away with this "murder" as they would if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue?

For the most part I think they would. The pardons will be spun as the actions of a loving father who acts to protect his children from the "enemies of the people" and rogue players such as Mueller, who are leading the biggest "witch hunt" in American history. Forget Salem for the moment and the abuses of Joseph McCarthy.

Then there is the Watergate alternative--Trump seems sincerely to want to meet one-on-one with Mueller and to tell him his version of the story. This won't work and I suspect even Trump with his colossal ego is aware of this. More than anyone else (except for Putin) he knows Mueller has the goods on him. Mueller may have already told Trump's attorneys he is about to be cited as a target of his investigation and soon may be designated an unindicted co-conspirator.

Why then does Trump appear to be so insistent on meeting with Mueller? 

Perhaps, with Hope Hicks counseling and soothing him, he will agree to make the biggest deal of his life--taking a page from Richard Nixon, he would agree to resign the presidency in exchange for Mueller pulling the plug on the rest of the investigation.

Or a third version--Trump and Mueller agree to both options: a host of pardons plus a deal that includes resignation.

In this admittedly unlikely scenario, instead of others taking a bullet for Trump he takes one to protect the very few people he cares about. 

And then he takes a victory lap, relishing in the cheers of his people as he declares his mission as president accomplished.

June 15, 2018--Serious Donuts

If you have a serious interest in donuts (in my view they are one of the five basic food groups), you will understand my obsession with tracking down and savoring only the very best.

Rona and I have been known to fly for just the morning from New York City to Kansas City so we can gorge ourselves on LeMars etherial doughnuts. Sadly, they have since been franchised but the originals were made and sold in an old gas station. You'd wait on line to buy a dozen and then woof them down, all of them, scrunched in your car unless you had somewhere close by where you could sit more comfortably. Though I'm fine with the car.

Among other aficionados, Calvin Trillin considers LeMars America's best. Could be but we still have a few places to get to before we agree with that.

When on the road, in desperation--say you are driving east through the middle of Nebraska--you might think about pulling off to get your hands on a couple of Dunkins. But the truly obsessed resist that temptation and press on, believing that in a small town such as, say, Gretna there might be someone who gets up every morning at 3:00 am to turn out a heavenly batch of chocolate coconuts.

In fact there is--Sunrize Donuts (been there)--which, in Michelin terms, is worth a detour.

Up here in Maine we live in one of these between-places places and thus felt relief when we learned that "only" 40 miles from us, in Brunswick, there is Frosty's. It has been there for decades. They open at 4:00 (by then a short line is already formed) and close when there're out of donuts. Usually before noon. So if you want Boston creams and toasted coconuts for lunch, and are motivated to head for Brunswick, be forewarned.

But the bad news is that the family who ran it for many years about two years ago sold it and the new owners have been cutting corners on ingredients and looking to have local supermarkets carry their brand. In other words, Frosty's has gone commercial and is now not much better than a Dunkins.

When we reluctantly came to this conclusion we were distraught. We moaned--how will we be able to get through our six-month Maine season without periodic melt-in-your-mouth artisanal donuts.

We were almost tempted to think about summer rentals in Gretna, NE. 

Then, one night at a wonderful home-prepared dinner with friends we met someone they included who they thought we would like to get to know. 

She's great in all respects--very smart, very funny, as well as being a mover and shaker in Damariscotta. Among other things she knows everything about all the local businesses (she had been president of Rotary and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce), and when she heard us whining about Frosty's she asked if we had been to the Nobleboro Village Store.

We confessed we hadn't though it is close by. When she heard that she got all excited and told us there was a treat in store for us. 

"Their donuts are even better than Frosty's were in their prime. Like Frosty's, get there early," she advised, "They also sell out quickly. They make maybe a total of five dozen and some of the guys who come there every day can easily eat a dozen each. There are some very big guys in the area."

Two mornings later we got up early so we could get there by 7:00. The place is in a residential neighborhood and from its look feels like you can pass it by without regrets. It's more a general store than donut joint but it does have a small L-shaped counter with four or five chairs. Usually, a couple of local guys are there, reading the paper and joshing around while sipping a cup of coffee, eating an egg sandwich, and finishing up with a few donuts. 

Sure enough that first day the donuts were picked quite clean but there were a little more than a dozen left and, as outsiders, though in the interest of research we were tempted to buy and eat all of them, we restrained ourselves and brought only six.

We thought, just looking at them, next time we'll get here no later than 6:30 so we can buy a mixed dozen without feeling guilty.

They specialize in basic cake-style doughnuts, generally our favorites. And by now we've been there enough to have seen and sampled their full repertoire.

Plain-plain, plain sugar-coated, plain chocolate-covered, chocolate coconut (my favorite as they come with a handful of thick, clinging coconut shavings), maple crunch,  . . .  You get the picture.

If we allowed ourselves to do what we really desire we'd go there at least once a week. But since we're trying to eat a lower carb diet, we now show up about every four weeks. This past Wednesday was our once-a-month visit.

We bought and finished ten. I could have handled one or two more but resisted. "We only now come once a month and we haven't been here since last October so . . . "

Rona cut me off. She has better discipline than I and wanted to concentrate on a chat she had begun with one of their regulars. 

He was talking about how in the 1970s, though he had never ventured far from Nobleboro, seeking a little adventure  after high school, he moved for half a year to Florida where he got a job at an exclusive beach club as a bellhop and occasional chauffeur.

The other morning he was full of stories about some of the famous guests he encountered--Jackie Gleason, James Garner, Sammy Davis Junior, Frank Sinatra, Bebe Rebozo, and Richard Nixon. He told us how in his bellhop role he had delivered a message to the president who didn't tip him. And also how he met and spent some time with Henry Kissinger. Then there was . . .

So I'm thinking--I'm sitting on a backless stool at the Nobleboro Village Store, in the middle of a version of nowhere and talking with a guy who spent time in the early 70s with Henry Kissinger. All the while inhaling a half dozen of the very best donuts ever. 

I leave you with this--The place is worth a journey. As much for the likes of our new friend as for the donuts. He's an amazing storyteller. So when you get there (as early as possible) ask him to tell you about Kissinger. The best part is his dead-on version of Kissinger's heavily accented English. That alone is worth the trip.

January 4, 2018--Let the Games Begin!

Kim Jong-un and Trump Donald-un are at it again. We've moved from "Little Rocket Man" to back-and-forths about whose nuclear button is bigger than whose. (Fortunately, on both sides, there are no such buttons.)

Do you think these world leaders have a size problem? We know that "Little Marco" Rubio felt that way about candidate Trump's hands and other body parts. 

This ends the entertainment portion of this posting. 

The rest is perhaps even hopeful.

Remember back in the early 1970s, after 20 years of estrangement between the United States and "Red" China, both sides were looking for a face-saving way to begin to engage each other.

The U.S. ping pong team was in Japan competing in the world table tennis tournament. Since they were in the neighborhood, the People's Republic of China invited them to come to Beijing for a series of exhibition matches. 

Never mind that our team was trounced. What turned out to be important was not the ping pong but the fact that this represented the beginning of communication between both sides which culminated in 1972 with fierce Cold Warrior Richard Nixon visiting China, most remarkably sitting down to talk with maximum leader, Mao Zedong. The rest is the history we are living with today.

There may be, may be something similar happening right now on the Korean peninsular.

With the Winter Olympics less than a month from opening in South Korea, in his annual New Years address to the world, North Korea's president Kim Jong-un hinted that he would like to talk with his South Korea counterpart, Moon Jae-in, about the possibility of the North sending athletes to the games. I suppose in the tradition that enemies put aside their weapons to compete in the Olympics.

Quickly, President Moon took up Kim's offer. They or their representatives have already made plans to meet in the demilitarized zone as early next week and they have already reconnected the hot line between the two Koreas. We know that when they meet they will be talking about more than ski jumping.

Obervers in Asia and the West are noting that this is an attractive strategy for each side--for Kim it shows some flexibility in regard to talking to those who oppose him and his nuclear program. It also, as many are putting it, "drives a wedge" between two erstwhile allies--South Korea and the United States. Presuming that if Moon agrees to meet it will be in defiance of Trump, president of South Korea's longest time ally, the United States.

On President Moon's side of the table, it shows his independence from the United States. That his is not a puppet regime. We have been a huge presence there from the years of the Korean War until today. Nearly a remarkable 70 years. Currently there are 37,500 U.S. military personnel in South Korea, and for decades we have been the the major patrons of most South Korean political leaders.

But Moon, who recently come to power as a "liberal" has sought to put some distance between us and his country. So this wedge may be just what he is seeking--some measure of independence from our influence.

In a frenzy of threatening tweets about Pakistan, the Palestinians, Iran, and North Korea, President Trump has indicated he has no problem with the two Koreas talking with each other.

Perhaps he too is hoping that this small opening, not unlike the ping pong diplomacy of the 1970s, will lead to a way for us to back off while saving face. 

This has not been Trump's MO--backing off or looking for ways to save face--but one never knows with someone as unpredictable and as embattled as he. Maybe he will switch to becoming as obsessed with Pakistan or Venezuela as he is with North Korea. In his world, that could be a version of a good thing. And it does fit an America First agenda of sorts, though Pakistan has at least 100 nukes and I'm not sure provoking them as he recently has is such a good idea.

It is fragile things of this sort that we hope for and cling to.

December 4, 2017--Déjà Vu All Over Again

This Yogism rings true as the Mueller investigation closes in on the upper reaches of the Trump White House. 

To anyone old enough to remember the unraveling of the Watergate scandal more than 40 years ago, the recent defections from members of the Trump team will feel familiar---déjà vu all over again.

What eventually brought down the Nixon administration and led to the indictment or jailing of 40 of his associates was the squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, drip, drip, drip strategy. Just what we're seeing now.

In the case of Watergate, a smalltime player, former CIA agent James McCord, was caught with other burglars when breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex.

He was the first of the buglers to be convicted--on eight counts--and was facing many years of hard time in a federal prison. Just as he was to be sentenced, he informed the presiding judge that he and a story to tell. 

So a deal was stuck--McCord received a modest sentence in return for agreeing to blow the whistle on those above him in the Nixon administration hierarchy. Among them, White House counsel John Dean, who in turn made a deal to implicate those above him in the organization chart, also in return for a reduced sentence.

The special prosecutor continued to work his way up the food chain and many senior aides were successfully prosecuted. Nixon himself was listed as "an unindicted co-conspirator" and was forced to reign the presidency. And the rest was history.

Squeeze, squeeze, drip, drip.

Now we have exactly the same thing unfolding within the Trump administration.

First to be successfully squeezed was George Papadopoulos, a relatively minor player in the Trump campaign and transition. But someone the year before Trump listed as one of two of his "foreign policy advisors." Later, we know, disavowing him, Trump said Papadopoulos was so insignificant that he mainly remembers him as the intern who brought coffee to the principals. 

The other foreign policy "expert" Trump listed was the now-indicted, soon to be squeezed, Paul Manafort.

And a few days after that, Michael Flynn, a key advisor to Trump and his National Security Advisor for 24 days, stepped forward with the story he has to tell. That story, it is already being leaked, includes his assertion that, in regard to working with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton, he reported to and worked with son-in-law Jared Kushner. 

(Don't be surprised if it turns out that Lieutenant General Flynn tape recorded his calls with Kushner and who knows who else. He comes from a military intelligence background.)

If true, this would be incendiary because we already know who Jared reports to.

Then there is beloved daughter, Ivanka, who like her husband Jared, has also in recent months been relatively invisible. She and her family were not even in Florida with Trump and Melania during Thanksgiving.

With Flynn pleading guilty in large part to protect his chief of staff son from prosecution, with Jared and Ivanka and probably a Trump son or two in peril, it is getting to be Shakespearean. 

I'm thinking Lear. 

Trump already seems to be wandering around in a storm of his own devising. That appears to include stealth bombers right now moving closer to North Korea.

Even Trump was reported to say, "This is very, very, very bad."

I'd say, "It's very, very, very, very bad."

Michael Flynn & Michael Flynn Jr.

November 21, 2017--Civil Wrongs and Rights

Though I know at least half the books about the Kennedys are hagiographies, about Camelot and all that, and half of the other half are about their dark side--their involvement with the Mafia, Cuba, and the women (Marilyn and dozens of others)--still when another Kennedy book comes along before I come up for air I'm halfway through it and the tears are already flowing about what was (Jack's presidency) and what might have been (Bobby and Teddy's thwarted White House aspirations).

So, I'm more than halfway through Chris Matthews's Bobby softball biography, Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit. It's no more than halfway decent but, for the Kennedy junkie that I am, that's enough. More stitched together and racing along in jump cuts it lacks the flow and insight of his book about Kennedy and Nixon, Kennedy & Nixon, for me still the best explication of Nixon's turbulent inner world as exposed by his complicated feelings about the Kennedys, especially Jack.

This son of a grocer from dusty Yorba Linda, California, Nixon was no Kennedy. And, sadly, he was daily aware of that more than anyone.

The good Bobby, the one that emerged later in life a year or two after his brother was assassinated, devoted his last years to calling for equal treatment of all Americans, especially the forgotten ones in impoverished Appalachia, sharecroppers' hardscrabble farms in the Black Belt of the Mississippi Delta, the migrant worker camps in the steaming valleys of California, and the churning inner cities.

The tears flowed for me for the first time when Matthews wrote about the integration of the University of Alabama in June, 1963. It was Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General who mobilized the forces to implement the court order to allow two black students to register. The iconic scene etched in most American's memories was of the diminutive Alabama governor George Wallace, surrounded by state troopers, standing in the doorway to thwart their enrollment.

In the close background the millions who watched this confrontation on live TV, could see the fury, the hatred on the faces of local Alabamans who gathered to bring the threat of violence to the situation.

Also watching this on television were the Kennedy brothers. 

Jack soon had enough and told Bobby and his staff to arrange for a primetime half hour with the three networks for later that evening. He intended to make a speech about what he was witnessing and feeling.

That night, to the nation, he said--

I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. . . . 

This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. . . . 

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

Five months later Jack was shot dead in Dallas and almost exactly five years after that Bobby was gunned down in Los Angeles on the night he won the California primary, which likely would have led to his nomination to face Nixon for the presidency, as his brother had in 1960.

With this era in mind and especially thinking about the Trump presidency and racial strife, which continues even after eight years of Barak Obama's presidency, Rona suggested we see the new movie a friend, Jonathan Sanger, produced, Marshall, about a case that Thurgood Marshall tried in 1940 some years before he became the first Negro to be appointed to the Supreme Court.

It is a very good movie which I urge you to see before it disappears into Netflix.

It is about an actual trial during which Marshall takes the lead in defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. On the surface, sadly familiar territory, but in this film, based on an actual case, the events and trial are not set in Mississippi or Alabama (as, for example, is To Kill A Mockingbird) but in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The script is tight, the acting and direction generally flawless, the story upsetting and riveting, but, stepping back for a moment, most remarkable and important is to be reminded that this trial took place in the Northeast. 

For those of us who like to think of ourselves as a bit superior to those in the middle of the country, it is good to be reminded that less than an hour from New York City, not so many years ago, things were not so different when it came to what used to be called "race relations."

Both the Matthews' book and Marshall are vivid reminders of that.

October 5, 2017--Back to North Korea

While the country has been preoccupied with hurricane news and now the mass murder in Las Vegas, concern about North Korea has largely faded from the front pages. 

It will be back.

In the meantime, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in China last week where he openly stated that the U.S. and North Korea are seeking channels through which to talk with each other about a way forward--"Stay tuned," he said.

Donald Trump, though, did/or did not chide him for that, tweeting, "Rex, don't waste your energy" trying to talk with them. Soon enough they will bear the consequences of their intransigence.

Were they playing good cop/bad cop or did Tillerson go rogue and got slapped down for it?

The over/under betting line is that Tillerson will be gone in a few weeks, or days, especially after he called Trump a "moron." This reliable reported by NBC, among others.

Apparently, after hearing about that, Vice President Mike Pence frantically tried to talk Rex down. We'll see how that works out.

My comment about Trump and Tillerson--that he "did/or did not" chide his Secretary of State--suggests that some or all of this public back forth might be more an act than a reality. To confuse the North Koreans and terrify them that Trump is not bluffing but is actually as crazy as he seems. If true, Trump and Tillerson may be concocting confusing signals that remind one of the crazy-act Nixon put on which was orchestrated by his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, to perplex and frighten the Russians and Chinese.

Last week I wrote about a breakfast conversation with Phil, who laid out four options that might explain what is going on between us and the Kim Jong-un regime.

I have heard from quite a few people about that blog posting, including my ex-wife yesterday who asked, among those options, which I think are most likely. 

Here then is how I see the possibilities, acknowledging I have no special insights or inside knowledge about to what is transpiring. Who does?  

I have ranked these possibilities from the most likely scenario to the least--

Most likely--back channel discussions are in fact inching along. Recall that it took two years back in the early 1950s for us to work out an agreement to suspend the war between North and South Korea, with us, of course, the principal player on the side of the South. 

Are you old enough or immersed in history enough to recall the months it took just to work out the shape of the negotiating table and the height of the chairs? Yes, that was a complicated point of contention. It finally was resolved and the negotiations proceeded. The war was eventually suspended via an armistice (we are thus still technically at war with North Korea) and the rest should have been history. 

I suspect something of this sort is underway now. Tillerson, no Kissinger, carelessly leaked what is happening and therefore needed to be publicly chided to assure the North Koreans we can be trusted to keep our diplomatic mouths shut.

Second most likely--Kim Jong-un will be assassinated. The South Koreans have revealed that they are making plans for this and I suspect they are with our direct assistance. The gamble is that there is enough under-the-surface dissatisfaction with Kim on the part of the North Korean leadership class and that though they may be cowed and/or terrified by him, they also want to live on and not be bombed to smithereens by us. They have their Swiss bank accounts and condos in the West and are as a result not part of a suicide cult. Thus, some of them are likely involved in helping to overthrow Kim, or worse. Or better.

Next--The U.S. has all-encompassing cyber warfare and traditional military capabilities that we have not revealed to potential adversaries. Capacities, if they were known to the Russians or Chinese they could devise ways to counter. 

According to this scenario, using these weapon systems, we pull the plug on North Korea--we bunker-bust their underground facilities, using cyber methods we cut off their power supply, their connection to the Internet, disrupt their financial system, their access to fuel and food supplies, and even disrupt, perhaps disable their nuclear and missile activities. In other words, we may have the ability to shut them down and dramatically reduce their ability to engage in warfare. 

If we did this, if we have the capacity to do this, unleashing these new kinds of weapons would, the theory holds, bring them rapidly to negotiations. It would also mean war. But of a less bloody sort. But a war, nonetheless, with all its surprises, complexity, and dangers.

The good news: least likely--all-out war itself. Shock and awe times ten. What Trump said about "totally destroying" them. This puts Saigon's millions and our 28,000 troops currently in South Korea at great risk, and, who knows, more players in the region--Japan also gets bombed as does Guam and the Seventh Fleet. 

And then there is China--what would they do about the outbreak of a major war, perhaps a nuclear war, on their border? Back in 1950 when U.S. troops pushed across the 38th parallel and began an advance toward the Yalu River that separates Korea from China, China sent nearly 3.0 million "volunteers" across the Yalu to directly confront the American military. 180,000 Chinese were killed as were many thousands of Americans.

They hate Kim and the North Koreans but they do provide a buffer for the Chinese who do not want to see a united Korea with the South and the U.S. dominating. They also do not want millions of North Korean refugees pouring into China.

If I have this right, of the four most likely scenarios, I am seeing the most optimistic one as most likely--negotiations--and the most cataclysmic one--all-out war--as most unlikely. 

At least that's my hope.

Negotiations in Panmunjom

April 5, 2017--25th Amendment

Monday on Morning Joe, Joe and Mika reviewed the storm of tweets that poured forth on Saturday and Sunday from Donald Trump.

They were clearly dismayed.

Usually, Trump's weekend tweets appear only on Saturday mornings when his family handlers, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, practicing Jews, are observing Shabbas. On that day orthodox Jews are forbidden to work and this even includes turning on electrial devices such as stoves, TVs, and smart phones.

Knowing this, it is during this window when he is not under surveillance that Trump as the bad boy he is is at his most uncensored and outrageous. But he goes silent when Ivanka and Jared are again wired up or, if he does tweet any more, knowing they are monitoring him, he is more restrained.

But last weekend, perhaps in part because Jared as quasi Secretary of State was secretly flying off for a visit to Iraq, he published perhaps a dozen tweets. As Joe and Mika reviewed them on air, their dismay turned to horror.

"Who is this person?" Joe asked rhetorically, "I thought we knew him." Mika shrugged and smiled. They thought they knew him from more than a year of having him as a constant presence on their program. He would call in most mornings and they would keep him talking often for up to a commercial-free hour. They rode his wave of popularity as he rode theirs. His poll numbers rose as did their ratings. More viewers tuned into Morning Joe than all other cable shows other than the preposterous and inane Fox & Friends.

An early Saturday morning tweet asked--

When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and @NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russian story?

Not exactly a haiku. And, as Joe and Mika noted, the more things capitalized the more agitated the Commander in Chief.

Then they pointed out, "Sleepy Eyes" is not one of Trump's best sobriquets. It doesn't compare with "Crooked Hillary," "Little Marco," "Lyin' Ted," or for Elisabeth Warren, "Pocahontas."

Another email, a non sequitur asked--

It is the same Fake News Media that said there is "no path to victory for Trump" that is now pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!

And, still obsessed with Hillary (he can't get over the fact that she beat him by almost 3.0 million popular votes)--

Did Hillary Clinton ever apologize for receiving answers to the debate? Just asking!

For the uninitiated, the "answers" he referred to are actually questions that CNN reporters prepared to pose to Clinton during one of her debates with Bernie Sanders. They were passed along to her campaign by Donna Brazil who was vice president of the Democratic National Committee and a CNN contributor. She subsequently lost both jobs.

At that point, Mika Brzezinski, in visible pain, as if to herself, mumbled, "24th Amendment."

Joe corrected her, "You mean the 25th."

"You think it's time . . . ?"

"I'm beginning to think maybe . . ."

Having depressed themselves they stared blankly into the camera for what felt like an endless five minutes.

To review--the 25th Amendment, which was ratified in 1967, spells out presidential succession. The amendment was needed since the original Constitution was ambiguous about who would become president if the chief executive died or was otherwise incapacitated. In the original document it was not clear if the Vice President was to be the successor. So that needed straightening out.

Also, there was insufficient guidance about what would happen if the president were alive but disabled by, say, a stroke or mental breakdown and how that would be determined. They took great care about this as the amenders did not want to encourage coup d'etats based on false diagnoses.

It is this latter circumstance that is addressed in Section 4 and was alluded to by Mika and Joe.

In its entirety, it reads--

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments [Cabinet members] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

This has never happened, but if the amendment had existed during Woodrow Wilson's presidency, it would not have been possible, when he had a massive stroke early in his second term, for his wife, hiding the extent of his disabilities, for all intents and purposes, to serve as acting president for his remaining three years. Section 4 would have been invoked and the VP would have assumed the presidency.

And during Richard Nixon's final days in office, with the 25th Amendment in place, with the president substantially incapacitated because of the drip, drip, drip of Watergate, because he was so out of rational control, a number of his senior advisers thought seriously about enforcing Section 4.

Though they did not do that, he thankfully resigned, but before he did so, among themselves they agreed to tell the Joint Chiefs of Staff that if Nixon late one night, while reeling and raging from too much alcohol, transmitted the nuclear codes that would send nuclear missiles and bombers on a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union, that they should risk treason and not comply.

We are currently not at that point, perhaps, hopefully, far from it; but Joe and Mika spoke the words of deep concern and none of their guests demurred.

But then, a day or two later, from this current scandal that keeps on giving, we learned about Susan Rice's alleged role in "unmasking" Trump aides and secret meetings with the Russians in the Seychelles prior to the new administration taking office to establish a "back channel" connection between Trump and Putin.

Myself, I prefer Claire Danes and Homeland.

It's only an hour an episode and it's fiction. Though by the day it is feeling more and more like reality.

Claire Danes

October 4, 2016--Donald: Alone In Trump Tower

Richard Nixon to me is the most fascinating of presidents.

Not best, not "near great" as historians rank chief executives and, as president, but if one can set Watergate aside, in many ways--with Russia and especially China--he was quite effective.

But, yes, it turned out he was a "crook," and during the last two years of his presidency, as his life crashed down upon him, like Lear, he raged at even the elements.

Thus, my favorite book about Nixon is Richard Reeves, Nixon: Alone In the White House, in which those final years are starkly and even poetically rendered.

We find Nixon more-and-more alone and isolated, ensconced in his Executive Office Building hideaway office, not sleeping, with the fireplace roaring even in August, brooding while drinking excessively, filling page-after-free-associative-page in his ever-present yellow legal pads. It is not difficult to imagine the thoughts that were tormenting him. All brought upon himself.

It is equally easy to imagine the thoughts now tormenting Donald Trump as his personal universe is imploding. Used to winning he is now losing with the cataclysm again mostly self-inflicted.

Not only did he lose the first debate to Hillary Clinton but as part of the bait she held out so subtly to entrap him, "to get under his skin," was her barb about his undue interest in beauty pageants and how he responded by making unmotivated, disparaging remarks about Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe, while lacerating Hillary and commenting without foundation, libelously about Machado's "disgusting" weight gain and sex life.

Clinton's was an artful thrust calculated to distance him further from the few women voters who for some reason continue to say that they plan to vote for him.

Trump, rather then letting that taunt go unresponded too--he could have righteously taken the high road, noting how it was beneath him to respond as it should have been beneath Clinton to raise while the country and world roil.

Instead, Trump, lacking impulse control, knowing no high road, took the bait and doubled-down late Friday night-very early Saturday morning, firing out tweets to his 12 million followers--

At 5:14 a.m. he wrote, "Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an 'angel' without checking her past, which is terrible!"

Five minus later, Trump posted, "Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGMENT! Hillary was set up by a con."

At 5:30 he mercifully concluded--"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?"

This says nothing about either Clinton or Machado but it is a window into Trump insomniac mind.

Or should I say soul?

September 9, 2015--Take My Husband, Please

Suddenly everyone is talking about funny.

Last night Stephen Colbert took over the Late Show. People have been anticipating and talking about it for nine long, long months. Would he be as funny being Stephen Colbert as he was inhabiting his crazed right-wing persona? People wondered if what we will get on CBS as opposed to the Comedy Channel will be the "real" Colbert.

Illusion and reality. Remember that from your introductory college lit course?

We managed to stay up late enough to see at least a little of the new show and it only served to remind me how much I miss his old one. Not that he wasn't funny. It's just that he wasn't so trenchantly and deliriously funny. But time will tell.

It will help if he'll soon move on from all the self-referential shtick that made up so much of last night's monologue.

One of his guests was Jeb Bush, about the least funny, low energy politicians in America. OK, you got me, there's George Pataki. And Ben Carson. And, to be fair and balanced, Martin O'Malley.

These days you can't run for the presidency without appearing on the equivalent of Laugh In (Richard Nixon) or Arsinio Hall (Bill Clinton in shades playing the sax) or John McCain on Saturday Night Live (of course Sarah Palin too--both as herself and in Tina Fey's realer-than-life incarnation).

When he was running, Barack Obama showed up everywhere, from Jay Leno to doing skits on SNL to boogying with Ellen to trading quips with Letterman and Kimmel.

Wooden candidates from Michael Dukakis to Al Gore, some say, lost the presidency because they lacked a sense of humor. They were missing the "likability" factor.

Speaking of likability, do you recall back in 2008 how when candidate Hillary Clinton was faulted for not being likable, during one of the debates, Obama was asked what he thought about that?

With impeccable timing he said, "She's likable [one beat, two beats] enough." He was roundly criticized for that.

But you know (one beat, two beats) he was right.

She was, and is, not a natural politician and thus comes across as not that likable. Which these days can be a fatal problem.

But that's about to change.

Her campaign over the weekend announced that they're going back to the drawing board and the new Hillary Clinton they promised will be likable.

The scripted, extra-careful, humorless Hillary is about to be funny.

And, risking a gender-bending reaction, it was announced she will be more spontaneous. In the words of her campaign managers, she will speak "from the heart."

What they failed to note is that claiming they can just turn on the funny switch and thereby humanize Hillary is further confirmation that her campaign, and the candidate herself, is an artificial construct.

One minute she's sober and presidential, the next she's hanging out in the back of the press bus knocking down beers and cracking jokes with reporters and getting booked on Ellen and The Tonight Show.

How phony will her new personality seem? I suspect she will come across as pandering and desperate. And it will ironically underscore what many think about her--that she's inauthentic.

Yes, Hillary makes fun of her 'dos ("The hair is real, the color isn't"), which is sort of funny, at least the first time you hear it. But the fact that it is now part of her anti-TRUMP stump speech--he clearly has hair issues--makes it less funny every time it's repeated.

Pretty pathetic.

But, hey, this is 2015! Get with it. It's all about social media and because of social media it's all about being cool and likable. And being likable means you have to be funny.

Even if you aren't.

June 24, 2105--Republican Demons

Republican politicians are struggling now with demons of their own arousing--the demons of white supremacy and racism.

Here's the problem--

Until 1963-64 when the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed by Congress and signed into law by Lyndon Johnson, politically, the South was the "Solid South" with all offices from dog catcher to sheriff to governor and senator totally in the hands of Democrats. Republicans were seen as the party of Lincoln, the president who pressed the Civil War.

That all began to change as Richard Nixon, seeing an opportunity for the GOP, implemented his Southern Strategy, a blatant appeal to white southerners to switch their allegiance to Republicans who, in spite of the law, would not put pressure on them to integrate, act affirmatively in regard to college admissions and employment, or encourage black people to register or turn out to vote.

In fact, with GOP leadership, the opposite happened, including supporting elaborate schemes to suppress minority-voter turnout and pressing for cutbacks in federal programs that served many people of color--food stamps, Medicaid, public housing, welfare.

And so by the 1980s, schools in the South remained largely segregated, laws remained on the books that did not allow whites and blacks to marry, and with the exception of gerrymandered congressional districts that were carved out to create a few with black voter majorities, virtually all elected officials were white and Republican.

Now, the Republican electoral base, especially party activists who through their engagement during primary campaigns, that base which disproportionately determines who will be nominated for gubernatorial, congressional, and national office, is largely made up of aging white men.

And sad to say, since a large part of that base harbors anti-minority, even racist views, to attract their support it is necessary for candidates to pander to their prejudices.

Even now, after the massacre in the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, GOP aspirants to the presidency are speaking equivocally about what happened (Rick Perry called it an "accident") and dodging the controversy surrounding the Confederate flag that flies on the grounds of the state legislature.

With the notable exceptions of thus-far non-candidate Mitt Romney, who immediately called for it to be removed, and just yesterday South Carolina governor Nikki Haley's call for it to be taken down, all other Republican candidates have spoken out of both sides of their mouths.

For example, both Jeb Bush and his estranged mentee, Marco Rubio punted questions about the flag by saying they felt "confident that the state will do the right thing."

More troubling, more toxic, as a way to cozy up to racists and cater at the party's bigoted base, many of the current Republican candidates have accepted campaign contributions from white-supremasist organizations that the church shooter followed and to whose websites he contributed comments and manifestos.

One stands out--

The Council of Conservative Citizens, which, according to the New York Times, in the council's words, opposes "all efforts to mix the races" and calls for the dismantling of the "imperial judiciary" that  in 1954 required the desegregation of the nation's public schools.

The council as well has been a generous funder of many of the current GOP nomination seekers. Though as the result of the murders in Charleston, some of the candidates last weekend returned the money or contributed what they received to charity, one wonders what Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, and even Nikki Haley were thinking when they accepted council support.

It is actually clear what they were thinking and attempting to say by their tacit involvement with this hate group--

Wink, wink--you know we're with you. In spite of what we may have to say to appear tolerant, we stand with you, share your views, and won't cause you any pain. We'll make sure you can keep your guns, even of the same type that kid used in Charleston. And again, in spite of what we may have to say, we won't take away the flag you so passionately choose to salute.

June 16, 2015--The New Cold War

This report from the New York Times isn't from 1955 but appeared yesterday--

In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is drawing up plans to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, official say.

What happened to détente? What happened with the Obama administration's claim that it had successfully pressed the "reset button" in our relations with Russia?

This sounds to me like all too familiar sabre-rattling.

But there's more.

A few days earlier the Pentagon announced that a Russian jet fighter buzzed a U.S. reconnaissance plane flying well outside Soviet borders over the Black Sea. It came within 10 feet of the American plane and maintained its provocative position for 10-15 minutes before breaking off. Overnight, the Russians announced they would match the U.S. buildup in Eastern Europe.

This to me sounds like back to the future and is very scary.

We know that Obama and Vladimir Putin despise each other and can't stand to be in the same room.

Nixon managed to meet and talk with Nikita Khrushchev, Roosevelt and Truman sucked it up and met and negotiated with Stalin, so why can't the current U.S. and Russian presidents do the same thing?

They would probably claim it's because they disagree about Crimea, which Russia annexed a year and a half ago. Obama sees Putin threatening more incursions in other culturally Russian parts of Ukraine; Putin sees it as an inevitable part of Russia's national destiny. We in America above all should understand his version of Manifest Destiny.

But none of this requires Cold-War-style confrontations. If Putin and Obama had a civil working relationships it all could be resolved with a few phone calls.

"Vlad, what's going on with you guys? I mean in Crimea." 

"Well, Barack, it's a traditional part of Russia, the people there are of Russian descent, speak Russian, and want to be a part of Russia. So why not let things take their course?" 

"I see your point. But what we need to do, Vlad, is sell the idea to our own people and make the case that you let the Crimeans vote about affiliating with Russia. Which they did and overwhelmingly wanted to. I'll work on Poroshenko to convince him it's no big deal. He owes me one. Everyone knows Crimea has been largely autonomous for decades so we should be able to put a fig leaf on the situation. How does that sound?" 

"I think I can make that happen. In the meantime, send my best to Michele." 

"And mine to . . . Sorry, I forgot her name. The gymnast?" 

"Alina, Alina Kabaeva. Will do. Talk to you soon. Call any time. You know I don't sleep."

So now that their relationship is ruptured, there will be no conversations of this kind and as a result we have economic and diplomatic sanctions flying in both direction, Russia has been kicked out of the G-8 (which is now again the G-7), and there are not-so-veiled threats of more to come, including additional close encounters in the sky and at sea. All we need is for one jet fighter pilot to make a mistake and launch a missile and who knows what would happen next.

This is the way adolescents behave, not the leaders of the world's two most powerful nations, both still with hundreds of intercontinental missiles at the ready and thousands of nuclear warheads.

Where are the adults?

October 16, 2014--Cuba Libre

Last week there was a report in the New York Times that during the most recent fiscal year, about 25,000 Cubans entered the U.S. illegally. More than at any time since the massive arrival of Boat People back in 1970s, 80s and 90s when a total of at least 300,000 came ashore (or drowned) in Florida, including 125,000 alone on 1,700 homemade vessels during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift.

Clearly our borders are even more porus than we imagined.

Central Americans and Mexicans continue to enter through gaps in the fence along the Rio Grande and, as an echo from the past, tens of thousands more are arriving again from Cuba in the same sort of rickety boats and rafts used previously.

This time they are not so much flooding into the country to escape Fidel Castro's oppressive regime but more the result of Cuba's collapsing economy. They are mainly economic, not political refuges.

And though we now have policies in place that make it easier for Cubans with families in the U.S. to enter legally, as this news reveals, the current policy is not working for all the Cubans who want to come here to begin new lives.

Cuba is such a hot-button topic that even with a growing interest by both of our political parties in appealing to Latino voters, about Cuba policy almost no one is saying, "Enough already."

Hardly anyone is suggesting we "normalize" relations with the Raul Castro government (Fidel lives on but, in his dotage, is in more than semi-retirmeent) and few are concluding, as communist-baiter Nixon did, that it is finally time to find ways to establish working relations with Cuba as Nixon dramatically accomplished with "Red" China.

Blocking any bold moves to recognizing the Cuban government must be the lingering fear that aging Cuba Libre Cuban-Americans, some of whom are Bay of Pigs veterans, will vote against any candidate or party that calls for normalization and, in presidential elections, might tip Florida into the column of the candidate who opposes any changes in status. Since as Florida goes, so goes the general election.

Which brings me to Barack Obama who is desperately seeking to do things that demonstrate he is an effective leader who still counts--

Do a Nixon.

Get Henry Kissinger out of retirement and have him (secretly) prepare the ground for an Obama trip to Havana to shake hands on a deal with Raul. In the same way Kissinger paved the way for Nixon to go to China to meet with Premier Chou En-lai and Chairman Mao. The rest is history with Nobel prizes waiting.

So the old Cubans sipping cafe con leche and puffing cigars on Calle Ocho in Miami will be upset. Who cares. They aren't oriented to vote for Hillary or Democrats anyway and Obama isn't any longer running for anything. Just for his place in history.

October 8, 2014--E=MC2

The speed of light is very fast, in fact there is nothing faster in the universe. It is a very big number--light travels at 186,000 miles per second, or 299,792,458 miles an hour, which means that the light emanating from the sun, which is about 93 million miles from Earth, takes only 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach us.

But on a cosmic scale, this is small potatoes.

The galaxy in which our solar system is located is so huge that that hugeness is expressed not in miles but in light years--how many miles light travels in a year. At 186,000 per second, that's very, very far. To give you a sense of that, our galaxy, the disk of the Milky Way, is about 100,000 light years in diameter.

Then, the ultimate measurement, our universe, everything that there is, is 93 billion light years in size, an almost infinitely large number to comprehend.

I have been thinking about the speed of light because a friend, Leslie Woodhead, is writing a book about the Atomic Era, not so much about the science as about the cultural and political consequence of a world full of atomic weapons. He wants to interview me because I am obsessed with The Bomb and how it has affected life on our planet. To satisfy my obsession, I have read and thought much about these issues. In addition, since he's British he wants to gather reflections from Americans who lived as youngsters through the early days of the Atomic Era and Cold War. I qualify in that regard as well.

In thinking what to say to him, I have dipped a bit into the science of the A-Bomb, especially the theory Einstein developed that defined and quantified the convertibility of mass to energy. As evidence and to demonstrate what that would mean in practical terms, converting a relatively smallish mass of Uranium-235 or Plutonium into a massive amount of energy (an atomic explosion), he propounded perhaps the most famous of all mathematical equations--E=MC2, with E representing Energy, M Mass, and C-squared the speed of light times itself.

With the speed of light by far the latest number in the equation, and then squaring it (multiplying it by itself), and then multiplying it additionally by the mass in question, reveals how such a powerful explosion could result in converting such a relatively small mass of radioactive material into energy--the cataclysmic force of an atomic explosion.

For example, a bomb weighing less than 10 tons with a Uranium-235 core weighing only141 pounds of which just one kilogram (2.2 pounds) underwent nuclear fission, an atomic bomb called Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, exploded with the force of 63,000 tons of TNT. Tons. And killed 135,000 Japanese.

I will want to talk with Leslie about take-cover drills in school where we were taught to dive under our desks if we saw a "blinding flash of light" from an A-Bomb exploding over Times Square, ground zero; and how, after the end of World War II, under Cold War pressure all presidents from Truman to Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon were under pressure from their military advisers to use nuclear weapons preemptively, in turn, against the Soviets, the North Koreans, Cubans, and Vietnamese; and how this led to the establishment of a "national security state" with inordinate power accruing to the President with Congress assigned a subsidiary role, effectively resulting in  the end of  the Founders' concept of the "separation of powers."

But it will be hard to not be thinking about E=MC2, the speed of light, that kilogram of U-235, and those 135,000 killed that August.