Someone Get Me Rewrite!

Sometimes you need a good editor to make your writing better. I was a good editor, but it’s not easy improving your own text, ergo the thankful acknowledgment by many a revered author to his or her editor. That’s a longwinded way of saying I just realized that a cutesy paraphrase of a biblical saying included in a posting two weeks ago could have been sharpened by an editor. 

Concerning the controversy over the status of monuments to Confederate generals and soldiers, Columbus and other notables, I wrote, “In a variation on what Jesus said, let he who is without sin be memorialized with a statue.” 

Reading that line today I believe it would have been better if I had written, “In a variation on what Jesus said, let he who is without sin be cast in stone.” 

Behind the Scenes: Now that Paul Manafort and Rick Gates have been indicted in a federal probe linked to the election of Donald Trump, I was wondering, why is it that just those two were named in a scheme to launder foreign money and evade taxes? Are we to believe that Manafort and Gates had the smarts and wherewithal to hide their activities without the aid of lawyers, accountants, bankers and others, perhaps a few real estate agents, who might have provided counsel on how to circumvent without detection federal law? 

I know, you’re probably saying they were caught, so it proves, or at least strongly suggests, they acted alone. I think not. I am waiting to see who else might be entangled in their web of deceit.

Meanwhile, for an eerily revealing behind the scenes look at the dynamics of Manafort, his family, and his alliance with Trump, there’s hardly any more enlightening read than the emails his daughter, 31-year-old Andrea Manafort Shand, exchanged with friends from March through August 2016: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-manafort-daughter-trump-texts_us_59f748b6e4b03cd20b832fe0.

Kelly Turns Green, as in spoiled or rotten. There are few better feelings for a journalist than to be proven correct in an assessment of a character. I feel good that my repudiation of John F. Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff and by many accounts the White House executive looked to as ballast to Trump’s excesses, is being confirmed by Kelly’s own actions.  

Having been shown to be a dissembler of truth when it came to the controversy involving the death in Niger of Sgt. La David T. Johnson and Trump’s condolence call to his widow, Kelly’s appearance Monday night on the Laura Ingraham show on Fox News reinforced his jaundiced view of history. Asked about removing plaques of George Washington and Robert E. Lee from a church in Alexandria, Va., Kelly said,

“I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”

Historians have excoriated Kelly for his depiction of followers of the Confederacy and the idea that failure to compromise resulted in war. Here’s a sample:  http://wapo.st/2gRznMq?tid=ss_tw-bottom&utm_term=.b8f3e02ab210. 

Let’s look at his evaluation of current loyalties, specifically his comment that “It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today.” 

Has Kelly been asleep during the repeated assault by states, almost always Republican controlled, to push back against federal laws and regulations in the interests of “states’ rights”? Individual states have fought against the legalization of abortion rights, environmental safeguards, worker benefits, national parks and monuments, voting rights, gender equality and civil rights.

Indeed, a central plank of Trumpism is a dissolution of federal power in favor of state authority. 

Retired Marine Corps general John F. Kelly may have been a solid leader of men in battle but he is a flawed advisor and gatekeeper to the equally if not more flawed leader of our country.

Four American Deaths Spark Another Controversy

They were surprised by the ferocity of the attack that claimed their lives. Questions about prior intelligence. Questions about how quickly military support could reach them. Questions about how and what the families of the fallen Americans were told.

No, I am not referring to the 2012 deaths in Benghazi of four foreign service professionals and the prolonged multiple investigations by a Republican-controlled Congress set on besmirching the integrity of Secretary of State and eventual Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

No, these deaths occurred October 4 in Niger, an African country I would venture to say perhaps one percent of Americans could locate on a map and probably fewer knew we had military personnel stationed there fighting Islamic militants.

One wonders how diligent and aggressive the still-GOP-controlled Congress will be in purusing the tragic events and pursuing accountability. We can only hope that statements about the need for committee hearings will produce more than momentary soundbites.

Into this now politically charged sadness comes White House chief of staff and retired Marine general John F. Kelly, not by his own volition but rather because of the extraordinary but now seemingly day to day bad and/or clumsy behavior of his boss, Donald Trump, who chose to politicize the conveyance of solace and a nation’s gratitude to the families of fallen soldiers. 

Kelly is a good soldier. By that I don’t mean he is a good tactician or a good leader of men. He probably is. Rather, he is a “good” soldier in the sense that no matter what his commanding officer says or does he will not disavow him. He will not criticize him. He will give him cover to continue behavior that is inappropriate. Maybe like what Quentin Tarantino just admitted to in the Harvey Weinstein scandal (https://nyti.ms/2l0ZZ2N). Hears evil. Sees evil but speaks no evil. Washington and Hollywood: two peas in a pod.

You don’t become a four-star general merely by way of military expertise. Politics plays a part. Schmoozing up your superiors. Making nice to elected officials. Press reports bend over backwards describing Kelly as above the political fray of instigator-in-chief Trump roiling the waters with whomever he has a beef, be it on legitimate matters of policy or personal peccadilloes transformed into public shaming and bullying. 

Throughout it all Kelly has remained steadfast. He dismisses as inaccurate reflections pictures of him pained and distraught as the fulminator-in-chief goes off on one of his tirades. He’s never considered resigning, he says.

But his defense of Trump’s conversation with the widow and family of Sergeant La David T. Johnson, killed in Niger, and his attack on a Democratic congresswoman has opened Kelly to the contentious nature of American politics. Kelly is learning that his words are subject to parsing, as well. He got caught in a big mistake when he wrongly criticized Rep. Frederica S. Wilson for taking credit for securing funding for an F.B.I. building in Miami named for fallen agents (https://nyti.ms/2l33Wnj). 

Here’s an example of what can and has gone wrong. From Thursday’s New York Times: “Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, said Mr. Kelly’s blunt remarks will have impact because of the stark contrast with an administration that has repeatedly lost credibility with the public.

“‘Its great power was you knew he was telling the truth, and in all specifics,’ said Ms. Noonan, a Wall Street Journal columnist. ‘Kelly comes to the podium and it was credible, and you felt a kind of relief, and respect and gratitude.’” 

I wonder what Noonan thinks now. I wonder how quickly Kelly will come to Trump’s defense the next time—and you can bet the farm there will be a next time—the provocateur-in-chief strains credulity.

My Man McCain: Let’s be grown up about this: Politicians generally are not the most upstanding, unselfish, heroic individuals. Their main pursuit in life is self aggrandizement, most visibly demonstrated by their quest for election, then reelection, through often sleazy deals with benefactors and policy positions crafted to appeal to narrow interest groups that do not necessarily have the public good as their paramount interest.

Which brings us to John McCain. He is an exasperating politician. He is a conservative Republican which implies a proclivity toward defense spending and a less than robust ratification of entitlement programs. Yet he has moments when he is downright noble and heroic.

In 2008 he rebuffed a supporter of his presidential bid after she claimed Barack Obama was not an American or a Christian, that he was “an Arab.”

“No ma’am,” McCain said. “He’s a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

“He is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president,” McCain said. “If I didn’t think I’d be one heck of a better President I wouldn’t be running, and that’s the point. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments, I will respect him. I want everyone to be respectful, and let’s make sure we are. Because that’s the way politics should be conducted in America.”

With his last sunset visible on the horizon because of an aggressive brain cancer (the same type that felled Ted Kennedy), the 81-year-old Navy veteran, prisoner of (Vietnam) war hero, U.S. congressman and senator from Arizona and Republican presidential candidate has a biography that will fill a full page of a broadsheet newspaper. In many ways he is like Obama, “a decent person.” 

But I would be scared if he were president because for every intrepid vote to deny the elimination of Obamacare, McCain falls back into party discipline to, for example, support a budget that would reward the rich and gut assistance programs for the needy. From my perspective he keeps switching too often from occasional white hat to near constant black hat.

Tributes to McCain keep poring in. Here’s one from David Brooks in The Times (https://nyti.ms/2zohY5n). And his speech the other night when he accepted the 2017 Liberty Medal Award from the National Constitution Center was a stinging critique of the current state of national leadership and its withdrawal from what made America great. Here’s video of his remarks: https://youtu.be/RoQDCgE9HVU

Perhaps it would be appropriate if McCain had a one-on-one chat with Kelly. Someone, after all, needs to tell the general when it is his duty to correct his superior, even a president. For the sake of the country.

The Bankruptor-in-Chief Gambles on Healthcare, N. Korea, and Dumping Mueller

If there is one thing Donald Trump knows how to do it is bankrupting a business. So even though the Republican controlled Congress has not been able to repeal Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act is still in jeopardy because the bankruptor-in-chief is committed to shutting it down without so much as a thought to the tens of millions whose lives would be placed in financial and physical jeopardy from illness that could lead to poverty and/or death. 

The irony in all this is that a healthier America is better for business, which is what Trump claims to be all about. 

For more irony, Trump is touting invigoration of the coal industry—a dying segment of the energy sector with dying companies that provide lethal work for coalminers—at a time when solar, wind and other alternative energy sources have far surpassed coal’s attractiveness as a resource and employment prospect, not to mention its environmental concerns. But then what do you expect from a businessman who could not turn a profit from gambling casinos?

Behaving like a spoiled child holding his breadth because his parents deny him an extra portion of dessert, a ticked off Trump has threatened to curtail subsidies that underpin many insurance providers. Without the subsidies insurers may abandon markets, leaving individuals without insurance options or with drastically higher premiums many couldn’t afford.

Trump is gambling his threat will force Republicans and Democrats to come back to Washington to vote to repeal and replace Obamacare. But keep in mind, four of Trump’s six bankruptcies came from his inability to run a successful gambling casino. Should anyone with such a sad, sorry record be playing with the health and safety of our citizens? 

How Big a Gamble: To get his way Trump has shown a willingness to gamble with the health of millions. He now has an international dilemma with even more certain deaths if he places his money on black and the roulette ball lands on red.

What should he do with North Korea’s relentless march to nuclear warhead and ballistic missile capability? Does North Korea pose an existential threat to America or any of its allies? Should he order a pre-emptive strike on the missile staging area?

Even if we could knock out the missile development region, we probably could not prevent massive conventional retaliation on Seoul with massive loss of life and physical destruction of the South Korean capital. Are we willing to sacrifice the citizens and capital of our ally so easily?

I’m inclined to think we should not. Here’s an analysis from the Centre for Research on Globalization worth reading: https://shar.es/1TwcYz

  

Breaking the Silence: In the war on Islamic terrorism it is often asked, where are the moderate Muslim voices? Sadly, under threat of actual death, they remain all too silent. 

But one can equally ask, where are the voices of reason within the Republican Party? How can they let this misfit of a president stand for the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan? 

To be fair, many conservatives have spoken out and written about their disdain for Trump and his co-opting of the Grand Old Party and conservative values. Even some religious leaders have expressed consternation that their brethren have forsaken Christian teachings by supporting Trump’s extreme positions, including his stances against Obamacare, immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims and voting rights. 

Until recently, the real silence, however, has been heard in the halls of the Capitol. For eight years Republicans decried the power of the executive branch under President Obama. Now that a so-called Republican sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, watching their reaction and their determination to express congressional authority is a study of evolving expectations. 

Now that he has removed Reince Priebus in favor of John F. Kelly as his chief of staff, commentators are saying Trump has severed his strongest ties to the Republican Party establishment. Will he try to push through an agenda without care or consideration for traditional GOP values, or will he try to work with an increasingly independent Republican controlled Congress?

Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain showed profile-in-courage independence by voting down the last ditch GOP effort to repeal Obamacare. But others who privately did not like the “skinny repeal” bill voted for it anyway, a true example of profiles-in-cowardice.

Meanwhile, The House and Senate overwhelmingly voted for more sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea along with a proviso that Trump could not unilaterally lift sanctions on Russia. Trump has indicated he will sign the bill as he doesn’t want to risk the embarrassment of having a veto overturned. 

Republican senators have also been out front warning Trump not to dump Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sen. Charles Grassley, chair of the Judiciary Committee, has threatened not to hold hearings on any replacement for Sessions nominated by Trump. 

The end game for Trump is to get rid of Robert Mueller III as independent special counsel. Aside from the investigation into possible collusion with Russia during the election last year, Trump fears Mueller’s probe into his finances. Trump well knows that developers are ripe pickings for investigators looking for shady deals. 

Trump might be looking alarmingly at Pakistan where the Supreme Court last week removed from office Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif because of alleged financial corruption. 

On the other hand, he might be gazing longingly at Vladimir Putin’s strong armed rule in Russia where opponents are jailed (“Lock her up”) or mysteriously die, or to the Philippines where President Rodrigo Duterte conducts summary executions of alleged drug dealers and users (Trump last week suggested police treat suspects more roughly), or even to Venezuela where President Nicolas Maduro has rammed through the election of a constituent assembly that will rewrite the country’s constitution more to his liking (Trump wants the Senate to abandon filibuster rules that he views as constraining his legislative agenda). 

He definitely won’t look for inspiration to Poland where President Andrzej Duda vetoed two proposed laws that would limit the independence of the judiciary.

This Isn’t Funny: OMG, how are we supposed to survive the Trump administration if our favorite foils keep getting whacked? First Sean Spicer resigns, no doubt moments before he would have been axed by his new boss, communications director Anthony Scaramucci. Then a short 11 days later Scaramucci is dumped by new chief of staff Kelly. 

Spicer and Scaramucci were made-for-TV-satire-comedy. Melissa McCarthy made Spicer into an Emmy-nominated caricature. And it was impossible not to be amazed and amused by Stephen Colbert’s spot-on mimicry of Scaramucci. 

It will be tough replacing these comic inspirations. Ex-Marine general Kelly just doesn’t have the same je-ne-sais-quoi. I guess we’ll just have to be content with Alec Baldwin’s Saturday Night Live send-up of Trump and Kate McKinnon’s portrayal of Kellyanne Conway.