How we are becoming a third-world country
JANUARY 1, 2018—JUNE 30, 2018
BY JON NELSON
INTRODUCTION: THE AMERICAN OLIGARCHY
I will begin this third installment on the travesty that is Donald Trump’s presidency by noting that the situation we now find ourselves in has not come about through a sudden, violent usurpation of power, but rather by gradual, legal encroachments that have served to undermine the democratic process and turned us from a republic to an oligarchy. The machinery of government is now under the exclusive control of a small number of individuals who are utterly unresponsive to the will of the American people and whose actions threaten to turn the United States into a third-world country.
This has come about due to a series of legislative actions dating back over forty years to the late 1970s. These actions coincided with the resurgence of fundamentalist religion, and people on both sides of the issue have correctly noted that these two seemingly unrelated items in fact dovetail very nicely with each other.
A Huffpost article dated August 3, 2016 is an invaluable guide in laying out some of the key legislation that has gradually eroded our democratic principles. The article starts off with an interviewer asking former president Jimmy Carter what he thought of two recent Supreme Court decisions, the 2010 Citizens United case, and the McCutcheon case four years later. These two ridiculous cases have made it possible for unlimited amounts of money to pour into political and judicial campaigns. This includes money from foreign governments and individuals. Carter responded thusly: “It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. … At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell.”
The Huffpost article then notes that Carter was cut off from further comment at this point. Not surprisingly, considering today’s conservative political and journalistic climate, Carter was not invited back to elaborate on this crucial issue. This is becoming an all-too-common occurrence in today’s media: refusing to give ample time to opponents of right-wing extremism.
What is surprising is that there has only been one empirical study made covering the critical twenty year period from 1981 to 2002 detailing exactly how we have moved away from a democracy, in which our elected officials are supposed to represent the interests of the American people, to an oligarchy, in which the wishes and whims of the mega-rich are reflected in new laws, judicial decisions, media reporting, and other actions that ignore what the people actually want. That study, entitled “Testing Theories of American Politics” was published by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page in the journal Perspectives on Politics, issued by the American Political Science Association in September 2014. The article notes that the 1976 case of Buckley vs. Valeo: “started the aristocratic assault on American democracy.” That Supreme Court decision nullified several of the provisions of the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act. This was the first assault on limiting the amounts of money that can be used in political campaigns. As the Supreme Court has become increasingly conservative in recent decades, subsequent rulings have made it possible for politicians to come more and more beholden to special interests. It is no exaggeration to conclude that the rich now control the political process. I will be providing numerous examples of this.
The article notes that, even prior to this stupid ruling, the news media was already owned and operated by the super-wealthy. It notes: “‘freedom of the press’ was really just freedom of aristocrats to control the ‘news’—to frame public issues in the ways the owners want. The media managers who are appointed by those owners select, in turn, the editors who, in their turn, hire only reporters who produce the propaganda that’s within the acceptable range for the owners, to be ‘the news’ as the public comes to know it. But, now, in the post-Buckley-v.-Valeo world, from Reagan on (and the resulting study-period of 1981-2002), aristocrats became almost totally free to buy also the political candidates they wanted. The ‘right’ candidates, plus the ‘right’ ‘news’-reporting about them, has thus bought the ‘right’ people to ‘represent’ the public, in the new American ‘democracy,’ which Jimmy Carter now aptly calls “subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.”
The situation has gotten much worse since the publication of the afore-mentioned study. The Huffpost article quotes an August 2015 front page article by the New York Times which conclusively demonstrates that the Republican party is: “overwhelmingly advantaged by the recent unleashing of big-corporate money power.” The Times study also notes that: “even in the Democratic Party, the mega-donations are going to only the most conservative (pro-corporate, anti-public) Democrats. Grass-roots politics could be vestigial, or even dead, in the new America.” In other words, the traditional Democratic party, which has always portrayed itself as sympathetic to the “little guy,” is now abandoning its foundational principles. Today’s Democratic party is increasingly starting to look like the Republican party of old, while the Republican party has transmogrified into an increasingly totalitarian entity that, step by step, is destroying our country.
Make no mistake about it: We are no longer a democratic republic. We are an oligarchical society run by people who have no interest whatsoever in serving anyone but themselves. In order for us to re-take our country, we need to hit them where it counts: In their pocketbooks and in the voting booths. Precinct by precinct, city by city, county by county, and state by state, we must begin at the grassroots level and remove, once and for all, this cancer that is destroying our civilization. And the first step is to educate the public as to the correct definition of the word “truth.” It is an unfortunate indictment of today’s America that anyone needs to point out that truth means what is objectively provable, not what one wants to believe. And that very definition will upset just about every Republican in the United States, and most Democrats as well.
So where do we stand a year and a half into Trump’s presidency? Joe Kennedy III makes that crystal clear: “As I said in my speech in response to Trump’s first State of the Union address, we all have that nagging, sinking feeling—no matter your political affiliation—that what is happening in our country is not right. We see an economy that makes corporate profits climb but fails to give workers their fair share of the reward. A government that struggles to keep itself open. Russia knee-deep in our democracy. An all-out war on environmental protection and complete denial of climate change. A Justice Department rolling back civil and voting rights by the day. Hatred and supremacy proudly marching in our streets. Bullets tearing through our classrooms, concerts, and congregations. A government hell-bent on making American life a zero-sum game, where for one of us to succeed, another must lose.” (Joe Kennedy III, MoveON, February 13, 2018)
Clearly, as criminal as the current administration is, all this did not start with the election of Donald Trump. But as will become abundantly clear, it has escalated immeasurably under his presidency.
2018: BUSINESS AS USUAL FROM TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS
America is a country in deep trouble, troubles so serious that not only our future, but our very lives are threatened. There are many reasons, but Public Citizen hits the nail square on the head: “A country is on the brink of catastrophe. And its people desperately need our help. Here’s a synopsis of the tragedy unfolding as we speak:
•A few of the country’s richest inhabitants are spending billions to install political puppets in office—from city councils up to the highest levels of government, even the country’s president—who will do the bidding of the wealthy uber-class, the overwhelming majority of the populace be damned.
•The nation’s proud tradition of democratic elections is eroding as the country lurches toward plutocracy.
•Multinational corporations can spend as much as they want pushing politicians and policies that will make them even more profitable, creating a feedback loop of corporate corruption leading to more corporate power leading to more corporate corruption and on and on and on and on.
•Political candidates create shadowy groups to spend unlimited money attacking their opponents, and these groups don’t even have to disclose which billionaires and Big Businesses are funding them.
•Judges on the country’s highest court have facilitated this corruption with rulings overturning a century of protections against control of elections by the elite.
The nation is led by a say-anything, self-aggrandizing faux populist leader guilty of nepotism, narcissism and nativism.” (Robert Weissman, Public Citizen, May 30, 2018)
Note that every problem we face is a direct result of the implementation of Republican ideas and strategies. Let us now take a closer examination to see if Public Citizen’s views are justified.
I will begin with one example, as related by Americans for Tax Fairness. Although the quote is long, it adequately describes the consequences of Republican economic policies: “Last September, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan stood in front of a Harley-Davidson plant in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin and promised that ‘tax reform can put American manufacturers and American companies like Harley-Davidson on a much better footing to compete in the global economy and keep jobs here in America.’ Trump himself said that under his tax plan U.S.-based companies would be able to ‘create more jobs and more factories in the United States’ and raise the wages of working people by at least $4,000 a year. Yet, just one month after the Trump-GOP tax scam was signed into law, Harley-Davidson announced the closure of a plant in Kansas City, Missouri, which employs 800 people. At about the same time the company rewarded wealthy shareholders with a $700 million stock buyback plan. Then the company announced it will be opening a brand new manufacturing plant…in Thailand! Let’s call the President’s tax plan what it is: a scam.
“Unfortunately, Harley-Davidson’s actions are not unique. Across the country, large corporations such as Apple, Pfizer, ExxonMobil and others are enriching shareholders, not workers. One ATF report shows that since the tax scam became law, corporations have spent 66 times as much on stock buybacks as on pay raises for their workers. The Associated Press reported that Trump’s tax scam gave a $1.2 billion monthly tax cut to the country’s six largest banks―enough money to give every single full-time public school teacher a raise of $375 a month.” (Frank Clemente, Americans for Tax Fairness, May 30, 2018)
Public Citizen places the blame right where it belongs: On Donald Trump himself, a man who has: “no regard for ethical norms, civil liberties, democratic principles, the separation of powers, the First Amendment, ecological sustainability, civility and even the idea of truth itself.” (Robert Weissman, Public Citizen, May 31, 2018)
It took Donald Trump exactly two days into 2018 to demand (again!) that Hillary Clinton be jailed. The man who’s inner circle is being indicted one by one for the ongoing Russian scandal is demanding that his opponent in the 2016 election be jailed for email security laxes that have already been thoroughly investigated. Clearly, his only response to the scandal that threatens his presidency is to lash out at his presidential rival as an attempt to divert attention away from his own actions. It is a strategy he has employed time after time, and not only against Clinton as we shall see.
Although Trump and his Senate allies are screaming for it to end, the Russia investigation continues. The research group Fusion GPS published a dossier on Trump’s connections with Russia. Naturally, Republicans call it “fake.” However, three congressional committees heard almost a day’s worth of testimony from the firm’s employees who supplied them with a great deal of information on why the dossier is credible. Republicans now refuse to release full transcripts of the testimony. Why not? If they still think it’s all “fake” they should welcome the opportunity to prove it once and for all. This will be examined in detail later in this article.
One positive thing happened at the beginning of the year. On January 3, Trump announced that he would dissolve the phony “election integrity” commission which he began as an attempt to divert attention away from the Russian scandal. What this really was all about was voter suppression, a strategy dreamed up by Republicans to engineer elections to their satisfaction.
The new year also started with some amazing revelations concerning the Russian scandal. Steve Bannon, Trump’s disgraced former chief strategist, confirmed that the June, 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials and the Russians was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” So naturally Paul Manafort, who was present at the meeting, is desperately trying to sue both Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice for what he calls “overreach.” In other words, the investigation is getting too hot for him!
Republicans aren’t satisfied with the Citizens United ruling; they want to expand it even further. They have been working on this for over a year now. Public Citizen quotes its president, Robert Weisman: “If carried out, the executive order would enable evangelical, social conservative and other churches to operate as dark money funnels—with even less disclosure and reporting required for social welfare organizations and trade associations.” (Robert Weissman, Public Citizen, February 4, 2017) The article also quotes Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs for Public Citizen: “In addition to going against the wishes of those very groups it stands to affect, gutting enforcement of the Johnson Amendment could open the door to even more secret money influencing elections—this time with an added tax deduction. The idea of taxpayers footing the bill to enable more dark money in our already broken political system is appalling.” Republicans encountered stiff resistance to this, so they attempted to sneak it into the final budget at the last minute, hoping nobody would notice. Public Citizen tells us that: “This Citizens United 2.0 package would:
•Block enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which would allow a brand new stream of tax-deductible dark money to flow through churches and charities into our political system;
•Stop the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring companies to disclose their political spending;
•Loosen coordination rules between candidates and parties, letting more money into our system; and
•Prohibit federal contractors from being required to disclose their political donations.
The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the first provision alone could create a billion more in dark money spending per election cycle.” (Bret Thompson, Citizens United, February 16, 2018)
Republicans know that these provisions, along with hundreds of others that are also being put in, would never pass on their own, so they quietly inserted them into the must-pass spending bill, hoping that people wouldn’t notice them. Dark money unquestionably works to their advantage, because their biggest supporters are exactly the corporations that are rapidly losing public support, the dirty fuel industry being the most obvious example. Action Network sent out an article that is particularly good in laying out what is happening: “Ever since the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, our political campaigns have been flooded with dark money, hidden from the public eye. This has allowed for-profit and nonprofit corporations and wealthy individuals to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in support of or in opposition to candidates. Corporations have been able to do this without reporting donors, often without reporting spending, and recently without the need to even report political expenditures to its own shareholders. This dark money spending ultimately undermines our democracy…Now, House and Senate leadership are attempting to further weaken campaign finance laws by allowing nonprofits to get directly involved in political campaigns, and by allowing political parties to launder unlimited amounts of money from wealthy interests to benefit the candidates these powerful interests support.” (Gabriela Schneider, Action Network, March 6, 2018)
This new bill would also alter the status of 501(c)(3) organizations, those non-profit groups that have tax-exempt status with the understanding that they cannot be involved in political campaigns and cannot endorse political candidates. Churches are one major group of this kind. Under the proposed alteration they would be free to conduct political activity just like for-profit organizations. Although many far-right Christian churches applaud these alterations, others are opposed, rightly recognizing that the result could be the politicalization of their church. The Action Network article cited above tells us: “Recent letters signed by 5,500 charitable nonprofits and 4,300 faith leaders oppose removing or weakening this important part of the law.”
Trump began the new year by opening all our oceanic coastlines to offshore oil drilling. This means countless oil rigs will be set up, and as everyone knows (or should know), the risk of oil spills is always a clear and present danger when these rigs are present. In 2010, an estimated 200 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, killing thousands of dolphins and other marine life. Spills such as this also threaten the health of cleanup crews and people living in the vicinity of the spill. I will cover this issue in great depth.
Trump, like all Republicans, constantly spouts his ‘patriotism’ and never hesitates to attack those he believes aren’t patriotic enough to suit him. The recent incident involving NFL players who ‘take the knee’ rather than stand during the National Anthem infuriated him to such a degree that he suggested that those players should be deported. Daily Kos shows where Trump’s priorities lie: “In Trump logic, people protesting police brutality deserve swift, violent, and inhumane punishment, but racist cops who murder black and brown people face no consequences.” (Sarah Hogg, Daily Kos, May 27, 2018)
Trump also wants to stop all federal funding of public libraries. Clearly, he wants Americans to rely on Fox News and other right-wing news sources for their information. As outrageous and profoundly anti-American as this is, it has received next to no coverage in the various news outlets.
My previous articles on the Trump administration went into considerable detail about their efforts to destroy the Affordable Care Act and their final product, which is a $1.8 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. This is business as usual and exactly what we have come to expect from Republicans. Predictably, Trump then began efforts to slash funding from countless other agencies and organizations that people depend on. For example, he sought a $7 billion cut from the Child’s Health Insurance Program, an organization created to provide health insurance for nine million children of lower-income families.
So here is the situation regarding the tax scam, as reported by People’s Action: “A new U.N. report says the United States has the highest income inequality of all Western nations. 40 million Americans live in poverty. 13.3 million of these are children. More than 5 million live in ‘absolute poverty,’ which means the conditions they face are as bad as it gets. Meanwhile, the nation’s billionaire class keeps growing. The top 1% of Americans hold nearly 40% of all wealth. Trump’s answer? More poverty. Even worse? Give more to the rich! In December, Trump granted $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals and corporations who need it least. Trump’s Cabinet is no better. HUD Secretary Ben Carson wants to raise rents on low-income tenants to encourage ‘self-sufficiency.’ Homelessness, he thinks, is a teachable moment for the poor.” (Tara Raghuveer, People’s Action, Mune 9, 2018) Add to that the simple fact that 83 percent of the scam money goes directly to the top one percent of Americans—the richest of the rich—and you get a fairly good idea of the Republicans’ focus. And to pay for the giveaway, they want to make massive cuts to public education, Medicaid, and Medicare. And, they insist that this will ‘fix’ our country. One can only wonder what they would have to do to ruin it.
Early in January, the Republican-let Congress, true to its totalitarian colors, voted to re-authorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which essentially gives Trump and Jeff Sessions unlimited power to spy on all Americans without a search warrant. They would have this power even if national security is not a clear and present threat, and even if they have no evidence of any wrongdoing. What is this if not evidence of a dictatorship in the making? According to Credo Action: “Once the government has collected your data, it acts as if you are no longer protected by the Fourth Amendment. Even if you’ve never been suspected of a crime, federal agents can search and share your data collected under Section 702 without a warrant or probable cause. This is what’s called the ‘backdoor search’ loophole, and it needs to be closed—now.” (Brandy Doyle, Credo Action, January 9, 2018) Wasn’t it the Republicans who have always insisted that they are for “smaller government” and to get it off our backs? Clearly, their abuse of our intelligence agencies is a sinister way of advancing their own political agendas.
With the publication of Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury which was a telling indictment of the Trump White House, Trump reacted in his usual predictable manner: He wrote the John Sargent, president of MacMillan publishers, telling him to: “Immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination” of the book. Sargent, in a memo to his employees, said: “a demand to cease and desist publication—a clear effort by the President of the United States to intimidate a publisher into halting publication of an important book on the workings of the government—is an attempt to achieve what is called prior restraint. That is something that no American court would order as it is flagrantly unconstitutional.” Is this not proof positive of the fascistic nature of this man and his administration? There is nothing to debate on this issue; Trump is wrong. He is trying to destroy the free press, one of the foundations of our democracy. If he refuses to abide by the first Amendment of the Constitution, then he should be removed from office. Of course, there are countless other transgressions that also warrant his removal from office, as we shall see.
Trump simply cannot fathom the idea that anyone could possibly disagree with him on anything he says or does; when the press (or anyone else) criticizes him, he automatically goes into attack mode. Like every other independent agency, the press owes no allegiance to him or to any politician. In Trump’s cloistered world, that amounts to disloyalty, the only thing that matters to him. He calls press members the ‘fake news media’ without providing any evidence that they are conspiring against him rather than just doing their job and reporting. Trump and his supporters simply don’t understand or care that part of a politician’s job is to protect the Constitution, including free speech and freedom of the press. Trump has threatened to revoke the press credentials of news outlets that criticize him. He has also banned certain news outlets from White House press briefings because they dared to criticize him. All this, coupled with his professed admiration for anti-free speech dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jon Un, clearly indicates that, if he has his way, freedom of the press will no longer exist in the United States. This is yet another impeachable offense.
If the Roy Moore fiasco of 2017 weren’t enough, now we have former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio running for Congress. As sheriff, Arpaio had a long history of racial profiling, which ultimately cost him his job when he was convicted for contempt of court for refusing to abide by the Constitution. Of course, he was pardoned by President Trump even though he still believes people’s rights are only what he says they are. The pardon was par for the course in this administration; like the president and his cabinet, Arpaio supports racism and xenophobic policies. Arpaio even put immigrants in what he called a “concentration camp.” Yet again, Republican fascism rears its ugly head.
Trump also pardoned Scooter Libby, an aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI. He also pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, known for his extreme conservative writings as well as for being a relentless propagator of films catering to the right-wing. Daily Kos elaborates on this: “Dinesh D’Souza is best known for his vile right-wing propaganda films and his even more vile political statements. D’Souza has blamed progressives for causing 9/11, blamed feminism for violence against women, argued that the founders actually meant for America to be a Christian theocracy, and wrote an entire book about how the Democratic Party came from Nazis. And, of course, D’Souza hates President Obama. In addition to three anti-Obama books, D’Souza may best be known for his film about how Obama secretly hates America and was only running for president so he could destroy the country—a film that earned high praise as ‘a slick infomercial’ and ‘a cavalcade of conspiracy theories.’” (Mark Sumner, Daily Kos, May 31, 2018)
The article continues: “D’Souza openly flouted the law, was clearly guilty, and pleaded guilty. But, he hates Obama. That alone is probably enough to merit a pardon from Trump. But there’s a bonus: D’Souza was investigated and charged by United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara. A chance to snub Obama, Bharara, justice, and common decency all in one shot? Donald Trump can’t pass that up.”
Daily Kos tells us of his crimes: “D’Souza pleaded guilty to multiple violations of campaign law in 2014 after conducting a transparent scheme to funnel money to the campaign of Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long. Long drew D’Souza’s love through her shared Islamophobia. Using a series of straw donors, D’Souza handed money to one conservative pal after another, so they could pass it along to Long. The action was so blatant that even Wendy Long became concerned. And D’Souza went so far as lying to both the FBI and the candidate about the money he was pouring into her accounts.” This is the man pardoned by President Trump who tweeted: “He was treated very unfairly by our government!” But then, violations of campaign law seem to be second nature to Trump. His reaction to the Russian scandal alone proves this.
The Trump administration’s own racism was seen when the White House removed an important Consumer Financial Protection Bureau office of its power to take action against banks and other financial institutions accused of breaking laws against racist lending practices. People’s Action reports: “Instead of enforcing anti-discrimination laws and penalizing criminal banks, the CFPB’s Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity will now be focused on ‘advocacy, coordination, and education,’ according to an email sent to bureau employees by White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, who was installed as the CFPB’s acting director by President Donald Trump over objections of consumer advocates.” (Jeff Bryant, People’s Action, February 2, 2018)
2018 saw business as usual from the Trump administration and Senatorial Republicans. Trump’s budget saw hundreds of millions of dollars eliminated from the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, eliminating staff members and slashing enforcement of clean water and air standards as well as toxic cleanup and energy efficiency programs. If implemented, these reductions will all but destroy the agency’s ability to protect the environment and our health—which is supposed to be the purpose of the agency’s existence in the first place. The budget also slashes funding to other agencies, including FEMA, NOAA and the National Weather Service, which help us to be better prepared for dealing with natural disasters emanating from climate change. Massive cuts to the Interior Department are also part of this budget, since this department oversees our public parks and national treasures. All these cuts have a common root cause: Support for corporate polluters and the dying fossil fuel industries.
Take the great lakes for example. The Trump administration has a proposal to cut the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative by 90 percent. The initiative has cost an estimated $2.5 billion over the last eight years, but this still amounts to less than a dollar per American every year. But that money is certainly well spent, as the lakes are the source of twenty percent of the world’s drinking water. By all accounts, this initiative has been a great success, but once again that means nothing to Republicans and their polluting sponsors.
Ford Motor Company is proving itself to be quite two-faced. While making much noise about how committed the company is to investing in clean transportation, they have secretly been lobbying the White House to roll back clean air standards. These standards not only save consumers money, they also constitute our best defense against carbon poisoning. Clean air standards should save customers thousands of dollars in upcoming years, as well as prolong the life of a new vehicle. Once again, Republicans are acting against the wishes of the vast majority of Americans. Sierra Club notes: “A rollback might be what auto industry lobbyists want, but it’s not what Americans want. A recent poll found that 95 percent of Americans want automakers to continue to improve fuel economy, and 79 percent want the government to strengthen the standards.” (Gina Coplon-Newfield, Sierra Club, February 26, 2018)
What Republicans don’t get (or won’t get) is something that most Americans do get, namely that it is small business owners, rather than huge corporations, that better exemplify what it means to be an American. They are the ones most likely to make better business decisions, provide for their employees health needs, pay them better wages and create a good infrastructure for their immediate community that ensures basic needs like good drinking water. And, unlike big businesses, if they fail, the government does not bail them out. Also unlike big corporations, smaller companies are not major contributors to pollution and destruction of the earth’s fragile ecosystem. It is big businesses that tend to treat their employees badly and do little or nothing for their communities. One would have to be blind to current realities to deny this.
I have an acquaintance who, despite all the evidence to the contrary, remains convinced that the economy is booming thanks to Trump and the Republicans. I pointed out a couple things to her, such as the fact that since he took office, the price of gas has risen from $2.32 to $2.84 per gallon—a 22 percent increase that is costing the average driver some $400 per year. If Republican claims about ‘trickle-down’ economics were true, then the oil companies, who received a 40 percent tax break under Trump’s tax giveaway, should have passed the savings along to consumers; after all, this has been the Republican claim for decades. Instead, prices at the pump have increased more; as I write this in early July, 2018, prices are higher than at any point in the last three years. There are countless other examples that completely refute the idea of a ‘booming economy.’ For example, healthcare premiums have skyrocketed as well, but disconcerting little facts like this will never sway true believers. Faith is impervious to reason.
The economy, in fact, was doing quite well before Trump took over. The growth was slow, but consistent. Consumer and business confidence were both high. The stock market had an epic bull run and unemployment was low. Workers wages, while not perfect, were on the rise. This is the ‘mess’ that Trump says he inherited.
Like Trump, my friend loves to point out how well the stock market is doing. Again, there are facts that contradict this, the most obvious being that, although the market hit a peak in January, 2018, it dropped more than 2,500 points three months later. And, the much-touted increase in salary that Republicans promised to everyone has resulted in less than $20 per paycheck. Of course, that $20 is looking worse and worse as the cost of living increases and people lose their savings. People’s wages have slowed dramatically since the billionaire’s tax break was implemented. In addition, gloating about how well the stock market is doing ignores the fact that the rate of inflation has grown to the highest level since late 2017. It also ignores rising prices in consumer goods, a slow job market, and less available money to put into retirement accounts. All this of course eats up that $20 ‘bonus’ that wage earners have received.
My friend has expressed disdain for California (where she used to live and where I currently live) while extolling the virtues of Utah. One of those ‘virtues’ consists of the fact that, according to her, “almost every household in Cedar has a gun and a super community of hunters.” I doubt that this is going to make many Californian’s drop everything and take up residence in Utah. But the point is that California’s economy grew at a steady rate until the great recession which began in 2007 (while Republican George W. Bush was in office). We are the center of the movie and entertainment industry. We have recreational centers like Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, and many others. California has more Nobel laureates than any other state, some of the greatest colleges and universities and a beautiful coastline. I for one am not about to trade that away to live in a community dominated by gun owners.
The brief government shutdown in January was entirely due to Republican obstinacy. They blamed Democrats who refused to cater to their racist and immoral policies. The Daily Kos noted on January 21: “Democrats agreed to bipartisan legislation that their base vehemently opposes in order to avert a shutdown. Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump were unwilling to meet them partway. Their refusal to compromise isn’t governance—it’s reckless obstruction at the expense of this country.” In fact, the government shut down because Trump and Mitch McConnell refused to honor their promise to Dreamers.
MoveOn takes it from there: “This is the same Republican-held Congress that did nothing after Trump viciously ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program last September. The same Republican-held Congress that refused to re-authorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) last year, leaving 9 million vulnerable children at risk of losing their health insurance. The same Republican-held Congress that has virtually ignored the million Americans of Puerto Rico who have gone for months without electricity. The same Republican-held Congress that has been funding the federal government in fits and starts, with short-term spending bills, rather than taking governing seriously. The same Republican-held Congress that has allowed Trump’s racism to dictate its decisions and determine legislation.” (Ilya Sheyman, MoveOn.org, January 21, 2018)
The last time the government was shut down was in 2013 when Senator Ted Cruz (the same Ted Cruz who was born in Canada, came to the United States as a child, and now rejects citizenship for Dreamers) led his fellow Republicans as they tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) as part of the budget process. They were again utterly unwilling to negotiate and, as a result, government shut down for sixteen days. As a result, national parks were closed, food safety inspections ground to a halt, EPA pollution monitoring and enforcement offices closed down, water quality testing stopped, and nearly a million federal employees received no pay, costing the economy an estimated $24 billion. And, of course, Republicans blamed the Democrats.
But the 2018 shutdown was worse. The above cited MoveOn article notes that it: “not only shows the Republicans’ immorality but also their abject refusal to govern if they don’t get their way on everything. Because this time, they shut the government down by refusing to even hold a vote on the Dream Act and stop the deportation of 800,000 young people—a bipartisan piece of legislation supported by 86% of the American public.” Further proof of how the Republican party ignores the will of the American people.
Another thing Republicans hate is the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (usually referred to as Dodd-Frank), which is a federal law passed in 2010 that puts regulation of the financial industry in the control of government. The act was passed as a response to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 brought about by a runaway banking industry. I call this the “Panic of 2008” as it resembles earlier American financial panics, such as the ones in 1837 and 1873. In all three cases, millions of Americans lost their jobs, their life savings, and their homes. The Panic of 2008 is different from its predecessors in that this time, big banks were given a no-strings-attached bailout from the same American citizens whose livelihood was destroyed by these banks. What many people don’t realize is that in a profit and loss system, such as we have, the loss is just as important as the profit, because it weeds out bad businesses. These banks should have been allowed to belly flop; bailing them out serves no one except the corrupt and/or incompetent management. Rather than learn common sense strategies such as this, our government has increased bailouts. Companies including Lockheed, Chrysler, Penn Central and others have been the recipients of governmental bailout. Meanwhile, small business that are badly run simply disappear; governmental largesse is only given to large corporations.
At any rate, the 2010 act has improved financial stability and helped protect consumers. For years, Republicans, responding to their big bank benefactors, have tried to dismantle the Dodd-Frank protections. 2018 saw the Trump administration move forward with their plan to de-regulate Wall Street. Euphemistically called: “ The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act,” it was roundly criticized by Senator Elizabeth Warren, who said: “This bill weakens consumer protections, helps out the country’s biggest banks and encourages them to swallow up even more community banks. This bill shows once again how Washington values short-term profits for big banks ahead of the interests of consumers or the safety of the financial system.” Despite this, many Democrats supported a rollback that was passed in May, 2018. The New York Times reports that: “The bill stops far short of unwinding the toughened regulatory regime put in place to prevent the nation’s biggest banks from engaging in risky behavior, but it represents a substantial watering down of Obama-era rules governing a large swath of the banking system. The legislation will leave fewer than 10 big banks in the United States subject to stricter federal oversight, freeing thousands of banks with less than $250 billion in assets from a post-crisis crackdown that they have long complained is too onerous.” (Alan Rappeport and Emily Flitter, The New York Times, May 22, 2018) The Daily Kos makes some important points when discussing this bill: “the bill would eliminate provisions in Dodd-Frank that give regulators the information they need to find and stop banks that use discriminatory practices, a crucial provision for ending predatory lending in communities of color. Finally, the legislation is a massive rollback of consumer protections—including ending surprise insurance fees and safeguarding rural and low-income home buyers—that protect us from predatory banks.” (Monique Teal, Daily Kos, March 6, 2018) It will be interesting to watch the Republicans try and shift the blame to Democrats if and when the next financial crisis occurs.
Elizabeth Warren, who doesn’t take any Republican nonsense sitting down, nailed it right on the head when, during a Meet the Press interview, she said: “I don’t understand how anybody in the United States Senate votes for a bill that’s going to increase the likelihood of taxpayer bailouts.” Unfortunately seventeen Democratic Senators disagreed and joined the Republican majority. They are the appeasers of their party.
The major bank scandal of the first half of 2018 concerns Wells Fargo. Action Network reports some of their activities: “Wells Fargo’s financial products have hurt millions of people including veterans, students, homeowners, African Americans, and car owners. No one is safe from their predatory scam. In the most recent scandal, Wells Fargo opened 3.5 million accounts in customers’ names without telling them. Wells Fargo is, not surprisingly, the official bank of the NRA. After the horrific shootings in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Wells Fargo doubled down on guns. Since 2012, Wells Fargo is the number one lender to the gun industry with $431.1 million in loans and bonds….Wells Fargo financed $120 million of the Dakota Access Pipeline.” (Hugh Espey, Action Network, April 8, 2018) Here, we see in Wells Fargo another corrupt big bank with extensive ties to Republicans and the NRA.
As an historical aside, allow me briefly to examine the role played by the banks in the U.S. economy in the last century. The economic crash of 1929 which led to the Great Depression was fueled by bank-sponsored stock pools. As Kevin Phillips notes: “The leading commercial banks pumped millions into stock pools, whose objective was to pump up stock values and then unload them on a misled public.” (Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy, pg. 62) Phillips also notes: “Each year brought a more splendid facade. Corporate profits rose by an average of 9 percent a year from 1923 to 1929. The Dow Jones Industrials soared from 63.30 in August, 1921 to 381.17 in September of 1929 (ibid, pg. 63) This is to be kept in mind when Trump supporters point out to how well the stock market is doing; the stock market always does well during times of wealth inequality. Paralleling our situation today, during the depression, wealth was concentrated at the top of the economic ladder, while the middle class was increasingly disenfranchised. This fueled President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attack on: “an unjust concentration of wealth and economic power” that had arisen as a result of a tax code that favored the richest Americans. Sound familiar?
Sorry to say, but what lifted this country out of the economic doldrums was the Second World War. As a result of that conflict, many company executives suddenly found themselves in an envious position that had been unthinkable prior to the war. One example of this was seen in the chemical industry. Petroleum and its byproducts, such as rubber, plastics and various chemicals were suddenly in great demand because of the war effort. Again, a parallel with today: Trump’s support for dirty fossil fuel industries will, he hopes, be shown to be prescient once he gets us in another war.
Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall to ‘protect’ this country from illegal immigrants is hypocritical in the extreme. There are countless examples of people with no criminal records being deported, while at the same time Jakiw Palij, the last surviving Nazi war criminal in the United States remains a free man. Even though Palij received a deportation order over fifteen years ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), so adamant about other illegals, has done nothing to rid this country of Palij. Could it be that maybe, just maybe, our Republican leadership is becoming more and more fascistic and is not about to deport an ally?
Trump’s proposed budget for 2019 promises massive cuts to the Department of Energy. NRDC informs us: “In addition to slashing the Department of Energy’s clean energy program by a whopping 65 percent, the president plans to: (1) Eliminate two Department of Energy programs, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and the Loan Programs Office, which invest hundreds of millions of dollars in promising new energy technologies every year; (2) Eliminate the Weatherization Assistance Program, which helps low-income homeowners weatherize their homes, saving money and energy; (3) Gut the EPA’s staff by 21 percent and budget by 24 percent—crippling its ability to protect Americans from toxins in our air, water, and food; and (4) Slash $160 million in investments through the Global Climate Change Initiative, a program that enables U.S. diplomats to help developing countries find cleaner, smarter ways to power economic growth. (Rhea Suh, NRDC, March 24, 2018) The article summarizes the situation thusly: “President Trump’s proposed budget is a blueprint for destruction that balloons the deficit, threatens clean energy jobs, puts our environment and health at growing risk, and leaves the American people and future generations to pay the price.”
The irony is that, while Republicans have always been the party warning us of the perils of deficits, Trump’s 2018 budget will result in at least a decade of mounting debt. The Los Angeles Times provides the details:
“The budget calls for about $716 billion in annual defense spending, more than $100 billion above the level President Trump requested last year. Add in the tax cuts Republicans pushed through in December and the extra spending Congress approved just last week, and the result is a flood of red ink projected to send the national debt ever higher.
“The deficit persists even though the White House is forecasting extremely optimistic levels of economic growth. If growth falls short of those projections—most economists think it will—deficits would be higher still.
“As a result, the budget marks something of a milestone—the Trump administration’s abandonment of the quest for budget balance that the Republican Party has claimed as a guiding light for years, at least rhetorically.
“In reality, deficits have often soared under Republican presidents as the party has put cutting taxes ahead of balancing budgets on its list of priorities. In the past, however, Republican administrations have taken pains to at least come up with a budget that would balance on paper.” (Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times, February 13, 2018)
The irony should be lost on no one. The same Republicans who fought virtually every spending plan put forth during the Obama years, claiming that the government should not be spending more than it is taking in, have suddenly taken an about face now that they are in control of all three branches of government. As a result, the United States faces a looming debt that will take years, probably decades, to correct.
On the same day the afore-mentioned article appeared, the Times also ran an editorial which discusses Trump’s plan for the infrastructure:
“President Trump’s infrastructure plan isn’t a plan. It’s fantasy. The outline the administration put forth Monday is essentially this: The federal government will offer a diminished amount of money—$200 billion over 10 years—for building or repairing roads, bridges, airports, seaports, energy projects and water systems and somehow, magically, $1.5 trillion to $1.8 trillion in infrastructure spending will materialize.
“Where would all that money come from? The president’s framework doesn’t say, but the intent is for the federal government to spend a lot less money on infrastructure and for local and state governments to spend a lot more. Oh, and private investors are expected to rain down money too.
“…But the Trump framework is short on funding and pragmatism. The plan calls for $200 billion in federal spending over a decade, but much of that money is set aside for rural communities and loan programs. One hundred billion dollars would go to competitive grants, providing a mere $10 billion a year for roads, railroads, airports, water treatment plants, flood control systems and contaminated land cleanups.
“That’s barely enough money to make a dent in the estimated $2 trillion of needed transportation, water and energy system upgrades. By way of comparison, the federal government spent $96 billion on transportation and water projects alone in 2014. (“Trump’s infrastructure fantasy,” editorial, Los Angeles Times, February 13, 2018)
Another aspect of Trump’s budget plan is to greatly reduce funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, from $150 billion to around $29 billion per annum. If approved, it would be the first step in completely phasing out the agency. Actions like this indicate an administration completely indifferent, if not outright hostile, to the arts. It also shows how ignorant they are in economic matters. The underlying thinking is that culture can support itself, which is true only to a small degree. But, even looked at from a purely financial perspective, the cuts make no sense. As the Los Angeles Times reports: “A 2017 NEA study—produced, in part, as a response to last year’s proposed budget cuts—traces the clear results of arts investment: In 35 categories the arts contributed close to $730 billion to the United States economy. Every dollar the NEA grants leverages up to another $9 in private and other public funds. In California, arts and cultural industries account for almost 675,000 jobs with a total compensation of nearly $74 billion annually.” (David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2018) So clearly federal funding works to everyone’s advantage. Only a philistine like Trump would de-fund the NEA.
Then there is Trump’s tariff war. The first thing to be noted is that the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the exclusive right to levy tariffs. Unfortunately Congress has ceded this power to the president over the last several decades; they need to re-assert their right to be doing what the Constitution tells them they should be doing.
On March 1, 2018, Trump announced he was going to impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. The result, predictably, was panic among investors. Trying to douse out the fire, Trump only succeeded in adding petrol when on the following day he said: “When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win.” Any economist worth his salt would have recoiled in horror at this statement. About the only thing that is true about Trump’s rant is the a trade war would definitely follow if he follows through on his threat to impose a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tariff on aluminum. All this, he claims, is in the name of national security. But it should be obvious even to Trump that the best way to win a trade war is not to start it. If it were imposed, it is a certainty that other countries would immediately retaliate, and the trade war would literally ensue. The Los Angeles Times ran an excellent article on this matter, as follows:
“But neither Trump nor some of his key advisors are being realistic about the consequences of a trade war. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a former financier whose iron-clad faith in tariffs has proved an impregnable barrier to the lessons of history, argued on CNBC Friday that tariffs on steel and aluminum would cause a scarcely notable increase in the price of U.S. products, while any damage to U.S. exports would be negligible because our goods are well-nigh irreplaceable in the global market. In other words, there’s no reason not to start a trade war because, heh heh heh, we can’t lose!
“Again, picture hot liquids erupting from the mouths of economists, historians and business executives outside the U.S. aluminum and steel industries.”
“…Imposing stiff tariffs on the steel and aluminum produced by any and all of our trading partners will draw global responses—in steel alone, 50 countries made the World Steel Assn.’s list of major producers. And retaliatory sanctions won’t necessarily be aimed at big U.S. exports like soybeans; instead, economists say, they’ll be targeted to inflict maximum economic and political damage. No exported product to service will be immune. The president of the European Commission, for example, threatened to retaliate against products from states represented by top U.S. lawmakers, such as Kentucky bourbon, Harley Davidson motorcycles and bluejeans.
“…Besides, the rationale Trump cites for imposing global tariffs on steel and aluminum—that U.S. has a national security interest in preserving American producers of the metals—ignores how the Defense Department has developed secure supplies outside the United States, in countries that are our allies. That approach preserves a friendly supply of crucial metals (and many other products) even if U.S. production wanes. A global tariff on steel and aluminum, on the other hand, would punish those secure sources too. The tariff push looks less like an effort to preserve national security than a cynical and costly effort to keep a campaign promise to Trump’s base.”
“Trade wars, like shooting wars, are waged to inflict casualties. And like shooting wars, they tend to escalate. So the best approach is not to start one.” (editorial, Los Angeles Times, March 4, 2018)
And of course, Trump being Trump, the following day he dismissed the warnings of allies, Republican lawmakers, various U.S. manufacturers, and some of his own advisors and insisted against logic itself that he would go ahead with his tariff plan. And, as always seems to be the case, Trump contradicts what he says with what he does, or has done. He complains that China has unloaded low-priced steel on our markets which he says undercuts American manufacturers. That didn’t bother him in the least when he used Chinese steel to construct his own buildings instead of buying American steel.
It doesn’t take someone with a Ph.D in economics to understand the best solution to all this. What we need is leaders who actively encourage innovative ideas and products for which there is a demand, or an anticipated demand. Once you have this new product or service, market it and you will dominate the market, hopefully for some time in the future. You don’t dominate the market by imposing tariffs. What the government should be doing is to make college reasonably attainable and affordable for these enterprising entrepreneurs who will then be free to pursue their own interests and dreams without being drowned in college debts that forces many of them to take low paying jobs. The government would then make loans available at low interest rates. This would be repaid many times over as innovation becomes, as it once did, a defining characteristic of Americanism. All this is common sense, and it can be attained by electing government officials that understand economics 101.
It is certainly no surprise that the National Rifle Association has donated enormous amounts of money electing Republicans favorable to their agenda. Virtually every single Republican politician has NRA money in their pockets. The New York Times reported some interesting facts in 2017 concerning donations that Congress has received front the NRA. John McCain got the most money of any Senator. Focusing on the Senate, the first Democrat listed, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, came in 52nd! (David Leonhardt, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Stuart A. Thompson, The New York Times, October 4, 2017) All of the top ten Republican Senators offered their variation of “thoughts and prayers” every time another mass shooting occurred. Because these Republicans control both branches of Congress, the simplest gun reforms have become impossible to pass; Republicans will block them at every turn. Take the February 14 shooting rampage at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. The Stoneman Douglas shooting was the eighteenth school shooting this year. Forty five days and eighteen shooting rampages. And, as they have in every previous shooting, Trump and the Republican response consisted of sending the families their “thoughts and prayers.” No real action to prevent further such violence, of course. Shooting episodes like this do not occur anywhere else in the world. Mass murder has become an American epidemic. The 5 months up until the time of the Parkland shooting account for three of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history, all during Trump’s presidency. MoveOn recounts some of them: “At least 17 people lost their lives yesterday. Kids. High school students with their entire lives ahead of them. Stolen from their families and the world by a lone gunman with an AR-15. Just like the 26 people in a church in Texas. The 58 people at a concert in Las Vegas. The 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando. The 20 first graders and six teachers at an elementary school in Newtown. Tragedies so frequent that we can’t even name them all.” (Anna Galland, MoveOn, February 15, 2018) Adding insult to injury (and death), the article then tells us: “the first gun-related legislation Congress considered after that act of mass gun violence was a bill to increase guns on our streets, at concerts, and near schools.” Given this, can anyone seriously doubt that the Republican party does exactly what the NRA wants them to do? Again, even though some eighty percent of the American public want to see a ban on assault weapons, the Republican party ignores their wishes—more proof of their indifference to the public. Our blood is on their hands.
On February 21, 2018, with Florida students watching, Republicans in the Florida State House voted against even considering an assault weapons ban. One angry Parkland survivor said: “We are not forgetting this come Midterm Elections…” (Progressive Change Campaign Committee, February 21, 2018) The article also notes that not a single Republican voted to even consider the proposed ban on assault weapons, and that every single Democrat voted to consider it. It doesn’t take much thinking to realize which party cares about keeping Americans safe from violence. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he has no plans to introduce any measures of gun control in the house. And Mitch McConnell reacted by pushing gun control legislation aside so that he could introduce more giveaways to big banks. Republican’s allegiance is to the NRA, not to the flag or to the health and welfare of the people of this country.
Students at Parkland have become both vocal and active in the wake of the shooting. One student held up a sign which asked Republicans: “How dare you push legislation ‘protecting’ us before we’re born but not after the fact?” The answer is of course glaringly obvious: Republicans care a great deal about a piece of human protoplasm but not a whit about people after they’re born. And of course, Republicans have gone out of their way to insult and defame the activist students. The result was predictable. Right-wing pundit Bill O’Reilly said: “The big question is: should the media be promoting opinions by teenagers who are in an emotional state and facing extreme peer pressure in some cases?” In other words, the same people who defended child molester Roy Moore by saying that 13-14 year olds were mature enough to date Moore are now saying that 16-17 year olds are too immature to voice their opinions on gun control. Unbelievable.
As Daily Kos notes: “The internet was flooded with rumors and hoaxes in the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida shooting as internet trolls and Russian bots started to push out a false narrative about the suspect’s identity. They fallaciously claimed that he was a member of Antifa, that he was a ‘Dreamer,’ that he had affiliations with ISIS, and, as mentioned, that he was a registered Democrat.” No doubt Republican voters will buy every word of this, as they do about just about every other conspiracy theory the alt-right comes up with. Suffice it to say that critical thinking is not one of their hallmark characteristics.
The shooting at Parkland aroused students all over the country, and many of them staged a much-publicized walkout to demonstrate their anger at government officials who still refuse to do anything to alleviate gun violence. Many Republican officials responded in predictable fashion by blaming the students or Democrats. The Republican governor of South Carolina, Republican Henry McMaster said that students should be praying, not walking out, and insisted that the walkout was initiated by left-wing groups. These groups were not mentioned by name, of course. The Daily Kos reports his words: “It appears that these school children, innocent school children, are being used as a tool by [this] left-wing group to further their own agenda. It is not about the tragedy. It is not about the school children. And what we can all do, and what these students should do, I imagine a lot of them intend to do, is to pray and to hope for those families of the folks who were slain. But this is a tricky move, I believe, by a left-wing group, from the information I’ve seen, to use these children as a tool to further their own means. It sounds like a protest to me. It’s not a memorial, it’s certainly not a prayer service, it’s a political statement by a left-wing group and it’s shameful.” (Walter Einenkel, Daily Kos, March 14, 2018) Is this man is so ignorant and deluded that he actually can’t see a protest when it’s right in front of his own eyes? And exactly who is this unnamed ‘left-wing’ group that he refers to? Enter YouTube which added a particularly nasty piece of character assassination shortly after Hogg began speaking out. It shows a teen on a beach with the caption: “David Hogg the actor.” The intention of the video is obvious: It’s producer wants to give the impression that Hogg is not really a Parkland survivor but rather an actor working for sinister left-wing forces working to repeal the second Amendment. Is this the best the gun fanatics can come up with?
To their credit, YouTube removed the video several hours after it first appeared, as it violated its policy on harassment and bullying. Obviously, that didn’t stop Einenkel and others of like mind who, in their unthinking, uncritical mindset, never dream to question the validity of things that support their preconceived ideas. This is just another example of how wish and fantasy replace facts and objectivity in the arch-conservative mindset.
The Kos article cited above reports Hogg’s response to McMaster’s ignorant comments: “That’s fine those future voters will not reelect you and outlive you too can’t wait to see what the history textbooks our generation writes will have to say about people like you.” I need only add that McMaster’s comment is typical of how Republicans respond each and every time a mass shooting occurs: They blame the victims, blame the liberals, blame the media, and then insist that everyone pray to a non-existent god for comfort. Some solution.
David Hogg and others like him are our future. They know how to deal with people like Fox News’ Laura Ingraham who, like other hate-filled Republicans, are spewing nonsense about Hogg and other civic-minded youngsters. Today’s young people are media savvy and not about to be intimidated by cyber-bullying and idiotic talking heads.
Ingraham’s comments were so over the top that some of her shows advertisers began backing off their support. Ingraham then issued a very weak apology, but the parent of a murdered Parkland student tweeted: “An apology to save your advertisers is not enough. What you did was disgusting. Our message for common sense gun reforms has won, and the those in opposition have gone negative. They need to pay a price for that. These kids have suffered enough.”
Students and teachers are taking action all across the country. Apparently, their demands for a safe learning environment where they can study without fear of being gunned down are unreasonable to Republican leaders, since they continue to do exactly nothing to help them. Instead, what they do is make deeper cuts in education, produce greater inequalities, and blame everyone else but themselves when teachers and students speak out. Church and State notes: “A week after 17 people were massacred at a Florida high school and a day after state legislators refused to advance a ban on assault rifles that was requested by student survivors—the Florida House instead adopted House Bill 839, which would require “In God We Trust” to be conspicuously displayed in every public school.” (Church and State, April, 2018) So, rather than address the actual issue, the Florida legislature ignores the Constitution and forces schools to display a religious slogan. This is fairly typical of how Republicans deal with issues involving gun violence.
Every time there is a mass shooting, the NRA does the same things. MoveOn tells us just how they work: “After every mass shooting, the NRA follows the same playbook: First, saying that it’s too soon to talk about legislation to end gun violence. Then, blaming everything and everyone else but the lax gun laws that allow these atrocities to happen. And finally, spreading lies about liberals trying to seize everyone’s guns, as a way to boost its fundraising. And once the NRA raises millions from freaked-out gun owners and greedy gun manufacturers, what does it do? Pour it into elections to continue to buy the loyalty of politicians and stifle any form of gun violence prevention.” (Alyssa Milano, MoveOn, April 26, 2018)
The Republicans are just as hypocritical on gun issues as they are on everything else. Republican Charles Grassley authored the repeal of President Obama’s gun legislation that helped prevent mentally ill individuals from purchasing guns. Republicans passed Grassley’s legislation and Trump signed it into law. Now, those same Republicans are complaining about how easy it is for mentally ill people to own guns. If this isn’t hypocrisy, then I don’t know what is. But not to worry: the next time a mentally ill individual murders someone (or a group of people), the Republicans will send their “thoughts and prayers.”
Is there anyone in America besides fanatical Christian Republicans who thinks that “thoughts and prayers” will actually solve anything? Or doubts that Congressional Republicans are utterly beholden to the NRA?
Some of the Republicans are such gun fanatics that they will say some unbelievably stupid and immoral things in order to ‘justify’ their love of guns. Let me point out just one of them. Rep. Don Young of Alaska may be one of the most ignorant and hate-filled men ever to disgrace the halls of Congress. The following quote may seem too far-fetched, even for a Republican, but he said it nonetheless: “How many millions of people were shot and killed because they were unarmed? Fifty million in Russia,” Young said. “How many Jews were put in the ovens because they were unarmed?” A statement like this is so crass and ignorant as to be unworthy of further comment. Yet, there were few, if any, condemnatory words from his fellow Republicans.
Trump showed his true colors within days of the Parkland shooting. He was out playing golf some 45 miles from the sites of the shooting and the funerals. If that were not insensitive enough, he tried to put the blame for the shootings on the Russian investigation! He actually said this while funerals for some of the victims were taking place. The man simply has no shame.
Despite this, at the end of February, Trump shocked everyone by calling for stricter gun controls. People’s Action reported: “He called for comprehensive gun control legislation that would expand background checks to weapons purchased at gun shows and on the internet, keep guns from mentally ill people, secure schools and restrict gun sales for some young adults. He even suggested a conversation on an assault weapons ban…The declarations prompted a frantic series of calls from N.R.A. lobbyists to their allies on Capitol Hill and a statement from the group calling the ideas that Mr. Trump expressed ‘bad policy.’ Republican lawmakers suggested to reporters that they remained opposed to gun control measures.” (Hannah Gelder, People’s Action, March 1, 2018) It
didn’t take long for Trump to reverse himself again: On March 14, MoveOn reported: “On Monday, Donald Trump buckled under pressure from the NRA—backing away from his call for stricter gun laws, made during a televised meeting with senators. At that meeting, he mocked other Republicans for being too scared of the NRA!” (Anna Galland, MoveOn, March 14, 2018) Donald Trump is one huge mass contradiction.
Gun advocates trot out the usual banalities and falsehoods every time another mass shooting takes place. They insist that stronger gun laws wouldn’t have prevented a tragedy such as the one at Parkland. The reaction by House Speaker after the Parkland shooting was typical. He said: “I think as public policy makers, we don’t just knee-jerk before we even have all of the facts and the data.” He’s wrong; the facts have long been in on stronger gun control laws. The shooter at Parkland had a long history that should have indicated to the local police that he was an accident waiting to happen. A simple law requiring a gun buyer to apply for and get a permit at the discretion of law officials could have empowered the authorities to deny the killer access to an AR-15. As the Los Angeles Times notes: “Multiple studies from researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found that such permit to purchase’ laws, which include a particularly strong background check, reduce homicides, suicides, and gun trafficking. Literature reviews that examine a wide range of gun policies throughout the U.S. also consistently find that these laws save lives.” (Devin Hughes and Mark Bryant, Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2018)
The article mentioned above also cites the tired old cliche that: “The only way of stopping a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” The gun lobby was successful in passing a piece of ‘concealed carry reciprocity’ legislation entitled HR 38 through the House in December, 2017. As this is written, it has not yet passed the Senate. This bill would allow a concealed-carry license from one state to apply in every other state. The Times article notes that: “Recent research shows how dangerous reciprocity would be. A 2017 study in the American Journal of Public Health correlated minimally restrictive ‘right to carry’ laws with a 6.5% higher firearm homicide rate and an 8.6% higher firearm homicide rate. Another 2017 study, by John Donohue of Stanford University, found that such laws were consistently associated with increases in violent crime.” The article also notes that: “In reality, the best research shows what common sense tells us: More guns mean more crime and more death. Gun possession significantly increases your risk of being killed by someone you know. A gun in the home doubles your risk of homicide and triples your risk of suicide. The presence of a gun increases the lethality of domestic violence. Areas with higher gun ownership see a significant increase in burglary. And states with higher levels of gun ownership experience higher rates of firearm fatalities.”
There are a few bright lights to shine on all this. In the aftermath of Parkland, no less than sixteen major corporations severed their ties to the NRA, including American Airlines, Delta, MetLife insurance, Enterprise rent-a-car as well as twelve others. All within a period of three days. This proves that yes, grassroots activism does have an affect. Also, two major gun retailers (Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart) have taken steps to limit gun sales. As I write this at the beginning of July, 2018, there are only two other retailers still selling military-style assault rifles: Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops.
There is no doubt whatever that Trump and the majority of his appointees are inveterate racists. His remarks about Nigeria, Haiti, and the entire African continent are bigoted to the core. It is certainly true that Haiti is not a high-functioning country. But a little investigative effort will show that for thirty years, the brutal Duvaliers, father and son, terrorized the country—with United States support. At any rate, Trump’s bigotry has been the hallmark of his entire career, dating back to the 1970s when he was investigated by the Department of Justice (a time when that department actually was concerned about justice) for housing discrimination and continuing through the 1980s when he demanded the execution of five black and Latino teenagers who had been falsely accused of raping a white woman in New York. His nonsensical “birther” campaign against Obama was yet another example of his racism.
A man who calls foreign countries “shithole” countries, and calls Mexicans “rapists” and insists that there are “very fine” KKK members is a man devoid of any moral sense or possessing an ounce of dignity. If the Democrats continue to enable him, they are just as guilty as his Republican supporters. If the Democrats have any standards at all, they should have boycotted Trump’s State of the Union address on January 30, 2018. Especially when you consider that Trump blasted those who didn’t applaud him as having committed “treason.” Again, Trump is just mouthing off; his definition of “treason” has nothing to do with the Constitution’s definition. Not that he cares about the Constitution, of course.
The Address focused on re-building our country’s infrastructure, but in reality it is just another scam. If implemented, it would destroy environmental protections and allow the president’s minions to go ahead with projects without seeking input from the public. Trump wants to turn our freeways and highways into toll roads and sell off public property and lands to secret hedge fund landlords. The plan would also produce less, not more, jobs because companies will just pocket the subsidies they’ve been given for projects already begun. Workers pay will be reduced, as will their bargaining power. And of course, the plan will fund the construction of more dirty energy pipelines and give huge amounts of money to Wall Street corporations. Compare that with progressive plans that would create millions of jobs by doing real infrastructure work, such as re-building damaged streets and freeways, supporting our public schools and invest in clean energy sources.
Speaking of jobs, businesses subsidized by government invariably fail to produce the much-anticipated rise in jobs. The Hightower Lowdown provides us with several examples of this: “Last year, Good Jobs First tracked 386 incentive deals since 1976 that gave at least $50 million to a corporation and then tallied the number of jobs created. The average cost per job was $658,427. Each! That’s likely far more than cities and states can recover through sales, property, income, and other taxes those jobholders would pay in their lifetimes. Worse, the rise of megadeals in the past 10 years has made the job-incentive argument mega-ridiculous: New York gave a $258-million subsidy to Yahoo and got 125 jobs—costing taxpayers $2 million per job. Oregon awarded $2 billion to Nike and got 500 jobs—$4 million per job. North Carolina shelled out $321 million to Apple and got 50 jobs—$6.4 million per job. Louisiana handed $234 million to Valero Energy and got 15 jobs—$15.6 million per job.” (The Hightower Lowdown, December, 2017)
Too few have recognized the inherent anti-democratic, even totalitarian nature of much of Trump’s State of the Union address. When carefully examined, it shows a man attempting to make authoritarian populism look positive. To be sure, he posed as a friend of Latinos and Black Americans, and called for economic policies that would help them and other ordinary working people. Then came the zinger: While extolling unity and bipartisanship, he called on Congress to give him additional, clearly undemocratic powers: “Tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers—and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”
The second part of that sentence is deeply disturbing. If actually put into practice, any Cabinet secretary could, as Slate reports: “decide that, say, a law enforcement official investigating the president had ‘undermined the public trust’ or ‘failed the American people’—and fire him on the spot. In other words, Trump is calling for an end to any semblance of independence for the IRS, the FBI, the Department of Justice, or any other federal agency.” (Yascha Mounk, Slate, January 30, 2018) If acted upon and passed, this would mean a president who is accountable to no one, who can remove anyone that displeases him. What is this if not dictatorial powers?
I will be generous and assume that many of the Republicans who stood and applauded Trump’s State of the Union address did not think through the repercussions of this statement. One can only wonder how many of them would support the dismantling of the rule of law this would entail. The ramifications of this part of an anti-American, would-be dictator’s speech should have made headlines across the globe, and should have elicited near-unanimous condemnation from the media. The fact that it did not clearly indicates how much the media is in the pockets of Trump and his minions. The complicity of the press is one of the main reasons we are moving ever closer to a fascist dictatorship.
Further proof of Trump’s desire to create a dictatorship was seen when Xi Jinping, the president of China, moved to eliminate term limits for presidents from the Chinese Constitution, which if successful will allow him to remain president as long as he wants. This is how dictators work: such an action can ensure that authoritarian rule in China and threaten an end to the democratic process. So what did Trump say? “He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot some day.” Some day. Given the extreme right wing leanings of his administration, the Supreme Court, and just about every Republican Congressman, that day may not be far off. Anyone who naively says that it can’t happen here simply hasn’t been paying attention to what has been going on in the country since January, 2017.
When a leader of a country declares that he is above the law, that in itself is proof that he/she wants to install a dictatorship. This is not hyperbole: it’s the very definition of what constitutes a dictatorship. Donald Trump wants to censor the press. He wants dissenting views persecuted. If these aren’t dictatorial actions, then exactly what would be?
I need to elaborate the point about fascism because many readers will shake their heads thinking how I can possibly associate today’s Republican party with the fascists of the 1930s and 1940s. The Nazis were murderous thugs, so how can I possibly equate today’s Republicans with such monsters? That is certainly a legitimate question. The answer is that fascism takes many forms. Hitler did not rise to power by force; he was duly elected and only then began the slow conversion of Germany into Nazi Germany. No, today’s Republicans haven’t open any concentration camps and begun murdering their enemies (yet). But step by step that is the direction they are heading. They have shown an utter disdain for the Constitution, particularly the first Amendment. They think the Chief Executive is above the law, answerable to no one. They pass legislation that most people disagree with and don’t want. They attack the free press. They use propaganda and lies to further their ends, as much as any Nazi did. They want a single party state and absolutely refuse to work with Democrats, much less treat them as equals. They are hostile to science and philosophy. They wrap themselves in the flag and claim to be super patriots. They speak of moral righteousness, usually in religious verbiage, then act in completely immoral ways. They demand unquestioned obedience; just look at Trump’s record on this and then try to deny it. They have no problem with racism (remember Trump’s ‘very fine people’). They even separate children from their parents and put them in concentration camps. Like all fascists, today’s Republicans have scapegoats which they demonize at every opportunity: Democrats, immigrants, Muslims, freethinkers, etc. The similarities are obvious between the earlier fascists and today’s; we ignore them at our own peril.
Donald Trump said that Kim Jong Un: “speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.” Is this or is this not indicative of his fascist leanings?
There is one solution, and one solution only: Vote the bums out of office! It’s still not too late, but we are running out of time. The totalitarians in our midst are doing their level best to make this country into a Christian version of Iran.
Having said all that, most Americans aren’t happy at all with the Republican agenda. Another indication of just how much respectability the Republicans have lost was shown in February, 2018, when the National Republican Congressional Committee selected Greg Gianforte as keynote speaker for its monthly communications workshop. Gianforte made headlines last year when he violently attacked journalist Ben Jacobs and then tried to lie his way out of it not only with the police, but the general public as well. His topic, ironically, was on “communication.” Perhaps the Republican mindset views his conviction for assault as a heroic effort to defend “traditional values.” Welcome to Republican Surrealism.
On certain rare occasions, a Republican extremist will make a correct decision. An example of this occurred early in February, 2018 and concerned Samuel Alito, one of the most conservative members of the Supreme Court. Let People’s Action tell the story: “Justice Samuel Alito rejected Pennsylvania Republicans’ last-ditch effort to preserve the partisan gerrymander of their state’s congressional map. The justice’s decision effectively ensures that Pennsylvania’s 2018 congressional elections will be held under a much fairer map, giving Democrats an opportunity to win several more seats in the state. In fact, the dissolution of Pennsylvania’s gerrymander gives Democrats a significantly better shot at winning control of the House of Representatives in November… Pennsylvania’s midterm elections will be held in much fairer districts, whether Republicans like it or not.” (Jeff Bryant, People’s Action, February 6, 2018) However, true to form, Pennsylvania’s State Rep. Cris Dush tried to impeach five of the states Supreme Court justices in retaliation for their decisive vote striking down the legislatures gerrymandering scheme.
The fact remains that gerrymandering overwhelmingly favors Republican candidates. Wisconsin Republican Scott Walker oversaw the state’s maps gerrymandering in 2011. He then signed racially-based legislation that helped to suppress the vote. Then, in 2018, he surpassed himself by refusing to hold an election in his state until 2019—even though the laws of his state demand that he hold elections as soon as possible after legislator’s seats become vacant.
Common Cause has initiated a lawsuit intending to end gerrymandering once and for all by 2020. As I write this at the beginning of July, 2018, the suit has been remanded for further consideration. Common Cause informs us: “We know what happens when we let politicians control the redistricting process. They draw ‘safe’ districts so they don’t have to be accountable to their voters. They pack districts to deny people of color fair representation. And they deny us all our constitutional right to a meaningful choice when we select our representatives.” (Robert Reich, Common Cause, March 11, 2018) The article also states what should be obvious, but which is lost on today’s Republicans: “Voters should choose their politicians, not the other way around.” A copy of this quote should be made available to every American citizen.
Unfortunately examples such as Alito’s are all too rare. The above cited article also discusses one Arthur Jones: “Arthur Jones—an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist—is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs… To Jones’ own amazement, he is the only one on the Republican ballot… Jones told the Sun-Times he is a former leader of the American Nazi Party and now heads a group called the America First Committee. ‘Membership in this organization is open to any white American citizen of European, non-Jewish descent,’ he said.” At least this Republican is honest about his insanity.
There is one item that has emerged in 2018 that is not business as usual from the Republicans. That is Donald Trump’s insistence on having a military parade in Washington DC. The purpose of the parade is glaringly obvious: It’s nothing more than a show of our country’s military strength. MoveOn sums up the situation very well: “A war parade would be a waste of our taxpayer dollars, would not do anything to keep our country safe, and would not honor the men and women in uniform. Its entire purpose is to let Trump play dictator for a day, further eroding democracy, and pushing our country even closer to authoritarianism. Trump wants to send tanks, troops, and guns down the streets of Washington, D.C. This is the kind of parade that dictators around the world use to try and intimidate their enemies and, more importantly, their own citizens. The truth is the money wasted on feeding Trump’s desire to see tanks and missiles paraded past his luxury hotel is money our nation desperately needs turning the lights back on in Puerto Rico, providing treatment for the opioid epidemic, making college affordable, and countless other needs Trump seems to have no interest in meeting.” (Stephen Miles, MoveOn, February 7, 2018) The article rightly concludes: “This is not democracy.” I would only add that contrived military spectacles such as the one Trump is envisioning is one of the defining characteristics of a fascist state. The only thing missing is the Nazi goosestep.
CREDO Action makes another telling point, namely that: “Trump does not care about the military or veterans. His deportation task force at ICE consistently rounds up and deports veterans who have served in the military. He spent his campaign attacking prisoners of wars and Gold Star parents. This parade is all about an increasingly unpopular Trump exploiting troops for his own gain.” (Murshed Zaheed, CREDO Action, February 7, 2018) The article goes further: “Here are a few ways we could actually honor the women and men who serve our country in uniform:
•Putting a stop to deportations
•Ending the brinkmanship with countries like North Korea and Iran that risks military conflict
•Not sending them into harm’s way for needless wars like in Iraq
•Funding strong diplomacy so the military doesn’t need to shoulder the burden of every international flash point
•Paying rank-and-file soldiers better so that no military family lives in poverty
•Refusing to tolerate bigoted, transphobic barriers to service
•Reining in sky-high defense spending that helps war profiteering corporations instead of enlisted troops
•Spending money on aid to Puerto Rico, eliminating college debt, and providing healthcare or a thousand other ways to strengthen the country troops are willing to die to protect.
The astounding (and frightening) thing about this administration is that they seem to be able to say and do anything, and nobody seems to call them to task for it. In February, 2018, Trump’s Communications Director, Hope Hicks, admitted that she routinely tells ‘white lies’ for the White House. She admits to lying to the American people, and doesn’t even feel the need to hide it. Predictably, there was little if any coverage about this amazing statement in the mainstream media, and appeasing Democrats didn’t say or do a thing about it.
Think about this: When was the last time you heard Donald Trump, or anyone in his cabinet, or indeed anyone in the Republican party, admit that they had made a mistake or take responsibility for problems they have created? The sad fact is that there doesn’t seem to be anyone left in the Republican party willing to take responsibility for anything. When things go wrong, it’s always the Democrats’ fault. The party that wraps itself in the flag and embraces fundamentalist Christianity is a party without any values. Ultra-conservatism, fundamentalist religion, bald-faced lies, false patriotism, intolerance, bigotry, lack of civility, hatred and ignorance—is it a package deal?
Mitch McConnell is one of the most corrupt politicians in the history of this country. In my earlier articles on Trump and the Republicans, I discussed his utter inability to act morally or honestly. More than any other single individual, he is responsible for the decay of the American political system. Let’s examine a few of the facts.
His support of big money in politics goes back some thirty years. He is the man, more than any other, who led the way for the Citizens United decision in 2010. When legislation was introduced requiring donor’s identities to be revealed, McConnell shot that down as well, leading to the dark money contributions that are a ubiquitous presence in Republican party campaign drives. The result is that the American public has become increasingly frustrated and angry at politicians and government, creating an atmosphere conducive to the rise of a corrupt billionaire populist promising to “Make America Great Again.”
McConnell’s own corruption was conclusively revealed by his refusal to hold a confirmation hearing, much less a vote on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. His justification for the delay was the feeble excuse that it would be wrong to consider Garland until the results of the presidential election were in. So the vacancy lasted for ten months until the election results were over and Trump had won. However, McConnell contradicted himself both before and after this charade. In 2005, with Republican George W. Bush in the White House, he insisted that: “Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the President, and the President alone, nominates judges.” However, when Obama was president, he suddenly forgot about the Constitution and made an about face, saying: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” Then, when justice Anthony Kennedy announced at the end of June 2018 his intention to retire, McConnell switched gears yet again and promised to make haste in getting a new justice on the court, knowing that Trump will support another conservative extremist like Neil Gorsuch.
Any time Senate Democrats show any backbone, McConnell calls them ‘obstructionists’ as he did in June, 2018 when he announced that: “Due to the historic obstruction by Senate Democrats of the president’s nominees, and the goal of passing appropriations bills prior to the end of the fiscal year, the August recess has been canceled.” This from the same man who was the arch-obstructionist when it came to considering Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. The move had other implications as well: Canceling the August recess would cut into the Democrat’s campaigning time for the November elections.
McConnell’s hands are far from clean with regard to the Russian scandal. As Daily Kos reports: “When our intelligence communities were warning that Russian spies and propaganda teams were seeking to undermine a United States election, it was Republican Mitch McConnell who warned the last president that if our leaders tried to more fully warn the public about those threats, Mitch McConnell would claim those efforts to be partisan efforts aimed at hurting the stupid, amoral, crooked Donald Trump.” So even when Obama was president, McConnell knew that something was wrong.
The Kos article cited above is mercilessly thorough in exposing the hypocrisy and crimes of Mitch McConnell. It notes: “It is Mitch McConnell who is stonewalling all efforts to hold the Trump administration to any ethical standards whatsoever, whether it be profiting from foreign governments funding Trump’s own private hotel chain to the Trump refusal to abide by any other prior long-held national norm.” The article then shows him for what he really is: “But more than that: Sen. Mitch McConnell, more than any other American senator, is a shameless, flagrant, and prolific liar. He, more than any other American senator, is a dishonest man. His speeches are Christmas trees ornamented with lies, half-truths, and fervent opinions he happens to have that he did not have yesterday and will argue bitterly against tomorrow. He is a living monument to the doctrine of party over country—that there is no law, no ethical boundary, no act of corruption or treason that cannot be overlooked if he, Mitch McConnell, can squeeze a little personal power out of the deal for himself. He is the Dignified Trump. He is the Genteel Racist. He is the reason the ‘intellectuals’ of the Republican Party, at least the ones not running for office, have continued to denounce their own party for its shameless acts.”
Although more than a little bit hysterical, the closing paragraphs of the Kos article show the anger that any thinking American should be feel at this crossroads in our history:
“Here is a message to Mitch McConnell, who has broken his oath to defend and uphold the Constitution on more occasions than he has had lunch in the Capitol. A message to one of the prime current protectors of those that committed acts of treason against the country, and who considers every ethical boundary one that must not be crossed by his political opponents, and one that can be glibly crossed without consequences for his allies. A special note to the man whose party obsessed incessantly about imagined Democratic crimes—and is now bear-hugging the man who provably has been doing worse while bragging that he could. Fake charities. Profiting from lobbyists. Administration-wide grifting. Cover-ups. Lying to the public. And, in the golden hallways of Trump Tower, that treason thing.
“Go to hell. Sod off, and take your disturbed with you. You built Trump, and you protect him. You built your party’s new double-down into neo-Confederacy and open racism, and you protect it and nurture it. The president attacks companies and citizens for daring to defy him, and you say nothing. He spits at the ethical boundaries that have constrained every other leader, and you block the nation from responding. A sitting president came to you with an urgent warning that a foreign power was hip-deep in attempting to befoul the underpinnings of our democracy itself, and you did not only say nothing: you warned him that if he spoke up, you would act against him.
“Go to hell. You are an enemy of the nation and to decency alike, a crooked, Nixonian man who has not yet found a boundary he would not cross in order to gain just a little more power. You are a cultist, a hack, a fool, and a coward forever hiding in your office and behind your staff, a cheap wax figure of a man who has not once mustered up a voice during any of the times in history, ever, when it might have mattered. May the history books mention you with the same disdain as Joe McCarthy; may your family have to build an iron fence around your grave to keep all the people you have harmed in your life from pissing on your headstone.”
Crude, yes. But one hundred percent right on the money. Joe McCarthy was an angel compared to this thoroughly evil man.
I need to mention Neil Gorsuch, now on the Supreme Court due to Republican deviousness in refusing to consider Obama’s nominee. His thinking, if it can be called that, is fairly typical in today’s fundamentalist religious environment. Gorsuch has earned undeserved praise for his intelligence. In one ruling, he ruled that placing the Ten Commandments on a courthouse lawn in Oklahoma was constitutional because they are not necessarily a religious symbol. If not, then exactly what are they? Gorsuch failed to address this point. This is the same specious reasoning used by Christians who want the crucifix displayed on public property, claiming that it is not a religious symbol. This is so absurdly far-fetched that it is difficult to imagine any lawyer or judge taking it seriously. Yet, in defiance of all logic and common sense, many do.
Today’s Republican party has absolutely no morals whatever. Time and time again they have shown a willingness, even enthusiasm, to ignore any evidence of conspiracy, bribery, obstruction of justice, traitorous action, obstruction of justice, lying, and trampling on the Constitution. Clearly, they have put party above country.
Some of the comments that come from the White House are incredibly cruel and mean. Consider what White House communications aide Kelly Sadler said concerning John McCain’s opposition to Gina Haspel’s nomination for CIA director. She said his opposition ‘didn’t matter’ because he’s ‘dying anyway.’ Of course, Trump never reprimanded her or told her to apologize.
Some Republicans are so wacky that one must question their mental health. Although he is not a politician, consider the words of NRA member Ted Nugent: “Don’t ask why. Just know that evil, dishonesty, and scam artists have always been around and that right now they’re liberal, they’re Democrat, they’re RINOs, they’re Hollywood, they’re fake news, they’re media, they’re academia, and they’re half of our government, at least. So come to that realization. There are rabid coyotes running around. You don’t wait till you see one to go get your gun. Keep your gun handy, and every time you see one, you shoot one.” (Lefty Coaster, Daily Kos, April 7, 2018) You read that correctly: Ted Nugent is actively encouraging the murder of people who disagree with the views of the NRA. Of course, this was not reported in the news; rants like this are so commonplace among Republicans that the media doesn’t consider threats of murder by celebrities to be newsworthy—as long as they are Republicans. This is the same Ted Nugent whose 1991 song Jailbait contained the following lyrics: “Well I don´t care if you’re just thirteen
You look too good to be true
I just know that you´re probably clean
There’s one lil’ thing I got to do to you.”
In 1978, the thirty year old Nugent began a romance with a seventeen year old Hawaiian girl named Pele Massa. Enough said.
THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE AND EDUCATION
It is not exactly a news bulletin to note that Republicans, who call themselves “conservatives,” have little or no interest in conserving our environment and national treasures. Hatred of science fits right into this agenda. To cite perhaps the most glowing example, despite the fact that all the world’s leading scientists and all the leaders of the developed countries accept the reality of climate change, Trump and his Republican supporters continue to deny reality, preferring to live in their alternate universe in which nature is there for us to exploit without any negative consequences. The words “climate change” have even been removed from the White House website. Denying reality and ignoring the findings of experts is yet another example of how dictatorships work.
The facts about climate change, however, are undeniable. Take the Arctic as an example. This is an area that is extremely vulnerable to even the slightest temperature change. Recent decades have seen a constant decrease in sea ice, and Climate Wire has reported that the wave action and thawing permafrost are: “Increasing the amount of soil and other sediments from the Russian coast into the central Arctic ocean. It will impact the marine food web.” The food chain as a whole will feel the consequences of all this. (Daily Kos, January 19, 2018) Researchers are all in agreement that the culprit behind this is climate change. Within a few decades, there may be no ice in the summer, resulting in the extermination of polar bears, walruses, wolves and other animals, including some 200 species of birds. The situation is likely to become worse, and much faster, since the Trump administration has already taken the first steps to hand over both the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to big oil companies. In addition to the destruction of wildlife, this move would destroy one of the last pristine ecosystems left on earth as well as threaten the survival of the Gwich’in people who inhabit the region. If this is turned over to the oil companies, the area will soon be paved with a network of roads and pipelines that will destroy the coastal plain and lead to more devastating oil spills. The damage caused would be irreversible.
On April 30, 2018, the city of Nawabshah, Pakistan, recorded a temperature of 122.3 degrees fahrenheit, the hottest April temperature ever recorded anywhere on the globe since the recording of temperatures was begun. In that same month, 410 average parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was also recorded; scientists (those people so hated by Republicans) tell us that this level has not been seen on earth for almost a million years. It is also about twenty percent above the level they tell us we must return to in order for the climate to stabilize. But Republicans won’t hear any of this, since they want to believe that climate change is a hoax.
Although the evidence that our planet is heating up is undeniable, Trump’s administration will have none of it. Their plan is a simple one: Ignore what the experts are saying, and repeat your own lies often enough in the hope that a complacent media will toe the line and the majority of Americans will assume that there are two sides to the issue. Unfortunately, this strategy is working.
The insistence of this administration to remove any trace of climate change from its website speaks volumes about how it views contrary views, especially scientific ones that are almost universally accepted as true. The problem is that so much time, effort and ink have been spent on the administration’s denial that almost ninety percent of the American public are unaware of the fact that there is a scientific consensus on climate change. The supposedly ‘liberal press’ has made little or no effort to inform the public of this consensus. Even though climate change is a problem, the fact that it is driven by the burning of fossil fuels and the fact that there are provable links connecting the planet’s warming with extreme weather events are receiving scant attention, most likely because the administration is in partnership with the polluters. Today’s media fears the label of ‘liberal’ as much as anything else.
In one of those ironies that seem so commonplace nowadays, January 18, 2018 saw two events take place that contradicted each other. First, NASA confirmed that 2017 was the second hottest year on record. Later that same day, in a seeming slap to the face of legitimate science, the Senate Commerce Committee approved Jim Bridenstine—an avowed climate change denier— to head NASA! This is the same man who, as a congressman from Oklahoma demanded that president Obama apologize for funding climate research. Clearly, Senate Republicans want to put one of their own in charge of NASA, hoping that he will successfully interfere with that group’s independent scientific analysis and research. All this to serve the corporate polluters that are destroying our planet.
Simply denying climate change isn’t enough for the Republicans. They are currently going after teachers who discuss it in their classrooms! Like their attempts to remove biological evolution from the classroom, this is merely another obsequious sop to fundamentalist religion. Simply put, they are trying to stifle all opposition and only teach subjects that don’t contradict with their version of the Bible. The New York Timeswas the first newspaper to expose this, discussing how Idaho was able to remove climate change from school guidelines. Republican legislators obviously think that they are more qualified to speak on the subject (and force everyone else to follow their agenda) than professional educators with degrees in science.
Right-wing politicians and most Republicans have long hated Darwin’s theory of evolution. I have discussed this in my earlier articles, but one more example of their backwardness should be noted. When a group of scientists tried to update the school science curriculum, they ran into a block when they submitted it to the Arizona Department of Education and Superintendent Diane Douglas. Ignoring the question of how creationists managed to get in the Department of Education in the first place, they insisted that the wording be changed whenever evolution was brought up. The new term is ‘biological diversity.’ Daily Kostells us that: “It’s bad enough Arizona has led the nation in defunding education over the last decade; now the Department of Education, led by dominionist nutball Diane Douglas, wants to give students third-rate instruction. Science teachers, people concerned about church-state separation, the Arizona Education Association, and parents who hope to prepare their children for college oppose the changes, as does the National Center for Science Education.” (Mother Mags, Daily Kos, May 23, 2018) The article also notes: “During her campaign, Diane Douglas made it clear that she wants public schools to look more like Sunday School: “Should the theory of intelligent design be taught along with the theory of evolution? Absolutely.” Obviously, like most anti-science religious fundamentalists, Douglas cannot differentiate between the theory of evolution and the story of creationism. Yes, evolution is a theory; so is gravity. Would Douglas deny gravity because it’s ‘only a theory?’
Despite the overwhelming evidence for evolution, as many as 60 percent of high school science teachers are now reluctant to teach it as proven fact; they are afraid of parental and societal repercussions. But these attacks on biological evolution must be understood as attacks on all science, as they are all indelibly linked together.
Science is an assembly of objectively verifiable facts. That alone tells us why Trump and his Republican cronies hate it with such a passion; they don’t want reality to interfere with their agendas. Only in today’s mad political world would government grant recipients be denied funding if they don’t support the president’s anti-science agenda. This is obviously just one more manifestation of this administration’s totalitarian intentions; scientists could be forced to support the nonsensical border wall, publicly deny climate change, agree to open up our public lands and waters to offshore oil drilling, and loosen restrictions on pollution and dangerous chemicals—or else lose governmental funding. Never before in the history of this country has such an anti-science, anti-life, and anti-constitutional government made such demands.
The Republican war on schools entails a great more than just hostility toward sound science. It also involves forced indoctrination of religious beliefs—invariably fundamentalist in nature—into vulnerable students. Across the country, schools are violating state and federal laws as they seek to inculcate these dark-age beliefs in their students. Church and State details just one example, that of Benton Middle School, located in Bossier Parish, Louisiana. It begins by quoting a letter one of its teachers wrote, as follows: “We pray at school functions and probably break the law all the time!” (Rob Boston, Church and State, March, 2018) Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the organization that publishes the magazine, made repeated attempts to correct the situation by pointing out that student-led prayers at a May, 2017 graduation ceremony were unconstitutional in that they gave the school district’s endorsement of one religion and coerced non-willing students to participate in a religious exercise. This began due to a number of complaints received that noted other Constitutional violations at the school. These included various school events that were held in churches, coaches distributing Bibles and various religious materials to athletes and pressuring them to attend church and mission trips. If this were not enough, teachers also proselytize in their classrooms, and often require students to recite Christian prayers; many also insist that one must be a Christian in order to be a good person. Choir performances consist of singing almost exclusively Christian worship songs. And, it goes without saying that they promote creationism in the classroom.
It goes without saying that schools like the one just cited are fundamentalist in nature; they feel compelled to make everyone the spitting image of what they are. Diversity and multiculturalism are anathema to them.
The Bossier School District is far from being the only one engaged in illegal Christian proselytizing. Mississippi has introduced House Bill 1100 that, if passed, would require all public schools to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom, auditorium and even cafeteria. It would also require all teachers to read the Commandments to their students every morning. And, of course, fundamentalists continue their efforts to introduce creationism into the science curriculum, demanding that teachers “teach the controversy.” That sounds harmless until one realizes that there isn’t any controversy: Biological evolution is a scientific theory while creationism is a religious story. As Nik Nartowicz of Americans United for Separation of Church and State explains: “There isn’t a controversy. Evolution is the only tested, comprehensive scientific explanation for the nature of the biological world today supported by overwhelming evidence and widely accepted in the scientific community. Students are free to learn about creationism and intelligent design, but a science classroom is not the place.” (quoted by Liz Hayes, Americans United, March, 2018)
Another problem exacerbating situations like this is the presence of judges who put their religious beliefs above the law. Church and State provides us with a stunning example: “A Texas Judge’s conduct is being scrutinized after he intervened in jury deliberations on January 12 to tell jurors God had told him the defendant was not guilty.” (Church and State, March, 2018) Fortunately, the jury stayed with its verdict despite the judge’s unthinkable intervention.
Nonsensical actions and legislation such as those mentioned above have increasingly become part of the American landscape. The actions of Donald Trump’s administration ensure that they will become more and more legitimized.
THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON WILDLIFE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
In my previous articles I have provided ample evidence of how the Republican party is determined to prop up the dying fossil fuel industry at the expense of our parks and national monuments. Trump’s slashing the size of the Bear Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase—Escalante National Monument, both located in Utah, are just two of the more blatant examples indicating that he doesn’t care a whit about preserving our national treasures. As of February 2, 2018, some two million acres of public lands (repeat: public lands) of these two monuments are set to be destroyed as dying fossil fuel corporations search for uranium, copper, and anything else that suits them. This was a betrayal of both local communities as well as indigenous peoples. And of course, it’s illegal.
The Sierra Club tells us about these two treasures: “Grand Staircase—Escalante is a geological treasure, home to 20,000 archaeological sites and sprinkled with slot canyons, monoliths, and natural bridges. Twenty-one new species of dinosaurs have been discovered there since the area’s designation as a national monument. Grand Staircase-Escalante also houses centuries of Latin history and is vital to the culture and economies of local communities. Bears Ears is vital to tribal communities throughout the region as a place of subsistence, spirituality, and healing. These lands are home to tens of thousands of important cultural sites, including the cliff dwellings, villages, and rock art panels of the Ancestral Puebloan people.” (Lena Moffitt, Sierra Club, February 2, 2018) The article also notes that: “Never before has a president removed protections from public lands and handed them over to the dirty energy industry to drill, mine, and frack.”
Of course, Utah is only one state threatened by anti-environmental forces. NRDC tells us of some of the others: “President Trump already has over a dozen other national monuments on the chopping block, from Gold Butte in Nevada to the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of New England.” (Rhea Suh, NRDC Action Fund, February 5, 2018) On many of these, Democrats have proven themselves to be sellouts to their constituents, in much the same was as Republicans are throughout the country. Climate Hawks Vote Civics Action, a pro-environment organization, informs us that: “California politics is saturated with dark oil money. First, the industry spends to elect compromised Democrats, both directly and through a maze of independent expenditures. Then the industry continues to spend on lobbying during the legislative season—$36 million in 2016, an additional $3 million as the cap and trade extension came up for votes in 2017—to keep drilling, fracking, and poisoning California. Even gifts from oil lobbyists to legislators line up with votes.” (R.L. Miller, Climate Hawks Vote, January 22, 2018)
The Republicans are demonstrably dishonest concerning their drilling ventures. Kate Brown of Oregon reported this to the Daily Kos: “FIRST, the Trump administration and Interior Secretary Zinke announced that they want to open up our shores, including Oregon’s beautiful Pacific waters, to more offshore oil drilling. THEN, Interior Secretary Zinke sat down with Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott, despite the fact that Governor Brown of California, Governor Inslee of Washington, and I have all vocally objected to this destructive plan. NOW, it’s been announced that Florida will get a waiver—but not Oregon or the rest of the West coast! Why should Florida get an ‘out’ but not our states?” (Kate Brown, Daily Kos, January 22, 2018) Could it possibly be because Florida has a far-right Republican governor who has no problem with opening up the United States’ shores to destructive oil drilling—as long as it’s not in his state.
Trump kicked off 2018 by proposing to open up 90% of U.S. waters to offshore drilling between 2019 and 2024. In other words this law, if enacted, all of our nation’s coasts (except, of course, Florida) will be in the hands of Big Oil. Oil rigs will be everywhere. This is dangerous and irresponsible; offshore drilling threatens wildlife, our oceans, and coastal communities. And Trump’s strategy ensures that fewer and fewer regulations will be available to protect us from disastrous oil spills.
In addition to handing over our coasts to the oil companies, Trump wants to dismantle all safety regulations that were enacted after the disastrous Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This disaster, which began on April 20, 2010, was the worst oil spill in American history. It started when an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed eleven people and led to an oil spill that cost $60 billion and destroyed coastal environments. Thousands of people became sick due to this spill. Dolphins and other marine life died off in record numbers. In Louisiana, 4,900,000 pounds of oily material was removed from its beaches in 2013, more than twice the amount collected the previous year. And this was three years after the disaster! To give an idea of the scope of the disaster, oil continues to be found as far away as the Florida panhandle and Tampa Bay. Here, scientists said that the oil and the mixture used to combat the spill were imbedded in the sand. Although the well was declared sealed in September of 2010, two years later, the site was still leaking.
The Deepwater Horizon spill was far from the only such disaster in recent times. In 1989, eleven million gallons of crude oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez tanker into Prince William Sound, Alaska. This disaster caused countless wildlife deaths, including over twenty orca whales. As is always the case in such disasters, local communities suffered greatly not only in terms of resident’s health, but also in the loss of jobs. Congress then went to work and passed the Oil Pollution Act, which was promulgated to avoid future disasters as much as possible and to minimize the damage as much as possible when they do occur. None of this, of course, means anything to the current administration. No doubt this Act will soon come under fire.
The Sierra Club has some telling thoughts on Trump’s drilling plan: “Even without a major disaster, offshore drilling is dirty and destructive. The combination of seismic blasts, increased traffic, and smaller spills would do irreparable damage to marine life and coastal communities. This plan would also force offshore drilling on states that don’t want it. In fact, a bipartisan group of governors and coastal communities have explicitly asked Trump to leave their states out of his drilling plan—and he’s ignoring their wishes. Even the Department of Defense has warned that seismic testing and drilling could pose a threat to naval operations in the Atlantic.
The only people who want this plan are the oil executives who bankrolled Trump’s campaign and staffed his administration.” (Kathryn Phillips, Sierra Club, February 1, 2018)
None of this, of course, means anything to Republicans. What did concern them was the fact that BP was forced to pay $18.7 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history. With this in mind, the Republican-led Congress began the new year of 2018 by failing to renew an oil tax that funds cleanup efforts for disastrous oil spills. Let’s be clear on this: Republicans have no problem whatever endangering our coasts and have no intention of dealing with the consequences of the spills that are guaranteed to happen.
On January 26, 2018, Climate Hawks Vote reported that Fred Upton joined the House Climate Solutions Caucus. Like virtually all Republicans, Upton is a climate change denier who supported the Republican tax scam which opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to drilling. He insists that climate change is not man-made and once, with Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, introduced legislation that would reverse the finding that carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases pose a danger to the environment and our health. (R.L. Miller, Climate Hawks Vote, January 26, 2018)
It is almost comical how certain climate change deniers are in positions of authority. For example, Rebekah Mercer is a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, one of the world’s leading science museums. One would think she would be a leading expert in her field. In fact, she is an extremely rich right-wing ideologue who has donated millions of dollars to Donald Trump, Breitbart News, and political candidates who promote climate change denial. According to Credo Action: “Rebekah Mercer has arguably done more than any other person in the world to confuse the public about climate science. Through her foundation, she has given millions of dollars to notorious anti-science organizations—including the Heartland Institute and the Heritage Foundation—that promote climate disinformation to the public and policymakers.” (Brandy Doyle, Credo Action, February 1, 2018)
CREDOAction informs us of the dangers that plastic poses to our planet: “Each minute, the equivalent of a garbage truck full of plastic ends up in the ocean—where it’s eaten by fish, birds and other marine animals. By 2050, the world’s oceans are projected to have more plastic than fish.” (Brandy Doyle, CREDOAction, March 17, 2018) Environment America reports that five trillion pieces of plastic are floating in our oceans, and the numbers continue to rise: “Marine animals are harmed and even killed when they ingest plastic—and for a fish, whale or turtle, it’s easy to mistake a small piece of plastic for food when there are literally trillions of pieces of it floating in the water. We saw this earlier this year, when a young sperm whale washed up dead on a beach in Spain. Scientists found the whale had been killed by the 64 pounds of plastic lodged in its stomach.” (Ed Johnson, Environment America, May 13, 2018) The article calls for action, noting: “Environment America is calling for a statewide ban on polystyrene foam cups and containers, one of the worst forms of plastic pollution—and the most unnecessary. Americans throw away 25 billion foam cups every year. Just imagine how much pollution we can avoid if we ban them.”
There are countless manifestations of this administration’s willingness to sacrifice the environment, wildlife, and the well-being of the American people in order to extend the life of dirty fuel corporations. One of these is seen in the administration’s effort to turn our oceans into industrial ocean fish farms. Friends of the Earth informs us that: “These massive facilities are essentially floating factory farms that devastate our ocean ecosystem, public health, communities and the economy…Industrial ocean fish farms contain hundreds of thousands of farmed fish that can spill into the surrounding ocean. They pollute the water with untreated fish waste, excess feed, agricultural drugs and pesticides, and heavy metals and chemicals. And they spread disease and pests, threaten wildlife, and are putting truly sustainable seafood producers out of business.” (Hallie Templeton, Friends of the Earth, February 4, 2018) The article closes on a highly significant note: “The administration is legally obligated to ensure that federally funded projects do not have a significant environmental impact, and do not jeopardize federal protected species. But to date, it has fulfilled none of these duties.” But then, what does a little thing like legality mean anything to a dictator?
Automobiles and other forms of transportation have always been primary sources of air pollution. Another, not as universally recognized, is factory farms. These farms contain hundreds of thousands of animals which emit extremely high levels of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, which can cause numerous dangerous health problems, including asthma which can damage respiration and possibly lead to death. Friends of the Earth informs us: “Now, the Senate is advancing a bill that would make it easier for these industrial polluters to hide their emissions of hazardous substances…The DC Circuit Court acknowledged that the health threat posed by factory farms is real and people have died as a result of Big Ag’s pollution. Shouldn’t people who live near factory farms have a right to know if their life is in danger? And shouldn’t they be able to hold Big Ag accountable for the disastrous impacts on their air quality?” (Chloe Waterman, Friends of the Earth, February 27, 2018) Republicans obviously don’t think so.
Back in 2016 when Obama was president, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved a plan designed to protect California’s desert ecosystem. It protects millions of acres of an irreplaceable ecosystem, including 37 species of wildlife. Predictably, Trump is moving to rescind this plan, insisting against the facts that it prohibits California from meeting its renewable energy goals. California’s own renewable energy experts deny that this is the case.
Early in 2018, Trump announced his “infrastructure plan.” Most such plans would involve investing in things useful to the public, such as increasing job availability, improvements in public transportation, and assisting America in the transition to becoming a clean energy country. But these things are never under consideration in this administration. Instead, this scam only benefits the usual suspects: Corporate polluters and the president’s rich friends and associates. The Sierra Club tells us that: “Trump’s infrastructure scam guts environmental safeguards like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, making it easy for the federal government to rubber stamp permits for corporations to build dangerous pipelines, toxic waste dumps, and other destructive projects. It would restrict environmental reviews for infrastructure projects and limit public participation, reducing opportunities for impacted individuals and communities to make their voices heard in the decision-making process. Trump even plans to sell off public lands to oil companies and other special interests in order to pay for his scam.” (Matthew Gravatt, Sierra Club, February 12, 2018) Not surprisingly, the plan would wreak the most havoc on blue states.
Trump is a huge supporter of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, an extremely dangerous project that would transport almost a million barrels of dirty tar sands every day from Canada’s boreal forest through America’s heartland. This project, ten years in the making, threatens the land of both countries, the climate, and the drinking supplies used by farmers, ranchers, and local indigenous people.
In March, Democrats proposed their own plan, a $1 trillion plan that, unlike Trump’s plan, would actually upgrade our infrastructure. It would be paid by rolling back the ridiculous tax cuts given to the wealthiest Americans who were the biggest beneficiaries of last years tax scam which, to reiterate my comments in my “Trump and the Republican War on Truth,” was rushed through without any hearings, no Democratic input (of course), no expert witnesses, and no accountability. The result, as one would expect, was a mess: As CREDOAction reports: “The actual text of the #TrumpTaxScam is a muddled mess. It accidentally exempts from all taxes anyone who sells grain to cooperatives, contains two different deadlines for businesses claiming deductions and contains a glaring loophole that has hedge fund managers rushing to create LLCs to escape taxes, among other massive errors…It gives unintended tax breaks to hedge fund managers, contradicts itself in places and contains the so-called ‘grain glitch’ that could hurt agricultural companies by exempting competitors from taxes. So now, Republicans are demanding Democrats help them fix their own mistakes—even holding a must-pass government funding bill hostage.” (Josh Nelson, CREDOAction, June 21, 2018)
Action Network tells us just how the Democrat’s proposal would work: “It would be paid for by raising the corporate tax rate to 25%, from the new 21%, (raising $359 billion over 10 years); bringing back the top income tax rate to 39.6%, from today’s 37% ($139 billion); restoring the alternative minimum tax (AMT) to 2017 parameters ($429 billion); restoring the estate and gift tax threshold to 2017 levels ($83 billion); and closing the carried interest loophole, which has been used by hedge funds and private equity firms to cut their tax rate in half (raising $12 billion). The plan is projected to create 15 million jobs, paving new roads, rebuilding our schools, laying fiber-optic cable to connect homes and businesses to the internet, replacing aging water systems like in Flint, Michigan, and revitalizing neighborhoods.” (Frank Clemente, Action Network, March 8, 2018) Rest assured Republicans will fight this tooth and nail—and unless a massive sea change takes place in the electorate in this country—they will win.
Most Republicans couldn’t possibly care less about endangered species. For example, there are only about a hundred Mexican gray wolves left in the wilds, but Senator Jeff Flake introduced legislation that would make hunting and trapping them legal again, in defiance of the Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act is clearly under attack here; Flake’s legislation would harm more than just these wolves.
Tigers are also threatened with extinction. Less than four thousand of them remain in the wild, and only about a thousand are females capable of breeding. Given the hostility shown so far, these animals can expect little help from our government. The same can be said for all endangered species.
As we continue to throw more and more of our trash into our oceans and other waters, it doesn’t take to much to imagine what is happening to the life forms inhabiting these waters. There are less than five hundred right whales left and their predicament is getting worse as the Trump administration supports dirty offshore oil drilling. This entails 250-decibel seismic blasts which disrupt whale’s foraging and migrations. It also affects their mating habits. In addition, these animals are highly susceptible to commercial fishing lines; one female whale was found dead in January 2018, entangled in fishing lines off the coast of Virginia. She was one of only 100 female right whales in the world.
The water situation in Flint, Michigan has gained notoriety throughout the United States. The situation began back in 2014 when the city’s water supply was switched to the Flint River, which was extremely polluted. The effects soon became obvious: Foul smelling water began coming out of their taps and many residents began to get extremely sick, developing skin rashes and various other health issues. So why was this switch made? Certainly not because the citizens of Flint wanted it or voted for it. Rather, it was their state government, in the pocket of big corporations, that took over the city and changed the water supply—without any input from the citizens who would be affected by it—in order to save money. Since that time, Flint residents have been trying to restore their democracy and their rights to clean, uncontaminated water. They organized a march on the state capital in April, 2018.
Michigan’s Republican governor Rick Snyder, meanwhile, has constantly downplayed the problem. In April 2018, Corporate Accountability elaborated on the problem: “To add injury to insult, just weeks ago, Snyder ended water aid for Flint. And if that weren’t enough, just days before, his administration granted Nestlé a permit to nearly double its water extraction from a town upstate—for a mere $200 per year. Meanwhile some Flint residents pay up to $200 per month for poison.” (Lauren DeRusha Florez, Corporate Accountability, April 25, 2018) So, while the people of Flint are paying the highest rates in the country for water they can’t drink or use, Nestle is making enormous profits from Michigan’s natural water resource. Here, we see another example of how Republican leaders aren’t the least bit concerned about the health and well-being of their citizens. The people of Michigan would be well advised to take steps to remove Snyder from office—while they are still healthy enough to do so.
Getting back to the dangers of climate change, the Daily Kos reported some alarming facts: “According to comprehensive new paper and report commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund, University of East Anglia (UK), and the James Cook University (Australia) found that climate change threatens local extinctions for half of all plant and animal species in the world’s biodiverse hotspots. If the world is able to keep to the 2°C mark set by the Paris Climate agreement that percentage will fall to 25%.” (Pakalolo, Daily Kos, March 15, 2018) Focusing on the Miombo Woodlands in Africa, the study provides some stark examples of what will befall the plants and animals inhabiting that region: “It finds that the Miombo Woodlands home to African wild dogs, south-west Australia and the Amazon-Guianas are projected to be some the most affected areas. If there was a 4.5°C global mean temperature rise, the climates in these areas are projected to become unsuitable for many the plants and animals that currently live there meaning: Up to 90% of amphibians, 86% of birds and 80% of mammals could potentially become locally extinct in the Miombo Woodlands, Southern Africa; The Amazon could lose 69% of its plant species; In south-west Australia 89% of amphibians could become locally extinct; 60% of all species are at risk of localised extinction in Madagascar; The Fynbos in the Western Cape Region of South Africa, which is experiencing a drought that has led to water shortages in Cape Town, could face localised extinctions of a third of its species, many of which are unique to that region.” If all this were not enough, the report notes that if the climate continues to rise, water supplies will decrease, forcing elephants and other animals to migrate elsewhere—if there is anywhere else left for them to migrate to.
While Africa is not part of the American government’s immediate domain, the fact remains that our continued ignoring of climate change can only exacerbate the problem worldwide, hastening the extinction of global wildlife and threatening the ecosystem on which all living things depend.
The president’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2019 includes cuts that could endanger wildlife across the globe. The Wildlife Conservation Society tells us: “In the budget proposal, the Administration asks Congress to make severe cuts to key programs including the Global Environment Facility, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Multinational Species Conservation Fund and International Affairs program, and U.S. Forest Service International Programs. These vital programs represent only a small fraction of one percent of the federal budget. But they are absolutely essential in the struggle to stop illegal wildlife trafficking, to defend endangered species in the wild, and to protect the last remaining wild places on Earth. The forces that threaten wildlife are the same forces that threaten our national security. Illegal exploitation of natural resources—such as wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, and unlawful fisheries—provides money to power large-scale transnational criminal activities. The poaching of African elephants for illegal ivory is helping finance insurgencies and groups with links to extremism.” (John F. Calvelli, Wildlife Conservation Society, February 15, 2018) It is up to us as humans to protect these species; they do not have the power to vote.
African elephants are an endangered species. Daily Kos fills in the details: “They are in danger of extinction, but continue to be widely poached for their tusks, which are powdered and consumed by dimwitted people as purported medical cures, cut into chunks to be carved into artistic trinkets, or are imported whole, with the heads still attached, by hunters who just like to shoot things and display the stuffed corpses as proof they did it. Populations are shrinking precipitously, and are especially in danger in places where government corruption or unrest limits the ability (or will) to enforce hunting limits, which is why the original ban targeted those specific nations to begin with.” (Hunter, Daily Kos, March 6, 2018)
Countless other life species’ continued existence is under threat due to this administration’s policies. Due to climate change and toxic pesticides like Roundup, which decimates monarchs by killing the milkweed plants which are vital to their survival, the monarch butterfly has lost 90 percent of its population in the last twenty years. Honeybees face extinction because of certain pesticides called neonicotinoids. I reported on this in my previous articles on Trump. Since then, Scott Pruitt’s EPA is considering spraying more of these pesticides on some 165 million acres of American farmland, land that has previously always been protected.
Monsanto Company, an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation, introduced “Roundup Ready” corn and soybeans back in 1996, and since that time, American agriculture has greatly increased the use of toxic pesticides. Among these is glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is the research arm of the World Health Organization, called in 17 oncology experts from 11 different countries to examine the scientific literature in order to find a link between glyphosate and kidney disease in farmworkers. They concluded that glyphosate is indeed a “probable carcinogen.” Monsanto naturally rejected these findings—like other companies that produce toxic chemicals and waste, they tried to attack legitimate science in order to continue with their dangerous product. True to form, Lamar Smith, the Republican chair of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, threatened to cut of the World Health Organization’s funding in retaliation. Smith is yet another climate change denier who has a history of attacking legitimate science to help out industries.
Ignoring voices of protest, in May, 2018 the Justice Department approved a proposed merger between Monsanto and Bayer. Friends of the Earth reports: “This would be a disaster for pollinators, people and the environment. Farmers overwhelmingly think this mega-merger is a bad idea—a new poll found 93 percent of farmers surveyed oppose it. Over 1 million Americans have called on the Justice Department to stop it. And there are investigations in both the EU and the U.S.” (Tiffany Finck-Haynes, Friends of the Earth, March 10, 2018) Noting that the merger would make the company the largest producer of herbicides, the Friends article states: “It would double down on making toxic chemicals like glyphosate (a.k.a. Roundup®)—which is a key culprit in monarch butterfly declines and is a probable human carcinogen. What’s more, this merger threatens the development of a sustainable and just food system. It will hurt independent family farmers and rural economies and will encourage farmers to ramp up the chemically intensive agricultural system that Bayer and Monsanto promote. In short, we’d be giving a single corporation unprecedented control of our food supply.”
The only way to deal with polluters is to hit them where it hurts—in the pocketbook. Environment America provides us with an example: “When ExxonMobil illegally released more than 10 million pounds of hazardous air pollution in Texas, our affiliate Environment Texas sued—and after several years of legal effort sustained in part by our members’ donations, they were fined $20 million.” Although this is a sizable amount of money to most Americans, it’s a mere drop in the hat to corporate polluters. But it’s a start.
To show just how far removed he is from reality, Trump announced in his State of the Union Address that: “We have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal.” Who is he kidding? If coal is clean, one can only wonder what Trump would consider dirty!
THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON WOMEN, GAYS, MINORITIES, WORKERS AND CONSUMERS
I will begin this chapter with a quote from Molly Ivins: “I learned two things growing up in Texas: One, god loves you and you’re going to burn in hell forever and, two, sex is the dirtiest and most dangerous thing you can possibly do, so save it for someone you love.” (Marie Castle, Divided We Fall, pg. 21)
The above humorous quote does lay bare fundamentalist religious ideology, particularly as it affects women.
Republicans cannot stand the idea of independent women making up their own minds on how to deal with abortion. Consistent with this view, President Trump has appointed some of the most misogynistic anti-abortion extremists who not only want to make abortion a crime, but also to restrict their access to health care.
Scott Lloyd is only one of these appointees. Lloyd, who is in charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services, is a rabid anti-abortion activist. He has used his office to interfere in the lives of undocumented minors in his care, even going so far as to visit pregnant minors in ORR in order to try to persuade them not to abort. He even threatened to report one teen girl’s pregnancy to relatives, who had threatened to beat her if she got an abortion. Clearly, this constitutes an abuse of power on his part.
With the retirement of Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy late in June 2018, the stage is set for the repeal of Roe v. Wade. The Republican war against women assumes many forms, most of them with fundamentalist religious underpinnings. The Department of Health and Human Services introduced a rule in March 2018 that would allow health care providers to use their religious faith as an excuse to deny women as well as LGBTQ individuals basic health care. This rule gives hospitals and their employees the legal right to discriminate against anyone they don’t like. CREDOAction lists several ramifications of this disastrous bill, which would sanction the scores of Catholic hospitals that routinely deny women emergency abortion care and other lifesaving reproductive health services.
The bill would sanction the scores of Catholic hospitals that routinely deny women emergency abortion care and other lifesaving reproductive health services. It would also shield health care providers who refuse to give rape victims emergency contraception and protect doctors and nurses who provide substandard care to LGBTQ people or refuse to treat them. Simply put, this is nothing more than religiously-based bigotry. But then, most bigotry is based on religious beliefs.
Republicans have always hated abortion, not because they love little pieces of protoplasm so much, but rather because they realize that campaigning against it gives them the power over women’s lives. Some of the bills they have introduced are downright mind-boggling in their implications. For example, in March, 2018, Ohioan Republicans introduced yet another anti-abortion bill that would, if passed, made abortion a crime whatever the circumstances. The Daily Kos provides the details: “Under a bill introduced Monday, HB 565, the state would prohibit abortions even in cases of rape, incest or danger to a woman’s life. The proposal would allow criminal charges against both doctors and pregnant women seeking abortions and would characterize an ‘unborn human’ as a person under Ohio’s criminal code regarding homicide. That means abortions could be punishable by life in prison or even the death penalty.” (Laura Clawson, Daily Kos, March 22, 2018) The same Republicans who weep crocodile tears about the rights of the ‘unborn’ suddenly about face when that same child’s health is endangered by Christian Science parents who refuse to take their child to a hospital, preferring to let it die rather than admit that it actually is sick. How can anyone not see the contradiction between the professed love of unborn ‘children’ and the utter indifference to them once they are born?
Church and State weighs in on this: “Idaho has the strongest protections for faith healers in the western United States, and is one of just six states that shields faith-healing parents from felony charges when their children die of treatable illnesses.” (Church and State, March, 2018) The article mentions a sect of Christian Science called “Followers of Christ” that has seen at least twenty children die of easily-cured illnesses such as food poisoning and fevers in a ten year period. The article also somberly notes: “In one Idaho cemetery owned by the sect, (reporter Leslie) Sottile found that 35 percent of the burials from 2002 to 2013 were for children or stillborn babies.”
But Idaho is far from being the only state where religious murder is tolerated. Church and State ran an article examining one such homicide: “The parents of a Pennsylvania toddler who died in November 2016 of pneumonia after they refused to treat their child due to their religious beliefs were convicted in March of involuntary manslaughter. Jonathan Foster and his wife, Grace Foster, were convicted in a Berks County court of child endangerment. The parents, according to a police affidavit, said that the death of their daughter, Ella Grace, was ‘god’s will.’” (Church and State, May 2016) This and far too many other incidents take place on a regular basis in this country, making a mockery of the Religious Right’s much touted “family values.”
Planned Parenthood announced in May that Trump is planning to push a ‘gag rule’ that could further limit a woman’s right to have an abortion. They reported: “The administration’s gag rule includes two unprecedented attacks on patients and doctors: 1. Doctors and nurses across the country are forbidden from referring patients for abortion. Even if someone asks for information, even if their health is at risk, even if a safe and legal abortion is their best option. 2. There’s no guarantee that you’re getting full and accurate information about your health care. If someone discovers they’re pregnant after being diagnosed with cancer, for example, their health care provider may not tell them that abortion is even an option. This rule is designed to block access to preventive care at Planned Parenthood health centers, which serve more than 40% of the four million patients who rely on Title X (the nation’s program for affordable birth control and reproductive health care). We’ve seen this scheme before. Last year, President Trump and other lawmakers gave an ultimatum: stop providing abortions or we’ll get Congress to block access to care at Planned Parenthood health centers.” (Dawn Laguens, Planned Parenthood, May 18, 2018) The report concludes by pointing out the obvious threat to millions of women: “No policy this extreme has ever been implemented in the United States before—and the consequences could be devastating. Since Planned Parenthood health centers serve over 40% of Title X patients, millions of patients—a significant number of whom are people of color—would be cut off from care.”
Fundamentalist Christianity’s hatred and fear of women has had devastating consequences for others as well. History is replete with examples of this, but in the interest of space I will just cite the many times young boys were castrated during the Middle Ages to preserve their high voices because women were not allowed to sing in church. Apparently church leaders felt it was more moral to destroy these boys’ lives rather than commit the “sin” of allowing a woman to participate in church services.
The Catholic Church has this medieval mindset to this day. Divided We Fall recounts one action decreed by Pope John Paul II: “According to John Paul II and his spokesman, Carlo Caffarra, head of the Pontifical Institute for Marriage and Family Matters, a hemophiliac with AIDS may not have intercourse with his wife, ever, not even after her menopause, because God has forbidden condoms. And if the hemophiliac husband can’t manage to abstain, it’s better for him to infect his wife than to use a condom.” (MarieAlena Castle, Divided We Fall, pg. 37) Medievalism is alive and well.
Hatred and fear of the LGBTQ community is also based on fundamentalist religious bigotry, and nothing else. Some of the laws that have been passed in recent years show how the conservative courts are willing to bend over backwards to support this bigotry. Divided We Fall cites several examples of this: “In 2011, the Republican-controlled Michigan Senate passed ‘Matt’s Safe School Law. It was an anti-bullying law, but it exempted religion-motivated bullying from prosecution. (MarieAlena Castle, Divided We Fall, published 2018 by Archway Publishing, pg. 46) If this were not enough, the Department of Justice ruled that, because sexual orientation is not covered under the Civil Rights Act, employers are free to discriminate against the LGBTQ community. So much for justice!
Republicans are universally hostile to Dreamers, those minors seeking to live in the United States. Unfortunately, the Democrats are far from guiltless concerning the Dreamers. Senate Democratic leader completely caved in to the Republicans in January 2018, as reported by CREDO Action: “Sen. Schumer caved to the white supremacist base of Trump’s Republican Party and led the Senate Democrats to a total surrender–during the heat of the Trump shutdown–that did nothing to protect Dreamers.1 As a result of Sen. Schumer’s sellout on the Senate floor, 33 Democrats gave away all their leverage and helped embolden the nativist extremists who run Trump’s racist regime.” (Heidi Hess, CREDO Action, January 23, 2018) Hess goes on: “That means that–despite months of passionate and intense organizing from our allies in the immigrants rights and progressive movements, and after a weekend when millions again took to the streets for women’s marches to protest Trump’s dangerous agenda–33 Democrats, in a misguided attempt to protect themselves electorally, decided to sacrifice Dreamers. Their craven calculus puts more immigrant families at risk of separation and exposes even more Dreamers to Trump’s racist deportation force. It also lays the groundwork for a DACA compromise that would include unacceptable capitulation to the extreme anti-immigrant wing of the Republican Party.” Schumer further disgraced himself by promising to do all he can to help Trump build his ‘wall,’ although he later backed away from this. But the record is still crystal clear: Any Democrat who fails to recognize the racism inherent in this administration is a liberal only in name. They should join the Republican party; real Democrats don’t need them.
There are a few (a very few) Republicans who are still working at bipartisan efforts on immigration. Republican John McCain from Arizona and Democrat Christopher Coons who is from Delaware have authored the USA Act, which would give immigrant youth a path to citizenship while still providing funding for some border security measures. Unfortunately, measures like this are doomed as long as the extremists are in positions of authority. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority leader, has steadfastly refused to allow a vote on this bill, or on any similar bills that have been introduced. Clearly, he wants to hold immigrant youths hostage so that he can appease his president.
In another attack on minorities, the Trump administration wants to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. If this is done, the census cannot be accurate but, more to the point, it will affect minority communities far into the future. The purpose of the census is not only to count the number of people living in the country, but also to use the obtained information to allocate federal money and draw up congressional districts in order to determine how many people each state will get in the House of Representatives. The citizenship question, if put into the census, will take political power away from these communities by removing funding for low-income schools, hospitals, food assistance, public transit and many health insurance programs. One guess where the saved money will go. The Kos Liberation Leaguenotes: “The majority of undocumented immigrants live in large metropolitan areas. If those metro areas significantly lose population, they will lose congressional seats while conservative rural areas gain seats. Republicans would get more power in Congress and even more weight in the electoral college, giving immigrants even less of a voice in Washington to tear down racist immigration policies.” (Ima Landrum, Kos Liberation League, February 5, 2018)
Trump’s ego will simply not allow him to recognize that he lost the popular vote in the presidential election. This is why he set up the nonsensical voting commission to try and find evidence of voter fraud. The commission asked every state to give them their voter registration data for review. Most states rightly laughed this off, but the racism behind all this was clear. To cite but one example, the commission asked Texas to identify all voters with Hispanic surnames. In other words, the commission was specifically targeting the state with the second highest Latino population in the country. Kris Kobach, who was put in charge of the commission, created the Crosscheck program, the purpose of which is to locate minority voters who tend to vote Democratic and put their names on suspended voter rolls. While the phony commission has been disbanded, the intention is obvious: Republicans intend to do all they can to disenfranchise minority voters any way they can. Even after the commission was forced to disband early in January, 2018 for the simple reason that there is absolutely no evidence to back up Trump’s voter fraud claims, he continues on with his nonsense. At the end of his statement announcing the end of the phony commission, he said there was still: “substantial evidence of widespread fraud.” Early in April, 2018 Trump, speaking at a West Virginia tax reform event, again attacked Democrats for ‘rigging’ elections: “In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say, ‘oh, that’s a conspiracy theory.’ Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people.” If such a conspiracy does in fact exist, it would have to be of such enormous proportions that his fraudulent commission must have found something. Why didn’t they? Where is this conspiracy? Who is in charge of it? As always, this completely dishonest man refuses to admit what should be obvious to any thinking person: He made up the whole thing, appointed a commission because he couldn’t stand to admit he lost the popular vote and when the commission found no evidence to back up his claim, he disbanded the commission still insisting that the fraud was real. This man is the most disgraceful liar in America today. And people still believe him.
Voter fraud doesn’t exist. Voter suppression, on the other hand, is a favorite tactic among Republicans seeking to keep minorities away from the ballot box. This will be dealt with later.
Unfortunately, the Democrats are far from guiltless concerning the Dreamers. Senate Democratic leader completely caved in to the Republicans in January 2018, as reported by CREDO Action: “Sen. Schumer caved to the white supremacist base of Trump’s Republican Party and led the Senate Democrats to a total surrender–during the heat of the the Trump shutdown–that did nothing to protect Dreamers. As a result of Sen. Schumer’s sellout on the Senate floor, 33 Democrats gave away all their leverage and helped embolden the nativist extremists who run Trump’s racist regime.” (Heidi Hess, CREDO Action, January 23, 2018) Hess goes on: “That means that–despite months of passionate and intense organizing from our allies in the immigrants rights and progressive movements, and after a weekend when millions again took to the streets for women’s marches to protest Trump’s dangerous agenda–33 Democrats, in a misguided attempt to protect themselves electorally, decided to sacrifice Dreamers. Their craven calculus puts more immigrant families at risk of separation and exposes even more Dreamers to Trump’s racist deportation force. It also lays the groundwork for a DACA compromise that would include unacceptable capitulation to the extreme anti-immigrant wing of the Republican Party.”
The Republicans now dominate the Supreme Court. In addition to the stupid Hobby Lobby ruling of 2010, they gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had been written to protect black communities against racist voter suppression. The 2013 reversal has encouraged Republican legislators to make voting harder and harder for minorities, many of whom have traditionally voted Democratic. Gerrymandering is but one of the strategies they have used to keep those ‘undesirables’ away from polling places. People’s Action elaborates on this: “recent signals from the Court suggest extreme politics may step on voting rights. The U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by a Republican—appointed majority, is poised to issue a series of voting rights rulings this spring that will set the stage for elections for years to come. The majority of these cases involve gerrymandering—a process in which legislatures, in states with one-party rule, draw electoral districts to lock down their power after the once-a-decade U.S. Census. They do that by aggressively segregating reliable voters, typically ‘packing’ their base into easily won seats; while ‘cracking’ their opponent’s voters into multiple districts. Such mapmaking can give its author’s party a starting-line advantage of 6 percent or more with likely voter turnout.” (Jeff Bryant, People’s Action, February 2, 2018)
People’s Action notes with alarm the disturbing intentions of Republican congressmen to unduly voters: “Civil rights advocates and top election officials are expressing alarm over a section in the Department of Homeland Security reauthorization bill that would allow the president to send Secret Service agents to polling places… Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said Monday that the plan ‘is both chilling and unprecedented,’ and pointed to the administration’s efforts to suppress the vote. ‘History has shown that the presence of law enforcement at the polls has the effect of chilling voter turnout, especially among minority communities. Any plans to send armed guards to polling places must be considered alongside President Trump’s recent issuance of an executive order disbanding his failed Commission on Election Integrity. It was clear from the start that President Trump launched the Commission to lay the groundwork to promote voter suppression efforts across the country,’ she said.” (Richard Eskow, People’s Action, March 13, 2018)
On June 11, the right-wing Supreme Court upheld the voter purges. The ruling will make it easier for states to remove voters from the rolls if they have not voted or responded to several notifications. In the ruling, the court noted that an estimated 24 million voter registrations are inaccurate or invalid, mostly because those voters have moved. This will adversely affect those who tend to vote Democratic. The ruling appears to violate the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits states from removing anyone from the voter rolls “by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” Conservative Justice Samuel Alito used specious reasoning to justify the court’s decision, noting that failure to vote, as specified in the 1993 Act, is only one aspect of the situation, the other being the various notices that were sent out to the non voters. His reasoning is ludicrous, inasmuch as it is the failure to vote that initiates the notifications. But then, logic only works for Republicans if they can use it to their favor.
Republicans also want to gut the Americans With Disabilities Act, passed back in 1990 which kept employers from discriminating based on disabilities. In that regard, it functions somewhat as an extension of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In February, 2018, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would significantly alter the ADA. Critics noted that the new bill would weaken the ADA, and thus remove incentives for businesses to comply with the Act.
The Supreme Court, already leaning far to the right with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch, will go significantly farther since the announced retirement of Anthony Kennedy. The court has of late a most abysmal record on just about every issue. As one might expect from far right demagogues, it invariably rules in favor of corporations over individuals. A recent example of this tendency was seen on May 21, 2018 when the court ruled that businesses could deprive workers of the right to sue collectively. Daily Kos notes that: “This means that workers will no longer be able to challenge federal labor law violations outside of an individual basis, essentially eliminating critically important class action suits that can help strengthen workers’ cases against unethical employers.” (Sarah Hogg, Daily Kos, May 23, 2018)
Another example of how the Supreme Court is increasingly turning into a shill for the extreme element in the Republican party was seen in a ridiculous June, 2018 decision. As related by the Daily Kos: “In an outrageous 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court allowed the state of Ohio to remove registered voters from the rolls if they have not voted in a while. This decision potentially paves the way for millions of infrequent, predominantly low-income, voters to be disenfranchised across dozens of Republican-controlled states. The practice of ‘purging’ infrequent voters from the rolls has been used for more than a century to target people of color, and it has a very obvious partisan political agenda.” (Paul Hogarth, Daily Kos, June 11, 2018) Actions like this aren’t at all surprising; Republicans know they can’t win without cheating, so they rig elections and do anything else they can to keep minorities away from the polls.
Late in June, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s racist Muslim ban was legal. In fact it is a slap in the face of the Constitution, which disavows discrimination based on religion. CREDOAction tells us: “Trump’s Muslim ban is appalling, horrifying and unconstitutional. It illegally discriminates against immigrants based on their country of origin by targeting people born in five Muslim-majority countries including—Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen—and people born in North Korea and Venezuela. The ban prohibits people from these countries from traveling to the United States and bars many of them from ever qualifying for a green card or work visa…Trump’s Muslim ban comes from the same racism that allows him to rip families apart and terrorize immigrant communities.” (Heidi Hess, CREDOAction, June 27, 2018)
June 26, 2018 will go down as one of the worst days in Supreme Court history. On that day, three noxious rulings were announced. The first was the afore-mentioned Muslim ban which means that Muslim immigrants—refugees, babies, families, students, or anyone else—will be completely shut out of the U.S. not because they are criminals, but solely because of their religious beliefs. After this unconstitutional act, the court went after women. The court ruled that any unlicensed “Crisis Pregnancy Center” could legally lie to women about their health. In other words, phony anti-abortion centers run by religious extremists can withhold any medical information they don’t like and also cut off access to care for any woman seeking a safe, legal abortion. Finally, the court went after anyone working in the public sector. It ruled that their unions can be forced to represent people who refuse to pay dues. The end result of this is that it will become much more difficult for teachers, nurses, and any other public sector worker to negotiate for better pay and better working conditions.
These actions must be understood for what they really are. The Muslim ban is not about national security—it’s about religious discrimination. A “Crisis Pregnancy Center” isn’t the least concerned about a woman’s health—it’s about blocking women from control of their own bodies. And the public sector ruling isn’t about dues—it’s about making unions weaker and corporate dictatorship stronger.
With the upcoming retirement of Anthony Kennedy, Trump will nominate another extremist to fill the post. Kennedy was not perfect—in fact, all his rulings this year were in sync with the more radical conservatives on the court—but he occasionally went against them in the past. One thing is for certain: His successor will be another pro-corporation, anti-woman, anti-environment, anti-Muslim Christian extremist. The Supreme Court will be supremely against the rights of the most disadvantaged Americans. The overturning of Roe v. Wade will be just the tip of the iceberg.
This should not be allowed to happen; President Trump is currently under investigation and has to date committed no less than eight impeachable offenses. He should not have the right to choose a Supreme Court justice until he is cleared of all crimes.
MORE OF TRUMP’S LIES
Trump’s lies continue, and Republicans continue to ignore them. Toward the end of 2017, he attempted to reverse the ban on importing elephant kill trophies. This is not surprising given that his son in law is an inveterate big game hunter. There was a huge public outcry against this, so he decided against reversing the ban—until March 2018 when he reversed himself again. To make his lie even worse, the reversal was immediately put into effect. We have already seen how Trump and his party refuse to protect wildlife and has no problem hastening their extinction. Daily Kos ran a telling story of this lie: “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has quietly begun allowing more trophy hunting of African elephants, despite President Donald Trump’s pledge last year to uphold a ban on importing parts of animals killed by big-game hunters.” (Hunter, Daily Kos, March 6, 2018) This is typical Trump strategy: promise one thing due to public outcry, and when people have moved on, quietly reverse your stance and go back to what you wanted to do in the first place.
It is supremely ironic that the same Republicans who use the elephant as a symbol of their party are the same ones who are doing everything in their power to make them extinct.
Common Cause has an article entitled: “The Art of the Lie: Trump’s Historic First Year Failure on Government Integrity and Accountability Issues.” This article should be read by every American who cares about his/her country, as it conclusively demonstrates how this man has absolutely no moral scruples whatever. If Trump’s supporters read it and still defend him, then let them disprove what is said in the article. The article begins by listing some of his lies and distortions: “We know of no president in the history of the country, other than Donald Trump, who has:
Told more than 2,100 lies, false and misleading statements and untruths in his first year in office, an average of nearly 5.9 per day;
Attacked the media as an ‘enemy of the American people,’ placing Trump in direct conflict with founders John Adams and Thomas Jefferson;
Attacked his own law enforcement and intelligence agencies;
Attacked our strongest foreign allies while embracing our major foreign adversaries;
Sided with a major adversary over the consensus views of his own intelligence agencies;
Attacked the FBI as the ‘worst in history,’ and accused an FBI agent of ‘treason’ for the ‘crime of making negative comments about him;
Asserted an ‘absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,’ a right Trump does not have;
Attacked the entire court system as ‘broken and unfair;’
Attacked judges repeatedly for decisions which he disagreed with;
Refused to divest his vast business holdings, leaving him with massive conflicts of interest and major Emolument Clause problems;
Falsely claimed that millions of individuals voted illegally in the presidential election to explain losing the popular election by nearly 2.9 million votes.”
The Common Cause report continues: “As president, Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims in his first 365 days in office, an average of 5.9 false claims a day, according to a Washington Post study.” Although this is not the place for an in-depth examination of each and every lie he has told, this report is one of the most accurate and informative information sources available. Although it covers only the first year of his presidency, it should be required reading for every thinking American.
Americans for Tax Fairness reports on another Trump lie: “Donald Trump ran on a campaign promise to lower prescription drug prices that are crushing so many seniors and families by letting Medicare negotiate lower prices for seniors. Yet in a major address just now, he broke that campaign promise. Not only has Trump backtracked on holding pharmaceutical corporations accountable in this way―his massive $2 trillion tax scam is a windfall for drug companies. A new report by Americans for Tax Fairness finds that America’s 10 biggest prescription-drug corporations—the Pharma Big 10—are among the biggest winners from the Trump-GOP tax cuts.[1] But they are providing zero relief to their customers from skyrocketing drug prices. Instead the Pharma Big 10 are mostly using their massive tax cuts to reward their CEOs and other wealthy shareholders with fat stock buybacks and dividend hikes.” (Craig Johnson, Americans for Tax Fairness, May 11, 2018)
Trump and his supporters continue to insist that he is a great businessman. This is perhaps the biggest lie of all. I have already covered this in my previous two articles on his presidency. However, on January 18, 2018, the House Intelligence Committee released the transcripts of their interview with Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS is a research firm based in Washington DC which does open source investigations and provides research and advice for businesses, law firms, and investors. They also assist in political inquiries. Fusion’s research led to the conclusion that, as the Daily Kos aptly put it: “Donald Trump, successful businessman, is an illusion. Instead, Trump is the front man for a dark money empire—the big-talking distraction whose gold-plated lifestyle provides a glittering smokescreen around money laundering on an epic scale.” (Mark Sumner, Daily Kos, January 19, 2018) The article goes on to note: “Fusion turned up many of the same inconsistencies between Trump’s public face and his private finances as previous checks on his background like that conducted by the Financial Times and others. Trump, while claiming to be a billionaire, actually seemed to have neither any legitimate source of funds nor access to credit.”
Money laundering also enters the fray. The Daily Kos reported a January 2018 episode of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show in which Maddow noted that, starting in the late 1990s: “ownership of a chromium mine in Kazakhstan may have been an elaborate money laundering plot that shifted ownership of the mine from their employees, who were forced to sell their shares, to a shell company in the British Virgin Islands—and right into the hands of Trump properties such as Trump Soho through Refik Arif and his brother Tevfik, who is the owner of Bayrock LLC.” (Frank Vyan Walton, Daily Kos, January 21, 2018) The article elaborates: “Bayrock also received illicit funds from Mukhtar Ablyazov, the former head of a Kazahkstan’s BTA Bank who also embezzled more than $2 billion through shady loans to himself via shell companies he created. He bought three condos in Trump Soho through his son-in-law Iliyas Khrapunov, who’d had previous deals with Bayrock’s Felix Sater, using those illicit funds in an elaborate money-laundering scheme. Some of the BTA Bank money also apparently went to a fake Trump-branded casino/hotel tower project in the city of Batumi in the former soviet nation of Georgia for which many loans were made. But the project itself never went forward—yet the loans were never repaid. Trump himself was paid $1 million for use of his name in 2012, and even made a personal appearance in Batumi.” These revelations might in themselves be enough to bring down Trump’s presidency, yet the mainstream media, once again, has been derelict in its duties to report such a scandal to the American people.
The article differentiates between how the Senate and House transcripts treated the proffered information. The Kos notes: “The Senate interview, conducted by staff, is so riddled with interruptions and with attacks on Fusion, Simpson, and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele that it’s a fragmented mess where not a single Republican asks a single question that pertinent to the investigation which is supposed to be underway. By contrast, the House interview, conducted directly by the congressmen on the committee, reveals a group that clashes over procedures, but is surprisingly able to reach agreement and talk through issues. The House transcript gives every appearance of a functioning committee, with an actual interest in uncovering information. And the result was … information. Plus a pretty definitive look at Trump’s career as a real estate frontman for mobsters.” Strong language, to be sure. But Simpson goes on to say: “As we pieced together the early years of his biography, it seemed as if during the early part of his career he had connections to a lot of Italian mafia figures, and then gradually during the nineties became associated with Russian mafia figures.” The amazing thing is that the House actually allowed him to go on uninterrupted.
The article concludes: “Not only has Donald Trump spent his career in the pocket of various crooks, the central myth of the Trump universe, the idea that he ever created anything on his own, is also an enormous lie.”
New lies seem to emerge everyday, and Republicans continue to give them credibility, either by reiterating them or, as with some of the more ridiculous statements, simply ignoring them. Trump’s claim that his tax scam would help “regular families” belies the fact that the real beneficiaries are big corporations and the mega-rich. Moreover, the scam encourages job outsourcing.
Another promise candidate Trump made that President Trump has broken was his promise to quickly reduce the U.S. trade deficit. In fact, after one year in office, the goods trade deficit has gone up 5 percent from when he first took office. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) saw an 8 percent increase in that same time period. The president has the authority to limit imports, especially those from companies that outsource American jobs. This was part of his campaign promise, yet has not yet been exercised. Action Network reported in February, 2018: “The U.S. Commerce Department announced this week that the 2017 trade deficit rose to the highest level since 2008, a biggest and best figure that no U.S. President would brag about, least of all Donald Trump, who pledged repeatedly and forcefully that he would slash the deficit—and fast. Factory workers across the country are still watching and waiting for him to keep his promises of fast trade enforcement, even as mills close and unemployment benefits expire.” (Jeff Bryant, Action Network, February 8, 2018)
Another lie is that, while he claims his trade policy “turned a corner” in his first year as president, job outsourcing has continued. As an example, despite his pledge to support Carrier workers, many are seeing their jobs shifted to Mexico.
Trump continues to blast the Russia investigation at every turn. In order to divert attention away from himself, he has told so many falsehoods and outright lies that it would require a massive effort to list them all. Time and again he goes on Twitter insisting that the entire thing is a “witch hunt” and that Democrats are the corrupt party. In a February 21, 2018 tweet, he posted: “Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation? Why didn’t Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren’t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions!” This is just another lie: Obama did try to do something about it, but Mitch McConnell stopped him. McConnell said that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.” (Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, February 21, 2018)
Speaking of Twitter, Trump once again proved that he thinks he is above the law when he defied a federal court judge’s ruling that a president is forbidden by the Constitution to block people on Twitter because of differing political views. The Judge, Naomi Reice Buchwald correctly ruled that any comments on Trump’s personal Twitter account are public forums and that blocking dissenting views was a breach of the First Amendment of the Constitution. The president has unlawfully refused to abide by the ruling, proving yet again his disdain for the rule of law.
One of the most glaringly obvious lies, one that runs counter to just about every economic statement he has made, is that despite his support of the dying fossil fuel industry and promises to bring back coal jobs, only about five hundred new coal jobs have emerged in Trump’s first year in office. Sorry, Republicans, but even disrupting the Obama-era Clean Power Plan won’t save these dying industries. And, more to the point, repealing the Clean Power Plan would cost consumers money as well as leading to countless illnesses and deaths. The Plan was created to reduce carbon pollution from dirty power plants, which makes it crucial for maintaining people’s health. The EPA’s own findings in 2017 said that it could prevent thousands of cases of asthma attacks in children, and hundreds of thousands of missed days of school and work each year. (“Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Review of the Clean Power Plan: Proposal,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, October 2017.”) Despite this, Trump wants to eliminate it. One has to wonder if the main reason is that Trump just doesn’t want anything from the Obama era to survive.
One of Trump’s more heartless lies is seen in his so-called “right-to-try” legislation, which critics have more accurately called the “False Hope Act”, is offering no hope, or false hope, to patients suffering from terminal illnesses. Trump lied when he said that these people must travel to other countries if they want to receive experimental treatments.
Another ridiculous lie was when candidate Trump promised to produce “more jobs and better wages.” President Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta, wants to make restaurant waiters and waitresses hand over their tips to their bosses. The brazen immorality of this act—which Trump’s Department of Labor tried to hide from the public—has caused not a ripple of concern from him or other Republicans. If allowed to come to pass, this would have meant that a waitress earning minimum wage, would have to give up whatever money she makes in tips. This is a cheap shot at low-income Americans. Again, the cheapness and heartlessness of Republicans is so extreme that it sometimes defies credulity. Fortunately, this ridiculous act was rejected by the Department of Labor—but only after concerned citizens made such a noise about it that the heat forced the Department to act morally.
Hard-earned tips aren’t the only thing Trump is trying to take from employees; overtime is another. Big business interests filed a lawsuit against President Obama’s overtime rules that promised more take-home pay for some 12 million Americans, and Trump, despite his campaign promises to the contrary, abandoned these workers. Alexander Acosta, his Secretary of Labor, said that paying for overtime would put stress on the system. Of course, he declined to say how this could happen.
Perhaps Rep. Maxine Waters said it best when asked why she refused to attend Trump’s State of the Union address: “Why would I take my time to go and sit and listen to a liar?” On the other hand, perhaps she should have gone and yelled out “you lie” like was done to Obama by Republican cretin Joe Wilson. After all, the speech was typical Republican propaganda, consisting of lies, distortions, exaggerations designed to appease corporate polluters, war profiteers, money launderers and all the other oligarchs who have bought out the Republican party.
Of course it’s not just Republican politicians who lie. In 2017, U.S. Bank agreed to stop financing oil and gas pipelines like the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). But they broke their promise in January of 2018 when they signed on to a credit deal estimated to be worth some $5 billion for Energy Transfer Partners (ETP). ETP is, according to ActionNetwork.org: “the notorious, human-rights abusing, climate destroying, pipeline company behind DAPL and some of the dirtiest pipeline on earth.” (Drew Hudson, ActionNetwork.org, February 1, 2018) The bank is currently making untold millions off the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (BBP), the company behind DAPL, and dozens of other dirty pipelines across America’s landscape. Its actions are baffling because, as the article cited above notes: “Big banks and finance institutions, from New York City’s pension funds to the World bank are divesting from dirty fossil fuels.”
Construction began on the BBP pipeline in February, 2018. It will bring tracked oil from North Dakota to export terminals near St. James, Louisiana. The pipeline will traverse no less than seven hundred bodies of water, threatening not only the water, but the local economies that depend on it. Local organizers are fighting back, but they need assistance—in particular legal assistance.
Donald Trump is a profoundly unstable man, who contradicts both his words and actions without making any effort to explain why. His recent actions at the Group of 7 summit in Canada is one example of this. The Los Angeles Times reports:
“President Trump alienated the United States’ closest allies at the Group of Seven summit in Canada with his aggressive trade declarations and surprising suggestion that Russia be readmitted to the exclusive club of major economic powers—and then, after departing early, went on Twitter to blow up the agreement forged at the meeting.
“Trump exited the Quebec resort Saturday where the group had gathered, leaving other world leaders whipsawed and uncertain about their future relationship with the U.S., to head to Singapore for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday.
“Trump’s actions added to the anxiety of longtime U.S. allies, who are alarmed to see him lashing out against them while he is advocating for Russian President Vladimir Putin and cozying up to Kim.” (Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times, June 10, 2018)
Clearly, Donald Trump doesn’t know his friends from his enemies. More importantly, he obviously doesn’t know a thing about how to run a country.
THE CABINET FROM HELL
Trump’s cabinet appointees have proven themselves to be every bit as insane as I initially reported. This chapter will provide numerous examples to illustrate the point that Donald Trump’s cabinet is the worst assemblage of immoral miscreants and incompetents ever to disguise themselves as ‘public servants.’
Former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson served as Trump’s Secretary of State until mid-March, 2018 when he was replaced with Mike Pompeo. As you might expect from an Exxon CEO and a far-right Republican, Tillerson had a very bad record on climate issues. However, his replacement bodes to be far worse. Climate Hawks Vote sounded the alarm as soon as Trump named him as Tillerson’s replacement: “Pompeo was a member of Congress before being confirmed as CIA director, where he represented Koch Industries. Well, technically he represented Kansas’ 4th District, where Koch had its headquarters, but he was Congress’ biggest recipient of Koch money during his tenure. So Trump is simply replacing one oil-soaked Cabinet member with another oil-soaked Cabinet member. Unlike Tillerson, who paid lip service to the science of climate change, Pompeo is a hardcore climate denier. Pompeo’s climate denial will set the tone at the State Department, which represents the United States on the Paris Agreement details as well as international aid and development—which matters a lot to climate refugees, to developing nations deciding between coal and renewables, and more. Pompeo is a hard right Islamophobe who has at times depicted the fight against terrorism as a war between radical Muslims, on one side, and the Christian faith on the other—not a good look for America’s top diplomat.” (RL Miller, Climate Hawks Vote, March 13, 2018) If this were not enough, Pompeo is outspokenly opposed to the Iran Nuclear Deal, which was implemented during Obama’s administration and keeps Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. As Daily Kosnotes: “Trump has already attempted to decertify the deal, a move that would likely lead to another war in the region. Tillerson was reportedly working with allies to keep it in place. Pompeo would likely end these negotiations.” (Monique Teal, Daily Kos, March 17, 2018) The same article discusses other dangers posed by this man, including: “As a U.S. Rep. Pompeo said that ‘eventually he wants the National Security Agency to be able to restart its bulk collection of metadata and combine those records with even more information: financial and lifestyle details that would be accessible in a huge, searchable database.’ His support of extreme surveillance and his history of anti-Muslim statements would send a chilling message to world leaders across the globe.” The Kos article rightly concludes by saying: “Pompeo is a xenophobic, pro-torture, climate-denying, homophobic war hawk.” In other words, exactly the kind of man supported by today’s Republican party.
Democratic fears were realized in May, 2018 when Trump announced that the United States was officially withdrawing from the Iran deal by refusing to waive sanctions. This deal was put together by six different countries, and its removal is a singularly stupid one, for a number of reasons. First, it tells our allies that we cannot keep our word. Second, it increases the possibility of a war with Iran. Third, it frees Iran to built up nuclear weapons, since Trump has provided no counter plan to keep them from doing so. Finally, since there are no logical reasons for Trump to have made this move, the only conclusion to arrive at is that he did so for one reason only: To destroy another of Barack Obama’s accomplishments, no matter what the cost. Spite is the name of the game in this administration. The Week called Trump’s move: “possibly the greatest deliberate act of self-harm and self-sabotage in geo-strategic politics in the modern era.” (The Week, May 8, 2018) Let’s get our terminology correct: There are no provisions in the deal for a pullout, so Trump did not ‘pull out’ of the Iran deal. He violated it.
Trump’s enthusiasm for dictators and disdain for our allies becomes more and more obvious by the day. Already, dictators in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other countries are loudly proclaiming Trump’s support as support for their violations of human rights, torture, and crackdown on dissidents.
Take Bahrain as an example. While little attention has been paid to this country in the American press, Bahrain is in effect a police state. According to The Intercept: “For more than seven years now, security forces in the tiny Gulf island kingdom have been shooting, maiming, blinding, and detaining pro-democracy protesters in their hundreds and thousands.” (Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept, May 22, 2018) The article goes on to describe the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration, which had little effect. Hasan continues: “Under Trump, however, even those few restrictions have been lifted—and the rhetoric transformed. “Our countries have a wonderful relationship together, but there has been a little strain. But there won’t be strain with this administration,” the new U.S. president proclaimed a year ago, during a meeting with Bahrain’s king, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, at a summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Less than 48 hours later, on May 23, 2017, Bahraini security forces raided the village of Diraz and opened fire at a sit-in by supporters of the Sunni-ruled kingdom’s most high-profile Shia cleric. Five people were killed, including a respected environmental activist, more than 100 were wounded, and 286 were arrested. It was the deadliest attack on Bahraini protesters since the start of the revolt in 2011—and it was done with the blessing of the president of the United States. ‘The timing of this operation—two days after King Hamad’s convivial meeting with President Donald Trump—can hardly be a coincidence,’ observed Nicholas McGeehan, then a senior Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch, last May…The reality is that, with a license from Trump, the brutal Bahraini regime has escalated attacks on peaceful protesters while meting out collective punishment against opposition figures and human rights activists.” Clearly, the U.S. president has no problem at all supporting a country where murder, torture, and human rights violations are a daily occurrence.
Saudi Arabia is no different. The Intercept article just quoted notes: “ In March, Trump welcomed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, to the Oval Office, where he described the U.S.- Saudi relationship as ‘probably the strongest it’s ever been,’ and told MBS that his father, King Salman, had ‘made a very wise decision’ by appointing the prince as both his heir and de facto ruler of the country. Last week—less than two months after his visit to the White House—MBS ordered the arrest of 10 prominent Saudi activists, including a group of women’s rights campaigners. (So much for ‘Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring.’)” The article closes: “The president of the United States has blood on his hands, from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia to Egypt, and, across the region.”
Meanwhile, as the president embraces dictators all over the globe, he alienates most of our allies. Canada is a case in point. Until Trump came along, we always had a terrific relationship with Canada. No more. The problem began when Trump unnecessarily imposed tariffs against Canada. Naturally, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was upset and said so; he was not about to be bullied by Trump. In response, Trump called Trudeau meek, mild, dishonest and weak. The Canadian House of Commons, in an unprecedented condemnation of a U.S. president, unanimously voted to condemn Trump. Give the Canadian government credit: they have done something even our own Republican-dominated Congress has failed to do: stand up to Trump.
It speaks volumes about Trump that he can’t even get along with Canada!
John Bolton is National Security Advisor, and it would be difficult to imagine a more dangerous person in that post. The ultimate ‘war hawk,’ Bolton has repeatedly called for regime changes in North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Libya. He views the entire world in totalitarian terms, and wants the United States to be the number one world leader. He is on record as having said: “There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along.”
The New York Times ran an editorial entitled: “Yes, John Bolton really is that dangerous” in which it was noted: “There are few people more likely than Mr. Bolton is to lead the country into war. His selection is a decision that is as alarming as any Mr. Trump has made. His selection, along with the nomination of the hard-line C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, as secretary of state, shows the degree to which Mr. Trump is indulging his worst nationalistic instincts. Mr. Bolton, in particular, believes the United States can do what it wants without regard to international law, treaties or the political commitments of previous administrations. He has argued for attacking North Korea to neutralize the threat of its nuclear weapons, which could set off a horrific war costing tens of thousands of lives.” (The editorial board, The New York Times, March 23, 2018) The article continues: “Over a 30-year career in which he served three Republican presidents, including as United Nations ambassador and the State Department’s top arms control official, Mr. Bolton has largely disdained diplomacy and arms control in favor of military solutions; no one worked harder to blow up the 1994 agreement under which North Korea’s plutonium program was frozen for nearly eight years in exchange for heavy fuel oil and other assistance. The collapse of that agreement helped bring us to the crisis today, where North Korea is believed to have 20 or more nuclear weapons.” The editorial concludes: “Mr. Bolton is certain to accelerate American alienation from its allies and the rest of the world.” True, but Trump himself is the ‘chief accelerator’ of this alienation.
If all this were not enough, Slate provides us with more ammunition showing how dangerous this man really is, not just to the United States, but to the world community in general: “Bolton has repeatedly called for launching a first strike on North Korea, scuttling the nuclear arms deal with Iran, and then bombing that country too. He says and writes these things not as part of some clever ‘madman theory’ to bring Kim Jong-un and the mullahs of Tehran to the bargaining table, but rather because he simply wants to destroy them and America’s other enemies too.” (Fred Kaplan, Slate, March 22, 2018)
The situation in North Korea took a suddenly different course in June, 2018 when, after a meeting with Kim Jong Un, Trump announced that: “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” Naturally, Republicans jumped on this as ‘proof’ of how great a diplomat Trump is. But what did Trump really gain from this meeting? A ‘promise’ from a dictator who is universally known not to keep his promises? Worst case scenario: Trump’s naive cozying up to this dictator will endanger our security, based on Kim’s untrustworthy promise. Trump, never willing to admit error, will denounce anyone daring to report that North Korea is again building nuclear warheads. And when the facts become obvious, he will blame Democrats. Republicans are nothing if not predictable.
Consider the fact that it was Bolton who was the chief architect of the war against Iraq. People’s Action tells us that: “12 years later, with 5 percent of the total population of Iraq dead, thousands of US troops dead, and trillions of dollars of taxpayer funds bled away, he told the Washington Examiner that he still thought the Iraq War was worth it. He even commented that ‘the worst decision made after that was the 2011 decision to withdraw US and coalition forces.’ I witnessed the carnage firsthand in Iraq. I saw the destruction of an entire country. I watched women, children and the elderly slaughtered in Fallujah by the US military. I walked through freezers full of decayed bodies that were the detritus of Bolton’s US empire project. The fact that this individual is about to become national security adviser feels like a true nightmare about to revisit us.” (Andy Spears, People’s Action, March 28, 2018)
A man of such poor judgement who spews ethnic hatred and is more than willing to start a war at the drop of a hat has no place in government, much less in a crucially important position like the National Security Advisor. Obviously, Trump has no hesitation appointing the most dangerous people to the most sensitive positions. He is appointing a war cabinet because, as I have maintained in my previous articles and will again discuss here, he is preparing us for war.
When he was running for president in 2016, Rick Perry, Trump’s Secretary of Energy, said that the department should be abolished. So it was perhaps inevitable that Trump would appoint him to the post he wants to destroy; he has repeatedly appointed people to top administrative posts who are openly hostile to the post they are now leading. Perry has come up with statements that are so ludicrous that it is amazing that anyone takes him seriously. He has even said that fossil fuels prevent sexual assault!
But Perry is only one member of a cabinet that would be laughable were it not such a danger. People have come and gone in this administration at a rate that would be incomprehensible to anyone not acquainted with Donald Trump’s mindset.
2018 has seen Perry trying to muzzle the voices of scientists who have dared to speak out against the quasi-science and false science that is becoming a ubiquitous presence in our society. Hostility toward science and logic is of course the foundational ideology of today’s far-right Republicans, so Perry’s actions are quite consistent with this thinking (or rationalizing). The bottom line is that Perry, like the others in the Trump cabinet, is doing his best to destroy the department he is supposed to be leading.
Rick Perry is Secretary of the Department of Energy, yet another example of a person chosen to destroy a cabinet post from the inside. It is no secret that the administration wants to prop up the dirty fuel industry while de-funding clean renewable energy sources. 2018 saw the White House propose cutting the DOE’s renewable energy and energy efficiency programs by 72 percent. This cut is even deeper than that of the previous year. Environment America provides us with the specifics: “the 72 percent cut would mean:
•Decreased funding for the SunShot program, whose goal is to drive down the price of solar energy nationwide;
•Abolishing the weatherization program, which helps reduce utility bills for thousands of homeowners;
•An 82 percent cut in research into fuel efficient vehicles and electric cars; and
•A 78 percent cut in research into solar energy technology.” (Ed Johnson, Environment America, February 9, 2018)
This is yet another example of how Republicans don’t care what the public wants; people want more clean energy, not less; two thirds of the American people prefer developing clean fuel alternatives to continued fossil fuel extractions. Environment America tells us what is happening outside the cloistered halls of Congress and the White House: “Outside of our nation’s capital, states, cities, businesses and institutions are taking action and making bold commitments to a clean energy future:
• In 2015, Hawaii became the first state to pass legislation for 100 percent renewable electricity (by 2045), and California, Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington are currently considering similar bills;
•A wave of more than 50 cities, from San Diego to Atlanta to St. Louis, have made 100 percent renewable commitments;
•College campuses like Cornell University, Boston University and Colorado State University have committed to a goal of powering their campuses with 100 percent clean, renewable energy; and
•Businesses, ranging from General Motors to Walmart to Google, have also made plans to go 100 percent renewable. (Ed Johnson, Environment America, February 13, 2018)
Perry is so far removed from reality that he is on record as saying it is ‘immoral’ to help poor countries shift away from fossil fuel. At a CERAweek energy conference in Houston, Perry said: “Look those people in the eyes that are starving and tell them you can’t have electricity. Because as a society we decided fossil fuels were bad. I think that is immoral.” One would think that a man in charge of a $2 billion clean energy program would be aware of the fact that wind and solar power are cheaper sources of electricity and are now significantly cheaper than the fossil fuels he loves. Sticking with dirtier, more expensive fossil fuels is what is really immoral here. Over a million people in India perish each year due to air pollution directly caused by burning fossil fuels. Is that moral? Think Progress goes even further: “A 2017 Lancet study concluded that globally, air, water, and soil pollution kill more than 9 million people a year. Air pollution alone accounts for 4.5 million deaths, and those numbers are projected to rise sharply in developing countries in the coming years. Pollution kills more people each year than war, AIDS, and malaria combined.” (Joe Romm, Think Progress, March 8, 2018) The article alarmingly notes: “The failure to shift rapidly to clean energy will therefore squander trillions of dollars in the coming decades, while killing millions and irreversibly destroying the climate for centuries to come.” But then, what do Perry and the Republican party care about the future?
Appointing Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education was just another example of how Trump appoints people to positions of high authority even though the have no qualifications whatever to do their job. She got the job even though she does not have a background in education, has no education degree, has no teaching experience, never attended a public school, never sent her children to one, and supports public funding for Christian schools over public ones. Like so many others, DeVos was appointed because Trump wants her to dismantle the agency from the inside. She has not disappointed her boss; DeVos has rolled back protections for disabled students and survivors of sexual assault. To cite but one of many examples of how she is destroying the Department, her Title IX policy on sexual harassment and violence has led to an increase in school violence and made school officials increasingly reluctant to investigate claims to that effect. This is another example of the Republican war against women—written and implemented by a woman.
DeVos has had a hard time explaining how it is that the public schools in her home state of Michigan have performed so poorly, especially in light of the school choice policies she has always advocated.
Trump’s Federal Communication’s Director, Ajit Pai, was the driving force behind eliminating net neutrality. Even as he was doing this, Pai began another attack on communication by imposing a cap on the Lifeline program that helps low-income people buy broadband and phone service. Pai is just another far-right Republican that has no problem giving away billions of dollars to the richest Americans while nickel and diming everyone else. Repealing net neutrality means that corporations can now dictate which websites you look at, where you get your news, even how you watch movies and listen to music. If this isn’t fascism, then what is? Fortunately, the Senate made the correct decision for once and voted to restore net neutrality; the House vote is unknown as I write this in early July, 2018.
Ryan Zinke has proved himself to be an absolute disaster as Interior Secretary. Unless, of course, you believe that the environment is there for us to exploit without any regard for the consequences. As with all Trump’s appointees, Zinke was selected with the intent of having him destroy the department from within. January 2018 saw a mass resignation of the advisory board of the U.S. National Park Service; three quarters of them suddenly resigned because Zinke refused to do his job and even meet with them. Clearly, Zinke’s agenda had nothing to do with assisting the Park Service; they stand in the way of his and his bosses’ “corporations only” agendas. And, like Ben Carson, Scott Pruitt and probably all the other members of this corrupt cabinet, Zinke has used taxpayer money in extremely suspect ways. People’s Actiondescribes one of these: “Interior Secretary reportedly bought a $139,000 door with taxpayer money. ThinkProgress: “The Interior Department declined to further elaborate on the construction to the Associated Press, and a man who answered the phone at the company that performed the work reportedly hung up on the reporter when asked about Zinke’s office.” (Robert Borosage, People’s Action, March 9, 2018)
Like his boss, Zinke now refers to ‘clean coal,’ something that just does not exist. ThinkProgress debunks this nonsense: “Experts have repeatedly argued that clean coal doesn’t exist. Carbon capture and storage, the process through which emissions from coal power are buried underground, is a largely unproven and costly process, one that has never gained much traction commercially.” (E.A. Crunden, ThinkProgress, June 27, 2018) The article continues: “‘[It’s] better if you’re an environmentalist to burn clean coal,’ Zinke insisted during the interview, criticizing the cost of solar panels and related clean energy endeavors. ‘Wind chops up a lot of birds,’ he argued several times, echoing a debunked talking point often used to oppose renewable energy.” How funny to see a Republican suddenly become a wildlife supporter if he thinks it helps his cause.
The Sierra Club reports another action engineered by Zinke and Trump: “In a clear giveaway to the oil and gas industry, the Trump administration and Secretary Zinke recently released a plan to gut safeguards that limit methane and other air pollution from oil and gas drilling on public and tribal lands. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and, alongside other toxic gases emitted from oil and gas drilling, is linked to increased asthma rates, birth defects, and cancer. The fossil fuel industry is allowed to vent, leak, and simply burn off huge amounts of this gas (called flaring) when they frack for oil and gas on America’s public and tribal lands.” (Matthew Gravatt, Sierra Club, March 10, 2018)
Like his boss, Zinke doesn’t care about wildlife and protecting endangered species. As NRDC informs us: “Elephants, lions, giraffes, and other imperiled wildlife are facing yet another dire threat. The same week that the Trump administration disastrously decided to lift the ban on elephant and lion trophy imports, the Interior Department quietly created something innocuously called the International Wildlife Conservation Council, to ‘advise on international hunting.’ However, contrary to its name, the IWCC actually puts wildlife at grave risk. Turns out, it’s run almost exclusively by trophy hunters and gun industry executives who now wield considerable influence over America’s international hunting policies. Make no mistake: The IWCC has very little interest in protecting our planet’s most vulnerable wildlife species. One look at the IWCC’s members tells you all you need to know. They include the NRA’s director of hunting policy, the Vice President of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (an organization that lobbies for hunters), a gun industry executive, a veterinarian with ties to the exotic animal trade, and a reality-TV safari hunting guide. Missing from the council are members with actual scientific expertise in wildlife conservation.” (Rhea Suh, NRDC, May 4, 2018) Obviously, in Republican lexicon, ‘conservation’ means ‘hunting and killing.’
And, like just about every other Republican leader, Zinke is more than willing to lie whenever it suits him. The ThinkProgress article notes that: “The Interior Secretary claimed on a Fox News radio program in March 2017 that: ‘there’s no such thing as clean energy’ and that the administration’s pursuit of coal is doing no harm to the environment.” Proof? None supplied, of course. Just another blank, false assertion that has no basis in fact.
The article cited above also gives us more information on just what this administration is doing: “As president, Trump has overturned the Stream Protection Rule, which required mining companies to monitor stream pollution levels and established buffer zones between streams and surface mines. The administration has also granted Oklahoma coal ash regulation powers and may soon do so for other states, weakening oversight of the toxic substance.”
In light of Ronald Reagan’s statement that ‘trees cause pollution’ and Scott Pruitt’s claim that climate change is good for us and Ben Carson’s calling raising the rent of low-income Americans ‘welfare reform,’ Ryan Zinke, not to be outdone in claiming as fact that which is the exact opposite of the truth, claimed that the best way to ‘save’ our public parks is by opening them up for fossil fuel extraction. This is yet another example of the absolutely ridiculous things Republicans can say with a straight face.
Like other cabinet members, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made a mockery of his department. In addition, like so many other Republicans, he is an inveterate racist. In May, 2018, the Trump administration announced that it would be ripping families apart at the U.S./Mexico border. Sessions announced at a law enforcement conference in Scottsdale, Arizona: “If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law.” To Sessions and his chief, parents trying to give their children a better life are ‘smugglers.’ As a consequence of this policy, over two thousand children have been removed to what amounts to detention facilities in which minimal care is provided for their needs. This inhumane policy has resulted in a backlash against the administration perhaps unmatched in American political history. Clearly, the party that screams loudest about ‘family values’ doesn’t apply those values to Latino families. Most people, unlike our conservative leaders, recognize that children should not be used as bargaining chips.
The Huffpost reported on June 21, 2018 that: “it hurts him (Sessions) to hear Christian leaders condemning his policy of taking children away from their parents at the border and putting them in cages in detention facilities.” (Jennifer Benderi, Huffpost, June 21, 2018) Sessions is in charge of implementing Trump’s zero tolerance policy on immigration, which by the end of June 2018 had separated over 2,300 children from their parents. Obviously, inflicting trauma on children is A-OK with this administration. The Huffpost article reports: “Photos from detention facilities show kids being kept in large cages and given foil blankets. Audio from one facility, obtained by ProPublica, features small children crying out for their parents as a U.S. Border Patrol agent jokes about an ‘orchestra’ of wailing children.” So how did Sessions react? He defended the policy by quoting the Bible.
The public reaction to this criminally immoral policy was unprecedented, and Trump was forced to stop separating immigrant families. Even so, as of this writing he has no plans on reuniting the children with their parents. In fact, his new “plan” is to lock up parents and children indefinitely, which contradicts a 2015 court order that prohibits children from being detained for more than twenty days.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts flew to McAllen, Texas on Sunday, June 24, 2018 to see for herself exactly what is happening to the families being torn apart by the Trump administration. The report is extremely long, but; as it is so important I will print the first section, as follows:
“I went straight from the airport to the McAllen Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processing center that is the epicenter of Donald Trump’s so-called ‘zero-tolerance’ policy. This is where border patrol brings undocumented migrants for intake before they are either released, deported, turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or, in the case of unaccompanied or separated children, placed in the custody of Health and Human Services.
“From the outside, the CBP processing center looks like any other warehouse on a commercial street lined with warehouses. There’s no clue about the horrors inside.
“From the outside, the CBP processing center looks like any other warehouse on a commercial street lined with warehouses. There’s no clue about the horrors inside.
“Before we could get in, CBP insisted we had to watch a government propaganda video. There’s no other way to describe it—it’s like a movie trailer. It was full of dramatic narration about the ‘illegals’ crossing our border, complete with gory pictures about the threats that these immigrants bring to the United States, from gangs to skin rashes. The star of the show is CBP, which, according to the video, has done a great job driving down the numbers.
“Then an employee described what we were about to see. ‘They have separate pods. I’ll call them pods. I don’t really know how they name them.’ Clearly they had gotten the memo not to call them what they are: cages. Every question I asked them had a complicated answer that led to two more questions—even the simple question about how long people were held there. ‘Nobody is here longer than 24 hours.’ ‘Well, maybe 24-48 hours.’ ’72 hours max.’ And ‘no children are separated out.’ ‘Well, except older children.’
“Then an employee described what we were about to see. ‘They have separate pods. I’ll call them pods. I don’t really know how they name them.’ Clearly they had gotten the memo not to call them what they are: cages. Every question I asked them had a complicated answer that led to two more questions—even the simple question about how long people were held there. ‘Nobody is here longer than 24 hours.’ ‘Well, maybe 24-48 hours.’ ’72 hours max.’ And ‘no children are separated out.’ ‘Well, except older children.’
“The warehouse is enormous, with a solid concrete floor and a high roof. It is filled with cages. Cages for men. Cages for women. Cages for mamas with babies. Cages for girls. Cages for boys.
“The stench—body odor and fear—hits the second the door is opened. The first cages are full of men. The chain link is about 12-15 feet high, and the men are tightly packed. I don’t think they could all lie down at the same time. There’s a toilet at the back of the cage behind a half-wall, but no place to shower or wash up. One man kept shouting, ‘A shower, please. Just a shower.’
“The stench—body odor and fear—hits the second the door is opened. The first cages are full of men. The chain link is about 12-15 feet high, and the men are tightly packed. I don’t think they could all lie down at the same time. There’s a toilet at the back of the cage behind a half-wall, but no place to shower or wash up. One man kept shouting, ‘A shower, please. Just a shower.’
“I asked the men held in cage after cage where they were from. Nearly all of them were from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras.
“Then I asked them how long they had been there—and the answers were all over the map, from a few days to nearly two weeks (72 hours max?). The CBP agents rushed to correct the detained men, claiming that their answers couldn’t be right. My immigration specialist on the trip who speaks fluent Spanish made sure the men understood that the question was, ‘How long have you been in the building?’ Their answers didn’t change.
“Cage after cage. Same questions, same answers.
“Next we came into the area where the children were held. These cages were bigger with far more people. In the center of the cage, there’s a freestanding guard tower probably a story or story-and-a-half taller to look down over the children. The girls are held separately in their own large cage. The children told us that they had come to the United States with family and didn’t know where they had been taken. Eleven years old. Twelve. Locked in a cage with strangers. Many hadn’t talked to their mothers or fathers. They didn’t know where they were or what would happen to them next.
“The children were quiet. Early afternoon, and they just sat. Some were on thin mats with foil blankets pulled over their heads. They had nothing—no books, no toys, no games. They looked shell shocked.”
“Then I asked them how long they had been there—and the answers were all over the map, from a few days to nearly two weeks (72 hours max?). The CBP agents rushed to correct the detained men, claiming that their answers couldn’t be right. My immigration specialist on the trip who speaks fluent Spanish made sure the men understood that the question was, ‘How long have you been in the building?’ Their answers didn’t change.
“Cage after cage. Same questions, same answers.
“Next we came into the area where the children were held. These cages were bigger with far more people. In the center of the cage, there’s a freestanding guard tower probably a story or story-and-a-half taller to look down over the children. The girls are held separately in their own large cage. The children told us that they had come to the United States with family and didn’t know where they had been taken. Eleven years old. Twelve. Locked in a cage with strangers. Many hadn’t talked to their mothers or fathers. They didn’t know where they were or what would happen to them next.
“The children were quiet. Early afternoon, and they just sat. Some were on thin mats with foil blankets pulled over their heads. They had nothing—no books, no toys, no games. They looked shell shocked.”
After reading this, can any American with an ounce of compassion not feel angry at an administration that allows this kind of inhumane treatment to take place? The responsibility for this travesty rests with Trump, Sessions, every politician who does not report what is happening, and the media for the same reason.
Let’s be honest here. These should not be called “detention facilities” or any other innocuous term. They are concentration camps!
Keeping in mind that Sessions was once denied a federal judgeship because of his racism, and his actions become more understandable, if not forgivable. Racism is covertly behind many of Sessions’ policies, as it is with most of Trump’s cabinet members. For example, he is an ardent foe of marijuana use. This might be a plausible stance until you realize that he stopped supporting the Ku Klux Klan only because they smoked marijuana. And this man is our Attorney General?
Then there is the brouhaha about Andrew McCabe, who stepped down as Deputy Director of the FBI on January 29, 2018. From May 9, 2017 to August 2, 2017, McCabe served as Acting Director after Trump fired James Comey. Sessions fired McCabe on March 16, 2018, a mere 26 hours before his scheduled retirement. Sessions claimed that he fired McCabe because he felt him to be dishonest. McCabe fired back, denying this and stating that his firing was politically motivated. He has stated his intention to sue the Trump administration for: “wrongful termination, defamation, Constitutional violations and more.” McCabe issued a public statement that, although long, deserves to be quoted in full:
“I have been an FBI Special Agent for over 21 years. I spent half of that time investigating Russian Organized Crime as a street agent and Supervisor in New York City. I have spent the second half of my career focusing on national security issues and protecting this country from terrorism. I served in some of the most challenging, demanding investigative and leadership roles in the FBI. And I was privileged to serve as Deputy Director during a particularly tough time.
‘For the last year and a half, my family and I have been the targets of an unrelenting assault on our reputation and my service to this country. Articles too numerous to count have leveled every sort of false, defamatory and degrading allegation against us. The president’s tweets have amplified and exacerbated it all. He called for my firing. He called for me to be stripped of my pension after more than 20 years of service. And all along we have said nothing, never wanting to distract from the mission of the FBI by addressing the lies told and repeated about it.
‘No more.
‘The investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has to be understood in the context of the attacks on my credibility. The investigation flows from my attempt to explain the FBI’s involvement and my supervision of investigations involving Hillary Clinton. I was being portrayed in the media over and over as a political partisan, accused of closing down investigations under political pressure. The FBI was portrayed as caving under that pressure, and making decisions for political rather than law enforcement purposes. Nothing was further from the truth. In fact, this entire investigation stems from my efforts, fully authorized under FBI rules, to set the record straight on behalf of the Bureau and to make it clear that we were continuing an investigation that people in DOJ opposed.
‘The OIG investigation has focused on information I chose to share with a reporter through my public affairs officer and a legal counselor. As Deputy Director, I was one of only a few people who had the authority to do that. It was not a secret, it took place over several days, and others, including the Director, were aware of the interaction with the reporter. It was the same type of exchange with the media that the Deputy Director oversees several times per week. In fact it was the same type of work that I continued to do under Director Wray, at his request. The investigation subsequently focused on who I talked to, when I talked to them, and so forth. During these inquiries, I answered questions truthfully and as accurately as I could amidst the chaos that surrounded me. And when I thought my answers were misunderstood, I contacted investigators to correct them.
‘But looking at that in isolation completely misses the big picture. The big picture is a tale of what can happen when law enforcement is politicized, public servants are attacked, and people who are supposed to cherish and protect our institutions become instruments for damaging those institutions and people.
‘Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey. The release of this report was accelerated only after my testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed that I would corroborate former Director Comey’s accounts of his discussions with the President. The OIG’s focus on me and this report became a part of an unprecedented effort by the Administration, driven by the President himself, to remove me from my position, destroy my reputation, and possibly strip me of a pension that I worked 21 years to earn. The accelerated release of the report, and the punitive actions taken in response, make sense only when viewed through this lens. Thursday’s comments from the White House are just the latest example of this.
‘This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally. It is part of this Administration’s ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this day. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the Special Counsel’s work.
‘I have always prided myself on serving my country with distinction and integrity, and I have always encouraged those around me to do the same. Just ask them. To have my career end in this way, and to be accused of lacking candor when at worst I was distracted in the midst of chaotic events, is incredibly disappointing and unfair. But it will not erase the important work I was prevailed to be a part of, the results of which will in the end be revealed for the country to see.
‘I have unfailing faith in the men and women of the FBI and I am confident that their efforts to seek justice will not be deterred.”
This is one of the most revealing comments ever posted on the criminal administration that is Donald Trump’s, as well as Trump’s own vindictiveness. And, of course, most of the mainstream media chose to ignore it.
Mick Mulvaney is Director of the Office of Management and Budget and Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In February 2018, the Daily Kos discussed the activities of yet another Trump cabinet member who has every intention of destroying his post from the inside: “He’s already zeroed out its operating budget for the quarter, and he’s been systematically winding down or just stopping the Bureau’s ongoing investigations. Mulvaney is systematically extracting every tooth that the CFPB has. That includes dropping the investigation of how one of the nation’s big three credit scoring corporations—Equifax—allowed hackers to steal the personal data of almost every American with a credit history.” (Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, February 5, 2018) The article summarizes thusly: “Whether it’s protecting loan sharks who also happen to have been big donors to Mulvaney when he was in the House or allowing lenders to racially discriminate without fear of prosecution, Mulvaney is defanging the Bureau.”
The CFPB has been around since 2011. Its role is to collect consumer complaints about banks and other financial institutions. They have been very successful in their endeavors, so much so that Republicans are determined to strip it of all its power. The CFPB posts each complaint on its accessible website in order to help consumers choose the right bank for themselves; it also sends the complaints to the companies so that they can resolve the issue in a fair and timely manner. Mulvaney says wants to shut down the public database and hide all the complaints, claiming that he doesn’t want to run a “Yelp for financial services.” Although he doesn’t say why, the reason should be obvious: He is more interested in serving big banks than ordinary citizens, and has no problem at all with these banks’ cheating practices.
In February, 2018, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote a petition to Congress as follows: “Crack down on the out-of-control credit reporting agencies like Equifax that put Americans’ personal data at risk. Support the Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act, which would install new safeguards and mandatory penalties, and the Freedom from Equifax Exploitation (FREE) Act, which would protect people and give them more power over their information.” (reported by Murshed Zaheed, CREDO Action, February 16, 2018) The article also notes: “The Equifax breach was even worse than we thought. The company recently announced that hackers accessed more of Americans’ personal information than previously revealed. Equifax’s disclosure comes on the heels of a scathing new report from Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The report reveals the credit reporting company’s failures before, during and after the breach—including attempting to profit off the disaster. The damning indictment arrives even as Trump’s hand-picked head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, is sabotaging his own agency’s effort to punish Equifax…Under Sen. Warren’s new bill, Equifax would have paid at least $1.5 billion in penalties for putting 145 million Americans’ personal information at risk. Instead, the company may end up making money off the breach. Equifax waited more than a month to tell the public after discovering the data breach, during which time a number of executives sold their company stock.” This is typical of today’s corporate environment: criminal violations, an exposure, and Republican attempts to cover it up and excuse the crimes.
The Daily Kos tells us exactly how Trump and Mulvaney are de-fanging the CFPB: “According to a new report in The Washington Post, the Trump administration has ‘stripped enforcement powers away from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau office that specializes in pursuing cases against financial firms for breaking discrimination laws.’ Meaning, Wall Street can resume illegal discrimination against people of color in its lending practices, with no fear that the government will do a thing about it.” (Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, February 1, 2018) The Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity, which had previously been a part of a CFPB division, has been moved inside the office of the director, which will serve to weaken its power to investigate cases of malfeasance. The change will make it much more difficult to enforce civil rights laws, and make it increasingly more likely that consumers will face discriminatory access and pricing because they will have little legal recourse to take action against these companies. The Kos article concludes: “Redefining the Bureau is part and parcel of Mulvaney’s job—he’s been put in charge of destroying it. Moving the Fair Lending office under Mulvaney’s direct control is clearly a move to neuter any enforcement power. This is after he zeroed out the Bureau’s budget. Literally. He sent a funding request for $0 to the Federal Reserve. Clearly, he’s intending to bankrupt the agency, using up the $177 million it currently has on hand and to let it wither away. So that the consumers of this country—with a special emphasis on people of color—can be preyed upon by lenders again.”
It didn’t take long for Mulvaney and the administration to begin efforts to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mulvaney wants lawmakers to re-structure the bureau by giving Congress control over the CFPB’s budget and to make any new rules created by the bureau subject to Congressional approval. This is in direct contradiction to one of the stated purposes of the bureau, namely to remain independent from political influences. The bottom line is that this consumer watchdog may soon be under the direct control of Congress—and Donald Trump.
The reasons are obvious why Mulvaney and his boss want to eliminate the CFPB. The most obvious is the fact that they were able to win over twelve billion dollars from corporations and return that money to 29 million defrauded Americans. In 2015, the CFPB was successful in forcing Encore Capital Group and Portfolio Recovery Associates to pay $79 million in refunds and penalties to thousands of people the companies had screwed over. CREDOAction takes it from there: “The CFPB has also engaged in policymaking, issuing new rules for home-mortgage lenders in 2013 that took aim at banks’ pattern of intentionally lending money they know borrowers can’t repay, at high interest rates. In 2016, the agency also instituted new guidelines for payday lenders in an attempt to stop loan sharks from targeting desperate people boxed out of traditional financial services due to debt and bad credit.” (Josh Nelson, CREDOAction, May 1, 2018) Given this, and also given the obvious fact that both Mulvaney and Trump want to destroy the agency, the most basic question should be asked of them: Who were you elected to serve, the big money corporations, or ‘we the people?’
In early June, 2018, Mulvaney fired all 25 members of the agency’s advisory board because some of them had dared to criticize him. As she usually does, Elizabeth Warren posted a stinging comment on Mulvaney: “Mick Mulvaney has no intention of putting consumers above financial firms that cheat them. This is what happens when you put someone in charge of an agency they think shouldn’t exist.” (Elizabeth Warren, The Washington Post, June 6, 2018) This statement could just as easily be applied to the rest of Trump’s cabinet.
It didn’t take Mulvaney long to show his corruption. One of the first things he did was to give huge pay raises to those assisting him in running the bureau. Several of them are now in the quarter million dollar salary range, which is more than members of Congress and Cabinet Secretaries earn.
Mulvaney’s corruption is obvious. As People’s Action reports: “Mick Mulvaney, the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is not shy about the relationship between money and politics. ‘We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,’ Mulvaney, a former Republican representative for South Carolina’s 5th District, told 1,300 bankers and lending industry officials on Tuesday. ‘If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you,’ Mulvaney told attendees of the American Bankers Association conference in Washington. During his congressional campaigns, Mulvaney received nearly $63,000 from payday lenders. In the speech Tuesday, Mulvaney encouraged the financial services industry to make campaign donations, saying he was most responsive to constituents and lobbyists who contributed to his campaign when he was a congressman.” (Tara Raghuveer, People’s Action, April 26, 2018) This speech has gotten a great deal of notoriety, as it shows how Washington insiders really operate: Mulvaney is telling a group of banking executives and lobbyists to buy their way out of regulation and help him destroy the consumer watchdog agency he is supposed to be leading! This is one of the most blatant examples of how corrupt Republican officials betray the public interest. Common Cause weighs in on this disgraceful situation: “Frankly, it’s dangerous for anyone with that attitude to hold a position of power. He does not belong in office. But the problem is bigger than just Mick Mulvaney. We must dismantle the whole pay-to-play system—deeply unethical, but perfectly legal—that he’s bragging about.” (Karen Hobert-Flynn, Common Cause, April 25, 2018)
This is corruption on an unprecedented scale. Here we have the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget Office and acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, all but boasting that he has operated on bribes from the beginning of his career. If this isn’t enough to indict Mick Mulvaney and remove him from office, I don’t know what is; the man is a crook, pure and simple. Why isn’t a prosecuting attorney acting on this?
Kellyanne Conway, who serves as Counselor to the President, has the distinction (?) of being the person who created the term “alternative facts.” She was referring to the “Bowling Green Massacre,” although this never happened. Critics have noted the comparison between ‘alternative facts’ and ‘newsspeak,’ a confusing language style central to George Orwell’s famed 1984’ novel. In fact, after this was pointed out, sales of Orwell’s classic increased by 9,500 percent.
Another gem ‘alternative fact’ was her claim that Trump had complete confidence in Michael Flynn, mere hours prior to Flynn’s dismissal. She is yet another cabinet official who is under investigation: In a rare example of unity, members of both parties of Congress have called for an investigation of possible ethics violations after Conway publicly endorsed commercial products associated with Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter.
Finally, we need look no further into her character, other than to note that she was a known supporter of Roy Moore, the fundamentalist former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who admitted to dating under-age girls when he was in his thirties. His various peccadilloes and improprieties and highly questionable ethics were covered in my earlier articles on Trump’s presidency and need not be reiterated here.
Gina Haspel is now the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, thanks to several important Democrats who betrayed their party, the Constitution, and their country by voting her in. Previously, she was head of a site in Thailand that used torture techniques (euphemistically re-titled ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’) to extract information from prisoners. Of course, it is a well-known fact that torture ‘confessions’ are worthless as those being tortured will say just about anything to stop the pain being inflicted on them. Consider the words of Doug Stafford, an aide for Rand Paul (a Republican): “According to multiple published, undisputed accounts, she oversaw a black site and she further destroyed evidence of torture. This should preclude her from ever running the CIA.” Paul himself has expressed similar misgivings. The point is obvious: Haspel oversaw torture techniques that are both unconstitutional as supremely immoral. She then destroyed the evidence.
Daily Kos provides the specific: “In 2002, while serving as chief of base of the CIA black site where detainees were subjected to torture and other unlawful abuse, she directly oversaw Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri’s interrogation using so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ including waterboarding. In 2005, she drafted and signed her name to a cable, on behalf of her boss, Jose Rodriguez, ordering the destruction of dozens of videotapes capturing the interrogations, despite directives to the contrary from the White House, the Department of Justice, and members of Congress. Her role in the torture program should have led to her prosecution, both domestically and internationally. It definitely disqualifies her from public service, let alone running the very agency at the heart of this appalling history. Haspel’s supporters claim that she shouldn’t be penalized for simply following orders.” Here, I would add that the same rationale was used by Nazi lawyers defending their clients at the Nuremburg trials after World War 2. It didn’t work then and it shouldn’t work now. The Kos continues: “Despite that, Trump has signaled support of torture, saying he wants to bring back waterboarding ‘and a hell of a lot worse.’ If confirmed, Haspel could once again ‘just follow orders,’ this time from Trump, and help him bring back the days of inhumane, ineffective and illegal torture interrogation techniques.” (Monique Teal, Daily Kos, March 25, 2018)
With Haspel now in charge of the CIA, is it too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that waterboarding and other forms of torture may soon become legal strategies for obtaining information? Especially when we have a president who promises torture “a hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding. These are indeed frightening times; if Trump and his minions can ‘justify’ torture, what is to keep them from adopting other Nazi strategies?
Before moving on to Scott Pruitt, a few words about the agency he heads are in order. The Environmental Protection Agency was formed back in 1970 as an independent agency of the U.S. government. As such it is not a cabinet member, but its administrator is given cabinet rank. Although the administrator is appointed by the president and approved by Congress, he or she is not supposed to be unduly influenced by either party. The EPA’s job is to conduct research and environmental assessments and to maintain and enforce national standards on differing environmental laws. Most of the EPA’s employees are scientists, engineers, and specialists in environmental protection. At least, until the Trump administration, they were.
Given the current administration’s hatred of objective scientific conclusions, many of the scientists themselves have either resigned or been fired. This was obvious at the beginning of Trump’s presidency when Pruitt announced that scientists who received grants from the EPA could no longer serve that agency due to an alleged ‘conflict of interest.’ The result was predictable: Dirty fuel industry representatives and officials friendly with the industries replaced competent scientists to ‘help’ the EPA initiate new policies. Of course, Pruitt sees no conflict of interest here.
Scott Pruitt may well be the worst person in Trump’s entire cabinet and team. It’s not just that he is trying to destroy the agency he runs from the inside, but that he has also proven himself to be perhaps the most corrupt member of Trump’s team. His lavish travels in favor of the fossil fuel industry have come at exorbitant and unnecessary cost to America’s citizens; in February 2018 it was revealed he has spent $90,000 on first-class flights. As you might expect, taxpayers footed the bill. And, like any corrupt official, he has made every effort to conceal this from the public. A spokesperson for the EPA has defended this nonsense, saying that anyone searching for the truth can make a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act. This could lead to a long involved investigation that could take years—long after Pruitt has mercifully left office. Pruitt is: “worried about flying in economy class, where everyday people can voice their concerns about Pruitt’s allegiance to toxic polluters.” (Brad Johnson, Climate Hawks Vote, February 23, 2018) In other words, Pruitt is afraid to face the public. But why should he be, if he is in fact protecting our interests, which is what he was elected to do?
But unnecessary first class flights are just the tip of the iceberg. Pruitt has been flying first class to hold secret meetings with corporate executives in order to help them increase their profits—at the expense of the people who are living in polluted cities and towns and in defiance of the job he is supposed to be doing. He also ordered a dozen customized fountain pens—at a price of $1500. Pruitt also had a $25,000 secret phone booth installed at his headquarters and spent millions of dollars looking for bugs in his office. He has also installed biometric locks and hired round-the-clock bodyguards. The man is obviously paranoid in the extreme.
When testifying before two House subcommittees in April, Pruitt lied, distorted his answers, and sometimes refused to answer questions at all. He was asked about his ridiculous travel expenses, his deal for a luxury condo on Capitol Hill that was owned by the wife of an energy industry lobbyist. His transgressions are so extreme that both parties wanted him investigated. The general public is becoming more and more concerned about him as well: A national poll conducted by the NRDC Action Fund found that almost sixty percent of our citizens think Trump should fire Pruitt. Not that the president cares what anyone else thinks, of course.
On May 16, 2018, Pruitt was again testifying under oath before another Senate hearing investigating his handling of the EPA. Climate Hawks Vote tallied up four new lies he told on that day:
“1. He claimed industry lobbyist Steven Hart from whom he had a sweetheart condo deal wasn’t a registered lobbyist with business before the EPA. Disclosure forms show this is false.
2. He claimed he was not behind the misuse of emergency sirens to move him more quickly around DC. Emails from his security personnel reveal Pruitt was regularly behind their use, including one instance where he was late to a dinner reservation at Le Diplomate, an upscale French restaurant.
3. He claimed his unprecedented security—which has already cost taxpayers millions of dollars—was prompted by valid threats. Documents show he requested the security before his first day on the job and before any of the so-called threats.
4. Pruitt claimed his office wasn’t applying a political review on Freedom of Information Act requests aimed at exposing his unethical behavior. Emails show his political appointees scrambling to clamp down on those requests for political reasons.” (RL Miller, Climate Hawks Vote, May 17, 2018)
We have already discussed Pruitt’s paranoia, which isn’t surprising; he may be a crook, but he’s still intelligent enough to know that what he is doing is in direct opposition to what he and his office are supposed to be doing. His paranoia is so extreme that he barred several news outlets from attending an EPA summit at which he was speaking. When an AP reporter asked to speak to someone from the EPA’s public affairs office, security guards grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her out of the building. If he’s not paranoid, and he’s not trying to do anything shady, why the secrecy?
CREDOAction takes it from there: “The week before, news broke that EPA chief Scott Pruitt had quietly buried an EPA study on a nationwide water contamination crisis. The study found that a class of chemicals contaminating water supplies across a large region endangers human health when present at far lower levels than the EPA has previously called safe. Pruitt’s efforts to keep the public in the dark about serious health risks are unethical, authoritarian and dangerous. The AP’s executive editor called the selective banning of journalists ‘a direct threat to the public’s right to know about what is happening inside their government.’ Trump’s contempt for journalists and his shameless disregard for democratic norms have made his top officials feel free to conduct what should be public business without the pesky eyes of the public watching them. When the government hides environmental risks, our communities are less safe. And when public officials get to pick and choose which journalists are allowed to cover them, our democracy is less safe too.” (Brandy Doyle, CREDOAction, May 29, 2018)
After about a year in office and despite the reluctance of the media to report them, people started to wake up to the crimes this man has done to the agency he is supposed to be representing. The purpose of the EPA is to ensure that all Americans have access to clean air, land, and water. Despite the name and stated purpose of the group he is supposed to be leading, his every action proves that Pruitt is nothing more than a shill for corporate polluters. The only thing he is ‘protecting’ is their interests; the health and well-being of America’s citizens is completely ignored by Pruitt, as they are by everyone else in this administration. Friends of the Earth summarizes his agenda with crystal clarity: “He’s trying to gut the Clean Water Rule and the Clean Power Plan. He’s pushing out EPA scientists and experts while hiring fossil fuel industry cronies and personal friends. And he’s trying to starve critical programs of the resources needed to hold polluters accountable.” (Lukas Ross, Friends of the Earth, January 30, 2018) In any other situation, Scott Pruitt would be dismissed as a small-time crook living the high life off of taxpayer dollars. But, corruption and lies aside, the biggest problem is that Pruitt is a danger not only to the United States, but to the entire world. He is, according to a Los Angeles Times editorial: “single-handedly imperiling the earth by dismantling the EPA, undoing long-standing, bipartisan-supported rules and regulations, and arguing the wrong side of every environmental issue at a moment when the fate of the planet is up for grabs.” (editorial, Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2018)
After discussing the facts of global warming that Pruitt’s agency denies, the editorial then elaborates on the role of the EPA and the hearings that led to Pruitt’s confirmation: “The EPA came into being four decades ago for a reason. States were doing a lousy job of regulating pollution, which left skies smoggy, rain contaminated with acids and rivers and lakes laced with industrial toxins. The EPA hasn’t always done a good job, but it has played a vital role in trying to keep our communities healthy and habitable. Pruitt has sought to undo that by ignoring science, distrusting the advice and professional conclusions of his staff and vigorously attacking regulations that evolved through years of deliberation. It is to the Senate’s shame that it approved Pruitt’s nomination despite knowing that as Oklahoma’s attorney general, he had filed more than a dozen lawsuits challenging regulations and the legal authority of the EPA.”
Pruitt’s co-administrators at the EPA also tend to be wickedly corrupt. People’s Action tells us about two of them: “Albert Kelly, a ALBERT KELLY, A senior adviser to Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned Tuesday. Kelly, who was overseeing the agency’s Superfund program, left amid questions about his banking career. Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, Pruitt’s head of security, also abruptly resigned, leading many to question whether Pruitt would be next. As The Intercept reported in December, Kelly was the chair of SpiritBank in Bristow, Oklahoma, until he was banned for life from the banking industry by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Kelly, or ‘Kell’ as he’s known by his friends, had provided several loans to Pruitt, including mortgages and funding for his share of a Triple-A baseball team, the Oklahoma City RedHawks. While Kelly was its chairman, SpiritBank became financially unstable and unable to pay back most of $30 million it received from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program.” (Jeff Bryant, People’s Action, May 3, 2018) Again, little was made of this in the mainstream press.
Further evidence of corruption lies in the EPA’s increased screening of public records requests relating to Pruitt and his activities. This has resulted in: “slowing the release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to internal emails obtained by POLITICO. Pruitt’s political appointees review documents collected for nearly all FOIA requests. Past administrations gave political aides a similar courtesy, but experts told POLITICO the level of vetting has increased markedly in the Trump administration.” (Richard Eskow, People’s Action, May 7, 2018)
Now let us examine the environment and the current EPA’s negligence in protecting it. Consider the ramifications of this administration’s attempt to gut the Clean Water Rule. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) paints a not-very-pretty picture for the future: “If the Trump administration succeeds in squashing the Clean Water Rule in favor of weak rules that benefit big polluters, so much is at risk: the streams that feed drinking water supplies of 117 million Americans—about one in three of us. The wetlands that filter pollution and help prevent floods during today’s ever-strengthening storms. And the fish and wildlife that call our waterways home and support a robust outdoor recreation economy. It’s outrageous. The Clean Water Rule was backed by clear scientific consensus and was founded on 1,200 peer-reviewed publications, a lengthy comment period, 400 stakeholder meetings, and years of public debate. Now the Trump administration is trying to steal it from the people it was written to protect.” (Rhea Suh, NRDC, February 13, 2018) Scandals aside, the fact that Pruitt wants to gut the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air act, acts which have reduced pollution and saved countless lives without harming the economy in any way, is the strongest proof there is that he should be removed.
Water pollution and shortages are becoming a serious worldwide concern, and the problems will only escalate in the future. The Daily Kos paints an extremely dim portrait: “According to the UN, climate change, population growth and consumption will likely result in two-thirds of the entire global population facing a lack of sufficient water resources by 2025.” (G.C. Howard, Daily Kos, March 4, 2018) The article continues: “The Great Barrier Reef will suffer ‘irreversible’ damage by 2030 unless radical action is taken to lower carbon emissions, a stark new report has warned.” Can we continue to put our heads in the sand, as our leaders are doing?
Of course, Pruitt is another climate change denier. At least he was. Until April, when he suddenly made the singularly stupid statement that climate change is good for us. Which is it? If it doesn’t exist, how can it be good or bad for us? With Republicans, you never know. In Republican’s Orwellian world, the definition of ‘science’ has been changed to suit their agendas, which the EPA is using in their attempts to cast doubt on existing environmental safeguards and making future ones impossible to implement.
Pruitt may deny the reality of human-caused climate change, but he cannot defend his position rationally; he is a shill for the fossil fuel industry, not a scientist. His denials haven’t intimidated U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell: In June, 2018, she ordered the EPA to supply the proof that climate change is a hoax. This should prove interesting, as climate deniers have repeatedly failed in their court efforts to disprove climate change.
But let us hear from actual people who recognize and have been affected by environmental damages. The Sierra Club tells a few of their stories:
“My county has the largest coal-fired power plant in Va. Decades of coal ash are in unlined dumps and it’s been documented that toxic chemicals are leaching into public waterways.”
Daryl & Tylene Downing, Virginia
“I live in North Carolina. A bad coal ash spill here would poison the drinking water for a million people. Furthermore, it costs less to protect the water now than to clean it up afterwards.”
Rose Marie Tresp, North Carolina
“My five-year-old son only remembers life on bottled water—we’ve been using it the past three years because of leaking coal ash pits. No child should ever worry about the water they’re using to brush their teeth. We should not have to fight and beg for safe drinking water. As a mother, I try to protect my children. What kind of protection are we receiving from the Environmental Protection Agency?”
Amy Brown, North Carolina
The article tells us: “These comments come on the heels of last week’s EPA public hearing, where more than 60 local leaders from communities across the country traveled to Arlington, Virginia, to oppose Pruitt’s proposal to rollback the coal ash rules.” (Dalal Aboulhosn, Sierra Club, May 3, 2018)
Given that Pruitt is completely wrong about what the EPA is supposed to be doing, it isn’t at all surprising that he has some skewed ideas about economics as well. The Los Angeles Times printed an excellent article exposing his latest stratagem for destroying the EPA:
“His latest ploy is a proposal to change how the EPA calculates the costs and benefits of environmental regulations, a process that polluters have consistently criticized. In a notice inviting the public to comment on whether and how to change the cost benefit analysis, released on June 7, Pruitt appears to be laying the groundwork for reforms that would allow the EPA to hide the real-world value of protections by downplaying or leaving out many of the benefits they provide.
“Like Pruitt’s war on science, which culminated in a plan to ignore an entire category of scientific studies when measuring environmental risks, his war on economics could erode regulatory protections. If it moves forward, the scheme is likely to make it much easier to block new standards and endanger many of the ones we already have.”
“…Every year, the evidence shows that environmental protections prevent thousands of premature deaths, thwart countless illnesses and save tens of billions of dollars. A comprehensive study conducted by the EPA in 2011 found that, from 1990 to 2020, the annual benefits of air pollution standards will have exceeded total costs by about 25 times. Even the Trump White House recently concluded that the economic benefits of all major regulations were several times higher than the total costs.
“Environmental protection is a great deal for the American public, in other words. But Pruitt’s proposal seems intended to low-ball the benefits, making it easier to portray environmental regulations as inefficient and unnecessary.” (Rob Verchick, Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2018)
The EPA, under Scott Pruitt, is becoming a worthless appendage to the body politic, which of course is exactly what he, Trump, and virtually every Republican politician wants. The EPA was created to protect the environment and our health, yet Pruitt and the Republican party are doing the exact opposite. Friends of the Earth gives us more evidence of their toxic agenda: “Donald Trump’s EPA reversed a nationwide rule that would have revoked all uses of Dow’s extremely toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos. Now it’s going even further by discontinuing funding for research that documents how these pesticides harm our public health and the environment. This research is crucial for protecting our children from toxic chemicals. Shining a light on the harm chemicals do to our health is the first step in getting these chemicals out of our environment…This is just the latest attack on independent science from the Trump administration. Trump has tried to fill his government with Monsanto hacks and oil industry executives—all while pushing scientists to leave their jobs at the EPA. At the same time, he’s trying to eliminate our environmental protections at every turn.” (Tiffany Finck-Haynes, Friends of the Earth, February 27, 2018)
Pruitt also cut off a chemical pollution study early in 2018, although it was not disclosed until May. As People’s Action tells us: “Scott Pruitt’s EPA and the White House sought to block publication of a federal health study on a nationwide water-contamination crisis, after one Trump administration aide warned it would cause a ‘public relations nightmare,’ newly disclosed emails reveal. The intervention early this year—not previously disclosed—came as HHS’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry was preparing to publish its assessment of a class of toxic chemicals that has contaminated water supplies near military bases, chemical plants and other sites from New York to Michigan to West Virginia. The study would show that the chemicals endanger human health at a far lower level than EPA has previously called safe, according to the emails.” (Jess King, People’s Action, May 15, 2018)
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is actively involved in fighting Trump and Pruitt’s dangerous agenda. A January news release mentioned three things they are fighting in court. They want the EPA to “follow through with a long-planned ban on chlorpyrifos, a nerve gas pesticide shown to cause devastating harm to children, including lower IQs, developmental delays, and serious neurological damage.” (Rhea Suh, NRDC, January 27, 2018. The same article notes that they also want to: “Block Pruitt from resurrecting the disastrous Pebble Mine project that would endanger half the world’s sockeye salmon, Native peoples, and magnificent wildlife like brown bears and bald eagles in Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay wilderness.” The third item on their agenda is to: “Stop the EPA from green lighting toxic nemonic pesticides that are killing endangered bees and butterflies and could pose a threat to the human nervous system.”
People’s Action ran a most revealing article which says a great deal about how Pruitt operates: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an ethics waiver to one of Pruitt’s political appointees, John Konkus, to let him work for unknown outside private clients. These clients, and their political or commercial interests, won’t be divulged, raising troubling questions about possible conflicts of interest. We already know that Konkus—a Republican operative from Florida who worked for a political consulting firm with Koch Brothers’ entities and GOP candidates on its client roster—was screening EPA grants for political suitability. Konkus calls climate change ‘the double C-word’ and vets grants accordingly. He is now one of two employees in senior EPA leadership positions allowed to earn $135,000+ government salaries while also drawing paychecks from outside clients that may have a direct stake in EPA’s work.” (Robert Borosage, People’s Action, March 9, 2018) Only a party as corrupt as the current Republican party could allow such nonsense to continue. With them, it’s just ‘business as usual.’
Here is another word about the Bristol Bay Wilderness. Friends of the Earth tells us: “The mining industry is pulling out all the stops in its bid to destroy Alaska’s Bristol Bay. They want to build the massive Pebble Mine—which would threaten one of the largest and last remaining wild salmon populations in the world.” (Verner Wilson, Friends of the Earth, February 5, 2018) The article continues: “Local communities have long been opposed to Pebble Mine. More than 65 percent of all Alaskans, 80 percent of Bristol Bay residents—including Native people—and more than 85 percent of commercial fishermen strongly oppose it. And it’s no secret why: the mine could generate more than 10 billion tons of dangerous waste, wipe out 90 miles of salmon streams and pollute more than 5,000 acres of wetlands, ponds and lakes. The salmon population would likely plummet — with catastrophic impacts for the local communities.” How much devastation to our environment will it take before people wake up and call the Republicans to task?
If all this were not enough, Pruitt has also proven himself to be made of the same dictatorial cloth as his boss. People’s Action gives us the details: “Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has announced that he alone will decide what is and isn’t acceptable science for the agency to use when developing policies that affect your health and the environment. It is his latest effort to cripple the agency.” (Jeff Bryant, People’s Action, March 27, 2018) This constitutes final proof, if any were remotely needed, that Pruitt refuses to even listen to sound science; he wants to define it himself. Like his president, he lives in a cocoon where nothing contrary to his beliefs is allowed to enter. The People’s Action report adds: “Mr. Pruitt, who as Oklahoma’s attorney general described himself as ‘a leading advocate against the E.P.A.’s activist agenda,’ said in an interview published in The Daily Caller last week that he would no longer allow the agency to use studies that include nonpublic scientific data to develop rules to safeguard public health and prevent pollution. Opponents of the agency and of mainstream climate science call these studies ‘secret science.’ But that’s simply not true. Peer review ensures that the analytic methodologies underlying studies funded by the agency are sound.”
There is yet another threat to our environment that the EPA will not only do nothing to prevent, but actively encourage. They are currently considering the possibility of allowing partially treated sewage to be dumped into our oceans, lakes and rivers. Environment America takes it from there: “We’re already dealing with major sewage overflows all across the country. When heavy rains overwhelm our aging sewer systems, treatment plants release raw sewage into our waterways. It happened earlier this spring, when nearly 8 million gallons of rainwater and raw sewage overflowed into New York’s Genesee River, and more than 4 million gallons spilled in Baltimore. In Oregon, 1.3 million gallons of partially treated sewage spilled into the Willamette River, along with an “unknown amount” of raw sewage. It’s not only disgusting—it’s dangerous. This wastewater contains dangerous microbes, nutrient pollution, metals and pharmaceuticals, which can close beaches and make our families sick. We know there are actions we should take to deal with this problem—actions like investing in repairing and updating our sewage treatment plants, and reducing the stormwater runoff that overwhelms treatment plants in the first place. But the EPA’s solution—to allow ‘sewage blending,’ or the planned release of partially treated and untreated sewage into our waterways—is no solution at all. It would allow treatment plant operators to continue business as usual instead of dealing with the problem head on.” (Ed Johnson, Environment America, June 6, 2018)
In April, 2018, Trump’s administration tried to build its case for weakening federal rules that require cars and SUVs to average 55 miles per gallon by 2025. To do this, they made the absurd argument that these fuel efficiency goals, rather than meeting climate and air quality standards, in fact could kill people. According to the lead story in the Los Angeles Times: “…Scott Pruitt is tossing aside reams of federal and California data showing the fuel economy standards are perfectly safe.” (Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2018) The article continues by trying to explain Pruitt’s rationale: “The agency is preparing to make the case that tough fuel economy rules could in effect force automakers to sell smaller, lighter and thus less crash-worthy vehicles, leading to more crash-related deaths. And it warns the rules could drive up the cost of cars to the point that consumers will put off buying new models equipped with life-saving technology improvements.” The stupidity of Trump and Pruitt’s argument is obvious: Fuel economy rules don’t force consumers into buying smaller, less safe automobiles. Clearly, Trump and Pruitt are grasping at straws, and their efforts to rationalize weakening these federal rules are patently transparent.
The Daily Kos has published a review that summarizes what this man is all about. Although long, it needs to be printed in full. The review notes that he has:
“Created new regulations requiring that studies related to human health violate individual privacy in order to be used by the EPA. Pruitt put forward this idea on a claim of ‘transparency,’ but he announced the plan at a meeting closed to public and press, and knowingly structured the rules to eliminate most of the key studies that have formed public policy over the last four decades.
“Tried to line up lobbyists who were interested in sending him to spots he wants to visit around the world, whether or not he had any EPA related reason for going.
“Delivered a multi-million dollar gift to Trump contributor and associate Carl Icahn, by giving Icahn’s oil refinery a waiver allowing it to operate without fully meeting EPA requirements.
“Lied to Congress about CAFE standards paving the way for freezing or rolling back requirements that would save drivers billions and protect everyone’s health.
“Lied to Congress about firing people who pointed out his excess spending, and followed it up by forging a resignation letter to cover up the firing.
“Lied to Congress about his security concerns, including repeatedly stating that he had a letter from the Inspector General showing the high level of threats he had received, when actually what he was waving around was an internal memo that showed nothing of the kind.
“Told corporations that he was there for them, and that they could literally have their cake and eat it too by altering regulations so that they could charge more, clean up less, and be better protected from environmental concerns.
“Is currently the subject of at least ten federal ethics investigations.
“Took multiple trips at the request of fossil fuel lobbyists that had nothing to do with the EPA’s mission or goals.
“Deliberately hid EPA data on climate change, and is still hiding it.
“Has a history of wasting taxpayer money that goes back to his job as Attorney General of Oklahoma.
“Was called ‘unfit to lead the EPA’ because of his ethical issues by the leader of George Bush’s EPA.
“Has purged scientists from the EPA’s science advisory boards and replaced them with industry lobbyists.
“Got a bargain townhouse form fossil fuels lobbyists, lied about it, lied about being cleared to live there, and then lied more about it. To Congress.
“And all of that is just scratching the surface on Pruitt.” (Mark Sumner, Daily Kos, May 8, 2-18)
Trump and Pruitt are trying to destroy the Environmental Protection Agency and, in so doing, endanger the health and well-being of American lives. There is no possible way of denying this. To expedite this, they are also appointing corporate hacks like Michael Tilchin to top posts in the EPA. While head of CH2M Hill, a global engineering company, Tilchin was responsible for exposing dozens of workers to plutonium poisoning. Another appointee, Peter Wright, is a Dow Chemical lawyer who formerly worked for Monsanto. He was Trump’s choice to lead the EPA office that oversees chemical spills at Superfund sites. Does it make any kind of objective sense to appoint a Dow shill to be in charge of cleaning up the mess made by his company? Friends of the Earth relates: “Wright has spent his career trying to protect Dow and other companies from being held accountable for poisoning our communities. If he gets the job at the EPA, Wright would be responsible for toxic sites tied to the companies that once employed him.” (Tiffany Finck-Haynes, Friends of the Earth, March 28, 2018)
Just once I would like to see an interviewer ask Pruitt: “If the EPA’s stated purpose is to protect the environment and the health of our citizens, how are your actions consistent with that purpose?” Consider the right-wing slant of most major news media groups, I’m not expecting anyone to ask such a question. Pruitt wouldn’t allow himself to be set up for potentially hostile questioning anyway.
Let’s allow Climate Hawks Vote to have the final word on Pruitt: “He’s corrupt. He’s threatening the lives of Americans by placing profit over the health of our children. When pressed by members of Congress, he blames his staff. No wonder Trump’s standing by Scott Pruitt. Trump and Pruitt are two peas in a pod!” (RL Miller, Climate Hawks Vote, May 4, 2018) No wonder Trump insists Pruitt is “doing a great job.”
The first step to correcting the corruption that is rampant in politics in general and the Republican party in particular is to recognize the ‘powers behind the throne.’ The brothers Charles and David Koch have never run for public office, but that certainly doesn’t mean they have no political power. They are the heads of Koch Industries which for decades has been: “extracting, refining, and burning some of the dirtiest oil, gas, and coal in the world. Now, they plan to spend $400 million to corrupt our 2018 elections and prop up anti-climate groups and candidates.” (R.L. Miller, Climate Hawks Vote, February 5, 2018) The article gives us the connection between the brothers and governmental officials: “The Kochs make billions while polluting our planet. They funnel that money into climate-denying, anti-government front groups. They help elect climate deniers. Then they reap even more cash when Trump and the GOP Congress deregulates their industry, suppresses climate scientists, and gives them massive tax breaks.” This is the system we must destroy if we and our planet are to survive.
The Koch brothers have been actively involved in re-shaping American politics since the 1960s. Their partners include the Devoses, Mercers, and Adelsons, as well as numerous multinational corporations. They are assisted by a wide range of corporate lawyers, front groups, right-wing academics, various think tanks and other propaganda agencies. This clique is better organized and more pervasive in how America is run than either of the two major political parties; the Koch brothers and their allies virtually own the Republican party and it is they who are pretty much calling the shots. Whatever branch of government they are in, Republicans invariably formulate their policies and strategies in accordance with this cabal’s wishes. The most plutocratic tax scam ever foisted upon the American public in December, 2017 is just one manifestation of this influence. And, as their influence continues to grow, Americans will increasingly feel themselves with less and less protection from corporate greed and dishonesty. The Hightower Lowdownsummarizes this decidedly anti-American strategy as follows: “Every day, we can witness corporate-purchase officials in Washington and state capitols doing what the people don’t want done and ignoring what we do want accomplished. They feel free to act with impunity to serve the plutocratic interests funding their elections. And we also see that—in a country where the top 1 percent of households by wealth owns nearly 38 percent of stocks (80 percent of us own just 8 percent)—moneyed investors and imperious CEOs feel no compunction about grabbing ever more of America’s riches, even as they routinely stiff workers, rip off their own customers, lobby for more special tax breaks, and demand that lawmakers balance budgets with cuts to Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, and other programs the people need and overwhelmingly support.” (Jim Hightower, The Hightower Lowdown, February, 2018)
It should come as no surprise that the Koch brothers, who are the second wealthiest family with money and assets estimated at $96 billion, will be huge beneficiaries of the Republican tax scam; they will be the recipients of about a billion dollars more every year. All paid for by us.
Dr. Ben Carson is, like Scott Pruitt, another extravagant spender of taxpayer money. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, needless to say, has no interest in doing any development that might actually help people. The Daily Kos reports: “A senior career official in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has alleged that she was demoted and replaced with a Donald Trump appointee after refusing to break the law by funding an expensive redecoration of Ben Carson’s office. Helen Foster said she was told ‘$5,000 will not even buy a decent chair’ after informing her bosses this was the legal price limit for improvements to the HUD secretary’s suite at the department’s Washington headquarters.” (Hunter, Daily Kos, February 27, 2018) The article continues: “It certainly seems that Trump appointee scandals have a particular flavor to them. Each appointee arrived with the instructions to trim their department to the bone, based on the notion that federal offices are wasteful money pits full of longtime government workers who have no regard for the put-upon taxpayers. So the appointees respond by curtailing federal travel in their department (while booking private jets for themselves) or by trimming entire working groups (while refurbishing their offices with, say, a soundproof booth for talkin’ about secrets).” Trey Gowdy, who serves as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, soon requested that Carson turn over all documents and communications pertaining to Foster’s claims.
Graft and corruption are an epidemic in today’s Republican party. Carson is working not to assist the people his agency is supposed to be helping, but instead doing everything he can to hurt them. He has gone so far as to change HUD’s mission statement by removing stated promises of inclusive and discrimination-free communities. As People’s Action reports: “In a March 5 memo addressed to HUD political staff, Amy Thompson, the department’s assistant secretary for public affairs, explained that the statement is being updated ‘in an effort to align HUD’s mission with the Secretary’s priorities and that of the Administration.’ The new mission statement reads: ‘HUD’s mission is to ensure Americans have access to fair, affordable housing and opportunities to achieve self-sufficiency, thereby strengthening our communities and nation.‘” (People’s Action, March 8, 2018)
The Washington Post reveals the scandalous nature of Carson’s actions: “Carson’s proposal, if approved by Congress, would lead to a threefold increase in the rent paid by extremely low-income Americans. His plan, announced in April, would increase the rent paid by tenants in subsidized housing from 30 percent of adjusted income to 35 percent of gross income. It also would raise the monthly minimum rent charged by public-housing agencies from $50 to $150.” (Hannah Natanson, The Washington Post, June 26, 2018) His rationalization is about as stupid as any public official has ever come up with; he insists that higher rent will encourage these low-income individuals to go out and get a job. Only in his Orwellian world could Carson go on Fox News and say with a straight face that his plan is: “our attempt to give poor people a way out of poverty.” And this man is supposed to be one of the administration’s leading intellectuals!
Naturally, there have been significant repercussions to this mean-spirited legislation. The Washington Post article just cited informs us that: “District housing advocates and low-income tenants delivered a petition to Congress on Tuesday demanding that lawmakers reject Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s proposal this spring to raise rents for the poorest Americans. About a dozen people gathered outside the office of Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) at 11 a.m. to deliver the petition, which garnered more than 100,000 signatures from people across the country. Hensarling chairs the House Financial Services Committee.” Again, grassroots activism is the only way for the American people to make their voices heard against the idiotic policies of the Republican party.
There are other, lesser-known individuals that Trump wants to appoint, or has appointed, to powerful governmental positions. One of these is Eric Dreiband, a lawyer nominated by Trump to serve as Assistant Attorney General of The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. This caused a great deal of alarm due to his record of defending major corporations against discrimination lawsuits. Among others, he has defended the University of North Carolina’s anti-LGBT agenda and a Catholic challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit. CREDO Action tells us that: “In advance of Dreiband’s committee hearing, Sen. Patrick Leahy said he ‘honestly couldn’t think of a more uniquely unqualified nominee to defend and enforce the core civil rights laws that codify the values of a just and tolerant society.’” (Heidi Hess, CREDO Action, February 5, 2018)
But Dreiband is only one appointee that constitutes a threat to our country.
Howard Nielson is another. As he is fairly typical of the kind of judicial appointments this administration is trying to make, I will take the time to focus on him. Nielson is another pro-torture, anti-gay judicial nominee who was hurriedly pushed through the Senate Judiciary Committee. The vote was party line, as one would expect nowadays. He is also a lackey of the National Rifle Association (what a surprise) and has defended their interests in court three times. Nielson filed a brief on behalf of Republican congressmen in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency, in which he argued that EPA lacked the legal authority to regulate greenhouse gases emitted by large industrial polluters. This is the man who is Trump’s choice to be United States District Court judge for the District of Utah. This is a lifetime appointment, so if it goes through, Nielson could conceivably sit on the bench for decades. Nielson was part of President George W. Bush’s attempts to find legal reasons for torture, euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” When questioned about his role, he attempted to deflect the questions to avoid personal responsibility for his actions. This of course was more than enough to satisfy Senate Republicans. The Daily Kos notes: “Nielson’s stance on interrogation, torture, and the Geneva Convention so alarmed three former high-ranking military officers that they wrote a letter to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Judiciary Committee chairman, indicting Nielson’s extralegal rationale.” (Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter Poza, Daily Kos, February 8, 2018)
The Leadership Conference, which refers to itself in its masthead as: “The nation’s premier civil & human rights coalition,” strongly opposed Nielson’s appointment. Vanita Gupta, its president and CEO, notes: “Trump keeps nominating anti-equality judicial nominees to lifetime seats on the federal bench. Senate Republicans keep rubber-stamping all of them, undermining the fairness and impartiality of our justice system.” (twitter re-tweeted on January 9, 2018) Gupta wrote to her senator as follows:
“Dear Senator:
On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 national organizations committed to promoting and protecting the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States, I write in strong opposition to the confirmation of Howard Nielson to be a U.S. District Judge for the District of Utah.
Nominees to the federal courts must be committed to respecting the law, Constitution, and core American values of justice, fairness, and inclusivity. Mr. Nielson does not meet this standard. He has worked throughout his legal career to restrict the rights and freedoms of marginalized communities. He has attempted to justify the use of torture. And he was involved with a Justice Department screening committee that was rebuked for its discrimination against job applicants who had worked for progressive public interest organizations—many of which are members of our coalition—or Democratic public officials. Confirming Mr. Nielson to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench would be an affront to the civil and human rights community in America.” (Vanita Gupta, The Leadership Conference, January 9, 2018) In this letter, Gupta refers to the bias at the Justice Department: “Mr. Nielson appears to have served on a four-person screening committee in 2002 that discriminated against job applicants who had either worked for civil rights or liberal public interest groups, or for Democratic officials. The screening committee discriminated against job applicants who had affiliations with dozens of different civil rights and public interest organizations including 13 that are members of The Leadership Conference coalition: American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Brennan Center for Justice, Center for Reproductive Rights, Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., National Consumer Law Center, National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, and Sierra Club.” This in spite of the fact that: “both Department policy and Federal civil service law prohibit discrimination based on political affiliations. The evidence in our investigation showed that a Screening Committee established by the Department in 2002 deselected for interviews those candidates with Democratic Party and liberal affiliations apparent on their applications at a significantly higher rate than applicants with Republican Party, conservative, or neutral affiliations….These were inexperienced, junior people to some extent; they rose to high-level positions, and they were allowed to implement these actions and changes unchecked without adequate supervision, without adequate oversight, and it resulted in very serious damage to the Department of Justice.”
In 2005, Nielson wrote a memo entitled: “Whether Persons Captured and Detained in Afghanistan are ‘Protected Persons.’” This memo stated that the Geneva Convention protected civilians in enemy custody held in U.S. territories, but not abroad. The above cited letter by Gupta then notes: “According to Stanford Law School Professor Beth Van Schaack, who recently served as the Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues at the State Department, Mr. Nielson’s memo set forth “a crazy (and dangerous) theory about the applicability of the Geneva Conventions that would also countenance the extraterritorial torture of civilians.” She also noted: ‘If Nielson’s theory of the treaty were to prevail, United States personnel could torture civilians—so long as they did so outside the United States – without breaching the treaty…This warped interpretation finds no support in international or domestic jurisprudence, the treaties’ drafting history, the treaties’ humanitarian object and purpose, or legal scholarship (even scholarship advancing conservative readings of the treaties)…This approach makes a mockery of the proper role of the OLC, which is to give candid, apolitical, and accurate legal advice to the White House.”
Nielson is also a member of the Federalist Society, as are a disproportionate number of other Trump judicial appointees. This is a far-right organization that trains young conservatives to their way of thinking, namely to reform the American legal system along textualist or originalist lines. The late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia was perhaps its best known representative. Even though the Society only represents 4 percent of America’s legal profession, 94 percent of Trump’s circuit court nominees are members of the group. Trump’s continued favoritism of Federalist Society members is an indication that he wants to push his extreme legal ideas on the entire country. The great contradiction herein can be seen by comparing the foregoing information about Nielson with the stated purpose of the Federalist Society: “…That the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution.” That is particularly ironic given Trump’s view of himself as being a law unto himself. How can anyone not see the contradiction in this?
At the beginning of January, Trump made his move to nominate Karen Budd-Falen to direct the Bureau of Land Management—yet another example of the fox guarding the henhouse. She is a lawyer who has called the Endangered Species Act a “Sword to tear down the American economy.” She also detests the Clean Water Act, pretty much for the same reasons. Clearly, she is one of the most extreme nominees Trump has put forth yet—and that is saying a lot.
Trump has nominated Ronald Mortensen to be Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. This would be laughable if it weren’t so awful. Mortensen is on record as calling all immigrants: “murderers, identity thieves, gang bangers, and other assorted thugs.” CREDOAction gives us more information on this man’s unashamed bigotry: “He is a fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, a favorite organization of racist Trump adviser Stephen Miller that has already funneled other hate-mongers into the administration and which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group for its efforts to demonize immigrants and people of color. Mortensen’s work has even been shared approvingly by outright white nationalist figures. Only an unabashed racist like Donald Trump would even think of picking Mortensen to be Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, a role that involves overseeing refugee resettlement programs and building strong relationships with people around the world. The Trump administration has sought to impose a bigoted refugee ban and is now sabotaging refugee resettlement through layers of bureaucracy—and appointments like Mortensen—in an attempt to destroy America’s legacy of welcoming those fleeing danger and violence.” (Heidi Hess, CREDOAction, June 5, 2018)
Then there is White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. There was quite a scandal early in 2018 when it was revealed that a senior White House aide named Rob Porter beat two of his ex-wives. His second ex-wife filed a restraining order against him. Although he resigned in disgrace, Kelly (snd Trump) urged him to “stay and fight,” calling him: “A man of true integrity and honor.” He failed to mention how beating up a woman qualifies him to be honorable.
The whole ridiculous situation with Trump’s cabinet was accurately summarized by the Daily Kos. Speaking of the lack of confidence any thinking person has in the current cabinet, the Kos notes: “With chartered jets, first-class air travel, $31,000 dining room sets, and $139,000 doors, there’s no reason for confidence anywhere. That doesn’t even include the guilty pleas and indictments of Trump officials that are being racked up by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. So far. (Sher Watts Spooner, Daily Kos, March 11, 2018) The same article quotes columnist Jennifer Rubin as follows: “The expectation of compliance with the law and concern about the appearance of impropriety are entirely absent from this administration for one very simple reason: Trump has set the standard and the example. Don’t bother with the rules. If caught, just make up stuff. …The brazenness with which this administration tramples rules designed to prevent both corruption and the misuse of taxpayers’ money for personal or political purposes should not surprise, but it should draw our condemnation. Congress has encouraged this lawlessness by failing in its fundamental duty of oversight and in failing to beef up ethics rules. Going forward, no president should be able to withhold release of his tax returns, or maintain control of active businesses. No president should allow his unqualified family members to hold high government posts—especially when they cannot even qualify for a security clearance. No president should be allowed to enrich himself while in office. (It is bad enough that they do it after they leave office.)”
I couldn’t have said it better.
THE LATEST NONSENSE FROM THE REPUBLICAN “LEADERS”
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Republican party over the last few decades it’s that they do not listen to their constituents. Voters repeatedly reject vouchers—Republicans continue to promote them. Voters want sane gun control laws—Republicans reject them. Voters reject creationism—Republicans buy into it. Voters want to protect our national parks and monuments—Republicans want to destroy them. Voters support a woman’s right to choose—Republicans want to force them to have an unwanted child. Voters support LGBTQ rights—Republicans want legislation that discriminates against them. Americans overwhelmingly support net neutrality—and Republicans repealed it. And, most significantly, voters overwhelmingly support the separation between church and state—Republicans want a Christian theocracy.
Is this leadership?
What the Republicans want is very simple. They want to reward their benefactors and they want to punish anyone not fortunate enough to be rich. Medicaid is currently a big target. This program helps cover medical costs for those on limited incomes and resources. It is different from Medicare in that it offers other benefits, including nursing home care and various personal care services. Although states are not required to participate in the Medicaid program, all of them do. Despite all this, Trump’s administration announced that individual states could impose working requirements on people on Medicaid. He wants to limit the number of months that low-income individuals have access to Medicaid benefits. ActionNetwork.org informs us: “Under Trump’s plan, low-wage workers who do not get health care through their jobs could reach their Medicaid maximum even though they are working. Employers who pay low wages and don’t provide health care will not be penalized. But their workers will be. The point of this is to shred the safety net to pay for the tax scam that gave the wealthy and Big Pharma a permanent tax break.” (James Mumm, ActionNetwork, February 7, 2018) Trump’s budget, revealed in early February, 2018, will cut Medicaid by $1.3 trillion (yes, trillion), slashing Medicare by $554 billion, and eliminating $10 billion from the Social Security disability insurance program. Obviously, Trump’s plan defeats the whole purpose of Medicaid in that it robs health care from those who are not able to work due to health issues or because they may be caring for others. Put simply, Trump’s plan will kill people. He is relying on stereotypical images about “lazy welfare recipients” in order to present a false view of an agency he wants to destroy. If allowed to be implemented, this will leave millions of Americans dependent on big corporations for their survival. And we’ve seen just how responsive corporations are toward people’s welfare and well-being.
As an indication of how our government favors the rich over everyone else, I will point out that, in 1948, the median family’s federal tax rate amounted to 5.30% while a millionaire (or top 1%) family’s tax rate was 76.9%. In 1992, those numbers had changed to 24.37% for the median family and 26.7% for the top 1%. (Chart 2.13, Wealth and Democracy by Kevin Phillips, pg. 96) Although I do not have readily available figures for the past 26 years, one can safely surmise that the numbers have continued in the same direction. The trend is obvious: Average Americans are paying more and more taxes, while the richest are getting more and more tax breaks.
Perhaps this is the time to dispel one of the myths the right-wing continues to spout, namely that half of Americans are “moochers” because they pay no taxes. While it is true that the poorest Americans do not pay a Federal Income Tax, they do pay a greater percentage of their sparse incomes in taxes than the richest Americans do. This myth, in addition to being ridiculously condescending, hasn’t got a germ of truth in it.
Republicans have never liked food stamps (or any other programs designed to assist the needy) so it was no surprise that Trump’s budget called for replacing them with what he calls “harvest boxes.” These boxes will not contain fruits and vegetables and doesn’t take into account people’s personal preferences or dietary/medical needs.
Trump’s budget will also remove all funding for for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over the next two years. Daily Kos tells us what this means: “That means PBS and NPR, which provide essential educational programming at a very small cost, would lose all government funding. Eliminating public radio and television has been on the right-wing wish-list for decades. But in the era of Fox News, fake news and Donald Trump, we need public radio and television now more than ever.” (Paul Hogarth, Daily Kos, February 14, 2018)
It is singularly amazing that Republicans are still defending “trickle-down” economics. If there is one thing we’ve learned in the economic field, it is that corporations, if given huge tax breaks, do not re-invest back to their workers; they just pocket the money themselves. Action Network provides us with some evidence: “America’s corporations have spent 37 times as much on stock buybacks benefiting CEOs and the wealthy as they’ve spent on one-time bonuses and/or increased wages for their workers―that’s $238 billion on stock buybacks vs. $6.5 billion for workers. Only 65 of the nation’s 500 richest corporations―we call them Corporate Cheapskates―have given anything in bonuses or increased wages to their employees. These numbers reflect exactly what we feared: that corporations and the wealthy are getting massive tax cuts and reaping benefits from the Trump tax scam, while hardworking American families see almost no impact. Corporations so far are estimated to be getting 9 times as much in tax breaks in 2018 ($61 billion) as they are paying out in one-time bonuses or wage hikes to workers ($6.5 billion). Just 4%, or 6.3 million, of the nation’s 148 million working people have been promised bonuses or wage hikes. Just 383 businesses out of 26 million nationwide have reported giving bonuses or wage hikes.” (Craig Johnson, Action Network, April 9, 2018)
A later article by Action Network tells us pretty much the same thing: “A new report from Americans for Tax Fairness finds that America’s 10 biggest prescription-drug corporations—the Pharma Big 10—are among the biggest winners from the Trump-GOP tax cuts, but they are sharing few of the benefits with their employees and are offering no pricing relief to customers. Instead the Pharma Big 10 are mostly rewarding their CEOs and other wealthy shareholders with fat stock buybacks that jack up share prices and dividend hikes…Tax cuts for just 5 of the Pharma Big 10 will total $6.3 BILLION this year, with more to follow. And just 2 of the 10 companies have announced any quantifiable sharing of tax savings with employees in the form of bonuses or wage hikes. And those two―Pfizer and Merck―will give workers’ pay hikes totaling only $169 MILLION—compared to the billions in tax breaks that they’re receiving this year.
None of the Pharma Big 10 has announced any plans to use their tax savings to reduce prescription drug prices…Even before the deep tax cuts on wealthy corporations, pharmaceutical companies were rolling in profits. ATF research shows that from 2011 to 2015 the Pharma Big 10 jacked up prices on their most widely prescribed medications by 40% to 71%, far above the inflation rate.” (Frank Clemente, Action Network, April 26, 2018)
On rare occasion, a Republican will admit that the whole idea of trickle-down economics just doesn’t work. Marco Rubio is one. His comments made on April 26, 2018 are worth noting: “There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they’re going to take the money they’re saving and reinvest it in American workers. In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.” Americans for Tax Fairness elaborates on this point: “Donald Trump promised that workers would get a $4,000 pay hike if Congress passed his tax scam. So, far just 4% of businesses have promised their workers any pay hike, and it’s usually just a modest one-time bonus. Businesses have promised workers about $7 billion so far, but are giving their wealthy CEOs and shareholders $387 billion―58 times as much―through stock buybacks, according to Americans for Tax Fairness research.” (Frank Clemente, Americans for Tax Fairness, May 2, 2018)
Republican supporters of the tax scam claim that it will ‘pay for itself.’ This is, like just about everything else that comes out of their mouths, just another lie. Action Network provides the details: “It’s nothing but a fraud. Well, that’s what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said this week, anyway. Without blatantly labeling the GOP tax cut as a con, the CBO did say that it would in no way, not ever pay for itself. It would, the CBO warned, dramatically raise the national budget deficit, year after year, for at least a decade. Republicans, the party of public hand wringing over deficits, deliberately created this gob-smackingly huge deficit as an excuse to slash and burn programs cherished by the vast majority of Americans such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Yes, Grandma, that tax cut Republicans gave to fat cats means you’ll be eating cat food.” (Robert Borosage, Action Network, April 13, 2018)
So what happened to that four thousand dollars Trump promised would be returned to workers? When Republicans passed their tax scam in December, 2017, they said with a straight face that workers would see between $4,000 and $9,000 in raises. Of course, no worker ever got that money. What did happen was that they saw their real wages go down due to inflation. Meanwhile, their interest payments on loans, cars, and other items increased. If this weren’t enough, Republicans are now trying to make those same workers pay more with cuts to social security, Medicare and Medicaid. Every worker in the country should be asking their Republican congressman: Where’s the money you promised me?
Despite this, I have personally talked with several conservatives who still applaud the tax scam. No amount of information I gave them had the slightest impact. They have faith in Trump, and no facts will convince them otherwise. As I have always maintained, faith is dangerous, whether it’s faith in a god, faith in Trump, faith in trickle-down economics, or anything else. This is the biggest economic fraud in the last fifty years—and nobody is making any effort to hold either its authors or its real beneficiaries accountable.
Considering the fact that one in three American women have experience some kind of sexual abuse during their lives, one would expect our legislators to recognize this and do something. They have not. Indeed, no less than twelve national leaders have been exposed as harassers. And of course President Trump himself boasted about grabbing women by the @&#$%. So how did the Republican Congress react to all this? By secretly (how else?) trying to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics, the group that tries to maintain ethical standards of behavior among our elected officials. In other words, Republicans want to eliminate the one and only agency that monitors their behavior. They want to be able to do whatever they want without fear of retaliation. How Christian of them.
As a final example of how insanely deluded Senate Republicans are, they announced in June that they are nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize! Without doubt, this has to be the final proof of how far removed from reality these people are.
THAT PESKY CONSTITUTION
Today’s Republicans are vastly different from their party counterparts of earlier times. As they have moved further and further to the right of the political spectrum, the Constitution has increasingly become an obstacle to their agenda. To cite but one of countless examples, Trump’s sending missiles attacking Syria in April of 2018 was an illegal act because the Constitution requires Congressional approval before such acts can be undertaken. And of course, this is the same Trump who tweeted on June 15, 2013: “We should stay the hell out of Syria, the ‘rebels’ are just as bad as the current regime. WHAT WILL WE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS?ZERO.” And on August 29 of the same year, he tweeted: “What will we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval.” So Trump was against taking military action against Syria when Obama was president, but ordered it when he became president. And, without the Congressional approval he insisted that Obama needed.
The worst and most obvious way in which Donald Trump has violated the Constitution concerns what is known as the Emoluments Clause. The actual name is the Title of Nobility Clause, and it is found in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution. It states: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” I have already delved into this issue at some length and need not repeat myself here, but more needs to be said as this issue alone is cause for impeachment of the president.
In May, Trump tweeted: “President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!” Congressman Adam Schiff, one of the few activist Democrats actively seeking to inform the public about the various crimes and suspicious activities of this administration, picked up on this and sent out the following report: “You might be wondering: how does a bailout for a Chinese phone company, one that violated U.S. sanctions on Iran and North Korea and is a cyber security threat no less, have anything to do with the interests of the American people? Well, it turns out that it might help one family in particular: the Trump family. While President Trump was announcing plans to save this Chinese company, a company controlled by the Chinese government was announcing plans of their own to invest $500 million to build a resort bearing the Trump name in Indonesia.” (Adam Schiff, May 16, 2018) This is yet another example of how Trump routinely defies the Emoluments Clause.
There are two purposes of the clause. The first was to prevent a class of nobility from being established in this country. The second is to protect our form of government from being unduly influenced by other governments. Corruption Watch tells us: “By taking office without divesting from his business holdings—and by profiting from the presidency—Trump is effectively spitting on the Constitution. In fact, last year his company even said that it wouldn’t be ‘practical’ to comply with the Emoluments Clauses!” (Corruption Watch, February 8, 2018) Practical for whom? The article elaborates: “Two new reports have confirmed it: Trump’s corruption is unparalleled in the history of the presidency. Here are the facts, according to USA Today and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: During his first year in office, Trump and White House staff promoted the Trump brand on at least 35 different occasions. At least eleven foreign governments paid Trump-owned companies and at least six foreign government officials visited Trump Organization properties. Political groups spent more than $1.2 million at Trump properties (compared to less than $100,000 in any previous year). And Trump sold $35 million in real estate in 2017, mostly to secretive buyers. Not only is Trump continuing to profit from his companies—it’s almost certain that he’s using his position to further enrich himself and his family.” This shows that anyone who thinks Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans actually care about the Constitution and the rule of law is seriously deluded. This is huge; the president of the United States is defying the Constitution. Where are the voices of reason demanding that he be stopped? Where are the politicians, of both parties, who are supposed to be defending our Constitution and the citizens of this country? And where is the media while all this is happening?
MODERN PIRATES
In the seventeenth century a group of men lived for the moment, going from one conquest after another and then spending it as frivolously as men have ever spent their riches. These men were pirates, and they never hesitated to destroy anything or anyone who stood in their way. They took no thought for the morrow, and lived only for immediate gratifications. By the turn of the eighteenth century, however, their days were numbered.
Today’s Republicans are the modern-day descendants of these earlier human vultures, preying on the less fortunate and seeking to expand their own wealth while the concerns of others are ignored. They seem quite willing to destroy life on the planet if they perceive that it is in their interests to do so.
It is interesting how most Republicans claim to be supporters of states rights, but this is only if the state is a red state run by a Republican governor. Proof of this is seen in the fact that Trump is doing all he can to make us beholden to fossil fuels; he and the Department of the Interior are lackeys of Big Oil and they want to expand offshore oil drilling in all U.S. waters. Except, as we have already discussed, for Florida. Why Florida? There are two reasons: One, Florida is run by a Republican governor (RIck Scott) and, two, Florida is home to Mar-a-Lago, the estate owned by Trump that is located right on the ocean front. Mar-a-Lago has been called Trump’s “Winter White House” and he spends an enormous amount of time there. So, exempting Florida from offshore drilling is clearly politically motivated, especially when you consider that no other state has this favored status. California currently has hundreds of miles of beautiful coastline, but that doesn’t mean a thing to Trump; if it doesn’t affect him directly, he doesn’t care what happens to the environment.
Offshore drilling is both dangerous and unnecessary. Everyone knows the damage caused when oil tankards leak untold gallons of oil into the ocean. More drilling means more ecological disaster, pure and simple. If Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke listens to Rick Scott, he should be listening to the governors of all the other to-be-affected states. Once Zinke announced the plan, both Democratic and Republican governors from South Carolina to Oregon denounced the plan. They all know the dangers inherent in drilling: when you drill, you spill. Environment America tells us: “The Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf was our nation’s worst-ever oil spill. Over the course of 87 days, the damaged well poured more than 200,000 million gallons of oil into the water, killing thousands of birds and marine animals, scarring our ecosystems and contaminating our beaches from Florida to Texas. Coastal communities in these states are still reeling from the effects on their way of life. Up and down our coasts, communities have passed resolutions against drilling, small businesses have organized anti-drilling alliances, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers as well as millions of Americans from Florida to Alaska have voiced their opposition to offshore drilling.” (Environment America, January 18, 2018) Why won’t Zinke listen to these other governors?
Supporting the fossil fuel industry at the expense of clean, renewable energy sources is a Republican strategy that is at odds with what the majority of Americans actually want. We don’t want our oceans polluted. We want clean air and clean water. We want to preserve as much wildlife as we can. Already, there is more than enough renewable energy potential to sustain us and meet our current needs. Environment America tells us that: “According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, enough sunlight hits the United States to meet our electricity needs 100 times over, and if we went all-in on offshore wind, the East coast could meet 40 percent of its power needs.” (Environment America, January 17, 2018)
FUNDAMENTALIST RELIGION CALLS THE SHOTS
Fundamentalist religion is on the wrong side of every major issue. The reason for this is simple: fundamentalist religion is wrong, gods do not exist, and with error as its foundation, it comes as no surprise that those adhering to an errant ideology will be wrong on just about everything else. One error springs from another. This chapter will make this fact glaringly obvious.
Let me begin by noting that religion in general always serves the elites in a community by promising eternal life to everyone that obeys its demands. It’s a promise that it cannot prove to keep, insisting that people must just have faith. Religion lends considerable authority to rulers; this was made manifest in the idea of the Divine Right of Kings, which assisted rulers, good, bad, indifferent or reprehensible, for centuries. Religion, which is based on the term “to unite,” invariably has the opposite effect, by emphasizing an “us vs. them” way of thinking that divides communities into warring sects. Thus, the basic value of any religion is its use as a tool of social control.
Until the formation of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920, anyone seeking redress against a church/state violation had to finance the legal costs themselves. Not surprisingly, few were able to do so. Even today, when someone dares to bring a suit that challenges the status quo on religion, that person is likely to be ostracized, threatened, risk losing their jobs and even physically attacked by devout believers.
Atheists remain the most discriminated against group in America today. For example, several state laws refuse to allow atheists to hold state office. There is a catch 22 on this: The laws can’t be enforced because they are unconstitutional, and they can’t be removed because the Religious Right would go into conniptions. Even so, it is still profoundly unsafe to announce one’s atheism in certain areas of this country. The medieval Christian mindset still predominates in many communities.
Legal challenges to anything religious rarely get anywhere. Divided We Fall provides an excellent example of this: “In 2007, in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), the Supreme Court ruled that taxpayers do not have standing to challenge the constitutionality of expenditures by the Executive branch of government. FFRF had argued that the use of money appropriated by Congress to support faith-based social programs was unconstitutional. The court ruled, however, that the funds involved had been appropriated for use by the executive branch for unspecified purposes and the president was therefore free to use those funds as he wished. This of course means that money can be appropriated for religious activities as long as it is laundered through appropriation designated for carte blanche use by the president.” (MarieAlena Castle, Divided We Fall, published 2018 by Archway Publishing, pg. 11-12) Castle also notes: “Taxpayer money laundering seems to be the up-and-coming preferred strategy in circumventing the First Amendment—as well as State Constitutions, which tend to be more specific and therefore stronger in prohibiting taxpayer support for religious schools.”
Castle discusses a similar case, Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, a case once again decided by the court’s ruling that taxpayers do not have standing in Federal Court to challenge state tax credits for contributions to school tuition organizations. These organizations then give scholarships to students at private schools. Castle notes: “The Roberts Court based its ruling on the plaintiff not having claimed a personal financial injury. This effectively negated the 1968 Warren Court’s ruling in Flast v. Cohen that taxpayers could sue to stop government expenditures that violated the Establishment Clause.” (ibid, pg. 12) Of course, the Roberts court failed to consider that it is injurious to someone who is forced to subsidize a school he does not support—and can cite “religious freedom” objections to prove his case? If claims of religious freedom can be cited by the religious, surely it can be cited by the non-religious.
One of the main points in Castle’s book is that challenges to religious-based laws are rarely addressed as violations of the Constitution’s First Amendment Establishment Clause. And, because non-religious arguments are usually used instead (so that the litigants cannot be shown to be ‘anti-religious’), the lawsuits are rarely decided in their favor. She exposes the nonsensical position of right wing judges by quoting Chief Justice John Roberts: “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” Castle asks: “Really? But does not the Constitution exist precisely to protect a minority from the harmful consequences of the majority’s political choices when its civil rights and civil liberties are at stake? And is it not the job of the Supreme Court to see that the Constitution does just that?” (ibid, pg. 15) Profound questions such as this need to be asked of Republican officials at every meeting open to the public.
Fundamentalist Christianity continues to play its ugly role in governmental politics, as it has for the past forty years since the “New Right” was begun. To understand how this has come about, I will shift gears for a moment and focus on the Guatamalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt who, after years of crimes against humanity, finally died on April 1, 2018. When in power in the 1980s, this man’s government oversaw countless human rights violations and was responsible for spreading counter-insurgency terror among the peasantry. Rios Montt deposed General Romeo Lucas Garcia in a military coup and set up a military junta, which wasted no time in suspending the constitution and declaring martial law. His government then shut down the legislature, set up secret tribunals, and began a campaign against anyone perceived as a dissident: such people were subject to arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, torture, and assassination. In his old age Rios Montt successfully protected himself from war crimes lawsuits by returning to office as a member of Congress in 2007. This gave him prosecutorial immunity. When his term ran out in 2012, the eighty-five year old dictator was formally indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity.
What does this have to do with religion or the United States? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Rios Montt was a practicing Catholic until he was past fifty, at which time he became a minister in the United States “evangelical/Pentecostal Church of the Word” and soon became a teacher of this fundamentalist branch of Christianity. As dictator, he believed in a modern apocalyptic vision by comparing the four riders in the Book of Revelation to what he perceived as the four modern evils of hunger, misery, ignorance and subversion. Of course, none of these evils were eliminated when he was in power; to the contrary, they increased in scope and depredation. Rios Montt once proclaimed that a true Christian had a Bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other. So much for Christianity being a religion of peace! Despite his abominable record in Guatemala, both Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson continued their friendship with the monster and supported him even after his human rights abuses became indisputable fact. Robertson was also a supporter of Augusto Pinochet, the fascist dictator of Chile whose regime tortured tens of thousands of dissidents and executed countless more. How these men can live with themselves is a complete mystery, but one thing is clear: fascism and fundamentalist Christianity go hand in hand.
Of course, there are Christian apologists who, never willing to see the truth about their religion, will insist that people like Rios Montt were “mis-interpreting” the Bible or quoting it out of context. The point lost on these people is that, if the Bible were really the perfect book they imagine it to be, it would have been so perfectly written that mis-interpretations would not be possible. They cannot have it both ways.
The point from all this should be obvious to any thinking person: Christianity has no claim to moral superiority; just because one loudly professes him/herself to be a Christian, that certainly does not mean that they will act humanely. In fact Christianity, like all other religions is a hindrance to real morality. This should be obvious to anyone with even a basic understanding of human history, yet it is lost on the religious, particularly those of a fundamentalist mindset. And, until the American people recognize it, as most of Europe is doing, we will continue our slide toward theocracy.
Still, the mindless zealots in the Republican party pander to religious extremists. In response to the Parkland school shooting in February, 2018, Senator Gerald Dial of Alabama authored an amendment to the Alabama Constitution, one that they think will solve the problem of school shootings. Their solution? Post the Ten Commandments on public property. Dial and his supporters think that if other historical materials are included in the display, it will pass Constitutional muster. That remains to be seen.
Fundamentalist religion affects the way one thinks. Put another way, gullibility in religion spills over into gullibility in other areas. Hostility to proven scientific principles is one example of this: Denial of evolutionary theory, denial of climate change, and so on. There is even an increasing number of people who think the earth is flat. The Los Angeles Times reported on this:
“With more people rejecting traditional sources of information and the internet giving rise to a variety of alternative worldviews, the granddaddy of all conspiracy theories is enjoying a renaissance and Colorado is the epicenter.
“Thousands of YouTube videos claim the world is flat, gravity is uncertain, space is fake and the creature of the planet is an illusion. Followers say this ruse is perpetuated by a powerful cabal determined to make humans feel small and powerless.
“A conspiratorial mindset and a deep current of religious ideology permeate the movement, which preaches that Earth was created by design. As evidence of its shape, some reference Bible verses touting ‘the four corners of the Earth’ and Earth being God’s ‘footstool’” (David Kelly, Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2018)
This proves that once one elevates faith (wishful thinking) above reason (objective reality), one has abandoned critical thinking, the very capacity that separates us from the lower primates. Put another way, religious people are putting their emotions ahead of their reason. As an example, The Moral Atheist also reported on the flat earthers, a cult that should have died out with the Christian Dark Ages but still has quite a large following: “November 9-10, 2017 saw 500 people attend a Flat Earth Conference in Raleigh. Numerous videos on the subject have been posted on YouTube and gotten thousands of views. There are Facebook groups on Flat Earth that each have thousands of members, and over 100,000 Likes. One of them the venerable Flat Earth Society, has a Twitter presence that has 32,000 followers. (The Moral Atheist, March/April, 2018) And, lest anyone think that this has nothing to do with the Bible, Flat Earthers easily trot out passages that they claim “proves” their nonsense: Genesis 1,2; Psalms 24,2; 1 Samuel 2:8 b, etc.
Only fundamentalist religious believers could possibly believe in this claptrap. And their numbers are increasing. Trump’s famous comment that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and not lose votes over it was sadly accurate—and a telling indictment on the moral paucity of far too many Americans.
Consider the words of Mike Pence, who calls himself: “A Christian, a conservative, and a Republican—in that order.” Notice that he left out being an American. Oversight? Or intentional? At any rate, as governor of Indiana, he signed into law Indiana Senate Bill 101, which was worded in such a way as to permit discrimination against LGBTQ people. In March, 2016, he signed H.B. 1337, which put restrictions on abortion providers. He was roundly criticized for both actions, but refused to budge. His fundamentalist religious beliefs lie at the core of why he signed both bills—no one yet has come up with a non-religious reason to discriminate against either the LGBTQ community or abortion rights. On a non-related issue, his economic policies as governor ran that state’s finances into the ground. And, given Pence’s constant attacks on Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State, Cybersecurity experts were surprised when they discovered Pence’s use of a personal email account to conduct business. As usual, this was little-reported in the media, while Clinton’s emails were a constant, ongoing story.
Getting back to the role fundamentalist religion plays in the political arena, The Family Research Council, headed by Tony Perkins, is a fundamentalist Christian group dedicated to promoting the by-now predictable agenda of opposing LGBT rights, fighting abortion rights, and numerous other activities. The Southern Poverty Law Center has since 2010 classified this group as a hate group. In response, the FRC has said this designation is “intolerance, pure and simple.” In other words, attacking the LGBT community and anyone else they don’t like is not evidence of intolerance, but calling the FRC a hate group for exposing them is evidence of intolerance. The FRC has its own scandals to deal with, such as that involving Josh Duggar, its former executive director. He resigned on May 21, 2015, when it was confirmed that, as a 14-15 year old, he had molested five underage girls, including his own sisters. Now there’s “family values” for you—Republican style! One would think that evangelicals would be beside themselves with anger that a hate group leader is considered to be the public face of their movement. They were not. One would also think that they would be outraged that another Republican child molester (Roy Moore) ran for the Senate in 2017. They were not; in fact, they overwhelmingly supported and voted for him.
This is all too typical of today’s Republicans, who seem ever willing to look the other way when moral depravity of their leaders becomes evident—as long as they are able to maintain power. Yet they will scream at the top of their lungs at any perceived moral failing of a liberal. The Daily Kos sums up this ridiculously hypocritical situation as follows: “Evangelicalism is, according to its own most prominent leaders, a movement that seeks to disenfranchise and, if necessary, imprison those whose beliefs on abortion or homosexuality are different from their own; an argument that such a group is not, in fact, a hate group would seem to have an uphill climb. The blithe assertion that politicians in good standing with the religion can molest children or solicit porn star sex so long as they provide the faithful with their reliable votes puts the movement in direct camaraderie with malignant theocratic ‘revolutionaries’ from Boko Haram to ISIS.” (Hunter, Daily Kos, January 23, 2018)
Right-wing religious leaders who still support Trump have to do a lot of rationalizing when it comes to defending him and still believing what their Bible says about infidelity and immoral behavior. Consider the words of one of them: “Pastor Robert Jeffress. Here’s his philosophy: ‘Evangelicals knew they weren’t voting for an altar boy when they voted for Donald Trump. We supported him because of his policies and his strong leadership.” It is conservative evangelicalism’s core hypocrisy that while they claim biblical literalism underpins their philosophy they also literally ignore the Bible. And Jeffress, in an interview with Fox News, makes it perfectly clear that in his estimate Trump’s sins are irrelevant to his suitability as a leader. ‘Evangelicals still believe in the commandment: Thou shalt not have sex with a porn star. However, whether this president violated that commandment or not is totally irrelevant to our support of him.’ It’s one thing to say that you don’t believe the accusers—or that a man has a right to due process. (Trump’s favorite ‘outs’). But Jeffress bulldozes through those niceties to reveal the cynical expedience of his position—the Bible be damned.” (TheCriticalMind, Daily Kos, March 10, 2018) And, I would add, morality be damned. Remember, it is fundamentalist Republicans who scream their faith the loudest. If there is a clearer example of religious hypocrisy, I have been unable to uncover it.
The Kos article cited above asks of Jeffress: “How can he square his support for the unChristian Trump with his supposed adherence to all things biblical? He can’t. And that points to the essential truth of today’s conservative evangelicals. They are not a religious movement. They are a political faction. Their Bible isn’t an instruction manual. It is a blunt tool to accumulate power.” I would disagree with this on one point: I would argue that this hypocrisy is inherent in religion, especially fundamentalist religion because religion itself is based on a lie: gods do not exist. If you accept the basic untruth of a god’s existence, subsequent untruths become much easier to accept: And, as we have seen, enshrine in law.
Another familiar leader of the Religious Right, Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, has also attempted to explain why he supports a man like Trump, who violates just about every principle the Right so loudly proclaims. Perkins says: “From a policy point of view, he has delivered more than any other president in my lifetime.” As noted in Church and State: “AU’s Communication Director Rob Boston, writing on AU’s ‘Wall of Separation’ blog, said Perkins’ support for Trump smacks of hypocrisy: ‘What Perkins is saying is stunning because he’s essentially admitting that the Religious Right has decided to elevate politics over principle. It turns out that his movement doesn’t care about ‘morals’ after all—it just wants to score political points.’” (Religious Right Leader, Church and State, March, 2018)
Church and State informs us that: “With an April poll from Public Religion Research Institute showing white evangelical Christian approval of Trump at 75 percent, ‘family values’ voters don’t seem to be troubled by the ongoing revelations into the alleged affair Trump had with porn star Stormy Daniels 12 years ago and the $130,000 in hush money he admitted to paying her right before the November, 2016 election.” (Church and State, June, 2018)
Early in 2018, a new book came out entitled: “The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography.” This is a poorly written and even worse researched effort by two Trump apologists (David Brody and Scott Lamb) who somehow imagine that their hero is a godly man when, as everyone knows, he is completely non-religious. Not an atheist mind you; he’s not intelligent enough for that. Just someone who doesn’t like to be told what to do, whether by scientists, Democrats, or a two thousand year old book. Evangelicals insist that we are all sinners and Trump is just like the rest of us, so we should extend our charity to him. That isn’t the least bit convincing, but even if it were, rationalists only need point out that it would be nice if fundamentalists would be a bit more consistent about niceness and extend it to women, liberals, the LGBTQ community, and everyone else they so hysterically vilify at every opportunity.
In fact, once one recognizes that evangelical Christianity has its foundation in the fundamentalist world view wherein women are treated as subservient to men and subjected to their every whim. Male-dominated hierarchical views were packaged as ‘family values’ and sold to gullible Christians as moral verities. As Daily Kos relates: “The authoritarian dynamic was central to Southern antebellum families. To win Southern hearts, evangelicals buttressed patriarchy, empowering fathers and looking the other way when they took prerogatives which crossed moral lines. Catering to Southern values, evangelicalism became one of the predominant forms of religious expression in America.(Dartagnan, Daily Kos, April 14, 2018)
Since the Stormy Daniels story broke, evangelical support of Trump, rather than declining, actually rose from 61 percent to 78 percent. The Kos article just cited notes: “The reason for this is simple. One of the pillars of Evangelical Christianity is the perception that Evangelicals are ‘outcasts’ standing bravely against the evil forces of the world. This is a feature of the cult, not a bug, because it spawns a group persecution complex that solidifies their community.”
Clearly, today’s evangelical movement has no claim to morality. The entire movement has proven itself to be devoid of all moral sensibility and sensitivity.
Fundamentalist Christianity is now and always has been a minority position in this country, encompassing only about twenty percent of the voting electorate. And, their numbers are consistently dropping, as more and more young people in particular are turning away from the religion of their elders. In the past fifteen years, the ‘nones’ (so named for their lack of affiliation with any religion) have grown from 12 percent to 22 percent. This is the fastest-growing group in the country, and religious leaders are well aware of the threat it poses to the survival of their mythology. However, numbers can be meaningless in that these ‘nones’ are not organized in any significant way. Religion dominates the American landscape and, in order for secularism to win out, it will have to begin building its own infrastructure. As more and more people vacate the pews, the true believers left behind are the ones with access to huge amounts of money and political influence. Until the nones are able to organize political interest groups, they will remain a marginalized minority with no influence in forming governmental policy.
When Billy Graham, the most famous evangelical Christian of the last half century, died on February 21, he became only the fourth private citizen to like in state in the U.S. Capitol building. This despite some of the things he said and did should give pause to consider why our country should honor such a man. As Church and State notes: “He made derogatory statements about Jews, African Americans and LGBTQ Americans. The hurt and harm caused by these statements cannot be forgiven even though he may have later offered apologies.” (Church and State, April, 2018) There’s much more available that shows a very different man that most Americans deludedly believed to be honest and forthright. In the final issue of The Moral Atheist, MarieAlena Castle notes: “When he had his headquarters in Minneapolis, the Star Tribuneran a series reporting on how he underpaid his minimum wage workers while collecting millions of dollars in tax exempt donations.” (The Moral Atheist, March/April, 2018) [Note: Marie Castle was a close friend and acquaintance of your scribe who did more to advance the cause of freedom than just about anyone else in the freethought community. This wonderful and warm lady passed away on May 25, 2018, aged 91, an irreparable loss to the freethought community.]
In February, 2018, President Trump announced his budget for the following year, which includes providing $1 billion in tax funds to pay for private school vouchers. Again we see the President acting contrary to the wishes of the people he is supposed to be serving. In my previous articles, I have gone into considerable detail about the fallacies inherent in any voucher scheme and need not reiterate them here, other than to note that, besides the Constitutional issues entailed in these schemes, vouchers have consistently been shown to be ineffective in raising academic standards. They also lack accountability to taxpayers and often deprive students of basic civil rights protections.
Trump has done his bit to destabilize the Middle East when he declared that Jerusalem is the capitol of Israel—exactly what the Religious Right wants to hear, as they believe that this will usher in Armageddon and a nuclear-driven end times. The dangers of fundamentalist Christianity have never been so transparently obvious as in this nuclear-threatened age. And underlying the threat is the time-honored tradition that it is somehow rude to question religious beliefs. As a consequence, the most destructively immoral ideas are treated with an undeserved respect. Until we as a country recognize religion for what it is, our future is bleak indeed.
Hypocrisy is the inevitable result of religious faith; death and annihilation its unstated goal. The same Christians who screamed about Bill Clinton’s infidelity have no problem at all supporting a moral degenerate like Donald Trump. Or Tony Perkins or Roy Moore. And, the media has given all these men every possible break. Proof? The fact that Hillary Clinton was repeatedly asked why she didn’t leave her cheating husband, while Milania Trump has never been asked the same question, and with much more justification. Given that, let’s take a look at the role of the media in Trump’s presidency.
FOX NEWS AND THE MEDIA
As usual, the media continues to give Trump and his proto-fascist Republican cohorts every possible benefit. And Fox News continues on its merry path as a mouthpiece for the Republican party’s most extreme members which nowadays means just about every elected official. Fox is one hundred percent behind Donald Trump and defends everything he says and does. There is nothing objective about this organization; if “fake news” means anything at all, Fox News certainly fills the bill.
Scandals have rocked Fox News in the last year or two. Daily Kos tells us about the one involving Jesse Watters: “…The New York Daily News is reporting that Watters’ wife has filed for divorce due to his ongoing adulterous affair with a twenty-five year old co-worker, Emma DiGiovine.” (News Corpse, Daily Kos, March 11, 2018) And as we have come to expect from right-wing conservatives: “The response by Fox upon discovery of the relationship was to transfer DiGiovine to another program and let Watters off the hook entirely.”
The Kos article cited above provides a background to Fox’s scandalous past: “ This is just the latest sex scandal at Fox News. Previously their founder and CEO, the late Roger Ailes was fired after multiple allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. Then their star host, Bill O’Reilly, got the ax when it became publicly known that he had paid millions of dollars in settlements to silence his accusers. Gee, and Donald Trump only paid $130,000 (that we know of). Fox and Friends anchor Ed Henry was suspended for several weeks for having an adulterous affair. Fox business host Charles Payne was also the subject of harassment charges. And Watters got his seat on The Five by replacing Eric Bolling, who was fired for sending explicit photos to women colleagues at Fox. This obviously isn’t a case of a few bad apples. Fox News is a breeding ground for perverts.” Again, it needs to be pointed out that most people at Fox, like Republicans in general, are fundamentalist Christians. We will explore this connection in a subsequent chapter.
Sean Hannity is a Fox News radio host who, like everyone else at Fox, defends the president no matter what. He is almost hysterical in calling for an end to the Russian investigation. As with several others at Fox, Hannity has found himself embroiled in scandal. As Daily Kos reports: “It turns out that Hannity shares an attorney with Trump, and never disclosed that when he had Trump’s attorney on his show or when he reported that the FBI had raided Trump’s attorney’s office.” (Michael Langenmayr, Daily Kos, April 21, 2018)
The problems with the media extend far beyond Fox News, however. The proposed merger between Tribune Media and Sinclair Broadcasting group has become a major issue in the news world. Sinclair, which is often referred to as ‘Trump TV,’ requires all 173 of its local news stations across the country to parrot right-wing propaganda, so objectivity is clearly not one of its goals. Although the proposal was announced in early 2017, the merger has still not been finalized as I write this (early July, 2018) Variety reports: “The $3.9 billion transaction…would create an unprecedented giant in local broadcasting, as Sinclair would be the largest owner of stations with a reach of almost 59% of the country.” (Ted Johnson, Variety, June 25, 2018) The article goes on to note some of the problems and the expected comments of Donald Trump: “At the same time as it seeks approvals for the deal, Sinclair has been a target for media watchdogs, who take issue with right-leaning ‘must run’ op-ed segments that air across all of their current stations. President Trump weighed in after a mash-up of different Sinclair anchors reading from the same script went viral. “The Fake News Networks, those that knowingly have a sick and biased AGENDA, are worried about the competition and quality of Sinclair Broadcast,” Trump wrote in April. “The ‘Fakers’ at CNN, NBC, ABC & CBS have done so much dishonest reporting that they should only be allowed to get awards for fiction!” As is almost always the case, reverse Sinclair with the other stations Trump mentions, and you have a much clearer vision of reality. If the deal actually goes through, the results would be that the extreme right-wing network will reach two-thirds of American households. And the brainwashing will escalate.
There are legal problems entailed in the proposed merger. The key issues is that back in 2004, Congress ordered the Federal Communications Commission to institute a new cap on the television broadcasting industry. Congress ruled that no company can own stations that collectively broadcast into more than 39% of American homes. On this basis alone, the proposed merger between Sinclair and Tribune Media should not be allowed; it’s the law. But, given the fact that the FCC is currently dominated by a right-leaning majority, rejection of the merger is far from being a foregone conclusion as it should automatically have been. To get around the Senate ruling, the FCC majority is claiming that these two companies aren’t really reaching all the households they really are reaching. So, we see yet another example of how Republicans are willing to use ‘alternative facts,’ i.e. lies, in order to get around what the law says.
Sinclair makes no pretensions to objectivity. They have required local broadcasters to run political commentaries favorable to Trump. Sinclair has also run promotions that regurgitate Trump’s attacks on ‘fake news.’ People’s Action provides us with further proof: “A video compilation of dozens of local news anchors repeating the same script was released by Deadspin over the weekend, and now the nation’s largest owner of local television stations is facing backlash for its pro-Trump propaganda. Deadspin’s story followed a report from CNN last month that said the right-leaning Sinclair is mandating its local affiliates read aloud a promotional campaign that condemns other news outlets for pushing “fake stories.” Echoing President Donald Trump’s derision of the mainstream media, the anchors warn millions of unsuspecting viewers that: ‘[T]his is extremely dangerous to our democracy.’” (Richard Eskow, People’s Action, April 2, 2018)
Dan Rather, one of the most respected journalists in the country, has expressed his fears of Sinclair in no uncertain terms: “Let’s be clear, news anchors looking into camera and reading a script handed down by a corporate overlord, a script meant to obscure the truth not elucidate it, isn’t journalism. It’s propaganda. It’s Orwellian. And it is on a slippery slope towards some of history’s most destructive forces. These are the means by which despots wrest power, silence dissent, and oppress the masses. To those who say this rhetoric is hyperbolic, I submit that attacking the press as honest brokers of information has been one of the constants of this Administration and all those who normalize it. But this is not normal. This is not how the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, that beloved First Amendment, is supposed to operate.” The entire quote is available on Rather’s Facebook page.
CREDOAction tells us of some of Sinclair’s past actions: “Sinclair has a long history of force-feeding local stations “must-run” conservative segments from its national headquarters. The company’s disturbing track record includes:
•Striking a sweetheart deal with the Trump campaign, with Jared Kushner claiming that they gave Sinclair access in return for less-critical coverage.
•Requiring local news anchors to announce their support for President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism following the September 11 attacks.
•Sending a crew to Iraq in 2004 to find more ‘positive’ Iraq War stories to report.
•Airing a 2008 special criticizing then-Sen. Barack Obama.
It should come as no surprise then that as soon as Trump entered the White House, he met with Sinclair’s CEO to talk about ‘potential FCC rule changes’ to help the company. Since then, Trump’s FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has pushed through a series of radical rule changes to help out Sinclair. Among other sweetheart deals, Pai scrapped FCC rules on media ownership to allow Sinclair—already the biggest television operator in the country—to acquire another network and grow even bigger. If they succeed, Trump and Pai could permanently change the U.S. media landscape. The proposed mega-merger that would leave Sinclair with an incredible 223 stations covering 72 percent of U.S. households. No one media company should have that much power.” (Brandy Doyle, CREDOAction, April 8, 2018)
Try to imagine the following: Donald Trump forcing every news anchor in the country to read a script written by him. Then imagine no alternative views being allowed to be aired. This scenario is not far fetched: A merger between Sinclair and Tribune media could help to make this an actuality. And, if it does, we will be that much closer to a police state.
Courage Campaign gives us one final look at Sinclair: “Sinclair Broadcasting has reached a despicable new low. The right-wing TV company forced its nearly 200 stations around the country to lie about Trump’s policy of ripping kids from their parents at the border, blaming the family separation on others while saying Trump ‘stepped in’ to stop it.” (William Winters, Courage Campaign, June 28, 2018) Another example of how right-wingers want the news to be reported. Now imagine this right-wing propaganda being dispersed to 72 percent of American households—with no contrary views being offered. Once again, this is an example of how dictatorships operate.
The job of the media is to report what is happening in the world. Donald Trump imagines that the job of the media to fawn over him and approve everything he says and does. Since most media outlets still possess at least some degree of objectivity, they are not about to do that—yet. To Trump, that makes them “enemies of the people.” On May 9, 2018, he tweeted: “The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?” While we can disregard most of what he is saying here as just more lies and ignorance, the last sentence is ominous indeed: Take away press credentials if they don’t agree with him? This is the action of a dictatorship hell bent on destroying the freedom of the press, more closely related to Nazi Germany than to the United States. Trump doesn’t want an independent media; he wants a dependent media, one that is dependent on him rather than the American people.
Conservatives have no problem lying to the American people if they think it serves their interest. But if anyone dares call one of them a liar, they suddenly do an about face. When comedienne Michelle Wolf called Sarah Huckabee Sanders a liar, she was roundly criticized by American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp, to wit: “Just present the facts and let the American people if they think someone’s lying,” Schlapp said to CNN’s Alisyn Camerota. “Journalists shouldn’t be the one to say the President or his spokesperson is lying. What that does to 50 percent of the country is make them feel they are not credible to listen to.” (Hunter, Daily Kos, April 30, 2018) This is laughable, especially coming from Schlapp. The Kos article explains why: “To clarify a few things, Matt Schlapp is the head Conservative Guy who brings us the catastrofudge known as CPAC, the yearly gathering of most of the most-rabid elements of the right and far right. It is a place where conservative cabinet officials, NRA spokescritters, and a president or vice president compete for the attentions of a television crowd by demonizing liberals, women, non-white Americans, Muslims, immigrants, and anyone else who they deem to be an enemy of the movement while, in the rooms they are not so eager to show on television, the true movers and shakers of the movement explain how the United Nations is coming for your children, or the latest theories on how the Muslim faith will overtake us all, or pondering whether something Obama Jade Helm. Matt Schlapp presides over a den of lunacy in which every single speaker competes to say the most offensive things about other Americans and, specifically, eagerly stoke the notion that the nation’s press is lying about this and that on a daily basis, and so his indignation here is absolutely and entirely feigned.” Once again, we see hypocrisy and double standards from the right-wing.
There is an antidote to the anti-intellectualism which is all but officially sponsored by the right-wing. It’s called education. An educated republic will not vote for demagogues like Trump and his ilk. People who vote have a responsibility to educate themselves on the issues. Newspapers and periodicals that cover all aspects of the political spectrum should be read. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, National Review, Chicago Tribune, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and countless others are all legitimate sources of information. Fox News is not, and the sooner people recognize this, the better off we will be.
THE UPCOMING WAR
As I discussed in my two previous exposes of the Trump administration, it has become more and more obvious that this administration is doing its level best to plunge the United States into a major war. Trump’s desire to build new nuclear weapons has been known since mid-2017. Early in February, 2018, the White House released a plan called the “Nuclear Posture Review.” If implemented, this would give the president even more power to use nuclear weapons as he sees fit. And of course, the plan calls for constructing even more nuclear weapons. One of these, a low-yield warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, stands to make nuclear war much more likely. Having such a weapon readily at hand would make it much easier for Trump to “press the button.” Given the president’s instability and emotional immaturity, this is certainly cause for alarm. In addition, at a time when the United States decides it cannot defend itself without resorting to nuclear power, it will send the worst kind of message at a time when most of the world’s countries are seeking to discourage the spread of nuclear weapons. The end result, at best, would be to further undermine U.S. relations with other responsible countries. At worst, nuclear annihilation for untold numbers of human beings. It stands to reason that if the United States develops a low-yield warhead (what is meant by “low-yield” is never defined or discussed), Russia will follow and develop similar weapons. So might the Koreans, Chinese, or any other rogue nation. If low level nuclear weapons initiate a conflict, there would be nothing to stop more powerful weapons from being utilized. Currently, U.S. submarines carry 890 nuclear warheads, each of which has anywhere between 7 and 31 times more power than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
One thing that just about everyone can agree on is that war is lucrative business for corporations and the mega-rich, particularly those corporations that produce munitions and other things necessary to sustain the war effort. This is true of any war. Let us take a momentary aside to examine the First World War as an example. In his landmark book Wealth and Democracy, author Kevin Phillips notes that: “Revealingly, some of the biggest drumbeaters for U.S. war involvement and profit makers from it—J.P. Morgan, the duPonts, Marcellus Hartley Dodge, and Charles Schwabe—were from families that had supplied the Northern military during the Civil War.” (Wealth and Democracy, pg. 55) Phillips then tells us how duPont profited from the war: “From being just a munitions maker in 1914, duPont profited greatly enough from U.S. wartime seizure of German chemical patents to become a global force in that industry by the 1920s. In the meantime, company profits jumped from $6 million in 1914 to $82 million in 1916.” (ibid pg. 55) These profits were made even before the United States entered the war in 1917! And of course, there was graft and corruption that was the inevitable result of this ‘growth.’ Investigators found numerous examples of profiteering on a grand scale. Phillips mentions one example: Over a billion dollars that was spent on combat aircraft, none of which was actually delivered.
Clearly, war isn’t something that terrifies big business, or their Republican allies in Congress and the White House.
Donald Trump is the most unstable man in our government, possibly more so than any other leader of any other country. The Nuclear Posture Review gives him the power to make a mistake the consequences of which could spell annihilation for huge segments of humanity. Friends of the Earth tells us: “…he wants an additional $1.7 trillion in funding to expand the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal. Past Presidents and Congressional leaders have been working for decades to reduce our nuclear weapons. Now, the Trump Administration has clearly overstepped with a proposal wildly out of synch with public opinion.” (Damon Moglen, Friends of the Earth, February 11, 2018)
Given Trump’s boiling point temperament, nuclear annihilation could come about simply because of a few tweets. A man who dodged the draft not once but five times and who has never served in the armed forces can bring about the worst war in human history. And once that war comes, he will blame it on the Democrats—if any of them are left.
Given Trump’s unpredictable psyche, it is singularly amazing that anyone could seriously consider writing a bill that would give him a blank check for declaring global war. Yet that is just what Senators Bob Corker and Tim Kaine proposed with their Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) bill that they created in mid-April, 2018. Under this bill, Trump could take action against any country at any time—without Congressional approval. He wouldn’t have to notify the public and would be accountable to no no one. Incredibly, this bill was announced shortly after the illegal bombing of Syria.
Ronald Reagan was hardly the best president we ever had, but even he recognized the horrors posed by nuclear weapons. He spoke of pursuing “a world free of nuclear weapons,” considering them to be “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” Trump and his minions are either oblivious to all this, or else seriously want to destroy civilization. Those are the only two possible explanations. If there was ever a time for the country to get smart and begin taking steps to remove him from office, it is now.
SCANDAL AFTER SCANDAL —THEN RUSSIA
Even though scandal after scandal rocks this administration, the Republican strategies remain the same: Ignore, deny, or blame the Democrats.
The new year saw a porn star known as “Stormy Daniels” come forth with a story about her affair with Donald Trump. Fox News, predictably, chose to kill the story when it first appeared back in 2016, during the presidential campaign. It goes without saying that had any allegations against Obama come to light, Fox would have made this the focal point of their news reports. But the story refuses to go away. Vice President Mike Pence, Trump lackey that he is, said the report was “baseless allegations.” He said this even though three different porn stars have made similar charges against Trump over the years. Remember that Pence is a fundamentalist Christian; He is so extreme that he thinks Jesus talks to him personally. In other words, a man who hears voices in his head is our vice-president. At any rate, had similar charges been brought up against Obama while he was president, Pence would have been first in line screaming for an investigation and calling for his resignation.
Mike Pence thinks that religious law should supersede secular law. So does ISIS leader Abu Bakr. That should tell you something.
What is most disconcerting about this scandal is the way that Trump is handling the entire affair. First of all, Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford) took a polygraph test and passed (it would be most interesting to see the results if Trump were to take such a test). What seems to have happened, as the Wall Street Journal reported in January, is that Trump’s lawyer was able to take advantage of Delaware’s business laws in order to make a “hush money” transaction of $130,000 to keep Daniels quiet about the whole affair. Apparently, the lawyer created the Delaware company for the express purpose of paying off Stormy Daniels. The lawyer, of course, was Michael Cohen, the same Michael Cohen now under investigation by federal prosecutors on numerous financial shady dealings, including bank fraud, wire fraud, as well as campaign finance violations, directly emanating from the Daniels affair. If this were not enough, Cohen is also knee-deep in the Russian scandal and is currently under investigation by Special Council Robert Mueller.
Daniels’ lawyer has subsequently revealed that the porn star has been threatened, although he did not say by who. Similar threats have been attributed to Trump himself over the years and, although information is scanty, it deserves more attention than it has thus far received.
On January 9, 2018, Senate Democrats released a report that focused on Russian meddling in European affairs. The Los Angeles Times reports: “Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued a 206 page report that says president Trump’s failure to recognize the danger or to challenge Putin means Russia is likely to interfere in the next U.S. presidential race in a repeat of the 2016 campaign.
“‘Never before in American history has so clear a threat to national security been so clearly ignored by a U.S. president,’ says the report, which was released Wednesday by Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the committee.
“…Putin has used disinformation, cyberattacks and financial support for fringe political parties and groups, the report says. He honed the strategy at home by repressing civil society, journalists and independent opposition groups while co-opting or manipulating religious and cultural institutions, media, organized crime and others, the report adds.” (Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2018)
This is the man Trump respects and thinks can be our ally.
Special Council Robert Mueller, in addition to the FBI and other officials from the Justice Department have come up with an immense amount of information damning to Trump and his administration. Mueller himself is a former director of the FBI. As a consequence of this investigation Republicans, true to form, are doing everything possible to discredit not only Mueller, but the FBI and any other agency that threatens to expose the depths of this scandal. Republican Congressman Francis Rooney, among others, has gone so far as to demand a “purge” (Rooney’s word) of the FBI and Department of Justice, further proof of the Republican Party’s totalitarian leanings. Shade’s of Stalinist Russia!
This investigation is focused on finding out the extent of Russian collusion with certain Republicans in influencing the 2016 presidential election. This is a scandal of epic proportions, one that makes Watergate, the Iran-Contra scandal, the Teapot Dome scandal (why is it that the biggest scandals in American history have all involved Republicans?) and all the others look minuscule by comparison. The committee is a non-partisan one; Republicans have no complaint about Democrats playing partisan politics, considering the fact that Mueller himself is a conservative Republican. The scope of the investigation is vast, encompassing: “…any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.” This includes, among countless other possible crimes and transgressions, the potential obstruction of Justice by the president himself.
In an “Opinion” piece for the Los Angeles Times, David Rothkopf writes as follows:
“The political crisis now confronting the United States is not the worst since Watergate. It is the worst since the Civil War.
“It is hard to escape the conclusion that President Trump is waging a relentless, self-preservation driven campaign to discredit the core of our justice establishment and to unseat anyone he sees as a threat.” (David Rothkopf, Los Angeles Times, February 5, 2018)
After noting the damage caused by Watergate, Rothkopf continues:
“At its heart, though, Watergate was also just ‘a third-rate burglary,’ as then-White House press Secretary Ron Ziegler termed it. It turned truly ruinous because of all that happened next. Todays situation is rooted in something considerably darker—an effort by a hostile power to undermine American democracy.
“What’s more, regardless of what we may learn about efforts within Trump’s campaign to collude with the Russians, we can be certain our enemies have already benefited from his presidency.
“Just last week, the White House announced that it would not be enforcing congressionally mandated sanctions against Russia. In Moscow, an anchor on Russian State TV celebrated the decision: ‘Trump is ours again,’ she told her viewers. Trump remains reluctant to accept the unanimous verdict of the intelligence community that the 2016 election was beset by Russian-sponsored attacks. Instead of recognizing an ongoing threat, he has offered Russian officials photo ops and dished out classified intelligence to private meetings.
“Worse, agencies of the U.S. government that are essential to protecting against further foreign attacks on our system—the Justice Department, our independent judiciary, the FBI, our intelligence services, are now being undermined in unprecedented ways.”
Rothkopf then brings up a most salient point:
“As Watergate unfolded, Republican Party leaders stepped up and began to challenge Nixon. They eventually forced his resignation. Except for a very small minority, today’s Republicans have actively joined in the president’s war on the justice and intelligence professionals. They are behaving much like an autoimmune disorder in which cells that are supposed to protect the body politic turn against it.
“Nixon lied: Trump lies pathologically. Fact-checkers have documented more than 2,000 falsehoods in his first year in office. Nixon offered racist slurs in private; Trump has made racism and misogyny a leitmotif in his administration.”
Every single day, Donald Trump disgraces himself, his office, his country, and the American people in ways Nixon wouldn’t have even considered. Trump isn’t just the worst president in U.S. history; he is the worst man ever to hold public office in this country. And by far the most dangerous.
Naturally, Trump has referred to all this as a “witch hunt.” But this “witch hunt” has secured 22 indictments to date. Anyone who is innocent of collusion in all this should fully support the investigation, knowing that the facts will exonerate him. What is Trump afraid of?
There have been witch hunts in recent times, the most startling example being that led by Kenneth Starr (a Republican, of course) against Bill Clinton. That so-called “investigation” went on for six years and produced exactly nothing damaging to the president. During that time, Senate Republicans made no effort to hurry the investigation along, yet now that the shoe is on the other foot, they are calling for “closure” to Mueller’s investigation. Their hypocrisy is astounding.
Although Vice President Pence has said: “it’s time to wrap it up,” that’s not about to happen any time soon. Mueller has uncovered more wrongdoing in just over a year than Kenneth Starr ever did in six years of Whitewater investigation. And, despite continuous slander and personal invectives directed at them, Mueller’s team has been a model of professionalism.
Another witch hunt occurred beginning in 2014 while Obama was in office. Again this was led by Republican Congressmen who set up a committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks, hoping to dig up something “useful” to use against Hillary Clinton and Obama’s administration. The witch hunt went on for two years, cost 8 million dollars, and produced nothing at all. Now that a Republican is president, Trey Gowdy, the man in charge of that witch hunt, insists that it isn’t Congress’s job to investigate the president and hold him accountable for anything. How many examples of Republican hypocrisy will it take to convince the American public that this is a party that simply cannot be trusted?
If there is an actual witch hunt, it is again led by Republicans, aided and abetted by Fox News, against Robert Mueller. They are the ones attempting to halt the investigation by attacking the character of the investigator.
Mueller took over several investigations instigated by the FBI. Some of these involved Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, and Michael Flynn, the former National Security Advisor. These two investigations were begun even before the 2016 presidential election. As a result, Manafort was indicted on numerous charges, including tax crimes, bank fraud crimes, and other financial irregularities. His trial is scheduled to begin in September, 2018 and will be covered in my fourth installment on Trump’s presidency. Michael Flynn eventually pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI; he has since become a cooperating witness.
In addition to Manafort and Flynn, the seemingly tireless Mueller has managed to secure guilty pleas from Rick Gates, a business parter of Manafort’s, George Papadopoulos, a former campaign advisor to Trump, and several others, all of whom, reading the writing on the wall have, like Flynn, become cooperating witnesses to the investigation.
If this were not enough to prove that this is anything but a witch hunt, Mueller has also indicted thirteen Russian citizens and three Russian groups, most notably the Internet Research Agency. In June 2018, Konstantin Kilimnik, a former business partner of Manafort’s, was also indicted. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, has also come under investigation; this has been referred to the U.S. Attorney’s office of the Southern District of New York.
At first, the investigation was supported by many Republicans, but as more and more dirt became unearthed, the special counsel investigation came under repeated attack not only from Trump, but by the majority of his congressional supporters. The right-wing media has also joined in, supporting the ridiculous “deep state” conspiracy theory. This idea, without any supporting evidence, alleges that the investigators have engaged in misconduct. Among the lies propagated are that Trump Tower was wiretapped during the presidential campaign, the presence of a spy during that campaign, FISA court abuse against Carter Page emanating from the Nunes memo, and other alleged abuses. All of these are without any foundation in fact and have been completely refuted, yet the president and his political lackeys still repeat them. It’s the “big lie” theory once again.
As the scandal grew in scope, Mueller empaneled a grand jury as part of the investigation. This jury can subpoena documents, require witnesses to testify under oath and, if probably cause is found, issue indictments for targets of criminal charges. However, it cannot indict a sitting president. By February 2018, Mueller had seventeen lawyers and over three dozen staff members working on the investigation.
In addition, Mueller has added unnamed agents of the IRS Criminal Investigations Division to his team. According to The Daily Beast: “This unit—known as CI—is one of the federal government’s most tight-knit, specialized, and secretive investigative entities. Its 2,500 agents focus exclusively on financial crime, including tax evasion and money laundering.” Woodruff, Betsy (August 31, 2017). “Exclusive: Mueller Enlists the IRS for His Trump–Russia Investigation”. The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on September 1, 2017. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
Trump’s legal team includes American Center for Law and Justice’s Jay Sekulow, a far-right Christian apologist who formed this organization as a counter to the American Civil Liberties Union. Another is Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who joined the team in April, 2018. Others on Trump’s personal defense team include Andrew Ekonomou, Jane and Marty Raskind, and Joanna Hendon.
Giuliani, who may once have impressed people with his pleasant demeanor and sense of humor, has lost any credibility he may have had with his sycophantic defenses of this indefensible president. As it turns out, the two men have been allies for some time now. As Daily Kos reports: “U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani had FBI Agent Tony Lombardi end the FBI’s investigation on Trump money laundering. A few weeks later, Donald Trump raised $2 Million for Giuliani’s mayoral campaign. Quid Pro Quo? Tony Lombardi, the federal agent closest to then-U.S. Attorney Giuliani, opened a probe of Trump’s role in the suspect sale of two Trump Tower apartments to Robert Hopkins, the mob-connected head of the city’s largest gambling ring. The government subsequently nailed Hopkins’ mortgage broker, Frank LaMagra, on an unrelated charge and he offered to give up Donald, claiming Trump “participated” in the money-laundering—and volunteering to wear a wire on him.” (keepemhonest, Daily Kos, April 20,2018) The article closes by referring to author Wayne Barrett’s 2016 article on Giuliani by noting: “Wayne Barrett’s article goes on to describe Giuliani’s corruption, his key role in using New York city taxpayer money to help Trump’s buildings. But to me, the biggest take-away from Barrett’s article is the fact that U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani ended an FBI investigation into Trump’s money-laundering scheme in exchange for Trump raising/donating, at least, $2 Million to Rudy Giuliani’s mayoral campaign.” (Wayne Barrett is the author of “Rudy! An Investigative Biography” and “Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth.”)
Giuliani, like other Republicans afraid of what might emerge, wants the investigation ended as quickly as possible. He and other members of Trump’s legal team are making the argument that bringing the president in for an interview somehow poses a risk because it is without precedent. Therefore, they say it will only happen on Trump’s terms. In fact, there are precedents for this. One was seen during Bill Clinton’s presidency when Clinton was interviewed by Special Prosecutor Robert Fiske at the beginning of the Whitewater investigation. Earlier, Republicans unequivocally demanded that President Jimmy Carter appear before the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility to discuss the behavior of Billy Carter, the president’s brother. Was this so great an issue, or was it just an effort to disgrace the president? At any rate, the point is that Trump’s legal team is lying when they say that the president appearing for an interview is unprecedented. Again, one set of rules applies for Democrats, and another for Republicans.
Daily Kos summarizes this whole ridiculous scenario: “Carter agreed to cooperate with the investigation by the Department of Justice. And did. Clinton agreed to cooperate with the investigation by Special Investigator Fiske. And did. Donald Trump has made noises over, and over, indicating that he’s cooperating with the investigation by Special Counsel Mueller. And he’s sending Rudy Giuliani in … because he’s not.” (Mark Sumner, Daily Kos, April 26, 2018) The article also notes that Mueller unquestionably is legally to subpoena the president if he chooses to do so. Another Independent Counselor, Kenneth Starr, issued a subpoena demanding that Bill Clinton testify before grand jurors in the Monica Lewinsky case.
While Giuliani and Sekulow are well known, the other four members of Trump’s legal team are not household names to the majority of Americans. Tellingly, Trump has sought out legal help from numerous others, all of whom have turned him down. These include two members of Kirkland & Ellis, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. of Williams and Connolly, Robert Giuffa Jr. of Sullivan & Cromwell, and numerous others. One would think that if it were common knowledge that Trump was being persecuted, any number of lawyers would have stepped forward to offer their services. Yet at this writing there are only five. That should tell you something.
It all began back in January 2017 when U.S. intelligence agencies, following an investigation, concluded “with high confidence” that the Russian government interfered in the presidential election. They did this by hacking into the computer servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the personal gmail account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta. They then forwarded what they found to WikiLeaks. In addition, the various agents of the Russian government disseminated false information that was uncritically promoted on social media and attempted to penetrate the databases of numerous U.S. States. As a consequence of this, Mueller is putting together a case against the Russians involved. The extent to which these actions influenced American voters is the primary focus of the investigation.
On February 13, 2018, the heads of the top six U.S. intelligence agencies testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, unanimously agreeing that Russian agents had interfered in the election. Of course, Trump denies this, preferring to believe that he won the election on his own merits.
On February 14, 2017, the New York Times reported the existence of phone records and various communications intercepts that showed a number of Trump intimates had numerous contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials during the 2016 presidential campaign. The article noted that only Paul Manafort was specifically identified as being a part of these communications. Besides this, the article noted that other associates of the candidate had direct contact with various Russian officials during the same time period. These include Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., future cabinet member Jeff Sessions, as well as Manafort.
Within a month of his presidency, Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced to resign when he was shown that, on December 29, 2016, the same day that president Obama’s administration announced sanctions against Russia, Flynn discussed those sanctions with Russian ambassador Kislyak. Flynn had previously admitted talking with Kislyak, but denied discussing the sanctions. Flynn thus showed himself to be yet another Republican liar.
Flynn was not the only one of Trump’s intimates to have discussions with Kislyak in December 2016. Kushner and Flynn both met with the Russian ambassador seeking to set up a direct line of communication with Russian officials that would be so secretive that American intelligence would be unaware of the operation. In other words, committing treason! Kushner also met with the head of Vnesheconombank (VEB) which had been subject to economic sanctions since July of 2014. And of course, neither Flynn or Kushner reported these meetings on their security clearance forms. If what they were doing was legal, why didn’t they report them?
Of course, Trump and his team issued multiple denials of any contacts between his associates and Russia. And, when these denials were proven false, Trump and his supporters stepped up their attacks on the investigation.
But there is much more, none of it favorable to Trump and his supporters.
While he was running for president, Trump’s organization was actively involved in purchasing a luxury hotel and condominium project in Moscow, which was called the Trump World Tower Moscow. The driving force behind this was—Michael Cohen. Trump OK’d the venture by signing a non-binding letter of intent on October 13, 2015. Another signatory was a Russian investor named Andrei Rozov. This letter was then sent to Cohen by Felix Sater, a Russian-American real estate developer. Sater, who had worked with the Trump Organization on previous business deals, is known to be involved with various criminal activities with organized crime and has been used by the FBI as an informer. Sater told Cohen that he was a close associate of Russian president Vladimir Putin and emailed him to that effect on November 13, 2015: “Buddy our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins [sic] team to buy in on this. I will manage this process.” Sater also boasted that he had managed to obtain financing for the project through Russia’s VTB Bank, at that time also under U.S. sanctions.
Things have gotten worse and worse for Cohen. Public Citizen reports: “AT&T and the giant pharmaceutical corporation Novartis have admitted paying more than $1 million to the shell company controlled by Trump attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen. This is the same shell company Cohen used to make hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. What in the heck were the companies doing? Everything about these deals looks shady. Maybe the companies were so stupid that they thought Cohen really could give them meaningful strategic advice. Maybe. Or maybe something far more nefarious was going on. These revelations hearken back to the illegal ITT payments made to the Republican Party to obtain Richard Nixon’s intervention in an antitrust review case.
The shocking news about AT&T and Novartis raises an endless list of questions for the companies to answer:
•How did they know to reach out to Michael Cohen and send funds to a shell company he controlled?
•Who at AT&T and Novartis authorized the deals with Michael Cohen?
•Did Donald Trump know about these payments?
•What services did Cohen actually render?
•Novartis says it concluded — after a first meeting under contract — that Cohen could not provide the advice on health care policy it sought, but why did it enter into a deal in the first place, and why did it not exit the contract if Cohen couldn’t deliver the agreed-upon services?
•Was the money expected to be transferred to one or more third parties?
•How do they justify such payments to their shareholders?
Again, the best-case story for the companies is that they were incredibly stupid and willing to enter into a sleazy deal that failed. The worst-case scenarios raise questions about whether the funds sent to the shell company were outright bribes.
Already, there is much more evidence of abuse of power and obstruction of justice to impeach Donald Trump than there ever was against Richard Nixon. The difference is that Republicans in Nixon’s day had enough integrity to recognize his crimes.
Today, by contrast, Republicans band together and show no interest whatever in searching for objective truth, wherever it may lead. Almost to a (wo)man, they refuse to show any objectivity or honesty. Proof of this was seen when, after a yearlong investigation of their own, Senate Republicans announced on March 12, 2018 that there was no evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russians that used social media and hacked emails to affect the 2016 presidential election. The report contended that, although Russian government did indeed meddle in the election, the intention was not to assist Trump’s campaign. The most obvious question which they of course did not ask, was if not, what were they trying to do with all that intruding? Naturally, the Republican ‘investigation’ found what it wanted to find.
Of course, this report set the Republican party on a collision course with U.S. intelligence agencies which had long since concluded that the Kremlin did seek to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Thus, this report marked the beginning of the war of words between the Republicans and the FBI and other intelligence sources. The eventual outcome could be nothing less than a constitutional crisis pitting one branch of government against another.
On March 28, 2018, the New York Times reported that Trump’s former campaign deputy chairman Rick Gates had had frequent communications between September and October of 2016 with a man thought by the FBI to be a former agent of GRU, which is Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency. The Times reported that the man matched the description of Konstantin Kilimnik; Kilimnik had served as Paul Manafort’s “right-hand man” in Ukraine.
On March 29, 2018 Reuters, the international news agency reported that the counsel is investigating an event at the Republican National convention in which Jeff Sessions conversed with Kislyak. The counsel is also trying to find out why any language thought to be hostile to Russia was removed from the Republican party’s platform. Kislyak was often seen in Washington during this time period, often meeting with Republican congresspersons and attending conferences.
A key meeting was held in Trump Tower in New York City on June 9, 2016 involving Kushner, Manafort, and Trump Jr. Also present were a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya, a former Soviet army officer named Rinat Akhmetshin, and Rob Goldstone, a British publicist. It was Goldstone who brought up the idea of holding the meeting with Trump Jr.; the emails to that effect have been made public. The email of June 3, 2016 had Goldstone informing Trump Jr. that one Aras Agalarov “offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” This email also noted that all this was “very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” This email alone proves that Russian officials were actively involved in supporting Trump’s campaign for president. Trump Jr. responded by saying: “Thanks Rob I appreciate that.” Initially, Trump Jr. told the press that the meeting was about discussing adopting Russian children by Americans (another Republican lie!) but after other media reports contradicted him he admitted that he agreed to attend the meeting when he found out he would receive information damaging to Hillary Clinton.
On March 23 2017, barely two months into Trump’s presidency, CNN reported that the FBI was investigating “human intelligence, travel, business, and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings” that indicate that Trump’s associates might have been in collusion with “suspected Russian operatives” for the purpose of obtaining information that could harm Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Currently, Mueller’s team is involved in examining the emails and the meeting. The counsel is trying to determine if President Trump tried to hide the purpose of the meeting. On July 21, 2017, Mueller asked the White House to preserve any and all documents pertaining to this meeting. On August 3, 2017, Mueller had impanelled a grand jury that issued subpoenas about the meeting.
Mueller’s team is also looking into alleged ties between Trump’s campaign and Peter W. Smith, a Republican activist who committed suicide in May, 2017. Smith had stated that he attempted to obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails from various Russian hackers. He also admitted that he was working for Michael Flynn and other Trump campaign members. Naturally, these officials have denied that Smith was working for them; conveniently for them, Smith is no longer around to clarify the situation.
Mueller’s team also began interviewing Matt Tait in the fall of 2017. Tait, former cybersecurity researcher at Government Communications Headquarters had been contacted by Smith who wanted to verify the accuracy and authenticity of the emails hacked from Hillary Clinton’s private email server. When questioned by House Intelligence Committee members in October of that year, Tait said that he believed that Smith was well-acquainted with Trump’s inner circle, which besides Flynn also included Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. Some of Smith’s documents were turned over to the Senate’s Intelligence Committee that same month.
Mueller’s investigation escalated in December, 2017 when they began investigating whether the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee provided assistance to the various Russian trolls who were trying to influence voters. The joint data operation was directed by Brad Parscale and managed by Kushner. That same month, Democratic members of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees requested their respective Republican chairmen to subpoena two of the data firms used by the Trump campaign that might shed light on Russian election interference. One of firms was led by Parscale. By February 2018, Mueller’s investigators were asking witnesses about Trump had any knowledge that Democratic emails had been stolen prior to being given to the general public. This marked a turning point in the investigation: For the first time, the investigation was examining whether Trump himself was involved in the scandal. Of course, Trump denies all this and will continue to do so, but given his obvious propensity to lie, his denials are meaningless.
Mueller’s investigation came up with a list of questions for Trump and gave the list to Trump’s attorneys. The New York Times published these questions on April 20, 2018, while admitting that the quotes were not verbatim. A key question was: “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?”
The Special Counsel is also investigating Trump’s financial interests and ties to Russia, and those of his associates. The FBI is investigating not only the president, but also The Trump Organization, members of his family, his campaign staff, and his real estate activities, which had been under investigation even before the presidential campaign. Also under investigation are Manafort, Flynn, Kushner and Carter Page. The counsel is investigating Russian purchases of Trump apartments, real estate ventures organized by Kushner, Trump’s sale of a mansion in Florida for $30 million over its appraised value to a Russian oligarch named Dmitry Rybolovlev. They are even investigating the 2013 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow!
On January 25, 2018, the Daily Kos, quoting Senator Charles Grassley, reported that Kushner is “spooked” and won’t agree to a staff interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Mark Sumner, Daily Kos, January 25, 2018) This isn’t the least bit surprising. The Kos article asks: “What does Kushner have to be ‘spooked’ about? There are the lies he told Congress about contacts between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. The over 100 errors and omissions on his security form. The $285 million loan from Deutsche Bank that Kushner landed on the eve of the election. His role in funding an illegal Israeli settlement. The ongoing saga of his attempt to sell the 666 Fifth Avenue white elephant—a brilliant purchase by Jared that is threatening to drag his family business into oblivion. His statement that he walked into the Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives not knowing what it was about, despite getting advance emails. That time he forgot to let the Senate Intelligence Committee know that he was using a private email account to do White House business. His role in trying to sell Russian nuclear reactors across the Middle East. Or maybe just the multiple occasions where his family traded on his position in the government to sell green cards in China. After that, there’s just concerns about money laundering.”
Kushner is actually in deep financial trouble, in addition to being up to his neck in security issues. Quoting Politico, the Daily Kos reports: “…Kushner’s three credit lines had been increased from $5 million to $25 million and that Ivanka and Jared’s total indebtedness has gone from an estimated $98 million to $155 million. Bear in mind, all the while Jared was busy stacking up debt, he also was busy talking a lot to Russia.” (ursulafaw, Daily Kos, February 15, 2018) The article goes further: “If this wasn’t enough, just today Bloomberg reports that the IRS has requested documents “from lenders and investors in real estate projects managed by Jared Kushner’s family.”
As time goes on, the full impact of Kushner’s financial problems and incompetence become harder and harder for him and his father-in-law to rationalize. Public Citizen puts it very bluntly, but accurately: “Jared Kushner must resign. The New York Times just reported that the Kushner family real estate company obtained $500 million in loans from entities whose executives met with Kushner at the White House last year. And the Washington Post reports that at least four countries have discussed ways they can manipulate Kushner ‘by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.’ (Robert Weissman, Public Citizen, March 1, 2018) Does Kushner have any right to serve as senior White House advisor? Is nepotism in itself a sufficient reason?
Then there is the infamous “Nunes memo.” This is a four-page memorandum authored by U.S. Representative Devin Nunes’ staff and released to the public by the Republican leaders on February 2, 2018. This memo alleged that the FBI “may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources” in order to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in October, 2016 and in three subsequent renewals on Carter Page, one of Trump’s advisors. The memo alleges that there exists a secret anti-Trump society within the FBI; of course there is no evidence for this and Nunes has not provided any. Lack of facts or proof is irrelevant in today’s political climate; any “fake news” uttered by Republicans is given credence, no matter how outrageous, and no matter if there isn’t an iota of evidence backing it up.
Nunes was chair of the House Intelligence Committee (HIC) that produced the March 12 report that said there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and various Russian operatives. Nunes has been described by Steve Bannon as the president’s second-strongest ally in Congress. In that capacity, he has had two ethics complaints filed against him for sharing classified information he obtained as head of HIC. Republicans wanted the memo released, contending that it contained evidence that certain FBI employees were abusing the FISA warrant process in an effort to damage Trump’s presidency.
The day after the release of the memo, Trump almost deliriously tweeted: “This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe. But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their [sic] was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction.” However, this is not the case. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) disagreed. Appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation on February 4, he said: “I actually don’t think it has any impact on the Russia probe.” Expanding on this, Gowdy said: “There is a Russia investigation without a dossier. So to the extent the memo deals with the dossier and the FISA process, the dossier has nothing to do with the meeting at Trump Tower. The dossier has nothing to do with an email sent by Cambridge Analytica. The dossier really has nothing to do with George Papadopoulos’ meeting in Great Britain. It also doesn’t have anything to do with obstruction of justice. So there’s going to be a Russia probe, even without a dossier.”
Gowdy is far from being the only individual to question the memo. Three former CIA analysts called the memo “politically motivated” and “recklessly drafted.” They also noted that the memo “does not support its main thesis” alleging abuse by the FBI and Department of Justice with regard to their investigation of Carter Page, noting that it “doesn’t offer any evidence of the potential abuse and, in fact, the memo undermines itself.”
The memo is nothing more than a smear campaign designed by Nunes to undermine both the congressional investigation and the FBI investigation into the Russian scandal. The smear focuses on Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Mueller investigation. CREDO Action notes: “As those who had seen it had asserted before its release, the so-called memo is really just Republican talking points making unsubstantiated claims to undermine the credibility of the FBI’s investigation. Earlier in the week, the FBI even issued an unprecedented statement publicly rebuking Nunes’s conspiracy-fueled ‘memo’ that expressed ‘grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.’” (Kaili Lamb, CREDO Action, February 4, 2018) In yet another attack on the integrity of our legal system, the CREDO Action report notes that: “When Republicans voted to release the memo, they also voted against allowing the minority report authored by Rep. Adam Schiff, which points out the flaws in Nunes’ narrative, to be released to members outside the Committee.” The gall of today’s Republican leaders is simply astounding.
As an indication of how far removed from reality Devin Nunes actually is, consider the following statement he made on the Sean Hannity show (where else?): “There’s clear evidence of collusion—that the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign colluded with the Russians.” And the evidence? Not mentioned. Clearly, Nunes is nothing more than an obviously incompetent party hack that isn’t the least concerned with the truth.
The Nunes memo is nothing more than a cheap and rather incompetent attempt to discredit the Russia inquiry.
In his State of the Union address in January, 2018, Trump glowingly praised law enforcement. The irony of making a statement like this while simultaneously attacking our top law enforcement agency, the FBI, should be obvious to any thinking American.
Trump’s attacks on the FBI and DOJ, far from exonerating him of guilt, instead threaten to provoke a constitutional crisis. The often-discussed potential firing of Mueller also threatens such a crisis. Andrew Cohen, a fellow at the Brennan Center for justice, put it this way: “a state of undeclared civil war now exists in America. On one side is the president, his Republican allies in Congress, scions of finance and commerce who are cashing in on the administration’s widening corruption, white nationalists and their enablers, the resentment-nursing, swindled ‘forgotten men and women,’ and the gleeful Russians. On the other side are the rest of us, including longtime public servants at the Justice Department and the FBI, and congressional Democrats who have the facts but clearly not the power on their side.” (quoted in Daily Kos, January 30, 2018) The Kos article closes on this somber note: “This is now a rogue Presidency, aided and abetted by a Republican Party that has abandoned all principle and all loyalty to the country. It is a Party made up of Traitors, to the last man and woman that have pledged their fealty to it.” Harsh words indeed, but one hundred percent supported by the facts.
We now move to the key issue of obstruction of justice.
The scandal was already a key issue by the time Trump assumed the presidency. Even at that stage, senior White House officials had reportedly asked the FBI to stop the investigation into NSA’s Flynn. In March 2017, Trump himself asked Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, and then-CIA director Mike Pompeo to work with Comey to limit or stop the investigation. When the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Coats about this, he refused to discuss any conversations he had with the president, and then said: “I have never felt pressured to intervene in the Russia investigation in any way.”
The White House was already acting suspiciously by that time. In February 2017, the White House requested that the FBI issue a statement that there had been no contact whatever between Trump associates and Russian intelligence sources during the presidential campaign the previous year. This request was in violation of established procedures involving contact between the White House and the FBI regarding pending investigations. The FBI refused to make the requested statement and continued its investigation of possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Trump responded by phoning both Coats and Director of National Security Admiral Michael S. Rogers and requesting them to make a public statement that there was no evidence of collusion. Although technically not illegal, the request certainly indicates that Trump and his minions are scared of what the investigation might turn up. If they are innocent, they should fully support the investigation, knowing it will exonerate them and give them a great deal of leverage in upcoming elections.
One item that has gotten a great deal of media coverage concerns the notes that Comey took during a meeting with Trump on February 14, 2017. The president attempted to convince Comey to drop the FBI investigation into Flynn, saying: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” When this was made public, the White House denied Comey’s version of what was said, but an FBI agent who was present verified the wording in court. Yet another White House lie.
The evidence clearly was strong enough for the FBI to begin an investigation into Trump for obstruction of justice. This took place a few weeks after Comey was fired on May 9, 2018. Trump himself admitted on national television that his reason for firing Comey was because he was investigating the Russian scandal and the Trump campaign. The special prosecutor’s office has taken over the obstruction of justice investigation and has reportedly interviewed Coats, National Security Agency Director Rogers, and Richard Ledgett, Deputy Director of the NSA. As I write this at the end of June 2018, a full-scale investigation has not yet been launched, but ABC News has reported that Mueller’s team is currently involved in gathering preliminary information on the matter.
On January 31, 2018, The New York Times and USA Today both reported that Mueller’s team was about to question Mark Corallo, the former spokesperson for Trump’s legal team. The papers noted that Corallo planned to tell investigators that Trump and his longtime aide Hope Hicks sought to obstruct justice by saying that the Trump Jr. emails regarding his meeting with the Russians “will never get out.” Corallo resigned from Trump’s team in July 2017 when he became worried that Trump was obstructing justice.
Mueller has taken over a money laundering investigation into Paul Manafort. Manafort and associate Rick Gates were both indicted on charges of conspiracy on October 30, 2017 by a federal grand jury. The charges include conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States, and accusations of being unregistered agents of a foreign principal. Currently, Manafort’s financial shenanigans are being investigated by the Senate, the House intelligence committees, the New York Attorney General, and the Manhattan District Attorney.
The Special Counsel is also trying to determine if the Central Bank of Russia’s deputy governor, Aleksandr Torshin, illegally transferred money to Trump’s campaign via the National Rifle Association. Torshin is an ally of Putin and heads the Central Bank of Russia and attended an NRA dinner event with Trump Jr. Credo Action reports that: “Since Putin came back to power in 2012, Russia has increasingly pursued a goal of destabilizing the U.S. Part of their strategy has been aligning with extreme groups within the American right wing to deepen existing cultural and political divisions. With the NRA, Russia has a perfect partner.” (Heidi Hess, Credo Action, January 27, 2018) The article continues: “The NRA spent at least $55 million during the 2016 elections, including at least $30 million directly focused on electing Trump. When the Supreme Court opened the door for unlimited corporate dark money spending on elections with its Citizens United decision, the court’s right-wing majority alleged that the spending would be accompanied by disclosure. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The NRA has become a hub for dark money donations that are made to organizations that are not required to disclose their donors. A Karl Rove–aligned SuperPAC and a Koch brothers non-profit are among the groups that have given money to the NRA to advance Republicans’ extreme right-wing agenda.” There are many loopholes in dark money contributions, making it increasingly likely that foreign money will continue to influence future elections.
As an aside, the NRA announced in May 2018 that Oliver North would be its next president. It is significant indeed that they would choose a leading figure in the Iran-Contra scandal from the 1980s to head their organization, a man whose conviction for destroying evidence and obstruction of justice was overturned when the courts ruled that Congress had promised him immunity from prosecution. For his acts of treason, he remains a hero to conservatives who feel that Republicans should be allowed to violate any laws they want to. And, as one would expect, North wasted no time in blasting the Parkland students: “They call them activists. That’s what they’re calling themselves. They’re not activists—this is civil terrorism. This is the kind of thing that’s never been seen against a civil rights organization in America.” The Daily Kossarcastically responds: “Oh noes! We can’t call out an organization that has the power to strike fear into the hearts of legislators with one phone call, and has derailed every common-sense attempt at gun reform. If we do so, we’re no different from al-Qaeda and ISIS!” One student responded with: “It speaks so beautifully for the NRA’s true colors that they put this crook in charge.” ‘Nuff said.
The Senate Judiciary Committee released a report stating that they were in possession of “a number of documents that suggest the Kremlin used the National Rifle Association as a means of accessing and assisting Mr. Trump and his campaign.” Mueller will also be able to access Trump’s tax returns which he has steadfastly refused to turn over.
On April 4, 2018, CNN reported that the Mueller team was investigating certain Russian oligarchs to see if they provided illegal cash donations to the Trump campaign. Among them was Viktor Vekselberg, who was detained and had his electronic devices searched when he arrived at a New York airport on his private jet. Five days later, The New York Times reported that Mueller was investigating a $150,000 donation to the Donald J. Trump Foundation by Victor Pinchuk, a billionaire from Ukraine. This donation was made in exchange for a 20 minute video appearance of Trump to a conference in Kiev.
On June 14, 2018 Barbara Underwood, the New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Trump, alleging that he illegally used his charitable foundation for personal and political gains. The lawsuit details a decade of such mismanagement. This Los Angeles Times quotes the attorney general as saying that the president: “used charitable assets to pay off the legal obligations of entitles he controlled to promote Trump hotels, to purchase personal items and to support his presidential election campaign.” (Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2018) Clearly, even without the Russian scandal looming over his head, the president has other legal issues to resolve.
In conclusion, the Special Counsel has, as of the end of June, 2018, initiated criminal proceedings against twenty people. Five of them are U.S. nationals, fourteen are Russian nationals, one is a Dutch national. In addition, three Russian organizations have also been indicted.
In May 2018 Trump, without any evidence whatever, demanded (not suggested, demanded) that the Justice Department examine whether it and the FBI had “infiltrated or surveilled” his campaign for political purposes. He also asked if this had been done at the instigation of the Obama administration. All this is is just another desperate attempt to divert attention away from his involvement in the Russian scandal. This president is so far removed from reality that he thinks that any charge he makes, no matter how spurious, must be immediately investigated. But this is business as usual with Donald Trump; he thinks he is a law unto himself. A Los Angeles Times editorial summarized this ridiculous situation as follows: “For someone who insists that there was “no collusion” and that he has nothing to hide,Trump has sought to undermine this investigation from the start, baselessly attacking those who are conducting it, diverting attention to sideshows and injecting politics into what should be a fact-finding process. In doing so he has walked close to the line of obstructing justice.” (editorial, Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2018)
This action was part of the “Spygate” drama he created to divert attention away from himself and put it directly on the Democratic party. This was too much even for many Senate Republicans, who began distancing themselves from this baseless sideshow.
The following month, in June 2018, the president lied to the American people again when he claimed that a Justice Department report by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz “totally exonerates” him. He also stated that: “the Mueller investigation has been totally discredited.” The only problem is that the report had nothing whatever to do with the investigation, Trump’s presidential campaign, or anything at all involving Russia.
Congressional Republicans are making every effort to sabotage the investigation. House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes absolutely refused to grant repeated requests from Democrats to interview dozens of witnesses. He has also done his best to block subpoenas of documents relevant to the investigation. Congress exists to investigate and uncover the truth on any given issue and report it to the public. Republicans, aided and abetted by alt-right fake news, are derelict in their duties, and possibly treasonous in their efforts to undermine Mueller and the investigation.
In 1978, when there were at least a few politicians who cared about our system of government, an act called The Ethics in Government Act was passed which set up a system that ensured that special prosecutors would be completely independent that a group of judges could appoint and that no president could fire. This act was enacted several years after the Watergate scandal and was designed to protect investigations like Mueller’s from outside interference, particularly from the president. Unfortunately, two decades later, both Republicans and Democrats colluded to let the independent counsel statute expire. Were it still in place, there is little doubt we would be in the mess we are in, with the president threatening to fire Mueller and derail the investigation into his corrupt administration. As it stands now Mueller, although an independent investigator, is serving at the whim of Trump’s Department of Justice. If Trump actually does try to fire Mueller, a constitutional crises of the greatest proportions will unfold, one that could affect the rule of law in this country for decades to come. If Mueller is actually fired, America will be witnessing the executive branch of government trying to destroy the rule of law in order to protect its own hold on power.
If there were any lingering doubts that the Republican party couldn’t care less about uncovering the truth about the Russian Scandal, the House Intelligence Committee’s Republicans, in complete defiance of honesty, abruptly shut down the committee’s Russia investigation on March 14, 2018. Tom Steyer reports: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired this morning, right after speaking out about Russia. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation continues to turn up new revelations every week. Our intelligence agencies agree that Russia interfered with the 2016 election in favor of Trump. They know the American people deserve the truth. But House Republicans? They’d rather play partisan games and shut down investigations because they are scared of losing control of the House this November. They’re putting party ahead of country…” (Tom Steyer, Need to Impeach, March 14, 2018) Which is what they’ve always been doing, at least in the last half century.
As the scandal unfolds, no actions have been taken against Russia to ensure that something like this does not happen again. One would think that if Trump were innocent of all charges, he would be outraged at the now proven interference of Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. People’s Action, quoting Mother Jones magazine, reports: “It is working—the Trump-GOP campaign to distract attention from the Russia scandal. And this is placing the nation—literally and seriously—at risk… Russian intervention in a handful of critical races could mean the difference between a House that continues to protect Trump and undercut the Russia scandal and a House that challenges Trump and digs aggressively. So there could be much incentive for Moscow to resort to its dirty tricks again. This threat from Russia should be in the headlines—more than the antics of Nunes. Democrats ought to be publicly demanding more information from Pompeo and pressing Trump on what is being done to prevent a repeat of 2016. Trump’s sidestepping of the sanctions law ought to be fully examined in light of Pompeo’s underplayed warning.” (Jeff Bryant, People’s Action, February 2, 2018)
Every single U.S. Intelligence agency has come to the same conclusion: Russia thinks it was successful in meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign and intends to do the same thing in the 2018 campaigns. Action Network provides the details: “Russia and Trump are spreading real and fake information that divides Americans. Social media intelligence group New Media Frontier did a deep analysis of the #ReleaseTheMemo hype. Russian bot armies joined forces with Trump superfans to manufacture misleading and partisan outrage. Together they attacked Mueller’s investigation into Trump and undermined public faith in government. Intelligence officials said this week that they do not believe Russia is trying to hack voting machines. But Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that: “we expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokespeople and other means of influence to try to exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States.” (Ryan Greenwood, Action Network, February 15, 2018)
So is all this evidence of a “witch hunt,” as Trump and his minions want the American people to believe? Can all this be swept under the rug? Can it be blamed on the Democrats? The answers to these questions should be obvious.
Trump will stop at nothing to discredit his perceived enemies and end the investigation. On May 23, he tweeted: “SPYGATE could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!” Of course, his version of “spygate” is completely false. Daily Kos tells us the real story: “The Washington Post reported that: ‘a well-connected veteran of past GOP administrations’ talked to three Trump campaign officials in 2016 and spoke with the FBI about his concerns. The FBI did not implant the source within the campaign, and he was not a ‘spy.’ But Trump and his Russian nesting puppets in Congress demanded the name of the source be revealed. Against the advice of national security experts, it was. But this isn’t the story Trump is peddling on Twitter and being gobbled up by his goose-stepping followers. The story in Trumpland is that the FBI embedded a spy in his campaign to undermine him in the election. Trump’s version of ‘Spygate’ is complete fiction—a made-up scandal to discredit the only government institutions trying to hold him accountable. Trump’s attacks put the rule of law itself in jeopardy.” (Amanda McKay, Daily Kos, May 24, 2018)
The New York Times published a letter written to its editor by two members of Free Speech for People which aptly sums up the entire situation regarding the Russian scandal: “The argument that we need more proof before pressing for impeachment proceedings against President Trump belies the facts. We already have overwhelming evidence that the president has committed impeachable offenses, including obstruction of justice; violations of the anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution (the emoluments clauses); abuse of the pardon power; undermining the freedom of the press; recklessly threatening nuclear war against foreign nations; directing or seeking to direct law enforcement, including the Department of Justice and the F.B.I., to prosecute political adversaries for improper purposes; and giving aid and comfort to white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Whether the president was directly involved in a conspiracy with the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 election remains the subject of Robert Mueller’s investigation. But we do not need to wait for the outcome of that criminal investigation before moving forward with an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives on whether the president has committed crimes against the state: abuse of power and abuse of the public trust. Our Constitution is facing one of its greatest tests. We must rise to defend it, using the power of the impeachment clause to confront the unprecedented corruption of the presidency. That starts with the launch of an impeachment investigation of Mr. Trump.” (John C. Bonifaz & Ben T. Clements, Free Speech for People, May 7, 2018)
Anyone insisting that we call of the investigation doesn’t have a clue as to what constitutes real democracy. They are as un-American as it is possible to be.
OUR BROKEN DEMOCRACY
It is all too easy to blame Donald Trump and the Republican party for all the troubles plaguing our nation. But they certainly bear most of the responsibility. The simple fact is that government is simply not responsive to the needs of the American people. This trend has been going on for some forty years now. The disastrous Hobby Lobby decision of 2010 ensured that big money will determine who is elected and what is discussed. Until the American people wake up and say: “enough,” the travesty will continue and even get worse. Because of this decision, corporations have the power to block policies favored by the majority of Americans. The good news is that countless millions of Americans recognize this decision as a threat to our way of life and are taking to the streets and trying to get a constitutional amendment passed nullifying Hobby Lobby. The bad news is that, with Republicans controlling all three branches of government, real change does not seem feasible at the present time. Republicans will ignore scientists. They will ignore the facts. And, most ominously, they will ignore the will of the people.
They even ignore discomforting language. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the terms “evidence-based” and “science-based” went out the window, as did single words such as “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “fetus,” “transgender,” and “diversity.” Climate change, when it is referred to at all, is now called “weather extremes.” Again, a comparison with the past is in order. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels understood well the importance of controlling the language. He said: “The secret of propaganda is to permeate the person it aims to grasp without his even noticing that he is being permeated.” His Republican descendants understand this very well.
The system is broken. Consider this: After a dog died during an airline flight due to it’s having been put in an overhead bin, Senator John Kennedy announced: “I will be filing a bill tomorrow that will prohibit animals in overhead bins. Violators will face significant fines. Pets are family.” Meanwhile, seventeen people die in a high school shooting, and a month later there’s a nationwide protest to get the attention of lawmakers. But one dog dies on an airplane and there is a bill in the Senate to rectify it within 48 hours. This shows where our politicians priorities lie.
A pair of recent communications from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to Democratic candidates for Congress read as if they could have been written by the NRA or the health insurance industry. The Democratic party has to wake up and begin actively fighting the Republicans and their awful agendas. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) itself is one of the main hindrances; it resembles the appeasers that tried to placate the Nazis prior to the beginning of the Second World War. Everyone knows how that turned out. This committee doesn’t show any backbone at all; no matter what the Republicans come up with, they will continue to insist that our ‘differences’ can be worked out. They can’t. Today’s Republican party is a totalitarian regime that refuses to compromise with anyone. To cite yet another example, not long after Trump assumed the presidency, the DCCC cited a highly questionable poll in order to urge Democratic congressional candidates for Congress not to pursue a Medicare for all, single-payer health care system. This year, following the Parkland shooting, they advised their candidates not to ‘publicize’ the shooting. What did the DCCC advise them to do instead? Why, to offer their ‘thoughts and prayers’ to the victims. This is right out of the Republican party’s and NRA’s playbooks. No wonder the American public is becoming more and more frustrated with politicians. It’s the 1930s all over again: Fascists on one side, and appeasers on the other. Meanwhile, almost nobody is standing up for the real values that made this country great in the first place.
Nobody can dispute the fact that Vladimir Putin wants to undermine democracy here in the U.S. as well as across the globe. Donald Trump is playing right into his hands in his attempts to isolate our country from the rest of the world. He is doing this by getting out of international agreements, which only serves to weaken our country in the eyes of the civilized world. His imposition of tariffs serves the same purpose, again to Russia’s advantage. The only rational explanation to explain his allegiance to Putin is that he “owes” him for the election. That is obviously the main reason behind his attacks on Mueller.
The bottom line is inescapable: We have elected a racist president who cares only for himself, not the American people. He is paranoid, hyper-sensitive, and completely ignorant of world affairs. He lies on a daily basis, leading one to wonder if he even understands what he is doing. He has no respect for science and, like fundamentalist religionists, thinks that the earth is here for our exploitation. But, most frightening of all is that many Americans still support him. This is a telling indictment of faith. Faith in Trump, like faith in god, is not about to be challenged by facts.
There are two cancers on the body politic that needs excision. One is the disappearance of civil discourse. Talk radio alone is proof of this. Gone are the days when opposing sides would meet and intelligently discuss issues. Hatred and belligerence have replaced thoughtful discussion; on just about any given day, one can see or read about some confrontation between opposing groups that turned violent. Taking their cue from an immature man-child in the White House, Fox News, Alex Jones and other right-wing pundits, Republicans are by far the worst offenders.
The other cancer infecting America is the complete disregard for truth exhibited by so many people, not just politicians but by every day citizens as well. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg refers to an ‘epidemic of dishonesty’ in Washington, but it’s a ubiquitous phenomenon. Certainly, the Republicans are the main offenders here. They are the ones who have created ‘alternative facts,’ ‘fake news,’ and other noxious ideas that only serve to legitimize lies. They are led by a consummate liar in the White House, a man who every day spouts lies to the American people. Lies that are demonstrably false that no one seems to be doing anything about. A man who thinks that anything he says is automatically the truth. A man who thinks he is above the law. This disregard for, and even hostility toward, objective truth can only harm our democracy. But that’s not at all surprising when you consider the fact that the Republicans aren’t interested in objective facts, either in religion, politics, or anything else. What they want is control, complete control over all they systems of government. That’s totalitarianism, pure and simple. And they are getting what they want.
Our country’s two hundred year presidency has gone from the man who ‘couldn’t tell a lie’ to a man who can’t tell the truth.
Bloomberg noted that: “The greatest threat to American democracy isn’t communism, jihadism or any other external force of foreign power. It’s our own willingness to tolerate dishonesty in service of party, and in pursuit of power.” (Associated Press, printed in the Los Angeles Times, May 13, 2018)
There are encouraging signs, albeit few and far between. One of these is the fact that, by the end of June, 2018, some two hundred politicians across the country have vowed not to accept donation money from fossil fuel companies. To my knowledge, none of them are Republicans.
And yes, there are still a few Democrats who love our country enough to fight the Republicans and their anti-American agenda. Recognizing how the Republican tax scam made the international tax system worse, Democrats Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) introduced legislation that would keep multinational corporations from exploiting the loopholes in the tax code and begin moving toward a new system in which U.S. corporations can no longer get these tax breaks by shifting jobs and their profits offshore.
To summarize, a new book entitled “How Democracies Die” is particularly relevant today. It discusses the ways dictators use to attain complete power. Dictatorships usually do not come about by violent usurpation, but by initially legal means which are then dismantled one by one. Hitler was duly elected to his office and even held an election when his term was up. Former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez came to power the same way. Once in power, they began eliminating the institutions they didn’t like one by one. Donald Trump is unquestionably following in the same path. He demands unquestioned loyalty from everyone who works with or for him. He lashes out like an immature child when he doesn’t get his way. Even before he was elected, he had shown only the weakest support of democratic principles. He supports racism. He supports dictators and alienates our allies. He attacks the free press and independent judiciary. He promises and fails to deliver. He came to power offering to pay the legal fees of those who beat up opposition activists. He attacks the FBI, despite its objective record of recent decades, and has succeeded in convincing too many Americans that it is corrupt and filled with Democrats who want to bring him down; he wants to purge it of anyone he doesn’t like and replace them with complacent, tail-wagging lackeys.
All this is proof positive that Donald Trump is working toward establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. And he is getting ever closer to his goal. Americans made this happen. They can stop it. Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), a justice of the Supreme Court, once said: “We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.” Which will it be, America?
Categories: Political Affairs