A Public Bribe

The political punditry class has been engaged in extensive examination of why the predicted Republican tsunami did not occur in the 2022 midterms.  Among the possibilities offered: poor Republican candidates; the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs; redistricting favoring Democrats; punishment of election deniers; rejection of Trump endorsed candidates, et.al.  The website FiveThirtyEight.com, which I have followed for a number of years, analyzes opinion polls, demographic data and election results.  In an article posted 10 days after the election, FiveThirtyEight opined  that the results were the product of complicated human behavior and difficult to explain.  There may be something to all of that, but I think there is a simple explanation that has been largely overlooked:

Joe Biden promised some 30 million people with college debt, essentially all of them of voting age, that he and (by implication) the Democrats could and would give every one of them up to $10,000 or $20,000, depending on each’s particular financial circumstances.  A cynic might call it the biggest publicly visible bribe in American political history.  The cynic’s comment would be fair.

“A Chicken in Every Pot.” has long been the phrase most associated with a shallow politician’s empty promise designed to influence at least the gullible to vote for him.  The phrase has been connected to Herbert Hoover’s 1928 presidential campaign, but was actually popularized before then.  A Hoover flyer is here.

Well, $10,000 or $20,000 will buy a lot of chickens, a lot of pots to cook them in, and stoves to do the cooking, not to mention a dining room table, with money left over. It was a remarkably brazen move by president Biden who obviously thinks he has little to fear from a supportive media. 

A quick look at the timeline:

     1) On August 24, 2022, President Biden announced that he would unilaterally, through his Department of Education, forgive up to $20,000 in student debt for those who received Pell Grants and up to $10,000 for those who did not as long as long as the individual’s income was under $125,000 per year, or household’s under $250,000.  “Forgive” means that the federal government, i.e. the taxpayer, will pay the debt to the lender.  It does not mean the lender will go unpaid.  The borrower is relieved and the lender gets paid.  The general public picks up the tab.

     2) In order to claim the authority to grant forgiveness, the Administration  has asserted there is an “emergency” being caused by COVID 19, as emergency is contemplated under a statute passed in 2003, the  Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students, aka the HEROES Act.  As Jonathan Turley has explained, the act was passed to assist soldiers with student debt so that they would not be harmed financially by being in active service.  It is an extreme long shot that Biden’s interpretation of the statute as giving him the authority to create a mass elimination of debt and corresponding expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars will pass judicial scrutiny.

     3) So, it took the President 19 months and 4 days from his inauguration to figure out that the effects of COVID 19 required he declare an emergency warranting the public’s paying the college debts of 30 million people.

     4) Exactly 25 days later, on September 18, 2022, Mr. Biden, in a CNN interview declared “The pandemic is over.”

     5) On numerous occasions in the last year, the Biden Administration has argued that  COVID 19 has sufficiently receded such that Trump era regulations allowing for the immediate deportations of illegal aliens because of the potential for spread of COVID should be repealed.  Repeal would have the effect of allowing millions of illegal immigrants in to the country without regard to vaccination or health status.

     6)  On November 11, 2022, three days after the midterm elections, a federal judge struck down the Biden plan as unconstitutional, writing: “in this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive…”.

     7)  Also on Friday, November 11, the Administration stopped taking applications for student debt forgiveness because of the court’s decision.  Twenty six million people had already applied. The fact that 26,000,000 million applied speaks to the breath of dissemination of the forgiveness plan.

     8) The Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments on the student loan forgiveness plan in February, 2023.  A decision is likely by June, 2023.  If the court decides the matter on the merits, rather than on a procedural issue that avoids the merits, it is hard to conceive that there would be 5 judges of any persuasion who could possibly support such an extreme assertion of executive branch authority.  Biden is claiming that he, sitting alone in the Oval Office on a Tuesday evening, can decide that the federal government (i.e. the taxpaying public) will expend what some estimate to be $500,000,000,000 to benefit less than one-tenth of the population. Article 1 of the Constitution provides that all bills raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives. Seems like a 500 billion dollar expenditure might fall in there.

A reasonable person capable of discerning the completely obvious might conclude that the president used COVID as a pretext (even while asserting in other contexts that the pandemic was over) to dangle a gift before millions of voters on the eve of the election to influence the outcome.  Announcement of the gift was timed so the Supreme Court would not have ruled on the constitutionality of the plan before the election. Clever in a diabolical way.

More insightful and knowledgeable voters would recognize they were likely being played. However $10,000 or $20,000 is meaningful to most people including the 26 million people of voting age who took the time to fill out the application. Some of those individuals might not feel comfortable telling a pollster that their vote was being determined in such a self-interested manner, and hence they would have contributed to the polls underestimating Democratic Party strength and overestimating Republican strength.

A final point. I asked two different friends at different times their thoughts about why the predicted Republican wave did not occur. Both gave the punditry-influenced reasons referenced in the first paragraph above. I then went through my explanation of the significance of the student debt forgiveness scheme and how it was likely a significant if not the most significant factor contributing to the result. I also mentioned that I intended to write about it. Within 5 minutes, each of them had evolved to the position that what I was saying was so obvious that it did not need to be expressed. I am guessing it does.

Understand It, Then Change It

I reviewed the NYTimes’ online timeline and video compilation regarding the death of George Floyd.  It contains security footage from Cup Foods, the store where Mr. Floyd allegedly passed a bad bill, cell phone videos from at least 3 witnesses, official documents and police scanner audio.

A few observations and comments:

1)  There is a certain depravity to Officer Derek Chauvin’s behavior.  Mr. Floyd had been handcuffed with Chauvin’s knee to his neck, while another officer applied pressure to his torso and a third to his legs.  Mr. Floyd was subdued and at least 16 times said “I can’t breathe.”  While the officer maintained the knee to the neck, he had to sense that life was draining from Mr. Floyd, who was  no longer struggling, no longer speaking, no longer making any sounds, no longer moving and eventually no longer breathing.  It was essentially impossible for the officer to miss all of that considering he was on top of Mr. Floyd.

2)  None of the other three officers attempted to stop or even mitigate Chauvin’s actions, with the exception that Officer Thomas Lane twice asked Chauvin about turning the suspect over.  Lane had been on the police force for six months, the shortest time of the four.

3)  None of the four officers appears to be particularly afraid or concerned that his or their actions (or inactions) are being observed.  They are open about what they are doing, and unreceptive to comments from passersby that Mr. Floyd was incapacitated and the pressure on his neck should be removed.  The police  displayed some displeasure when the cell videoers got too close, but were unconcerned about being observed in an open area on a busy street in daylight on a clear day.  Their absence of concern suggests that the four officers lacked appreciation that what they were doing was in any way wrong .  How can that be?  Most everyone else in the country and on the planet recognized the officers’ actions as destructive of human life, wrong in a moral sense and criminal.  Why not the officers themselves?

In the recent avalanche of commentary, discussion and editorializing many observers assert that the answer to that question lies in white supremacy, systemic racism and the like.  I think much of that commentary has been off base, failing to appreciate the law enforcement culture for what it is.  Let’s take the example of white supremacists – say members of the KKK. They recognized that much of what they did was illegal, and that many people would view their actions, even when legal, as wrong and reprehensible. Understanding this, KKK members concealed their identities with hoods and acted in the dark of night to avoid detection.  These officers were not worried about being detected. 

We cannot know exactly what was in Chauvin’s mind at that moment – whether or not he had a pre-existing animosity toward black people, black males, black males of a certain age or anyone at all.  But Chauvin has been married for 10 years to a Hmong refugee from Laos.  If he is a white supremacist, his psychopathology does not appear to extend to yellow people.  The Officer who stood between the people on the sidewalk and Chauvin is Tuo Thao.  He is of Asian descent.  I believe he is also Hmong.  He doesn’t exactly fit the demographic of a white supremacist out to hurt black people.  Officer J. Alexander Keung was also involved.  I am no expert in ascertaining race or ethnicity by surname.  The officer could be of Chinese descent, but could also be German or Austrian, or something else.  It does not matter.  What unites the officers is not racial uniformity, nor I suspect a collective negative attitude toward another race, black or otherwise.  No, what unites the officers is that they are police officers – they are law enforcement.  They are the “us” in what they view an “us versus them” world.  “Them” is whomever crosses their path, challenges their authority or becomes a person they view as the “bad guy”.  This attitude is the primary component of the law enforcement culture.  Police and prosecutors see themselves as a group apart.  They are loyal to each other largely regardless of race or ethnicity.  That “group apart” sense has been accentuated by the increasing militarization of the police.  Look at the average officer–gun, baton, mace, handcuffs, radio, bulletproof vest, boots, etc.  Stand next to an officer on the sidewalk and he takes up 50% more space than the average non-militarized human.  Then there is the shotgun mounted in the car, crash bars, protective materials separating police and suspects, etc.  The military operates in an environment that has its personnel united in a common purpose against a defined enemy – there is not a lot of worry about the rights and freedoms of the enemy. Police militarization tends to foster, not guarantee but foster, a similar attitude. 

I’d wager that on a given day, each of the four officers is capable of and has acted responsibly, maybe even heroically, maybe even heroically for the benefit of a black victim of a crime, including a crime committed by a white person.  From the general police point of view, the “bad guy” is not defined primarily by race but by defiant behavior.  However, once the “bad guy” is defined, many officers–not all–are capable of behaving to some degree as the four in this case did.  Once Mr. Floyd resisted getting in the police car, responsible police behavior evaporated. For these four police officers, Mr. Floyd was now the “bad guy” the officers could treat differently.  That is in large part why they failed to appreciate the evil of their acts. They did not try to avoid detection because they were blinded by racism, but because their “us versus them” culture saw their behavior at that moment as acceptable. Therefore, there was no need to avoid detection.

Quick Google research reveals there are over 800,000 law enforcement officers in the US–not counting prosecutors – employed in 17,985 police agencies.  Not all officers absorb the culture to the same degree.  Some reject it entirely.  Others can tolerate observing it, but not actively participating,  Others, I suspect a substantially smaller group, are capable of doing what Chauvin did. The newer the officer, the less incorporated into the culture he/she is likely to be.  Thus, it is not a surprise that Officer Lane, only six months on the force, was the one to raise concern for Mr, Floyd.

This is not a “few bad apples” problem, as some right wing, pro-police under most any circumstance, commentators would have you believe.  There may be only a few who act with the callousness of Chauvin.  But the tolerance, acceptance and acquiescence of brother officers regarding Chauvin’s conduct demonstrates the problem is bigger than just a few.  These individuals are, however, redeemable.  They operate in a culture that influences and molds their behavior.  In a different police culture, there might well have been three officers seeing the harm being done to a completely subdued suspect and they might have assertively intervened.  I have heard some commentators bring up Mr. Floyd’s criminal background.  That background is irrelevant.  Once a suspect is subdued, it does not matter if it is Mother Theresa or Jack the Ripper, the officers’ right to administer force ends.  They have no right to administer punishment.

WHAT IF THERE WERE NO VIDEO

If there had been no video in this case, the police reports filed by each of the four would likely have read something like this:  “We were dispatched to the scene with a description that the suspect was “awfully drunk” and “not in control of self.”  We were able to locate the subject in a parked vehicle near the store, under the influence of one or more intoxicants and out of control as described by the dispatcher.  He was combative.  He resisted arrest, refusing to get in our unit, stating he was claustrophobic, despite our having found him in a car.  We were forced to physically restrain him.  I feared for my safety and life.  We were eventually able, after much struggle, to subdue him.  The subject became unresponsive. We called medical personnel.  I understand the subject had a preexisting heart and other physical conditions.  It is my understanding that the subject was pronounced dead after leaving our custody.  I further understand that there were substantial amounts of drugs in his system at the time of death.

The local DA would receive the reports.  If the witnesses from the sidewalk presented themselves, their statements would be taken.  If the DA were like many, he/she would take no further action.  Or, if there had been some public outcry surrounding the death, the DA would run the matter through a Grand Jury, which hears a one-sided presentation from the DA, and the Grand Jury would do as the DA wished and not charge the officers.

The video obviously changes that picture.

HOW DO WE CREATE A NEW CULTURE?

We need to create a new structure that encourages and promotes the best behavior in officers–best behavior being defined as protecting the general public from criminal acts, while recognizing that suspects retain their humanity and are restrained only to the extent necessary to protect the public and the officers themselves.  Then the legal system deals with any alleged crime.  After the first minute or so, Chauvin’s aggressive restraint of Mr. Floyd did nothing to protect the public or the police, and it failed to recognize his humanity. 

Joe Biden wants to appoint a commission to study police violence.  No.  Others call for more police training. That is not the solution.  The average 6th grader would not need training to know enough to stop applying potentially lethal force to a subdued individual.  Some want civilian review boards, but frequently officers do not cooperate with them.  Enough with commissions, training, new policies, civilian review boards.  Some of those may have a role but the law enforcement culture needs redirection.

The culture can begin to change if:

1) Each state creates an independent prosecutorial agency that investigates every instance of significant police violence.  The agency would need a team of prosecutors, investigators and staff to look into instances of the application of force by police and into alleged mistreatment of civilians.  This agency’s exclusive mission would be police misconduct.  Right now prosecutors at all state levels, including states’ attorneys general, are too closely aligned with police, both in worldview and in the discharge of their respective duties, to effectively prosecute them.  Prosecutors can’t call an officer as a witness in one case and prosecute him/her in the next.  Sending an alleged police misconduct case arising in County X to be handled by the prosecutors in County Y next door makes little difference in light of a common worldview.  You’ve probably heard prosecutors running for re-election at all levels say things like: “The homicide rate is down X% under me.” Or “I went after and cleaned up the sexual predators in our community” Or “I went after deadbeat dads and recovered 10 million dollars in back child support.” Or “Violent crime dropped Y% under me” or “Property crimes are down under me.”  The list goes on.  The standard of success for the Independent Police Prosecutor (IPP) would be the number of convictions of police, or reduction in killings or violence by police.  The IPP’s only mission is the effective prosecution of police misconduct, which would ultimately result in  there being less need for prosecutions of police  If properly created and maintained the IPP could justify public faith in the system.

We need police and they, in my opinion, deserve to know that.  They need to know that they will get fair treatment from the IPP.  It should not be populated by ideological zealots but by rational, calm beings with an understanding of the legal issues involved and a healthy appreciation for the right of the public to be free from crime, for the constitutionally protected rights of criminal defendants, and for the right of police officers to do their job safely.  There are legally justifiable uses of force and police shootings.  There are criminal uses of force and police shootings. We need a special subset of prosecutors to evaluate that.  By creating an independent entity, we remove what was all too often a comfortable backstop for suspect police conduct.

2) Police officers would be required to cooperate with the IPP, including the giving of statements to the IPP investigators.  There would be no waiting periods before officers are interviewed. The IPP would have full access to all reports and evidence. Refusal to comply with IPP requests or obstruction of its investigation would be grounds for discipline or termination and could be defined, under certain circumstances, as a criminal act.  There may need to be statutorily mandated changes to collective bargaining agreements to allow the IPP to perform its task.

Of course, police officers would be entitled to exercise their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.  However, refusal to speak to the IPP would be grounds for termination.  This raises a constitutional question as there would be a negative consequence to the exercise of a constitutionally protected right.  The statute would have to be drawn carefully to meet constitutional requirements.  That may be difficult, but worthy of the effort.

3) All officers would be required to wear functioning body cameras at any time they were interacting with the public.  Willful failure to do so would be grounds for termination/discipline.  Videos do not tell the full story, but it is obvious they can be important. 

4) Although not relevant in Mr. Floyd’s situation, we need to enact meaningful gun control legislation so that officers do not have to fear that, in every interaction with anyone at any time, they face the possibility of being shot.  That will have a deescalating effect. That discussion for another time….

A New Republican Candidate

Donald Trump’s inane musings about the benefits of injecting disinfectants and the magically curative powers of ultraviolet light have made it almost impossible for him to be re-elected.

Photo Credit: Johnathan Ernst/Reuters

My sense is that he has finally driven away enough independent voters to tip the scale against himself.  Yes, the comments on the Hollywood Access tapes were more morally repugnant and he survived.  Yes, he has made many remarks that reveal no understanding of how our government works, which is notable for the person who leads it.  Shallowness, pettiness, an absence of self-dignity – all regularly evident, yet he has survived.  But there was something qualitatively different about his escapade in to the realm of carnival medicine man.  Maybe it was the striking contrast with the doctors around him.  Maybe it was the stark display of his belief that whatever crosses his mind is somehow worthy of the country’s attention.  Maybe it was the public demonstration that every person in America who has made it out of the 5th grade has a better understanding of how the world works than their President.

I think it is time (and there is not much remaining) for the Republican Party to find a new candidate, or more particularly to orchestrate circumstances that get Donald Trump out of the way.  There is also a possibility Mr. Trump will get himself out of the way through his refusal to wear a mask, or perhaps his foray in to the use of hydroxychloroquine while being a 73 year old, overweight guy with high cholesterol.  My intention is not to discuss possible circumstances that would bring about Mr. Trump’s political departure, but to look at a ticket that could succeed in a way that might benefit the country.  I start with a few assumptions:

1. Donald Trump was narrowly elected because he spoke to the financial interests of working people, many of whom were the base of the Democratic Party a few decades ago, and who are now unrepresented by the establishments of both parties.  Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com estimates that 9% of Obama voters voted for Trump.  That translates to about 6 million votes.  It also translates to winning Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania–maybe even Iowa and Florida, all of which President Obama won in 2008 and 2012.  Those states all flipped in 2016.  Please note that I stated Trump spoke to the interests of working people – I did not say he has governed in the interests of working people
2. None of the 16 other Republican candidates for the party’s nomination in 2016 could have carried those states.  None of them could move working class voters and none could have won the election: not Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Lindsay Graham, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindahl or any of the others including Scott Walker and John Kasich who managed to get elected governors of Wisconsin and Ohio respectively.
3. None of those 16 other 2016 Republican candidates could carry the above-mentioned swing states this year, and would lose to Joe Biden as I believe Trump is now quite likely to do.  Nor can I think of a Republican currently holding office who would win.
4. American voters have the potential to re-align themselves around certain issues outside the current establishments of the two major parties,  for example;

Working people need a place to land.  Their former home in the Democratic Party is gone.  The Democrat establishment claims to be for working people while at the same time more vigorously advocating policies and an absence of law enforcement around immigration that essentially amount to open borders.  People who understand the the world know that it is impossible to be “for workers” and for illegal immigration at the same time.  The Democratic Party cannot suspend the basic laws of economics, including the law of supply and demand.  More workers leads to lower wages.  That has always been true and is no less so now that 38 million people have lost their jobs in the last nine weeks.  George Orwell, in 1984, defines “doublethink” as follows: 

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.  The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated.

The Democratic Party’s doublethink produces abandoned working Americans. The Republican Party has never, during my lifetime, directly concerned itself with their financial interests, arguing instead that some wealth will trickle down to workers if the government is sufficiently supportive of businesses both large and small.  Disregarded by both parties, some workers were willing to support Trump because he addressed immigration which lowers wages and trade deals which have the effect of exporting jobs.   My sense is that some of those voters will not support Mr. Clean this time around.

Anti-war people need a home. Maybe not even anti-war.  Maybe it is just citizens who believe our leaders should actually think before we invade a foreign country, and who also believe our foreign interventions should be guided by simple notions of morality. I think there are millions of Americans sick of watching their government kill people all over the Middle East and northern Africa in a variety of geo-political  maneuverings untethered to any meaningful notion of national security.  Forty years ago, those voters were more likely to be in the Democratic Party, although there were anti-war Republicans as well (Rep. Pete McCloskey, Senator Mark O. Hatfield among others).  Today, the Democrats, in a never-ending war against Trump, are more interested in defining Russia as “our sworn enemy” (whatever the hell that is – last I checked we did not have a procedure for swearing in our enemies) than in exploring options for arms reduction or mutually agreeable ways to reduce tensions.  The anti-war segment of the Democratic Party has largely collapsed despite the adventures going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen (which may be winding down) and the threats and provocations directed at Iran, which may be the ultimate neo-con target.   The Party is about to nominate the second presidential candidate in a row who voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq. On the other hand, Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with an array of neo-cons currently including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor Robert O’brien (protege’ of John Bolton), as well as Secretary of Defense and former defense contractor lobbyist Mark Esper.  This is not the stuff of which peace is made or maintained. Neither party provides a “safe space” for those of us who believe our country has a responsibility to consider the welfare of both the people on whom we drop bombs and the soldiers we send thousands of miles in our name.

A NEW REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE

Who has a national profile, can retain (likely expand) the voters who switched from Obama to Trump, can retain Trump Republicans, can even bring back to the Republican Party some of the Never Trumpers whose primary objections were around Trump’s vulgarity and ignorance, who has shown a degree of independence from Republican orthodoxy, would do well in debates, who is comfortable on television, is articulate, is knowledgeable on all major issues, and displays a degree of empathy and humanity that Mr. Trump never has and Joe Biden currently does not?

Tucker Carlson

The answer is Tucker Carlson.  Those of my older, liberal friends who are now snickering and sneering, need to take a breath.  Watch the opening monologue from January 2, 2019 (here) before you complain.  He presents  a forceful rejection of the Mitt Romney form of Republicanism that is designed to make the world safe for international banking while conducting a destructive, interventionist, militarily-oriented foreign policy.  Carlson recognizes human beings as more than agents of consumption kneeling at the altar of the so-called Free Market.  On these issues, Carlson sounds far more like an old Democrat than Hillary Clinton ever has.  What’s more, he is a reflection of a genuine anti-interventionist segment of the Republican Party (Rand Paul, Pat Buchanan, Daniel Larison) that has much in common with people like me who disdain the wars pursued in my lifetime and who have never been Republican.   I do remember the Carlson of old on MSNBC more than a decade ago – at a time when that network was more conservative-Republican than liberal-Democratic.  He preached a conservatism to which I had a visceral negative reaction.  He’s different now, regularly addressing the financial  interests of working people and frequently expressing his antipathy to the wars we have pursued over the last several decades.  He is quite skilled in disagreeing with a guest while having a meaningful conversation – something you rarely see on the rest of FOX, or on CNN or MSNBC.

Consider reading the introduction to Carlson’s book Ship of Fools.  It is available as a excerpt on Amazon.  He is a Republican who sees wealth disparity as a problem that needs to be confronted – not explained away.  He is opposed to illegal immigration without the Trump references to ethnicity or religion or any of the unnecessary baggage that gets in the way of clearly expressing a view that benefits American labor. He hates foolish wars almost as much as I do.

Gabriel Sherman had an interesting article in Vanity Fair recently where he was describing the FOX News chorus that was cheering on Trump’s happy talk about the spreading coronavirus.  He noted that, “Tucker Carlson was an important exception.”  Sherman explained that Carlson warned his viewers early (early February) about the need to be vigilant regarding the virus and that he realized Trump “failed to grasp the scale of the crisis”.  Although his practice was to give his advice to the president on air, Carlson sought a private meeting with Trump in early March.  That meeting occurred in Mar-a-Lago and wound up lasting two hours.  Carlson warned that the virus was an existential threat to both the country and to the president’s reelection.  A Republican operative commented that the conversation “seemed to puncture Trump’s bubble”.  Speaking truth to power is not a bad trait.

This is not to say Tucker Carlson is a perfect candidate.  For one example, I think he is too much a “We need to open the country up now” advocate.  But in a world of political imperfections, he offers some possibilities that could move the country in what I believe is a positive direction.

 

Tulsi Gabbard

Who should his vice-presidential running mate be?  He could win with Nikki Haley, but she is a neo-con of the kind whose influence in government needs to be reduced.  My answer is Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.  She has healthy and sincere disgust for the never-ending wars of the Middle East.  Of those who sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, she was the leading anti-war candidate, followed closely by Bernie Sanders.  Hilary Clinton asserts she is a Russian asset.  That assessment goes in the positive column.  Carlson has spoken favorably of her during his show.  There was speculation she intended to run as a third party presidential candidate.  She did not.

Would it not be refreshing for a woman to be chosen for Vice President on the basis of her beliefs, values and competence, rather than that she fills a few intersectional lines on the grid of the aggrieved through which Democrats now view the political world.  Sure, she would be the first woman, first Samoan-American, and first Hindu vice president.  So what?  That’s fine, but, if called upon to be president, she is smart, determined, and would come to the office with the strongest disposition against the  foreign interventions and forever wars that I have been against my adult life.

 

A Different Perspective

Yes, Donald Trump is an encyclopedia of imperfections, which include his capacity to contradict himself with the speed of a NASCAR race car.  His ruminations about the COVID-19 pandemic have put on display a full array of misstatements, contradictory statements, hyperbolic statements of self-importance, and the like.  You can immerse yourself in an endless stream of them any day on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, or in the New York Times or Washington Post. But, I want to talk a little about the President’s actions and reasonable inferences we can draw about how the Democratic Party’s principal figures would have addressed the pandemic.

1. On January 31, 2020, President Trump issued a “Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus.”  The Proclamation severely restricted the number of people who could travel from China to the US.  It has been referred to as a “travel ban” although it did not bar all travelers including returning US citizens. 

Passengers wearing masks at the waiting area for a train to Wuhan, China, on January 20
Photo credit: Reuters

At that time there were approximately 10,100 cases of COVID-19 in the world, all but 114 cases in China. There were 200 deaths worldwide, all in China.  There were 6 confirmed cases in the U.S.

2. The virus was discovered in China sometime in December, 2019, the best estimate being mid-December, although recent reconstructions suggest the Chinese government may have been aware in November.  It was initially stated by the Chinese government that the virus was transmitted from animals to humans. Later, Chinese officials reported human-to-human transmission.

3. The Proclamation points out that during Fiscal Year 2019 (which was the 12 month period ending on September 30, 2019) an average of more than 14,000 people traveled each day from China to the United States.  The Centers for Disease Control, The National Institutes of Health and the US government were, and are, completely unable to evaluate and monitor the many daily travelers for any infectious disease.

4. The day before the Proclamation, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak “a public health emergency of international concern.”

5. On the day the Proclamation was issued, Joe Biden held a campaign rally in Iowa (the Iowa caucus was set for 3 days later, February 3).  He delivered a less than clear critique of President Trump’s approach to COVID-19, during which he said the following: “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fear mongering to lead the way instead of science.” (Here) 

Former Vice President Joe Biden at a campaign rally in Mason City, IA
Photo credit: AP/Charlie Neibergall

He certainly appeared to be addressing the travel ban, although his supporters now appear to be implying otherwise.  It was 4 days earlier on January 27, in an opinion piece appearing in USA Today that Mr. Biden made clear his distaste for travel bans when he  criticized Trump for “reactionary travel bans that would have only made things worse.” (Here)

6. On February 5, 2020, the New York Times ran an opinion piece by travel consultant Rosie Spinks titled: “Who Says It’s Not Safe to Travel to China?” subtitled: “The coronavirus travel ban is unjust and doesn’t work anyway.”  She argued the travel ban was motivated by xenophobia and racism and not sound policy.  I remember reading the piece at that time and thinking it was so much like the New York Times to give space to a writer with a globalist’s economic perspective, so willing to see xenophobia and racism behind an action of the Administration that impacts her economic interest.

7. On February 26, 2020, Elizabeth Warren, then still a presidential candidate, asserted at a CNN Town Hall: “I’m going to be introducing a plan tomorrow to take every dime that the President is now spending on his racist wall at our Southern Border and divert it to work on the coronavirus.”  She tweeted almost identical sentiments about the “racist wall” during the same time period.

8. On March 9, 2020, in a FOX Town Hall focused on COVID-19, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders answered this question by Brett Baier:

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at Fox News town hall, April 15, 2019
Photo credit: Mark Makela/Getty Images

Question: “If you had to, if you had to, would you close down the borders?”
Sanders: “No.  I mean what you don’t want to do right now–we have a president who has propagated xenophobic, anti-immigrant sentiment from before he was elected.  What we need to do is have scientists take a look …. Let’s not go back to the same old thing. Isn’t it interesting that a President who has been demagoging and demonizing immigrants, the first thing he can think about is closing down the border?”

Baier’s question actually contained the answer: “If you had to…”.  Said it twice. Mr. Sanders’ predisposition against any protective measure at the US border was so strong that he could not bring himself to accept any notion that protection might be necessary.  Hence he could not say “yes” to a question that answered itself. Maybe fifteen years ago, Bernie Sanders was largely a pro-labor New Deal liberal who, like the Democratic Party establishment of the time, opposed immigration because it is financially harmful to American workers.  At that time, the desire for increased immigration was the province of the US Chamber of Commerce, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, the Koch brothers, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Republican Party establishment, all of whom wished to internationalize the labor force to reduce payroll expenses within the US.  As Ezra Klein points out in his new book, Why We’re Polarized, President Bill Clinton’s position on immigration was essentially the same as Trump’s. That position is now routinely described by those calling themselves Progressive or Liberal as racist and xenophobic. The Democratic Party’s (and Bernie Sanders’) reversal on immigration is the most dramatic political change to occur in my lifetime. 

9. On March 15, 2020, during the final Democratic presidential debate, which was focused on the COVID-19 outbreak, the two remaining candidates, Biden and Sanders battled over who was more receptive to illegal immigration.

Biden: “I will send to the desk (sic) immediately a bill that requires the access to citizenship for 11 million undocumented folks, number one.  Number two, in the first 100 days of my administration, no one, no one will be deported at all. From that point on, the only deportations that will take place are the commission of felonies in the United States of America”
Calderon: “So to be clear, only felons get deported and everyone else gets to stay?”
Biden: “Period, yes.  …”

Of course, the absence of deportations constitutes an invitation to enter illegally – if you get here, we are not going to deport you. 

Regarding medical care, Sanders said: 

“I have been criticized because the proposal for Medicare for All that I introduced includes making sure undocumented people are covered.”…
“So one of the things that we have to do is make sure everybody feels comfortable getting the healthcare they need.  That should be a general principle above and beyond the coronavirus.”
“Second of all, we’ve got to end these terrible ICE raids which are terrorizing communities all over the country.”

The Biden-Sanders collective vision is a country which, if you get here illegally, you get to stay: don’t worry about ICE raids or deportations; and you will be provided with free medical care.  That vision, so much a product of raw identity politics, now dominates the Democratic Party, which has been running away from labor at an increasing rate.

10. With the pandering to people of color during the Biden – Sanders debate still in my head, I woke up the next morning, March 16 to a NYT opinion piece in the print edition (link to online version here) by two physicians, one of them Ezekiel Emanuel, and a law professor titled “Doctors May Face Impossible Decisions”.  The piece is a horror tale of possible medical rationing and triage in response to COVID-19:

“Hospitals, doctors and the American public must prepare, strategically and emotionally, for the real possibility that rationing will be necessary. Agonizing choices may be required to determine which patients get lifesaving treatments and which patients do not.”

The article struck me as a remarkable juxtaposition to the previous evening’s debate.  While the two leading candidates for the Democratic Party’s nomination invite people from other countries to come here illegally and receive free medical care, our medical community simultaneously prepares for the possibility of rationed care.  As someone who would be classified as a senior citizen (even though I don’t feel like one), who had a quadruple bypass and aortic valve replacement, and had two bouts with pneumonia over 20 years ago, I am not sure how much effort the medical community may care to invest in me.  I am certain that I know of no other time in history, anywhere, when those aspiring to lead a country were so committed to the interests of non residents over those of its citizens.

---

I think the so-called travel ban was the single most important government action in slowing the spread of the virus in the US.  For all his incessant buffoonery, Trump did it. The evidence suggests that none of the leading Democratic contenders would have halted travel with China.  It is hard for any of them to speak two paragraphs without the words “racist” and “xenophobic”. The remnants of what was once the respectable left (of which I was a part and would still be if it existed) are so quick to use those words that I do not take them seriously.  They are name-calling third graders. They are distorting what were once powerful and important words, such that being called “racist” or xenophobic” by those lightweights is on the verge of becoming a badge of honor in the way the some were able to feel comfortable, if not honored, by being labelled “communist” by Joe McCarthy or Roy Cohn.

We have all kinds of shut-downs, stay-at-home orders, executive orders closing non-essential businesses, and on and on.  All of those are designed to do one thing: prevent infected people from coming in contact with people who are not. That is all the China travel ban was.  That is all the European travel ban was. (My only wish is that they came earlier.) The Democratic Party is so captive to a narrow ideology preoccupied with race that it has rendered itself intellectually impotent – unable to recognize the obvious and unfit to lead.  There might still be time for a third party candidate….

 

In the Words of the Accused

After almost 3 years, a quadruple bypass and an aortic valve replacement, and the personal fight against my tendency to want to put my observations about any event or issue in a contextual framework that renders them immune from criticism, I am returning to Salus Populi with the intention to make less ambitious remarks.

Regarding the impeachment “trial” going on in the Senate at the moment, a few thoughts:

1. The single most important piece of evidence is the 5 page Memorandum of Telephone Conversation (MOTC) of July 25, 2019 between the Presidents of the US and Ukraine 

photo credit: Washington Post

It was created by Situation Room Duty Officers and National Security Council policy staff assigned to “memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place.” It is available online without complicated research.  I encourage anyone who would like to have an informed opinion regarding the two Articles of Impeachment passed by the House to read it.

2. The President is not correct that it was a “perfect conversation” in that he makes several references to his personal attorney Rudy Guiliani in a manner suggesting Guiliani was involved in the conduct of foreign policy.  In a perfect call, there would be no reference to Mr. Guiliani, a private citizen, functioning as a representative of the US government. Those references, however, are not a crime or an offense (impeachable or otherwise) — they are just a bad idea, as would be the President’s assigning a private citizen any diplomatic function.

3. It is President Zelensky who first raises the issue of corruption in his country, and his desire to create a “new type of government.”

4. When President Trump mentions the notion to “do us a favor” it is clear he is directed at the 2016 election.  He asks that Ukraine “find out what happened” (past tense). He references Crowdstrike, the DNC server, the Mueller investigation (all connected to the 2016 election) and states “… I would like you to get to the bottom of it …if that’s possible.”  He states he will have the Attorney General call Mr. Zelensky.

5. Two thirds of the way through the call, the President raises the Biden matter: “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.” (emphasis added)

6. Shortly thereafter, the President stated “… I am going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it.  I am sure you will figure it out.” (emphasis added)

7. It is clear the President is asking Ukraine to cooperate with and provide information to the US Attorney General.  There is nothing illegal or even remotely improper in that, particularly in light of the fact the Attorney General already had an investigation, led by Special Prosecutor John Durham, looking into aspects of the 2016 election.

8. I have probably heard the statement that “the President tried to force Ukraine to dig up dirt on his political rival” over a hundred times on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR in the last five months.  There is nothing in the MOTC to support that conclusion. The President’s comments regarding the Bidens were directed at one specific past event. There was no general investigation of Joe Biden requested or implied.  Furthermore, the request was only to provide information to the Attorney General.

9. The past event is Joe Biden’s boasting that he delivered a message to the Ukrainian President that the Ukrainian Prosecutor Viktor Shokun must be fired before aid will be provided to Ukraine. 

photo credit: cfr.org

Video of Biden’s comments, made to the Council on Foreign Relations, is also widely available online. I have heard an interview with Mr. Shokun, wherein he stated that he was investigating Hunter Biden when fired and that he believed he was fired because of that investigation.  Maybe Mr. Shokun is wrong about all of that, but, true or not, the matter, on its face, is problematic and would have justified an investigation.

10. Members of the media have frequently asserted that the idea of possible Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and the view that Joe Biden’s pressure to fire the Ukrainian prosecutor included a motive designed to help his son have been “debunked.”  I have read or heard the word “debunked” more times in the past five months than in the preceding 50 years. Absent a litigated proceeding resulting in a judicial determination, or the announced conclusion of a formal investigation by a law enforcement entity, there is no magical moment when an idea is officially debunked.  The media have taken it upon themselves to make the pronouncement.

11. The cooperation with the Attorney General requested by the President could have resulted in Ukrainian officials announcing: “ After thorough review, it is clear that Joe Biden did nothing wrong.  His behavior was perfect.” The MOTC reflects that the President sought only an investigation of a specific past act, not a result from that investigation, or a generalized “dig up dirt.” Perhaps the President would have welcomed information that Joe Biden did something wrong, but he did not request it.

12. President Trump is remarkably lacking in knowledge and understanding of how the US government functions.  He daily demonstrates his pronounced personality weakness of needing constant public approval. He is profane and shallow.  Those attributes were all on display during the 2016 campaign and he was elected to the presidency by the rules that govern our elections.  The public had the opportunity to make its choice. It chose what it chose. Trump’s possession of those those highly undesirable attributes is not an impeachable offense.  It seems odd for me to paraphrase Tucker Carlson, but he was quite right when he said that Donald Trump is ignorant and vulgar–get over it.

13. I strongly disliked and opposed the unprincipled partisanship of the Clinton impeachment.  This one is every bit as bad. Out comes the worst in almost every one associated with the process.  One party’s pious pontificator gets on the floor of Congress, or on cable news, and invokes noble ideas and sentiments about our democracy in pursuit of partisan ignoble goals, and then the other party’s spokesperson somehow manages to be even worse and so it goes and goes ….  Senator Mitch McConnell pledges total coordination with the Trump defense team and then takes the oath to be impartial. Elizabeth Warren announces on the campaign trail that Trump should be impeached and then takes the same oath. Lindsay Graham and Chuck Schumer seem to make it a point to have precisely the opposite position on every relevant issue regarding the Senate trial from what each held 20 years ago.  House member Rashida Tlaib announces at her swearing in, without having reviewed an ounce of evidence, “Impeach the motherf**ker!” Then there’s always a stern-faced Adam Schiff, or a determined Nancy Pelosi, looking into the camera and, with manufactured solemnity, stating for the umpteenth time: “No one, no one is above the law.” Huh? They are Democrats who believe that the law should not be applied to any of the 11 million immigrants who are in this country illegally. 

photo credit: Haartz.com

Pelosi represents a Congressional district entirely within the city of San Francisco, which has declared itself a sanctuary city–its purpose being to prevent application of federal law regarding immigration within the city. It would be refreshing to see at least one principled legislator doing his or her best to arrive at a considered judgment consistent with the Constitution. In this process, we have not yet seen that person.

It’s the Norm That is Crazy

Much of the commentary and criticism around Donald Trump’s vast array of bizarre statements and crude actions start with the assumption, frequently unspoken, that there is a healthy spectrum of political opinion and behavior within which the Democratic and Republican parties have operated for years.  Then along comes Trump, who is markedly outside that norm, and he elicits shock and horror among the establishments of both parties and virtually the entire punditry class.

However, the assumption obscures the fundamental problem: namely, it is the political norm itself that is crazy.  That norm attaches no value to people who live in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and most of the Middle East and Northern Africa.  Their lives and well-being are unconsidered in our geopolitical maneuverings and are only of consequence when they wish to enter the US as refugees.  That norm is casual in its willingness to send American military personnel to fight, to kill and to be killed in pursuit of military actions that are not defensive, that do not promote the safety and well-being of the US population, and that lack any moral foundation.  That norm attaches almost no value to the financial interests of what was once the core of the Democratic Party, laboring men and women, sometimes referred to as the working class, sometimes referred to as the middle class.  They are flotsam in an array of trade agreements and a larger global economy where a small group of wealthy individuals and corporations, with the cooperation of friendly officials and bureaucrats untethered to the citizens of their countries of origin, play economic games on an international monopoly board.  That norm has embraced the erosion of individual constitutional protections in the name of promoting national security.

This is the first of several postings that will look at the health of several aspects or the US political norm existing at the time Donald Trump put his hand on the Bible on January 20, 2017.  The first is …

The Constitution

Let’s look at just one example of the status of the Constitution pre-Trump.

Source: Politico.com

In 2011, President Barack Obama issued an order directing the American military kill an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was in Yemen at the time.  The alleged activities of al-Awlaki are irrelevant to the applicability of Constitutional principle, but for the record his alleged actions were serious, involving his encouraging resistance to and violence against American military personnel.  His history, likewise irrelevant to the applicability of Constitutional protections, was as a Muslim cleric, an Iman in Nebraska, California, and Virginia who spoke supportively of the US government after the September 11, 2001 attacks, but who was radicalized by his country’s killing of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan post 9/11.   Al -Awlaki may have been a bad guy, but America has had many bad guys who we dealt with through due process.   He was killed, along with others, while sitting at an outside café in Yemen on September 30, 2011 by a drone strike ordered by the President directly for the purpose of killing al-Awlaki. Two weeks later, his 16 year old son, an American citizen born in Colorado, was also killed by an Obama-ordered drone strike, the Administration claiming that the son’s death, unlike his father’s, was unintentional.  So, we know that a supposedly liberal American President ordered the extra-judicial killing of an American citizen.  In doing so, he claimed the right to do so for every one of his successors.

Anwar al-Awlaki, Source: Telegraph.co.uk

 

Thus, our pre-Trump norm grants the president the authority to unilaterally determine that an American citizen is a threat to national security and to then direct the full power of the American military to execute that citizen.  No indictment.  No Judge.  No jury.  No trial.  No right to an attorney.  No right to confront witnesses.  No review of evidence.  Hell, no evidence at all.  No judicial review or involvement of any other branch of government.  Just a President sitting alone in the Oval Office, or perhaps on the 13^th tee at Mar-a-Lago, deciding that American citizens are to die on his order.  Almost no one objected when the last president embraced and implemented that practice in direct conflict with all meaningful Bill of Rights’ individual protections.  By directing the successful execution, President Obama directly eviscerated the 5^th, 6^th, and 8^th Amendments and rendered the rest of them irrelevant as death precludes the exercise of remaining constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Forceful and articulate advocates for the norm around trade and immigration issues, like the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman, David Brooks and Paul Krugman have, for the last nine months or longer, written column after column each expressing their condemnation of all things Trump and encouraging universal outrage at Trump and all he does.  I mention these three because they represent the spectrum of thought among the Times’ columnists: the conservative Brooks, the liberal Krugman and the designated Technology-Meets-Globalism expert Friedman, all of whose columns on the Trump presidency are essentially interchangeable.  It appears they have long ago exhausted their thesauri for synonyms of “buffoon” and “fascist”.  Krugman, in a column titled “The Uses of Outrage,” on February 27, 2017, warns that Trump is “trying to undermine the Constitution,” and that citizens must avoid doing “anything that normalizes him and lends him respectability.”   Krugman’s fear that Trump would pollute the norm seems late in light of Mr. Obama’s ordered execution.

To give some context to the gravity of an American president ordering the death of an American citizen: not long ago I was reading David Frost’s 1977 interview with former President Richard Nixon.  Nixon had resigned in July, 1975.  He was the subject of many interview requests and finally, in exchange for a substantial payment by Frost’s production company, agreed to be interviewed.  At one point, having elicited information that arguably involved Nixon in various forms of criminal behavior, Frost asked Nixon about the theoretical possibility of a president ordering the murder of an American.  Nixon reacted strongly.  “…No. I don’t know anyone who has been president, or is now, who would ever have ordered such an action.”  To Richard Nixon, it was unthinkable for a president to kill an American.

Source: AP Photo

That interview was in 1977.  A generation is usually defined as a 20 year period.  In less than two generations, we have gone from a presidential ordered execution of an American citizen being unthinkable, to being thinkable, to being done.

Throughout my life, the majority of Republicans, with some outstanding exceptions like Senator Mark Hatfield, have had a tolerance, if not an affection, for killing done in the name of national security—most anywhere, most anytime.  In the last few decades, the majority of the Democratic politicians have joined them.  President Obama’s order to kill should have been met with a demand across both parties for impeachment, or a resolution condemning and disciplining him, or, at a minimum, passage of remedial statues protecting Americans from extra-judicial murder.   Nothing like that happened.  Instead, we now have a major party establishment consensus that a president can unilaterally order the death of an American deemed a threat.

The degree to which the language of war/enemies infects our political discourse highlights the danger this new norm for presidential power presents.  Newt Gingrich: “The Democratic Party is at war with the American people.”  Donald Trump: “The press is the enemy of the people.”  Virtually every Democrat running for national office in 2012 referring to: “The Republican war on women.”  For years, right-wing talk-radio hosts, like Michael (Weiner) Savage and Mark Levin, have daily bombarded the airwaves and their pliable, minimally informed audiences with language reflecting abject hatred for their perceived ideological foes.   Democrats and liberals are vermin, liars, traitors, mentally disordered and on and on, those sentiments generally expressed before the end of the opening monologue.  In the real world, traitorous vermin are generally expendable.  The stage set by our political discourse, and for the politicians who emerge from it, is remarkably dangerous as various subsets of the American population are described in terms reflecting no respect for their inherent humanity.  If they are not human, they do not need to be treated as human.  What we have come to accept as the norm is profoundly unhealthy and dangerous and has been for a long time.  The problems are much deeper than Trump and began well before his presidency.

To be continued…..

An Open Letter to Donald Trump

Dear President-Elect:

I am a New Deal Liberal. More accurately, I was a New Deal Liberal when such a thing existed. Several decades ago, the Democratic Party began turning away from the New Deal foundation built by FDR, Truman, LBJ and others. That foundation included: the regulation of banks and financial institutions so that they operated for the benefit of the public, recognition that the government could and should play a constructive role in reducing unemployment through meaningful public works projects, legal support of the right of members to collectively bargain through their unions, and the setting of baseline labor standards like the minimum wage and 40 hour work week. Most of the Republican Party never embraced New Deal reforms. Thus, today I am registered non-partisan, a man without a party.

I seriously considered voting for you, but in the end, voted for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein.  I am writing to explain why I considered voting for you and why I believe you are in a position to do significant good for the country.  I heard strong, in some cases unthinking, criticism from some liberal and Democratic friends reacting to my explanation of why you could be a better choice to advance what I value (and in many cases what they value) than Hillary Clinton.  Having endured the word “stupid” being applied more than once to my view of the possible benefits of your presidency, I think you owe me a reading.

By way of background, I was born and raised in New Jersey.  I am Catholic and aspire to be a good one.  I graduated from Columbia University in New York City with a degree in Political Science, and from Seton Hall University Law School in Newark, New Jersey.  I live in Eugene, Oregon where I have been an attorney for over thirty years and Executive Director of a 40 employee Catholic social service agency for over eight years.

To the issues:

USE OF MILITARY FORCE

Image source: Downtrend.com

Less than two weeks before the South Carolina Republican primary, during a Republican debate, you forcefully stated that the war in Iraq was “a big fat mistake,” that it cost thousands of lives, that we should have never been there, and that it was based on lies.  You implied that the last Republican President, George W. Bush, should have been impeached for pursuing that invasion.  In a seven person field, in conservative, pro-military South Carolina, you still won the primary with a significant plurality, 33% of the vote.  Registered Republicans in South Carolina voted for a candidate who suggested that the last Republican president should have been removed from office because of his unjustified invasion of another country.  Putting aside the issue of whether or not you were opposed to that war in 2002-2003, your current opposition was a huge departure from present Party leadership and from the other Republican candidates.  In many respects, your victory in the South Carolina primary was the single event in the entire presidential campaign season offering the most optimism for our future use of military force.  That you maintained your position on Iraq throughout the primaries and still received the votes of over 12,000,000 registered Republicans underscored that optimism.  You became the closest thing to a presidential peace candidate that the Republican Party has produced in my lifetime.

Unfortunately you have made statements suggesting you can be militarily irresponsible – on nuclear weapons, the use of torture, and the harming of family members of suspected terrorists, for example.  Which Trump shows up in the Oval Office remains to be seen.  Your opponent, however, had a clear record as senator, secretary of state, and candidate of supporting and implementing policies that lead to death and destruction all over the Middle East and Northern Africa:

For example:

She supported the US military invasion of Iraq that:

1. Lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings in that country, virtually none of whom were a threat to anyone in this country.  In short, the US is directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents.
2. Lead to the death of more Americans than were killed on 9/11.  I am saying that the American politicians who brought us that “big fat mistake” of a war ultimately did more harm to the people they were sworn to protect, that is the citizens of this country, than either Osama Bin Laden or Khalid Sheik Muhammad did.
3. Contributed to the creation of an expansionist version of Radical Islam worse for the region and the world (including our country) than al Qaeda had been.  Prior to the US response to 9/11, what can be called “Violent Radical Islam” in the form of al Qaeda was largely confined to a small tribally dominated area of Eastern Afghanistan with the primary goal of getting US troops out of Saudi Arabia.  Today there is what can be called “Violent Expansionist Radical Islam”  in the form of ISIS in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Afghanistan and in other forms throughout the entire Middle East and much of Africa, with the goals of creating a caliphate and, for some in ISIS for example, of spreading their version of violent expansionist Islam throughout the western world.
4. Expanded the influence in American politics of the military-industrial complex, to borrow a phrase from Eisenhower and C. Wright Mills.  Military spending has been ingrained in our economy in ways that ultimately deaden the moral sensitivity of those making decisions about the use of military force.  We have a system where the people with the least-formed consciences, operating from the worst motives (the pursuit of vague “American interests” which reduce to dominance of a region and the pursuit of profit for certain companies/industries) make life-and-death decisions for millions of people.  Generally those decisions are made casually based on a variety of domestic concerns that are inflated to matters of national survival.

Her statements regarding Iran reflect that she was ready to apply the same wisdom she did toward Iraq to Iran.

Her statements regarding Israel reflect an unthinking deference to the current Israeli government’s view of what the region should look like, and an absence of recognition that Palestinians are actually human beings with rights conveyed by that humanity.

Her comments regarding Qaddafi are repugnant:  “We came. We saw. He died.” — cackle, cackle, cackle. For those of us who believe our task is to recognize the humanity in everyone, including those labelled enemies of the state, Hilary Clinton is the continuation and solidification of what has become a US political normalcy that is anti-human, anti-Christian, anti-every major religion, anti-informed secular humanism — essentially sociopathic in its disregard for the value of life.

I do not assume you to be the morally-aware, wise statesman, well-read in history and political thought that I would prefer.  But you appear to represent a change in direction regarding the use of military force—a change from your party and from the Hillary Clinton neoconservative strain of the Democratic Party.  The very reasons that prominent Republican neocons like Paul Wolfowitz and Robert Kagan announced their support for Hillary Clinton and that other neocons like Bill Kristol and the National Review Editorial Board were utterly apoplectic about the prospect of you being president are the reasons I thought you could be preferable.

Both the Republican and Democratic Party leaderships criticize your isolationism.  A little isolationism, particularly when contrasted with the destructive, self-defeating military adventurism in the Middle East and Northern Africa of George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Kagan, Hillary Clinton, and other neocons, would be a remarkably healthy development.

Your calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country is not a perfect solution, but it needs to be viewed with a little perspective.  The website iraqbodycount.org, as of the day I am writing this, Dec 28, 2016, lists the number of civilians killed as a result of the US invasion of Iraq at 168,997. They are predominately Muslims.  Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in a 1996 interview, remarked that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children caused in part by US sanctions (which means by starvation, dehydration, untreated infections—my parentheses) was “… we think, the price is worth it” to curtail Saddam. (Ms. Albright became a surrogate in Hillary Clinton’s campaign).

The taking of these Muslim lives, and many others, is largely not commented upon in this country.  Yet, Party establishments and most major media commentators are incensed when you speak of a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.  What?  Are we supposed to think that Muslims are unaware and unconcerned with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims and the destruction of predominately Muslim countries like Iraq and Libya as a result of US actions over what is essentially a policy driven by the desire for ready access to Middle Eastern oil?  Muslims are fine with that.  It’s the temporary ban that is the great injustice.  One has to be morally unenlightened and detached to overlook the consequences of recent decades of US policy in the Middle East, yet display outrage over your statements, which, though imperfect, are moderate by comparison.

IMMIGRATION

The business class has always been a proponent of liberalized immigration: the US Chamber of Commerce, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, owners and managers of capital, Wall Street financiers and the like.  Those groups have tended to be active within the Republican Party. They always hated the New Deal programs that were geared to enhance the lives of working men and women.  Those reforms were remarkably successful as more Americans moved into the middle class from the end of WWII until the mid-1970s than during any other period in US history.  Nevertheless, the business class preferred the internationalization of the labor force.  Make American workers compete with non-skilled workers from poor countries all over the world.  That drives down wages and enhances the ability of capital to generate a profit.  That has been the view of the Republican establishment despite the strange fact that a significant majority of registered Republicans have preferred tight immigration laws.

Democrats for decades were opposed to liberalized immigration because it would result in lowering wages for American workers.  Increase the supply of labor, lower demand and reduce wages.  It is not particularly complicated.  The Democratic opposition to immigration was frequently and forcefully stated.  For instance, in his 1995 State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton stated:

Image source: Office of the Historian

All Americans, not only in the States mostly heavily affected, but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country.  The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants.  The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers.  That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens.  In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.  We are a nation of immigrants.  But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.

The President’s comments reflected a widespread view across the Democratic Party, certainly among Democrats who were aligned with working men and women, unions, and the lower and middle economic classes.  In addition, there was, and probably still is, substantial support within the environmental wing of the party for reduced immigration because it results in a reduced demand for natural resources.  The pro-labor, pro-environment support for minimal, controlled immigration applied, without regard for race or ethnicity, to Hispanic agricultural workers named Juan, Swedish models named Olga, and Indian computer programmers named Rahul.  In short, the motives behind this popular view within the Democratic Party had little to do with racism or xenophobia.

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