inthetrunkroom

The history books have dedicated volumes of attention to the Great Depression that racked the United States, as well as other countries, during the 1930s. There has been debate upon debate on causes and effects, solutions – both proposed and enacted – and what the long term effects have been over the following decades. What is key in any discussion is how the Roosevelt administration, either along with or in spite of congress, chose to contend with such an economic disaster. It was not with idle chatter and ego building nonsense but with real down to the street corner policies enacted across the country, focused on bringing families back to a level of not just survival but  an actual decent living.What we saw was a combination of programs aimed at bringing the labor force back to work and engaging government in the recovery. 

Fast forward to early 2008 when, for similar reasons, the United States saw itself on the verge of yet another complete and total economic collapse. History has repeated itself and, while again we can debate cause, the effect is still rather the same. Millions of jobs were lost, the housing market failed, smaller banks went under, Wall Street looked like it might crash and the overall economic status of the nation was, to say the least, precarious, The outgoing republican administration had squandered a budget surplus and plunged us into massive debt and once again, idle chatter prevailed.

Enter a new administration and immediately the task of recovery began and while unpopular bail outs of certain industries were made to advance recovery ( admittedly adding to the debt ) the labor force saw an uptake, jobs were coming back and families were beginning to see at least some level of stability.That administration, after eight years , left with recovery well on the way and, though certain issues were never solved, at least the hemorrhaging stopped. Then the whole thing turned around with now, again, a republican regime that seems to be more interested in power and profiteering than in actual policy formulation, either domestic or foreign.

Accepting that the parts of the economic picture are better than it has been in years, it is still primarily benefitting a relatively small sector of our social structure, the top ten per cent being the primary beneficiaries. Statistics show the lowest unemployment rate ever, though those statistics rarely provide an accurate picture of the job market. The largest sector of the employed are in the retail market and near to 65 % of them are, by corporate policy, part time.

Corporations are benefitting from the largest tax break since the Reagan years which again was a major factor in the debt rising over 26 % just in the past three year. A prime example of the mind set of corporate America was demonstrated at an event in New York in the course of the 2018 Annual  CEO Forum conducted by the Wall Street Journal. During an evening session, while discussing those massive corporate tax cuts, the then Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn asked for the house lights to come up and he then asked a room of about one hundred and fifty corporate CEOs, how many would be looking at reinvesting those profits from the tax cut back in to their local communities either directly or indirectly through research and development aimed at job creation. With a show of hands, only FIVE said yes. Five. It was later made clear that, for the most part, those funds were used for stock buy backs  thus increasing profit margins. Can you smell the aroma of history starting to repeat itself ?

The recovery from the early 2000s is still a work in progress to many who observe these matters but the question is, with all that has transpired within the beltway. how do we move forward. How do we move in a direction which will further stabilize  the social structure, bring greater participation in the economy and less economic inequality and have long term beneficial effects not only here domestically but also abroad on a more global scale. Indeed, folks, that is the pressing question of our time and one has to ask, is the  GREEN NEW DEAL the answer ? Perhaps, or perhaps not but its basic tenets demand consideration – serious consideration.

The Green New Deal is package of projects with a broad based agenda focused on not just environmental issues, as the title might imply, but also on the economic and social arenas on which these projects could have profound impact. Reports credit journalist Tom Friedman for coining the phrase and an orchestrated effort by members of the Green Party of England in collaboration with the Friends of Earth, Solar Century and the economic editor of the Guardian for its original promulgation. Regardless, conceptually, it has several roots, much like its agenda.As expected, the GOP side of congress, following the lead of the anti science, anti-intellectual, anti fact White House, is blocking giving any consideration to the measure which, at this point, is only a House Resolution ( H RES 109 ). Nonetheless, the merits of the approach have been successfully tested on a smaller scale on a state level, most notably in Washington under the leadership of Governor Jay Inslee.As he and others rightfully see it, the Green New Deal is not simply an attack on the environmental crisis. It is a panoramic approach to environmental, social, infrastructural and economic challenges in a way which links public-private partnerships, varying resources and likewise varying disciplines in meeting the broad spectrum of the current compelling issues.The principal agenda focuses on three basic elements – the establishment of a sustainable economy, the cleaning up of the environment and the developing of a broad based sense of social responsibility which would focus on community renewal.

The schema, so to speak, for this approach, as demonstrated by Governor Inslee and fiercely promoted by democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, has as its linchpin wide scale cooperation between government and corporate America. It will take, in order for it all to succeed, massive joint efforts particularly when it comes to job development, water and air clean up and the total overhaul of our domestic infrastructure. It will require not only investment on the part of government but also substantial investment on the part of private corporations, a feat which can only happen when and if the powers that control these two factions – i.e. congress and boards of directors – acknowledge the critical nature of the need. It will require leadership which accepts science and its findings, that understands the realities of climate change as well as the reality of economic inequality. They must also be in total agreement that, nationally as well as globally, time is not particularly on our side.

House Resolution 109 lays out a framework for consideration, taking into account the several facets of our daily lives which are in serious need of repair. Not only the physical infrastructure but ,for certain, the economic infrastructure as well. Targets include a resurgent affordable housing market, development of a up to date job market and an education system which provides skills for that job market and, as a corollary, a wage scale commensurate with the modern cost of living.While this may not be a perfect scenario, H R 109 does acknowledge the real very crisis and it does offer, if not the manual complete with answers, nothing less that a serious starting point for critical  and one might add, long overdue discussion.

Historians tell us that if one does not pay attention to lessons learned,  we are doomed to have history repeat itself.  On a broad scale, we have seen this first hand and it is indeed the circumstance we find ourselves in presently. However, the stakes now are so much higher than simply the issue of economics, which for sure is not simple. What we have are global crises in respective economies, in environment and in social infrastructure. What we need to be about is, as a nation, taking a leadership role in addressing this crisis. If that leadership is not forthcoming from inside the beltway, then the responsibility is squarely upon the citizenry to demand that it be and take all legitimate measures to bring that to fruition.

 

 

From the vantage point of decades of work on all levels in the public sector,  one can get a fairly authoritative view of how government should work – how it operates, how agencies and their enabling legislation connect and how government connects with the private sector and how that  can, with the right leadership, actually work. Conversely, one can also glean from this experience how and why things do not work and a good insight into the behind the scenes nonsense that is aimed at furthering an hidden agenda. That being said and to our charter here, it is important if not imperative that  certain current issues and concerns be aired.

As we know it, our nation is at a point at which its complete demise as a representative republic is imminent and it is time for the citizenry to finally awaken, take notice and demand the taking of appropriate measures to stem this tide of destruction.

Over the past two and a half years, what we have witnessed has been the occupant of the white house – in our opinion, a dictator in the making – conducting what is tantamount to an anti government strategy rife with half truths, baseless assertions , outright lies and profuse insults directed particularly at the main stream press, branding the it as the “enemy of the people”.

This consummate con man, put in to office through an highly questionable election, abetted by an archaic electoral college system, has gaslighted the country in to normalizing what can only be described as severely aberrant behavior with the single purpose of enhancing his own family wealth. Governing, if you can call it that, in the style of a well oiled crime family, we have seen the continuing deterioration of government as we know it, near to the point of extinction.We have seen unbridled plague of corruption  of historical proportion and total contempt for the rule of law, the precepts under the constitution and the the protocols of government. While the campaign mantra was to “ drain the swamp”, it is clear that the swamp has not only not been drained, but in actuality has deepened and the stench of corruption has intensified beyond tolerance.  The blatant abuse of power and the complete disregard for the  separation of powers required by the Constitution, added to the continuous flow of lies and false accusations about a “ deep state coup” have made for a frightening display of chaos within and around the west wing. The favoring of dictators of foreign adversary governments over the information collected by not only our own intelligence agencies but intelligence agencies from around the free world causes one to wonder  for whom does this so called leader work or to whom is he really beholden.

The sad thing is, while all of this is ongoing, the one avenue available to hold accountable and engage the constitutionally established system of checks and balances – namely Congress – is, to say the least, missing in action and has become the enabler for this entire farce.

While the wrangling between parties in congress certainly did not begin in this century, the current phase got a major boost in early January of 2009 shortly after Barack Obama was elected for his first term.  Senate Leader – and one uses that term guardedly , the senate leader  convened a closed door meeting of the party leadership and emerged declaring that  their goal was to make certain that the newly elected president would be a one term only president. The obstruction began even though the GOP was not in the majority. When President Obama was reelected, McConnell vowed that he would block every and all efforts on the part of the president to move his agenda forward and would also strive to repeal all the the advances that had been made, especially in the area of health care. The obstruction agenda increased, as control of both houses went GOP, far right. The intensity was such that it blocked numerous legislative efforts aimed at national betterment and, for the first time ever, would not allow even a single hearing for the nomination for a position on the Supreme Court. Once the GOP gained majority status in both houses, all bets were off regarding any progress relating to the general public and a complete take over of the legislature had happened. 

Over the next two  plus years, the overall strategy became more and more evident. With corruption at historic levels and both houses in league with the white house and its agenda, the kleptocratic nature of this regime became clear.  A proliferation of lobbyists, for example, have been appointed to head  agencies which were the target of their lobbying with the express purpose of diminishing the role of that agency or even the elimination of it. While all this was there for the eye to see, the senate , with a few rules changes so as not to give any opposition time to question either the process or the candidates, was stacking the courts with a judiciary completely sympathetic to the causes of the far right while being in place to protect the White House and the GOP controlled congress from any and all legal challenges.  What began as patent obstructionism deteriorated to an out and out take over of government and government functioning. With the GOP owning both Houses and the White House, there would be no limits on advancing the long standing GOP agenda. Pair that with a White House which had no idea of government or protocols in governing and clearly came in to power with an agenda of the “deconstruction of the administrative state”, the  extremist right wing of congress, not to mention far right foreign interests ,found a fertile ground for pushing their causes with complete immunity. As a nation, the United States was indeed faced with virtual extinction as a representative republic and was fast on the track to becoming a banana republic.

We are now witness to continuing wholesale corruption, mindless and inhumane  domestic policy, total disdain for the rule of law and a building distrust of the government both at home and abroad.One could and indeed should expect that those who are responsible for and take the oath of office to provide governance of this republic will , in effect, do just that. One should expect that they conduct the business of governing, being mindful of the sentiment and expressed views of those governed. Sadly, this is not and has not been the case for decades and it is long overdue that we, as a nation and as an electorate demand a return to government being responsive to the governed and to their best interests, not only the best interests of a select few.

In the final analysis, we are facing a battle for existence – a battle between unfettered capitalism and greed and the financial well being of a select minority versus a version of, as some may call it, democratic socialism.The outcome will decidedly determine who we are as a nation and the direction in which we will move – either forward or backward – for decades to come.

To quote the eminent Princeton professor, Eddie Glaude, “We need an honest reckoning as to who we are as a nation”….of this there can be no doubt. The choice is there and the choice is now.

 

SOMETIMES THE ADVISORS ARE VERY WRONG :

In the months running up to the 1968 election, it was clear that the war in Viet Nam was a linchpin element throughout the country. Then president Johnson had finally moved the parties off deadlock and was looking at calling them to the peace table in Paris by year’s end. The issue was, if that played out in the media, it would most likely bring to an end the major criticism of the democratic party and the GOP could very well lose the race for the white house. Sometime before the election, then candidate Nixon, along with his close campaign cohorts, Haldeman and Mitchell, a meeting was held in an iconic Pierre hotel on Fifth avenue in New York where the Nixon campaign had its headquarters. Added to this team of “plumbers” was Anna Chennault, the widow of the famous Claire Chennault of Flying Tigers fame. She was a international celebrity in her own right and a rabid anti communist activist. A plan was hatched to convince the South Viet Nam regime to stall going to the peace table until after the election, thus securing the win for the republican party. The plan was put in to action in the weeks just before the election. Right about that same time, through intelligence sources,  the plan was made known to President Johnson. referring to it as pure treason, he warned Nixon to back off from the plan but Nixon forged ahead.  Johnson, on counsel from his top advisors, opted not to make the plan public, figuring it would taint the election, among other things. As a result, we got Nixon, six plus more years of war in southeast Asia and over twenty-five thousand more American deaths and more than double that of Vietnamese deaths. Then we got the eventual resignation of a president, an unindicted co conspirator in yet another effort to rig an election.

Fast forward to the year 2015 and the run up to the 2016 election. The intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and the FBI had inklings that there may be a connection between the GOP candidate campaign and the Russian intelligence service. By the end of 2015, further investigation reveals that there was in fact a high confidence level of information that demonstrates this to be true. FISA warrants are sworn out for surveillance on certain individuals and a full investigation is launched. In June of 2016, there is a meeting with a Russian operative attended by the GOP campaign chairman, the candidate’s son and son-in-law and several other Russian connected persons. The meeting is held once again in a luxury apartment tower on fifth avenue in New York. The key element which drew this meeting together was the idea that Russian intelligence had credible information that, if made public, would seriously damage the opposition party and it’s run for the white house. The investigation continues and, while  there are other quite chaotic events which complicate the scenario, the underlying issue is that the Russians were involved in the election. The one thing that is still puzzling is why did then President Obama, in counsel with his advisors, decide not to make these investigations public. The official answer is it was in order to not seem trying to sway the election. While there is clear and compelling evidence that Russian intelligence and the Russian president himself did in fact  play  a role in the 2016 election for the benefit of the GOP candidate, the sitting president decided to remain quiet.

 As a result, or at least significantly as a result, we got the trump administration – no doubt the most corrupt administration in history, not to mention an administration which operates openly in violation of the rule of law and of the constitution, enabled by a congress which is failing miserably in its responsibility to govern.

One has to harken back to the age old adage about nations failing to learn from history and therefore being doomed to repeat it. The events of the 1968 election and the 2016 election are prime examples of the reality of that adage. 

While there is, in hind sight, some room for debate, the consequences of being silent probably caused more damage to the country than if these essentially treasonous actions were made public. 

The group of Bunker, Bundy, Califano, McNamara, Clifford, Rusk et al made a critical mistake in 1968 and we paid a high price for it. The group of Biden, McDonough, Jarrett, Rhodes, Kerry, Rice et al made the same mistake and again the price is enormous.

For each in its own way, we have and will be paying for these decisions for decades to come.

YES, IT WAS POLICY

At the very beginning of his campaign,  GOP candidate trump made no bones about the fact that he had a thorough disdain for all immigrants even though he is second generation himself and also married two immigrants.  His rancor, though, is especially vicious these days toward those from Mexico and Latin America. In his opening speech from trump tower in 2015 – more like a tirade – he decried pretty much all those from Mexico and even those living in Mexico and rapists, drug dealers and criminals.  He complained that they were “ not the best” being sent by the Mexican government, as if to say this was a planned migration sponsored by the president of Mexico. He vowed to build a wall to keep this so called criminal element out and he insisted that Mexico would pay for that wall. We have seen how that all has played out and, though this will never happen, it continues to be fodder for his red hat base who are consumed with the mind set that favors a far right, white supremacy, so called nationalist agenda. However,  in spite of all this, one could never predict what has been happening in the recent months at the border with Mexico.

In an historic move in policy – yes,  written policy – the trump administration, with no plan or rhyme or reason other than blind contempt for anyone from South of the border, took the inhumane and possibly criminal measure to forcibly separate parents from their children as they crossed the border  legally seeking asylum from the chaos, violence and war in their own countries. One looks at this policy as being criminal because crossing a border to seek asylum is not a crime. In fact it is legal and is protected by not only U S law but also international law and there are procedures and protocols in place to manage those requests.  We know that these measures were executed under instruction from the White House from documents made public including policy memos written by the attorney general which were confirmed in his public speeches. Also, there are documents from the White House itself encouraging this policy.

As part of the implementation of this policy, several of the legal ports of entry were ordered closed, forcing these refugees to cross the border at non sanctioned crossings, i.e. illegal crossings, where their children were taken from them and placed in holding facilities – unlicensed facilities ill equipped to handle children of school age, let alone infants and two year olds, those of “tender age” while the parents were sent to detention centers without knowing where their children were located.  

 As events became public knowledge the official spin began in full force. The official position taken by some spokespersons was that the treatment of children was as it always is for unaccompanied minors. The problem was, and still is, that these children –  more than two thousand of them – were not unaccompanied when they got to the border. They were only “unaccompanied” when they were separated from their parents by orders from DOJ and the oval office.  The spin continued in spite of clear evidence to the contrary. Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS )  Kirstjen Nielsen asserted on at least one occasion that it “ was offensive to say that trump purposely separated children”…. It should be clear as glass that this administration, giving way to the well known and documented evidence of intolerance at the highest levels, made the policy rooted in bigotry the operational mandate at the border.  As more and more information became available, it was clear that children were being badly treated, dispersed throughout the country and many parents were being deported without their children. Court cases were filed, advocates headed to Texas to make issues known and the press covered the events in as much detail as they could. This was difficult as even members of congress were barred from actually seeing how these thousands of children were being treated.

After weeks of this absurdity and with pressure from advocacy groups and the federal courts, the White House finally backed down and decided that it would be better if the children were reunited with their parents. However, there was no plan for that reunification. There was no plan and there never was a plan. This was a policy specifically designed to punish people whose only crime was that of seeking a better life. Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Alex Azar, in several on air interviews, stated  in no uncertain terms, that everything was under control and that reuniting all of these children with their parents could be done with the simple keystrokes on a computer, meeting the recently issued court order.

Here’s the problem. DHS officially cannot account for nearly fifteen hundred children having placed them in various facilities all over the country with having no tracking data. And if found, the reuniting with actual parents would be difficult because DHS/ICE took and destroyed birth certificates and other documents from these families as they were arrested upon crossing the border. One could continue to delineate the human tragedy created by the administration at the southern border but the news coverage – indeed, even the international news coverage – is sufficient to expose the truth.

What is the fact is that, in their dealings with immigrants – either legal or illegal-  no other country in recent history, with the possible exception of Nazi Germany, had and executed a policy to fracture families in the way in which the trump administration did. It was and is sheer bigotry taken to a level of insanity.

To date of this post, under federal court order, out of the approximately two thousand five hundred children in question, most have indeed been reunited. However, approximately six hundred and fifty have not been reunited. The official administration answer to this is that these children are not eligible to be reunited, though there is no explanation as to just what this means or what the criteria is for determining this status. Part of this has to be that many of the parents were deported after clearly rigged administrative hearings on asylum requests while court deliberations were on going with many children being told that their parents abandoned them. Yes,  this is actually what has been happening at our borders.

Far from the wishes of the administration, foreign nationals are permitted to seek asylum and, up until the trump administration and the term of Attorney General Sessions, there was never a policy or legislation which required the removal of children from their families. What the people witnessing this catastrophic mess need to understand is that this all is sheer bigotry made in to policy. What is beyond sad is that, at least from one point of view, there are far too many that find this policy acceptable and, dismissing the plain fact that most who are here, unless their ancestors were here before 1491, started out as immigrants,  a good number coming in to the country illegally. 

The entire episode at the border is truly a black mark on our history – a history built on immigrants seeking a better life, free from oppression and persecution.

 

Some time ago, senate leader mcconnell made a statement that this has been the “ very best year for conservative values”…I firmly believe that the late true conservative Willam F Buckley is turning over in his grave at that. Conservative values then meant governance and responsibility. Today, it means greed, a brutal self serving agenda, disdain for differences and that whole concept of fiscal responsibility has gone the way of respect for any intellectual approach to problem solving.

What we have today is an administration which is driven by ego and which thrives on complete and total chaos. The years of planned and orchestrated obstructionism  paired with widespread fear and ignorance have paid off giving us the most unresponsive administration in history – one which cares naught for anyone other than the gaslighted base which still has not figured out that they have been conned into believing flat out lies. The administration lies about so much on such a frequent basis that they had to some up with the justification that “alternative facts” are an acceptable explanation for their statements. This is an administration which attacks the free press, especially those news bureaus which expose this “emperor with no clothes “ for the fake that he is.This is an administration which will push it’s own clearly authoritarian agenda of hatred regardless of the damage it does to either person or country. It has brought together not the  “ best and the brightest” but rather the most corrupt administration eclipsing  even the Nixon Watergate era. 

We have seen indictments of campaign managers, national security advisors and so called foreign policy advisors. We have seen almost a forty per cent turnover of staff with so few willing to replace them that the oval office is now its own director of communications.  We are seeing unparalleled corruption on the cabinet level , seeing cabinet secretaries flagrantly misuse their office for personal gains and do it with complete immunity, as long as the white house agenda is adhered to. We have seen an occupant of the oval office openly mocking a handicapped reporter and his then campaign manager openly mocking a child with downs syndrome and his parents.

However, with all that and more being said, the worst is now a matter of record and who would ever have thought that the United States would stoop to such depths of inhumanity.What is and has been going on on our Southern border is, by any standard, unimaginable. Children are being taken from their parents and being put in what can only be described as concentration facilities. Parents cannot see them or contact them. Most do not even  know where their children are. In fact, Homeland Security cannot even account for over  fourteen hundred children. These children, raging from aged less than a year to seventeen are being held in facilities fashioned out of abandoned WalMart stores and kept inside for up to twenty-two hours per day. 

When challenged by not only the press – other than fox and friends, of course – but also by churches of all denominations, advocacy groups, corporate CEOs and near anyone with a sense of decency about this horrible policy, the administration line of response is that all the criticisms are fake. They blame a non existent law passed by democrats, stating that it is not policy by rather that law which forces them to separate children from their mothers and fathers. This complete lie is perpetrated by the White House press secretary and the attorney general and the White House chief of staff. It is interesting as, once again, the facts belie the message. This public fabrication continues even in the face of documented proof of it all being the policy of the White House ( policy statement of 2017 ) and the attorney general ( policy memorandum of April 2018).  Joining in this continuing fabrication is the newest cabinet member of the corruption team,  Secretary Kirsten Nielsen, also a second generation immigrant, who strongly espoused the policy,  pulling that old national security rabbit out of the hat.

These senior administration appointees will, with not batting an eyelash, counter any criticism with the fake news line they have resorted to on every occasion of any criticism and add that the public simply cannot believe the reports and actual on the scene accounts, but cannot believe the pictures and sound recordings either. Sadly, a sizable portion of the public – the electorate public –  is accepting of all of this.

The outrage, to date, may be having some effect and perhaps we may see some change. Nevertheless, to thousands of children, the damage – severe damage has been done and there is never, we repeat, never any justification for any of this. It was all a policy formulated to force congress to pay for a Wall between the U S and Mexico – the wall which then candidate trump swore he would build and that Mexico would pay for.  Secretary nielsen says “ it is offensive to suggest that trump administration is purposefully separating children from their parents ”. We know it is purposeful. We know it was and is calculated. Yes, this horrible, barbaric, cruel and inhumane policy was all used to blackmail congress in to satisfying a thin skinned ego and an ignorant supporting electorate in order to secure reelection. 

So, if the “best year for conservative values” means attacking the country and its governing system, constantly and continually lying to the public, disrespecting different cultures and religions, having a deep disdain for the less fortunate and attacking the free press in its quest for the truth- well, it’s all just  criminally insane, nothing less.

In 1965, the Johnson administration enacted the Voting Rights Act, which was passed in 1964 with the express purpose of protecting the rights granted under the 15th Amendment.  A key section was section 4(b)  of Section 5 of the Act which was  designed to protect groups from discrimination based on race or language minority and required pre clearance of changes on voting practices and procedures based on the track record of certain states – nine to be exact – with oversight being from the Department of Justice.                                                                      In 2013, the Roberts Court deemed that section unconstitutional and, in Shelby County v Holder, it struck down that section as being not responsive to current needs. It was almost like the court thought that discrimination in the voting place was not a pressing issue, even in the face of the growing tide of blatant voter suppression in Alabama, North Carolina, Kansas  and Arizona. Other than the Citizens United decision, this may have been the worst decision by the Roberts court to date. Almost immediately, in many red states, including those nine which were under those earlier pre clearance requirements , pending and new voter id laws, scheduling revisions, and other restrictions began to be implemented.

What followed was a widespread, calculated aggressive campaign to limit access to voting in minority and other heavily democratic communities. All during the run up to the 2016 election, we were bombarded with completely unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud. The GOP continually blasted blue states, alleging that they allowed illegal immigrants and other non citizens to vote. When it was all over, the eventual winner whined that he did not win the popular vote because over three million “illegals” voted in California alone, thus adding fuel to the already intense xenophobia fire. In response to that allegation, the administration established the Commission on Election Integrity, headed up by the king of anti-immigrant legislation and policies, Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas and the author of the infamous Arizona SB1070. With all intent of requiring major purges of voter roles in particularly blue states, the Commission met with such backlash from over twenty-six states, that the Commission was disbanded.  In the end, perhaps the Secretary’s adhering to several conspiracy theories came back to haunt him. The idea of voter roles being controlled by Washington instead of by the states simply would not fly and that effort was curtailed.

For now, outright voter suppression from inside the beltway was on hold. However, the fall out from Shelby vs Holder was still simmering and state legislatures were busy formulating subtle ways of denying the right to vote to large segments of the population. By no means is the fight over and now, another force facing the protection of the right to vote has emerged.

At this point, there are two compelling issues facing what is left of our democratic election system. The first revolves around voter registration, the integrity of voter information and of course, voter turn out. The barriers highlighted above notwithstanding, it is imperative that both parties, but particularly the democrats, need to be about voter registration and they need to be all about the integrity of the voting process on the state level. Too often there have been numerous issues with things like switching of polling places at the last possible hour, confusion regarding provisional ballots and absentee ballots along with  the actual loss of signature pages for ballot initiatives. A prime example might be the curious finding of over nine hundred “misplaced “ ballots in the governor recall election in Wisconsin – a find which allowed the governor to beat the recall and the election stood in spite of the interesting history of a certain county election clerk. In that same light, the democrats need to be about the formulating of a clear and relevant message – something which they did not have in the 2016 election and certainly still do not have – but that’s an issue for another time.

The second of these compelling issues is that of the interference by a foreign government in the 2016 election. Intelligence agencies both here and abroad all agree that our election system was tampered with and while it may or may not have actually caused a change in the eventual outcome, it most certainly did influence it.  This very point has been definitively confirmed by the recently released senate committee report which completely supports the IC assessments. It also shatters the excuse for the totally biased, partisan excuse for a report which came form the House Committee . 

What is astounding are two key points. One is that the current administration is still completely adverse to admitting that there was meddling in the 2016 election and that Russia and Russian hackers were in fact behind it all.  Perhaps there was collusion between the GOP campaign and Russia, perhaps not. However,  there is no question that interference in the election process both by utilizing trolls and hackers and by the manipulation of certain social media  platforms did happen. 

Secondly, there is likewise agreement among the intelligence community that this interference is continuing and the administration has, to date, either failed or consciously decided to not take any action to  either curtail or eliminate this  attack on our election process. While there is some talk about the issue, or more accurately talk around it, neither the executive branch nor the legislative branch has seen fit to formulate a plan of action on this serious matter. It is abundantly clear that the administration has chosen to continue to deny the existence of foreign meddling and that there was any collusion between the GOP and Russia. The message is on going and continual and constant and congress has chosen to either follow that message or to completely ignore the facts of the matter, opting to subscribe to the whole idea of a  “witch hunt” and the whole “deep state” conspiracy theory. It seems that not only does the White House get its message from Fox and Friends, but congress does as well. One has to ask the question – just how much does Russia hold over the oval office and over key members of congress ?

At this point in time, one has to have serious concern about the future – both the immediate mid term election cycle and the upcoming election cycle in 2020. Will future elections be bought and sold even more so than they already are ? Will future elections be swayed or even determined by outside influences, particularly by foreign governments who at least currently have widespread if not sympathizers at least deniers that a problem exists ? We as a nation are at a more than significant crossroad and which path we choose will determine the fate of our very form of government. It is indeed that serious and all need to be seriously concerned.

On numerous occasions over time, in one argument or another, one has looked at what can only be described as a frightening lack of sophistication on the part of the body politic when it comes to understanding political process. In years past, the subject of “Civics” was taught and most learned at least the fundamentals of things like government and governing. These days, that part of the curriculum has, shall one say, has been sorely neglected. In fact, in a recent finding by the National Assessment of Educational Progress ( NAEP ), only twenty-five percent ( 25 % ) of  students reach the “proficient” level in the area of civics. There are many school districts which have forgone the offering of a curriculum focused on civics all together. While some may not view this as a real issue, it truly is and the effects of this lack of not only proficiency but also  lack of interest in government and governing rears its head  with every election, be it local, state or national.

Across several articles, including one in the Guardian, millennials have one of the new large blocks of eligible voters and yet only 36 % turned out for the 2012 election and less in the 2014 mid term election. The trend toward anti – intellectualism has gained traction since  the 2015 run up to the 2016 election and that trend is gaining even more since. And recall, over one hundred million registered eligible voters didn’t think voting was important enough to even  show up in 2016.

It is sad that people still fail to see the connection between what happens inside the beltway and what happens in their neighborhood. What is even sadder is that many do not see that same connection even on their state levels. One can accept that there was and continues to be a great deal of disappointment and dismay with much of how government operates and yet, there is much that  benefits every day people, in spite of the highly complex nature of government and we would be no doubt in a miserable state of affairs without it. It is also important to note that how well or not so well government operates is a function of the who in government more than it is the what. In short, how much is done for the electorate or is done to the electorate is a direct product of whom the electorate puts in place.

Which brings one to that CHALLENGE. What one can hope is that, with all the chaos and proven misinformation floating around out there, not to mention listening to that complete circus know as the WH press briefing, is it not about time for you, the electorate, to become far more informed that you are ? It does not mean one has to be a wonk or an analyst or even a constitutional scholar. Those indeed abound and are worth the listen. What the challenge is to everyone is to take the time to engage  with more than one source of information and spend some time fact checking, at least for the pressing issues. One has to accept there is a good amount of “fake news” out there. However, there are numerous sources on the other side of that coin who present legitimate, factual information, leaving the judging of relevance to the reader or listener, as the case may be.

The country is seeing the complete and utter failure of government to govern. It is victim to self promotion, the drive for personal wealth enhancement, the enactment of destructive policy driven by ego and obsession and an agenda fostered by fear and ignorance . What is puzzling is that so many sit and wonder how this happened. The term “gaslighting” should come to mind immediately and how that bullet is avoided in the future is to accept the CHALLENGE. As a colleague so eloquently put it, it is time for a “COGNITIVE RECALIBRATION”, a rethinking of our posture in the overall scheme of things and how control of the nation’s future can be returned to the electorate rather than the elite few.

  

Late one evening in June, 1972, one of the many phones at the City Desk at the Washington Post rang and a report came in about a burglary at the Watergate Complex. A seemingly not unusual burglary story was assigned to two relatively young reporters – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. After reviewing the initial reports, they noticed something about the burglars – one was a former CIA agent and in the employ of the Committee to Reelect the President -CREEP and this break in was in fact at the offices of the Democratic National Committee ( DNC ) which had its headquarters at the Watergate. As the saying goes, the rest of the story is history and indeed it was the beginning of an historical event – the resignation in the face of impeachment and conviction of a sitting president.The story shocked the nation but it all would never have been were it not for the dogged and determined reporting of two Washington Post reporters. True news reporting about real facts.
Fast forward to 2017. Speaking at the White House Correspondents Dinner – which the current occupant of the Oval Office declined to attend – those same two reporters addressed the critical importance of solid journalism and the compelling need for it especially in the political climate of today. Carl Bernstein led the remarks by saying that Nixon targeted the media in an attempt to divert attention from the blatant misconduct in the administration. “Yes, follow the money but also, follow the lies” he added. How compelling is this insight in this era of a steady stream of lies, fabrications and misdirections emanating from the current administration. The constant berating of legitimate news bureaus exhibits a pathos unlike anything we have seen in the history of presidential politics, a berating which seems to apply only to those outlets which ask the hard questions and refuse to pander to the collective egos of the West Wing. Time and time again the legitimate press has raised questions about discrepancies in statements from the oval office and statements from cabinet level officials which contradict each other. And time and time again, the oval office has decried the main stream press as being the purveyors of “fake news” – a term used more and more to describe any news report that challenges the veracity of pronouncements coming out of the White House and its inner circle.
The constant effort of this administration, as further evidenced by the pronouncements of the WH Press secretary, to minimize the role of the press and demean its place is a free society is appalling.

In an interview conducted in 1974, German political theorist Hannah Arendt discussed the notion of a free press. To quote “ The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed ; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed ? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe lies but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history……… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please “.
In the realm of politics, and particularly political rhetoric used to advance an agenda, the stretching of the truth has become commonplace. From the day the 2016 GOP candidate announced his candidacy with an aggregation of actors in the trump tower lobby posing as supporters, through a campaign full of exaggerations and conspiracy theories, to an administration rife with lies and liars, this so called smartest team ever assembled has constantly and utterly failed the test of credibility. The open abuse of power by a calculated manipulation of information has placed the country in a very dangerous position, domestically as well as internationally. It is the role of the free press to shed light on these abuses so that at least a significant segment of the populace will choose to be informed. Associate Justice Hugo Black wrote in 1964 (Jacobellis v Ohio, 1964 ) the press serves and was designated to serve as a powerfull antidote to any abuses or power by governmental officials and as a constitutionally chosen means for keeping officials elected by the people responsible to all people whom they were elected to serve. Suppression of the right of the press to praise or criticize governmental agents and to clamor and contend for or against change……muzzles one of the very agencies the Framers of our constitution thoughtfully and deliberately selected to improve our society and keep it free.
A very much today parallel demonstrating just in how dangerous a circumstance we find ourselves is not limited to the writings of our own press and legitimate news outlets. Take note of the remarks of someone who has and is living through the consequences of unchallenged suppression of the press. In a recent interview with Lawrence O’Donnell, Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova draws serious parallels between Russian Putin and U S trump. She relates that mr trump is now using the very same phrases that mr putin has been using for the past seventeen years. She adds, they share the very same views about their critics and the media.

Ms Tolokonnikova continues … mr trump’s supposed lack of any true political beliefs plays perfectly into putin’s hands. He is “….really concerned with himself, his fame and his wealth..” and mr putin knows, as a former KGB agent, just how to deal with people who are easy to understand and easy to bribe….. Democracy is eroded by authoritarianism and pro authoritarianism and there can be no doubt that the trump administration is completely pro authoritarianism. What is frightening is that, while most can see and realize that we are on a very wrong road, his enablers in congress continue to allow this charade of a presidency to continue. It has been, is and will continue to be the role and purpose of a free press to serve to inform the electorate of the status and goings on of their government , on all levels, and should any or all of those levels inch toward suppressing or even silencing that free press, it may be time to clean and cleanse.

A NEW FORM OF GOVERNMENT

As cautioned on several occasions, ignore what they say and pay close attention to what they do, one needs to be tracking this so called tax reform package. As per Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University, the tax bill is plain and simply, a heist. It is gas lighting, pure and simple. Let’s take a brief look.

Of the top major corporations on Wall Street, – three hundred are paying 14% tax rate ; half of that number are paying zero in taxes ; and half of that number are not only paying nothing, but are getting subsidies ; with stocks at an all time high and corporate profits at a likewise all time high, and CEO salaries exceeding any level of sanity, why the massive tax cuts, especially as wages are stagnant…
The current plan as offered will add between 1.5 and 1.7 trillion to the national debt…
83 % of the benefits will go to the top 1 % …
People like the trump kids stand to gain over two billion dollars in tax free estate funds…
It will eliminate taxes on pass through income, the primary source of wealth for so many…
These considerable tax reductions for corporations will be permanent while the tax cuts for individuals will expire in seven years.. causing the tax burden on the middle and lower income wage earners – approximately 60 % – to actually increase
An item added literally at the last minute, with targeted benefits specifically for real estate developers represents $414 billion in lost revenue..

It is no accident that the trump administration has encased itself in Goldman-Sachs alumni, serving as advisors on this tax measure – rather Wealth measure – and one can be confident that this was part of the overall agenda all along. This is not a tax bill. It is a wealth transfer bill, moving billions to the upper ten per cent.

This bill was designed and formulated behind closed doors and issued on a strict need to know basis, completely excluding all democrats. There were no hearings, no expert witness testimony and no access across the aisle. This is how the GOP handled the most impactful piece of legislation since the Affordable Care Act, which, for the record, had numerous hearings and, much to its detriment, had over 100 amendments tagged on to it.
One needs to also ask the key question which all are reluctant to ask and the GOP is emphatically unwilling to answer – how, in the face of a 1.5 trillion dollar debt addition, will the cost of this monstrosity be covered ?
One can see, based on observing the GOP for decades, precisely how they plan to accomplish that. They will extract payment from the broad social safety net programs and those ancillary programs which support states and the communities within them. It is already in the works , as per senate rules established some time ago, that any new legislation which increases the debt will trigger automatic cuts is major domestic programs. The price tag to date will be approximately $120 billion, including $25 billion in cuts to Medicare. It will also trigger, by virtue of eliminating the “individual mandate” element of the ACA – the final nail in that coffin – the loss of health insurance for nearly thirteen million people. Also, it seems that, as part of covering the 1.5 trillion to be added to the debt, the less than esteemed congress will allow CHIP to expire, tossing nearly nine million children of working families off their health insurance.

This legislation had, for all practical purposes, not as much to do with reducing the tax burden on the middle class as it has to do with giving Wall Street corporations and the upper ten per cent a major reduction in taxes…. in spite of the fact that many major corporations pay a lower rate in taxes than most wage earners. This was nothing more than ransom paid to those donors who fund the GOP campaigns, keeping them in office so that their financial well being is secured. It is now a government of the donors, by the donors and for the donors.

NORMAL VS THE NORM

In the Winter 1993-94 edition of the American Educator, there was a compelling article written by one of the foremost authorities on social movements and socio-political issues, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He addresses a trend which was of concern then and is decidedly of concern today. While the article is a bit academic in nature , it is worth the read and worth comparing the theory proposed much earlier to our modern day America. The overall premise, based on earlier works by French sociologist/philosopher Emile Durkheim, takes a look at stages of deviant behavior in a societal setting. It is true that his theory focused on criminal behavior, but by extrapolation, we can consider destructive behavior as similar with its impact on societal networks and how they choose to contend or not contend with it.
The article parses the theory into three stages: Altruistic, Opportunistic and finally, Normalizing. The first two pose interesting theories on how a social community may choose to operate either around or with a segment of criminal or deviant behavior. The third, Normalizing, is the one which by far causes the most concern. In terms of destructive deviant behavior, while altruism may be shallow and opportunism may be distasteful, normalizing goes far beyond in its impact and its very nature makes it very very dangerous.Examples of widespread destructive behavior are all around us. However, there is no place that exemplifies how far into the realm of destructive behavior we have travelled than that of our national politics. While there is plenty of blame to go around for this phenomenon, one can argue that behavior inside the Beltway often paves the way for the surfacing of seriously deviant behavior down the entire social structure. What is of most pressing concern is that much of this behavior has now become the norm, in effect being normalized by not only the insiders but also by the electorate outside the beltway.

Headline after headline provides accounts of money laundering schemes, extra marital affairs, kickbacks, contract fraud and influence peddling. Fabricating and twisting of actual events to suit one’s own agenda has become such an accepted art form that one White House advisor coined a new phrase – “alternate facts” – as being an acceptable way a Press Secretary to explain the antics surrounding the Oval Office. As an example,
In recent testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, former Assistant Attorney General Sally Yates revealed a conversation she had with White House Counsel regarding the then National Security Advisor and his connection with Russian intelligence during the campaign and his subsequent lying to several senior staff, including the Vice President. The reply of the WHC was a question as to why DOJ cared about whether WH advisors lied to each other.
These behaviors, inappropriate at best and possibly criminal at worst, have now become the benchmark for conducting business. What is more than amazing is that, in this day and age, the unbelievable is believed, the far fetched is accepted, the outlandish is the conventional and what was utterly neurotic is now the normal. To add to the confusion are not just the behaviors being what they are but the explanations and excuses for them. Yes, the aberrant is being normalized. This is, in the opinion of scholars and political scientists alike, a very dangerous climate to be in. That being said, one might ask how did we arrive at this condition.

While I suspect there might be several theories out there, there is one which seems to be of particular relevance. In an article titled” The Age of American Unreason”, Susan Jacoby, paraphrasing Moynihan in her article in the Washington Post notes that “ dumbness has been steadily defined downward for several decades by a combination of forces. Video culture over print culture and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism are specifically highlighted.
There is a cult of ignorance across the U S and there is a strain of anti-intellectualism winding its way through both our political and our cultural life. Journalists Charles Pierce, author of “The Dumbest Generation” looks at the idea that there is a trend to trust the least those people who actually know what they are talking about Rational thought is considered the enemy and critical thinking has become the devil’s tool. One suspects that enhancing ability to learn and cultivating interest in anything outside the realm of producing income are a thing of the past. There are numerous studies that support this contention but the studies that have to cause the most concern are the ones that show the widespread lack of knowledge in regard to government and the social structures impacted by decisions made by government – aka social policy. This lack of knowledge coupled with the gullibility produced by the rampant anti-intellectualism has brought us to this condition of “normalization” which is so dangerous. After all, it is so much easier to accept and not question than it is to take a critical look at issues, parse them out into their component parts and then decide if and how one will be affected and what, if anything, needs to be reviewed, reevaluated and revised.