Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

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William Barr: Arrogance of Power

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William Barr is the same man he was 40 years ago and no one should be surprised at anything he has said or done after entering the Trump Circus. A brief Bio captures the outlines of the man.

In the mid 70’s Barr’s work at the CIA included arguing for the end of the moratorium on destruction of Agency documents in the age of the Church Committee’s investigations of CIA complicity in assassinations of foreign figures. The National Security Archive reports that later, in the 80’s, while in the Department of Justice, Barr defended expanding Presidential authority while limiting notification of Congress about covert Operations during Iran-Contra Affair.

His work in the Department of Justice during the 80’s and 90’s amplified his views on presidential authority, highlighted by his advice to President Bush-1 to short-circuit the work of Lawrence Walsh, Independent Counsel charged with investigating the Iran-Contra affair. Bush pardoned Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five other participants (incl the especially unpleasant Elliott Abrams), leaving Walsh with nowhere to go with the results of his five year investigation.

Barr also showed up when the Bush-1 presidency was accused of helping to fund Saddam Hussein’s military buildup (yep, that guy – really) through phony agriculture credits. The timing was ironic – while the buildup was to serve as a counterbalance to Iran, Saddam pulled a fast one and used his new military strength to invade Kuwait. Barr refused to provide information to the Congress in a preview for his efforts for Trump.

In the lead-up to his appointment as the fourth Attorney General in Trump’s two year presidency (incl 2 Acting AGs) Barr wrote a lengthy paper opposing the formation of the Mueller investigation, complained about the staffing of the Mueller team (it included some Democrats!), supported the firing of FBI Director Comey, supported investigations of Hillary Clinton and then altered and misconstrued the findings of the Mueller team.

Trump got what he has paid for and for the rest of us it is back to the shack, same game. Today Barr wormed his way through a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee with the help of Chairman Lindsey Graham and then let it be known that the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee would not be blessed with his presence at tomorrow’s scheduled session.

Love in the Age of Dystopia

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The love affair of Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu evolved quickly from light petting. Were there a wedding the exchange of gifts would have included Trump’s recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and Netanyahu’s naming an illegal Jewish settlement in honor of Trump. It will amuse future geographers to note that Trump’s name is on the map of the Middle East especially when reflecting on Trump arriving in Israel from Saudi Arabia and announcing, “I have just arrived from the Middle East”.

Netanyahu, who was being investigated for fraud, may actually owe his re-election to Trump as billboards featuring the lovers went up in Israel during Netanyahu’s campaign, after Trump announced moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and then – just prior to the Israeli election – announced the U.S.’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Trump’s actions have virtually eliminated any chance of a Middle East settlement that could be remotely acceptable to the Palestinians and waiting for a peace plan from Jared Kushner is, of course, a fool’s errand. The prize for Trump is not just a place on the Middle East map, but also huge political donations from far-right supporters of Israel like shady casino owner Sheldon Adelson, and shared friendships with a variety of international thugs like Viktor Orban in Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and the ubiquitous Vladimir Putin.

The remaining question is just what to call the illegal settlement honoring Trump. I’m thinking “Grifterville”.

Richard Lugar, RIP

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Former Senator Richard Lugar (R – Indiana) died yesterday at the age of 87. Lugar served six terms in the U.S. Senate and was one of the last breed of respectable Republican conservatism that for many years provided honest leadership in foreign affairs while promoting what is now an old-fashioned kind of conservatism on domestic issues. While his views on domestic politics were far from progressive they never morphed into the kind of weirdness which we now see from most Republican Senators.

But Lugar’s major interests and impact were in the international field, highlighted by his efforts towards nuclear disarmament and his commitment to ensuring bipartisanship in foreign relations. That this did not always gain the support of his more doctrinaire Republican colleagues led to Jesse Helms forcing him off the Foreign Relations Committee because he was an “internationalist”. Who knew that Helms could be ironic?

One important event illustrates Lugar’s fact-based approach to foreign affairs as well as his political courage and ability to speak truth to power. Ferdinand Marcos served as president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. Marcos and his family stole billions during those years and he became increasingly ruthless in maintaining his power. Marcos  was finally defeated in an election in 1986 and proceeded to attempt to steal the election. Lugar was in the Philippines as an election observer working with U.S. Ambassador Stephen Bosworth. When President Reagan began to waver in his support for the election results, it was Lugar who made the phone call to Reagan that led to his finally supporting the election results and sending Marcos into a too-long delayed retirement.

Lugar got defeated by a Tea Party candidate in 2012 and replaced with a mediocrity. That was one of many signals that the Republican Party was being taken over by dopes and fools. Donald Trump is the conclusion to that movement.

That wonderful year 2018/19 Part 2 The European Union

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As the UK slowly sinks in the west with no flags flying -would somebody ;il Terry-Thomas or Peter Sellers please send them a samurai sword it is time to turn our attention to its staggering opponent – the European Union. There was a time not so long ago when the core players in this game of thrones – the Central European musclemen Germany, France and the others were crowing about their future as a United States of Europe.
There’s little of that illusion left any more as the Brits apparently might be serious about sacrificing Ireland yet again and leaving the European chaps to the awful fate of doing without them. There’s actually very little of that anymore either a seem to have sort of decided to leave with no idea of what they might t do themselves afterwards. To show just how much the EU will miss the Brexit boys, the head honcho of the EU, Donald Tusk of Poland consigned them to Dante’ seventh circle of hell. Dem’s fighting words but there was little counter offensive from the robotically-challenged British political upper upper class.

The Fundamental Dishonesty of Equivalence

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It’s crazy. ‘If I don’t get my wall, I’m going to shut down the government.’ ‘If we don’t open the government, you can’t speak in our chamber,’ It’s a bunch of 2-year-olds, you know? Let’s figure out border security, and let’s get people to work, and let’s let the State of the Union take place like it always does.” Larry Hogan, Governor of Maryland

This old and tired Bogeyman of Equivalency is regularly called out by “moderate” Republicans whenever they find themselves losing a fight that they started. The tactic is to do something totally outrageous and when the opposition calls them on it to then blame the opposition for not being willing to negotiate. To suggest – as Hogan does – that Nancy Pelosi shares blame for a government shutdown unilaterally ordered by a Republican President is like blaming England for refusing to give up the Cotswolds in order to stop German bombs.

Trump unilaterally put almost a million government employees on unpaid leave and said he was happy to take responsibility for doing it. He was also forcing thousands of others to continue working without pay – all to threaten the Congress into giving him his essentially ineffective wall. Nancy Pelosi simply said Trump could not use the Capital as a soapbox to feed his insatiable ego until he opens the government and pays employees for their work. These are in no way equivalent and Hogan is basically acting as an enabler of a maladjusted president. That much of the press gets sucked into the nonsense of equivalency does not make it right.

Whether or not Hogan believes that Trump has created this mess and has full responsibility for cleaning it up, he is just another Republican afraid to take an honest stand against his party’s current leader. We have had over two years of Trump and he remains an embarrassment who governs to fill his pockets and his narcissistic ego. It is beyond time for “moderate” Republicans to put the country’s interests ahead of those of the President.

Hogan is being mentioned as a possible primary opponent of Trump, but the party and the country needs better than a so-called moderate. If Hogan really does not support the closing of the government, he needs to have the backbone to confront his party’s leaders – Trump and McConnell – and to recognize the cynical sham of his statement, above.

Democrats, many Republicans and specifically Speaker Pelosi, have figured out border security and it does not include Trump’s wall. If Hogan really wants to run for President he might start with acknowledging the reality of the damage that Trump has done and the fact that the House of Representatives is now managed by a smart, mentally stable woman – who, as it turns out, is a proud daughter of Baltimore.

That wonderful Year 2018: Part one – Great Britain

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A summary a la Bob and Ray

It was that wonderful year in which the British voters and their even more comically gifted parliamentary representatives managed to bring to life and then perform over and over again LIVE and on stage exaggerated adaptations of several of the most brilliant satiric skits first put by the great Monty Python troupe. Leaving that crew in the dust they brought together a bevy of characters beyond the imagination of the Pythons. Who could invent such wonderland creatures as the mad hatters who demanded the liberation of their brave and threatened kingdom from their slummy neighbours who were hunkered down in Brussels, Belgium of all unimportant places.

When they actually won the vote for a breakaway independence by the slightest of margins, having lost by the largest in their colonial outposts in Scotland and Northern Ireland, not to mention Gibralter, the leader of the hatters and his merry revolutionary men acted with remarkable speed when they began to get the news that their declaration of independence from the nasty Europeans appeared to be succeeding. Never having imagined that possibility, their leader and his unrobinhoody band ran for the hills after someone must have told them of the problems they would be facing on the island of Ireland and Northern Ireland , and the existence of custom unions across the English Channel and the chunnel to France. And the leader of it all disappeared and was never seen agin. Okay this is only true in the Trumpian sense, as we actually did see Sir Robin today on the BBC, as he began to strike out on a run in his bathing costume through the streets of London. Not even the Pythons could come up with that for a display of bizarre chutzpah.

And now the stage was really set for chivalric disaster as they named a fearless and brave female warrior to defend their new borders and after more than two unarthurian years of agonizing behaviour yelled out against her heir from their secure halls of power, they threw their fearless female warrior princess right under the bus with a shocking crescendo of linguistic shabbiness. If you think this is the end of a miserable tale, think again. On the very next day they asked her to go back out onto the field of battle and take on the dragon again. again. Now they had confidence in her. And they didn’t even apologize. nAnd she said she would gve it another go. Bully on her but no one seems to think this will all have a happy end at the end of March, when the end must happen.

THE “CRISIS AT THE BORDER”

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In a kind of “coals to Newcastle” move the Washington Post today is providing a cheat sheet for assessing the truthfulness of President Trump’s comments on the “crisis on the border” tonight.

Clearly we don’t really need this. Virtually everything Trump will say can be guaranteed to be a lie, an exaggeration, or a total fantasy. He has proven over and over that he knows nothing about anything and understands less.

There is some understandable puzzlement over why our TV networks will be televising this pile of verbal bullshit, but let’s just think of it as an episode of Cirque d’Soleil with a crazy ringmaster talking without a net of facts. Then once we have cleaned up the vomit we can come back to the TV for Pelosi and Schumer to suggest how we can replace the clowns. Or is that hoping for too much? Yeah, probably.

TRUMP TRAIN LEAVES RAILS

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Difficult to ignore the fact that our President* is fiddling while the White House burns. Well, actually  he does not even know what a fiddle is, let alone how to play it. But the walls are closing in on El Pradre El Mar-a-Lago and he is incapable of doing anything beyond shouting at reporters as he runs or stumbles  to the marine helicopters to take him away. Away , anywhere captain, just take me away.

Special prosecutor Mueller and his staff may have enough to put Trump and his crime family away for centuries IF he had not been “elected” by the electoral college. So what we have is a President* with innate insecurities and a major case of unjustified narcissism combined with serious criminal bahviors struggling to find the magic move that will save him and his children from their just desserts.

It will play out but I believe that we are witnessing the beginning of the end. Trump’s former lawyer and staff have or are all pleading guilty to various felonies and Trump’s children have all been stained and are vulnerable. His son-in-law is existentially complicit int he murder of Washington Post columnist Jamai Khashoggi and Mueller is now looking at the money. This last is Trump’s so-called redline. Ha! It’s always been about the money and that is where the truth will lead the investigation.

Trump’s most likely play is to fire Mueller – either by the seriously weird and tainted Mathew Whitaker or his likely successor William Barr, who two years ago wrote a lengthy memo describing his view that Mueller was getting into inappropriate areas.

So, two more government officials will possibly sacrifice their personal honor and integrity (recognizing that Whitaker has very little honor or integrity) such as it is – on the altar of Trump’s insatiable, undeserving ego.

The Threat of Seasonal Mental Illness

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So here we are entering the holiday season while President* Trump is not-so-slowly going insane in front of our eyes. He wants his Wall or his Steel Slats, or Beaded Curtain, or maybe Shower Curtain, and if he doesn’t get it he has decided to punish the entire country. He’s like the senile old nuns who used to punish the whole class when someone wrote “Sister Mary Grace has Bad Habits” on the blackboard.

But while the seriousness of the offenses are similar, there is a significant difference between putting your head down on the desk for an hour and watching savings disappear because some fruitcake wants a useless Wall that he already said would be built by the Mexicans. But, an anxious nation waits while a shell of a man who is not enjoying especially good mental health tries to make himself feel better by screwing the entire country he was elected (sic) to serve.

CANNOT MAKE THIS STUFF UP. SAD!

Bully Trump Meets Speaker Pelosi

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”It’s like a manhood thing for him,. As if manhood could be associated with him. This wall thing.” Nancy Pelosi

We have gotten used to Arrested Development Teen Trump calling people silly names, claiming sexual rights without permission, bullying Republican wimps, and bragging about things that never happened. But today is a new day with the soon to be Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, setting the table for a future of the House of Representatives pushing back – at long last. Two years of a Republican Congress putting up with the most degrading presidency in my history is moving to an and Trump is not going to get his wall- boo Hoo, Boo Hoo.

Trump’s “art of the deal” has always been one of bullying people, not paying people, lying to people, and just claiming bankruptcy every time things went south for him. Well, here we are and it is now time for him to go to Mexico and get there money for his ridiculous wall or shut up. Instead he is promising to shut down the U.S. government, an act of political craziness, economic risk and – alas – a certain level of black humor.

Today’s meeting of Trump, Schumer and Pelosi (VP Pence was there in body only) was political theater bound to garner some cheeers in the beer halls of Trump’s useful idiots, but things are closing in on him and he is losing what little he ever had. Watch the video linked from the front page of the Washington Post – it is priceless.