Author: mwmiller2@outlook.com

My sincere apologies.  After a long day yesterday of laying out and cutting tiles for a walk-in shower I am working on followed by a long homeowner’s board meeting to discuss legal action we have taken against three owners in our community. [ You would think that in an area where all the lots are at least an acre in size and the governing covenants are very clear that people could just follow the rules and live peacefully.  Alas – you would be wrong!]  In any case, I was too tired to write anything cogent.  So, I decided to just be silly.  Hopefully my brain will re-engage tonight.  Stay safe.

There was an old man from Kentucky
A hypocritical senator was he
He stole one Supreme court seat
It was a truly despicable feat
He’s at it again – a huge dishonor to RBG.

A man from Kentucky named Mitch
Took positions which would often switch
I hope come November
People will remember
And vote you out, you son-of-bitch,

There was a senator named Lindsey
Whose committee was the Judiciary
He adored Donald Trump
Had his nose up his rump
It would be funny if it wasn’t so scary

The US has a President Trump
Who loves to go on the stump
He tells lie upon lie
As more Americans die
He cares not, as long as the ratings take a jump

A senator from Utah named Romney
Once principled, took stands and was lonely
His ethics mustn’t run deep
He will follow the Republican sheep
And another Conservative feeds at the trough of hypocrisy

The battle over the replacement for Justice Ginsburg will be a political brawl and another ugly chapter in American history during the ‘Trump era.’  I think we need to put what’s at stake into proper context, especially since we are living in a supposed democracy which usually means rule by the majority.  The facts, however, paint a different picture.  Republicans have won a majority of the popular vote in only 1 out of the last 8 elections.  Most recently, Trump lost the popular vote by 3,000,000 plus votes.  He was not elected by a majority of Americans.  That is an indisputable fact.

A Gallup poll from May 2020 found, “ that 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 25% identified as Republican, and 40% as Independent[^[1] Additionally, polling showed that 50% are either “Democrats or Democratic leaners” and 38% are either “Republicans or Republican leaners” when Independents are asked “do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?”^[1]

The bottom line is that the Republicans (or ‘Conservatives, if you prefer) are a minority party in this country.  And, according to the data, the portion of the electorate that identifies as Republican has been shrinking.  Think about it.  We have a President who was elected by a minority of the population and political malpractice with respect to Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee, on the part of Mitch McConnel,l coupled with the unfortunate death of Justice Kennedy has resulted in Trump nominating and having confirmed two conservative Supreme Court justices. 

The Republican party has been trying to retain their grip on power by targeting the vagaries of the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression activities and packing the courts with conservative judges.  Now Trump and the Republicans are aiming to force through yet another conservative justice regardless of the upcoming election and how it turns out.  If successful, there will be a conservative majority on the Supreme Court in a country where the majority of the populace disagrees with many of their rulings on such issues as abortion, LGBT rights, gender equality, and access to health care (‘Obama care’).

No doubt many of the conservatives are pushing hard to force through this nomination for no other reason than they see it as the ticket to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision, which in 1972, made abortion legal in this country.  Today, about seventy five percent of Americans think abortion should remain legal. I will reiterate – 75% of Americans think that abortion should remain legal.  There are some complexities in that number in that some think it should remain legal with some restrictions but the vast majority of Americans believe Roe v. Wade should not be overturned.

If Trump and the Republicans are successful in forcing through a nominee and getting them confirmed, it is a 100 percent probability that the highest court of the land will be flooded with Roe v. Wade related cases in hopes that it will be overturned by the conservative majority on the court.   Should that happen, the Conservative Republican minority party will have forced something through the courts that a majority of Americans disagree with.

In the early 1900’s a very vocal and aggressive group pushed through the 18^th Amendment to the US Constitution – Prohibition.  The fact is, the majority of Americans were not fully supportive of a complete ban on alcohol, but it got pushed through anyway in 1917.  And, we know how that worked out.  Almost overnight a black market in booze arose, ruled over by criminal gangs who made a boatload of money. Not to mention a huge increase in associated violent crime. 

In any case, the whole thing was a complete disaster and the 21^st Amendment to repeal Prohibition was enacted in 1933.  This is what happens when a vocal and aggressive minority pushes through policies and laws that are not supported by the majority of the people.  I would bet huge sums of money that if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, a few years down the road, abortion will once again be ruled legal because it is the will of the majority of people in this country and because it will lead to disastrous results in the same manner as Prohibition.   There is absolutely no doubt that a black market in abortions will arise with all of the attendant problems.  There are 500,000 – 600,000 plus abortions in this country every year.  There are less than 200,000 adoptions.  Do the math!

The bottom line is that this election is about far more than whether or not we can survive (literally and figuratively) another four years of Donald J. Trump.  It is about whether the true majority in this country will allow a minority of the populace to set policies that are in complete contravention of what the majority of Americans really want.   Democracy is supposed to be about majority rule.  The more that philosophy is bent, undermined, corrupted and called into question, the more people like Vladimir Putin smile and the weaker this country becomes.

“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
― Abraham Lincoln

For the sake of Justice Ginsburg and all she worked so hard and so courageously for, we cannot turn our backs to the fire but instead must face the fire and let it galvanize us to action, so the voice of the majority of Americans is heard loudly and clearly.  VOTE!

1. ^b“Gallup Historical Trends: Party Affiliation”. Gallup News. Retrieved 2020-05-14. In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?
2. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-to-keep-abortion-legal-but-they-also-want-restrictions

The COVID 19 death toll in the United States has surpassed 200,000 and the number of cases is rising in a number of states.  Some model predictions are estimating that 400,000 Americans will have lost their lives as a result of the pandemic by the end of the year.   That is equivalent to 40% of the population of the entire state of Montana – wiped out. Dead. Gone forever.  Those numbers should cause everyone’s jaw to drop.

In normal times, one would expect that trying to get this virus under control and saving American lives would be the President’s top priority.  However, these are not normal times so rather than using his position to try to help the situation, he is consumed by his reelection campaign and is continuing to hold in-person rallies in complete contradiction to his own CDC’s guidelines.  By conducting these rallies, he is not only putting his supporters lives at risk but other people as well.  The people who attend these rallies, disperse and continue to interact with their communities.  No doubt some of the ‘non-combatants’ in the community will be infected by rally attenders.  I guess Trump and his supporters will just view them as collateral damage.

Trump is doing everything in his power to change the news cycle so that it will not focus on the staggering number of people dying in this pandemic.  There is no doubt that Trump knew how dangerous this virus was based upon his own words as recorded by Bob Woodward, whose book I am reading now.  And based upon those words, it is very apparent that he totally screwed up and continues to screw up the response to this pandemic.  And as a result, people died and continue to die needlessly.  But, in typical Trump fashion, rather than deal with the root problem, he tries change to news cycle!

Imagine if Trump had been president when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened.  He’d probably try to convince everyone in Hawaii to go have a luau and convince them that ‘this will go away.’  And even when he knew an attack was imminent on the West Coast, he wouldn’t prepare for it because he didn’t want to ‘panic’ people.  

Part of the news cycle that Trump is trying to use to get attention off the pandemic is the unfortunate death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the opportunity to nominate another Supreme Court Justice.  This event will show the hypocrisy of Trump and his Republican acolytes in spades.

When Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly in February 2016, Trump was a candidate for the Republican president nomination and he encouraged Mitch McConnell to ‘Delay, Delay, Delay’ taking a vote on Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland until after the election.  It was February and the election wasn’t until November!!  Mitch McConnell, as we all know, refused to bring Garland’s nomination to the Senate floor for vote. 

All of the Republicans lined up, saluted smartly and each made some rationalizing statement as to why this was reasonable.  The most repeated argument was that the American people should have a voice in who the nominee should be and they would be able to express that preference through whoever they elected as President.  What a change four years and drinking a few gallons of ‘Trump-ade’ can make.

Now Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and a whole host of other Republicans are trying to convince everyone that the situation now is different and they have some obligation to force through this nomination with only about 6 weeks left until the election.  And even if Joe Biden wins, there is no doubt that they will rationalize why it is appropriate that they force through this nomination during the lame duck session between the election and when the next president is inaugurated in January.

The Republican Party (as it exists now) has done nothing over the last four years to hold Trump accountable for anything.  Not only have they not held Trump accountable they have engaged in all kinds of efforts to suppress voters, mislead voters, block efforts for mail-in balloting, engaged in gerrymandering that has resulted in litigation and adverse court rulings, and anonymously funded campaigns to get third party candidates on the ballots with the express purpose of splitting the Democratic vote. [The Republican Party here in Montana spent $100,000 anonymously to try to get a Green Party candidate on the ballot – and the Green Party didn’t even know about it!!]

For a party that once espoused things like ‘Family Values’, they have set the current bar pretty low.  I think the new and more appropriate motto for the Republican Party should be:

                        “Abandon all principles in pursuit of victory”

The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg yesterday was yet another gut punch in what is already a tough year.  The diminutive Ginsburg was a titan on the Supreme Court who championed equal rights for all and was a standard bearer in the fight for gender equality.  The ‘Notorious RBG’ was certainly an inspiration for many women including my own daughter. 

I was not going to post anything today because in a normal world we should all just sit back and mourn the loss of Ginsburg and pay tribute to her life and legacy.  However, we do not live in a normal world these days, and within minutes of the announcement of Ginsburg’s death, Mitch McConnell, was already stating that he would be trying to ram through another Trump nominee regardless of the upcoming election.

Remember that McConnell famously denied President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland even a hearing on the Senate floor stating that the American people should have a voice in who the nominee is and he would wait until after the results of the 2016 election.   Obama had nominated Garland in FEBRUARY of an election year.  Here we are in the latter half of September and McConnell, in an historic display of hypocrisy, is going to try to force a nominee through regardless of the election and regardless of who the American select as the next president.

In McConnell’s own words, the right thing to do is to let the next president, whoever that is, pick the nominee.  This will be the ultimate test of whether some Republicans can find their spines and do what is right or whether they will roll over like they have done so many times before during this administration and let Trump and McConnell take another brick out of the foundation of American democracy.

I am not hopeful.  The track record of Republicans holding this president accountable and of resisting McConnell is pretty dismal.  It was on public display during the impeachment hearings.  While I was disappointed that Trump was not convicted of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ as I thought he should have been after reading the Mueller report, what was even more disturbing to me was the fact that the Republicans refused to entertain any witnesses or subpoena any documents.  It was a sham and the majority of Republicans just went along with it.

If the Republicans are true to form when it comes to voting on a new Supreme Court nominee that is rammed through by Mitch McConnell either prior to the election or in the lame duck  session thereafter, we will end up with a Supreme Court justice who has no credibility and whose every decision in the future will be clouded because of the way they were parachuted into the highest court in the land.  If I were someone who was nominated to the Supreme Court under such circumstances, I would seriously consider refusing the appointment.  A few days ago, I posted a story about how the Irish National Lacrosse team had given up their spot in the upcoming World Games to a team from the Iroquois native American tribe because it was the right thing to do.  Any jurist worthy of the Supreme Court, should take a similar stand with respect to this nomination.

Like I said, this will be a test of the true character of every Republican Senator and anyone nominated to the Supreme Court during this troubling time.  One would like to think that there are still a few Republicans who care more about American democracy and what is best for the country in the long term rather than simply trying to hold on to power at all costs.  I sincerely hope that a few Republicans and potential nominees will find their spines, look in the mirror and do the right thing.

If McConnel is able to ram through a nominee prior to the next president being inaugurated, it might be a short-term victory, but it will do long term damage to American democracy, the credibility of the Supreme Court and any shred of integrity the Republican party once espoused.

RBG often quoted former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.  I found one of his quotes and thought it was particularly appropriate right now.  

“If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.”

It is up to all of us to carry on the fight that was so valiantly and courageously waged by ‘the Notorious RBG’.  RIP Justice Ginsburg.  We will do our best.

I have written many posts over the last three months talking about what a dangerous man President Trump is and how he threatens our democracy.  While I stand by those statements, I am thinking that the man, at this moment in time, who is possibly even more dangerous than Trump is his attorney general, William Barr.

Most of the political analysts expect, and both campaigns are preparing for, a big legal fight over the election results.  There is the whole assault on the integrity of mail-in voting so there is no doubt that mail-in ballots will be the subject of litigation in many states.   There are ongoing efforts to ‘purge’ voter rolls, primarily in Republican states, with the express purpose of suppressing the vote from some segments of the population.  That could well lead to litigation.  And if there is a close vote in the Electoral College, there could conceivably be legal battles over ‘rogue electors’ or other questionable practices.  The bottom line is that there is a very high probability that there will be a lot of litigation.

In a normal world, the character of the Attorney General of the United States would not even be an issue, even given all of the above.  However, we don’t live in a normal world these days.  We live in Trumpland and his attorney general, William Barr, has shown a distinct tendency to interfere in cases in such a way that Trump is the beneficiary and normal DOJ processes get thrown out the window.   Let’s review.

Michael Flynn was Trump’s first National Security Advisor who lasted about two weeks and ultimately pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts.  He became a witness against Trump in the Mueller probe.  After Trump’s impeachment acquittal Flynn tried to withdraw his plea.  As this was percolating through the judicial system leading up to Michael Flynn’s sentencing, William Barr intervened and said the DOJ was going to drop the case.  This resulted in several of the key prosecutor’s in the Flynn case to resign.  Although this is still pending a final resolution in court, the fact that Barr intervened was widely seen as a politically motivated abuse of the office.

We all remember Roger Stone.  He was one of Trump’s minion’s who had been a Republican operative for years and prided himself on his reputation as a ‘dirty trickster.’  He was convicted of several felonies and was awaiting sentencing when Barr once again intervened in the case and went against his own prosecutors recommended sentence for Stone and instead proposed a lesser sentence.  This led to more prosecutors resigning.  Stone’s sentence was ultimately commuted by Trump but the fact that Barr intervened to help out a Trump friend was once again seen as a politically motivated abuse of Barr’s office.

Barr launched his own probe into the Russia investigation that was the subject of the Mueller probe and did this in spite of the fact that both the Mueller probe and the Republican led Senate intelligence Committee concluded that in spite of some mistakes being made, the investigation into Russian interference in our election and possible links to the Trump campaign was a legitimate investigation.  Barr is pushing to have his investigation concluded prior to the election and has not committed that he will adhere to the DOJ policy of not releasing controversial information within 60 days of an election.  I believe it is near a 100 percent certainty that Barr will release a report – or portions thereof – prior to the election if that information is seen as benefitting Trump.  If that occurs, it will be a huge abuse of his office.

Most recently, Barr wants the DOJ to takeover a case to defend Trump in a defamation suit from a woman Trump allegedly sexually assaulted.  The alleged assault took place years before Trump took office and Barr’s attempt to have the DOJ takeover the case is unprecedented.  Our tax dollars at work!  And yet another example of William Barr turning the DOJ into Trump’s personal law firm.

On the flip side, Burr is turning the DOJ into a weapon to go after Trump’s ‘enemies’.   There is an investigation into John Bolton regarding the book he published and Trump tried to stop.  Burr has floated the idea of charging mayors of cities where protests have taken place – no coincidence I’m sure they are all Democrats.  It is a well known tactic in authoritarian regimes around the world to arrest, harass and prosecute dissidents.  Here we go!

So, back to the upcoming election.  If Barr has been willing to intervene in all of the above cases (and others) where the clear beneficiary is Trump or his close friends, what do you think Barr is capable of in an election year legal battle??  He has already shown a willingness to stretch his interpretation of the law in ways that legal scholars say is unprecedented.   This election could really test his ability to push the legal boundaries.

The Department of Justice, although a part of the Executive Branch, is supposed to dispense equal justice under the law for ‘We the people’.  Barr’s DOJ has just become another corrupt tool in Trump’s arsenal for further attacks upon American democracy along his path to an authoritarianism.  The reason that Barr is so dangerous is because, although Trump acts more and more like a despot, Barr could actually enable him to become one.

As a sign of the times, the magazine, Scientific American, has broken with a 175-year-old tradition and come out the with a presidential endorsement – Joe Biden.   They have never before made a presidential endorsement but given what has taken place and what continues to take under the Trump administration, the editorial board unanimously agreed they needed to take a stand.   The following paragraph is from the very lengthy editorial appearing in the most recent issue discussing their reasons for taking this unprecedented action.

“The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science. The most devastating  example is his dishonest and inept response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which cost more than 190,000 Americans their lives by the middle of September. He has also attacked environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges. That is why we urge you to vote for Joe Biden, who is offering fact-based plans to protect our health, our economy and the environment. These and other proposals he has put forth can set the country back on course for a safer, more prosperous and more equitable future.”¹

Since the very beginning of the Trump administration, he has been like a one-man wrecking machine for any government agency involved in any type of scientific endeavor starting with pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords.   Just recently, Trump appointed David Legates, a professor of climatology at the University of Delaware, and published climate change skeptic.  Legates is also a member of the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that denies climate change is a serious threat to the world. [The Heartland Institute has been linked to the Koch brothers and worked with Phillip Morris to try to deny the link between smoking and cancer]. ¹

And, of late, Trump has done everything in his power to undermine the scientists at the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

Let’s be frank.  Undermining and denying science is entirely consistent with the way Trump has operated his entire life.  Facts and data are Trump’s biggest enemies.  He talks about ‘the radical Left’ and the ‘Deep State’ but the fact is (pun intended), facts and data are Trump’s biggest enemy.   So why is Trump so against facts and data and the associated science?  The answer should be obvious.  Trump is a pathological liar who lives in his own reality.  It is a lot harder to lie in a world driven by facts and data. 

Why do you think that he won’t release his tax returns?  Putting aside any potential criminal ramifications that might result from the release, he knows that the facts contained in his tax returns will not match the ‘reality’ that he has tried to create about his wealth and his business acumen.

If you want to create your own reality, then you simply get rid of all of those people whose jobs are to deal with facts and data and use them to develop scientifically driven recommendations which is exactly what Trump has done in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the CDC, the NIH, the FDA,  and now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA). 

The problem with the denial and assault on facts is that in almost every case, the facts will ultimately win.  It may take a long time but the facts will win.  The only question is how much damage will be caused or how many lives will be lost because of policies driven by wishes, emotions and, in many cases, money, rather than by facts and data.

Remember how the airwaves used to be filled with advertisements for cigarettes?  The tobacco companies, sometimes with help from various politicians, spent billions of dollars trying to convince people there was no connection between smoking and cancer.  The facts ultimately won.  I wonder how many lives would have been saved if the policies regarding tobacco products had been driven by science rather than money.  And I wonder how many lives would have been saved if Trump’s COVID-19 response were driven by science versus ‘Trumpism.’

And think about this, if Trump and his minions rush a vaccine into use before the doctors and scientific community have done sufficient testing, simply for political reasons, and that vaccine ultimately has problems, he will have single-handedly undermined COVID and other vaccination programs well into the future.  Again, at the cost of American lives.

Trump’s continued assault on science is a huge threat to the people of this country and the world and I applaud Scientific American for taking the stance they have. 

If Trump’s assault on science in government agencies continues, we can soon look for Trump to appoint someone from the Flat Earth Society to head up NASA. 

1. https://news.yahoo.com/scientists-protest-as-trump-picks-climate-change-skeptic-for-key-noaa-post-192631935.html

The news cycles these days seem to be filled with an unending stream of stories about all kinds of people doing things for selfish and less than altruistic reasons.  The airways are filled with political ads, many of which are false, misleading and self-serving.  So, when I was sifting through this miasma trying to figure out what to write about and I came across a story about people doing the right thing for no other reason than because it’s the right thing to do, I thought I would just stop right there and share the story.  May it be an inspiration to us all.  I hope it brings a smile to your face as it did to mine and a glimmer of hope in the midst of these hard and chaotic times.  Enjoy!

“This week, if you looked up the dictionary definition for the word ‘sportsmanship,’ there’s a good chance you might have seen a picture of Ireland’s national lacrosse team there.

That’s because rather than looking to their own interests, they ceded their spot at the World Lacrosse Games 2022 to a Native American Iroquois squad who’d been shut out of the international competition on a technicality.

The eight teams slotted to play in the tournament were selected on the basis of where their team ranked at the end of the 2018 Federation of International Lacrosse World Championship. The Iroquois Nationals came in third. Ireland finished 12th.

Since the Iroquois are not recognized as a sovereign nation nor do they have an Olympic Committee, the International World Games Association (IWGA) initially disqualified them from championship play.

In August, the IWGA reversed its decision, but with the roster already set, the point seemed moot—until team Ireland changed the game.

In a statement, Michael Kennedy, chief executive officer of Ireland Lacrosse said, “It’s simply the right thing to do… As much as our players would have been honored to compete, we know the right thing is for the Iroquois Nationals to represent our sport on this international stage.”

“You have gone above and beyond not only for us, but for what you believe is right,” the Iroquois Nationals tweeted in response. “Your actions have spoken louder than words showing everyone the true power of sport, and the spirit of lacrosse. We will never forget that.”

In an interview with US Lacrosse Magazine, World Lacrosse Chief Executive Officer Jim Scherr said, “Some of the most inspiring gestures in international sport are when athletes from one team reach across and lend their support to athletes from another. That’s exactly what…the membership of Ireland Lacrosse have done, and we should all be inspired by their example.”

While it might seem unusual for athletes from such far-flung locales to make this kind of sacrifice for another team, it’s far from the first time Native Americans and the Irish have reached out to help one another in troubled times.

During the Irish Potato Famine, even though impoverished themselves, the Choctaw tribe sent a monetary donation to help alleviate suffering across the ocean.

The Irish recently returned the gesture, donating generously to a GoFundMe campaign that benefits Native American tribes particularly hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

We heartily applaud Ireland’s national lacrosse team for reminding us by example that true sportsmanship is built on a foundation of fairness and courtesy. Sometimes, walking the walk means giving up glory in the name of a greater good—and that is what being a winner is all about.”¹

1. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/irish-players-give-up-tournament-spot-to-native-america/

There is a storm of political polls in the news these days.  In most national polls, Biden leads by various amounts.  However, when it comes to the economy, Trump consistently scores higher.  People believe that Trump will be better for the economy because he is a successful ‘business man’.

This just goes to show the power of branding.  Trump has cultivated this myth since he was a developer in Manhattan.  The facts, if any of his acolytes would choose to believe them, simply do not support the image that has been cultivated.  But the myth lingers on in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary.

Trump’s story about getting a ‘one million dollar’ loan from his father and then parlaying that into his billion-dollar empire is exactly that, a story.  It is completely and provably false.  The fact is, Trump got more like $400 million from his father who bailed him out of several failed business ventures.  [My dad didn’t give me $400 million but, I’m not starving and I have his 2010 Ford Ranger pickup so it’s all good!  RIP, Dad]

Trump filed for bankruptcy six times and had such a poor reputation and was viewed as such a risk that no United States banks would lend him money after a while.  He ultimately turned to Deustche Bank for funding.  Of course, Deutsche Bank, has had their own run-ins with the authorities regarding things like Russian money laundering.

The financial landscape is littered with failed Trump enterprises.  The most visible were certainly his casinos in Atlantic City but there are many more.  Trump University, The Trump Foundation, Trump wine, Trump vodka, Trump steaks, and something that most people have forgotten about, Trump airline (the Trump Shuttle).

I came across an article on Trump’s infamous foray into the airline business which I found particularly amusing.  “Trump Airlines, which had the official name of Trump Shuttle, Inc., was an ill-fated venture that lasted from 1989 to 1992. Trump “bought” — and I put that in quotation marks because he didn’t pay for it himself, he arranged for a loan of $380 million from a consortium of 22 small banks to finance the transaction — a profitable division of the troubled Eastern Airlines with operations in the Northeastern United States.”¹

The airline never made a profit and after a year and a half in operation the loans went into default.  The only thing remaining of Trump’s airline is his ‘personal’ 757 jet that, prior to using Air Force One, was his mode of flight travel.  So, Trump starts an airline, leaves a trail of 22 small banks with defaulted loans totaling $380 million and he flies off into the sunset with his personal 757 jet.  Successful businessman my ass!  The last line of this article made me laugh out loud. “So the next time the former reality show host mentions his so-called business success, remember that his idea of “success” — having his name scrawled on large phallic objects — is just the adult version of the same standard that middle-school boys worldwide aspire to.”¹

He has never run a publicly held business where he has been accountable to a Board of Directors.  He has run a family business where he is totally unaccountable to anyone and has engaged in all kinds of shady business practices.  The Trump companies have been sued something like 3,500 times.  Many of those suits are for non-payment of debts to contractors.  His projects tend to leave a wake of stiffed contractors.

So how does this myth survive?  How is it that this failed business man has been able to create this lasting image as some kind of business guru?  It really is mindboggling. 

I guess one just has to reflect on people like Bernie Madoff.  Madoff was able to cultivate an image of this ultra-successful investor for years in the largest Ponzi scheme in United States history which defrauded investors of $65 billion.  When the thing finally blew up, people who had trusted Madoff lost huge sums of money, sometimes their entire life savings.

In many respects, I think Donald Trump and Bernie Madoff have a lot in common.  Just like Madoff wasn’t nearly as wealthy as he appeared, I’m sure that Donald Trump is not nearly as wealthy as he would like everyone to think he is.  Bernie was a con artist who convinced people that he was an investment guru who could make them wealthy.  Trump is a con artist who has convinced people that he is some business genius who knows best how to manage the US economy.   The unfortunate reality is, neither of these men are what they represented themselves to be.  Trump is no more of a successful businessman than Bernie Madoff was a successful investor. 

I just wish people would wake up before it’s too late.  In the case of Madoff, many people tragically lost their entire retirement funds. In the case of Trump, the consequences will be so much more costly.

1 https://www.bustle.com/articles/147006-what-happened-to-trump-airlines-how-the-business-venture-failed-spectacularly-decades-ago

I received Michael Cohen’s book, Disloyal: A Memoir, in the mail last Thursday and finished it over the weekend.  Let me start by stating that if I were king, and I understand that we can only have one king at a time in this country and that position is already filled, but if I were king, I would command that every eligible voter read this book prior to voting in the upcoming election.  Although, based upon the pictures of the collective lunacy on display at Trump’s rally in Nevada last, it would probably not change any minds of those who have already chosen to put their lives at risk for a chance to see their Svengali Trump in person. Nonetheless, it is a very disturbing portrait of the man at the helm of this country.

Prior to this I read John Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, and Mary Trump’s book, Too Much and Never Enough.  John Bolton was Trump’s former National Security Advisor and much of his account is through the lens of foreign policy, such as it is, during the Trump administration.  Mary Trump’s (Trump’s niece) book was from a family insider who shed light on much of Trump’s background and how he came to be who he is today.  Cohen’s book is from the perspective in his position as Trump’s personal attorney and chief ‘fixer’.  Michael Cohen was in daily contact with Trump virtually every day for a decade and was the one responsible for dealing with all of Trump’s ‘personal’ issues.  All three books are consistent in painting a picture of an amoral man, whose every decision is based upon how it will benefit him personally with virtually no regard for any human collateral damage that happens along the way. 

No doubt there are those who will dismiss Cohen’s book as just an opportunity for him to make a lot of money.  And, of course, Michael Cohen is a convicted felon who spent time in prison for some of the crimes he committed while working for Trump, including lying to Congress and campaign finance violations (remember the payment to Stormy Daniels?).  So, why should anyone believe anything he has to say?  Let me first point out that Michael Cohen has considerable wealth so, while the money from the book I’m sure is welcome, he wasn’t going to be destitute without it.  Secondly, Cohen admits freely to lying to support and defend Trump.  The fact is, much of what Cohen has written has been corroborated and even if only a third of it is true, it is still a damning indictment of the President.  However, everything he has written is consistent with all of the other accounts of those who have been close to Trump.  And the portrait painted by all of these accounts is of a man who is a racist, misogynist, egomaniac, completely amoral, who lies, cheats, bullies, belittles and manipulates people as easily as most of us breathe.

Cohen provides an account of the whole saga of trying to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow, the whole Stormy Daniels issue and other sordid details about some of Trump’s dalliances including one particularly disgusting  account involving Trump and the Agalarovs (Russian oligarchs involved with the Miss Universe pageant when held in Russia) at a Las Vegas night club.   It is still difficult for me to understand how the evangelical vote is solidly in Trump’s corner given his consistent amoral behavior over his entire life.  Talk about making a Faustian bargain!

I thought one of the most interesting and instructive stories was about how a poll was rigged by Michael Cohen with complete support from Trump.  In 2014, CNBC was conducting an online poll to determine the 25 most influential business people alive to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the network.  When Cohen first looked into it, Trump was 187 out of 200.  Trump was seriously thinking about running for president at the time so this result was completely unacceptable to him.  Cohen got to work, hired one of his contacts with IT expertise and set him to work.  By the time the poll ‘closed’, Trump was 9^th ![The only reason it wasn’t higher was because they thought it would look suspicious – duh!]  It was all bullshit and was the result of the manipulation by an IT expert.  Trump was happy and that was all that counted.  Just because he had cheated to get that result was irrelevant.

I thought that story was particularly relevant to the situation we find ourselves in today.   The poll back in 2014 was prior to Trump being a candidate for president let alone actually holding the office, but he sanctioned cheating because he is obsessed with winning and having his ego stroked.  Now, he is President of the United States, is up for reelection and is trailing in the polls.  If he was willing to cheat in a poll that didn’t matter, what do think he is capable of to try to win this election?

I see everything that is going on in the leadup to the election – Dejoy mucking up things at the US Postal Service; an all-out assault on the integrity of mail-in voting; reports on the coronavirus being manipulated; intelligence reports being modified to match Trump’s narrative and the refusal of the DNI to brief Congress on election security issues – and I put that together with everything I have read about Trump and I really get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I don’t think there is any way in hell that Trump will win the popular vote.  However, I can imagine many scenarios in which he and his minions will litigate and cheat their way into another Electoral College victory.  He is a desperate man – a desperate amoral man – who is obsessed with winning.

Trump was desperate to keep Michael Cohen from publishing his book and undertook a huge legal fight which ultimately involved his toady, Attorney General Barr at the DOJ.  After reading the book, it is not surprising at all why he tried so hard to keep the book from being published.  In a recent post, I asked the question, “Why is Trump so desperate to stay in office?” Michael Cohen, who is much more knowledgeable about Trump’s activities than I, validated exactly what I thought and wrote in a previous post.  In his words:

“The reason the President wanted a new head prosecutor in the Southern District [New York], I knew better than anyone, was so that while in office, he could arrange to be federally indicted.  In the event he loses the election in November, he could then pardon himself, as he’s long claimed to be his right.  The reason behind that unprecedented and serpentine thinking was that Trump knows perfectly well that he is guilty of the same crimes that resulted in my conviction and incarceration.  He also knows that I would be a star witness in that case, and my book a fundamental piece of evidence for his guilt.

Without immunity from prosecution granted to the president, Trump will also almost certainly face New York State criminal charges.  He would likely be convicted on both the Federal and State charges and face serious prison time.  That is Donald Trump’s greatest fear in life, believe me, and if he fails to get reelected, that will be his fate – and he knows it – so silencing me was an essential part of his overall plan to evade the law and avoid that outcome.”¹

Trump is in a corner and you know what they say about a cornered animal.  Make no mistake about it, this is going to get really ugly.

1. Disloyal: A Memoir, Michael Cohen, Skyhorse Publishing, 2020

First of all, today is 9/11 and we should all take a moment to reflect on the tragic events that took place on this date in 2001 and the 3,000 lives that were lost.  It’s yet another reminder that we need a leader who understands that their primary responsibility is to protect the American people from all adversaries, seen and unseen, foreign and domestic.

I am angry today.  I’m angry a lot these days but today I’m particularly so.  In the last couple of days, tapes recorded by Bob Woodward of his interviews with President Trump, reveal the President disclosing what is most likely highly classified information about a weapons program.¹

I’m sure there are those of his supporters who will defend him by saying that he didn’t really say anything or give any specifics. Bullshit.  The simple fact is that the US military and associated defense contractors work on programs which even the existence or acknowledgement of is highly classified.  I know.  I worked on such programs.

I spent over 30 years of my career working in the defense business and possessed a TS/SCI clearance and various program accesses over that time.  I and all of my colleagues took our obligations to not reveal classified information seriously.  First of all, the large majority of people who work on such programs do so out of a sense of loyalty to the United States and secondly, breaching those security obligations can have serious personal and legal consequences, including immediate employment termination, significant monetary fines and potentially prosecution and jail time.

In the realm of classified information, in addition to requiring the necessary clearance/access, you also have to have a ‘need to know.’  If you don’t have a need to know, even if you have the right clearance, you will not be provided the information or access.  The vast majority of the people who work in these environments take these rules seriously.  You just don’t talk about what you do or what you know.  It used to frustrate the hell out of my daughter.  When she was growing up, other kids would ask, “What does your dad do?” and her standard response was, “I don’t know.  I know he travels a lot.”   I can only imagine what Ivanka, Don Jr, Eric and Jared have been told about the nation’s most sensitive secrets given Trump’s penchant for opening his big mouth.

I have stated multiple times over the course of the Trump administration that Donald J. Trump is the biggest security threat to this country in my lifetime.  It started almost from day one.   After Trump had been in office less than six months, he had a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kisylak in the Oval Office (which no president in his right mind would allow anyway) in which he disclosed classified information that had been provided to us by one of our allies.

“One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified “Top Secret” and held in a secure “compartment” to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.

After Trump’s disclosure of the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.”²

There are also reports of him walking around Mar A Lago discussing possible actions against Iran prior to launching the strike that killed an Iranian general.

“In the five days prior to launching a strike that killed Iran’s most important military leader, Donald Trump roamed the halls of Mar-a-Lago, his private resort in Florida, and started dropping hints to close associates and club-goers that something huge was coming.

According to three people who’ve been at the president’s Palm Beach club over the past several days, Trump began telling friends and allies hanging at his perennial vacation getaway that he was working on a “big” response to the Iranian regime that they would be hearing or reading about very “soon.” “³

I’m sure everyone remembers the big deal Trump and his associates made about Hillary Clinton’s private email server and how that was a threat to national security.   So, just exactly where are all of those Republican voices who were so loud about Clinton’s email when what Trump has done and continues to do is far more egregious.  Just like always, they will pack up their spines, close their eyes, and fail to call out this President for behavior that truly endangers this country.

In counter-espionage briefings they often talk about the reason why people divulge classified information to people and adversaries they shouldn’t.  They use the acronym MICE which stands for Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego to explain the primary motivators for people.  Trump checks all four boxes. 

Money:  It’s no secret that he has wanted for a long time to build a hotel in Moscow; that could be worth a lot of money

Ideology:  Although Trump talks about ‘America First’ it’s pretty obvious that Trump’s ideology is really ‘Trump first.’ 

Compromise:  There are many suspicions that Vladimir Putin has something on Trump.  Even Dan Coates, the former Director of National Intelligence, believes that’s really the only explanation for Trump’s deference towards Russia.

Ego:  It is no secret that Trump has a huge ego and believes that he can get away with anything.  Remember the famous statement about how he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any support?  This is, in my opinion, Trumps’ biggest weakness.

It makes me angry that I would have been fired and likely prosecuted for doing what Trump just did and he just gets away with it.  It is a huge insult to the men and women in the military and defense business who work diligently to protect the nation’s secrets.

In the last few days, it has come to light that Trump has denigrated our service men and women, he has insulted the top brass at the Pentagon, his minions have altered intelligence reports, he routinely impugns the intelligence community and he continues to compromise the nation’s security by opening his big mouth to show Bob Woodward and everyone else how important he is.  I reiterate what I have said many times, he is the biggest threat to the security of the United States in my lifetime.  There is no way in hell he is qualified to be the Commander-in-Chief and it thoroughly disgusts me to listen to the deafening silence coming out of the Republican Party as this president denigrates the military and risks our national security. 

I can only hope that enough American people will realize how big a threat Trump’s ego and big mouth are to this country and vote to eradicate the White House of all the little MICE that have taken up residence there. 

1             https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/opinions/trump-tried-firing-dhs-intelligence-chief-taylor/index.html

2             https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKCN18B2MX

3             https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-told-mar-a-lago-pals-to-expect-big-iran-action-days-before-soleimanis-death