Author: mwmiller2@outlook.com

I’ve been in the process of porting to a new computer and am still not done but hopefully things are far enough along to start posting again. 

I missed Trump’s latest press conference about the coronavirus.  I guess he finally got religion and decided to push the use of wearing masks to help stop the spread of the virus.  Or, the more likely scenario is that he and his advisors realized that as his numbers in the polls continue to drop, he needed to take this more seriously and this was his attempt to do that.  As John Bolton and Mary Trump pointed out, everything he does is driven by election concerns.

If Trump were serious, he would have had Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx with him and given them the majority of ‘face time.’  (Or he wouldn’t have been photographed at a fund raiser hours later sans mask!) However, Trump can’t stand the thought of anyone else being the center of attention so Mr. ‘I live in a world of alternate facts’ was the primary briefer.  If there are more of these briefings to address the coronavirus situations, they will be nothing more than thinly disguised Trump campaign ads.  They will become ‘The Trump Show’.

When I thought about that yesterday, it made me think of the movie, The Truman Show, with Jim Carrey.  If you remember the movie, Jim Carrey’s character lived almost his entire life in an artificial bubble equipped with thousands of hidden cameras so that people in the ‘real’ world could watch him live his life.  Not to be a spoiler, but eventually Jim Carrey’s character figured out something was amiss and tried to figure out how to escape his bubble and get out into the real world.

Trump has lived his entire life in a bubble.  His father’s business was already established and doing well when Trump was born.  He never really wanted for anything due to the fact that his father worked his butt off to build his successful real estate empire.  Donald Trump never had a ‘real’ job but started almost immediately working in his father’s real estate business.  Further, when he started to go out on his own, Fred Trump, invested millions of dollars to help prop up Donald’s failed business ventures.  Even the banks kept Donald Trump insulated from reality.  When he was bleeding money due to his failed casino investments in Atlantic City, the banks put him on a $450,000/MONTH allowance. Reality??

Now that he is in the White House, he is surrounded by enablers, many of whose sole qualification for their jobs is ‘loyalty’ to Trump.  Almost everyone who has found a spine and has stood up to Trump, questioned his judgement, or spoken truth to power, had found themselves booted out on the street.  According to one recent article I read, the current count of people who have resigned, been fired or been reassigned in this administration is 415!!  Trump came into the White House living in a bubble and he has done everything in his power while in that office to strengthen his bubble. 

Once Jim Carrey’s character in The Truman Show figured out something was wrong, he did everything he could to break out of his bubble.  Trump, on the other hand, enjoys living in his bubble.  He loves being the center of attention with millions of people watching him on TV.  Remember, he’s a TV reality star.  He loves it!

Jim Carrey’s character was worried primarily about himself and his decisions didn’t really have any impact on people living in the real world.  The danger we are faced with now is that we have Donald Trump, reality TV star, living in ‘Trump World’ who is making decisions that affect virtually everyone in the real world but he is insulated from the consequences of those decisions. 

Trump lives in a COVID-19 bubble – he and everyone around him are tested frequently.  That doesn’t happen for the rest of us.  Trump is wealthy so if the economy tanks, he can ride it out.  That could be problematic for a lot of people.  Even if he causes a war, he can go hide in his bunker.  Most of us don’t have such a luxury.   The fact is he lives in a bubble and has no idea what life in the real world is like.  And yet we all have to live with his decisions – he doesn’t.

The Trump Show – we can only hope that it gets cancelled for next season!

I don’t think what I wrote on Friday really captured why I think Trump is such a danger to this country. Here goes again.   It is no secret that Trump is a pathological liar.  He has done that his entire life and that part of him won’t change.  That’s a terrible quality to have in a president and as disgusting as it is, I don’t see that as the major problem.

Additionally, there is so much evidence that Trump is corrupt and many in his administration are corrupt.   Just take a look at his associates and how many of them are in jail, have been in jail, are under investigation or who he has had to pardon – that should tell you all you need to know.  That’s also not a great quality to have in the ‘leader of the free world.’  However, even that, I don’t think is the biggest problem.   And it makes me very sad to say that.

I think the reason that Trump is so dangerous for this country is the simple fact that he is psychologically incapable of taking responsibility for anything where risks are involved and the consequences of making a ‘wrong’ decision could result in criticism or worse yet, failure.  And Trump is psychologically unequipped to deal with criticism or failure.  Mary Trump details how it was rare for Donald Trump’s father, Fred, to praise his five kids when they did something good, but he was more than willing to take them to task, sometimes harshly, for mistakes or signs of weakness.  It’s no small wonder why Donald Trump, who grew up in this type of environment, is so averse to taking responsibility for anything that could lead to criticism or be perceived to be signs of weakness.    

The irony is overwhelming, given that he has failed numerous times throughout his life, but he has never had to pay a price for those failures.  His father bailed him out financially many times and when his father was no longer around, he always surrounded himself with people who enabled him, propped him up, and cleaned up after him. 

He will certainly take all of the credit for almost anything when things go well, whether or not he had anything to do with it or not.  However, when things are not going well, he is incapable of taking responsibility for the situation and he is incapable of making the difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions required.    This whole COVID pandemic situation demonstrates this in spades.    Most people who have some self-confidence will make a decision and if it turns out that decision turns out to be wrong in some way, they will simply admit it, make a course correction and move on.  Trump is unable to admit that he could ever make a mistake and the best way to make sure you personally never make a mistake is to not take responsibility and make no decisions that can be tied back to you.

One would expect that when you become President of the United States in a ‘job’ where you are responsible for the health and wellbeing of 330 million people, maintaining a robust economy, defending the country against adversaries, forging international alliances that are beneficial to the US and developing some type of long term strategy that will hopefully leave the US in better shape than when you took over, that you would understand there is a certain level of responsibility that you need to assume.  Trump is psychologically unable to understand that ‘the buck stops in the Oval Office.’   Consequently, he is unable to make the decisions that are required of someone who holds that office.  Besides the constant lying, the continuing corruption and flagrant disregard for the ‘rule of law’ and the US Constitution, he is just mentally unfit for the job – period. 

Right now, the USS America is in the midst of a major storm out in the middle of the ocean.  However, our ‘captain’, Trump, is incapable of understanding that it is his responsibility to ensure the safety of the passengers, the crew and the ship.  He doesn’t want his officers and crew to give him bad news about the state of the ship and its seaworthiness.   So rather than deal with the storm and take all appropriate actions required to ensure its safety, he refuses to acknowledge the storm, and spends his time trying to convince everyone the ship is not really in a storm but rather just a brisk breeze.   

I shudder to think what would happen to this country under this Commander in Chief if we were attacked.  But think about it, the fact is, we are under attack right now, and the response has been pathetic.  The invading force may not be visible and they may not be equipped with assault rifles, but we are at war and the Commander in Chief has shown that he is just not up to the job of leading this country in a time of crisis.  That’s why he is dangerous – he is just not mentally unable to fulfill the requirements of the job.

There are those who would argue that a pandemic such as this is not the same as being invaded by foreign soldiers.  How is it different?  If there were an invasion, the federal government would, hopefully, mount a coordinated national defense, try to unite the country against a common enemy and develop a strategic plan to drive the foreign invaders from our shores.  Today tens of thousands of Americans are dying and yet there is no national response, no national effort to try to unite the country against a common enemy, and no strategic plan to rid our shores of this enemy.  Why? Because the man in the White House is incapable of taking responsibility and making the hard decisions that need to be made.   We are at war and the Commander in Chief is no where to be found.   It’s like an invading force hit the shores of the United States and Trump keeps trying to tell everyone, ‘Don’t worry, they’re just tourists and will go home soon!’

In Trump’s previous life, his failures were measured in dollars and bankruptcies – now his failures are measured in human lives – about 140,000 Americans so far and counting. He is unqualified and unfit for the job. I just don’t understand what additional proof is required.

Last Word:  I have included two links to articles that are more food for thought in this frightening time.  The first is I about the new postmaster general.   The single most important qualification for this individual seems to be that he is a Trump supporter and a heavy donor to Republican politics.   Does anyone other than me believe there could be a possible problem with a Trump crony in charge of the post office just prior to an election where mail-in ballots will be a critical component of the process?

The second is to Heather Cox Richardson’s blog in which she discusses the ongoing use of Federal troops in Portland.  If that doesn’t scare the crap out of you, I don’t know what will.  I have never wanted to be wrong so badly in my life, but I am still of the mind that Trump could very well use the pandemic and this ‘law and order’ campaign to declare a national emergency prior to the election and truly open Pandora’s box.  I really hope I’m wrong.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-new-usps-chief-is-an-unqualified-crony-that-s-not-what-s-most-worrying/ar-BB16VFH5?ocid=msedgntp

Heather Cox Richardson

It was reported last night that civil rights icon, John Lewis, has died.  He was a man of true courage and integrity, the exact antithesis of Donald Trump.  I wonder if Trump has the moral courage to pay John Lewis the kind of homage that he has earned.  I seriously doubt it.  It would be seriously out of character for Trump, which brings me to my comments on Mary Trump’s book.

I finished Mary Trump’s book, Too Much and Never Enough, last night.  While John Bolton’s book was a compelling look at the inner workings of the White House, Mary Trump’s book is a compelling look at the inner workings of Donald Trump.  (And don’t forget, this is Mary Trump, Ph.D., a trained clinical psychologist)

I have often said that ‘all families are dysfunctional, it’s just a matter of degree.’  And while I say that somewhat tongue in cheek, there is a ring of truth in it.  After reading Mary Trump’s book, it is pretty apparent that the Trump family is way up on the spectrum of ‘dysfunctional family.’  Fred Trump, Donald Trump’s father, was a cold, ruthless, unempathetic man who viewed the world through the lens of ‘I win; you lose’ and tied virtually everything back to money.  His self-worth was measured in terms of wealth.

Donald Trump ‘learned’ most his anti-social, unempathetic behavior from his father.  Kindness was viewed as a weakness.  You never took responsibility for errors or mistakes – you found someone to blame and you lied.   Like father, like son.  We are seeing the results of that in spades now that Trump is president.

Mary Trump shines a glaring light on the ‘myth’ that Trump is a ‘self-made’ man who got a ‘small’ loan from his father and turned it into a multi-billion-dollar empire.  She shared 19 boxes of financial documents with the New York Times which they used as part of an investigative piece which was published October 2, 2018.  This 14,000-word article provided information on potential fraudulent and criminal activities that her grandfather (Fred Trump), aunts and uncles (including Donald) had engaged in.  This probably explains the reason why Trump is fighting so hard to keep his financial records under wraps.

The fact is, Donald Trump received more than $400 million from his father over several years, including multiple instances when Fred Trump had to prop up Donald’s failing business ventures like the three casinos in Atlantic City New Jersey that ultimately went bankrupt.  Anyone who thinks Donald Trump is some self-made business whiz should read this book.  Trump might be a great self-promoter but he is a terrible businessman and could not have gotten anywhere without his father’s immense wealth.  And this is not just Mary Trump’s assessment, there is documentation to support this conclusion.

Trump’s true character is revealed in many instances throughout the book but my ‘favorite’ was when Donald Trump tried surreptitiously (and ultimately unsuccessfully) to change Fred Trump’s will to give himself sole control over the entire estate rather than share it with his four siblings!  Keep in mind, that at this time, Fred Trump had amassed a fortune worth several hundred million dollars and Donald Trump wanted control over all of it.  As it says in the title of this book ‘never enough.’

Mary also has harsh words for all of Donald Trump’s ‘enablers’ starting with her grandfather, Fred Trump, and those surrounding him today who continue to turn a blind eye to his aberrant behavior on the domestic and world stage.  Donald Trump craves approval and, as I have stated in previous blogs, our adversaries are well aware of this and continue to use it to their advantage.   Ironically, the approval that Trump craves so much, is almost always a one-way street.  As Mary points out, the vast majority of people who raucously fill Trump rallies, are people that Trump would never associate with, let alone care about.

Mary writes, “Unlike my grandfather, Donald has always struggled for legitimacy – as an adequate replacement for Freddy (Mary’s father and Donald’s older brother), as a Manhattan real estate developer or casino tycoon, and now as the occupant of the Oval Office who can never escape the taint of being utterly without qualification or the sense that his “win” was illegitimate.  Over Donald’s lifetime, as his failures mounted despite my grandfather’s repeated – and extravagant – interventions, his struggle for legitimacy, which could never be won, turned into a scheme to make sure nobody found out that he’s never been legitimate at all.  This has never been more true than it is now, and it is exactly the conundrum our country finds itself in:  the government as it is currently constituted, including the executive branch, half of Congress, and the majority of the Supreme Court, is entirely in the service of protecting Donald’s ego; that has become almost its entire purpose.”

In a subsequent passage she writes, “The lies may become true in his mind as soon as he utters them, but they’re still lies.  It’s just another way for him to see what he can get away with.  And so far, he’s gotten away with everything.”

Although the book confirms much of what I already believed, it only exacerbates the concern I have for this country if this man is elected to another four-year term.  Just as Trump tried to wrest control of the entire Trump empire from his own siblings, I fear that he, supported by his enablers, will try to wrest control of our country from ‘we the people’.  Trump’s siblings smelled something fishy and acted before it was too late.  I hope the people of this country will do likewise.

I’m taking the day off. Trump has already wasted too many of my brain cells and too much of my time. I have real work to do on the house and am hoping to get out for a real bike ride. Mary Trump’s book arrived on my doorstep about 8 p.m. last night and I am already about a quarter of the way through it so I’m sure I will have much to say tomorrow.

Stay safe.

Yesterday I mentioned that the Trump administration has mandated that hospitals now report their COVID data directly to the HHS rather than the CDC.  The White House and HHS are spilling all of the ‘normal’ rationale as to why this is a good thing, but the fact is, bypassing the Center for Disease Control during a pandemic, does seem a bit strange.   It has certainly raised concerns across the medical community.  The data will apparently be compiled in two new databases, HHS Protect and TeleTracker.  The CDC system has been in place for 15 years but that will now be sidelined.  Teletracker was developed earlier this year as the result of a non-competitive, multi-million dollar contract awarded to ??  I have been unable to track down the awardee yet. 

However, as I was reading the announcement about this new edict, one name stuck out to me – Michael Caputo – who was mentioned in the story.  That kind of rang a bell so I decided to peel the onion a bit more.  I found some fascinating information.

Michael Caputo is a friend of Trump (and Roger Stone) who was appointed by Trump to the position of Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for Public Affairs in April 2020 (Seems like kind of an odd time for an appointment, i.e. during a pandemic?).   If you look up his bio, he is listed as a ‘Republican political strategist and media consultant.’  So now we have a Trump crony who has spent much of his career spinning things to benefit the Republican party in the organization which will get all of the data from the hospitals instead of it going directly to the CDC!  I’m sure there is no possibility at all that the data reporting could get a bit wonky!!

But wait, there’s more!  I looked up the bio on the HHS website.  This is what it says:

“Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs

HHS Office of the Secretary

Michael R. Caputo is the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). A 30-year communications counselor, he is a film maker, an author and a media commentator.

Prior to joining HHS in April 2020, Mr. Caputo served as president of Caputo Public Relations for 17 years, where he counseled corporations, chief executive officers, governments, presidents, and non-profit organizations on crisis communications, media relations, digital marketing, video production, executive communications, and public affairs. He has led victim-side disaster recovery communication programs after every US hurricane since Katrina for the nation’s leading litigators protecting survivors. He has also advised top inventors protecting their intellectual property, job creators advocating public policy, and political candidates running for office in America and around the world. He started his career as a public affairs specialist for the United States Army 25th Infantry Division and served as a deputy director of the US House of Representatives Radio and Television Correspondents Gallery.

Born in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina and raised in small towns in Ohio and upstate New York, Mr. Caputo earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Foreign Affairs from the State University of New York at Buffalo.”

Sounds quite impressive and fairly benign.  However, there are a few things that seem to be missing from this bio.  If you look up his bio on Wikipedia (corroborated by others sources) this is what you find.

Michael Raymon Caputo (born March 24, 1962)^[2] is a Republican political strategist, and media consultant. In April 2020, Caputo was appointed as assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for public affairs.^[1][3]

He worked for the Reagan Administration with Oliver North, and later as director of media services on the campaign for President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 United States presidential election.

Caputo moved to Russia in 1994, after the fall of the Soviet Union, and was an adviser to Boris Yeltsin. He worked for Gazprom Media in 2000 where he worked on improving the image of Vladimir Putin in the U.S. He moved back to the U.S. and founded a public relations company, and then moved to Ukraine to work on a candidate’s campaign for parliament.

Caputo worked as the campaign manager for Carl Paladino in his 2010 bid for Governor of New York. Caputo worked for the Donald Trump campaign from November 2015 to June 2016, and was in charge of communications for New York. He left the campaign after publicly supporting the removal of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

Caputo was investigated by the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as part of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

I’m sure it was just an oversight that the bio on the HHS website omitted the move to Russia; advising Boris Yeltsin; working to improve the image of Vladimir Putin while consulting with Gazprom Media; or moving to Ukraine.   And, of course, there was no mention of the investigation during the Mueller probe.

Like I said, I’m sure I’m reading more into this than is really there.  I’m sure Mr. Caputo, like all of Trump’s friends and associates, is an honest, upstanding individual who has the best interests of the country at heart and would never do anything unethical or perhaps even illegal to help Trump get re-elected.   And I’m sure that yet another individual connected to Trump who has ties to Russia is just a coincidence.  

Now that Roger Stone is a free man, perhaps he and his friend Michael Caputo, will get together for dinner just for old times sake.  Roger Stone, admitted ‘dirty trickster’ for the Republican party and Michael Caputo, Republican strategist who is now employed by HHS in charge of ‘public affairs’ – what could go wrong?  The coronavirus will kill Americans – the corruption in this administration is likely to kill America as we once knew it.

I have included below an article by George Will that appeared in the paper this morning.  It’s very sad reading.

There is a bit of good news today.  Apparently, the vaccine being developed by Moderna is showing promising results.  If it pans out, that will be a good thing.  If the efficacy and safety of the vaccine are borne out in the Phase 3 trials (30,000 people) that are due to start soon, the next major hurdle will be to manufacture sufficient doses for the entire country – or potentially the world.  And that brings up a couple of interesting questions.

Given Trump’s penchant for using the withholding of funds as a lever against state governors with whom he disagrees, I wonder if there is any chance that the allocation of vaccines will be used in the same manner?  Will all of the ‘red’ states get vaccines first?  Will California be last on the list?   With previous administrations, that question would not even come up, but this is a different time and this president has engaged in behaviors that have not been seen before so you cannot just dismiss such things as ‘impossible.’

A more interesting question comes up when it comes to the world at large.  If the US comes up with a vaccine before anyone else, will Trump use that as a political cudgel?  Will he offer it to other countries at an inflated price, i.e. make a profit for the US?  Since Trump only thinks in terms of dollars, that is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.  Will he make a deal with Putin to provide vaccines to Russia before our NATO allies?  Or will he simply use it to get trade concessions from various countries?  Like I said previously, with other administrations these questions would never come up, but we are in new territory now.

I posted something on Facebook a few days ago which was a satirical look at the whole idea that increased testing being the cause of the marked increase of cases in the US.  I have included that post below since it now seems somewhat prescient.  Why?  Within the last day or two, the administration has mandated that hospitals now send their COVID 19 data to DC (Health and Human Services – run by a Trump appointee) rather than to the CDC.  Anyone really believe that we will be getting the real picture from now on out? 

Since Trump really needs the numbers to start improving to help his re-election, I’ll bet this is the more likely scenario:  Magically the numbers of cases will start improving over the next few weeks based upon reporting out of HHS.  There will be an investigation by the NY Times, Washington Post, etc that will ultimately uncover the fact the data are being manipulated and mis-reported and are painting a far rosier picture than the reality.  Trump will label all of this ‘fake news’ and will begin touting in his campaign ads what a great job he’s done with the pandemic.  Any takers?

On the good news front – I am set to receive Mary Trump’s book tomorrow.  I’m sure that will be very entertaining (if not just downright scary).  My previous post about testing is below.

I was driving home from picking up some pizza last night and listening to the news as they were discussing Trump’s continuing insistence that we are only seeing more COVID-19 cases because we are doing so much testing and if we would just do less testing, the number of cases being reported would decrease!  Fascinating logic!  And then it struck me.

According to a recent study, Montana has the highest drunk driving fatality rate in the nation.  This is obviously not an enviable thing to lead the nation in.  However, if we can just persuade the Montana Highway Patrol to pull over fewer people, issue fewer citations, and stop doing toxicology tests on drivers involved in accidents, that should greatly improve the numbers!!  I’m not sure that it will actually prevent people from getting killed by drunk drivers, but the numbers will look much better and we can cede our dubious distinction of being the state with the highest drunk driving fatality rate to the next state on the list.  I don’t know why someone didn’t think of this sooner.   As long as the numbers look good, the number of people who actually die is really irrelevant – right?

I talked it over with my panel of experts below and they all agree.  I will get a letter in the mail to Governor Bullock forthwith. 

Two COVID-19 viruses were overheard talking. 

First virus: “Hell, yes, I’m lovin’ it here.  This ‘no mask’ and ‘open ‘er up as fast as you can’ stuff is making my work a piece of cake.  Yesterday, my kids had a fantastic time.   It was like being at Disneyland.  We tried to find all those people not wearing masks and then just buckled up for the ride.  As soon as they yelled, sneezed, sang or coughed, it was like friggin’ skydiving.  We just got blown out into space and then we tried to see if we could hitch another ride before we hit the ground!  It was great fun.  I love America!”

 Second virus: “Yeah, that sounds pretty cool.  Me, I’m waiting for schools to reopen!  That’s going to be one target rich environment.  And the cool thing about all these kids – they won’t even know we’re there and then – bam! we get ourselves a teacher or a parent or even better, a grandparent.   It’s going to be so much fun! 

First virus: “I know.  Like I said, I love America!  I talked to some of my relatives in other countries and most of those countries took all of the fun out of it.  Most of the people were wearing masks and keeping their distance.  My relatives said it was making their jobs of infecting people really difficult.  Bummer.”

Second virus: “Well, thankfully, we’re in the land of rugged individualism and hyper-partisanism so we don’t have to worry about any of that.   These guys couldn’t put together a cohesive national strategy if their lives depended on it.  Oh, that’s right – they do!! (Laughs loudly)

First Virus:  (Laughing loudly) Good one!  Oh, by the way, we’re all going out to a bar tonight.  Wanna come? 

Second Virus:  Hell, yes!  Let’s go have some more fun!  Yahoo!!  

I didn’t write this to make light of the current COVID pandemic and associated deaths and economic destruction. I wrote it because I am pissed! I am pissed that we have a president and his Republican supporters who don’t seem to give a shit about all of the people who are dying. As I have stated before, the lack of leadership is criminal. The United States of America has to be the laughing stock of the world right now.

Perhaps I’m missing something.  As I understand it, the nation is in crisis.  The number of COVID cases in the US is approaching 3.4 million and the death toll is rapidly approaching 140,000.  There is no sign this is going to turn around any time soon.  The economy is operating on the brink with high unemployment rates and a shrinking GDP (Goldman estimates it shrinking by 4.6% in 2020).   In addition, as we have all seen on the news recently there is just a tad of civil unrest and demonstrations against ongoing police brutality.  And, internationally there is the latest report of Russia putting a bounty on US soldiers in Afghanistan; China reneging on an agreement about the autonomy of Hong Kong;  Turkey declaring that a site that has been a World Heritage Site since 1934 is now going to be a mosque; and the ongoing issues with Venezuela, Iran, and basically the rest of the world.

One would think that would be a pretty full plate for a president and Congress to tackle.  They all seem like kind of important issues.   Americans dying – kind of a big deal.  After all, when Ebola arrived in America during Obama’s administration resulting in 2 American deaths, the Republicans talked of how he should be impeached.  Hmm.  And when 4 American’s were killed in the Benghazi incident, Hillary Clinton was subjected to 7 or 8 separate investigations.  Hmm.  So far, almost 140,000 Americans have died and the president and Congress are doing ????  Hmm

With the potentially full plate of issues that are facing this country that are adversely affecting the health of the nation, the economy of the nation, and the national security of the nation, let’s take a look at the issues that this president and the Republicans are choosing to spend their time on:

1. President Trump felt it was important to grant clemency to his long-time friend Roger Stone who was convicted of multiple crimes, all of which stemmed from an investigation into President Trump.
2. President Trump asked Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Munchin, to look into eliminating the tax exempt status of schools and universities.   The US education system is already falling behind other places in the world and I’m sure this will help accelerate that decline
3. And speaking of education – the administration is saying they won’t renew the visas for any student at a university which switches to totally remote classes (the university taking such action to presumably protect the health of their students, teachers and the communities in which they live). 
4. President Trump is very vocally pushing for all schools to fully open this fall, in spite of the pandemic.  Hmm?  And he and Secretary of Education, Betsy Davos, are threatening to withhold funding for those schools that do not comply – which is right up Betsy Davos’ alley since she is doing everything, she can to defund public education and push money into private charter schools.
5. The White House and Republicans in Congress are trying to discredit, Dr. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert.  This is part of the standard Trump playbook – never admit your mistakes and always find a scapegoat.  Character assassination is one of Trump’s favorite sports.
6. Senator Lindsay Graham has stated that he will have Robert Mueller testify before the Senate judiciary committee.
7. Senator McConnell is only interested in pushing more conservative judges onto the bench which he is able to do with amazing dispatch.  But every time a bill comes over from the House of Representatives, he puts it in his desk drawer and it never again sees the light of day.
8. And lastly, the president is, of course, spending a lot of brain cells on how to get re-elected, in spite of dreadful poll numbers.

As a citizen, I sure wish the president and his supporters in Congress would get more focused on the really big problems.  I kind of feel like we’re all on the Titanic, there’s a gaping hole in the side, we’re taking on water and the president and his supporters are telling all of us to go enjoy the buffet in the dining room as opposed to having us muster near the life boats.

There is an old saying, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” and I’m sorely afraid that is what we are witnessing.   The nation is on fire and Trump and his associates are fiddling around.   Perhaps the more appropriate adage for today is, “Trump golfed while America burned.” 

I am really too tired to try to write anything cogent today. The menu of things (most of them involving items from ‘The Authoritarian Playbook’) is extensive but I just don’t have it in me today.

1. The commutation of the President’s friend, Roger Stone’s, sentence. If this doesn’t convince people how corrupt this president is and how the words ‘law and order’ should never be used in the same sentence as ‘Trump’, I don’t know what it will take. In addition, Roger Stone made his name as a ‘dirty trickster’ for the Republican party and he is now loose and on the street just prior to the election.
2. The DOJ has moved/removed another person involved in investigating associates of Trump. The attorney leading the Eastern District of New York which was investigating issues surrounding Trump’s inauguration financing, has been moved.
3. The newly appointed head of the agency that controls Voice of America is continuing his purge and has stated that the visas of international journalists working for VOA will not be renewed. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Trump has railed against VOA in the past when it has been critical of Trump. The VOA was started during the Cold War and is supposed to provide objective, fact-based news that is broadcast around the world. It appears that it will now become a partisan voice for broadcasting Trump’s view of the world.
4. Yesterday Trump said that he has directed the Secretary of the Treasury to examine the tax-exempt status of schools and universities stating that they have become hotbeds of far-left indoctrination rather than education!! If that’s not from ‘The Authoritarian Playbook’ I don’t know what is.
5. And, of course, there is the ongoing pandemic that is infecting and killing Americans at an alarming rate with no national strategy in sight. (And I am still convinced that Trump will ultimately use this as a reason to declare a national emergency and unleash a host of powers prior to the election – I hope I am wrong. I really hope that I am wrong.)

It’s hard to know where to start so I’m just going to pass today and try to enjoy the next few days before my daughter and her mom head back to New York so my daughter can complete her senior year at NYU. I’ll re-engage in a day or two.

I hope to finish a book that I am currently reading, Broken: Can the Senate Save Itself and The Country, about how the Senate has deteriorated from a deliberative body that was once capable of legislating in a bi-partisan way to it’s current highly polarized state where obstructionism is the new norm and retaining power and pushing individual agendas are the main goals. And, then next week, Mary Trump’s book is due out. I’m not sure when my copy will arrive but I’m sure it will be ‘entertaining’ reading.

So, everyone stay healthy out there.

The Supreme Court handed down two decisions yesterday about Trump’s finances – one involving subpoenas from the US House of Representative and the other involving subpoenas from the State of New York.  Both subpoenas involved attempts to access Trump’s financial records as part of ongoing investigations.  The good news is, the court found unanimously that the President is not above the law and that his legal team’s arguments that a president is immune from investigation while in office were without merit.  The bad news is that both decisions were remanded back to lower courts for further review which means that no one will be seeing Trump’s financial records for a while.  That said, it does appear that the State of New York will eventually get the documents – but probably after the election.

The question that keeps coming up in my mind, and I assume many other people’s minds, is, “Why is the President fighting so hard to keep his tax returns and financial records secret?”   No president in modern history has failed to release their tax returns.  Why is Trump so adamant that he will not?

There could be some simple explanations.  Perhaps he is not nearly as wealthy as he has claimed and revelation of that fact might prove embarrassing.  We all know Trump doesn’t like to be embarrassed so maybe it’s that.  Or maybe it will be revealed that he didn’t pay very much tax due to his real estate investments and associated write-offs and revelation of that would be an embarrassment.  Perhaps.  I personally believe that there is something much more sinister at work.

During my career in the defense business, I held all kinds of clearances and program accesses at various times depending upon what I was involved with.  In order to obtain some of these accesses I had to undergo a lot of scrutiny.  For some of the background investigations and updates, the ‘men in the dark suits and sun glasses’ would talk to my neighbors.  For some accesses I actually had to undergo a polygraph exam.  And the investigators certainly looked at my finances and all of my international travel.

In counter-espionage briefings they often talk about why people commit espionage and they use the acronym MICE which represents the primary reason people commit crimes against their country.  The acronym stands for ‘Money’, ‘Ideology’, ‘Compromise’, ‘Ego’.   So the question I have is, “Why was I subjected to such extensive investigations before I was given the clearances I needed, when we have a man in the White House who has access to the nation’s most sensitive information and he is allowed to completely avoid any oversight?”

The US House of Representatives has a Constitutional duty to provide oversight of the President and his administration.  If there is any inkling at all that the President could be compromised (by the Russians for example), then the House has a duty to investigate.  If there is any inkling that there might be financial misdeeds (Money), the House has a duty to investigate.    We know that Russians have been heavy investors in some of his properties.  ‘We the people’ need to understand this better.

There has to be a reason why Trump is fighting so hard to keep his finances under wraps.  I personally believe it is something more than just embarrassment.  This is not just a ‘personal’ matter in which Trump, as a private citizen’ chooses to not release his tax returns and financial records.  This is a matter of national security.  Going forward I hope the Congress eventually passes legislation requiring any future president or congressman to release their tax returns as a condition of taking office.  These people work for us and we have a right to know who we are ‘hiring’.

If Trump has nothing to hide, he could just release his records and, even if they were a bit embarrassing, it would probably blow over and he could get on to creating the next crisis.  The fact that he is fighting so hard to keep his records secret tells me there is a lot more there than just ‘embarrassment’.   Given this latest ruling by the Supreme Court and Trump’s subsequent Twitter storm, my guess is he is even more desperate and is not sleeping well at night wondering what kinds of legal jeopardy he and his family might be facing in New York.  Time will tell!