Code Red

Donald Trump dreams of being America’s first dictator. He dreams of leading a military dictatorship. This article by Thomas Friedman wisely identified Trump as a man who dreams of ruling the United States for the rest of his life. Although the article is a year and a half old consider Trump’s recent actions as proof of where he wants to take the United States.

Whatever Trump Is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now

Thomas L. Friedman FEB. 18, 2018

Our democracy is in serious danger.

President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy.

That is, either Trump’s real estate empire has taken large amounts of money from shady oligarchs linked to the Kremlin — so much that they literally own him; or rumors are true that he engaged in sexual misbehavior while he was in Moscow running the Miss Universe contest, which Russian intelligence has on tape and he doesn’t want released; or Trump actually believes Russian President Vladimir Putin when he says he is innocent of intervening in our elections — over the explicit findings of Trump’s own C.I.A., N.S.A. and F.B.I. chiefs.

In sum, Trump is either hiding something so threatening to himself, or he’s criminally incompetent to be commander in chief. It is impossible yet to say which explanation for his behavior is true, but it seems highly likely that one of these scenarios explains Trump’s refusal to respond to Russia’s direct attack on our system — a quiescence that is simply unprecedented for any U.S. president in history. Russia is not our friend. It has acted in a hostile manner. And Trump keeps ignoring it all.

Up to now, Trump has been flouting the norms of the presidency. Now Trump’s behavior amounts to a refusal to carry out his oath of office — to protect and defend the Constitution. Here’s an imperfect but close analogy: It’s as if George W. Bush had said after 9/11: “No big deal. I am going golfing over the weekend in Florida and blogging about how it’s all the Democrats’ fault — no need to hold a National Security Council meeting.”

At a time when the special prosecutor Robert Mueller — leveraging several years of intelligence gathering by the F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A. — has brought indictments against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups — all linked in some way to the Kremlin — for interfering with the 2016 U.S. elections, America needs a president who will lead our nation’s defense against this attack on the integrity of our electoral democracy.

What would that look like? He would educate the public on the scale of the problem; he would bring together all the stakeholders — state and local election authorities, the federal government, both parties and all the owners of social networks that the Russians used to carry out their interference — to mount an effective defense; and he would bring together our intelligence and military experts to mount an effective offense against Putin — the best defense of all.

What we have instead is a president vulgarly tweeting that the Russians are “laughing their asses off in Moscow” for how we’ve been investigating their interventions — and exploiting the terrible school shooting in Florida — and the failure of the F.B.I. to properly forward to its Miami field office a tip on the killer — to throw the entire F.B.I. under the bus and create a new excuse to shut down the Mueller investigation.

Think for a moment how demented was Trump’s Saturday night tweet: “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign — there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”

To the contrary. Our F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A., working with the special counsel, have done us amazingly proud. They’ve uncovered a Russian program to divide Americans and tilt our last election toward Trump — i.e., to undermine the very core of our democracy — and Trump is telling them to get back to important things like tracking would-be school shooters. Yes, the F.B.I. made a mistake in Florida. But it acted heroically on Russia. What is more basic than protecting American democracy?

It is so obvious what Trump is up to: Again, he is either a total sucker for Putin or, more likely, he is hiding something that he knows the Russians have on him, and he knows that the longer Mueller’s investigation goes on, the more likely he will be to find and expose it.

Donald, if you are so innocent, why do you go to such extraordinary lengths to try to shut Mueller down? And if you are really the president — not still head of the Trump Organization, who moonlights as president, which is how you so often behave — why don’t you actually lead — lead not only a proper cyber defense of our elections, but also an offense against Putin.

Putin used cyberwarfare to poison American politics, to spread fake news, to help elect a chaos candidate, all in order to weaken our democracy. We should be using our cyber-capabilities to spread the truth about Putin — just how much money he has stolen, just how many lies he has spread, just how many rivals he has jailed or made disappear — all to weaken his autocracy. That is what a real president would be doing right now.

My guess is what Trump is hiding has to do with money. It’s something about his financial ties to business elites tied to the Kremlin. They may own a big stake in him. Who can forget that quote from his son Donald Trump Jr. from back in 2008: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” They may own our president.

But whatever it is, Trump is either trying so hard to hide it or is so naïve about Russia that he is ready to not only resist mounting a proper defense of our democracy, he’s actually ready to undermine some of our most important institutions, the F.B.I. and Justice Department, to keep his compromised status hidden.

That must not be tolerated. This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office.

July 4, Independence Day Celebration in the USA

Flags, fireworks, and barbeques are in order.

Happy Canada Day

Democratic Party debate Night 2 – Good-Bye Joe Biden

The stage included the leading candidates in all the national polls with the exception of Senator Elizabeth Warren who had participated in the Night One debate. Joe Biden has clearly led in all the polls. Kamala Harris seemed to be fading after her initial declaration of candidacy. Harris’ poll numbers showed her with about 6% of supporters versus Biden’s 32%.

Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Easter Prayer Breakfast in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 4, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Personally I lack enthusiasm for Biden who I view as old and out of touch with today’s Democratic activists. My reasoning: 1) The job of president is difficult and the stress could easily kill him. 2) Without young activists to help in a campaign, Donald Trump will overwhelm a less than enthusiastic Democratic Party challenger. Is it any wonder that Trump is rooting for Biden to win the nomination?

Eric Swalwell’s attack on Biden when he said “Joe Biden was right when he said it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans 32 years ago. He’s still right today. If we’re going to solve the issues of automation, pass the torch. If we’re going to solve the issues of climate chaos, pass the torch. If we’re going to solve the issue of student loan debt, pass the torch. If we’re going to end gun violence for families who are fearful of sending their kids to school, pass the torch.”

From the transcript of the debate Kamala Harris said the following.

“Okay. On the issue of race I couldn’t agree more that this is an issue that is still not being talked about truthfully and honestly. There is not a black man I know, be he a relative, a friend, or a coworker who has not been the subject of some form of profiling or discrimination.”

“I do not believe you are a racist,” Harris began, turning to face Biden. But, she added, “it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”

“And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”

Biden, sputtering in response, declared Harris’ accusation “a mischaracterization of my position across the board.” He rattled off civil rights measures he had supported in his long career as a senator and tried to defend his opposition to busing during the 1970s and 1980s.

“I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education,” he said, reprising the states’-rights position that he, as a senator from a border state with a history of segregation, had taken decades earlier.

Harris shot back: “That’s where the federal government must step in, that’s why we have the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act … because there are moments in history where states fail to preserve the civil rights of all people.”

Joe Biden’s responses were weak throughout the debate. I can imagine Kamala Harris using her prosecutor skills to overwhelm Donald Trump in a debate.

Grandpa it’s over.

Democratic Party Debate does Provide Valuable Information about the Candidates

For me these debates, which are not really debates but are position statements, do help to determine who you would vote for in the primaries. That is the reason to watch them again tonight.

It was the first and perhaps the most contentious issue of the night. Health care. As the assembled Democrats compared the merits of a more comprehensive single-payer plan like Medicare For All, which would completely eliminate private insurance versus a more incremental step of a government-funded public option.

NBC’s Lester Holt asked for a show of hands on the biggest question about Medicare-for-all, a top progressive policy goal: Would you abolish private insurance?

Only two Democratic candidates — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio — put their hands up.

The standout moment came from Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts who gave an impassioned defense of the more expansive position, her first time really doing so.

“Look at the business model of an insurance company. It’s to bring in as many dollars as they can in premiums and to pay out as few dollars as possible for your health care. That leaves families with rising premiums, rising copays, and fighting with insurance companies to try to get the health care that their doctors say that they and their children need. Medicare for all solves that problem.”

“There are a lot of politicians who say it’s just not possible, we just can’t do it, have a lot of political reasons for this,” said Warren of the fight for single payer. “What they’re really telling you is they just won’t fight for it. Well, health care is a basic human right and I will fight for basic human rights.”

“… and that is that the insurance companies last year alone sucked $23 billion in profits out of the health care system, $23 billion. And that doesn’t count the money that was paid to executives, the money that was spent lobbying Washington.”

“We have a giant industry that wants our health care system to stay the way it is, because it’s not working for families, but it’s sure as heck working for them. It’s time for us to make families come first.”

The Trump Method

Donald Trump’s philosophy or perhaps call it style (could it be called a doctrine?) is use threats and insults to obtain results he wants. While his threats against his business adversaries may have worked to his benefit that same methodology has not worked for him as president. Just last month he tweeted about the “official end” of Iran.

Today in the news are two more threats. From the Los Angeles Times: “Trump keeps the threat of ICE raids and restates his demands. The president says the raids will be rescheduled in two weeks if Congress does not change asylum laws.” From Reuters: “Trump: ‘I did not send’ message to Tehran warning of attack but Iranian sources told Reuters that Trump had warned Tehran via Oman that a U.S. attack was imminent, but had said he was against war and wanted talks.”

The threat methodology has been used repeatedly. Has it worked? It certainly has frightened many people and has impacted the stock market.

Tariffs on all goods from Mexico
Tariffs on all steel and aluminum from Mexico and Canada
Tariffs on all imports from China
Auto tariffs on European cars
Tariffs on all European Union products
Withdraw from NATO
Demand South Korea pay for US Troops based in their country
“Fire and fury” use of military against North Korea
Cut off aid to Central American countries over a migrant caravans

Congress hasn’t caved in (no money for a wall) and neither have the North Koreans who have resumed testing missiles.

Five Days in Canada

Yes it is very cold in most of Canada in the winter. The exception is Vancouver, British Columbia on the Pacific coast where it rains in buckets. So weather is not Canada’s best feature. However, the people are super friendly, helpful, and caring. Over 20% of the population are immigrants and while the population is majority White the country has open to immigrants from everywhere. Just half of Vancouver’s population is European White.

Toronto Raptors are 2019 NBA Champions

Welfare for Business is Good but Welfare for Families is Bad

In the U.S., it is rather commonplace to see welfare recipients demonized, people on food stamps ostracized, and anyone on any form of public assistance made to feel guilty that they need help. They are called lazy and incompetent, with little regard for circumstance or economic hardship. Sure, there are some people who take advantage of the system. But there are millions that desperately need help, and social welfare programs are the only thing standing between them and poverty.

However subsides to corporations are not deemed to be welfare.

The Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn announced a plan in 2017 to develop a factory hub south of Milwaukee, it’s promised to take a “Wisconsin First” approach to hiring local suppliers. While that phrase didn’t make it into the final contract, that’s how state officials and Foxconn have touted the deal, which involves about $4 billion in potential subsidies.

Foxconn is not alone in receiving government subsidies. Those subsidies are in the billions of dollars. According to The Cato Institute, corporate welfare handouts shot all the way up to $92 billion as of 2002.

Amazon recently conducted a contest to determine where they will open a second “headquarters.” NYC and Arlington, VA won the contest for Amazon’s split East Coast headquarters. Arlington lured in Amazon with promises of a helipad and a cash grant of up to $550 million. The NYC total amount in tax incentives and grants amounted to $3.4 Billion.

Then there are the subsidies for the movie industry called “tax incentives”. The California Film Commission administers the Film & Television Tax Credit Program 2.0 which provides tax credits based on qualified expenditures for eligible productions that are produced in California. The $1.55 billion program runs for 5 years, with a sunset date of June 30, 2020. Georgia allows for a 20 percent tax credit for companies that spend $500,000 or more on production or post production in Georgia, either in a single production or on multiple projects. The Georgia program has resulted in more film produced there than in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, individuals and families, you should be ashamed apply for any welfare help.