Donald Trump Returns from Singapore: Annotated Statement

This week was the perfect encapsulation of the Trump Administration.  We have corruption, false claims, exaggerations, self-gratification, and further attacks on democracy and the rule of law.  It was a normal week.  That representative week is wonderfully distilled in a twitter statement made by Donald Trump (across two tweets).  I have reproduced that statement below; however, in the interest of safeguarding the truth (something typically absent from Trump statements), I have annotated the statement as best I can.

“Now that I am back from Singapore, where we had a great result with respect to North Korea,”

You achieved nothing. You got an empty promise that is less substantive than the similar promises made multiple times in the past. You got a photo op and a chance to pat yourself on the back for a non-achievement.

“the thought process must sadly go back to the Witch Hunt,”

For those of us that care about the preservation of our democracy and the rule of law, we never stop being worried about the serious matter you falsely call a “witch hunt.” Repeating it over and over doesn’t make it true.

“always remembering that there was No Collusion and No Obstruction of the fabricated No Crime.”

It’s not a memory if it’s a load of garbage.

“So, the Democrats make up a phony crime, Collusion with the Russians,”

If you don’t understand that “collusion” is a civilian shorthand and not a formal legal accusation by now, you are willfully ignorant or incredibly stupid. The issue is the crime that may have been committed during the course of whatever collusion occurred.

“pay a fortune to make the crime sound real,”

Nobody’s actually floating “collusion” as a crime, but the criminal acts associated with collusion don’t need money to sound real. They just need your son’s emails.

“illegally leak (Comey) classified information”

Comey is not a Democrat. I’m fairly certain the information he “leaked” was not classified, though some of it may have been confidential within the Justice Department. You are not exactly one to be casting stones about disclosure of classified information.

“so that a Special Councel [sic] will be appointed,”

As Special Counsel was appointed because you fired someone in charge of an investigation that had to do with you and then shredded your own pretext when you admitted you were thinking about Russia when you fired him and then bragged to the Russians that the was a “nut job” and that the “pressure” was off because you fired him.

“and then Collude to make this pile of garbage take on life in Fake News!”

It’s not collusion for journalists to follow the facts, many of which are derived from you own associates. It’s not their fault that the ridiculous behavior that you and your campaign engaged in are so outrageous that people want to know. Anybody who cares about the integrity of democracy SHOULD care.

Republicans Were "Waiting," but Clearly Not Working

Donald Trump said recently that Republicans have been "waiting for seven years" to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.  If I may be sol bold as to offer advise to Donald Trump, isn't the fact that they have been waiting for seven years exactly the problem?  Other than the dozens of symbolic votes to repeal the ACA and screaming about how important it is to repeal the law, they have done nothing but wait.

When they could have been listening to their constituents about their policy concerns, they waited.

When they could have been writing their own bill to repair or replace the ACA, they were taking symbolic votes.

When they could have been looking for solutions to the legitimate policy concerns with the ACA, they were scheming to win elections.

Now their decisions have come back to demonstrate just how disingenuous their words and actions have been since the very start of this debate.  This was never about policy for them.  This was about a bunch of partisan hacks scoring cheap electoral points off of a complicated issue that they all too willingly oversimplified, and sometimes just flat-out lied about to confuse and mislead the masses.  (Remember "Death Panels?)

They lied about what the ACA would do.  They lied (and continue to lie) about what it is doing.  They lied about the process used to pass the law and they lied about the role they paid in obstructing the improvement, passage and implementation of the ACA at all costs.

In what is possibly the most long-standing and disgusting of Republican lies about the ACA, they lied about having a better plan.  They lied about having ANY plan to replace the ACA.  For seven years, four election cycles, they have been proclaiming that "Obamacare" was killing the country and "repeal and replace" was at or near the top of their priority list.

Unfortunately for the country, the people who voted for these Republicans and the people who are most vulnerable to the fluctuation of the insurance market, the vast majority of congressional Republicans are both incompetent and uninterested in governing as compared with winning elections.  In the time they had to ready themselves for when they would control the Congress and the White House, a competent congressional leadership team could have had a plan.  They could have had backup plans.  They could have had contingencies for how to proceed with a small versus a large legislative majority.  They could have even come up with a plan for reform in the event that the next president was a Democrat.  They had time to make plans based upon the the real world implementation and results of the ACA and the fixes that real world application showed it needed.

THEY HAD NOTHING.

Despite the pathetic and unintentionally ironic victory celebration Donald Trump held in the White House Rose Garden after the House passed its "bill," he and his Republican allies could not have shown themselves to be more oblivious to the real work needed if they had a "Mission Accomplished" banner as their back drop.

With years to prepare, they got caught with their pants down.  With years to prepare and in near total control of the federal government, they had nothing.  That glorious display of incompetence has nothing to do with Democrats.  It only marginally has anything to do with Donald Trump.  Sure, he could have displayed some leadership and tried to right the ship, but the "deal-maker" was not willing or able to do anything except say "pass something," and then try to strong-arm some of the Republicans who saw what a disaster their efforts were shaping up to be.

Donald Trump and the Republicans had a historic opportunity to pick up where the ACA fell short and help move it toward making sure all Americans have access to healthcare that they can actually afford.  The signs along the way indicated they were not serious about doing so.  When they had a chance to prove the doubters wrong, they proved they were nothing more than the disingenuous political hacks that so many thought they were.

So, when Donald Trump says it was "always the plan" to let the ACA die on its own, do not believe him.  It is just another example of Donald Trump ignoring facts he does not like because his ego cannot handle the idea that he might not be the best, smartest and winningest person ever.  To the extent he plans to let it fail or, more likely, push it to fail, the blood for the deaths that will result is on his hands and the hands of his colleagues.

What the Democrats should be doing now, and what the Republicans should do next time, is learn from the stunning incompetence that the Republican party displayed during (at least) the entirety of the Obama administration.  That means not just complaining and using "the other side is in charge" as an excuse for not actually DOING anything.  It means working on real policy solutions to problems.  It means supporting a good idea regardless of who proposes it.  Regardless of which side is in power, it means listening and compromising for the greater good.  It does not mean theatrical temper tantrums, moving the goalposts and lying to the American people.

The ACA can and needs to be improved.  However, anybody who thought that Republicans had the collective competence, leadership, integrity and courage to actually do it now needs to realize that they were being lied to.  The Republicans, for seven years, were "waiting" (and campaigning) when they should have been working.  We do no need more people like that in elected office.  We need them gone.

I'm Just Going to Say It...

I hate Donald Trump.  It is not enough to say I disagree with him, or that I do not respect him as a leader or even as a man.  I hate him.

I do not say that lightly.  As I have gotten older, I try very hard to avoid using the word “hate,” because it is overused to the point of being nearly meaningless.  It also never has a positive influence on a course of events.  That’s part of what my problem is with the political tide that has brought him to power.  Hate is not something I want to teach my children to embrace.  I am well aware of Dr. King’s philosophy that hate cannot drive out hate, that only love can.  I agree.

That said, I reiterate that I hate Donald Trump.  I do not just hate what he stands for (today).  I do not hate most of the people who voted for him.  It is not worth belaboring the point with specifics, but I hate him as a person for what he does and the way he treats people.  I’m human.  I cannot help the way I feel, and I cannot say that I am proud of hating anybody, but I can help the way I respond to it.

So, when I say “I hate Donald Trump,” do not mistake what that means.  It does not mean that I am going to throw a temper tantrum about him being in power.  It does not mean that I intend, or want anybody else to use violence, coercion, intimidation or any other illegal, immoral or uncivilized tactic to protest or fight him.  In fact, those are some of the actions that he has supported or encouraged within his own supporters that are part of why I hate the man.  I have no intent to beat a monster by becoming one myself.

It must, as always, be love, truth and justice with which we fight the monster that is Donald Trump.  I do not know if we can defeat the monster that way, at least not in the foreseeable future.  I do know that using anything but love, truth and justice to fight him, fighting him on his own terms with his own tactics will destroy the part of America that is worth fighting to protect.  This country is  too important, and has been too good to me for me to contribute to its further disassociation with reality, practicality and basic civility.

I do not recognize a country shaped by his warped way of thinking as anything approaching the America I love.  It is that love that is most of my fuel.  I hate Donald Trump.  That is a portion of what fuels me these days.  Hate will never be my weapon in this fight though.  Hate cannot build, it can only destroy.  I know that.  My hate is inescapable baggage that I have to reconcile, but it is not what I bring to the negotiation table or the political battlefield.  In other words, my hate is MY problem and I have no right to make it anybody else’s problem any more than they have the right to make their hate America’s problem.

Yes, I hate the man and what he stands for.  But, like the overwhelming majority of people in this country, even most of the (minority of) people who voted for the man, I am better that Donald Trump.  I don’t know you, but the extreme odds are that YOU are better than Donald Trump.  I will not let him push me into acting like the worst of what America has to offer.  Regardless of your political viewpoints, you should not let him either.  When people of all political persuasions are able to have honest and civil discussions and look for actual solutions to our problems, the malevolent garbage that comes from Donald Trump’s mouth, mouthpieces and Twitter client will cease to matter.

Who knows… maybe Donald will discover a level of civility and honesty he has not demonstrated in what passes for his political career.  If he does, as an American, he is welcome to a seat at the table in my book.  Until he does he must be opposed with every fact, every ounce of love and every ounce of civility we can muster.

Donald can have his stupid wall… The rest of us should be building bridges.

Yeah, I'm Mad

That's right.  I'm mad and I'm not apologizing for it.

There is something greatly wrong with this country when we are returning to state where not only is open or thinly veiled racism increasingly common, but we are afraid to call it out as the insidious societal disease that it is.

Earlier this week, Pamela Ramsey Taylor, a  leader of a Clay County, West Virginia non-profit organization posted on Facebook that it would be refreshing to have a "classy" and "dignified" first lady in the White House instead of "a ape in heels."  Local Mayor, Beverly Whaling, responded that the post "made her day."  Clay County is 98% white.  Clay, the city of which Whaling is the mayor, has no black residents.  After the initial firestorm prompted by the comments, Taylor responded that the comment was not racially motivated, though she admitted how it could be seen as such.

I don't know if Taylor or Whaling can or will keep their jobs.  They shouldn't, but that's pretty much beside the point.  I'm also not going to go into the detail of the thrust of their comments.  Michelle Obama is one of the most dignified and classy PEOPLE to live in the White House, First Lady or otherwise.  I don't know what class or dignity anybody married to Donald Trump can bring to the White House, but it certainly pales in comparison to the embodiment class and dignity that is Michelle Obama.  Instead, I want to talk about the dog whistle that the classless Ms. Taylor blew in her comment, and that the equally classless Mayor Whaling responded to.  The idea that either one of these worms losing their jobs is an adequate response to what they've said is off the mark.  It's not enough because what they said is not the real problem; it's just a symptom of the problem.

The problem is that anybody is thinking this garbage to begin with.  The problem is that there is an entire group of people thinking like this.  The problem is that we have a candidate for president around whom the purveyors of the glory of a white America can gather.  The problem is that when these people are caught, they are allowed to sneak away with their tail between their legs without long term repercussions and without being called out as the racists that they are.  The problem is that they are backed by countless people who simply think the solution is to "not say that," or (more realistically) not get caught saying that.  The problem is that these people will continue to support and vote for people and policies that uphold the primacy of white America.  

The problem is that these people either think there is no racial divide in this country, that it is the fault of minority populations, or that the divide is not a problem.  The problem is that we have racists in our government and our voting population and that they are not called out for what they are until they are so embarrassed to show their faces in public.  The problem is that we don't shame these people until they are too afraid to make their voices heard, until they realize that THEY are the minority and that they're living in the past.  The problem is that we have enough of these people that the election process allows them to nominate and then elect a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, bigoted bully to be the President of the United States.

The problem is that this person, these people, are in my country.  The problem is that we're afraid to call this deplorable woman what she is, a racist.  The problem is that she's not alone.  The problem is that the Republican Party disproportionately attracts racist voters and activists, but the good people in the party are either afraid to call them out for fear of losing their votes, or they don't understand the thinly veiled racism that these worms are spouting.  The problem is that the hypocrisy of expecting black Americans to take a greater degree of responsibility for "black on black" crime, or expecting Muslims to turn in members of their community as potential terrorism suspect while failing to take any responsibility for policing racism within one's own party (because we wouldn't want to lose their votes).

The problem is that racism is alive and well in this country and the vast majority of people are either afraid to admit even the possibility of that being the case, or they're afraid of being called oversensitive or "playing the race card."  The problem is that these deplorable neanderthals are allowed to be over-represented by a political system that was never designed to see that everybody was represented in government, and has not substantially evolved (with the exception of women's suffrage) since shortly after the Civil War.  They're over-represented because they can be manipulated by people who, in all honesty, may not be racist themselves, but are perfectly willing to harness the racism of others to get what they want.

None of these problems are addressed by either of these deplorable women joining the ranks of the unemployed (though they certainly both deserve to), because the deplorable ideas that they’ve displayed are not only alive and well, but they are a significant part of what propelled them, and so many like them, to positions of influence.

I don’t know what the best way to combat this failure to evolve, but pretending there is no problem and allowing others to do the same is not part of that solution.  That is why I will continue to call out racism when I see it.  I will do my best to remain respectful in doing so, but I’m done sugarcoating the way I approach this topic.  If you can't handle that, then take a look in the mirror.  You are the problem.

Violence and Unrest in Milwaukee

Rally for justice.  Rally for truth. Rally to grieve with those who mourn.

Now is not the time for anger and judgement about what happened in Milwaukee that left a young man dead at the hands of a police officer.  The time for anger and judgement will come, but it is only with full information that anger and judgement, when warranted, can be directed to the right place.  The truth is that there are probably no clean hands when it comes to the problems of violence in our country and that includes you and me.

I would argue that if Smith, the young man who was killed, raised a gun to an officer, it is tough to blame that officer for responding with deadly force.  Even if it is true that the police officer that shot and killed Smith did so with actual legal and moral justification, that does nothing to detract from the conversation that needs to happen what our community expectations of police are and how we deal with race relations in this country.  In fact, I would go so far as to argue that recognition by those would be and have been critical of police that this latest incident was justified (if true) would go a long way toward establishing the actual, constructive dialogue needed to actually accomplish any meaningful reform.

Conversely, if it turns out that the officer did not act with full legal or moral justification, a prompt and proper response from the police department and any other applicable authorities would help establish that necessary conversation.  Everybody needs to stop trying so hard to make facts fit the narrative that they're pushing that they forget that nothing worthwhile gets accomplished without keeping a solid focus on the truth, whatever it may be.

This cannot continue to be a shouting match between two groups of people.  Neither has a monopoly on righteousness.  Neither has completely clean hands.  Neither can solve the problems of our society and keep the peace on its own.

Now is the time to cry, pray, mourn and gather.  It is also the time to listen, learn, consider, converse and remember that lives of all colors matter.  We all have a responsibility to leave a world, country and community to our children in which they can live theirs to the fullest.

Primary Season

As primary season officially gets underway, keep this in mind: While the primaries are a de facto part of our political system, they are not legally such. They aren't governed by your votes, they're controlled by the respective parties and subject to their manipulation. The parties can, will and have manipulated the nomination process to suit their needs and there's nothing to stop them from doing it because whichever party it is, it's their party, not yours (especially if you're not a dues paying member). This primary system is one of the countless ways our system is engineered from within and manipulated from without to deliberately and perpetually limit your choice by maintaining a two-party political system that is enshrined NOWHERE in the constitution.


If you're not pissed, you're not paying attention.

Do Political Parties Matter?

I've heard people say that it doesn't matter who you vote for, that you're just shoveling the same garbage in and out.  At first glance, it seems to hold up.  We continue to elect different people and yet we continue to deal with the same conflicts and gridlock.  So far, the theory checks out.

The problem comes when we realize that divides on contested votes in congress happen very much along party lines.  Filibusters happen along party lines.  We vote for individuals, but what we're really getting is party votes.  The truth is that political parties are all that matter.  The individual you are voting for hardly makes a difference.  For the most part, swapping one Democrat for another, or swapping one Republican for another is not likely to generate a different result.

So, why don't people realize this?  In large degree, they do.  The problem is that a large portion of voters don't think this generalization applies to their elected representatives.  Approval ratings for congress are consistently in the gutter, yet incumbent reelection rates remain high.  That is because people do not view their own representatives as part of the rot at the core of the body they are a part of.

Nobody wants to view themselves or their representatives as part of the problem, but until people start to pay attention to who they're voting for and the system they exist within, political parties will continue to dominate the political system.  That domination comes at the expense of the actual voter.

Eric Hovde Thought...

Eric Hovde thought that he could flood the airwaves almost a year and dominate the mind share of the Wisconsin electorate.  He thought that dominating the airwaves with his platitudes about our nation being at a cross-roads or it being time to take America back would resonate.

Eric Hovde thought that Wisconsinites were just looking for a fresh face.  He thought that Wisconsin wanted someone who wasn't a politician, but a business man.  He thought that people wanted someone who wasn't a political insider.  He thought people wanted another Ron Johnson.

He was wrong.

Republican voters of Wisconsin rejected Eric Hovde and his late-night-infomercial-inspired strategy of being the only guy on TV, and they did not buy his "as seen on TV" product simply because he was the only thing on.

Eric Hovde, like many before him, ran a campaign based on money.  He did not run a campaign based on ideas, goals or policy.  His strategy was to spend more, and spend first.  Wisconsin's Republican senatorial primary showed that money alone cannot buy an election in this state.  Money is still trumped by back room political influence peddling.

Wait... Suddenly, I'm not as excited about the results of the election as I was.