A Darker Past

 

Broadway & 6th, Los Angeles, 1956

Part I. GROWING UP IN LOS ANGELES

I was born in Los Angeles in 1938. My dad, and mom, and brother and I lived in a little 2-bedroom home, in a modest neighborhood off West Temple St., about 2 miles west of downtown LA. I walked, or ran to my elementary, middle, and high schools. My father’s flower shop was in what was then the Elk’s Bldg. on 6th Ave. When I was in my teens I’d walk there after school and help out until closing.

 

The house where I was born in 1938 in LA

I didn’t give much thought to what I would do after high school until I was in my senior year. By then it had dawned on me that playing running back on the USC Trojans wasn’t in the cards. I graduated from high school in 1956 when my playing weight was 140 lbs. The Trojan’s running back that year was C.R. Roberts, who at 6'3" and 202 lbs, with a sprinter's speed, set a single-game rushing record against Texas in 1956 that stood for 20 years. I didn’t learn till much later that when the USC team arrived in Austin for the game, Roberts and other Black players were denied hotel accommodations because they were Black.

C.R. Roberts (#42) leads USC to 44 - 20 win over segregated Texas in Austin

I also didn’t know about LA’s racist past. Although California entered the union in 1850 as a free state, it didn’t take long for the growing White majority to systematically create racial segregation, largely through restrictive covenants that prevented property from being bought or sold to non-Whites. They also did it through eminent domain, when mixed-race communities like mine were split off from White communities in more affluent neighborhoods by freeways. My street was cut in half by a stretch of the Hollywood Freeway (US-101) built in 1954, preventing me from racing down the hill on my fat-tire Schwinn bike into the ritzier Silver Lake Gardens neighborhood.

Building the Hollywood Freeway, 1950

 

Freeways not only bisected neighborhoods, they aided the exodus of Whites from the increasingly brown and black neighborhoods in around downtown LA. This “White flight” led to an organic racial segregation that in turn, led to abandoned properties, urban decay, crime, and the “inner city” schools that suffered from insufficient funding due to the diminished tax base, one of which I attended.

Granted some Whites stayed put, but this didn’t mean they accepted the possibility of a more diverse community. There were pockets of resistance, sometimes violent, that became known as “sundown towns,” so named because Blacks and other persons of color who might be working there had to be out before sundown or face unpleasant consequences. Anaheim, home of the “Magic Kingdom,” was one of some 100 sun down towns in LA. I didn’t know this growing up in, El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles, roughly translated, the “City of Angels.”

Part II. LIVING IN THE SHRUB-STEPPE
 

Columbia River, Richland, Washington

It goes without saying that LA wasn’t the only city, and California wasn’t the only state where individual prejudices were translated into physical, legal, and social barriers. In fact, such barriers were endemic in the union that formed from the free and independent states that ultimately became the United States of America. They are still with us.

I left LA LA Land in 1961 and headed off on a twenty-year sojourn in the United States Air Force. There was a lot going on in the social fabric of the country whose Constitution I had sworn to defend "against all enemies foreign and domestic," as well as in the military itself; a military that up until my 10th birthday, had been segregated. I was blithely unaware of the military's fits and starts in its efforts to integrate and ensure equal opportunity, often fighting the vocal opposition of members of Congress, who objected to the military's intrusion into what they considered a strictly domestic matter.

I started paying more attention when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 (like everyone else I've talked with about this, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I learned about his assassination). One was pummeled by the seemingly endless shocks and calamities of an America embroiled in an unpopular war in a land far, far away, while fighting its own war at home in an effort to "ensure domestic tranquility;" a war that goes on to this day.

All these many years later I am a resident of Kennewick in a shrub-steppe area of Washington that belies its “Evergreen State” monicker. My city, hacked out of the brown hills along the Columbia River is one of the original three cities in Benton and Franklin counties that make up the Tri-Cities. These cities were sundown towns. I was already on my second assignment in the Air Force in 1964 before the first Black family was able to rent a home in Kennewick. According to the Tri-City Herald, property records in the counties are still being found that contain racially restrictive covenants.

D-Reactor, Hanford Nuclear Reservation, ca 1945

The Tri-Cities mushroomed out of the desert like the bomb Hanford, as part of the Manhattan Project, helped create. According to the National Register of Historic Places (OMB No. 1024-0018), Black workers recruited to Hanford by the prime contractor, DuPont Company, were disappointed to find Hanford "deeply, systemically discriminatory and segregated." Unlike Whites employed at Hanford, Black jobs were classified as temporary.

It isn't easy for people to admit that systemic racism exits in American society. Yet we fought a civil war over the right of Americans to own and profit from the labor of slaves imported from Africa. That war ended less than 160 years ago. I believe the collective mental block stems primarily from two things: first, people don't understand what "systemic" means; and second, people feel that admitting its existence is somehow a rebuke to them personally. Another problem that exists in some regions of the nation is state imposed amnesia.

Civil rights protest in Kennewick, 1963

I attempted to describe systemic racism in an opinion editorial I wrote for the Tri-City Herald during Black History month in 2023. At the time, I was lamenting the clamoring over Critical Race Theory, and the claims by some that CRT was being taught in Washington's K-12 schools to shame White students. This was nonsense, as anyone who knows anything about CRT will tell you; a fact the Herald stressed in their own editorial.

In my editorial I wrote,

We can come to understand how components of racism are interconnected: If you deny a Black person a quality education, you negatively impact their employment opportunity, degrade their health care, confine them to renting in low quality housing, expose them to criminal elements, perpetuate racial disparities in law enforcement, and then “red line” them from neighborhoods with good schools.

I recently ran across a June 2020 article by then Managing Editor of Tumbleweird, Logan Moonman, in which he traced the history of blatant racism in the Tri-Cities and more deftly than I, showed how systemic racism manifested. Moonman wrote;

Through subtle and not-so-subtle racism alike, restrictions on loans, neighborhood covenants and cooperation between landlords, real estate agents, the police, and others, racism physically shaped the way the Tri-Cities was formed.

Moonman went on to say to that;

Knowing our local history simply gives us more context for what people mean when they talk about systemic racism.

Part III. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T CALL IT CRITICAL RACE THEORY!

In October of 2021, I wrote an article titled, "How Critical Race Theory became a Thing." In it I pointed out that Christopher Rufo, a former director at the Discovery Institute — a place where despite what you may think, no one has a sense of humor — was tipped off about diversity training by a disgruntled Seattle City employee, and Rufo began researching the basis of the training. Rufo hit upon Critical Race Theory. He has tweeted (@realchrisrufo) that, 

We have successfully frozen their brand — ‘critical race theory’ — into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.

Rufo threw his distain for diversity training into a petri dish, spit in a dash of dialectics, and a cup of conspiracy, whipped it into a froth and voila! A previously obscure theory debated by legal and social scholars in institutions of high learning, became a rallying cry for conservative demagogues.

Shortly before his defeat in the 2020 Election, Donald Trump, seeking a pivotal political issue to rally his base, issued an executive order excluding from federal contracts any diversity, equity, or  inclusion training interpreted as containing “divisive concepts,” race or sex "stereotyping,” and/or race or sex "scapegoating.” Among the content considered “divisive” was Critical Race Theory.

Christopher Rufo at DeSantis side at an Anti-Woke rally

Ron DeSantis made "anti-Wokism," and opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion, the focus of his successful 2018 run for Florida Governor, and has employed Chris Rufo as his chief strategist in rooting out any vestiges of DEI or CRT in Florida's public education, up and down the school system.

DeSantis appointed Rufo one of a new Conservative Board of a Trustees of New College of Florida. The newly-appointed Board then ousted the sitting college President, Patricia Okker, and replaced her with Richard Corcoran, a close ally of DeSantis.

Under the new board majority, the college denied tenure to five professors who were already previously recommended to receive it. Following this, a third of the college's faculty departed. Between fall 2022 and fall 2023, the college lost 27 percent of its student body. In the 2023 U.S. News and World Report rankings of top liberal arts colleges in the country, New College dropped 24 spots compared to the previous year.

Christopher Rufo said, "The takeover of New College has changed the dynamics of America’s culture war and, if successful, will provide a model for conservatives across the nation."

Ron DeSantis said, "In Florida we are taking a stand against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory. We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other."

Unfortunately for DeSantis, Donald Trump coopted CRT, and DEI in his bid for the 2024 Presidency. DeSantis never grained traction in the campaign, and dropped out of the race, subsequently endorsing Trump. He can rest easy in the knowledge that despite his ignorance of the issue, Donald Trump will make CRT whatever he thinks his base wants to think it is, and DeSantis can continue his war against Woke, without interference from a new Trump Administration.

"Getting critical race theory out of our schools is not just a matter of values, it’s also a matter of national survival. We have no choice, the fate of any nation ultimately depends upon the willingness of its citizens to lay down and they must do this, lay down their very lives to defend their country. If we allow the Marxists and Communists and Socialists to teach our children to hate America, there will be no one left to defend our flag or to protect our great country or its freedom." Donald Trump, March 12, 2022

 

All this sturm and drang over diversity, equity, and inclusion, the imagined insidiousness of "intersectionality," the indoctrination of secondary school children to hate their White race, is at best a distraction from the serious issue of systemic racism, and at worst, an outright and organized attack on freedom of thought and expression.

Turning a blind eye to injustice is in effect collaborating with its perpetuation; with the public policies, private practices, and institutional systems that build and sustain disparities in opportunities and outcomes. Turning a blind eye to history blinds us to why things are as they are, and risks us returning to a darker past.

___________________________________________

Addendum

It is particularly unfortunate that Gender non-conforming, e.g., LGBTQ people, have also been targeted by the Anti-Woke "warriors." Last March the Florida Legislature passed HB 1557, the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, also dubbed the Don’t Say Gay bill. Here in the shrub-steppe, the Kennewick School Board passed a resolution strongly opposing two bills in the Washington Legislature related to books and curricula on historically marginalized and underrepresented groups, including, LGBTQ people.

 

 

 

To Further Divide the Country

Charlottesville "Unite the Right"

Republican Senate and House members, Republican politicians generally, conservative pundits appearing on the “fair and balanced” Fox News, and evangelical pastors with their faces at once beatific and doleful, all joined in expressing unctuous concern over Speaker Pelosi’s intention to move ahead Monday with the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, for “Incitement of Insurrection.” The politicians, pundits, and pastors seem united in their opinion that impeachment will “further divide the country.”

For myself, I find this another example of Republicans and their constituencies lacking what I refer to as an “irony gene.” They seem immune to the fact that what they say is the exact obverse of what they do. Republicans have been going about dividing America at least since Newt Gingrich made a science of combative, take no prisoners, partisan politics. Gingrich is remembered for a 1978 talk he gave to young Republican activists at college in Georgia in which he said, “One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty.”*

Republicans have been led for the last 4 years by the “Divider in Chief,” Donald J. Trump. They have followed him slavishly, and parroted his divisive, crass, insulting dialogue and Twitter feed. They have refused to criticize him even when his behavior is beneath contempt and his policies are contemptible. There weren’t “very fine people on both sides,” but Republicans, fearful of losing a significant portion of their constituency, were loath to call out white supremacists. And when Trump told them to "stand back and stand by," these Republicans said nothing, until they began saying, "they stole the election from you."

Well, at least most of these irony-challenged Republicans aren’t saying that incitement of an insurrection isn’t impeachable. They’re just concerned that actually impeaching the son of a bitch that did it will “further divide the country.

 

Insurrection, January 6, 2021

 _______________________________________
* Mitch McConnell is said to have “transformed from a moderate Republican who supported abortion rights and public employee unions to the embodiment of partisan obstructionism” as a result of observing the effectiveness of Gingrich’s tactics (Alec MacGillis, “The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell,” 2014).

Why Do Over Half of Men Polled Approve of Donald Trump's Handling of the Economy?

I heard on the news this morning, the 75th Anniversary of the end of World War II, that although Donald Trump’s poll numbers are relatively dismal, just over 50% of men approve of his handling of the economy. I’m puzzled by this. The U.S. national debt at over $26 trillion now exceeds the record debt incurred during WWII, but more troubling, debt as a percentage of GDP at 136% is its highest in history. According to economists, this level of debt-to-GDP slows economic growth, and as revenues decline the debt-to-GDP ratio climbs, and the “Greek Death Cycle” accelerates.

Maybe men see Trump as a hugely successful businessman, so under the circumstances he must have handled the economy as well or better than anyone could. But, in fact Trump is a terrible businessman, as has been thoroughly documented. Furthermore, the “circumstances” are largely of his own creation — surely no one would argue that he’s managed the coronavirus pandemic well, unless the predicted 200,000 deaths is acceptable.

Maybe men, especially those relatively well off, are attracted by the siren call of today’s advancing Stock Market. But the Market is a chimera buoyed by Fed bond buying, and propped up by stock buybacks, collateralized loan obligations, and other “unknown unknowns,” as Donald Rumsfeld might have said. In any case, according to Reuters, 84% of stocks owned by U.S. households are held by the wealthiest 10% of Americans. So the deregulatory fever under Trump has boosted the Market, but, as usual, it’s the rich getting richer.

Maybe more men are impacted by and therefore especially appreciative of the lower tax rates instituted under Trump. But first of all, the so-called Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) didn’t end up paying for itself, as promised. In fact, the TCJA substantially reduced revenues, adding further to the aforementioned monumental debt.

Secondly, it was corporations who gained the most from the TCJA; their taxes were reduced by 40%, and they are permanent, unlike individual tax cuts, which expire in 2025.

 

Finally, the TCJA increased disparities in after-tax income by giving the largest relative and absolute tax cuts to high-income households — the top 1 percent will claim 83%of the benefit of the bill. As Stephanie Kelton, a senior economic policy analyst has pointed out, “Trump’s plan will widen the country’s already dangerous wealth and income gaps, and because the gains go mostly to those at the very top, the tax cuts won’t do much to promote broad-based consumer spending or overall job growth.”

So, I remain puzzled. Who are the guys that approve of the way Trump is handling the economy and what explains their attitude?

Newt Gingrich Tears Into Nancy Pelosi for Tearing Donald Trump's 2020 SOTU Speech

By way of full disclosure, Newt Gingrich is not one of my favorite people. Nevertheless, out of respect for those of you who may be members of his "Inner Circle," I read his essay on Nancy Pelosi and the "petty, nasty Democrats." First, as a “thought piece” on the coming 2020 Election, it lacks any original, let alone objective insight. Here’s a much more insightful analysis of what’s happening in American political discourse by McKay Coppins in the Atlantic.

Second, Gingrich criticizing Pelosi for ignoring tradition and protocol in how she behaved during Trump’s SOTU speech once again demonstrates how little Republicans seem to know or care about irony. In 1978 Gingrich lectured a group of young student Republicans, “One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty.” McKay Coppins credits, if that's the right word, Gingrich with turning politics into a blood sport.

Trump has broken every rule in the book when it comes to how one behaves in the highest office in the land. Two days ago in a publicly televised rambling diatribe in the East Room of the White House he used profanity to yet again denounce the Russia probe, and to claim that he did nothing wrong in his call with Ukraine President Zelensky.

At the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday, Trump told Arthur C. Brooks, who spoke on the theme of his book, “Love Your Enemies,” that he didn’t agree with him, and proceeded to turn the communion into a pejorative-laced rant against his enemies, real and those yet to come. Trump has undermined faith in the Intelligence Community, the FBI, the DOJ, the Media, and now in faith itself.

 If you watched the SOTU speech, which I did, you saw Speaker Pelosi read through the speech as Trump gave it — easy to do, since Republicans made sure to applaud Trump’s pronouncements as often as possible without looking totally absurd. Pelosi was clearly angered by the blatant lies and exaggerations layered throughout the speech, but she kept her cool and waited until Trump had accepted his accolades from his assembled sycophants before she gave the speech its due, and tore it to shreds. Here’s what David Frum of the Atlantic (2/5/2020) said of the speech:

“The president crammed his speech with blatant and aggressive lies. The Trump administration is not committed to protecting patients with pre-existing conditions; it has repeatedly sought to end this protection and is in court right now trying again. The U.S.’s position as the world leader in oil and gas production is not thanks to any action of Trump’s; the country moved into first place in 2012. Trump has not presided over any kind of “comeback” of the economy, which grew faster in the three years before he took office than in the three years since. Manufacturing employment has not recovered under Trump; because of his trade wars, manufacturing employment has crashed on his watch. Trump’s untruthfulness is notorious, but it’s still a departure to lie and mislead so often and so brazenly before all the assembled Congress.”

For myself, I find it Orwellian that Gingrich and other Republican blowhards pretend outrage over Pelosi tearing up Trump’s SOTU speech while at the same time pretending that it’s okay to withhold military aid appropriated by Congress in order to coerce Ukraine to announce an investigation into a political rival.

I have to wonder if Gingrich or these other Republican snowflakes will feel the same outrage as Trump exacts his vengeance against those who obeyed Congressional subpoenas and testified during the House impeachment hearings, such as LTC Alexander Vindman, along with his brother LTC Yevgeny Vindman, both of whom were escorted from the White House, and U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland. Fiona Hill, who spoke at the hearings in defense of Vindman, is gone, Jennifer Williams, a Pence advisor, is gone, of course Marie Yovanovitch is gone, and William B. Taylor Jr., who served in the Vietnam War and earned a Bronze Star and an Air Medal with a V device for valor, is gone.

So, in my view, the damage that Nancy Pelosi may have done to the solemn honor and privilege of the Chamber and the Chief Executive is nothing compared to the damage Donald John Trump and his minions, including Newt Gingrich, are doing to truth and decency, to the Constitution, and to the country.

The Assassination of Qassim Suleimani

Demonstration in Tehran Over U.S. Assassination of Qassim Suleimani

On Friday, an American drone fired missiles into a convoy leaving the Baghdad airport and killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who for decades has led Iran’s Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Several officials from Iraqi militias were also killed.

President Donald Trump, speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort, said,”Suleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks…” He did not provide any details or evidence of such. Given the President’s propensity for lying, the credence of Trump’s rationale can certainly be questioned.

Suleimani was definitely an enemy of America, but George W Bush and Barack Obama both had opportunities to take him out and chose not to because the benefit was largely symbolic and the cost was largely unknowable. Of course, neither Bush nor Obama were facing an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.

What the general public is missing in all the “Sturm and Drang” over impeachment is the detrimental impact Trump’s global actions — self-serving, ill-considered, or simply impetuous — have on American interests and on American lives. This is particularly true of this latest precipitous act.

The assassination of a revered Iranian leader undermines Iranian elements seeking regime change. It encourages Iran’s accelerated development of a nuclear arsenal. Because it was carried out on Iraqi soil, it forces Iraqi’s leaders to demand the removal of U.S. forces, opening the divided country to further Iranian and Russian influence. And it effectively neuters our NATO allies. Also, although unlikely to be discussed by authoritative sources, it very likely compromised significant elements of U.S. national technical means, if not HUMINT against Iran.

People have asked whether this action will lead to an American war in Middle East. My answer is, “Where the hell have you been for the last six decades!”*

_____________________________
 *The July 1958 Marine landing in Beirut, Lebanon began the modern era of America’s wars in the region.

Having Read the Mueller Report

I had three questions regarding the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the United States 2016 Election:

1. What was the extent of Russian interference in the election, and did it change the outcome?
2. Did the Trump Campaign “collude” with Russia in their interference in the election? 
3. Was Donald Trump guilty of obstruction of justice with regard to the investigation?

Having now read the Mueller Report, these are my answers.

Russian Interference

The Mueller investigation uncovered “sweeping and systematic” operations along multiple  lines:

• a sophisticated social media campaign that involved every major social media entity and reached tens of millions of U.S. persons and attracted hundreds of thousands of followers

• the staging of political rallies inside the United States organized by Russian operatives posing as American grassroots activists who worked through the aforementioned social media accounts

• the theft through “hacking” of private documents, emails, and other data from the DNC and the Hillary Clinton Campaign and individuals associated with it

• the theft through “hacking” of data and records from individuals and entities involved in the administration of elections (state boards of election, secretaries of state, county governments)

• the targeting of private technology firms responsible for manufacturing and administering election-related software and hardware, such as voter registration software and electronic polling stations

The Mueller investigation did not attempt to gauge the impact of Russian interference on the election, nor did they pursue a deeper investigation into the intrusion of servers administered by targeted states, understanding that this further investigation was being undertaken by the FBI, Homeland Security, and state election offices.

So, the answers to our first question are:

• Russian interference in the 2016 election was a massive, well-planned and executed, information operation that reached tens of millions of U.S. voters, perhaps as many as 126 million.

• We don’t know from the Mueller Report whether the Russian operation changed the outcome of the election. Trump won the Presidency with razor thin margins in Michigan (.03%), Wisconsin (1%), Pennsylvania (1.2%), and Florida (1.3%). So, it’s possible.

• According to the Washington Post, 107,000 votes in three states — PA, MI, WI — swung the election for Trump. So, it’s possible.

• Mueller didn’t further investigate the intrusion of election hardware or software. So it’s possible.

Collusion

Rudy Giuliani was correct, if misleading, when he said “collusion is not a crime.” The Mueller Report would ultimately clear up the confusion, but was preempted by Attorney General William Barr’s “summary” of the report. The 4-page summary was released days before the report itself, and was followed by Barr’s curious press conference the morning of the day the redacted report was to be released. In his statement, Barr repeated multiple times that there was no “collusion,” and insisted that Trump had “fully cooperated with the special counsel’s investigation.”

The Mueller Report pointed out that the Special Council evaluated potential criminal conduct by the Trump Campaign according to conspiracy law (18 U.S.C § 371), because “collusion” per se is not found in U.S. Code nor in federal criminal law (p.181). The burden of proof for conspiracy used by the Special Council was that the Trump Campaign and the Russian Government had an agreement, tacit or express, on the Russian’s election interference, and more, that the parties were taking actions informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests.

The Mueller investigation identified innumerable links between the Trump Campaign and Russians possibly tied to the Russian Government (e.g., “cutouts”). People interviewed by the Special Council sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, while others deleted relevant communications, used encrypted communications, or auto-delete features (p.10).

Ultimately, the Special Counsel concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired with the Russian Government in its election interference activities.

As for Mr. Trump’s cooperation with the investigation, that matter is addressed in Volume II of the report addressing obstruction of justice, and is covered here on Page 3.

There have been and will continue to be fierce disagreement with Robert Mueller’s finding in the matter of collusion. The Report confirms what the media was reporting about the many meetings between Trump Campaign officials and Russians, and adds others of which we were unaware. Furthermore, it confirms what Michael Cohen testified to regarding Trump Tower negotiations — they were going on until at least 2016 — giving Trump a substantial reason to cooperate with Russian interests (p.67). Nonetheless, it’s important to understand that Mueller was not charged with making a value judgment about the moral or ethical behavior of Donald Trump, or even to characterize it. He was charged with making a decision to prosecute or decline to prosecute. He did that.

What those unsatisfied with the results of Mueller’s investigation should consider is that Congress is not constrained by the jurisdictions or legal code under which Mueller operated, and can decide that even the appearance of conspiring with a U.S adversary, along with the appearance of a conflict of interest, is sufficient to hold the President accountable in some other manner than criminal prosecution.


Obstruction

Volume II of the Mueller Report deals with the question of obstruction of justice and covers the final 182 pages of the report. The Special Council had jurisdiction to consider: (1) whether the President had obstructed justice in connection with the Russian-interference related investigations; and (2) whether the President acted to obstruct the Mueller investigation itself. In neither case did the Special Counsel exonerate the President — far from it.

A quick review of the Table of Contents for Volume II provides the reader with a sense of the depth and breadth of the President’s obstructive actions, from refusing to acknowledge Russian interference in the 2016 election, to attempting to fire the Special Counsel.

A somewhat amusing anecdote in the Report about the President’s obstructive actions described Trump’s directing Attorney General Jeff Sessions to inform Mueller that he only had jurisdiction to investigate Russian meddling for “future elections.” Sessions, who at the time had recused himself from dealing with the investigation, refused. (p.97)

In his press conference on April 18, Attorney General William Barr stated that President Trump, “fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation.” The Report shows this to be untrue in many respects, but most especially in the President’s refusal to be interviewed, despite the Office of the Special Council trying for “more than a year” to obtain the President’s cooperation, and conveying to the President’s counsel that, “an interview with the President is vital to our investigation” (Appendix C).

The President finally agreed to respond to certain written questions, not including obstruction. In doing so, Trump answered 30 times with some form of memory failure. In other cases, the President’s answers were “incomplete or imprecise” (Appendix C). The Special Council viewed the President’s answers as inadequate, and considered issuing a subpoena for his testimony. In the end however, Mueller felt he had sufficient evidence for the Report, and did not want to delay submission pending the result of long litigation (Appendix C).

Given the evidence collected by the Mueller investigation, it may be surprising that the Special Council did not charge Trump with obstruction of justice, but he didn’t. Instead the Report states that, “while this report does not conclude the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him”(p.2).

The reason the Special Council chose not to charge the President revolves around an opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), a part of the Department of Justice, and the concept of “fairness.” The OLC opinion states that, "the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the constitutional separation of powers.”

Mueller chose to accept the OLC opinion and so not prosecute the President. Because he would not prosecute, the President if found guilty of criminal conduct with regard to obstruction would not be afforded the opportunity to defend himself in the ordinary way — through a speedy and public trial. See the Introduction to Volume II, pages 1 & 2 for a more complete summary of the Special Council’s reasoning.

By early Tuesday evening, May 7, more than 720 former federal prosecutors who worked in Democratic and Republican administrations had signed a letter asserting that if Trump were not the president, he would have been charged with obstructing justice based on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings.

Finally, it is crucial to understand that the Special Council has provided Congress the means to hold the President accountable for his actions and makes it clear under the section on Statutory and Constitutional Defenses that, “Congress has the authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice” (p. 8)

The Special Counsel goes on to say, “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law” (p. 8).

The People Have a Right to Know

By Jon Phillips

Special Counsel Robert Mueller

I seem to recall that the Starr Report was sent in full to the Government Printing Office and distributed without limits to the public. The reason was because the content was primarily just embarrassing to the Clintons and their Staff and it was the evidence supporting a charge of perjury. President Clinton lied under oath about personally embarrassing things. Apart from his lying, there would have been no case against him since both he and Monica Lewinsky were consenting adults.

An employee of a private company might be fired for what Clinton did since its contrary to published corporate values. Monica Lewinsky could have sued for sexual harassment, but that’s a civil offense and not a criminal offense. It’s not clear that she could have won such a claim in any event given her complicit behavior. She thought she was in love.

Plainly, Bill’s behavior was quite distasteful and entirely inappropriate for a person in a position of power and high national trust. So my view is that if the Starr Report was published when the topic of it was about scandals of a sexually prurient personal nature, that the President was too embarrassed to admit, then the Mueller Report should be sent directly to the House Intelligence Committee (they have very high clearances) and where necessary, redacted to protect classified information, including sources and methods.

I think that evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors could be made plain, presuming they exist, without compromising national security. The nature of the potential crimes of President Trump and his Administration are grave and go directly to the security of the nation. The people have a right to know about such things in general. Clinton was drug through the mud over his sexual promiscuity, not because he endangered the nation through cooperation with a foreign power. That the public would not get to see sufficient evidence of any criminal activity of Trump and members of his Administration, given the nature of the alleged crimes, would be entirely unacceptable and a miscarriage of justice.

________________________________ 
Jon Phillipshas served as a Senior Nuclear Technology Expert at the International Atomic Energy Agency and Director, Sustainable Nuclear Power Initiative at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The opinions expressed here are his own.

The right of the people to peaceably assemble

Donald Trump’s diatribe against NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem is the height of hypocrisy. Trump recently pardoned Joe Arpaio, found guilty of criminal contempt for violating the 4th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. Arpaio trampled the significance of our flag in the desert sands of his Arizona “concentration camps.”

As appalling as Trump’s pardon of Arpaio is, the growing likelihood that Trump conspired with Russia to swing the 2016 election his way, is a traitorous repudiation of the very foundations upon which our Republic is based, and over which our flag flies.

I stand for the National Anthem. I proudly fly my flag. My respect for the flag, inculcated in me over my 20 years of military service, is based on what the flag stands for — the values, and beliefs, and behaviors that we share as Americans. One of those values is an abiding respect for the Constitution, under which, “the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition for a redress of grievances,” is protected.

Where was Donald Trump when the American Flag flew over the battlefields of Vietnam — on the sidelines. Go there now, Mr. Trump, and hear the petition of the aggrieved.

Emmanuel Macron has won the French presidential election -- Vive la France!

New French President, Emmanuel Macron

Unlike the Americans, French voters were too smart to be swayed by far right dirty tricks. They get a smart, good-looking, sane guy with a whip smart wife as president. We get Donald Trump and Melania. BTW, Trump is 24 years older than Melania, which is the same age difference between Macron and his wife, Brigitte, only the age differential is reversed. Thus, it's "scandalous."

Who Hasn't Donald Trump Insulted?

The latest institution to be denigrated by the White House is the Congressional Budget Office. Sean Spicer, the President's ditzy Press Secretary, said that the CBO's financial analysis of the Republican's proposed 'American Health Care Act,' should not be trusted. This preemptive strike against the CBO is due to widespread reports that the analysis will show the AHCA to be vastly inferior to the Affordable Care Act, covering far few people at far higher premiums.

Trump has now dismissed, denigrated, or demeaned the Intelligence Community, the military officer corps -- "rubble" -- Senator John McCain, because he was captured during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Judiciary, former president, Barack Obama, the U.S. Electoral System, and the Media, Muslims, Mexicans, to say nothing of past Republican presidential nominees, and of course, "Crooked Hillary," and women generally, for whom he demonstrates appalling disrespect.

The only entity for whom the American President, Donald J. Trump, exhibits respect, and indeed admiration, is Russian President, Vladimir Putin. I wonder why that is.

Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak

Official Biography
Ambassador Sergey I. KISLYAK
Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the U.S.

• Born in 1950.
• Graduated from Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in 1973, as well as from USSR Academy of Foreign Trade in 1977.
• Employee of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation since 1977.
• 1981-1985 – Second Secretary of the Permanent Mission of the USSR to the UN in New York.
• 1985-1989 – First Secretary, Counselor of the Embassy of the USSR to the U.S.
• 1989-1991 – Deputy Director of the Department of International Organizations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR.
• 1991-1993 – Deputy Director of the Department of International Scientific and Technical Cooperation of the Foreign Ministry of the USSR/Russia.
• 1993-1995 – Director of the Department of International Scientific and Technical Cooperation of the Foreign Ministry of Russia.
• 1995-1998 – Director of the Department of Security Affairs and Disarmament of the Foreign Ministry of Russia.
• 1998-2003 – Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Kingdom of Belgium and, simultaneously, Permanent Representative of Russia to NATO in Brussels, Belgium
• 2003-2008 - Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
• Holds a diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.
• Speaks English and French.
• Married, with one adult daughter. 
• Met with now U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions twice during Trump 2016 campaign.

An Open Letter to the New Treasury Secretary

February 20, 2017

The Honorable Steven T. Mnuchin
Secretary of the Treasury
United States of America

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I’m seventy-nine years old and have never failed to submit a tax return, from the time I worked as a delivery boy in high school, through my two decades in the U.S. military, two decades working for a government laboratory in national security, right up until today, in my retirement.

I’ve willingly paid my taxes under 11 presidents; six republicans and five democrats. Like serving in the military, for me, paying taxes was a way of giving back to my country for the rights and privileges I enjoyed as a citizen of this great nation.

Now I am looking at the prospect come April 15th of paying taxes under another president, Donald J Trump. I have to tell you, Mr. Secretary, that for the first time ever, I hesitate to do so. Not for ideological reasons — although I strongly disagree with Mr. Trump’s ideology — and not because Mr. Trump avoided paying taxes for so many years. I hesitate because Mr. Trump refuses to make a clean break from his global business interests. Until he does so, he will unavoidably be violating the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Mr. Trump claimed that he eliminated potential trouble with emoluments by turning over operation of the business to his children. That argument is inane, but even if we believed that the President would not discuss Trump business dealings with “the kids,” as long as he continues to profit from his business empire—which he does whether or not he is nominally in charge, the possibility that foreign actors will attempt to affect his policies by frequenting his hotels, golf courses, resorts, and casinos, remains an issue of national concern.

Mr. Trump apparently feels that divestiture is too high a price to pay to be President of the United States, just as he felt it was “smart” not to pay taxes.

We might understand better the intricacies and entanglements of Mr. Trump’s business holdings and partners if we could examine his tax returns, but he has steadfastly refused to release them  — something every president has done since Gerald Ford.

So you see the reason for my hesitation to submit my tax return on April 15 — I can’t be sure that my tax dollars won’t be going to line the pockets of foreign actors whose business dealings with the President have curried his favor. Maybe Mr. Trump is right; maybe it isn’t smart to pay taxes. At least, not until we have a president willing to abide by the Constitution.

Thank you for your understanding.

Very Respectfully,

Richard Badalamente, LTC, USAF (Ret.)

Doanld Trump Speaking to Himself on Foreign Policy

“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because

I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things."

(Donald Trump on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” in early March 2016

when asked who he talks with consistently about foreign policy)

Now that President Donald Trump's handpicked National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn has been forced to resign, Trump can go back to speaking with himself about national security and foreign policy. Or he can just call the Russians directly, instead of having Flynn do it for him. You see, there's no way Michale Flynn, a 33-year veteran of the Army, calls the Russians without direction from his so-to-be Commander-in-Chief. And the "soon-to-be" qualifier matters, too. Donald Trump was not the president, nor Flynn his National Security Advisor, when these talks took place. Therefore, the talks were a violation of the Logan Act, which states, in part:

"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

Whether or not prosecutors take action under the act, the law was broken, and if it can be shown that Donald Trump directed that Flynn contact the Russians to reassure them that President Obama's sanctions would be revoked once Trump was in office, then Trump is guilty of a gross misdemeanor and should be impeached. Furthermore, if it can be shown that Trump and/or his campaign staff colluded with the Russians on their interference in the 2016 Election, then we have a constitutional crisis of unparalleled dimensions.

My Benton County Neighbors Vote for Trump

Back in November of 2015, when the prospect of a Trump Presidency seemed a nightmare fantasy, I watched video of one of his rallies in which, holding his right hand at an awkward angle, he jerked and gyrated in an hideous mockery of a disabled reporter, Serge Kovaleski. I was disgusted, repulsed; the idea that any decent human being, let alone a candidate for President of the United States of America, would do this was unbelievable. I was frankly incredulous.

Kovaleski, a Pulitzer Prize winner, who has arthrogryposis, had the audacity to contradict Trump’s charge that “thousands and thousands” of people cheered in Jersey City as the Twin Towers collapsed. Like so many of Mr. Trump’s incendiary claims about immigrants and minorities, that claim was unequivocally false.

Over the course of his campaign, Trump demonstrated over and over again that he was untrustworthy and intellectually and temperamentally unfit to hold the highest office in the land. He continues to do that to this day.

So much has already been written about why Donald Trump won the election, from the decline of the Middle Class, to the xenophobia created by Trump and his allies. But what I question, and what distresses me most — besides the prospect of a Trump Presidency— is why almost 60% of my neighbors here in Benton County voted for Trump. As I've written previously, "The Mid-Columbia is of and by the government."

We here in Benton County, like the rest of Eastern Washington, survive and thrive as a result of massive government spending on water projects, the agriculture that's possible as a result, bomb making and the cleaning up of the mess made doing it, and the funding of leading edge science by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The election of Donald Trump is a repudiation of all that government has done for us -- it is like killing the goose that laid those golden eggs, but in this case, we are the geese.

How to explain it? Surely my neighbors cannot be so ignorant of our government's largess and how we benefit from it. I know for a fact that my friends in agriculture realize the benefits of Eastern Washington's vast network of government-funded dams and waterways. I am less sure that they understand the leading edge climate science performed at PNNL -- republicans seem either immune to, or in stark denial of science in general, and especially climate science.

So I have to ask myself, were we so afraid of “others” that we willingly abandoned our values and entrusted our Nation to such an odious demagogue? If so, shame on us.

Stages of Grief -- Where the Hell Am I?

The five stages of grief according to popular psychological theory are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

I was in denial while watching the election returns November 8th. I haven't watched the news since, except out of the corner of my eye when my wife is watching The Today Show, or The View. I'm not watching the parody news I used to enjoy, like The Daily Show, or the late night shows, like Stephen Colbert. What is there to laugh about?

It makes me sick to see Donald Trump strutting around, giving the thumbs up gesture, a smug expression on his puffy, orange face. He's a confidence man, and he's pulled off the biggest con in the history of American politics. Sixty million, five hundred and twenty-six thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two American voters fell for it. So, what, I'm angry? God damned right I'm angry.

It's easy to label Trump voters as bigots, racists, fearful xenophobics, "America first" nationalists -- certainly many are, but many are undereducated people who find themselves in relatively low-paying jobs, with no hope for clawing their way up to a better life. These people worked in America's factories, and steel mills, deep down in the coal mines, in textiles, basic housewares, furniture, and paper products -- all low-proficiency factory positions.

Cheaper cross-border labor, the shift to cheaper natural gas, and automation put many of these people out of work. Donald Trump started by offering to re-educate these people at his "Trump University." He's being taken to court for that con job.

When will the dupes who voted for Trump realize they've been taken for the gullible fools "The Donald" saw them as. Am I bargaining now, e.g., "You relatively reasonable Trump voters please learn your lessons and don't vote for a 2nd term for the odious asshole." Is that where I am? Bargaining?

I don't think I'm totally there yet. I'm still angry. I'm angry at the run-of-the-mill republicans, who voted for Trump because they're ideologues -- they could give a shit about Trump being unqualified to lead the Nation either by knowledge, experience, character, or temperament. He was a Republican and that was enough. In my region of Washington State, Benton County, 47, 194 people voted for Donald Trump -- almost 59% of my neighbors. Who the fuck are these people?!

Yes, and I'm angry at the liberal-left "BernieCrats" who demonstrated their annoyance at Bernie not getting the Democratic nomination by voting for a 3rd Party candidate, mostly Jill Stein. Stein was pretty questionable as a presidential prospect, but voting for her was a nice way to show their pique.

And I'm angry at the so-called "millennials," some of whom were just young in terms of voting, who came out to Bernie rallies and cheered wildly for free everything, only to skip voting, go back to college, or their dead-end job, and accumulate more debt.

The stages of grief, like Maslow's Need Hierarchy, are not mutually exclusive. My depression has definitely invaded my angry space. What've I got to be depressed about; I'm relatively well-off, good back-up insurance thanks to my military service, too old to worry about living until global warming causes the water wars -- why worry, be happy!

My problem is that I care too much about everybody else, and about future generations, which hopefully will include my great grandkids. Let me correct that just a bit; I don't give a fuck about the very wealthy that will benefit the most from the tax cuts Trump has promised, or the Wall Street traders, who are drooling over the prospects of a Dodd-Frank rollback, or the Religious Right, who look forward to burning the heathens, like me, at the stake. Yes, that's how little they care about global warming -- they will burn us, because it's a good lesson, and GOD will take care of the environment.

I'm depressed because many of the poor schmucks who voted for Trump really need help. Reneging on trade deals, falling back into an isolationist trade posture, will make everyone poorer.

And often these same people depend most on reproductive care, the kind Planned Parenthood provides, and we know how republicans feel about PPH. They hate it for selling those "baby parts!" And they hate PBS and NPR for reporting facts about PPH not selling "baby parts," and not condemning PPH for the GODLESS heathens that they are -- to the stakes!

I'm depressed because Donald Trump called out a particular religion and filled his already racist supporters with targeted hate. I know Muslim-Americans. I like them. They are no more prone to terrorism that the White Supremacists who support Trump -- less so, in fact. And of course, Trump started with Mexicans and he doesn't differentiate between Mexican-Americans and Mexicans, or Hispanics, or Latinos -- they're all drug dealers, criminals, and rapists, "and I assume some are good people." God, Donald Trump is just such an asshole!

See how easy it is to fall back into the angry stage. I have much more to say about why I'm depressed, but I have to stop this diatribe, because it's making me angrier. I need to move through depression into acceptance.

Yeah, fuck that! I'm going stay angry and depressed until Donald Trump is back in his own made-for-TV realty and not America's.

Insurgencies in the 2016 Presidential Election

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders launched insurgent political campaigns against their respective political parties; Trump against the RNC and Sanders against the DNC. Trump won, and Bernie lost. Trump won because, quite simply, the rules of the Republican Party were "democratic." Bernie lost because the rules of the Democratic Party were not.

Now in both cases, one could argue that the reason things are where they are is more nuanced than that. Okay, but understand this; the GOP and the Democratic Party are non-governmental organizations. They write the rules for how nominees for offices up and down the ticket are chosen. If you don't like those rules, tough. Get involved in party politics and change them. Otherwise, you'll have to live by them.

Bernie Sanders' Failed Insurgency

Bernie Sanders, an independent, launched a bid to grab the Democratic Party by the throat and choke the moderate out of it. Sanders called for economic policies specifically targeted at reducing the gap between the top 1% and the other  99% of Americans -- expand social security, make public college tuition free, provide paid family and medical leave and universal health care, increase the minimum wage, implement a youth jobs program, and, with all the money that's left over, institute a trillion dollar program to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure. Sanders had ways to pay for all of this. They all amounted to essentially the same thing -- tax the rich. So, in political terms, Bernie was trying to hijack the Democratic Party and make it a Social Democratic Party.

Conservatives and even moderate democrats, immediately saw Bernie Sanders' objective for what it was -- a redistribution of wealth. Duh! How does one reduce the gap between really, really rich people, and all the rest of us? You take the land from the rich landowners and you parcel it out to poor farmers. Then you watch as your country goes broke and your people go hungry. Hey, it's politics -- hyperbole is de rigueur. In any case, this is the conservative worldview.

There were a lot of young people who resonated with Bernie Sanders' messianic message and his passion, and his powdery snow hair. The problem was, they hadn't really participated in party politics before "feeling the Bern." Because they hadn't 'infiltrated' the party, their revolution was doomed from the beginning. Had they been in leadership positions in the DNC, they could've eliminated or at least reduced the number of superdelegates. Because, as the Pew Research Center has said, " superdelegates are the embodiment of the institutional Democratic Party – everyone from former presidents, congressional leaders and big-money fundraisers to mayors, labor leaders and longtime local party functionaries." These party faithful didn't want an outsider taking over 'their' party and because they'd prepared for just such a contingency, they were able to prevent it.

The Democratic Party's Superdelegates

Donald J Trump's Successful Insurgency

The GOP has many fewer superdelegates than the Democrats -- 250 or 7% vs the Democratic Party's 713 or 15%. In the Republican Party, the only people who get superdelegate status are the three members of each state's national party. The more important distinction, however, as Seth Millstein has pointed out, is that Republican superdelegates do not have the freedom to vote for whichever candidate they please. The RNC ruled in 2015 that their superdelegates must vote for the candidate that their state voted for. In effect, the GOP is more democratic than the Democratic Party. Is this a good thing?

If the GOP had convened in Cleveland with as many superdelegates as the Democratic Party had, and if the rules permitted them to vote their conscience, and assuming they had such, would Donald Trump have emerged as the Republican Nominee? Hopefully, not.

As Jeff Greenfield wrote,

There are some circumstances where the “will of the voters”—often the will of a plurality of voters—may well put the party on the road to a massive political defeat. Further, it may result in the nomination of a candidate who violates the most fundamental beliefs of that party. Or whose temperament and character might put a dangerous, unfit person into the Oval Office. Under those circumstances, the existence of a bloc of superdelegates means the presence of an “emergency brake,” a last chance to avoid disaster. And while it may be “undemocratic” in the narrowest sense of that term, our political system is replete with “undemocratic” elements that have served us very well.

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight now forecasts the chances of Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential election as 12.5%. The same poll forecasts that the GOP has a 72% chance of losing the Senate. What happens to the Republican Party after the election depends on what the Republican Party leadership does now. Republicans cannot have their party and let Trump eat it, too.

Republican leaders in the House and Senate must stop fighting this pusillanimous, rearguard action, and launch a frontal attack against the Trump insurgency. If they don't decisively distance themselves now from 'The Donald,' the Grand Old Party will go the way of the 'Know-Nothings,' a fate they will justly deserve. What the American people won't deserve is what may replace the GOP -- a neo-fascist amalgamation of all the worst elements of Donald Trump's constituency.