Lessons From 2025 – Already!

Posted: January 10, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We are only ten days into the new year and already it has been quite the year. So many newsworthy events occurred in a short period of time. From a terrorist attack on New Year’s Day to the apocalyptic fires still raging in Los Angeles, tragedy is marking the start of 2025. I hope it is not a sign of things to come. Today, our future president became a convicted and sentenced felon 34 times over. That has never happened in our history. Sadly, I could go on with other tragic events of the year thus far, but I would rather focus on two instructive events that occurred in Washington D.C. this week.

On January 6, 2025 nothing bad haunted the national news. On that day, the 119th Congress certified the votes of the Electoral College without any histrionics, protests, or riots. The Vice President of the United States in her role as the President of the Senate presided over a dignified, ceremonial, and peaceful evolution leading to the upcoming inauguration of the next President of the United States. The Vice President faithfully fulfilled the Constitutional duties assigned to her and in accordance with her oath of office despite the fact that she lost to the incoming president by about one and a half percentage points in the popular vote. Quite the contrast to four years ago when a president incited a mob to attack the center of our democratic republic in an attempt to keep him in office. There was no peaceful transfer of power four years ago, for the first time in our history. In 2025, civility and the democratic process stand in stark contrast to that dark day and its aftermath. One party believes in the United States, its citizens and the integrity of elections. One party does not.

Some of you may ask why I bring this up. “It’s old news.” “Let’s look to the future and not the past.” “It was all a hoax anyway so drop it.” I bring it up for two reasons. First, we must remember that day and we all must work to prevent anything like that from happening again. Second, I bring it up because the incoming president continues to bring it up. He continues to claim that he won the 2020 election and further insults us by claiming that those that threatened to kill the then Vice President and members of Congress while seriously injuring 140 law enforcement officers (five later died as a direct result of their experiences on that day) are “warriors” or “patriots” or “political hostages” or “victims.” He vows to free them on day one. More than 1500 people were charged with federal crimes. Many were charged with misdemeanors and given probation. About 250 people were convicted at trial. About 1021 pleaded guilty before going to trial. Over 700 of the 1500 (so far) received some jail time. When taken as a whole, one either believes in our elections or you don’t. As as citizen you either believe in our judicial system or you don’t. It is not possible to decide whether it is to your liking or not when accepting the result. One may disagree, but that only means working harder to achieve the desired results the next time. We cannot rewrite history through one party’s propaganda machine. If the future president actually pardons these criminals, especially those convicted of felonies and violent crimes, then he is giving the green light to future political violence in his name. That is why we need to think about what may happen in the coming weeks and months (or days if he keeps his word, but I would never trust him to keep his word on anything). Many try to justify their support for those carrying out the coup by claiming that “no one” was punished for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests following the murder of George Floyd. First, no one in the BLM movement was trying to over throw the government and kill the sitting Vice President. Second, such claims are just plain wrong. About 17,000 people were arrested nation wide for their actions during the BLM protests and hundreds received jail time.

The other event that made me stop and ponder the state of our society and our nation was the funeral for the late President Jimmy Carter (he insisted on the “Jimmy” rather than his full name James Earl). The stories, reports and discussions of his legacy varied. I think many people in retrospect think that he was a much better president than he was given credit for at the time. One can debate his policies, successes and failures but I would rather focus on the man. No one that actually knew him — from whatever political persuasion — had an unkind word to say about him. He lived the life he preached. A man of integrity and personal honor. He promised the American people he would never lie to them as president and he did not, even though sometimes his honesty hurt him politically. Few understand what he did for minorities and the poor in our country. Much of what we take for granted today began under his watch. After leaving the presidency he did not give million dollar speeches or sit in a gilded palace or otherwise exploit his position for monetary gain. He did exploit it to help others, knowing that as a former president he had a bully pulpit that few others have, and he tried to use it for the betterment of everyone in the world. Perhaps least known but most extraordinary is that starting in 1986 he began efforts to eliminate the Guinea worm. (The worm is spread through contaminated drinking water. I will not go into the details of what it does to humans here, but feel free to look it up. It takes a terrible toll.) When he started his project there were 3.6 million cases — much of them in Africa. In 2024 there were eleven reported cases world wide.

As I heard the eulogies and listened to the greatness of the man as a human being, I could see the future president of the United States staring into space clearly unable to comprehend that someone could help another human being without expecting anything in return. To the future president, such thoughts and actions were clearly unfathomable and inexplicable. Let’s hope that I am wrong.

Oligarchs Rule! Chaos Ensues!

Posted: December 20, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This week President-elect Elon Musk killed a bilateral funding agreement negotiated over recent months between both parties in the House and the Senate. Wait. What? President-elect Musk? Didn’t Donald J. Trump win the popular vote and the Electoral College vote? Didn’t he win in a “landslide” and now has a “mandate” to do whatever he wants? Well, yes and no. Trump won the election but got less than 50% of the total vote and won by only about 1.5% of the popular vote. (The fourth smallest margin since 1960.) Not exactly the landslide that his propaganda machine is crowing about. But then, he has learned that if he repeats something long enough, people believe it. If they believe he won in a landslide then he can do whatever he wants. Simple.

As I write this, the House under Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (MAGA-LA) is trying to figure out how to keep the government open. Under current law, the federal government will run out of money at 12:01 AM Saturday. As a country, we have been here before. Somehow, in the end, the Congress finds some way to keep the government operating, although there have been increasing numbers of shutdowns this century. Whether it happens today, or this weekend, we will find out, but this one seems different. It appears we are watching the early formation of the kakistocracy that the Trump administration will oversee starting in 2025.

The reality is that Speaker Johnson cannot get any meaningful legislation passed without at least some votes from Democrats. His own party holds a very slim majority (it will be even slimmer in 2025) and the Freedom Caucus — a hard right wing faction of Johnson’s party — refuses to vote for Continuing Resolutions (CRs) under any circumstance. The Democrats now have no reason to negotiate — their position is that there already was an agreement, Johnson reneged on it, and now they do not trust anything that he says or does. Musk must be really getting off on all of it. It is fun for him and Trump.

I need not remind anyone that Elon Musk is not an elected official of any sort and has no standing in any legal capacity to do anything in the government. And yet, his roughly 70 posts on “X” caused Republicans to renege on the deal made with the Democrats. Trump himself, who acts like he is already the president even though he is not, later posted on “Truth Social” that Republicans should walk away from the deal. But they already had. Was Musk telling Trump what to do, was Trump just slow off the mark, who will be in charge of the White House come next January 20? Musk contributed roughly 270 million dollars to the Trump campaign starting last summer. He also used his powerful social media company “X” to push Trump with the voters and to disparage the Democrats. Clearly, Musk thinks he is the real power behind the MAGA take-over of the government. Lots of Republicans in the House did what he told them to do when he threatened to use his billions to “primary” them in 2026 if they didn’t kill the deal. Senator Rand Paul (MAGA-KY) even posited that Musk should be the next Speaker of the House (there is no requirement for the Speaker to be a member of the House of Representatives or any other elected position). Whether he was serious or not, several other MAGA law makers opined that it might not be a bad idea. Remember that Musk is from South Africa and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2002. He is now considered the richest man in the world but in 2010 his company was saved by a 465 million dollar loan from the U.S. government. He now has billions of dollars in contracts with the U.S. government. Yet, he wants to cut funds from programs that help everyday Americans and supports Trump’s immigration policies that would, if his campaign promises are true, include expelling naturalized citizens from certain countries. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that one of Musk’s oligarch buddies is one Vladimir Putin. What could go wrong?

Under the Trump Administration we will have a new government “of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for all the billionaires.”

We are getting a preview of things to come under Trump. In a word — chaos. Anyone that thought a second Trump term would reflect a better understanding of how to actually govern should rethink that premise. It will be deliberately chaotic. Trump’s nominees for Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Secretary of Human Health and Services (HHS) and Attorney General (AG) (as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation) are not only totally unqualified for those positions, but they all carry baggage that makes them dangerous to hold those jobs. Their proposed appointments are not based on loyalty to Trump. It goes deeper than that. It is about fealty to Trump. Total obedience and unquestioned responses to his most bizarre or revenge filled ideas. And that’s the point. Each of those four departments “wronged” Trump in his first term. The military would not go along with his desire to implement the Insurrection Act and use U.S. troops against American citizens. The Intelligence Community did not bow to his wishes and is suspect because of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. HHS embarrassed him during the Covid-19 pandemic when they discounted his most crazy ideas (bleach in the veins anyone?) The AG appointed a Special Prosecutor to investigate Trump’s crimes (an attempted coup and stealing national top secret material) and the FBI “invaded” his Mar-a-Lago club (executed a valid search warrant). He wants to destroy those institutions and rebuild them to do his bidding.

His move towards authoritarianism is clear. The real battle over the survival of our Constitution will come in January over these (and other questionable) nominees to lead our government. We are seeing the early skirmishes now over funding the government. MAGA Republicans will not hold Trump accountable. We have already seen that as they caved to his demand to undermine a comprehensive immigration bill written by Republicans and now his actions to destroy a bipartisan negotiated agreement to fund the government. The battle lines in the Senate will come when it is time to vet Trump’s cabinet nominees. Will the Senate cave to Trump’s demands, and thus give up one of their most cherished functions under the Constitution to “advise and consent” to presidential nominees and just roll over? Or worse yet, adjourn so that Trump can make recess appointments without any Senate involvement.

Meanwhile the Silicon Valley “tech bros” are contributing millions to Trump’s inauguration. Since Trump refuses to sign any ethics agreements with the federal government there is no way to know exactly how much or for what purpose that money is used. It could be going into Trump’s pocket.

The oligarchs are in charge and will make sure that they and their billionaire buddies are well taken care of in every way possible. Tax breaks, no regulation, eliminate environmental rules, the sky is the limit. For the Trump voters, they will not see any of the economic benefits that have been promised.

Whatever happens in the short term, government shutdown or not, we are seeing a dress rehearsal for the way that the Trump/Musk Administration will govern.

Exhaustion Is The Point

Posted: November 13, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

After last week’s election results, I thought it appropriate to take a step back, breath in some fresh air, and enjoy the upcoming holidays. After all, the President-elect won’t take office until next year. Plenty of time to worry about our future next year and to make the most of this time of year with family and friends. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of reading a newspaper — a real newspaper, one that is not part of the propaganda arm of the MAGA party. To my dismay, Trump is already putting into place his plans to make himself the Dear Leader.

Most troubling — and a clear signal of his intent — Trump is insisting that he be allowed to appoint cabinet officers, federal judges and other high-ranking officials without Senate confirmation. This is what is meant by a “recess appointment” and it is a clear attempt at busting through any remaining guardrails right out of the gate. Under Article II Section 2 of the Constitution, the Senate is tasked with providing “advice and consent” on foreign treaties and the appointment of “Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States” not otherwise provided for in the Constitution. To be sure, other presidents have tried to make recess appointments, especially when the Senate is not responsive to their intended appointments, and Article II Section 2, Clause 3 does give a president the power to fill government vacancies on a temporary basis if the Senate is not in session. In recent practice, the Senate theoretically stays in session even when the majority of Senators are absent in order to prevent recess appointments. I am concerned that the upcoming Senate leadership will abdicate their responsibilities as a co-equal branch of government and allow Trump free reign to appoint anyone he wants, whether qualified or not.

Trump’s intent is troubling on two levels. First, he is telling the MAGA majority in the Senate (and as of today, the House) that they must rubber stamp everything that he does. Second, it signals that he may make some appointments that are a step too far even for his MAGA controlled majority. (The recent announcement of Pete Hegseth, a Fox News anchor, as Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) may be the first test of the Senate’s loyalty to Trump.)

Additionally, it appears that Trump is attempting to circumvent the Constitution by creating government departments and “czars” that under the law can only be created and funded by Congress. Here again, given that the MAGA party controls the Congress, he may be contemplating actions that even his most ardent supporters find too extreme. Here is the type of thing to expect. Trump intends to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and give cabinet level authority to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run it. In fact, the DOGE would be more like a commission or outside advisory board that makes recommendations to the White House and the Congress, the branch of government that would have to pass the laws needed to implement the recommendations. (Musk and his cronies are giggling over the acronym DOGE because that is a nod to Musk’s cryptocurrency of choice, dogecoin, the value of which is up 150% since Musk started touting the creation of DOGE. The oligarchs are in charge.) The DOGE charter is to reshape the federal government, significantly decrease the size of the federal work force by eliminating the “deep state” and abolish “unnecessary” government departments.

More good news. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that a draft Executive Order floated to Trump would create a tribunal to review the status of all military three and four star admirals and generals. As SECDEF Hegseth would support that effort. It is advertised as firing all of the “woke” officers in the military. What it really means is that Trump and his MAGA supporters in government would expect the military to do whatever — I repeat, whatever — Trump wants. In other words, he expects the military to be loyal to him and not to their oath to support and defend the Constitution. In his first term Trump was continually furious at many of the senior leaders in the Pentagon because they would not do his unconstitutional bidding. He means to fix that little quirk of nearly 250 years of loyalty to the Constitution rather than to one man. In fact, in Trump’s opinion because military members believe in something larger than themselves and even die for it, they are “suckers and losers.” Given that, according to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) the president is immune for any actions he takes in his “core” powers, of which Commander-in-Chief is one, he can pretty much do whatever (that word again) he wants as long as he finds people with no morals, or ethics or regard for our institutions. And he has, and will, find many of them.

(Before I could publish this, Trump announced that Matt Gaetz of Florida, under investigation for allegedly having sex parties with underaged girls, is his nominee for Attorney General. Get ready for the purges.)

I am already exhausted by the idea of Trump as president, which is part of the plan. Fear and exhaustion are the tools of autocrats and dictators to keep the population in check and to weed out resistance. Democrats and moderate Republicans are caught in a trap. They believe in the Constitution and our traditions and norms and try to follow the law. MAGA folks do not. So President Biden invites Trump to the White House and promises a smooth and peaceful transition of power to the President-elect, while Trump refused to do either and fomented an attempted coup. The MAGA people expect their opponents to do the right thing so that they can take advantage of it. (I’m still wondering why those ten million illegal immigrants that each voted six times weren’t enough to give Vice President Harris the win. Maybe the Jewish space lasers malfunctioned.)

The pundits, experts and analysts have come up with a list of all the reasons that Vice President Harris lost to the MAGA crowd. Spare me. I blame the weak kneed Republicans that caved to a convicted felon, found liable for sexual assault, who fomented a coup, sold national security secrets, covered up hush money payments to a porn star and still believes that famous men have a right to grab women in the crotch. And those are just the highlights. Trump should never have been a candidate in 2016 and given all that we know after 6 January 2021 he should now be a golf caddy at a minimum security prison rather than president. The Republicans had every chance to put an end to his political career but were too afraid to stop him. History will show that Senator Mitch McConnell (KY) did more to destroy our country than any other single person because he had a desire for power greater than his own moral, ethical and professional misgivings. Shame is a word without relevance in today’s MAGA party.

There are some bright spots to give me hope. On the state level Democrats did surprisingly well even in red states. As a nation we did away with the Articles of Confederation because they were too unwieldly and divisive. Maybe a move back in that direction is in order. I always have and always will believe that your rights and quality of life under a government should not depend on your zip code but in today’s environment I hope that reasonable state governors and legislatures step up and assert themselves to protect their citizens from what is about to happen in Washington D.C. Those states will beacons of light keeping the principles of our democracy alive during a dark period of our history.

The People Have Spoken

Posted: November 6, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Yesterday the American people chose a new president for the next four years. I have been disappointed by election results in the past, but I have never feared for the future of our democracy like I do now with the election of Donald J. Trump and his mini-me J.D. Vance. I have always been optimistic about people in general and my fellow Americans in particular. That optimism has been shattered. I continue to believe (hope?) that when given a chance, individual Americans will do the right thing for a fellow human being. In the collective, however, my faith in Americans is gone. Apparently, given the results of the vote for president, the majority of Americans only care about looking out for themselves and “getting even” as aggrieved individuals and not about the greater good. Contrary to my previous opinions, as a nation, the majority of us prefer a racist, misogynistic, anti-semitic, egomaniac for president who given his resume could not get a security clearance, enlist in the military, or get hired by any self-respecting corporation. But the American people decided that he should have control of the nuclear launch codes.

There will be much hand-wringing, finger pointing and superficial analysis as to how we ended up here. I’ll let the Monday morning quarterbacks figure all of that out. My first blush opinion is one of two answers. Either the country was not ready for a woman of color as president (indicated by the fact that even in the reddest of states, 9 out of 10 of them had a majority vote to protect women’s reproductive rights and even where a Republican candidate won a Senatorial race they underperformed compared to Trump), or the majority of us wanted an autocrat for president. The truth probably is more complicated than that but the results remain the same. Our country wanted an unstable, mentally ill person as president. There is an old saying that we get the government we deserve. The people have spoken, and here we are. Many of his voters dismissed his most draconian, anti-American proposals as “jokes” or “exaggerations” or believe that the guardrails will keep him from his most dangerous actions. Personally, I think that those folks fooled themselves in order to justify their vote.

As I write, the MAGA party has control of the Senate and a good chance to keep the House of Representatives. If the MAGA party wins the House, there will be no guardrails keeping us on track, given that the Supreme Court has already said that a president is immune from prosecution. A president can only be impeached, which we all know will never happen with a MAGA controlled Congress. Scary.

The sky is not falling today. Or tomorrow. But I fear that a year from now we will be living in an America that none of us can imagine. I hope I am wrong.

My real worry is not that Trump will in fact carry out his “promises made, promises kept” pledge (so many of those promises are blatantly anti-American), but rather I am worried about the people around him who clearly have an agenda. I am not sure Trump even knows how our government works, but Vance and the Project 2025 gang absolutely do. They will meet their goals under Vance before Trump even shows up in the Oval Office about noon for a Big Mac and Diet Coke. Trump will be a willing vessel for anything that benefits him and he will not care much about anything else. Can you say “kleptocracy”? The zealots under Vance with their Project 2025 playbook are chomping at the bit to reshape our democracy to their vision. Robert Kennedy and Elon Musk as cabinet officials? Trump says “yes” and that they can do whatever they want. What could go wrong?

I am profoundly concerned, but I have not given up hope. There are millions of people that feel as I do and I do not think that we will go quietly into the night. It just is not clear to me right now as to the path forward in the darkness. But dawn always follows night.

“So What?”

Posted: October 13, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On 2 October 2024, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia released a 165 page indictment brought by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith in response to Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. This is a superseding indictment replacing a previous indictment following the Supreme Court’s decision that presidents are immune from prosecution when acting in an “official capacity.” Mr. Smith responded to that decision by arguing that Trump acted in his capacity as a candidate, not as a president, and therefore he should be held accountable for his actions. Note that the federal judge released the previously sealed indictment, not the Special Prosecutor or the Justice Department, despite accusations from Trump and his MAGA acolytes.

Most of Trump’s actions leading up to the attempted coup of 6 January 2021 are already known to us in broad terms thanks to the work of the House Select January 6 Committee. The latest indictment contains information previously unknown to the public and reveals the full extent of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, starting before voting was underway. It was a vast, multi-pronged effort at polling places, election offices, state capitals, in the U.S. House and Senate and finally through the violent attack on our nation’s capitol. The details are sobering. (Read it here.) In step by step detail, the indictment lays out Trump’s actions and the actions of those, mostly out of government accomplices, that worked to overturn the election. It lays out a timeline of events on 6 January with comparisons of specific events detailed on Fox News and Trump’s subsequent tweets, many of which were aimed at Vice President Mike Pence. When a White House staffer informed Trump that his Vice President was in grave danger (“Hang Mike Pence!”) and had been evacuated from the capitol his response was “so what?” Trump took no action to stop the violence.

“So what?”

To me that response is the essence of Trump. He cares nothing about anyone or anything unless there is a direct benefit to him personally. In his current campaign his willingness to hurt, defame or endanger innocent people has become increasingly obvious, less shielded in double speak and exceedingly dangerous.

There is every reason to believe that Trump will try to overturn any election result that does not declare him the winner. This time around, he has a willing accomplice in his Vice Presidential nominee Senator J.D. Vance (OH). Trump and Vance continue to reject the 2020 election results and to cast doubt on the 2024 election. Indeed, it has become a litmus test for MAGA supporters and politicians. One must reject the 2020 election in order to be a full fledged member of the MAGA cult. Four years later, the numbers of people claiming election fraud continues to grow rather than recede. As a result, the MAGA campaign, and those of others down ballot, are becoming increasingly autocratic, bordering on fascism, with political violence as an ever increasing subcurrent of the rhetoric. Trump’s language is openly racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic. He is dangerous.

With the election just over three weeks away, I am increasingly fearful for our democracy. If Trump wins, we are in big trouble. If he loses a closely contested result, we are in big trouble. The attempts to undermine our democracy are already underway. Consider the following few examples:

  • Filing lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina brought by Republican organizations and politicians seeking to disallow ballots cast by American citizens living overseas. The law known as the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) lays out the method for U.S. citizens living abroad to vote, and includes our military forces and their families whether overseas or otherwise away from their home states. Trump claims that this act is a plot by Democrats to “cheat” and collect illegal votes. He is trying to disenfranchise our men and women in uniform to increase his perceived chances of winning.
  • Claiming that “illegal aliens” are swarming across the border to vote for Democrats in the election. As a result, multiple states passed laws that resulted in thousands of eligible voters being purged from voting lists and enacted voting requirements that disenfranchised many Americans, especially in low income areas. It is against the law for non-citizens to vote in any federal election. The number of cases prosecuted in the U.S. is statistically zero, meaning single digit cases in some states.
  • Pushing state legislatures and courts to reject mail-in ballots. In some states, such as Pennsylvania, election officials accept ballots with minor clerical errors. The Republicans say this illegal. Similar efforts are underway in Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan. Democrats tend to use mail-in ballots more than Republicans. (I assume it is only a coincidence that these states are critical to Republicans winning the election.)

I can go on, but you get the idea. Here is the MAGA game plan as I see it.

First, challenge everything in courts. Many, many lawsuits in addition to the ones above are underway. The intent? Suppress the vote. No Republican has won the popular vote since George H.W. Bush in 1988 with the exception of George H. Bush in 2004. Trump has a ceiling on the number of votes he is likely to get, with a two time track record to prove it, so instead of getting more voters to support him, eliminate the opposition.

Second, intimidate voters in likely Democrat precincts through implicit or direct threats of violence in order to lower voter turnout. In some areas I expect to see armed Trump supporters loitering near polling places.

Third, put Trump supporters on local, county and state election boards to disrupt the counting of votes, challenge their legitimacy and ultimately to delay or outright refuse certification of the results.

Third, use state legislatures to tie up certification of election results or to even ignore the results and use alternate electors dedicated to Trump. They tried this in 2020 and failed. They have worked out the kinks.

Fourth, use Trump’s useful idiots in the House and Senate to disrupt the final certification of the results. The effort, also attempted in 2020, is to throw the election into the House. Under the Constitution, each state gets one vote. That means that Montana, with one Representative, gets the some number of votes as New York with twenty six Representatives. Currently, there are more states with Republican delegations than Democratic ones, which is likely to hold, even if the Democrats win the majority in the House overall. This is not some theoretical outcome. It was and is part of the plan. It happened once in our history. Following the 1824 election, Andrew Jackson had the most electoral and popular votes but not a majority. The vote went to the House and the second place finisher, John Quincy Adams, was elected president.

Meanwhile, Trump is using ever more autocratic tactics and vile rhetoric to undermine the public’s trust in the federal government. He and his mini-me J.D. Vance are spreading despicable lies about the hurricane recovery efforts, legal migrants in Ohio, and the citizens of Aurora Colorado to make it seem as if the government is either out of control or actually aiding and abetting illegal activity. The purpose is to sow further divisions in our country and for people to expect the worst. When it all goes haywire leading to, during, and after the election, Trump and Vance will step up as “saviors” to take over and use their “strongman” tactics to “protect” us. During Trump’s alleged seven phone calls with Vladimir Putin over the last few years while out of office, he may have been getting pointers on how to take over a government.

One area that will differ in the Trump/MAGA totalitarian playbook regards attacks on the U.S. capitol. I doubt we will see another January 6 attack in 2025 in Washington D.C. The city will be an armed camp this time around with very, very, tight security. I do expect there to be attempts at violence and other efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. I think they will be more geographically scattered but potentially even more disruptive. The attacks will come in large cities, especially with large numbers of minority voters, at locations collecting and counting ballots. Perhaps also against county and state election boards. Several state capitals will be targets as domestic terrorists attempt to change or prevent the certification of ballots. I fear we are in for a tough go of it.

So what? Lighten up, you may tell me. The U.S. is fine and we will all be okay. The guardrails of democracy will hold. The sky is not falling. I hope so, but I believe what Trump, Vance and their minions are saying. They have come to believe what they are spouting. We always hope for the best. But we need to prepare for the worst. Most demoralizing and frightening is the willingness of formerly main stream Republican politicians and leaders to just go along. There is very little to no pushback from Republicans in Congress or in state legislatures regarding Trump’s vile plans and increasingly unhinged behavior. The man is becoming delusional and people I used to think were smart and cared about our country pretend that it is not happening or have actually gotten onboard with the lies.

We can save ourselves with an overwhelming vote in support of the coalition of Republicans, Democrats and Independents that want to preserve our democracy and are voting for Vice President Kamala Harris. There are several hundred former Republican and Trump Administration senior officials who have put aside their policy differences in order to keep our democracy. Take a look at the list. It includes two Republican Vice Presidents (Mike Pence — who refuses to support his old boss — and Dick Cheney), Trump’s former Secretary of Defense, two of his former National Security Advisers, his Chief of Staff, his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his Director of National Intelligence, former cabinet officials, security officials, ambassadors, generals, admirals, and on and on. These are the people that Trump claimed were “the very best people” who saw him up close and personal and do not want him anywhere near the White House ever again. We can overcome the efforts of the autocrats to install Trump as the Dear Leader. Every vote counts. Let’s keep our democracy.

Make America Hate Again

Posted: September 17, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“We’re in the process of taking this country back. We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.”

— Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation, primary author of the Project 2025 plan

Thank you, Kevin, for exposing just how violent a second Trump Administration will be. A more direct threat to democracy can rarely be found than exists in the sentiments behind this exclamation. We are supposed to let autocrats have their way with our democracy, and if we resist, then they will use violence to get what they want.

I intended to write a piece outlining the dangers in Project 2025 (found here: https://www.project2025.org/policy/) as exemplified in their roughly 900 page playbook called Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (found on the same website). It is intended as the foundation of policies to be implemented by the next Trump Administration and is wildly un-American. But check it out for yourself. Trump and his campaign loudly complain that he has no connection to the project and knows nothing about it. Which may be true, because I doubt that Trump has read any policy documents either as president or as a candidate. Regardless, at least 140 former Trump administration and campaign officials worked on the project including six former Cabinet Secretaries, four nominated Ambassadors and his former deputy chief of staff.

Instead of going blow by blow through the radical ideas espoused as future policies, the bigger picture is important as we see the stark differences between the campaigns of the two major party nominees. Project 2025 is really about people. There is a cliche in Washington that “personnel is policy.” To implement their plan, the forces behind the project intend to use a presidential Executive Order to change the status of over 10,000 government jobs from civil service positions to political appointees, firing all of those long time government employees. This is the way they plan to eliminate the “deep state” and put in place people that have pledged their support to Trump, not to the Constitution, whatever they may claim. This is the key step to creating an autocratic regime. If he is the president, Trump plans to pull in all independent and semi-independent departments, agencies, and commissions and place them under his direct control. The intent is to weaponize the government to go after those that he thinks are his enemies and to pursue policies that personally benefit him.

There will be no more guardrails to uphold our democratic tradition. If you think I am exaggerating, think about this. The Supreme Court this summer declared in Trump v United States that the president is immune from prosecution for any official act taken in office. They did not delineate the extent of “official acts” (a problem, but they left it to themselves to decide in the future what constitutes an official act). They did say that it was inherent in the Constitution that a president was immune from actions taken under the “core powers” delineated in that document. They also articulated two important additional cracks in the guardrails. Any official act is still immune to prosecution even if the president did not have any evidence of malfeasance or simply had bad intentions when, for instance, ordering the Attorney General to prosecute any of his political opponents. Additionally, they declared a president’s right to pardon anyone as “absolute.” Thus, the then thought ridiculous example of a president ordering SEAL Team Six to kill his political rivals and then pardoning them is no longer ridiculous, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion on the case. The president would be immune from prosecution because one core power is his ability to control the military as commander-in-chief. Remember that Trump wanted to use the Insurrection Act to put down demonstrators through military force and to help to keep himself in power in January 2021. Now he will be immune if he tries it again.

The Supreme Court, in my view, is no longer a trustworthy guardrail. Besides, does one really think that in the future Trump will abide by a Supreme Court ruling he does not like? Especially with a bureaucracy behind him that has only one goal in mind, keeping Trump in power? His favorite president is Andrew Jackson who ignored a Supreme Court decision in the 1831 case of Worcester v Georgia. The result was the “Trail of Tears” or the forcible relocation of Native Americans to western reservations. To me that sounds just a little too close to Trump’s promise to round up millions of immigrants, put them in camps, and then send them “back.” The courts in general are suspect when a Trump appointed federal judge threw out the case against him for stealing top secret war plans, nuclear information and other classified documents. Not because of the facts of the case but for some unprecedented legal finding about procedure that legal scholars had no idea was a thing. We are on flimsy ground.

Personally, I think that there are actually three campaigns underway. It is not Democrat vs. Republican vying for the presidency. It is a coalition in favor of democracy (quite the big tent when it stretches from Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA) to former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney) led by Vice President Kamala Harris against the MAGA autocrat wannabes led by Trump. The third campaign? It is the not-so hidden agenda of the Project 2025 folks that want to take our country back to a time when women stayed home in marriages (whether or not they were loved or even safe) to raise kids, minorities knew their place (and it wasn’t in positions of power or even voting), and rich white Christian males ruled over all. Sometimes benevolently, most times in their own interest. This group’s standard bearer is Senator J.D. Vance (OH) the Vice Presidential nominee.

Trump is merely a figure head for the movement. Trump is only interested in making money and keeping himself out of jail. He will do anything the movement wants as long as he keeps the trappings of the presidency (he really likes being called “Sir!”) and anything that helps him personally. He has no real policy agenda, merely a collection of slogans and insults. Vance is the hit man. He was the personal choice of those behind the Project 2025 movement. They were over the moon when he was selected as the Vice Presidential nominee precisely because he was firmly in their camp, would pick up the slack when Trump is writing love letters to Kim Jong Un, actually run the government (with the new tens of thousands of devotees in place) and, let’s face it, Trump is an older man in generally poor mental and physical health, and should he not finish out his term, J.D. is ready to go.

How millions of Americans support a man running for the presidency who is a 34 time convicted felon, been adjudicated as a sex abuser, twice impeached for abusing his office, led a multi-pronged conspiracy to overthrow a free and fair election to keep himself in power and tells lies with real consequences such as the suffering in Springfield Ohio where he lied about the legal immigrants in that city, is beyond me. I honestly cannot get my head around it. We know they are lies because this week on the Sunday talk shows good old J.D. said so. “If I have to create stories” to get attention from the media then, he promised, he is going to continue to do so. (From watching him on TV I’m not too sure how quick on his feet he may be. The first rule of fake news is to deny that it is fake news.)

Trump is totally and completely unqualified to even be mentioned in the same sentence as “president.” He could not enlist in the military and he could not get a security clearance given his background. Yet, here we are. The real story is the one many Americans are too sanguine to believe. They think that because we saved our democracy in 2021 that we will always have it rather than thinking about how those that tried to hijack our democracy have now had some practice and four years to get it straight. The danger is incremental and thus harder to identify. As a student and as an adult I always thought about how Germans in the early 1930’s allowed their democracy to be stolen. It did not happen over night. It was years of small changes and diminished freedoms until suddenly it was too late. And, no, I am not comparing anyone or anything to the Nazis. At least not yet. More like the fascists in Italy in the 1930s. We need to recognize the danger and especially take a close look at that second campaign using Trump as their cover. Those folks are not going away even if Trump loses the election. Besides, the whole lot of the MAGA/Project 2025 crowd are already telegraphing that they will not accept any outcome other than their own victory. It isn’t going to be pretty.

I worry when I hear things like this. A news reporter asked a group of voters in a focus group about Trump’s pronouncements that he will be a dictator on day one and that after this election we won’t have to vote anymore and all the other statements he has made that he will rule as an autocrat. The focus group’s consensus was that worries about losing our democracy are just hyperbole to “scare” people and are just Democrat’s campaign talking points. They concluded that as long as they could vote, we would have a democracy. Hmmmm. I suppose Russia really is a democracy along with the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Not only do they vote but they even have the word “republic” in their country’s name!

What could go wrong?

A Summer of Disarray

Posted: July 25, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

July traditionally is a quiet month for American politics and politicians. Washington D.C. is hot and humid and the Congress uses the time for vacations, family time and to raise money. This year, not so much.

This summer has been a tumultuous time in Washington and throughout the nation. Foremost among the events of the past weeks, of course, is the abhorrent attempted assassination of an ex-president and current major party nominee. Thankfully, Mr. Trump was not seriously wounded. Unfortunately, an innocent bystander named Corey Comperatore was gunned down and two others in the grandstand were seriously wounded. The shooter used America’s favorite mass murder weapon, an AR type assault rifle. As of today, his motive is unknown. While many radicals tried to declare a political motive for the shooting, there is as yet no evidence to support any theory of why the shooting occurred. Remember that the shooter that seriously wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981 was motivated by his efforts to impress a young movie actress. The worst mass shooting in American history took place in Las Vegas in 2017. That investigation has yet to define a motive for the shooter who killed 60 people and wounded 413. Likewise, we may never know the motivation for the Butler Pennsylvania shooting. We do know that such actions are the antithesis of what we want America to stand for. Political violence is never justified.

Days after the attempted assassination the MAGA Party held their national convention. Mr. Trump and Senator J.D. Vance (MAGA-OH) are now the official nominees of their party for president and vice president. Seemingly, the shooting had little impact on the course of the MAGA party as our nation heads for the election in November. The hateful rhetoric and draconian plans to reshape America by returning to the past, and all that that means for women, minorities and non-Christians remain intact. I am still dumbfounded that one of our great political parties are all in for a convicted felon, found liable for sexual harassment and defamation, who cheats in his business, steals our nations deepest secrets to show them off, and for the first time in our nation’s history fomented an insurrection to keep himself in power rather than effect a peaceful transfer of power from one president to another. Any one of these actions would preclude a potential recruit from entering the military. No one with that record could qualify for a security clearance in the United States. Indeed, most corporations would not hire a person with that record. Yet, millions of people want to entrust this man with the future of our nation.

Perhaps the course of history was changed in an even greater way when President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek a second term as president. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and in an astonishingly short period of time, she consolidated her support and is now considered the presumptive nominee for President of the United States for the Democrats. Last night President Biden gracefully and eloquently explained his reasons for stepping down, outlined his focus for bringing to fruition more of his policy goals over the next six months, and provided a vision for the United States and the future of our democracy. In the tradition of past presidents Democrat or Republican, he explained that the United States is an “idea.” Unlike most nations that are based on culture, religion, ethnicity or other unifying traditions, we are a nation built by the diverse people of our great land, not the politicians. Public servants should want to gain office to reflect and to assist our collective aspirations as we continually strive to attain a “more perfect union.” American citizens do not exist to fulfill the ambitions of one man. President Biden correctly and clearly explained the stakes for all of us looming over the upcoming election. One party has crowned its nominee as the individual ready to unilaterally change the nature and traditions of our nation, while giving him a “mini-me” as the vice presidential nominee, a man willing to be even more draconian than the ex-president. President Biden’s party is devoted to maintaining our democratic republic. The differences could not be more stark.

Putting together the larger picture outlining our summer of disarray includes inexplicable Supreme Court decisions that light a torch to burn up the concept of “settled law” that all of the current Justices swore was an integral part of any decision they would make. Other judges, such as one in Florida, are making up the law as they go along to help one man in his aspirations to take over the country. As we learn more about the contents of the blue print for a Trump second term known as Project 2025 and reflected in their party platform approved at their convention, we see just how draconian their plan actually is. All of these issues and more deserve fuller explanations and an understanding of their impact on our democracy. I hope to dive into them in the coming days. The picture is bleak, unless one believes that the majority of our fellow citizens prefer to look to the future and resolve our differences rather than go backward in a storm of lost rights and personal retribution. I am optimistic that the majority of us do want to move forward and will not give in to autocracy once the issues are clearly delineated and the ramifications of their subversive language are fully understood. It will not be easy, but failure is not an option.

More Than A Jury Verdict

Posted: May 31, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Yesterday was an historic day for the United States. For the first time in our history an ex-president and presumptive nominee for president of a major political party was convicted by a jury of his peers on thirty-four counts related to election interference, the violation of election laws, and the attempt to cover it up — all felonies.

That the rule of law prevailed, proving in a previously untested way that we are, in fact, a nation devoted to the rule of law and not to the rule of men is significant. No one is above the law. Personally, I take no joy in these thirty-four convictions. I thought that the evidence was there, and to be candid, I would have been disappointed if the now convicted ex-president had once again avoided responsibility for his actions, but I would still have been proud of the way our system of laws worked. Those twelve jurors were able to carry on in the traditions that we all say we believe in as Americans. They put aside their biases, experiences and personal beliefs to listen to the testimony and evidence presented and then unanimously came to a conclusion. Guilty. So it seems that we should pause and consider what just happened. It is sad that an ex-president is a convicted felon. It is a proud day that the system worked.

The convicted ex-president reacted in his typical fashion whining that the system was “rigged” that the proceedings were a “sham,” etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum. The same old, same old. Except that it hit me that there is a bigger picture here that is truly frightening. This is Trump being Trump. It is also Trump, and his toadies and sycophants in the MAGA Republican party telling us that they want to destroy our democratic republic and rebuild it in their own image. Trump would be nothing if he did not have his acolytes vying with each other to out do themselves in debasing their own morality and in trying to help him tear down our rules, norms, and way of life. Note that not one of his defenders actually defends Trump. Not one of them claims that he is innocent. Instead they attack the system and work to undermine the public’s faith in our institutions. Not even his biggest flunkeys defend his actions. They only see him as their way to power and if that means destroying our way of life, then so be it. Shame is a dead emotion in today’s MAGA world.

Too much? Consider this. Trump uses the same language over and over to attack our elections, free press, and now the judicial system. All of them are “disgraceful” or a “sham” or “rigged” or any other word from his limited vocabulary. He constantly talks about how our country has “gone to hell” or that our country is in “serious decline” or that “we have a country that is in big trouble.” Over and over and over. Classic techniques of fascist propaganda. But let me allow the convicted ex-president to speak for himself with these quotes from his campaign speeches. Again, he repeats nearly the same things over and over:

“We will demolish the deep state. We’ll expel, we’re going to expel, those horrible, horrible warmongers from our government. They want to fight everybody. They want to kill people all over the place. Places we’ve never heard about before. Places that want to be left alone.

We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake-news media until they become real. We will evict Joe Biden from the White House, and we will finish the job that we started better than anybody has ever started a job before.“

In other words, call yourself a victim, blame it on the “vermin” that are not like us, and promise to destroy the institutions that stand in the way. And now he calls himself “a political prisoner.” An insult to our system and it trivializes those real political prisoners being held in places like Russia.

The thirty-four count felon ex-president is finally being held accountable. It only furthers his rage and inspires him to go further and further into the dark side. Politicians that know better like the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (second in line for the presidency behind the VP for gosh sakes!) says that Trump’s conviction is “a shameful day in American history” and called for the Supreme Court to “step in” to overturn the conviction. Senior Republicans only became ever more deranged with their comments. Senator Ted Cruz (TX) said of the conviction that “this is a dark day for America. This entire trial has been nothing but a sham.” Senator Marco Rubio (FL) called the proceedings the “quintessential show trial. This is what you see in communist countries” and without a hint of irony, given his Cuban family roots, compared the conviction to what happened in Castro’s Cuba that “led to executions.” There is so much more but it saddens me too much. These are supposed patriotic Americans that willingly debase themselves in the service of one man.

That is where we are in today’s United States. I firmly believe that a majority of Americans see Trump and the MAGA movement for what it is. The upcoming election will not be a referendum on two different sets of policies or who is too old to serve or any other issue. It will solely be a choice between a man that wants to protect and preserve our democratic republic and one that will burn it all down in order to give himself the power to glorify himself.

I am proud of our twelve fellow citizens who recognized their sacred and solemn duty and did their best to live up to the ideals of our country. This was no ordinary verdict.

Immigration — MAGA Style

Posted: April 6, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals. They’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re not humans, they’re animals.'”

“On day one, we will terminate every open border policy of the Biden Administration and begin the largest deportation in American history starting with all of the criminals pouring in. Our local police will tell us where they are.”

— Donald J. Trump, Green Bay Wisconsin on 2 April 2024 referring to immigrants

Unfortunately, by now we are, perhaps too much so, used to the vile rhetoric of the presumed Republican nominee for president. The problem is, it is not just rhetoric. He and his minions that will populate the cabinet of a second Trump Administration are serious about doing exactly what he says. It is not rhetoric, it is a plan of action. Stephen Miller, Trump’s former senior adviser in the first administration, is in line to assume another senior position in a second term and will support Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and push harsh immigration policies to end what he calls “the equity cult.” For those that think such talk is an exaggeration or a fiction created by the media, may I recommend some light reading in the form of the Project 2025 900 page policy book Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. Chapter Five addresses immigration and other Department of Homeland Security issues. As a reminder, Project 2025, under the leadership of the Heritage Foundation, lays out the “Playbook”, policy, personnel, and training for a MAGA take over of the federal government. It is no joke. In 2016, Trump and his supporters were ill-prepared to lead and did not have a deep group of supporters to place in key government positions. It will be different if there is a second time around.

Immigration is a legitimate issue. Democrats agree that measures must be adopted to ease tensions on the border and to better handle the influx of peoples from around the world. They even worked with Republicans to come up with, according to both Democrats and Republicans, the most comprehensive immigration reform measure in the U.S. in at least forty years. Trump said no and his MAGA acolytes shut it down. They are not interested in solving the problem, merely exploiting it as a campaign issue. They have their own plan.

When Trump and his loyal henchmen talk about “the largest deportation in American history” what do they really mean? He and his future government officials look to the 1954 U.S. government deportation effort known as Operation Wetback as their guiding light. That is not the slang term for it, that is the official name of the operation. One can already tell that if a racial slur is involved, it is probably not going to be an easygoing methodology for returning immigrants to their native lands. To date, it is the largest deportation effort in U.S. history involving as many as 1.2 million people (the exact number is unclear as some people were deported more than once). The intent was to remove Mexican immigrants from the U.S. through wide-scale roundups of people, many of whom legally entered the U.S. and some who were actually U.S. citizens, and loading them on buses, trains, planes and ships to unceremoniously dump them in Mexico — often in areas totally unfamiliar to those being deported. It is a lot easier to do this if one believes that Mexicans are “not humans, they’re animals.” At the time of Operation Wetback, Mexicans were portrayed as “dirty, disease-bearing and irresponsible” here to “steal jobs” from Americans. Sound familiar?

The genesis of the operation is a bit complicated. During World War II, the U.S. suffered from a labor shortage as our citizens joined the military and worked in war production factories to stave off fascism. In 1942, the U.S. and Mexico agreed to implement the U.S.-Mexico Farm Labor Program also known as Operation Bracero. In exchange for guaranteed wages and humane treatment, farm workers were legally allowed into the country on temporary visas. Between 1942 and 1964 an estimated 4.2 Mexican workers entered the country legally to work in the Operation. Unfortunately, but still the norm today, some employers did not want to pay the agreed upon (higher) wages under the program, especially in Texas. Conversely, the Mexican government did not want their laborers working in Texas due to the deep discrimination against, and ill-treatment of, Mexican citizens, so Texas was not included in the Bracero program. (Most of the legal workers went to California.) However, Texas did import significant numbers of Mexican workers — illegally and at significantly lower wages — to which the federal and state governments turned a blind eye for many years. (The undocumented immigrants were said to have swum across the Rio Grande, thus the derogatory term “wetbacks” which came to be used as a racial epithet for any Latino worker.)

By 1953 the economic aspects of Texas farmers paying their workers substantially less than those in other states created an unfair advantage. Besides, many Americans were tired of being “over run” by Mexican immigrants whether they were legal or not. Initially the plan called for the National Guard to be used to conduct massive round ups of people (also what Stephen Miller wants to do in 2025). President Eisenhower rejected that plan citing the Posse Comitatus Act which precludes the military from civil law enforcement. In 1954, the Border Patrol under Harlon B. Carter and the Immigration and Naturalization Service under General Joseph Swing used their own agents in military style raids to sweep farms and factories and other locations employing the workers. Many were kept in the desert in wire fenced “concentration camps” while awaiting deportation. Some had their heads shaved — supposedly for hygiene purposes but really to humiliate those in captivity. Lives were uprooted, families separated and some Mexican workers died under the conditions they suffered after being rounded up and held awaiting deportation.

This is the model that MAGA Republicans promise to emulate — nay, exceed — as they promise to round up “the animals” and conduct the “largest deportation in American history.” When asked in a 2016 CNN interview if he thought that Operation Wetback was a “shameful chapter in American history” Trump replied that “some people do, some people think it was a very effective chapter. It was very successful, everyone said. So, I mean, that’s the way it is.” It most emphatically should not be the way it is.

Israel – Hamas War

Posted: March 28, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The war between Israel and Hamas rages on as it passes the six month mark. Starting with the horrific and brutal attack into Israel on 7 October 2023, it has been a ferocious conflict. Now is the time to assess the policies involved and to reevaluate what Israeli war aims may be.

In so doing, two underlying assertions are necessary. First, Israel had and continues to have, every right to defend itself and to respond to the terrible attack that killed over 1200 innocent Israelis in October in order to preclude future attacks. Second, criticism of Israel’s government or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies are not in themselves anti-Semitic, just as criticizing President Biden’s policies does not make anyone anti-American.

As the war continues with much of Gaza destroyed and approximately 1.7 million Palestinians displaced, no clear war aims have been articulated by Prime Minister Netanyahu. As announced to date, their goals are the destruction of Hamas, the infrastructure supporting their rule and terrorist activities, and the release of the hostages. These are not political solutions. Killing every member of Hamas is not possible. Indeed one could argue that current Israeli actions in Gaza are only ensuring another generation of pro-Hamas fighters, or at least anti-Israeli fighters. The only way to ensure that every member of Hamas is eliminated is to kill every male over the age of twelve.

Hamas war aims are simple and are the mirror image of Israel’s. Kill every Israeli and destroy the Israeli state. They have no means to achieve their war aims. Israel does.

Israeli Defense Force (IDF) spokesmen claim that they have “dismantled” twenty of the estimated twenty four Hamas battalions in Gaza. Assuming this is true, dismantled is not the same as eliminated. The command and control function of the organization is clearly degraded, if not destroyed, but guerrilla operations can continue indefinitely with groups of four or five fighters using hit and run tactics. From a fighting perspective, as I have explained in other, earlier posts, the loser decides when the war is over. If the enemy does not stop fighting, then the war continues, even if by conventional standards one side “won.” The IDF does not give detailed information on troop movements but has said that only two divisions of the IDF remain in Gaza, down from the original five that attacked into Gaza at the war’s start. All of the reserve units are said to have stood down and gone home — partly because those forces are no longer needed and partly because the economy of Israel was suffering with so many workers away from their jobs. A casual look at the situation in Gaza today indicates that the Israelis have won, but yet the war continues.

Indeed, Prime Minister Netanyahu plans on expanding the war by attacking Rafah, a city in the south of Gaza that is the primary location of the displaced Gazans from the north, especially from Gaza City, which will be discussed further below.

Although IDF troops on the ground are significantly fewer, air operations continue at a heavy rate. Bombs and drone strikes are a part of life in Gaza every day. Exact numbers of casualties are difficult to confirm as the IDF does not supply certified numbers of either their own or Palestinian losses and the Gaza Health Ministry — the source providing the number of Palestinian casualties — cannot be fully relied upon. That said, the international consensus is that over 32,000 Palestinians have died so far in the war with roughly 100,000 wounded, mostly civilians. There does not seem to be much consideration for collateral damage (civilians killed or wounded) in the indiscriminate bombing of areas such as Gaza City. The IDF is a modern, well-equipped, well-trained force. In the early stages of the war perhaps it was necessary to destroy civilian infrastructure to attack the Hamas infrastructure, especially Hamas tunnels that are said by the IDF to run for 350 to 450 miles under Gaza, using schools, mosques and other civilian structures as nodes. The current situation appears to preclude the need for mass bombings as a means to their ends and more pinpoint targeting could reduce the number of civilian casualties. So far, that does not seem to be happening, raising concerns in the U.S. and elsewhere that the Israelis are not just hunting down Hamas, but that they are punishing Palestinians in Gaza for “allowing” Hamas to carry out its terrorist attacks. Such indiscriminate attacks also calls into question the status of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Mass bombing puts the hostages in danger. One stated war aim is to recover all of the remaining 134 hostages (some of whom are known to already be dead), and yet only two have been rescued by the IDF. Three hostages escaped and tried to surrender to the IDF but were shot and killed while approaching IDF positions. (An additional 105 hostages were released in a prisoner exchange last November, four were unilaterally released by Hamas.) Are the hostages also collateral damage?

Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly stated that the IDF was preparing to attack Rafah, on the Egyptian border, to eliminate remaining Hamas forces. Rafah has 1.4 million Palestinians living there, many are refugees from the north living in dire circumstances in tents. The U.S. position is that Israel cannot attack Rafah without creating an even greater humanitarian crisis and any military operations must wait until a plan is put forward as to what to do about the people living there. Recently, Mr. Netanyahu agreed to send members of his government to Washington D.C. to explain the plan to the U.S. (That trip was canceled over a disagreement about U.S. votes in the U.N. Security Council calling for a cease fire, but it was just announced that now the trip is back on.) The seeming disregard for the plight of the Palestinians is the source of a growing rift between the U.S. and Israel and the cause for the growing number of protests around the U.S. in support of the Palestinians. (Unfortunately, there are protesters that are ignorant of the situation in the Middle East, its complications, and the fact that Hamas started the war. Sadly, there are also some folks that are just plain bigots.)

Israel has every right to root out Hamas to ensure the survival of Israel and to protect its citizens from further terrorist attacks. The issue is more a question of how it should be done. As a democracy concerned with human rights and as a full citizen of the international community, Israel must also consider the plight of the innocent children, women and men that are not members or supporters of Hamas but are suffering greatly from a lack of shelter, food, potable water and medicine. That should be part of their plan as well. To date, it is not, other than to allow some (too few) aid trucks into the Gaza strip as well as some air dropped supplies, also ineffective compared to what is required.

There is a growing rift between the Israeli and U.S. governments that I do not find surprising. Israel absolutely depends on U.S. political and military support. Much of their military equipment and ammunition comes from America. U.S. policy since President Truman is to support Israel and that policy of support has only grown stronger with time. That does not mean, contrary to some opinions, that Israel is a puppet or client state of the U.S. Our leaders do try to influence Israeli leaders but in the end, Israel is going to do whatever they want to do, whether or not it coincides with U.S. policy. Some of their decisions actually run counter to U.S. desires and can in certain circumstances actually hurt U.S. interests. Period. Blaming the Biden Administration or any other entity for what Israel is doing in Gaza and calling for them to stop it is not realistic. They are going to do whatever they want. As a result, some in government believe that we support Israel to a fault — arguing that support to Israel is critical, but not when it also undermines our own national interests.

Complicating the political elements of this crisis is that Prime Minister Netanyahu heads a far right government with members of his cabinet pushing for total Israeli control of Gaza and the West Bank — where even as the war in Gaza continues Israelis are settling in and pushing Palestinians out. Mr. Netanyahu will seemingly do anything to satisfy his far right coalition and thus remain in power. Prior to the outbreak of war, many Israelis were openly protesting his policies as being too extreme. His support throughout the population was rapidly eroding. Mr. Netanyahu also faces probable criminal indictments when he leaves office — an incentive to stay. Israelis will support him while the war continues, but it is widely expected that when elections are finally held, he will be voted out of office. If one were cynical, it could be that the war is good for Mr. Netanyahu’s personal fortunes.

So back to the original question. What are Israel’s war objectives? Put in other terms, what is the desired end state of the war? What does the solution look like?

The answer is nearly universal in the international community. The only way to reach a safe and secure status quo for both Palestine and Israel is a two state solution. A safe and secure Israeli state and a safe and secure Palestinian state encompassing Gaza and the West Bank. It will take years, billions of dollars and a lot of finesse to reach that point, but in the end, the U.S., Europe and much of the rest of the world see it as the only way to achieve a permanent. long term solution.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition right wing ultra-nationalist government roundly reject a two state solution.

On one level, it is understandable that Israelis would be skeptical that having a stable, sustainable, productive Palestinian neighbor would ever be achievable. Decades of experience tell them otherwise. On another level, those right wing ultra-nationalists in his government see Gaza and the West Bank as ripe for Israeli expansion and settlement. To them, the only way to secure the area is to occupy it themselves. While Mr. Netanyahu has not stated such an intent, he has indicated that Israeli forces will be in Gaza for some time to come. No other long term end state or political solution has come forward from his government. Israel may be in Gaza for years to come. The question is whether or not they put settlers there and turn it into a de facto Israeli satellite as they are doing in the West Bank. First, where do the Gazans go? Secondly, such a move would likely break U.S. and European unqualified support for Israel. Not abandonment, but it will cause a significant strain on our relationship and it will be irrevocably altered.

The Biden Administration in conjunction with our friends and allies has been working hard over these last months to resolve the long term tensions in the region. Many nations are willing to help to rebuild Gaza and to promote stability. Most importantly, there are increasing indications that Gulf Arab states along with Saudi Arabia are willing to step up to provide the money needed to rebuild and to support a new (as yet undefined) Palestinian government to replace the current Palestinian Authority that nominally holds power but has no practical way to govern. To get the Arab states actively involved in a peaceful solution will be a game changer.

Now is the time to lock it all in. A coalition of the willing can be put together to rebuild Gaza, provide security against a resurgent Hamas and provide increased security for all involved. It could be the dawn of a new age in the region. It could mean a new relationship between Israel and its neighbors. Israel could find itself allied with Saudi Arabia as a counter to block Iranian adventurism. There are lots of possibilities that would have been inconceivable in the recent past.

It will take years of patient negotiations and small, confidence building steps. It will take billions of dollars. It will not be easy as there are many bad actors that prefer the chaos and bitter conflict. None-the-less, it is in everyone’s best interest to try.

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