The Epstein Files

Posted: July 30, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As Donald J. Trump continues to reign over his kakistocracy — have you noticed that he has the least competent members of his Cabinet in the most important roles — and to pursue affirmative action for white Christian males, you may have noticed that over the last couple of weeks he has been distracted by what are now commonly called the Epstein Files. Unfortunately, this is not the name of a new television program or a new Netflix series. It is short hand for the investigation into the people that may have been involved with an infamous sex trafficker who exploited girls and young women and who died in jail by committing suicide. The news cycles have been full of developments surrounding the evolution of the entire caper and in particular, Trump’s level of involvement with Epstein. The subject repeatedly comes up in Trump’s constant interaction with the press reporters that cover the White House, including during his taxpayer funded — at a cost of at least 10 million dollars — trip to Scotland to promote his businesses and to play golf.

I will attempt to explain the current situation and why it continues to dominate the headlines, but first, I must lament that all of the coverage surrounding the Epstein Files crowds out important developments that impact all of our lives. Trump and his administration continue to implement the tenets of Project 2025 and to attack the First Amendment ability to express one’s beliefs and opinions without fear of retribution. He is systematically going after the media, the education system (especially colleges), law firms, the judiciary and any other person or institution that dares to criticize him. More than that, he is working hard to establish that anything that upsets him, in any form, or that does not reflect his own view of the world is to be attacked, eliminated or otherwise punished unless they bend the knee to his highness. It is pure Mafia tactics. “Nice little university you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.” 220 million dollars and the installation of a government overseer seems to be the current price for getting out from under his attacks. Just ask Columbia University. Or soon, Harvard at a cost of 500 million dollars. Oh, and let’s not forget that Trump demanded that Texas redraw it’s map for districts for the House of Representatives to give the Republicans (MAGA) five new seats — meaning the Democrats lose five — and the state legislature did just that.

I could go on and on. Please keep an eye on the ball as to the destruction of the norms and values of our country as we dive into the abyss of the Epstein Files. I would not go into this territory were it not for the fact that it exposes the dark corners of MAGA land, and for once, it is Trump’s own supporters that will not let it go. It may be the first time that I know about that Trump might not be able to con his way out of trouble. May be.

Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier that ran in the fancy circles of power, money and prestige in the U.S. and elsewhere. He was also perhaps the world’s biggest child sex trafficker. His convicted accomplice is Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving twenty years in jail for child sex abuse as the recruiter and procurer of under age girls for Epstein. Epstein was first arrested in Florida in 2008 and pleaded guilty to procuring for prostitution a girl under the age of 18. He got what was considered a sweetheart deal of 18 months in the county jail on a work-release program. The prosecutor in that case who agreed to the plea bargain was Alex Acosta who later became Trump’s Secretary of Labor during his first term. Epstein was arrested a second time in New York in 2019 for sex trafficking of minors. He committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial. Please note the dates. Despite Republican politicians attempts to blame Presidents Obama and Biden for the whole mess, note that President George W. Bush was president when Epstein was first arrested and sentenced and Trump was president the second time he was arrested and committed suicide.

Nice people. The evidence suggests that Epstein and Maxwell abused hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand, young women and girls from around the world. Pure evil. Of Epstein’s many friends, one was Trump as can be seen in many videos and photographs of the two together. To date, no one other than Epstein and Maxwell have been indicted or convicted of partaking in their crimes. However, to many MAGA believers, that is a problem. In their eyes, there must be a massive cover-up. More on that in a moment. Many MAGA podcasters and others spent years focusing on the Epstein case as a major source of criticism of Democrats and the “elite.” Of those people, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino were front and center stoking the conspiracies behind the Epstein case. They are now, respectively, the Attorney General of the United States, the Director of the FBI and the Deputy Director of the FBI. They all promised to release any and all documents and information relevant to Epstein and to expose the cover-up for what it was. Ooops. Not so fast. According to the Wall Street Journal there are numerous mentions of Trump in the files. So, the DOJ and FBI announced that there was really nothing of value in the files and therefore they would not be releasing them.

Cue the fire storm. MAGA land went ballistic. Trump had betrayed them. So far, everything that Trump the con man has tried to do to change the subject has either made it worse or did not work as a distraction. Right now the world’s greatest con man is running scared that he cannot change the narrative. Here’s why.

Remember that I do not make this stuff up. I am not sure that my imagination is good enough to come up with the following. From my perspective, there are two levels of MAGA folks that are riled up about the lack of transparency about Epstein. There are the hard core MAGA believers that think the world is run by a cabal of pedophiles that are rich, powerful and secretive. Sometimes referred to as the “elite” sometimes as the “deep state” sometimes both. The deep state is not just the civil servants in the government that always foiled Trump in his first term. They are, but in the sense that they do the bidding of the real deep state that controls all of our lives and are never held accountable. Think Pizzagate in 2016 where code words, satanic symbols and other clues indicated that Democrats (sometimes Hillary Clinton) had a secret underground lair in a neighborhood pizza shop in the Washington D.C. area where pedophiles feasted (in some tellings, literally) on young children. A man from North Carolina shot up the place in an attempt to break up the pedophile ring. (No such ring existed. Only pizza.) These folks think that Epstein was part of that world. (Part of the Trump administration policies and actions is to wrest control of our institutions, government and civilian, in every walk of life, from the elites. He is doing it for his own power, but it satisfies his base to claim he is doing it for them.)

The second level of Epstein conspiracists do not quite match the level of depravity that the hard core believers do. However, they do think that there is a class of people that get away with things that ordinary citizens cannot. The elites control outcomes in many of our lives and the ordinary person cannot catch a break because all of the best outcomes are hoarded and controlled by the elites. Think of it as Pizzagate light. They are not necessarily into the pedophilia and really dark aspects of the really deep conspiracies but they do believe that they never get a fair shot.

Trump promised to expose all of those people controlling the world, expose their networks, their plots and bring them all to justice so that the MAGA faithful will have their retribution (his campaign promise) and finally get a fair chance at “the good stuff.”

He was to be their savior. Thus the Christian overtones and appeals to the Evangelicals. He survived the assassination attempt because God chose him to be the one to bring light to all of the darkest secrets. It gets complicated, but you get the idea.

For him to now say that “there’s nothing to see here, move along” means either that he betrayed the MAGA faithful or that he, in fact, is one of the elites and is trying to protect himself or them or both. He either lied when he said that he would release all of the files or he lied when he said that there is nothing in them. Which then begs the question that his followers now ask, if he lies about this what else is he willing to lie about?

It has taken me quite a while to comprehend all of this. I am not sure that I do now. The attempt to over throw the government? No big deal. Adjudicated sex offender? Rigged. Prices continue to go up? We will survive. The war in Ukraine did not end in 24 hours? Not our problem. I could go on and on but his true blue followers allow or explain away all kinds of things that impact them daily that Trump promised and never delivered. But the Epstein Files? Traitor!! Their existence is at the center of everything they believe and at the center of the way they view the world. If they do not exist then what are they to think?

The con-man-in-chief is now trying to figure a way out. So far, it is not working. It is his supporters that are after him the most. Democrats and other never-Trump folks are happy to keep bringing up the subject but he still cannot assuage his supporters. (The Democrats have to be careful not to pin it all on Trump. They should push to have the files released and then let the chips fall where they may, even if some prominent Democrats or their supporters are revealed in the files.) The Democrats are working to have the files released and have proposed legislation to have it happen. Republicans are caught in a bind. The solution? Shut down the House of Representatives and send every one home until September — even though there was still important work to do — as the Speaker of the House did last week. I guess he hopes that it all blows over by then.

Trump is getting ever more desperate. He is calling the whole thing a hoax — his go-to attack. But if it is a hoax then why did Epstein and Maxwell go to jail? Why have hundreds of victims asked for justice? Then, he tried the move to ask the courts to release the grand jury testimony. I am not an attorney, but my understanding is that only very rarely happens in specific cases and it takes a very long time to make it happen. And that testimony would be very narrow. Only enough to get an indictment on Epstein and Maxwell. It would not include all of those that might be involved. A stalling tactic? We are trying but those darn judges are standing in our way again. Then he sent the Deputy Attorney General of the United States to interview Maxwell over two days at her prison. Also unheard of in proper prosecutorial practice and procedure. By the way, the Deputy AG was Trump’s personal attorney prior to joining the administration and is good friends with Maxwell’s attorney. Coincidence? Oh, and did I mention that Maxwell is a known liar officially charged with perjury? And that Trump keeps hinting about a pardon or commutation for her? Could this be a diversion to make Maxwell’s testimony a substitute for releasing the files? And why has no one asked the victims about all of this? Trump has expressed no concern or empathy for the many victims. Indeed, he speaks about how Epstein “stole” one of “his” employees. According to his own telling, Trump broke up with Epstein for stealing his employees, talking about them as if he owned them. He doesn’t say anything about breaking up with him for what he was doing to the girls. Trump has made many other weird statements that indicate he doesn’t seem upset about what was going on. (One of the employees was a 16 year old girl at the time that worked in Trump’s spa at Mar-a-Lago. Hmmm.)

I have no idea how any of this is going to end. I tend to think that Trump will survive without serious consequences as he has his entire life. But then, he has never been attacked by his own supporters before. Meanwhile, we are all talking (well, a lot of people are talking) about the Epstein Files while Trump and his minions continue to turn our country into an autocracy.

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.

The Enemy Within

Posted: August 6, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

— Maya Angelou

For quite some time, I have been trying to figure out why nearly all of the elected officials in the Republican Party are okay with a budding autocrat, are okay with defiling their oath to the Constitution, are okay with an insurrection at the Capitol, and are okay with disenfranchising millions of Americans. I thought that surely there must be more than a handful of them that are true to their American roots, laws, institutions, and fundamental beliefs. I could not put all of the pieces together as to why they were undermining America — but I knew that it had to be about more than just politics, fear of being “primaryed” or some cult-like belief in an ex-president. It started to click with me this week due to a number of independent, but related analyses that I came upon.

This is my attempt to put it all together in a coherent way without getting too lost in the weeds. To me, it is critical that those of us that have not been privy to the real motivations behind the shenanigans of the last year understand it. Otherwise, I fear that we will lose our Republic and democracy.

I assert up front that the ex-president is not the be all, end all of the Republican Party that many think that he is. He finds the Republican Party to be a useful tool for his own aggrandizement and the Party finds him to be a useful tool to achieve their agenda and to reach their goal of “saving” the United States. (More on that in a moment.) It is a union of convenience that is mutually beneficial, but only as long as they both see that the means are moving them to the desired ends.

The picture became clearer to me after reading The Big Money Behind the Big Lie in The New Yorker Magazine by Jane Mayer. The well researched and documented article caught national attention because it details the sources of millions of dollars that are helping to keep the Big Lie alive and is being used by numerous right wing organizations to push state legislatures across the country to pass election laws that disenfranchise millions of non-white voters. Worse, many of those laws give partisan office holders or state legislatures the ability to override the will of the people if the vote doesn’t go the way that they want it.

The sources behind the money are scary enough, but what caught my eye was why they were doing it, and suddenly some of the pieces started to fall into place. It is complicated, and in my view, un-American, but that is not how they see it and they have the money, the ability, and most importantly, the will to shape our country to their view of the future if they are not stopped by a national elections law.

Ironically, today, 6 August is the anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 designed to reinforce and make real the provisions of the 15th Amendment. Thanks to current efforts in the wake of the Supreme Court severely crippling that Act in the 2013 case Shelby County v Holder, the historical bipartisan approach to voting rights is no more. The path to our current situation is long, but more direct than it may seem.

The supporters of the ex-president point to the 2000 Supreme Court decision in Bush v Gore, the case that in practice gave the 2000 election result in Florida to the Republican candidate resulting in President George W. Bush becoming our 43rd President. (The “hanging chads” election.) As I am neither a Constitutional nor legal scholar, my shorthand as interpreted by the ex-president’s supporters is that in his concurring opinion, Chief Justice Rehnquist, joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas, said that the state legislature can be the final arbiter of the rules governing an election. This is the first step in the Big Lie and the subsequent attempts to cancel Electoral College votes and thereby send the election results back to the state legislatures to resolve. Their approach is further aided by the murky Electoral Count Act of 1887 which was designed to clarify the mess created in the presidential election of 1876 where Rutherford B. Hayes is said to have stolen the presidency after a back room deal to end Reconstruction. Unfortunately it is full of exploitable provisions.

All that is to say that there are ways to challenge the results of a presidential election, there can be objections to particular Electoral College results, and state legislatures can get involved in the process. Fortunately, this time around, cooler heads and steadier hands prevailed and the 2020 election was not corrupted. But that is not the end of the story.

For many people, the Big Lie is true. To them, it is true in this sense. Their “America” is a white Christian nation. White Christians overwhelming voted for the 45th president. As Ms. Mayer points out in her article, anyone else is not American, therefore they should not be allowed to vote. Thus, the election was “rigged”, “stolen” or whatever else they want to believe. This argument is given a voice by Tucker Carlson of Fox News (and others) when he claims that “the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate of voters now casting ballots with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World. That’s not democracy. It’s cheating.” (More on Mr. Carlson as the spokesperson for this way of thinking and pushing the movement in a moment.)

What could be the worst outcome for people with these beliefs? A black president. With his election, President Obama embodied the America that those pushing the Big Lie cannot abide. As he voiced support for policies celebrating diversity in every area of society (gay marriage, transgender rights, increasing numbers of minorities in positions of power, etc.) those that espouse the belief that there is only one America and it is white were apoplectic (try a google search of the filth directed at the Obamas). In their view, this can never happen again.

So. How to “fix” this problem? Create an autocracy. With a white male Christian as “president.” If not Trump, then someone like him. (See Florida and Texas for governors trying to out Trump, Trump.)

How to get there? Actually rig the elections. Stack the deck. Make it nearly impossible for anyone except the designated autocrat to win the election. Gerrymander districts, suppress the voters you don’t want to vote, give state legislatures the power to pick their own Electors, in other words, make it nearly impossible for anyone but a “true” American to win the presidency or to gain a majority in the Congress.

Sound far-fetched? Not in the United States? Take a look around. It was a very near thing this time. The tactics, techniques and procedures have been refined under fire. It will work better the next time, if given the chance.

Just like Trump tells us what he is going to do before it happens, so do his supporters across the land (they try, but fortunately don’t always succeed). It is happening in plain sight. As Maya Angelou said above, “believe them.”

One more data point for your consideration. Tucker Carlson, the Fox News “personality” is in Hungary this week, broadcasting from Budapest. This is another piece of the autocracy puzzle. Mr. Carlson is the leading cheerleader in the U.S. for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Those advocating for an autocratic America see Hungary as the model. They claim to be a democracy, but Mr. Orban has usurped all of the levers of power in the country, from the legislature, to the courts, to the press. Elections are held, but under the rules gradually implemented since he took power in 2010, it is impossible for any but his own party members to be elected.

Mr. Orban is also anti-immigration and anti-Muslim. He argues that he is the last bastion in the West for preserving the culture, language and traditions of the “original inhabitants.” Sound familiar? Mr. Carlson went so far in his broadcast last night as to opine that Hungarians are freer in their nation than Americans are in ours. It gets worse from there, but you get the idea.

Normally, I would not give Mr. Tucker the time of day. I think that he is a cancer on the American soul. But as the famous Sun Tzu saying goes, “Know thy enemies and know thyself: in a hundred battles you will never be defeated.” We need to know the hate that Mr. Carlson sells in order to understand where millions of Americans are coming from. Mr. Tucker is upfront as are many of the Big Lie supporters. They say it out loud. An autocracy that preserves American “values” is better than American democracy.

The advocates of election “reform” and disenfranchising Americans are moving ahead at full speed. Without immediate action on the Voting Rights Bills in the Congress, the game may be lost. It’s all there. The wannabe autocrats know what they are doing and are laser focused. The response needs to be equal to the challenge.

The Ugly Facts

Posted: April 16, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In the course of this crisis created by the coronavirus I have been pulling for the federal government to step up and fulfill its duty under the solid direction and knowledgeable leadership of the president.  I have given up hope that it will happen.  This leads me to wonder whether Donald J. Trump is the worst president in our life time or the worst president ever?  In my opinion, he is the worst ever.

Many historians compare Mr. Trump to President Herbert Hoover who is universally considered one of the worst.  He took no action to avert or to mitigate the Great Depression putting all of his faith in the capitalist system and the ethos of the survival of the fittest.  Indeed, he vetoed a 2.1 billion dollar relief bill (about 38 billion in today’s dollars) because it was full of “pork” and what he considered to be unproductive jobs such as federal works projects.

But Mr. Hoover is not considered the absolute worst.  That honor generally goes to President James Buchanan who favored the expansion of slavery and did nothing to stop southern states from seceding from the Union, resulting in the Civil War.  Mr. Buchanan, rest easy.  You are no longer the worst.

Where to begin to count the ways that Mr. Trump has earned this accolade?  To me there is one over-riding fact that cannot be ignored.  The greatest country on earth with the best health system in the world has the largest number of identified COVID-19 cases and the largest number of deaths.  In. The. World.  People are dying.  Over 32,000 Americans have lost their lives as I write this.  It isn’t theoretical anymore.  How can this be?  It is the result of the president’s dithering, lies, inaction, and a congenital need to be the center of everything but the leader of nothing that got us to this place. Precious time was wasted as the president told us it would magically go away.  Over the weekend, two newspapers laid out time lines of what the government knew and when they knew it.  As Mr. Trump told us it was all under control, dire warnings were relayed to him. People tried to take action and he stopped them.  He wants credit for stopping travelers from China from entering the U.S., a necessary but not sufficient action.  He fails to mention that after he declared the border shut, roughly 40,000 people entered the U.S. from China.  He then wasted nearly two months during which serious action could have been taken.  Thank you Mr. Trump.

Beware.  It will get worse in so many ways.  Two important areas of concern are his attempts to do away with all of the safeguards of our democracy and the other is his foolhardy need to “open up for business” in two weeks or less.  He cannot be trusted.  As one pundit put it, to Mr. Trump, truth is an adversary.

Some examples of his intolerance for criticism or oversight include the fact that there are 14 Inspector General (IG) positions vacant in the U.S. government.  Infamously, Mr. Trump fired the IG for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) because he did his job and followed the law in forwarding a whistle blower complaint to Congress.  In the short term, Mr. Trump demoted the IG in the Department of Defense who had been chosen by his fellow IGs in the government to oversee the recently passed stimulus package. Now there is no one. There are no Senate confirmed officials in the entire ODNI.  All have been fired or pushed out.  Mr. Trump likes “actings” as he calls them, because they do not have to answer to the Senate and he can make them do his bidding.

Yesterday he threatened to adjourn Congress by presidential decree so that he can appoint more “actings” without Senate approval and thus do away with all oversight from Congress.  This on top of his claim during his live melt-down on camera Monday that “when somebody is president of the United States your authority is total.”  Clearly he thinks he can run the entire United States like he ran the Trump Organization by just sitting in his office, talking on the phone and telling people what to do with little to no input.  Only, as he says, based on his “gut.”  Speaking of guts, where are the elected Republican members of Congress?  Why is there no rebuke to a president that wants to be an autocrat and is actively working in that direction?

More importantly to many Americans, is the question of how do we address this dual nightmare of a staggered economy and a virulent pandemic?  I do not trust the president to do the right thing.  I never thought I would write that.  I have disagreed with many past presidential policies over the years, but I always at my core thought that while I disagreed with them, they were doing what they fundamentally thought was good for our country.  Not so with Mr. Trump.  He does only what he thinks is good for him.

He is desperate to take credit for anything positive that takes place — such as putting his signature on relief checks to appear as if he, the benevolent monarch, is personally giving away money and not that it is tax payer money — while contorting himself into grotesque statements attempting to blame anyone or everyone for his massive failings.

Here is the ugly truth.  Many people, including the president, do not understand what flattening the curve of this pandemic actually means.  He misleads us on what mitigation means.  The steps that we have all taken to wear masks, practice social distancing and to stay home only buy time.  The coronavirus does not magically go away on 1 May or any time until there is a cure or a vaccine.  This idea that everything will be normal and no one else will die is the biggest lie of all.

Study the curves for yourself.  Most models do not go beyond sometime early this summer.  What do you think happens when the restrictions are lifted?  The number of sick and dying sky rocket.  Study the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920.  Even a cursory review reveals that many of the same mitigation efforts that we are using today were used then.  Cities like St. Louis and San Francisco had very strict regimes in place.  Cities like Philadelphia did not.  The differences in death totals is staggering between the two extremes.

How did it end?  When people built up a natural immunity or died.  There was no vaccine.  Just as we have no vaccine now.

Our current measures are designed to buy time.  Time to get sufficient treatment spaces and medical equipment in place to treat those infected.  Time to figure out the best way to treat the virus.  Time to develop a vaccine.  Time to build up our ability to test vast numbers of people.  Time to put a system in place to identify hot spots, isolate those specific people impacted and stop the virus from spreading.

So far we have none of those things and we won’t have them on 1 May.

A very difficult decision lies ahead.  It could be a year or more before all of those necessary conditions are in place.  Our economy cannot continue as it is for a year.  How many lives should be lost in exchange for restarting the economy?  I don’t know. There are those that argue that we should just let the virus run its course.  If hundreds of thousands die, so be it.  It is the natural resolution to the crisis. Just as with the Spanish flu pandemic, one builds up an immunity or you die.  Then it’s over.  Somehow I cannot bring myself to believe that we as a country want or accept that.

So what to do?  In the short term, the emphasis should be on saving lives.  As we try to restart the economy it should be in very small steps in a localized way.  As the saying goes, “build a little, test a little.”  Be prepared to try new ways of doing business.  In every step it will be necessary to be ready to acknowledge that it didn’t work, or that it was too much too soon, and adjust.  When it does work, build on those lessons learned.

I do not think that Mr. Trump is capable of that kind of leadership.  He has already earned his place in history as the worst president ever.  I fear that he will work hard in the coming weeks and months to cement his standing as the worst leader our country ever experienced.

Democracy Under Attack

Posted: February 25, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

Following his Impeachment Trial, Mr. Donald J. Trump became predictably vengeful and embarked on a revenge tour.  He is now systematically using the power of the presidency to invoke his personal wrath on anyone that did not faithfully and fully support him — personally — rather than doing their duty and supporting their oath to the Constitution.  The purge will only end when the Trump regime is fully stocked with Trump loyalists, regardless of their ability to handle the job, personal background, or knowledge of anything related to the job.  For the most part, expect it to be the “B Team” — or maybe more like “F Troop.”

Mr. Trump is taking another page out of the Autocracy 101 text book.  We should not be surprised.

Recently, I was referred to an article in the New York Review of Books by Masha Gessen.  Titled Autocracy: Rules for Survival it provides six rules based on living much of her life in autocracies and becoming an expert on Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  Ms. Gessen is much better at explaining herself than I could ever be — it is worth the time to read the original — and her November 2016 article is stunningly prescient in predicting Mr. Trump’s behavior in the years following his election.

In brief, these are the six rules.

  1. Believe the autocrat.  They always tell you exactly what they are going to do.  Mr. Trump exhibits this behavior.  What some consider to be exaggeration, hyperbole or “Trump being Trump” is actually him telling you what he is going to do.  Or at least what he wants to do if he can figure out a way to get away with it.  I first observed this trait in Gulf War I where I was involved in a group tasked with the formulation of a policy and a strategy to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and to restore a semblance of order in the Gulf region.  With study, it became obvious that he was telling the world exactly what he intended to do — or what he would try to do — but you had to peel away the bombastic language to fully understand what he was saying.
  2. Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.  When things seem out of control, the smallest sense of normality tends to soothe people’s concerns.  We all need reassurances.  When things are at their worst, anything that makes it seem as if the situation is temporary and that it will all be okay in the end is a salve that may hide the wound rather than heal it.  What is happening today in our country is not normal.  No one-off State of the Union speech or any other glimmer of normal presidential behavior should mask the fact that 99% of the time our president is out of control.
  3. Institutions will not save you.  American values are based on ideas like a free press, an independent judiciary, Congressional oversight of the Executive Branch and leaders within the government protecting the Constitution for all Americans.  It takes about two seconds to recall that Mr. Trump fires anyone that stands up to him, constantly debases members of the media, attacks judges that do not do want he wants, and always succeeds in getting the formerly Republican members of Congress to acquiesce to his every whim.  Mr. Trump and his regime took a steam roller to the established norms of government and continue to test the limits of the law in every corner of government.  There are no longer any safety barriers keeping the regime within safe boundaries.
  4. Be outraged.  While many of us may no longer be surprised by statements and actions from Mr. Trump, one needs to continue to be shocked.  Do not normalize bad behavior especially when it threatens the fabric of our democracy.  Be prepared for ridicule when continuing to call out such awful behavior while others continue with their mantra that it is just Trump being Trump.  As he himself calls it when belittling those that critique him, be prepared for accusations of suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.  Be prepared for unpleasant attacks from his most ardent supporters.  Do not back off.
  5. Don’t make compromises.  So many former Republicans, especially in the Senate, predicted that Mr. Trump as president would be the worst thing that ever happened to our country.  After three years of his presidency they are now his most loyal and fervent supporters.  Their support is not necessarily a re-evaluation of his competency or ability or vision, but rather it is a compromise of their own values in order to retain power.  Mr. Trump is no different than the person they ardently decried during the campaign.  Those around him have changed.
  6. Remember the future.  Mr. Trump, his regime, and Trumpism cannot last forever.  Look to reform our institutions in order to restore the foundations of our democracy.  Put into law what we as a country previously took to be accepted norms of behavior that our leaders would honor.  Work to project a new vision for our country that is inclusive and that addresses the problems that Mr. Trump was able to cynically manipulate for his own purposes.  Stay in the game.

In the every day course of our own lives it is possible to lose sight of the big picture attack on our democracy.  It’s hard.  Frankly, it’s exhausting.  It is easy to lose oneself in areas outside of politics because it is just so relentlessly Trump.  Every gosh darn day there is some new Tweet or speech or rally that saps all of the energy from one’s soul when it is clear that he has no idea what he is talking about.  Nearly 17,000 documented and provable lies during his presidency numbs the soul and becomes normalized.

And that is the plan.

Autocracy thrives on indifference or exhaustion or just turning it over to the regime and letting them take care of it all as long as my day-to-day life is not impacted.  Mr. Trump and his regime are interested only in themselves and in the amassing of personal power.  Period.  Anything else is a sales pitch presented in the moment to get a cheer or to attack an opponent or to appear to care.  Remember that fundamentally, they don’t care about you or me or the rule of law.  Only themselves.

It is up to us as citizens to stay vigilant and to call out the fouls when we see them.

 

No Pesos, Just A Hoax

Posted: February 16, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Yesterday’s announcement by Mr. Donald J. Trump that he is declaring a national emergency on the southern border is just one more step towards creating the autocracy that he so desperately wants to have.  After two years of total Republican control, and no “big, beautiful wall,” and no money from Mexico, Mr. Trump puts our Constitution in danger in order to shore up his political standing with his base. An overblown statement on my part?  I think not.

As I have written in this space before, one may believe that we do or do not need a border wall, but the facts remain the same.  There is no crisis on the border and a wall is not going to stop the flow of people or drugs into this country.  You can look it up as I did in my previous piece using the statistics from Mr. Trump’s own administration.  Mr. Trump, as usual, makes up his own statistics in order to make a case that his own administration cannot make.  But the Constitutional issue is bigger than Mr. Trump’s usual panoply of lies.

The law that the president is using to justify his declaration is known as the National Emergencies Act (NEA) signed into law by President Gerald Ford in September 1976.  Ironically, it was intended to end the abuse of the presidential power to declare a national emergency for just any political purpose.  Enacted as a reaction to the Watergate scandal the intent was to eliminate the opportunity for presidential abuse of power to protect themselves from political scandal.  The law itself is quite complicated.  Its originators tried to tie together the elements of presidential prerogative to specific situations covered under existing laws.  Without going too far into the weeds, Mr. Trump is using Department of Defense funds for his wall because of an existing statute that allows for redistribution of funds for the protection of military personnel on assigned missions.  There are military personnel on the border — ordered there by Mr. Trump but in purely supportive positions — and thus he argues that the wall will protect those troops.  It is a complicated interpretation of the law, but as I am not a legislative assistant nor an attorney, I will leave it at that.  The point is that the president cannot just wake up one morning and declare an emergency for the fun of it — or at least until now it was thought that they could not — rather, the actions taken under a national emergency must be justified on the basis of existing law.

The DOD funds are primarily from military construction funds and intended for use in improving military support infrastructure, restoring hurricane damage to bases in North Carolina and Florida and other projects.  Ironically, some of the money will come from a fund used by DOD for counter-drug operations.  In all he is misappropriating over six billion dollars of DOD funds.

The act has been used 59 times over the years by various presidents.  Most instances were to impose sanctions on a bad actor overseas, such as to inhibit a dictator from killing his own people.  One was declared after Iraq invaded Kuwait and another after the terrorist attacks of September 11th.  It was these types of acts that the legislation envisioned giving the president the ability to act quickly in a crisis.  Most importantly, none of those previous declarations directly or indirectly circumvented the intent of Congress. This one does.  The president is directly challenging the power of Congress to control funding for the first time under this provision.

That is why I believe his declaration to be a threat to the Constitution.  A bicameral and bipartisan committee came up with legislation to fund the government that included roughly 1.375 billion dollars for Mr. Trump’s wall.  The bill passed with veto proof margins in both houses of Congress.  That should be the end of the discussion for this year.  If Mr. Trump wanted more money in the future, he could work with Congress to add more money in those spending bills.  However, in a fit of pique that he got less money this year than he would have gotten if he had not shut down the government for 35 days — and way less than the 25 billion dollars that Congress was willing to give him a year ago in exchange for protecting the “Dreamers” — the “greatest deal maker in the world” declared a national emergency to build a monument to himself and to bolster his chances in the 2020 presidential election.  But don’t take my word for it, take his.  Besides having talked about a “national emergency” for months and trying to use it as a threat to get Congress to give him more money, yesterday in response to reporter’s questions about why he did not just continue to work with Congress under normal appropriation and authorization processes, he said, “I could do the wall over a longer period of time.  I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”  Wow.  So the president himself admitted that there is no national emergency, merely that he got tired of working with Congress and making slow progress,  In other words he chose expediency over the national interest.  He then went on to say, “And I don’t have to do it for the election.  I’ve already done a lot of wall for the election.  2020.  And the only reason we’re up here talking about this is because of the election…”  Double wow.

So we have the President of the United States, invoking a national emergency, bypassing a bipartisan funding bill from the Congress, because he wants money to build a wall faster in order to appease his base for the 2020 election.  That is one thing about Mr. Trump.  He doesn’t hesitate to tell us when he is doing something shady.

In case you forgot, Article One, Section 9 of the Constitution says in part, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”  Article One enumerates the powers vested in Congress.  Section 9 is the “power of the purse” reference that is the strongest element of the power invested in the Congress.  Since the president cannot spend money except for specific purposes, the Congress can exert its power as a co-equal branch of government.  Without that power in Congress, the president and his Cabinet could spend money on any enterprise they see fit without over sight or other input from Congress.

Besides Mr. Trump’s Banana Republic shenanigans in creating a non-existent crisis to deploy troops and to build a wall to stop a non-existent “invasion” (Autocracy 101 Playbook), Constitutional experts consider his actions to be a direct threat to the Article One powers of the Congress.  He would set a precedent that any time a president has a pet project that the Congress will not fund, he or she could declare a national emergency and take money from one authorized project and use it on an unauthorized one.  It is an unabashed abuse of presidential power.

How to stop it?  The NEA of 1976 provides that opportunity.  A 1985 amendment allows for a joint resolution of Congress to end the emergency.  Again, without going into the weeds, it requires a simple majority in both Houses to overturn it.  Provisions require a speedy vote so that legislative legerdemain cannot bury the issue.  They must address it if a bill is brought forward.  The president may veto the resolution, in which case the Congress must over ride the veto with a two-thirds majority in both Houses to end the emergency.

It is widely expected that such a bill will come forward in the Democrat controlled House of Representatives where it is expected to pass.  The chances of the bill passing are less certain in the Republican controlled Senate.  Speculation is that it would pass on a majority, but that the Senate would not over ride a veto.  Keep in mind that the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Trump-Ky) was against the president declaring an emergency before he was for it.  Just a few days ago he was against it.  Then on Thursday he took to the Senate floor to say that he supports it.  So much for his reputation as an ardent supporter of the Constitution and the self-appointed protector of the Senate and their legislative powers.  Perhaps he should re-label his position as the Senate Leading Enabler.

When the Congress fails to stop the madness, numerous court cases are likely to be filed.  The basis of those cases will range from Constitutional separation of powers issues to eminent domain cases (it seems that most land owners along the border are not willing to give up their land for a meaningless wall).  Whether or not the issue makes it to the Supreme Court is itself a question.  The Supreme Court may consider this to be an issue between the other two branches of government, and they are historically loathe to make a decision that favors one or the other when it comes to delineated powers.  They want them to solve it themselves, which seems logical since the Congress can pass laws to restrict or rescind the original Act, including the above voting procedure to end a national emergency.  What is certain is that it will be working through the courts for months, possibly years, to come.  The immediate question will be whether a court issues an injunction to stop any building of the wall using misappropriated funds while the court cases play out.  And you can expect every brief opposing the action to begin with Mr. Trump’s statement that he didn’t need to do it.

In some ways this is an esoteric issue.  In some ways it is a comedy of the absurd.  It is hard to follow the nuances of the law and the Constitution.  It gets complicated.  Mr. Trump has a knack for putting things into black and white to try to make his points, even if he lies to do so.  The country cannot afford to ignore him or to look away this time.  To cut through the legalese, I’ll put it this way.  The President of the United States is using a hoax to usurp the Constitution of the United States.  He is making a pure power play that if allowed to stand will set a precedent for him, and future presidents, to act without restraint to achieve their purposes whether legitimate or not.  It is the beginning of a president gaining unfettered power.  This is not hyperbole on my part or an over reaction from those that are anti-Trump.  Read up on your own, form your own opinion, but the consequences are not whether we build a wall.  The issue is whether a president can skirt the law and get away with it.  That should be of grave concern to anyone that believes that we should be a country of laws and that no one, not even the president, is above the Constitution.