Trump Hates Me (And Maybe You Too)

Posted: July 7, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“But I hate them, too. You know that? I really do, I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country, you want to know the truth.”

— Trump referring to Democrats at a “Salute to America” rally on 3 July 2025

I am still trying to figure out how I morphed from being a moderate, maybe slightly left of center on social issues, into a “lunatic” and a “radical left Democrat.” I don’t feel any different today than I did, say, a year ago. Maybe I am just not self aware. Or maybe the President of the United States does not care about half of the citizens of those same United States. Or worse. Perhaps he is radicalizing his followers into committing acts of political violence so that he can promote his own autocratic agenda.

Whether or not you believe this is “just Trump being Trump,” his increasingly violent language has consequences. He calls undocumented immigrants “scum” and “animals” and “people with bad genes” among many other, even worse, characterizations of other human beings. There is a long historical record of how words used to vilify “others” eventually always leads to violence. Increasingly, it is apparent that Trump has an agenda to depict our country as under attack from “within” by people that, as he says, “hate our country.” Apparently, eventually or tomorrow, I am one of those people. Imagine my surprise! He is only six months into his term. He has three and a half more years to continue to implement his autocratic plan. Am I fear mongering? I don’t think so — and I am certainly not doing it on purpose — but to me, the evidence is there.

Trump has figured out that all he has to do is demand that something happen and refuse to back off when dealing with our institutions. His cabinet, in my opinion, is filled primarily with sycophants that are too busy designing photo ops to impress the boss, rather than running their departments. There is no pushback. Other institutions seem to take the same approach, impress Trump by giving him what he wants and hopefully he will back off — which of course no bully ever does if they keep “winning.” Whether it is the party formerly known as the Republican Party, Congress, the Supreme Court, institutions of higher learning, corporations, tech bros, or countless other groups, they cave. If the guardrails are still there, they are hanging on by one slightly rusty bolt. Perhaps some state governors and legislatures continue to do the right thing and to follow the law, but it isn’t clear to me how long they can keep it up. When the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) goes to California for a photo op with the National Guard and combat Marines protecting Los Angeles from a non-existent threat, there are already warning signs. When she declares “We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country” as she did on 12 June 2025, there is an imminent threat to our democracy. Like them or not, the governor of a state and the mayor of a city are duly elected representatives of their constituents. The DHS cannot implement a coup d’etat just because they disagree with an elected official’s legal policies.

Mass deportations are underway. When will they stop? Who knows, but given the pace of things and impotence of the Congress and the willingness of the Supreme Court to do Trump’s bidding, I expect them to continue to expand. When due process is not enforced, and apparently it isn’t really being enforced except in a few publicized cases, and masked men without identification can whisk anyone away off the streets with no restraints, we are already living in a police state. What is to stop it from expanding to others that merely disagree with this administration? When the president declares that he hates half of the country, what he is really saying is “fall in line or else.” I worry about the “or else” for the citizens of our great country.

With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Trump has a para-military force (ICE) that is bigger than the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Agency, Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service combined. Add to that the use of the military in the form of federalized National Guard troops and combat Marines in Los Angeles. But why stop there? The Trump administration is deploying 200 Marines to Florida to “help” ICE and has approved plans for deploying up to 700 Marines in Florida, Texas and Louisiana. Think about that. They are gradually increasing the numbers and locations of combat Marines throughout the United States. I seriously doubt that that will be the end of it. Coming soon to a city near you! The U.S. Marines! We should be so thankful. Believe me when I tell you that the Marine Corps absolutely does not want to do this. It impedes their readiness and training for, you know, their actual duties (the Marines are an expeditionary force to, as they like to say, “kick open the door” for the other services in foreign combat — hopefully they will not soon be kicking open my door), not too mention it uses Department of Defense (DOD) money that could be better spent elsewhere and takes those Marines away from their families, when they already have precious little time to spend with them to begin with.

I do not have a good feeling about the 2026 elections when the president declares that Democrats are unpatriotic and hate their country, with increasing numbers of troops deployed around the country, with a Department of Justice (DOJ) that is Trump’s personal law firm, and other warning signs. Trump continually debases our country and rants about how dangerous it is. What assurances do we have that the 2028 election won’t include Trump? Here is my “canary in the coal mine” concern about upcoming elections. Neither Trump nor his MAGA supporters in Congress seem to care about the political damage the OBBBA and other policies are causing. In what might be considered normal elections, the “Republican” party would be likely to take heavy election losses turning Congress over to the Democrats. They seem totally unconcerned about that — especially Trump. Why?

As Trump and his cronies continue to dismantle the federal government, from the National Security Council to our health care institutions, to environmental agencies, to education agencies, to just about anything you can name, Trump and his fiercest loyalists are consolidating power under the Executive branch. He likes to say that he loves Article II (of the Constitution) because I have “the right to do whatever I want as president.” Constitutional experts would disagree, but let’s look at the evidence. The Supreme Court says the president is immune and only they can rule on whether what he does is Constitutional or not. His Project 2025 minders continually tell him that he is the ultimate decision maker on almost everything. Truthfully, who has stopped him?

Here is the kicker. The following is a peek into the future for us and the current mind set of this administration.

Remember Tik Tok? The scourge of the youth of America? The one that was banned by a bipartisan vote in Congress, signed into law by the president and upheld in a 9-0 decision by the Supreme Court? Trump continues to ignore the law. He continues to give Tik Tok extensions for its sale, even as he campaigned that it was a tool of the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Americans. Stay with me, yes, who cares about Tik Tok, but here is where it gets scary.

Attorney General Pam “Whatever You Say Boss Barbie” Bondi declared that the president can decide which laws to enforce and further more, she declared that the companies carrying Tik Tok can continue to do so “without incurring any legal liability” and that DOJ was “irrevocably relinquishing” any legal claims against them for their actions.

How did she decide this? Quite simple actually. She declared that shutting down Tik Tok would impinge upon Trump’s “constitutional duties” because the law interfered with his “unique constitutional responsibility for the national security of the United States, the conduct of foreign policy, and other vital executive functions.” Hmm. If they will do this because Trump thinks Tik Tok helped him win the 2024 election, imagine what lawless lengths they will go to to do what they want, much less to interfere with any future elections.

I am sorry to be so negative. I see what is happening (and more) and worry greatly about the future of our democracy for our kids and grandkids. I see too many comments that “it can’t happen here.” It is already happening here and increasingly Trump and his loyalists are more and more brazen about it. I remember back in the fall when a voter focus group was asked if they were worried that we would lose our democracy under a Trump presidency. They all said “no.” Why? Because as long as we can vote we will have a democracy, they declared. To that I can only ask if they mean like in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), or like Russia, or like the People’s Republic of China (Communist China) or numerous other countries where the people vote, but they definitely do not have a democracy?

No one pays attention until they are impacted. By then it is too late.

The End Of A Peaceful World Order?

Posted: February 19, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”

— Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally in Conway, South Carolina referring to another member of NATO threatened by a hypothetical Russian attack.

In recent days there have been both unserious and serious attacks on the stability of our national security policies and the international norms that have helped to stabilize the world order for nearly 75 years. The unserious attack is the foolishness surrounding the Republican majority in the House of Representatives impeachment (by one vote, on their second try) of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. According to the Articles of Impeachment Secretary Mayorkas “willfully and systematically failed to comply with immigration laws” and therefore “demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national and border security.” Three House Republicans voted against the impeachment and numerous prominent Senate Republicans considered the entire process to be a sham, including Senator Kevin Kramer (ND), a Trump ally, who called it “the worst, dumbest exercise and waste of time.” The House has passed nearly nothing else of significance during this session and recessed for a two week vacation after the impeachment vote without taking up important and substantive bills regarding our national security. By all objective accounts, this was purely a political stunt to satisfy the radical extremists in the Republican Party and to assuage Trump. Secretary Mayorkas will almost certainly be acquitted in the Senate, if they even hold a trial. (They may refer it to committee for investigation and never have it come forward.)

The serious attack is courtesy of Trump and his MAGA acolytes in the House. During his first term, Trump continually threatened to leave NATO. He is reported to have told the president of the European Commission in 2020 that “NATO is dead” and that the U.S. would “never” come to help Europe were it under attack. He reiterated his 2018 threat to quit NATO. His remarks in South Carolina continue to reflect his disdain for treaties and alliances as well as his ignorance on how they work.

Perhaps a little background will help. As we know, NATO was formed in 1949 to counter the threat to Europe from the Soviet Union. The original twelve members consisted of European and North American countries resolved to stop Soviet expansion in Europe. Today it consists of 31 countries — soon to be 32 when Sweden joins this year — allied in a mutual defense pact. NATO has taken on political and economic roles over the decades, in addition to its core as a military alliance. Despite the MAGA and Trump criticisms that many NATO countries do not pay their “dues,” NATO is not a club and the members do not pay dues. There are some cost sharing administrative expenses and enrichment funds but the reality — and what the MAGA crowd is talking about — is that each country pledged to spend at least 2% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on its own defense. Throughout its existence, not all nations met that obligation. Several past presidents pushed European nations to meet that goal. In 2014 under President Obama the organization agreed that countries not spending 2% of GDP would start increasing their defense budgets. Today, 18 nations meet or exceed (by the end of the year) the 2% goal. We must also be realistic about which countries can meet the requirement. Countries such as Luxembourg and Iceland with small populations and small defense forces are unlikely to ever meet that goal. It helps to know what you are talking about.

NATO is not some kind of protection racket where you “gotta” pay the U.S. or we won’t help you. “Nice little country you’ve got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

The heart and soul of NATO is found in Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty. The article requires every member of NATO to come to the aid of any other member subjected to an armed attack. Article Five has been invoked only once, by the U.S. after the attacks of 11 September 2001. Significant numbers of forces were deployed by eighteen NATO countries under NATO command in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Several countries suffered killed and wounded in combat. They were there for us when we needed them. Without Article Five, the alliance has no teeth and becomes worthless. This is the heart of Trump’s declaration that he won’t help our allies if attacked.

This time, he took it a step further.

Trump went beyond his threat to standby and watch when other countries were attacked. He openly encouraged the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to “do whatever the hell they want.” He invited Russia to attack a NATO ally. As a long time student of national security affairs, and in my career I worked these issues, I never could have imagined that a President of the United States would invite a foreign dictator to attack a democratic ally. Inconceivable. Yet, I have every reason to believe that he means it.

Some Republicans in the Congress are confident that he does not mean it, or at least that’s what they tell themselves. I am not sure why they say that, but here is the practical truth of it. In 2023 the National Defense Authorization Act included a provision that a president cannot withdraw from NATO without approval from the Senate or an Act of Congress. An elegant solution, heh? Not really. Trump, or someone like him, would not have to actually withdraw from NATO. As Commander-in-Chief he would only have to decide that the U.S. will not send or use military forces in support of the attacked country. The provision is only a feel good exercise with no practical aspect to it. I have no doubt that Trump could care less what a provision in the NDA says.

Moving beyond the promised future actions of a presidential candidate, there are practical ramifications right now. Besides signaling to Putin, Xi and Kim that they only have to wait out the current administration and hope for a Trump victory to do what they want, Trump’s MAGA supporters in the House are holding up aid to Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel and humanitarian relief in Gaza because he told them to do so. They bend their knee to Trump and he in turn bends his knee to Putin. Ukraine is suffering terrible losses. No one that knows what they are talking about thinks that Putin will stop in Ukraine. If Kyiv falls, others, primarily Poland and the Baltic States, will be in his sights. Without NATO to deter him, Putin will act. To him, the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the break up of the USSR. He clearly espouses his desire to reconstitute it. The only thing in his way is NATO. And let’s be clear, many European nations have professional, effective, tough-as-nails military forces. But they would be no match for the Russians. Not because of their fighting ability — we have seen in Ukraine that the Russian Army and Navy are not the unbeatable foes they were made out to be — but because Russia is a large country with lots of people and resources to throw into the breach. They would eventually win by attrition as Napoleon and Hitler learned the hard way. This is what is happening in Ukraine. The Ukrainians have proven over the last two years that they are a formidable foe. But without NATO support — including from the U.S. — they will be attrited and defeated. Russia has already committed terrible atrocities against Ukrainian civilians. Putin is a convicted war criminal. Imagine the death and destruction when he unleashes his forces to wreak retribution against those that dared oppose him in an occupied Ukraine.

Speaker Mike Johnson (MAGA-LA) is an extraordinarily weak Speaker of the House who was thrown into a job he is ill-prepared to fill. Mr. Johnson takes his orders from Trump and Trump does not want to support Ukraine. He is a fanboy of Putin (one wonders why he prefers Putin over his own country, but that is a topic for another day). The Senate passed a bipartisan bill providing the desperately needed aid. The Speaker refuses to bring it to the House floor, even though all knowledgeable participants are convinced that it would pass on a bipartisan basis. Mr. Johnson claims we need to secure our border before providing aid to others, even as he refuses to bring a bill to the floor that was considered the best improvement to border security and immigration rules in decades. The hypocrisy is off the charts. Unfortunately, there is no shame anymore in the MAGA Republican Party, only loyalty to Trump.

Look. Let’s lay it on the line. Biden vs Trump is a referendum on the future of democracy in the United States and our future role in a rules based international society. Trump’s “America First” motto was originally the motto of the isolationists and Nazi supporters in the U.S. prior to World War II. Just like today, there were massive rallies, in the 1930s it was to promote fascism. In the U.S., German supporters formed the German American Bund as a cover to promote policies favorable to Nazi Germany. Tens of thousands of Americans joined. There were about 20 youth training camps to raise future fascists. In 1939 the organization held a rally in Madison Square Garden where over 20,000 people gathered to denounce “Jewish conspiracies” fomented by President Franklin Roosevelt and to support Nazi Germany. There are too many similarities to today for me to think that Trump is bluffing or just playing to the crowd. He means what he says.

Hitler vowed to invade Czechoslovakia in 1938. Desperate to avoid another world war, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met in Munich with Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and French president Edouard Daladier and agreed to the fascist’s demands. He declared that he achieved “peace for our time.” He hoped that Hitler would be satisfied. We know the rest of that story. If we give in to Putin in Ukraine, we know the rest of this story as well.

Coming Soon To A City Near You

Posted: July 23, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Events unfolding around the country are the previews for coming attractions, and it won’t be fun.  To look at what is happening in Portland Oregon one might see a trial run for more such activity — currently announced for, or underway in, Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque.

Going forward, remember that this is all right from the autocracy 101 hand book.  I will explain my thinking in this piece, but two major things are happening.  One is that Mr. Donald J. Trump is trying to get video to support his campaign claim that the cities are out of control and that “only I can fix it.”  Second, and far more ominously, he is laying the ground work for declaring martial law leading into the election.  Mr. Trump and his campaign know that he cannot win solely through the support of his base.  He needs to keep people from voting for his opponent — voter suppression — and one way to do that is to intimidate the electorate and to make it too hard to vote.  It is an election strategy that comes at the expense of American cities and their citizens.  It threatens the very foundation of our democracy.

As a reminder, federal law enforcement units in full combat gear have been on the streets in Portland for about ten days.  Theoretically, they are there to protect the federal court house from protesters.  In fact, they have been patrolling the streets of the city picking up people that look like they might be willing to foment trouble.  Let’s dive into this further.

The federal government has a duty and a right to protect federal property from destruction.  In cases such as the court house in Portland, this would normally entail coordinating with the local city and state authorities for a cohesive plan and would amount to a defensive — rather than offensive — effort to keep trouble makers away.  None of this is happening.  There is no apparent coordination with local authorities — indeed the mayor and governor have explicitly asked  those forces to leave — and they are definitely using offensive tactics with rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray and other agents against the crowd.  To be sure, there are trouble makers in the ranks of the protesters.  However, the vast majority are peaceful.  Additionally, with proper techniques and coordination, peaceful protesters are likely to cooperate in identifying the bad apples in the crowd as it is in the best interests of the other protesters to keep it peaceful and to not provoke an over reaction by law enforcement.  By all credible accounts, after weeks of protests, the demonstrations in Portland had settled into a peaceful occasion and were slowly dwindling in size.  That is until the federal authorities arrived and began using their storm trooper tactics.  In military combat gear, the federal authorities wear no name tags or unit identification badges, only a small generic “police” tag on their camos.  Reportedly, they are from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agencies of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  One might ask who is guarding our borders from the supposed hoards coming across from Mexico if they are in Portland?  One might also ask what training these particular agencies give to their agents regarding community policing?

If you think it is an exaggeration, look at this video of a Navy veteran trying to talk to some of the agents and getting beaten and pepper sprayed while not even raising his arms or making any threatening movements.

All of this on its own is bad.  Very bad.  But it portends worse things to come.  Remember Mr. Trump’s words earlier this week.

“I’m going to do something, that I can tell you.  Because we’re not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these — Oakland is a mess.  We’re not going to let this happen in our country.  Look at what’s going on — all run by Democrats, all run by very liberal Democrats.  All run, really, by the radical left.”

So, first of all, only Democrat mayors are “bad.”  Secondly, there are currently no violent demonstrations in Philadelphia, Detroit or Baltimore or other cities he is going to “dominate.”  This is pure, unabashed partisan politics using federal law enforcement agencies for his personal gain.

Additionally, the hypocrisy is all too familiar.  The rationale behind the Portland deployment is to protect against citizens expressing their First Amendment rights on federal property.  In 2018 Mr. Trump gave full pardons to two Oregonians — father and son — that set fire in 2016 to 139 acres of federal land during Red Flag Warning conditions, endangering firefighters working on another fire nearby.  It resulted in a 40 day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by protesters supporting their cause.  He considered these men to be patriots.  Peaceful protesters in cities are considered to be criminals.

As I have written in this space before, I was very involved in figuring out Saddam Hussein’s next moves during Gulf War I.  We figured out after awhile that he pretty much always announced what he intended to do.  He couldn’t always carry it out, but he was pretty straightforward in his pronouncements.  Mr. Trump is the same way.  He announces exactly what he plans to do.

Here is the diabolical back drop to his strategy.  In my 8 May piece “American Carnage” I wondered aloud about how Mr. Trump could have so badly botched the national response to the pandemic and opined that perhaps it was deliberate.  I am now sure of it.  He did not create the pandemic, but he is going to use it to his advantage.  Similarly, he will use the Black Lives Matter movement to declare that they are terrorists working to destroy America.  He already barely hides his racism in this regard.  Yesterday in a speech he blamed Mexico (again) and the BLM protests for the spread of the Coronavirus in the South and Southwest.  He repeatedly declares that if the Democrats win the election, they will “destroy the suburbs,” a not-so-subtle racist canard.

Many pundits and political experts, as well as average citizens, have wondered for weeks and months why Mr. Trump refuses to put forward a national effort to halt the pandemic and to address racial injustice.  It dawned on me yesterday that as former Maryland Lt. Governor and National Republican Chairman Michael Steele explained on TV yesterday — this is his plan.  In other words, he will use the chaos currently engulfing our country to his advantage.  He will trot out again his beliefs that the the Constitution gives him “absolute power” and that “I alone can fix it.”  These will form the basis for action on his part to interfere in an election that he is already claiming — nearly daily — is rigged.  He is against mail-in ballots (even though he, his family, many of his aides and many service members vote by mail) and has installed a long-time ally as Postmaster General.  Mail bags mysteriously disappearing?  Mail trucks mysteriously bursting into flames?  The imagination can run wild.

The point is that we will not succumb to an outright coup on his part.  It will be gradual with incremental decisions and policies that set the stage for him to declare the election invalid and that he must stay on to save the country.  He is on record multiple times, most recently in his Fox News interview with Mike Wallace, that he will not accept the outcome of the election if he thinks it’s rigged.  Asked directly if he would accept the results he said,

“I have to see.  Look — I have to see.  No, I’m not just going to say yes.  I’m not going to say no.”

Since many of the states will use mail-in ballots, it could be days or weeks before the official results are in.  If the election is close as the polls close on Election Night, and the results change dramatically against Mr. Trump when the absentee, provisional and other ballots are counted, he could well declare the entire election a fraud and cancel it.  He is on record with the 2018 Florida election — which was very close and looked as if it would go against his preferred candidates — as saying that only ballots counted on Election Day should be valid.  He tweeted without offering a single piece of evidence,

“The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged.  An honest vote count is no longer possible — ballots massively infected.  Must go with Election Night.”

Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis both won their races.

We already know that Mr. Trump will do anything that benefits him.  There is no ethical, moral or legal bottom for him.  He now has an Attorney General that acts as his personal attorney and shares Mr. Trump’s belief in an Imperial Presidency.

The U.S. military put Mr. Trump on notice after they were used in a political stunt at Lafayette Square in Washington D.C. for his bible thumping campaign photo op that they would not be used for political purposes.  Thus, Mr. Trump went to his flunkies in DHS (the top position and most of the sub-agencies are headed by “acting” leaders that do not have Senate approval) in order to create his own personal police force to pursue his personal goals.

Some may think that this is a “Chicken Little” scenario.  Alarmist.  Couldn’t happen here.  That’s not America.  Stop hyperventilating.  No way.  I hope that you are correct.  Personally, I am watching out for our “Reichstag Fire” moment.

 

 

 

Is The Sky Falling?

Posted: April 12, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

…Don’t it always seem to go, That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…

—– Joni Mitchell from the song Big Yellow Taxi

From time to time I try to do a self-evaluation as to my perspective on current events under this president’s administration.  In a nod to Chicken Little, I wonder if things are really as bad as they seem or whether I am falling prey to the hype. Am I running around yelling that the sky is falling for no reason?  In my view, there is less hype and more to be genuinely concerned about with this president as time goes by.  I worry that the incremental destruction of our political norms and traditions is passing the notice of many of our fellow citizens and that one day we will wake up and realize that what we all assumed was right in these United States is now gone.

Consider the following:

  • The president gutted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  We now have an Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and key department heads are missing or also have “acting” leaders including the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, the Undersecretary for Management, the Director of the Secret Service and the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  Any day, the Director of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will be empty as he becomes the Acting Secretary.  Additionally in the DHS the FAA and FEMA are headed by acting directors.  There are other key offices empty.
  • When the president was asked who is in charge at DHS given all the vacancies, he replied, “Frankly there’s only one person that’s running it.  You know who that is?  It’s me.”
  • There are 716 positions in the government that require Senate confirmation.  Of those there are 140 with no nominee.  Only six are awaiting confirmation.  Positions without permanent leadership include the Secretary of Defense, the president’s Chief of Staff, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  The other positions are generally department heads or at the Deputy and Assistant Secretary level across the government, in other words, the people that actually get things done.
  • The president is trying to interfere with the work of the Federal Reserve, an institution previously thought for decades to be above political interference which is critical to its credibility and role in shaping the U.S. and world economy.
  • The Attorney General of the United States is refusing to release the entire Mueller Report to the Congress.  He alone (or will it be with help from the White House?) will determine what will be released.  While it may be reasonable to withhold some of the report’s information from the general public, refusing to release it to Congress, who is authorized to deal with classified information and grand jury proceedings, makes it impossible to know whether the true story of the investigation will be known.  Additionally this week, Attorney General Barr asserted that the government was spying on the Trump campaign.  As he said, “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.  I think spying did occur.”  When asked to provide proof, he said he could not.  How convenient.  The man who controls what parts of the impartial investigation may be released can assert whatever he cares to and then not have to provide evidence.
  • The Attorney General got his job by currying favor with Mr. Trump.  His hiring is paying off for the president as Mr. Barr repeats many of the president’s talking points and provides further fodder for his assertions that he was “exonerated” (he wasn’t), that it was all a “hoax” (the entire intelligence community says it was not), and that it was an “attempted coup” (forgetting that the Special Counsel, Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, FBI Director, etc., etc., etc.) were all this president’s appointees.  The president procured a personal attorney in Mr. Barr, and the United States lost an Attorney General.  (One might ask Mr. Trump and his supporters how a corrupt, phony, political vendetta prone organization could “exonerate” him.  A seemingly direct contradiction.)
  • Additionally, the Attorney General refuses to support the law of the land — the Affordable Care Act twice upheld in the Supreme Court — primarily because that’s the president’s position.  It’s kind of scary if a president can seek to overturn laws he doesn’t agree with by directing the Department of Justice to work to overturn it, even though it was twice deemed Constitutional.
  • Speaking of not following the law, it appears that Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin will direct the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) not to turn over Mr. Trump’s tax returns.  This in spite of the fact that under the law the Secretary is not to interfere in decisions made by the IRS and the fact that a law is on the books that says the IRS “shall” turn them over to Congress upon request (not “may”, “could”, “might” or any other modifier).  The law is a 1924 statute enacted to uncover fraud within the Executive Branch following the Teapot Dome scandal.
  • After declaring a National Emergency and sending additional troops to the border, there is no Senate confirmed Secretary of Defense and no Secretary of Homeland Security. Not even nominees.  Where is the oversight?  Mr. Trump professes that “I like acting.  It gives me more flexibility.”  In other words, he likes people to be unsure in their jobs because it gives him more control over them.  Additionally, he does not have to worry about too many tough questions coming during Senate confirmation hearings.
  • Frustrated by the asylum laws governing immigrants, the president wants to undo them all and in fact argues that we eliminate judges that adjudicate the laws about asylum.  As he said this week, “And we have to do something about asylum.  And to be honest with you, you have to get rid of the judges.”
  • Among other measures being considered (again!) in the White House is an Executive Order ending birthright citizenship (anyone born on U.S. soil is considered a citizen).  So apparently the president and his advisers think that the president can unilaterally overturn the Constitution.  In this case, the 14th Amendment.

I could go on and on.  I find it very troubling that the assaults on the rule of law continue unabated and indeed, seem to be increasingly frequent and harsh.  On the other hand, the president is a known blowhard who continually speaks outrageously and without knowledge of nearly any subject.  Should we worry about his pronouncements or is it just more sound and fury rather than substance?  If during his presidency he has already told over 9,000 provable lies should we just dismiss most of his statements as more lies?  Or is there something there?

I think that there is something there.  The president does not seem constrained by any law  from taking action, even though many of his most controversial policies have been consistently overruled in the courts.  He and his administration willfully ignore attempts at oversight from the Democrats in the House of Representatives.  Republicans in the Senate are too afraid of being “primaried” (when did that become a word?) to stand up to him.  Where are the limits to his power as he continues to push the boundaries and in many cases break them?  Or are these concerns of mine just a gut level reaction to his abominable personality and persistent bullying and belittling?

In my heart I know that Mr. Trump cares nothing about the people of the United States.  He cares only of himself and arguably his family.  Whatever helps him personally and allows for his family to continue to make money off of the presidency is all that keeps him focused.

My concern is that having rid himself of nearly everyone in his Cabinet and close advisers that stood up to him to point out that his actions were unlawful, immoral or unethical (and in some cases all three) is gone.  Now he is surrounded by enablers.  I fear that as time goes by he will become ever more autocratic in outlook and action.  Reportedly, Mr. Trump models himself after President Andrew Jackson.  Remember what President Jackson is said to have remarked about a decision made by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall, “John Marshall has made his decision.  Now let him enforce it!”  (President Jackson ignored the Supreme Court’s decision in Worcester v Georgia.  The case involved the sovereignty of Native American tribal lands.)

Mr. Trump is headed in the same direction as Mr. Jackson.  He sees no limits on his power and believes that he can ignore the law where it suits him.  And why not?  Throughout his entire life he has never been held accountable for his actions in any meaningful way.  With A.G. Barr’s unilateral assertion that the president is exonerated under the Mueller investigation, what is to make him think that anything or anyone will get in his way?

Sometimes I do think that I am Chicken Little.  Maybe I worry about the course of our nation a little too much.  Unfortunately, I am also a student of history and current events.  There are just too many examples throughout time where revolutions and the loss of freedoms did not happen overnight, but rather incrementally and slowly.  Most people’s lives were not immediately or directly impacted and so they didn’t pay close attention or fret over it.  And then one day, it was too late.  They didn’t know what they had until it was gone.

One at a time Mr. Trump’s actions may be more annoying than substantive.  Put them all together and it paints the picture of a man who knows no boundaries. A president who is slowly eliminating his opposition and consolidating power in his own hands.

An old U.S. Navy saying goes “Eternal vigilance is the price of safety.”  We should all remain vigilant to the actions of our president.