Emergency Declaration

The National Emergency

So President Doofus has issued a National Emergency to cover the barriers that constitute our border with Mexico.  What is it he claims is the actual “emergency”? Apparently, he sees a porous border, along which anyone who wishes entry has an entirely open door. But arguably we doubtless have such an arrangement with Canada and no emergency appears imminent along that line. So, the “emergency” apparently is Mexicans (remember those rapists, murderers, drug smugglers and folks who traffic in women who they bring in while chained, with their mouths taped shut. He acknowledges a few are also probably nice people.

Oh, and then there are the caravans of thousands of druggies, rapists, murderers, et al, who also use that border to get into our fair land from places like Salvador, Venezuela, and southern Hades. Yeah, he said so, therefore truth is cancelled.

But what then is a “National Emergency”? It is interesting to note that, although there is cited a national Emergency Act of 1976, authorizing presidents to so designate an emergency situation, presidents have issued “national emergencies” since at least 1917, with President Wilson declaring a National Emergency in Water Transportation” in 1917. Indeed, in 1941, President Roosevelt declared a National Emergency to counter the coming threat from Nazi Germany, and Truman issued one in 1950 to counter communism, specifically in connection with the Korean War (remember that quaint War?).

President Carter issued such an emergency order in 1979 in connection with the Iran overthrow of its government by the Ayatollah. President Obama issued one in 2009 to counter an influenza pandemic.  And so the list goes on and on.

But, even a cursory inspection of the declarations suggest that some immediate action was actually required to counter a real threat from outside the country. Most of the threats seemed immediately real and obvious to even casual observers, and they contained actual facts about the situation calling for such a declaration.

In contrast, our current president has issued a declaration simply because he is annoyed that Nancy Pelosi and the entire Congress refused to authorize funds to pay for his Wall, you know, the one that Mexico is going to pay for.  So, the kids in Congress, said NO, and the 4-year old president went on an immediate temper tantrum, and issued his emergency declaration. And then, almost immediately thereafter, he told the press that "he really didn’t need to issue an emergency declaration" (because there is no emergency), but he wanted to speed things up a bit, so he is willing to abuse his powers, steal money from other potential uses, like military construction, and demonstrate to those nasty people in Congress that they are powerless to stop him.

According to one article I read recently, 59 emergencies have been declared; 27 have expired while 32 are currently in effect, each having been renewed annually by the president. Most of the national emergencies concern the blocking of property belonging to nations or individuals, or the blocking of transactions, for example transactions that might aid drug smugglers attempting to money launder. None, from what I can see were specifically intended to simply go around a Congressional budget authorization that failed to authorize funds the President wanted.  Also, in most cases, the “emergency” under consideration seemed fairly obvious and potentially threatening to US interests, e.g., a potential war, or, in the case of many Middle Eastern emergencies, a region filled with violence in which our interests are involved.  There seems no actual precedent for the kind of declaration Trump has issued. 

The fundamental legal issue in his declaration is whether he has actually demonstrated the existence of an “emergency”, i.e., a threat to the people, its systems of governance, or some other factually verifiable issue.  His problem, here as in most instances of Presidential “Fact-stating” is that his facts rarely stand up to scrutiny. He is claiming here a major “invasion” by drug smugglers, human traffickers, and other nefarious individuals (in the hundreds . . . thousands??). To be clear, to do what he is trying to do (subvert the Congressional budgetary authorization process) he would need a body of facts to substantiate that the Mexican border is indeed uncontrolled, and that specific numbers in the hundreds or thousands of people from Central and South America are pouring over the border. He also really needs to assert facts about the harm being done to America, and Americans—economic harm, injuries or deaths associated with this invasion, or some other actual damage to our National interests. He has done nothing like that. Instead, he did what he always does. He simply asserts that there is harm, and that there are harmful people crossing our borders in very large numbers, without providing the factual basis for his assertions.

Now, perhaps with another president, we might for a time be willing to accept his word about the harm, real or potential against which he is defending. But for this President, lying is his standard rhetorical device. So, it is the case that one can really not believe almost anything he tells us, where actual facts are involved.  So, we need some second “truth-verifier” to weigh in on his stated assertions before we can believe him.  Now, were his assertion something like the 911 attacks, those sources would be readily available in the form of actual video footage by actual journalists.  Unhappily, for him, no such sources are available. To make his case, say in court (where this declaration will be adjudicated) he will need to assemble a body of externally verifiable data on each of his many assertions—how many illegals are entering, how much actual damage has been/is being done to American property or lives, and what is the economic case for his declaration, i.e., is the Wall cheaper or more expensive than his claimed damages?

I noted in an earlier piece that, because of his constant lying, it is difficult, if not impossible to hold any kind of a strategic planning discussion with Trump.  For example, in any “meeting” intended to discuss a problem, or some issue, one makes progress by having someone lay out the basic principles of the issue. If it is a problem, then someone must first define the problem.  Then someone must define what is known of the root causes of the problem. For example:

1. America experiences X thousand incidents annually of border-related problems

2.  America’s Borders are not secure

a.       X thousand miles of land borders have no barriers

b.      Y thousand miles of sea borders have no functional barriers

c.       Border staffing cannot cover the entire border

d.      Non-personnel technology is inadequate to cover open border area

3.       X thousand migrants are estimated to cross illegally into the US annually through the open areas

4.       Y thousand incidents of damage to property or persons resident in the US are caused each year

In other words, to discuss something as complex as border security, one needs to break down the problem. You first state some factually verifiable statement of the overall problem. And the problem statement should define the harm done to the US by that problem. Then you divide that main problem into its main causes, with accompanying data on each main cause. Then for each sub-problem, you define likely solutions (and typically there might be several possible solutions for each type of problem).  And it is highly useful to attach to each problem, and to each solution a cost factor. What is the cost to America of the problem (and the cost might be monetary, or it might be in some other category)?  Then you examine the potential solutions to each of the problems, and define both their likely effects on the problem, and the likely costs of implementing the solutions. And the costs might be one-time capital costs, and/or annual maintenance costs. If one cannot even agree on the problem statement, then it is impossible to proceed to the solution stage. 

And since Trump doesn’t actually know anything about the actual problem, it is not possible to hold strategic discussions about any large topic.  And it isn’t only this border security issue. One cannot reasonably hold a strategic discussion with Trump on virtually any topic, because he doesn’t understand almost any nationally or globally important subject, and he will simply resort to his only approach—spitting out “pseudo-facts” intended for applause. But the other people in the room often know his pseudo-facts are not a reasonable definition of the issue, and so he himself causes the discussion to come to a close.

Therein lies the core of our national problem with Trump and with his recent declaration of Emergency about Border Security. We should not really care about how he yells at his crowd of adoring MAGAHeads, as in his El Paso speech, because none of that matters. But what does matter is his inability to actually hold substantive discussions with knowledgeable officials aimed at defining problems and agreeing on plausible solutions.  On that, he is as useless as the proverbial “teats on a boar”. And there America is our problem.

Mainly, from some statements made regarding “the Wall”, it would seem that “the Wall” was invented as a rhetorical device to keep Trump on target in speaking of the broad subject of border security (which is likely more complex than Trump can grasp). By constantly speaking of “the Wall” he is given a rhetorical device that draws applause from a committed group. But the device was not ever intended to be a serious issue for technical discussions of potential solutions to whatever the perceived problem might be. It was simply a way to keep Trump from drifting off topic.

So, I see The Wall as simply one more, very large rhetorical device, aka A Big Lie, to help Trump get re-elected in 2020. It has virtually nothing to do with actual border security. And on that topic of The Big Lie, it is worthwhile to quote the past master, Adolph Hitler.  He asserted:

 “All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”  Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X

And on that thought, I leave you to draw your own conclusions about Mr. Trump's Wall, and his absurd Emergency Declaration.  Will he get away with it? It will be up to that third branch, the famous judicial branch, to have the last say. And that is also why Mr. Trump’s appointments have been and continue to be so vital to the future health of our Nation. He may win yet. If he does, it will be because we allowed him to win.

Defeating the Destroyer

Sometimes, I wish the second shoe would just get it over with and drop, dammit.  I feel constantly like I’m living in some horrible nightmare but I can’t awaken.  And with each new revelation, the feeling deepens. And, the worst part is that, it isn’t only crap about Trump. Every day, some other idiot, generally, but not always a republican, does or says something so outrageously stupid that one has to wonder on which planet they reside.

It seems as though our entire country is falling apart and we are all just standing around watching it collapse, only we can’t do anything to stop it. And meanwhile, I’m supposed to go about my life as though none of this crap is occurring. Oh, I can/do scream about each occurrence on Facebook, but that is a bit like crawling into a little dark cupboard and screaming into the night at the top of my lungs with nobody listening. Oh, people read my screams, and some check “like”. Some even write something to the effect that they “agree” with me.  And then we all go about our business, as though we just did something meaningful. When all we really did is to crawl into that cupboard and scream into the night.

See, Facebook is our new method of making believe we are doing something, when, instead, all we are really doing is entertaining/distracting ourselves. We have a president who is arguably the most corrupt con man on the planet, and we are allowing him to destroy right in front of us, many of the things our nation has spent years/decades building, and we are unable to do anything meaningful to stop him.  He has been appointing people to run our government agencies who are, to a person, fundamentally opposed to the very purposes of those agencies.  Mostly, they are both ignorant and opposed—see Betsy DeVos--, but sometimes they are worse—they are informed and opposed and those are the really dangerous ones.  Jennifer Rubin[1] writes about the catastrophic Trump Cabinet:

“A number of historians and political scientists agree that Trump’s Cabinet really is the worst they can recall. American University history professor (and accurate prognosticator of Trump’s win in 2016) Allan Lichtman tells me, “There is no question that this is the most unqualified and inexperienced cabinet in the modern history of the presidency. Several of the cabinet officials not only lack the most basic qualifications for their jobs, but are intent upon undermining the fundamental mission of their departments: DeVos at Education, Carson at HUD, and Zinke at Interior. You can also add in Pruitt at EPA.” He adds in, “More than any other group of cabinet officials the Trump appointees also are using the federal treasury as their personal expense accounts.” With the firing of Tillerson on Tuesday, Lichtman observes that the churn of Cabinet officials “is without precedent in recent presidential history.”

And, so we read about their inane, dangerous behavior daily, and, again, we are unable to do anything. And his republican supporters continue to act as his cheerleaders.

Meanwhile, the Robert Mueller investigation continues to churn on . . . and on . . . and on. People get indicted, never the main character. He is the like The Don, the head man in his own Mafia organization.  I am becoming inured to the daily commentary by or about Trump.  How Trump is going to get indicted, or impeached, or maybe Don Jr. is going to get indicted. But, meanwhile, he goes on and on, and I have begun to wonder . . . is this Mueller investigation simply a charade begun by Trump to keep us entertained while he systematically destroys the country, after which Trump pulls up, gathers his family together into one of his private jets and flies off to some country designated by his patron Vlad the Impaler.  And, then, we awaken and observe the shards of our former country, and then we begin killing one another, because there is so much hate and no one to blame but ourselves.

What amazes me, perhaps more than anything else, is the fact that people exist in America, thousands, even millions of them, who continue to say that he is the best president we have ever had, and he is doling an amazing job as their president.  And I wonder, did the folks conned by Ponzi, or by that old rascal Bernie Madoff, continue to say nice things about them, even after the truth was revealed?

Is this how the last Civil War began? Millions of folks believed that slavery was the last, best hope for mankind and they would go to war and kill or be killed defending slavery? And now, they will do the same thing for Trump and his ragtag band of thugs and crooks, and con men? Are we poised for a second Civil War? What might bring it on—Impeachment proceedings??  If he were impeached and a trial took place, would those heavily armed folks with lots of guns but few active brain cells, begin to gather in the streets and begin shooting randomly?

What could prevent such a thing, I wonder? Will his supporters even obey an actual vote of the American people? We know that, if the 2020 election occurs and Trump is voted out of office, he will begin yelling FRAUD at every opportunity and, using his FOX PR outlets, he will energize his crazed supporters.  We think that he did not expect to win the first time, and was using the election process merely to enrich his coffers. That his win was a complete shock, to him and almost everyone paying attention.  But now, despite the daily drubbing in the “Fake News”, he likely gets off on being President, so he is unlikely to go quiet into the night.

We have been saying, just go out and vote in 2020. Vote him out of office legitimately. And then all will be well again. And I wish that were true. But it all sounds like “thoughts and prayers” to me now.  I am beginning to think that we need to do something to ensure that, when/if an election is actually held in 2020, and if he actually loses and is thus booted out of office, that we will do something to maintain order.  But I think that we cannot limit ourselves to awaiting the arrival of the National Guard. Somehow, we need to begin soothing the savage beast that is the American people. And what could that be, I wonder? What can we do, short of arming everyone? I think we need some kind of systematic airing of grievances to disarm the awful rhetoric of each side in this battle for the soul of America.  Maybe we need national focus groups meeting all over the country, in which people on each side are allowed to speak their piece, but without yelling or calling names. Labeling folks who are opposed would perhaps not be permitted. Everyone gets to talk, but speaking in public is only allowed if people tell us about what they want the country to do, or what they fear the country will do. We need to know what kind of country we now inhabit. And we need to understand whether we still have a nation of laws and honor, and humanity. And whether love for our fellow man is still present.

We need to do something folks, or everything we hold dear might be destroyed. That is how serious this mess is that we and the Donald have created.  Understand, please, The Donald is not and never has been an actual builder. He has destroyed almost everything he created. He intends on destroying America. We cannot allow him to do that, but it is up to us to decide how best to prevent the ending of America.  We need ideas. We need a willing spirit. We need this . . . now.

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[1] Rubin, Jennifer, Here’s the case: Trump has the worst Cabinet ever” The Washington Post

The Russia Connection

So, now we have pulled out of our nuclear arms limitation treaty with Russia.  We are accusing the Russians of cheating, i.e., developing weapons that would violate the treaty. So we have announced that we are done.  So, I find myself wondering. Is this the big payoff to Russia that Trump promised, if Putin would help to make him President??  Now, you might say, “well, this isn’t much of a payoff, is it? I mean, we are trashing the Russkies, and are pulling away from a treaty with them because they are cheating. How is that a payoff?” Well, first, Putin doesn’t give a tinker’s damn that we are trashing them publically. What he wants is a go-ahead to produce new nuclear missiles that give him some tactical/strategic advantage, or at least make him par with the US. If he gets that, we can trash him all we want. He doesn’t care.  This may be the quid pro quo from Trump to Putin. And again, it may not matter to Putin even if we go ahead, as a result, and begin to produce a new fleet of formerly banned missiles, as long as Putin can do the same.  So, Trump may in fact be selling the safety of our nation through this action, because he really doesn’t care either.  So long as he gets what he wants (to be a big-time war leader) he does not care about consequences.

As noted in earlier postings, this is really what you get with Trump: a) he is profoundly ignorant; and, b) he is narcissistic to the point that may wreck everything around him to get what he wants. He is like no one before him.  Whatever you thought of Reagan, or Nixon, or Johnson (Vietnam), it seems clear that they were at least trying to advance the interests of our nation, even if you questioned their chosen tactics. With Trump, he is always trying to advance his own interests, regardless of the effects on others, or on the country as a whole.

His supporters imagine that he wants the Wall, because he is trying to protect America. But he is really trying to justify himself to his weary supporters. It is irrelevant whether the Nation needs a Wall. He really won’t even discuss the concept of a Wall. He just wants to see people agree with him and give him some money.  And, if they won’t do that, then he will send down troops to the border, and maybe even have the troops build the Wall.  He has a pretty large Defense budget. I imagine, with a National Emergency, he could easily divert funds from one place (Afghanistan??) to his Wall, and have troops there as an added preventive measure.  That he has no idea what he is doing, or what effects his actions will create is irrelevant. He cares not for consequences.

The Venezuela mess is also scary, because we really don’t know what he will do there, including sending down troops with no serious strategic mission.  He doubtless figures that we send troops all over the globe without any serious strategic mission, so why not here.  I mean, George W. Bush set fire to the entire Middle East without any serious strategic purpose (aside from demonstrating that he could do stuff better than his poppy).  With Trump, though, he has no serious strategic advisers. Bolton is simply a war hawk, who never saw a war he didn’t love. Apparently, Bolton must just love seeing folks being killed. Maybe that’s how he gets his rocks off.

A big question I have about our Russia connection is when will it ever stop?  With this gift to Putin (oh go ahead with your missile program, cuz our missiles are better than your missiles, nyah nyah, nyah nyah), will this be the official end-game quid pro quo? Or does it just continue as long as our idiot-king remains in power?  And what does this say about our Democratic system of government that his party allows him to continue trashing the country and, of course, the party? Arguably, there are ways to stop Trump from doing most of the stuff he does, but his Congress chooses to undertake none of them.  We will, of course, have to see what Pelosi and the Dems choose to, beyond sending out e-mails asking for $5.  So far, they haven’t given him his Wall funding, but what will they do when he just goes around them, and sends troops, or declares an emergency and simply diverts Defense budget to his Wall, with troops (Army Corps of Engineers??) doing the design and building?

So, Nancy better start some serious thinking now about a real strategic plan for dealing with this idiot-king. You may be the last best hope for mankind.

Oh and Howard Schultz . . . we know there are no serious qualifications for anyone becoming President, but please get the hell off the stage and allow some, even modest, intelligence to move into the process.  Kindly go back to your coffee business, and your making money thing. We really don’t need another idiot in the White House.

Old Folks Communicate

I’m not sure how the comedians do it, covering the malenfant’s daily doings. I guess he writes the script himself and they just laugh with the audience. Still, I find it really difficult to write too frequently about his latest idiocy, whatever it is.  The Wall thing, for example. It is my understanding that “The Wall” was dreamed up by one of his PR henchmen as a way to keep him from drifting off topic, the general topic being border security. “The Wall” was a mnemonic device used to trigger the emotions he wanted from the crowd of adoring slaves he calls his supporters.  It keeps them hating.  

So, that’s what’s been going on for the past month plus.  Oh, and a lot of people got hurt in the process, but that’s par for the course in TrumpWorld. He hurts people on the way to further enriching himself. It’s called The Art of the Deal, and he’s the chief finagler on The Deal.

But in the other world, the one in which ordinary folks occupy themselves with things other than screwing their neighbor, I am wondering what to think about that thing called social media, Facebook especially. Yeah, yeah, I know that Zuckerberg & Co. spend a lot of their time trying to sell us to his financiers, you know, the ad people who want to capture us. But there is another side to all social media. I know that Facebook is really social media for old people. But, as it turns out, that’s a good thing, not a bad one. Let me give you an example.  I’m really old, and one of the characteristics of old people is that they stop communicating. I think actually what happens is that non-old people basically stop communicating with them (us).  In the old days, when people actually took pen to hand and wrote things called letters, people would communicate periodically with friends and family.  Oh, they used the telephone also, but letters was a main medium for communication.  When I was at Stanford, lo those many decades ago, Carol (my now wifey of 63 years) and I used to actually write letters daily to one another—yes, daily. See, that sounds extreme, until you think about Facebook and the other social media. President Stupidhead writes Tweets at 4 o’clock in the morning, every morning, and then tweets all day long. See, he thinks he’s writing to someone, everyone. Actually, he’s writing to himself and his committed slaves. In those golden oldie days, we used to write, sometimes daily, to close friends or family, never to “the world”.  And many (most??) folks sign on to Facebook, or the other social media accounts, on a daily basis, and generally write something to nobody in particular.

But then, something happened. I’m guessing the something is the personal computer. Sometime in the mid-1980’s, people started getting these things called personal computers.  And almost immediately, communications media began popping up. Remember Compuserve? No? See, I told you I was old.  I began using Compuserve, as soon as it became available.  It was a precursor to Facebook, or to e-mail, or both.  You could send personal messages, or sign onto message boards.  And that began to spell the end of “letters”. Initially, it was not the case that everyone owned a PC. But slowly, the world changed and the PC (and I include here that Apple thingie—remember the Lisa??) became a standard home appliance.

No, my mom never owned one, nor did my wife’s mom. They were perhaps the last of the letter-writing generation, whereas I was/am the leading edge of “leaving the letter to join the PC world” generation. Our children and grandchildren don’t really know about letters. Actually, our grandkids don’t really know about/do e-mail. E-Mail, that’s so passé grandpa. Still, e-mail, or social media, we continue to communicate.

But then I have to take account of something that likely would not have happened as readily in the dark days of letter writing.  I have become “friends” on Facebook with a wide variety of people, who, in days gone by, I would have lost entirely. For example, I have a “friend” on Facebook, who I last saw in Jaipur India, when he was very young, maybe pre-teen, or just becoming a teen. He was the son of good Australian friends who were working and living in India at the same time we were. We met them through other friends, and then we visited them with some frequency, sometimes in Delhi, and sometimes in Jaipur.  And then we left India to return to the United States, and they left India to return to Australia. Now, you may not have noticed, but Australia and the United States are really far apart, a 13 hour flight when it is non-stop and you begin in Los Angeles.  So, under normal circumstances, we would likely have lost contact over the past 50 years.  But, because we are old, we wrote a few letters and then we established contact on social media. In this case, I did a search on Facebook and found this young man was present. And so, we became “friends”. And we communicate virtually daily. And I am amazed and thrilled virtually daily.

And so it is with dozens of people we have known over the past 70-80 years, but no longer see. We continue to “meet up” with them on social media. And it is an amazing experience for me.  We have now folks in Australia, Europe, Asia, and all parts of the US with whom we communicate on a regular basis.  And it is not that we might not have been able to do this via the old form, i.e., letters. It is, however, that we would likely have long ago lost contact as people moved and neglected to tell us. See, people still actually move about, and we are not equally good about telling our old friends.

And so I celebrate this newfangled communications system—the social media of our new world, with all its attendant risks. It remains a vital means of maintaining a circle of friends, even if you get really, really old.

So, there.

And now I guess I will have to return to President Stupidhead (dumkopf??). We have to make sure he is not going to destroy the globe today at least.

Why it Matters That Trump Lies

Listening to all the yapping about the Trump address and the subsequent meeting, in which he walked (stormed?) out because Nancy said she would not give him his wall even if he (Trump) agreed to reopen the government. But it seems to me that much of the commentary misses a main point here, about Trump’s lying.

We know, factually that Trump lies almost every time he opens his mouth (not much of an exaggeration).  Now, why is that important? Well, first, it seems useful to observe that, because of his narcissism and his abysmal ignorance, he mainly seems neither to know nor care whether he is lying. He says things because they will draw applause. I guess he learned that by acting in The Apprentice. So, he lies, or not, it matters little, to get what he wants, which is roars of approving applause.  Now, when he is speaking to a broader audience, as in his address to the Nation, that approach surely works, at least with his base. And note, please, that his base cares as little about factual accuracy as he does.  He speaks to their hatreds or fears, and that is what they want. So they roar approval.  And he really does not care a fig about the ”fact-checkers” and their insistence on demonstrating his factual inaccuracies, aka lies.  They have zero effect on him.  Because he isn’t speaking to them. He is speaking to his base, folks who already approve anything he says, even before he says it. No, the “fact-checkers” only speak to us, those who still insist on facts. And we are as much their willing audience as the Trumpies are his.  So, we have two distinct sets of communications going on, neither of which ever intersect.

But then we have a different communications process, called “meetings”. Following Trump’s address to the Nation, he met with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, and a few others, to discuss the Wall and the budget and reopening Government.  In that meeting, he asked Pelosi a simple question: If I decide to reopen the government, will you approve funding for the Wall? She said No, and he then walked out of the room.  He says the meeting was a complete waste of time, because he was not going to get his way (the Wall) regardless of what he did or said.  And apparently, that is likely the case. The democratic leadership, such as it is, seems unlikely to yield on the Wall. And it isn’t even that they don’t want border security. It is just that they think it is a broader issue than the Wall, and he doesn’t want to discuss in those broader terms.  And this is where his constant lies and his ignorance come into play.

In a “meeting” intended to discuss a problem, or some issue, one makes progress by having someone lay out the basic principles of the issue. If it is a problem, then someone must first define the problem.  Then someone must define what is known of the root causes of the problem. For example:

1. America experiences X thousand incidents annually of border-related problems

2.  America’s Borders are not secure

a.       X thousand miles of land borders have no barriers

b.      Y thousand miles of sea borders have no functional barriers

c.       Border staffing cannot cover the entire border

d.      Non-personnel technology is inadequate to cover open border area

3.       X thousand migrants are estimated to cross illegally into the US annually through the open areas

4.       Y thousand incidents of damage to property or persons resident in the US are caused each year

In other words, to discuss something as complex as border security, one needs to break down the problem. You first state some factually verifiable statement of the overall problem. And the problem statement should define the harm done to the US by that problem. Then you divide that main problem into its main causes, with accompanying data on each main cause. Then for each sub-problem, you define likely solutions (and typically there might be several possible solutions for each type of problem).  And it is highly useful to attach to each problem, and to each solution a cost factor. What is the cost to America of the problem (and the cost might be monetary, or it might be in some other category)?  Then you examine the potential solutions to each of the problems, and define both their likely effects on the problem, and the likely costs of implementing the solutions. And the costs might be one-time capital costs, and/or annual maintenance costs.

This kind of analysis is the standard approach in science and in engineering a solution to perceived problems. Sometimes, it might be the case that the solution is much more expensive than the problem. In that case, you need to hold a discussion of why you might entertain such a solution.

One observes this type of problem-solution routinely in scientific ventures (how to place a man on the moon, for example). In geopolitical terms, we can see rough approximations of such thinking in deciding how to counter geo-political threats (say Hitler’s advancing threats to all of Europe, for example). But in the case of our border security issue, we have seen no evidence of this, or any other kind of analytic process.  Instead, we observe, simple statements of a problem, accompanied by factually inaccurate (made up out of whole cloth in some cases) statements of the main/sub problem set.

Mainly, from some statements made regarding “the Wall”, it would seem that “the Wall” was invented as a rhetorical device to keep Trump on target in speaking of the broad subject of border security (which is likely more complex than Trump can grasp). By constantly speaking of “the Wall” he is given a rhetorical device that draws applause from a committed group. But the device was not ever intended to be a serious issue for technical discussions of potential solutions to whatever the perceived problem might be. It was simply a way to keep Trump from drifting off topic.

And here is where his lying comes into play. If he doesn’t actually know anything, and he says whatever might draw applause from his MAGAHeads, he will in fact get nowhere in advancing a plausible scenario for a strategic approach to Border Security. As soon as he begins tossing out his “facts” and they are known to be false, he basically brings the discussion to a halt. They cannot proceed, because they are unable to agree on the problem being addressed. And if one cannot agree on the problem statement, then it is impossible to proceed to the solution stage. 

And since Trump doesn’t actually know anything about the actual problem, it is not possible to hold strategic discussions about any large topic.  And it isn’t only this border security issue. One cannot reasonably hold a strategic discussion with Trump on virtually any topic, because he doesn’t understand almost any nationally or globally important subject, and he will simply resort to his only approach—spitting out “pseudo-facts” intended for applause. But the other people in the room know his pseudo-facts are not a reasonable definition of the issue, and so he himself causes the discussion to come to a close.

Therein lies the core of our national problem with Trump. We should not really care about how he yells at his crowd of adoring MAGAHeads, because none of that matters. But what does matter is his inability to actually hold substantive discussions with knowledgeable officials aimed at defining problems and agreeing on plausible solutions.  On that, he is as useless as the proverbial “teats on a boar”. And there America is our problem.

And So 2018 Ends, Finally

And so the year drags on into oblivion. Another big stinker in the years that Trump ruins.

Being of sound mind, but an aging body, I am inclined to keep hoping for sanity to return to America. But two things keep getting in the way: Trump and Fox News. Fox News: since I don’t watch Fox News, except through the lens of a comedian, one might imagine that Fox has no effect on me. But, because Fox is watched by millions of Americans, most of whom still support Donald Trump, that affects me.

Because I am old, I have managed to survive through decades of traumatic events. Think:

The Great Depression: It began with that crash of the stock market in 1929, well before I was even a passing thought in Daisy’s mind. But its effects lingered so long and so wide that it ruined many in our family, who lost most of their limited money during the 1930’s.

World War II: yes, I was alive during all of that awful war, although I was barely aware as a human. I was 7 when the war began and 11 when it ended, old enough to remember life and events during that time.

The Cold War: well the shooting had largely stopped, but not the antagonisms, which continued to grow during that post-war period. It was almost as though the world powers could not stand peace, and had to act just this side of another suicidal war.  So, despite “peace”, world tensions continued to grow, along with the rhetoric of war.

Korea: Well, I guess we had to start shooting somewhere. This was perhaps the first of so many proxy wars. And what is a proxy war? Well, instead of shooting and bombing your enemies directly, you make believe by instead shooting and bombing people in another land, pretending to be shooting and bombing your enemies directly. It’s slightly less dangerous, unless you live in one of those “proxy countries”. Korea was one of the proxy countries. And we shot up the place pretty vigorously, until we decided to just call it off for a while.

Vietnam: we had relatively minor skirmishes until about 1968. We had been fooling around a lot in places like Eastern Europe . . . remember that Berlin Wall thing in 1949?? But largely, the guns remained silent, until . . . until what?  Well, that Cold War might have remained relatively quiet on the guns blazing thing, but the competition to gobble up space and allies never even remotely ceased. The “West” (us) and the “East” (Russia and China) spread their respective wings by forging “allies” (countries who thought like them, or countries that could be purchased through gun diplomacy).  Throughout Asia, the competition was especially intense, with China routinely flexing its muscles, supported vaguely by Russia. And, so first Korea, and then Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam, Cambodia, et, al.   And so, after JFK had been shot and killed by an idiot armed and stupid, LBJ had to take over the reins. And then that incident. Was one of our warships stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin attacked, or did we just fake that attack? Who knows? It seemed not to matter, because it was the designated trigger.  Now, to be fair, we had been supporting South Vietnam since at least 1954, with Eisenhower’s full support in his zeal to fight the good fight in that Cold War.  But we hadn’t done much in the way of actual shooting. Then the Gulf event, and lo and behold, the guns came out blazing. I assume that LBJ thought, or was persuaded by his generals that the shooting would cease as soon we demonstrated how big and powerful we were.  Wow, were they wrong. So, the shooting began, big time, and did not quit, despite massive bombing of the north, and even bombing into neighboring countries, until we decided to just quit in disgust. Johnson had decided not to run in 1972, and Tricky Dick Nixon swept into power, along with his republican BFFs.  And Tricky Dick also thought he could win by muscle flexing.  Alas, he was as wrong as Johnson, and so, Nixon just quit and walked away—March 29, 1973 I believe.  Many now classify that even as the first time the US was actually defeated in a war.  We called it an “armistice”, like the ending of WW I. But we simply failed to gain victory, and our guns were pulled out of the conflict.

The Middle East Mess: When did that mess begin? Well, some might say it has always been a mess. For hundreds of years, the mess was contained by one or more dictatorial regimes, mostly kings. Afghanistan is a great example. That country has always been controlled by kings, or “warlords”. The Brits, after “invading” India sometime in the 1600’s, first under the guise of the East India Trading Company and then via proper military rule during the 1700s and 1800s, decided to “subdue” the surrounding countrysides—Burma, Afghanistan. They periodically sent forth armed missions. They worked at it for a while but then gave up in the mid-1840s.  Then, the Russians decided they would like to own Afghanistan, if for no other reason than to sit atop part of the olde British Empire.  So, during the late 1970s, they invaded Afghanistan.  The Brits and the Americans began resisting, even to arming and creating the Taliban, but mainly the locals resisted and a full scale armed resistance began fighting the Russians (Soviets actually), creating the Russian Vietnam War, with similar results. Finally, after almost ten years, and chaos throughout the Soviet Union, the Russians quit, as we had done in Vietnam, leaving an even bigger mess in Afghanistan than before they began.  Now, 1979 also revealed the mess in Iran, with the overthrow of the Shah (our BFF) by the religious tyrant, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Poor Jimmy Carter, tried to overcome, but Saint Ronald of Reagan began working his magic backstage in Iran, and arranged a trade of hostages for super arms. Ronnie never minded doing bidness with tyrants. Turns out it’s a republican thing—see Donald Trump. So, the mess continued throughout the Middle East, with tyrannical regimes taking hold, lots of fighting, and just an ongoing, very bloody mess.

And then 9/11—with the bombing of American cities by Saudi’s residing in Afghanistan. And that really set off the shooting throughout the Middle East, from Afghanistan all the way into the proper Middle East. The Saudi’s, of course, kept on their white gloves throughout—turns out we liked their oil too much, so we tolerated the gross hypocrisy of the Saudi kings.  And then we elected one of our dumber presidents, Bush junior, aka Shrub. Since Daddy had failed in his quest to take over Iraq (actually he succeeded by kicking Sadaam in the ass, but junior didn’t understand that).  So, junior decided to go Daddy one step beyond, and actually invaded Iraq, thereby setting off the entire Middle East mess, that continues to this day. The Taliban grew, ISIS began, and the Middle East simply fell apart into a killing field that continues to this day. And President Stupidhead’s decision to retreat in Iraq, by removing all troops is just another in a long line of presidential stupidities about the Middle East.

But even given all these traumatic messes, for the most part we have had presidential leadership that was at least sane. Yes, I disagreed with many of our presidents, specifically, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush junior. But not all the time, about everything.  I even worked for a time under Reagan, and found him exhausting. But again, not all the time every day, every minute.  With Trump, he exhausts me daily. Every time I read about him, or listen to him, I am exhausted with the sheer stupidity of his utterances.  He cannot write, I understand that. So, his moronic tweets are his only method of pseudo-written communication. In his tweets, he reveals daily that he does not think and cannot write.  I shudder in anticipation every time he approaches any subject of domestic or, god forbid, global significance.  He is utterly exhausting, and he kills any sense that sanity might some day return to the United States.

Fox News, by acting as his amplifier, simply exacerbates the basic problem of a President who is perpetually out of control and who cannot think beyond his penis, or perhaps his empty stomach.  But I am growing to understand that the daily insanity is his world. It surrounds him and has for his entire life. Why/how anyone could tolerate him at work or in his private family life is beyond me. It is clear why he is on wife #3, and why he has destroyed that third relationship. It is clear why he has destroyed multiple businesses, and that he engages routinely in scams—see Trump University. But really, almost everything he touches turns into a scam of some kind.

But, even given Fox’s role in perpetuating his crooked image, and forcing him onto the world of otherwise sane people, I confess to not understanding most of his supporters. When he said, way back when, that he could walk out onto 5^th Avenue, pull out a gun and shoot someone, and his support numbers would go up, I now believe him, but without any understanding of why that should be. That is what troubles me. Why would his numbers go up? And how does he manage to remain at 38% approval? What in heavens name does he give his supporters?  He’s a scam, way worse than Bernie Madoff. His tariffs are destroying any sanity in the world of economics, and he continues to walk away from our global responsibilities.  His border wall thing is the stuff of childhood tantrums, bearing no relationship to anything real. Even if you are a racist, you surely could not believe in the Wall.

That’s what drives me nuts. People, grown Americans, still support him. That seems nuts to me. I understand that most of his supporters are racist, but surely even they could not be getting enough of his daily stupidities to still support him.

And finally, I am drawn to the awful prospect that his supporters love him because they are like him—racist, unthinking, uncaring, bitter people who just want to blow things up. They don’t want our country to return to sanity and a civil course of national actions. They like hating “the other”. And they especially hate the “elites” (anyone not like them).  So, they will continue forever following him until he actually manages to destroy everything.  And then they will laugh, just before they die.

And that thought depresses me, as I enter my 46^th 39^th year of existence. How could this be? I don’t know Richard, but it is. And so, I have to continue to hope that the rest, the young, the restless, the thoughtful, may re-enter public life. And that sanity might someday to return and the Trumpies will go back into our collective national closets, from whence they came.  And how will this happen? Well, voting in massive numbers comes to mind. Voting in such large numbers that even threats of voter fraud from the republicans cannot quiet the vote. And even idiots in our courts like Kavanaugh, cannot withstand the logic and the fervor of America, as it seeks to return to an honest, caring civil society. So, that is my hope for America, for 2019 and beyond. Even if I don’t make it out there, that we will continue as a Nation of mostly honest people, and we will return to the world from whence we ran away. So, be kind 2019. We must prepare ourselves to reclaim our destiny.

Poppy Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush.  A one-time president who followed arguably the worst president (at the time) in modern times, St. Ronald of Reagan. I know, I know, republicans revere St. Ronnie, but republicans seem to revere anyone who promises to open the coffers of America to them.  And Ronnie knew how to open those coffers. He produced perhaps the largest deficits of our time simply by following the “Laffer Curve”, that pseudo-economic theory arguing that, if one reduces overall tax rates, overall tax revenues will rise. See, that’s why it was called the “Laffer (or Laugher)” curve. Now, to be fair, we don’t know what Poppy Bush had to do with all that Ronnie economics drivel. He never had much of a chance to demonstrate his understanding of anything real while St. Ronald of Reagan was in the catbird seat.

But Poppy did seem a portrait of sense and sensibility after 8 years of the idiot president (now, be fair, Richard. Reagan was a model of intellectual brilliance when compared with our current idiot-malenfant, Comrade Trump).

But Poppy Bush seemed at the least a thoroughly honorable man.  He served his country honorably during war time, and he seemed at the least a decent man who tried to do right by his fellow countrymen.  His legacy in the mess that is called the Middle East is at least reasonable, especially when compared with his idiot son.  He at least tried to build an international coalition, unlike Junior.  

He also raised taxes, something considered heresy after Reagan, but he was actually trying to be responsible.

He is criticized a lot for indifference during the building AIDs crisis. But Reagan was actually Mr. Indifference. Reagan did nothing during the building AIDS crisis (he was too busy increasing the Nation’s public debt), whereas Poppy Bush passed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, which, while not an AIDS bill, nonetheless enabled assistance to people with AIDS. He also, on the heels of the Exxon-Valdez catastrophe, passed into law the Clean Air Act, building on public awareness of the risks to the environment from pollution.

Although he was a reasonable president, especially when compared with his predecessor St. Ronald, he was unable to build a constituency that could keep him in office and he succumbed to the Clinton charm act.  But when we examine our current status, as the joke of the universe, George H.W. Bush seems a paragon of virtue.  Actually, almost any of our preceding presidents do also. But even by comparison with his idiot son, Poppy looks pretty good.

Our standards have changed, perhaps forever. However much we might yearn for presidents in our past (oh, Barack Obama, where are you when we most need you?) we need to get on with the work at hand. And what is that work you might ask? Well, mainly, I see our main job as Americans, as limiting the long term damage done by our incompetent, dishonest, corrupt . . . oh you know—Trump.  I don’t even see impeachment as being part of that game. I think we need to let it all play out. First of all, if we impeach Trump, successfully, we get Pence. And how would that be better? Pence is even more of an idiot than Trump.  His religion so gets in the way that there is perhaps no way to even figure out if Pence is halfway intelligent.  So, no, I do not want Pence as the replacement president. I want us to suffer under Trump for two more years and then to see him voted out of office by a large vote margin. He will scream voter fraud, but he will be wrong as he is about almost all of the issues facing our country.  If the people vote to retain him in office, then I have no further hope for this Nation. We will be officially at an end.

But I do not anticipate such an outrageous election result. No, I imagine that reason will prevail and we will vote into office someone else, perhaps this time a woman of some decent intellect and moral character. Perhaps Kirsten Gillibrand, but perhaps someone else. We don’t know yet. But we must choose and choose wisely, because our nation is on borrowed time. We cannot afford another gigantic mistake like Trump. We simply no longer have the financial or emotional resources left. It is time, folks. Think, and think hard about whether we wish to see our nation continue.