Trump in Transition (v2)

Reuters photo

So, how are things going out there in Transition-land? Well, let's get caught up.

Trump has named three more officials so far, in addition to Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Chief Strategist Steve Bannon: for National Security Advisor, the foreign-client-lobbying-while-receiving-US-security-briefings-challenged, angry retired General Mike Flynn, and Kansas tea-partier Mike Pompeo for CIA director. One can only guess that there were no guys named Mike who could fill the role of the so-racially-compromised-that-even-Republicans-didn't-confirm-him-for-a-federal-judgeship, so Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions got tapped for Attorney General. Maybe they'll call him Mike.

Other than that?  Well, New Gingrich supposedly doesn't want a government job. Rudy Giuliani wanted one so badly that he made a fool of himself, and Trump doesn't like people who make fools of themselves. Ask Chris Christie. And, we're not sure whether Mitt Romney went to meet with Trump because he's that decent a guy, or because he wants a role in the administration, or if, as one Trump insider said, it was time for Mitt to kiss the Donald's ring. This is something Trump is quite fond of doing, summoning people to his altar, from whence there emanates a giant smooching sound.

We're waiting for more appointments and whatnot, but we did have news that the Trump Organization is exploring anything and everything to figure out how they're going to keep the business separate from the POTUS. The complicated Trump businesses, with real estate and golf and wine and roses (oh wait, sorry, made that roses part up) and the Trump Foundation and the made-out-of-the-USA fashion empires and all of the foreign loans and the Russian connections -- it's a big old hot mess of a conflicts.

And it gets hotter when you remember that the three most favored children are now officially part of the transition team, just as they are, with their dad, the top management of the company. So how are they doing with that separation thing?

Not bigly well, that's for sure.

Reuters/Cabinet PR Office photo

Ivanka was included in the meeting with the Japanese prime minister the other day; so was her husband, Jared Kushner. So, for a few minutes, was Broadway aficionado and Veep-elect Mike Pence - for a few minutes, anyway.

Now, I'm sure Ivanka's role there was only to observe - after all, she was sitting off to the side in the official picture, as you can see. But what is one really to make of her being there?

Did the Japanese officials walk away wondering why that tall blond woman was in the room with the guy wearing the dark suit and brown shoes? Or did they leave with the understanding that the POTUS would smile on them if they helped the First Daughter expand the company's real estate holdings in Japan?

Or, what about the Indian businessmen who visited with Trump and his kids?

Economic Times photo

Was this meeting to congratulate him on his victory, as Trump's camp said, or was it to expand their partnership? And what about Trump praising the Indian Prime Minister during the meeting - was that the businessman speaking or the POTUS speaking?

And remember the old Post Office a stone's throw down Pennsylvania Ave from the White House, the building he turned into a luxury hotel? Yeah, it seems that the Trump International Hotel is the place to be if you're a foreign visitor here to meet with the POTUS.  After all, as one Asian diplomat noted,

Why wouldn't I stay at this hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, 'I love your new hotel!' Isn't it rude to come to his city and say, 'I'm staying at your competitor?'

No conflict there, though -- right? But what happens if someone is not staying there, and the POTUS asks innocently, 'Hey, how do you like my new hotel?' What answer does the person give, and what do they get from their visit to the White House? Is it going to be an honest exchange, or will it be more like what happens when Trump gets mad at an apprentice?

And that's not to mention the fact that the lease on the building is between Trump's business and the General Services Administration (GSA), and GSA leases don't allow any elected official to benefit from the leases in any way. And it's also not to mention that the POTUS appoints the head of the GSA. And that the GSA would be negotiating with the POTUS offspring.

Priebus, trying to calm the fears, said today in an interview on CNN that

Obviously we will comply with all of those laws and we will have our White House counsel review all of these things We will have every 'i' dotted and every 't' crossed, and I can assure the American people that there won't be any wrongdoing or any sort of undue influence over any decision-making.

I'm not resting easy, over Trump's personnel decisions to date, or over the lack of action on getting the businesses into a true conflict-free zone. Particularly given that Trump and his minions spent an inordinate amount of time barking about the alleged pay-to-play with the Clinton Foundation (which is an actual foundation, giving money to actual causes, as opposed to Trump's foundation, which merely pays his bills), I can only surmise they thought they weren't going to win and so didn't do any thinking in advance of how to separate Trump the President from Trump the business. And he clearly can't seem to separate himself from Ivanka and her husband.

Until we hear something concrete on how he plans on making the break, I won't be assured, no matter how much Reince Priebus wants me to be.

Immigrant Data, Bigly

Lots of news out there about the POTUS-elect maybe implementing a Muslim registry.

You may recall he talked about this almost a year ago, back in the day when he was stumping in Iowa, when even he probably thought there was about a Trumpzillion-to-one chance of being elected.

I would certainly implement that (a database Muslim tracking system), absolutely. There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems. 

He noted that even American Muslims would "have to be - they have to be" legally obligated to sign into the database; he also refused to explain how what he was suggesting differed from Germany's actions towards Jews under the Nazis, which is the most frequent comparison. And then, like so many of his pronouncements, he walked it back.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Fast forward to this week, and we have Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach talking about the registry again. Kobach, a key advisor to the Trump transition team, worked in the Dubya administration and helped create the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, after 9/11 which required fingerprinting and interrogation on arrival from a high-risk country, as well as a requirement for some men to check in periodically - sort of like being on parole.

The registry goes along with the 'extreme vetting' plan that Trump has been promoting ever since he softened his stance on a total and complete shutdown on Muslims. We don't yet know what form the extreme vetting will take, but we do know that it's going to be more extreme than today's process, which takes up to two years in some cases before entry.

My guess is that it will take between four and eight years to get in, but perhaps I'm being overly cynical.

In addition to Kobach, there's Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL and current talking head, who babbled Wednesday about the constitutionality of a registry.

It is legal. They say it'll hold constitutional muster. I know the ACLU is going to challenge it, but I think it'll pass. We it during World War II with the Japanese, which, you know, call it what you will.

So, ignoring the dark period where we rounded up American citizens and shipped them off to camps to protect us from, you know, Americans, would this be legal and constitutional?

Yes, it would, if done correctly. The NSEERS program, for example, was used for a decade after 9/11, applied to only certain people from only a couple dozen countries that coincidentally happened to be predominantly Muslim -- and North Korea - and was deemed OK. From the Vox article:

So when the government designates people from particular countries for special treatment, according to Kevin Johnson of University of California Davis, "those are the kinds of things the courts are likely to say have foreign policy implications and should be in the hands of the federal government and the executive branch. 

In other words, it might not be constitutional for the government to single out Muslim immigrants for particular treatment But it's another thing for the government to single them out on a country-by-country basis  - "to say, 'I'm going to ban migrants or Muslims, even, from Yemen,'" Johnson says. 

A court challenge was rejected, and the program stayed in place.  Although no longer used, the framework is apparently still there, as are some redundant data-gathering tools, which is why the Obama administration removed the 25 countries from the NSEERS program.

A new program, some kind of registry, may never materialize - as with so many things we've heard the POTUS-elect say, or threaten, or promise, we have no idea -  and frankly I'm not even sure he has any idea what he's going to do.

Those of us who did not support him and are waiting for a sign that he's going to coalesce his many statements, policy changes, Tweets and teams into something cohesive and defined and supportable or at least not horror-inducing, were told after he won the election that we needed to wait and see.

We needed to see who he surrounded himself with, those "good people" we heard so much about, and to give him a chance to get his act together.

I'm still waiting to see how that's going to work out - but while I wait, I think it's important to pay attention to this last word from the Vox article:

A lot of people didn't know about NSEERS when it was in effect. That's not a reason not to care now. It's a reminder that when policies are actually implemented, they're rarely as crude and legally dubious as a politician like (the POTUS-elect) makes them sound - and that makes it harder for them to be challenged either in court or in the public eye. 

Care.

Care deeply about whatever direction this administration takes us.

Wondering on Wednesday (v70)

Here we are, another Wednesday and I'm still wondering, Mr President-elect.

I'm wondering how adding your three adult children to your Presidential transition team is going to help them get busy having fun running the family business - and whether you're even capable of making decisions without your daughter and your son-in-law, since it was at least suggested that you were going to seek top level security clearances for them?

And I'm wondering if you even remember reaching out and asking for guidance from people who didn't vote for you? If yes, I'm wondering whether you've given any thought to the protests that are happening around the country, and what people are trying to tell you?

I'm wondering how you can think that hiring a Chief Strategist so inflammatory that even your own camp defends him using inflammatory rhetoric is a good thing? That's right; here's what your folks say:

He has got a Harvard business degree. He's a Naval officer. He has success in entertainment. I don't know if you're aware of that. And he certainly was a Goldman Sachs managing partner. ~ Kellyanne Conway

This whole notion - it's like the Washington Post has this columnist the other day who pointed out that we're on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, which was the night when the Nazis attacked Jewish businesses. And I'm thinking, 'This is crazy!' But the fact is - and you get all these smears of Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon was a naval officer. He was a managing partner of Goldman Sachs. He was a Hollywood movie producer. You know the idea that somehow he represents -- I had never heard of the alt-right until the nutcakes started writing about it. ~ Newt Gingrich

See, Bannon can't be anti-Semitic, he's been in Hollywood! He worked for Goldman Sachs! In the financial industry! Come on, he's practically an honorary Jew! I wonder, do you see how ridiculous that is? Oh wait -- what am I wondering? You're the guy who cracked anti-Semitic jokes yourself!

I wonder why it is that Alex Jones, the InfoWars conspiracy guy, posted a video where he told everyone that you personally called him to thank him for his support, and that of his conspiracy theorists? I mean, why would the President-elect personally call a guy like Alex Jones to thank him? Alex Jones who thinks the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, you know -- that the guy you called?

Trump said, "I just talked to the kings and queens of the world, world leaders, you name it. But he said, "It doesn't matter, I wanted to talk to you to thank your audience, and I'll be on in the next few weeks to thank them.. we know what you did early on and throughout this campaign, stand up for what's right, it shows."

I wonder, is your whole candidacy some kind of conspiracy? Or is that too extreme even for you and your followers?

And I wonder, when you say that something "is the law of the land" and so cannot be touched, do you have any idea what you're talking about? Marriage Equality is the law of the land, you said, and so my friends and family members don't have anything to worry about. Have you listened to any of your speeches? Read the GOP platform, maybe, I wonder?

Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, too - so I wonder if there's any reason to worry about that?  And you know what else is the law of the land?  Yeah, the Affordable Care Act. That's been decided already too, but I wonder why that hasn't stopped the House of Representatives from their 60-some-odd votes to repeal it, and why you made repealing it and replacing it (with what sounds a lot like the same thing) a priority for your first 100 days?

I wonder, do you like food for thought? Because, by the way,- voting rights for minority communities also used to be the law of the land, until your GOP got in the way.

I wonder, do you have so much as one single little clue what the hell you've gotten yourself into?

Even the slightest clue, I wonder?

Meanwhile Back in Albany (v8)

Nathaniel Brooks/NY Times

Oh, how the plot has thickened!

It seems the Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation has come to a stalemate and it appears there will be no pay raise this year.

When we last touched base on this in v7, I had suggested that whatever raise was decided, it should be implemented exactly the same as the increase in the minimum wage - higher and faster for NYC and immediate areas, much slower (and likely not ever reaching the NYC rate) for Western NY, Central NY, Northern NY and the Southern Tier.  I thought that was a great plan, and I actually submitted it to the commissions.

As I noted in v5 of this series, Fran Reiter, one of our Sonofa Gov's appointees on the Commission, has long been asking for reasons why the raise was needed, either form legislature leaders or members since some had said they had no interest in one, especially in an election year.  She had also been concerned with the ethical challenges that had been identified in the Leg, including the convictions of Shelly Silver and Dean Skelos.

Today, Reiter indicated she would not go along with the increase absent action from the Leg on ethics.

We believe the opinion of the public is entirely relevant, if not determinative. Because the public is, in the truest definition of the word, the employer. Obviously the employer's view on the employee performance and merit is incredibly important.

A vote was called in the meeting, when Reiter and Cuomo appointee Robert Megna abstained, along with judicial appointee Bart Crozier, the deal was done. Without a fully representative majority, and with a statute that required a decision no later than November 15, there was nothing left to be done.

Showing great collaboration and a unified front, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan issued a joint statement.

It is unfortunate that the Governor's appointees to the New York State Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation once again felt the need to demand legislative action in exchange for an increase in compensation. This is completely unacceptable and far exceeds the mandate of the Commission, which was to evaluate the need for an increase in compensation based primarily on economic factors.

I'm actually somewhat torn with this outcome. While I too had a hard time thinking about giving everyone a giant raise in one fell swoop, given they already make substantially more than the median income in New York, and since many members are fairly new to the Leg, they shouldn't be eligible for what was, in effect, to be make up pay, I was looking forward to what the Commission would ultimately recommend, and more selfishly, if they would consider an implementation plan that exactly mirrored the ones the same Legislature put into effect for struggling New Yorkers.

Sadly, we'll never know.

Trump: In Transition (v1)

Reuters photo

Donald Trump reconfigured his transition team the other day, adding clarity to how his 'outsider' campaign is approaching the mind-numbing process of building a government.

As has been widely reported, including on the new GreatAgain.gov website (bookmarked that one, I sure did), Trump will have the opportunity to fill some 4,000 positions, over a quarter of which will need Senate approval. Dust off your resumes, if you're interested in working in the #MAGA administration, now's your chance!

Here's the team that's going to help him get ready to lead:

• Dr. Ben Carson

• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who had been leading the effort, and for whom the bell tolled after the conviction of two close aides in the Bridgegate scandal; word has it that Trump started losing trust after Christie failed to go along with theGropegate denial plan, and that seeing former Christie aide Bridget Kelly crying on TV was the last straw. 

• Georgia's Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, who suggested in June, in the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting, that we need a new House Un-American Activities Committee to address the issue of ISIS infiltration. You know, root them out, make wildly crazy accusations, in the most Un-American way possible. He apparently forgot that the shooter was reported to the FBI and cleared (twice, if I recall), and that, based on the shooter's participation in the gay community, his allegiance to ISIS would seem to be in doubt.  As Dave Chappelle noted on SNL last night, if he yelled "Wu Tang" before engaging in sexual activities with a young lady, it doesn't mean that he's a member of the Wu Tang Clan. He (Gingrich, not Chappelle) also said we need to test all Muslims in the country but I doubt he'd agree with me that there are lots of other people who should be tested similarly to make sure they share my American values.

• Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, USA (Ret.), who apparently made quite a dent at an intelligence briefing, and has been called America's angriest general. As noted in both of these links, he was one of the 'lock her up' cheerleaders at the Five Dark Days in Cleveland.

• Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani 

• U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, who's been representing Alabama in Washington for 20 years, and who was known for being quite, shall we say, colorful. I particularly enjoyed his reported comments about the KKK.

• Pennsylvania Congressman Lou Barletta, reported to be an immigration hardliner, who gets a lot of financial support from the infrastructure space, and fellow Keystone stater Tom Marino, who was once chased across the House floor by Nancy Pelosi. 

• Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, who was allegedly involved in exposing private information of doctors and researchers in the aftermath of the dramatically faked Planned Parenthood videos. 

• Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. You remember her, right? The one to whom Trump's Foundation gave a $25K contribution as she was in the middle of deciding whether or not to sign on to an investigation with other state Attorneys General into Trump's university? Yeah, her. It gets better:  in addition to other donations from Trump and his family, it seems that when the Trump campaign holds an event at Mar-a-Lago, it costs $140,000 but when Bondi held an event there, it cost less than $5,000. Funny how that works. 

• Buffalo-area Congressman Chris Collins, who has a surprisingly sketchy conservative voting record.

• Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and the reason why he can't get hold of Ivanka on Saturday, and a man who may or may not have been offended with his father-in-law's comments to Jewish Republicans. Kushner owns the former NY Observer, which as of last week is now a digital-only publication, no longer tied to New York.

• Rebekah Mercer, who with her father is a mega-donating Clinton hater with connections to both Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway (or maybe I should say, both Bannon and Conway have connections to Mercer). 

• Steven Mnuchin, Trump's campaign finance chair, possible Treasury Secretary and, according to this article, the Anti-Populist from Hell who was intricately involved in everything that was wrong with the banking industry that led to the Great Recession. 

• California Congressman Devin Nunes. Chair of the House Intelligence Committee and strong defender of a tiny US base off the coast of Portugal, which no one really understands, perhaps other than to point to his Portuguese heritage.

• Anthony Scaramucci, another big money Wall Street guy who once called Trump a political hack and who is known as The Mooch. 

• Peter Thiel, tech gazillionaire, outed gay man, and taker-downer of media company Gawker. I'm not sure which of those biographical points was the one that attracted Trump.

• Donald Trump Jr., number one son, a top executive of the Trump Organization, and of course, a Tweeter like his father; remember the infamous Skittles tweet?

• Eric Trump, who to his credit runs a charity that has raised millions of dollars for St. Jude's Children Research Hospital, but that has some of the same 'challenges' as his father's foundation. He also famously said that his sister was too strong to put up with sexual harassment and that women should just go to HR and report it.

• Ivanka Trump, apple of her father's eye, outside-the-US clothing manufacturer, and brains behind the Trump child care plan, which only applies to married women, and would give a tax credit to families with children that don't have any child care expenses -which would, of course, be considered welfare in a different administration.

• RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, just named Chief of Staff,  Breitbart executive and Trump Campaign CEO Stephen K. Bannon, who was just named Chief Strategist, and VP Mike Pence are also key players.

It will be interesting to see how this group comes together to shape the Trump administration.

There is also the question of the Trump children being so closely involved, at the same time they are also involved in trying to get the Trump Organization structure figured out so that President Trump and Businessman Trump are not entwangled.

Giuliani has recommended a blind trust, but it seems a little hard when your global brand has your name all over it, for anyone to be blind to it, especially someone like Trump. This may be a more interesting thing to watch than which Swampy people get tapped for the new administration.

More to come.

OrangeVerse II: Victory

I. It's Complicated

 Sorry to keep you waiting; complicated business; 

(complicated.)

Thank you very much.

I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton.

She congratulated us — 

it’s about us — 

on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family

on a very, very hard-fought campaign. 

I mean, she — 

she fought 

very hard.

II. It's Time

Now it’s time for America 

to bind the wounds of division; 

(have to get together.)

To all Republicans

and Democrats 

and independents

across this nation, 

I say it is time for us 

to come together 

as one united people.

(It’s time.) 

III. It's a Beautiful Thing

I’ve spent my entire 

life and business looking

at the untapped potential in projects

and in people all 

over the world. 

That is now what I want 

to do for our country.

(Tremendous potential.) 

I’ve gotten to

know our country so 

well — tremendous potential. 

It’s going to be a beautiful thing.

IV. It's About Rudy

We have got — we have got 

tremendously talented people up here. 

And I want to tell you, it’s been — 

it’s been very, very special.

I want 

to give a very special

thanks to our former mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

Unbelievable. 

Unbelievable. 

He traveled with us and 

he went through meetings. 

That Rudy 

never changes. 

Where’s Rudy? 

Where is he? 

(Rudy.)

I Am Not Ready to Move On, Thank You

To all the people who have told me, repeatedly, that I need to get over it or move on or accept it or unite or join together to help Make America Great Again, I ask you to bear with me as I paint over you with the same broad brush you have used to paint over me.  I’m not trying to offend you, I’m really not.

Let me throw you a bone: I acknowledge that Donald Trump is the president-elect and will become President at noon on Friday, January 20, 2017.

I have previously admitted that I was in the #NeverTrump camp, and provided my reasons for that, based on my opinions of his policies. You can read those if you’re interested, they’ve been publicly posted. I was also firmly in the #NeverTrump camp based on his actions, and his words, during the course of his campaign, because I found so many of both – actions and words – to be personally offensive.

As a woman with a big nose, a fat ass and small boobs, I know I am not a 10 in your candidate’s book – and I could not be prouder.  

I cringe each and every time I see the commercial of your candidate mocking a disabled person. If you think it was funny, tha’s your choice. I found it -- and find it – disgusting. I found your candidate’s questioning an American-born judge’s heritage, and therefore his integrity, honesty and fairness on the basis of his last name, insulting.

I did not consider your candidate’s comments about his actions towards women and our vaginas humorous. As someone with personal experience on this subject, I can assure you, without question, it is not.

It is frightening, horrible, gut-wrenching, and unforgettable.  So yes - laugh, if you like, while I fight the urge to vomit.

As you tell me, repeatedly, to accept and unify, I remind you that as it stands now, your candidate received 47.5% of the vote, and his opponent received 47.7%, or some 280,646 more votes. And while your candidate will be President, and his opponent will not, it’s more than slightly presumptuous on your part to assume that everyone who did not vote for your guy will shut up and toe the line on YOUR schedule.

I find myself compelled to remind you that it was not until September 16, 2016 that your candidate accepted the legitimacy of our current president.  Let me say that again: it was less than two months ago that your candidate finally acknowledged that our current President was in fact born in this country. 

Our current president has 70 days or so left in his second term; I hope the irony that you’re asking me to accept our President-elect less than 48 hours after he lost the popular vote is not lost on you. It’s certainly not lost on me.

One more thing about our current President: if you refer to him as Barack Hussein Obama, and pretend that when you do so “you’re only using his real name”, let me know when you’re ready to accept him as your president.  Similarly, I’ll look forward to you always referring to our President-elect by his full real name, too – or won’t that be necessary?

Come inauguration day next January, I will be mourning my father on the 10^th anniversary of his passing. Hopefully, I’ll be able to tell him that your candidate did something – ANYTHING – to convince me he’s not the person that he presented himself to be, over and over and over, during his campaign.

The ball is his court, not mine. And not yours.

Wondering on Wednesday (v69)

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

As are most people, even the ones who supported now President-elect Donald Trump, I'm bigly wondering on this Wednesday, what the heck just happened here and what the heck is going to happen next.

On the former, for the first time ever, they say, we have elected a person who has both no political experience and no military experience to be President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States.

Not only that, but we've elected a person who does not support perhaps a majority of the positions held o happen next" part all that much more intriguing and fun to watch, if that's the right term?

There's a whole lot of other wondering going on, too.

It's fascinating to see how so many people who declared themselves "voters without a candidate" seem to be so happy about Donald Trump being elected. I wonder whether that's because they were afraid to admit they were Trump supporters, or if they were having more fun pretending they were not?

And speaking of Trump supporters, what will they do if he's unable to do the things he promised he do just in the first 100 days? There's a lot in there - ISIS, Syria, NAFTA and the TPP, the Iran nuclear deal, Obamacare, abortion, China, veterans, guns, and some of that was before the Contract with the American Voter (not, mind you, a contract with all Americans) which came out at his Gettysburg address: immigration, cancelling executive orders, $50 trillion in energy development -  my head spins.

In all seriousness, though, I think this is a legitimate question. He was nothing if not over promising, almost daily, in almost Seussian fashion (emphasis on 'almost').

I have brains in my head

and feet in my shoes

I can steer myself 

any direction I choose

I'm on my own, and I know what I know

and I am the guy who'll decide where to go. 

If he fails to live up to those promises, does he lose his support?

And then there's the special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton Foundation, Now that he has vanquished Clinton, will there still be calls for her head, I wonder? If, as a conciliatory measure he decides to let this one slide, what will happen?

Another thing I'm wondering is how we are supposed to unite to move the country forward?  Is there some picture of an olive tree somewhere in Trump Tower? You know, something along the lines of "we really don't mean those things we said throughout the campaign, and you have to trust us on that?"

Or, even better, an actual olive branch, something specific his camp could offer as a way to actually try and bring those who equally love America but didn't vote for him towards some kind of reconciliation? I wonder what he might put on the table; I could suggest a couple of things, but since I had two feet very publicly planted in the #NeverTrump camp, I don't really think it's up to me to make the conciliatory gesture, do you?

Frankly, I'd love to hear, from a single Trump voter, some offer of reconciliation. Getting a lot of "we need to unite" as if it's on us to capitulate, set aside our ideals and thoughts on government, and just chug some orange Kool Aid or something. Is that how this is supposed to go, especially with Trump actually losing the popular vote?

I wonder if the 18-24 month vetting process we currently have for some folks wanting to come to America, the most stringent process in the world already, will become a 48-month process once Trump is inaugurated?

And then there's the whole "how did we miss this/refuse to acknowledge this" hand-wringing going on in the media. It's hard not to wonder what their post-mortem will look like:

• Can we trust exit polls? Would someone actually lie on a poll? Did they tell the truth and we chose to ignore them? 
• Could we have done more to talk about the issues during this race instead of focusing on the personalities? 
• Could we have spent less time fawning over the candidates and their surrogates,less time making sure we looked good asking our questions, and more time talking to actual people?
• Should we have given done more to investigate whether the vitriol and hatred in the campaign was more than skin deep?
• Should we have placed so much
• Are we willing to admit that we didn't do our best work here, and vow to do better throughout the Trump administration, to hold everyone accountable to the people even though Trump has threatened us almost from the beginning of his campaign?
• When should any projections be made before the polls are closed in all states? Does reporting what;s happening on the East Coast impact what happens across the time zones?

Will Fox News finally be considered to be part of the mainstream media? Fox was Trump's personal microphone, throughout the campaign. There was little to no critical coverage of him by that network, anymore than there was from any of the other networks. Can't we just come clean on that?What the heck are we waiting for, I wonder?

What will happen with Trump's business empire? There has been little to no discussion about how we make sure his focus is our focus not his focus if you follow my drift. I'm surprised how little discussion there has been, given the amount of attention given plans for the Clintons to divest themselves from their Foundation. Trump, the nationalist candidate, is a global business magnate. We can't afford to let that get lost in the shuffle.

What are our allies wondering, this Wednesday? People think it's hard to be people who voted against Trump, imagine how hard it is for our allies?

There's more, so much more wondering up there in my head.  I'll end, as I have throughout this entire fascinating, aggravating, confounding campaign, whether it was Wednesday or Sunday or Tuesday or Friday or some other day.

I wonder what my Dad would say.

The Morning After

I'm #NeverTrump: The Rest of the Story

wonkette.com

In Sunday's post, I looked at Donald Trump's positions on immigration and health care, two reasons I cannot vote for him.  Those are not the only ones.

On Guns:
Trump proudly notes that we're the only country with a Second Amendment, and he subscribes to the "individual right to bear arms without any infringement" mindset. He's got a concealed carry permit, which may be the six most frightening words I've ever written, and he believes concealed carry here should be concealed carry there. As do many others, Trump draws a parallel between a concealed carry permit and a driver's license. To me, the fact that you can actually see the car is but one important difference.

One of the big pieces of his Second Amendment plan is that we expand mental health treatment programs because "most people with mental health problems aren't violent, they just need help." For those who are violent, he notes, "a danger to themselves or others" we need to get them off the street before they can terrorize our communities. As I noted in the previous post, he plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which brings with it expanded care for mental health and substance abuse diagnoses, would counteract whatever he wants to expand here, right? Furthermore, how is it possible that every American mass shooter (and by that, you know, I mean non-Muslim) in recent years had some kind of mental health red flag that was ignored, but the ones committed by those other Americans, well, those are terrorism? I don't support calling one terrorism and the other a mental health issue, sorry.

On Education:
I do not support "immediately adding an additional $20 billion to school choice" and allowing the money to be put into private schools. Parents are welcome to send their children to private school; they can save their own hard-earned money to pay for it, they can participate in a car washes or bake sales, or they can hope their child can get a scholarship - but we should not be paying them to leave the public education system.

On Child Care and Maternity Leave:
Trump's child care plan is designed to allow working parents to deduct from their income taxes child care expenses for up to four children (and elderly dependents). The plan allows stay-at-home parents the same deduction. So, you deduct child care expenses when you have them, and you deduct child care expenses when you don't have them?

Trump's maternity leave plan makes changes to unemployment insurance law to allow paid maternity leave at the same level as a laid-off employee would receive. It would only come into play if a company didn't already offer maternity leave. There will be unquantified 'reductions' in the unemployment programs to pay for the maternity leave. The plan also notes that "employers in a competitive marketplace" should not get rid of any existing maternity leave plans to participate in the new unemployment insurance maternity leave program.

Similarly, companies should not have eliminated company sponsored health insurance to move employees to the health insurance exchanges; they shouldn't have dropped people to just below the minimum hours requirement to avoid having to pay for insurance and, well, you get the drift. It's hard to imagine that businesses would only be unscrupulous when it comes to insurance, but not when it comes to maternity leave. Silly me.

On the plus side, he has clarified that the plan would cover same sex couples provided their marriage was recognized by their state. Same and opposite sex couples who are not married? SOL. Paternity leave? SOL. Adoption? Not sure, it's not spelled out - but the whole plan seems to be predicated on a married lady getting preggers, and all other circumstances be damned.

On the Military:
Trump wants to make the military YUGE, even YUGER than the military wants it to be, which always makes me wonder what the politicians think they know that the military experts don't. As noted in the article, Trump's plan is reminiscent of Mitt Romney's, which called for a bigger Navy and which led to the classic debate moment where Obama noted we have fewer bayonets and horses in the military than we did back in 1916, when we have a big Navy.  Ah, the good old days.

On the Rest of the Constitution:
The Second Amendment is the first amendment to Trump and others. He does plan on protecting our constitutional liberties, and freedom of religion and of speech and of the press. Which is ironic, given we have him on tape talking about how we need to limit the press, and how he's limited the press throughout his campaign.

He will fill Supreme Court vacancies in the 'originalist' manner, a la Antonin Scalia, which puts at risk rights owned by members of my family and by my friends. I cannot support those changes.

So: immigration, health care reform, guns, the military, child care and maternity leave, education, the Supremes, and more -- I don't agree with and can't support his positions.

And, of course there's the whole issue of what his America looks like: maybe we abide by treaties, maybe not; maybe we pay our debt, maybe not; maybe we support our allies, maybe not; maybe we defend our freedoms, maybe not; maybe we're a global citizen, maybe  not; maybe we punish women who have abortions, maybe not; maybe this, maybe that, maybe something else. Or maybe not.

And, finally, there's his assassination of our democratic process. When you pronounce our whole system as being rigged well before the election even occurs, well before a decision has been made, you belittle us before the rest of the world. On purpose. I can't support that either.

So the decision, for me, to be #NeverTrump is an easy one.

The Election Eve Post - 2016 Edition

It's that time again - the night before the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. That means it's Election Eve, and time for me to do my darnedest to encourage you to vote.

I always enjoy looking at the prior year's post, and seeing what has changed and what hasn't. Last year at this time we were looking at Hillary vs. Martin, two Democrats, vs. Bernie, the I with a D next to his name. And, by this time, we were down to only fourteen Republicans; it's almost hard to remember when there was a clear choice between John Kasich, Ted Cruz, and you-know-who.

Locally, it's much quieter, although we do - again, gosh darn it - have one of the noisiest Congressional races in the country. Seems our district, which was once held by a Syracuse Republican for 20 years or so, continues to be a hot property. Some have said that if John Katko - the incumbent first term Republican - wins tonight, he too could be a 20 year man if he wanted. He's gotten a lot done, more than many, and he's had bipartisan support doing it, so we might have a save (or, would it be a steal?)

Here we are, facing a choice like none other, or maybe since the 1880's, according to one pundit. 

This is where we are, and we know what we must do.  

I’ll be voting.  And I want you to vote, too. 

Not because I say it's important; you should vote because it IS important.  

As I do every year, I offer the following motivation, in case you need it, with one addition, which you see in the picture above.

After some thought, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” (1) Actually “The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the election itself…the act of voting is in itself the defining moment.” (2) And why is it that “When the political columnists say ‘every thinking man’ they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to ‘every intelligent voter’ they mean everyone who is going to vote for them”? (3) 

We know it’s true that “Bad officials are elected by good citizens who didn’t vote” (4), and that “A citizen of American will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won’t cross the street to vote in a national election.” (5) Do we still not realize, after all these years, that “lower voter participation is a silent threat to our democracy… it under-represents young people, the poor, the disabled, those with little education, minorities and you and me”? (6) 

After all, “the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men” (7) and “to make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not just observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” (8) And complain we do, after every election, when the wrong guy wins. If only people who actually voted complained, it’d likely be a lot less noisy. 

Some folks may not vote because they don’t know how to pick the right person. There are a couple different schools of thought on that. On the one hand, some might think that “politics is the art of the possible” (9) while others may subscribe to the thinking that “politics is not the art of the possible, it consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. And it is true that, the great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter the chance to do something stupid.” (10) 

Said another way, a “Vote (is) the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.” (11) But that’s OK – “personally, I believe that our American system works as long as you participate in it. You must vote and make your voice heard; otherwise you will be left out.” (12) 

It’s generally true that if you “ask a man which way he’s going to vote and he’ll  probably tell you. Ask him, however, why – and vagueness is all.” (13) But voting’s really easy; and “all voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.” (14) And just about everyone likes to play a game every now and then, right? 

The bottom line is, “voting is simply a way of determining which side is the stronger without putting it to the test of fighting;” (15) “voting is a civic sacrament;” (16) and “the future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.” (17) If all of that seems like too much pressure, you have an out: “Vote for the man who promises least. He’ll be the least disappointing.” (18) 

Please, vote. It really does matter, this year and every year. If you need information on where to vote, or other assistance, visit Vote411.org or contact your local Board of Elections. 

(Thanks to these folks for their words of wisdom: 1 - Charles DeGaulle; 2 – Jeff Melvoin; 3 – Franklin P Adams; 4 and 13 – Andrew Lack; 5 - Bill Vaughan; 6 - Nancy Neuman; 7 - Lyndon B Johnson; 8 - Louis L’Amour; 9 – Otto Von Bismarck; 10 – Art Spander; 11 – Ambrose Bierce; 12 - Mari-Luci Jaramillo; 14 – Henry David Thoreau; 15 – H.L. Mencken; 16—Theodore Hesburgh; 17 – Dwight D. Eisenhower; 18 – Bernard Baruch)

I'm #NeverTrump: Immigration + Health Care

Yesterday, I mowed the law for likely the last time this season. I’ve always loved doing that; it gives me plenty of time to think about things: the yard and gardens, of course, but also about work, and life, and love, and politics. Especially politics, these days.

The obvious outcome of the mowing? Damn, the yard looks really good for early November. The outcome of the thinking? For me, unequivocally, it’s Never Trump. In this post, I'll first look at Trump's immigration plan, followed by his thoughts on health care reform. 

Funding additional immigration agents, and equipping them with the tools they need to do their jobs are two things I'm all for. Another thing I'm for is deporting illegal immigrants convicted of crimes here. Trump is for those things too, and while his plan talks about getting illegals with criminal records out, but he neglects to mention one problem.

We need to clear the current backlog of cases and ensure that a similar backlog does not reoccur. We apparently have the money, and the appetite, for enforcement activities, but not for funding the immigration court process, which has been significantly overloaded as a result of the aggressive enforcement activities. I saw no plan to correct this.

I cannot support Trump's overarching vision to vet applicants to ensure they support America's values, institutions and people. I vehemently disagree with Trump's vision of our country, that we are a couple of steps removed from a third world cesspool that only he can fix. That's not my America now, and it has never been my America. I do not trust him to bring along people who can accurately and honestly describe our values and institutions, who would then pass judgment on immigrants. Truth be told, I suspect the immigrants may well have a better understanding of that than their inquisitors.

I also disagree with his temporary suspension of immigration from regions that export terrorism and where safe vetting cannot presently be ensured. America already has the strongest vetting process and Trump's plan doesn't mention how it needs to be strengthened.

Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel

His signature position, building The Wall, A Great Wall, A Beautiful Wall, across our southern border and making someone else pay for it, or building it and paying for it ourselves and getting reimbursed later? Yeah, I  admit I have a hard time picturing our border looking like the one between Israel and Palestine, a part of which is shown here. More details are needed on that as far as I'm concerned, and they have not been forthcoming. And not for nothing but given the known proficiency of Mexicans to build tunnels, I'm not convinced a wall is the best bet anyway.

My last word on Immigration? Trump's vision includes prioritizing the jobs and wages of Americans, and he wants to establish new immigration controls to boost wages and ensure that open jobs are offered to American workers first. This, from a man who brings in temporary foreign workers to wait tables, clean rooms, and serve drinks at his properties. I'm not sure why, exactly, he won't hire Americans to do that, but it's certainly consistent with his overall message: ignore what I do, for it means nothing.

On health care reform, I struggle with how his plan to repeal and completely replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with the ACA makes any sense at all.

Trump says that, as long as the plan purchased complies with state requirements, any vendor ought to be able to offer insurance in any state. But here's the thing: insurers can already sell their products in multiple states, as long as they meet the requirements of each state's Insurance Department or equivalent agency not just for the products they sell, but for their consumer protections, sales practices, financial practices, quality programs, and the like. So yes -- there are lots of hoops to jump through, and having to jump through as many as 50 individual hoops may be too much for some insurance companies but if they want to do that, they can have at it now. So why do we need to repeal the ACA?

He also suggests that we must make sure that no one slips through the health insurance cracks because of an affordability issue and we must review basic options for Medicaid and work with states to make sure that anyone who wants insurance can get it. All 50 states currently offer some kind of Medicaid program, whether or not they took advantage of the federally funded Medicaid expansion that was part of the ACA. So I'm unclear on what will be different between having Medicaid offer coverage to people who need insurance, or having Medicaid offer coverage to people who need insurance? 

Is the difference that he wants to deliver Medicaid funds via block grant? According to his plan, nearly every state offers more Medicaid benefits than are required (which may be because they want to do that?) and the block grant will allow them to focus on reducing fraud, waste and abuse, apparently at the expense of offering benefits to their residents. Is repeal of the ACA necessary simply to change the way Medicaid funding is delivered?

His plan calls for importing safe, effective and cheap prescription drugs. I'm OK with just about any reasonable effort to reduce health care costs however he doesn't indicate how his administration will make the determination on what drugs can be imported, where they come from, and how we make a determination that they're safe. Do we do it by reducing safety requirements of the FDA? If yes, do we then have one set of rules for foreign companies and products, and another set of rules for those produced right here by American workers, American researchers, American patent holders? No word on that.

His plan also mentions pricing transparency requirements for hospitals, clinics and doctors. Many insurance companies, including the largest - Blue Cross Blue Shield, UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Cigna, and Humana, for example, already offer cost estimator tools. Some states also offer pricing transparency; so does the ACA to some degree. Does the party of limited regulation really want there to be more regulations?

There are health savings accounts, which Trump envisions as tax fee, permanently accumulating, fully transferable to heirs, without fear of any death tax.  HSAs are allowed, to some extent, under the ACA, however there have been concerns that this would change effective with plans offered next year. Rather than repealing the entire program, why not just fix what's wrong with the HSA portion?

The last major component mentioned in Trump's plan is reforming our mental health programs and institutions. His plan notes that families cannot get information they need and so don't have access to the tools to help their loved ones. I'm not exactly sure what he's looking for here, but the Affordable Care Act enhanced coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment, on top of the enhancements that were implemented as part of federal mental health parity legislation over the past several years. Again, many states have also required additional coverage and parity, in response to addiction and eating disorder crises, high rates of bullying, teen suicide, and so on. 

The sum of all of this, to me? Why exactly are we repealing the ACA and dropping coverage for some 20-odd million or so people, only to replace it with the ACA? There are flaws in the program, to be sure -- so fix them, in a bipartisan way. Pulling the plug on the whole thing doesn't make sense -and Trump's plan has no guarantee of working, given 50 states rowing in multiple directions. 

Immigration and health care -- just two of the reasons why I'm #Never Trump. I'll discuss other reasons in the next post. 

OrangeVerse I: The Poetry of Donald Trump

It's been quite a while since I've done any poetry posts.

Previously, I've honored Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, even Kanye West and Barbara Bush. I hope it's not too late to bring you some of the poetry of the Republican standard-bearer.

Honesty

I wish

these very dishonest people

would spin those cameras

to show the crowd

and enthusiasm.

They never do.

You know what they see.

You go home?

You know what you see?

My face.

The whole time.

Even I don't want to watch it.

This Instrument

I believe in fighting back

when people are against me

when they tell lies.

You know.

I have

the power

of this instrument

and,

frankly,

sometimes -

I'll use that.

And,

I agree,

sometimes

it will revert back

Or sometimes, maybe

it doesn't come out -

you have to be careful

with it.

Wondering, on Wednesday (v68)

A week before I wonder on what will likely be a momentous Wednesday, I'm wondering on smaller things. And, at the same time, bigger things.

I've long encouraged friends to get involved, to make phone calls to elected officials, to email movers and shakers, to take the ideas and concerns they come up with and share them with people who might be able to help do something. There came a point in time where I actually started listening to myself and took my own advice.

I've asked politicians their positions on issues; I asked Syracuse University for help in stopping violence in our community; I've sent suggestions to various people in Syracuse city government on how to help rebuild neighborhoods, and, last night, I sent a formal submission to the group that's looking at giving New York State legislators a pay raise; the suggestion is the one outlined here.

Throughout these efforts, I've had very mixed success - heck, sometimes I never even made the call or sent the message like I told myself I would, to be honest. But I keep thinking that if even one person reads this stuff or takes my call, they might think a little differently, or act a little differently, or share a little honesty, or maybe at least they'll laugh a little. And so the next time, or the time after, I'll get my message through.

I don't stop wondering, on Wednesday or any other day of the week, just because someone doesn't answer, or because I get an answer that I don't like. And I realized, while talking with a friend  the other night about what happens next regardless of who wins the election, that trying to solve the problems of the world by starting at the top of the mountain sometimes isn't the best option.

No matter how frustrated we might be with Washington and Congress and gridlock and deplorables and lies and the lying liars that tell them on both sides and Russia hackers (for 17 really smart people have said they're Russian, even though a certain orange politician pretends to disagree) and Wikileaks and emails and somehow we get Anthony Wiener back, even with all of that, trying to change our political system starting in the Oval Office and hoping that the good will trickle down is like, well, trying to build our economy by giving more to rich people so they'll have more to pass down to poor people, in a tiny little trickle.

Money flows up, not down. Ideas, too, flow up and not down.

Oh sure, a Senator or Congressman or even the POTUS can have an idea and pass it down to minions, committees, caucuses and the like, but where do the best ideas, the wildly creative ideas, the sure-to-fail-until-we-try ideas come from? From us. The little people, with big ideas, who start small. Who start.

I wonder, with what we're facing next week, will people be so turned off by whatever the result is that they JoeBidenliterally turn off the tap? Get so frustrated they they stop even caring about sharing ideas?

I hope not -- because we'll need ideas more than ever once this election is decided. We'll need them to help us invite people we haven't spoken to in months to Thanksgiving dinner, and to help restore marriages that have suffered on opposite sides of the bed from being on opposite sides of the fence. And we'll surely need to be putting ideas on the table for getting something --anything -- accomplished in Washington, or Albany, or Onondaga County or Syracuse...  You get the drift.

And I wonder, thinking back to a question asked during a debate earlier this evening between the candidates for my Congressional district, if I "could wave a magic wand and change one thing...what would it be?"

I'd wipe out the urge to sit out the next four years. I'd rather have a person with whom I've battled for the past several months engaged and still with skin in the game than sitting on the sidelines.

Whatever happens, don't give up. Think big, start small.