Donald J. Trump: My Analysis

Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Anthony Scaramucci,  Carter Page, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Harold Bornstein MD (for 37 years!), Rudi Giuliani, Gary Cohn, David Pecker, Omarosa Manigault.  These were among Donald J. Trump’s friends of his lifetime.                                       

Really,  his choice of Bannon says it all. But in retrospect Bannon seems  kind of mature. Especially when compared with  Papadopoulos or Scaramucci.  But then, there is Trump’s doctor, Bornstein, who was his doctor for nearly (1980-2016) 37 years!  Wow!  Of course Trump doesn’t drink, has never smoked, and has always had access to a LOT of money.                                                  

Putin would have recognized Trump for what he really was right at the beginning.  Bannon probably did too and thought that he could manipulate him.  Mitch McConnell might have recognized that Trump was his (McConnell’s) last opportunity to give the Republican Party an enduring legacy by appointing judges throughout the nation’s courts, so whatever Trump would venture into, McConnell would go along with - as long as Trump stayed away from anything to do with the judges.

I don’t think Donald Trump is a Russian Agent, by any means.  But Trump is interested in creating  his own pathway.   He feels that he is much smarter than anyone else, and Putin recognized this right away, perhaps even before their first meeting.  Putin also recognized the discontinuity of Trump’s background in geo-politics, his lack of experience in that area, and his disregard of most briefings from his specialists.  This feeling seems to me to be enhanced by the way the other Russian leaders (besides Putin) act when they are in Trump’s presence.  They appear to be overly friendly, and seem to even be faintly amused by him.

So what I see is a matter of intended control.  Trump sees Putin is regarded as smart by many people and Trump knows that he (Trump) is head and shoulders above Putin and he (Trump) may even think that he (Trump) is maneuvering Putin when in fact, it might be the other way around.

Now to deal with the Collusion issue, it may just come down to the belief that Trump thought Putin might think that he (Putin) had put a clever one over Trump, where as in fact, Trump had nailed down Putin by letting Putin think he (Putin) had beaten Trump, whereas it was really just the opposite, 

What is legal and what is illegal?   What is the difference?  It appears to me that Trump sees the law as a restriction that applies to other people.  People who have Power, by virture of money or politics though, only have to "appear" to be abiding by the law, particularly if they have access to a group of attorneys who can "shape" the law to Trump's liking.

I began with a list of Trump’s friends, now to conclude with a list of People who have failed him :  David Shulkin, H.R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson, Gary Cohn, Hope Hicks, Tom Price, Sebastian Gorka, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, Sally Yates, Preet Bharara, Nikki Haley, John Kelly, Ryan Zinke, James Mattis, Jeff Sessions, Don McGhan, Scott Pruitt, Ty Cobb, H.R. McMaster, James Comey and quite a few others.

Do We Really Need the Republican Party?

2018.1220Th1629.  The question occurring to more and more people, more and more often is “Do we really need the Republican Party?”  We know the Republicans were responsible for the Great Depression of 1928-1941 under Hoover, and the Great Recession of 2008 under Bush, and government shutdown after shutdown.  Now Trump has given a  huge tax cut to the richest Americans and apparently wants to shutdown the government for his border wall!  More and more that Border Wall is becoming a part of the Republican Party.  Now hear this:  If you shutdown the Government, don’t come back!  We Americans will find a way to work it out, we will build a New Government, and we will Make America Great Again, because this time we won’t have the Republican Party to screw it up.

Trump IS Capitalism - Personified

First of all:  Money is the only thing that is important
Second:  Loyalty is the only thing that counts
Third:  The Leader MUST be obeyed.

Capitalism is NOT free enterprise even though it proudly claims it is.  Its purpose is to accomplish two objectives.  1) To accumulate more and more wealth into fewer and fewer hands, and 2) to supplant national governments with a ruling economic hierarchy.  It intends to control all of mankind.

Donald Trump personifies Capitalism itself, especially in that he insists on blind obedience to his autocratic, nationalist, and machismoistic attacks against "others".

We may be left to discover that we all may become "others", one at a time, with no one left to come to our aid.

What do  you think about this?  I would like to hear your response.  We need to begin a discourse.

John Womack

Off the Cliff . . . and Falling.

Until this week I didn't know who Jim Acosta was.  I have watched CNN in the past,  but not  much lately.  So the Presidential abolishment of Acosta from future press conferences came as a surprise.  I watched the video of the event and saw the president of the  US refusing to answer Acosta's question, no matter how he worded it, and then a woman intern tried to grab Acosta's mike and he did not let her.  She tried again and he brushed her arm away. That is what I saw take place, the same thing that might have occurred if a man had tried to take his mic away.  What I really saw taking place though, was the President of the United States being asked to clarify his comments to a member of the Press, who was apparently in the process of seeking an explanation of intention from President Trump.    THEN, I found that Acosta had been permanently abolished from attending  future press conferences.

This might very well be interpreted as President Trump giving a warning to other members of the press:  "Don't ask any other question that I don't want to answer and talk about."  If you do, you may be barred from future press conferences.  Is this a violation of the First Amendment? How does the first amendment read? We will have to paraphrase it, but the first amendment says: "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise of . . . the press".  OK, so this is not congress, but the President who is  not making a law (not his territory, anyway) but he is nonetheless restricting the free exercise of the press.  The press represents the people, and the  questions asked by members of the press are the process by which the people of the United States can  construct the facts of an issue, or can figure out what is really going on.  In other words, determination of Facts, instead of propaganda.

I recall  that  Eric Sevareid (of CBS) went to Russia back in the 1950s.  He came back and commented that "Russia only reports good news".  Is that the direction that President Trump is taking us?  If he wants to meet the press or not is a choice that only he can make; but if he does decide to conduct a press conference, then he MUST respond to ALL the questions.  He can answer the questions or evade them but the press must be capable of determining what the president is trying to do.

The Fourth Reich.

This is what  a runaway government looks like, instead of "We the people" banding together for protection from what the future might bring  each of us individually, we are preparing to do away with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and  forming an elite rich class that can rule those miserable people down below them.  Now, in the new Supreme Court Justice, no chance to remove a runaway president or attempt any legal method of family planning, thus mostly removing women from the workplace.  In the words of 
Scrooge:  “Are there no prisons?  Are there no workhouses?”

 The Fourth Reich:  Adolph Hitler would be proud

By the fruit they pick, you shall know who they are.

Is it possible to judge a person you do not know by the friends they  have met and worked with over their lifetime?  If so, Donald Trump is a revelation. 

The friends who have stood by him over his lifetime, and more recently are amazing.  They include such luminaries as Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Steve Bannon, George Papadopoulos (30 years old!), Anthony Scaramucci, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Stephan Miller, Sebastian Gorka, Harold Bornstein, Rudolph Giuliani, Gary Cohn, David Pecker, Sean Spicer, Jared Kushner, Hope Hicks, Kellyanne Conway, Trump's initial choice of cabinet people such as Tom Price, Brenda Fitzgerald, Rex Tillerson, Andrew McCabe, HR McMaster, Scott Pruitt, and aides such as Manigault Omarosa, Hope Hicks (29 years old) and there are a large number of others such as James Comey and Walter Shaub (who was in charge of "Ethics").

Really,  his choice of Bannon says it all. But in retrospect, Bannnon seems  kind of mature. Especially when compared with Papadopoulos and Omarosa.  And then, there is  Bornstein who was Trump's doctor for nearly 37 years!  Wow! 

Miss Management

          No one made more mistakes running a government office than Robert McNamara.  He was in charge of the Defense Department during the early stages of the Vietnam war and he said in 1962 that: “running the Department of Defense is not different from running Ford Motor Company or the Catholic Church … Once you get to a certain scale, it’s all the same”.   Back then, he believed any type of organization could be run by common techniques, the same system of management.  It was only later, after harsh experiences, he began to appreciate the importance differences in culture, history, values and traditions.   

          So McNamara was the worst of the worst  – but wait – he has finally been "Trumped" and now is nowhere in the leadership of those who mismanage.  Government is not like ordinary management.  It requires the directing of procedures in road building, Air traffic control, running the army and the navy (plus the Air Force), Public education, the environment and many, many other agencies.   From McNamara we learned that any manager has to know WHAT it is that he or she is managing. The president is more like a conductor of an great orchestra and he or she has to know the capabilities of the players and appreciate the understandings of the audience.   Anyone who is ready to "fire" a player over a mistake they make, or to convince the audience that a miserable song is really a masterpiece, is simply someone who doesn't belong in front of any orchestra.  

Niki Haley Cashes In.

Nikki Haley asked a Rhetorical Question into the microphone at the UN concerning "Who will remember the NEXT Time America is Asked to Contribute?"  This, as if the had no examples in leadership or guidance, as if she had never heard of Adolph Hitler
 or how badly the world had been devastated by him, and how many lives had been ruined in his wake.

She apparently had also been left out of the appearances of Stalin, and the Soviet Union, and also of the mess that China had made of North and South Korea, and the tumult that had roared across the face of north Asia, and then the mess that spilled over into Vietnam.  She apparently was only concerned with donations of money but we have to wonder if there is any collusion with the Republican Party to begin to undermine the government of the  United States.

Rising Sea Levels – How Fast?

This presentation by Harold R. Wanless , Ph.D.  Professor and Chair, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Miami, was given on 2017.0201We1900 at UU Congregation in Naples, Florida.  

The Sea Level Rise we are now experiencing is inevitable, irreversible, faster than anticipated and it is accelerating.  The CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere is enough to power more than a 70 foot level of sea rise.

The sea level on the planet Earth normally rises and falls several hundred feet every 100,000 years or so, now we are riding the introduction of CO2 gasses which resulted from the Industrial Revolution.

Wars, which Professor Wanless did not talk about, also increase the introduction and dispersion of many unnecessary and undesirable gasses and chemicals. 

Fix the Criminal Justice System

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of 6340 Napa Woods Way, in Naples, Fl hosted a meeting tonight, Thursday, January 19, 2017 from 7 to 9 P.M. about Florida's Broken Criminal Justice System and how to fix it.


The event was co-sponsored by the ACLU of Florida Collier County Chapter, NAACP, Collier County Jewish Community Relations Council, and the Universalist Unitarian Congregation.

The speakers presented as a panel and addressed criminal justice reform on a local, state, and national level and its impact on public safety, recidivism for offenders, ending the war on drugs and other solutions to a system that has proven to be unproductive, wasteful, and dominated by racial disparities.

Discussions included the use of SWAT Teams, how some 95% of sentences were result of plea bargaining, and mandatory minimum sentences.  Also the fact that some 70% of prisoners will return after release and how the length of prison sentences is increasing.  The problems with education, mental health, and the use of basically military-type forces to counter basic health problems.

Panelists included (from left to right) Raymer Maguire, Campaign for Criminal Justice Reform Manager, ACLU of Florida, Deborah Brodsky, Director, Project on Accountable Justice, FSU, and Adam Bates, J.D., Policy Analyst, Cato  Institute's Project on Criminal Justice.  Moderator was Mo Winograd who can be reached at mowinograd973@gmail.com

De-friended

Well, Harry, you’ve really put your finger on the crux of the real issue.  It goes to the heart of government, and emphasizes why Democracy is so very difficult to work.  While authoritarianism makes every problem seem simple because it tells you what to do, and all you have to do is shout and charge into compliance, democracy is very different.  Democracy requires you to meet with people who are different from you, and who do not even like you or completely trust you, and you don’t trust them.  But democracy requires that you get to know them, and sit down with them and work together to solve a common problem.  It assumes that your solution may not work at first, and even if it does, the main problem will not be solved, but it changes and becomes a more complex problem, and you and your counterpart must develop a more complex relationship to deal with it and the other issues that you will create together.

Make Your Vote Really Count – Vote Twice!

First, go to your computer. Find the sample ballot identical to the one you will have given to you when you go to the polling place.  You can find this by completing an application form.  It may be available on the computer or it may have to be mailed to you.

Now, you vote the first time. You can do this over the next day or two.  Take your time.  Enjoy some coffee, tea or beer or wine.  Sit down and reflect.  There will be a few long choices (some with over 100 words - and up to 15 “ands” and several “ors”).  You can think about some of these for a day or two, even pick up the phone and play auditor, or ask questions on Facebook or Twitter or Whatever. 

There may be some positions you have never heard of and a lot of names you have never heard of.  But now you have time to think about all this, even get with your friends and ask questions, get a conversation going, get a dialog, talk about your problems.

Finally, you vote the second time.  This time in your polling place.  You are ready!  Even with a completed ballot you have worked on for the past day or two.  AND you can make this vote REALLY represent you, AND you will move through the voting process quicker than anyone else who has not already voted for the “first time”.

The Real Problem is Not Trump

“I will keep you in suspense!”  Those words from Donald Trump.  Said like he is pretending to decide how he will vote in a beauty pageant or something similar.  What he apparently does not understand is that there are other people running for the office he also seeks, and if he does not get the most votes, it will be because another has been selected by the will of the people.  Yet, by his own words, he may not concede even then.  

Yet there WILL be a tally of the votes.  There WILL be celebrations and despair – by some – at least.  There WILL be an announcement by some “Certified Official”.  There WILL be an inauguration and a moving out of the White House and a moving in by the victor.  If the one who officially lost the election will not concede, he will not be permitted to assume the office.  That is a matter of regimen.

Now comes the binding issue.  The issue created by those who voted for the loser.  Those who voted in what they now might claim was a “rigged” election.  What will these “masses” do now?  A lot of that might depend on the “leadership” they might get from the one they are now choosing to follow.  But there is a much greater danger.

Trump is not a leader.  He is a disrupter, an agitator.  He is one who stirs things up, but he cannot walk a straight line.  Yet there is a magic in stirring,  It creates a force that can attract power and form a center, and if there is some form of coherence that appears with that attraction, some surrogate with persuasive rhetoric, then the stirred center can take on a life of its own.  

Trump's Deplorable Values

The Republican Party is wobbling in its attempts to seek limited form of government, particularly as the world, and the united States also, begins shifting from a mostly rural environment into an urban development.

    

Now comes Trump.  He was nastier than any of his 18 rivals and wound up as the “GOP Choice” for President.  It was a rough coronation, as a brand new guy wandered on to the stage in Cleveland and was “chosen” by the masses.  Two things became immediately apparent:  1)  The self-praise of Trump for Trump, 2)  and the slowly increasing numbers of people either positing they would not vote for Trump, and an increasing number announcing their preparation to leave the Republican Party.  

Arizona Senators Jeff Flake, and John McCain were early departures from Trump, NH Senator Kelly Ayotte, NY Governor Pataki, Carly Florian, SD Senator John Thune, Mitt Romney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tim Pawleenty, Kasich, Murkowski, Lindsey Graham, Condoleezza Rice, and so on.  (See https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/updates/2016/05/04/conservatives-rebuke-trump-as-he-captures-republican-nomination/   for an amazingly long list of others)   He has exchanged the intellectual  bright lights for the riffraff who show up at his rallies.  

Also represented in the departures from voting for the GOP nominee are Elliott Abrams, Bill Kristol, George Will, Jeb Bush and both former presidents named George Bush. Now comes even Charles Krauthammer with his own list of Trump’s deplorable values:   habitual mendacity, pathological narcissism, profound ignorance and an astonishing dearth of basic human empathy.  And then the threat, if he is elected, to put his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in jail.

The Republican Party, in its moment of death is visited by a Grim Vetter who has come to scatter its ashes.      

Not Fit to Print

The second debate, or “Town Hall Meeting” was a discussion devoted to Donald Trump.  Hillary couldn’t really change the topic because it would look like she was evading his questions or trying to change the subject.  She did try a couple of times but it didn’t work.

The result was there was no discussion of anything that matters to the American people or the world at large.  There were no questions or comments about international affairs, climate change, gun control, infrastructure, or anything other than Donald Trump and his relationship with women who had gotten to know him.  

It was as if Trump was a little boy, perhaps from English history, with incredible power.  He was leering, menacing scowling and stalking.  He even said that Hillary would be investigated if he won the presidency and she would probably be put in jail.  

Now the New York Times has gotten involved in this event, largely due to the income tax information they published.  Trump has promised to sue the nation’s greatest newspaper over this information.  Too bad, because while he will have little chance of carrying through with this, the New York Times has become famous for disclosing “All the news that’s fit to print”.  Now Donald Trump is leading them into a rabbit hole they would normally not find very fitting.

Trump has Grabbed the GOP by Its Pu$$y

He’s got more people voting for him than the Republican Party has and so it is all over now.  Even if the Party wants him to step down, he’s got the power and they don’t.  Republicanism is shattered and is now morphing into a powerful money machine.   Trump didn’t plan this out, ‘cause he can’t plan anything, but he is a very useful tool.  He doesn’t know what is going on and neither does the Party, and they are each looking in the opposite direction for help.  Trump is not the leader of this takeover, but he is the best bait in the world for the real fishermen.  

Debate One

First debate is over and it seems clear and obvious that Hillary won easily.  Trump probably kept most of his supporters though, because they are people who hate the Establishment, those powerful officials who run and ruin their lives.  Hillary would certainly have to be right at the top of that pile of power.

Yet the primary duty of the President is the job of politics.  He (or she) will not get everything they start out to do.  They will have to give as much as they get, and that will not make any difference in the great scheme of history as long as they can weld together what they did get, into a workable program.

One of the biggest differences between Trump and Clinton last night was their demeanor while listening to the other one speak.  Trump appeared to be not listening, or trying to pick up a favorite theme of his, and constantly in the process of interrupting even as he kept his lips pursed. He appeared (to me) to show signs of contempt  while she seemed to maintain an aura of listening with the apparent intent on reaching out and elaborating on his comments. 

Will Trump Leave the GOP?

Hard to say right now.  Trump seems to have the GOP under his command, but he is not going forth to meet a bride, no, he goes forward to take charge.  And many of the old party members are very, very quiet. 

Some long term members are restless  Some, like George Will, are announcing their departure.  And the Repbulicans who are leaving are not becoming Democrats but offering wisdom to a new, still congealing mass of political ideology. 

There will be a showdown later in Cleveland, a city known to some as “The Mistake by the Lake”, when the GOP holds their convention there.  It is not at all improbable  – in my mind at least – that Trump may slam the door there and stomp out, claiming to take the “Real Republicans” with him.  

Well, that would split the Republican Party and hand the election to the Democrats, fancilly engraved on a silver platter!  Or, or would it?  This is the year of Brexit, after all! Could it be that such a stomp n’romp by Trump would open the door for an old socialist Jew to also consider running, seeking liftoff for his last flight into glory?  

Well, who knows?  Now, anyway.  But that would give both Trump and Sanders a chance to make America what it could have been, once upon a time . . . all this while the Democrats and Republicans are just running to make themselves great again.   And – that would throw the 2016 election into the realm of English glory.

Brexit!

Not the worst mistake that England has ever made, but it is a pretty good one.  Too bad they didn’t work harder at being a better member of the European Union.  Apparently, a large number of Brits figured that they could scare the EU folks by showing them how little England was concerned about the “union”.  Whoops.  Now, more than 2,100,000 of them want to vote again  But like too many things involving elections, it is too late to vote again – they (we all) have only one vote to cast.  

Of course we Americans understand the importance of voting.  In fact we turned out 36.4% of eligible voters in our last election.  That’s almost half of the eligible voters who turned out in Brittian this week.  They hit 72%. 

 We Americans may well face a similar problem this November.  We may have to decide in advance.  And like the Brits, we will only get to vote once.  And we don’t want to try to scare anybody!

Donald Trump and the Stairs

The truth about Donald Trump is he is the type of person that those of us who are parents had all tried to keep from raising our kids as.  He IS the Boggie Man Under the Stairs.   He IS the incarnation of the great concepts of Evil, Pitiful, and Ignorance and he shines in the great glory of brilliant greed. He was created by the power of wanton money.  He has attracted the Republican Party and they have begged him to notice them, and now he has grabbed them and won’t let go. 

Is this how the Republican Party ends?  Maybe.  They now have to decide whether an increasingly obvious errant committment to Donald Trump is more important to them than the duty they have to the American People.