The Tzar and Trump

Politics, Rants

It may just be the SciFi fan in me but somehow I can’t help but see the irony of what is happening now with Pres. Trump and what happened a hundred years ago in Saint Petersburg.  What is different is that the GOP has the opportunity to keep the government from falling with the leader.  Let me be clear that I feel that Pres. Trump will go the way of Tzar Nicholas II, I don’t.  I’m not even willing to say Pres. Trump will go the way of Pres. Nixon.  Flatly, I don’t have nearly enough information yet to make that prediction.

Pres. Trump like Tzar Nichols II is someone who should have never had the job.  The difference is that Nicholas didn’t ask for the job and Trump did.  It should be obvious to all who have eyes that see that Donald J. Trump has no clue how to be President.  He is doing exactly what he told us he would do, he is trying to run the United States like a closely held company.  A company where the Boss/Owner gets to do what ever he wants, anyway he wants.  The problem is, the United States is not a company, neither closely held nor public.  The boss doesn’t get to do or say what ever he wants when ever he wants to ever he wants.  There are other people with nearly as much power as the President and there are organizations of equal power that can and will oppose the President if need be. The President is not an autocrat and can not long act like an autocrat before other people in positions of power will bring this to his attention.  Otero in a most forceful and unkind manner.

What’s worse is Pres. Trump doesn’t seem to understand that the one thing the President can not do is make the Presidentcy loose its dignity.  POTUS is not just another owner/operator of a company.  He is not just the face of a company, he is not even the face of the government.  POTUS is first and foremost the head of state of the United States of America.  POTUS must not only be dignified but be seen to be dignified.  An one thing dignity requires is loyalty to those who work for you.  You must always show respect for those beneath you and the work they do.  You can not send them out to say one thing, one day, and then publicly say the exact opposite the next day.  This is not dignity, this is arrogance.

 

 

Trump and the Myth of the Lost Cause

General

Every  person who has studied the American Civil War knows the great myth of “The Lost Cause” therefore it should come as no surprise that President Trump knows it not.  There are many parts to this myth but one of the more prominent is the contention that if Lincoln had not been elected the war would not have been fought.  Almost before the first shoots were loaded, much less fired, the south has been saying everything would have been just fine if the north had just not elected that Black Republican Lincoln as President.

It should be noted here that even if Lincoln had not gotten the Republican nomination it would have most assuredly gone to William H. Seward.  Seward was even more unexceptable to the Cotten states than Lincoln ever was as his position on the Abolition of Salvery was well and widely known.  That the Republican Party, at this time, was strongly Abolitionist is one of the accepted facts of history so the chance of anyone who’s position on Slavery would be exceptable to the Deep South is highly unlikely.  Therefore what is being said that not electing Lincoln means not electing a Republican, that is electing a Democrat.

That our dear President is totally ignorant of this fact is not surprising, too many people in this country have only the sketchiest idea of the election of 1860.  Few know that there was not one, but two Democratic nominees, Stephen Douglas, for the Northern Democatic Party,  John Breckinridge, for the Southern Democatic Party.  There was also John Bell who was running on the Constitutional Union Party, giving us a grand total of four candidates running.  Add to this that not one of these candidates was on the ballot in every state.  Given this there was little to no chance of a Not Republican candidate winning out right.  In fact in many places it was hope that no one candidate would get a majority of Electoral College votes and thus through the election to the House where it was hoped that someone acceptable to all sides of the Slavery issue would miraculously appear to save the union.

Now we come to dear President Trumps contention that if Andrew Jackson had been President the Civil War would not have happened.  Strangely enough this has some validity, in a perverse kind of way.  Let us forget that Pres. Jackson died some 16 years before the Civil War.  Instead lets hypothesize a Jacksonest candidate, what would he be?  First he’d be a Democrat, why, because Andrew Jackson was a founder of the Democratic Party.  Next he’d be a southerner, most likely from one of the more northern and western slave states.  Finally he’d be of the Plantation  Aristocracy a slave holding self made man.  This would be a man who not only supported Slavery in the States but most likely would look favorably on it’s expansion into the territories, something not to be look on with favor in the Free States.

So, just what is our dear President, in is maladroit way, saying?  If I was generous I’d say “The Civil War could have been averted if we could have elected someone who could bring the nation togeather.”  The problem is that this is a pious but impossible wish.  Just read any of the great histories on the Civil War, read Catton, or Foot or even McPherson and you will soon see that anyone acceptable to one side of the issue of Slavery would be, by being acceptable to that faction, totally unacceptable to the other.  Neither side was in the mood to compromise both equally convinced of the righteousness of there cause and equally convinced of the evilness of the other.

Since I am not feeling generous I’ll just say I believe that dear President Trump has been listening to one of hisSouthron cabinet members again.

The 100 Days

General

Depending on who you are, where your from, or what what you have studied the phrase “100 Days” can mean several things.  For myself it usually brings to mind two things.  Either the 100 Days campaign that ended with the Battle of Waterloo, or, the First 100 Days of a new Presidential admission.  Today it brings both to mind.

For the past week POTUS Trump and his minions have been doing their best to down play the importance of the first 100 days of his administration.  With notable lack of success.  IMO a major reason for this is that he made such a big point of how much he was going to get done in the first 100 days during the campaign last year.  He seemed to be always tell the crowd what he was going to do in the first day or days as President.  Now he seems flummoxed that people are remembering what he said.

So why do I also think of the 100 Days Campaign at this time.  It is quite simple, let me  elucidate.  Most people know something about the Battle  of Waterloo.  If nothing else a metaphor for loosing the final battle.  What they forget, or never new, is that Waterloo was the last battle of a campaign that started with the surprise return of Napoleon to France.  Of the many things Napoleon promised the French was the return of the Glory of the Empire.  I won’t go into the history of how Louis XVIII failed to win over the French, needles to say he did, opening up the door for Napoleon’s return.  A shock to the world even greater than the victory of Donald Trump last November.  To return the Glory of Empire to France Napoleon had to win, and see to be winning against the enemies of France.  The easiest to get to were England and Prussia so he march north and attacked them.  He, and his armies won three out of four battles, Ligny, Quatre-Bras, Wavre, and Waterloo.  An all we remember is the one he lost, Waterloo.

An why is that?  Simple, really, Napoleon had to win every battle, all Wellington and Blucher need to do is not loose.  Like Napoleon, Trump must win every political battle and be seen to win.  He can not afford to loose, or even have a draw.  An why is this?  Once more it is basically quite simple, he sold himself to the electorate as the penultimate winner.  The businessman who always won, an in away he, Trump, did always win.  The problem is way too often his business’ didn’t.  That is what his multiple business bankruptcies is all about.  Trump seems to have always won but both his business, investors and partners didn’t.  Unfortunately the Strategy and Tactics that allowed him to always win in business don’t translate over into politics.

When you promise to get things done, fast, you need more than multiple photo-ops signing executive orders.  Those orders have to be something that people see in there everyday lives.  When you say you are going to repeal Obamacare the first day as President you have to deliver once you are seen to have put a bill before congress.  Not have the bill pulled because your own party in the House can’t muster enough votes to pass it.  Finally, you can’t make threats and then not follow thru on them.  If you make a public threat, like forcing a government shutdown if funding for you boarder wall is not in the must pass Concuring Resolution this week you can’t just fold you hand when your hand is called.

So, in closing, President Trump needs to be seen to be winning, but more to the point, he must be seen to having an effect in the everyday lives of the electorate.  Doing things that big business and big money see is not going to cut the mustard.  It is the everyday average Joe who will take down this President an so far he is on track to doing just that.

 

 

 

POTUS Waterloo

Politics, , , , ,

I have waited till now to comment on the debacle of the GOP/Trump Healthcare reform also know as the AHCA in hope that things might settle down a little, silly me.  So here goes.

Ever since the Speaker withdrew the AHCA last Friday I have been hearing that it is going to be Waterloo for the Democratics and the ACA.  I agree, but not for the reasons most people think.  There were three armies at Waterloo and two of them won.  The battle the last few weeks over AHCA is a little like the campaign of the 100 Days that climaxed with the Battle of Waterloo.  In both cases the side that was expected to win easily, lost.  In both cases the side that won, won because of stubborn refusal to give up and by sudden break in the will to continue fighting by the other side when the  invincible is shown to not be invincible.

Everyone expected the Trump Whitehouse to be unstoppable with the Master Deal maker leading the way.  What they didn’t understand, even thought it was obvious from the start, was that Donald Trump had no understanding of how deals were made in politics.  Like many businessmen, Donald Trump, failed to understand one simple thing, you don’t make deals in politics the same way you do in business.  The rules are different,  measurement  of success are different, and the payoffs are different.  The people we would be working with to make the deal(s), some new this and some didn’t, and some didn’t care.

He also didn’t understand that you have to have credibility to make threats and that his business rep didn’t translate over to the political arena. What does this have to do with Waterloo you ask?  Well, Napoleon also didn’t understand the battlefield he was facing at Waterloo.  He underestimated the Generalship of Wellington and the misunderstood the tactics used by the British.  He also overestimated the drive of his Generals he detailed to ‘vigorously’ pursue the ‘defeated’ Prussians.  He also didn’t really understand the men he was leading, while brave and tenacious they were no longer the men who could face adverse results and comeback for more.

Like Napoleon, Trump, did not and does not understand the 247 people who make up the GOP delegation in the House.  These men and women have their own base of support and in many cases own little or nothing to either the National party or Trump himself for there seat in congress.  Unlike Trump, many hold very firm idialogical ideals that they will not abandon for a simple win, nor can mere money be their payoff. (Not only is it often illegal it is not why there are were they are.)  First he ignored them when he crafted the bill, or as some think excepted the bill crafted by the Speaker and just expected them to quietly vote for the bill.  When that didn’t work he tried threatening them, which most looked as simple bluster, and then he tried placating them, which they took as weakness.

Like Napoleon’s battle plan at Waterloo, Trump tried to just blast his way thru what he saw as just the weak oposition of the Democrats he found them stand firm.  Then he found out that people he had depended to gruard his flank weren’t there for him.  Finally when he asked his people to make a last ditch stand they turned their backs on him and said ‘NO’.

So yes, the AHCA defeat last Friday was a Waterloo, and the Democratics were Wellington.  BUT the Ogre is only bloodied and there is still a great deal of fight left in him so like Wellington they must follow up both closely and carefully.  The Freedom Caucus is still a power to be contended with as is Speaker Ryan.  All maybe wounded but as any experienced hunter, or plotico, knows, that is when they are most dangerous.

 

For those of you who will like to question my knowledge of the 100 Days and the Battle of Waterloo I attach here short bibliophile of books I have read on the subject.  It is not, I assure you exhaustive but merely the ones I still own after my drastic reduction library space a few years back.

The Waterloo Letters Ed. By H. T. Siborne

The Campaigns of Napoleon by David G. Chandler

The Anatomy of Glory by Henry Lachouque and Anne S. K. Brown

 

Pres. Jackson & Trump

Philosophy, Politics, ,

To be completely open and above board let me state from the start I have great differences of opinions with President Trump on Political and Philosophical grounds.  That said, let me say that’s I an not in the least surprised that he personally ranks President  Andrew Jackson as one of the great presidents.  I, on the other hand, do not.  To be honest, before I started reading both constitutional law and the history of the Native Tribes, I too thought he was a great General and President.  Of course my opinion was formed from what I saw in “Davy Crocket:  King of the Wild Frontier” (Disney) and “The  Buccaneer ” but hey, I was a kid.

After digging into the history of Pres. Jackson, both before and during his Presidency, I decided I did not like the man.  Some years later, as I got my degree in Political Science, I figured out that it was mostly because he was one of the first Populist of note.  He was a firm believer in the Manifest Destiny of the United States, but only for white  protestant men, the battle of New  Orleans not withstanding.

As President he is mostly know for two things, the political battle over the 2nd Bank of the United States.  I shan’t boor you by going into details of the fight, it is enough to say Pres. Jackson was against the Bank and did everything in his power to destroy it.  It was in this battle that he started to but heads with the Supreme Court and it’s first Great Chief Justice, Justice Marshall.  This is important because it was in the early 1800s that we as a nation decided that it was to be the body that would decide what was and was not Constitutional.  An it happened mostly because of Justice Marshall’s work.

This is significant in that in the 1830’s was the start of the ‘Trail of Tears’ or Indian Removals from the south east.  For me it is the Trail of the Cherokee and the case Worcester v. Georgia where the court ruled against Georgia and in favor of the Cherokees.  A decision that was written by Justice Marshall.  It is this decision that Pres. Jackson is supposed to have said “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” An let the removal of the Cherokees and the other four nations begin.  This not only resulted in the deaths of, at a minimum, of 25% of these nations it also was a harsh lesson to the Court that it did not have any means to enforce it decision if the executive does not cooperate.

That an Authoritarian like our current president admires Pres. Jackson does not  surprise me, his entire adult life Donald Trump was free to act, and does act, in an Authoritarian manner.  It kind of goes with being a multimillionaire (or billionaire) who has only worked in business that they own.  He, like Pres. Jackson, is used to just giving orders and have them followed out.  He has never, ever, really had to deal with being told “NO, you can’t do that.”  So, people, get ready for the following…..

Someday, maybe someday soon, Pres. Trump will be told by the Courts, or the Congress, or someone, that he can’t do what he wants to do and he will just go ahead an try and do it.  If it is with the Courts be ready for a Major Constitutional Crisis, if it is with Congress be ready for a Political Crisis that could destroy one or both of the major political parties.  In any case be ready for a country that is not like the country we had just a few short years ago.  An just like Pres. Jackson, Pres Trump will be used by Historians to make the point that the great change started.

A look at the Climate Change debate

General, Politics, Science

Over the past few weeks I’ve been in a little debate over Climate Change and it has come to me that most folks have no idea what is really going on.  By this I mean, in the debate and just what they are doing.  So I thought to take some time and lay it all out.  To help with this I have drawn a simple  decision tree.

As you can see the first question is “Does Climate Change Exists?”  Is it really happening or not.  This is what we most often here as what the debate is about, the “Climate Change Deniers”.  Their position is quite simple, Climate change is not happening, therefor we need do nothing.  The major problem with this position is that it flies in the face of the great majority, last reported at 97% of climatologists do hold that Climate Change exits. (They also hold that humans are a causal factor.) To hold that Climate Change does not exist means these people find themselves arguing science with little or no scientific training.  More often than not they end up just looking foolish or worse.  This just maybe why the also seem to be angry.  I submit that their real problem is they don’t realize that what they really want is not to do anything about Climate Change because they don’t like any of the proposed actions to deal with Climate Change.

As you can see from the chart there are several paths to doing nothing even if you accept that Climate Change is real.  I shan’t go into any of the points in the argument(s) at this time as they are both long and complex in most cases.  The next question is “Should we do anything?”  As you can see answering NO gets you right to “Do Nothing”.  The simplest argument for saying NO to this question is that Climate Change is important and/or significant.   If you answer YES to this question we move on to the next question “Can we do anything?”

Once again, if you answer NO you end right back to Do Nothing.  This is one of the questions we need to be talking about very seriously and while some of us are way to many of us are  caught up talking about the earlier questions.  It maybe that in the end there is nothing we can do to have any effect on Climate Change, but this is not something I believe.  So if we answer YES to “Can we do anything?” we move on to “Can we have any effect?”

While this question looks a lot like the previous question it is not the same.  Before we were asking if anything thing can be done, and here were are asking if what we can do will have any positive effect on Climate Change or not.  If we answer NO then we get to move on to the question “Can we have any mitigating actions?” An if we answer YES we go on to “Will it be totally effective?”

In all these cases we have moved on to what we need to do about Climate Change.  You will notice we have yet to start on the issue of “Should we do anything about Climate Change?”  I shall leave this question for another time.

 

Understanding Fake from Real, a logical view.

Politics, Rants, , , ,

Yesterday Pres. Trump made the following statement “The leaks are real, the news is fake.”  This has some people very puzzled, and well it should.  Not for bad logic, but for the very poor speaking style of of our President.  What I submit he was trying to say was:

Yes, the leaks actually occurred but the content in them is false, therefor the news stories are fake.

Unfortunatly this is not the common usage of the phrase ‘Real Leaks’.  When someone says a leak is real you are saying both that the leak actually occurred and its content is true/factual.  This is because in politics, ever since we’ve had politics, it has been rife with rumors, fabrications, stories, and out right lies.  A leak is only a leak if what is being told is indeed true.  Everything else is commonly know as ‘disinformation’.

We should not expect President Trump to be familiar with this set of definitions, after all he come from a business where the truth is what you say it is.  All marketing is true for certain shades of truth.  Donald Trump is a promoter, marketer, a snake oil salesman and like all such his relegation ship to the truth is very loose.  This why no one should take anything he says at face value.  We can not go by his words, only by his actions because his words have no fixed truth level.  The run the gauntlet of 1 to 99, where 0 is a full falsehood, to 100 is an absolute truth.

So lets give the guy a little slack here, let him say what he wants and just not pay it any attention.

 

NOT!

True Colors

Honor, Politics, , , , ,

Yesterday we got to see the true colors of Senate Majority Leader McConnel and it wasn’t  pretty .   During the heated debate over the Ratification of fellow Senator Jeff Sessuins to be our next AG he invoked rule 19 to force Senator Warren to sit down and shut out.  The cause of his outrage was Senator Warren reading into the record a letter from Cotetta Scott King,  opposing Sessions nomination to a federal judgeship back in the 1980’s.  Then, in the exact same debate, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Or) read in the exact same letter, with the exact same wording with out so much as a peep out of the  sensitive Majority Leader. (Please note that there are, as of this writing, multiple reports of other Senators also reading into the record this same letter)

The Senator has shown to all his true Colors, now all we need to do is figure out what those colors are.  To aid in this I would like to quote the worlds greatest detective:

Once you have  eliminated the impossible,

What ever is left  hast  to be the answer .

Given that this letter has been read into the Senate record with out objection by two other Senators, both men, it is safe to say it was not just the verbiage of the letter that so offended the Honorable Senator. If it had been he should have also risen in objection to both Senator Merkly and Udal.  He did not!

So if it was not the text of the letter it has to have been something else, such as the delivery or the person reading.  As to the delivery of the reading of the letter what I have heard of Senator Warrens read, while it was not in the classic style of reading something into the record for forms sake, that is a dry,  bored drone we all know so well.  The worst that can be said it was forceful and  impassioned. So I can see nothing in the delivery that would call for invoking Rule 19.

So what are we left with, either it was Senator Warren, herself that the Majority Leader found objectionable or it hast to be that it was a woman who was saying these things.  At this moment I have no evidence to decide which is right.  So I ask you Senator McConnel, which is it?

Was it that you could not stand a mere female saying something about a fellow man and you thought in this new age of Trump no one would dare call it out?

Or was this just you exercising your power in a small petty way to embarrass a fellow senator you happen to be at odds with?

On being a Snowflake

General, Philosophy, Politics,

Recently it has become quit vogue with many in the conservative set to call those to the left of them “Snowflakes”.  They mean it as an insult, and unfortunately too many of my fellow progressives and liberals are taking it as such.  They should not.  We need to  ware it with pride as a symbol of our innate strength.  Here is why.

Yes, individually snowflakes are easily destroyed.  Just a little blast of heated rhetoric and we all to often melt. But when we come together we are a force to contend with. When we are blown by the winds of discontent we become a blizzard that blind and freezes anyone foolish enough to appose us. But we don’t need the wind, we just need to stand togeather as one. We are mighty, we have weight and perseverance. An when someone is dumb enough to make a noise that movies us we rush down the mountainside and  bury them. We are both beautiful and silent in are coming and we are relentless in the persuit of our goals.

We come as the promise of the rental of spring after the fall of summer. We are the sign of the rest need for the coming spring. Our passing brings the clear fresh water of the lakes and streams that Roar with our great energy.  We are Snowflakes, we come in flurries we came in blizzard.  We stay and protect the weak safe and snug in there homes while the predictors walk upon us and bother us not.

We are Snowflakes and we are mighty!

Two weeks in, and counting

Politics, , , , ,

It has now been two weeks since Donald Trump has been President and our great experiment into having amateurs running the Administration of the USA.  I really shouldn’t call most of the people in the administration Amateurs, some of them have very respectable resumes.  People like Reince Priebus, who’s politics I hardly dislike, has avery impressive resume. But others like, Stephen Bannon, have no practical experience at all.  Just the kind of person I’d select to be a participant in an experiment in have non-politicians running an administration.

So what can we see so far?  Quit a lot, but just how significant any of it is is hard to say.  Like all experiments in Political Science there can be a great deal of  noise an furry signifying nothing (or very little).  We have had much a do about all the Executive Orders coming out of the White House these past two weeks.  But just what do they mean? An what about the actions that have gotten much less play in the media? Actions like making Stephen Brannon a member of the National Security Council Principles and removing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director National Intelligence from that same group? Or the attack where we lost a navy seal and a young girl died?

If I was someone who placed any worth in conspiracy theories I’d be looking for what was being hidden.  But I’m not, so all I’m going to say is.  When faced with an exceedingly complex problem, the simplest explanation is often the answer.  Never credit malice (or evil intent) where simple  stupidity (or incompetence) will suffice.

In either case, simple incompetence or conniving intentions, we need to keep our eyes open and be ready to act.  Both bad intentions, or stupidity can cause great damage to our country.