It's More Than Just Covfefe

So many questions, too few answers, but this one seems appropriate: Because he can. President Trump went off again in a post-midnight Tweet that will go down as a great presidential non-sequitur not just of our time, but of all time. Covfefe is now the official asterisk of this chapter in American political history.

Perhaps the president was just nodding off as he tried to Tweet about negative press coverage, or negative press covens (as in witch hunts). Some have even suggested that covfefe is just java for El Jefe. Who really knows? But it did provide for a day filled with jibes, jabs, barbs, cleverness, and general internet levity.

Some news heads suggested the president was simply trying to divert the media and the public from one more day of Russia-24/7. If that was his intent, it didn’t work.

What covfefe also didn’t quash is the seriousness of something Mr. Trump is poised to do, which is pull America’s endorsement of the Paris Climate Agreement and double down on his misbegotten and dangerous endorsement of coal as the palliative to the nation’s energy needs. How bold of the president to take a position held only by Nicaragua and Syria (and, even then, the only reason Nicaragua has not signed on to the Agreement is that the accord doesn’t go far enough, in which case, America stands alone with Syria in opposition to the rest of the world community’s joint mission to rein in humanity’s effects on global warming). 

Trump’s logic (now there’s an oxymoron) behind his anti-Paris Agreement stance is that he made a campaign promise to America’s coal miners that he would bring back coal and put them all to work again. Back in May, 2016, as the Trump campaign was gaining steam, Trump responded to a question about his support for coal with this: "The market forces are going to be what they are…To me a market force is a beautiful force."

Talk about fake news! It was a thoughtless and cruel promise then, and it is even more thoughtless and cruel now. A week after his election, Time Magazine ran this headline, “Donald Trump Says He'll Bring Back Coal. Here's Why He Can't”

Coal is not coming back, and, to add injury to insult, miners and their families who are holding out hope for their industry’s resurgence are also suffering, in large numbers from preexisting health conditions that will be dropped by Trump in his version of the revised health care legislation. And older miners—those in their 60s but not yet eligible for Medicare (also in Trump budget jeopardy)—who are still working somewhere if not in the mines—are going to get hit by insurance costs so steep they will eat up nearly 50-percent of their income just in premiums. That ain’t just covfefe leaking out of the White House, that’s demagoguery, duplicity, and disrespect.

But Trump doesn’t care. His demagoguery, duplicity, and disrespect extend to our closest allies who were hoping—in vain as it turned out last week in Brussels—for a solid U.S. commitment to NATO and the mutual defense pact that has defined NATO’s operating philosophy for almost 70 years. While Trump parades his affection for dictators and tyrants like the Philippines’ Duterte, Turkey’s Erdogan, and Egypt’s el-Sisi, and embraces the oil emirates who, in all likelihood, snicker behind the President’s back, he bulls his way through NATO, chastises our friends, hits them up for cash, and presumes to know more about that sacred alliance than they do.

We are living in one of the most uneasy, unsettled, unnerving times in my memory. On the far side of the Pacific, a young leader will soon have his finger on a nuclear-warhead-tipped-missile launch button, and so far, there is no evidence he is giving any real thought to the consequences of his desires. One nation—China—could be our only hope of dissuading Kim Jong-un from his insane plan by squeezing Kim’s economy so tightly that Kim must relinquish his mad dream. I suppose the second option China could afford the U.S. is overt, hands-off, support for an American preemptive strike on Pyongyang’s military assets, but that’s highly unlikely, and fraught with its own unintended consequences.

But why would China care to help Trump at this point, when what Xi Jinping sees is a weak, unpredictable leader who respects no national principle of value, who turns from his allies with brutish disdain, who dissembles in front of his own citizens, and who rambles on his phone in the midnight hours, calling out witches where there are none, and who is content to play footsies in the dark with Russian spies and their palace intrigues?

And, as if all that were not enough to cause historians to take notes in pencil, Mr. Trump is badgering the United States Senate, via Twitter, to change its rules in order to circumvent the two-thirds voting rule and adopt a permanent nuclear option 51-vote majority rule to cram through his legislative agenda—such as it is.

"The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy. Dems would do it, no doubt!"

For some reason, Mr. Trump sees only Democrats in his way, when, in reality, his impulsive, ill-informed actions are beginning to turn even Republicans against him.

Slowly but surely, Donald Trump is isolating America from our friends and our foes (never a good thing to do, no matter how much you don’t like them), and, most distressing, isolating Americans from each other, in what should be a time of shared, vigorous, and productive national discourse on the matters of great importance to us and the world. Mr. Trump needs to put down that midnight can of Diet Covfefe, and get on with learning to be presidential.

Astronomy Sparks New Philosophies

"Do you think the connections we have to stars according to modern astronomy have philosophical implications in terms of how we view our lives?"

This question on Quora brought back some good memories of starry nights and wondering what the universe was all about. Here is my reply:

I’m glad this question includes the phrase, “according to modern astronomy.” It places the question squarely in the realm of contemporary thought rather than the consideration of mystical planetary alignments. That’s not to say all thought about stars and the universe must be based on science. My first thoughts on an answer blew off the dust of two lines from Hamlet that captured beautifully Shakespeare’s ability to incorporate distant space into the philosophies of his characters:

“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move,. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.” Hamlet, in a letter to Ophelia

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Hamlet to Horatio

But bringing the question up to the 21st century, I’d have to say the answer is a definite yes, there are philosophical implications to our connections to the stars.

One of humanity’s most common questions, couched, I think, in the fear of the ultimate loneliness, is “Are we alone?” We don’t just seek a practical answer; we seek to place ourselves—our civilization such as it has become—in a grand scheme where we—as humans and as humanity—matter beyond our current earthly bonds. Robert Browning addresses that question in his poetic tribute to the Renaissance painter, Andrea del Sarto: “Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?”

Through the sciences of astronomy, cosmology, and astrophysics, we know we are star dust. We know our body’s chemistry would not be possible without the vast clouds of supernova dust generated millions, if not billions of light years distant that coalesced into the sun, the planets and their moons, and all the elements necessary for life. But to know we are star dust is to also examine the very “why” of our existence—not the religious “why” for this answer, but the “why us?” philosophical question. To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca,

“Of all the gin joints in all the corners in all of space, star dust walked into mine.”

When I lie on my back at night in a field far away from city lights, and I stare into the depths of space, I cannot help but wonder, with all we have learned so far about the stars, what have we really learned about ourselves? If astronomers can measure the tiny wobble of a distant star and conclude that around it are other planets affecting its motion, then how can we not put ourselves to the tasks of learning more about the tiny wobbles of our planet’s neediest populations whose lives affect our motions as members of civilized society? My own philosophy on the subject would be weaker had I not considered astronomical discoveries that refined my local world view.

When cosmologists can run the video of the universe back to its beginning, hit “play,” and watch as all that is to become the stuff of our existence—galaxies, stars, planets, living things—burst forth from an almost infinitesimally small seed, how can our earlier, earth- and self-centric philosophies possibly withstand the force of such information? It seems to me that one would have to be incredibly arrogant to not want to embrace a new way of thinking about who and where we are.

Our sun, an average star, in an average galactic neighborhood, is burning hotter every second as it uses up its stellar fuel. It will, as astronomers tell us, meet the fate of similar suns, and grow large and consume the inner solar system—in four or five billion years. Because science has informed us, reliably, of that ultimate fiery end—even though we will have by then abandoned Earth (or simply eliminated ourselves)—our philosophy about our future in the scheme of things needs adjusting to consider that the universe has long-term changes in store, and we may well not be in the plan.

We are asked to adjust our perceptions of the measurements of place in time—now accepted as space-time—which are subject to interpretation by different observers. Simultaneity is a thing of the past; just because you and I observe the same event does not mean the event happened at the same time for each of us. Work on that one. Our former philosophies, rooted in the three dimensions of terra firma since our ancestors became sapient, now must adjust to the reality that when we look into space, all we see is the past…the way things were…not the way things are. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder where you were?” There is no there there anymore—it’s now somewhere over there, or it is no longer, though its light continues to arrive.

And then there are the truly weird and almost incomprehensible concepts of dark matter, dark energy, an expanding and accelerating universe. Astronomers, astrophysicists, and cosmologists generally agree that even for them these are intriguing subjects of which they have barely scratched the surface (if there is any surface to scratch).

How do we view our lives in light of all that is being unveiled by modern astronomy? I believe the philosophical implications are clear. Some core philosophies will hold—but I believe what we are learning from astronomers is that in our isolation on this lovely, but tiny boat, we should examine our philosophies about our interactions with our fellow passengers. Astronomy’s lesson is stark: we may be surrounded by hundreds of billions of galaxies filled with numbers of stars and planets too great to count, but we are, for all intents and purposes, very much alone. A philosophy to help us accept that truth and improve the conditions of all the passengers on our small blue vessel would be most welcome.

Notre Dame Graduation Walk-out, Part II

It was a peaceful protest in the eyes of many Americans who have very strong feelings about Mr. Pence’s personal and political records, records—statements, votes, and executive actions—that paint a picture of a broadly intolerant ideologue who has made up his mind and refuses to accept the possibility he may be wrong on issues of great importance to a large segment of the American public.

From a number of interviews broadcast over the past two days, it is clear that the graduates who walked out did so en masse in protest of Notre Dame’s selection of a commencement speaker whose views on LGBT rights, immigration, morality, and personal choice ran counter to the protesters’ values. 

It seems clear, as well, that some of the parents of the protesting students were also on board with their sons’ or daughters’ positions. There is nothing disgraceful about the peaceful expression of genuinely-held moral and ethical points of view. And while many graduates and parents probably were offended by the walk-out, even they should admit it was done with little disruption. Even at that, it was not a disgrace.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I personally wouldn’t attend a Pence speech if I were offered a million dollars, or for any other price, either in coin or material. I have little use for the man as a public figure, and less use for Trump (and a close look at many of my Huffington pieces going back into 2016, will bolster evidence of my generally liberal leaning on this point).

From my point of view, the walk-out was a short-lived protest against a long-term problem. Walking out of a commencement speech because Mr. Pence espouses views that are, in the eyes of the protesters, anathema to human rights and religious freedoms, had no effect whatsoever on Mr. Pence. It may have sent a signal to Notre Dame’s leadership not to do THAT again, but I don’t know. I don’t think it moved the needle of change much, if at all.

Father Theodore Hesburgh, who served as Notre Dame’s President for 35 years, said,

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.

To my mind, the walk-out was an uncertain trumpet, lacking clarity of purpose and failing as a bright call to action. It was not a Black sit-in at a Whites-only lunch counter; it was not a Freedom Rider bus; it was not a lone stranger holding off tanks in Tienanmen Square. If you are going to lead a protest, go big. Don’t use up the temporary capital of a commencement speech no one cares about anyway.

I recently wrote an answer on both Quora and in my Huffington column on this topic that elicited heated and countervailing comments. The source of most of the discontent with my position was traced to these paragraphs:

“But, in real life, the Notre Dame graduates and the Bethune-Cookman graduates [who protested Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s presence at their graduation] are going to have to work with people with whom they disagree; they will have to deal with real life situations that make them uncomfortable; they will have to learn adult coping strategies for getting along with unprincipled people (maybe even their bosses) without diluting their own principles; they will have to learn that walking away from a problem is an abrogation of civil, personal, and professional responsibility.

Changing the world requires showing up every day and working toward the goal under the best and meanest of conditions. It requires cooperating with a wide range of people who you may dislike, who may dislike you, and with whom you may have vivid disagreements. It requires patience and empathy and a long-view toward the future.”

I was taken to task for suggesting that the Notre Dame graduates were not sensible enough to know their own minds; that I was encouraging acquiescence over action.

Let me be clear: I don’t equate remaining in place as acquiescence...I’m not suggesting that by not walking out, they would be meekly condoning what Pence was selling. That would be morally disgraceful. The students had every right to walk out as an expression of their disapproval.

I just think that picking one’s battles over moral causes should come with something more than a walk-out. If the students who took the walk continue to express their outrage over Trump/Pence by activism…writing, running for office, working in some practical measure to refute all the BS that the White House is passing out, then that would be the kind of messaging I’d get behind—and do get behind.

That would be vision. That would be the call of a most certain trumpet.

Impeachment? Never Say Never

It is becoming the rite du jour here in Washington—and perhaps around America, if not the world--to attempt to unpack or parse the conflicting stories emanating from the White House on an almost hourly basis. It would appear there is no rhyme or reason to account for the miasma of messages that begin with an early-morning Trumpian Tweet, spread as “Breaking News” into the national newsrooms, ooze into Congressional offices, and invade the personal messaging spaces of the average American—only to be refuted by Sean Spicer at his daily news briefing a few hours later. And then to be re-refuted, retracted, or morphed into a new reality by the President by Tweet the next morning.

What are we to make of this broken chain of custody of the truth? More important, is there any truth to begin with? There is a reality show—of that there can no longer be any doubt—but is there any reality to it? Is there any “there” there? Evidence welling up from sources within and outside the White House suggests that whatever the definition of “there” is, it is not a place where facts, discussions, open debate, honest counseling, and hard decisions on behalf of the nation are made. I recently created a graphic of a Schrödinger’s White House, inside of which truth is both alive and dead.

With respect to the latest story about Mr. Trump’s decision to discuss, imprudently to say the least, matters of great national and international security with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, I heartily recommend a close reading of a blog posted by Lawfareblog.com, and written by Jack Goldsmith, Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic, Matthew Kahn, Benjamin Wittes, and Elishe Julian Wittes. Titled, “Bombshell: Initial Thoughts on Washington Post’s Game-Changing Story,” the article posits nine points of consideration addressing Trump’s behavior and its ramifications. 

Among the questions the authors address are: whether Trump “leaked” classified information or broke a law; the degree of urgency the breach imposed on the intelligence community; why sources and methods must be protected; the possibility that the breach violated the president’s oath of office; the impact of any previously-unknown Trump-ordered recording system on this particular matter; the ramifications the incident may have on the selection of a replacement for recently-fired FBI Director James Comey; and the question of whether or not there is any measurable level of competency in the nation’s chief executive.

It is not my intention here to review or re-state the LawFare blog; the authors speak eloquently and credibly. But I mention the blog because it responds calmly to an otherwise visceral impulse on the part of many Americans to throw up their hands in disgust and dismay and wonder what last-straw is needed to collapse the Trump presidency?

That’s not all Americans, of course, because, there are, as my wife noted when the news broke and we were discussing just how long even the most ardent Trump supporters could hold on to their God-elect, there are sure to be some “Trot-‘em-out-apologists” eager to appear on the media stage to heap praise on Trump and throw cow patties at the media. [as an aside, I must say that when it’s italicized, Trotemoutapologists does look a bit like an endangered species]

Well, I hate to break it to those who are looking at this event as the final straw, but it was not that straw. It was not even close. This is a most inconvenient truth for many Trump deniers, but truth it is.

I must admit that when I saw the Washington Post’s “breaking news” banner scroll across my monitor, the headline seemed to present the ultimate indictment of the president’s incoherence in all things pertaining to his job. I was overtaken by a thrill of watching the bull of the media finally lays its horns deep into the matador who has been relentless in diverting and wounding the bull. “Ah ha!” now he’s done it!” was my very first reaction. I actually poured myself a martini in a pre-celebratory spirit. I can be forgiven, I hope, for such a thought, because earlier in the day I’d watched Sean Spicer’s WH press conference during which Sean repeatedly pushed back on questions about the possibility of a recording system in the White House by saying, over and over, “The President stands by his position.”

Time and again, Spicer and his backup colleague, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, have used the press room podium as a pedestal from which to regurgitate flat-out lies, misinformation, and nonsensical statements of implausible and indefensible presidential comments and Tweets. From the size of inaugural crowds to attacks on federal judges and circuit courts, to denials about Michael Flynn, to the firing of Sally Yates and the mashup of mixed stories surrounding Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Jim Comey’s dismissal, to the veiled threats to use “tapes” of conversations, to this latest breach of intelligence information to the Russians, the increasing volume of Babel-esque noise from the White House has reached brain-hurting levels.

But then, as the martini began to hit me, I remembered this miserable fact: Not one thing the president has done so far is enough to move the needle off the peg of stupid toward the peg of impeachment or indictments for high crimes. The president can, at will, reveal the most highly sensitized information—he’s the ultimate declassifier.

As one pundit observed on CNN yesterday, if the president wanted to write down the nuclear codes on yellow sticky and take a picture of it, he could. If he wanted to—or if he has—set up a private recording system in the White House, he could and not be breaking any law (the recordings belong to the public, so he can’t walk out the door with them, and he can’t destroy them). He can fire his appointees, or certain appointed officials (like Comey) with impunity. He can even see to it that his children and their spouses are accommodated in White House offices. And, he can share sensitive information with an adversary who is playing him like a balalaika.

Now, if ignorance, arrogance, self-aggrandizement, self-endowed invulnerability to facts, abuse of trust, sexist braggadocio, humiliation, creepiness, and running roughshod over democratic values were impeachable offenses, Trump would be out by now. But he gets a pass on all those negatives because no matter how distasteful his actions are, they are only embarrassments that stain America in the eyes of the world. And that’s not a crime for which he can be punished except at the ballot box.

In the middle of writing this piece, I took a break to watch General H.R. McMaster, the president’s national security advisor, brief the media in the White House press room on the president’s conversation with Lavrov and Kislyak. At no time, said McMaster, did the president do anything out of the ordinary in revealing information about ISIS and threats to aviation. McMaster, who was in the room at the time, along with other national security staff, said Mr. Trump was doing what any president would do to share important information that could help Russia identify the evolution of ISIS attacks that brought down a Russian airliner, in November of 2015.

It may be telling that McMaster would not say whether the information was classified (he batted away any media questions attempting to affirm the intelligence value of the information), and, in what was perhaps a misstep at the very end of the press briefing, he made it known that the president had not been briefed on the sources and methods by which one of America’s allies had obtained the information to begin with.

As far as McMaster is concerned, apparently, he’s okay with watching the president speak off-the-cuff, to an adversary, about national security matters about which he has not been briefed. No surprise there. Also no surprise was McMaster’s pivot from the president’s revelations to the Russians to the sources of the media leaks. Of much greater interest to the National Security Advisor (and to Trump, of course), are the sources and methods of leaks from within the government to reporters and other media outlets.

I’d like to equate Trump’s government inexperience and his obsession with finding leakers to the obsessive Lt. Commander Phillip Frances Queeg of the destroyer/minesweeper U.S.S. Caine, who descended into a black madness as his inexperience commanding a warship rendered him helpless in the face of mounting crises—real and imagined. However, in my opinion, such a linkage does Queeg a disservice, for, unlike Trump who is doing all he can to be a disruptor and a purpose-driven fomenter of distrust throughout the White House and his administration, Queeg was merely a man brought down by his own demons, aided and abetted by backstabbing officers (okay, maybe there is a parallel there). Queeg winds up in a remote supply facility in Iowa; Trump will at least go back his golden tower.

On January 13, just a week before Trump’s inauguration, I published a short piece in Huffington about the long-term effects of Trump’s hubris. I suggested then that the president’s lack of understanding—his purposeful disdain for technical knowledge, could lead to tragedy in a far-off land. After yesterday’s news, and in light of Gen. McMaster’s transparent tap dance around the core of the problem his president has with gaining, processing, understanding, and acting on the most sensitive issues facing our intelligence community, and the intelligence gathering challenges facing our allies, I offer up an updated excerpt from that column.

“Somewhere, in some Syrian town’s darkest alley, not far from an enclave where diabolical plans are being drawn up, an Israeli intelligence operative—is putting his life on the line to glean a piece of information vital to U.S. and global interests. [I use ‘his’ here to simplify the writing. “Her” would be just as apt and accurate] This field agent has spent years cultivating informants, tapping delicate resources, observing everything from construction projects to troop movements to dinner parties involving state officials and foreign visitors, and military personnel. The agent is probably known to some in the Russian or Syrian intelligence services, and they would love to find him and either kill him, or make an example of him.

But he is very good at his tradecraft, and, so far, what he has reported over the years has kept his country, and the United States and its allies one step ahead of its Russian or Syrian or any number of equally bad actors. The men and women who choose this career path—or who are invited into the black world of intelligence collection—are, on the surface, indistinguishable from your neighbors and friends. The men and women who choose this murky, risky world are driven by a deep-seated desire to protect the home country, even at great risk not only to themselves and families, but to the reputation and security of a free world. For them, failure is never an option; the stakes are far too high.

The agent gathering data on the Syrian enclave knows that 5,000 miles away, at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, there is a wall of stars dedicated to every fallen American agent who placed his or her own life below the lives of all other Americans at home and around the world. It is possible he knew one or more of them. It is likely there is such a memorial in Tel Aviv. His mission is both personal and patriotic. The altar of freedom is surrounded by stars of many shapes.

As a military child growing up on the front lines of the Cold War—living at Ground Zero—I have never forgotten or forgiven the treachery of the Soviets/Russians. As far as I am concerned, America elected a man who is putting it all back, in spades, because he chooses to: a) snuggle up with Vladimir Putin and Sergey Kislyak whose KGB/FSB roots are deep; b) places no value on the lives and veracity of the men and women of our intelligence services; and c) does not trust our allies who share the same high stakes.

The agent in Syria sends his report to Israeli intelligence. The report is collected and combined with dozens or hundreds of others. Some of that information moves to the American intelligence services. At seven in the morning, a briefing team from Langley arrives at the White House, prepared to give the president his daily intelligence briefing. The president, looking at the thick book, passes along a message of his own: “Give it to me in one page…this is too much to read.” He remembers only just enough to pass along to Lavrov and Kislyak what he thinks will please them. At least he got that right.”

It is quite possible that such Trumpian hubris, disrespect, and willful ignorance will lead to one more star on the wall at Langley, or on a similar wall in a private hall belonging to one of our allies.

If Trump continues to dismiss the need for secrecy, if he chooses to boast of his knowledge to our enemies, if he continues to flaunt his almost perfect invulnerability to accountability, if he continues to isolate the few people around him who could help—truly help—then the next three-and-a-half years will be years of new stars on walls. And he won’t give a damn.

Deceit and Danger: Comey's Firing Will Not Go Down Well

Illustration by William Rotsaert

When the news broke here in Washington, D.C., I flashed back to the 1973 Nixon/Cox episode, and my initial gut reaction was outrage that once again America was going to be put through an emotional and political wringer. And then I considered the vast difference between the White House of 1973 and the White House of 2017, and put that comparison aside. And you should too.

Despite what the talking heads say, the Nixon White House, skulking under the Watergate clouds of localized lies, deception, and dirty tricks, bears little resemblance to the Trump White House dancing in wild abandon under thunderheads boiling and roiling with openly-celebrated acts of hatred, arrogance, duplicity, derangement, and inhumanity. For all that was wrong with Nixon, his legacy will never fall to the depths of Trump’s.

By pushing back against a legitimate investigation into a matter involving the highest level of national security, Trump is exposing the United States to a foreign enemy who has no compunction about using any American citizen to advance their nefarious plans to undermine our faith and confidence in our democracy.

But my outrage remained. It is an outrage that the nation is about to undergo a transformational era due to the ego of one of the most unprepared, ill-advised, intellectually inept presidents in the long line of Chief Executives. As one of my friends on Facebook said within minutes of the breaking news,

“This is what a coup looks like, happening in real time. Trump must be stopped, and soon, before he destroys this country. Anybody who continues to support or defend him past this point will own every bit of this cataclysmic shitstorm, from here until the ugly end of it. And this goes triple for the craven, opportunistic, amoral Republicans in both houses of Congress. In addition to already glowing in the dark from their votes on the health "care" bill, every one of these assholes will stink like they've been bedding down in a den of skunks, for the duration of their misbegotten careers in the political sphere -- which with any luck will be terminated next year. Because make no mistake about it: even if Trump goes down, they will NOT shake off the stench from having been one of his eager enablers. In the meantime: Resist!”

On the surface (which is all there really is to the Trump White House), the optics of the Comey firing were terrible; timing is everything here in DC, and this firing could not have happened at a more inappropriate or inopportune time.

It had the smell of presidential excrement all over it; it came on the heels of Sally Yate’s and James Clapper’s testimonies which were not Trump-friendly; it happened within 48 hours of Jim Comey’s misstatement/restatement about Huma Abedin’s emails (the first statement helped Trump, the recanted and corrected statement infuriated him); it followed by only a few hours Senator Lindsay Graham’s offhanded comment to CNN’s Manu Raju about possibly subpoenaing Trump’s tax returns; and it came just three hours after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tried to heave Sally Yates under Trump’s Tour-of-Lies It was that last point—the WH attempt to disparage Sally Yates—that framed my thoughts on Comey’s firing.

For most of the country—the 99.999% who live far beyond the Washington Beltway—this story will have legs only insofar as Trump supporters will raise their glasses or bottles in raucous toasts to their leader (who, unbeknownst to them, is slowly strangling them and throwing them into the Don’tCare healthcare and TaxDeform ditches), and Trump detractors will organize a nationwide March of Outrage, with posters of Jim Comey and Archibald Cox leading the parades.

There will be pockets of Americans who won’t give a damn because life is real and earnest for them as they struggle with

• underwater mortgages,
• choking tuition bills,
• drought,
• floods,
• sick livestock,
• broken cars,
• no transportation,
• potholes in their crumbling small towns,
• not enough police,
• angry police,
• opioid addition,
• the spectre of gangs roaming their poorly-illuminated streets,
• parental/spousal/employer abuse,
• leaking pipelines,
• undrinkable tapwater,
• crumbling bridges over polluted streams,
• images of fistfights on airliners,
• babies with heart problems,
• being a single parent to an at-risk child
• adult children caring for mentally-diminished parents,
• underfunded schools trying to teach underfed students,
• homelessness,
• lack of broadband to connect with the world (maybe that’s a mixed blessing),
• and vote-pandering politicians whose bi-annual promises have yet to fix any of the above.

Those issues, dismissed by most of the policy wonks and news bureaus as not sexy enough to sustain a news cycle, fell by the way completely Tuesday evening. There was an air of snark to the news on every channel, as the White House lawn filled with journalists rushing to read the termination letter and start the finger-pointing process at prime news time on the East Coast.

Here in Washington, House and Senate speechwriters began working overtime to craft statements reflecting partisan annoyance with “my colleagues across the aisle,” and calling for either an independent prosecutor or letting the House and Senate investigating committees continue with their investigative work (whatever that is).

The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson, in one of the best timeline reports of the White House Press Office’s lame attempts to explain the Comey dismissal, focused on the bizarre nighttime ad-hoc press briefing I think I’ve ever seen. It’s worth a long quote from Johnson’s piece to give you a sense of the weirdness of the moment. Several White House spokesperson’s had trotted out to the media area on the North Lawn to talk about whether the president directed Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to conduct a probe of FBI Director James B. Comey. Sensing that the assembled reporters were not buying what Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway were trying to sell, Sean Spicer took matters into his own inept hands and out of his own inarticulate mouth.

After Spicer spent several minutes hidden in the bushes behind these sets, Janet Montesi, an executive assistant in the press office, emerged and told reporters that Spicer would answer some questions, as long as he was not filmed doing so. Spicer then emerged.

“Just turn the lights off. Turn the lights off,” he ordered. “We'll take care of this. ... Can you just turn that light off?”

Spicer got his wish and was soon standing in near darkness between two tall hedges, with more than a dozen reporters closely gathered around him. For 10 minutes, he responded to a flurry of questions, vacillating between light-hearted asides and clear frustration with getting the same questions over and over again.

Spicer said he's not aware of any of Rosenstein's superiors who might have directed him to do this — although he then said that such questions should be directed to Justice officials, not him. Spicer did a lot of referring.

Was Sessions involved? “That's something you should ask the Department of Justice,” Spicer said.

Was Rosenstein's probe part of a larger review of the FBI? “That's, again, a question that you should ask the Department of Justice,” he said.

Did the president discuss Rosenstein's findings with Rosenstein? “No, I don't believe, I don't know how that sequence went — I don't know,” he said.

What was the president's role? “Again, I have to get back to you on the tick-tock,” he said.

When's the last time Trump and Comey spoke? “Uh, I don't know. I don't know. There's some — I don't know. I don't know,” he said.

What were the three occasions on which the president says Comey assured him that he was not under investigation? “I don't — we can follow — I can try, yeah,” he said.

How long did the president deliberate? “I don't, I don't ... I can look at the tick-tock. I know that he was presented with that today. I'm not sure what time,” he said.

Why wasn't Comey given the news in a personal phone call? “I think we delivered it by hand and by email and that was — and I get it, but you asked me a question and that's the answer,” he said.

If that 10-minute bobbling of blustering bombast and “tick-tock” sleight of tongue seems otherworldly, you are in good company.

So, here’s my theory, for what it’s worth:

Trump’s general counsel, Donald McGahn, was confronted by Sally Yates in mid-January over what seemed to Yates to be a potential for Russia’s compromise of Lt. General Mike Flynn, then Trump’s National Security Advisor. Yates, a 27-year veteran of the Justice Department, but appointed to the job of Deputy Attorney General by then-President Obama, probably minced no words about her deep-seated concern that Flynn was a target of Russian compromise.

McGahn reported to Trump, possibly in the company of Steve Bannon and others. Trump, egged on by Bannon (though not much egging was needed), was furious, saying he was not going to tolerate bad and fake news from someone he regarded as disloyal and tied to the previous administration (Yates). “Bring her back in tomorrow, Don,” was Trump’s order. “And find out what she’s got, and make sure we get it.” There is also a side conversation about why someone like Yates or even the Justice Department itself, should judge internal White House conversations.

McGahn calls Yates back down to the White House to get more details, specifically, according to Yate’s testimony, “Why does it matter to Yates's Justice Department if one White House official lies to another?” (She explained it was because Flynn could be blackmailed by the Russians for being caught in a lie that the Russians knew was a lie.) Why it matters is a subject for an entirely new Quora response, but in short, it matters because a liar who will lie to a colleague, will certainly lie to the nation.

Yates returns to the Justice Department and arranges for materials to be made available to McGahn. Yates is then fired for insubordination by refusing to uphold Trump’s travel ban executive order. More than a week passes before the WH collects the investigation materials on Flynn. Meanwhile Flynn sits in on at least on top-level phone call with Vladimir Putin.

Comey, by this time, is caught in the middle of political emotions. On the one hand, Trump has alternately praised and denounced and praised again Comey for the whole 2016-spanning Clinton email kerfuffle. On the other hand, Trump is getting pretty tired of the Comey-led Russian investigation, and the other investigatory drumbeats echoing down Pennsylvania Avenue from both chambers of the Congress. His guy, Comey, is problematic—as far as Trump is concerned, Comey is a short-fused firecracker, capable of going off on his own at any moment. Not good.

Then Comey does just that—but to Trump’s advantage! Comey holds a press conference in which he (mistakenly) alleges that thousands of Huma Abedin’s emails were sent to her husband, Anthony Weiner’s, laptop for printing out, and that there were classified documents therein. Trump is happy. But…Comey then recants, and has to back up and explain that no, there were not thousands of emails, and the classified documents amounted to about a dozen emails not even marked with the appropriate classifications. Shades of the Clinton October surprise whipsawing. Trump is now furious again.

Finally, Yates and former DNI chief Clapper testify before the Senate, and each one lays a solid path of potential Russian compromise leading directly to the White House door, and Comey is mentioned in the testimony. Trump has had enough. He pulls the plug on Comey, but makes sure it is done in such a way as to maximize Comey’s embarrassment. He just manages to have at hand, a hastily written report by his newest Deputy Attorney General that shows that Comey has been doing a bad job all along, and that the Hillary Clinton miasma was sufficient of itself to merit Comey’s dismissal.

Here are the texts of the dismissal letter, and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein's messages to the president.

What I find both fascinating and troubling is the reference Trump makes in his second paragraph in his letter to Comey in which he says Comey told him three times that he (Trump) was not under investigation.

“While I greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that I am not under investigation…”

If that is true, then Comey broke the law by revealing information about the investigation to a potential target of the investigation, and Trump broke the law by accepting that information and not acting to dismiss Comey immediately for revealing a conclusion about the investigation.

I cannot believe James Comey ever said directly to the president, "You are not under investigation." It simply defies all logic, but it does reflect Donald Trump's inexhaustible desire to promote himself through self-righteously-chosen out-of-context examples.

If there is one area in which Nixon and Trump have some measure of similarity, it is on display right in this moment: Trump makes sure Comey does not see the firing coming, sending his personal bodyguard to deliver the news, and making sure Comey sees the dismissal right along with the rest of America—on television, the ultimate “You’re Fired,” reality show.

What Trump and his Team of Drivels did not plan for, was the explosion of outrage that hit the country. Trump is surprised because he thought the Democrats would hail him for getting rid of Hillary Clinton’s bête noire, and he assumed Republicans would commend him for his decisive action at cleaning house.

Well, it doesn’t work that way here in Washington—no deed, good or otherwise—goes unpunished, Mr. Trump. You will pay a price for this, no matter who you install as the next FBI director, and the nation will be watching.

Illustration by William Rotsaert

I don’t know what makes human beings capable of cruelty toward any living creature other than a warped need to exercise dominion over the weak and defenseless out of a moral failure to acknowledge one’s own frailties. I cannot comprehend how one man, much less 217 others—men and women—could so callously and casually draw, aim, and fire bullets tipped with pain, fear, and financial ruin into a crowd of the most vulnerable citizens in our society, and then, in a garden of roses, celebrate the carnage they inflicted on millions of innocents.

Maybe such public displays of cruelty reflect some internal self-disgust that will not be put away in a dark place—like Oscar Wilde’s “Picture of Dorian Gray” refusing to be hidden in a closet. I believe the “Picture of Republican Health Care” as passed by the House on Thursday is just such an image. It is a soulless portrait painted in the bleak pigments of false hope, hubris, self-interest, and lies, and applied to a cheap legislative canvas with a brush of indifference held by the cruelest artists of our times.

The English novelist and essayist, G.K. Chesterton, wrote “Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kind of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.” What the House Republicans foisted off on the public on Thursday was nothing less than intellectual cruelty playing to the emotional and financial uncertainty of a portion of the electorate primed by the president and conservative media (news and social) to distrust and fear facts and truth.

Congressman Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), in an eloquent Floor statement denouncing the healthcare bill, said, in part,

“TrumpCare codifies a worldview that divides America by fate and fortune. A worldview that scapegoats the struggling and suffering and that see illness as inadequacy. The ultimate test of our country’s character is not the power we give the strong, but the strength we give the weak. It is among the most basic human truths: Every one of us, some day, will be brought to our knees. By a diagnosis we didn’t expect, a phone call we can’t imagine, or a loss we cannot endure. That common humanity inspires our mercy. It fortifies our compassion. It drives us to look out for the sick, the elderly, the poor, and the most vulnerable among us. Yesterday’s bill — yesterday’s devastating bill — does the opposite.”

I will never forget the image of “Tank Man” the unknown protester, standing firm in the face of Chinese armor rolling toward him in Tiananmen Square, June 5, 1989. In my mind, looking back at the tipping point in that man’s life—watching him not only hold off the tanks, but get on one of them, talk to crew, get off and resume his resolute place in history—I see the tipping point for millions of Americans now in the path of the obscene armored division of the Republican Party’s merciless healthcare legislation.

As the driver of the lead GOP tank, it is the president’s intent—of this I have no doubt—to do great harm to the weak, the vulnerable, the voiceless, and the disheartened Americans who struggle every day to make ends meet, and who are so desperate that they will believe any lie fed to them by false prophets. Trump and his witting cadre of Ryan/McCarthy followers, have little use for people who don’t look like them, who don’t add value to the economy, who are struggling just to pull their own weight and that of their families’.

Trump conjures up boogeymen to frighten us into building a wall; he pretends to demonize the wealthy to the delight of the poor—all the while planning tax reform that will further improve the lives of the rich, and further diminish the hopes of the impoverished; he drives wedges of distrust into the cracks and crevices of a racially-tense nation; he pulls the welcome mat from America’s front porch, and even our allies are unsure as to whether to trust us to come to their aid. And now, he reaches out to pull healthcare’s life-support plug for millions of desperate Americans. Because they are weak, because his form of cruelty hungers to hurt the poor, disparage the disabled, demean those who are different.

Weakness is intolerable to Trump. It is anathema to his very being. He can’t even admit his own faults…refuses to say “I was wrong.” And if you are a weak American, clawing up the sides of a deep well of despair brought on by pre-existing conditions, or that unexpected diagnosis, or the unimaginable phone call Joe Kennedy mentioned, you are of no use to Trump or the House Republicans. Shielded in their impenetrable armor of disdain, they cannot hear the cries of the helpless.

I do not know what the Senate will do with Trumpcare (or, as I called it in my column of May 5, “Don’tCare), but I believe that the next few weeks or months of deliberation in the Upper Chamber will present all Americans of conscience with the opportunity to stand firm in the face of the Trump tanks arrayed against those who need healthcare the most.

Cruelty is not a fiber in the fabric of our country. It is, instead, a stain on the whole cloth of our society. It can be washed out, but only if we all work together in the cleansing process. Right now, this very day, the future of healthcare for men, women, children, the very young, the very old, the soon-to-die, and the yet-to-be-born, hangs in the balance. Those of us with strong voices and willing hearts must speak for them, must stand in front of them against the encroaching cruelty of heartless legislation. We can do it.

As Joe Kennedy said, “We must decide, instead, to take care of each other — because, but for the grace of God, we will all one day wake up in need of a little mercy.”

High Hurdles Ahead For Trump's Don't Care Bill?

Politicians and pundits who insist that the House passage of Trump’s Don’tCare bill is a "win" for the Republican party and the president, conveniently ignore the concept of "win." 

They were having a great time ignoring it in the Rose Garden Thursday night having taken the team bus down to the White House to gloat and sneer at the rest of America while Trump reminded them, once again, that he’s the president, and can pull off stunts like that because, well, he’s the president, ha, ha, wink, wink.

A win only counts at the end of the game...not at the end of the first quarter, or in the fifth inning, or on the first lap of the Indy 500. As one of my friends noted, the bizarre and, frankly, humiliating, GOP ceremony Trump hosted in the Rose Garden came off as if they were celebrating winning the coin toss.

And please, Mr. Trump, don’t give us the “I’m the president,” shtick; get over it already; world leaders, from Merkel to Mays to Putin to Xi, and even to Kim Jong-un, probably watched your self-aggrandizing performance with barf bags in their laps.

And, as a friendly aside, Mr. Trump, when you’re in a meeting with Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s Prime Minister (the guy you hung up on last fall—and who you made wait while you celebrated with Team Ryan), think hard before you give the Aussies credit for having better health care than we do; the word that comes to my mind is “irony,” but maybe you see it differently. But I digress.

The House Don’tCare bill will go to the Senate, beginning the second third of the game—Mr. Trump seems, as usual, to not understand that legislation is a three-part process whereby:

1.     The House sends what it approved to the Senate;

2.    The Senate (the alleged “deliberative body”), if it accepts the House Don’tCare bill (and that’s a reasonable “if”), must wait for the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) score for projected costs of the GOP’s healthcare pool (not even close to $8 billion over five years), the Don’tCare bill’s deficit neutral potential (nil), and the human impact (how many millions of Americans (read “voters”) will be thrown under the GOP’s “Promise Bus” and not be able to afford the GOP’s Don’tCare bill).

As the Washington Post reported, “It also revived questions about the measure’s fate in the Senate, where widespread disagreement remains among Republicans about how to proceed on health care. First, the Senate’s parliamentarian — or rules-keeper — cannot review the legislation and determine the rules of debate until the CBO submits its official estimate, which could take several more weeks to complete, according to congressional aides. That would mean that official Senate debate on the bill could not begin until June.”

Depending on the CBO’s report, the Senate will either gag, actually throw up, or light its collective hair on fire and run around looking for a way out of the building. Once they have settled down and licked their wounds (and installed two new AA batteries in Mitch McConnell so at least his eyes blink and his lips move), the Senators (especially those up for reelection in 2018) will:

a.     take their own sweet time to figure out how not to look terrible back home, where many constituents have those pesky “pre-existing conditions” (like aging) or who actually need:

                                                 i.    ambulance services,

                                               ii.    pediatric care,

                                              iii.    maternity care,

                                              iv.    mental health services (which most of the nation will need, by the time this is all over),

                                               v.    prescription drugs (won’t we all want a bit of Xanax?),

                                             vi.    or cancer treatments, diabetes care, etc.

b.    hold some hearings on the Don’tCare bill (or their version of it);

c.    reassure their healthcare lobbyists that there will be plenty of profits in the Don’tCare bill for them (this is a crucial step: the insurance companies want to be sure they are financially covered in case they are ever diagnosed with the pre-existing condition known as morals);

d.    instruct their staffs to read what is actually in the Don’tCare bill they are considering and report back in one-page decision memos;

e.    join hands in a big circle on the Senate floor and listen to Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” and John Lennon’s “Imagine” (just kidding);

f.     realize that the Memorial Day and Fourth of July recesses are fast-approaching and decide to do nothing until just before the Labor Day recess (oops, too late now…better wait until never); or…

g.    cobble together a compromise Don’tCare bill so distasteful to the House that once it goes to the House-Senate conference, the Freedom Caucus will implode, accidentally sucking Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy into the void;

h.    construct a tall fence around the entire Capitol building to fend off the millions of Don’tCare-ineligible citizens who are converging on the Congress with pitchforks and blazing torches, looking for Republican Senators and Representatives whose tattooed foreheads are, in Nancy Pelosi’s words, “glowing in the dark;”

i.      place an anonymous phone call to the White House informing Trump that the Capitol dog ate the Don’tCare bill and they have nothing to turn in.

3.    Instead of a signing ceremony for his Don’tCare bill, Trump sends Tomahawk missiles into the House and Senate office buildings, and everywhere else the intelligence services say Members of Congress are hiding, then blames the attack on the media and North Korea, launches nukes against CNN, the Post, the Times, and Pyongang, and claims a win.