Wednesday wanders and wonders

With the backdrop of Del Shannon’s “The Wanderer,” let me wander a little as I wonder. In no particular order:

HBO is running a movie called “Brexit,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the lead of the “Vote Leave” campaign. I would ask my British friends to comment, but it is interesting as much as it is scary. There are several takeaways – the slow realization by the “Vote Remain” campaign that the leave movement was playing off fears and insecurities that had been festering over time. The others are how targeted the analytics and persuasion technologies are and how poorly thought of the faces of the leave campaign – Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson – are by their own side. One thing is for certain, the leave campaign glossed over how long and complex leaving the EU would be, per the words of the man who led the campaign in later testimony.

On a related, but scarier front, it was reported today that Russia and China are filling the global void being left open by a retrenching US and a very distracted UK. This is not a surprise as it is part of a presumed strategy to disrupt the west. The elegance of Putin’s strategy is not just helping promote the election of a mercurial US President, the leave vote with Brexit or the disruption of Syrian refugees in Europe, it is the divisiveness in each of the affected countries that continue to this day. To Putin, social media is like shooting fish in a barrel, as that is what he was trained to do.

Tomorrow, the US Senate is having two base appeasing votes to reopen the government, neither one standing a chance of passing. The hope is they will get down to business afterwards and come up with an acceptable compromise. To be frank, I am long passed tired of legislators governing off the extremes. If the President continues to be influenced by entertainers and personalities rather than sober, sound data-driven advice, then good governance will prove difficult. It is equally imperative for the Democrats to govern less from the extreme. A closed government is hurting people. It matters not which party is to blame.

I want these three items in your mind as you think of this last thought. As the US and UK chase their tails at home, the leaders of these two countries are absent from a global economic forum in Davos. To me, that speaks volumes.

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Letter to Democrat Members of Congress

All, please consider sending the following to select Democrat Senators and representatives. Please feel free to reshape it to suit your needs and style. I feel the opportunity exists to make a deal to reopen the government.
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As an independent voter who has belonged to both parties, I have been critical of the President for his lack of good faith bargaining and use of fear and misinformation to sell over-simplified solutions. I have also been critical of GOP Congressional members for not governing acquiescing to the President’s commands.

With this context, I ask you to use this opportunity with the packaged offer of the President to gain acceptable terms and re-open the government. I recognize fully this attempt by the President is more to deflect blame, but people are being hurt by the shutdown and it is time to act.

So, I beseech you to find terms that will be acceptable and make a deal. Tell Senator McConnell what could be added to make it acceptable. It is time. As this lingers further, more of the mud from this shutdown will rightfully get on on Democrats. Yes, the President caused this shutdown, but it takes two sides to have a communication problem.

And now, a word from George Will

I have noted before the significant number of respected conservative pundits and editorialists who have shared concerns over the President. George Will, a long time conservative, is among those who see the damage being done by the man in the White House. Like other conservative critics, his voice should be one that is heeded by those conservatives who are not totally in lock-step with the President.

In his most recent column called “Trump’s misery is also country’s,” Will is hypercritical of both the policies and behavior of the current President. He is also not too keen on the current Senate leadership for not doing their job to govern, being too interested in acquiescing to the President’s commands.

As for policy, he cited several examples, but two jump out. He is critical of the Trump and the GOP leadership as he notes, “Except that after two years of unified government under the party that formerly claimed to care about fiscal facts and rectitude, the nation faces a $1 trillion deficit during brisk growth and full employment.”

Will also notes concern over the US getting out of a trade deal designed to compete with China. He said, “The President’s most consequential exercise of power has been the abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, opening the way for China to fill the void of US involvement.” It should be noted the agreement went forward without the US and has become effective for six countries at the beginning of this year, with five others coming online later this year.

But, Will leaves his harshest criticism for the President’s behavior which has been destabilizing. He writes “Still the ubiquity of his (Trump’s) outpourings in the media’s outpourings gives American life its current claustrophobic feel.”  Will goes on to note that “He (Trump) is an inexpressibly sad specimen…He seems to have as many friends as his self-centeredness allows, and as he has earned in an entirely transactional life.”

As a result of Trump, Will notes the “GOP needs an entirely new vocabulary. Pending that, the party is resorting to crybaby conservatism: We are being victimized by ‘elites, markets, Wall Street, foreigners, etc.'”  This is what unfolds when fear is used as the key selling point. Principles are thrown aside, as exaggerations, over-simplifications, misinformation and lies paint others as bogeymen and the reason for any problems you might have.

As noted earlier, Will does not stand alone among conservative writers. My friends in the GOP and who have more conservative leanings need to pay more attention to people like him, Erik Erickson, Steve Schmidt, David Brooks, Michael Gerson, Ross Douthat and others, and less to those who the President seems to hold in high cotton. These are not Democrats who are raising concerns. These are people whose opinion used to matter more to Republicans and conservatives. They still should.

US DOD is worried about climate change

Per a Politico article yesterday, the US Department of Defense is concerned about climate change, even if the President denies the risk. It should be noted this concern is not new. Per Politico:

“Flooding, drought and wildfires driven by climate change pose threats to two-thirds of the U.S. military’s installations, the Defense Department said in a new report required by Congress.

The authors of the report, which the Pentagon delivered to Congress on Thursday, note that it probably underestimates the full extent of risk to military facilities because it only looks at likely impacts over the next two decades. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said the world needs to become carbon neutral by 2050 to prevent global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius, which would lock in many of the most catastrophic effects of climate change.”

This DOD report is following previous cautions that climate change is a risk to national security. This echoes the recent US government report and that of the UN. Yet, the US has a President who denies the human influence on climate change, has called it a hoax, announced the US pullout of the Paris Climate Change Accord and has eased regulations to enable the fossil fuel industry.

The larger irony is this President is inventing a crisis at the border and may declare a national emergency, while fiddling away about climate change. I think I will listen to the DOD than this man.

Stuck in the mud

The week moves forward, yet two big democratic countries are stuck in the mud. That seems to be as good a metaphor as any to define how political leaders can become the problem rather than solving it.

Across the pond, Parliament firmly knows what they don’t want, but does not know what they can achieve given a hard-bargaining EU. Brexit was sold on faulty data and now the British are headed to a departure without agreement – a hard Brexit. The other option that will likely unfold is another Brexit vote, since politicians seemingly cannot work together. That would lead to a remain vote, in my view as the younger folks would turn out.

In the US, we are coming up on four weeks of a shutdown. Ironically. Republican leaders did not want this, but their boss reneged on a deal and they are forced to go along. What I find interesting that is not getting any play, is the reversal of roles. Previously, it is the boss of the federal government who wants to keep workers working. In this instance, the boss is not going to bat for his employees. Why is that not discussed more? There is a deal to be had, but negotiating with someone who does not use good faith bargaining is not fruitful.

Speaking of less than good faith dealing, the President’s attorney Rudy Guiliani said yesterday that people in the Trump campaign may have colluded with Russia, but the President did not. Next, he lied to the astonished interviewer saying the he nor the President ever said no one on the campaign did. That is obviously disproven by multiple instances of full and adamant denial. It is similar to Trump and Giuliani saying the President had no knowledge of hush payments to Stormy Daniela, only to change that position multiple times.

Stuck in the mud. Brexit, the US shutdown and now the US President. His deception keeps pulling him back into the quagmire. Unfortunately, he is dragging the GOP, America and the rest of the world with him.

 

 

 

 

Voters say reopen the government – another note to Senators

A NPR/ Ipsos poll last week noted 75% of Americans and the majority of Republicans feel embarassed by the shutdown. It is time to make a deal and reopen the government. If the man who caused the shutdown vetoes it, override it.

The wall has been oversold as a solution based on fear and lies. Please check out the real time fact checking by Chris Wallace in an interview with Sarah Sanders where she was caught in three lies the President has been using to support the wall. We deserve better than this.

Yet another letter to Senators

Please open up the government. A deal is there to be had, but it needs to not involve the person causing the shutdown. It is telling when a boss does not support his employees. To me, this speaks volumes into the nature of the US President.

Americans are being harmed. These federal employees deserve better than to be mere pawns in Trump’s game. Sadly, that is his history as a manager. Please do your job and open the government.