The Caravan, Trump, and the Politics of Fear

The Caravan, Trump, and the Politics of Fear

So just a quick note here, I actually started this blog two weeks ago, before the bombs were sent, before the shooting at the synagog, and before the racist shooting of african americans in Kentucky.  Since these things have happened, there has been much talk about how much responsibility Trump has with all of this. I don’t think it is fair to blame the crazy actions of any individual on someone else and my intent here is not to blame Trump for those specific attacks.  He is, of course, responsible for contributing to the division and hate in this country, as was the original point of this blog.

So when I first heard about the caravan of migrants coming from Central America, my heart went out to them.  Imagine being in such a hopeless place in your life, that the best option seems to be to leave your home, friends, family, culture, and travel (mostly walking) thousands of miles in the hopes of a better life.  I heard interviews with people in the caravan - people who saw their husbands or wives murdered by gangs, people who fear their children will be recruited or killed by gangs, people running from oppressive governments, people running from poverty and a lack of living wage jobs.  Central America is the most dangerous place on Earth outside of active war zones. And the US is seen as the land of opportunity. When Tony and I drove through Central America in 1993, we encountered many kids who asked if we would take them to the US. These were 10 year old kids who would have gotten in our car and gone to the US, leaving everything behind and without even saying goodbye.  That was how little hope they had for their future where they lived. And it is important to note, that the US government has been involved in and responsible for much of the political and economic problems in the region. We have overthrown democratically elected governments in the region, we exported the MS13 gang problem to El Salvador, we have supported authoritarian regimes and terrorist organizations in the region.  

Now while I feel terrible for these people, I know it is not an easy problem to solve and the United States can’t solve all the world’s problems (even if we had a hand in creating them) and can’t take every person in the world who wants to come here.  This caravan is only a visible example of the many people fleeing the violence and economies of Central American countries - especially Honduras at the moment. We can, of course, take some new immigrants, in fact our economic growth needs immigrants. We can certainly do our share to take refugees who are fleeing violence.   Clearly, there needs to be solutions that address the problems, not just the symptoms. How can we work with these countries to reduce violence and improve job opportunities? Of course there are ways we can do this and this would be an interesting policy discussion to have.

So what does Trump have to say about the caravan?  Well he knows that immigration is an issue that he can use to motivate people to vote.  This was one of his key issues when he was elected and he sees it as an issue to motivate his base to get to the polls in these midterms.  So does he talk about policies? Does he show compassion for these people? Does he have an immigration reform bill from his first two years in office with both houses of congress controlled by his party to point to as an example of him taking action?  No. He uses this to stoke fear because he knows that fear is a powerful motivator when it comes to voting and activism. He calls the caravan an ‘invasion’ and says he is deploying the military to protect us. The military said they are deploying 5,000 troops to the southern border for this purpose and more recently Trump has said he wants as many as 15,000 troops (more than we have in Iraq or Afghanistan).  He doesn’t even care if his fear mongering is based in fact. In fact, he constantly lies without a care in the world. When it comes to the caravan, he promoted theories that George Soros and the Democratic party had actually organized this caravan and had paid people to be in it. He said there were members of MS13 and ‘Middle Easterners’ in the caravan. When asked if he had proof of these claims, he acknowledged he had no proof and said “there is no proof of anything”.  Of course the words that need to be added there are: ‘to most claims Trump makes’. No, Trump had no proof, he was just making claims he knew would make people afraid and which would place the blame on Democrats. The truth is, there is little or no truth to Trump’s entire stance on immigration.

Yes, our immigration laws need updating - they haven’t been updated in decades.  Trump and the Republicans blame the Democrats for being against immigration reform.  With controll of both houses, the Republicans could have brought a bill to the floor and opened it up for debate and allowed both parties to offer amendments (this is how Obamacare was done - with hundreds of proposed amendments from Republicans).  Then, if no Democrats voted for it, you could blame them. When Trump ended DACA, he said he wanted Congress to act to fix it. He said he would accept a clean DACA bill. Then, bipartisan compromise worked and a bill was drafted that would provide a path to citizenship for DACA recipients and provide $25 billion dollars for border security - money for Trump’s ‘wall’.  Trump rejected this compromise.

So immigration, especially illegal immigration, was one of Trump’s signature issues.  When he launched his bid for President this is what he said about Mexicans coming to our country: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”  He now tells us to fear the invasion that is coming.  The truth is, illegal immigration has been declining for years.  Illegal immigrants commit violent crimes at a lower rate than native born Americans!  Studies actually show that cities with higher percentage of immigrants actually have less crime than cities with fewer immigrants.  So Trump’s depiction of the crime problem is the opposite of the truth. He even recently tweeted out a video showing an immigrant who committed murder here in the States.  The video claimed it was Democrats fault he was here (even though it turns out he was deported under Clinton and then came back in under Bush) But regardless, there are crazy evil individuals - you can’t equate them with the general population.  And then there is the economic argument - they are coming for your jobs! Again, Trump’s fear mongering flies in the face of the truth. Immigrants actually boost our economy and improve job opportunities for American citizens. Even unskilled migrants from Central America are a benefit to the economy - doing jobs most Americans won’t do for the same pay and allowing unskilled American workers to work in higher paying jobs such as the service sector, where speaking fluent English is a skill they have over the recent migrants.  Refugees actually are an incredible boost to the economy and are actually job creators.  

Trump made immigration an issue and he made himself the answer:  ‘I will build a wall to protect you’! And what has he done - taken children from their parents, moved children from state facilities to massive tent prison camps, he brags about portions of the wall that have been built or fixed that were actually approved for construction before he became president.  He put DACA recipients into limbo. He has pushed for rule changes that would prevent legal residents from getting a green card if they have ever used public assistance like food stamps or health care. (This would have disqualified my wife Anke from getting a green card, since our children were born on public medical insurance)  He has turned his back on any bipartisan attempt to create compromises on immigration. And he consistently portrays the Democrats as wanting the illegal immigrants, as wanting ‘open borders’ etc. This, of course, is BS. Immigrant rights activists called Obama ‘the deporter in chief’ because his administration deported more illegal immigrants than any before him.  In fact, Obama deported more illegal immigrants than all the presidents of the 20th century combined.  The vast majority of Obama’s deportees were individuals who had been convicted of a crime. But facts and policy do not matter to Trump.  His own officials admit he doesn’t really dig into policy. They weren’t even worried that the Chinese and Russians were listening to him on his iPhone for this very reason - he doesn’t really know what is going on.  He has reduced the numbers of refugees we will accept to historically low numbers - about 30,000 a year.  They have narrowed the reasons someone can apply for asylum. Now Trump says he can change the 14th amendment to the Constitution to take away birthright citizenship.  

Ironically, Trump has some positive things he could talk about when it comes to immigration.  The draft of the new ‘NAFTA’ that his administration drafted with Mexico, includes some good things for Mexican workers, like the right the organize unions and a minimum wage. If enforced, this could help keep Mexican workers in Mexico.  This could help the illegal immigration problem.

After Trump cruelly mocked Christine Blasey Ford at a campaign rally, he was asked in a 60 minutes interview if he regretted it.  He replied that no, he doesn’t regret it because they won, and if he hadn’t made the speech, he would not have won. Win at all costs, that is his motto.  And the divisive nature of his comments are unlike we have ever seen from a US president, at least in my lifetime. Once you are president, you are the president of all the people.  You have a job to unite and represent all Americans. Trump constantly portrays the Democrats as evil people - the entire Republican echo chamber took on the talking point of comparing Democrats to mobs and saying the Democratic party wanted ‘mob rule’.  My pro Trump friends on facebook posted a graphic that showed the Republican party with the word ‘jobs’ and a guy in a shirt and tie sitting at a desk next to the Democratic party with the word ‘mobs’ and a picture of some violent protest. I actually commented on this image, as it not only offended me that they were implying that the Democratic party was properly characterized by riotous mobs, but that job creation under Obama was not all that different than it is under Trump.  I ended up engaged in a very interesting policy debate with her and some of her friends, and this kind policy debate is healthy. It stayed mostly polite, the only time it went bad was when one person claimed I wanted to take away his civil liberties, saying ANTIFA wants to take away his freedom of speech, Black Lives Matter want to take away his due process, and the Democrats want to take away his guns. He actually said we (me and all those he associated with me) wanted to take away his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.   When I called him on this, he apologized, but it does show you the power of the politics of fear. They are coming for your guns. They are coming for your jobs. They are coming for your freedoms. They are coming for your life. Trump is brilliant to exploit this. He will build a wall to protect you. He will cancel all the trade deals and nuclear deals and climate deals and he will make better ones. The sad thing is, he doesn’t even know the details in those deals, he just knows that saying these things make him sound like the strong man who will protect us.  He will drain the swamp. Of course his administration has been the ‘swampiest’ in recent history.

Now there are two things Trump and his supporters say regarding my claim that Trump is divisive and is spreading hate.  One is that BOTH ‘sides’ are responsible. The other is that it is the fault of the Fake news. Both claims are again, untrue.

Yes, you can find quotes from Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder and Joe Biden of divisive things they have said that even imply violence.  “When they go low we kick them”. These are wrong things to say, people say stupid stuff. I was very critical of Hillary regarding the tone of her attacks against Obama when she ran against him in 2008.  But there is a difference in scale here. I keep hearing these same quotes brought up every time Trump defenders try to suggest the problem is equal on both sides. Trump says hateful things constantly. He actually praised a congressman for body slamming a reporter, and praised the state of Montana by saying the people of Montana would actually think that was a good thing.  This was right after a reporter for an American newspaper was murdered by our ally, Saudi Arabia. Trump is still saying the press is the enemy of the people, even after CNN was one of the recipients of a bomb recently. This attack on the press is absolutely uncalled for and dangerous. Every US president has had issues with the press Obama thought they were not fair to him.  The job of the press is to expose the government - to expose lies and wrongdoings. The press does get it wrong sometimes, yes. There is bias in news organizations, from FOX to MSNBC, yes. But for the most part it is not fake. Trump thinks it is fake only when it puts him in a bad light. He calls the New York Times fake news when they expose his family’s questionable business dealings (backed up by over 100,000 pages of documents) and says the National Enquirer deserves a pulitzer prize and is a great news source.  The same National Enquirer who was buying up negative stories about Trump and not publishing them.

According to the Washington Post fact checkers, Trump has told lies or untruths, 30 times a day in October, leading up to the elections.  So yes, if the job of the media is to keep the government honest, they will be busy with Trump. Plus you have ethics scandal after ethics scandal (Zinky, Pruitt, Carson, etc) and new revelations about more people surrounding Trump having lied about contacts with Russians leading up to the elections, and so many other stories, that of course it seems like the press is always reporting bad news about Trump.  It isn’t that they don’t report the good news - new job reports, for instance, but then it is overshadowed by Trump calling a porn star horse face, or some other thing, so everyone moves on. There is just too much to keep up with. The press is kinda out to get all politicians - it is just that Trump has a lot to get at.

OK, I am getting off the original point, so I will sign off...

Why the process has been so unfair to Brett Kavanaugh!

    Since the day Christine Blaise Ford came forward with her allegations, President Trump, Senator Grassley, Mitch McConnell, and the Republican party have been so unfair to Brett Kavanaugh.  By not asking the FBI to investigate the allegations, they are robbing him of his chance to clear his name.  They are also refusing to subpoena the only person who was named as an eyewitness, who could testify under oath, that this did not happen, his high school buddy Mark Judge.  Kavanaugh deserves better treatment from the Republicans.  Without an FBI investigation and without witnesses like Judge, and perhaps the therapist who Blaise Ford claims to have told about the incident, the hearing is only going to be one person against the other.  It is very unlikely that Ford will be so obviously not credible that everyone will agree Kavenaugh is clearly innocent.  McConnell has promised Kavanaugh will be put on the court after the hearing with Ford.  This would mean that Kavanaugh will always have this cloud over his head.  

     Trump said the FBI doesn’t do this.  We know this is false.  The FBI has teams of experts who’s job it is to investigate sexual assault, cases that have been cold for decades, to do background checks etc.  Republicans complain that it isn’t fair to postpone the confirmation process any longer.  Of course an FBI investigation would only take a week or two, so the delay we are talking is not a huge one.  The other excuse for not ordering the FBI to investigate, was that because the case was so old, there would be nothing to investigate.  This is clearly false as well.  Besides Ford’s therapist and Mark Judge to interview (it is a federal crime to lie to the FBI - as many in Trump’s world know too well now) it has been demonstrated that there are plenty of people who would like to talk about these allegations.  There are people who speak to the integrity of Kavanaugh, and as we have seen in the past few days, other women who have made accusations and asked the FBI to investigate them.  Kavanaugh’s own college roommate at Yale has said he believes his accuser, who he also knows, over him.  This seems like a good person to question.  Blaise Ford now has four sworn affidavits, from people who say she told them about this before Kavanaugh was even close to nominated.  So, plenty to investigate.  Mark Judge would be the perfect person to interview.  He even wrote a book about their time in high school.  It is hard to believe, the Republicans don’t want him to come testify to Kavanaugh’s innocence and upstanding character.  I guess the fact that his book is titled: “Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk” might have something to do with it.

       Trump actually suggested that Kavanaugh has been treated more unfair than any nominee in history.  And they complain that the Democrats are playing politics, and of course, before the sexual assault charges came out, the Democrats were causing a show because they felt that it was unfair that there were hundreds of thousands of documents that were kept from the committee and the public that related to Kavanaugh’s background.  Certainly there are also many Democrats who oppose the nomination of a far right judge picked by the Federalist society for a lifetime appointment to the supreme court.  Of course elections have consequences, Democrats new the supreme court was in play during the 2016 election and failed to rally enough people to win the White House.  So while Democrats have the right to protest the process and argue policy difference, they also have to accept the fact that our Federal courts are now stacked heavily with for right judges.  

     But any charge from the Republicans that the Democrats are being unreasonable and unfair by delaying and playing politics, is totally horse shit.  The Republicans refused to even hold a hearing for Obama’s nominee - Merrick Garland - for nearly a year!  Garland was well respected and a very centrist choice.  Arguably the best possible choice for the supreme court - someone both sides of the isle could support, someone solidly from the mainstream of the political spectrum.  But they held the seat vacant, purely for political reasons, as they did over a hundred Federal Appeals court vacancies for years.  This worked out well for them, as they have been able to seat more judges in the first two years of Trump’s admin, than probably ever before.  This has been one of their biggest accomplishments for their base.  In fact, I often hear people say they are willing to forget about all of Trump’s lies and the way he treats people and his swampy administration and his affairs with porn stars, all because he has been ‘good on judges’.

   So yes, elections have consequences, but the Republicans cannot complain about the current process being postponed and delayed by two weeks after they ignored Garland for 10 months!  

  And then the other excuse the Republicans give for not giving Kavanaugh the investigation he deserves to clear his name, is that these women are not to be believed.  Trump has been his ignorant and piggish self, suggesting if this really happened the women would have told authorities immediately.  We know this is just stupid to say.  Sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes for many reasons.  Reasons Trump and the Republicans are re enforcing - fear that the accuser/victim will not be believed, that they will be attacked, humiliated, etc.  Trump also keeps saying Kavenaugh is such a good guy that he can’t imagine he would do this.  How many of us thought that about Bill Cosby?  People who seem like great people can do bad things.  Of course Trump always sides with the men accused.  He has no credibility on the topic of sexual assault, since he has actually boasted about sexually assaulting women.  His excuse that this was just locker room talk doesn’t make it much better.  If he thinks sexual assault is something to brag about (even if he was lying that he did it) he is obviously sick in the head.  

     And the excuse that these women are not credible, that they are pawns of the Democrats being used as some last ditch attempt to delay Kavanaugh’s confirmation.  Well the fact that all three women on the record for making allegations have asked the FBI to investigate, that suggests they just might be credible.  How many women, with families, with PhDs, would be willing to lie to the FBI just to prevent a conservative judge from being confirmed?  Especially when Trump is still president and will still get to choose the replacement, if for some reason, their secret conspiracy works to derail Kavanaugh.  Of course, having Ford tell her story in the hearing, is not likely to shed light on her credibility.  This is why they are doing Kavanaugh a disservice by not allowing the FBI to investigate and to prove these women are part of a Democratic plot.  

    The final excuse I have heard people give for why this should not be investigated, is that this is something that happened in high school and mistakes made then should not ruin your career.  This could have been the argument if Kavanaugh said he did it, but that he was a dumb drunk kid and he regrets it.  (I am not judging the merits of that argument, just saying it could have been the argument).  But it is no longer about that.  Now it is about whether or not Kavanaugh is truthful.  If he did it back then, then he is lying now.  There have been other allegations that Kavanaugh has lied during his confirmation hearings - one was about stolen Democratic emails that he was involved with when he was in the Bush White House.  And there are others.  So his credibility is not without question.  

  And to end, I must bring this up.  Bret Kavanaugh deserves a full a fair investigation. He deserves the chance to clear his name.  And during the hearing, he should be treated, just as he recommended Bill Clinton be treated when he was working with Ken Starr on the Whitewater investigation.  This is what Bret Kavanaugh said (the actual memo is interesting to read in light of all that is happening now):  

   “I am strongly opposed to giving the President any ‘break’ in the questioning regarding the details of the Lewinsky relationship…I have tried hard to bend over backwards and to be fair to him and to think of all reasonable defenses to his pattern of behavior. In the end, I am convinced that there really are none. The idea of going easy on him at the questioning is thus abhorrent to me.”

   He goes on to say they need to get the “full and complete” testimony of the President because of his “callous and disgusting behavior” with a 22 year old woman that has “turned her life into shambles”.

  He then suggests questions that should be asked, which is a long list of questions such as: “ If Monica Lewinsky says you ejaculated into her mouth on two occasions in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?”  “If Monica Lewinsky says you master-bated into a trashcan in your secretary’s office, would she be lying?”  and it goes on and on.  The resulting public report that Star, Kavanaugh, and team wrote, according to the Daily Beast, had the word ‘sex’ or a variation of 581 times while it only included the word Whitewater (the reason for the investigation - think Russian interference in our elections and collusion by the Trump campaign) four times.

  I think the charges against Kavanaugh are as callous and disgusting as the ones levied against Clinton, so I imagine Kavanaugh would approve of some tough questions being asked of him.  

What this unfortunate situation has clearly exposed, is that the Republicans (Trump, McConnell, Grassley, and the dozens who have been agreeing with them) don’t care about the truth, they don’t care about sexual assault, they don’t believe women (or they don’t care about women), they don’t care if they are incredibly hypocritical, and they really, really want to cement a far right majority on the supreme court for what could be generations.  

WOW!!! Today's (yesterday's by now) news - just when you thought it couldn't get crazier

For those who don't have time to read my entire rant, here is the abstract version:

Abstract (sort of):
crazy news every day, today just got crazier.  The shell corporation that Trump's private attorney set up to use as a slush fund to 'fix' problems like paying off a porn star to keep her quiet about an alleged affair 10 days before the election, also received millions of dollars from corporations like ATT, who payed for 'insight' into the Trump Whitehouse.  Oh, and there is money from companies tied to Russian Oligarchs close to Putin.  Surprise, surprise.  Follow the money.  And, Donald Trump, with Iraq war hawk and advocate of war with Iran,  John Bolton, as his national security advisor, has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal.  This, despite the fact our own government said Iran has not violated the deal, that the deal prevents Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon, our allies all begged us to stay in the deal, the deal took years of diplomacy to create, and that our promised sanctions will hit our allies and business partners.  Not to mention Trump is going against the majority of expert advice and gambling with the possibility of a terrible war or adding fuel to a new nuclear arms race which is already underway.  And what is crazy, is that these news stories are just examples of the corrupt, inept, and uninformed actions that this administration makes on a daily basis.


As you probably know, my urge when I hear interesting news is to want to tell others about it.  As I have not had nearly enough time lately, to catch up on my 'to do' lists, my 'interesting recent news' blog has remained unwritten.  For months, what I have been doing, multiple times a week, is jotting down notes about news that is so crazy I must make sure to include it in my next blog.

There are so many stories, which, under a normal administration would be huge scandals, that get forgotten about because the very next day there is something else just as crazy.  Under every president, scandals spill out, embarrassments occur, mistakes are made.  But now these things happen so routinely it is more like the Niagara Falls than the occasional spill.

But today, May 8, 2018, the news stood out even in this nonstop crazy news environment.  So much so, that I felt the need to write about it.  I will do my best to ignore my ongoing list of crazy stories, and just focus on the news of the day.   Of course Trump pulling out of the nuclear deal with Iran is the one with the most serious ramifications.  I will take this on second.  First, it is worth talking about today's news regarding Trump's legal problems.  I think there are a thousand more important stories, like what is happening to the government behind the scenes.  But this is also very important news and it all came together today in a way that is stranger than fiction - or at least fiction anyone would think is at all realistic.

First I gotta say that I think most of the discussion about the Russia investigation(s), that I hear, miss the most important point.  I hear people who support the probe trying to argue why it looks like Trump probably did things illegal or at least sketchy.  Those against the probe, argue why Trump obviously is innocent of any wrongdoing and therefor the investigation is nothing but a political witch hunt.  The investigation(s) have been under constant attack from Trump and his supporters in Congress, Fox News, etc.  Fact is, with regards to the legitimacy of the investigation(s) it does not matter if Trump is innocent or not.  That is the purpose of the investigation - to find out the truth of what happened.  Innocent people should not worry - especially if they tell the truth.  There was not enough evidence to charge the Clintons with a crime in the Whitewater investigation - but Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about an extra marital affair.  Yes, during big investigations, other crimes previously committed or committed during the investigation, might also get people in trouble.  One reason to not commit crimes and/or not to surround yourself with people who have.  Trump hired Michael Flynn even though his administration knew he was under investigation by a top espionage lawyer!  And surprise, surprise, much of the sketchy stuff he did involved... Russians.

But as to the question as to whether or not the investigation into Russian involvement with the election and possible cooperation with the Trump campaign is a legitimate investigation has nothing to do with Trumps innocence.  If there is a enough fishy things going on, then an investigation is necessary to figure out what actually happened.  What we did know is that many Russians met with many people connected with the Trump campaign, even more in the campaign knew about these meetings, and many of Trump's team lied about the meetings and took steps to cover them up, interest in back channels for communication with Russia outside the purview of US intelligence was expressed, etc, etc.  Point is, there was certainly enough of a fishy smell to justify an investigation.  No presumption of guilt.  It is very likely the Russians were trying to take advantage of the Trump campaign since many were very inexperienced and easy targets for manipulation (or had past shady business relationships with Russians).  The governments of four countries actually were exposed for discussing Jared Kushner for this very reason - he was inexperienced and his family business had financial troubles.  Jared actually met with reps from countries like China, without the State Department support, and even, at times, by himself. All this without mixing personal business with official business?  Isn't that what the whole drain the swamp slogan was supposed to be about?  Jared, even though he had no political or foreign policy experience, was put in charge of: the opioid crisis; Middle East peace; relations with Mexico, China, and two dozen other counties; reforming health care for Veterans, the criminal justice system, and even the entire government to make it run like a business.  He did all these jobs, and had access to the President's daily briefings,  even though he could not get a security clearance.   I digress, but it is worth noting that Trump called for Hillary to be locked up over her handling of classified information and made it a campaign rallying cry - and then it turns out his White House was full of people who had access to classified documents without security clearances!  These and other stories only break because of journalists who break the stories - this is why a free press is important and why Trump hates it so much!

So, there was certainly enough questions to warrant an investigation into the connection between Russia and the Trump campaign.  I wish everyone would just stop talking about it and let it run its course!  When you find lots of people flying around on brooms and then denying it, a witch hunt is understandable.

But today, the news got crazy, from an unexpected angle.  Stormy Daniels' attorney dropped a bomb on the news today.  An executive summary that ties together many threads of Trumps' legal woes.  The shifting story of how the porn star was paid to keep quiet has been in the news of late, thanks in large part to Rudy Gullianni.  We knew that the money was funneled through Trump's lawyer via a shell LLC.  Until today, we knew that this LLC - which Trump's lawyer - Michael Cohen - set up just before the election - has been used for two things.  One, to pay a porn star to not tell her story about sex with Trump, and two, to pay a Playboy model not to tell about her affair with some other rich guy who happens to be friends with Trump.  (Trump's friend payed 10 times more!). Interestingly, Michael Cohen represented the two men, while the same lawyer represented both women.  Seems the lawyers were working together to facilitate such payments.  Now, today, we learn that not only was that shell LLC used to pay off porn stars, it was used to funnel millions of dollars from corporations with big business in front of the government like AT&T as well as a company linked to a Russian Oligarch close to Putin.  AT&T said the money was payed to gain 'insight' into the Trump Administration, while a senior official of the drug giant Novartis, said they payed for a promise of 'access to the White House".  Hey, maybe there is no 'there there' but saying this smells fishy is an understatement.  Big question now - since Cohen is said to be Trump's 'fixer' - and since this LLC was the fund set up to fix things, where did the millions of dollars go?  And of course, how was this all reported?  Reminds me of when Trump used money from his nonprofit to settle a quarter of a million dollars of legal fees for his for profit business.  Did he use AT&T's money to pay Stormy?  Classic if he did not even need to spend his own money.  And of course, maybe this is all Michael Cohen, trying to get his slice of the swamp while he could.  Trump may not have known a thing.  Cohen is also involved in lots of other shady business from flipping homes for crazy profit to deals with... people tied to Russia.  So, let the witch hunt take its course.  Very likely most people on Trump's team were just dumb and never intended to break any laws.  Not so sure about Cohen.  Time will tell. Interestingly, it turns out Muller has known about all this since November and the companies that gave Cohen the money have been cooperating with him.  We knew the judge would have had to see very good evidence of crimes to allow the search warrant on Cohen's office, so it is of no surprise Muller knew.

One thing that the news of Cohen's LLC is another in a LONG list of examples of how what Trump says, is actually a caricature of the absolute opposite of what the truth really is.  One of Trump's main slogans was "Drain the Swamp."  Come on!  Never has an administration been more full of people out to enrich themselves and their friends by taking advantage of their government positions.  How many scandals have their been where Trump appointees have been caught taking private jets, going on international trips organized by lobbyists, buying extravagant furniture, etc etc.  It is one of the defining characteristics of this administration in fact.  Trump set the bar.  Ivanka, Jared, Ben Carson, Tom Price, Steven Mnuchin, this list goes on of people acting extremely swampy.  And not only are they taking advantage of their positions, they are destroying the very agencies they are working at.  And this was the goal!  This is the behind the scenes stuff that is scary - industry lobbyists and insiders have been put in charge of dismantling the regulatory agencies that oversaw their industries.  Scott Pruitt is the poster child for this.  He has consistently violated ethical standards while doing his best to undo as much environmental protection as possible (ironically Pruitt is not only an example of a swampy politician, he is an example of a Trump appointee that can't do his job.  Apparently, while he is trying to roll back regulations, legally it is not so easy and he has not been successful in following through on much yet. ) This is a man who does not believe there is evidence for evolution and that we have a god given duty to use nature's resources (even if we destroy life as we know it as we do).

I digress again.

So Iran.

We know Trump does not care for policy details, advice from experts, or international opinion.  He acts on gut instinct.  Uninformed gut instinct.  His instinct is to be a bully, to frame everything as if it is about him, to tear down others in mean ways, even when he has something to be proud of, he frames it by saying how other presidents did terrible jobs.  When holding a campaign rally for a Republican running for congress, he talked entirely about himself, put down over a dozen people including Schwarzenegger for low ratings, called Maxine Waters a low IQ individual, and when boasting about his possible meeting with Kim Jung-Un, he criticized Obama, Bush, and Clinton in harsh terms to make the point he is doing something they did not. In fact just as North Korea is set to release three detainees as a good will gesture leading to the meeting with Trump, Trump had to criticize Obama, via twitter,  for failing to get the three people released, even though two of them were captured after Trump was president so Obama could not have gotten them released!  His gut instinct is great when it comes to knowing what to say to stoke fear and anger in people, to identify 'enemies' he can protect us from, or to inspire economic hope for people who are barely making it.  His gut instinct had him calling for an end to DACA, to build a wall, to pull out of Paris, to characterize legal immigrants of color as criminals and to use one brown immigrant who committed a crime as an excuse to call to the end of the type of immigration that allowed that person to come to the US, and at the same time, defending white men in his own cabinet who do commit crimes by saying the are good people and to try and be balanced when talking about violence committed by mobs of white supremacists by saying 'there are good people on both sides'.  His gut instinct led him to claim Obama was not born in the United States, to take a full page ad calling for the death penalty for the Central Park five - and even still insisting they were guilty after DNA evidence and a confession proved them innocent.  His gut instinct has him praising brutal rulers like Duterte for controlling crime by killing drug dealers and to claim he was going to revive the coal industry (sorry, the coal industry is in decline due to market forces, there is no saving it.  It is declining faster under Trump than Obama, despite the deregulation.  In fact, renewables are creating jobs way faster, actually 12 times faster than the rest of the economy, maybe if Trump wasn't such a terrible businessman, he would have known that and would not insist that renewables are bad investment.  If one argues that he is a good businessman, then he must have known he was lying when he promised to bring it coal back.   His gut instinct has led him to make over 3,000 untrue statements since taking office.  I think it is very likely he actually believes what he says, which means he is not actually lying.  Dumb or lying, take your pick.  Or both.

Besides his gut, Trump does turn to one place for foreign policy advice - Fox News.  Once when interviewed on Fox, he was asked who he goes to for foreign policy advice.  Trump could not name anyone.  When pressed, he finally said he likes watching Fox News - he likes the generals they have on - then finally, the name he came up with, was John Bolton.  And this is now a scary reality.  John Bolton is one of the craziest neoconservative hawks out there.  He was so crazy, Bush had to make him a recess appointment to the UN because he knew a Republican congress would not confirm him to that job!  Now he is advising Trump and he has publicly pushed for war with Iran and North Korea.  Trump pulling out of Iran is another example of him following through on a campaign promise to undo what Obama did.  This was great campaign material. The Iran deal!  The worst deal ever!  I can do better!  Just like he said about Obamacare.  He promised better coverage, for more people, for less money.  Then when he tried to come up with a replacement for Obama care, he said, ''Nobody knew health care could be so complicated".  Duh!  In fact Trump, you were one of the only ones who did not know that!  That is why it took years of bipartisan wrangling (yes, republicans had hundreds of amendments added to Obamacare) and why Trump and a Republican controlled house and Senate could not come close to replacing it with anything close to 'better, cheaper, for more people'.  Not even close.

So that was the health of Americans.  Now we are talking a new nuclear arms race and possible war with Iran.  The Iran deal was working according to the global experts and as part of it, Iran recommitted to the non-proliferation agreement and agreed to never obtain nuclear weapons.  This was a deal that was the result of years of diplomacy and worked out with many countries - France, Germany, Great Britain, China, Russia, and Iran.  Our allies begged us to stay in the deal.  Trump says Iran will want to deal with him.  Well it is true, that he has the power of the US to bargain with - both the might of the US military to back up his threats, and the influence of the US on the global economy to use as a carrot.  But Iran is not North Korea.  He might sway Kim Jung-un with threats and carrots, and Kim Jung-Un might just want nothing more than to be the leader who ended the Korean War and stepped onto the world stage as a legitimate leader, no-one knows.  But Iran has a complex government.  The government there teeters between moderates who want to work with the West, and hardliners who are not all that unlike Trump.  Actions like this, can easily tip the scales to give the hardliners power in the country.

Trump is promising the toughest sanctions against Iran.  Problem is, we don't do much business with Iran.  But our allies do, and for them to stay in the deal which they helped negotiate, they would need to continue doing business with Iran to keep their end of the bargain.  Remember, Iran has been keeping up their end, according to our own government.  Our sanctions against our allies could actually force everyone else out of the deal, just because we want out, effectively destroying the deal completely.  Regardless, Trump is acting on his gut instinct, betting that Iran will do what he wants.  Sure, the maximum pressure on North Korea might have helped.  A school yard bully does often get what he wants.  The mob often got what they wanted.  But Trump is not always right.  Obama, turns out, was born in the US, the central park five were innocent, Trump had to declare bankruptcy five times because he made losing business bets.  He has said he is the only one that matters.  He is the one who makes the calls.  He believes his knows best.  He actually thinks he can do the job of President pretty much on his own.  The Republicans, for the most part, are actually going along with him - to the point of helping him smear the FBI with blatantly false accusations (ironically Nunez did this by doing the very thing he falsely blamed the FBI of doing, cherry picking evidence to purposely deceive people.)  Would you ever have imagined that the 'law and order party' would be referring to the FBI as nazi storm troopers because they served out a warrant signed off on by a conservative judge.  Trump is stepping into very dangerous territory here with Iran as John Bolton whispers in his ear.  And the Republican enablers of Trump are also responsible.

I feel like what I have had time to write is really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my case against Trump and his administration.  I know that being against something is easy and not necessarily productive.  I wish I could just write about good news - the incredible things people are doing around the world to make it a more peaceful, tolerant, and sustainable world for us.  But the truth is, paying attention and calling out the terrible things our government does is also important and  sustainability efforts of environmentalists won't do much good if we go to war with Iran.

Meanwhile, the First Lady is making cyber bullying her issue.  How ironic is that!  Is there a bigger cyber bully than Trump??