Conspiracy versus Stupidity

Posted on December 21, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 21, 2017

It’s sometimes difficult for people who aren’t in the inner circle to tell the difference between ulterior motives and sheer incompetence. In my experience, which includes nearly fifty years working for one government or another (sometimes as a contractor) it was usually the latter. As Watergate proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, government people who attempt to conspire generally aren’t smart enough to pull it off.

Let’s have a look at the way various people have tried to sell the new tax law. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan put on a nationally televised dog-and-pony show last month, in which he didn’t exactly lie through his teeth, but he was very selective about what he included. More to the point, he was very selective about what he omitted.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was, as usual, smart enough and slippery enough not to let himself get pinned down over details, but by sticking to generalizations, he came much closer to lying than Ryan did.  He completely misled working- and middle-class people about the real intent of the new law. Various media sources on all sides have analyzed it and concluded that 80 percent of the benefits will again accrue to the top one percent, either through corporate profits or direct tax savings.

The left claims it was all a massive conspiracy to pay back wealthy donors for their support of the Republican agenda, which is kind of circular, since the Republican agenda was crafted by those same wealthy donors. But I don’t think there was any conspiracy there. Conspiracies, by definition, are covert, and this tax bill was as blatantly biased toward the wealthiest Americans as it could be. No one ever really claimed it wasn’t, they just harped on the miniscule benefits that the rest of America would see in the initial years, also omitting that those were scheduled to expire to fund the savings for the wealthy, which are permanent.

To muddy the water further was the old saw about lower corporate taxes resulting in more jobs. The trickle-down theory has been around for a long time, and there is no evidence that it was ever borne out in reality. When Ronald Reagan proposed it, George H. W. Bush proclaimed it “voodoo economics”. And history has proved Bush’s point more than Reagan’s. Corporations do exactly what is in their self-interest, in other words, in the self-interests of their major stockholders.

We heard a lot about bringing jobs back from overseas and somehow forcing corporations that used foreign workers to hire Americans instead. But all this tax law does is let corporations choose between padding their bottom lines with tax savings and perhaps building factories here in the future instead of in China or Indonesia. Corporate profits are inherently amoral and unaligned with anything we’d call patriotic. The only way this tax law could bring jobs back from overseas would be by heavily taxing everything American companies manufacture outside the country. The only way to stop bad behavior is to penalize it, and the new tax law doesn’t.

Paul Ryan might be forgiven for being well-intentioned, because he honestly seems to believe that voodoo economics works. That doesn’t make him innocent in the massive deception, only less guilty than the president. Remember when Trump unequivocally characterized the tax law as the greatest tax cut the middle class has ever seen? Remember when he said it would cost him millions of dollars?

The fact that both statements were utter lies doesn’t really surprise anyone. That’s what Trump does. But even in his case, we can apply my original query. Were his falsehoods part of some bigger conspiracy to pay back billionaire donors or did Trump simply not understand enough about the bill to know he was lying? In the end it doesn’t matter, but we must learn from this to keep it from happening again.

The biggest lie of all was the change to the estate tax. The federal tax exemption was raised from $5.5 to $11 million. How many Americans even know what that means?

Simply put, it means that instead of the first $5,500,000 of the value of an estate being exempt from taxes when assets are passed on to heirs, now the first $11,000,000 will be. People who inherit money from Trump and 10 Cabinet members will reap at least $20.7 million in estate tax savings as a direct result of the GOP legislation, because the federal estate tax rate is 40% at those levels. It’s a simple computation: 40% x $5,500,000 = a $2,200,000 windfall for the Trump family. How does that compare with the $100 per pay period all those working moms the Republicans talk about might see in their paychecks, at least until it expires to pay for the estate tax giveaway?

Does it matter that the new tax law was driven by a small group of greedy people, and most of the Republicans who voted for it simply weren’t smart enough to see through the subterfuge? Not really.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Train Wrecks

Posted on December 19, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 18, 2017\

Today’s unfortunate, tragic train accident between Tacoma and Olympia, Washington elicited a couple of perplexing reactions from President Trump. As emergency crews were desperately trying to stabilize train cars hanging over interstate 5 so they could be searched for dead or injured passengers, Trump was on Twitter. His first message was a political shot at someone, I’m not sure whom, but probably the collective administrations that preceded him. A few minutes later, after someone (General Kelly?) got to him, he tweeted what he should have in the first place – you know, “our hearts and prayers go out…”

As typically insensitive as the timing of the first tweet was, it decried the “seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East” while our internal infrastructure crumbled. Since seven of the last nine Congresses were controlled by Trump’s party, I’m still wondering who that was aimed at. On the other hand, I can’t argue with the message. It’s the same message Progressives have been sending since the misguided invasion of Iraq in 2003. Had the president begun his administration with it he’d have achieved a major bipartisan victory, done some real good for the entire nation, and would probably have approval numbers twice as high as they are currently.

Do I believe that our amoral president who cares only about creating chaos so he can emerge as our savior, or perhaps he would say our last Great White Hope, gives a damn about our infrastructure? Not for a second! But he does have cunning political instincts and he craves adoration and adulation, which raises the question, why didn’t he lead with what he said today a year ago instead of the insanity over border walls and repealing Obamacare? That’s a real head-scratcher.

If he really wanted to attack the Bush and Obama administrations for being lax about our infrastructure he had more than enough ammunition from the I-35 Mississippi River bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007 and the Philadelphia train wreck of 2015, which together resulted in hundreds of injuries and/or fatalities. The latter actually occurred a month before Trump announced his candidacy, but he chose to attack immigrants instead of disintegrating roads, tracks, and bridges. Again I ask – why?

The answer, of course, is Steve Bannon. Under Bannon’s tutelage it was more important to reverse the browning of America, to exalt the values of the Alt-Right movement to a fake legitimacy, and to trash everything Trump’s predecessor achieved. And mostly, it was more important to put a stop to the massive transfer of wealth that threatened to begin to level the economic playing field in America. It was most important to assure that the half of one percent Bernie Sanders loves to taunt retained their hold on 95 percent of America’s wealth, even if that meant depriving tens of millions of people of health care.

Today’s train disaster in Washington State, well beyond the pain and injury it caused, shined a light on the utter contempt for everything decent that has driven Trump’s first year in office. And though that cynicism has Steve Bannon written all over it, the buck stops at the White House. Trump’s extreme narcissism was what made him succumb to Bannon’s full-throated seduction. Most of America recognizes what a despicable human being Bannon is, but what does that say about Donald Trump letting himself fall under his spell so easily?

The truth is that most Americans, even I could have forgiven those things about Trump that make the sound of his voice and the sight of him make us shudder with rage. Had he kept his most basic promise that he was out for the good of the common working people, that he would be the president for all Americans, we could have forgiven his lack of moral center, perhaps even his treatment of women if he’d owned up to it and expressed genuine contrition. None of us is so pure of spirit that we can’t give credit for good works, no matter who performs them.

But Trump has done none of those things. He has thrown his weight behind greed, bigotry, and outright misogyny. And he has lied his way through an entire year when he could have done so much good.

There’s a lesson in all this. If the great majority of Americans want our infrastructure rebuilt, with all the new jobs that will accrue to that effort, it’s time to make their voices heard. Remember that there’s an important election next year, and people whose first concern is being re-elected are likely to listen when those voices become the roar of an angry, frustrated crowd.

If we’re not too lazy to act, maybe we can avoid an even worse train wreck, one that could take decades to recover from.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Alabama and Trump

Posted on December 14, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 13, 2017

Yesterday was a great day for America. We have every reason to celebrate today. Alabamans who disdained being told what to do by pundits and politicians from elsewhere apparently took the words of two of their native sons to heart. Richard Shelby told voters not to vote for Roy Moore, but to write in some other Republican, and the number of write-in votes actually exceeded Doug Jones’ margin of victory. And retired NBA star Charles Barclay implored Alabama’s voters to not make the state look stupid to the rest of the country. Shelby and Barclay are not welcome in the Moore home, today.

But while we’re celebrating, let’s not lose touch with reality. First, Alabama’s Secretary of State has not certified Jones’ victory yet, and Moore hasn’t conceded. You might write that off as Moore being either a jerk or a sore loser, but keep in mind that he has a lot of powerful friends who are judges and lawyers, (including as least one Jewish lawyer if his wife is to be believed,) and if we’ve learned anything about Roy Moore in the last couple of months it’s that nothing is beneath him. So who knows what he’s cooking up in his little mind? It’s doubtful that he can reverse the result of the election, but he may know enough about legal delaying tactics to keep Jones from being seated in the Senate for a while.

No matter what Moore does, Jones can’t be sworn in until January. That means he can’t affect the Republican tax bill or the negotiations over keeping the government open in 2018. And when he finally takes his seat, the Republicans will still hold a 51-49 majority, which means it will take at least two Republicans with consciences to stop Trump’s mad dash to change the country for the worse.

If I seem to be throwing cold water on your happiness today, I don’t mean to. I’m actually very positive about the likely impact of Jones’ victory. Senator Jeff Flake said everything that needed to be said in a two-word tweet: “Decency won.” Yes it did, and if I were Donald Trump I’d be damn nervous today.

Yesterday’s election continued the anti-Trump sentiment that gave the Democrats striking victories in Virginia and several state houses last month. But more importantly it showed that when properly motivated the opposition can get out the votes, making it clear that 2016 was an aberration. African-American voters who stayed home last year came out in large number in Alabama, and virtually every vote cast by an African-American woman went for Jones, against Moore and Trump. And while (inexplicably) only 35% of white women voted for Jones, that was more than twice the percentage who voted for Hillary Clinton last year.

That bodes ill for both the Republican Party and for Donald Trump. The message the president should take from this is that sexual misconduct will not be tolerated by the women of America, and more and more men are supporting them. Nationally, Republicans look pretty bad today, having waffled over support for Roy Moore. It’s clear to every female voter that their initial disdain for Moore was motivated by political expediency rather than a sincere rejection of this man who would have set Alabama back 150 years if he were allowed to. It’s equally clear that when the Republican leadership chose to remain silent against Steve Bannon and Trump’s outright support for Moore, they hurt their brand in the eyes of independent women voters, and my guess is that the damage is irreparable.

It should be clear to our president that even in the reddest state in the country, a sexual predator cannot hide behind empty denials in the face of charges by credible alleged victims. With nearly twenty women now feeling energized to go after him for what he did to them in the past, with new precedents being set as powerful people in and out of government who have committed similar acts are being forced out, and with the Congressional opposition now clamoring for a full-fledged ethics investigation of the president’s actions, Mr. Trump’s days in office may be numbered. And whether he stays or goes his effectiveness in getting things done has been mortally wounded.

Republicans of conscience who have been disgusted with his behavior and his lack of moral leadership may view the Moore debacle as the last straw. And if that’s not enough for them to abandon this president, the very real fear of a political bloodbath in the 2018 elections should be motivation enough. No one wants a toxic albatross around his neck when trying to win votes.

Today, to make matters worse for Mr. Trump, the Republicans’ attempts to intimidate Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and discredit Robert Mueller’s investigation of the president’s involvement with Russia fell flat. The blatant attempt to influence an FBI investigation for political gain will not help his cause.

If I were Donald Trump I’d be worried as hell, today.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Thank You For Proving My Point, Mr. President

Posted on December 12, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 12, 2017

Thank you, Mr. President for moving so expeditiously to prove my point. Referring to the president, I concluded yesterday’s article, Teflon Trump, with the words: “I think he’s insane and his functionality is hanging by a thread, more illusion than fact.” I said he moved expeditiously, but of course, that’s not true. On virtually any morning he’d have tweeted or said something equally damning.

Let’s review. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has been on a long campaign to root out sexual misconduct in the government wherever she finds it, regardless of party. It was Gillibrand who spoke out first, insisting that her democratic colleague Al Franken should resign and who said several weeks earlier that Bill Clinton should have resigned the presidency after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. And yesterday, she said the same thing about Donald Trump. “President Trump should resign. These [sexual misconduct] allegations are credible, they are numerous.”

If you haven’t yet seen or heard the president’s response, whether you support him or not, ask yourself what you’d have wanted your president’s reaction to be. Would it have included essentially calling a United States Senator a flunky and a prostitute? What do you think he was implying when he said she’d once begged him for political contributions and would have done anything to get them? Are we supposed to wonder how she convinced him to contribute $6,900 to her campaigns?

Maybe it’s not fair to assume what he meant. After all, the president isn’t exactly a brilliant wordsmith. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders frequently has to walk back his comments so she can present an acceptable interpretation. Jim Acosta of CNN attempted to give Mr. Trump an opportunity to clarify what he meant at a White House press briefing this morning. He later reported that prior to the briefing he was approached by Ms. Sanders and warned that if he asked that question on the air he might be excluded from future press events. Do you think she did that on her own?

So once again I say “Thank you, Mr. President, for proving my point.” His actions today are a model for how a sane, responsible leader should never behave. It’s not only bad for the country, it’s the one thing likely to being him down in the end. Even U. N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has been one of Trump’s most loyal surrogates broke with him on the matter of sexual harassment. In the face of Trump repeatedly denying all accusations and calling all the women who accused him liars, Haley said in a televised interview on Sunday that those women should be heard and dealt with, and that any woman who felt abused had a right to speak up. Unverified leaks suggest that Trump had one of his famous tantrums when he heard that.

And now there are a growing number of members of Congress who are demanding an ethics investigation of the president’s past and more than a hundred who are on record urging him to resign. Yes, they’re all Democrats, and we’re not likely to see many Republicans jump on that particular train until it’s clear that the station is on fire, but if our president had any control over his impulses he would stop feeding the Democrats fodder for the 2018 election. If the Republicans lose control of the House, it might well be to newly-elected female Democrats.

Jay Inslee, the Governor of Washington and current chair of the Democratic Governors’ Association thinks Trump’s divisiveness is so toxic, his behavior alone might be enough to swing the majority in the House to Democrats next year. With many Republicans expressing the same sentiment, it’s impossible that Trump hasn’t gotten that message. Yet his personal attacks and rants continue unabated.

All through 2017 average people and pundits have tended to discount that saying things like “That’s just Trump being Trump,” which also happens to be the title of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewindowski’s new book. But even Trump loyalist Lewindoswki, in giving readers an inside look at what he perceives as the real Trump, is unintentionally not doing Trump any favors politically. A discerning reader can easily see through the hype and politics to a man whose behavior is often unhinged and violently erratic.

This is really serious. We cannot afford to have an irrational president who thrives on disruption and chaos. He may think it’s fun and I’m sure much his base finds it extremely entertaining, but for the rest of us his behavior is a warning we can’t afford to ignore.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Teflon Trump

Posted on December 12, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 11, 2017

I don’t know whether I’m more frustrated by the White House’s rejection of any point of view but its own concerning sexual misconduct, or by the strident defense of the president in this regard by people who surely know better and act entirely out of political or financial self-interest. Only the most ignorant, uneducated segment of Trump’s base can possibly believe that he’s completely innocent and that all his accusers are liars conspiring against him. Isn’t that what paranoids say?

The administration makes loud noises about border walls that will protect us from – I’m not sure who, but whoever they are, the president wants us to believe they mean us harm. He shouts about making America great again while trying to destroy its basic institutions. And his lies boldly go where no American leader has ever gone before. Isn’t it time to ask ourselves which is worse? Will we be any better off safe from all those evil-doers trying to get over The Great Wall while we sit by watching our values erode and we rot from within?

Sadly, our system and our nation have evolved to the point where millions of Americans know full well that our president is morally bankrupt, but they simply don’t care – which is bad enough, except that there’s a lurking eight-hundred pound gorilla no one but a few fringe comedians talks about in public. Even I feel the need to approach the subject gently. Rather than making stuff up like he does, I’ll rely on my Oxford dictionary, which defines sanity as: The ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner.

Let’s apply that definition to our president, taking the last part first. Does he behave in a normal and rational manner? We’ve discussed his narcissistic personality disorder at length, as have numerous critics and media outlets (with one obvious exception). We’ve shaken our heads at his intemperate nature, his capacity to insult people with all the sensitivity of a mad charging boar, his out of control White House tantrums, and his willingness to bend the truth and outright lie. But to be honest, haven’t most of us behaved that way at one time or another? Does that mean he’s not sane? The key is not whether he or anyone else exhibits those behaviors, but if he can control them.

When we examined the last part of the definition of sanity we (deliberately) overlooked the first three words, and therein lies the problem. Does our president have the ability to think and behave rationally? More to the point, what kind of stimulus does it take to render him totally helpless to manage his compulsions? By all appearances, not much.

Even his supporters criticize his use of Twitter, for example, but in doing so they ignore that huge elephant in the room. The real question is not whether he should rein in his impulses but whether he can. Does anger or stress make it impossible for him to resist the compulsive behavior that we might dismiss as comically childish if it weren’t so frightening?

The truth is that we wouldn’t tolerate that kind of behavior in our children, our friends, our loved ones, or our professional relationships. Whenever possible if it were anyone else we would avoid him and attempt to isolate him, and we surely would not voluntarily place him in charge of anything critically important.

When Ronald Reagan was beset by scandals like Iran Contra the country forgave and forgot to the extent that he was known as the Teflon President. Up to now, Donald Trump seems to be Teflon-coated as well. His base is gradually shrinking but most of it remains intact. So I asked myself why it was okay to give Reagan a pass that I’m not willing to give Trump.

Maybe it’s that whether you agreed with his politics or not, Reagan always seemed well-intentioned and a genuinely nice guy. He rarely raised his voice, he never insulted people, and except for branding the Soviet Union the Evil Empire, he never called anyone names. He always seemed disciplined and in control, and when he screwed up he acknowledged it and sucked up the buck the way Harry Truman did.

I submit that President Trump is incapable of behaving that way. He is driven and victimized by his own dark compulsions, and many of us find that horrifying. It’s not unreasonable to start seriously questioning his sanity. When Richard Nixon broke down during the final months of his presidency even his closest allies realized he was dangerously dysfunctional. They built a wall around him, not to keep out terrorists, but to keep him muzzled until they could remove him from office.

I suspect that many in his own party are starting to wonder if the same thing is happening to Trump. He’s never really been able to complete a sentence coherently, and now he’s even slurring his words. I’ve reached my own conclusion. I think he’s insane and his functionality is hanging by a thread, more illusion than fact.

We really need to do something about it.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sexual Misconduct

Posted on December 8, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 8, 2017

One of the more astounding aspects of the new reality of Trumpism is demurring on political correctness and just telling it like it is. Personally, I think that would be a great idea if it were combined with telling the truth and it applied equally to everyone. But our president equates dispensing with political correctness with saying anything at any time regardless of whether it’s true and without regard for basics like common decency and courtesy.

When Al Franken gave the speech that may or may not have been his resignation, yesterday, he quite correctly and appropriately compared the sexual misconduct accusations against him with the very well documented accusations against Trump and Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore. He received a lot of flack for doing so, despite the fact that he said nothing that wasn’t clearly on the record.

I wish one of the major polling organizations would interview a sample of people who think Franken should resign to find out what they think of Moore and Trump and whether there is any rational argument for the idea that Franken is more guilty and less fit to serve than either of them. All the White House had to say in response was that the president addressed the issue during the campaign, and the American people elected him.

The issues of sexual harassment and assault have been confounded with politics far too long, and as long as that continues they will never be purged from our governing bodies. An impressive number of people in Congress are now standing up for that principle, though notably, most of them are women. When thirty democratic senators urged Franken, a colleague most of them liked and considered a friend to resign, they were making an important statement about country over party and politics.

Republicans quickly pointed out that Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton would replace Franken with another Democrat, but that’s almost beside the point. An eloquent, popular spokesperson for progressive values, one who has even been suggested as a future presidential candidate cannot be replaced politically by appointing an unknown member of the same party.

The hypocrisy of the situation is underlined by the sudden turnabout and/or silence by key Republicans on the subject of Roy Moore. Politicians who took the moral high ground and suggested that Moore was unfit and ought to step aside only did so when they perceived no personal risk or political disadvantage. But as soon as it became clear that their sudden attack of moral conscience might cost them a vote in the Senate, the Mitch McConnells and Paul Ryans in our government suddenly lost their voices. Morally, it can’t get any worse than that.

Any reasonable person with a sense of fairness can see that. I keep thinking nothing could amaze me any more this year, but I continue to be shocked by what I hear people saying. Most startling of all is what I hear women say. How can any woman, hearing the heartfelt pleas for support by all the victims of sexual harassment and assault continue to turn a deaf ear?

This isn’t one of those issues, like whether or not we ought to risk nuclear war over North Korea, when reasonable people might feel justifiably impotent. In the end it will make no difference what individuals like you and I think when decisions like that are made. But we are absolutely not powerless on the issue of sexual misconduct. We can fix it simply by voting, all alone in that little booth where only we know whom we cast our ballot for.

Furthermore, this is an issue that is extremely sensitive to public pressure and outcry. The people of Alabama get to address it directly in a few days, but the rest of us don’t have to wait until the next election. This is a time when we should be channeling our anger and outrage through our keyboards, writing emails to our senators and representatives at all levels of government.

It’s really easy, requiring almost no effort. You don’t know how to reach them? I’ll make it simple for you. Just click on https://www.wikihow.com/Email-Congress. A fifth-grader could do it. Scroll down the easy to use website to find your representative or senators and click on their email links. Tell them clearly that you demand zero tolerance on sexual misconduct and that the expenditure of tax dollars to cover-up nondisclosure agreements must end today.

Don’t be shy. Do it, then give yourself a well-deserved hug.

Posted in Articles, Introductions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jerusalem

Posted on December 7, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 6, 2017

There’s a cliché in competitive sports like gymnastics and swimming that you never want to go first because the judges won’t award a perfect score to anyone until they’ve seen all the favorites perform. The same principle applies in reverse to negative outcomes.

Thus, we’re always reluctant to say things like: “This is the last straw.” Yet, there comes a time when we think, the hell with it. Sure, something worse might happen tomorrow, but we’re not likely to see anything worse than what’s facing us today. For the two-thirds of Americans who are not part of Trump’s base, which is down to 35% according to this week’s polls, that time may have come.

The Russia investigation and our president’s hard to fathom infatuation with Vladimir Putin have pushed an even stranger relationship into to the background for months, but Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital moves it back onto center stage. We all know by now that Trump loves to be worshipped and adored, and that people who suck up to him and praise him will always be favored by his administration. No one has done a more effective job of bowing and scraping before Emperor Donald and generally embarrassing himself on the world stage than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

If Trump is infatuated with Putin, he must be in love with Netanyahu. And why not? The two leaders have much in common. Both have seen their political base shrink dangerously in 2017, both have been accused of corruption and face potentially serious legal and political challenges, and they desperately need each other’s support. Netanyahu’s political future rests on a now razor thin majority which only exists today because Trump’s visit to Israel last Spring reversed the PM’s deficit in Israeli polls. To many Americans, Netanyahu might appear to be the public face of Israel, but that’s only slightly less wrong than claiming Trump speaks for all Americans.

Today’s decision by the president to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel flies in the face of warnings by our allies in Europe and the Middle East, the Pope, and by virtually everyone involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel called it another reason why relations between the United States and Europe are crumbling, and Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom called the decision catastrophic.

Even the White House acknowledged today that the move threw a monkey wrench into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, just when it appeared that a draft proposal for a so-called “two state solution” was about to be presented. If that’s the case, why did Trump do it? The only reasons that have been offered thus far are that he was trying to keep a promise to his base and that he owed it to his buddy Netanyahu.

Arab-Israeli relations have been a tinderbox for nearly seventy years – the entire tenure of Israel’s existence as an independent nation. They were a focal point of the Cold War and still play a major role in our differences with Russia over Syria and the struggle between the Saudi-led Sunnis and the Iranian centered Shiites. Even our relationship with Turkey, which was already strained over American support of the Kurds, is threatened, as Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim called Trump’s action unlawful and said it could have irreversible consequences which might ignite new religious-based conflicts throughout the region.

Except for his base, most Americans today are asking what the $*!# our president thinks he’s doing. He has, with the exception of Putin, flagrantly offended other world leaders whenever it suited him, courted racists and neo-Nazis, and relegated the rights of women and minorities to one of his back burners. He has disdained the health care needs of millions of Americans and openly lied about a tax bill that will primarily benefit large corporations and the wealthiest families (including his own) who would be hardest hit by the estate tax if it is not repealed.

But with all that, today’s actions could possibly be the worst and most dangerous. No one would test for a gas leak by tossing a lit match in to see if it explodes. Neither should our president gratify his own ego against the advice of the great majority of people who understand far more about the Middle East than he does at the cost of possibly wrecking whatever hope there was for peace. Do you think the leaders of Iran are licking their chops waiting to see if a major conflict arises between Israel and their Sunni adversaries?

Do birds fly?

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Thankfulness

Posted on November 23, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, November 23, 2017

Trite as it may sound, I really do think about what I’m thankful for on Thanksgiving. In this era of Trump, many of my friends and family have been struggling to identify the good things that have occurred this year, so overwhelmingly depressing has been the Year of the Blowhard.

The main thing for me is that we’re all thankful for being together, a wonderful extended family of people who have been doing this together for many years despite having migrated all over the country.  We need it more than ever this year, as we are reminded daily of how our country’s values are being destroyed one tweet at a time.

In case we’d forgotten (since yesterday) our president reminded us all of what a narcissistic jerk he truly is today. On the face of it, a world-spanning broadcast thanking our armed forces for everything they do seems like the perfect touch for Thanksgiving Day. But Trump, as usual, had to make himself the centerpiece. Rather than humbly thanking them for their service, he thanked himself for his brilliant leadership which enabled the military to perform better. What’s more, there’s no evidence that anything our president has done has improved the military’s performance – by all appearances, they accomplished that entirely on their own.

It’s a nauseating reminder of what we’ve been enduring since Trump took office, but we’re not going to let it tarnish our own Thanksgiving. Instead, we will spread love and make sure everyone around us knows that we’re grateful to have them for another year.

For today, we’ll ignore the fact that our president cares more about retaining a vote in the Senate to support the tax bill that will enrich his family by billions, than preserving whatever integrity that body still has in this time of divisive politics. Coming out in favor of Roy Moore may have been the last straw, at least until the next outrageous thing he does. As we’ve often noted, Mr. President, our children watch and hear everything you do.

You’ve told our kids that it’s okay to deprive over 20 million Americans of health care. You’ve told them that behaving like a schoolyard bully is the best way to deal with conflict situations. You’ve told them that science doesn’t matter, and that you don’t give a damn about the state of the planet they will inherit from us. You’ve told them that spiteful, hateful behavior is acceptable, and there’s no need to observe any rules they don’t like. You’ve told them that bigots and Nazis are perfectly fine people as long as they vote for you.

And now you’ve enhanced your image as Liar-in-Chief of the nation by equating denial with innocence and contrition with guilt. No matter what they’re accused of or how credible the accusers and the preponderance of evidence supporting the allegations, in Trump’s world all our children have to do is call everyone else liars and loudly proclaim that all the evidence against them is fake. You’ve made every parent’s job more difficult by contradicting everything we’ve taught them. You’re a disgrace!

But there’s hope. An impressive number of sitting Representatives and Senators have had the courage to speak out. Lights are being shined on actions of sexual abuse that have remained in the dark far too long. And on Election Day, 2017, the voters made it clear that enough is enough. We still have a lot of work to do to reverse the damage that’s been done. And if our president won’t keep his promise to drain the swamp, we can do it ourselves by casting our votes and holding our elected officials accountable.

It’s up to all of us to call hypocrisy what it is. It’s up to us to figure out what’s true and what’s fake. We need to protect our values and institutions, our journalistic traditions, and our legal system. We need to be skeptical about everything we hear – Facebook posts and tweets are not news. The best way to demonstrate that we’re thankful for what we have is to defend it.

But enough of that. The rest of today is about being grateful to be with people we love and who love us.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bad Behavior

Posted on November 18, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, November 18, 2017

I’ve always liked Al Franken. As a comedian he was smart and funny. As a Senator he’s been a refreshingly level-headed voice supporting decency and progressive values. That said, it’s hard to have sympathy for him in light of the accusations by Leanne Tweeden, just as it was hard to feel sympathy over Bill Clinton’s indiscretions. The viral photo of him aping for the camera with his hands appearing to be about to grope her while she was asleep tells a disturbing tale.

But exactly which tale does it tell? Clearly, in the photo, Franken is acting manically on a flight home from a long tour in Afghanistan entertaining the troops. Clearly, he’s acting like a jerk and behaving inappropriately. If it winds up costing him his Senate seat it’s his own fault, but as it was with Clinton’s impeachment trial, the big losers will be the people of the United States.

There’s more to this story, much more. Our president chose to attack Franken on Twitter while ignoring the charges against both Roy Moore and himself. Trump’s outburst was another in a long series of tweetstorms that confound most Americans. Why would he focus on Franken’s misstep which Franken himself called disgusting, but was not remotely as serious as the allegations against Moore and what we’ve seen Trump admit to doing on tape? Why would he want to stir up those cans of worms when Franken has already acquiesced to a Senate Ethics hearing, admitted his wrongdoing, and made a very public apology which even Tweeden said was heartfelt?

When White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was asked about that she said Franken had admitted his guilt while the president had not. So in this administration’s official view admitting guilt deserves derision and insult, but denying responsibility and offering no defense in the face of numerous credible accusations is a virtue. What kind of message does that send?

Trump must have thought it would be a political plus for his base, but mostly it was his narcissistic need to insert himself into every issue, to assure that his name dominates every news cycle. It’s a measure of how seriously unstable and vulnerable his psychological disorder leaves him that he will probably have done more damage to Moore and himself than to Franken. Whatever else he accomplishes or is given credit for, his extremely dark compulsions continue to make him unfit to lead this country.

Even if his base loves his antics, the rest of the world apparently doesn’t. The National Brands Index, a measure of how the world perceives each major nation developed by British international policy consultant Simon Anholt, found that in the first year of the Trump Administration, the United States fell from first to sixth place in global reputation. While the respected index has no official significance, it is based on the response of over 30,000 people in twenty-five countries. America still ranks very high in most areas, but it was the Governance category that caused the drop in our global reputation, which Anholt calls the Trump Effect.

Consider the president’s recent Asia trip. His remarks about Putin had to be walked back the next day with an explanation so flimsy, it was almost comical. At the economic summit in Danang, Veitnamese President Tran Dai Quang pointedly said “…it is our policy to settle disputes…through peaceful negotiations and with respectful, diplomatic and legal process…” whereupon Trump sarcastically commented on the likelihood of becoming friends with Kim Jong Un and upon returning home couldn’t resist insulting him on Twitter.

It may very well turn out that Chinese President Xi Jinping will follow through with aggressive new sanctions aimed at crippling North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ICBMs, and when that occurs we can be assured that President Trump will take full credit for it. Xi will not contradict him publicly because it’s not the Chinese president’s style to engage in such things, and he has no need to engage in grandstanding to enhance his own image. But it must be clear to the rest of the world that China will do exactly what is in the interests of China and the region. If anything, Trump’s barrage of belligerent tweets aimed at Kim may have heightened tensions so much that Xi felt compelled to act. If that’s what Trump means by deserving credit, we should be very concerned about the future.

The best thing we can say about Trump in Asia was that he showed restraint. He didn’t insult anyone in public, and he didn’t make waves on Twitter, though that only lasted until his plane touched down at Joint Base Andrews. If you met with your son’s principal to discuss his progress at school, and the best thing you heard was that he didn’t beat anyone up on the playground today, would you consider that positive?

Neither would I.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Good Old Joe

Posted on November 14, 2017 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, November 14, 2017

Jake Novak of CNBC thinks Joe Biden “is the exact opposite of the kind of candidate voters in both parties proved they want in the 2016 election.” He cites a lot of facts, like the populist appeal of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, and the clear anti-establishment sentiment that characterized that election. He also talks about the democratic base shifting leftward toward Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. And then there are Biden’s inglorious attempts to run for president in 1988 and 2008.

Novak may have his facts straight, but I think he might be completely missing the point. Yes, voters at both ends of the political spectrum went for populism in 2016. And the success of the Trump and Sanders campaigns came from convincing people that the establishment of both parties had failed them, much the way Barrack Obama did in winning the nomination in 2008. But there’s an intangible side to politics that no amount of fact gathering can capture.

While one-third of the country loves President Trump, most of it is somewhere between disappointed and horrified at the way candidate Trump’s populism is playing out now that he’s president. His brand of political incorrectness turned out not to be cute and refreshing, but rather a vehicle for hate mongering and divisiveness. And there is little evidence that his promise to be the president for all Americans had any substance. Nastiness and amoral behavior have a cumulative effect over time that leaves voters feeling disillusioned and betrayed, and we see that occurring daily.

It’s possible that Trump is a fad that is quickly running its course. What appeared flashy and bright two years ago has taken on a dingy, unappetizing patina and a sickly odor. And like most fads this one has left many people wondering what they saw in it in the first place.

A lot of people go through life seeking their soulmate, wasting years, decades even, looking for all the wrong things in all the wrong places, ignoring the staid and true because it isn’t sexy enough. If they’re lucky, the people who’ve always been there and cared about them, those friends who could never be anything more than platonic, are still around when they finally see the light. When the fireworks that burned so brightly and made so much noise have been reduced to a smoky haze, we realize how good fresh air smells, has always smelled if we’d only bothered to notice.

That’s Joe Biden, a decent, eloquent, highly competent man who knows more about foreign relations than Trump and his cabinet combined, who sometimes lacks the luster of what seems to be trending (remember the Edsel?) but who looks so damn good when it falls apart. Many of the voters who were swept up in last year’s tide of populism are now beginning to realize what happened. And wise old Joe, with his gentle tones and old-fashioned values looks like that old friend we’d ignored for so long.

I think Novak is wrong. The sharp swing to the left that some Democrats are taking is a knee-jerk reaction to the nastiness of our elitist president. It’s another wave that will dissipate on the rocky shores of disillusionment, and when it does, honest Joe will still be there, hating no one and reaching out to help. He’ll be seventy-seven in 2020 but so will I, so I can’t hold that against him.

When the agents of change and revolution have all fizzled out, as Trump seems to be doing, someone like Joe Biden will be a different kind of populist. The Encarta dictionary says populism is a political ideology based on the perceived interests of ordinary people, as opposed to those of a privileged elite. Does that sound like Donald Trump or Steve Bannon?

It sounds to me like a definition written for Joe Biden. Pulling the country back from the brink and returning it to normality can also be a profound change.  If anyone understands the hardship many Americans experience – he has lost a wife and two children during his life – it’s Joe, and in my opinion, his voice is exactly what our country needs to heal. Despite his losses there’s no bitterness in him. He’s the same gentle soul who’d rather love than hate that he always was.

But he’s always loved a good fight, too. I hope he still has the energy and desire in 2020. We need him.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments