Monthly Archives: January 2019

Hiding in Plain Site

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.

~Edward R. Murrow

I know, this may be the fifth or sixth time I have opened a post with this quote.  But there is a reason.  It is the only thing which explains how an obvious fact can so easily be ignored or dismissed by the mainstream media.

This morning the Wall Street Journal reported the following:

In early 2015, a man [John Gauger] who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss’s favor before the presidential campaign.

However titillating this latest chapter of the 2016 election might seem, it was paragraph four of the story which caught my attention.

Mr. Gauger owns RedFinch Solutions LLC and is chief information officer at Liberty University in Virginia, where Jerry Falwell Jr., an evangelical leader and fervent Trump supporter, is president. (Emphasis added.)

While both CNN and MSNBC covered the Journal’s report, neither made the connection to Liberty University. One can imagine Cohen paraphrasing Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca, “Of all the IT firms, in all the towns, in all the world, I chose this one.”  (From the Duh Department, Fox News did not cover the story at all preferring to inform its viewers how an Indonesian woman was mauled to death by her pet alligator.)

Related imageWhy does this matter?  Go back to the Deprogramming101 post from December 11, 2018 titled “J. Edgar Cohen,” in which I questioned whether Donald Trump’s fixer had blackmailed Falwell to obtain his early support for Trump’s presidential run.  It’s not like Falwell did not have his choice of kindred spiritualists including three Southern Baptists–Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham–and two nondenominational evangelicals–Rick Perry and Scott Walker.  In what I’m sure is just one more “coincidence” in the Trump campaign timeline, the payment to Gauger occurs around the same time Cohen confidently claims Falwell’s endorsement is forthcoming.  In what must surely be a second “coincidence,” the link to “TEAM” on the RedFinch Solutions web site is no longer active.

I have no doubt Robert Mueller will get to the bottom of this.  The question is who will hold the media, especially the cable news networks, accountable for their inability to see the forest for the trees.

POSTSCRIPT/An Already Broken New Year’s Resolution

Remember Mitt Romney, the Senator from Utah, who rolled into DC and made waves with a January 1 opinion piece in the Washington Post titled “The president shapes the public character of the nation.  Trump’s character falls short,” which included the following:

The world needs American leadership, and it is in America’s interest to provide it. A world led by authoritarian regimes is a world — and an America — with less prosperity, less freedom, less peace.

His New Year’s resolution?

I will act as I would with any president, in or out of my party: I will support policies that I believe are in the best interest of the country and my state, and oppose those that are not. I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault. But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions.

Yesterday, Romney voted with 42 other Senate Republicans to uphold Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s lifting sanctions against Russian companies partly owned by oligarch Oleg Derispaska, a Putin ally who had a relationship with convicted felon Paul Manafort.

So much for Mitt being the new John McCain.  More like Cain in the Book of Genesis.

GOD: Where is your conscience, Mitt?
ROMNEY: Am I my party’s keeper?

Obviously NOT.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

Harry and Louise Return

First it was a reboot of Twin Peaks.  Then Full House.  Next, Roseanne aka The Connors.  The only thing missing was the return of the commercials which financed these programs.  That is no longer true.  GEICO is now running a series of retro commercials including “So Easy a Caveman Can Do It” and “The Hump Day Camel.”  Which brings me to the title of today’s post.  Maybe it’s time the Democratic Party takes the same tack.

Image result for harry and louiseRemember Harry and Louise?  They were the stars of a $20 million advertising campaign funded by the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA), opposing Bill Clinton’s proposed health care plan. (Then First Lady Hillary Clinton was tasked with leading the design and implementation of the new system which Republicans dubbed HillaryCare.)  Produced by the California-based public relations firm Goddard Claussen, each installment questioned how the proposal compared to their current coverage.  To reach its target audience (Clinton supporters), the spots ran during episodes of The West Wing during the 1993-94 viewing season.  Consider the following example of one Harry and Louise broadcast.

OPENING GRAPHIC: Some Time In the Future
LOUISE:  This was covered under our old plan.
HARRY: Yeah, that was a good one, wasn’t it.
NARRATOR:  Things are changing and not all for the better. The government may force us to pick from a few health care plans, designed by government bureaucrats.
LOUISE:  Having choices we don’t like is no choice at all.
HARRY:  They choose.
LOUISE:  We lose.
NARRATOR:  For reforms that protect what we have, know the facts.  If we let the government choose, we lose.  Call today.

The Clinton health plan went down to defeat, and in November 1994, the Republicans took control of Congress by gaining 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate.

Ironically, the same actors who portrayed Harry and Louise in the mid-1990s reappeared in 2009 in support of the Affordable Care Act.  Two for two.  Not a bad win/loss record.  So just maybe, it’s time to bring them back.  Consider the following ad designed to run during the AFC and NFC championship games this coming Sunday.

OPENING GRAPHIC: A Kitchen Table Anywhere in America
LOUISE: Look at these bills, we used to cover them with your government salary.
HARRY: Yeah, those were the good old days, weren’t they.
NARRATOR:  Things have changed and not for the better.  Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress want you to work without getting paid.  They make you choose between paying the rent, college tuition for your children or medical care.
LOUISE: Having choices like that are no choice at all.
HARRY:  And for what?
LOUISE:  Donald Trump says we need a concrete wall on the Southern border and this is the only way to get it.
HARRY:  But I thought Mexico was going to pay for it.  Guess not.
[PHONE RINGS AND HARRY ANSWERS IT]
LOUISE:  Who was that?
HARRY:  My supervisor.  He says I have to report to work tomorrow even though I won’t get paid again next Friday.
LOUISE:  They’re forcing you to work without pay?  Isn’t there a word for that?
HARRY:  YEAH
NARRATOR: Treating dedicated public servants like Harry is not fair or necessary.  Call Mitch McConnell today and tell him he does not need Donald Trump’s permission to do the right thing. [McConnell’s phone number appears on the screen.]

Nielson reports 28.5 million viewers tuned into the Cowboys/Rams playoff game last Saturday night.  The audience for this weekend’s divisional championships is expected to eclipse those numbers.  The Kansas Chiefs with Pat Mahomes at quarterback have already seen a 34 percent increase in viewership over last year.  One can only imagine the numbers for a showdown between Mahomes and veteran Tom Brady. What better opportunity to send a message enough is enough.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

T or F?

The 2020 Democratic primary season is officially open and already candidates are under attack both from within and outside the party.  Saturday night, Donald Trump one-upped his already racist labeling of Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas,” suggesting she would be more effective by posting Instagram videos from sites such as Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen.  (Did he get that idea from the portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office?).  And Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard is under fire from Democrats for past comments opposing marriage equality and her association with her father’s organization which promoted conversion therapy (positions which she says she now regrets).

No one should be surprised that the first volleys of the 2020 campaign center around identity politics.  Which brings me to the title of today’s post.  By “T or F?” my goal is not to determine whether the Democratic Party is consumed by an attempt to build a majority coalition based on gender, race, religion and sexual preference.  It is much bigger than that.  Does the healing process so badly needed after two decades of contentious partisanship depend on a single letter in the alphabet?

My hypothesis.  The successful candidate in 2020, regardless of party or ideology, will be the man or woman who focuses not on identiTy politics, but identiFy politics.  Which wannabe chief executive will draw on the aspirations and experiences which cross identity barriers and will respond to events rather than constituencies.  I know what you’re thinking.  There goes Dr. ESP again.  The idealist who suspends reality when it does not fit his world view.

Maybe, but there is enough evidence to suggest this is not as far fetched as some might believe.  Identify politics is what happens when the Muslim community in Pittsburgh reaches out to members of the Tree of Life Synagogue following the mass shooting last October.  Gun violence knows no identity.  Just ask the African American, Sikh, Jewish, Christian, Amish, LGBT, urban, rural communities or the parents of school children in both red and blue states.

It is the empathy of a farmer in Iowa or Nebraska who does not get a scheduled farm subsidy for a clerk in the Social Security Administration in Baltimore who did not get paid on Friday. Families of all kind shared a common experience this weekend, gathering around a kitchen table and wondering how they can afford life’s necessities without the revenue on which they depend.

It is a recognition by every American whose parents and grandparents came to the United States in search of a better life despite the risks that the contribution immigrants make to our country depends not on their condition when they first cross our border, but the extent to which they believe in the American tradition of a better life for their children than they had.

The cost of opioid addiction also spans age, gender, race and religious differences.  Examine the data provided by the Department of Health and Human Services for 2016 and 2017.  More than 130 individuals die every day of opioid-related overdoses.  At this rate, there can hardly be a single American who is not themselves or a family member or close friend untouched by this epidemic.  Every one of us can identify with the pain and grief that is all too common.

And most recently we witnessed the power of identify politics with the passage of The First Step Act.  Even Trump, who ran on a “tough on crime” platform signed a bill addressing the need for justice reform.  When the Koch Brothers and the ACLU are on the same side of any issue, it is a clear indication some policies transcend matters of poor versus rich or white versus black.

On the final exam for any candidate for president in 2020, there is only question.  “My agenda for the next four years depends on conditions which affect every American’s life, not who you are?  T or F?”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

MAR-a-Lago

Every time I think about a 30 foot concrete wall, my memory takes me back to a personal experience in early 1984.  At the time, I was director of community development and housing for the State of Texas.  On December 18, 1983 Texas experienced a historic deep-freeze with below freezing temperatures for 12 consecutive days.  It wiped out the entire citrus crop including that in Starr County along the Rio Grande border with Mexico.  As a result, the unemployment rate in Starr County jumped to nearly 70 percent.  At the request of then Governor Mark White, I was part of a team deployed to the border to identify public works projects (e.g., replacing dead palm trees along U.S. 83 which parallels the Rio Grande) through which we could pay residents and inject funds into the local economy.

As is the custom‘Dracula’s Castle’ : Blas Chapa's home has been unoccupied sine the late 1980's and is called Dracula's Castle by children who live below the hill in the Las Lomas colonia. - The Monitor in South Texas, you never conduct business without fellowship first.  In this case, the team was invited to dinner at the home of County Judge Blas Chapa the night before our scheduled meeting in Rio Grande City.  (In Texas, the county judge is the chief administrative officer as well as a judicial officer.)  That evening we were feted with barbecue and beer on Judge Chapa’s patio which provided a scenic view of the river and the natural habitat on the Mexican side.  Judge Chapa died in May 2010, but I can just imagine how he would have reacted to the thought of a 30 foot concrete wall obscuring the panoramic view of his estate, the river and the land beyond.  He owned the property down to the river’s edge, and I know he would have vigorously fought any taking by eminent domain for a public right-of-way for any unsightly intrusion on his estate.

Imagine the situation was reversed.  Suppose Blas Chapa was president, and made the case more illegal drugs were entering the U.S. along the Eastern seaboard than from Mexico.  The answer?  A thirty foot hardened concrete wall on the Florida coast including Palm Beach County.  Whom do you think might be the first to object.  My money is on the guy who lives in this house.

Image result for mar-a-lago

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

All’s Wall That Ends Wall

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

~George Santayana

It’s too bad Tony Schwartz (the real author) or Random House (the publisher) did not choose to title the Donald Trump branded book on negotiating The Art of A Deal instead of The Art of THE Deal.  From my experience as a policy director at the National Governors Association, the objective in any tete-a-tete was to come away with an agreement that both sides could live with and, equally important, preserved a process that has a lifespan beyond the immediate issue at hand, knowing there would be other major disagreements on more issues in the future.  What really disappoints me in the current stalemate between Trump and Congressional Democrats is there are many instances of potentially similar gridlock in Washington, yet no one is using the lessons from those occasions to propose a solution to the current standoff.

I could spend hours and pages rehashing the rules of successful deal making, but one stands out as paramount.  Listen to the opposition and where there is agreement check off the box.  Before you think I’ve joined the “they’re equally responsible for this mess,” let me be clear.  Donald Trump wants to keep a campaign promise based on a big lie. Democrats are using facts (many provided by Trump’s own administration) to make the case a 2,000 mile wall along the Southern border is just plain stupid.  Donald Trump says Democrats do not care about border security (another lie). Democrats are saying Trump shut down the government because he does not want to admit he has already broken his campaign promise to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it (true).

Let’s be honest.  THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. An additional investment of five billion dollars to better screen people coming into the United States, detect contraband (e.g. drugs and firearms) and make the processing of those seeking asylum more efficient makes a lot of sense. Democrats, deflating Trump’s claim they support open borders, could make that case using the facts they have already put before the American people.

And just yesterday, independent Maine Senator Angus King said there are probably points along the border where an enhanced barrier makes sense even though he does not support Trump’s vision of a border wall. And this is where we already have a model for making fact-based, non-partisan determination of highly charged political decisions.

At what we thought was the end of the cold war after the fall of the Soviet Union, George H. W. Bush began the process of realigning defense priorities and spending to meet future security needs.  This included the closure of many military bases throughout the U.S.  It does not take a genius to understand military bases have a major economic impact on the communities in which they are located.  And no senator or representative was going to voluntarily support the closure of any defense operations in his or her respective state or district.

Related imageThe solution?  The Defense Base Realignment and Closure Act of 1990 which established a commission, consisting of nine independent members, to review Defense Department recommendations and present a closure list to Congress which could either accept or reject the proposal.  No amendments were allowed.  Congressional Quarterly described the process as a way “to reduce pork barrel politics with members of Congress that arise when facilities face activity reductions.”   Between 1991 and 2005, more than 350 military installations were closed or reduced in size through this process.

So let’s end the shutdown today.  Nancy and Chuck, call Mitch (not Donald). Offer the following deal.  In return for passage of ALL seven outstanding funding bills, Democrats will support a five billion dollar increase to the Homeland Security budget to:

  • increase the number of border patrol agents,
  • purchase detection technology to screen incoming cargo at border crossings as well as at air and seaports,
  • hire additional judges to hear asylum cases reducing the need for more detention centers,
  • upgrade technology to detect illegal border crossings AND
  • fund a nine-member commission to determine the need for, location and construction options for enhanced barriers at the most vulnerable areas along the border. 

The White House, Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House would each appoint three members and direct them to make recommendations for consideration during the FY2020 budget process which Congress could either vote up or down without amendments.

History suggests it just might work.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP