Monthly Archives: May 2019

Now a Warning

Spoiler Alert:  If you plan on binge watching the final season of “Game of Thrones,”  do not proceed.  Or if you have never watched a single episode of the show, this post will probably make little or no sense.

Proficiency in the use of synchronicity as a tool of imagination requires us  to constantly ask two questions as we interact with our environment.

  • What is this trying to tell me?
  • How might it be relevant to something I hope to better understand or address?

Image result for kings landing destroyed arya starkSometimes, it takes the intersection of what appears to be two totally unrelated events to bring clarity to the message.  Therefore, as I mentally processed last night’s airing of Season 8, Episode 5 of HBO’s  “Game of Thrones,”  especially the final scene in which Arya Stark surveys the remnants of Kings Landings, it had a ring of familiarity.  Where had I seen this before?  Actually, it was just six days ago.  Episode 1 of HBO’s mini-series, “Chernobyl.”  Everything was the same.  Fire.  Mass destruction. Disfigured bodies.  And the prospect of many more innocent victims who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  What was this trying to tell me?  Why was it important?

What if George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” was not about the rulers of the Seven Kingdoms and dragons, but the leaders of modern day “kingdoms” and nuclear weapons?  Bear with me.  When the dragons first appear, they are solely owned and controlled by Daenerys Targaryen, who believes she is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne from which she will rule the Seven Kingdoms.  Her dragons provide a tactical advantage in times of war and prestige in times of peace.  Sound familiar?  In 1945, the United States was the sole possessor of atomic weapons which it used to its advantage at the end of World War II.   In the same way Harry Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as demonstrations of allied military dominance, Daenerys occasionally employed her dragons to solidify her power and claim to the Iron Throne.

The United States retained the status of sole atomic power until August 1949 when the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear weapons test.  Since then, such armaments have not again been utilized on the battlefield, but have become a symbol of prestige.  Just ask Kim Jung Un.  Yet, as nations increased the destructive power of their nuclear arsenals, the potential for mutual mass destruction has kept a cold nuclear standoff from heating up.  But that strategy only works if those who control the power wield it from a position of sanity, respect and with an understanding of the consequences once the genie is out of the bottle.

And that is where Martin and HBO have taken us in Season 8.  When the White Walkers appropriate one of Daenerys’ dragons for their purpose of eradicating any memory of the past, we see what happens when unlimited capacity to inflict destruction and pain falls into the wrong hands.  Terrifying.  But not as terrifying as what we observed last night.  Daenerys, initially driven by good intentions to become a loved and compassionate ruler, when overcome with grief or a desire to seek revenge against her foes, loses her perspective.

As Daenerys overlooks Kings Landing from her perch on Drogon, the last surviving dragon, you can almost see her thought process.  “What good is a dragon if you can’t use him?”  And use him she did.  And for the second time in a week, HBO reminded us of what can happen when we take the status quo for granted.  No one had an accurate assessment of the damage to life and property of an explosion in a nuclear power plant until it happened at Chernobyl.  Perhaps Martin and HBO recognized there will be no documentarians left to make a similar mini-series about the devastating effects of nuclear warfare after it occurs.  So just maybe, they decided to make one while there was still time and called it, “Game of Thrones.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

Even I Could Do It

Related imageMuch has been written about the increase in job creation during the first two years of the Trump administration.  And many of these commentaries, particularly by conservatives, have focused on the role of tax cuts and deregulation.  And they are correct as will be explained below.  However, some suggest this would not have happened without Donald Trump at the economic policy helm.

Sorry, but when it comes to suggesting Trump has performed some kind of job creation miracle, they are dead wrong.  Consider the following.  Suppose the United States was a typical higher-end middle class household earning $122,000 per year (Pew Research).  This family could probably meet its basic needs and enjoy one or two personal amenities, but could not be described as living on “easy street.”  Now imagine they win the lottery and suddenly have an influx of unearned cash.  At the same time, they “deregulate” their lifestyle by not buying insurance to cover their home, car or medical expenses.  They do no maintenance such as repairing the deteriorating stairs leading to their front door.  As long as the stocks in which they invested their lottery winnings did not crash.  Or they had no catastrophic accidents or illness.  Or they were not liable for someone’s injury on their property, they would be cradled in the lap of luxury.  But you would hardly call them fiscal geniuses.

Yes, the United States is experiencing job growth.  But just like the above example, that phenomenon is fueled on “unearned dollars,” i.e. the annual deficit and reduced business costs as a result of deregulation which puts the health and safety of workers and the general population at risk.  And it makes sense UNTIL someone’s luck runs out.  Just ask Boeing.

What would really qualify as genius would be to achieve exemplary job growth while, at the same time, staying within one’s budget and without putting the health and safety of constituents at risk.  Impossible?  No and there is objective evidence to the contrary.  Contrast the following years during the Clinton and Trump presidencies.

1998
Federal SURPLUS/$69 billion
Jobs Created/3.04 million

1999
Federal SURPLUS/$129 billion
Jobs Created/3.18 million

2000
Federal SURPLUS/$236 billion
Jobs Created/1.98 million

2017
Federal DEFICIT/$665 billion
Jobs Created/2.2 million

2018
Federal DEFICIT/$779 billion
Jobs Created/2.3 million

That’s right.  The last president to both balance the federal budget and promote environmental protection can also claim the greatest employment expansion in the nation’s history with a total increase of 23.62 million new jobs over eight years.

Related imageUnfortunately, there is no objective measure of the difference in health and safety regulations during these time periods.  However there are subjective indicators that separate Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.  For example, the overarching philosophy during the Clinton years was environmental protection and economic growth were not incompatible.  In contrast, Trump supported increases in fossil fuel use, withdrew from the Paris Accords and  overturned many environmental regulations.  Likewise, the current administration has rolled back worker safety rules affecting mining, offshore drilling and meat processing.  And now it proposes more self-regulation by businesses and their trade associations.  Why not?  It worked for the banking industry in 2008.

The bottom line?  If you want to create jobs, any idiot can do it if he or she does not care about the costs or risks to health and safety.  Even I could do it.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Many Unhappy Returns

In the continuing D.C. soap opera drama “As the Weird Turns,” we find Donald Trump’s legal team launching a two front assault on Article Two of the Constitution related to their client’s financial documents.  On one front,  Treasurer Secretary Steven Mnuchin has yet to comply with Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal’s request to the Internal Revenue  Service (IRS) for six years of Trump’s tax returns as prescribed by law.  According to the Los Angeles Times:

The relevant law here is neither obscure nor unclear. If most citizens were previously unaware of tax code section 6103, that’s because they’ve not been in a position to invoke it. But for those to whom it is relevant — law enforcement agencies, state tax authorities, committees of Congress, and others — it is straightforward.

Concurrently, Trump’s lawyers have filed a suit in federal court to prevent Deutsche Bank from turning over financial information related to the Trump Organization’s efforts to secure financing for several business ventures.   The request, made by the House Intelligence Committee, is part of an investigation to determine if money laundered through Deutsche Bank was part of the Russians’ attempt to influence the 2016 election. (Note: Deutsche Bank was fined $630 million in 2017 after being convicted of laundering $20 billion is Russian money and remains under investigations for additional instances of the same crime.) Yesterday, Bloomberg News reported Deutsche Bank likely required copies of some tax returns, in whole or in part, as part of the loan applications.  Why is this important?  How could these two things put Trump, his family and his business in legal jeopardy?

During his testimony under oath on February 27, 2019 before the House Oversight Committee, Michael Cohen claimed his former employer (the Trump Organization) had likely committed bank fraud by overvaluing assets as evidence of its ability to repay loans.  However, those same assets would be undervalued when it came to property taxes owed to state and local governments.  The less than honest information about property market valuations provided to Deutsche Bank was most likely provided on non-governmental documents (e.g. loan application forms).  It might be compared to state and local property tax records, but as we know, there are often discrepancies between the market value of property and its assessment for tax purposes.

However, if Deutsche Bank asked for copies of someone’s tax returns as evidence of past income, the easiest way to do that would be for the applicant to provide a facsimile of the forms submitted to the IRS.  But, if you needed to embellish your financial position, one could certainly prepare and submit a second version of their 1040 and accompanying schedules and form.  Since banks do not have the authority to verify tax information with the IRS, they have little choice but to assume a return is a true duplicate of the official version.  What if it’s not?  I’m no lawyer, but I have followed enough cases where the “smoking gun” turned out to be two versions of a piece of evidence where one rendition has been altered.

As Bill Maher would say, “I don’t know this for a fact, but I just know it’s true.”   Considering what we have already learned about the Trump Organization and the Trump Foundation, as Cohen testified, Trump is a “cheat and a con man,”  who will stop at nothing to achieve a desired outcome.  Yet, knowing and proving are two entirely different things.  If, however, a prosecutor could line up two different versions of the same federal tax return, side by side, that would be hard for the defense to refute.  And since we have already seen the parade of Trump’s associates who have sold their souls and reputations in the service of this modern day P. T. Barnum, it is not unreasonable to think his accountants might have done the same.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

The Trump BRANDenburg

Since William Barr has been exposed this evening as nothing more than a bigger shill for Donald Trump than we ever imagined and boy scout Robert Mueller feels bound by a Department of Justice opinion (not law or constitutional provision) which claims a sitting president cannot be indicted for a crime, we need to look for other arenas to test this questionable premise.

Today, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled in a case brought by Democratic members of Congress against Trump for violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution can proceed.  This dovetails an earlier ruling that a similar case brought by the attorneys general of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia can also go to trial.  However, in the state initiated case, Trump’s Roy Cohn clones have temporarily blocked subpoenas for financial records associated with the Trump D.C. hotel.

However, I think there is a better case for charging and prosecuting Trump for inciting violence.  Here are the facts.  On Saturday, John T. Earnest, using an assault rifle, killed one and injured three others during prayer services at the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California.  In a manifesto posted on-line, Earnest justified the attack based on his belief Jews deserved to be killed for trying to destroy the white race through immigration.  Now where could an impressionable 19 year-old get such an idea.

Among other places, the South lawn of the White House.  On October 28, 2018, Trump had the following exchange with a reporter concerning immigrants moving through Mexico in hopes of finding asylum in the United States.

REPORTER: Do you think somebody is funding the caravan?

TRUMP: I wouldn’t be surprised, yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised.

REPORTER: George Soros (a Jewish philanthropist)?

TRUMP: I don’t know who, but I wouldn’t be surprised.  A lot of people say yes.

No, Mr. dog-whistle-in-chief.  Not a lot of people.  Just you and the white supremacists, racists and neo-Nazis who support your America First agenda.

Last Saturday, one of them used your exact words as a rationale for shooting up a house of worship.  And according to the Supreme Court decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, you can be charged with inciting “imminent” violence.  Why “imminent?”  In its landmark decision, the Court ruled in favor of the defendant, a member of the KKK, and struck down Ohio’s criminal syndicalism statute which broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence, the law under which Brandenburg was convicted in a state trial.  Yet the Justices felt the need to distinguish between inflammatory language and speech that “produces imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”  Justice Leonard Hand suggested there were three elements to the “Brandenburg test”–intent, imminence and likelihood.

I cannot predict what a judge and jury would do, but at a minimum Donald Trump should be charged and tried for inciting imminent violence.  Let a jury decide if Trump incited Earnest, the likelihood that he believed Trump gave him license to kill and maim and whether the time frame between Trump’s White House comments and the attack on the Chabad sanctuary meets the imminence test.

If the six months between October 28, 2018 and April seems like too much of a stretch, how about the pipe bomb sent to Soros’ home just days after Trump “theorized” (the Washington Post’s euphemism for lying) that Soros was funding protests against the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.  Fortunately, that device was proactively detonated by a bomb squad.

While Trump supporters tell us to “Let Trump Be Trump,” (the title of Corey Lewandowski’s ode to his benefactor), we now know people like Lewandowski didn’t practice what they preached when asked to facilitate the firing of Robert Mueller.  If they had, Trump would have completely shredded the Constitution by now and provided a more compelling case for obstruction of justice.  They also know “letting Trump be Trump” threatens the safety of innocent people as well as political rivals yet they say nothing.  In marketing, they call that brand loyalty.  And at the extreme, it can keep customers from reporting product defects and deceptive advertising (just ask Boeing).

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP