Update from the Sunland
No.859
18.6.18 – 24.6.18
Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/
To all,
Perhaps, a cultural observation might be useful . . . for contemplation and/or to instigate a vigorous debate topic.
An epiphany came to me this week. This incessant chanted mantra regarding the biased Press as purveyors of lies and propaganda, presumably from the socialist / communist fringes of the political spectrum, reminds me of one simple reality. I wish every infected citizen who loudly condemns the Press for political bias could have served in any one of the dozen plus intelligence services operating in this Grand Republic. In doing so, each person would learn to evaluate information from multiple sources. In the intelligence biz, we gathered widely disparate information, and we learned to filter, categorize, assemble, assess and analyze many bits of conflicting information. We call it connecting the dots . . . to find the picture that emerges. I shudder when a reporter improperly refers to an aviation fact that I have direct knowledge and expertise. I do not condemn the reporter for FAKE NEWS; I simply recognize the source. The skill of intelligence analysis is quite useful in evaluating common advertisements, or political rhetoric, or outright propaganda. The Press is a vital, essential pillar of any and every viable democracy. Without an active Press, we become easy prey for the snake-oil salesman trying to convince us to purchase and swallow the worthless elixir he is peddling. Diminishment of the Press’s place in our culture is literally and absolutely destructive. People who ridicule and belittle the Press are chipping away at the very foundation of this Grand Republic. Frankly, I see this issue in the context of the solemn oath I have repeatedly taken over my years of service . . . “against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . .”
Re: Immigration. The current convulsive debate on the treatment of illegal immigrants and especially the children of those illegals has consumed a substantial capacity of the Press for more than a week. Just because someone or group of someones enters this Grand Republic illegally does not make them immigrants; their wishes or desires do not make them immigrants; only official approval by the State Department or the Immigration and Naturalization Service can make anyone an immigrant. On this one, I agree with the objective of the government, while I disapprove of the government’s methods. Anyone crossing the border without a visa for entry is committing a felony and should be treated as such. The crime is no different from any other felony. Using children, intentionally or unintentionally, to commit a felony is contemptible and fraught with risk. Bad people have been known to strap explosives to children, sometimes without their knowledge, armed with a remote detonator, and to tell them to run up to soldiers asking for candy. As a sovereign nation, we must control and properly regulate entry into this Grand Republic. We should allow individuals a path to citizenship only if they are good candidates to assimilate and be productive, contributory citizens. We also have a variety of classes of visitors we should allow and keep track of while in this country, e.g., tourists, documented migrant workers, entertainers, artists, students, athletes; there are many such temporary categories of visitors. Unfortunately, because our laws have made our immigration process so shallow, we are in control of nothing. We have needed actual, comprehensive, thorough, immigration reform for a very long time, and Congress has failed to deliver . . . so we muddle along from crisis to crisis.
The follow-up news items:
-- With the BIC’s unusual interest in sustaining PRC telecommunications company ZTE [853-857] while his administration condemns the conduct of ZTE as a serious threat to national security, Congress appears headed toward a direct rebuke of the BIC’s initiative. The Senate voted: 85-10-0-5(0), in favor of their version of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 [H.R.5515], which includes § 891 – Prohibition on certain telecommunications services or equipment (Division A, Title VIII, Subtitle I) that specifically rejects concessions for ZTE advocated by the BIC This will be interesting to watch play out.
Melania sallied forth on a comparatively rare solo political journey to the southern border on Thursday. At the end of her trip, she prominently wore an olive-green, hooded parka with an unusual message apparently hand-painted and scrawled across the entire back of the parka.
“I REALLY DON’T CARE DO U?”
. . . in capital letters, no less. Was that a child’s prank, like the Post-It note stuck to her back saying, Kick me? For a woman who has been meticulous and highly selective about her attire in every public circumstance, that parka was extraordinarily out of character, in very poor taste, tone deaf and otherwise a really bad idea. I suppose she has now been infected by the same affliction and has become a sandwich-board advertisement girl to publicize her husband’s mindset.
With all these convulsions over the administration’s failure to prepare for stricter, no-tolerance enforcement of existing immigration laws, the BIC tweets:
"Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November. Dems are just playing games, have no intention of doing anything to solves this decades old problem. We can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!"
4:06 AM - Jun 22, 2018
So, this crisis was never about enforcement of the law, about displaced children, separating families, criminal conduct, about anything other than political leverage to get his bloody damn wall. I say to Congress—Senate and House, Republican and Democrat—give the petulant bastard his damn wall. It’s only money. This administration has demonstrated its paucity of any concern whatsoever about the national debt, deficit spending, the law, nothing, nada, niente. The man has shown himself to be singularly minded, and incapable of rational negotiation and compromise. We cannot keep doing this. Give the man his bloody, f**king, damn wall—all US$25-50B worth! As I say, it’s only money; he already substantially increased the national debt, what’s another US$50B. He does not care; why should we! Even the staunch, Tea Party, Freedom Caucus, hardcore conservative Republicans in Congress have proven and demonstrated their corruption—they freely spend money they do not have on projects they favor, but woe be it for anyone to spend a dime on anything they do not favor. This is about having the keys the Treasury, with a substantial smattering of ego, narcissism, and chest thumping. Give the man his wall, so we can move on to more rational matters; we need comprehensive immigration reform that creates a defense in depth, creates a viable, enforceable, guest-workers system, seriously punishes employers who hire or utilize illegal migrant workers, and removes the profit-motive from the enforcement process.
A friend and frequent contributor sent along the following link:
“The Billion-Dollar Business of Operating Shelters for Migrant Children”
by Manny Fernandez and Katie Benner
New York Times
Published: June 21, 2018
A lucrative business indeed! When we enter the profit-motive into State functions, the dynamics of the laws change dramatically. This is one of many perfect examples of why State functions should never be sub-contracted out to for-profit entities. Some tasks are the domain of government, and should remain under government control and beyond the forces of profit motivation.
The following exchange was extracted with permission from separate communications with a friend.
“Holy moly! I can't believe the state of the U.S. I was driving back from Toronto yesterday and the radio played a clip of kids crying for their mother, and I couldn't take it I cried, so sad. I do believe in border control, but this is madness using kids as political pawns is criminal, maybe not criminal per the nations laws at the time, but certainly in the world's eyes. I've heard that these kids won't be reunited with their parents I hope that is misinformation and that someone in the government will step up and make sure they're reunited. We need to stop thinking it can't get any worse because it keeps going downhill. I cannot believe it has only been just over a year since he's been in power.”
My response for what that is worth:
Re: illegal immigration. Holy-moly indeed! Here, my hard conservative side will come into view. Immigration law and policy has been an arena of enduring irritation and frustration for me (and many other Americans). Frankly, I think the government is doing what must be done. That said, the handling of the situation demonstrates the incompetence of this particular government. Those audio recordings leave an enormous amount to be desired; there is no way to validate the authenticity; they could have been recorded anywhere at any time. Yet, the BIC created the crisis . . . I believe . . . so he could pretend to fix the crisis.
Most modern military ground combat personnel train specifically to deal with children being used as tools, the worst perhaps being children strapped with explosives and a remote detonator, or carrying some other weapon. It is a nasty world out there. The involved people broke the law. Would we have reacted differently if they had destroyed property, robbed a bank, raped a teenage girl, or killed someone? They broke the law. They chose to involve their children in the commission of that crime. We do not send children to adult jails or prisons with their criminal parents. I emphatically did not agree with the policy of previous administrations that amounted to enforcement complacency. I have long condemned the failure of the U.S. Government to fully reform the law. To me, this is the consequence of that failure. I have also come to the position of: give the [man] his damn wall, so we can make some proper changes. Children should never be used as weapons or political tools, and in those situations where they are, we must not fear or hesitate in pulling the trigger. This is a terrible situation.
And then, making matters worse, Melania goes to the border to show empathy for the plight of families and children specifically, and she leaves wearing a hooded parka with a large, hand-painted message scrawled across the back, “I really don’t care do u?” Is she kidding [us]? That is something her husband would do, but I never thought she would stoop to or be complicit in such conduct. Outrageous, I say.
As best I can determine, the BIC has once again unilaterally decided to order a major change in the government, this time the military, with little to no planning or coordination. He publicly announced his decision to form a sixth co-equal military service—Space Force, as he calls it. The announcement surprised many military officials, senior aerospace industry executives and lawmakers, and defied well-known opposition by Pentagon leaders. No one, including the BIC, has been able to articulate what the mission, or missions, will be for this new military branch—just another example on a progressively growing list of poorly thought out or coordinated, or planned executive actions.
Once again, we have a very sobering assessment from Germany. I highly doubt the BIC is even aware, and if he is, whether he cares a hoot what the Germans think. Such are the consequences of the current administration and specifically the fellow in the Oval Office.
“Trump's Attacks on Germany—The Enemy in the White House: Trump's latest lies are an open attack on the German government and the European Union. This U.S. president was never a partner. He is an aggressive opponent and should be treated as such.”
by Stefan Kuzmany – Commentary
Der Spiegel
Published: June 20, 2018; 03:51 PM
The closing paragraph is nauseating. “We have long known that we could no longer rely on the United States under Donald Trump. Now, though, it has become clear that we have to protect ourselves from him.”
One of the collateral tasks of the Commander-in-Chief is mobilizing the nation for war—total, military, economic or otherwise. In this task, the BIC has failed miserably. I have absolutely no idea, or even an imagining, why he is doing just about everything short of requesting a declaration of war against our Allies, and concomitantly, he is unilaterally cozying up to our persistent adversaries. Perhaps, he sees himself far more aligned with dictators, oligarchs and strongmen, and he apparently despises democracies that require collaboration, compromise and negotiation. He is (or already has been) throwing away decades to diplomacy across many administrations, both Democrat and Republican. From my understanding of history, the gold standard in presidential performance with respect to mobilizing the nation for war was Franklin Roosevelt. The BIC is orders of magnitude short of Roosevelt. In fact, I can think of no president in the history of this Grand Republic who has failed so miserably. He appears to have no interest whatsoever in helping the majority of us see the necessity for his conduct or our place in that policy; “his people” just accept whatever he spews out there; he does not care about our perennial Allies and he certainly does not care about the majority of us.
Comments and contributions from Update no.858:
“I understand your comparison of Trump to Neville Chamberlain, but even Chamberlain's low standard is higher than Trump's ‘achievement.’ Apparently, Trump occupied the same room as Kim Jong Un for a little while and came out with not just no agreement, but no written record of what anyone agreed upon or even said. His hyperbole is not merely weak, it's meaningless and the entire world knows that.
“The trade war worries me. I doubt Trump has any idea at all what he is doing. China, the EU, and Canada all do, and their responses will cause us harm. In addition, Trump makes no attempt to address our actual trade issues, including intellectual property appropriation and steel dumping from China.
“We know Trump doesn't study history (or anything else). I can only assume that he underestimates every nation in the world but the USA and perhaps Russia.
“Good luck getting independents to vote. Trump only exemplifies a larger fact of our national life. Those non-voters realize that the Democrats and the Republicans cater to corporate interests, organizations like the NRA, and the very wealthy, who finance their campaigns and pay their ‘leaders’ six- and seven-figure fees, supposedly for giving speeches. The likes of Hillary Clinton, Jeff Flake, and Joe Biden will not bring the voters to the polls.
“The Justices of the Supreme Court are insulated from public opinion to a significant degree for good reason. However, I suspect that, being human, they would still individually like to avoid being really unpopular. That's the only way I can make sense of the Masterpiece Cake Shop decision and similar rulings that sidestep the central issue. Given that the wedding cake in question was generic, I can only assume that the shop owner and his kind seek to shame same-sex couples. That particular form of meanness ought to be and remain unlawful.
“Your continuing view of Trump as rational and deliberate continues to amuse me. He's no more capable of that than a typical sitcom drunk.”
My response:
Re: summit. No disagreement or argument with your assessment.
Re: trade war. No disagreement or argument with your assessment. Unfortunately, the outcome, whatever that may be, will take months and years to be established or clearly determined. There will be numerous skirmishes before we have hope of resolution. I suspect the damage has been done regardless of the next steps.
Well, if independents and moderates do not vote, then we will have more of the same. Who knows, perhaps the BIC can revoke the 22ndAmendment and declare himself president for life, like his hero-buddy Xi.
Re:Cakeshop case. I agree. I think it was a really cheap sidestep. I think the majority was far more interested in condemning their determined “hostility to religion” comments in that no one in the review or appeals process confronted the comments by two of the five commissioners. The actual comments in question were not particularly hostile; they simply said in essence that religion does not determine public conduct. As I said, their “hostility” opinion was a real stretch, but it is what it is. To me, Cakeshop is not as far out there as Citizens United, but it is far closer than most.
My only suggestion re: the BIC . . . try viewing his words and actions from his purely selfish, egocentric, narcissistic position devoid of any empathy for another human being (except for his oldest daughter). I suspect you might see things differently.
. . . a follow-up comment:
“When does ‘try viewing his words and actions from his purely selfish, egocentric, narcissistic position devoid of any empathy for another human being’ become a clinical assessment? At the very least, this goes beyond the usual understanding of short-sighted.”
. . . my follow-up response:
Touché! Well done!
Another contribution:
“You are as usual very negative about our President.. In reference to his meeting with North Korea .. I don't need any response I just want to say Cap that history doesn't always repeat itself .. You are up there with DeNiro and ‘Fuck You Trump!’.. What an ignorant child along with other celebrities like Colbert and Kimmel .. I no longer respect any of them .. and I certainly no longer waste precious time watching their shows.
“This is my and millions of others opinion of Hollywood anymore.. I imagine their income generation for movies and TV ads has dwindled greatly ..
“No rebuttal necessary.. Like you I have my own opinions and don't need to hear yours .. It's obvious what yours are .. And if people want to complain about separating illegals at the border then those illegals need to seek asylum from their OWN president.. It's time Mexico steps up to the plate and takes care of its people! Again my opinion along with millions of others..”
My no-response reply:
You are entitled to your opinion, and unlike your hero, I do not take ad hominem attacks personally . . . the nature of the beast.
Thank you for expressing and sharing your opinion. I appreciate hearing your opinions.
You requested no rebuttal; no opinion offered.
My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
