The Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost-- Random thoughts on 2017.

The Mueller investigation is closing in on the detritus of the Presidency, the ship of state piloted by a mad Ahab, who, instead of pursuing the great white whale, pursues personal narcissisms at the expense of his countrymen.  Having achieved high office through an enormous con of the working people to whom he represented himself as their champion, the duplicity, mendacity and lack of a scintilla of integrity are finally being revealed by a dogged, intelligent, incorruptible and highly competent prosecutor and his team of first rate lawyers, all devoted to exposing the truth.

There are many Russia questions to be answered.  And they will be, despite the naysayers  the Trump apologists in  Congress, and  the White House sycophants, including Mike Pence, who thinks the world is 5000 years old, and will not dine with a woman unless his wife. whom he calls "mother" is present.

The truth is not something that the present incumbent has ever worn.  In his real estate dealings, his competitors, dupes and stiffed debtors are legion.   And the women he has harassed are now speaking up.  A trial will soon occur when the President might be subpoenaed to testify, to the delight of political theatergoers.

After the faith in our institutions has been shaken to its core, light appears at the end of the dark tunnel.    Trump will go, either through resignation or impeachment.   I do not believe he will last until 2020.  But then again, I did not think he would be elected.  But wait, would he start a war with Little Rocket man to escape impeachment and possible conviction?  Or indictment?

Now, we are faced with what will come next.   Will the country continue to be riven with cultural divisions?  The answer is probably yes.    But hopeful signs emerge from the deepest of red Alabama, which has elected of all things, a progressive Democrat instead of a troglodyte "Judge Moore," who believes that the ten commandments belong on the courthouse door, that homosexuals should be in jail, gays should be prosecuted, that abortion is a mortal sin, and last but not least, that slavery was a better time for America.

He has still not conceded the election, won by Doug Jones, a moderate Democrat, who most likely will be a decent senator.  Mitch McConnell, that paradigm of compassion for the working class, should be thankful that the Republican senators will not be placed in the unwelcome position of attempting to expel Moore on ethics issues.

On a broader front the economy is humming along, but the threat to unskilled labor grows with each passing day.   Automation, robotics, and industrial efficiency fueled by those two horsemen continue apace.  Each day exponentially increases the body of knowledge and information.   Parents agonize over the screen time spent by their children, who are mostly now ignorant of literature, language and rely instead on computers to do the calculations children did in former generations.  The idea that a tax cut for corporations will allow them to pay more to workers is delusional.   Workers, displaced by automation will not even be hired and the reason corporations are so profitable are because they mostly have reduced their workforces because of automation.  Robots do not need wage increases, get sick, or sexually harass anyone (unless in a Arnold Schwarzenegger household).

Sexual harassment allegations are now as common as men and women.   What used to be acceptable or to be more artful, was tolerable as was segregation in Birmingham, Alabama or slavery in the antebellum south, has now become outrageously unacceptable.  Cultural shifts that came slowly  now  arrive with lightening speed on social media and on the Internet.  Crowds of friends on facebook roil about how our President is as culpable as any of the prominent men who have patted a butt or advanced their libidos at women's expense.   But were not women at one time ambiguously agreeable to such behavior?  Did not men interpret a "no" to really mean a "yes?"   Some men grouse that "you can't even flirt with a woman any more," or "you can't even shake a woman's hand."   Evolutionary biology has been eschewed by the new cultural ethos.  But so has polygamy, and the rule of the old white walrus, beating off his rivals for command of the harem.

I liked the Charlie Rose show, but Charlie needed to go.  He had informative and stimulating conversations with authors, statesmen, foreign policy analysts, composers, directors, professors, scientists and politicians.  His guest list read like a catalog of important people with important things to contribute to the national discussion on almost every important subject.   Seems like Christianne Amanpour, not a bad choice, will replace his show.   Terry Gross would have been an excellent choice also.

James Levine is a brilliant conductor, Richard Wagner was an anti Semite, Ty Cobb (the baseball genius not the President's mustachioed lawyer) was an incorrigible, mean spirited jerk, Harvey Weinstein brought us brilliant film, Einstein had many mistresses, U.S. Grant was a drunkard, Lincoln was a depressive, Roosevelt and Kennedy dallied with many women; the list could traverse all of history, including the Founding Fathers.   Thomas Jefferson had children with an enslaved Sally Hemmings.  How about that for a hostile workplace environment? They all contributed to the advancement of society. 

I am afraid I cannot include the present occupant of the White House among these notables.  He is beyond redemption.

But, as I said, soon he will be gone.

Abba Eban, the Israeli statesman and legatee of Churchillean oratory said, "The American people will eventually get it right, after they have done everything else first."

The Divisiveness of Donald J. Trump

"A House divided against itself cannot stand."

Abraham Lincoln,  June 16, 1858

How in the world can a US President feud with the widow of a fallen soldier and then send out his chief of staff to defend him?   Trump continues to demean and sully the reputations of those who surround him, even a four star Marine General, whose courage and service to his country eclipses the draft evader in chief, showing his grit by trying to keep this lying, evil, narcissistic scoundrel the straight and narrow?

What does it say about the country that elected him?   Are we all naifs? Do we have no moral compass?  Are we dupes of a demagogic fraud?  Are we the perennial P.T. Barnum suckers who are born every minute?  We consume the distractions he feeds us like hungry seals waiting for fish at SeaWorld.

The Electoral college has served us up the apotheosis of what James Madison envisioned it protecting us from, a unfit, egomaniacal, incompetent President who slathers us with conflict and infects the entire world stage with derisiveness and vitriol, ripping up global agreements, climate change accords, chaotically promulgating his vision of dystopia.

Our institutions, as strong as they are, have so far survived the onslaught, but other nation states with strong institutions did not.  Weimar Germany, for example.  We are being tested.

Our boy-king is playing chicken with "Little Rocket Man," a dangerous and insane undertaking, feuding with allies risking millions of lives and flouting all normal conventions of diplomacy. 

Tony Benn, the British diplomat said, "War is the failure of diplomacy."

But Trump understands why people are so angry, having seen their jobs disappear, a snake oil salesman who offers an easy bromide to cure the global and cultural changes that test the country and the entire world.  These are the greatest changes since the early 20th century and the industrial revolution.  But Trump uses these changes to incite divisiveness, the seeds of the destruction of our republic.

Years before Abraham Lincoln gave his famous speech, stating that a "House divided against itself cannot stand," the great orator and senator Daniel Webster arose in the US Senate and looked upon the issues that he knew would tear the Union asunder and said, in his most stirring oratorical feat on a cold January 27, 1830 (and recounted in John Meacham's brilliant biography of Andrew Jackson.)

Read these elegant words carefully:

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this Government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the People when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in Heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather behold the gorgeous Ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured— bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, what is all this worth? Nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union after- every where, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole Heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart— Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

 

The greatest statesmen of our past understood that division would tear the Union asunder.  And it did, costing 700,000 American lives in a bloody, tumultuous civil war.  Now our Union is torn asunder in a great cultural war between the classes and not the states.  A war that can only be won by compromise, integrity, and understanding.  A war that needs to be fought at home, providing security to those who are undereducated, and deprived of gainful employment by the unalterable economic forces now happening throughout the globe, not only here at home.  A war that will not be won by dismantling the increasingly necessary safety net by those who take wing on taxpayer money, and removing the protections that have evolved from the early days of the twentieth century.  A war that will not be won by inciting racism and hatred in order to distract the public from the crucial issues of our time.

Learning the lessons of History instruct us that the divisions roiling our nation today need a leader who understands not only history but the healing aspects of providing hope, not "American carnage".  Whether it is slavery or economic displacement that have divided our nation, leaders must unite, not divide, and in this case, Donald Trump has failed every test.

THE SECRET MEETING BETWEEN EL PRESIDENTE AND COMRADE PUTIN.

Vlady, did you try to hack our elections?

Nyet, Comrade Trumpski, I would never do that.

Are you sure Mr. President?   All my intelligence agencies have told me that you have done so. The head of national intelligence, Mr. Clapper said that you did. and so did James Brennen, the head of the CIA.

Are you sure you did not?

Nyet, Comrade President Trump.  I would never betray you.   Besides if I did show the kompromat,

it would not be good for Russia.   After all the democratskis in your house and senate want to pass more sanctions over our activities in the Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea.  And they would impeach you.  You must put a stop to this Mueller investigation.  I have some left over radium tea to serve him and James Comey, those traitors to your cause. No one needs to know how I bailed you out on your bankrupt casinos, and the new Trump tower in Gorky Park, planned for your second term.  Do not worry about not having enough roubles to complete the construction; I have many friends who will use my $200 billion stashed around the world under secret names to pay for the construction.  You as an experienced builder will be able to supervise the progress, and there might even be a little left over for building the solar wall to keep out the Mexican rapists from Texas and New Mexico.

I have looked into your eyes and seen your soul, Comrade Putin.  This will be the start of a beautiful friendship.

But what about the pee videos? I am afraid that the failing NY Times and the Amazon Washington Post will find out about me and the Russian whores who peed on me. 

Do not worry Mr. Presidentski, these troublesome individuals have already been sent to the bottom of the Volga.  We have used the antique equipment used to eliminate Rasputin, so no one will ever know.

Comrade President Trump, you need to dissolve your Duma.  Imagine the Democrats and the Republicans wanting to increase sanctions on Russia, just when we are about to approach the GDP of California?  This is impossible.  We need economic help so that we can increase our hegemony in Syria and in Iraq.  And your impeachment will not help us.

Do not worry Comrade Putin; I can veto any such silly legislation even that has bipartisan support of both houses of congress, so that I can seem tough on Russia.

But Comrade President, they will override your veto and if that happens, there is no telling what information can be leaked to the world press.  As I have been trying to instruct you, freedom of the press is not a good thing for strong leaders such as us.   You are taking a step in the right direction in calling it fake news, but it is not enough.  You need to throw a few bodies in the Potomac, to discourage such impudence.

And your son-in-law being called before congress?   At least the Republican leader Grassley has called for closed-door hearing so that the idiot is not on national television.  I am sure you prevailed upon him for this step.  Once he opens his mouth, we are possibly in great trouble.  But of course you can pardon him with your complete pardon power.

By the way, I particularly enjoyed Mr. Comrade President, you walking around the table at the G-20 to come over to me to suggest we have a private strategy meeting.   Just like Don Barzini and Don Corleone. Making me feel more important than your NATO allies is a step in the right direction.

But bear in mind that your daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Kushner are dangerous to your image.  Neither of them knows anything about world affairs, and you must send them to be ambassadors to Japan and to Israel so that they cannot make more trouble for you.  You need to listen to my advice on how to do this.  Kushner does not even speak in public thank Lenin. And your daughter sitting in uninvited to a world leader conference?  Not smart. Not good optics.   Even I do not appoint relatives to the soon to be reconstructed Supreme Soviet.

Mr. Comrade Presidenski, we have a lot of work to do.  And you have a lot more money to make.

POLARIZATION, AMERICA AND THE WORLD.

Everyone seems so convinced that they are correct.  A nation of true believers.  Trump supporters, seemingly convinced that he is doing "wonderful" things for the country.   Progressives obsessed with the notion that the country is going off the rails, led by a mad engineer guiding the great locomotive of American world leadership into a dark morass of perverted nationalism, who think that the misguided fools in fly-over country are conned into voting against their own interests.  And conservatives who believe that Trump has betrayed the principles of true conservatism.

How did we come this far?   How did we surrender our sanity to this mad irrationality?  Do the disaffected masses actually believe that this will happen?  That their jobs in the mines will be restored, that the great factories and steel mills of the Midwest will again employ low skilled labor, when the economics plainly point in the other direction, a direction where robotics and automation have already replaced more and more of these jobs? Even radiologists wonder when they will be replaced with x-ray reading computers.

The problem is that things are now moving so fast, exponentially, not linearly, and people are struggling mightily to keep up.  It could be a losing battle.  The breakneck speed of innovation is changing societal structure so rapidly; humans may need computers to help them figure out what to do.  Ergo, A.I.  There is early talk of a guaranteed annual income for all, paid for by taxes on increasingly productive corporations, making more  money than ever, but needing less human employees who need sick days, family leave and maternity benefits, not to mention health insurance.  Writ large is a possible dystopian future.

The left points out that the top 1% controls 90% of the wealth, drawing parallels to the gilded age, and the right thinks that Health insurance is not a right.  That rich people paying more taxes stifle economic growth, causing job creators not to create jobs.  Leftist economists think that has not worked, that when the rich have more money, they do not spend it, but the poor do, stimulating economic growth.  Both sides have statistics to back up their different points of view.   History has its lessons, but a Dickensian view of the world has lasted since Homo sapiens left Africa thousands of years ago.  And such philosophies have endured for ages.

Is it that the attention span of the average American is now as short as its President?  Do people read economics, or history, or civics?   Is it not taught in the schools?  Do the late-night comedians who go out in the street asking the average person who their senators are or who the Secretary of State is and getting an "I have no idea” really an interview of a representative group of Americans?  Or do they just cherry-pick the ignorant for a cheap laugh?   I hope so.  It is funny when people do not know when the Declaration of Independence was signed or that George Washington was the first President, but that he gave the Gettysburg address.

What is the matter with America?

Seems like people either do not care or are so uninformed or fed up, that Trumpian lies are becoming the norm.   Such a danger to our polity has many philosophical and psychological answers.  People deny, then become inured to the things they see on the 24-hour news cycle.  They would rather watch entertainment than what is happening in the real world.   Or football, where gladiators get their brains scrambled so that after their footballing days are over, they are consigned to a mental health facility, commit suicide or become a burden to their families, their loved ones enraged by the concealment for years of the dangers of the sport, so that billions can be generated for the coffers of the NFL, a business that dismissed and, worse, covered up the allegations of harm caused for years to unwitting participants seeking a way out of their underprivileged lives.

Politics these days seems no different; it has become a blood sport, fed by rival networks both progressive and liberal that cannot accommodate another point of view because it might damage their revenues.

The cable news networks have never had higher ratings, fed by the scandal-ridden Trump administration.  But even under the virtually scandal-free Obama administration, the accusations of birtherism and of Hillary Clinton's emails distorted the real issues facing America because these distractive issues generated a larger audience, their salaciousness and tabloid appeal undeniable.

No one really cares about the mundane issues of governance.   Its boring to most and Trump knew that all along.    But he may have gone too far, as did a number of con men and demagogues--Huey Long, Father Coughlin, Elmer Gantry, PT Barnum to name a few.

Health care as a right, women's reproductive issues, foreign policy, the danger of North Korea and of Russia and last but not least to Planet Earth, the home we cannot in the foreseeable future escape.  Is the tax more spend more Democratic model or the Republican tax less spend less the proper course?  These are complex economic issues not given to politicians who do not understand the implications of economic policy.   Nor do they understand deep divisions on social issues, including abortion, which if one wishes to be fair, has moral support for both positions.   That is precisely why it is so controversial. 

The real problem is that Americans do not wish to sit down and discuss these issues in a rational, discursive manner.  Such didacticism requires articulation and language that has seemed to disappear from our vocabulary.   Language is the tool, and many have lost the ability to converse.   People shouting at each other never solve anything.

When national discourse becomes strictly ideological, an ossified religion, then a demagogue can step in and fill the space easily with shop worn but unworkable solutions that incites a climate of violence, hatred and national despair.  Politics has unfortunately devolved into a semi-religion, a divine knowledge based upon ignorance, a divine pseudo-knowledge of only Manichean opinion.

It has become possible that the barbarians are no longer at the gate, they are inside and the Republic is in grave danger of dying from within, as did the Roman Empire.   Historians do understand one thing:  that nation states, or empires throughout history do not last in perpetuity.  The ones that do are based upon tolerance and understanding.

THE MADNESS OF KING DONALD

Increasing evidence of insanity continue to emanate from the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, causing numerous psychiatric sources to opine about the NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) president, who having accomplished nothing but installing a retrograde Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, struts and prances around the living quarters in his bathrobe and pajamas, tweeting crude insults to members of the media, especially women, and ranting at his staff while going from TV to TV.   Sallying forth with embarrassing lies and pronouncements, preparing for his 2020 campaign by conducting rallies among his unenlightened followers, instead of governing, having failed to appoint mid level bureaucrats, leaves the government to flounder about, like a grouper just fished out of the water lying on a deck waiting to be disemboweled and served for dinner.

And now the mad king goes to the G 20 summit, unprepared, because he does not read briefing papers, or meet with staff.   Be prepared, Donald, to have your lunch eaten.

Enter Vladimir Putin, an evil kleptocratic KGB murderer, who denies all interference in our elections, and prepares to meet Donald Trump.   What will they discuss?   How to fire Robert Mueller or dump him in the Potomac?  Perhaps feed him some polonium-laden tea?   How to keep the Russian investments in Trump bankruptcies secret, saving the Donald's financial empire?  Oh, of course, for public consumption, they might discuss the US having shot down a Syrian warplane about to drop barrel bombs on children and how the US is to handle the North Koreans, etc.   But that story is for "losers," or "neudachniks," if you prefer the Russian transliteration.   Nothing will come of it, save some public blather.

Putin really knows how to deal and steal.   Rosneft, the Russian oil company/money laundry is a creation of Russian kleptocrats of whom Putin is the capo de tutti capi, ostensibly richer than Bill Gates, Carlos Slim and Warren Buffet combined.  The difference, of course, is that Putin's money has been made by stealing from others and murdering his critics, including journalists, financiers, and business adversaries, either sending them to watery graves in the Volga or serving them the aforementioned tea.  Oh, I forgot, having some of them riddled with bullets near the Kremlin wall.  

Trump will be attending Putin University at any meeting with a man who has an 80% approval rating in his own country, unlike the feckless Donald who is sinking fast, around 38%.  Imagine that, Russia with a failing one trick (oil and gas) economy having such a soaring approval rating?

Could it be the control of the state television, the newspapers, the Internet that might be helping with this?    Are Russian muziks dumber than Trump voters?  Less informed?  Hard to believe, since only 20% of American voters follow politics at all.  They actually believe that Trump is going to send them back to the coalmines, making America great again.   And after all, this notion, this appeal to nostalgia is a powerful seductive slogan for an empty headed, pandering con man.  He knows how to run a reality show, after all.   Donald is all about America in the 50s and 60s, and judging by his cabinet members, Scott Pruitt, Rick Perry and Betsy De Voss, a segregated, white revanchist America is on their distorted agenda.   The 50s were peaceful under Eisenhower, but social progress was limited to the white middle industrial class, now being replaced by a mélange of color and immigrant diversity and robotics rendering America a new frontier of technology.   Immigration policies that wish to stifle this aspiration to greatness is doomed, an illusory fantasy cloud crafted by a mad hatter immersed in the wonderland of his own narcissism.

And the loss of healthcare for millions of Americans as a right not an earned benefit, is a non-starter except for retrograde luddites like Mitch McConnell, a politician that makes Machiavelli wiggle with delight in his 15th century grave.  Paul Ryan, the other power broker of the GOP sees only lower taxes, caring nothing about the American experience.  Whichever way the wind blows is fine with him.  Unprincipled cowards, both.

Oh America.  It is the fourth of July.  The founding fathers are recoiling from the 18th century compromises that founded the country.  Thomas Jefferson is wondering how science, one of his main passions, aside from impregnating slaves, is being thwarted by the likes of Rick Perry, and Scott Pruitt, who is forcing forward his climate denialist agenda, rolling back rules diminishing pollution and lead in the water.  

Theodore Roosevelt called these hombres malefactors of great wealth.  Well folks, they are in control of our government, and it will be years before we can get back to where we need to be.

The Madness of King Donald is on full display, with the help of the GOP and its pusillanimous leadership.  At least when America was great there were great leaders in the Congress, who thought beyond blind partisanship.

OF LAWYERS, PHARMACEUTICALS, AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

I am a trial lawyer and have been for 45 years. I have tried many cases, some of which I would dearly like to forget, some bearing fond memories, because of the lives I have touched and, in manyrespects, made a difference in.

When the vigor of my youth was in service and as a young member of what I thought to be a noble profession, state bar associations forbade lawyer advertising.  The playing field did not belong to leviathan firms devoting enormous amounts of resources to luring potential injury clients through their oak or glassed doors by marketing devices that have become so sophisticated a net, even clients with some modicum of intelligence could not resist their allure.  A list of large verdicts on their websites and circulars imply great success, and how much money will eventually wind up in the client’s pocket. Of course, this is a fiction and the bar does not allow ads that guarantee results, but still, the implication is there, perhaps a bit more nuanced.

This type of advertising is, according to court decisions, permissible in the United States because of the first amendment.  But clearly something is amiss.

“Mesothelioma patients have many questions,” endlessly droning on CNN and the other daytime broadcasts, “call us at 800 …...”   “If you were injured by a medical device,” call us,    “If you took drug X and suffered serious side effects, call us.”  “If you suffered poor medical care, call us….”   "Top Lawyers" magazines, supported by lawyers who seek esteem and more importantly, increased revenues pay to be listed as a "Top Lawyer"  Ambiguous requirements for listing in such publications betray their pecuniary motivations for listing a lawyer.  And if one does not have a sophisticated website, one exists only to loved ones, presumably if he makes it home for dinner.

You get the picture.   Millions of dollars lavished to corner the market, marginalizing lawyers who do not devote their resources to advertising.    Bear in mind that lawyers who prolifically advertise, are not necessarily more competent than lawyers who do not.  Very often lawyers who do not advertise are better at what they do, devoting time to their clients, not to market share, and relying on word of mouth of satisfied clients over years of building a reputation.  Of course, the consumer should make educated choices on who will represent them.  But often they are hoodwinked into believing that the bigger the ad the better the lawyer.   This notion misguided.

Many lawyers who run huge marketing operations have never seen the inside of a courtroom, operating their firms as referral mills, obtaining associate fees on cases they do not even work on.  Ok, some lawyers do perform a valuable service in a case and deserve a referral fee, but many do not.  The bar makes no distinction, the rationale being that the referring lawyer provides value to the hapless client in search of good representation.  Or he had done work on the file and needed a team to help with the complexities of the case and an army of defense lawyers against him, if he or she is a sole practitioner.

Much worse, pharmaceutical companies advertise prescription drugs on television, in print media and now in social media.  “Ask your doctor about Viagra.” A beautiful woman glides down the porch on her way to the bedroom, a come hither look on her face.  A couple sit in adjoining bathtubs, holding hands, “when the time is right, why wait?”  Cialis for daily use.   And by the way, if you see yellow or go blind or die of low blood pressure because you take some other medication that interacts badly, stop taking it immediately and call your doctor (or 911).  I am not making this up. Ask your doctor about almost every newly minted drug.  “If you have cancer and have low platelets, ask your doctor, ask your doctor, ask your doctor….”   Following a rustic scene about a poor soul staring out a window suffering from heart failure, an ethereal smile on his face, the ad promises a brighter tomorrow accompanied by “The Sun Will Come up Tomorrow,” for someone who is soon to die or get on the transplant list.  Then the ad proceeds to list a litany of hastily announced side effects (small print) that would frighten Superman.  The old dad or mom, in the nursing home, a happy smile on their face, could have their dementia slowed, but the drug might kill them or cause them to commit suicide? Or not stop the progression of the disease.  No help at all.  Who would take that medicine after hearing that?  Consumers circumventing medical advice because they have been brainwashed because of marketing?   Some of us are old enough to remember “More doctors smoke Camels than other brands, because it is better for your “T Zone.” We do not see those ads any more.

Meanwhile the courts allow this commercial speech as though it were a preciously guarded first amendment right.  The same as a right to political speech.  This type of pharmaceutical advertising is banned in the European Union and in most other countries and for good reason.  Consumers are not qualified to evaluate medical prescriptions.  If they were we could all stroll down to Walgreen’s or CVS and write our own.

Doctors go to medical school presumably to learn about which drugs to prescribe, not to be bombarded by brainwashed patients asking questions over some obviously hyped up medication, fueled by advertising dollars, often in the billions.  Clearly this has a chilling effect on what doctors actually prescribe, because even they are very often not sure and must read studies and do research, following strict protocols.   These ads are dangerous and people should be made aware by the FDA or a compulsory fund paid by the drug companies, which could run ads warning people not to believe drug advertisements or take them at face value.  But no such counter advertising exists, because the funding is not there.

Very often studies show that the new medication, costing more, is no more effective than an older medication sold over the counter, costing far less.   Health care costs rising?  Ask your pharmaceutical company.  Or ask your congressman who could draft some new laws were they not lunching with drug company lobbyists.

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THE ROAD TO TYRANNY: THE MARGINALIZATION OF THE PRESS AND THE RULE OF LAW

In his State of the Union speech in January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt declared America's commitment to Four Freedoms in the struggle against Nazi totalitarianism. Among them was the freedom from fear.

Robert Dallek

Much of the fear generated in our body politic, exacerbated by the vituperative and vindictive emanations from President Trump and his acolyte apologists, attacking the free press read directly from the totalitarian playbook.  Anyone who has studied European history understands the origins of German totalitarianism flowed from the democratic election of Adolf Hitler in 1933. 

Abrogation of liberty occurred incrementally, and generally, with the population at large ignoring each erosive stage since Germans thought it would not affect them individually, a beach washed away by waves.  In Weimar Germany, Hitler’s consolidation of power, a step-by-step process, took years, in which his original supporters and putative enemies were first marginalized, arrested, imprisoned and then murdered.   New illicit laws supported Hitler's perfidious allegations that the press were foreign subversive agents of the Bolsheviks and the Jews, enemies of the state.  Then journalists were arrested, followed by the Nuremberg laws proscribing racial guidelines and Aryanism to the first degree, the second degree and so on down the totem pole.  Jews were at the bottom, on their way to be classified as subhuman, eligible for deportation, arrest and extermination.  Neighbors denounced neighbors.  All of this unchecked by institutions gradually dissolved and laws perverted by a master of manipulation of baser instincts of the human psyche--fear.  Sound familiar?

Hitler announced his intentions in Mein Kampf, but took time to effectuate his plan for Europe and the rest of the world.  He believed America set an example of what he should do in Eastern Europe by its treatment of the Native American, Mexicans, and the "lesser races" by its racially inspired concept of Manifest destiny in which the white government expropriated the land of Native Americans and had enslaved African Americans.  Andrew Jackson, a Trump hero, was a proponent of this policy of racial exclusion.  Hitler's plan of lebensraum was a copycat version related to the "lesser" races of Eastern Europe, the Slavs, the gypsies, the Jews, the Russians, the Poles.  He was weak at first, people dismissing him as a crank and a madman.  Even Jewish newspapers editorialized that once he assumed office he would moderate his position.   He would act more like a statesman. 

In Germany, the Fuhrer embarked in a plan of dominance based upon the nationalistic instincts of Germans, his propaganda ministry churning out lies and misinformation to explain and scapegoat the problems of the Reich, by blaming minorities, communists, Jews and political opposition, jailing journalists, clergy and promulgating a world view of racial and nationalistic animus codifying it all into perversions of law facilitated by courts of Nazi martinet judicial imposters.

History instructs us about past events roughly analogous to what is happening today.   American institutions and the rule of law are under threat from a President the likes of whom we have never seen before, who cannot distinguish between lies and truth, is ignorant of policy and has no understanding of the world order.  His own worldview preys upon the baser instincts of fearful people, who believed our former President was a Muslim not born in the United States and who would "institute Sharia law in the United States of America." Trump played this fear like he played his stiffed workers. This alone should have been disqualifying for a presidential candidate.  But his followers do not care.  They actually believed the con.  Whatever else Trump is not, he is a master showman, a PT Barnum, relying on the gullibility of the ignorant, the uneducated, the true believer.  His latest trip is an attempt to manipulate the Justice Department.

In 1945, the United Nations, formed as a methodology of dispute settlement among nations rather than war, has essentially kept the peace for 70 years.  Disagreements between nations, including trade were to be arbitrated and the results binding.  The world did not want to relive the horror of a war that killed 50 million people.  Now Trump, an anathema to this principle wishes to return to the 1930s--every nation for itself.  A return to the 20th century, the most devastating in human history.    He visits Saudi Arabia and praises a nation that disregards human rights and then castigates our democratic allies.   He criticizes South Korea on the eve of an election between a friendly to America candidate and an antipathetic one when he knows the South Koreans are our most important ally in efforts to curb the madman in the north.  The antipathetic candidate wins the election.   Denzel Washington on his best day could not stop this runaway train.

Worst of all is his attack on our free press, reminiscent of states like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Hungary, and Putin's Russia, who everyone now knows meddled in our election and is attempting to destabilize NATO and democracy in America.  His admiration of dictators and authoritarians is no less secret than Madonna's bra.  He orates on the banks of the Ohio river talking about the renaissance of coal and the promise of new jobs that will not come back, nakedly averting attention from the potentially explosive investigation, showcasing his tainted character and degradation of his Presidency to the peril of all Americans.

Our institutions need more vigilance from below than ever before.  The roots in the tree of Liberty are fragile.

The New Bolshevism

A lie told often enough becomes the truth. 
-- Vladimir Iliich Lenin 

So the Trump reality show continues.    Now that Trump has fired the FBI director, what can we expect next?   Will there be a staff shakeup with Spicey being shown the door, because he could not anticipate what the President would say next?   Even Mike Pence echoed the first impression he was given that the President followed the recommendation to sack Comey of the acting Attorney General, backed up by his boss, the inimitable, Confederate flag waving Jeff Sessions, who supposedly had been recused by his own hand from anything dealing with the Russian investigation over which the President has clearly been losing sleep.  Spicey and Sessions can be fired; Pence cannot.  Somehow that paradigm of "I am a Christian first, American second, and Republican, third,” must be going home to his equally devout wife and privately saying, "Golly gee, honey!  I may be President sooner than we thought!"

Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have already revealed their unwillingness to stand up to a President who is clearly unhinged, or as David Brooks notes in his New York Times column today, is a child with the inability to control himself.  Witness the revelation of intelligence data that could compromise sources in allied countries, which the Russians can probably clearly figure out. In this case, Israel, the enemy of Russian clients, Assad, Iran, and Hizbollah. And Donald thinks that it was a "productive" meeting, especially the day after he fired Comey, investigating the administration for possible collusion with those same Russians.  And today, breaking news, Putin wants to help with release of information concerning the meeting where American journalists and photographers were excluded.

Ryan, by pushing through the House a health care bill that marginalizes the poor, the unfortunate, the sick and the elderly who have not yet reached the Medicare starting line, should be worrying about voter wrath come the next election.              Under Trumpcare, bulldozed through the House by a President whose ego needed a "win" more than caring about the angry constituents who put him in the White House to "drain the swamp," will have to look up from their far right websites and blame the elites for not recognizing that Trump is not on their side.    The cynicism of it all is unimaginable. 

A recent Netflix documentary about Roger Stone, the consummate Machivellian operator who ports a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back ( I am not making this up,) and described by Trump as a "good guy,"  is so disquieting, that the entire nature of our political process blossoms into some scary Steven King scenario about evil. The court of the Borgias, if you will.   Roy Cohen, the lawyer for Joseph McCarthy, and one of the darker stains on our Communist baiting past, appears as one of Stone's heroes.   Cohen was Trump's mentor and taught him how to defraud with impunity all the naifs who came his way; the documentary catalogs all the dirty tricks that make Frank Underwood look like a volunteer for medcins sans frontiers.  The man is totally  devoid of any moral compass, just as his boss is.  From Watergate to Trump, Stone has triumphed in lowering the bar so far, the most accomplished limboist could not emerge from the other side.

But this time it may be too much.  Even Republicans are beginning to wake up to the "Art of the Deal, the author of which was not really Trump.   In fact the author had to follow Trump around, listening to his phone calls to be able to assemble a skeleton of a manuscript.  We are not some Atlantic City stone masons, stiffed by a scoundrel who now happens to occupy the oval office.  The great legal scholar Lawrence Tribe, has already called for impeachment for obstruction of justice.  Trump's conversation with Comey, possibly taped should be subpoenaed by either the house judiciary committee or by a special prosecutor.  And the assistant Attorney General ought to appoint one immediately.  If the President is exonerated, then we can lurch to the next manufactured crisis.

On top of the daunting issue of possible collusion with the Russian government to tamper with our election, looms the greater threat to the nation:   The subversion of our separation of powers, the disbanding of the administrative state, the denigration of the judiciary and of the press, and the admiration for a Russian kleptocrat and other authoritarian leaders, including African dictators, European and Hungarian autocrats and other scalawags.    The idea that all reliable information (or misinformation) comes from the leader.  The rest is fake news.

Anyone who has studied European history knows that it part and parcel of a mindset that is totally un-American, denigrate the media, call them fake and then disseminate one's own version of the alternative facts.   

It’s all so Bolsheviki.

The Electoral College is Inherently Undemocratic

Factcheck.org: 

"The 2016 election was the most recent when the candidate who received the greatest number of electoral votes, and thus won the presidency, didn’t win the popular vote. But this scenario has played out in our nation’s history before.

In 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected president despite not winning either the popular vote or the electoral vote. Andrew Jackson was the winner in both categories. Jackson received 38,000 more popular votes than Adams, and beat him in the electoral vote 99 to 84. Despite his victories, Jackson didn’t reach the majority 131 votes needed in the Electoral College to be declared president. In fact, neither candidate did. The decision went to the House of Representatives, which voted Adams into the White House.

In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the election (by a margin of one electoral vote), but he lost the popular vote by more than 250,000 ballots to Samuel J. Tilden.

In 1888, Benjamin Harrison received 233 electoral votes to Grover Cleveland’s 168, winning the presidency. But Harrison lost the popular vote by more than 90,000 votes.

In 2000, George W. Bush was declared the winner of the general election and became the 43rd president, but he didn’t win the popular vote either. Al Gore holds that distinction, garnering about 540,000 more votes than Bush. However, Bush won the electoral vote, 271 to 266.

In 2016, Donald Trump won the electoral vote by 304 to 227 over Hillary Clinton, but Trump lost the popular vote. Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump, according to an analysis by the Associated Press of the certified results in all 50 states and Washington, D.C."

All of the above are examples of flaws, not qualities of the Electoral College,

 established originally to ensure the perpetuation of a balance between slave and free states,

should be relegation to the dustbin.   Many arguments have been advanced for its preservation, including federalism allowing each state the freedom to enact laws without maximizing the incentive of the number of votes cast.  This argument is specious and defeats democratic (with a small d) principles.  Other arguments include enhancement of small states based upon a geographic argument, encourages stability through a two party system and if a presidential candidate dies, then the College would be better positioned to elect a vice president.  Also, proponents argue that the system insures more stability in the event of a recount and that it manages geographic discrepancies in population centers "balancing the vote so that rural communities are fairly treated. 

All of these arguments are specious.   Why are we obliged to maintain a strictly two-party system?  Why not have candidates of various parties face the voters directly?  And then have a run-off between the two highest vote recipients?  Many Americans believe that neither party serves their interests. We are one country now, more so despite polarization of the populace by propaganda outlets like Fox News and people not willing to entertain or even listen to an opposing point of view.  We are connected by Facebook, television, the internet, social media, smart phones, text messages, and no longer rely on a letter delivered by the post, which often took weeks to reach the other side of the nation, often by pony express. The argument that the Electoral College equalizes geographic space is silly.  People are free to live where they wish, but should not be accorded three times the representation in Wyoming than in California. So, as it happens, it is not fair to urban voters.

Creative 21st century arguments in favor of the Electoral college belie the fundamental purposes of the it as originally conceived: To maintain the balance of slave and free states joining the Union, the disenfranchisement of slaves yet the tabulation of those unfortunate souls as 3/5ths of a person for the purpose of apportionment. In addition, the founders did not trust the uneducated, the ignorant, and the agrarian.   Women were not considered capable of rational thought and therefore were not entitled to the vote. 

Direct popular voting for the President of the United States may not have been altered the result in favor of a master of tweeting and of television celebrity.  Perhaps.  But in the disastrous results of the 2016 election where the votes of 3 million Americans were nullified by a 18th century relic, it is time for some serious revisions in the Constitution.  Antonin Scalia and Neil Gorsuch might not agree.  The Constitutuion should stay just as it was in 1787.

The stronger arguments rests with the interpretation of the 14th amendment, which guaranteed suffrage to all voters save women (another subject).

The 14th amendment

The second section I consider the most important in the article. It fixes the basis of representation in Congress. If any State shall exclude any of her adult male citizens from the elective franchise, or abridge that right, she shall forfeit her right to representation in the same proportion. The effect of this provision will be either to compel the States to grant universal suffrage or so shear them of their power as to keep them forever in a hopeless minority in the national Government, both legislative and executive.

Thaddeus Stevens,  in the United States Senate, May 8, 1866

One could argue that since the passage of the 14th amendment, the Electoral College has abrogated equality of vote.  The will of the people has been stifled by an inherently undemocratic system that apportions votes in the Senate giving people in Wyoming, for example three times the representation of people in California and almost the same disparity in Florida?

There have been numerous attempts to reform this thorn in the side of our civic polity.  All have failed. Now, more than ever, we each need the same voice in choosing our President. A two-month television campaign, use of social media, public financing, the overturning of Citizen's United, and a truly democratic one-person one-vote be they live in California, New Hampshire or Iowa.

Looking at the result of the most recent election, the majority of Americans, it is again confirmed, have surrendered their franchise to the minority.   Some intrepid souls should organize a march on Washington.