With Nary A "Thank You" From Trump

History can repeat itself, albeit in a cryptic manner.  In November of 2009 investigative reporter Robert Parry recalled

In fall 1980, as President Jimmy Carter struggled to free 52 American hostages in Iran and as American voters focused on a crossroads election, key supporters of Republican candidate Ronald Reagan were confident not only of Reagan’s victory but that the hostages wouldn’t be released until after Reagan was sworn in.

He wrote that CIA operative Miles

Copeland, who had taken part in the CIA’s covert operation to oust Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and replace him with the Shah back in 1953, told me during an interview in 1990 that he and some of his old CIA colleagues, including Iran hand Archibald Roosevelt, were in touch with Republicans regarding Carter’s Iranian hostage crisis of 1980...

These Republicans, however, didn't believe it necessary to device a plan to set the hostages free because

“That was sort of an open secret among people in the intelligence community, that that would happen. … The intelligence community certainly had some understanding with somebody in Iran in authority, in a way that they would hardly confide in me.”

Copeland said his CIA friends had been told by contacts in Iran that the mullahs would deliver the hostages to Reagan.

“At that time, we had word back, because you always have informed relations with the devil,” Copeland said. “But we had word that, ‘Don’t worry.’ As long as Carter wouldn’t get credit for getting these people out, as soon as Reagan came in, the Iranians would be happy enough to wash their hands of this and move into a new era of Iranian-American relations.”

Moments after Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6) was sworn in as the 40th President, the Americans were released by Tehran.   Jimmy Carter thus was humiliated and Republicans spun into motion the story that the hostages were released only because the Iranians were terrified of what the big, tough President Reagan would do to them otherwise.

Contrary to myth still spread by Republicans to this day, the mullahs in Iran had maneuvered- by styming all efforts at setting the hostages free- to defeat President Carter and elect a guy who later turned out to be their patsy.  Fifty-two Americans had gained their freedom, but too late for Jimmy Carter and just as Reagan's presidency began. Mission accomplished.

Thirty-five years later, something analogous occurred in the GOP presidential race. And so it  was that in late March we read

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz says “there’s no good reason” for rival John Kasich to continue his campaign.

“When you go 1-for-27, that’s a problem,” Cruz said of Kasich during a Friday interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

"At this point it is clear the voters have decided it is a two-man race," he added. "It is between me and Donald Trump. We are the only two candidates with any plausible path to win the nomination."

Nevertheless, Kasich continued to run interference for Trump by refusing to leave the field to a two-man race, which would have included a candidate harboring an eclectic batch of political views and history of personal associations including Cosa Nostra figures, the Clintons, and others.  Facing him would have been Ted Cruz, a conservative stalwart who has been a Tea Party favorite and has argued before the Supreme Court nine times.

Refusing to drop out, Kasich denied Cruz a very favorable matchup, the contest the Senator longed for with the business mogul and newcomer to the Republican Party.

Following his devastating loss to Trump on Tuesday, Cruz abruptly and surprisingly exited the race. Though it had been clear for at least five weeks that Kasich had virtually no chance at being nominated, he decided only the day after Cruz's announcement to declare that he, too, was dropping out. The governor told reporters "I have always said that the Lord has a purpose for me as he has for everyone. And as I suspend my campaign today, I have renewed faith, deeper faith, that the Lord will show me the way forward and fulfill the purpose of my life."







Mission accomplished.  Just as American hostages were released practically to the minute Jimmy Carter left the presidency, so, too, did Kasich leave the field for Donald Trump once he had blocked the way forward for Ted Cruz.  Perhaps the Lord did have a purpose for John Kasich. Once it was accomplished, there was no need for him to continue his candidacy.

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Falling In Line

In December, House Speaker Paul Ryan panned Donald Trump's proposal to deny entrance to the country of any Muslim,  citing "the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of whom are peaceful, who believe in pluralism, freedom, democracy, individual rights." The media swooned., as it usually does for Ryan (Scott Pelley conned, below).








Since Trump became his party's presumptive presidential nominee, numerous Republicans have endorsed him while others thus far have resisted the urge.  Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson is not amused at the reluctance of several prominent Republicans, especially the Speaker Paul, to fall in line immediately.  Friday morning on CNN, Pierson argued "we were told to hold our noses and vote for the sake of the party. These same people are now telling us that because their guy didn't win, they want to hurt the party."

On Thursday, according to Charles Pierce, Ryan had told CNN's Jake Tapper

I'm just not ready to do that at this point. I'm not there right now…"I thought about this two days ago. I thought, actually, this thing was going to go to June 7 at the very least—probably to a convention—and so this is all pretty new for us. The bulk of the burden on unifying the party will have to come from our presumptive nominee. I don't want to underplay what he accomplished. ... But he also inherits something very special, that's very special to a lot of us. This is the party of Lincoln and Reagan and Jack Kemp. And we don't always nominate a Lincoln or a Reagan every four years, but we hope that our nominee aspires to be Lincoln- or Reagan-esque—that that person advances the principles of our party and appeals to a wide, vast majority of Americans… And so, I think what is necessary to make this work, for this to unify, is to actually take our principles and advance them. And that's what we want to see. Saying we're unified doesn't in and of itself unify us, but actually taking the principles that we all believe in, showing that there's a dedication to those, and running a principled campaign that Republicans can be proud about and that can actually appeal to a majority of Americans—that, to me, is what it takes to unify this party.

Sean Hannity, who already has formally endorsed Trump, was more blunt than Pierson. Politico reported that he began a segment with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich by asking "I'm thinking maybe we need a new speaker. Thoughts?"

Yes, thoughts.  Oddly enough, Donald Trump himself- of all people- put it into perspective when he said it was "really surprising" but that he is "fine with it." I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan's agenda," Trump added, a suble way of reminding Ryan that this door swings both ways and that the possible future President himself has a couple of cards to play.

There is no reason for concern, Sean. The operative term is "ready," not coincidntally used by both of these guys. Charlie Pierce translated Ryan's latest dance as "I'm going to come around on the vulgar talking yam, but I need a few weeks of completely undeserved approval to make sure my media-cultivated image as a serious person stays nice and shiny."

This will be a classic case of "evolving," without the Speaker using the term the dreaded Obama used when the President came around on the issue of same-sex marriage.   He will endorse the fellow who said John McCain is no war hero, vividly mocked a disabled reporter, bragged on national television about the size of his genitals. threatened to abolish freedom of the press, and suggested Rafael Cruz was in on the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And he will con the media into applauding him for being both the quintessential Person of Reason and loyal party man.















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The 'Whatever' Candidate

Politico notes that Donald Trump has named as his national finance chairman Steve Munchin who, after 17 years at Goldman Sachs

became founder, president and CEO of OneWest Bank Group LLC from 2009 to 2015, a bank backed by Soros and several other hedge fund managers and billionaires. The group sold the bank to CIT Group for $3.4 billion in a merger that was completed last August.

During his tenure at Goldman Sachs and beyond, Mnuchin contributed more than $7,000 to Clinton's New York Senate bids in 2000 and 2006 as well as her run for the Democratic nomination in 2008, according to federal contribution data on OpenSecrets. Mnuchin also donated $1,000 to Republican candidate Steve Forbes in June 1999, along with several other presidential and congressional candidates in both parties. Mnuchin contributed $2,000 to Barack Obama's 2004 Senate campaign and $2,300 for his presidential bid in 2007.

This is the guy who really wants to shake up the Establishment and smash politics as usual, just as he slammed Ted Cruz with "I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton."   Or as one of the fellows at Red State remarked, Mnuchin is "an interesting guy. Big Hollywood connections, big Wall Street resume, big money friends. You know, all the stuff that was bad bad bad but is now good good good because Trump says so."

We were warned it is an act.  On April 21, the AP reported that in a private briefing  "Donald Trump's chief lieutenants told skeptical Republican leaders Thursday that the GOP front-runner has been 'projecting an image' so far in the 2016 primary season and 'the part that he's been playing is now evolving' in a way that will improve his standing among general election voters."

He was putting us on as early as February 13 when he argued in debate in South Carolina "I'm the only one on this stage that said, "Do not go into Iraq. Do not attack Iraq. Nobody else on this stage said that. And I said it loud and strong."  Or when one week earlier he had stated in a debate in North Carolina "And remember this, I’m the only one up here, when the war of Iraq — in Iraq, I was the one that said, “Don’t go, don’t do it, you’re going to destabilize the Middle East.' Nor on September 16, when he had claimed "I am the only person on this dais- the only person- that fought very, very hard against us (ph) and I wasn't a sitting politician going into Iraq, because I said going into Iraq- that was in 2003, you can check it out, check it out. I'll give you 25 different stories."

He, and his supporters, have given us zero (0)..  According to BuzzFeed, Trump was asked by Howard Stern on September 11, 2002 if he supported invading Iraq and replied "Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly."   In January, 2003 he decisively old Neil Cavuto the President "has either got to do something or not do something,"

On balance, the record indicates Trump appeared ambivalent about the war, a far cry from the guy who claims he foresaw "exactly what happened."









It's impossible to now for sure what Trump believes even about immigration, despite his radical and harsh rhetoric. In early January, he discussed immigration off-the-record with members of The New York Times editorial board and later refused to release the transcript. Gail Collins- in what is believed to have reflected contents of the chat- concluded "The most optimistic analysis of Trump as a presidential candidate is that he just doesn’t believe in positions, except the ones you adopt for strategic purposes when you’re making a deal." On September 6, I had written

Clear, unambiguous, and definitive- or maybe not. Javier Palomerez, president and CEO of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, appeared on Tuesday's All In With Chris Hayes.   When Palomerez stated "The Donald Trump that I met today and that I sat with today was very different from the Donald Trump that I saw in the media," Hayes asked "what do you mean by that?" and Palomerez responded

The Donald Trump I sat with today was hospitable, he was a gentleman. He listened much more than he spoke. He asked questions.

We continue to disagree, particularly on the wall. We agreed on this notion of mass deportation of 11 million people. And we continued to agree on the fact that we will not use Trump properties.

We agreed on this notion of mass deportation of 11 million people.  (Javier Palomerez doesn't want 11 people, let alone 11 million people, deported.)  If we don't know what Donald Trump's views are about immigration, we probably don't know what they are about anything- except himself. “He referred to my hands," Trump once boasted, "and said, ‘If they’re small, something else must be small,’ and I guarantee you there’s no problem. There’s no problem.”








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Shed No Tears

The moment Ted Cruz announced he was suspending his campaign for President, one audience member yelled "You’re a great man, Ted!"

Across the country, many- even dozens of- people held that same sentiment. Perhaps.

Cruz continually cites Ronald Reagan but he lacks not only his hero's malleable commitment to principle but also the ex-President's personal touch, primarily an inability to fake authenticity. Salon's Gary Legum recognizes  

Cruz had the mechanics of running a presidential campaign down cold. But Republican voters didn’t want an “authentic” conservative who probably has well-worn flash cards he used to memorize every policy position that an intern pulled from the #tcot hashtag on Twitter. They want an authentic human being, and that is where Trump, with his improvised speeches, his insults, his rough outer-borough accent, his entire gestalt, had Cruz easily beaten. Even if Trump is just playing the part, he’s a hell of a better actor than the senator from Texas.

In other words, Ted Cruz could not out-bullshit a genuine bullshitter. That reality is finally breaking through to him this week. It would be sad to watch, if he hadn’t engendered enough disgust to make it enjoyable.

For those of us reluctant to see the nation lurch dramatically rightward, it could only have been enjoyable.  As Legum puts it, "With Cruz, no myth was too outlandish or ridiculous to be stated as fact to his audiences. (That he is losing to a conspiracy theorist like Trump only makes this more hilarious.)"  The country is much better off without him, even though as a U.S. Senator he will continue to try to wreak havoc.

"No myth was too outlandish," like the inference that he was following in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.   "Even from a Montgomery jail." the Texas Senator said last night, "our voice for justice and equality rings out for the ages. America is hopeful, optimistic."

Even from a Montgomery jail he pleads, in an outlandish case of chutzpah, or gall. Reverend King lost his life on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had traveled to join unionized sanitation workers on strike.  "Our needs are labor's needs," he declared in 1961. Both observant and prescient, he added "those who in the second half of the nineteenth century could not tolerate organized labor have had a rebirth of power and seek to regain the despotism of that era while retaining the wealth and privileges of the twentieth century."

It is now the twenty-first century and there still are individuals who seek to concentrate wealth and privileges in the hands of a few. Among them are Ted Cruz, who a mere five weeks ago praised Governor Scott Walker's union busting, including euphemistically, ridiculously named "right-to-work" laws, such as the one Walker is responsible for in Wisconsin. Such an approach, Cruz threatened, "is exactly what we need to do in Washington."

So we are done with carpet-bombing Ted in the Executive branch, at least for now, and for everyone not among the elite who rule society atop their perch of extreme wealth, that is an unmitigated blessing.















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Distinction Without A Difference

Richard Pyor is dead- literally and figuratively, and it's unfortunate on both counts.

Salon's Chauncey DeVega, praising the "beautiful and wondrous" moment of Larry Wilmore's routine, believes "the last correspondents’ dinner of Obama’s two terms was a fitting end to a landmark presidency as a president of the United States who happens to be black was accompanied by a comedian who is unapologetically black and together they played with, subverted, and mocked the White Gaze."

He is referring especially to the end of the speech in which Wilmore commented

Thank you for being a good sport, Mr. President, but all jokes aside, let me just say how much it means for me to be here tonight. I’ve always joked that I voted for the president because he’s black. And people say, “Well, do you agree with his policies?” And I always said, “I agree with the policy that he’s black.” I said, “As long as he keeps being black, I’m good.” They’d say, “What about Iraq?” “Is he still black?”

Stop right there, Larry. That's reasonably funny and point well-made.  Don't do it, Larry- don't do it! No such luck.  He continued

But behind that joke is a humble appreciation for the historical implications for what your presidency means.

When I was a kid, I lived in a country where people couldn’t accept a black quarterback. Now think about that. A black man was thought by his mere color not good enough to lead a football team — and now, to live in your time, Mr. President, when a black man can lead the entire free world.

Words alone do me no justice. So, Mr. President, if i’m going to keep it 100: Yo, Barry, you did it, my n—-. You did it.

Thank you very much, good night!

On Monday's Nightly Show, Wilmore slammed Pierce Morgan because "he quoted me as saying 'yo, Barry,you did it my n***er!'"   Wilmore maintained "Piers, you did not properly conjugate that slur." He continued "'N***er' is what white people use to denigrate, demean, and dehumanize black people" (point deserved for alliteration). Rather, "'n***ah' is a term of endearment that some black people use between each other to take back that power."









To take back that power. How has that worked so far for black people, Larry? For any of us, a few random David Duke(s) aside?

President Obama clearly was not unhappy with Wilmore's remark, nor was it much out of the mainstream at an annual event characterized far more by great humor than for good taste or inoffensiveness.  Still, "it's an ugly thing and I hope someday they give it up," Richard Pryor once famously said.  Pryor considered the word- in DeVega's phrasing- "the ugliest word in the English language."

And so DeVega is wrong in labeling "n***ag" the "linguistic cousin of 'n***er'." It is not the linguistic cousin- it is the twin brother. Rationalizing its as one used by blacks "to take back that power" is unexplained, unhelpful, and unwise.  It is a stark, raving example of a double standard. Wilmore hasn't taken back the power (whatever that is supposed to mean) and instead, by refusing to own up to what he said, has done his little bit to legitimize use of the term he recognizes as ugly when used by whites.









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That Old Time Segregation

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg gave the commencement speech on April 30 at the University of Michigan and

"The fact that some university boards and administrations now bow to pressure and shield students from these ideas through 'safe spaces,' 'code words' and 'trigger warnings' is, in my view, a terrible mistake," Bloomberg said, drawing a smattering of boos and some applause.

Bloomberg remarked that college's "whole purpose" is "to learn how to deal with difficult situations — not to run away from them."

"A microaggression is exactly that: micro," he said. "And one of the most dangerous places on a college campus is a safe space, because it creates the false impression that we can isolate ourselves from those who hold different views."

"We can't, and we shouldn't, try — not in politics and not in the workplace," he said.

Perhaps when a guy is extraordinarily wealthy he is free to say what ought to be said, immediate reaction be damned.

Hopefully, politicians and potential benefactors everywhere will heed his warning against isolating ourselves from those who hold different views- as we should avoid isolating ourselves from those who are different than we are.

Unfortunately- and probably unknowingly- Bloomberg was singing a different tune when four years ago he bragged at a meeting of the US Conference of Mayors

Over the past decade, thanks to leadership of so many of these mayors and others, the number of students enrolled in charter schools has more than tripled – and I’m proud to say a good portion of that growth has come in New York City.

We’ve opened 139 new charter schools in our city, and we’ve created more than 500 new small schools, non-charters, but ones that give parents of kids top-quality options.

Options they are, not unlike the private academies set up by white parents in the American south after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education outlawed public school segregation.  As a Prince Edward County, Virginia newspaper publisher put it in 1959, "We are working [on] a scheme in which we will abandon public schools, sell the buildings to our corporation, reopen as privately operated schools with tuition grants from [Virginia] and P.E. county as the basic financial program."

The spirit and the letter of  the law has evolved and today applies to the charter school movement. The ghost of Alabama governor George C. Wallace- "segregation today, segregation, tomorrow, and segregation forever"- lives on.  In a statement announcing its complaint filed with the US Department of Education, the Delaware branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Community Legal Aid Society in December, 2014 noted of charter schools' admission policies

These requirements include high examination scores, essays written by parents to explain why a school is a good choice for their child, access to gifted and talented elementary and middle school programs that help increase academic performance, annual activities fees, mandatory parent involvement and mandatory high-cost uniform purchases.  Such barriers prevent students from low-income African-American and Hispanic families from having the same access to high-quality charter schools that middle- and upper-class families have.

In its focus on the Constitution and the law, the ACLU misses one additional  facet of such schools. Many charter schools practice not only de facto racial segregation but de jure gender segregation. Separation by gender is more difficult to challenge legally but, in the end, is still segregation.

One must "learn how to deal with difficult situations- not to run away from them," Michael Bloomberg argues.  Sometimes that difficult situation is learning in an environment which- horror!- includes youngsters of the opposite sex. Word has it that boys and girls often inhabit the same workplace as young adults. They may as well get used to it.
















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Taking Gun Possession Lightly

Some people say God is in the details. Other people say the devil is in the details.  If they're both right, we have the making of an epic clash.

In any case, congressional legislation cannot be thoroughly evaluated without knowing the details of the legislation. However, that hasn't stopped Vox's Dara Lind or Salon's Daniel Denvir- both of whom have many times the readers I have- so it won't stop me. Lind explains that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not decided whether to bring to floor for a vote the revised criminal justice reform bill which

reduces the length of the minimum sentence and limits when it can be used — and allows current prisoners to apply for shorter sentences under the new laws. But under the reported changes, prisoners who'd been convicted of possessing a firearm during a violent crime would no longer have the chance even to apply for a shorter sentence. Only drug prisoners would.

Together, the changes mean that thousands of people will no longer get the chance to seek early releases from prison. The United States Sentencing Commission estimated that 2,317 current prisoners would be eligible for shorter "career criminal" sentences and another 2,500 would be eligible for the extra firearm sentence — though some of those 2,500 will still be eligible.

While "sentencing reductions for drug offenders are expanded," Lind writes, violent offenders would find it difficult to get their sentences cut. Lind laments

Other reforms are being narrowed in some ways, but broadened in others. Reduction of a 20-year minimum sentence for drugs, for example, is now not an option to any prisoner who's ever been convicted of a "serious violent felony" — but it's newly available to people with prior drug convictions if those convictions happened a long time ago.... prisoners wh'd been convicted of possessing a firearm during a violent crime would no longer have the chance even to apply for a shorter sentence. Only drug prisoners would.

If you're starting to get the idea that Lind is interested less in avoiding jailing individuals who pose little or no threat to the community than in a more general aversion to "incarceration," you've been paying attention. She argues

You simply can't fix mass incarceration in America if you're unwilling to shorten the prison sentences of anyone who could be considered a "violent" criminal. That's especially true in state prisons, where the vast majority of US prisoners are held and where half of them are serving sentences for violent crimes.

When politicians talk about criminal justice reform, they tend to leave out this inconvenient fact. They prefer to talk about "nonviolent drug offenders" — even when they're talking about state prisoners.

Well, of course, they talk about "nonviolent drug offenders"- violent offenders should not be living amongst the law-abiding.  Most people understand that, but do not if they are fixated, as Lind appears to be, on "fix(ing) mass incarceration."  The aim should be locking up individuals who should be locked up and allowing the others (presumably supervised) to remain at liberty. And the goal should not be "fixing" or ending "mass incarceration," but rather a safer society while maintaining the individual liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Lind at least avoids the disturbing bias displayed by Daniel Denvir (photo below from Reuters/Fred Thornhill via Salon). While noting "the federal legislation, of course, doesn't address state prisoners," he contends

it shows how emphasizing the plight of nonviolent offenders at the expense of the violent, while politically tempting, serves to perpetuate mass incarceration. Note the calls from Democratic officials and liberal gun control advocates for harsher mandatory minimums for illegal gun possession, which is another way to describe guns possessed by young black men.

Uh, no, it's not. It's another way to describe guns illegally possessed by individuals, which include young black men but also young white men and middle-aged men (less often, Hispanics and women). We should not subject our assessment of the danger posed by an anti-social act, such as illegal firearms possession, to a racial test. (This violation is in contrast to possession of marijuana for personal use, which is a relatively benign infraction and one for which a black is more likely than a white to be arrested.)

As does Lind, Denvir believes the goal of a criminal justice system is not justice but averting "mass incarceration."   Admittedly, one way to eliminate that greatest of all horrors is to open the jail cells wide to allow full, untrammeled liberty to individuals illegally possessing weapons.   It is, however, a prescription for a significantly more violent and lawless society.

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