Parade For Profit

Soon after President Trump announced that he had asked the Department of Defense to plan a military parade, military historian, former military strategist, and New America fellow Robert Bateman 

heard from 14 stars worth of generals. Not a single one supported this. Many told me their stories of how they personally avoided parades as cadets or young officers. And that is just the generals. My inbox was flooded from enlisted and officers of lower ranks.

Theirs were practical considerations. Bateman explains

most of the time soldiers do not parade for show, and doing it requires practice. It is not natural, nor something generally done outside of basic training...

If you are bringing in 40,000 troops, they have to live, sleep, and eat somewhere. The bases near D.C. do not have the capacity to suddenly house that many temporary duty soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. So it’s either tents or hotels. Since the optics of tents would be somewhat problematic, I would guess it’s hotels. But whatever, it is just money, right?





Washington-area bases do not have the capacity for 40,000 soldiers who must sleep and eat somewhere, Bateman realizes. Thus, I would guess it's hotels.

What Washington, DC hotel could accomodate many of those soldiers and provide security- at government expense, of course?

That would be the Trump International Hotel at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.  There are 263 rooms in the facility. At $325 per night, that is a princely sum of $85,475 and a tidy profit for one Donald J. Trump. And that would be for only one night- not including meals- and it's likely that the Chief Executive would specify that the soldiers remain more than one night.

Imagine also the possibility of creating additional sleeping space in the hotel.  The possibilities aren't endless, but they're certainly lucrative.

This wouldn't be a first for President Trump. In October The Hill reported that over a period of several months (mostly February-April), the US Secret Service had paid Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort at least $63,000 for what is believed to be either rooms agents rented or space that was leased. Further, that same month, USA Today pointed out "The Secret Service has spent at least $137,505 to rent golf carts to protect President Trump this year at his private clubs in New Jersey and Florida."





"I think confidence is silent and insecurity is loud," Louisiana Republican John Kennedy said in criticism of Trump's idea That's eloquent and sound, but unlike confidence, money talks, and Donald Trump will rip off the federal government any way he can.




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Courthouse Arrests

Even apart from "Dreamers," the debate over sanctuary cities and, in a larger sense illegal immigration, rages on.  In September Attorney General Jefferson B. Sessions III

chided Portland and other sanctuary cities, saying they've become a "trafficker's, a smuggler's or gang member's best friend" and defended the Trump administration's threats to withhold federal grants from them.

The cities "believe they are above the law," Sessions said, urging them to reconsider their policies. Their refusal to alert immigration officials about the release of offenders who are in the country illegally leads to increases in crime, gang violence and lawlessness, he said.

When a sanctuary city- as do some- refuse to cooperate with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, they are holding themselves above the law, as Sessions argued. It should be strange, then, that this would be necessary:

About 75 public defenders walked out of Bronx Criminal Court Thursday afternoon in protest of the sudden detention of one of their clients following a routine court date.

The walk-out dramatized the ongoing dissatisfaction by immigrant advocates with federal agents, whose presence at the courthouses they say intimidates witnesses and victims from coming forward for fear of being deported.

The defendant in this case, 27-year-old Aboubacar Dembele, was brought to the U.S. at age 3 from Ivory Coast, his attorneys said. He had appeared in court on an assault charge stemming from an altercation on a bus in December, according to court records. It was his first arrest in New York City, according to police.

Dembele's wife, Zaquera Laniere, 24,  a U.S. citizen, was with her husband when he was suddenly detained. The minute the couple stepped out of the courthouse, she said, they were surrounded.

"It was like eight of them stepped in front of us," she said. "It's like an ambush. You finish one case. You're walking out freely. But as soon as you step outside you're going right back into handcuffs."

That's bad. But it gets worse as

Officers mentioned Dembele's DACA application, which had been denied just a few weeks ago, she said.

"We got to take you in. Your DACA got denied," she said Immigration Officials told them, before taking her husband away. 

A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn't immediately confirm Dembele's detention.

Among the people here illegally- as Dembele presumably is- those whose arrest should be of the lowest priority are those who have recently attempted to comply with the law, thereby attempting to become part of America's rich tapestry (albeit without citizenship).

Targeting such individuals is consistent with targeting individuals in courthouses, as ICE cowardly goes after the low-hanging fruit.   ICE agents reportedly are increasingly raiding courthouses, where people are on their best behavior and unarmed while law enforcement officers of all kinds are less conspicuous.

The message is clear. If you do as the Judiciary- whether local, state,or federal- orders, you'll risk arrest. Comply with a legally binding writ, and your freedom is in jeopardy. If you instead disregard the court by avoiding a mandated appearance and displaying contempt for legally-constituted authority, you will remain at liberty and able to commit (additional) crimes.

Cooperate with federal law enforcement, Sessions lectures municipalities and states. However, those same federal agents aren't expected to cooperate with local and state governments, whose courts depend on appearances by defendants, witnesses, and others to run smoothly and protect the community.

Raid employers and arrest illegal immigrants and employers. Raid churches, at which an individual's presence is voluntary, and make arrest(s) if the violator is of a high priority. But arresting an individual at a courthouse is both cowardly and undermines respect for the law.

That's something even the chief law enforcement officer for Donald J. Trump should understand.








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Not A Joke, Not A Punchline, Not Entirely Serious

"Mr. President, treason is not a punchline."

So remarked GOP Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona on the floor of the US Senate after

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday the President was "clearly joking" when he made the comment. "He was making the point that even when good things are happening they are still sitting there angry," she said.

Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley added that the remark was "tongue-in-cheek." "The President was obviously joking," he said.

The President had appeared the day before at a factory in Ohio, at which he remarked of Democratic members of Congress

And you have the other side, even on positive news- really positive news like that- they were like death- and un-American, un-American. Somebody said "treasonous," I mean. I mean, yea I guess, why not? Shall we call that treason? Why not?





Flake is correct that "treason" should not be a punchline, nor was it even meant as a joke, Sanders/Gidley notwithstanding. Trump believes he should not be questioned (let alone criticized) and wants all to tell him how pleased they are with what he has said and done, and with himself, the Dear Leader.

In Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff wrote

He trusted his own expertise ­— no matter how paltry or irrelevant — more than anyone else’s. He was often confident, but he was just as often paralyzed, less a savant than a figure of sputtering and dangerous insecurities, whose instinctive response was to lash out and behave as if his gut, however confused, was in fact in some clear and forceful way telling him what to do. It was, said (Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh, “like trying to figure out what a child wants.”

And what a child wants more than almost anything is to test limits. It may have been what he was doing when as a candidate he told Chris Matthews that if abortion were prohibited, the woman obtaining the procedure (as well as the doctor performing it) would have to be penalized. Though accurate, it was the equivalent of a Republican saying "Sure, we're in favor of larger deficits if they're the result of a tax cut." Everyone knows it, but you must keep it to yourself. (Trump, once he realized he couldn't get away with his statement, promptly retracted it.)

Conceivably, that was a mere misstep. It is not conceivable, however, that Trump didn't realize that he was patronizing Christians when he referred to the "my little cracker" and "my little wine" of communion. Nor was he unaware that few if any American ever admits he or she never asks God for forgiveness- and that no right-thinking, Bible-believing Christian would ever say "I don't bring God into that picture" about anything any time.




After winning the Nevada caucuses, Trump could have said "I love the working class" or something like "I love the men and women who work hard every day to earn a living for their family." Instead, he declared "I love the poorly educated," rather than the unassailable "people whose family couldn't afford to send them to college and had to go work for a living instead."




The clearest example of trolling came in January, 2016.  Campaigning for votes at a rally in Iowa, the candidate boasted "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."  Your neighbor might as well tell you "I could tell you I have no intention of ever paying my debts and you'd loan me $500."

You wouldn't loan him $500.00.  But you're probably not a Trump voter.

He was testing limits back then, and he still is. (And that's without his statements about John McCain the non-hero, feeling like a veteran because he avoided venereal disease, and others).  Look at his face as he states "yea, I guess, why not."  He was having fun, as he was when he remarked "nothing beats the Bible," a throwback to the tagline of this appliance store, popular in the northeastern United States when Trump was a younger man.





It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a punchline. It was intended to be entertaining and outrageous.  And as long as so many voters refuse to acknowledge or even recognize that he is mocking them, he will continue.




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Only Ego- Maybe

Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to plan a grand military parade to show off the military might (the North Korean way, from 2017, below) the entire world already recognizes.





Steve M realizes

But he's Trump, so he'll just spend hundreds of millions of dollars to ship weaponry to the streets of D.C. because he's an overgrown eleven-year-old boy still mentally living in the 1950s, and also because he's a crushingly insecure plutocrat who needs a steady succession of gaudy displays in order to feel that he's adequately demonstrating his own greatness to the world.

He's evidently confident that

This parade won't be part of a grand plan to crush democracy in America -- there won't be roaming goon squads, and a protest will probably be permitted, though at some distance from the main event. Trump might want the parade to intimidate foreign foes, but it won't accomplish that goal, because the military will probably agree to display only weapons our enemies already know about. This will just be a pointless moment of excess, with Trump using weapons the way, in his hotels, he uses gilt.

Fox will broadcast the entire parade live -- and in order to avoid McCarthyite attacks, so will MSNBC and CNN. The coverage on Fox will be ecstatic (I'm guessing the Fox & Friends crew will do the honors), while on MSNBC, Chris Matthews will probably match the Fox crew in enthusiasm, reprising his embarrassing performance on "Mission Accomplished" day in 2003.

And then it will be over, and we'll be the same country we were beforehand. Trump will have gotten his testosterone rush. The real work of harming America will be taking place elsewhere, in meetings of House and Senate Republicans and in Cabinet-level departments run by cynical, grasping officials who despise ordinary Americans.

SM argues that the primary danger is in overreaction by Democrats, thus

Seriously: Don't get worked up about this. If you get worked up about this, your resentment will be the story: There go the liberals, hating America again. Don't give them the satisfaction. Seventy-two hours after it's over, we'll be chasing some ridiculous Trump tweet, and no one will remember the parade even happened.

They won't remember, but that doesn't mean it would not have had its desired effect.  Researcher-journalist Sarah Kendzior, detecting a parallel between Central America's "spectacular states" and authoritarianism in the USA, has written

In 2010, Laura Adams, a sociologist who conducted extensive fieldwork in the nascent Central Asian states in the 1990s, published The Spectacular State, an analysis of Uzbekistan’s nation-building through massive public spectacle.

“A spectacular state,” writes Adams, “is one where, more than in other countries, politics is conducted on a symbolic level, promoting the state’s domination over the shared meaning of concepts such as heritage and progress.” The ultimate goal of the spectacular state is the restriction of the public sphere, where all ideas of culture and heritage are either filtered through – or respond to – the narrative of the state, ruled by a dictator who has developed a cult of personality. The nation becomes a brand; the dictator, a brand ambassador; the people, a captive audience.

In January, shortly before he began sweeping the primaries after months of hate rhetoric, Trump staged a rallyin which three girls–called “The Freedom Kids”–lip-synched a pop song praising the brutality of their incumbent leader. “Enemies of freedom face the music/ C’mon boys, take them down/ President Donald Trump knows how to make America great/ Deal from strength or get crushed every time!” they sang, dancing in their red, white, and blue outfits before an enthusiastic crowd. Many Americans found it baffling. For those familiar with the decadent patriotism of Central Asian national performances, which commonly feature declarations of loyalty from dancing children, it was disconcerting in its familiarity.

Adams notes that “spectacle enables elites to close opportunities for input from below, but without making the masses feel left out.” Spectacle soothes the masses while distracting them from their suffering. Trump, a master of the American reality TV genre which has made a spectacle of human suffering – he made “You’re fired!” a beloved tagline during one of the worst economic crises in U.S. history – knows how to make an audience feel included through the theatrical exclusion of others. This tactic carries over into Trump’s rallies, where protesters are booted — and sometimes beaten — with fanfare. It also carries over into his policies, which are structured around exclusion: a wall against Mexico, banned entry for foreign Muslims, a database for U.S. Muslims, and a media denied access unless they acquiesce to Trump’s demands.

It's no accident that, as their organizers understand, parades are effective as bread and circuses.  They may serve a critical- though sublimely subtle- purpose as one of many spectacles, which in the whole are intended to make some people feel included and others excluded.  When the leader wishes to build the case for a military of unprecedented size, the dangers are greater. When the leader has shown a partiality for the most bloodthirsty genocidal individual in human history, the danger is greater still.  Although the peril is limited now, it is magnified exponentially in the unlikely event Donald Trump is re-nominated and re-elected (Russian parade plans, 2010, below).





Kendzior, who does not claim a crystal ball, probably understands this. (How it was done some 75 years ago is shown in video below.) She wrote her article 23 months ago.








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We Have A Criminal Justice System. Use It.

Responding to legislation pending in Florida, Politifact last month wanted to determine

whether undocumented immigrants were committing a crime by just being in the country.

According to legal experts, the answer is that most of the time, unlawful presence is not a crime.

When we checked with the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, Michele M. Taylor, the group’s associate director for communications, pointed to the 2012 Supreme Court case Arizona vs. United States. The majority opinion found that "as a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States."

Individuals who are unlawfully in the United States of America, most commonly by overstaying a visa, have committed a mere civil offense and are removed from the country and prohibited from entering for a specific period of time. Persons who have unlawfully entered the USA, however, have committed a criminal offense, though only a misdemeanor.

On Sunday in Indianapolis, a shared-ride vehicle pulled over to the side of the road and the driver and the passenger exited, whereupon

The car and the men were struck by a Ford F-150. One of the men was thrown into the center lane and was spotted, along with wreckage from the damaged vehicle, by a passing state trooper. As he slowed to stop for the crash, he struck the body in the center lane, officials said.

Before tweeting (the personal touch) his condolences to the family of the victim, President Trump tweeted “So disgraceful that a person illegally in our country killed @Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson. This is just one of many such preventable tragedies. We must get the Dems to get tough on the Border, and with illegal immigration, FAST!”

The President said nothing about the police officer. The driver of the Ford was 37-year Old Manuel Orrego-Savala, who gave an alias at the scene and was booked at the county jail for driving without a license and suspicion of drunken driving.  A citizen of Guatemala, he been deported in 2007 and in 2009, then sometime thereafter illegally re-entered the USA.  Immigration officials have lodged a detainer. Also

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a statement late Monday saying Orrego-Savala was previously convicted of driving under the influence in Redwood City, California, in 2005. He has other "misdemeanor criminal convictions and arrests in California and Indiana," the ICE statement said.





We don't know yet the circumstances of those "criminal convictions and arrests" in California and Indian. However, the bill introduced in the Florida House which gave rise to the Politifact analysis would "heighten the penalties for certain violent offenses -- including sexual battery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, murder, and the use of a destructive device such as a bomb -- if the defendant was in the country illegally."

Opponents of the legislation argued (accurately) that being in the country illegally is not a "crime." But there is no reason that a state should not authorize an enhanced penalty for an individual who commits a criminal offense while in the country illegally.We apply that principle to hate crimes, in which various states and  the federal government include enhanced penalties for bias-related crimes.

Hate crimes are considered particularly egregious- despite reasonable objections from civil libertarians- because of their impact upon the community, as well as upon the individual.  In many instances, incarcerating illegal immigrants rather than deporting them- after which they may return to the USA- or releasing them would often serve the interests of the community.

This won't happen, of course. Activists for comprehensive immigration reform will not be pleased if immigrants, even those who entered the country illegally, were jailed. The right loves the symbol of a wall and the ability to shut the memory of Mexicans and other people from their mind. But problems can't be wished away, and if Manuel Orrego-Salva had been incarcerated for earlier offenses, there might be one more pro football player alive today.




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Secrets

Donald Trump didn't tweet Monday morning about Nick Foles, the Philadelphia Eagles, or even kneeling for the American flag, but instead

Little Adam Schiff, who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington, right up there with Comey, Warner, Brennan and Clapper! Adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2018

While psychologists call that  psychological projection, traditionalists call it "the pot calling the kettle black." "Fire and Fury" author Michael Wolff maintained

Many of the leaks that he would come out and rail against started because (Trump) gets on the phone at night with this coterie of friends and billionaires and motor-mouths. Then they call other people to say "Oh my God, this is what he said." And then athose people call other people. And suddenly you have leaked... This is all Donald Trump.

And then Donald Trump calls Adam Schiff "one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington."  Of course, there is no bigger liar and leaker in Washington than President Trump. Democrats constantly remind voters that the President is a liar but are far too reticent to charge him with being the Leaker-in-Chief, such as when

The intelligence that President Donald Trump leaked to top Russian officials in an Oval Office meeting in May concerned a highly sensitive Israeli special forces mission, it has been revealed. The operation, which took place in February 2017, involved commandos infiltrating an area under the control of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), to place a surveilance device. The intelligence obtained through the device prompted a short-term ban on laptops on flights from several majority-Muslim countries to the US and the UK.  

The target of the operation, according to a Vanity Fair report published on Wednesday, was an ISIS cell attempting to recreate a weapon developed by a top Al-Qaeda bombmaker. The weapon consisted of an explosive device that could be concealed inside a laptop and smuggled past airport security checks, raising the spectre of high-casualty attacks against civilian airlines....

Trump was bragging to other important people- in this case Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russia's then-ambassador to Washington Sergei Kislyak- that he knew classifed information which few other people were important enough to know. Moscow likely would pass it on to Israeli enemies Syria and Iran, but so be it.  Thus

“If this report is true, then giving those details about operations is something that is exclusively out of the question,” says Major (res.) Aviv Oreg, former head of the Al-Qaeda and global jihad desk for Israel's Military Intelligence, told Newsweek over the phone.  “I’m sure Israel will have second thoughts about giving information.”

“This is like something that has never been seen before,” he said. “You delivered to a third party all the details of how the secret service operates in Israel, how they are operating in the field in Syria. This is totally unacceptable.”





When the President revealed to his buddies the city in which the surveillance device was placed, he probably put into jeopardy the source of the information for the Israelis.

Not surprisingly, he may have done the same with the five-page memorandum from White House lawn ornament Devin Nunes. Former FBI double agent and Trump critic Naveed Jamali, who believes Carter Page may have been a double agent ultimately working for the FBI (at 14:20 of video below), notes

Remember @ValeriePlame and how that turned out? This is far far far worse. Assets have to know their identity can be protected. #nunesmemo

— Naveed Jamali (@NaveedAJamali) February 2, 2018

It’s not just an attack on the FBI @JoyAnnReid it’s an attack on those civilians here and abroad who are working in sensitive undercover positions around the world. https://t.co/ftSq6obeNC

— Naveed Jamali (@NaveedAJamali) February 1, 2018

Democrats have  been less aggressive than they can, and should be, in charging that the President himself is actively aiding the Kremlin. Whether Trump himself has been recruited as an agent by Moscow, he has been, and remains, captain of Team Russia.




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The President Who Knows More About Humility Than Anyone

John Turner of Patheos, not a Trump supporter, has insight into what he recognizes as "the sturdy alliance between white evangelicals and Donald Trump."

He points to two passages of the President's State of the Union message. In one, Trump recognizes (to inevitable applause) police officer Ryan Holets and his wife and remarks

Thank you, Ryan. Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she didn't know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him. You will do it, because you can. He heard those words. He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope. Ryan and Rebecca, you embody the goodness of our nation. Thank you.





The President later commened

we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho. In 1966, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food, which were very hard to get. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger.

He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain or the hurt. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt, themselves, permanently stunting their own growth.

Later he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he’d met any Christians. He had and he resolved after that to be free.

Turner  comments "no evangelical Christian listening to the address would have missed it. Ji embraced Christianity, and in so doing, 'he resolved to be free.'”  He recognizes Trump "has hired some good speechwriters, who know what will resonate with evangelicals and with many other Americans at the same time."

True, but color me cynical.  The message resonates with average Americans because they are feel-good stories which avoid explicit reference to Christianity.  Instead, Trump subtly mentions Seaong-ho's "tormentors wanted to know if he'd met any Christians." Similarly, the Holet moment was powerful for viewers intent on convincing themselves they are "pro-life," as if their critics are anti-life, and not have to face the reality that they are pro-forced birth. The nod and wink can be quite effective,

Still, pro-Trump evangelical Christians should not be let off so easily, and not only (or primarily) because Trump carried on an affair with a pornographic star while he was married. And he specifically should not be given the pass for his State of the Union message that he has by white evangelicals.

The President's address was  not only an orgy of right-wing ideology. It was an orgy, a celebration, an endorsement of self-congratulation.  At every opportunity, Trump not only encouraged applause but unashamedly led the applause himself.  This was no mere pat on the back but a blatant, even unparalleled, display of  brazen egotism.





That is clearly acceptable to the religious right- possibly, even welcomed.  However, someone (probably Solomon) wrote in Proverbs 3:34 "Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor."  Peter (in his first letter, verse 5:5-b) repeats “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble,” as does James, who in chapter 4 repeats the admonition and adds "humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." Jesus himself warned (Matthew 23:12) "For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

By contrast, Donald J. Trump has boasted that he knows more than does anyone about: taxes; banking; money; politicians; trade; ISIS; "the horrors of nuclear;" and the VISA "system."  And "there is nobody bigger or better at the military than I am." Unfortunately, there also probably never has been a politician on the national scene who is better at, or knows more about, conning people than he does.  Politically conservative evangelicals have not been the only victims, but they're probably at the head of  the line, and are determined to remain there.




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